AS she shrank back into the remote corner of the first class compartment, Margot sighed profoundly. She had been thinking of the strange events of the past month and of the bewildering turn in her fortunes.
When she had been released from the hospital, some three months before, she was still very weak. During her illness a religious sisterhood had nursed her with devotion; a famous physician had personally attended her; a great Institute had exhausted its skill in her behalf. She was a record case, they said,—not a trace of the disease showed. She wanted to return to Folette’s and begin work at once, but Madame would not hear of it. “No, my dear, you’re too shaky. You need a good long rest in the country, two months at least. If you have no money I will lend you some.”
So Margot borrowed five hundred francs and went to Barbizon. There in a cottage on the edge of the forest, she slowly regained her strength. Then she returned to Paris.
One afternoon, a few days before she had arranged to return to the modiste’s, she decided she would like to visit the grave of the Mère Tranquille. Once more she sought the little bar on the Rue du Belville. As she entered she had a curious feeling that she had never been away; the fat red-faced man was still reading a paper behind the zinc counter. When she asked where her old friend was buried, he put down his paper and stared at her.
“You don’t happen to be the girl who worked here?”
“Yes, monsieur.”
“Margot Leblanc?”
“The same, I assure you.”
The fat man brought down his fist with a thump on the counter.
“Sapristi! Why, every one thinks you are dead. The lawyers sought you high and low; you seemed to have vanished off the earth. Didn’t you know the old woman left you a heritage?”
“No. Is it true?”
“Assuredly. Not much; but to a girl like you, it will be very welcome. Here, I’ll give you the address of the lawyers and you can go and see them at once.”
She lost no time. The result was that in due course she received her legacy. After settling all expenses and paying every debt, she found herself the possessor of a little over three thousand francs. Never before had she owned anything like such an amount. To her it seemed riches. At first she thought she would carry out her plan of taking a little shop with Jeanne. But the winter was coming on, the cold, grey, cruel winter; time enough for the little shop in the spring. A sudden distaste for Paris possessed her. Then one day as she was passing the window of a tourist agency she stopped to stare at a vivid poster depicting a sea of turquoise blue, a terraced town that seemed carved from ivory, a background of amethystine mountain, palms, pigeons, gorgeous flowers. Underneath was the name—Monte Carlo. It came like an inspiration; she would go there. With a sense of great daring she packed her basket-valise, said good-bye to Madame Folette and Jeanne, and took the train.
As she sat alone in the corner of her compartment, these events passed through her mind and she sighed deeply. She felt very lonely, rather frightened. She blamed herself for having bought a first class ticket at Marseilles, but the journey in the crowded second class from Paris had so fatigued her that she had decided to be extravagant.
Even in her jaded state the scenery seemed to her to be of dreamlike beauty. It was not until Nice had been reached that its too exorbitant claims on her admiration began to weary her. They must be very close now. It was long, that journey, especially when one has been so ill. She must tidy up a bit. She rose and began to arrange her hair, that stupid hair of which she had so much. It tumbled turbulently down and she had to take out all her hair-pins and let it fall around her like a golden shower. As she looked up apprehensively, she saw a young man staring at her from the corridor. She was vexed. She caught the mutinous tresses hurriedly and bunched them around her head. When she had finished with her pins and combs, she looked around again. The young man had gone.
She liked the Pension which had been recommended to her, because every one left her alone. The first day she gave to exploring the gardens and getting her bearings; the second she presented herself at the Casino and asked for a card. Fortunately, she had been warned that on no account must she divulge the fact that she worked. It is significant that a woman who earns her living honestly is refused admission to the Casino while a prostitute is welcomed. The administration knows that the small wage-earner brings little grist to their mill, while the demi-mondaine plays their game. Margot filled in her application with the usual phrase: “Sans occupation.”
