“I have lost five hundred francs which my employer gave me to obtain a document to-morrow morning; there’s nothing for me but to fling myself into the river; I am dishonored.”
“How silly you are!” she said. “Stay where you are; I’ll get you a thousand francs and you can win back what you’ve lost; but don’t risk more than five hundred, so that you may be sure of your master’s money. Georges plays a fine game at ecarte; bet on him.”
Oscar, frightened by his position, accepted the offer of the mistress of the house.
“Ah!” he thought, “it is only women of rank who are capable of such kindness. Beautiful, noble, rich! how lucky Georges is!”
He received the thousand francs from Florentine and returned to bet on his hoaxer. Georges had just passed for the fourth time when Oscar sat down beside him. The other players saw with satisfaction the arrival of a new better; for all, with the instinct of gamblers, took the side of Giroudeau, the old officer of the Empire.
“Messieurs,” said Georges, “you’ll be punished for deserting me; I feel in the vein. Come, Oscar, we’ll make an end of them!”
Georges and his partner lost five games running. After losing the thousand francs Oscar was seized with the fury of play and insisted on taking the cards himself. By the result of a chance not at all uncommon with those who play for the first time, he won. But Georges bewildered him with advice; told him when to throw the cards, and even snatched them from his hand; so that this conflict of wills and intuitions injured his vein. By three o’clock in the morning, after various changes of fortune, and still drinking punch, Oscar came down to his last hundred francs. He rose with a heavy head, completely stupefied, took a few steps forward, and fell upon a sofa in the boudoir, his eyes closing in a leaden sleep.
“Mariette,” said Fanny Beaupre to Godeschal’s sister, who had come in about two o’clock, “do you dine here to-morrow? Camusot and Pere Cardot are coming, and we’ll have some fun.”
“What!” cried Florentine, “and my old fellow never told me!”
“He said he’d tell you to-morrow morning,” remarked Fanny Beaupre.