"You see," said the
Plunger, with a deprecatory turning out of his hands. But there was so
much grief on the girl's face that he turned again to the gambler and
touched his arm. He could not tell why he was so interested in these
two. He had witnessed many such scenes before, and they had not
affected him in any way except to make him move out of hearing. But
the same dumb numbness in his head, which made so many things seem
possible that should have been terrible even to think upon, made him
stubborn and unreasonable over this. He felt intuitively--it could not
be said that he thought--that the woman was right and the man wrong,
and so he grasped him again by the arm, and said sharply this time:
"Come away! Do you hear? You are acting foolishly."
But even as he spoke the red won, and the Frenchman with a boyish
gurgle of pleasure raked in his winnings with his two hands, and then
turned with a happy, triumphant laugh to his wife. It is not easy to
convince a man that he is making a fool of himself when he is winning
some hundred francs every two minutes. His silent arguments to the
contrary are difficult to answer. But the Plunger did not regard this
in the least.
Pages:
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157