This slight interruption over, the game proceeded as before. Martin, however, was now a winner, every wager succeeding, and every bet he made a gain. “There's nothing like a dogged persistence,” said the Russian. “Fortune never turns her back on him who shows constancy. See Martin, now; by that very resolution he has conquered, and here we are, all cleared out!” “I am, for one,” cried an Italian, flinging his empty purse on the table. “There's my last Louis,” said Nevers. “I reserve it to pay for my supper.” “Martin shall treat us all to supper!” exclaimed another. “Where shall it be, then?” said Martin; “here, or at my own quarters?” “Here, by all means,” cried some. “I 'm for the Place Vendôme,” said the Pole, “for who knows but we shall catch a glimpse of that beautiful girl, Martin's 'Belle Irlandaise.'” “I saw her to-night,” said the Italian, “and I own she _is_ all you say. She was speaking to Villemart, and I assure you the old Minister won't forget it in a hurry. Something or other he said about the noise in the street drew from him the word _canaille_. She turned round at once and attacked him. He replied, and the controversy grew warm; so much so, that many gathered around them to listen, amongst whom I saw the Duc de Guiche, Prince du Saulx, and the Austrian Minister. Nothing could be more perfect than her manner,--calm, without any effrontery; assured, and yet no sacrifice of delicacy. It was easy to see, too, that the theme was not one into which she stumbled by an accident; she knew every event of the Great Revolution, and used the knowledge with consummate skill, and, but for one slip, with consummate temper also. “What was the slip you allude to?” cried the Russian. “It was when Villemart, after a boastful enumeration of the superior merits of his order, called them the 'Enlighteners of the People.' “'You played that part on one occasion,' said she; 'but I scarcely thought you 'd like to refer to it.' “'How so? When do you mean?' asked he. “'When they hung you to the lanterns,' said she, with the energy of a tigress in her look. Pardié! at that moment I never saw anything so beautiful or so terrible.” A loud uproar in the street without, in which the sound of troop-horses passaging to and fro could be distinguished, now interrupted the colloquy. As the noise increased, a low, deep roar, like the sound of distant thunder, could be heard, and the Pole cried out,--“Messieurs les Sans-culottes, I strongly advise you to turn homewards, for, if I be not much mistaken, here comes the artillery.” “The affair may turn out a serious one, after all,” broke in the Italian. “A serious one!” echoed the Pole, scornfully. “How can it? Forty battalions of infantry, ten thousand sabres, and eight batteries; are they not enough, think you, to rout this contemptible herd of street rioters?”