But none of the people were looking at the beautiful scene outside. Instead, each group was intent on the table, and on the game being played thereon—a game, it may be mentioned, which has a certain affinity with Roulette and Petits Chevaux, though it is neither the one nor the other.
Sylvia looked about her timidly; but no one took the slightest notice of her, and this in itself was rather strange. She was used to exciting a good deal of attention wherever she went in France, but here, at Lacville, everyone seemed blind to her presence. It was almost as if she were invisible! In a way this was a relief to her; but at the same time, she found it curiously disconcerting.
She walked slowly round each gambling table, keeping well outside the various circles of people sitting and standing there.
Strange to say Anna Wolsky was not among them. Of that fact Sylvia soon became quite sure.
At last a servant in livery came up to her. “Does Madame want a seat?” he asked officiously. “If so, I can procure Madame a seat in a very few moments.”
But Sylvia, blushing, shook her head. She certainly had no wish to sit down.
“I only came in to look for a friend,” she said, hesitatingly; “but my friend is not here.”
And she was making her way out of the Salle des Jeux, feeling rather disconsolate and disappointed, when suddenly, in the vestibule, she saw Madame Wolsky walking towards her in the company of a middle-aged man.
“Then that is settled?” Sylvia heard Anna say in her indifferent French. “You will fill up all the formalities, and by the time I arrive the card of membership will be ready for me? This kind of thing”—she waved her hand towards the large room Sylvia had just left—“is no use to me at all! I only like le Grand Jeu”; and a slight smile came over her dark face.
The man who was with her laughed as if she had made a good joke; then bowing, he left her.
“Sylvia!”
“Anna!”
Mrs. Bailey fancied that the other was not particularly sorry to have been followed.
“So you came after me? Well! Well! I never should have thought to have seen my dear Puritan, Sylvia Bailey, in such a place as the Casino of Lacville?” said the Polish lady laughing. “However, as you are here, let us enjoy ourselves. Would you like to risk a few francs?”
Together they had gone back into the Salle des Jeux, and Anna drew Sylvia towards the nearest table.
“This is a child’s game!” she exclaimed, contemptuously. “I cannot understand how all these clever Parisians can care to come out here and lose their money every Saturday and Sunday, to say nothing of other days!”
“But I suppose some of these people make money?” questioned Sylvia. She thought she saw a great deal of money being won, as well as lost, on the green cloth of the table before her.
“Oh yes, no doubt a few may make money at this game! But I have just been arranging, with the aid of the owner of the Pension where I am going to stay when I come here, to join the Club.”
And then, realising that Sylvia did not understand, she went on.
“You see, my dear child, there are two kinds of play here—as there are, indeed, at almost every Casino in France. There is this game, which is, as I say, a child’s game—a game at which you can make or lose a few francs; and then there is Baccarat!”
She waited a moment.
“Yes?” said Sylvia questioningly.
“Baccarat is played here in what they call the Club, in another part of the building. As there is an entrance fee to the Club, there is never such a crowd in the Baccarat Room as there is here. And those who belong to the Club ‘mean business,’ as they say in your dear country. They come, that is, to play in the way that I understand and that I enjoy play!”
A little colour rose to Anna Wolsky’s sallow cheeks; she looked exhilarated, excited at the thoughts and memories her words conjured up.
Sylvia also felt curiously excited. She found the scene strangely fascinating—the scene presented by this crowd of eager men and women, each and all absorbed in this mysterious game which looked anything but a child’s game, though Anna had called it so.
But as they were trying to make their way through the now dense crowd of people, the middle-aged man who had been with Anna when Sylvia had first seen her just now hurried up to them.
“Everything is arranged, Madame!” he exclaimed. “Here is your membership card. May I have the pleasure of taking you myself to the Club? Your friend can come too. She does not want to play, does she?”
He looked inquisitively at Sylvia, and his hard face softened. He had your true Frenchman’s pleasure in charm and beauty. “Madame, or is it Mademoiselle?—”
“Madame!” answered Anna, smiling.
“—Madame can certainly come in and look on for a few moments, even though she be not a member of the Club.”
They turned and followed him up a broad, shallow staircase, into a part of the Casino where the very atmosphere seemed different from that surrounding the public gaming tables.
Here, in the Club, all was hushed and quiet, and underfoot was a thick carpet.
There were very few people in the Baccarat Room, some twelve men, and four or five ladies who were broken up into groups, and talking with one another in the intimate, desultory fashion in which people talk who meet daily in pursuit of some common interest or hobby.
And then, all at once, Sylvia Bailey saw that among them, but standing a little apart, was the Count—was not his name de Virieu?
He turned round, and as he saw her she thought that a look of surprise, almost of annoyance, flitted over his impassive face. Then he moved away from where he could see her.
A
