Here, in remodelling the house for its present purposes, part.i.tions had arbitrarily been dispensed with, aside from that enclosing the well of the stairway; the floor was one large room, wholly devoted to some half a dozen games of chance. With but few of these was P.

Sybarite familiar; but on information and belief he marked down a faro layout, the device with which his reading had made him acquainted under the designation of _les pet.i.ts chevaux_, and at either end of the saloon, immense roulette tables.

Upon all the gaming tables ma.s.sive electric domes concentrated their light. The walls, otherwise severely unadorned, were covered with l.u.s.trous golden fabric; the windows were invisible, cloaked in splendid golden hangings; the carpet, golden brown in tone, was of a velvet pile so heavy that it completely m.u.f.fled the sound of footsteps. The room, indeed, was singularly quiet for one that harboured some two-score players in addition to a full corps of dealers, croupiers, watchers, and waiters. The almost incessant whine of racing ivory b.a.l.l.s with their clattering over the metal compartments of the roulette wheels, clicking of chips, dispa.s.sionate voices of croupiers, and an occasional low-pitched comment on the part of one or another of the patrons, seemed only to lend emphasis to the hush.

The warmth of the room was noticeable....

A brief survey of the gathering convinced P. Sybarite that, barring the servants, he was a lonely exception to the rule of evening dress.

But this discovery discomfited him not at all. The wine buzzing in his head, his demeanour, not to mince matters, rakeh.e.l.ly, with an eye alert for the man with the twisted mouth, negligent hands in his trouser pockets, teeth tight upon that admirable cigar, he strutted hither and yon, ostensibly as much in his native element as a press agent in a theatre lobby.

A few minutes sufficed to demonstrate that the owner of the abandoned hat was not among those present; which fact, coupled with the doorkeeper's averment that Mr. Bailey Penfield was out, persuaded P.

Sybarite that this last was neither more nor less than the proprietor of the premises. But this conclusion perturbed, completely unsettling his conviction regarding the _soi-disant_ Miss Lessing; he couldn't imagine either her or Miss Marian Blessington in any way involved with a common (or even a proper) gambler.

To feel obliged constantly to revise his hasty inferences, he considered tremendously tiresome. It left one all up in the air!

His tour ended at last in a pause by the roulette table at the rear of the room. Curious to watch the game in being, he lingered there, head c.o.c.ked shrewdly on one shoulder, a speculative pensiveness informing his eyes, his interest plainly aloof and impersonal. This despite the fact that his emotions of intestinal felicity were momentarily becoming more intense: the torchlight procession was in full swing, leaving an enduring refulgence wherever it pa.s.sed.

There were perhaps half a dozen players round the board--four on one wing, two on the other. Of the latter, one was that very young man who had been responsible for P. Sybarite's change of mind with regard to going home. With a bored air this prodigal was frittering away five-dollar notes on the colours, the columns, and the dozens: his ill success stupendous, his apparent indifference positively magnificent.

But in the course of the little while that P. Sybarite watched, he either grew weary or succeeded in emptying his pockets, and ceasing to play, sat back with a grunt of impatience more than of disgust.

The ball ran its course thrice before he moved. Then abruptly lifting his finger to the croupier: "Five on the red, Andy," said he.

"Five on the red," repeated the croupier; and set aside a chocolate-coloured chip in memorandum of the wager.

When the ball settled again to rest, the announcement was monotonously recited: "Nine, red, odd, first dozen." And the blase prodigal was presented with the chocolate-coloured token.

Carelessly he tossed it upon the red diamond. Black won. Unperturbed, he made a second oral bet, this time on black, and lost; increased his wager to ten dollars on black--and lost; made it twenty, shifted to red, and lost; dropped back to five-dollar bets for three turns of the wheel, and lost them all. Fifty dollars in debt to the house, he rose, nodded casually to the croupier, left the room.

In mingled envy and amazement P. Sybarite watched him go. Fancy losing three weeks' wages and a third of another week's without turning a hair! Fancy losing fifty dollars without being required to pay up!

"Looks easy," meditated P. Sybarite with a thrill of dreadful yearning....

At precisely that instant the torchlight procession penetrated a territory theretofore unaffected, which received it with open arms and tumultuous rejoicings and even went so far as to start up a couple of bonfires of its own and hang out several strings of j.a.panese lanterns.

In the midst of a confusion of soaring skyrockets and Roman candles vomiting showers of scintillant golden sparks, P. Sybarite was shocked to hear his own voice.

"Five on the red," it said distinctly, with an effect of extravagant apathy.

A thought later he caught the croupier's eye and drove the wager home with a nod. His heart stopped beating.

Five dollars! All he had in the world!

The _whirr_ of the deadly little ball in its ebony runway was like nothing less than the exultant shriek of a banshee. Instantaneously (as if an accident had happened in the power house) every light in his body went out and left it cold and dark and altogether dismayed.

The croupier began his chant: "Three, red--!"

P. Sybarite failed to hear the rest. All the lights were on again, full blast. The croupier tossed him a chocolate token. He was conscious that he touched it with numb and witless fingers, mechanically pushing it upon the red diamond.

Ensued another awful, soul-sickening minute of suspense....

"Twenty-five, red--!"

A second brown chip appeared magically on top of the first. P.

Sybarite regarded both stupidly; afraid to touch them, his brain communicated to his hand the impulse to remove the chips ere it was too late, but the hand hung moveless in listless mutiny.

"_Thirty-four red_--!"

Two more chips were added to his stack.

And this time his brain sulked. If his body wouldn't heed its plain and sagacious admonition--very well!--it just wouldn't bother to signal any further advice.

But quite instinctively his hand moved out, tenderly embraced the four brown chips, and transferred them to the green area dominated by the black diamond.

"_Twelve, black_--!"

Forty dollars were represented in that stunted pillar of brown wafers!

P. Sybarite experienced an effect of coming to his senses after an abbreviated and, to tell the truth, somewhat nightmarish nap. Aping the manner of one or two other players whom he had observed before this madness possessed him, he thrust the chips out of the charmed circle of chance, and nodded again (with what a seasoned air!) to the croupier.

"Cash or chips?" enquired that functionary.

"Oh--cash, thank you."

The chips gathered into the company of their brethren, two twenty-dollar bills replaced them.

Stuffing these into his pocket, P. Sybarite turned and strolled indifferently toward the door.

"Better leave while your luck holds," Intelligence counselled.

"Right you are," he admitted fairly. "I'll go home now before anybody gets this away from me."

"Sensible of you," Intelligence approved.

"Still," suggested the small but clear voice of Greed, "you've got your original five dollars yet to lose. Be a sport. Don't go without turning in a cent to the house. It wouldn't look pretty."

"There's something in that," admitted P. Sybarite again.

Nevertheless, he never quite understood how it was that his feet carried him to the other roulette table, at the end of the salon opposite that at which he had been playing; or how it was that his fingers produced and coolly handed over the board, one of the twenty-dollar notes rather than the modest five he had meant to risk.

"How many?" the new croupier asked pleasantly.

P. Sybarite pulled a doubtful mouth. Five dollars' worth was all he really wanted. What on earth would he do with all the chips twenty dollars would buy? He'd need a bushel measure!

Before he could make up his mind, however, exactly twenty white counters were meted out to him.

"What are these worth?" he demanded incredulously, dropping into a chair.

"One dollar each," he was informed.

"Indeed?" he replied, politely smothering a slight yawn.

But he conceived a new respect for those infatuated men who so recklessly peppered the lay-out with chips--singly and in little piles of five and ten--worth one-hundred cents each!