The Gambler Part 39

"Come along!" Lady Frances urged again--"come, Rose!" She smiled at Mrs. Bathurst. "Unlucky at bridge, lucky at roulette! Come, Tory!--come, Val!"

She glanced from Luard to Serracauld.

There was another amused laugh, and all the party with the exception of Clodagh stepped forward and placed one or many coins upon the table.

Lady Frances' eyes were quick to detect the exception. With her fingers poised above the board, she waited smilingly.

"Won't you stake, Mrs. Milbanke?" she asked.

Clodagh blushed, and stepped back shyly. At the same instant, Serracauld moved forward to her side.

"Oh, Mrs. Milbanke, but you must!" he cried.

Again confusion covered Clodagh, as all eyes were turned upon her.

"No, please!" she said. "I--I think I'd rather not."

Barnard laughed suavely.

"Mrs. Milbanke is wise!" he said. "She wants to see which way the G.o.ds are pointing."

"Then Mrs. Milbanke is unwise! The G.o.ds are jealous beings; we must not treat them with suspicion. I'll stake for her!"

It was Lord Deerehurst who spoke. And regardless of Clodagh's quick, half-frightened expostulation, he stepped forward out of the little circle, and placed a gold coin on the number thirteen. A moment later Lady Frances gave a short amused laugh, and with a dexterous movement of the fingers set the ball whizzing.

To Clodagh it was a supreme--an extraordinary--moment. Until Lord Deerehurst had made the stake--until the first click of the spinning ball had struck upon her ear--she had been conscious of only one feeling: a prejudiced, innate dread of every game--whether of chance or skill--upon which money could be staked; but the simple placing of the coin, the simple turning of the pivot had marked for her a psychological moment. With a quick catching of the breath, she stepped involuntarily forward, aware of but one fact--the keen, exhilarating knowledge that the stopping of the ball must mean loss or gain--individual loss or gain.

During the dozen seconds that it spun round the circle, she stood silent; then a faint sound of uncontrollable excitement slipped from between her lips. Hers was the winning number!

As in a dream, she extended her hand, and took the little heap of money from the fingers of Luard, who had come to Lady Frances' a.s.sistance; then, on the instant that the coins touched her palm, her excitement evaporated; her sense of elation fell away, to be succeeded by the first instinctive shrinking that had swayed her imagination.

Acting purely upon impulse, she turned to Lord Deerehurst; and before he could remonstrate, pressed the money into his hand.

"Please take it!" she said urgently--"please take it! It isn't mine. It oughtn't to be mine. I--I don't wish to play."

CHAPTER VI

The little incident, trivial in itself, damped the general ardour for roulette. After a dozen turns of the wheel, Lady Frances declared herself satisfied.

"Mrs. Milbanke has regenerated us--for the moment!" she cried. "I can't play roulette to-night. But our turn will come; Mrs. Milbanke. We will be revenged on you!"

Her shrewd, smiling glance pa.s.sed rapidly over Clodagh's face.

Again the whole company laughed.

"Mrs. Milbanke is a feminine Sir Galahad!" said Luard. "By the way, Lady Frances, when is our irreproachable knight to honour Venice with his presence?"

He turned and looked banteringly at his hostess.

Lady Frances smiled.

"Oh, any day now," she returned. "But aren't you rather incorrigible?"

"So Sir Galahad thinks!" he retorted, unabashed. "Is he an acquaintance of yours, Mrs. Milbanke?"

Clodagh smiled uncertainly; and Lady Frances laughed.

"How ridiculous of you to expect Mrs. Milbanke to read your riddles!"

she said sharply. "The person this very disrespectful young man is speaking of, Mrs. Milbanke, is Sir Walter Gore----"

"The most admirable Sir Walter Gore!" interjected Luard.

Lady Frances' sallow face flushed very slightly.

"--Sir Walter Gore," she went on, ignoring the interruption, "who is only twenty-nine--has been ten times round the world--and is imbued with the deepest contempt for all modern social things."

She laughed again, as she finished; but a fleeting change of expression had pa.s.sed over her face.

Clodagh looked up smilingly.

"And where is the likeness to me?" she asked.

"Oh, you are both above mere human temptations, Mrs. Milbanke!" Luard broke in irrepressibly.

Lord Deerehurst, who had been listening to the conversation, lifted his eyegla.s.s.

"But then Sir Walter Gore has been ten times round the world," he remarked in his thin, dry voice. "And this is Mrs. Milbanke's first visit to Venice."

Again they all laughed, and Clodagh coloured.

"You think my stoicism would not wear well?" she asked.

Deerehurst looked at her searchingly.

"Stoicism may be born of many characteristics," he said. "I am not in a position to say from what yours springs. But"--he lowered his voice.--"I do not think you are a natural stoic."

She laughed and glanced uneasily round the little company, already beginning to break up into groups of two and three.

Observing the look, Lady Frances turned to her tactfully. "Come, Lord Deerehurst!" she cried. "We are getting too serious. If you _must_ philosophise, take Mrs. Milbanke on to the balcony, where she will have something to distract her thoughts. For myself, I want to hear Valentine sing. Val!" she called. "Come to the piano and make some music! I'm surfeited with stringed instruments and Italian voices."

She moved across the salon; and Lord Deerehurst turned to Clodagh.

"May I follow our hostess's suggestion? May I talk philosophy on the balcony?"