Although she had made up her mind to gamble she was more than prudent. For the first week she did nothing but watch the tables with concentrated attention; then she bought a note-book with shiny covers and began to take down numbers. She would stand by a table for two or three hours, until her column of figures was quite a long one. Then, finding a quiet seat in the Café de Paris, she would sip a cup of chocolate and study them. She felt encouraged by the fact that a number of women, with negligible capital, were undoubtedly making a living at the Casino. Shabby, anxious creatures she saw them hovering like hawks over the tables, waiting to get in on “a safe thing,” and going away finally with a few pieces of gain. They had lived thus for years.
“Surely,” she thought, “with two thousand francs of capital, I can win a louis a day.”
The next step was to make up her mind how she would play. She must adopt a method, and concentrate on it. After long reflection she decided that the most cautious way of playing was to stake on two of the three dozens. In this way she would only have one dozen against her. From the examination of her figures, and the columns of permanencies published in a paper whose colour was the green of hope, she found that the first dozen seemed to come a little less frequently than the other two, and that it had a greater tendency to repeat. Here was a hint for her. She would wait until the first dozen had asserted itself strongly, then, as it were, retired exhausted. She would put five francs on the second and five francs on the third dozen. She would be covering thus twenty-four of the thirty-six numbers. If either of her two dozens won, she would receive fifteen francs, a gain of five francs. As soon as she had won four times, and had made a louis, she would stop. She furthermore decided that she would always play a flat stake, and would never make a progression. In the long run a progression was always fatal. If she lost a louis on any one day, she would stop for that day and not court disaster by trying to retrieve her losses.
As she pressed through the crowd and put her first stake on the table, she felt her heart beat wildly. She thought every one was watching her.
“Here is a new one,” she imagined them saying. “Another poor little chicken come to be plucked. Look how her hand trembles as she puts her two white counters on the table. One would imagine she was playing for thousands.”
But after all every one was absorbed in the game, and no one paid any attention to her. The ball spun around. She had won.
“Ah!” she thought, “it is always specially arranged that the beginner wins.”
And she played again with more confidence. The player has the advantage over the bank in that he may select his moment of play. (Unfortunately he generally selects the wrong moment.) Margot waited for what seemed to her a favourable moment and staked again. Again she won. Her second and third coups were equally successful. She was strangely elated, far more so than the extent of her gain really warranted. She had been excited and anxious before, now a happy reaction set in. She changed the white counters she had gained for a twenty franc bill, which she regarded with a rare pleasure. How strange to make money so easily! Playing as prudently as this it did not seem possible to lose. Just think! if she had only played with louis-stakes instead of five franc ones.... Or even with hundred franc placques.... A sudden vision of fortune dazzled her. “If....” Ah! that pregnant “if” that gamblers use in victory and defeat. The tragedy of that “if.” The virus was already in her veins, and she went home to dream of whirring roulette wheels and the smiles of fortune.
She awaited the second day with a passion of eagerness. But alas! things did not go so well. When she had made three wins she had a loss. With chagrin she watched her two pieces swept away. She was now only one ahead. She won her next three coups, however, and retired with her louis of gain.
The third day she had a hard fight. It was as if the Casino had said: “Tut! Tut! we must not let this slip of a girl get our money so easily. We must begin to baulk her a bit.”
She played all morning and afternoon, winning and losing, and winning again. Try as she would, she could not get them to give her a louis. At seven o’clock she retired from the fight, only a poor five francs the winner. She was fearfully tired, her head ached, and the smile of fortune seemed transformed into the wryest of grins.
The fourth day she had no trouble and her confidence came back. But the fifth ... the first dozen came up seven times running and broke to the third. By all the laws of average it was due to rest a bit and allow the equilibrium to establish itself. It was, therefore, with a confidence almost insolent, that the girl staked on the second and third dozen. She was so sure of winning that she felt as if the money were already in her hands, and did not even wait to watch the spinning wheel. She had reached down to secure her winnings when to her surprise she saw both her stakes being raked in. The number two had declared itself.
