His face was purple, and the veins on his forehead stood out like whipcords, but not so much from anger as from the constraint he imposed upon himself by speaking in a whisper. He drew a long breath, and then in a calmer tone, resumed: “But you must make haste and succeed, M. Ferailleur, if you don’t want the young girl you love to be deprived of her rightful heritage. You do not know into what unworthy hands the Chalusse property is about to fall.” He was on the point of telling Pascal the story of Madame d’Argeles and M. Wilkie, when he was interrupted by the sound of a lively controversy in the hall.
“Who’s taking such liberty in my house?” the baron began. But the next instant he heard some one fling open the door of the large room adjoining, and then a coarse, guttural voice called out: “What! he isn’t here! This is too much!”
The baron made an angry gesture. “That’s Kami-Bey,” said he, “the Turk whom I am playing that great game of cards with. The devil take him! He will be sure to force his way in here—so we may as well join him, M. Ferailleur.”
On reentering the adjoining apartment Pascal beheld a very corpulent man, with a very red face, a straggling beard, a flat nose, small, beadlike eyes, and sensual lips. He was clad in a black frock-coat, buttoned tight to the throat, and he wore a fez. This costume gave him the appearance of a chunky bottle, sealed with red wax. Such, indeed, was Kami-Bey, a specimen of those semi-barbarians, loaded with gold who are not attracted to Paris by its splendors and glories, but rather by its corruption—people who come there persuaded that money will purchase anything and everything, and who often return home with the same conviction. Kami was no doubt more impudent, more cynical and more arrogant than others of his class. As he was more wealthy, he had more followers; he had been more toadied and flattered, and victimized to a greater extent by the host of female intriguers, who look upon every foreigner as their rightful prey.
He spoke French passably well, but with an abominable accent. “Here you are at last!” he exclaimed, as the baron entered the room. “I was becoming very anxious.”
“About what, prince?”
Why Kami-Bey was called prince no one knew, not even the man himself. Perhaps it was because the lackey who opened his carriage door on his arrival at the Grand Hotel had addressed him by that title.
“About what!” he repeated. “You have won more than three hundred thousand francs from me, and I was wondering if you intended to give me the slip.”
The baron frowned, and this time he omitted the title of prince altogether. “It seems to me, sir, that according to our agreement, we were to play until one of us had won five hundred thousand francs,” he said haughtily.
“That’s true—but we ought to play every day.”