A Woman-Hater Part 23

Then, after two seconds:

"Rien ne va plus."

Then mumble--mumble--mumble.

Then, "La' Rouge perd et couleur," or whatever might be the result.

Then the croupiers first raked in the players' losses with vast expedition; next, the croupiers in charge of the funds chucked the precise amount of the winnings on to each stake with unerring dexterity and the indifference of machines; and the chant recommenced, "Faites le jeu, messieu."

Pause, ten seconds.

"Le jeu est fait, messieu."

Pause, two seconds.

"Rien ne va plus."

The _tailleur_ dealt, and the croupier intoned, "La'! Rouge gagne et couleur perd:" the mechanical raking and dexterous chucking followed.

This, with a low buzzing, and the deadened jingle of gold upon green cloth, and the light grating of the croupiers' rakes, was the first impression upon Zoe's senses; but the mere game did not monopolize her attention many seconds. There were other things better worth noting: the great varieties of human type that a single pa.s.sion had brought together in a small German town. Her ear was regaled with such a polyglot murmur as she had read of in Genesis, but had never witnessed before.

Here were the sharp Tuscan and the mellow Roman; the sibilation of England, the brogue of Ireland, the shibboleth of the Minories, the tw.a.n.g of certain American States, the guttural expectoration of Germany, the nasal emphasis of France, and even the modulated Hindoostanee, and the sonorous Spanish, all mingling.

The types of face were as various as the tongues.

Here were the green-eyed Tartar, the black-eyed Italian, and the gray-eyed Saxon; faces all cheek-bones, and faces no cheek-bones; the red Arabian, the fair Dane, and the dark Hindoo.

Her woman's eye seized another phenomenon--the hands. Not nations only, but varieties of the animal kingdom were represented. Here were the white hands of fair women, and the red paws of obese shop-keepers, and the yellow, bird-like claws of old withered gamesters, all stretched out, side by side, in strange contrast, to place the stakes or scratch in the winnings; and often the winners put their palms or paws on their heap of gold, just as a dog does on a bone when other dogs are nigh.

But what Zoe's eye rested on longest were the costume and deportment of the ladies. A few were in good taste; others aimed at a greater variety of beautiful colors than the fair have, up to this date, succeeded in combining, without inflicting more pain on the beholders than a beneficent Creator--so far as we can judge by his own system of color--intended the cultivated eye to suffer. Example--as the old writers used to say--one lady fired the air in primrose satin, with red-velvet tr.i.m.m.i.n.g. This mild mixture re-appeared on her head in a primrose hat with a red feather. A gold chain, so big that it would have done for a felon instead of a fool, encircled her neck, and was weighted with innumerable lockets, which in size and inventive taste resembled a poached egg, and betrayed the insular goldsmith. A train three yards long completed this gorgeous figure. She had commenced life a shrimp-girl, and pushed a dredge before her, instead of pulling a silken besom after her.

Another stately queen (with an "a") heated the atmosphere with a burnous of that color the French call _flamme d'enfer,_ and cooled it with a green bonnet. A third appeared to have been struck with the beauty of a painter's palette, and the skill with which its colors mix before the brush spoils them. Green body, violet skirts, rose-colored tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, purple sleeves, light green boots, lavender gloves. A shawl all gauze and gold, flounced like a petticoat; a bonnet so small, and red feather so enormous and all-predominant, that a peac.o.c.k seemed to be sitting on a hedge sparrow's nest.

Zoe suspected these polychromatic ladies at a glance, and observed their manners, in a mistrustful spirit, carefully. She was little surprised, though a good deal shocked, to find that some of them seemed familiar, and almost jocular, with the croupiers; and that, although they did not talk loud, being kept in order by the general etiquette, they rustled and fidgeted and played in a devil-may-care sort of manner. This was in great measure accounted for by the circ.u.mstance that they were losing other people's money: at all events, they often turned their heads over their shoulders, and applied for fresh funds to their male companions.

Zoe blushed at all this, and said to Vizard, "I should like to see the other rooms." She whispered to Miss Maitland, "Surely they are not very select in this one."

"Lead on," said Vizard; "that is the way."

f.a.n.n.y had not parted with his arm all this time. As they followed the others, he said, "But she will find it is all the same thing."

f.a.n.n.y laughed in his face. "Don't you _see?_ C'est la cha.s.se au Severne qui commence."

"En voil'a un se'v'ere," replied he.

She was mute. She had not learned that sort of French in her finishing-school. I forgive it.

The next room was the same thing over again.

Zoe stood a moment and drank everything in, then turned to Vizard, blushed, and said, "May we play a little now?"

"Why, of course."

"f.a.n.n.y!"

"No; you begin, dear. We will stand by and wish you success."

