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Pascal's heart thrilled with joy. "Fate favors me!" he said to himself. "If it hadn't been for Kami-Bey, who detained me a full quarter of an hour at Baron Trigault's, I should have found myself face to face with that miserable viscount, and then all would have been lost. But now I'm safe!" It was with this encouraging thought that he approached the house.
"In that case, you ought to have gone to his house. Perhaps he is there," remarked Madame d'Argeles. "Madame knows that the baron is never at home. I did go there, however, but in vain." This chanced to be one of three consecutive days which Baron Trigault had spent with Kami-Bey, the Turkish ambassador.
If Kami-Bey had seen an emissary of his sovereign enter the room carrying the fatal bow-string he would not have seemed more terror-stricken. He sprang nervously on to his short, fat legs, his eyes wildly dilating and his hands fluttering despairingly. "Don't speak so loud! don't speak so loud!" he exclaimed, imploringly.
It is true, however, that I have not been to the club for three days. I have made a wager with Kami-Bey, you know that rich Turk and as our sittings are eight or ten hours long, we play in his apartments at the Grand Hotel. And so you are to be married," the baron continued, after a slight pause. "Ah, well! I know one person who won't be pleased." "Who, pray?" "Ninette Simplon."
Such, indeed, was Kami-Bey, a specimen of those semi-barbarians, loaded with gold who are not attracted to Paris by its splendors and glories, but rather by its corruption people who come there persuaded that money will purchase anything and everything, and who often return home with the same conviction. Kami was no doubt more impudent, more cynical and more arrogant than others of his class.
It had been agreed between them that they should play until one or the other had lost five hundred thousand francs; and, in order to prevent any waste of "precious time," as the baron was wont to remark, they neither of them stirred from the Grand Hotel, where Kami-Bey had a suite of rooms. They ate and slept there.
Why Kami-Bey was called prince no one knew, not even the man himself. Perhaps it was because the lackey who opened his carriage door on his arrival at the Grand Hotel had addressed him by that title. "About what!" he repeated. "You have won more than three hundred thousand francs from me, and I was wondering if you intended to give me the slip."
Isn't it an established fact that a person incurs no risk in robbing Kami-Bey?" "Had I been in your place I should have quietly instituted an investigation." "What good would that have done? Besides, the sale was only conditional, and took place under the seal of secrecy.
"Everything is progressing as favorably as I could wish, Monsieur le Baron, but I must speak with that foreigner whom I met here this morning." "Kami-Bey?" "Yes." And in a few words, Pascal explained the situation. "Providence is certainly on our side," said the baron, thoughtfully. "Kami is still here." "Is it possible?" "It's a fact.
If you are at all uneasy, tear up the book in which the results of our games are noted, and that shall be the end of it. You will gain considerably by the operation." Kami-Bey felt that the baron would not tolerate his arrogance, and so with more moderation he exclaimed: "It isn't strange that I've become suspicious. I'm so victimized on every side.
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