It was now Abellino's turn to keep the bank.
He began to lose.
Fennimore was sitting at the other end of the table, and he won continually; he doubled, trebled, quadrupled his stakes; he doubled them again, and still he won. Abellino began to lose his sang-froid and get flurried. He did not keep a proper watch on the stakes, and often swept in the stakes of the winners and paid the losers. His mind was elsewhere.
And now Fennimore again won four times as much as he had staked.
He could not restrain a laugh of triumph.
"Ha! ha! Monsieur de Kárpáthy, the proverb ill applies to you also: you are unlucky at cards, and unlucky in love as well. Poor Abellino! Heaven help you! You owe me a thousand ducats."
"I?" asked Abellino, irritably.
"Yes, you. Did you not bet me that you would seduce Fanny? And how splendidly it has turned out! Abellino flies from the embraces of his uncle's wife like a new Joseph fleeing from a new Madame Potiphar! You had much better take care lest the lady takes a fancy to some other nice young man. Ah, ah, ah! Abellino as the protector of virtue! Abellino as a garde des dames! Why, it's sublime! You might make a capital farce out of it."
Every word was as venom to his ears, every word cut him to the quick, cut him to the very marrow. Abellino turned pale and shivered with rage. What Fennimore said was true. He must needs tremble now at the thought that this