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The croupiers at that table are ever watchful of the visitor who, all unawares, occupies that fatal chair But Madehed the superstition to scorn She habitually sat in that chair--and won

Indeed, that afternoon she inning--and very considerably too She had won four maximums en plein within the last half-hour, and the crowd around the table noting her good fortune were now following her

It was easy for any novice in the Rooms to see that the handsome, dark-eyed woman was a practised player Time after time she let the coups pass The croupiers' invitation to play did not interest her She siered her dozen piles or so of plaques in a manner quite disinterested

She heard the croupier announce the winning nu in the stakes to swell the bank But she only sed her shoulders

Whether she won or lost, or whether she did not risk a stake, she si to herself

Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo was, truth to tell, a sphinx to the staff of the Casino She looked about thirty, but probably she was older For five years she had been there each season and ga success Alell but quietly dressed, her nationality was as obscure as her past To the staff she was always polite, and she pressed hundred-franc notes into many a palm in the Rooms But who she was or ere her antecedents nobody in the Principality of Monaco could ever tell

The whole Cote d'Azur frolia knew of her She was one of the famous characters of Monte Carlo, just as falish fortune at the tables, and as pensioned off by the Adaain For fifteen years he lived in Nice upon the re pittance until suddenly another fortune was left him, whereupon he promptly paid up the whole of his pension and started at the tables again In a ae-et-Noir

As the two Englishmen slipped past the end table unseen on their way out into the big atriuo out to cool themselves, or collect their determination for a final flutter--Mademoiselle had just won the maximum upon the number four, as well as the colu towards her a big pile of counters each representing a thousand francs