SPADONI, after greeting Novoa in the Casino square, told him about the dreams which were troubling his sleep, and about his disillusionment on awakening.

"It is your fault, professor. When we were living together at Villa Sirena, I used to listen to the interesting things you knew and talked about and then I would go peacefully to sleep. Now I am practically alone. The Prince and Castro are unbearably ill-humored; they talk scarcely at all and pay no attention whatever to me. As you yourself would say, I lead an 'inner life,' always alone with my thoughts; and when I spend the night there, I sleep badly, and suffer from dreams, which are very wonderful in the beginning, but turn out very sad in the end. Oh, what wonderful evenings we used to spend, talking about scientific things!"

Novoa smiled. In the eyes of the musician, gambling and its mysteries were scientific matters. All the paradoxes that he had taken delight in uttering had been stored up in the mind of the pianist as irrefutable truths. Novoa tried to head him off by asking for news of the Prince. But Spadoni, absorbed in his mania, continued:

"Last night's dream was terrible, and nevertheless it could not have begun better. I had the secret of your infinitesimal errors; I had mastered the hidden laws of chance and was King of the world. I had a special train, composed of a sleeping car, a drawing-room car, a dining car, a swimming-pool car, and goodness knows how many special kinds of cars! It was a regular palace on wheels that was always awaiting me at the railway station, with the engine constantly keeping up steam, ready to start at any moment. I got out of the train in all the cities famous for gambling, just as a person gets out of an automobile. And seeing me coming, the owners of the Casinos, the employees, and even the green tables fairly trembled. 'Hurrah for the Avenger!' all those who had lost their money shouted in the anteroom. But I passed on, serene as a god, without paying any attention to these ovations from the common herd. Imagine what it would cost the possessor of the secret of the infinitesimal errors to win! My twelve secretaries placed on the various tables a million or two, following my instructions. 'Ready, play!' I walked about like Napoleon, giving orders to my marshals. In half an hour, they declared the bank was broken and the Casino bankrupt. 'The house is closing its doors!' shouted the employees, just as in a church when the services are over. And on coming out, the same starving wretches who had greeted me with acclamations rushed on the guards escorting me, with sudden hate, trying to kill me. The place where their fortunes were buried was closed to them forever. Now they could not return the next day and lose more money with the vague hope of squaring accounts. I had taken away all their hopes."

"Exactly," said Novoa.

"Also I had a yacht, which was larger than Prince Lubimoff's; something in the nature of a first-class cruiser. And I needed one that size, for a band of followers as large as mine. I had with me hordes of secretaries, a crowd of strong-arm men whose duty it was to defend me and my treasure, and a great number of blasÉ people, who considered me a very interesting person, and followed me all over the globe, like that misanthropic fellow who followed a lion tamer from city to city, hoping that the wild beasts might some day devour him. There was no longer a single Casino functioning in Europe: the one at San Sebastian had been turned into a convent; the one at Ostend was being used as a laboratory for experiments on oyster culture. In all the bathing resorts and all medicinal springs, people became interested exclusively in taking care of their health; and when they wanted distraction, they went to the promenades and played marbles and other children's games. In the meantime I went traveling through the Americas and the South Seas, breaking one bank after another, in all the big gambling houses. I was followed by journalists who made up another army larger than my own. The newspapers and the cable and telegraph agencies announced my arrival in advance, making a great stir. 'The invincible Spadoni is coming!' And the gaming establishments, feeling their end was near, tried to exploit their death agony by selling seats at fabulous prices to every one who wanted to witness my triumph. In the United States a steel king, or a king of something or other, gave a hundred thousand dollars for a seat, in order to follow my irresistible playing close at hand. Never before had such a sum been paid to see the long hair of a concert singer or the diamonds of a soprano."

"And how about Monte Carlo?" asked Novoa, interested by the gambler's wild dreams.

"We are coming to that. I kept Monte Carlo to the end of my trip, thinking of the money that I had lost here. The fatter I let the victim grow, the greater would be my vengeance. And such business as Monte Carlo was doing! Since there was no gambling left anywhere else in the world, all the gamblers gathered here from every part of the globe. The city had grown, until it reached the summits of the Alps; the forty millions that the Casino used to win in favorable years, had now become four thousand million. The stockholders were marrying persons of royal blood: two Balkan kings were declaring war, quarreling over the hand of the daughter of a fourth Vice-President of the company that was managing the Casino. The equilibrium of Europe was imperiled: the great powers were dreaming of annexing Monaco in the name of ancient historical and ethnological rights, since they had all had and still had many people of their race living on that tiny piece of land. But suddenly the Invincible appeared."

Spadoni, as though still dreaming, looked at the Casino, the Square, the entrance to the terrace, and the curving slope of the avenue which descended to the harbor. He could see it all, perhaps no differently than he had seen it in his imagination.

"What a crowd there was! For six months previously the whole world had talked of nothing else. 'Are you going to see the fun?' 'Aren't you going?' Cook's Agency had announced in every country of the globe an inexpensive trip 'personally conducted' to witness this world event. The Paris-Lyon-Mediterranean was giving round trip tickets at reduced prices, and all Paris was on hand. The owners of hotels and restaurants, out of gratitude, were placing my portrait in the most conspicuous part of the dining rooms, which were always filled. The newspapers published my biography, and in mentioning my wealth were obliged to break their columns, placing a line of zeros clear across the page, and even then there was not sufficient space. I forgot to tell you that I found myself obliged to establish a bank, just to take care of my treasures. And whenever the Bank of London or the Bank of France were pressed for money, they sent me a polite note, asking me to get them out of their difficulty."

Novoa laughed at the naÏve way in which the pianist related his greatness. He still seemed obsessed by his dream.

"My yacht was obliged to anchor outside the harbor among other ships. There were many trans-Atlantic liners there: four from the United States, one from Japan, another from South America, and a few from Australia and New Zealand, all filled with travelers who had come from the other hemisphere to see Spadoni. After greeting Monaco with a twenty-one-gun salute, I sprang ashore amid the hurrahs of the foreign sailors. You easily understand that a man like myself could not arrive at the Casino seated in a mere automobile. Who hasn't an automobile now-a-days! On the dock there was waiting for me a single seated carriage which I was to drive myself, but a carriage with gilded wheels, drawn by six women, six beautiful women, all of them celebrated, whose pictures figured not only in the principal illustrated papers, but also on perfumery bottles and cigar boxes."

The Professor was extremely amused. He noticed the satisfaction with which the pianist dwelt on this detail of his triumphal entry. The degradation of these six elegant and famous women seemed to flatter his woman-hating propensities. He spoke with a coolly revengeful look, as though witnessing the abject humiliation of his greatest and deadliest enemy.

"It was merely a matter of paying the price: and I was not going to bargain over a million more or less. The one thing that annoyed me was having to choose among several thousand beauties who were clamoring to be selected. I was obliged to risk offending many big theater managers, business men, and statesmen, by rejecting the many ladies whom they recommended to me. A monarch even withdrew the title of Duke which he had just given me, because I had refused his favorite 'friend.' All six wore the latest frocks designed in the Rue de la Paix. The reporters, cameras in hand, were taking snap shots of the gowns which were to set the latest style. Besides, their harness was covered with pearls, diamonds, and every sort of precious stone, and they were careful not to injure them, knowing that at the end of their trot they would be able to keep the gems as souvenirs. I had a large whip to use on occasion: a whip of flowers, to be sure. One must always be chivalrous with ladies."

He smiled ironically. Once more Novoa noted his look of rancorous misogyny.

