“How interesting!” observed Miss Lanman, at the other end of the table, pausing in her playing and staring. McKibben, who was beside her, also paused. “They’re plunging. Do look at all the money! Goodness, isn’t she daring-looking—and he?” Aileen’s shining arm was moving deftly, showily about. “Look at the bills he’s breaking!” Lynde was taking out a thick layer of fresh, yellow bills which he was exchanging for gold. “They make a striking pair, don’t they?” The board was now practically covered with Lynde’s gold in quaint little stacks. He had followed a system called Mazarin, which should give him five for one, and possibly break the bank. Quite a crowd swarmed about the table, their faces glowing in the artificial light. The exclamation “plunging!” “plunging!” was to be heard whispered here and there. Lynde was delightfully cool and straight. His lithe body was quite erect, his eyes reflective, his teeth set over an unlighted cigarette. Aileen was excited as a child, delighted to be once more the center of comment. Lord looked at her with sympathetic eyes. He liked her. Well, let her he amused. It was good for her now and then; but Lynde was a fool to make a show of himself and risk so much money. “Table closed!” called the croupier, and instantly the little ball began to spin. All eyes followed it. Round and round it went—Aileen as keen an observer as any. Her face was flushed, her eyes bright. “If we lose this,” said Lynde, “we will make one more bet double, and then if we don’t win that we’ll quit.” He was already out nearly three thousand dollars. “Oh yes, indeed! Only I think we ought to quit now. Here goes two thousand if we don’t win. Don’t you think that’s quite enough? I haven’t brought you much luck, have I?” “You are luck,” he whispered. “All the luck I want. One more. Stand by me for one more try, will you? If we win I’ll quit.” The little ball clicked even as she nodded, and the croupier, paying out on a few small stacks here and there, raked all the rest solemnly into the receiving orifice, while murmurs of sympathetic dissatisfaction went up here and there. “How much did they have on the board?” asked Miss Lanman of McKibben, in surprise. “It must have been a great deal, wasn’t it?” “Oh, two thousand dollars, perhaps. That isn’t so high here, though. People do plunge for as much as eight or ten thousand. It all depends.” McKibben was in a belittling, depreciating mood. “Oh yes, but not often, surely.” “For the love of heavens, Polk!” exclaimed Rhees Grier, coming up and plucking at his sleeve; “if you want to give your money away give it to me. I can gather it in just as well as that croupier, and I’ll go get a truck and haul it home, where it will do some good. It’s perfectly terrible the way you are carrying on.”