The Colonel made a mental calculation. He did not think he kept just then any more than fifteen thousand francs. He was expecting a check from the agent.
"Give it to me," Lubimoff commanded.
And immediately, as though suddenly recalling something,he calmly mentioned the debt he had contracted the afternoon before. Toledo was thoughtful for a moment on learning that he was to come to an understanding with the old money lender to return the twenty thousand francs and the payment of extraordinary interest, which might double in a few days. He recalled the luncheon during which the Prince had proposed their present solitary life. Where were the ferocious "enemies of women" now? For the Colonel suspected that behind these squanderings of the Prince and this sudden passion for gambling, lay the influence of some woman. And he who never dared stake more than a few odd coins from time to time, thinking of the enormous sums entrusted to his loyalty, was deeply worried.
While Don Marcos was on his way to the bank where the house money was deposited, the Prince walked about in the neighborhood of the Casino, waiting impatiently for the rooms to open. In the morning the crowd was very slight and very few tables were operating. Only the most desperate gamblers, after spending a sleepless night, anxious to try their new combinations as soon as possible, and sickly people who hoped to find a good seat vacant, came at that early hour.
Impatiently Lubimoff entered the anteroom, after secretly thrusting into a pocket a roll of bills which Toledo handed to him. The employees of the first shift were arriving slowly, like clerks entering an office. The cleaning women and porters in shirt sleeves had just swept up the sawdust scattered on the floor. They all looked at him from the corner of their eyes, pointing him out to one another by discreet nudges. Imagine the Prince there at that hour, when people of his station in life were still in bed! Instinctively they looked all about expecting to see some coyly dressed lady waiting to meet him unobserved at that early hour. His well-knownreputation did not permit them to imagine anything save a rendezvous.
It was ten o'clock. The curtains were opened, and Michael entered brushing against the first gamblers to arrive, modest timid folk. He felt the same nervousness, impatience, and dull anger that he felt on the mornings when he had fought duels. He walked with a heavy step; his hands kept contracting as though ready to strangle the empty air. At the same time he felt the same proud confidence of a marksman, sure of hitting the bull's-eye. He defied Lady Fortune before facing her, the wench whom he had once conquered. "By God! She would see she was dealing with a man this time!"
He jerked a chair away from a hand already stretched out to take it, and sat down at a roulette table, between two dirty, badly dressed old women, who looked like witches. The employees exchanged looks of amazement, eyeing one another discreetly. The Prince betting, and at such an hour!...
"Faites vos jeux!"
The game began. Michael had no particular combination and had not thought of any. His eyes wandered over the thirty-six numbers, but only for an instant.
"That's the one," he thought. And he placed all that he could, ninelouis, the maximum, on thirteen.
The ball spun about the mahogany border, and when it finally came to rest was greeted with a murmur of amazement. "Number thirteen."
A few thousand franc notes thrust in his direction by the rake of thecroupierremained in front of the Prince, who sat there impassively, retaining a hard willful look. He knew it; he was sure he was making no mistake. Thirteen once more.
People looked in amazement. What folly to bet twice on the same number! But when thirteen won a secondtime and the Prince was paid the maximum again, a murmur from the crowd applauded the victor. Onlookers came hurrying, leaving the other tables devoid of spectators. This was going to be as famous a morning in the Casino, in spite of the smallness of the crowd, as the most celebrated afternoon and evening, when wealthy players fought with luck.
Lubimoff changed his number. It was absurd to go on with thirteen. And he placed ninelouison seventeen. The ball spun around. It was thirteen once more. He lost.
His look became harder and more aggressive. Dame Fortune was beginning to laugh at him for his lack of will power. A conqueror should feel no vacillation; it was his fault, for having given up his number. Men like him should go ahead, and impose their will, or perish without abandoning their first attitude. Thirteen as before!... And it was seventeen that won.
For a moment he thought the ground was falling away beneath his feet; he seemed to be floating in air, surrounded by mysterious forces that were weakening and finally breaking his will. He passed his hand over his forehead, as though trying to brush away, far away, his momentary weakness.
"The she-devil," he exclaimed, mentally, insulting Fortune, sure once more that he was going to enslave her.
And he went on playing.
At three o'clock in the afternoon he came out of the Hôtel de Paris. He had lunched alone, without paying any attention to the glances he had received from other tables, avoiding friendly greetings that might have started a conversation.
In his mouth was a fat cigar, and his legs, althoughperfectly steady, inwardly felt a certain voluptuous sensation. The food had been bad; he had scarcely touched the dishes; on the other hand he had drunk a bottle of famous Burgundy, and several glasses of cordials immediately after finishing two cups of coffee.
From the hotel steps he gave a glance of destructive hate at the square, the Casino and the Gardens. He thought with satisfaction of the possibility of a cruiser belonging to one of the nations which were carrying on war on the seas of Europe anchoring in front of that gingerbread house, and firing a few shells at it. What a wonderful sight! Then, in his imagination, he had a landing party with their machine guns disembark, to take prisoner all the people who were filling the square, men, women and even children. The world would lose nothing by it. What a city of corruption! Why the devil had his mother taken it into her head to buy the promontory of Villa Sirena, obliging him to live near this den of thieves? He even upbraided the dead Princess, with the stern uncompromising morality of every gambler who has just found himself tricked.
As he glanced over the gay, well-dressed crowd that he was condemning to slavery, he saw Alicia, alone and on foot, on the edge of the sidewalk around the "Camembert," looking at the Casino.
"Are you going in?" he said, approaching her.
The Duchess became indignant, as though he was proposing something humiliating, something that she had never done before. She enter the Casino?
"It's a rotten den, and the employees are rotters, and those who gamble—rotters too."
It was all rotten! After saying this they took each other's hands as though they had just suddenly recognized each other.
When Michael, still harping on his kind wishes, toldher about the bombardment and landing party with machine guns that he had been enjoying in his imagination, the Duchess almost applauded. As far as she was concerned, she would be very glad if they destroyed everything, if they even took the sovereign Prince himself prisoner, and if, into the bargain, the invaders returned the money she had lost, she could want nothing better.
