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 superstition of a gambler, "For God'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.
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