"But inside, the whip was made of sharp steel; and lashing my six handsome steeds, we started out. What a long time it took to climb the slope making our way through the crowd! The foreigners greeted me with acclamations. The sounds of the clicking cameras blended into an endless buzzing. Every one wanted to carry away the image of the king of the world. I could pick out the natives of the city by their sad faces. The men were imploring me with their glances, like miserable captives; the women held up their children; the old men fell on their knees. I was the conqueror who, in ruining the Casino, was utterly destroying their home land, condemning them to poverty and hardship. The square was black with people. On getting out of my vehicle, I saw that the steps of the Casino were filled with a great delegation. First of all, was Monsieur Blanc; next, his general staff of advisors, the principal stockholders, the inspectors, and the entire body of croupiers, all dressed in black, with long alpaca coats of a funereal cut. In the background were well known people, whose presence there might move me. In order to recall to my mind the fact that I had been a mere pianist, they had waiting for me there, baton in hand, directors of concerts and operas, orchestra soloists with their instruments; singers—the men with swords at their belts, the women with long trains, and all of them painted and bewigged; girls from the ballet, with pale pink legs and masses of tulle standing out horizontally from their waists. Instructed in advance, they were all ready to groan.

"'One word with you, Signor Spadoni.'

"It was Monsieur Blanc who took me aside, and handed me a small paper.

"'Take this and don't go in.'

"I looked at the paper: a check for a million. Humph! What can a man do with a million? And on noticing that I was crumpling it, and throwing it on the ground, the master of the Casino gave me another paper.

"'Make it five then, and go away.'

"Since this did not move me either, he kept on taking checks from all his pockets: ten million, fifteen, forty....

"My twelve counselors came forward with huge purses filled with bank notes; my escort cleared the way among the imploring crowd on the stairway; my horses were getting impatient, because certain connoisseurs had availed themselves of the crowding to take liberties with them.

"'One more word, Signor Spadoni: the last. We will cause a revolution, we will dethrone Albert, and give the crown of Monaco to you. If you like, you might marry the daughter of an Emperor: with money you can do anything. We have it and so have you....'

"'I have told you no! What I want is to get into that Casino, bust the whole business, and take away the keys.'

"This threat tore from him the supreme concession.

"'You shall be my partner; I will give you fifty per cent of the winnings. Don't you want to? Well then, seventy-five.'

"On seeing that I continued to advance up the stairway without listening to him, he raised a whistle to his lips. On his face was a look of a Samson, clutching the columns of the Temple. He would rather die than see his house bankrupt! A terrible explosion resounded, as though the world were being rent apart. They had mined with all the high-power explosives of the war, the Casino, the square, and the whole city. I was blown off my feet and driven, dazed, up into the clouds, but I was still able to see how Monte Carlo was disappearing, and even the dock of Monaco, as the sea in one enormous wave, was sweeping over the site of the vanished land. And when I came down to earth again...."

"You woke up," said Novoa.

"Yes, I woke up, and on the floor beside my bed; and I could hear Castro's voice in the corridor calling me names for having spoiled his sleep by my cries. Don't laugh, Professor. It is very sad to dream of such grandeur, as though you had had it in hand, and then to find yourself as poor as yesterday, as poor as ever, and besides with bad luck still clinging to you."

This mention of poverty and bad luck by Spadoni caused Novoa to protest. People still recalled his amazing fortune as the banker in the Sporting Club. That had been an epoch-making night. Besides, he knew through Valeria that the Duchess had made him a handsome present.

"Wonderful Duchess!" the pianist said enthusiastically, "Always a great lady. Poor woman, in the midst of her despair she remembered me. 'Take this, Spadoni, and I hope you have lots of luck.' She gave me twenty thousand francs. If I were to ask her for a hundred thousand she would give them to me just the same. And to think she is so unfortunate!"

As the Professor still looked at him questioningly, he continued:

"Well, then; of the twenty thousand francs I haven't even a hundred left."

The same evening he had hurried to the Sporting Club to repeat his great deeds. He had never happened to have so much capital before, not even when he returned from his concert tour in South America. The terrible Greek was there, and in spite of the admiration Spadoni paid His Eminence, the Helene treated the musician with implacable hostility. "Bank!" said the Greek on seeing the pianist in the banker's chair, with fifteen thousand! With what remained the musician had struggled along for a few days as a mere bettor, and now the Duchess' generous gift was merely a memory.

"If she would only return to work! I am sure that I would be once more the man I was that night, with her behind me. But who would dare talk to her about gambling."

They both lamented Alicia's misfortune. Since the day the telegram arrived telling of the death of her protÉgÉ, she had been a different woman. Spadoni attributed her overwhelming grief over a young soldier who did not belong to her family to her excessively kind heart. The Professor assented, with an enigmatic air. In her sudden burst of grief, Alicia had doubtless let a portion of her secret escape in the presence of Valeria, and the latter probably had told Novoa about it.

Then they talked about the isolation in which the Duchess was living.

"It has been a month since any one has seen her," said Spadoni. "People are beginning to forget about her; a good many people think she has gone away. That's the way Monte Carlo is: quite tiny for those who go to the Casino, and rub elbows all day long; enormous, like a great metropolis, for those who do not come near the gambling rooms. The Prince frequently asks me about her with a great deal of interest. It seems he has not been able to see her since the afternoon of the telegram."

Novoa repeated his enigmatic look on hearing Lubimoff's name. He knew through Valeria that Michael had gone repeatedly to Villa Rosa, without being admitted. And more than that; the Duchess had shuddered in terror at the thought of his visit. "I don't want to see him, Valeria; tell him I am not in." Colonel Toledo had suffered the same fate; obliged to hand his card, sometimes to the Duchess' friend and at other times to the gardener. Several letters from the Prince had remained unanswered. Alicia showed a firm determination not to see her relative, as though his presence might quicken the grief that was keeping her away from society.

Spadoni, unaware of all this, continued to praise the Duchess.

"A noble heart! She always has to have some unfortunate person around to look after. Since the death of her aviator, she seems to be feeling a deep affection for that Lieutenant of the Foreign Legion, the Spaniard who is so ill, and who may die almost any moment, like the other man. He spends whole days at Villa Rosa; he lunches and dines there; and if the Duchess takes a walk in the mountains, it is always with him. He does everything but sleep at the Villa! When he doesn't show up for some time, she immediately sends a messenger to the Officers' Hotel."

The Professor remained silent, but knew that Spadoni was telling the truth. It agreed with what Valeria had been telling. Martinez was constantly at Villa Rosa, often against his will. The Duchess needed his presence, but nevertheless on seeing him, she would burst into sobs and tears. But the poor boy, with a submission born of awe, accompanied her in her voluntary seclusion, deeply thankful that such a great lady should take an interest in him.

"DoÑa Clorinda must be furious," continued the pianist, with malignant joy such as rivalry among women always aroused in him. "She no longer has any influence over Martinez, in spite of the fact that she was the one who discovered him. The other woman has cut her out. Weeks go by and the 'General' doesn't get a chance to see her Lieutenant; I believe she has given him up, as a matter of fact. She criticizes her former friend for this monopolizing, which she considers 'dangerous.' They even tell me that she accuses the Duchess of flirting with the poor boy, of arousing false hopes in him, and of still worse things. Quite absurd! Women are terrible when they hate. Imagine! A poor officer—practically a dead man...."

Novoa said nothing, so that the pianist would stop talking. He was afraid Spadoni might say some awful thing, repeating DoÑa Clorinda's gossip, with the rancorous joy of a woman-hater. Novoa, through his relations with Valeria, considered himself a partisan of the Duchess, and could not tolerate anything being said against her.

They separated after a few minutes more of inconsequential talk.

That evening Spadoni spoke to the Prince about his conversation with the Professor, and it gave him a pretext for repeating what DoÑa Clorinda thought of her former friend. But immediately the pianist repented of having done this, seeing the look of wrath which Lubimoff gave him.

"What a cad," thought Michael, "peddling around a lot of female gossip, just because he has a grouch against women in general."

He understood how Alicia might feel interested in the soldier. His youth and his uniform reminded her of her son. Besides, Martinez was alone in the world, a foreigner, a piece of wreckage from the war, a man whom every one considered irrevocably condemned to death.

Yet Michael could not avoid an immediate feeling of jealousy toward the poor young fellow who was friendless and ill. Martinez was living constantly by Alicia's side, while he himself was unable to gain admittance to the Villa, even as a mere visitor. Why?

