It was like being
with an old friend to have Peter's cousin there; and Dick Carleton was
staying with him. Mr. Carleton and Captain Hannaford were friends, and
Mr. Schuyler evidently knew Madame d'Ambre, so everything had turned out
delightfully. Also it was exciting to see how people who came in looked
at her and whispered. She could not help knowing that they said,
"There's the girl who won so much in the Casino that everybody rushed to
her table and applauded."
It was wonderful, intoxicating, to be the heroine of such a place, to
have experienced players envy her. She longed for to-morrow morning, so
that she might go back to the same table at the Casino, and play on zero
and twenty-four again. "I think I shall always make that my game, and go
to the same table," she said to herself, with the unconscious egotism
and vanity of a child.
"What was that I caught as I arrived, about 'finding out the great
secret?'" Schuyler asked, when he sat down at a place made for him on
Madame d'Ambre's right hand. Again he fixed his eyes on her, this time
with polite interest. "I thought the words sounded familiar. I remember
your saying something of the sort, I'm sure, the evening of our first
meeting."
"I do not recall it, Monsieur," replied Madeleine.
"It was on the Casino terrace," he went on, reflectively. "I was walking
there between the first and second acts of an opera, about a fortnight
ago. We met, and you seemed depressed, Madame. It was then I was able to
do you that small service.
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