Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 5.djvu/246

224 "That very night my grandmother played at Versailles, at a card party given by the Queen. The Duke of Orleans was banker and she told him some plausible story to explain her delay in settling her debt, after which she sat down and took three cards. The first one won; she doubled her stake on the second which won again, doubled once more on the third and finally came out a very large winner."

"Sheer luck! " said one of the officers.

"A fairy tale!" cried Hermann.

"Were the cards arranged beforehand then?" said a third.

"I don't think so," answered Tomski quietly.

"What!" cried Naroumof, "you have a grandmother who knows three winning cards, and you have not succeeded in coaxing her to tell you what they are?" "Oh! there is the rub," answered Tomski.

"She had four sons, one of whom was my father. Three of them were inveterate gamblers and not one of them could ever win from her this secret which, Heaven knows, would have been so useful to them and to me also. But listen to what my uncle, the Count Ivan Ilitch, told me, and this on his word of honour. You know Tchaplitzki—the one who died in penury after squandering millions—well, one day in his youth,