CHAPTER I
AT ZATON\'S
\'Marked cards!\'
There were a score round us when the fool, little knowing the man
with whom he had to deal, and as little how to lose like a gentleman, flung
the words in my teeth. He thought, I\'ll be sworn, that I should storm and
swear and ruffle it like any common cock of the hackle. But that was
never Gil de Berault\'s way. For a few seconds after he had spoken I did
not even look at him. I passed my eye instead--smiling, BIEN
ENTENDU--round the ring of waiting faces, saw that there was no one
except De Pombal I had cause to fear; and then at last I rose and looked at
the fool with the grim face I have known impose on older and wiser men.
\'Marked cards, M. l\'Anglais?\' I said, with a chilling sneer. \'They are
used, I am told, to trap players--not unbirched schoolboys.\'
\'Yet I say that they are marked!\' he replied hotly, in his queer foreign
jargon. \'In my last hand I had nothing. You doubled the stakes. Bah,
sir, you knew! You have swindled me!\'
\'Monsieur is easy to swindle--when he plays with a mirror behind him,\'
I answered tartly.
At that there was a great roar of laughter, which might have been heard
in the street, and which brought to the table everyone in the eating-house
whom his voice had not already attracted. But I did not relax my face.
I waited until all was quiet again, and then waving aside two or three who
stood between us and the entrance, I pointed gravely to the door.
\'There is a little space behind the church of St Jacques, M. l\'Etranger,\' I
said, putting on my hat and taking my cloak on my arm. \'Doubtless you
will accompany me thither?\'
He snatched up his hat, his face burning with shame and rage.
\'With pleasure!\' he blurted out. \'To the devil, if you like!\'
I thought the matter arranged, when the Marquis laid his hand on the
young fellow\'s arm and checked him.