Crowds of foreigners arrived for the fetes, and of English, of course.
Besides the Court balls, public balls were given at the Town Hall and
the Redoute, and in the former place there was a room for
trente-et-quarante and roulette established, for the week of the
festivities only, and by one of the great German companies from Ems or
Aix-la-Chapelle. The officers or inhabitants of the town were not
allowed to play at these games, but strangers, peasants, ladies were
admitted, and any one who chose to lose or win money.
That little scapegrace Georgy Osborne amongst others, whose pockets
were always full of dollars and whose relations were away at the grand
festival of the Court, came to the Stadthaus Ball in company of his
uncle's courier, Mr. Kirsch, and having only peeped into a play-room at
Baden-Baden when he hung on Dobbin's arm, and where, of course, he was
not permitted to gamble, came eagerly to this part of the entertainment
and hankered round the tables where the croupiers and the punters were
at work. Women were playing; they were masked, some of them; this
license was allowed in these wild times of carnival.
A woman with light hair, in a low dress by no means so fresh as it had
been, and with a black mask on, through the eyelets of which her eyes
twinkled strangely, was seated at one of the roulette-tables with a
card and a pin and a couple of florins before her. As the croupier
called out the colour and number, she pricked on the card with great
care and regularity, and only ventured her money on the colours after
the red or black had come up a certain number of times. It was strange
to look at her.
But in spite of her care and assiduity she guessed wrong and the last
two florins followed each other under the croupier's rake, as he cried
out with his inexorable voice the winning colour and number. She gave
a sigh, a shrug with her shoulders, which were already too much out of
her gown, and dashing the pin through the card on to the table, sat
thrumming it for a while. Then she looked round her and saw Georgy's
honest face staring at the scene. The little scamp! What business had
he to be there?
When she saw the boy, at whose face she looked hard through her shining
eyes and mask, she said, "Monsieur n'est pas joueur?"
"Non, Madame," said the boy; but she must have known, from his accent,
of what country he was, for she answered him with a slight foreign
tone. "You have nevare played--will you do me a littl' favor?"
"What is it?" said Georgy, blushing again. Mr. Kirsch was at work for
his part at the rouge et noir and did not see his young master.