“Your father is a most peculiar man,” said Mlle. Moiseney, indignantly, to Antoinette.  “He is shockingly egotistical.  He has confiscated M. Larinski.  The idea of employing such a man as that to play bezique!  He will stop coming.”

But the count’s former savageness seemed wholly subdued.  He did not stop coming.

One evening M. Moriaz committed an imprudence.  In making an odd trick, he carelessly asked M. Larinski who had been his piano professor.

“One whose portrait I always carry about me,” was the reply.

And, drawing from his vest-pocket a medallion, he presented it to M. Moriaz, who, after having looked at it, passed it over to his daughter.  The medallion contained the portrait of a woman with blond hair, blue eyes, a refined, lovely mouth, a fragile, delicate being with countenance at the same time sweet and sad, the face of an angel, but an angel who had lived and suffered.

“What an exquisite face!” cried Mlle. Moriaz.

Truly it was exquisite.  Some one has asserted that a Polish woman is like punch made with holy-water.  One may like neither the punch nor the holy-water, and yet be very fond of Polish women.  They form one of the best chapters in the great book of the Creator.

“It is the portrait of my mother,” said Count Larinski.

“Are you so fortunate as to still possess her?” asked Antoinette.

“She was a tender flower,” he replied; “and tender flowers never live long.”

“Her portrait shows it plainly; one can see that she suffered much, but was resigned to live.”

For the first time the count departed from the reserve he had shown towards Mlle. Antoinette Moriaz.  “I have no words to tell you,” he exclaimed, “how happy I am that my mother pleases you!”

Othello was accused of having employed secret philters to win Desdemona’s love.  Brabantio had only himself to blame; he had taken a liking to Othello, and often invited him to come to him; he did not make him play bezique, but he questioned him on his past.  The Moor recounted his life, his sufferings, his adventures, and Desdemona wept.  The fathers question, the heroes or adventurers recount, and the daughters weep.  Such are the outlines of a history as old as the world.  Abel Larinski had left the card-table.  He had taken his seat in an arm-chair, facing Mlle. Moiseney.  He was questioned; he replied.

His destiny had been neither light nor easy.  He was quite young when his father, Count Witold Larinski, implicated in a conspiracy, had been compelled to flee from Warsaw.  His property was confiscated, but luckily he had some investments away from home, which prevented him from being left wholly penniless.  He was a man of projects.  He emigrated to America with his wife and his son; he dreamed of making a name and a fortune by cutting a canal through the Isthmus of Panama.  He repaired to New Granada, there