Suddenly, as if these charitable fantasies of Lubimoff told her of something, her eyes scrutinized him closely, much like those of a suspicious invalid who is able to recognize his own symptoms in those of a neighbor.
"You have been gambling."
Michael nodded sadly.
"And you have lost," she continued; "that goes without saying: I don't need to ask you. You, gambling!"
But her surprise was short.
"You have been gambling for my sake: I have guessed it. You said to yourself: 'I'm going to win what that crazy woman loses; men know more than women.' Oh, my poor boy, my poor boy, how grateful I am for your friendly intention!... How much was it?"
On hearing the sum she gave him a look of compassion, but smiled immediately, as though the comradeship of misfortune made her own losses easier to bear.
They remained silent for a moment. Then she explained her presence on the square. The night before she had sworn she would never again come near the Casino, but habit...!
"I'm alone. Valeria went away immediately after lunch. She goes around like a crazy woman on account of that scientist you have at your house. They must have made an engagement somewhere. All she talks about is Spain, because the women there marry without dowries. As for 'the General,' don't talk to me abouther: I don't want to hear her name; she is dead—dead forever, as far as I am concerned! And I'm so bored all by myself; I think of things that make me weep; I go out, and my feet take me here without my realizing it."
Then she added with a graceful entreaty:
"Take me somewhere, wherever you feel like. Let's go a long ways from here. Where can we go?"
The Prince showed the same hesitation. They continually moved in the same circle, from their houses to the center of Monte Carlo, the Casino, and seemed lost if they tried to go any farther. The war had done away with private automobiles; to go on an excursion it was necessary to get a permit in advance. One could find nothing save carriages drawn by feeble horses, rejected by the Army.
"Suppose we go to Monaco?" Alicia proposed.
Monaco was in sight, on the other side of the harbor; a street car ran from there to Monte Carlo every twenty minutes, and nevertheless she made this proposal as though speaking of some remote country.
They had both spent some twenty years there, continually seeing the rock which bore on its crest the old city of the Princes; but, as though those places were painted on a back drop in the theater, it had never entered their heads to go that far. Alicia vaguely recalled a visit to the Palace of the Sovereign and another to the Museum of Oceanography, without being able to formulate her impressions. Lubimoff also from his automobile had seen the garden, the old houses, and a large square, the one day that he had visited the Prince of Monaco in his old castle.
They decided on the trip with the glee of school children, and when the Duchess went to call a cab, Michael showed a certain hesitation as he searched through various pockets.
He had no money. He had dropped it all in the roulette, absolutely all. At the hotel he had asked them to charge his lunch, handing over his last few francs to the waiter as a tip.
Alicia greeted his worried look with bursts of laughter. Lubimoff unable to pay a cabman! Monte Carlo was the only place where you could see things like that.
"Poor boy, I'll pay. You can deduct it from the twenty thousand I owe you. No; not that, no; it will be a gift. You have given women so much money, let me be the first to pay a bill for you. What a luxury! I 'keeping' Prince Lubimoff."
They had gotten into the carriage, which was beginning to descend the slope toward La Condamine harbor.
"How people stare at us!" said Alicia. "They will think I am carrying you off by force. The Duchess de Delille, ruined, seduces a multi-millionaire Prince to make him her lover and get money out of him ... and they don't know that I am the one that is paying! Come laugh a little. Are you annoyed that I should pay? Don't you think it is amusing?"
She talked of her lack of foresight and her folly with a certain pride, as though it were something which placed her above people of regular habits. The evening before she had been afraid of not having enough money left to buy food for the next day. But Valeria had spent the morning making valuable discoveries in the closets! Bank notes lost among the clothes, Casino chips forgotten among the books, and even a thousand franc bill used to wrap up an old cake of soap.
She suddenly stopped enumerating these finds.
"Look! Look!"
They were beside the harbor. She pointed out a lady who was walking along the shore, among the tall rose-bay bushes trimmed in the shape of trees. It was Clorinda.A gentleman who seemed to be waiting for her rose from the bench, and came forward to meet her. They both recognized Atilio Castro, and observed how he and "the General" greeted each other, and how they continued their promenade together, so absorbed in mutual contemplation, that they did not notice the carriage.
Michael smiled slightly. Himself there, beside Alicia, who was causing him to commit every sort of folly; and the other man waiting there for Doña Clorinda's arrival with all the emotion of a youth! Poor enemies of women!
"Don't talk to me about her!" Alicia exclaimed in a rage, in spite of the fact that her companion had said nothing. "I hate her.... Think of poor Martinez forgotten. She quarrels with me to get him, takes him away from me, and then comes in search of Castro, while the other unhappy fellow is wandering about Monte Carlo. What a woman! She has done me so much harm! She is to blame for everything."
And as the Prince looked at her with a questioning air she explained her complaints with a tone of conviction. Her losses which had been so rapid and so complete, could not be explained logically. She had won for two weeks, and in a few hours had lost everything. How could that be? The evening before, as she was leaving the Casino, a respectable friend, an Italian Marchioness, a former dancer, who was very wise in matters of luck, and who had been gambling for the last thirty years in Monte Carlo, had revealed to her the cruel truth: "Duchess, there is some one who hates you; an envious friend who comes to your house and has cast an evil spell over you. That is the only way to explain what has happened. You must drive out the evil luck, turning it back on the person who gave it to you.
"So you see it couldn't be clearer: an envious friendwho comes to my house—Clorinda; it can't be any one else. And no later than to-morrow I am going to drive away my bad luck, in the way the Marchioness recommended. Other gamblers follow her advice and are very successful."
It was the Three Wise Kings who possessed the power of undoing evil spells. It was necessary to cleanse away the rooms which "the General" had entered by burning in a small pan gold, incense and myrrh, the three presents of the monarchs who had come from afar. She had no gold; it was inaccessible on account of the war; but, according to the Witch-Marchioness, it would be the same if she burned wheat.
"And at the same time recite a prayer in Italian, a very pretty entreaty to the Three Kings, that sounds like a song, that says—that says——"
Unable to remember it, she opened her hand bag. She kept the prayer in her coin purse, written in lead pencil on one of the cards furnished by the Casino to keep track of bets. Michael looked at the contents of the purse with the curiosity always inspired by every object belonging to a woman who interests a man. Beside the mussed handkerchief he saw a little leather case, and hanging from it a gambler's fetish, a hand with the index and little finger extended like horns, to ward off bad luck. But beside the hand there hung another golden fetish, of such an unexpected, unheard of form, that Michael refused to believe what had passed before his eyes like a rapid vision.
