Page:Vance--Terence O'Rourke.djvu/336

 instinct with the light of gratitude, had searched O'Rourke's face.

"Very well, m'sieur," submitted the croupier meekly. "How much, madame?"

She stated the amount in a small, tremulous voice: "One hundred pounds." And, counting out the notes with care, the man handed them over.

"And now, madam," suggested O'Rourke, "if ye will be kind enough to leave us, I have a word or two to whisper in this gentleman's ear."

She rose. "I—I—" she faltered, at a loss for fitting phrases wherein to frame her gratitude.

"Later, if ye insist, madam," said O'Rourke. "'Tis but the bit of a minute." She bowed slightly, and swept out of the salon. O'Rourke wheeled about, his eyes blazing, his anger at last out of leash.

"One word of this, ye scut!" he snapped, "and ye'll regret it to your dying day! Do ye understand me clearly?"

The man backed hastily away. "Yes, yes, m'sieur!" he implored. "I—I shall be discreet."

"See that ye are. And—mark me words!—if an attempt is made to do me an injury while I am in Tangiers, your life shall be the forfeit. Don't forget that!"

Contemptuously he turned his back and left the room. In the hall he found the woman waiting for him, and forestalled her protestations.

"'Tis nothing!" he told her lightly. "Madam, I beg of ye! The thanks are due from me; 'tis meself that has been waiting for that opportunity for several days. And will ye permit me to give ye a word of counsel? Then, don't ye risk another sou in Tangiers; there's not a table in the place that is run on the level."