Do not destroy the roof over our heads! If there were only something in it, I should not so much mind. To win anything in these affairs robs n.o.body. But there never _is_ anything in it, worse luck. From us, at any rate, the spirit of Chance has turned her head; gambling of any sort is ruin."

"It is--it is," the old lady sobbed, now thoroughly broken down. "Oh, that I had never been drawn into it, had never had the poison instilled into my blood! But this is the last time, Ethel, dear; it is the last time, I promise you. And how to pay the rent I do not know."

Ethel sighed heavily. The rent could be paid this time, she knew. She had been fortunate in securing some extra English lessons during the last quarter--lessons which were given privately to a girl of about her own age, and which had brought her in a few louis; but she had wanted this money so badly for clothes. It was dreadful to go out with Basil on their rather rare holidays and to look dowdy and shabby, as she was only too conscious of being. She knew--what pretty girl does not?--how important decent clothes are, and she longed that her lover should see her dressed like other maidens in the restaurants and minor places of amus.e.m.e.nt where he was able to take her. And now--that was another little dream gone. The old brown coat and skirt and the imitation astrachan m.u.f.f and stole would have to do for the rest of the winter; there was bitterness in the thought which no man can fathom.

"Oh, well," she said in a dull voice, "I have saved up a little, and I suppose it will be enough for the rent. But, oh, mother, how could you do it!"

"Never again! never again!" wailed the old lady, and with a dull pain at her heart Ethel left the room and went into the little kitchen to fetch the tea things.

She was a little longer in the kitchen than she had antic.i.p.ated. Tears were in her eyes also, and it required all her resolution and self-control to keep them back, and to preserve her ordinary composure.

At last, with a heavy sigh and trying to twist her face into the semblance of a smile, she took up the tray and went back into the sitting-room, resolved to comfort her mother as well as she could.

Mrs. McMahon, to her daughter's immense surprise, was standing by the window, very erect, with all traces of recent tears and penitence absolutely gone from her face. There was a superior and almost haughty smile upon the old lady's lips.

Ethel stared in wild astonishment at this transformation.

"Put the things down, my dear," said Mrs. McMahon, in a calm and patronising voice. "Perhaps when you have heard what I have got to say, you will realise the wisdom of trusting to older and more experienced people. I do not blame you, Ethel; you are but a child after all and can know nothing of the world. But I do ask you to trust to the wisdom and judgment of your elders in future. If you do so, and allow yourself to be guided by me in everything, then we shall very soon be relieved from our present position, and be able to return to that place in society which our birth and connections warrant."

Ethel dropped the tray some inches upon the table with a crash. Her lower lip dropped. Her eyes were wide.

Mrs. McMahon looked down upon her daughter--she was slightly taller than Ethel when she stood erect--with a kindly and compa.s.sionate smile, as one looks at a beloved but tiresome and fretful child.

"I suppose," she said, "that a little sum of two thousand five hundred francs would be sufficient to pay the rent?"

Ethel gasped.

"I suppose," Mrs. McMahon continued, "that you would regard a return of a hundred pounds for an investment of ten fairly remunerative?"

Ethel murmured something or other, she hardly knew what.

Then Mrs. McMahon condescended to explain. Her eagerness burst through, her high comedy manner vanished.

"Oh, my dear, my dear!" she cried, "the luck has turned at last! After all these years! Look! look!"

With shaking hands she held out some papers to Ethel. A typewritten sheet was headed, "Koniglich-Preussiche-Kla.s.sen-Lotterie," and stated in French that Mrs. McMahon, who had purchased the eighth of a ticket in the famous Berlin lottery, had thereby won a sum of 2,000 Marks German, or--was added in parentheses--2,500 francs. A pink draft upon the Credit Lyonnais was enclosed for the sum.

"Oh, mother!" Ethel gasped, in the sudden shock, "two thousand five hundred francs! A hundred pounds!" And, quite forgetful of her former strictures, she hugged the trembling old lady again and again. "We are rich! we are rich!" she cried, and a vision crossed her mind of an inexpensive hat she had but lately seen in the Rue de Rivoli--a perfect duck of a hat!

They sat down to tea, and never was there a happier meal. Ethel was to meet Basil at six, and he was to take her out to dinner.

"Oh, mother," she said, "how delighted Basil will be to hear the news! I am so sorry I spoke as I did, but it all seemed so hopeless. I see now that I was wrong."

Mrs. McMahon smiled. "My dear," she said, "remember that it is a rule in life that nothing venture, nothing have. This money seems a great deal, no doubt, and it certainly more than repays all that I have spent to get it, so that we are on the right side, after all, as your poor dear father used to say. But it is a principle in these affairs--and you will admit now that I know something about them--always to follow up your luck. It is the people who do not do that who never deserve to have any, and very rarely do have any."

Ethel did not quite understand what the elder lady meant, but she nodded. "Go on, mother dear," she answered.

Mrs. McMahon, who for the last two or three minutes had been sitting lost in thought, turned to her daughter. Her face was grave, but it showed a strangely suppressed excitement, and there was an odd glimmer in her eyes. "First of all, dear," she said, "we must pay the rent. Your little savings will not be required, after all. You can renovate your wardrobe, and I will add something to help you. More especially, you will have to get a really good evening gown, and a smart hat to wear with it."

Ethel stared. "But, mother," she said, "surely that is an extravagance?

I never go anywhere where a smart evening gown is wanted. And you know what such things cost."

"A smart evening gown," Mrs. McMahon went on, almost as if she were talking to herself. "We must spend as little as possible upon it, but it must be decent. For myself, I have something that will do--that is, in the first instance."