Alicia drew back, pushing aside his inquisitive hand: "No, no!" And she closed the purse so rapidly that the silver rings almost caught his fingers. Blushing and smiling, she held him off, giving him a sly look, and at the same time shrinking like a naughty child.
"It is a gift from the Marchioness. The best sheknows, to bring luck. Mine has gone. That is all you need to know. How curious you are!"
And while she pretended to be somewhat angry in order to avoid new explanations, Michael recalled the Rosary of Satan belonging to his friend Lewis and its strange ornaments.
The carriage began to ascend the slope towards Monaco. The ships and the harbor seemed to sink with each turn of the wheel. Verdant shades cooled the road, within sight of the luminous sea and of the yellowish mountains, that were taking on a rosy color under the afternoon sun.
Michael explained to his companion the strange features of the promontory that serves as a base for old Monaco. On the Southern part, among the rocks covered with century plants and prickly pear, the vegetation of the warm countries becomes acclimated with a facility that if one takes the latitude into account is truly extraordinary. On his visit to the palace of the Prince he had found in the warmer moats of the fortress, which are like natural hothouses, the same damp sticky heat that one finds in the forests of Equador, with their Brazilian palm trees that rise many yards in quest of light. On the other hand, without leaving the rock, one finds on the northern side, where there is little sunlight, ferns from the cold countries, vegetation from the Vosges Mountains, which got here no one knows how, and took root beside the Mediterranean.
Alicia, not wishing to seem less informed, talked about the San Martino Gardens. She had not seen them, but she imagined that they were between the Museum of Oceanography and the Cathedral. Valeria had not been able to talk about anything else during the last few weeks, and described them as though they were the most interesting gardens in the world. She had seen them in goodcompany, and this had exerted a strong influence on her powers of vision. It was doubtless Novoa who had revealed to her this Paradise.
"Supposing we were to meet them!" said Alicia, laughingly.
The carriage passed between two little towers, capped with tiles, that marked the entrance to the walled enclosure of Monaco. The harbor lay far below, with its boats that seemed so tiny. On the other side of the sheet of water shone the cupolas of the Casino and the many Monte Carlo hotels, with their multi-colored façades, the windows of their balconies and belvideres. It was impossible to make out the people. Automobiles were gliding along like tiny insects on the slope that descended to La Condamine.
They followed the asphalt avenue, between two narrow dense gardens, leading to the Museum of Oceanography.
"Look at them!" said Alicia with an expression of triumph, as she nudged the Prince at the same time.
When the latter turned his head all he could see were two indistinct forms hiding in a side path.
"It is they, you may be sure," continued the Duchess, laughing. "They were walking in the middle of the avenue. Valeria is very quick; she turned when she heard the sound of a carriage, and recognized me immediately. She hurried the scientist away as though she were dragging him along."
She stopped laughing, and her features took on a look of sad solemnity.
"Happy pair! What dreams! We have all gone through the same thing. The worst of it is that we want to keep on going in quest of something further, when we ought to remain satisfied with what we have."
The Prince nodded, repeating briefly:
"Happy pair!"
His voice sounded like arequiem. These successive meetings had made him think of the end of the community of which he was the ridiculous head. First of all, Castro; then, Novoa. Even the Colonel at that very moment was walking up and down in front of a millinery shop waiting for the gardener's little girl. Spadoni was the only one left, but his loyalty counted for little. As far as the latter was concerned, nothing feminine existed except the roulette wheel.
The carriage stopped beyond the Museum of Oceanography, where the San Martino Garden began. Alicia paid the driver.
"We must economize," she said gravely. "We shall return on foot."
They followed a network of winding paths, ascending and descending the gulleys of the slope. The tiny plateaus had been converted into stone lookouts, from which the view embraced an immense expanse of sea. Occasionally at dawn one could distinguish the distant profile of the Mountain of Corsica. Since the gardens were far above the Mediterranean, the horizon line was so high that one seemed to be looking upwards when viewing it. The pine trees rose in slender black colonnades and between the thin trunks one could see the dark Mediterranean suspended like a curtain. Only the murmuring tops of the sharp trees emerged in the diaphanous azure of the skies. Below the vegetation was composed of wild hardy plants breathing out strong odors, plants that were unaffected by the salty exhalations of the sea; prickly pear, lobes of which were surmounted by red fruit; small century plants whose twisted blades intertwined like tentacles of green pulp.
Alicia admired this garden. According to her it was a maritime garden, in harmony with the nearby Museumand the landscape. The trunks of the trees seemed like the masts of ships; the plants amassed at their feet had the radiating enveloping form of the monsters of the ocean depths. Other vegetation of a foreign origin recalled images of warm countries, and of distant parts, filled with odors and swarming with crowds of yellow and copper-colored men. Through the straight trunks of the trees, one could see five schooners, motionless on the horizon with their sails hanging.
A train of smoke followed the evolutions of a slim torpedo boat steaming around the white, timid flock, like a watch dog.
Looking over the stone balconies one could peer into the ocean to enormous depths. The bold red cliff buried itself vertically in the waters darkened by shadows, or took shelter behind landslides of rocks continually surrounded by foam. On one side Cap-Martin advanced, repelling the onrush of the waves, circles of white caps that constantly succeeded one another, rising from the azure meadows; still farther on lay the Italian coast, showing rose-colored through the melancholy afternoon mist, and on the opposite side lay Cap-d'Ail and Cap-Ferrat, above whose backs embossed with the green of the seas, and dotted with the white of the villas—the golden winding sheet, which was to enshroud the dying sun, began to rise.
"Beautiful! very beautiful!"
Alicia displayed a girlish delight. They sat down in view of the sea, slowly drinking in the vibrant calm, in which mingled the trembling of the pines, the deep churning of the invisible foam, the breath of the azure plain, and the rustling of the earth, grazed by rosaries of ants, by chains of caterpillars, and by the busy work of the black beetle, and at the same time deeply stirred by the awakening of the roots.
