Upon all the gaming tables massive electric domes concentrated their light.  The walls, otherwise severely unadorned, were covered with lustrous golden fabric; the windows were invisible, cloaked in splendid golden hangings; the carpet, golden brown in tone, was of a velvet pile so heavy that it completely muffled the sound of footsteps.  The room, indeed, was singularly quiet for one that harboured some two-score players in addition to a full corps of dealers, croupiers, watchers, and waiters.  The almost incessant whine of racing ivory balls with their clattering over the metal compartments of the roulette wheels, clicking of chips, dispassionate voices of croupiers, and an occasional low-pitched comment on the part of one or another of the patrons, seemed only to lend emphasis to the hush.

The warmth of the room was noticeable....

A brief survey of the gathering convinced P. Sybarite that, barring the servants, he was a lonely exception to the rule of evening dress.  But this discovery discomfited him not at all.  The wine buzzing in his head, his demeanour, not to mince matters, rakehelly, with an eye alert for the man with the twisted mouth, negligent hands in his trouser pockets, teeth tight upon that admirable cigar, he strutted hither and yon, ostensibly as much in his native element as a press agent in a theatre lobby.

A few minutes sufficed to demonstrate that the owner of the abandoned hat was not among those present; which fact, coupled with the doorkeeper’s averment that Mr. Bailey Penfield was out, persuaded P. Sybarite that this last was neither more nor less than the proprietor of the premises.  But this conclusion perturbed, completely unsettling his conviction regarding the soi-disant Miss Lessing; he couldn’t imagine either her or Miss Marian Blessington in any way involved with a common (or even a proper) gambler.

To feel obliged constantly to revise his hasty inferences, he considered tremendously tiresome.  It left one all up in the air!

His tour ended at last in a pause by the roulette table at the rear of the room.  Curious to watch the game in being, he lingered there, head cocked shrewdly on one shoulder, a speculative pensiveness informing his eyes, his interest plainly aloof and impersonal.  This despite the fact that his emotions of intestinal felicity were momentarily becoming more intense:  the torchlight procession was in full swing, leaving an enduring refulgence wherever it passed.

There were perhaps half a dozen players round the board—­four on one wing, two on the other.  Of the latter, one was that very young man who had been responsible for P. Sybarite’s change of mind with regard to going home.  With a bored air this prodigal was frittering away five-dollar notes on the colours, the columns, and the dozens:  his ill success stupendous, his apparent indifference positively magnificent.  But in the course of the little while that P. Sybarite watched, he either grew weary or succeeded in emptying his pockets, and ceasing to play, sat back with a grunt of impatience more than of disgust.