Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo | Page 2

stars of the film
world or the variety stage. Upon that wide polished floor of the
splendidly decorated Rooms, with their beautiful mural paintings and
heavy gilt ornamentation, the world and the half-world were upon equal
footing.
Into that stifling atmosphere--for the Administration of the Bains de
Mer of Monaco seem as afraid of fresh air as of purity propaganda--the
glorious afternoon sunlight struggled through the curtained windows,
while over each table, in addition to the electric light, oil-lamps shaded
green with a billiard-table effect cast a dull, ghastly illumination upon
the eager countenances of the players. Most of those who go to Monte
Carlo wonder at the antiquated mode of illumination. It is, however, in
consequence of an attempted raid upon the tables one night, when some

adventurers cut the electric-light main, and in the darkness grabbed all
they could get from the bank.
The two English visitors, both men of refinement and culture, who had
watched the tall, very handsome woman in black, to whom the older
man had referred as Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo, wandered through
the trente-et-quarante rooms where all was silence, and counters,
representing gold, were being staked with a twelve-thousand franc
maximum.
Those rooms beyond are the haunt of the professional gambler, the man
or woman who has been seized by the demon of speculation, just as
others have been seized by that of drugs or drink. Curiously enough
women are more prone to gamble than men, and the Administration of
the Etablissement will tell you that when a woman of any nationality
starts to gamble she will become reckless until her last throw with the
devil.
Those who know Monte Carlo, those who have been habitues for
twenty years--as the present writer has been--know too well, and have
seen too often, the deadly influence of the tables upon the lighter side
of woman's nature. The smart woman from Paris, Vienna, or Rome
never loses her head. She gambles always discreetly. The fashionable
cocottes seldom lose much. They gamble at the tables discreetly and
make eyes at men if they win, or if they lose. If the latter they generally
obtain a "loan" from somebody. What matter? When one is at "Monty"
one is not in a Wesleyan chapel. English men and women when they go
to the Riviera leave their morals at home with their silk hats and
Sunday gowns. And it is strange to see the perfectly respectable
Englishwoman admiring the same daring costumes of the French
pseudo- "countesses" at which they have held up their hands in horror
when they have seen them pictured in the papers wearing those latest
"creations" of the Place Vendome.
Yes. It is a hypocritical world, and nowhere is canting hypocrisy more
apparent than inside the Casino at Monte Carlo.
While the two Englishmen were strolling over the polished parquet of

the elegant world-famous /salles-de-jeu/ "Mademoiselle of Monte
Carlo" was experiencing quite an extraordinary run of luck.
But "Mademoiselle," as the croupiers always called her, was usually
lucky. She was an experienced, and therefore a careful player. When
she staked a maximum it was not without very careful calculation upon
the chances. Mademoiselle was well known to the Administration.
Often her winnings were sensational, hence she served as an
advertisement to the Casino, for her success always induced the
uninitiated and unwary to stake heavily, and usually with disastrous
results.
The green-covered gaming table, at which she was sitting next to the
end croupier on the left-hand side, was crowded. She sat in what is
known at Monte as "the Suicide's Chair," for during the past eight years
ten men and women had sat in that fatal chair and had afterwards ended
their lives abruptly, and been buried in secret in the Suicide's Cemetery.
The croupiers at that table are ever watchful of the visitor who, all
unawares, occupies that fatal chair. But Mademoiselle, who knew of it,
always laughed the superstition to scorn. She habitually sat in that
chair--and won.
Indeed, that afternoon she was winning--and very considerably too. She
had won four maximums /en plein/ within the last half-hour, and the
crowd around the table noting her good fortune were now following
her.
It was easy for any novice in the Rooms to see that the handsome,
dark-eyed woman was a practised player. Time after time she let the
coups pass. The croupiers' invitation to play did not interest her. She
simply toyed with her big gold-chain purse, or fingered her dozen piles
or so of plaques in a manner quite disinterested.
She heard the croupier announce the winning number and saw the rakes
at work dragging in the stakes to swell the bank. But she only smiled,
and now and then shrugged her shoulders.

Whether she won or lost, or whether she did not risk a