“Buy them? Gracious, no! I could make myself a better pair in five minutes.” She smiled at his visible relief. “But you see I’m ruined—stony broke; isn’t that what they call it? I have a young American friend who is always saying that about himself. And once in the Caucasus, years ago, a gipsy told me that if ever I had gambled away my last penny (and I nearly _have_) it would all be won back by a pale intellectual looking man in velvet ear-pads, if only I could induce him to put a stake on the tables for me.” She leaned forward and scrutinized him. “You _are_ very pale, you know,” she said, “and very intellectual looking. I was sure it was you when you told me you’d been ill.” Professor Loring D. Hibbart looked about him desperately. He knew now that he was shut up with a madwoman. A harmless one, probably; but what if, in the depths of that jewelled bag, a toy revolver lurked under the pawn-tickets and the cigarette papers? The Professor’s life had been so guarded from what are known as “exciting situations” that he was not sure of his ability to meet one with becoming tact and energy. “I suppose I’m a physical coward,” he reflected bitterly, an uncomfortable dampness breaking out all over him. “And I _know_,” he added in self-extenuation, “that I’m in no condition yet for any sort of a struggle....” But what did one do with lunatics? If only he could remember! And suddenly he did: one humoured them! Fortified by the thought, he made shift to glance more kindly toward the Princess Balalatinsky. “So you want me to gamble for you?” he said, in the playful tone he might have adopted in addressing little Sadie Burt of Meropee. “Oh, how glorious of you! You will? I _knew_ you would! But first,” she broke off, “you must let me explain—” “Oh, do explain, of course,” he agreed, rapidly calculating that her volubility might make the explanation last until they reached the next station, where, as she had declared, she was to leave the train. Already her eye was less wild; and he drew an inward breath of relief. “You angel, you! I _do_,” she confessed, “simply love to talk about myself. And I’m sure you’ll be interested when I tell you that, if you’ll only do as I ask, I shall be able to marry one of your own compatriots—such a beautiful heroic youth! It is for him, for him only, that I long to be wealthy again. If you loved, could you bear to see your beloved threatened with starvation?” “But I thought,” he gently reminded her, “that it was you who were threatened with starvation?”