And she was making her way out of the Salle des Jeux, feeling rather disconsolate and disappointed, when suddenly, in the vestibule, she saw Madame Wolsky walking towards her in the company of a middle-aged man.

“Then that is settled?” Sylvia heard Anna say in her indifferent French.  “You will fill up all the formalities, and by the time I arrive the card of membership will be ready for me?  This kind of thing”—­she waved her hand towards the large room Sylvia had just left—­“is no use to me at all!  I only like le Grand Jeu”; and a slight smile came over her dark face.

The man who was with her laughed as if she had made a good joke; then bowing, he left her.

“Sylvia!”

“Anna!”

Mrs. Bailey fancied that the other was not particularly sorry to have been followed.

“So you came after me?  Well!  Well!  I never should have thought to have seen my dear Puritan, Sylvia Bailey, in such a place as the Casino of Lacville?” said the Polish lady laughing.  “However, as you are here, let us enjoy ourselves.  Would you like to risk a few francs?”

Together they had gone back into the Salle des Jeux, and Anna drew Sylvia towards the nearest table.

“This is a child’s game!” she exclaimed, contemptuously.  “I cannot understand how all these clever Parisians can care to come out here and lose their money every Saturday and Sunday, to say nothing of other days!”

“But I suppose some of these people make money?” questioned Sylvia.  She thought she saw a great deal of money being won, as well as lost, on the green cloth of the table before her.

“Oh yes, no doubt a few may make money at this game!  But I have just been arranging, with the aid of the owner of the Pension where I am going to stay when I come here, to join the Club.”

And then, realising that Sylvia did not understand, she went on.

“You see, my dear child, there are two kinds of play here—­as there are, indeed, at almost every Casino in France.  There is this game, which is, as I say, a child’s game—­a game at which you can make or lose a few francs; and then there is Baccarat!”

She waited a moment.

“Yes?” said Sylvia questioningly.

“Baccarat is played here in what they call the Club, in another part of the building.  As there is an entrance fee to the Club, there is never such a crowd in the Baccarat Room as there is here.  And those who belong to the Club ‘mean business,’ as they say in your dear country.  They come, that is, to play in the way that I understand and that I enjoy play!”

A little colour rose to Anna Wolsky’s sallow cheeks; she looked exhilarated, excited at the thoughts and memories her words conjured up.

Sylvia also felt curiously excited.  She found the scene strangely fascinating—­the scene presented by this crowd of eager men and women, each and all absorbed in this mysterious game which looked anything but a child’s game, though Anna had called it so.