He had spent several weeks making conjectures, and watching for a chance to meet Alicia. Since the afternoon when he had held her in his arms, drying her tears and restraining her from hurting herself, as she writhed in grief, and kissing her on the brow, with brotherly compassion, the gate of Villa Rosa had closed behind him forever. "Come to-morrow," groaned Alicia on saying good-by to him. And the following day Valeria had halted him with the embarrassed look of a person telling a lie. "The Duchess cannot receive you. The Duchess wants to be alone." And this inexplicable refusal had been repeated each successive day, with increasing sharpness. At present the gardener, who was the only one who came to answer the bell, talked with him through the gate.

This rejection caused him to commit a great number of childish and humiliating actions. He circled about the neighborhood of the Villa like a jealous husband, facing the curiosity of the passersby, and taking advantage of the most absurd pretexts to disguise the real object of his vigil, hurriedly concealing himself whenever the gate opened, and any one left the house. This vigilance had only served to arouse his anger. Twice Michael had been obliged to hide himself while Lieutenant Martinez, erect in the old uniform which the Prince had given him and which was rather a bad fit, steadied his weak sick body in a desire to appear proud and healthy, and entered Villa Rosa through the wide-open gate, as though he were the owner.

One afternoon he had seen them from a distance, the Lieutenant and Alicia, in a hired carriage, which was going in the other direction, on the opposite side of the street, toward the Heights of La Turbie. She was looking after the wounded man, taking him, in maternal solicitude, to a spot where he could breathe the upland air. And the Prince might just as well have not existed!

In vain he wrote her letters, and his torment was even greater owing to the fact that he could not talk openly with his friends. The Colonel, obedient to his veiled suggestions, had unavailingly paid several calls on the Duchess.

"What unexplainable grief!" said Don Marcos. "It is impossible to understand such despair over a young aviator who was merely a protÉgÉ of hers. Unless, perhaps, he were her...." But his sense of delicacy would not allow him to insist on such an ignoble suspicion.

Nor could the Prince talk with Atilio. In the latter's eyes, the prisoner who had died in Germany was the same young man he had known in Paris before the war: the Duchess' lover, who followed her everywhere and danced with her at the Tango teas. Besides, Michael felt afraid of what Castro might add, reflecting the "General's" way of thinking.

The latter, at first, on learning of Alicia's despair, had felt like forgetting the quarrels of the past, and had gone of her own accord to Villa Rosa to console the Duchess. Since the "General" was very patriotic, the boy who had died in Germany seemed to her a hero. But the sudden monopolizing of the Spanish Lieutenant, and the passionate sympathy which obliged Martinez to spend all day with the Duchess, renewed DoÑa Clorinda's cool hostility.

The Prince guessed what she and her friend were thinking, and what Castro might tell if he dared talk to him about Alicia. "She has just lost a lover, and while she is weeping with theatrical vehemence, she is getting ready for another, as young as the first. A crime indeed, since poor Martinez is condemned to death, and only prolongs his days, thanks to absolute quiet. The slightest emotion means death to him."

Lubimoff could not tell the truth. His secret was Alicia's. Only they two knew the true identity of the prisoner who had died in Germany, and as long as she kept silent, he must do the same.

One night, the Colonel gave him some interesting news. At nightfall, when he was returning from the Casino, he had seen the Duchess de Delille from the street car. Dressed in mourning she was getting out of a hired carriage, in the Boulevard des Moulins, opposite the church of St. Charles. Later she had ascended the steps leading to the place of worship: she was doubtless going to pray for her protÉgÉ. And Don Marcos said this with a certain emotion, as though the visit to the church cancelled all the gossip he had been hearing in the previous few days.

Michael had a presentiment that this would be the means of rescuing him from his incertitude. He would meet Alicia at the church. And the following day, toward evening, he began to walk up and down the Boulevard des Moulins, without losing sight of the one church in Monte Carlo, the place of worship of gamblers and wealthy people, which seemed to maintain a certain rivalry with the Cathedral of silent, ancient Monaco.

This continual going and coming finally caught the attention of the shopkeepers on the street and of their clerks, girls with hair dressed high on their heads in a complicated fashion, who seemed to be dreaming behind the counters, waiting for some millionaire to lift them from their position of unjust obscurity. "Prince Lubimoff!" They all knew him, and his fame was such that immediately a hundred eyes curiously sought the object of his promenading. Doubtless it was a woman. On the deserted balconies women's heads began to appear, following his maneuvers more or less overtly. Window shades went up, revealing behind the panes questioning eyes and smiling lips. "Might it be for me?" This unexpressed question seemed to spread from one window to the next.

Annoyed by such curiosity, he ascended the double row of steps from the tiny deserted square in front of the church, using the same strategy there as when he had lurked in the neighborhood of Villa Rosa. He peeped into the interior of the sanctuary, dotted with red by a number of lighted tapers. There were only two women, within, both of them dressed in mourning and kneeling. They were women of lowly fortune, wives or mothers of men killed in the war. On returning to the little square, he passed the time reading and re-reading the headlines of all the papers displayed on the newsstand. Then he started off down a street, turned into another, walked across the square with an air of unconcern, and hid behind a corner, taking care not to lose sight of the entrance to the church. It was not bad waiting there: there were no passersby. The traffic on the nearby boulevard was invisible, as though going on in the depths of a ditch. Through the low branches of some trees, he could just see the roofs of carriages and street cars.

Night fell and she did not come.

The following day Michael returned, but discreetly, so as not to arouse the curiosity of the shopkeepers. He remained for long hours in the little square in that old part of the city, with none to watch him save a melancholy old woman who sold newspapers at a stand that had no customers. Nor did Alicia come this time.

The third day, when he was beginning to doubt whether there was any use of waiting, Alicia's head and shoulders suddenly appeared above the line of the top step. Then her whole body emerged, by waves, so to speak, as her feet advanced from step to step. Night was falling. On the faÇades of the buildings on the boulevard, above the green mass of the trees, the fugitive sun drew a golden brush stroke along the rows of roofs.

It was his heart that recognized her even before his eyes, just as on the day when he had seen her at a distance in the carriage accompanied by the officer. He had a feeling of shock at her black bonnet, with a long mourning veil falling on her shoulders. The emotion he felt on seeing her and the spying habit he had recently acquired, caused him to draw back, and she entered the church without seeing him. Ah, now he had her! This time she could not escape, he would have a great many things to tell her, very, very many! But at the same time he became rancorously conscious of the just indictment against her which he had prepared in advance; and, in spite of himself, he felt afraid, desperately afraid of the possibility that she might meet him with a curt reply, or perhaps not speak to him at all.

He allowed a long time to elapse. Then he was torn by the desire of seeing her again, even from a distance, and he entered the church, but cautiously, trying to avoid a premature encounter.

He advanced between a double row of deserted benches. There in the background were the same women who had been there the other day, still kneeling, as though their grief were unconscious of the lapse of time. In the darkness the pale gold of the altar pieces became gradually distinguishable, and two masses of color, two clusters of flags—those of the Allied countries, which adorned the high altar. On seeing the two praying figures alone in the church, and in motionless silence, he thought that Alicia must have fled through an exit of which he was unaware. But she appeared from a door on the side, followed by an acolyte who was carrying two tapers. Alicia seemed to be watching how the tapers were lighted and placed in their sockets in front of the Virgin. Then she knelt, remaining in a rigid posture on her knees.

Some time went by. And Michael watched her, as she became, like the two poor women, a mere shape in black, motionless in prayer and supplication. The only distinguishing features of her person that he could make out, were the soles of her elegant shoes, two tiny light-colored tongues, which stood out against the black silk of her skirt. He could also see her white neck writhing from time to time, as though trying to throw off the twining veil of sorrow.

He felt that the rancor which had caused him to desire this meeting was vanishing. Poor woman! He knew, and no one else knew, the identity of the young man whose death she had come to mourn in this temple. A picture of the Princess Lubimoff suddenly arose in his memory, vague and covered with the dust of oblivion. The Princess had been insane; but she was his mother, and he had loved her so dearly!

Immediately afterward his egotism revolted against this feeling. It was natural for Alicia to weep for her son, but it was not natural that she should have broken with him without any explanation whatsoever.