"You are a coward," said Zoe, loftily; and went to the table with more changes of color than veteran lancers betray in charging infantry. It was the _roulette_ table she chose. That seems a law of her s.e.x. The true solution is not so profound as some that have been offered. It is this: _trente et quarante_ is not only unintelligible, but uninteresting. At _roulette_ there is a pictorial object and dramatic incident; the board, the turning of the _moulinet,_ and the swift revolutions of an ivory ball, its lowered speed, its irregular bounds, and its final settlement in one of the many holes, numbered and colored. Here the female understanding sees something it can grasp, and, above all, the female eye catches something pictorial and amusing outside the loss or gain; and so she goes, by her nature, to _roulette,_ which is a greater swindle than the other.

Zoe staked five pounds on No. 21, for an excellent reason; she was in her twenty-first year. The ball was so illogical as to go into No. 3, and she lost. She stood by her number and lost again. She lost thirteen times in succession.

The fourteenth time the ball rolled into 21, and the croupier handed her thirty-five times her stake, and a lot more for color.

Her eye flashed, and her cheek flushed, and I suppose she was tempted to bet more heavily, for she said, "No. That will never happen to me again, I know;" and she rose, the richer by several napoleons, and said, "Now let us go to another."

"Humph!" said Vizard. "What an extraordinary girl! She will give the devil more trouble than most of you. Here's precocious prudence."

f.a.n.n.y laughed in his face. "C'est la cha.s.se qui recommence," said she.

I ought to explain that when she was in England she did not interlard her discourse with French sc.r.a.ps. She was not so ill-bred. But abroad she had got into a way of it, through being often compelled to speak French.

Vizard appreciated the sagacity of the remark, but he did not like the lady any the better for it. He meditated in silence. He remembered that, when they were in the garden. Zoe had hung behind, and interpreted f.a.n.n.y ill-naturedly; and here was f.a.n.n.y at the same game, literally backbiting, or back-nibbling, at all events. Said he to himself, "And these two are friends! female friends." And he nursed his misogyny in silence.

They came into a very n.o.ble room, the largest of all, with enormous mirrors down to the ground, and a ceiling blazing with gold, and the air glittering with l.u.s.ters. Two very large tables, and a distinguished company at each, especially at the _trente et quarante._

Before our little party had taken six steps into the room, Zoe stood like a pointer; and f.a.n.n.y backed.

Should these terms seem disrespectful, let f.a.n.n.y bear the blame. It is her application of the word "cha.s.se" that drew down the simile.

Yes, there sat Ned Severne, talking familiarly to Joseph Ashmead, and preparing to "put the pot on," as he called it.

Now Zoe was so far gone that the very sight of Severne was a balsam to her. She had a little bone to pick with him; and when he was out of sight, the bone seemed pretty large. But when she saw his adorable face, unconscious, as it seemed, of wrong, the bone faded and the face shone.

Her own face cleared at the sight of him: she turned back to f.a.n.n.y and Vizard, arch and smiling, and put her finger to her mouth, as much as to say, "Let us have some fun. We have caught our truant: let us watch him, unseen, a little, before we burst on him."

Vizard enjoyed this, and encouraged her with a nod.

The consequence was that Zoe dropped Miss Maitland's arm, who took that opportunity to turn up her nose, and began to creep up like a young cat after a bird; taking a step, and then pausing; then another step, and a long pause; and still with her eye fixed on Severne. He did not see her, nor her companions, partly because they were not in front of him, but approaching at a sharp angle, and also because he was just then beginning to bet heavily on his system. By this means, two progressive events went on contemporaneously: the arch but cat-like advance of Zoe, with pauses, and the betting of Severne, in which he gave himself the benefit of his system.

_Noir_ having been the last to win, he went against the alternation and put fifty pounds on _noir._ Red won. Then, true to his system, he doubled on the winning color. One hundred pounds on red. Black won. He doubled on black, and red won; and there were four hundred pounds of his five hundred gone in five minutes.

On this proof that the likeliest thing to happen--viz., alternation of the color--does _sometime_ happen, Severne lost heart.

He turned to Ashmead, with all the superst.i.tion of a gambler, "For G.o.d's sake, bet for me!" said he. He clutched his own hair convulsively, in a struggle with his mania, and prevailed so far as to thrust fifty pounds into his own pocket, to live on, and gave Ashmead five tens.

"Well, but," said Ashmead, "you must tell me what to do."

"No, no. Bet your own way, for me." He had hardly uttered these words, when he seemed to glare across the table at the great mirror, and, suddenly putting his handkerchief to his mouth, he made a bolt sidewise, plunged amid the bystanders, and emerged only to dash into a room at the side.

As he disappeared, a lady came slowly and pensively forward from the outer door; lifted her eyes as she neared the table, saw a vacant chair, and glided into it, revealing to Zoe Vizard and her party a n.o.ble face, not so splendid and animated as on the stage, for its expression was slumbering; still it was the face of Ina Klosking.