“Julius, I have no more doubt about it than I have about the fact that I sit here, on this chair, in this restaurant. Some day—some day soon—I shall bring off a great _coup_, a really great _coup_. That will reëstablish me. And then I shall have done with it.” The odd creature’s face took on a rapt, an almost inspired look. “And that _coup_ will be made, not at _trente-et-quarante_, not at baccarat, but at good old roulette, and by backing Number 21. It happened once before—you know when. Well, it’ll happen again, my friend, and happen even bigger. Then I shall resume my proper position; I shall be able to give Lucinda her proper position. Our happy days will come again.” His voice, always a melodious one, fell to a soft, caressing note: “We haven’t lost our love for one another. It’s only that things have been difficult. But the change will come!” His voice rose and grew eager again. “It nearly came with your fifty. It was coming. I actually saw it coming. But a fellow with a damned ugly squint came and backed my play, the devil take him! Oh, you may smile, but I know a _jettatore_ when I see one! Of course every blessed penny went!” “Yes, here he was sincere. It was perhaps his one sincerity, his only faith. Or could the love he spoke of—his love for his wife—also be taken as sincere? Possibly, but there I felt small patience with him. As to his faith in his gambler’s star, that was in its way pathetic. Besides, are not we all of us prone to be somehow infected by a faith like that, however ridiculous our reason tells us that it is? “That’s a rum idea of yours about Number 21,” I said (I apologize for saying it thoughtfully!); “you somehow associate it with——?” “There’s really no need of your diplomacy,” he mocked me. “What I didn’t tell you about it, Lucinda did. Number 21 won me Lucinda.” He paused, gave a pull to his cigarette—we had by now begun smoking—and added, “Won me Lucinda back, I mean. But you know, I think, all about us.” “And you know, it seems, about my meeting with her—it must be nearly three years ago. I mean—at Ste. Maxime?” “She told me about it. She had been so delighted to see you. You made great friends, you and she? Well, she always liked you. I think you liked her. In fact”—he smoked, he sipped his coffee, then his cognac—“in fact, I’ve always wondered why you chose to consider yourself out of the running that summer at Cragsfoot long ago. You chose to play the fogy, and leave Waldo and me to do battle.” “She was a child, and I——” “As for a child—well, I found her more than that. So did Waldo. As for your venerable years—a girl is apt to take a man’s age at his own reckoning. Short of a Methuselah, that is. Well, if you ever had a chance—I think you had—you’ve lost it. You’ll never get her now, Julius!” “How much more damned nonsense are you going to talk to-night, you—you Monkey?”