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Barrington if she had had an idea of such an end to this intimacy. No, no, my friend; believe me, there is nothing of that kind. Try again in a month's time; be less diffident, and you will very likely be successful. I think Jeanne knows that all our sympathies are with you."

"Will you speak to her on the subject?" asked Saint-Luc, who was only too willing to be persuaded into hope, against his own judgment.

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Why, no, answered Léon, hesitatingly; I don't think I could quite do that; she would not like it. You see, she is a little older than I am, and she has always been accustomed to take the lead, and she is not precisely one of those people whom one can interfere with easily, and-and-in point of fact, I really doubt whether my speaking would not do more harm than good. If I am to be quite candid with you, I must confess that neither I nor anybody else has much authority over Jeanne; but she is so good and so self-sacrificing that she would do a great deal to please any one of us, and-"

"I don't wish her to sacrifice herself," interrupted Saint-Luc.

"I express myself badly. What I meant to say was that our wishes would have a good deal of weight with her. As I told you just now, I believe she knows what our wishes are, and we will try to make them more apparent. I don't see that we can do anything more for you."

"I suppose not," sighed Saint-Luc. "I will try again then; it is a forlorn hope, but it is better than nothing. Thank you for your sympathy. Now you are dying to get to sleep, and I will not keep you up any longer. Goodnight."

So Léon went to his bed, and SaintLuc roamed about the silent town till daylight, mentally balancing himself against Barrington, and finding no encouragement from the process.

It is perhaps needless to add that he did not occupy the vacant seat in the waggonette on the following day.

CHAPTER XI.

IN WHICH MR. BARRINGTON WINS A GAME CF BILLIARDS.

ONE of the most grievous burdens attaching to royal birth must be, one

would think, the impossibility of getting from one country to another without well-meant but tedious demonstrations of loyalty and respect. An unfortunate emperor, king, or prince lands from the steamer in which, perhaps, he has been wofully sea-sick, or steps out of his special train, dirty and weary, and there, upon the platform, stands his worship the mayor, in furred gown and gold chain, with an attendant body of aldermen and town-councillors, and proceeds to entertain the illustrious traveller with a loyal and long-winded address of welcome. The poor royal personage knows perfectly well the stereotyped, meaningless phrases which are about to be hurled at him, and knows also the terms in which it will be expected he should reply thereto. The whole business must be to him a monstrous unnecessary bore; still, it has to be gone through, and he goes through it as cheerfully as may be. If, however, he be a shifty royal personage, and can manage to get his luggage moved with extra rapidity, there is a reasonable mode of escape open to him. It may be announced that his Majesty, or his Royal Highness, as the case may be, is compelled to proceed on his journey with all possible despatch, and must deny himself the pleasure of hearing or delivering speeches on his way; the loyal address, therefore, will be "taken as read." So the illuminated parchment is hastily shoved in at the carriage window, the exalted creature inside advances, bows and smiles with such affability as nature has granted to him, and is presently whisked away in a manner satisfactory, it is to be hoped, both to himself and others.

If only certain days of our life, the net result of which can be easily foretolddays of mere barren vexation and weariness of the flesh-could be thus summarily dismissed, and taken as lived, how thankful some of us would be! In real life, unfortunately, there is no stealing a march upon Time: we must take the rough with the smooth, and all we have to consider is how to swallow measureless tedium with a minimum of yawns; but when it comes to be a question of fiction, to which, it may be presumed, nobody resorts unless with some faint expectation of amusement, nature revolts against dulness, and nimbly skips over the prosy passages. Those prosy

passages need never be written at all, and much labor might be spared to writer as well as reader could the former but guess when he is about to become wearisome; but that, no doubt, is past hoping for. Of one thing, however, every narrator may be sure-that when, in the course of his story, he feels disposed to dwell upon any particular subject, he is getting upon dangerous ground, and had best quit that subject without further delay. The present writer, being conscious of an inclination to linger among the sunny valleys and breezy heights of Kabylia, now, therefore, resolutely turns away from that pleasant land, and shutting out his background of mountains and blue sky, narrows the limits of his stage to the four walls of a heated and not over welllighted billiard-room.