Mechanically he advanced toward the high altar, desiring to see her closer at hand. A slight movement as she prayed caused him to retrace his steps. It was better that she should not recognize him. He considered it preferable to wait for her outside the church, with the advantage of taking her by surprise, without allowing her time to invent excuses to justify her conduct.

It was beginning to grow late, when Alicia came out, running straight into Michael Fedor who was blocking her path.

Not the slightest quiver revealed any feeling of surprise.

"You!" she said simply.

She was very pale, and her eyes were red and moist, as though she had just been weeping.

Perhaps she had seen him within the church, and was expecting this meeting on coming out. The natural manner in which she greeted his presence was for him a just disappointment.

He felt he must speak at once, relieving himself of the burden of complaint and accusation, which had been gathering within him during the preceding days. There were so many, that they clouded his thoughts. But Alicia, as though afraid of what he was going to say, came forward and began to talk in sad, monotonous tones.

She had been coming to this church several afternoons as she suddenly felt the need of leaving Villa Rosa with its terrible memories. Oh, the arrival of that telegram!

"Now I am a believer," she announced simply.

Immediately afterward she corrected the statement, rather through humility than pride. She wanted to be a believer, but in reality she was not. She remembered the mother, poor, simple-minded DoÑa Mercedes! What would she not give to have the confidence in the Great Beyond which that good lady had had! That faith, which in former days had provoked her laughter, seemed to her now like something superior. What a pity she could not feel the resignation of humble souls! The irreligiousness of her happy days still remained with her. Those who enjoy the pleasant things of life do not remember death, nor do they think of what may be beyond. No one feels religious sentiments in his soul at a dance, at a banquet, or at a rendezvous with a lover! She had to believe, because she was unhappy! She clung to religion as an invalid condemned to death by the doctors in whom he believes, implores in despair the services of a quack, in whom he has no faith.

"Grief makes mystics of us," she continued. "What I regret is not being able to be one in the way that others are. I pray, but resignation does not come to my aid."

She revolted against the thought of annihilation at death. That flesh of her flesh was rotting in an unknown cemetery in Germany! And was that the end? Could it be there was nothing more? Would she die in turn and never meet again in a superior existence the son in whom she had concentrated all her love of life? Would they both be blotted out of reality, like two infinitesimal points, like two atoms, whose life means nothing?

"I must believe," she said with all the energy of her maternal egotism. "My one consolation lies in the hope that we shall meet again in a better world: a world that knows no wars, nor death. But suddenly my confidence fails, and all I see is annihilation—annihilation! I am greatly to be pitied, Michael."

These words did not move the Prince, in spite of the despair which Alicia put into them. His amorous yearning let him think only of the present.

"And I," he said in a reproachful tone. "You deserted me in the greatest moment of our lives! You are unhappy; all the more reason that you should not drive me from you. I can put cheer into your life. I can guess what you are thinking. No, no, I do not insist on talking to you of love. Perhaps later on, but now!... Now, I want to be your comrade, your brother, whatever you want me to be, but at your side. Why do you avoid me? Why do you shut your door to me as you would to a stranger?"

And incoherently he continued his laments, his protests, his rancor, at her unexplainable estrangement.

"Am I to blame for your misfortune?" he finally asked. "Am I a different man to-day than I was the last time we saw each other?"

She shook her head sadly. She could not convince Michael no matter how much she might talk; it was beyond her strength to explain her new feelings. She seemed dismayed at the obstacle which had arisen between them.

"Leave me, forget me; it is the best that you can do. No; you haven't changed, my poor boy. What harm could you have done me, you who are so kind, so generous? You have helped me to learn the horrible truth; it was through you that I discovered it; and although it is killing me, I feel that it is preferable to uncertainty. You are not to blame, you have done all that I asked you to do. But listen to me, I beg of you: do not seek me, avoid meeting me, leave me! It is the last favor I ask of you. It is only away from you that I can find a certain peace of mind."

Michael's voice lost its tones of supplication and began to quiver with a vibration of anger. How could he be an obstacle to her tranquillity? Hadn't he just said that he wanted to be a comrade in her misfortune, without desires, oblivious of love, with a sweet dispassionate affection, like that of friendship? Now that she was unhappy he felt more vehemently a desire to be by her side. What absurd caprice made her avoid him?

Alicia looked at him with tearful eyes, which reflected the hesitations of her thoughts. Finally she seemed to have made up her mind.

"You haven't changed," she said, in a subdued voice, "but I am different. Misfortune has made another woman of me. I do not recognize myself. I am dominated by a fixed idea. An absurd one it may well be; if I tell it to you, I know that you will protest with holy indignation. No; you are not to blame; but it is better for me not to see you. Your presence increases my remorse. Seeing you, I feel extraordinary shame, a desire to die, to kill myself. I have a feeling of suspicion that it was I who killed my son. I remember all that took place between us; and I recognize God's punishment."

Lubimoff's anger vanished at these inexplicable words. Automatically he took her hands with caressing gentleness, as though they were those of a poor sick patient at the height of delirious ravings. She should be calm! What was she saying? What remorse was she talking about? Her gloved hands, in passive resignation offered no resistance to his touch; but suddenly they woke to life, violently freeing themselves from those of Michael, as though they had just received a hard shock. "No! No!" And the Prince had a sort of feeling that there was a current of repulsion between them, something that he had never experienced until then: the fear of his person.

He remained so disconcerted and humiliated by this movement of withdrawal, that he did not know what to say. She took advantage of his silence to go on talking, but as though she did not see the man who was standing before her eyes."When I remember all that ... what a shame! My son, my poor boy, living like a slave, suffering from hunger, being whipped, he, who was so noble and so handsome ... and his mother here acting like a young girl, going into ecstasies over ideal love, taking poetic promenades through the gardens, exchanging kisses. An old woman's romantic fancies. The gambling follies might even be pardoned. I thought of him as I played; the money was for him; but love!... it seems impossible that I could have done all that while my son was a prisoner and I was getting no news from him. What diabolical spell was upon me? And God has punished me; and if not God, whoever or whatever it may be; fate, a mysterious power which makes us expiate our shortcomings, call it anything you like."

Michael attempted to protest, but she went on talking:

"I know what you are going to tell me; but it won't do any good. All that you might say I have said to myself again and again, to convince myself that my belief is absurd. And what would that prove? All that we are not acquainted with is absurd, and we know so little! No; my remorse can never be overcome. No matter what you may say will not keep me from spending my sleepless nights puzzling things out, and thinking of certain dates in my recent life. When I began to be interested in you, my son was still alive, and I forgot him. When we were walking through the gardens of San Martino, he was perhaps suffering the agonies of hunger, and martyrdom, and I like the heroine in a novel, like a crazy schoolgirl, was kissing you, and making you promises! Besides, the arrival of the telegram the same afternoon that you were going to come, seemed like something definitive in my life! Don't you see the intervention of a superior power, the punishment for my badness?"

The Prince tried to speak again, but in vain.

"That is why I am avoiding you; that is why I have not replied to your letters. You are not to blame; but you mean remorse to me, and your presence recalls my crime. Besides, I know myself; I am only a poor, weak woman, the very personification of thoughtlessness, and neglect. If I were to accept you as a comrade in grief, since I am not indifferent to you, perhaps I might give in to what you want. And that would be horrible, still more horrible even than what has gone before; one of those offenses which people maddened by passion commit against natural laws. Don't try to see me; I don't want to see you. If I had been a true mother, thinking only of him ... who knows!... Perhaps he would still be alive. But some one was bent on punishing me for my unnatural conduct, and that some one killed him, so that I might awaken, at the very moment when in my shameful love, I felt myself happiest."

Michael no longer cared to say anything. He looked at this woman with pity and dismay in his eyes. He recalled the Princess Lubimoff with her extravagant beliefs in the mysterious; and of Alicia's own mother, with her religious manias. Whatever he might try to say would be useless. That absurd and sorrowing conviction of hers had opened a gap between them like a gulf that could be bridged over only by time.

The silence of the Prince caused her to lose the nervous exaltation that had made her express herself with such fervor.