"What are you talking about, mother dear?" Ethel asked.

"Now listen, Ethel," her mother replied. "A chance has come to us. It may well be our one and only chance. We must grasp it, or let it go by for ever. Fortune always turns her face away from those who refuse to follow when she beckons. I have a plan. We must take Fortune at the flood, as I said. To begin with, we must tell Basil Gregory nothing whatever of this little bit of good fortune which has befallen us. You must not say a word to him about it, or even hint at it."

"Oh, but mother, he would be so delighted to know. I always share everything with Basil."

"No doubt," said Mrs. McMahon, "but in this case I want you to do nothing of the sort. You will know why in a moment. Basil, dear fellow as he is--I am sorry I made some petulant remarks about your engagement a few minutes ago--is an Englishman. Apart from his high scientific attainments, which have yet to be proved, by the way, Basil has all the Englishman's solidity and caution. He is not imaginative. He is not a man to risk anything upon a supreme chance. Now, regard the situation in which we are."

"We are free from all debt, at any rate," Ethel answered wonderingly; "and we shall have a nice little surplus in hand."

"You must look farther than that, my dear," said her mother, with the odd brightness in her eyes growing more marked than ever. "A hundred pounds is all very well. We may buy shares in other lottery tickets. We may even buy a whole ticket, but that is a single chance, and means a great deal of waiting. Since Fortune is smiling upon us there is another and surer way to court her favours. I have been thinking quickly, as I generally do when there is something important to be decided. With this money"--she began to speak slowly and impressively--"you and I can go to Monte Carlo. We can go by the slow train, third cla.s.s. It will take us twenty-four hours, and not be very comfortable. But that I can endure, and if I can, then so can you. I know the Princ.i.p.ality of Monaco very well. At Monte Carlo itself all the hotels and places are terribly expensive, and far beyond our means, but only a quarter of a mile away, in that part known as the Condamine, there are lots of quite inexpensive _pensions_ which would serve our purpose very well."

"But what on earth are we to do in Monte Carlo? and how can I leave the school?"

"The school, my dear Ethel, is of minor importance. Nothing venture, nothing have. What we are to do at Monte Carlo is to turn what will remain of our hundred pounds into such a sum as will make us independent for the rest of our lives--a sum that will allow me to go to Switzerland, as the doctor ordered, that will start you comfortably in your married life with Basil Gregory."

The last shot told, and set the girl's pulses throbbing furiously.

"Oh, mother," she said, "if it were only possible!"

"It is perfectly possible, my dear Ethel," Mrs. McMahon returned, and there was such calm certainty in her tone that the eager girl, carried off her feet by the arrival of the lottery cheque, and the brilliant vista which was beginning to unveil itself, hardly questioned her mother's wisdom at all.

"I know Monte Carlo very well," said the old lady. "I was there often enough with your poor dear father. On one occasion he lost every penny he had at the tables there, and we were compelled to apply to the Administration for what they call the _viatique_--that is, a sufficient sum to pay our expenses back to Paris, from whence we had come. It is never refused. But, on looking back, I see how foolish both your father and I were. We played recklessly. We ignored the most elementary rules of chance. We were rightly punished. For many months now I have been dreaming of just such a chance as has come to us at last. I have been studying the new book written by a professor, who won large sums of money at Monte Carlo, in the interests of mathematics, on the Theory of Probabilities. I have gained much knowledge from it. I propose to utilise that knowledge very shortly."

"Then you have definite plans?" Ethel asked.

"Perfectly definite, my dear. I have only been waiting to put them into execution. The time has now arrived. We will get the necessary clothes--for in order to obtain the entree to the Casino, one must be decently dressed--and we will go to Monte Carlo at once. Three days'

careful play at roulette--for I do not intend to go near the _trente-et-quarante_ tables--will either see us with a sufficient fortune for our needs or take all we have got. Even if it does, we shall be little worse off than we are at present. Nothing can take my hundred a year from me, and you will easily find another post. It may even be that you can obtain a week's leave of absence from those old cats. It is worth while trying, at any rate. If not, you must resign the whole thing. For my part, I feel fully confident that you will never have to go back to such dreary drudgery."

Confidence expressed in an authoritative tone by an elder is infectious.

Confidence already backed up by an initial proof is more infectious still. Ethel McMahon's scruples, doubts and hesitations vanished utterly, and she threw herself wholeheartedly into her mother's scheme.

CHAPTER IV

At six o'clock Basil came for Ethel. Mrs. McMahon greeted him rather more kindly than usual, and he noticed it with some surprise, for he was always conscious that the old lady did not care much for him. A humble-minded man, and bitterly conscious of his unsuccessful life, he was certain that such a radiant being as Ethel was a thousand times too good for him, and was even inclined to acquiesce in the old lady's estimate in a way that provoked his fiancee enormously.

He noticed also that in addition to the access of kindliness, there was a distinct patronage in Mrs. McMahon's manner. Her usual despondency seemed to have disappeared. She spoke largely and vaguely of "the future." He could not understand it at all.

"What on earth has happened to your mother?" he asked Ethel, as they descended the stone stairs towards the street. "I never saw her so chirpy, darling."

Ethel hesitated for a moment. She was bright and animated herself, and she pressed his arm affectionately before replying. She was so accustomed to share her every hope and thought with her lover that she found it difficult to frame a suitable reply. "Oh, well, you know, mother has ups and downs like the rest of us," she said at length.

"To-day she is in particularly good spirits."