’We are at Homburg, in the famous Salon d’Or, at the height of the season.  The Countess (exquisitely dressed) is seated at the green table.  Strangers of all nations are standing behind the players, venturing their money or only looking on.  My Lord is among the strangers.  He is struck by the Countess’s personal appearance, in which beauties and defects are fantastically mingled in the most attractive manner.  He watches the Countess’s game, and places his money where he sees her deposit her own little stake.  She looks round at him, and says, “Don’t trust to my colour; I have been unlucky the whole evening.  Place your stake on the other colour, and you may have a chance of winning.”  My Lord (a true Englishman) blushes, bows, and obeys.  The Countess proves to be a prophet.  She loses again.  My Lord wins twice the sum that he has risked.

’The Countess rises from the table.  She has no more money, and she offers my Lord her chair.

’Instead of taking it, he politely places his winnings in her hand, and begs her to accept the loan as a favour to himself.  The Countess stakes again, and loses again.  My Lord smiles superbly, and presses a second loan on her.  From that moment her luck turns.  She wins, and wins largely.  Her brother, the Baron, trying his fortune in another room, hears of what is going on, and joins my Lord and the Countess.

’Pay attention, if you please, to the Baron.  He is delineated as a remarkable and interesting character.

’This noble person has begun life with a single-minded devotion to the science of experimental chemistry, very surprising in a young and handsome man with a brilliant future before him.  A profound knowledge of the occult sciences has persuaded the Baron that it is possible to solve the famous problem called the “Philosopher’s Stone.”  His own pecuniary resources have long since been exhausted by his costly experiments.  His sister has next supplied him with the small fortune at her disposal:  reserving only the family jewels, placed in the charge of her banker and friend at Frankfort.  The Countess’s fortune also being swallowed up, the Baron has in a fatal moment sought for new supplies at the gaming table.  He proves, at starting on his perilous career, to be a favourite of fortune; wins largely, and, alas! profanes his noble enthusiasm for science by yielding his soul to the all-debasing passion of the gamester.

’At the period of the Play, the Baron’s good fortune has deserted him.  He sees his way to a crowning experiment in the fatal search after the secret of transmuting the baser elements into gold.  But how is he to pay the preliminary expenses?  Destiny, like a mocking echo, answers, How?

’Will his sister’s winnings (with my Lord’s money) prove large enough to help him?  Eager for this result, he gives the Countess his advice how to play.  From that disastrous moment the infection of his own adverse fortune spreads to his sister.  She loses again, and again—­ loses to the last farthing.