glanced up from his letter at
the man's sly, secret face. "But by the way have you ever heard of a
Monsieur Carigny?"

It was with something like the empty shell of a smile that the man
answered. "Everybody who knows M'sieur le Prince has heard of him,"
he said suavely.

"H'm!" the Prince grunted doubtfully, but he knew it was true.
Everybody had heard of Carigny and the revenge that was due to him;
impossible to refuse it to him now.

There are incidents in every man's life concerning which one can
never be sure that they are closed; in such a life as that of the
Prince de Monpavon there are many. The affair of Carigny, nearly
thirty years before, was one of them. While he stared again at the
letter, there rose before the Prince's eyes a vision of the evening
upon which they had parted in a great; over-ornate room with
card-tables in it, and a hanging chandelier of glass lusters that
shivered and made a tinkling bell-music whenever the door opened. It
had been a short game. It was a season of high stakes, and Carigny,
as a loser, had doubled and doubled till the last quick hand that
finished him. He was a slim youth, with a face smooth and pale. He
sat back in his chair, with his head hanging, staring with a look of
stupefaction at the cards that spelled his ruin, his finish, and his
exile. About him, some of the onlookers began to talk loudly to cover
his confusion, and their voices seemed to restore him. He blinked and
closed his mouth, and sat up. "Well," he said, then, "there's an end
of that!"

The Prince had answered with some conventional remark, the insincere
regrets of a winner for the loser's ill fortune, and had added
something about giving Carigny his revenge.

The other smiled a little and shook his head. "You are very good," he
had answered; "but at present that is impossible. Some day, perhaps."

He paused. He had risen from his chair, and, though the evening was
yet young, he had the look of a man wearied utterly. All the room was
watching him; it was known that he had lost all.

"Whenever you like," the Prince had replied.

Carigny nodded slowly. "It may be a long time," he said. "I can see
that it may be years. But, since you are so good, some day we will
play once more. It is agreed?"

"Certainly; it is agreed," said the Prince.

Carigny smiled once more. He had a queer, ironic little smile that
seemed to mock its own mirth. Then, nodding a good night here and
there, he had gone toward