“Give me your hand, dear chevalier,” said Matta, “and forgive me for having doubted you.  How wonderful you are!  It had never occurred to me before that a player at the card-table should be backed by a detachment of infantry outside.”

The supper passed most agreeably, Matta drinking more than usual to stifle some remaining scruples.  The chevalier, brilliant as ever, kept his guest in continual merriment, whom he was soon to make so serious; and Cameran’s ardour was divided between the good cheer on the table and the play that was to follow.  Meanwhile, the trusty Laplace drew up his men in the darkness.

De Grammont, calling to mind the many deceits that had at various times been practised upon him, steeled his heart against sentimental weakness; and Matta, unwilling spectator of violated hospitality, went to sleep in an easy-chair.  Play began for small sums, but rose to higher stakes; and presently Matta was awakened by the loud indignation of their unfortunate guest to find the cards flying through the air.

“Play no more, my poor count!” cried Matta, laughing at his transports of rage.  “Don’t hope for a change of luck!”

Cameran insisted, however, and Matta was again aroused by a more furious storm.  “Stop playing!” he shouted.  “Don’t I tell you it is impossible that you should win?  We are cheating you!”

The Chevalier de Grammont, all the more annoyed at this ill-placed jest because it had a certain appearance of truth, rebuked Matta for his rude gaiety; but the losing player, reassured by Matta’s frankness, refused to be offended by him, and turned again to deal the cards.  Cameran lost fifteen hundred pistoles and paid them the next morning.  Matta, severely reprimanded for his dangerous impertinence, confessed that a brush between the opposing forces outside would have been a diverting conclusion to the evening.

II.—­A Complete Education

“Tell me the story of your education,” said Matta one evening, as the intimacy of the two friends advanced.  “The most trifling particulars of a life like yours must be well worth knowing.  But don’t begin with an enumeration of your ancestors, for I know you are wholly ignorant of their name and rank.”

“What poor jest is that?” replied the count.  “Not all the world is as ignorant as you.  It was owing to my father’s own choice that he was not son of King Henry IV.  His majesty desired nothing more than to recognise him, but my treacherous parent was obdurate to the end.  Think how the De Grammonts would have stood if he had only kept to the truth.  I see you laugh, but it’s as true as the Gospel.

“But to come to facts.  I was sent to college with a view to the Church, but as I had other views, I profited little.  I was so fond of gaming that my teachers lost their Latin in trying to teach it to me.  Old Brinon, who accompanied me as servant and governor, threatened me with my mother’s anger, but I rarely listened.  I left college very much as I entered it, though they considered that I knew enough for the living which my brother had procured for me.