At first, and in the state to which Georges had brought them, the clerks, and more particularly Oscar, believed in the Marquise de las Florentinas y Cabirolos.  Gold glittered on four card-tables in the bed-chamber.  In the salon, the women were playing at vingt-et-un, kept by Nathan, the celebrated author.

After wandering, tipsy and half asleep, through the dark exterior boulevards, the clerks now felt that they had wakened in the palace of Armida.  Oscar, presented to the marquise by Georges, was quite stupefied, and did not recognize the danseuse he had seen at the Gaiete, in this lady, aristocratically decolletee and swathed in laces, till she looked like the vignette of a keepsake, who received him with manners and graces the like of which was neither in the memory nor the imagination of a young clerk rigidly brought up.  After admiring the splendors of the apartment and the beautiful women there displayed, who had all outdone each other in their dress for this occasion, Oscar was taken by the hand and led by Florentine to a vingt-et-un table.

“Let me present you,” she said, “to the beautiful Marquise d’Anglade, one of my nearest friends.”

And she took Oscar to the pretty Fanny Beaupre, who had just made herself a reputation at the Porte-Saint-Martin, in a melodrama entitled “La Famille d’Anglade.”

“My dear,” said Florentine, “allow me to present to you a charming youth, whom you can take as a partner in the game.”

“Ah! that will be delightful,” replied the actress, smiling, as she looked at Oscar.  “I am losing.  Shall we go shares, monsieur?”

“Madame la marquise, I am at your orders,” said Oscar, sitting down beside her.

“Put down the money; I’ll play; you shall being me luck!  See, here are my last hundred francs.”

And the “marquise” took out from her purse, the rings of which were adorned with diamonds, five gold pieces.  Oscar pulled out his hundred in silver five-franc pieces, much ashamed at having to mingle such ignoble coins with gold.  In ten throws the actress lost the two hundred francs.

“Oh! how stupid!” she cried.  “I’m banker now.  But we’ll play together still, won’t we?”

Fanny Beaupre rose to take her place as banker, and Oscar, finding himself observed by the whole table, dared not retire on the ground that he had no money.  Speech failed him, and his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth.

“Lend me five hundred francs,” said the actress to the danseuse.

Florentine brought the money, which she obtained from Georges, who had just passed eight times at ecarte.

“Nathan has won twelve hundred francs,” said the actress to Oscar.  “Bankers always win; we won’t let them fool us, will we?” she whispered in his ear.

Persons of nerve, imagination, and dash will understand how it was that poor Oscar opened his pocket-book and took out the note of five hundred francs which Desroches had given him.  He looked at Nathan, the distinguished author, who now began, with Florine, to play a heavy game against the bank.