“Indeed? I am sure that you do not. Moreover, if you were to stay here, you would lose everything that you possess, and have nothing left with which to pay your expenses in Paris. Well, good-bye now. I feel sure that today will see you gone from here.”
“Good-bye. But I am not going to Paris. Likewise—pardon me—what is to become of this family? I mean that the affair of the General and Mlle. Polina will soon be all over the town.”
“I daresay; yet, I hardly suppose that that will break the General’s heart. Moreover, Mlle. Polina has a perfect right to live where she chooses. In short, we may say that, as a family, this family has ceased to exist.”
I departed, and found myself smiling at the Englishman’s strange assurance that I should soon be leaving for Paris. “I suppose he means to shoot me in a duel, should Polina die. Yes, that is what he intends to do.” Now, although I was honestly sorry for Polina, it is a fact that, from the moment when, the previous night, I had approached the gaming-table, and begun to rake in the packets of bank-notes, my love for her had entered upon a new plane. Yes, I can say that now; although, at the time, I was barely conscious of it. Was I, then, at heart a gambler? Did I, after all, love Polina not so very much? No, no! As God is my witness, I loved her! Even when I was returning home from Mr. Astley’s my suffering was genuine, and my self-reproach sincere. But presently I was to go through an exceedingly strange and ugly experience.
I was proceeding to the General’s rooms when I heard a door near me open, and a voice call me by name. It was Mlle.’s mother, the Widow de Cominges who was inviting me, in her daughter’s name, to enter.
I did so; whereupon, I heard a laugh and a little cry proceed from the bedroom (the pair occupied a suite of two apartments), where Mlle. Blanche was just arising.
“Ah, c’est lui! Viens, donc, bête! Is it true that you have won a mountain of gold and silver? J’aimerais mieux l’or.”
“Yes,” I replied with a smile.
“How much?”
“A hundred thousand florins.”