"You see that
woman in the chair you are touching? She was one of the greatest
actresses of the world, Madame Rachel Berenger. Now she is too old and
large to act, so she lives in a beautiful villa, across the Italian
frontier. She is always coming to Monte Carlo to do this."
"This" was scattering gold pieces all over the table, as if she were
sowing peas, then changing her mind about them, and reaching wildly out
to place them somewhere else. She was dressed in deep mourning, and had
a very white face which might once have been beautiful. Now she was like
a dissipated Greek statue draped in black.
"Faites vos jeux, Messieurs," said one of the six extraordinarily
respectable and intelligent-looking men who Mary saw at a glance were
employes of the Casino. They were in neat black clothes, with black
neckties. Peter had told her that the four who spun the roulette wheel
and paid the players were called croupiers, and that they were allowed
to have no pockets in the clothes they wore when at work, lest they
should be tempted to secrete money. But perhaps this was a fable. And
there was so much money! In all her life Mary had not seen as much money
as lay on this one expanse of green baize.
The man who called on the gamblers to begin staking put out his hand to
a large wheel sunk into the middle of the oblong table. This wheel was
the same, in immensely exaggerated form, as the toy with which the
Dauntreys had played in the train. It was a big disc of shiny metal, set
in a shallow well, rimmed with rosewood.
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