the same gaming party at the end of it, sitting in their shirt-sleeves
amidst the moths and insects that hovered around the candles.

"Ah, Monsieur," said Madame Bouvet's voice behind me, "you must excuse
them. They will come here and play, the young gentlemen, and I cannot
find it in my heart to drive them away, though sometimes I lose a
respectable lodger by their noise. But, after all, what would you?" she
added with a shrug; "I love them, the young men. But, Monsieur," she
cried, "you have had no supper! And where is Monsieur your companion?
Comme il est beau garcon!"

"He will be in presently," I answered with unwarranted assumption.

Madame shot at me the swiftest of glances and laughed, and I suspected
that she divined Nick's propensity for adventure. However, she said
nothing more than to bid me sit down at the table, and presently Zoey
came in with lights and strange, highly seasoned dishes, which I ate with
avidity, notwithstanding my uneasiness of mind, watching the while the
party at the far end of the room. There were five young gentlemen
playing a game I knew not, with intervals of intense silence, and
boisterous laughter and execrations while the cards were being shuffled
and the money rang on the board and glasses were being filled from a
stand at one side. Presently Madame Bouvet returned, and placing before
me a cup of wondrous coffee, advanced down the room towards them.

"Ah, Messieurs," she cried, "you will ruin my poor house."

The five rose and bowed with marked profundity. One of them, with a
puffy, weak, good-natured face, answered her briskly, and after a little
raillery she came back to me. I had a question not over discreet on my
tongue's tip.

"There are some fine residences going up here, Madame," I said.

"Since the fire, Monsieur, the dreadful fire of Good Friday a year ago.
You admire them?"

"I saw one," I answered with indifference, "with a wall and lions on the
gate-posts--"

"Mon Dieu, that is a house," exclaimed Madame; "it belongs to Monsieur de
Saint-Gre."

"To Monsieur de Saint-Gre!" I repeated.

She shot a look at me. She had bright little eyes like a bird's, that
shone in the candlelight.

"You know him, Monsieur?"

"I heard of him in St. Louis," I answered.

"You will meet him, no doubt," she continued. "He is a very fine
gentleman. His grandfather was Commissary-general of the colony, and he
himself is a cousin of the Marquis de Saint-Gre, who has two chateau