These Old Shades
debts and mortgages. Oh, we lived the same, bien sûr; the Alastairs are always thus. We had always the same magnificence, but there were only debts behind the splendour. Me, I know. Then we go to Vienna. As ever the Duc he plays for great stakes; that is the way of his house. At first he loses. You would not say he cared, for still he smiles. That too is his way. Then there comes a young nobleman, very rich, very joyous. He plays with the Duc. He loses; he suggests a higher stake; the Duc, he agrees. What would you? Still that young noble loses. On and on, until at last—pouf! It is over! That fortune, it has changed hands. The young man, he is ruined—absolument! The Duc, he goes away. He smiles—ah, that smile! The young man fights a duel with pistols a little later, and he fires wide, wide! Because he was ruined he chose Death! And the Duc—" Gaston waved his hands "he comes to Paris and buys this hôtel with that young noble's fortune!"
"Ah!" sighed Madame, and shook her head.
Léon tilted his chin a little.
"It is no such great matter. Monseigneur would always play fair. That young man was a fool. Voilà tout!"
"Mon Dieu, is it thus you speak of the wickedness? Ah, but I could tell of things! If you knew the women that the Duc has courted! If you knew—"
"Monsieur!" Madame Dubois raised protesting hands. "Before me?"
"I ask pardon, madame. No, I say nothing. Nothing! But what I know!"
"Some men," said Léon gravely, "are like that, I think. I have seen many."
"Fi donc!" Madame cried. "So young, too!"
Léon disregarded the interruption and looked at Gaston with a worldly wisdom that sat quaintly on his young face.
"And when I have seen these things I have thought that it is always the woman's fault."
"Hear the child!" exclaimed Madame. "What do you know, petit, at your age?"
Léon shrugged one shoulder and bent again over his book.
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