Part 28 (2/2)

”I think, after all, I'd better have remained a punter than aspired to be a banker.”

”Never mind,” said Valerie encouragingly, as she gathered up her winnings, ”your good luck will return to-morrow.”

”I shall ruin myself if I go on long at this rate,” he replied. ”I shall have to send to London to-morrow for a fresh supply, otherwise I shall be hard up.”

”Not much fear of that,” she said chaffingly. ”But it's four o'clock, so we had better retire.”

He took her hand and wished her _bon soir_, she afterwards leaving with Nanette, while the men also sought their respective rooms.

It was already daylight, and Hugh did not attempt to sleep, but, flinging himself upon a couch, indulged in calm reflections. His loss did not trouble him, for he could afford it, but the subject of his contemplation was a conversation he intended having on the morrow with the woman who had fascinated him.

Had he witnessed the scene at that moment in Valerie's sitting-room, the scales would have fallen from his eyes. _On n'est jamais si heureux, ni si malheureux qu'on se l'imagine_.

When the two men left him, they went straight to her.

”Well, how did I manage it?” asked Pierre, with a crafty twinkle in his eye, when the door had closed.

”Capitally!” she cried, with almost childish glee. ”He doesn't suspect in the least.”

Both men disgorged their winnings, and placed the money upon the table in the centre of the room.

It amounted to nearly eight thousand francs.

Selecting two four-hundred franc notes, she gave one to each of them as their share of the spoil, and, sweeping the remainder into a bag, locked it up.

”Pierre's idea was excellent,” remarked Victor. ”We wanted the money badly, and although the sum isn't very large, the manoeuvre is one that might be worth repeating, eh?”

”That's just it. The thing is so simple. I kept the winning hand concealed until the stake was large enough, then I played it.”

”You're even smarter with the cards than I antic.i.p.ated. Pere Amiot didn't teach you to manipulate for nothing; you've been our salvation,”

observed Valerie.

”For your sake, mademoiselle, no task is too difficult,” he said, with mock gallantry, bowing.

”A little of that sort of talk is quite sufficient,” she answered, with a laugh.

The subject dropped, and for a few minutes they held a serious consultation, after which the two men wished her good-night, and departed stealthily along the corridor.

Nanette entered, and her mistress sank into a chair, reflecting silently, while she deftly arranged her hair for the night.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

A STRANGE COMPACT.

The morning was oppressive and sultry. Valerie, coming from her room, thrust open the window of the sitting-room, with an impatient exclamation, and sat with her elbows upon the window ledge inhaling what little air there was to be had. She lolled there, looking down upon the quaint street in an abstracted mood, for the men had gone for their matutinal walk after the gla.s.s or two of water at the Pouhon.

She was glad to be alone. To herself sometimes she appeared extraordinary and of an exceptional disposition, of the temperament of animals that are rendered faithful by brutal treatment. There were days on which she no longer knew herself, and on which she asked herself whether she were really the same woman. In reviewing all the baseness to which she had been bent, she could not believe that it was she who had undergone it all. She strove to imagine a degree of degradation to which her nature would refuse to descend.

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