Part 57

"Volontiers," said the Count.

Aristide took up the pack, dealt three cards to the Count, three cards to himself, two cards to the Count, two to himself and turned up the King of Hearts as the eleventh card.

"Monsieur," said he, "expose your hand and I will expose mine."

Both men threw their hands face uppermost on the table. Aristide's was full of trumps, the Count's of valueless cards.

He looked at his adversary with his roguish, triumphant smile. The Count looked at him darkly.

"The ordinary card player does not know how to deal like that," he said with sinister significance.

"But I am not ordinary in anything, my dear sir," laughed Aristide, in his large boastfulness. "If I were, do you think I would have agreed to your absurd proposal? Voyons, I only wanted to show you that in dealing cards I am your equal. Now, the letters----" The Count threw a small packet on the table. "You will permit me? I do not wish to read them. I verify only. Good," said he. "And the confession?"

"What you like," said the Count, coldly. Aristide scribbled a few lines that would have been devastating to the character of a Hyrcanean tiger and handed the paper and fountain pen to the Count.

"Will you sign?"

The Count glanced at the words and signed.

"Voilà," said Aristide, laying Mrs. Errington's cheque beside the documents. "Now let us play. The best of three games?"

"Good," said the Count. "But you will excuse me, monsieur, if I claim to play for ready money. The cheque will take five days to negotiate and if I lose, I shall evidently have to leave Aix to-morrow morning."

"That's reasonable," said Aristide.

He drew out his fat note-case and counted twenty-five one-thousand-franc notes on to the table. And then began the most exciting game of cards he had ever played. In the first place he was playing with another person's money for a fantastic stake, a girl's honour and happiness. Secondly he was pitted against a master of ecarté. And thirdly he knew that his adversary would cheat if he could and that his adversary suspected him of fraudulent designs. So as they played, each man craned his head forward and looked at the other man's fingers with fierce intensity.

Aristide lost the first game. He wiped the sweat from his forehead. In the second game, he won the vole in one hand. The third and final game began. They played slowly, carefully, with keen quick eyes. Their breathing came hard. The Count's lips parted beneath his uptwisted moustache showed his teeth like a cat's. Aristide lost sense of all outer things in the thrill of the encounter. They snarled the stereotyped phrases necessary for the conduct of the game. At last the points stood at four for Aristide and three for his adversary. It was Aristide's deal. Before turning up the eleventh card he paused for the fraction of a second. If it was the King, he had won. He flicked it neatly face upward. It was not the King.

"J'en donne."

"Non. Le roi."

The Count played and marked the King. Aristide had no trumps. The game was lost.

He sat back white, while the Count smiling gathered up the bank-notes.

"And now, Monsieur Pujol," said he impudently, "I am willing to sell you this rubbish for the cheque."

Aristide jumped to his feet. "Never!" he cried. Madness seized him. Regardless of the fact that he had nothing like another thousand pounds left wherewith to repay Mrs. Errington if he lost, he shouted: "I will play again for it. Not ecarté. One cut of the cards. Ace lowest."

"All right," said the Count.

"Begin, you."

Aristide watched his hand like cat, as he cut. He cut an eight. Aristide gave a little gasp of joy and cut quickly. He held up a Knave and laughed aloud. Then he stopped short as he saw the Count about to pounce on the documents and the cheque. He made a swift movement and grabbed them first, the other man's hand on his.

"Canaille!"

He dashed his free hand into the adventurer's face. The man staggered back. Aristide pocketed the precious papers. The Count scowled at him for an undecided second, and then bolted from the room.

"Whew!" said Aristide, sinking into his chair and wiping his face. "That was a narrow escape."

He looked at his watch. It was only ten o'clock. It had seemed as if his game with Lussigny had lasted for hours. He could not go to bed and stood confronted with anti-climax. After a while he went in search of Eugene Miller and having found him in solitary meditation on stained glass windows in the dim-lit grounds of the Villa, sat down by his side and for the rest of the evening poured his peculiar knowledge of Europe into the listening ear of the young man from Atlanta.