It is a long, low-roofed room, occupying the whole entresol above one of the principal cafés of Algiers, and containing several tables. At one of these Barrington and a friend, picked up at the Hotel d'Orient, are hard at work in their shirt-sleeves, endeavoring, not very successfully, to master the science of the cannon game, while at a more distant one, M. de Saint-Luc, with pale face and downcast mien, is absently knocking the balls about, pausing every now and again to emit a half-smothered sigh. Léon, outstretched upon a sofa, with a cigarette in his mouth and a tall glass of vermouth and water on a table at his side, contemplates with the serene smile of a man who has dined well, the blue smoke clouds that slowly drift away from him; and, on the opposite side of the room, a diminutive, close-cropped waiter, worn out by the labor and heat of the day, is snatching a well-earned snooze, perched on a high stool, on whose slippery summit he perilously sways and lurches. From the café beneath rises a confused hubbub, a clinking of glasses, a clattering of dominoes, a roar of excited voices, such as in England would convey the idea of nothing less than an imminent free fight, but here means only that a few good bourgeois and line-officers are enjoying a quiet evening after their habitual manner; in the street below a shrill-voiced boy is shouting, "Le Moniteur d' Algérie, journal du soir! Achetez le Mon

iteur d'Algérie !" and from time to time, when the general turmoil abates for a second or two, the monotonous thrum, thrum, thrum of a guitar can be heard faintly rising from a Moorish café down by the water-side.

Here, in the billiard-room, there is silence unbroken save by the click of the balls and the occasional execrations of Mr. Barrington's friend, who plays a very fair game at the club at home, and is surprised and disgusted to find how little mastery he has over foreign balls and cues.

"Never saw such a beastly game in my life!" he exclaims wrathfully, throwing himself down upon a chair. "Might as well play with footballs and barge-poles, by Jove! I'll trouble you for the tip of that cue! Just look at it, will you! Why, it's a couple of inches broad!"

"Ah, it's a game you have to get accustomed to,' remarks Barrington, scoring rather neatly; "but when you understand it, it's less flukey than ours, and I really think there is more play in it."

"Don't see any play in it at all," growls the other; and then there is another long period of silence. The little waiter, with head thrown back and open mouth, begins to snore, and the clock in the tower of the great mosque chimes half-past ten. Presently Saint-Luc lays down his cue, and strolls dejectedly towards the sofa upon which Léon's long body is extended.

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Léon," says he, in a sepulchral when did you last have an earthquake here?"

voice,

"An earthquake? Oh, I hardly remember. We have a few slight shocks every year, but nobody ever thinks anything of them. Once, I remember, there was a great alarm in the middle of the night, and a good many people rushed out into the streets, in very scanty apparel, and one silly old woman jumped out of window and broke her leg. after all, there was no damage done. Why do you ask?"

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But,

Because I am quite convinced that we are going to have an earthquake tonight. I have never in my life felt in such low spirits as I do at this moment, and I have a sort of unaccountable sensation of dread, which, I take it, must

mean that the earth is about to open and swallow me up. Not that that would be such a great misfortune after all.'

"Bah! It is a hot evening, and you are tired and out of sorts, as anyone would be who had spent three days all by himself at Fort Napoléon and then ridden back upon a lame horse. Come and have a game of billiards, and let us think no more about earthquakes. For my part, I can assure you that, whatever your wishes may be, I should dislike nothing more than being pounded to death by a falling house; and if I thought there was the slightest danger of such a thing happening, I should be out of this room in another moment. Come and play.".