From time to time human footsteps sounded on the sand of the winding path. They came from invalids or convalescents who were passing through the gardens on coming out of the Museum; people from Monaco returning to their homes after having taken the sun on a bench; fat housewives who kept their knitting in a bag; old men leaning on canes, who perhaps had never gone to sea, but who looked like old Genoese sailors. Also a few pairs of lovers passed slowly. They would appear at a turning of the path with their arms around each other's waists, silent, looking at each other, and observing that there was another couple on the bench, they unclasped, and suddenly pretended to be carrying on a conversation. As soon as possible they gained the nearest turning to resume their tender entwining, not without having first greeted the Prince and the Duchess with a smile, as though they saw in them another pair of lovers.
"And just to think that we have never come here before!" said Alicia. "You, at least, own magnificent gardens; but I, living in a villa which is simply a house with a few trees around it and has no other views than the opposite building, have been so stupid to have spent the afternoon in the Casino, dark and shut in like a wine cellar. How awful!"
She shuddered on thinking of the Casino. It seemed impossible to her now that during the very hours when this garden lay stretched out beside the sea, with its luminous sylvan splendor she should have been able to live in that half light of artificial illumination or in that nasty, unwholesome atmosphere.
"There are many beautiful things in the world," she continued, "for which money is not necessary. Just to think that if we had not lost we would not be here! It is almost better to be poor."
Michael laughed at her earnestness. No; it was notpleasant to be poor; but she was right in saying that to enjoy many beautiful things it was not necessary to have money.
"We, ourselves," she added, after a long pause, "have known each other only since we lost our wealth. Who knows but what if we had been born poor we would have understood each other better when we were young! I have often thought so."
Of course! And since Michael had been there on the bench, beside her, he had been thinking the same thing. Alicia's joy at the splendor of the afternoon, her enthusiasm on seeing this rustic garden overlooking the sea, far from certain people, without whom she formerly would have thought life intolerable, far from gambling, which was the only remedy to fill the emptiness of her life—all this flattered and delighted the Prince, like a discovery in harmony with his desires. At present he saw her in a very different light from that in which he had imagined her in former years. And he, too, surely seemed like a very different person in her eyes than he had in the past. Before, they had been separated by an enormous wall, wealth, that gave rise to pride and eagerness for domineering.
He felt the need of going on talking. Something was surging within him, causing words to rise to his lips in an irresistible tide.
A voice within seemed to warn him. "You are going to commit some monstrous folly. Look out!—You are on the road to mixing up your life again——" It was the old Lubimoff in him that was talking; the Lubimoff who had recently arrived from Paris to take refuge in his Ark, far from the vain longings that make up the happiness of the majority of men; it was the stern chief of the "enemies of women."
But the harsh, mournful inner voice awoke no echoingresponse. The Prince despised this phantom that still remained within him, lamenting over the ruins it found there.
Up to that moment he had been inhaling with delight the perfume of that woman. It seemed to mingle with the perfumes of the afternoon, communicating its essence to all Nature. He saw the sky, the sea, the trees, and everything in fact in terms of her, as though she filled all space.
He, too, had made a discovery that afternoon. He thought with horror of the loneliness of Villa Sirena, just as she had been thinking of the Casino. These gardens which every one might enjoy, seemed to him more beautiful than those he owned, and which every one envied him. How had he ever been able to walk around his villa, through its magnificent and lonely avenues, when there existed in the world the marvelous pleasures of sitting on a public bench beside a woman, or walking close to her, with an arm around her waist, like those poor soldiers and sailors?
Once more he heard the voice: "Fine, Prince! In love like a school-boy when you're over forty. Go on with your foolishness, if it amuses you!... What would the other 'enemies of women' say?"
But he refused to listen to this last protest from the other hostile and forgotten half of his personality.
"Our life has been a mistake," he said aloud, with a certain vehemence, in order not to show his emotion. "You, too, must realize that I think the same—that I acknowledge my error—because I—because I, for some time—have been in love with you!... Well, I have said it! Now laugh if you like."
She did not feel like laughing. She gave a slight exclamation, looked at him for a moment, and turned away as though avoiding the questioning glance in his eyes.She had had a presentiment that this was coming, sooner or later, but her breath was taken away on actually hearing it!
There was a long silence.
"What is your answer?" the famous Prince Lubimoff, adored by so many women, finally asked with timidity.
Alicia looked at him again.
"Aren't you joking? Isn't it a mere whim inspired by the beauty of this afternoon—so poetic?"
Michael protested with a gesture. How could she take as a caprice the grave decision that he had finally reached after so long and difficult a debate within, the way one evolves a truly great decision!
"If I were like most women, I would reply: 'How many women have you said the same thing to?' But such a question is stupid. One may have said: 'I love you,' to a woman, in all sincerity and some time later repeat the same words to another, with still more sincerity. I'm not going to ask you to how many you have said what you have just said to me. Perhaps you never said it to any one before. To fulfill your desires it wasn't necessary to exert yourself, playing a comedy of deep affection: they sought you passionately; like a Sultan, you needed only to throw your handkerchief as a signal.... But when it comes to me! Remember, Michael: as children we hated each other; later on, when I was willing, you were not. And now we are beginning to grow old! Now that I possess only the remains of what I once was and haven't the same freedom any longer, since I have—you know what...! It is absurd, and that is why I laugh. No: never!"
It was the Prince's turn to speak. They had hated each other, that was true, and now he considered that hate as fortunate. What a misfortune for both of themif marriage had united their two enormous fortunes and their two prides, more enormous still.
"We would have separated a week later; perhaps the same day," Michael continued. "I even suspect that I would have beaten you."
"And I you," said the Duchess. "No place would have been large enough to hold us both. It would have been necessary for one of us to give in to the other. And neither one of us would have thought of making such a sacrifice."
"I might say the same," he continued, "about the night when we dined together. I am glad of my absurd and ridiculous conduct on that occasion. Had I given in, there would be an invincible barrier between us now; we would never have met again, and we would not be here saying to each other what we are saying now."
She assented.
