!"

His face was purple, and the veins on his forehead stood out like
whipcords, but not so much from anger as from the constraint he imposed
upon himself by speaking in a whisper. He drew a long breath, and then
in a calmer tone, resumed: "But you must make haste and succeed, M.
Ferailleur, if you don't want the young girl you love to be deprived
of her rightful heritage. You do not know into what unworthy hands the
Chalusse property is about to fall." He was on the point of telling
Pascal the story of Madame d'Argeles and M. Wilkie, when he was
interrupted by the sound of a lively controversy in the hall.

"Who's taking such liberty in my house?" the baron began. But the
next instant he heard some one fling open the door of the large room
adjoining, and then a coarse, guttural voice called out: "What! he isn't
here! This is too much!"

The baron made an angry gesture. "That's Kami-Bey," said he, "the Turk
whom I am playing that great game of cards with. The devil take him! He
will be sure to force his way in here--so we may as well join him, M.
Ferailleur."

On reentering the adjoining apartment Pascal beheld a very corpulent
man, with a very red face, a straggling beard, a flat nose, small,
beadlike eyes, and sensual lips. He was clad in a black frock-coat,
buttoned tight to the throat, and he wore a fez. This costume gave him
the appearance of a chunky bottle, sealed with red wax. Such, indeed,
was Kami-Bey, a specimen of those semi-barbarians, loaded with gold who
are not attracted to Paris by its splendors and glories, but rather by
its corruption--people who come there persuaded that money will purchase
anything and everything, and who often return home with the same
conviction. Kami was no doubt more impudent, more cynical and more
arrogant than others of his class. As he was more wealthy, he had more
followers; he had been more toadied and flattered, and victimized to
a greater extent by the host of female intriguers, who look upon every
foreigner as their rightful prey.

He spoke French passably well, but with an abominable accent. "Here
you are at last!" he exclaimed, as the baron entered the room. "I was
becoming very anxious."

"About what, prince?"

Why Kami-Bey was called prince no one knew, not even the man himself.
Perhaps it was because the lackey who opened his carriage door on his
arrival at the Grand Hotel had addressed him by that title.

"About what!" he repeated. "You have won more than