e day before. Every paper security which she had brought
with her--five percent bonds, internal loan scrip, and what not--she
had changed into cash. Also, I could not but marvel at the way in
which, for seven or eight hours at a stretch, she sat in that chair of
hers, almost never leaving the table. Again, Potapitch told me that
there were three occasions on which she really began to win; but that,
led on by false hopes, she was unable to tear herself away at the right
moment. Every gambler knows how a person may sit a day and a night at
cards without ever casting a glance to right or to left.

Meanwhile, that day some other very important events were passing in
our hotel. As early as eleven o'clock--that is to say, before the
Grandmother had quitted her rooms--the General and De Griers decided
upon their last stroke. In other words, on learning that the old lady
had changed her mind about departing, and was bent on setting out for
the Casino again, the whole of our gang (Polina only excepted)
proceeded en masse to her rooms, for the purpose of finally and frankly
treating with her. But the General, quaking and greatly apprehensive as
to his possible future, overdid things. After half an hour's prayers
and entreaties, coupled with a full confession of his debts, and even
of his passion for Mlle. Blanche (yes, he had quite lost his head), he
suddenly adopted a tone of menace, and started to rage at the old
lady--exclaiming that she was sullying the family honour, that she was
making a public scandal of herself, and that she was smirching the fair
name of Russia. The upshot was that the Grandmother turned him out of
the room with her stick (it was a real stick, too!). Later in the
morning he held several consultations with De Griers--the question
which occupied him being: Is it in any way possible to make use of the
police--to tell them that "this respected, but unfortunate, old lady
has gone out of her mind, and is squandering her last kopeck," or
something of the kind? In short, is it in any way possible to engineer
a species of supervision over, or of restraint upon, the old lady? De
Griers, however, shrugged his shoulders at this, and laughed in the
General's face, while the old warrior went on chattering volubly, and
running up and down his study. Finally De Griers waved his hand, and
disappeared from view; and by evening it became known that he had left
the hotel, after holding a very secret and important conference