of all came Mr Quin. With him was a small, dark man, neatly dressed, whose face seemed familiar to Mr Satterthwaite. A moment later he recognized him. It was the croupier who earlier in the evening had made such a lamentable mistake.
‘Let me introduce you to the company, M. Pierre Vaucher,’ said Mr Quin.
The little man seemed confused. Mr Quin performed the necessary introductions easily and lightly. Supper was brought – an excellent supper. Wine came – very excellent wine. Some of the frigidity went out of the atmosphere. The Countess was very silent, so was Elizabeth. Franklin Rudge became talkative. He told various stories – not humorous stories, but serious ones. And quietly and assiduously Mr Quin passed round the wine.
‘I’ll tell you – and this is a true story – about a man who made good,’ said Franklin Rudge impressively.
For one coming from a Prohibition country he had shown no lack of appreciation of champagne.
He told his story – perhaps at somewhat unnecessary length. It was, like many true stories, greatly inferior to fiction.
As he uttered the last word, Pierre Vaucher, opposite him, seemed to wake up. He also had done justice to the champagne. He leaned forward across the table.
‘I, too, will tell you a story,’ he said thickly. ‘But mine is the story of a man who did not make good. It is the story of a man who went, not up, but down the hill. And, like yours, it is a true story.’
‘Pray tell it to us, monsieur,’ said Mr Satterthwaite courteously.
Pierre Vaucher leant back in his chair and looked at the ceiling.
‘It is in Paris that the story begins. There was a man there, a working jeweller. He was young and light-hearted and industrious in his profession. They said there was a future before him. A good marriage was already arranged for him, the bride not too bad-looking, the dowry most satisfactory. And then, what do you think? One morning he sees a girl. Such a miserable little wisp of a girl, messieurs. Beautiful? Yes, perhaps, if she were not half starved. But anyway, for this young man, she has a magic that he cannot resist. She has been struggling to find work, she is virtuous – or at least that is what she tells him. I do not know if it is true.’
The Countess’s voice came suddenly out of the semi-darkness.
‘Why should it not be true? There are many like that.’
‘Well, as I say, the young man believed her. And he married her – an act of folly! His family would have no more to say to him. He had outraged their feelings. He married – I will call her Jeanne – it was a good action. He told her so. He felt that she should be very grateful to him. He had sacrificed much for her sake.’
‘A charming beginning for the poor girl,’ observed the Countess sarcastically.
‘He loved her, yes, but from the beginning she maddened him. She had moods – tantrums – she would be cold to him one day, passionate the next. At last he saw the truth. She had never loved him. She had married him so as to keep body and soul together. That truth hurt him, it hurt him horribly, but he tried his utmost to let nothing appear on the surface. And he still felt he deserved gratitude and obedience to his wishes. They quarrelled. She reproached him – Mon Dieu, what did she not reproach him with?
‘You can see the next step, can you not? The thing that was bound to come. She left him. For two years he was alone, working in his little shop with no news of her. He had one friend – absinthe. The business did not prosper so well.
‘And then one day he came into the shop to find her sitting there. She was beautifully dressed. She had rings on her hands. He stood considering her. His heart was beating – but beating! He was at a loss what to do. He would have liked to have beaten her, to have clasped her in his arms, to have thrown her down on the floor and trampled on her, to have thrown himself at her feet. He did none of those things. He took up his pincers and went on with his work. “Madame desires?” he asked formally.
‘That upset her. She did not look for that, see you. “Pierre,” she said, “I have come back.” He laid aside his pincers and looked at her. “You wish to be forgiven?” he said. “You want me to take you back? You are sincerely repentant?” “Do you want me back?” she murmured. Oh! very softly she said it.
‘He knew she was laying a trap for him. He longed to seize her in his arms, but he was too clever for that. He pretended indifference.
‘“I am a Christian man,” he said. “I try to do what the Church directs.” “Ah!” he thought, “I will humble her, humble her to her knees.”
‘But Jeanne, that is what I will call her, flung back her head and laughed. Evil laughter it was. “I mock myself at you, little Pierre,” she said. “Look at these rich clothes, these rings and bracelets. I came to show myself to you. I thought I would make you take me in your arms and when you did so, then – then I would spit in your face and tell you how I hated you!”
‘And on that she went out of the shop. Can you believe, messieurs, that a woman could be as evil as all that – to come back only to torment me?’
‘No,’ said the Countess. ‘I would not believe it, and any man who was not a fool would not believe it either. But all men are blind fools.’
Pierre Vaucher took no notice of her. He went on.
‘And so that young man of whom I tell you sank lower and lower. He drank more absinthe. The little shop was sold over his head. He became of the dregs, of the gutter. Then came the war. Ah! it was good, the war. It took that man out of the gutter and taught him to be a brute beast no longer. It drilled him – and sobered him. He endured cold and pain and the fear of death – but he did not die and when the war ended, he was a man again.
‘It was then, messieurs, that he came South. His lungs had been affected by the gas, they said he must find work in the South. I will not weary you with all the things he did. Suffice it to say that he ended up as a croupier, and there – there in the Casino one evening, he saw her again – the woman who had ruined his life. She did not recognize him, but he recognized her. She appeared to be rich and to lack for nothing – but messieurs, the eyes of a croupier are sharp. There came an evening when she placed her last stake in the world on the table. Ask me not how I know – I do know – one feels these things. Others might not believe. She still had rich clothes – why not pawn them, one would say? But to do that – pah! your credit is gone at once. Her jewels? Ah no! Was I not a jeweller in my time? Long ago the real jewels have gone. The pearls of a King are sold one by one, are replaced with false. And meantime one must eat and pay one’s hotel bill. Yes, and the rich men – well, they have seen one about for many years. Bah! they say – she is over fifty. A younger chicken for my money.’
A long shuddering sigh came out of the windows where the Countess leant back.
‘Yes. It was a great moment, that. Two nights I have watched her. Lose, lose, and lose again. And now the end. She put all on one number. Beside her, an English milord stakes the maximum also – on the next number. The ball rolls … The moment has come, she has lost …
‘Her eyes meet mine. What do I do? I jeopardize my place in the Casino. I rob the English milord. “A Madame” I say, and pay over the money.’
‘Ah!’ There was a crash, as the Countess sprang to her feet and leant across the table, sweeping her glass on to the floor.
‘Why?’ she cried. ‘That’s what I want to know, why did you do it?’
There was a long pause, a pause that seemed interminable, and still those two facing each other across the table looked and looked … It was like a duel.
A mean little smile crept across Pierre Vaucher’s face. He raised his hands.
‘Madame,’ he said, ‘there is such a thing as pity …’
‘Ah!’
She sank down again.
‘I