The little square blazed before him in the August sunshine. Opposite flashed the white mass of the Etablissement des Bains. There was the old Roman Arch of Titus, gray and venerable. There were the trees of the gardens in riotous greenery. There on the right marking the hour of eleven on its black face was the clock of the Comptoir National. It was Aix; familiar Aix; not a land of dreams. And there coming rapidly across from the Comptoir National was the well knit figure of the young man from Atlanta.
"_Nom de Dieu_," murmured Aristide. "_Nom de Dieu de nom de Dieu!_"
Eugene Miller, in a fine frenzy, threw himself into a chair beside Aristide.
He thrust into his hand a pink strip of paper. It was a cheque for a hundred pounds, made payable to Eugene Miller, Esquire, signed by Mary Errington, and marked "Not known. No account."
"_Tonnerre de Dieu!_" cried Aristide. "How did you get this?"
"How did I get it? I cashed it for her--the day she went away. She said urgent affairs summoned her from Aix--no time to wire for funds--wanted to pay her hotel bill--and she gave me the address of her old English home in Somerset and invited me to come there in September. Fifteenth of September. Said that you were coming. And now I've got a bum cheque. I guess I can't wander about this country alone. I need blinkers and harness and a man with a whip."
He went on indignantly. Aristide composed his face into an expression of parental interest; but within him there was shivering and sickening upheaval. He saw it all, the whole mocking drama....
He, Aristide Pujol, was the most sweetly, the most completely swindled man in France.
The Comte de Lussigny, the mild Mrs. Errington and the beautiful Betty were in league together and had exquisitely plotted. They had conspired, as soon as he had accused the Count of cheating. The rascal must have gone straight to them from Miller's room. No wonder that Lussigny, when insulted at the tables, had sat like a tame rabbit and had sought him in the garden. No wonder he had accepted the accusation of adventurer. No wonder he had refused to play for the cheque which he knew to be valueless. But why, thought Aristide, did he not at once consent to sell the papers on the stipulation that he should be paid in notes? Aristide found an answer. He wanted to get everything for nothing, afraid of the use that Aristide might make of a damning confession, and also relying for success on his manipulation of the cards. Finally he had desired to get hold of a dangerous cheque. In that he had been foiled. But the trio has got away with his thousand pounds, his wonderful thousand pounds. He reflected, still keeping an attentive eye on young Eugene Miller and interjecting a sympathetic word, that after he had paid his hotel bill, he would be as poor on quitting Aix-les-Bains as he was when he had entered it. _Sic transit_.... As it was in the beginning with Aristide Pujol, is now and ever shall be....