And so the only thing the least bit novel about her situation at this moment—viz. seated at a basset-table watching her husband deal out cards to idle nobles—was that the fellow seated directly across the table from her was of titanic importance. At any other of the parties that the Arcachons had hosted in the few weeks just past, it would have been the captain of some Ship of the Line, cringing and servile in the presence of his master, the Grand Admiral of France (for Étienne had inherited the title). Today, though, it was Pontchartrain who, technically, ranked Étienne d’Arcachon! Étienne was under no obligation to toady, however, as he and Pontchartrain were both of such lofty stature as to be essentially equals. Pontchartrain had turned up unexpectedly this morning on a jacht that had sailed in from Cherbourg. He had spent all of dinner trying to catch Eliza’s eye, and not because he wanted to flirt with her. She had invited the count to join her and Étienne at basset. Then, to prevent the gentlemen from crossing swords, or the ladies from poisoning each other, for the other seats at the table, Eliza had picked out this Madame de Bearsul and this Monsieur d’Erquy, precisely because they were nobodies who would not interfere too much in the conversation. Or such had been her phant’sy. Of course each of them had turned out (as mentioned) to be fully autonomous souls possessed of free will, intelligence, and an agenda. D’Erquy had heard, through the grapevine, that Eliza had been buying up bad loans from petty nobles like him who had been foolish enough to lend money to the government. De Bearsul was angling for a position in the household of some higher and mightier Court personage. To Pontchartrain, who was accustomed to meeting with the King of France almost every day, they might as well have been ants or lice. And so, about five hands into this basset-game, he had locked his brown eyes on Eliza’s and made this curious remark about the English and their lack of specie.