Harry nods. He takes no part in the general conversation. He scarcely moves his eyes from the spider-web between the Imperial portraits. A fly is caught in it and is making desperate efforts to escape. The bloated spider goes on spinning its web, and pretends not to see it.
"Have a game of bézique? You used to be so passionately fond of bézique," Harry hears some one say. He looks around. It is Count Wodin, the husband of the pretty, coquettish horsewoman, who is speaking. Lato turns to Harry.
"Can you wait for me long enough?" he asks, and his voice sounds uncertain and confused. "One short game."
Harry shrugs his shoulders, as if to say, "As you please." Then, standing with one knee on a chair in the attitude of a man who is about to take leave and does not think it worth while to sit down again, he looks on at the game.
The first game ends, then another, and another, and Treurenberg makes no move to lay the cards aside. His face has changed: the languid smile has gone, his eyes are eager, watchful, and his face is a perfectly expressionless mask. His is the typical look of the well-bred gambler who knows how to conceal his agitation.
"Cent d'as--double bézique!" Thus it goes on to the accompaniment of the rustle of the cards, the rattle of the counters, and from the adjoining room the crack of the ivory balls against one another as they roll over the green cloth.
"Well, Lato, are you coming?" asks Harry, growing impatient.
"Only two games more. Can you not wait half an hour longer?" asks Treurenberg.
"To speak frankly, I am not much interested in listening to your 'Two hundred and fifty,'--'five hundred,'--and so on."
"Naturally," says Lato, with his embarrassed smile. He moves as if to rise. Wodin hands him the cards to cut. "Go without me. I will not keep you any longer. Some one here will lend me a horse by and by. Shall we see you to-morrow at Dobrotschau?" With which Treurenberg arranges his twelve cards, and Harry nods and departs.