Part 54

The Count looked rather black when he found Aristide Pujol in Miller's sitting room. He could not, however, refuse him admittance to the game. The three sat down, Aristide by Miller's side, so that he could overlook the hand and, by pointing, indicate the cards that it was advisable to play. The game began. Fortune favored Mr. Eugene Miller. The Count's brow grew blacker.

"You are bringing your own luck to our friend, Monsieur Pujol," said he, dealing the cards.

"He needs it," said Aristide.

"Le roi," said the Count, turning up the king.

The Count won the vole, or all five tricks, and swept the stakes towards him. Then, fortune quickly and firmly deserted Mr. Miller. The Count besides being an amazingly fine player, held amazingly fine hands. The pile of folded notes in front of him rose higher and higher. Aristide tugged at his beard in agitation. Suddenly, as the Count dealt a king as trump card, he sprang to his feet knocking over the chair behind him.

"You cheat, monsieur. You cheat!"

"Monsieur!" cried the outraged dealer.

"What has he done?"

"He has been palming kings and neutralizing the cut. I've been watching. Now I catch him," cried Aristide in great excitement. "Ah, sale voleur! Maintenant je vous tiens!"

"Monsieur," said the Comte de Lussigny with dignity, stuffing his winnings into his jacket pocket. "You insult me. It is an infamy. Two of my friends will call upon you."

"And Monsieur Miller and I will kick them over Mont Revard."

"You cannot treat gens d'honneur in such a way, monsieur." He turned to Miller, and said haughtily in his imperfect English, "Did you see the cheat, you?"

"I can't say that I did," replied the young man. "On the other hand that torch-light procession of kings doesn't seem exactly natural."

"But you did not see anything! Bon!"

"But I saw. Isn't that enough, hein?" shouted Aristide brandishing his fingers in the Count's face. "You come here and think there's nothing easier than to cheat young foreigners who don't know the rules of ecarté. You come here and think you can carry off rich young English misses. Ah, sale escroc! You never thought you would have to reckon with Aristide Pujol. You call yourself the Comte de Lussigny. Bah! I know you----" he didn't, but that doesn't matter--"your dossier is in the hands of the prefect of Police. I am going to get that dossier. Monsieur Lepine is my intimate friend. Every autumn we shoot together. Aha! You send me your two galley-birds and see what I do to them."

The Comte de Lussigny twirled the tips of his moustache almost to his forehead and caught up his hat.

"My friends shall be officers in the uniform of the French Army," he said, by the door.

"And mine shall be two gendarmes," retorted Aristide. "Nom de Dieu!" he cried, after the other had left the room. "We let him take the money!"

"That's of no consequence. He didn't get away with much anyway," said young Miller. "But he would have if you hadn't been here. If ever I can do you a return service, just ask."

Aristide went out to look for the Erringtons. But they were not to be found. It was only late in the afternoon that he met Mrs. Errington in the hall of the hotel. He dragged her into a corner and in his impulsive fashion told her everything. She listened white faced, in great distress.

"My daughter's engaged to him. I've only just learned," she faltered.

"Engaged? Sacrebleu! Ah, le goujat!"--for the second he was desperately, furiously, jealously in love with Betty Errington. "Ah, le sale type! Voyons! This engagement must be broken off. At once! You are her mother."

"She will hear of nothing against him."

"You will tell her this. It will be a blow; but----"

Mrs. Errington twisted a handkerchief between helpless fingers. "Betty is infatuated. She won't believe it." She regarded him piteously. "Oh, Monsieur Pujol, what can I do? You see she has an independent fortune and is over twenty-one. I am powerless."

"I will meet his two friends," exclaimed Aristide magnificently--"and I will kill him. Voilà!"

"Oh, a duel? No! How awful!" cried the mild lady horror-stricken.

He thrust his cane dramatically through a sheet of a newspaper, which he had caught up from a table. "I will run him through the body like that"--Aristide had never handled a foil in his life--"and when he is dead, your beautiful daughter will thank me for having saved her from such an execrable fellow."