"I want a great deal, Count! I want five hundred rubles," and taking out her cambric handkerchief she began wiping her husband's waistcoat.
Dmitri, a man of good family who had been brought up in the count's house and now managed all his affairs, stepped softly into the room.
"This is what I want, my dear fellow," said the count to the deferential young man who had entered.
"Count," said he, "you have offered us places in your carriage, and at your windows in the Rospoli Palace.
"Ah," said the count negligently, looking attentively at Morcerf, "is there not something like an execution upon the Piazza del Popolo?"
"Yes," returned Franz, finding that the count was coming to the point he wished.
Slowly the hand approached the count, and then, very deftly, the thing that was in it was transferred to the count's pocket.
The play went on for some ten minutes after this, until the count won a considerable wager from him who had last joined the game, and then Tarzan saw the fellow back of the count's chair nod his head to his confederate.
Instantly the count and the two other players were upon their feet.
"With your kind permission," said the Count, "I will take my small family here--my poor-little-harmless-pretty-Mouseys, out for an airing along with us.
It is an important conversation, so far as I am concerned, for it has seriously disposed me to distrust the influence which Count Fosco has exercised over my thoughts and feelings, and to resist it for the future as resolutely as I can.
The Count good-humouredly took a stool many sizes too small for him, and balanced himself on it with his back against the side of the shed, which creaked and groaned under his weight.