A voice at each table as she drew near or passed made some announcement.
She caught the words distinctly yet not loudly pronounced: "Faites vos
jeux, messieurs.... Rien n'va plus. Onze, noir, impair et manque."
"_Onze_" was one of the numbers the French couple had decided to play.
Mary wondered if it had come at their bidding, and she wished intensely
to see what was going on at the tables inside those close circles of
women's hats and men's shoulders. But to see, meant to push. She was not
bold enough to do that, and kept moving on observantly, hoping always to
discover some island less populous than others.
Now she began to pick individuals out of the crowd. The number of types
seemed countless. It was as if each country on earth had been called
upon to contribute as many as it could spare of unusual and striking,
even astonishing, specimens of humanity, on purpose to provide eccentric
or ornamental features of this strange, world's variety show.
There were some lovely, and a few singularly beautiful, women from
northern and southern lands. Peter had said that one could "tell
Americans by their chins," which were firmer and more expressive of
energy than other chins, and Englishwomen by their straight noses, which
looked as if they had been handed down as precious heirlooms from
aristocratic ancestresses. The mellow light gilded many such chins and
such noses, and shone into soft dark eyes such as only the Latin races
have. Mary fancied she could tell French from Italian women, Spanish
from Austrian, Hungarian from Russian or German types.
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