Conversation broke the company up into little groups. Count Told alone remained silent. There was still that unnatural warmth at the back of his head. He looked behind him, and he felt his head; there was nothing there. He went to a mirror, but nothing was to be seen. He sat down again and it seemed as if he were falling asleep, yet he saw them all and heard everything. He wanted to say something, but it seemed as if the words were plucked from his mouth like ripened fruit ready to fall. After a short time had passed thus, he rose and went to the group wherein Dr. Mabuse was standing, saying, “We were going to play baccarat!” “So we were!” answered Mabuse. “Shall we be likely to find enough players?” Then Told grew wide awake and eager. “It will be fine, playing baccarat with you. Herr Wendel, will you join us, eh?” “I must attend to my social duties among the ladies,” answered the Privy Councillor, “but you will soon be able to find partners!” Six gentlemen quickly gathered round the card-table which stood in a part of the room leading to the conservatory. The lamp with its enormous shade hung low over the table, leaving the rest of the room in the half-light. In the conservatory, to which a glass door led, the ghostly branches of foreign palms could be seen outlined against the glass, and in the moonlight they looked like stiff forms stretching their dark limbs heavenwards. They cut the cards to see who should be the first to hold the stakes. The visitors crowded round the card-table and Countess Told stood in the dim light, looking down upon it. Mabuse saw her smooth white skin gleaming from the rich dark red dress she wore. His bearing was cold and gloomy, and scarcely a word escaped his lips. The feelings that arose within him were sternly suppressed, and his thoughts were busy with Count Told alone. When anyone addressed him, he answered abruptly. He seemed to pay great attention to the game, but he played by leaps and bounds. Soon the gentlemen who had begun their game with modest stakes began to imitate his example, and there was no unanimity in the value of the stakes. Beside a stake of a mark or two there stood a fifty-mark note, and then one for two hundred. The small stake seemed to feel ashamed; it rapidly became twenty, and still faster it grew to a hundred, to two hundred.... Very soon there was no player who ventured less than a hundred marks. When they began they found time for conversation between the end of the hand and the fresh deal, but after a time the talk grew less, and then ceased. The onlookers, too, became silent. The contest between the players grew more pronounced, the game feverish, and this excitement spread to the spectators. The Countess noted the high stakes her husband wagered. “He has never played before,” she thought. “What is the matter with him?”