Now it became hard for her to follow, because she didn’t know the game, and he was pushing his luck, betting numbers, scattering chips here and there, and rolling one combination after another that managed to be neither an eight nor a seven. He made the point, eventually, and the one after that, and by the time he finally sevened out he’d won thousands of dollars.

“And that’s that,” he said, stepping away from the table, turning to take his first good long look at her. He wasn’t shy about letting his eyes travel the length of her body, then return to her face. “When you get lucky,” he said, “you got to ride it and push your luck. That’s half of it, and the other half is knowing when to stop.”

“And you’re stopping?”

“For now. You stay at the table long enough, you’re sure to give it all back. Luck goes one way and then it goes the other, like a pendulum swinging, and the house has always got more money than you do and it can afford to wait you out. Any casino’ll break you in the long run, even a pissant low-rent Injun casino way the hell up in the Upper Peninsula.” He grinned. “But in the long run we’re all dead, so the hell with the long run. In the short run a person can get lucky and do himself some good, and it might never have happened if you didn’t come along and blow on my dice. You’re my lucky charm, sweet thing.”

“It was exciting,” she said. “I don’t really know anything about dice—”

“You sure know how to blow on ’em, darlin’.”

“—but once you started rolling everything happened so fast, and everybody got excited about it—”

“Because the ones who followed my play got to win along with me.”

“—and I got excited, too.”

He looked at her. “Excited, huh?”

She nodded.

“And now,” he said, “I suppose it’s passed, and you’re not excited anymore.”