While Joseph was placing the
card-tables, the more intimate of the family friends surrounded Agathe
and asked,--
"What do you intend to make of Philippe?"
"I don't know," she answered, "but he is determined not to serve the
Bourbons."
"Then it will be very difficult for you to find him a place in France.
If he won't re-enter the army, he can't be readily got into government
employ," said old Du Bruel. "And you have only to listen to him to see
he could never, like my son, make his fortune by writing plays."
The motion of Agathe's eyes, with which alone she replied to this
speech, showed how anxious Philippe's future made her; they all kept
silence. The exile himself, Bixiou, and the younger Desroches were
playing at ecarte, a game which was then the rage.
"Maman Descoings, my brother has no money to play with," whispered
Joseph in the good woman's ear.
The devotee of the Royal Lottery fetched twenty francs and gave them
to the artist, who slipped them secretly into his brother's hand. All
the company were now assembled. There were two tables of boston; and
the party grew lively. Philippe proved a bad player: after winning for
awhile, he began to lose; and by eleven o'clock he owed fifty francs
to young Desroches and to Bixiou. The racket and the disputes at the
ecarte table resounded more than once in the ears of the more peaceful
boston players, who were watching Philippe surreptitiously.
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