“This is an unexpected pleasure, my friend,” Sogrange said, watching the ash of his cigar. “Professional?”
Peter Ruff shook his head. “Not in the least,” he answered. “I have had the good fortune to render Lady Mary and her brother, at different times, services which they are pleased to value highly. We are here as ordinary guests—my wife and I.” The Marquis sighed.
“Ah, that wife of yours, Ruff,” he said. “She is charming, I admit, and you are a lucky man; but it was a price—a very great price to pay.”
“You, perhaps, are ambitious, Marquis,” Peter Ruff answered. “I have not done so badly. A little contents me.”
Sogrange looked at him as though he were some strange creature.
“I see!” he murmured. “I see! With you, of course, the commercial side comes uppermost. Mr. Ruff, what do you suppose the income from my estate amounts to?” Peter Ruff shook his head. He did not even know that the Marquis was possessed of estates!
“Somewhere about seven millions of francs,” Sogrange declared. “There are few men in Paris more extravagant than I, and I think that we Frenchmen know what extravagance means. But I cannot spend my income. Do you think that it is for the sake of gain that I have come across the Channel to add the Clenarvon diamonds to our coffers?”
Peter Ruff sat very still.
“You mean that?” he said.
“Of course!” Sogrange answered. “Didn’t you realize it directly you saw me? What is there, do you think, in a dull English house-party to attract a man like myself? Don’t you understand that it is the gambler’s instinct—the restless desire to be playing pitch-and-toss with fate, with honor, with life and death, if you will—that brings such as myself into the ranks of the ‘Double-Four’? It is the weariness which kills, Peter Ruff. One must needs keep it from one’s bones.”