"We would not be here, that is certain. You would have kept a frightful memory of me; I know very well what I was like then. Neither would I have sought you out, even though my life depended on it. Thanks to your flight that evening we can still be friends, eternal friends, brothers if you like; but why do you talk to me about love? It doesn't belong to our age. The time has passed. What do you see in me now that you did not when I was young?"
"I see your misfortune."
The voice of the Prince sounded grave and deeply sincere as he said this.
He had reflected for a long time, before answering, when he had asked himself the same question as Alicia's. He was sure that he had begun to love her the day when she had come to Villa Sirena to confess her ruin and to ask him to forget her debt to him. Poor Duchess de Delille,accustomed to spending millions each year, the proprietress of precious mines, and having to live by gambling like an adventuress!... Afterwards, beside her bed, seeing her tears, and listening to the great secret of her life, the hidden motherhood that had made her weep, he had become definitely conscious of this love. During the last few days, seeing her victorious in the Casino, his love had been clouded; he cared less for her. Later, finding her ruined and sick with sadness, his affection was renewed; and to help her, he had even become a gambler, he, who was incapable of doing this even for his own salvation!
"You can't understand me; you are a woman. Often in my life, other women have said to me, after some unexplainable act of theirs: 'It is useless to try: men can never succeed in understanding us.' I say the same: A woman cannot understand a man either. I love you now because you inspire pity in me, and pity leads to tenderness and tenderness is true love, love such as I have never felt before. Each one loves in his own way. The majority of women need to feel proud when they love; the person they love must arouse the envy of others through being brave, handsome, wealthy or talented. Man almost always loves through pity, through tender compassion inspired by woman. He never feels more in love than when a woman's head reclines against his breast with the abandon of weakness; and when his hand is buried in her hair, it finds a tiny delicate head—smaller than he had ever imagined—a head that is filled with divine words, irresistible charms, and noble impulses, but which rarely has that force of thought which makes man superior to her. Her adorable arms are not strong enough to protect her. And man, seeing her so lovely and so weak, feels his passion increase with pity and the desire to protect her."
"No," she said. "Woman, too, knows the meaning of compassionate love. A man for whom she feels indifference suddenly interests her, when she sees that he is unhappy; and a woman, who hates her lover one day, returns to him the next, when she feels that he is in danger. She never speaks more tenderly than when she says, 'My poor little boy!'"
The Prince assented with a gesture. That was all very well. But immediately he returned to the subject which interested him.
"To-day we both know misfortune; I, as well as you, since I have lost what distinguished me from other men, and which I shall never perhaps recover. But your situation is still worse; you are a woman, you are poorer, and I feel attracted to you and tell you what I never would have told you if, shut up within our own pride, we had both kept our former places in the world."
He went on talking in a soothing tone almost in her ear, coming closer to her, and breathing the perfume of the fur boa around her neck, which seemed to have concentrated in itself the perfume of her whole body.
He repeated what he had thought in the nights when he had struggled with his former dread; thoughts that he had vigorously resumed shortly before, as he was sitting silently by her side in the carriage. He talked of the future. They might still be happy; the love he offered her was of the quiet, lasting kind; an autumnal love, a love that would be for all time, with no dramatic complications, peaceful, tranquil, sweetly uneventful, like the long winter evenings beside a fire.
She laughed with a pained expression.
"You forget who I am; you talk as though the past did not exist, as though you were not yourself and as though all the stories that weigh against my name did not exist. If some one else were to make me this proposal, whoknows!... I am weary and the thought of a quiet future attracts me. But you!... With you it would be impossible: It would end disastrously. I prefer that we be friends, without any thought of love. It is safer and more lasting."
On seeing his look of dismay, Alicia went on talking. She was not afraid of living with him because of what people might say. It is true that she had a husband, who now in the throes of a senile passion would refuse to grant her a divorce. But what did she care for an obstacle like that, or for what people would say about it!... She had done more daring things in her life!
"It is simply that I do not want to. Don't ask me why: I could not explain it to you; or I should say, you would not understand me. I repeat what other women have said to you: 'You are a man, and cannot understand women.' No, I don't want to. I shall speak more plainly: Another man might succeed in interesting me—I don't know. We are so weak! Our wills play us such strange tricks! But with you, no.... We know each other too well: It is impossible."
Michael spoke in a tone of sadness and chagrin.
"I don't interest you: that is easy to see."
Alicia once more laughed heartily and with one of her hands she tapped those of the Prince which were clasped together.
"Silly! Do you really think I don't care for you at all. If I felt indifferent toward you would I have sought you formerly, and would I be here with you now?"
He was disconcerted. "Well, then?" And he made an effort to discover what obstacle stood in the way of his desire. If it was on account of what had happened in her past life, he had forgotten it. He, Prince Lubimoff, had had many affairs that it was better not to recall.
"Let's not talk about the past at all. You are a different woman. I know what your life has been during the last few years; besides, the other morning you told me what you have been since your son began to live by your side. I take you from the time you recognized the seriousness of life, on seeing beside you a man formed from your own flesh and blood. I have forgotten the Venus of former years, the Helen of the 'old man on the wall.' I desire you, seeing you as you are to-day, the Venus Sorrowful, weeping, suffering and in need of consolation and care that will sustain and sweeten life."
She stopped smiling. Her lips trembled with a pitiful expression of gratitude; her eyes were moist with tears.
"No," she said in a humble voice. "It is impossible for that very reason. My son! How my son has changed me! I know what all this love means. We are not two children to be deceived by dreams of purity and talk about the soul and heaven, while our bodies are drawn together by a natural impulse. If I accept your love, I know what that means at once, perhaps before the dawning of a new day. Can you imagine such a thing? My son,—I don't know where he is, perhaps he is dead. At least he is suffering at the present moment hardships which a beggar woman would not allow a son of hers to suffer, and I, in the meantime, abandoning myself to a great love, to a passion such that it would absorb all my time and thoughts, as though I were still in my early youth.... Oh, no! How shameful! I know what love between us fatally demands, and it frightens me. I feel powerless in the face of things which formerly seemed to me as nothing. You have spoken the truth: I am a different woman."
