seen nothing, the count was obliged to take her
to them in spite of his obvious repugnance. And she was perfectly happy
at once; that truly was a curious sight, she said!

Amid lawns bordered by young horse-chestnut trees there was a round open
enclosure, where, forming a vast circle under the shadow of the tender
green leaves, a dense line of bookmakers was waiting for betting men,
as though they had been hucksters at a fair. In order to overtop and
command the surrounding crowd they had taken up positions on wooden
benches, and they were advertising their prices on the trees beside
them. They had an ever-vigilant glance, and they booked wagers in answer
to a single sign, a mere wink, so rapidly that certain curious onlookers
watched them openmouthed, without being able to understand it all.
Confusion reigned; prices were shouted, and any unexpected change in a
quotation was received with something like tumult. Occasionally scouts
entered the place at a run and redoubled the uproar as they stopped at
the entrance to the rotunda and, at the tops of their voices, announced
departures and arrivals. In this place, where the gambling fever
was pulsing in the sunshine, such announcements were sure to raise a
prolonged muttering sound.

"They ARE funny!" murmured Nana, greatly entertained.

"Their features look as if they had been put on the wrong way. Just you
see that big fellow there; I shouldn't care to meet him all alone in the
middle of a wood."

But Vandeuvres pointed her out a bookmaker, once a shopman in a fancy
repository, who had made three million francs in two years. He was
slight of build, delicate and fair, and people all round him treated him
with great respect. They smiled when they addressed him, while others
took up positions close by in order to catch a glimpse of him.

They were at length leaving the ring when Vandeuvres nodded slightly to
another bookmaker, who thereupon ventured to call him. It was one of his
former coachmen, an enormous fellow with the shoulders of an ox and a
high color. Now that he was trying his fortunes at race meetings on the
strength of some mysteriously obtained capital, the count was doing his
utmost to push him, confiding to him his secret bets and treating him on
all occasions as a servant to whom one shows one's true character. Yet
despite this protection, the man had in rapid succession lost very heavy
sums, and today he, too, was playing his last card. There was blood