They dined sumptuously at the cafe de Paris. They wandered about the splendid terraces on the sea-front, smoking. They had grown accustomed to the many beautiful women, always alone, always with roving eyes. Frequently Merrihew longed to chat with this one or that; and sometimes he rebelled against his inability to speak the maddening tongue. To-night, though the dinner had been excellent and the chambertin all that could be desired, the two were inclined to be moody. So far fortune had not smiled, she had frowned persistently. They found a vacant bench and sat down. "Ho-hum!" said Merrihew, dangling his monocle to which he had attached a string. "Heigh-ho!" replied Hillard. "Curse those cigars!" "With all my heart!" They had searched Nice, and Monaco, and Mentone, but the women they sought were not to be found. They decided, therefore, that the women had gone on to Paris, and that there was now no hope of seeing them this side of the Atlantic. They had not entered the Casino during the day; they had been too busy quizzing hotel porters and concierges along the Riviera. "My system needs a tonic," said Merrihew. "We'll hold the funeral after to-night's play. Of all the damfool games, it's roulette." "And I can prove it," Merrihew replied. "I have just fifty dollars left." He took out the gold and toyed with it. "Can't you hear it?" he asked. "Hear what?" "The swan-song of these tender napoleons!" Merrihew had played the numbers, the dozens, the columns, the colors, odd and even. Sometimes he would win a little, but a moment later the relentless rake would drag it back to the bank. His chance to play the good Samaritan to the derelicts of the American Comic Opera Company was fast approaching the dim horizon of lost opportunities. Presently he screwed the monocle into his eye and squinted at the sea, the palaces on the promontory, the yachts in the harbor, all tranquil in shadowy moonlight. "Nature has done this very prettily. Quite clever with her colors, don't you know," he drawled, plucking the down on his upper lip, for he was trying to raise a mustache, convinced that two waxed points of hair at each corner of his mouth would impress the hotel waiters and other _facchini_--baseborn. "Don't be a jackass!" Hillard was out of sorts. "You agreed with me that I was one. Why not let me make a finished product?" good-humoredly. "You will have your joke." "Yes, even at the expense of being blind in one eye; for I can't see through this glass; positive stove-lid. Every time I focus you, you grow as big as a house. No, I'd never be happy as a lord. Well, let us have our last fling. You might as well let me have my letter of credit now." "You will not set eyes upon it till we return to Genoa. That's final. I know you, my boy, and I know Monte Carlo. Even with your fifty, a watch and a ring, I'm afraid to trust you out of sight."