Derek Kettering, coming out of the Casino into the sunshine, saw her sitting alone on the bench and joined her.

“I have been gambling,” he said, with a light laugh, “gambling unsuccessfully. I have lost everything⁠—everything, that is, that I have with me.”

Katherine looked at him with a troubled face. She was aware at once of something new in his manner, some hidden excitement that betrayed itself in a hundred different infinitesimal signs.

“I should think you were always a gambler. The spirit of gambling appeals to you.”

“Every day and in every way a gambler? You are about right. Don’t you find something stimulating in it? To risk all on one throw⁠—there is nothing like it.”

Calm and stolid as she believed herself to be, Katherine felt a faint answering thrill.