The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol Part 31

She turned an anxious face. "Monsieur Pujol, is there anything against the Count?"

Aristide executed the large and expressive shrug of the Southerner.

"I play high at the tables for my amus.e.m.e.nt--I know the princ.i.p.al players, people of high standing. Among them Monsieur de Lussigny's reputation is not spotless."

"You alarm me very much," said Mrs. Errington, troubled.

"I only put you on your guard," said he.

The others who had risen and followed, caught them up. At the entrance to the hotel the ladies left the men elaborately saluting. The latter, alone, looked at each other.

"Monsieur."

"Monsieur."

Each man raised his hat, turned on his heel and went his way. Aristide betook himself to the cafe on the Place Carnot on the side of the square facing the white Etabliss.e.m.e.nt des Bains, with a stern sense of having done his duty. It was monstrous that this English damask rose should fall a prey to so detestable a person as the Comte de Lussigny. He suspected him of disgraceful things. If only he had proof. Fortune, ever favoring him, stood at his elbow. She guided him straight to a table in the front row of the terrace where sat a black-haired, hard-featured though comely youth deep in thought, in front of an untouched gla.s.s of beer. At Aristide's approach he raised his head, smiled, nodded and said: "Good morning, sir. Will you join me?"

Aristide graciously accepted the invitation and sat down. The young man was another hotel acquaintance, one Eugene Miller of Atlanta, Georgia, a curious compound of shrewdness and simplicity, to whom Aristide had taken a fancy. He was twenty-eight and ran a colossal boot-factory in partners.h.i.+p with another youth and had a consuming pa.s.sion for stained-gla.s.s windows. From books he knew every square foot of old stained-gla.s.s in Europe. But he had crossed the Atlantic for the first time only six weeks before, and having indulged his craving immoderately, had rested for a span at Aix-les-Bains to recover from aesthetic indigestion. He had found these amenities agreeable to his ingenuous age. He had also, quite recently, come across the Comte de Lussigny. Hence the depth of thought in which Aristide discovered him. Now, the fact that North is North and South is South and that never these twain shall meet is a proposition all too little considered. One of these days when I can retire from the dull but exacting avocation of tea-broking in the City, I think I shall write a newspaper article on the subject. Anyhow, I hold the theory that the Northerners of all nations have a common characteristic and the Southerners of all nations have a common characteristic, and that it is this common characteristic in each case that makes North seek and understand North and South seek and understand South. I will not go further into the general proposition; but as a particular instance I will state that the American of the South and the Frenchman of the South found themselves in essential sympathy. Eugene Miller had the unfearing frankness of Aristide Pujol.

"I used rather to look down upon Europe as a place where people knew nothing at all," said he. "We're sort of trained to think it's an extinct volcano, but it isn't. It's alive. My G.o.d! It's alive. It's h.e.l.l in the shape of a Limburger cheese. I wish the whole population of Atlanta, Georgia, would come over and just see. There's a lot to be learned. I thought I knew how to take care of myself, but this tortoise-sh.e.l.l-eyed Count taught me last night that I couldn't. He cleaned me out of twenty-five hundred dollars----"

"How?" asked Aristide, sharply.

"Ecarte."

Aristide brought his hand down with a bang on the table and uttered anathemas in French and Provencal entirely unintelligible to Eugene Miller; but the youth knew by instinct that they were useful, soul-destroying curses and he felt comforted.

"Ecarte! You played ecarte with Lussigny? But my dear young friend, do you know anything of ecarte?"

"Of course," said Miller. "I used to play it as a child with my sisters."

"Do you know the _jeux de regle_?"

"The what?"

"The formal laws of the game--the rules of discards----"

"Never heard of them," said Eugene Miller.

"But they are as absolute as the Code Napoleon," cried Aristide. "You can't play without knowing them. You might as well play chess without knowing the moves."

"Can't help it," said the young man.

"Well, don't play ecarte any more."

"I must," said Miller.

"_Comment?_"

"I must. I've fixed it up to get my revenge this afternoon--in my sitting room at the hotel."

"But it's imbecile!"

The sweep of Aristide's arm produced prismatic chaos among a tray-full of drinks which the waiter was bringing to the family party at the next table. "It's imbecile," he cried, as soon as order was apologetically and pecuniarily restored. "You are a little mutton going to have its wool taken off."

"I've fixed it up," said Miller. "I've never gone back on an engagement yet in my own country and I'm not going to begin this side."

Aristide argued. He argued during the mechanical absorption of four gla.s.ses of _vermouth-ca.s.sis_--after which prodigious quant.i.ty of black currant syrup he rose and took the Gadarene youth to Nikola's where he continued the argument during dejeuner. Eugene Miller's sole concession was that Aristide should be present at the encounter and, backing his hand, should have the power (given by the rules of the French game) to guide his play. Aristide agreed and crammed his young friend with the _jeux de regle_ and _pate de foie gras_.

The Count looked rather black when he found Aristide Pujol in Miller's sitting room. He could not, however, refuse him admittance to the game.

The three sat down, Aristide by Miller's side, so that he could overlook the hand and, by pointing, indicate the cards that it was advisable to play. The game began. Fortune favored Mr. Eugene Miller. The Count's brow grew blacker.

"You are bringing your own luck to our friend, Monsieur Pujol," said he, dealing the cards.

"He needs it," said Aristide.

"_Le roi_," said the Count, turning up the king.

The Count won the vole, or all five tricks, and swept the stakes towards him. Then, fortune quickly and firmly deserted Mr. Miller. The Count besides being an amazingly fine player, held amazingly fine hands. The pile of folded notes in front of him rose higher and higher. Aristide tugged at his beard in agitation. Suddenly, as the Count dealt a king as trump card, he sprang to his feet knocking over the chair behind him.

"You cheat, monsieur. You cheat!"

"Monsieur!" cried the outraged dealer.

"What has he done?"

"He has been palming kings and neutralizing the cut. I've been watching.

Now I catch him," cried Aristide in great excitement. "_Ah, sale voleur!

Maintenant je vous tiens!_"

"Monsieur," said the Comte de Lussigny with dignity, stuffing his winnings into his jacket pocket. "You insult me. It is an infamy. Two of my friends will call upon you."

"And Monsieur Miller and I will kick them over Mont Revard."

"You cannot treat _gens d'honneur_ in such a way, monsieur." He turned to Miller, and said haughtily in his imperfect English, "Did you see the cheat, you?"

"I can't say that I did," replied the young man. "On the other hand that torch-light procession of kings doesn't seem exactly natural."

"But you did not see anything! _Bon!_"

"But I saw. Isn't that enough, _hein_?" shouted Aristide brandis.h.i.+ng his fingers in the Count's face. "You come here and think there's nothing easier than to cheat young foreigners who don't know the rules of ecarte. You come here and think you can carry off rich young English misses. Ah, _sale escroc!_ You never thought you would have to reckon with Aristide Pujol. You call yourself the Comte de Lussigny. Bah! I know you----" he didn't, but that doesn't matter--"your _dossier_ is in the hands of the prefect of Police. I am going to get that _dossier_.

Monsieur Lepine is my intimate friend. Every autumn we shoot together.

Aha! You send me your two galley-birds and see what I do to them."

The Comte de Lussigny twirled the tips of his moustache almost to his forehead and caught up his hat.

"My friends shall be officers in the uniform of the French Army," he said, by the door.