"Du Halga, I always lose," said the gentleman.

"You discard badly," replied the Baronne de Rouville.

"For three months now I have never won a single game," said he.

"Have you the aces?" asked the old lady.

"Yes, one more to mark," said he.

"Shall I come and advise you?" said Adelaide.

"No, no. Stay where I can see you. By Gad, it would be losing too
much not to have you to look at!"

At last the game was over. The gentleman pulled out his purse,
and, throwing two louis d'or on the table, not without temper--

"Forty francs," he exclaimed, "the exact sum.--Deuce take it! It
is eleven o'clock."

"It is eleven o'clock," repeated the silent figure, looking at
the painter.

The young man, hearing these words rather more distinctly than
all the others, thought it time to retire. Coming back to the
world of ordinary ideas, he found a few commonplace remarks to
make, took leave of the Baroness, her daughter, and the two
strangers, and went away, wholly possessed by the first raptures
of true love, without attempting to analyze the little incidents