"Leave me now," she murmured gently. "What could I do for you? I am only a woman now; I am an old woman, centuries old, as old as sorrow itself. You need a sweetheart, and I am simply a bad mother, a mother tormented with remorse."

Her renunciation of the past, and the feeling that she was only a despairing mother caused her voice to break with a groan, and at the same time her eyes filled with tears. With a timid hand Michael drew away the handkerchief that she had raised to her face to hide her weeping. He murmured incoherent phrases, with the intention of consoling her; but immediately he was mastered once more by anger.

"If you really were alone," he said in bitter tones, "I could wait, and perhaps time would silence the after scruples that torment you. But your loneliness is a lie. A man enters your house at all hours as though it were his own, while I must go away, so that, as you say, you may recover your tranquillity."

With a feminine instinct, Alicia had hastened to raise the handkerchief to her face again, on feeling herself free from Michael's hand. She felt she must be ugly with her watery eyes, her pale lips, and her nose red with weeping. But the words of the Prince gave her such a shock of surprise, such a desire to refute the offensive supposition, that she took the wrinkled batiste from her face.

"You are referring to Martinez? Poor boy!"

He was giving up the gay society of his comrades, their promenades in company, and even the parties to which the convalescent officers were invited, to come and be bored at Villa Rosa beside a woman who could do nothing but weep. When she wanted to come to church she had to oblige him to go for an hour or two to join his comrades-in-arms in the ante-room at the Casino. The visits of the invalided soldier meant so much to her. They were pure charity on his part.

"I dream that he is my son. His age and his uniform aid in this illusion. You have never had any children; it is impossible for you to know the necessity we feel, when we have lost them, to transfer our bereaved affection to other beings, imagining that they look like those who are gone. I need to go on being a mother, nor can I be anything else; and this unhappy boy never knew his own mother. He has no one in the world, and is as much alone as I am. Please, let me enjoy a little illusion wherever I can find it. The poor fellow is so grateful for my affection! He feels so happy beside me! Remember: he is condemned to death, and only maternal care, and pleasant quiet surroundings, can possibly prolong his days."

She wanted to accomplish this task, perhaps for a selfish reason, to obliterate from her memory, with a great generous deed, all the evil she had done before. She wanted him to be her son, a son born of her grief, to whom she might devote everything that it was now impossible for her to do for her real son.

Now, Michael, too, was silent, realizing the uselessness of insisting any further. He knew Alicia's character. Behind her plaintive voice, he guessed the resolute will to keep by her side that young man who refreshed her maternal feelings and was at the same time a means of consolation for the remorse which she had taken upon herself.

The consideration of his powerlessness finally irritated him, made him feel a cruel desire to hurt that woman.

"You are doing wrong, Alicia. Society is unaware of your secret. You know what people said before about you and your son. You laughed, yourself, finding such a mistake amusing. Now the equivocation continues with more reason. Many people imagine you have substituted another young man for the young man that died."

Alicia lost her sad serenity.

"How disgusting!" she said. "How can they think that. Poor Martinez! He is so good! So respectful!"

Then she continued arrogantly:

"Let them say what they like! I want to forget society; let society forget me. I am dead as far as people are concerned."

But Michael in his spite still dwelt on the subject.

"The other man was your son, and I knew he was. This man is not, and I know the power of seduction that you exercise, even against your will. Remember 'the old men on the wall.'"

Wherever she went, men's glances would cling to her rhythmic body; and that young man, that queer fellow, would finally....

He was unable to continue.

"You, too!" she exclaimed. "Good-by, don't come after me. I shall always think of you; but it is better for us not to see each other. Don't bear me a grudge. Perhaps some day!..." And she resolutely turned her back on him, and descended the steps toward the boulevard.

The Prince remained motionless for a few minutes. Then he advanced toward the top step, but all he could see was a carriage with the hood raised, and two horses starting to trot away.

And the meeting with Alicia he had so ardently desired had come to this! The feeling of spite caused him to judge himself harshly; he hadn't known how to talk. Later he recalled all his reasoning and his accusations, and felt amazed at the slight effect they had had on her. Yes, indeed, she was a different woman. Some one had changed her; some one was to blame for this absurd situation.

He spent a great part of that night reflecting. It did not occur to him to blame Alicia. He even repented of his angry words. Unhappy woman! Her extreme over-sensitiveness was causing her to find reason for shame and remorse in all that she had ever done.

"Besides, women," he continued to himself, "at the least nervous shock lose their logical faculty first of all."

He felt a need of concentrating all his anger on some one besides her; and Michael, never imagining that he himself had lost his logical faculty, put the responsibility for everything on Martinez. The latter was the one person to blame. If he had not come between them, Alicia, on finding herself alone in misfortune, would have sought once more the support of the Prince. What a gift the "General" had made them, presenting this adventurer!

His reason vainly argued that it was not the officer who was seeking Alicia, but the latter who was keeping him in her home, cutting him off from his old friendships. Lubimoff was not willing to give up his spite. It was Martinez and no one else who had come between them.

Up to that time he had not paid much attention to the boy whom Toledo called the "hero." There were so many heroes at that moment! In his hatred he began to strip him of the prestige given him by his deeds and his misfortune, Michael saw him without his uniform, without his war crosses and his wounds, such as he must have been before the war; a poor employee, a business clerk, whose dreams of love had never gone beyond a milliner or a stenographer. And this was the interesting personage who had the temerity to face him! Prince Michael Fedor Lubimoff. What intolerable times!

The following day he walked about his garden all morning, resolved never to return to Monte Carlo. He was filled with scorn at the thought of the tenderness with which Alicia had spoken of her protÉgÉ. It was better that he should not encounter him. But in the afternoon the loneliness of his beautiful Villa weighed on him. It seemed deserted. Atilio, the pianist, and even the Colonel were all at the Casino. He, too, decided to go, to mingle with the crowd which was dividing its attention between the hazards of war and the hazards of chance.

In the anteroom he walked toward the groups who were gathered around the bulletin board reading the latest telegrams. The crowd considered the news good, since it was not extremely bad as on the preceding days. The Allies had stopped the enemy's advance, holding them at a standstill on the ground they had just conquered. The bombardment of Paris with long range guns was still continuing. And that was all.

There was a man making comments in a loud voice. It was Toledo, who, as was his custom every afternoon, was giving a lecture on strategy to a semi-circle of admirers. With his back to the Prince, he was spouting a stream of clear optimism, with a simple faith that misfortune and reverses could not move.

"Now they have nailed them in their tracks: they won't advance any farther. In a short time will be the counter-attack. I am sure of it; it is clear as daylight to me."

Don Marcos rubbed his hands, and slyly winked one eye.

"And the Americans are coming and coming. There are days when as many as ten thousand of them are landed here. A wonderful people! I have always said so! That fellow Wilson is a great man. I know him well."

They all listened with delight to this voice of hope that refreshed their hearts before they gave themselves up to the strain and stress of roulette and trente et quarante. He talked with the authority of a man who has influential connections, and is informed of everything. "He knew Wilson," he had just said so himself. Besides, he was a Colonel—although none of them knew in what army—an expert, capable of expressing an unfounded opinion. And many of them lost no time in hastening to the gambling rooms to repeat his views, as though they had just received some inside information.

The Prince withdrew, afraid that his presence might put an end to that professional triumph of Toledo, which was repeated every day.

As he walked about the anteroom before entering the gaming halls, he saw beside a column, a group of French officers, all of whom were convalescents. Denied the permission to go any further, because of their uniform, they were standing there, looking with a certain envy on the civilians. A few of them were standing erect, without any visible infirmity, with the sharp features of an eagle, aquiline nose, bold eyes, and wild mustache. Others, with youthful faces, were bent over like ailing men, leaning on canes, and wearing wrinkled uniforms much too large for their sunken chests. Each time they decided to move their legs they made a long pause as though to muster every bit of their will power available. Some of them had come to Monaco as incurables, after a long captivity in Germany. The rest came from hospitals on the firing line. On the faces of all of them was an expression of joyous bewilderment at finding themselves in this corner of the earth, that was like a Paradise, where people seemed to have forgotten the rest of the world, and women's eyes followed them with enigmatic glances, half amorous and half maternal!