The Prince regained hope on learning the nature of the obstacle. Her son was still alive: he was sure of it, He had written to the King of Spain and to influential friends of his in Paris; he had even sent letters to Germanythrough diplomatic channels. They might find him any moment; he would succeed in returning him to his mother's side. Why should the poor boy stand in the way of both their futures? Her son knew life; the years that he had spent with his mother had familiarized him with the irregularities which are so common in the world of the fortunate. He would not consider it unusual for her, submitting to a marriage that was not a lie, to rebuild her life discreetly with a man whom she had known since her youth. Besides, he would love him like a younger brother. He could count on influential friends capable of helping the boy if he wanted to work. When he died what was left of his fortune would go to him.
Alicia clasped one of his hands with the tenderness of gratitude. "How good you are!" But suddenly she dried her tears, and her eyes shone with a glow of energy that seemed to reflect her struggle with herself, and she continued, in a firm tone:
"No, no. I don't want to. I am looking to the immediate future: to what would happen to us if I gave in to your glowing words; I can see my son—or I should say, I cannot see him, I don't know what has become of him, I don't know whether or not he is alive. I tell you no. It is useless for you to insist."
There was a long silence. A soldier passed with his head bandaged beneath hiskepisand a flower behind his ear. He was smiling at a red-faced girl, who was leaning on his arm. They were both humming a tune. The Prince and the Duchess separated slightly on the bench, and remained in silence, he, looking on the ground, absorbed and frowning, she, with her eyes on the horizon line, following the slow progress of the schooners, the sails of which were filling with the breeze that announced the coming twilight.
The obstinacy with which Michael kept his eyes riveted on the ground caused Alicia to make a mistake. Her ankles showed somewhat owing to her posture and her short skirt; trim ankles with the whiteness of her skin visible through the meshes of snuff-colored silk.
"You are looking at my stockings?" she asked, her mood suddenly changing from sadness to gaiety. "Look. What you see on the side there is not embroidery, it is darning. My maid mends them nicely. What can you expect? We are poor."
And doubtless, for the sake of amusing her frowning companion, she went on to enumerate in gay tones the various difficulties arising from her poverty. Oh, the war, with the terrible cost of living! Silk stockings were so bad! One got holes in them after putting them on once, and they came only at fabulous prices. She preferred to prolong the existence of those that she had kept since the days of her wealth, because they were stronger. She might say the same of her dresses. It had been two years since her wardrobe had received any replenishing, so frequent before.
"We are poor," she repeated, with mock solemnity. "Besides, we are fond of gambling, and, like all gamblers, we lose thousands of francs and economize on the little things that make life pleasant."
She had been waiting for an enormous stroke of luck after which she would stop playing and begin to think again of the wardrobe.
But the Prince, by his gestures and the expression on his face gave her to understand how little he was interested in these confidences. It was useless for her to try and change the conversation. Michael, offended by Alicia's negative reply, was still absorbed in his question. Perhaps with another man she would have shown herself more clement.
She realized that she must return to the subject which interested her companion, and said with masculine frankness:
"I know what is the matter with you. I am going to forget we belong to different sexes and talk to you like a comrade, just as I talked to you that night in my study. I know the life you are leading; I know also all about the 'enemies of women': a silly idea. What you need, after several months of living alone like a maniac, is a woman. Choose from those about you; you can find them whenever you like, younger and more beautiful than I, who am beginning to see myself as I am. Why do you choose me? Why do you disturb my tranquillity, now that I have forgotten all about such things?"
The Prince smiled bitterly at the suggested remedy. He had often thought of it. The censor that he kept within had repeated the same advice: "Find a female, and it will all pass away immediately; a woman who inspires only a momentary interest; no women and no love complications. Do what you recommended to Castro." He had frequented the Casino with the resolute air of a slaughter-house man about to choose his prey from the flock. He would glance over the troop of girls in the gambling rooms, who kept one eye on the green baize, while with the other they watched the men who were walking about behind them.
He felt physically attracted by certain women; by one, because of her features, by another, because of her figure or stature, and by some, because of their strange ugliness or stimulating irregularity of form and feature, which affected his nerves much as sharp or biting food affects the palate. He had had only to make a sign or say a brief word to many who, seeing themselves noticed by that famous person, smiled ready to follow him. But suddenly he felt the dislike which is inspired bythings repeated to the point of satiety, and by the emptiness of what is familiar to the point of weariness. He could not expect anything new; he was horrified at the thought of the vain prattle of an unknown woman desirous of appearing interesting; of the lies inspired by a sudden and false sentimentality; and by the gross animalism of the pairing which would end the tiresome preliminaries. No; he couldn't. Only once, with a desperate energy of a patient gulping down a disgusting medicine, he had followed one of these beautiful animals, and shortly afterwards he felt disgusted with his baseness and ashamed of his backsliding.
"It is you; you and no one else," he said gloomily. "You, or no one."
Alicia replied in the same grave tone. She knew by experience what this meant "We desire with greater eagerness what is impossible for us to obtain; we single out as unique whatever is beyond our grasp."
But these reasonings exasperated Lubimoff to the extent of making him unjust.
"I know you," he said, drawing nearer on the bench, as he gazed at her more closely, with angry, passionate eyes. "I know what you women are like; you're all vain and revengeful. You can't forget the evening you wanted me and I was not willing, and now you are taking delight in my torment; you enjoy making me suffer."
"Oh, Michael!" she interrupted, in a tone of protest.
The Prince continued to express his rancour, and his indignation stirred Alicia more than the humble question of a few moments before. It was the desperate pleading of a patient who is past recovery and desires to return to normal life.
"I love you.... I need you. I'll get you!"
Above the promontory of Cap-d'Ail the orange-colored globe of the sun was descending. Its lower edge was alreadytouching the undulating line of garden and buildings. For a moment its rays were concentrated in a sheaf seen through the colonnade of a pergola, as though showing itself through an arch of triumph before dying. A dark azure light seemed to emerge from the sea driving the fading gold of the afternoon from the gardens.
"No!... No, I won't!"
