He was edging nearer the croupier. A stout, middle-aged woman whose flesh seemed to be insecurely and inadequately confined within frail silk rose from her chair, gathering up bag and cigarette case--all that remained to her. "Sit down here and keep the chair for me," Felix said sharply, and pushed Lilian into the seat. Everybody gazed at her, and her constraint showed the conviction that everybody guessed she had never sat at a gaming-table before. Felix had vanished, and she was thrown with her arresting, innocent beauty upon the envious and jealous world. He had gone to exchange notes for counters, but she did not know. After a moment that was an hour he returned and took the seat. "You stand behind me and watch," said he. "And when you get bored walk about and see things for yourself, and when you need moral support again come and put your hand on my chair. I’ll stop playing whenever you tell me." He spoke in a muttering voice, but three or four persons around could not fail to catch every word; this, however, appeared not to trouble him. Lilian was in a state of high excitation, but she was also extremely confused, the game being a complete enigma to her. The croupier was continually raking cards to and fro and counters to and fro, continually tearing tickets out of a book, ripping them to pieces and throwing the pieces behind him, continually dropping cards into a big hole, and continually dropping counters into a little hole. An official opposite the croupier, with pockets full of counters, was continually, and with miraculous rapidity, exchanging rose counters for green and white counters for rose. The player next to Felix had a small table behind him furnished with champagne and sandwiches, which he consumed in hasty gulps and mouthfuls, as one who feels the dread hour at hand when no man may eat or drink. The players ejaculated short incomprehensible words, and at brief intervals Lilian seized a word that sounded like "baunco." She heard Felix utter the word, saw him turn up two cards, and then receive from the croupier’s rake a large assortment of green and rose counters. He never looked at her to smile; she was ignored, but she guessed that he must be winning. Soon afterwards his piles of counters had strangely diminished. The heat stifled her, and the odour of flesh and tobacco and scent nauseated. She held no key to the vast and splendid conundrum, unless by chance her fundamental commonsense was right in its casual suggestion that she was surrounded by lunatics. Yet how could persons so well-dressed, so sure of themselves, so restrained and stylish in manner, and seemingly so wealthy, be lunatics? Impossible! She grew profoundly and inexplicably sad.