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 chateaux, a house in Paris, and is a favorite of the King.”  She paused, as if to let this impress itself upon me, and added archly, “Tenez, Monsieur, there is a daughter—­”

She stopped abruptly.

I followed her glance, and my first impression—­of claret-color—­gave me a shock.  My second confirmed it, for in the semi-darkness beyond the rays of the candle was a thin, eager face, prematurely lined, with coal-black, lustrous eyes that spoke eloquently of indulgence.  In an instant I knew it to be that of the young man whom I had seen on the levee.

“Monsieur Auguste?” stammered Madame.

“Bon soir, Madame,” he cried gayly, with a bow; “diable, they are already at it, I see, and the punch in the bowl.  I will win back to-night what I have lost by a week of accursed luck.”

“Monsieur your father has relented, perhaps,” said Madame, deferentially.

“Relented!” cried the young man, “not a sou.  C’est egal!  I have the means here,” and he tapped his pocket, “I have the means here to set me on my feet again, Madame.”