At the latter he descended and, entering, passed through the big lounge where the elegant world and the more elegant half world were chattering and taking their tea after the races. He knew the big hotel well, and many men and women glanced up and remarked as he passed, for Silas P. Hoggan had already established a reputation. Finding nobody to speak to, he took a seat in a corner, drank tea because it was the correct thing to do, smoked a cigarette, and became horribly bored. Those who saw him reflected upon the great burden which huge wealth as his must be, little dreaming that, after all, he was but a blackmailer and an ingenious swindler. Presently he looked in at the casino, where he found a French Baron whom he knew, and then, after a further hour in the _cafe_, he returned to his hotel in Trouville, where he dressed carefully and later on appeared at dinner. Whenever funds were especially low, Ralph Ansell always made it a rule to order an expensive dinner. It preserved the illusion that he was wealthy. He was especially fond of Russian Bortch soup, and this having been ordered, it was served with great ceremony, a large piece of cream being placed in the centre of the rich, brown liquid. The dinner he ate that night was assuredly hardly in keeping with the ugly fact that, within the next four days, if funds were not forthcoming, he would find himself outside the hotel without his newly-acquired luggage. Truly his luck was clean out. After dinner he sat outside the hotel for an hour, watching people pass up and down the _plage_. The evening was close, and the sand reflected back the hot rays of the sun absorbed during the day. He was thinking. Only those three louis remained between him and starvation. He must get money somehow--by what means it mattered not, so long as he got it. Suddenly, with a resolve, he rose and, passing along the _plage_, arrived at a large, white house overlooking the sea, where, on the second floor, he entered a luxuriously-furnished suite of rooms where roulette was in full swing. Many smartly-dressed men and women were playing around the green table--some winning, some losing heavily. The room, filled to overflowing, was almost suffocating, while, combined with the chatter of women and the lower voices of men, was the distinctive sound of the clink of gold as the croupier raked it in or paid it out. To several acquaintances Ralph nodded merrily as he strolled through the room, until suddenly he came upon two men, wealthy he knew them to be, with whom he had played cards on the previous night. "Ah, messieurs!" he cried, greeting them merrily. "Are you prepared to give me my revenge--eh?" "Quite, m'sieur," was the reply of the elder of the men. "Shall it be in the next room? There is a table free." "At your pleasure," was "The American's" reply. The man who had proved so shrewd on the previous night was absent, but the two other men were, he knew, somewhat inexperienced at cards.