When Tomsky asked permission of his grandmother, the Countess, to present one of his friends to her, the young girl’s heart beat violently.  But hearing that Naroumoff was not an Engineer, she regretted that by her thoughtless question, she had betrayed her secret to the volatile Tomsky.

Hermann was the son of a German who had become a naturalized Russian, and from whom he had inherited a small capital.  Being firmly convinced of the necessity of preserving his independence, Hermann did not touch his private income, but lived on his pay, without allowing himself the slightest luxury.  Moreover, he was reserved and ambitious, and his companions rarely had an opportunity of making merry at the expense of his extreme parsimony.  He had strong passions and an ardent imagination, but his firmness of disposition preserved him from the ordinary errors of young men.  Thus, though a gamester at heart, he never touched a card, for he considered his position did not allow him—­as he said—­“to risk the necessary in the hope of winning the superfluous,” yet he would sit for nights together at the card table and follow with feverish anxiety the different turns of the game.

The story of the three cards had produced a powerful impression upon his imagination, and all night long he could think of nothing else.  “If,” he thought to himself the following evening, as he walked along the streets of St. Petersburg, “if the old Countess would not reveal her secret to me!  If she would only tell me the names of the three winning cards.  Why should I not try my fortune?  I must get introduced to her and win her favor—­become her lover....  But all that will take time, and she is eighty-seven years old.  She might be dead in a week, in a couple of days even.  But the story itself?  Can it really be true?  No!  Economy, temperance, and industry; those are my three winning cards; by means of them I shall be able to double my capital—­increase it sevenfold, and procure for myself ease and independence.”

Musing in this manner, he walked on until he found himself in one of the principal streets of St. Petersburg, in front of a house of antiquated architecture.  The street was blocked with equipages; carriages one after the other drew up in front of the brilliantly illuminated doorway.  At one moment there stepped out onto the pavement the well-shaped little foot of some young beauty, at another the heavy boot of a cavalry officer, and then the silk stockings and shoes of a member of the diplomatic world.  Fur and cloaks passed in rapid succession before the gigantic porter at the entrance.  Hermann stopped.  “Whose house is this?” he asked of the watchman at the corner.

“The Countess A——­’s,” replied the watchman.