"But you are too weak, far too weak to venture by yourself,—is he not so?" said I, turning to the croupier to corroborate my words. A strangely significant raising of the eyebrow, a sort of—I know not what—meaning, was all the reply he made me; and half ashamed of the possibility of being made the dupe of some practised impostor, I drew nigh the table for an explanation.
"What is it? what do you mean?" asked I, eagerly.
A shrug of the shoulders and a look of pity was his answer.
"Is he a hypocrite?—is he a cheat?" asked I.
"Perhaps not exactly that," said he, shuffling the cards.
"A drunkard,—does he drink, then?" asked I.
"I have never heard so," said he.
"Then what has he done?—what is he?" cried I, impatiently.
He made a sign for me to come close, and then whispered in my ear what I have just told you, only with a voice full of holy horror at the crime of a man who had dared to have an opinion not in accordance with that of a Police Prefect! That he—a man of hard study and deep reading—should venture to draw other lessons from history than those taught at drum-heads by corporals and petty officers!
"Is that all?—is that all?" asked I, indignantly.