Page:The sleeping beauty and other fairy tales from the old French (1910).djvu/56

Blue Beard playing at ombre, quadrille, lasquenet, and Heaven knows what other games.

'My dear Fatima,' said her sister Anne with a little yawn, 'I congratulate you with all my heart on having made a discovery which, beyond a doubt and but for your better diligence, I should have had to make for myself before long.'

As for her step-brothers, they were in the best of humours at having won a considerable sum of money from their host by superior play; and they answered her, quoting a proverb, that 'at nights all cats are grey, and all beards too,' and seemed to consider this very much to the point.

Fatima was greatly relieved by these assurances. On the evening before the company dispersed Blue Beard again sought a private interview and pressed his suit. She accepted him without further ado, and as soon as they returned to town the marriage was concluded.

They had been married little more than a month when Blue Beard came to his wife one morning, and told her that letters of importance had arrived for him: he must take a journey into the 32