sake don't bother about it--and thank you very, very much."

He bowed politely and moved a step or two away. But Zora, struck by a
solution of the mystery which had not occurred to her, as one cannot grasp
all the ways and customs of gaming establishments in ten minutes, rushed
back to the other table. She arrived just in time to hear the croupier
asking whom the louis on seventeen belonged to. The number had turned up
again.

This time she brought the thirty-six louis to the stranger.

"Dear me," said he, taking the money. "It is very astonishing. But why did
you trouble?"

"Because I'm a woman of common sense, I suppose."

He looked at the coins in his hand as if they were shells which a child at
the seaside might have brought him, and then raised his eyes slowly to
hers.

"You are a very gracious lady." His glance and tone checked an impulse of
exasperation. She smiled.

"At any rate, I've won fifty-six pounds for you, and you ought to be
grateful."

He made a little gesture of acknowledgement. Had he been a more dashing
gentleman he might have expressed his gratitude for the mere privilege of
conversing with a gracious lady so beautiful. They had drifted from the
outskirts of the crowded table and found themselves in the thinner crowd of