Unfortunately I sought the nearest excitement, by going to the table and beginning to play.

Still more unfortunately, as the event will show, I won--won prodigiously; won incredibly; won at such a rate that the regular players at the table crowded round me; and staring at my stakes with hungry, superstitious eyes, whispered to one another that the English stranger was going to break the bank.
The game was _Rouge et Noir_.

I had played at it in every city in Europe, without, however, the care or the wish to study the Theory of Chances--that philosopher's stone of all gamblers! And a gambler, in the strict sense of the word, I had never been.

I was heart-whole from the corroding passion for play.

My gaming was a mere idle amusement.