“Not much fear of that,” she said chaffingly. “But it’s four o’clock, so we had better retire.”
He took her hand and wished her bon soir, she afterwards leaving with Nanette, while the men also sought their respective rooms.
It was already daylight, and Hugh did not attempt to sleep, but, flinging himself upon a couch, indulged in calm reflections. His loss did not trouble him, for he could afford it, but the subject of his contemplation was a conversation he intended having on the morrow with the woman who had fascinated him.
Had he witnessed the scene at that moment in Valérie’s sitting-room, the scales would have fallen from his eyes. On n’est jamais si heureux, ni si malheureux qu’on se l’imagine.
When the two men left him, they went straight to her.
“Well, how did I manage it?” asked Pierre, with a crafty twinkle in his eye, when the door had closed.
“Capitally!” she cried, with almost childish glee. “He doesn’t suspect in the least.”
Both men disgorged their winnings, and placed the money upon the table in the centre of the room.
It amounted to nearly eight thousand francs.
Selecting two four-hundred franc notes, she gave one to each of them as their share of the spoil, and, sweeping the remainder into a bag, locked it up.