As they went back into the Casino they could hear the people round them
talking of the Comte de Virieu, and of the high play that had gone on at
the club that evening.
"No, he is winning now," they heard someone say. And Madame Wachner
looked anxious. If Count Paul were winning, then her Fritz must be
losing.
And alas! her fears were justified. When they got up into the Baccarat
Room they found L'Ami Fritz standing apart from the tables, his hands in
his pockets, staring abstractedly out of a dark window on to the lake.
"Well?" cried Madame Wachner sharply, "Well, Fritz?"
"I have had no luck!" he shook his head angrily. "It is all the fault of
that cursed system! If I had only begun at the right, the propitious
moment--as I should have done if you had not worried me and asked me to
go away--I should probably have made a great deal of money," he looked at
her disconsolately, deprecatingly.
Chester also looked at Madame Wachner. He admired the wife's
self-restraint. Her red face got a little redder. That was all.
"It cannot be helped," she said a trifle coldly, and in French.
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