Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo | Page 3

stake, she simply
smiled and elevated her shoulders, muttering something to herself.
Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo was, truth to tell, a sphinx to the staff of
the Casino. She looked about thirty, but probably she was older. For
five years she had been there each season and gambled heavily with
unvarying success. Always well but quietly dressed, her nationality was
as obscure as her past. To the staff she was always polite, and she
pressed hundred-franc notes into many a palm in the Rooms. But who
she was or what were her antecedents nobody in the Principality of
Monaco could ever tell.
The whole Cote d'Azur from Hyeres to Ventimiglia knew of her. She
was one of the famous characters of Monte Carlo, just as famous,
indeed, as old Mr. Drewett, the Englishman who lost his big fortune at
the tables, and who was pensioned off by the Administration on
condition that he never gamble at the Casino again. For fifteen years he
lived in Nice upon the meagre pittance until suddenly another fortune
was left him, whereupon he promptly paid up the whole of his pension
and started at the tables again. In a month, however, he had lost his
second fortune. Such is gambling in the little country ruled over by
Prince Rouge-et-Noir.
As the two Englishmen slipped past the end table unseen on their way
out into the big atrium with its many columns--the hall in which players
go out to cool themselves, or collect their determination for a final
flutter--Mademoiselle had just won the maximum upon the number
four, as well as the column, and the croupier was in the act of pushing
towards her a big pile of counters each representing a thousand francs.
The eager excited throng around the table looked across at her with
envy. But her handsome countenance was quite expressionless. She
simply thrust the counters into the big gold-chain purse at her side,
glanced at the white-gloved fingers which were soiled by handling the
counters, and then counting out twenty-five, each representing a louis,
gave them to the croupier, exclaiming:
"/Zero-trois!/"

Next moment a dozen persons followed her play, staking their
cent-sous and louis upon the spot where she had asked the croupier at
the end of the table to place her stake.
"/Messieurs! Faites vos jeux!/" came the strident cry again.
Then a few seconds later the croupier cried:
"/Rien ne vas plus!/"
The red and black wheel was already spinning, and the little ivory ball
sent by the croupier's hand in the opposite direction was clicking
quickly over the numbered spaces.
Six hundred or more eyes of men and women, fevered by the gambling
mania, watched the result. Slowly it lost its impetus, and after spinning
about unevenly it made a final jump and fell with a loud click.
"/Zer-r-o!/" cried the croupier.
And a moment later Mademoiselle had pushed before her at the end of
the croupier's rake another pile of counters, while all those who had
followed the remarkable woman's play were also paid.
"Mademoiselle is in good form to-day," remarked one ugly old
Frenchwoman who had been a well-known figure at the tables for the
past ten years, and who played carefully and lived by gambling. She
was one of those queer, mysterious old creatures who enter the Rooms
each morning as soon as they are open, secure the best seats, occupy
them all the luncheon hour pretending to play, and then sell them to
wealthy gamblers for a consideration--two or three louis--perhaps--and
then at once go to their ease in their own obscure abode.
The public who go to Monte know little of its strange mysteries, or of
the odd people who pick up livings there in all sorts of queer ways.
"Ah!" exclaimed a man who overheard her. "Mademoiselle has
wonderful luck! She won seventy-five thousand francs at the /Cercle

Prive/ last night. She won /en plein/ five times running. /Dieu!/ Such
luck! And it never causes her the slightest excitement."
"The lady must be very rich!" remarked an American woman sitting
next to the old Frenchwoman, and who knew French well.
"Rich! Of course! She must have won several million francs from the
Administration. They don't like to see her here. But I suppose her
success attracts others to play. The gambling fever is as infectious as
the influenza," declared the old Frenchwoman. "Everyone tries to
discover who she is, and where she came from five years ago. But
nobody has yet found out. Even Monsieur Bernard, the chief of the
Surveillance, does not know," she went on in a whisper. "He is a friend
of mine, and I asked him one day. She came from Paris, he told me.
She may be American, she may be Belgian, or she may be English. She
speaks