“Tell me about this Count Zarka,” Galabin asked Von Tressen as they drove out to the forest together. “A wonderful fellow, is he not?”
“My dear man, I know little more than you. He has at least a wonderful house. Why are you so curious about the fellow?”
“Oh, I have heard of him in town,” the other answered carelessly. “He is reported to have become rich in an astonishingly short time, and no one can tell how.”
“He has the reputation of being a great gambler, and, what seldom follows, a successful one.”
“So I have heard.”
“And do you not believe it?”
Galabin gave a shrug. “I have no grounds on which to form an opinion. Yet I confess a man may well be sceptical. The gambler’s trade hardly pays so prodigiously—at least when he plays fair.”
They soon reached Von Tressen’s encampment, and after luncheon took their guns and strolled out.
“If it is all the same to you,” Galabin suggested, “suppose we shape our course in the direction of the Schloss Rozsnyo. I am rather curious to see the place.”