"Pooh! one lost, another gained; it's only between the pair of us."

"Yes, but if one wins all."

"Nonsense, we are equally good players."

"But you haven't laid your money down."

"I've told you I've nothing but gold, I'll change it when I've lost some hundreds."

They commenced to play. Chaudoreille's face was animated, his eyes were shining, and seemed as if they would leave their orbits to look at his adversary's play.

"These cards are not new," said Marcel, "they are all stained or marked."

"That's because they've been so much used apparently. I leave it to you," said Chaudoreille, looking carefully at the backs of the cards which were at the bottom of the pack.

"Hang it! you've made me a pretty present; there, these are the seven and the eight."

Chaudoreille won the first game, then a second and a third, because, thanks to the marks he had made on the back of each card, he knew them as well by their backs as by their faces.

"It's singular," said Marcel, "that I never win anything; you always have the best cards."

"What would you have? It's chance, luck; but it will probably turn."

The luck did not turn and Marcel's crowns pa.s.sed into Chaudoreille's pocket. The chevalier was scarlet, trembling, and the veins on his forehead were swollen by the ardor of his play, when the bell at the garden gate rang violently.

"Oh, the deuce! there's somebody," said Marcel.

"I am lost!" cried Chaudoreille jumping on his chair, "it is somebody come to arrest me."

He immediately rose and ran around the room, went through the first door he saw and disappeared, without listening to Marcel, who called to him,--

"It's monseigneur; it's M. de Villebelle; keep still and I'll let you out without his seeing you."

But Chaudoreille had disappeared and the bell continued to ring. Marcel was obliged to open the gate without knowing what had become of his guest.

CHAPTER IV

THE LITTLE SUPPER

"And pray why did you make us wait so long, clown?" said the marquis angrily to Marcel, as he entered the garden with three men, two of whom were enveloped in their cloaks, while the third had no hat and nothing to cover his velvet doublet, which was stained in many places with mud; this, however, did not prevent its owner from bursting into shouts of laughter as he looked at himself, as though he still enjoyed some frolic in which he had partic.i.p.ated.

"Follow me, my friends," said the marquis.

"Oh, I know the way to your little nest of the Faubourg," said one, "it's not the first time I've come here."

"Nor me."

"That's all very well; as for me, messieurs, I make my first appearance here today and in a brilliant costume I hope. Ha! Ha! What the devil! if anybody should happen to divine that I ought to be present this evening at the pet.i.t coucher, 'twould be deuced awkward for me!"

"Come, Marcel, show us a light," said the marquis, pushing the valet before him, while the latter, anxious and uneasy, was constantly glancing around him.

"You've been sleeping already, rascal, for you look stupefied."

"Yes, monseigneur, that's true, I have been asleep."

"He lives the life of a canon here. He does nothing but eat and sleep."

While speaking they had reached the house. Happily for Marcel the marquis never went into the lower room, where the card table was still standing. They went up into the apartment on the first floor. Marcel lighted many candles, while the marquis' friends threw themselves into armchairs, and Villebelle took off his mantle, saying,--

"Come, hasten yourself, and serve us supper of all that you can get together; there are always provisions here. You have a poultry yard, a pigeon house; put some fowls quickly on the spit. We'll play while waiting for them to be served. Prepare the card table. Open that drawer, there are some cards and dice in it. Gentlemen, you will perhaps have meagre fare. I did not expect the pleasure of entertaining you this evening, but at least you shall have some good wine. The cellar is well furnished and we shall not lack champagne."

"Hang it! that's the princ.i.p.al thing," said a big, pale young man whose features were regular, but who was disfigured by the scar of a sword-cut across his left cheek.

"I, too, am of the vicomte's opinion," said his neighbor, who appeared to be some years older, and whose stoutness and high color contrasted with the physique of the first speaker.

"Champagne before everything."

"Oh, I recognize there that drunkard De Montgeran," said the young man with disordered costume. "As for me I am not displeased when the entertainment consists of wine. But let's play, gentlemen, let's play; it's necessary that I should recoup a hat and a cloak."

"You might even add a doublet; for I don't think that you can present yourself anywhere in that one."

"Those cursed shopkeepers, how they did resist this evening. That's all right, I had flogged three of them."

"Yes, but except for the marquis and I you would have been in a very bad position."

"Well! what the devil brought the quarrel about? for I don't know yet why I fought."

"A trifling thing, a mere bagatelle; because I was carrying off with me a little bookkeeper's wife, the impertinent husband permitted himself to shout! The idiot, I should have sent his wife back at the end of two days. Hang it! I'd no desire to keep her."

"Perhaps that's why he was angry."

"I said a couple of words for him to the superintendent; before long our clerk will be dest.i.tute."

"That's as it should be, it's necessary to teach these plebeians manners, who persuade themselves that they only take a wife for themselves."

"In your place I should have asked for a lettre-de-cachet."

"We shall see; that might still be done."

During this conversation Marcel had prepared everything; he went down to the groundfloor and, while making his preparations for supper, called his comrade in a low tone, and looked in every corner of the room, but he had disappeared.

"Where the devil has he hidden himself," said Marcel, who then looked in all the other rooms and went down to the cellar, where he called Chaudoreille again without receiving any answer. "He has apparently escaped into the garden and from there he will have jumped over the walls, as he said he would do. However, that astonishes me, for he would hardly care to leave the house."

The marquis and his companions sat down to play, and while waiting for the supper they cracked several bottles of champagne to put themselves in good spirits; that is to say, to arouse in them the desire to commit new follies. The most extravagant bets were proposed and accepted, and while playing, drinking, singing, each one related his good fortune, his gallant adventures, drew his mistress' portrait, and pa.s.sed in review the women of fashion, sparing the honest women no more than the courtesans.