One of the soldiers raised his hand to his cap to salute the Prince. The latter looked at the yellowish color of his kepis, then at his uniform which was of the same color, and at the multi-colored line of decorations. It was Martinez, the lieutenant in the Foreign Legion, who was saluting him with a certain timidity, but pleased at the same time that his comrades were seeing him on friendly terms with the famous personage, who was so much talked about on the Riviera.

Michael returned his greeting mechanically and went on. That moment remained fixed in his memory all his life. Age and the discretion that accompanies it seemed to fall from him like dry bark from a tree in springtime. He felt as though he were back in his youth. For a few moments he was the same Captain Lubimoff of the imperial Guards, who had trampled on obstacles and braved scandal when any one opposed his will.

He turned to look at the group of officers from a distance. That little insignificant Lieutenant, who looked like a bookkeeper, promoted by mobilization, was his enemy! It seemed as though he were seeing him for the first time. Lost among his companions he appeared even more insignificant than when he visited Villa Sirena.

Michael remained motionless, with his glance fixed on the group. "You are going to do something foolish," admonished a voice within him. And there passed through his memory the image of stern SaldaÑa, kindly and tolerant with the weak, like every one who is sure of his strength. He recalled one of his sayings which had never before crossed his mind: "A gentleman must be kind and never take unfair advantage of his strength." He was sure that his father had said that to him when he was a child. But immediately the duality of his inner being expressed itself through another voice which was stronger and more imperious, a woman's voice like that of the other counselor of his youth: "Spend; don't deny yourself anything, put yourself above everybody; always remember that you are a Lubimoff." And he saw the dead Princess, not the Mary Stuart with her theatrical mourning robes, but the dominating and still beautiful woman, the one who had overwhelmed her husband "the hero" with her rage, and turned the Paris residence upside down.

Suddenly he found himself near the group of officers, and again his eyes met those of Martinez. The latter came toward him with a smile of interrogation. Michael realized that he had beckoned to the soldier, without being aware of what he was doing, through an impulse of will which seemed entirely detached from his reason.

"So much the worse! Let's get through with the business!"

With a certain haste, he took the young man toward the vestibule of the Casino as though anxious to avoid the presence of the groups who were filling the anteroom.

"Lieutenant, I have something to say to you.... I must ... ask a favor of you."

He stammered, not knowing how to express the command which he himself felt was absurd.

This vacillation, together with the trembling in his voice, finally irritated him.

They stopped beside the glass door at the entrance. Martinez was no longer smiling, as he gazed in amazement at the hard look and the pallor of the Prince.

"In a word," the latter said resolutely; "what I have to ask you is that you pay fewer visits at the house of the Duchess de Delille. If you should refrain entirely from going to see her, it would be even better." And he paused, breathing with a certain freedom, after having expressed this demand.

An expression of amazement gradually took possession of Martinez' face. He hesitated for a moment, with his eyes fixed on Lubimoff's. No, it was not a jest: the hostile look of this man who had always treated him with amiable indifference, the sharpness of his tone, and a certain trembling of his right hand, indicated that he had expressed his real thoughts, and that behind these thoughts lay enormous depths of hatred against him.

His surprise caused him to talk with timidity. He visited the Duchess because the lady asked him to come and see her every day. He had often felt his assiduity might prove to be a nuisance, but every attempt he had made to break off his visits had been fruitless. He scarcely left her for a few hours but the good lady had him sent for. She was as kind to him as a mother. Suddenly his humble tone vanished. His eyes guessed in those of the man who had stopped him something that he himself had never imagined. The Lieutenant seemed transfigured, as though rising to the same level as the Prince. His eyes shone with the same wild splendor as the other man's; his body stiffened with the tension of a spring about to be released; his nostrils quivered nervously. The little clerk, with his timid bearing, recovered the air of gallant bravery of the fighting man. His voice sounded harsh, as he went on talking.

He would go wherever he was asked, wherever he felt like going, without recognizing the right of any man to interfere in his actions. The Duchess was the only one who could close her door to him. Why did the Prince interfere in that lady's affairs without consulting her first?

"I am related to her," said Michael, inwardly hesitating somewhat at making use of the relationship which he had often preferred to deny.

They both found themselves on the other side of the entry, on the platform above the steps of the Casino, in the open air, opposite the groves of the square and the groups of passersby who were walking about the "Camembert." They were obliged to stand aside, in order not to disturb those who were entering and coming out.

"Besides," continued the Prince, "it is my duty to shield her from gossip. I cannot permit that. Seeing you in there at all hours, they should suppose...."

He almost regretted these words on noticing the double effect that they had on the young man. First he became indignant. Had any one dared gossip about that great lady who had been such a saint in his eyes? But this protest was accompanied by a certain unconscious satisfaction, by childish pride, as though he were flattered, in spite of everything that his name should be connected in absurd conjecture with that of the Duchess. It seemed that Martinez had just been revealed to himself, giving substance and a name to the obscure sentiments that until then, in an embryonic stage, had pulsed unrecognized within him.

The jealous mind of the Prince guessed, with keen penetration, everything that the other man was thinking, and this added fuel to his wrath. What impudence in this little clerk to take up Alicia's defense? What a conceited show he was making of his love for her!

"If any one takes the liberty of talking about the Duchess," said the Lieutenant, "if anybody dares to gossip because she does me the honor of receiving me in her home—the greatest honor in my life!—I will take it on my shoulders to punish whoever invents such a lie, no matter how high up he may be, no matter how powerful he may think himself to be!"

Lubimoff listened impatiently. Now it was Martinez daring to attack him. Those last words had carried a threat for him.

Besides, the Prince felt irritated at his own clumsiness. His imprudent action had served merely to open this young man's eyes, and make him think of the possibilities of many things which he had never yet imagined, and which if he had imagined them, he would have cast aside immediately as foolish. And now no less than the Prince Lubimoff had elected to show this cheap Lieutenant that, in the opinion of gossips, such things were possible.

The tone in which the officer defended Alicia aroused his anger even more. He divined in it great pride, the vanity of a poor fellow who had known love adventures only in books, and who suddenly found himself in supposed relations with a Duchess, as the rival of a Prince. How glorious for an upstart!

"Boy ..." said Lubimoff, in a hard voice.

This simple word, which was the term in which waiters were addressed in the hotels, was followed by a haughty look of overwhelming superiority, which seemed to sweep away everything extraordinary which the war had given Martinez: his uniform, his decorations, and his glorious wounds. For the Prince the officer no longer existed: there only remained the poor vagabond of a few years before, wandering from one hemisphere to another in quest of bread. "Boy," he repeated in a tone that brought back all the class distinction and social gradations of dead centuries, so that the man whom he had accosted might realize the enormous separation between him and the man to whom he deigned to give advice——

"Boy, let's come to the point—. And if I were to order you not to return to that house? And if I demand that...?"

He was unable to finish the sentence. His threatening voice, harsh as a cry of command, roused the indignation of the man in uniform. To have faced death for three long years, among thousands of comrades who were now lying in the ground; to have learned to set little store on life, as something proved worthless at every moment on the battlefield; to have stripped himself forever, by dint of frightful adventures and awful wounds, of that fear which the instinct of self-preservation puts in all beings, only to the end that now, in a pleasure resort, at the door of the most luxurious of gambling houses, a man, rich and powerful, but who had never done anything useful in his whole life, should dare to threaten him!...

"You say that to me!" he said, stammering with rage. "You give orders to me!"

Michael felt a hand seize him by the lapel of his coat. It was like a bird, tremulous and aggressive, pausing for an instant in its blind impulse, before flying upward. He was aware of the blow that was coming, and raised his arm instinctively, both hands met as that of the young man whirled close to the face of the Prince. The latter, who was stronger, seized the ascending hand and held it motionless, in a firm grip, while at the same time he smiled in a gruesome fashion. His eyes contracted as his eyebrows arched in the smile. They became again the eyes of an Asiatic. His nostrils dilated as he breathed like a stallion. The remote ancestors of the Princess Lubimoff must have smiled thus in their moments of anger.

