ing by the noise they were making and the look of polite disgust upon the face of the banker.
Carmelita felt that she would be less conspicuous with the large party. Perhaps there was also within her the secret thought that here were other women gambling, women as foolish as she, a faint attempt even to deceive herself that her action was something different from the desperate enterprise that it was.
Carmelita arraigned herself alongside the players, and so intent was each one upon the game that at first they gave her hardly as much as a curious glance. The thin, hard, puffy-eyed banker shifted his eye to her for a second. But he had never seen her before and he was, she was grateful to discover, new to the place. She had feared to come upon Hayden and have him demand the whole five thousand dollars in payment of her Canary Cottage debts when she presented the check for cashing. That would never have done. She was relying on paying all her debts with this one sweep of good fortune, wiping her slate of worries clean, and going back to Dudley with a light heart and untroubled mind. She had simply borrowed the five thousand dollars entrusted to her care and belonging to the charity funds to use as an initial stake in her venture and
