al smile.

"Well, mon cher," cried the Chevalier, "I hope that you recovered the
favour of Fortune before you quitted her green table last night. When I
left she seemed very cross with you."

"And so continued to the end," answered Alain, with well-simulated
gaiety--much too bon gentilhomme to betray rage or anguish for pecuniary
loss.

"After all," said de Finisterre, lighting his cigarette, "the uncertain
goddess could not do you much harm; the stakes were small, and your
adversary, the Prince, never goes double or quits."

"Nor I either. 'Small,' however, is a word of relative import; the
stakes might be small to you, to me large. Entre nous, cher ami, I am
at the end of my purse, and I have only this consolation-I am cured of
play: not that I leave the complaint, the complaint leaves me; it can no
more feed on me than a fever can feed on a skeleton."

"Are you serious?"

"As serious as a mourner who has just buried his all."

"His all? Tut, with such an estate as Rochebriant!"

For the first time in that talk Alain's countenance became overcast.

"And how long will Rochebriant be mine? You know that I hold it at the
mercy of the mortgagee, whose interest has not been paid, and who could
if, he so pleased, issue notice, take proceedings--that--"

"Peste!" interrupted de Finisterre; "Louvier take proceedings! Louvier,
the best fellow in the world! But don't I see his handwriting on that
envelope? No doubt an invitation to dinner."

Alain took up the letter thus singled forth from a miscellany of
epistles, some in female handwritings, unsealed but ingeniously
twisted into Gordian knots--some also in female handwritings, carefully
sealed--others in ill-looking envelopes, addressed in bold, legible,
clerk-like caligraphy. Taken altogether, these epistles had a character
in common; they betokened the correspondence of a viveur, regarded from
the female side as young, handsome, well-born--on the male side, as a
viveur who had forgotten to pay his hosier and tailor.

Louvier wrote a small, not very intelligible, but very masculine hand,
as most men who think cautiously and act promptly do write. The letter
ran thus:

"Cher petit Marquis" (at that commencement Alain haughtily raised his
head and bit his lips).

"CHER PETIT MARQUIS,--It is an age since I have seen you. No
doubt my humble soirees are too dull for a beau seigueur so
courted. I forgive you. Would I were a beau seigneur at your age!