"Enough: I consider that I have received it," he said slowly, "Name two friends to confer with mine!"

And freeing that hand of Martinez, he turned his back on him, after making a deep bow. The movements of both men had been rapid. Only one of the doorkeepers, with his official cap, standing guard on the platform above the steps, had guessed that anything had happened; but his professional experience advised him to remain passive as long as there were no blows. He imagined that it was merely a dispute over some gambling affair. It would all be settled by an explanation, and forgotten after a winning! He had seen so many such things!

Prince Lubimoff reËnters the Casino. He crosses the vestibule and the anteroom holding his head high, but without seeing any one, gazing straight ahead, with a faraway expression.

It seems to him that time has suddenly been reversed, causing him to return to the past with one bound. He is back in his youth. He walks arrogantly. He is surprised that the sound of his firm tread is not accompanied by the tinkling of spurs and the metallic scraping of a saber. At the same time he begins to see imaginary faces, faces of those who disappeared from the earth many years ago: the Cossack who had come from a distant garrison in Siberia to avenge his sister; a friend in the same regiment as the Prince, who died from a sword thrust in his breast after a tumultuous supper, while Lubimoff wept, suddenly awakening from his homicidal intoxication; the faces of others who had been present as mere witnesses, but who had died and were now resurrected in his memory, cold and insensible to remorse and vain regrets.

"The Colonel. Where in the devil is the Colonel!"

He crosses the gambling room, in quest of a gray head, with a straight part from the forehead to the back of the neck, dividing the glistening hair into two shining sections. He sees it finally rising above the back of a divan, between two women's hats, four eyes darkly bordered as though in mourning, and cheeks with wrinkles filled with white and rose-colored enamel. A terse sentence of the Prince interrupts the explanations of the war news with which the Colonel had been thrilling the two ladies.

"Colonel, an affair of honor. I intend to fight to-morrow. Look for another second."

Toledo seems disconcerted by this order. His first thought flies to Villa Sirena. He sees his black frock coat, the solemn vestment of honor ready to leave its prison. Then a cloud of doubt obscures this joyous thought. A duel! Would it be fitting now that men are fighting in masses of millions, giving their lives for something higher and more important than personal hatred? His training immediately smothers this scruple. "A gentleman should always be at the orders of another gentleman." Besides, it is his Prince. And ready to fulfill his mission, he asks the name of the adversary.

"Lieutenant Martinez."

Don Marcos thinks he had heard wrong; then he seems to totter and stands there looking at his "Highness" in a sort of stupor. Instinctively, without taking the pains to disentangle the confused thoughts that assail him, he sees in his imagination the Duchess de Delille. Why did the Prince ever give up his wise theories on the woman question! He recalls, like a happy past, the flourishing days of the "enemies of women"! Only four months had gone by, and it seems as though they were centuries. A duel right in war time—and with an officer! And that officer is Martinez, his hero!

He shrugs his shoulders, bows his head, and makes a gesture denying all responsibility as he always does when his Prince, with a hard look on his face which reminds Toledo of the dead Princess in her stormy days, gives absurd orders.

"Shall I look for Don Atilio? He has had several affairs of honor; he knows what it means, and may be able to help me."

The Prince is willing. In the bar of the private gambling rooms, he will wait for them both to talk over the conditions of the encounter.

He remains motionless in a deep armchair, opposite a window gilded by the light of the setting sun, on which the threads of shadows, projected by the moving branches of the trees, weave and unweave. Suddenly it seems to him that he is obliged to wait an unreasonable length of time. It occurs to him that Castro is not in the Casino and that Don Marcos is looking for him in vain. He scarcely remembers the past at all. The officer's figure is sunk into a gray mist which falls across his memory: it is no longer anything save a vague outline. The one thing that he can see, in sharp relief and as though looming close to his eyes, is a hand: a hand which is gripping his breast and rising toward his face, that no man ever yet had slapped. His indignation causes him to come out of his deep fit of distraction. To do that to him! Trying to slap Prince Lubimoff!

When he raises his eyes he sees Toledo approaching, but alone, with a certain embarrassment, fearing in advance the anger of the Prince. The latter, who feels kindly and tolerant since the scene of violence on the stairway, guesses what he is going to say to him. He has not found Castro and he absolves him with a benevolent smile.

The Colonel speaks:

"Marquis: Don Atilio refuses."

"What!" And at the questioning glance of Lubimoff, who cannot understand, and who does not want to understand what he hears, Toledo repeats, growing more and more embarrassed.

"He refuses to be your representative. He told me to find some one else. He has some ideas of his own that...."

And he hesitates to express these ideas. He stops, in order not to say anything which the Prince ought not to hear from his lips: and he accepts as a blessing the silence of amazement which comes between them; he is afraid to let the Prince recover from the astonishment with which this news has overwhelmed him.

As he starts to go away, he proposes something which seems to him a way out.

"Does your Highness want me to call Don Atilio? He will surely come. Perhaps the two of you talking together...."

And he goes away in search of Castro, while Michael Fedor once more becomes motionless in his seat, quite unable to comprehend the situation.

* * * * * * *

The Prince saw Castro standing by the little table close to his chair, with a certain appearance of haste in his look and bearing, like a man who is facing a difficult situation, and anxious to get out of it as soon as possible.

The Prince invited him to take the nearest seat, but Castro consented only to sit down lightly on the arm of the chair, to indicate his desire that the interview be brief. Besides, he spoke first, bluntly expressing his thoughts, without any preamble.

"The Colonel has doubtless told you my reply. I can't. You know very well that I am your friend: you even do me the honor of recognizing me as a relative; I owe you a great deal; but what you ask me now ... no! It is a piece of foolishness, madness. It all had to end like this! There was no other way out of it. I had a presentiment of it some time ago. Perhaps you were right when you talked about women as you did, and about the necessity of being their enemies—if such a thing is possible. But it doesn't do any good to bring up the past: You are no longer the Lubimoff who said those incoherent things. As for me I am mad, I'll grant you that: but you are even more so than I: and for that reason I can't be with you."

Michael looked at him fixedly, without abandoning his silent immobility, waiting for him to go on.

"A duel right in war time! Is there any common sense to that? You are the gentleman who remains quietly in his home, with all the comforts that the present time can allow, without running any risk whatsoever, while half of humanity is weeping, starving, bleeding, or dying. And just because one fine day you happen to be in an ill-humor—perhaps you know why—you want to fight a poor boy who has survived almost by a miracle, and who is sick and weak from having done what you and I are not capable of doing. You ask me to represent you in such a piece of business?"

"He insulted me—he tried to strike me. I caught his hand close to my face," said the Prince in a low but rancorous voice from the depths of his chair.

This caused Castro to hesitate for a moment, as he had no idea of the importance of the clash between the two men. But his hesitation was brief.

"There is something that I don't understand and that you are keeping silent. The very seriousness of the insult indicates that there was something extraordinary on your part. For that poor, respectful, and timid boy to dare to strike, and strike a man like you!... What did you do to rouse him to such a pitch?"

Lubimoff did not deign to reply. Without abandoning his frowning reserve he asked briefly:

"Well, are you going to, or are you not?"

Castro, irritated by this attitude, replied without hesitating:

"It's all nonsense, and I refuse."

Lubimoff still remained motionless at this refusal, but Atilio was sure he guessed the Prince's thoughts in the hostile look fixed on him. He was accusing him of ingratitude. At the same time he was holding the "General" responsible: believing that the latter must have influenced his decision. That Lieutenant was so greatly admired by DoÑa Clorinda!

As though replying to these unexpressed ideas, Atilio went on:

"Do you think I am interested in that boy you are bent on fighting? He is quite indifferent to me; I even dislike him, because of the great extremes to which certain women go in their admiration of his heroism. That is always annoying to those who are not heroes. I think how insignificant he must have been only four years ago. If I had met him then, I would have found him, I dare say, a book-keeper in some hotel, or a clerk in my haberdasher's in Paris. Imagine what a friend! But the war has swept over us, turning everything upside down, making some emerge, and burying others in the deepest depths, without any certainty of rising again. This boy happens to be somebody now. He is of more consequence than you or I. He has been of some use; and for me he is sacred, in spite of the fact that he inspires envy in me rather than admiration."

