The Forged Coupon

Chapter 5

THE guests at the party had tea and cakes offered to them, and sat down

after that to play whist at a number of card-tables.

The partners of Eugene Mihailovich's wife were the host himself, an

officer, and an old and very stupid lady in a wig, a widow who owned a

music-shop; she loved playing cards and played remarkably well. But it

was Eugene Mihailovich's wife who was the winner all the time. The best

cards were continually in her hands. At her side she had a plate with

grapes and a pear and was in the best of spirits.

"And Eugene Mihailovich? Why is he so late?" asked the hostess, who

played at another table.

"Probably busy settling accounts," said Eugene Mihailovich's wife. "He

has to pay off the tradesmen, to get in firewood." The quarrel she had

with her husband revived in her memory; she frowned, and her hands, from

which she had not taken off the mittens, shook with fury against him.

"Oh, there he is.--We have just been speaking of you," said the hostess

to Eugene Mihailovich, who came in at that very moment. "Why are you so

late?"

"I was busy," answered Eugene Mihailovich, in a gay voice, rubbing his

hands. And to his wife's surprise he came to her side and said,--"You

know, I managed to get rid of the coupon."

"No! You don't say so!"

"Yes, I used it to pay for a cartload of firewood I bought from a

peasant."

And Eugene Mihailovich related with great indignation to the company

present--his wife adding more details to his narrative--how his wife had

been cheated by two unscrupulous schoolboys.

"Well, and now let us sit down to work," he said, taking his place at

one of the whist-tables when his turn came, and beginning to shuffle the

cards.