The cards seemed to know these fingers, fluttering about them, or lighting noiselessly at their bidding on the cloth.

When the bank won, the croupier permitted a slight shade of disappointment to flash over his face, fading into an expression of apology for taking the stakes.  When the bank lost, the lips parted slowly, showing the teeth, in a half smile.  Such delicate outward consideration for the feelings of his victims seemed a part of his education, an index to his natural refinement.

The woman was of another type.  Although she sat with her back to me, I could catch her profile when she pushed her long veil from her face.  She was dressed entirely in black.  She had been, and was still, a woman of marked beauty, with an air of high breeding which was unmistakable.  Her features were clean-cut and refined, her mouth and nose delicately shaped.  Her forehead was shaded by waves of brown hair which half covered her ears.  The eyes were large and softened by long lashes, the lids red as if with recent weeping.  Her only ornament was a plain gold ring, worn on her left hand.  Outwardly, she was the only person in the room who betrayed by her manner any vital interest in the game.

There are some faces that once seen haunt you forever afterward—­faces with masks so thinly worn that you look through into the heart below.  Hers was one of these.  Every light and shadow of hope and disappointment that crossed it showed only the clearer the intensity of her mental strain, and the bitterness of her anxiety.

Once when she lost she bit her lips so deeply that a speck of blood tinged her handkerchief.  The next instant she was clutching her winnings with almost the ferocity of a hungry animal.  Then she leaned back a moment later exhausted in her chair, her face thrown up, her eyes closing wearily.

In her hand she held a small chamois bag filled with gold; when her chips were exhausted she would rise silently, float like a shadow to the desk, lay a handful of gold from the bag upon the counter, sweep the ivories into her hand, and noiselessly regain her seat.  She seemed to know no one, and no one to know her, unless it might have been the croupier, who, I thought, watched her closely when he pushed over her winnings, parting his lips a little wider, his smile a trifle more cringing and devilish.

At twelve o’clock she was still playing, her face like chalk, her eyes bloodshot, her teeth clenched fast, her hair disheveled across her face.

The game went on.

When the clock reached the half-hour the man in gray pushed back his chair, gathered up his winnings, and moved to the door, an attendant handing him his hat.  With the exception of the Parisienne, who had gone some time before, taking her companion with her, the devotees were the same,—­the two Englishmen still exchanging clean, white Bank of England notes, the German and Haytian losing, but calm as mummies, the fat, oily woman, melting like a red candle, the perspiration streaming down her face.