Next time it would come right, and again she staked on the second and third dozen. She waited almost listlessly. To her dismay she saw her stakes swept off a second time. There must be a mistake.... No, the ball was resting in the slot marked twelve.
She sat down on one of the leather-padded lounges. It was not the money she had lost that worried her, but the fact that her system had proven untrustworthy. She hated to be beaten like that. A mixture of resentment and anger dominated her,—a mood most dangerous to a gambler. She rose, and going back to the table put one louis on the second dozen and another on the third. She won. She had regained all that she had lost.
She did not play any more that day. She went to the Café de Paris, and, having ordered a jug of chocolate, sat down to think. It was evident that to gain four straight wins every day, was too great a strain on her system. Well, then, instead of playing four coups with five francs each time, why not play a single coup with a louis for the stake? In this way she would not tire herself out with long play, nor exhaust her luck. Accordingly the next day she began playing on these lines.
For a time all went well. She found that with average luck she won three times out of four. Then a spell of bad luck set in, and in spite of the care with which she played she found her gains were reduced to two out of three. This left her no profit. She must do something to raise her average. She thought the matter over. If she had to have a certain proportion of losses, why not let them be fictitious ones? Why not let her losses be made with imaginary stakes and her gains with real ones? She made up her mind that, playing with her usual care, she would wait until she had lost twice in her head, before playing on the table a third time for a win. It needed lots of patience; often she had to wait for two hours before her chance came, but with this method she won three times out of four. However to develop a system in theory and put it into practice are two very different things. To play a system one must be as emotionless as a machine; systems make no allowance for human passion and impulse, and this she soon found to her cost.
It happened one day that, when she went to the Rooms in the afternoon, she staked as usual a louis on the second and another on the third dozen, after having watched the wheel for awhile. The number eleven came up. Now according to her system she should have called her day a loss and gone home. But on this particular afternoon her mood was mutinous. She determined to try again. She re-staked in the same fashion, and the eleven repeated. She was furious with herself for being so weak and foolish. It would take her four days to regain her losses. It was too tedious, too discouraging. Well, it could not be helped now. She walked to the door, but just as she reached it she hesitated. Her irritation grew. No, she would not let them beat her. Going back to the table she fumbled in her bag and drew forth two notes of a hundred francs each. She handed them to the croupier.
“Second and third dozen, please.”
She was strangely calm now, but she could not bear to see the ball spin. She turned and went to another table, pretending to watch the play there. She forbade herself to look back, then when she heard the ball drop, she glanced round. The croupiers were cleaning up the tables, but the rake swung clear of the hundred francs she had put on the middle dozen. She had won.
Again she snatched victory from defeat. She had retrieved her losses and had a louis to boot. But strange to say she felt no elation. She had been reckless and risked two hundred francs. It must not happen again, she told herself.
It was soon evident that if her average wins were three out of four, with a stake of two louis, and she made only one coup, her gains would only aggregate five francs a day. That would never do. After much reflection and analysis of her figures, she decided to play with placques of a hundred francs each. In this way she would gain a hundred francs every four days; and even, if she allowed five francs for a possible zero every time she played, she would still make her louis a day. This was the plan she finally adopted. Her system, in short, was to play only a flat stake, never a progression. She played only one coup a day, stopping if she lost, and took two fictitious losses before actually playing on the table. She played a hundred francs on the second, and a hundred francs on the third dozen after an exhausted run of the first dozen. She put five francs on zero.
It was very much like hard work, and needed both patience and judgment, but it was possible for her to go on playing this system for six months without mishap, and in the end just about even up.
One day as she was eating a hurried luncheon she noticed a young man reading by the window. His hair was ash blonde, brushed glossily back, his face thin, sensitive, and browned by the sun. When he smiled at Terese, the waitress, his teeth were milk-white, and very regular. His eyes should have been blue, but were of a dark, velvety brown. An extraordinary good-looking boy, she thought, with an air of refinement, of race. He looked up and caught her eye; immediately she looked down.