Saint-Luc drops into a chair and shakes his head. "I cannot play billiards to-night," he says; "I should not be able to make a single stroke. Ah, Léon, I have my own good reasons for being miserable, as you know; and I suppose there is no chance of an earthquake, or why should I alone be affected by it? You seem in excellent spirits. I saw you driving with that de Trémonville woman to-day, and she gave you a rose, and you blushed, and stuck it in your button-hole, you foolish boy. Is that why you lie smiling there like a young god on Olympus? Don't be angry, we men are all made fools of by women; we can't escape our destiny, and would not, perhaps, if we could. Imagine yourself in paradise while you can-that is the truest wisdom. That tumbler at your elbow contains nothing but bitter vermouth and half-tepid water, but if you can bring yourself to quaff it under the impression that it is nectar, why it is nectar as far as you are concerned. Some day you will discover that Madame de Trémonville is—well, is a different person from what you now think her to be; but so long as you can keep your illusions, why not do so? That Englishman looks happy too. Did he drive back with her? But of course he did."

"Well, yes; but M. de Fontvieille also took a seat inside the carriage. I heard Jeanne ask him to do so.

"You did? She asked him to take a seat inside?" cried Saint-Luc eagerly. "I wonder what made her do that."

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Bang! bang! from the further end of the room. Barrington's friend, in a frantic effort to "screw," has driven his cue through the cloth, and sent one of the balls spinning off the table. The little waiter, rudely awakened from his slumbers, loses his balance, falls from his perch with a loud crash, and then, picking himself up, and immediately recovering his presence of mind, pipes out "C'est cinquante francs le premier accroc, messieurs."

"Oh, oh! I like that!" cries the. delinquent, indignantly. "Cinquante francs-rubbish! Look here, you little beggar! Regardez ici-et là-et là," pointing to the traces of several previous injuries to the cloth. Coupé all over the place, you know. Je paierai cinq francs, and not another centime-so you needn't say any more about it."

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The waiter shrugs his shoulders doubtfully, and says he will consult the "patron ;" and peace being restored, Barrington resumes his cue, and, adroitly drawing the balls into a corner, finishes the game with a break of ten.

The defeated player paid his stake, settled with the waiter, and after making some brief but trenchant observations upon the game of French billiards took himself off. Then Barrington, who was in high good humor, both because he had won his game and on account of other reasons, strolled across the room and poked Léon in the ribs with his

cue.

"Well, de Mersac," said he, "what have you been doing with yourself all day? I was at your house this afternoon, and thought I should have seen you there. How do you do, M. de Saint-Luc? You have just come back from Fort Napoléon, I suppose?"

Old Mr. Ashley, whose property adjoins Barrington's more extensive one, and who has always lived upon the best of terms with his neighbor, has been heard to say that the latter would be one

of the pleasantest-mannered men in England if only he could get out of the habit of talking to others as though he were the Prince of Wales; and, indeed, it is true that there is a certain prosperous affability in the demeanor of this fortunate gentleman which men who are out of luck or out of temper sometimes find it hard to bear. Saint-Luc was too wellbred to answer his rival otherwise than politely; but if he could have followed the bent of his own inclinations, and reverted to the customs of a primitive state of society, he would then and there have arisen and pommelled him soundly. That the man should look so disgustingly contented and happy was, perhaps, not his fault; but that allusion to Fort Napoléon might surely have been spared. There was an interval of silence, after which Léon swung his long legs off the sofa, stretched himself, yawned, and said he thought he would go and look in at the club.

"I am going home to bed; and if you are wise you will follow my example," observed Barrington, who knew very well what "looking in at the club"

meant.

"Ah, but I am not wise," rejoined Léon, rather tartly; for, in common with the rest of humanity, he disliked nothing so much as good advice.

He added, "You are coming, are you not, Saint-Luc ?"

The Vicomte fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, and drew out a handful of coins and notes, which he proceeded to count. "Yes," he answered, when he had finished his sum; "I find I have got three hundred francs about me. That much I am prepared to lose, but I shall retire as soon as my pockets are empty."

