Page:Tales of Today.djvu/162

146 was yielding, was augmented by the fantastic, shadowy outlines of other coupés meeting ours in that nauseous fog that was almost black, and through which the, gas-lamps cast shafts of light here and there, for his voice gradually fell and became very low and gentle, as if he were going back in spirit far, very far from me, who kept interrupting him from time to time, just sufficiently to keep his memory on the alert.

"For my part," he began, "I never played but once, and, if you will believe me, at this day I cannot even stand by and watch people playing. There are times, you know, when one's nerves are not in the very best condition, and then, the mere sight of a playing-card compels me to leave the room. Ah! that one single game of mine conjures up such terrible memories. "

"Who is there that has not memories of that description?" I interrupted. "Was not I present when our poor friend Paul Durieu engaged in a quarrel in that very club that we have just left on account of a doubtful trick? and then came that absurd duel, and we buried him four days after I had shaken hands with him, there, right in front of that gambling-table. Cards always carry a bit of tragedy in their train, and crime, and dishonor, and suicide. Still, all that does not keep people from going back to them, just as in Spain they go back to the bull-fights, for all the disemboweled horses, the wounded picadors and the slaughtered bull."

"That may be so," replied Frémiot, "but no one ought to be the cause in his own person of one of those tragedies, and that is just what happened to me.