Velvet Ear-Pads by Edith Wharton

Having satisfied a polyglot door-keeper as to his nationality, and the / fact that he was not a minor, the Professor found himself in the / gambling-rooms. They were not particularly crowded, for people were / beginning to go out for dinner, and he was able to draw fairly near to / the first roulette table he encountered.

As he stood looking over the shoulders of the players he understood that / no study of abstract theories could be worth the experience acquired by / thus observing the humours of the goddess in her very temple. Her / caprices, so ably seconded by the inconceivable stupidity, timidity or / rashness of her votaries, first amused and finally exasperated the / Professor; he began to feel toward her something of the annoyance / excited in him by the sight of a pretty woman, or any other vain / superfluity, combined with the secret sense that if he chose he could / make her dance to his tune, and that it might be mildly amusing to do / so. He had felt the same once or twice-but only for a fugitive / instant-about pretty women.