With a quiet and drowsy movement Basch pushed the notes lying on the oval in front of him over to the stranger. He grabbed at them like a bird of prey. The loser sank back in his seat, and in the same slow and dreamy way he brought out a fresh thousand-mark note and laid it in front of him. “How much are you losing now?” said a lady from the divan behind Basch. “You will have a lucky life. When one loses to _that_ extent! I regard you as a champion. You must establish a record.... In losing, you know! Then you will be so lucky in life that I shall want to....” She broke off in embarrassment. Then Wenk, with a delicious tremor in his veins, recognized the speaker as the lady whom he had so abruptly encountered on the stairs on the previous evening. “Get ready to stake,” said the sandy-bearded man in a harsh voice, drowning the speaker’s concluding words. Basch had not answered her. As the banker called out, he merely made a movement of his hand over his thousand-mark note, a movement as if he were secretly conjuring it to do his bidding. He looked at his cards; it was his turn, and no one else was punting. “Do you take one?” said the banker sharply. Basch shook his head dreamily. Wenk noticed Cara Carozza’s auburn-tressed head behind one the spectators, but his glance always returned to the other woman. The banker bought a Court card and disclosed his own hand. He had only a total of four. Basch, too, with a feverish movement, laid his on the table. His points were but three. “He plays as if he were drugged!” whispered Wenk’s neighbour. “To hold three, and yet not take a card! What folly!” As he raked in his gains the sandy-bearded stranger gave a hasty glance at Wenk. The latter felt himself pitted against the winner. He increased his stakes, won, then lost for several rounds, and won again. Basch continued to lose every time. By degrees Wenk ranged himself more and more on his side. He staked his money as if it were a weapon for Basch against the stranger, a weapon with which to strike him down. Wenk noticed that the latter looked at no one but himself and Basch. He therefore accepted the challenge, and threw himself eagerly and wholeheartedly into the struggle, impelled by some mysterious power that incited him against the banker. He forgot himself altogether, and no longer played for the purpose of observing and discovering. He abandoned himself to the game and played like all those whom he had come to rescue from the gaming-table. He even forgot the lovely lady. When he first realized this, he was ashamed, and for the first time during the evening he glanced round the room to see whether Hull were there.