Alicia's voice suddenly broke the vibrant silence with the tremulousness of surprise, and immediately changed to a long gasp, as though something were weighing on her lips. Michael had thrown both his arms around her shoulders, mastering her, drawing her breast forward, pressing it against his own. His lips sought hers, but she made an effort to resist, by turning away with a violent straining of her neck. Finally the moan of protest ceased. Both heads remained motionless.
"Michael ... Michael!" she sighed, freeing herself for a moment from the caress. But a moment later she submitted again to those lips which pursued hers so eagerly.
She spoke in a tone of surrender. She was suddenly back in her past life, trembling at the contact of all those foreign things which seemed absolutely new through long continence. His ardent lips had overpowered her, awakened her from a dream that had lasted for years, in a sleep longer and deeper than Michael's.
She forgot everything around her. Her eyes were still open but the vision of the sea, the golden sunset in the sky, and even the pine boughs forming a canopy above their heads, had disappeared from her gaze.
Suddenly she saw them all once more, and at the same time she drew back her shoulders repelling him.
"No, I won't.... Stop! They might see us. How crazy of us!"
The Prince was an athlete, but his emotion weakened him. Besides, his energy was scattered in the double effort of trying to master the woman and at the same time of enjoying her caress in the overwhelming fury of passion. She bent and straightened several times, with all the suppleness of a reptile, finally succeeding in escaping from the chain of his arms, as she gave a sigh of weariness and relief.
Lubimoff, coming to himself again, saw Alicia standing in front of him, smoothing her disordered clothing, and raising her hands to her hair, to her tilted hat and her boa, which was slipping from her shoulders.
"Let us go," she said, with angry brevity.
And the Prince followed her, crestfallen, repenting his violence. After walking a few steps, she seemed moved by his silence, which showed his repentance, and smiled again:
"It is quite evident that from now on I must not see you alone. I forgot that you were a sailor, accustomed to making port in a hurry without caring to lose any time." They walked along slowly, in a tranquillity like that of the serene twilight.
On leaving the gardens, they found themselves cut off by the Museum. Must they return by the way they had come? Michael discovered on one side of the building a rustic stairway cut at intervals in the rock, the hollows of which were filled with brick steps. It descended to the edge of the sea in various flights of stairs, and at the farther end, a walk following the edge of the coast led to the harbor.
She hesitated for a moment at the archway of the entrance.
"I warn you," she said, shaking her finger at Michael, "that if you return to your old tricks, I shall call forhelp. Do you promise me you'll be good? Word of honor?... All right; go on ahead: I don't trust you."
He went ahead down the stairway to explore. The walls of the Museum seemed to expand as they continued to descend. Besides the building with its roof at their feet, there was a second building below, rising with its stone walls pierced by large windows, from the rocky slopes. At a turn of the path, the Prince faltered to wait for his companion. She was slowly descending, maintaining a distance of several steps between them. Her feet were higher than Lubimoff's head, and it was only necessary for the latter to raise his eyes slightly to see the stockings the darning in which Alicia had explained.
With the lightness of a spring released, he slipped up the various steps that separated them.
"Michael! I'll shout!" she exclaimed on seeing him coming, and she held out her hands to repel him, trying at the same time to flee.
With his arms he had embraced the lower part of that adorable body. He could not climb any further; Alicia's hands repulsed his head with a nervous violence. And he in passionate madness pressed his lips to her feet and her ankles, kissing her skirts wherever he could reach them.
She was angry at feeling that she could not stir and would be unable to escape.
"Let me go! It's ridiculous! Stop!"
The Prince's hat rolled down the steps, knocked off by a blow from her slender hands, as, blindly, she defended herself.
This incident brought him to his senses. Yes; as a matter of fact, it was ridiculous. And as he saw that Alicia intended to retrace her steps, returning to the garden,Michael to inspire her confidence ran down the stairway without turning his head, to see whether she was following him.
They met at the edge of the sea, on the wide path that wound among the loose rocks bordered with foam, and the nearly vertical walls of the cliff. The flat places and hollows in the stone had been made use of, on this promontory, that had so few soft surfaces, to construct the few houses that sheltered the families of the employees in Monaco. Along the upper edge of the cliff appeared the green line bordering the lofty gardens and cut at intervals by the old works of fortification.
They were the sloping bastions, with sentry posts, like those one sees in old engravings or in stage settings. Huge stone facings with Latin letters sang the praises of the various sovereign Princes, who had built these costly works of defense, now antiquated and worthless. Lubimoff expected to see appear from these sentry posts a grenadier in a white uniform with scarlet facings, wearing, above his black mustache and powdered wig, a golden miter.
They walked slowly along in the twilight. Above them shone the orange light of the setting sun, casting a mild red glow on the jutting rocks, the trees, and the white and yellow façades of the buildings. At the edge of the sea, the shadow was a deep blue shade, like moonlight shadow. The sky, blood-red in the West, was invisible for them behind the rocky cliffs of Monaco. They could see it only in the direction of Italy, and there it was growing darker and denser every minute, preparing for the first luminous piercing of the stars.
They met various fishermen who were returning home loaded down with baskets and nets.
Alicia felt worried in certain bends of the path so completelydeserted. Later, on seeing a house or a passerby approaching, she resumed the conversation. What she was afraid of was stopping along the way, and sitting down with the Prince on the little parapet bordering the seashore. In the meantime they continued walking!
Without protesting, she allowed Lubimoff to put his arm in hers, leaning upon it. He expressed such deep humility! He seemed repentant for the liberties he had taken; and asked her forgiveness with a pale smile. Besides, he talked to her about her son with soothing optimism. All her fears were unfounded; her son would return: he was sure of it. She would receive good news almost any moment, perhaps that very night.
Her George was a man, and no matter how much he might love his mother, some day he would fall in love with another woman whom he would care for more deeply, and would build up a separate existence, like all the rest.
"And you, who may still consider yourself young, you, who have the right to long years of happiness, do you want to give up everything like an old woman? Why? Why be in a hurry about that?"
She bowed her head without knowing what to reply, and her emotion was such, that she made not the slightest movement when his arm freed itself from hers and encircled her waist. Thus they walked along, closely linked, forming a single body, taking step after step mechanically, without watching where they were going. With his eyes fixed on hers, he closely watched her face, hoping for a glance, or a monosyllable that would mean acceptance. Alicia was afraid of meeting those imploring eyes, and turned her own away.
