!" observed Hermann.

"Perhaps they were marked cards!" said a third.

"I do not think so," replied Tomsky, gravely.

"What!" said Naroumoff, "you have a grandmother who knows how to hit
upon three lucky cards in succession, and you have never yet succeeded
in getting the secret of it out of her?"

"That's the deuce of it!" replied Tomsky, "she had four sons, one of
whom was my father; all four were determined gamblers, and yet not to
one of them did she ever reveal her secret, although it would not have
been a bad thing either for them or for me. But this is what I heard
from my uncle, Count Ivan Hitch, and he assured me, on his honor, that
it was true. The late Chaplitsky--the same who died in poverty after
having squandered millions--once lost, in his youth, about three
hundred thousand roubles--to Zoritch, if I remember rightly. He was in
despair. My grandmother, who was always very severe upon the
extravagance of young men, took pity, however, upon Chaplitsky. She
gave him three cards telling him to play them one after the other, at
the same time exacting from him a solemn promise that he would never
play at cards again as long as he lived. Chaplitsky then went to his
victorious opponent, and they began a fresh game. On the first card he
staked fifty thousand roubles, and won sonika; he doubled the stake,
and won again; till at last, by pursuing the same tactics, he won back
more than he had lost."

"But it is time to go to bed, it is a quarter to six already." And,
indeed, it was already beginning to dawn; the young men emptied their
glasses and then took leave of each other.

II

The old Countess A---- was seated in her dressing-room in front of her
looking-glass. Three waiting maids stood around her. One held a small
pot of rouge, another a box of hairpins, and the third a tall cap with
bright red ribbons. The Countess had no longer the slightest
pretensions to beauty, but she still preserved the habits of her
youth, dressed in strict accordance with the fashion of seventy years
before, and made as long and as careful a toilette as she would have
done sixty years previously. Near the window, at an embroidery frame,
sat a young lady, her ward.

"Good-morning, grandmamma," said a young officer, entering the room.
"_Bonjour_, Mademoiselle Lise. Grandmamma, I want to ask you
something."

"What is it, Paul?"

"I want you to let me introduce one of my friends to you, and to allow
me to bring him to the