“Because it was you who slipped those cards, which made M. Ferailleur win, into the pack; I saw you do it! And yielding to my entreaties, the young fellow was about to leave the house when you, intentionally, prevented him from saving himself. Oh! don’t deny it.” M. de Coralth rose in the coolest possible manner. “I deny nothing, my dear lady,” he replied, “absolutely nothing. You and I understand each other.” Confounded by his unblushing impudence, Madame d’Argeles remained speechless for a moment. “You confess it!” she cried, at last. “You dare to confess it! Were you not afraid that I might speak and state what I had seen?” He shrugged his shoulders. “No one would have believed you,” he exclaimed. “Yes, I should have been believed, Monsieur de Coralth, for I could have given proofs. You must have forgotten that I know you, that your past life is no secret to me, that I know who you are, and what dishonored name you hide beneath your borrowed title! I could have told my guests that you are married--that you have abandoned your wife and child, leaving them to perish in want and misery--I could have told them where you obtain the thirty or forty thousand francs you spend each year. You must have forgotten that Rose told me everything, Monsieur--Paul!” She had struck the right place this time, and with such precision that M. de Coralth turned livid, and made a furious gesture, as if he were about to fell her to the ground. “Ah, take care!” he exclaimed; “take care!” But his rage speedily subsided, and with his usual indifferent manner, and in a bantering tone, he said: “Well, what of that? Do you fancy that the world doesn’t already suspect what you could reveal? People have suspected me of being even worse than I am. When you proclaim on the housetops that I am an adventurer, folks will only laugh at you, and I shall be none the worse for it. A matter that would crush a dozen men like Pascal Ferailleur would not injure me in the least. I am accustomed to it. I must have luxury and enjoyment, everything that is pleasant and beautiful--and to procure all this, I do my very best. It is true that I don’t derive my income from my estate in Brie; but I have plenty of money, and that is the essential thing. Besides, it is so difficult to earn a livelihood nowadays, and the love of luxury is so intense that no one knows at night what he may do--or, rather, what he won’t do--the next day. And last, but not least, the people who ought to be despised are so numerous that contempt is an impossibility. A Parisian who happened to be so absurdly pretentious as to refuse to shake hands with such of his acquaintances as were not irreproachable characters, might walk for hours on the Boulevards without finding an occasion to take his hands out of his pockets.”