her.'
'Because they can do what they like with her, that's why. I believe you're a sentimentalist, and you hide it under that gay, cynical manner of yours.'
She looked across at him and smiled. Those blue eyes were certainly very penetrating.
'I've talked too much about myself,' he said, glancing at his watch, 'and it's nearly seven o'clock.
No sign of my mother. What about dining with me in Nice, and telling me about yourself instead?'
Mrs. Price blushed, and seemed suddenly ten years younger. Henry was amused. She had probably not dined out since her husband died.
'Please do,' he said. 'It would give me such pleasure.'
She went up to change, and came down in twenty minutes in a black dress and fur cape that made a fine background to her grey hair. She looked very well indeed. Henry had also changed, returning to his mother's villa to do so. The place had been swept and left spotless by Mrs. Price's maid, his room cleaned and the bed made up. He was filled with gratitude.
'Thank heaven she was looking out of that window,' he thought. 'But for her I believe I should have caught the next train home.'
They walked to the corner of the avenue and hailed a fiacre, and drove down to dinner at one of the large hotels on the front.
'This is such a treat,' she said. 'I live so quietly these days. And in India there was so much entertaining. I've missed all that more than anything else.'
'You ought to come to London,' he said, 'not bury yourself down here.'
She rubbed finger and thumb together, and glanced at him expressively.
'A soldier's widow's pension isn't a large one, Mr. Brodrick,' she said. 'My income goes farther here than it would do in England…
Look at that minx over there. Why do French women put so much paint on their faces?'
'Because they are not naturally so handsome as you Englishwomen,' said Henry gallantly. 'Come on, I'm going to order you the best dinner that Nice can provide.'
It was fun, he decided, to dine opposite this woman, who was undeniably attractive and amusing, and enjoyed her food and her wine, and made such an agreeable companion. The restaurant was filled with people, and a band played in one corner, light classical stuff he knew and liked. He had not enjoyed himself so much for years.
'This is a great deal better,' he said, 'than sitting down to an egg and some of those vegetables from the coal bucket at my mother's villa.'
'Don't put me off my food,' said Mrs.
Price, with a mock shudder. 'My maid has already told me what she found in the larder, but I shall spare you.'
After they had drunk their coffee, and listened a while to the music, Henry suggested a visit to the casino.
'We may as well be real dogs while we are about it,' he said.
The night was warm and still. He hummed a bar from Rigoletto, and helped Mrs. Price into a fiacre.
'You know,' he said, 'when I stood in front of that villa this afternoon my spirits went down to zero. It really was a miserable moment.'
'I know,' she said; 'you poor thing. I felt so sorry. And how are the spirits now?'
'Higher than they've been for months, for years,' he said, 'for which my very grateful thanks.'
She blushed again, and laughed, turning the subject. There were many people in the casino, and they had to walk slowly amongst the crowd, pushing their way from room to room. The bright unshaded lights made a glare, and there was something monotonous in the flat voice of the croupier, the click of the little ball on the table for roulette. They watched some of the play, peering over the shoulders of the people in front of them. The atmosphere was stifling.
'Couldn't stick very much of this,' said Henry to his companion. 'What a waste of time, eh, day after day?'
'Appalling,' she agreed. 'I should have a splitting head in an hour.'
They moved away into the next room. Two men coming out were laughing together.
'But she's always like that,' one of them was saying: 'has a flaming row with the croupier whenever she loses.
They say she's lived here for years.'
'Do they ever throw her out?'
'I believe so, when she gets too excited.'
As Henry and Mrs. Price drew near to the table they saw that many of the people were laughing, and several at the back were pushing those in front to get a clearer view. The croupier was arguing with someone, talking in broken English, and a woman was trying to shout him down, first in French and then in English.
'But, madame,' the croupier was saying, 'do you want me to call a gendarme? I cannot have these constant interruptions.'
The woman was talking at the top of her voice.
'It's an outrage, the whole place ought to be broken up,' she said. 'The management are taking my money through trickery. I've caught you at it, time and time again. In my country they'd shoot you in the back for it, and a damned good riddance too. I'll show you up; I have influence at home, I know people in Parliament, my cousin is the Earl of Mundy…'
There was a shout of laughter as she threw her muff and her gloves at the croupier's head. A man in uniform came to her, and seized her arm.
'Let me go,' she cried; 'how dare you touch me?'
The shiny velvet cape, the cloud of white hair, the arrogant tilt of the head, all were familiar. As the commissionaire thrust Fanny-Rosa forward she stumbled, scattering her bag, her chips, her few coins on the ground in front of her.
'You clumsy fool,' she shouted. 'What the devil do you think you're doing?'
And she came face to face with her son.
For a moment they stood staring at one another. Then Henry turned to the commissionaire.
'This lady is my mother,' he said. 'I will be responsible for her.'
The man let go of Fanny-Rosa's arm. The crowd around the table was whispering and staring. The croupier shrugged his shoulders, and set the ball in action again.
'Faites vos jeux.' The game went on.
Henry bent down and picked up the bag and the coins from the floor, and gave them to his mother.
'It's all right,' he said quietly, 'don't worry. Mrs. Price and I are going to take you home.'
She did not seem to realise what had happened.
'But I don't want to go home yet,' she said, glancing from one to the other. 'I haven't tried my luck at the other tables. It will be different if we go into another room.'
'No,' said Henry, 'it's getting late. And I've had a long journey today. I want my bed.'
He took his mother's arm and began walking towards the door. She kept looking back over her shoulder towards the table.
'I always detest that particular croupier,' she said. 'I'm sure he has a secret understanding with the management, and they have some means of controlling the ball. I wish you'd write to the papers about it, Henry. You're so clever, you would know what to say.'
She never ceased talking all the way to the casino steps, abusing the management, telling Henry and Mrs. Price that she was certain the casino staff had been given their orders to prevent her winning.
They were so afraid that once her luck was in she would break the bank.
'It's nearly happened several times,' she said, as they drove away in tile fiacre. 'I've had the most amazing run of luck, simply couldn't make a mistake, and then suddenly the whole thing would go against me. Of course it's done deliberately.
They are terrified of anyone making a big win. But I'm determined to beat them. It's a matter of principle. Henry darling, how lovely to see you!