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Why?" asked Léon, rather affront

Firstly, because they are playing lansquenet at the club to-night, and lansquenet is, of all games that I know, the one at which large sums are most easily lost. Secondly, because there is no luck in the air to-night. Thirdly, because you have not got enough money in your pockets. I have three hundred francs, the loss of which will sober me. You will lose what you have in a few minutes, after which you will take to paper, and become reckless. Also, your head is not so cool as mine to start with."

Looked upon as a deterrent, the observation was scarcely a happy one. Nobody-above all, no young manlikes to be told that his head is not cool; nor is it flattering to be cautioned against the seductive nature of any amusement by a man who is himself about to engage in it.

"You talk as if I were a baby," Léon answered in a tone of some annoyance. "I have played lansquenet before now, and I am not such a fool as not to know when to stop."

Saint-Luc shrugged his shoulders. "I have warned you," said he; “I could do no more. I hope you will recollect that to-morrow morning when you wake up with a headache, and try to calculate the amount of your losses. Probably, however, you will blame me and so will others. That will be nothing more than my usual luck."

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I shall do nothing of the sort," answered Léon; "and I don't know whom you mean by others. When I lose my money, I generally keep the fact to myself.'

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Do you?" said Saint-Luc. have never been able to achieve such reticence. But it does not much matter. Things can hardly be much worse with me than they are already. Shall we go?"

Léon understood it all, and was not best pleased. Jeanne had been the kindest of sisters to him, and he had a reverence and respect for her rather filial than

fraternal; still few sons can bear with equanimity the idea that their mother has requested a stranger to keep them out of mischief, and Léon, as he held open the door for his friend to pass out, said to himself that the time had come for him to shake off feminine rule.

The two men descended the stairs together in silence, and a few steps brought them to the door of the club, which occupied the first floor of a large corner house. The room which they presently entered was a lofty and spacious one, lighted by a big crystal chandelier, and furnished with a multiplicity of easy chairs. In some of these a few members were dozing; a little knot of idlers were smoking on the balcony, and at the further end of the room some eight or ten men, mostly officers in the Chasseurs d'Afrique, were congregated round a card-table. One of the latter wheeled round as the newcomers approached, and beckoned to them.

"Come and bring us a change of luck," he cried. "There never was such a dull game as this since the world began! Would you believe that we have been playing for three-quarters of an hour, and that nobody has lost a sou except myself, who am minus three napoleons.

"I have lost five," said another man in a rather aggrieved tone.

"And ought to have lost five hundred," retorted the first speaker. "What is the use of playing with a man like you, who always make a point of throwing good money after bad, if nobody is ever to get a deal? I don't think any single dealer has had more than two turns.'

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'It is mine, I believe," answered de Monceaux; but I have no confidence in these cards. I propose that we have fresh ones, and begin over again.

So two new packs were brought, and being dealt round, the lowest card fell to Saint-Luc, who thus became dealer, much to the disgust of his neighbor.

"Is that what you call bad luck ?" exclaimed that ill-used person, indignantly. "I might have known how it would be! And now I will lay a hundred francs to fifty that you win six times, provided you leave the stake up."

Saint-Luc took the bet, laid a napoleon on the table as his stake, and began to deal.

CHAPTER XII.

LANSQUENET.

Most people, probably, are acquainted with the rules of lansquenet; but, for the benefit of those who are not, a short explanation shall be given-the more willingly as the game is one of an engaging simplicity. The dealer, after laying down a stake, the amount of which is left to his option, turns up the first two cards of the pack, one for himself and one for the table; he then proceeds to deal out the cards till one of the same number as either of those already displayed appears. Should the table win, he loses his stake and the deal passes; but if his own card prove successful, he may either pocket his winnings and surrender his deal to the next player, or leave both winnings and stake up, and continue. The stake may

be covered by one or more of the players, the left-hand neighbor of the dealer having the first choice. having the first choice. In the present instance, Léon being seated next to Saint-Luc, at once covered the modest napoleon staked by his friend.

Saint-Luc won, and left the two gold pieces on the table, and Lèon once more monopolised the play. The dealer won again, and again, and yet again, but at

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