e right thing, _mon cher_," remarked Monpavon, appearing
suddenly at his side. "Mora is an epicurean, brought up in the ideas of
how do you say--you know--what is it you call it? Eighteenth century.
Very bad for the masses, if a man in his position--ps--ps--ps--Ah, he is
the master who sets us all an example--ps--ps--irreproachable manners!"

"Then, it is all over?" said Jansoulet, overwhelmed. "There is no longer
any hope?"

Monpavon signed to him to listen. A carriage rolled heavily along the
avenue on the quay. The visitors' bell rang sharply several times in
succession. The marquis counted aloud: "One, two, three, four." At the
fifth he rose:

"No more hope now. Here comes the other," said he, alluding to the
Parisian superstition that a visit from the sovereign was always fatal
to dying persons. From every side the lackeys hastened up, opened the
doors wide, ranged themselves in line, while the porter, his hat cocked
forward and his staff resounding on the marble floor, announced the
passage of two august shadows, of whom Jansoulet only caught a confused
glimpse behind the liveried domestics, but whom he saw beyond a long
perspective of open doors climbing the great staircase, preceded by
a footman bearing a candelabrum. The woman ascended, erect and proud,
enveloped in a black Spanish mantilla; the man supported himself by the
baluster, slower in his movements and tired, the collar of his light
overcoat turned up above a rather bent back, which was shaken by a
convulsive sob.

"Let us be off, Nabob. Nothing more to be done here," said the old beau,
taking Jansoulet by the arm and drawing him outside. He paused on the
threshold, with raised hand, making a little gesture of farewell in the
direction of the man who lay dying upstairs. "Good-bye old fellow!" The
gesture and the tone were polite, irreproachable, but the voice trembled
a little.

The club in the Rue Royale, which was famous for its gambling parties,
rarely saw one so desperate as the gaming of that night. It commenced at
eleven o'clock and was still going on at five in the morning. Enormous
sums were scattered over the green cloth, changing hands, moved now to
one side, now to the other, heaped up, distributed, regained. Fortunes
were engulfed in this monster play, at the end of which the Nabob, who
had started it to forget his terrors in the hazards of chance, after
singular alternations and runs of luck enough to turn the hair of a
beginner whit