“Oh, have you, Mother? Have you saved a sum—do lend it to me, dearie? I’m sure I’ll win to-night—and, besides, I’ll tell you a secret—maybe—just maybe, you know, soon I won’t have any trouble to get all the money I want——”
“Heavens, Madeleine, what do you mean by such talk? What are you going to do?”
“Nothing to make you look like that! Only—just maybe—Andrew will give me a lot of money.”
“You’re going to give up gambling? Is that it? Going to be more the sort of a wife he wants?”
“Maybe—” the pretty face wore a tantalizing smile—“anyway—I’ve a plan—a perfectly good, right plan. Oh, Mother, it’s—but don’t ask me, it’s a secret—as yet.”
“Where are you going to-night?”
“To Emmy Gardner’s. But I’m going somewhere else first, and I’m in a hurry to get dressed. So, come across, old dear—that’s a love!”
“Haven’t got it,” and Mrs. Selden returned to her newspaper, with a cold smile at her daughter.
“Mother! don’t throw me like that! I tell you I must have it. I can’t play to-night unless I pay a debt of last night. I haven’t a cent myself—oh, how can you be so heartless!”
“Madeleine, behave yourself. I tell you I haven’t more than ten or fifteen dollars in the house.”
“I don’t believe it”—and Madeleine began to rummage in her mother’s dresser drawers.
“Stop that!” cried Mrs. Selden. “If you’re so sure of winning to-night, they’ll take your I.O.U. for last night’s debts.”
“That shows how little you know about it,” and Madeleine sneered her scorn. “Mother, if you don’t give me some money, you’ll be sorry!”
“I’ll be sorrier if I do. Good-night.”
“I hate you!” and Madeleine ground her teeth in passion. “I hate you for a cruel, unnatural parent! I’ve a notion to turn you out of this house—you horrid old thing! You——”
“Oh, do hush. You act as you used to act when you were a child.”
“And you treat me as cruelly as you did then! If you’d brought me up differently—I might have been a better woman. Oh, you don’t know yet how bad I can be—and I will, too—if you don’t help me out this time!”
“Go to your room, and get over your tantrum. You’ll get no money from me to-night.”
Mrs. Selden rose, and practically pushed her daughter through the doorway to the hall.
Madeleine went—seeing there was no hope of achieving her desire, but she went off muttering vengeance, and with a face white with passion.
In her boudoir again, she called her maid.
“Claudine,” she said, “you must lend me some money—just for this evening. Come now—there’s a dear.”
“Willingly, Madame—but, alas, I have none.”
“That’s not true—you were paid only yesterday.”
“But I sent it away—to my poor sister——”
“Claudine, you’re lying. Now—see here—if you don’t let me have some money—I’ll tell your friend Carl about——”
“No, Madame—no, I beg of you——”
The French maid turned pale with apprehension, and looked beseechingly at her determined mistress.
“Yes, I will—I surely will! Now, you know you have some——”
“Only fifty dollars, Madame—as God is my witness, that’s all I have.”
“Pah! that would do me no good at all! Keep your fifty—but, Claudine, get me Mrs. Sayre on the telephone. And after you get her—leave the room.”
“Yes, Madame.”
Madeleine stretched out on her chaise longue, smiled a little as she waited.
She looked like some sleek well fed cat, about to seize on its unsuspecting prey.
Perhaps students of such things would have said her gambling instinct was an inheritance from some reckless, swashbuckling ancestor.
Others would hold, and more likely they were right, it was the result of the heedless, rushing pace set by the crowd with whom she lived and moved and danced and had her being.
Yet few of that crowd, if any, played so desperately, so feverishly or so continuously as Madeleine.
And none lost so much. Although really a fine player, she seemed one of those who have persistent bad luck, and if she won, she was quite likely to lose all her winnings on one last high-stake game before she stopped.
She loved the excitement of it, the hazard of it, the uncertainty.
And she had the optimism of the true gambler, who always thinks his luck just about to turn to better and to best, quite undaunted by the fact that it never does.
She reconnoitered. She was in desperate straits. If she didn’t pay up last night’s debts to-night, before beginning to play, her creditors, two unprincipled women, had threatened to tell her husband of the situation.
Andrew knew she played Bridge—frequently—almost incessantly—but he had no idea of the height of her stakes, or the terrific amounts she lost.
Always before, her mother had helped her out. Always before, she had won enough to tide over, at least. Always before—she had managed by hook or by crook to keep above water.
But to-night she was desperate. Something must be done—and done quickly.
“Mrs. Sayre on the wire,” Claudine announced, and as Madeleine took up the receiver, the maid left the room.
“Hello, Rosamond,” Madeleine said, “come over a few moments, can’t you?”
“Why, hello, Maddy—what in the world for?”
“I just want to see you. Seems ’s if I can’t get along another minute without seeing you!”
The voice at the other end of the wire gave a short, quick sound of laughter, but there was an uneasy note in it—almost a note of alarm.
“Why, my dear old thing—I can’t come now—I’m dressing. Aren’t you going to Emmy’s to-night?”
“Yes—but not till about eleven.”
“I know—but I’ve an errand first.”
“So’ve
