“This fellow is unbearable,” grumbled the count.  “There, are you satisfied?”

Koukou dealt and laid down a nine.

“My country and my honor!” raged Bielowsky.  “I had an eight.”

I had two kings, and so showed no ill temper.  Rosita took the cards out of my hands.

I watched Sydya at my right.  Her heavy black hair covered her shoulders.  She was really very beautiful, though a bit tipsy, as were all that fantastic company.  She looked at me, too, but with lowered eyelids, like a timid little wild animal.

“Oh,” I thought.  “She may well be afraid.  I am labelled ’No trespassing.’”

I touched her foot.  She drew it back in fright.

“Who wants cards?” Koukou demanded.

“Not I,” said the Hetman.

“Served,” said Sydya.

The cook drew a four.

“Nine,” he said.

“That card was meant for me,” cursed the count.  “And five, I had a five.  If only I had never promised his Majesty the Emperor Napoleon II never to cut fives!  There are times when it is hard, very hard.  And look at that beast of a Negro who plays Charlemagne.”

It was true.  Koukou swept in three-quarters of the chips, rose with dignity, and bowed to the company.

“Till to-morrow, gentlemen.”

“Get along, the whole pack of you,” howled the Hetman of Jitomir.  “Stay with me, Lieutenant de Saint-Avit.”

When we were alone, he poured out another huge cupfull of liqueur.  The ceiling of the room was lost in the gray smoke.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“After midnight.  But you are not going to leave me like this, my dear boy?  I am heavy-hearted.”

He wept bitterly.  The tail of his coat spread out on the divan behind him like the apple-green wings of a beetle.

“Isn’t Aguida a beauty?” he went on, still weeping.  “She makes me think of the Countess de Teruel, though she is a little darker.  You know the Countess de Teruel, Mercedes, who went in bathing nude at Biarritz, in front of the rock of the Virgin, one day when Prince Bismarck was standing on the foot-bridge.  You do not remember her?  Mercedes de Teruel.”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“I forget; you must have been too young.  Two, perhaps three years old.  A child.  Yes, a child.  Oh, my child, to have been of that generation and to be reduced to playing cards with savages ...  I must tell you....”

I stood up and pushed him off.

“Stay, stay,” he implored.  “I will tell you everything you want to know, how I came here, things I have never told anyone.  Stay, I must unbosom myself to a true friend.  I will tell you everything, I repeat.  I trust you.  You are a Frenchman, a gentleman.  I know that you will repeat nothing to her.”

“That I will repeat nothing to her?...  To whom?”

His voice stuck in his throat.  I thought I saw a shudder of fear pass over him.