At The Villa Rose

He sat at the table with the indifferent look of the habitual

player upon his cleanly chiselled face. But it was plain that his

good fortune stayed at his elbow tonight, for opposite to him the

croupier was arranging with extraordinary deftness piles of bank-

notes in the order of their value. The bank was winning heavily.

Even as Ricardo looked Wethermill turned up "a natural," and the

croupier swept in the stakes from either side.

"Faites vos jeux, messieurs. Le jeu est fait?" the croupier cried,

all in a breath, and repeated the words. Wethermill waited with

his hand upon the wooden frame in which the cards were stacked. He

glanced round the table while the stakes were being laid upon the

cloth, and suddenly his face flashed from languor into interest.

Almost opposite to him a small, white-gloved hand holding a five-

louis note was thrust forward between the shoulders of two men

seated at the table. Wethermill leaned forward and shook his head

with a smile. With a gesture he refused the stake. But he was too

late. The fingers of the hand had opened, the note fluttered down

on to the cloth, the money was staked.

At once he leaned back in his chair.

"Il y a une suite," he said quietly. He relinquished the bank

rather than play against that five-louis note. The stakes were

taken up by their owners.

The croupier began to count Wethermill's winnings, and Ricardo,

curious to know whose small, delicately gloved hand it was which

had brought the game to so abrupt a termination, leaned forward.

He recognised the young girl in the white satin dress and the big

black hat whose nerves had got the better of her a few minutes

since in the garden. He saw her now clearly, and thought her of an

entrancing loveliness. She was moderately tall, fair of skin, with

a fresh colouring upon her cheeks which she owed to nothing but

her youth. Her hair was of a light brown with a sheen upon it, her

forehead broad, her eyes dark and wonderfully clear. But there was

something more than her beauty to attract him. He had a strong

belief that somewhere, some while ago, he had already seen her.

And this belief grew and haunted him. He was still vaguely

puzzling his brains to fix the place when the croupier finished

his reckoning.

"There are two thousand louis in the bank," he cried. "Who will

take on the bank for two thousand louis?"

No one, however, was willing. A fresh bank was put up for sale,

and Wethermill, still sitting in the dealer's chair, bought it. He

spoke at once to an attendant, and the man slipped round the

table, and, forcing his way through the crowd, carried a message

to the girl in the black hat. She looked towards Wethermill and

smiled; and the smile made her face a miracle of tenderness. Then

she disappeared, and in a few moments Ricardo saw a way open in

the throng behind the banker, and she appeared again only a yard

or two away, just behind Wethermill. He turned, and taking her

hand into his, shook it chidingly.