Besides these muttered spells in which, after long listening, she could only make out occasionally "ne va plus"--"rouge"--"treize"--"vingt-sept," the only sound was the perpetual clink of coins, which after every utterance began to dance from hand to hand and fly hither and thither, as if trying to evade the incessant pursuit of small wooden rakes and clutching hands sparkling with diamonds, grimed with long-established dirt, white and brown, yellow and black, red, skinny, and fat. Sometimes two hands clutched the same pile of coin, when there were hurried mutterings and looks of suppressed fury; anon a wooden rake smote an encroaching paw urgently from its golden prey, and there was silence. On what principle the piles of gold and sheaves of fluttering notes before each worshipper by the little books of ritual they consulted so devoutly, were increased and diminished, was a mystery to the spectator, who saw nothing but a mystic and subtly woven dance of coins and notes crossing and recrossing over the morrice of the green table with rhythmic intermittance, dependent upon the dark utterance of him who turned the wheel. But little by little she gathered that coin placed in one way increased or diminished two-fold, in another five-fold, in another thirty-fold, and found herself handing louis and notes from those behind to the croupier for change, and gloating over the golden multitudes that came rolling to the calm worshippers. The thin man, easily tired and overcome by evil air, had been compassionately despatched to a café to wait for her; he had modestly owned to a weakness for staking a couple of louis now and again for pastime; this lowered him perceptibly in his companion's esteem. But when he was gone and the glittering heaps had wrought their mesmerism, he was more leniently judged; and certain five-franc pieces in Mrs. Allonby's bag seemed to ask aloud to play a part in the morrice dance on the green; they even worked their way out, after a little, and insisted on planting themselves in certain squares, returning--she never knew how or why--with a partner apiece, and bringing a pleasant glow to their owner's cheek. "You have never played before?" asked a genial English voice at her elbow. "Would you mind putting this across that corner for me for luck?" She willingly placed the louis on the corner of the four spaces indicated, scarcely glancing at the player, who was sitting in the front row, with notebook and pencil, piles of coin and notes, all in most business-like array before him; but when he turned and looked up to bow his thanks, with a sudden sweet smile on his grave and anxious face, she recognized the Cyrano de Bergerac of the Carnival. She had been so intent on the morrice, and he so near below her, only the close-cropped head, bent over the pencilled calculations, visible, that she had not recognized him until he turned.