"Tell me yes," Michael murmured, "tell me that you will. It isn't for nothing that we have met; it is not for nothing that you sought me out. We shall rebuild ourlives that have been so nearly wrecked by our vanity and pride. Let us be, although it is rather late, what we ought to be to one another."
"No," sighed Alicia. "I can't.... My son!..."
And immediately afterwards she hastened to murmur, as though repenting:
"Yes; perhaps ... later ... but not now. How shameful! When my mind is at ease, when I don't feel this worry that is killing me. I love you; is that enough? I love you."
These two words sufficed the Prince. He, who had gone to the farthest extreme of domination with so many women without ever feeling satisfied, contented himself with these brief words, which sounded in his ears like happy music.
Instinctively, his arm dropped below her waist, while his other arm drew her head to one of his shoulders.
There was a kiss, a long kiss, without either of them pausing in their walk. Alicia offered no resistance, and shortly afterwards, her lips, animated by a feverish awakening, responded to his kiss, making it more passionate, more vibrant and endless. She no longer felt any fear; they were walking along, and it was impossible for her lover to repeat the liberties he had dared to take in the garden. Moreover, she inwardly confessed, with a certain shame, the delight aroused in her by that violence.
"I love you!" she sighed, without knowing what she was saying. "I love you; but not that, no! Let us love each other like children. It is ridiculous at our age—but so sweet."
At that moment Lubimoff's spirit was like her own. This simple kiss seemed to him the greatest pleasure he had ever known. Life opened up enchantments of which he had never dreamed. It seemed to him that he wasgazing on the most beautiful landscape in the world. How interesting were the old fortifications! What a great man Albert of Monaco was to build that lonely asphalt path, so that he might walk along it with his lips pressing the lips of a woman.
They walked along as though they were intoxicated, in a continual zigzag between the parapet and the wall of the cliff, their lips pressing, their eyes almost touching, as though nothing existed beyond them, and they actually imagined that they were walking in a straight line. From a distance one would have thought they were two adversaries struggling, staggering, as they jostled each other in the fight.
Suddenly mastered by desire, he stopped and refused to go on.
"No, no!"
Her will still shaken by her recent emotion, Alicia protested at this danger, but she forced herself to reiterate her refusal.
His lips had separated from hers. There was an aggressive gleam in his half-shut eyes. His hands fell upon her hips, and clinched like claws.
"I won't: I told you I won't! Come!"
She struggled in his arms with the agility of a gymnast, and in breaking free from his grasp there was a sound of tearing clothes.
"Look, you villain! Look what you've done!"
She was standing motionless, a few steps away, with her fur boa falling from one of her shoulders, while at the other she was looking for the tear that her dress had just suffered.
Michael, behind her, saw that one sleeve was almost torn away, giving a glimpse of her white flesh, and the seductive hollow under her arm.
He repented his violence, and the clumsiness of hishands, which like those of a drunken sailor broke what he caressed.
Once more Alicia took pity on his childish embarrassment.
"No, don't worry about that. It is a dress I have had for two years: it is so old, that it tears just by looking at it. That is one of the inconveniences of walking with a beggar."
But she finally became worried by this tear which was so visible. She was going to enter Monte Carlo on foot or by street car. What would people say, seeing her in such a state!
"A pin: have you got a pin?"
This request increased the remorse of the Prince. Where could a man find a pin? While Alicia was feeling for one without avail, he thought of returning to the Museum or scaling the rocks to one of those houses where the employees of the Prince live. He would have given a hundred francs for a pin—but he remembered that his pockets were empty.
He began to search his clothes while she searched hers, although he was certain that it would be useless.
Suddenly he smiled triumphantly.
"Here is your pin."
It was from his necktie! A famous pearl, admired by the women, and which he had never been willing to give away, because it was a gift of the Princess Lubimoff.
He was obliged to mend the tear at the shoulder himself, sighing with vexation.
"You don't know how," said Alicia laughing. "Look out that you don't prick me. How clumsy!"
But he finally felt glad of his clumsiness. He had to touch her naked arm with his fingers; and he quivered as he touched the soft skin, which preserved in its velvety shadows a certain mystery of passion.
"Look out!" she called. "Don't go back to your old tricks: I shall get angry. It is all right as it is. Come on!"
She threw her scarf over the clumsy repair, and the pearl, which stood out against it, with odd magnificence. They were walking along once more, without any new attempted audacities on Michael's part. The last incident had made him circumspect. Inwardly he called himself names, considering himself a savage, incapable of living among real ladies.
As they reached the last bend they left the azure shade of the cliff. Above their heads extended the last angle of the bulwarks, and a stone sentry post; across the harbor, with its mouth flanked by two illuminated towers, and on the opposite bank rose the heights of Monte Carlo, with its huge buildings, and its glistening cupolas, which were reflecting the last rosy fire of the twilight.
They both halted instinctively. In the middle of the harbor, the yacht, the white yacht of the Prince of Monaco, lay motionless, tugging at her buoy. Beside the nearby dock a few latine rigged boats were pitching, moving their single mast, and a Spanish steamer, displaying its neutral flag, was unloading sacks of rice, and barrels of wine. The presence of various groups of men gathered in front of the boat made them prudent. They were no longer alone. Once more they had entered the life of the City.
"How short the road was!" exclaimed the Prince.
She thought the same. "Yes; how short!"
They could no longer walk together. It was necessary to say good-by there, far from the crowd.
Alicia held out both hands.
"Nothing more?" sighed Michael.
The Duchess hesitated a moment. Then, with the agility of a young girl, as though she were still the wildAmazon of the Bois de Boulogne, she sprang for his open arms.
"There, there, and there!"
There were three rapid fiery kisses, that only lasted for a second; three kisses that made Lubimoff think he had never felt one in all his life, since he had never experienced the quivering that swept his body from head to feet.
"More! Give me more!"
She laughed at his imploring look.
"Enough folly. Another time, who knows!—For the present I am worried again. I am afraid to enter my house: I feel terror and hope. Oh, the news that I may receive at any moment! Tell me; do you really think that nothing has happened to him? Do you think he may come back?"