Evelyn’s weekly letter from Scotland usually arrived by the mail–boat due at Ostend about three o’clock in the afternoon. Warden, sitting on the plage among a cosmopolitan crowd that delighted in its own antics, watched the steamer from Dover picking its way along the coast and into the harbor. He was dining with a friend that evening in one of the big hotels on the sea front. He could call for his letters after he had dressed—meanwhile, he had an hour or more at his disposal, and he was weary of the frolics of Monsieur, Madame et Bébé, and of a great many other people who came under a less domestic category.
To kill time, he strolled into the Casino and drank a cup of the decoction which Belgians regard as tea. Then he went to the so–called Club to look at the gamblers. Play did not appeal to him, but he had joined the Cercle Privé because some men he knew went there regularly for baccarat. To–day, to dispel the ennui of existence between meals, a German baron was opening banks of five hundred louis each, and losing or winning money with a bored air. He had just closed one bank successfully, and the table was set for another, when a young American, bright–eyed, clean–shaven, and pallid, stirred the pulses of both onlookers and players by crying, “Banco!” Even in Ostend one does not often see four hundred pounds won or lost at a single coup. Warden, whose sympathies were against the stolid banker, stood by the side of the younger man until the incident was ended.
There was no waiting. The challenger, impassive as a Red Indian, gave a bundle of notes to the croupier, who counted them. The baron dealt the two tableaux, and his adversary stooped and picked up the first.
“Italic textHuit!” he said, throwing the cards face upwards on the table. He took the second pair.
“Neuf!”
An excited buzz of talk rose around the board. With a blasé smile, the banker showed his cards—two queens.
“Peste!” cried a Frenchman, “toujours on souffre pour les dames!”
Some few laughed; the German, more phlegmatic than ever, opened a pocket–book and started a fresh bank for the same amount, while the American collected his stake and winnings. He was stuffing the notes into a pocket when he caught Warden’s glance.
“That’s the easiest way of making two thousand dollars I’ve ever struck,” he said.
“But you stood to lose the same amount,” said Warden.
“Why, yes. The only difference between me and the fellow who puts up with this beastly atmosphere every day for a month is that he fritters away his money at five or ten dollars a pop, while I hit or miss at the first time of asking.”
“You won’t play any more, then?”
“No, sir. Me for the tall timbers with the baron’s wad. ‘Lucky at cards, unlucky in love,’ you know, and I’ve just heard that my best girl has made a date with the other fellow.”
He walked away, erect, alert, and self–possessed. Warden strolled to a roulette board.
“I wonder if that is true,” he mused.
Instinctively his hand went to his pocket, and he staked a louis on 29, the year of his age. Up came 29, and he won thirty–five louis. He was so astonished that he bent over the shoulders of a lady seated near the foot of the table, and began mechanically to draw in the five–hundred franc note and ten gold pieces that were pushed by a croupier’s rake close to his own coin.
“But, monsieur,” whispered the lady, who was French, and gave slight heed to convention, “certainly you will follow your luck!”
“Why not?” he answered.
Knowing that the maximum on a number was nine louis, he was on the point of leaving that amount on 29, when he remembered that Evelyn’s age was twenty. To the surprise of his self–appointed counselor, he told the croupier to transfer the gold to the new number, while the note went on the 19–24 transversale. Thus, if he lost, he was still a louis to the good, and the American’s consoling adage was robbed of its sting.
The roulette whirred round, the marble danced madly across diamonds and slots. Checking its pace, it hopped, hopped, hopped—into 20—and the Frenchwoman nearly became hysterical. Warden received so much money that he lost count. As a matter of fact, he had won just forty louis less than the cynic of the baccarat table. He deemed the example of the unknown philosopher too good not to be followed, so he gathered his gains and stakes, and left the room.