She had seen him before, she fancied, but where? Then she remembered the young man who had stared at her in the train. It was strange she should meet him again.
She saw him often afterwards in the gardens, walking hatless, with his head held high. He never went to the Casino, and seemed very gay and happy. It was easy to see he was well off, and had not a care in the world. Once he passed her as she was on her way to her room, but shyness came over her and she did not glance at him. He looked so proud; he must be at least the son of an English lord. Why then should she, daughter of a French head-waiter and an English bar-maid, be even on bowing terms with him?
Then something happened that quite drove him out of her thoughts. For ten days she had been playing her system without even a loss, gaining nearly a thousand francs. Her winnings so far had more than paid her modest expenses. When she entered the Casino on Christmas morning she had four bills of a thousand francs each in her bag. She had also a letter from Jeanne. Jeanne knew of such a nice little shop on the Boulevard Raspail. It would be empty by the January term and, if Margot was willing, they would each put in two thousand francs and take it. Jeanne wanted an answer at once. Margot was very happy. She would tell Jeanne to take the shop, and she herself would return to Paris shortly after the beginning of the new year. She was sorry to think of leaving Monte Carlo, and to give up roulette; the keen shifts and stresses of the game intrigued her and she loved that moment of emotion just before the ball dropped. Then the thought came to her: Why not experience a moment of more intense emotion than she had ever known? She had a thousand francs of the bank’s money that she did not absolutely need. Why not risk it? If she could win with bills of a hundred, why not with notes of a thousand? She watched the table until the opportunity came. She placed five hundred francs on the second dozen, and five hundred on the third, then with an air of unconcern fell to regarding one of the pictures on the wall. It was a painting of Watteau-like delicacy, representing autumn; falling leaves, gallants and ladies of the court....
“Rien ne va plus.”
Would the ball never drop? She heard it knocking about among the diamond-shaped brass projections. Then silence, and ... zero.
Oh, what a fool she had been! For the first time in weeks she had forgotten to cover zero. And for the first time in weeks she had encountered it. She hated the calm croupier who raked in her thousand francs. There was something so ruthless, so inexorable in the way he did it. A dull rage filled her. She seemed to be impelled by something stronger than herself. She took from her bag a second note of a thousand francs and played it as before. No, she would not stake on zero. The chances of it repeating were a thousand to one.... Zero! again!
It could not be possible! As she saw another thousand swept away she felt physically sick. She sat down on a lounge, dazed, stunned. The impassive croupiers seemed suddenly to become mocking satyrs, the great guilded hall, pitiless, cruel. She watched a little hunch-backed croupier spin the wheel by its brass handle; he flipped the ivory sphere in the other direction in a careless, casual manner. The girl started up. It was as if she were an automaton, moved by some force outside of her will. Taking a third thousand franc bill from her bag, she staked it in the same way as before. No use to stake on zero this time. The chance of its coming up a third time was a million to one. She saw the ball go scuttling among the brass knobs; she heard a great murmur from the gazing crowd; all eyes turned admiringly to the little hunchback who tried to look as if he had done it on purpose.... ZERO!
She walked away. A bitter recklessness had seized her. She took out her remaining thousand franc bill. She would risk it anywhere, anyhow. A red haired man was coming in at the door. That was an inspiration. She would play on the red and leave it for a paroli. She went over to the nearest croupier and handed him her bill.
“Rouge, please.”
But the croupier misunderstood. He put the bill on black, looking at her for approval. After all, what did it matter? Let it remain on black. She nodded and black it was. Once more the ball whizzed dizzily round and dropped into its slot. Rouge.
She had lost. In less than four minutes she had lost four thousand francs. She pulled down her veil and walked out of the gambling rooms. Her legs were weak under her and she felt faint. She sat down on a bench in the atrium. It could not be true! She must have dreamt it. She opened her hand-bag of shabby black leather and searched feverishly. All she found was about thirty francs.
She was broke.