“How?” she inquired expectantly.
“Rook him at cards.”
“Ma foi! An excellent suggestion!” she ejaculated enthusiastically.
“You could work it easily enough. Victor and he will be here to-morrow, therefore I should suggest that I start to-night for Spa. You three can follow after a day or two. There you can meet me, introduce me as a friend, and then I can proceed to pluck him of a few hundreds. I’m quicker with the paste-boards than Victor.”
“He’s a good player, I believe.”
“That doesn’t matter. If you can persuade him to play, I’ll soon have some money.”
“My dear Pierre,” Valérie said, laughing, “he will do anything for me. I’m sure he would lose ten thousand francs without a murmur, if he thought he was pleasing me by tempting fortune. He does think such a lot of me that—that I sometimes feel inclined to love him genuinely. I’m almost sick of the base part I am playing.”
Her face assumed a serious look, and she sighed. Pierre regarded her in astonishment.
“What? Giving way to sentiment, now we have gone so far!” he exclaimed. “It’s all nonsense. To think of throwing up the game now would be sheer folly. Such a chance as the present does not always fall to our lot; therefore, it is only right, in our own interests, that we should take advantage of it. If you really love him—well, it will, perhaps, add to the realism of the incident, and won’t do much harm to either of you. But then, you’ve loved others before—in fact, you loved me once—yet now I’m nothing in your eyes beyond a willing assistant in your various little affairs. No,” he continued bitterly, “you have no real affection for any one. I am able to speak from personal experience. Yet you would bar our way and wreck our chance of making our fortunes, because you fancy you’ve fallen in love with this ass of an Englishman? You must be mad to think of such a thing.”
“You misunderstand me,” she said, her beauty heightened by the flush of anger that suffused her face. “Although I have neither intention nor desire to depart from the plan already laid down, I regret that it will be necessary to resort to the extreme measure in order to accomplish our purpose. That is all. As for your suggestion, it shall be carried out. You will go to Spa to-night, if you think there is no danger in the visit.”