"This, however, did not prove well founded, for the next night Vertua made his appearance, and staked and lost a great deal more than on the night before. He was quite impassible all the time; in fact, he now and then smiled with a bitter irony, as one who knew how utterly differently everything would soon turn. But his losses swelled like a mountain avalanche on each of the succeeding nights, so that at last it was calculated that he had lost to the banque well on to thirty thousand louis d'or. After this, he came one night, long after the play had begun, pale as death, with his face all drawn, and stationed himself at some distance from the table, with his eyes fixed on the cards which the Chevalier was dealing. At last, when the Chevalier had shuffled, had the cards cut, and was going to begin the deal, the old man cried out, in a screaming voice, 'Stop!' Every one looked round, almost terrified. The old man elbowed his way through the crowd close up to the Chevalier, and whispered into his ear, 'Chevalier, my house in the Rue St. Honoré, with all its contents, in furniture, gold, silver, and jewels, is valued at eighty thousand francs. I stake it! Do you accept?' "'Yes,' said the Chevalier calmly, without looking at him, and began to deal. "'Queen!' said the old man, and the queen lost. The old man fell back, and leaned against the wall, motionless as a stone image. Nobody troubled himself further about him. When the game was over for the night, and the Chevalier and his croupiers were packing away the won money in the strong box, Vertua came wavering like a spectre forward out of his corner. In a hollow, faint voice, he said, 'One word, Chevalier; one single word.' "'Well, what is it?' said the Chevalier, taking the key from the box and putting it in his pocket, as he surveyed the old man contemptuously from head to foot. "'I have lost all I possessed in the world to your banque, Chevalier. I have nothing left--nothing. I don't know where I shall lay my head to-morrow, or how I shall appease my hunger. I betake myself to you. Lend me the tenth part of the sum you have won from me, that I may recommence my business, and raise myself from the depths of poverty.' "'How can you be so absurd, Signor Vertua,' said the Chevalier. 'Don't you know that a banquier never lends his winnings? It would be against all the rules, and I abide by them.' "'You are right, Chevalier,' said Vertua. 'What I asked was absurd, extravagant. Not a tenth part--lend me a twentieth part.' "'What I tell you is,' said the Chevalier, 'that I never lend any of my winnings.' "'Quite right,' said Vertua, his face growing paler and paler, and his looks more fixed and staring. 'Of course you can't lend. I never used to do it myself. But give an alms to a beggar. Let him have one hundred louis d'or out of the fortune which blind Chance threw to you tonight.'