Towards democracy

438 Towards Democracy

grey hair, deeply thinking, pencilling, computing, doubles his ! stakes with determination as he steadily loses.

Two demi-mondaines in waved and fretted hair, with long | kid gloves covered with bracelets, push somewhat petulantly a little pile of gold across the board—then rake together their winnings and walk away.

There again, in the shade of many standing behind her, sits a strange Sibyll-like woman, with bat-wing trimmings in . her hat. A halfformed smile dwells on her impassive face. | She always wins, they say; and not a few furtively follow her lead in the chances.

Here is a young German student with old scars across his face ; there, a Dundreary-whiskered yellow-haired English- | man of a type almost extinct at home; there, a business-like woman in mourning, with sharp nose and decided manner, evidently retrieving the fortunes of her family ;

And there behind her an elderly respectable English matron, most anxious to speculate, but looking carefully round ; first to see if anyone recognises her ;

And here again a big-chinned, flabby French youth with a suppressed boil on his neck.

Curious, the suppressed feverish sentiment of the whole scene, the quiet, the politeness; the occasional sharp glances, or hurried retirement from the table, the swift self-satisfactions, | and the inward gnashings of teeth ;

The many faces seamed with wrinkles spreading fanshaped upwards from the bridge of the nose, or with twirled goat’s-horn mustachios ; .