“But why not?” asked the Grandmother, turning round. “Show me what I ought to do.”
Instantly De Griers burst into a babble of French as he advised, jumped about, declared that such and such chances ought to be waited for, and started to make calculations of figures. All this he addressed to me in my capacity as translator—tapping the table the while with his finger, and pointing hither and thither. At length he seized a pencil, and began to reckon sums on paper until he had exhausted the Grandmother’s patience.
“Away with you!” she interrupted. “You talk sheer nonsense, for, though you keep on saying ‘Madame, Madame,’ you haven’t the least notion what ought to be done. Away with you, I say!”
“Mais, Madame,” cooed De Griers—and straightway started afresh with his fussy instructions.
“Stake just _once_, as he advises,” the Grandmother said to me, “and then we shall see what we _shall_ see. Of course, his stake _might_ win.”
As a matter of fact, De Grier’s one object was to distract the old lady from staking large sums; wherefore, he now suggested to her that she should stake upon certain numbers, singly and in groups. Consequently, in accordance with his instructions, I staked a ten-gülden piece upon several odd numbers in the first twenty, and five ten-gülden pieces upon certain groups of numbers-groups of from twelve to eighteen, and from eighteen to twenty-four. The total staked amounted to 160 gülden.
The wheel revolved. “Zero!” cried the croupier.
“The fool!” cried the old lady as she turned upon De Griers. “You infernal Frenchman, to think that _you_ should advise! Away with you! Though you fuss and fuss, you don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
Deeply offended, De Griers shrugged his shoulders, favoured the Grandmother with a look of contempt, and departed. For some time past he had been feeling ashamed of being seen in such company, and this had proved the last straw.
An hour later we had lost everything in hand.
Not until we had turned into the Avenue did she utter a word; but from that point onwards, until we arrived at the hotel, she kept venting exclamations of “What a fool I am! What a silly old fool I am, to be sure!”
Arrived at the hotel, she called for tea, and then gave orders for her luggage to be packed.