Part 5

“It is singular,” he would reply, “that I never cheat except when I win the trick.”

Often the baron would forget where he was when the talk fell on the misfortunes of the royal house. Sometimes the evening ended in a manner that was quite unexpected to the players, who all counted on a certain gain. After a certain number of games and when the hour grew late, these excellent people would be forced to separate without either loss or gain, but not without emotion. On these sad evenings complaints were made of mouche itself; it was dull, it was long; the players accused their mouche as Negroes stone the moon in the water when the weather is bad. On one occasion, after an arrival of the Vicomte and Vicomtesse de Kergarouet, there was talk of whist and boston being games of more interest than mouche. The baroness, who was bored by mouche, encouraged the innovation, and all the company--but not without reluctance--adopted it. But it proved impossible to make them really understand the new games, which, on the departure of the Kergarouets, were voted head-splitters, algebraic problems, and intolerably difficult to play. All preferred their mouche, their dear, agreeable mouche. Mouche accordingly triumphed over modern games, as all ancient things have ever triumphed in Brittany over novelties.

While the rector was dealing the cards the baroness was asking the Chevalier du Halga the same questions which she had asked him the evening before about his health. The chevalier made it a point of honor to have new ailments. Inquiries might be alike, but the nautical hero had singular advantages in the way of replies. To-day it chanced that his ribs troubled him. But here’s a remarkable thing! never did the worthy chevalier complain of his wounds. The ills that were really the matter with him he expected, he knew them and he bore them; but his fancied ailments, his headaches, the gnawings in his stomach, the buzzing in his ears, and a thousand other fads and symptoms made him horribly uneasy; he posed as incurable,--and not without reason, for doctors up to the present time have found no remedy for diseases that don’t exist.

“Yesterday the trouble was, I believe, in your legs,” said the rector.

“It moves about,” replied the chevalier.

“Legs to ribs?” asked Mademoiselle Zephirine.

“Without stopping on the way?” said Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, smiling.

The chevalier bowed gravely, making a negative gesture which was not a little droll, and proved to an observer that in his youth the sailor had been witty and loving and beloved. Perhaps his fossil life at Guerande hid many memories. When he stood, solemnly planted on his two heron-legs in the sunshine on the mall, gazing at the sea or watching the gambols of his little dog, perhaps he was living again in some terrestrial paradise of a past that was rich in recollections.

“So the old Duc de Lenoncourt is dead,” said the baron, remembering the paragraph of the “Quotidienne,” where his wife had stopped reading. “Well, the first gentleman of the Bedchamber followed his master soon. I shall go next.”

“My dear, my dear!” said his wife, gently tapping the bony calloused hand of her husband.

“Let him say what he likes, sister,” said Zephirine; “as long as I am above ground he can’t be under it; I am the elder.”

A gay smile played on the old woman’s lips. Whenever the baron made reflections of that kind, the players and the visitors present looked at each other with emotion, distressed by the sadness of the king of Guerande; and after they had left the house they would say, as they walked home: “Monsieur du Guenic was sad to-night. Did you notice how he slept?” And the next day the whole town would talk of the matter. “The Baron du Guenic fails,” was a phrase that opened the conversation in many houses.

“How is Thisbe?” asked Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel of the chevalier, as soon as the cards were dealt.

“The poor little thing is like her master,” replied the chevalier; “she has some nervous trouble, she goes on three legs constantly. See, like this.”

In raising and crooking his arm to imitate the dog, the chevalier exposed his hand to his cunning neighbor, who wanted to see if he had Mistigris or the trump,--a first wile to which he succumbed.

“Oh!” said the baroness, “the end of Monsieur le cure’s nose is turning white; he has Mistigris.”

The pleasure of having Mistigris was so great to the rector--as it was to the other players--that the poor priest could not conceal it. In all human faces there is a spot where the secret emotions of the heart betray themselves; and these companions, accustomed for years to observe each other, had ended by finding out that spot on the rector’s face: when he had Mistigris the tip of his nose grew pale.

“You had company to-day,” said the chevalier to Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel.

“Yes, a cousin of my brother-in-law. He surprised me by announcing the marriage of the Comtesse de Kergarouet, a Demoiselle de Fontaine.”

“The daughter of ‘Grand-Jacques,’” cried the chevalier, who had lived with the admiral during his stay in Paris.

“The countess is his heir; she has married an old ambassador. My visitor told me the strangest things about our neighbor, Mademoiselle des Touches,--so strange that I can’t believe them. If they were true, Calyste would never be so constantly with her; he has too much good sense not to perceive such monstrosities--”

“Monstrosities?” said the baron, waked up by the word.

The baroness and the rector exchanged looks. The cards were dealt; Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel had Mistigris! Impossible to continue the conversation! But she was glad to hide her joy under the excitement caused by her last word.

“Your play, monsieur le baron,” she said, with an air of importance.

“My nephew is not one of those youths who like monstrosities,” remarked Zephirine, taking out her knitting-needle and scratching her head.

“Mistigris!” cried Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, making no reply to her friend.

The rector, who appeared to be well-informed in the matter of Calyste and Mademoiselle des Touches, did not enter the lists.

“What does she do that is so extraordinary, Mademoiselle des Touches?” asked the baron.