Not having as yet been in the _Cirque privé_ at Monte Carlo, I was perhaps unduly impressed by the splendor of the rooms devoted to gambling in this amazingly large casino. There were eight hundred or a thousand people all in evening clothes, who had paid a heavy price for the mere privilege of entering, and were now gathered about handsome green-covered mahogany tables under glittering and ornate electroliers, playing a variety of carefully devised gambling games with a fervor that at times makes martyrs in other causes. To a humble-minded American person like myself, unused to the high world of fashion, this spectacle was, to say the least, an interesting one. Here were a dozen nationalities represented by men and women whose hands were manicured to perfection, whose toilets were all that a high social occasion might require, their faces showing in every instance a keen understanding of their world and how it works. Here in Nice, if you walk away from these centers of social perfection, where health and beauty and sophistication and money abound, the vast run of citizens are as poverty-stricken as any; but this collection of nobility and gentry, of millionaires, adventurers, intellectual prostitutes and savage beauties is recruited from all over the world. I hold that is something to see. The tables were fairly swarming with a fascinating throng all very much alike in their attitude and their love of the game, but still individual and interesting. I venture to say that any one of the people I saw in this room, if you saw him in a crowd on the street, would take your attention. A native force and self-sufficiency went with each one. I wondered constantly where they all came from. It takes money to come to the Riviera; it takes money to buy your way into any gambling-room. It takes money to gamble; and what is more it takes a certain amount of self-assurance and individual selection to come here at all. By your mere presence you are putting yourself in contact and contrast with a notable standard of social achievement. Your intellectuality, your ability to take care of yourself, your breeding and your subtlety are at once challenged--not consciously, but unconsciously. Do you really belong here? the eyes of the attendants ask you as you pass. And the glitter and color and life and beauty of the room is a constant challenge.