‘Yet I say that they are marked!’ he replied hotly, in his queer foreign jargon. ‘In my last hand I had nothing. You doubled the stakes. Bah, sir, you knew! You have swindled me!’
‘Monsieur is easy to swindle—when he plays with a mirror behind him,’ I answered tartly.
At that there was a great roar of laughter, which might have been heard in the street, and which brought to the table everyone in the eating-house whom his voice had not already attracted. But I did not relax my face. I waited until all was quiet again, and then waving aside two or three who stood between us and the entrance, I pointed gravely to the door.
‘There is a little space behind the church of St Jacques, M. l’Etranger,’ I said, putting on my hat and taking my cloak on my arm. ‘Doubtless you will accompany me thither?’
He snatched up his hat, his face burning with shame and rage.
‘With pleasure!’ he blurted out. ‘To the devil, if you like!’
I thought the matter arranged, when the Marquis laid his hand on the young fellow’s arm and checked him.
‘This must not be,’ he said, turning from him to me with his grand, fine-gentleman’s air. ‘You know me, M. de Berault. This matter has gone far enough.’
‘Too far! M. de Pombal,’ I answered bitterly. ‘Still, if you wish to take your friend’s place, I shall raise no objection.’
‘Chut, man!’ he retorted, shrugging his shoulders negligently. ‘I know you, and I do not fight with men of your stamp. Nor need this gentleman.’