The Prince finally made a gesture of protest. Then he shrugged his shoulders disdainfully, and sank once more into motionless silence. That little adventurer worth more than he, because they had punctured his skin in a fight or two!

"We would never come to an understanding, even if we talked all the afternoon," continued Castro. "I have changed considerably, and you are the same man you have always been. I believe that yesterday I came to my 'road to Damascus.' I feel to-day that I am a different man."

And, through a certain need of expressing his great inner turmoil, he went on talking, without paying any attention to whether or not the Prince was listening to him.

He had come to his "road of Damascus" near the Monte Carlo railway station, beside the tracks. He was with two ladies, in one of whom he was greatly interested. (Michael thought once more of DoÑa Clorinda.) A trainload of soldiers was returning from Italy; a somber train, without flags and without any branches of trees adorning the doors and windows. They were Frenchmen. They had been sent to Italy as reËnforcements, after the disaster of Caporetto, and now they were being hurriedly recalled, to defend their own soil, which was again in danger.

"No songs and no wild merriment; they were all silent, tired and dirty, with an epic dirtiness. The cars were more like wild beasts' cages, with their pungent odors of the animal ring. The soldiers were young men but they looked old, with their bristling beards, spotted uniforms, and faces parched by the sun, hardened by the cold, and cracked and chapped by the wind. The heat had caused them to remove their blouses, and they were in flannel shirts of an undefinable color, drenched with the sweat of so many fatigues and so many emotions.

"One could guess that they were the battalion always predestined to arrive in time to sustain the hardest shocks; the one that punctually appeared in the places of greatest danger, with the heroic resignation of the strong, who allow themselves to be exploited, and who not only do their own work, but help out all the others who work less. Where had these men not fought? On their own soil, and on that of the Allies, and perhaps in the Orient, and now, they were returning again to the land of their first combats. Just when they were thinking they had accomplished everything, they had discovered they had as yet done nothing. In the weaving and unweaving of the web of war, it was necessary to begin all over again. Four years before, they imagined they had triumphed decisively on the banks of the Marne, and now they were returning once more to the Marne. Every winter, sunk in the mud, buried in the trenches, under the rain, they said to one another: 'This will be the last.' And another winter came, and another, and still another on the heels of the last, without any noticeable change. This was the reason for their fatalistic and resigned demeanor, the look of men who adapt themselves to everything and finally come to believe that their misery will be eternal, that human times of peace will never return."

Castro stopped talking a moment and paid no attention to the face of his friend, which seemed to be asking what all that story had to do with him. "We were standing on the edge of an embankment, leaning on the barriers, and our heads were on a level with the men huddled in the carriages. The long train, the head of which had already reached the station, was slowly advancing. The two ladies were waving their handkerchiefs, smiling at the soldiers, and calling words of greeting to them. Many of the latter remained unmoved, looking at them with eyes of sleepy wild beasts. They had been greeted with ovations for four years. They knew realities, the terrible realities that lie beyond ovations! Others, young or more ardent, aroused themselves at the sight of these two elegant women. Electrified by their smiles, they stood erect, passing a hand over their wrinkled flannels, and threw kisses, trying to recover their gentleness of the days when they were not soldiers. Suddenly, one of those who were passing, forgot the women and noticed me, also waving my hat to them, and shouting hurrah. He was a sort of red-haired, bitter devil."

Castro could still see him, as though his head were peering through one of the bar-room windows; perhaps he would be able to see, as long as he lived, the whitish parchment of the man's face, drawn across his prominent cheek-bones; his red beard hanging from his jaws, as though it were a piece of make-up, and above all, his insolent, sarcastic eyes, a muddy green color, like that of oysters. He was the soldier who criticizes, grumbles, and talks against the officers, while carrying out their orders. In civil life he must have been the disagreeable rebel who never approves of anything. As his eyes met those of Castro, the latter had a feeling of repulsion. He divined the man with whom one always clashes in the street, in the cars, and in the theater. And nevertheless, he would never forget his momentary meeting with that soldier who was passing and was disappearing in the distance, with only just enough time to say six words.

He gave the two women a scornful, ironic smile—then another at Castro, who was still waving his hat, and pointed to the end of the carriage, shouting to him:

"There's still room for one more!"

And that was all he said.

"He said enough, Michael. Since then I keep hearing his harsh voice: I shall always hear it, in my happiest moments, if I remain here. And the look in his eyes? I understood all the mute insults, the rapid comparisons that he made between his misery and my strong, well-groomed appearance. For him I was a coward gallivanting with women, when men are with men, giving their lives for something of importance."

"Bah! You are a foreigner," interrupted the Prince, who seemed wearied by his friend's words.

"I live here; and the land where I live cannot be foreign to me. This war is for something more than questions of land; it concerns all men. Look at the Americans, whom we all considered very practical and incapable of idealism; they know that they are not going to gain anything positive; and nevertheless they are entering the struggle with all their might. Besides, there is the spirit of the women. Would you imagine that the two that were with me laughed at the red-headed fellow's insult, considering it very apropos? And don't tell me that women are always attracted by the warrior, on every occasion. Perhaps by the warrior in peace times, shiny and beplumed. But these fellows now look so miserable! No; there is something very lofty in everything that surrounds us, something that you and I have not been able to see, because of our selfishness."

His listener once more shrugged his shoulders with a gesture of indifference.

"And when I think of my meeting yesterday, as I constantly am doing, and see the place that that damned redhead offered me jokingly, as though I were a woman, and as though I would never have the courage to take it, you propose that I arrange for a deadly combat with another of these men who consider themselves, not without reason, superior to us! No; now you know my answer: I won't accept."

He had left the arm of the chair and was standing, facing the Prince. The latter made a gesture of weariness. He was bored by Atilio's words, by that childlike story about the train, the red-haired soldier and his insolent invitation. That might move DoÑa Clorinda, but nobody else; he had more important things to think about just then. And since he refused to do him the favor, he could leave him alone.

"Good-by, Michael!" said Castro, with the conviction that this farewell was going to be something more than a momentary parting.

"Good-by," replied the Prince, without stirring.

When he had almost reached the door, Atilio turned back.

"I know what my refusal means, and what it is up to me to do. Good-by again. Remember that if you were to ask me anything else...."

But the Prince interrupted his words with another gesture of indifference, and Atilio went away, hiding his emotion.

Immediately Don Marcos entered the bar, as though he had been waiting on the other side of the curtain for Castro to come out. His "chamberlain" had never seemed to the Prince so active and intelligent.

"It is all arranged, Marquis."

As he had felt certain that Atilio would not allow himself to be persuaded, he had gone in search of another second. He thought for a moment of going to Monaco, to speak to Novoa. Then he remembered the professor's relations with Valeria. Such a visit would be equivalent to informing the Duchess of the entire affair. Besides, the scientist did not know anything about such matters, and was a fellow countryman of Martinez. It was quite enough that one Spaniard should figure in this affair.

"I have my second," he continued. "It will be Lord Lewis."

In the Colonel's eyes, Lewis was more of a Lord than ever. He was thankful for the promptness with which he had granted his request. The Englishman was winning money that afternoon, and was in an excellent humor. He even got up from his seat, leaving the gambling, to listen to the Colonel. He wanted to take him over to the bar, affirming that with a whiskey in front of a fellow he can talk better; and Toledo guessed from his breath that he had already taken several drinks to celebrate his good luck. Lewis was disposed to serve his friend Lubimoff. As far as fights were concerned, he was acquainted only with boxing; but he had absolute confidence in the Colonel's expert opinion and would support anything he might say. Immediately afterwards he had returned to his play.

Michael gave Toledo his instructions. It would be an encounter under rigorous conditions, like those which he had witnessed in Russia. It could be nothing else: he had received a blow. And he said this with a sullen voice, quite convinced of the absolute reality of the insult.

As night fell, he left the Casino, avoiding his acquaintances who were invading the bar, and obliging him to smile and keep up frivolous conversation, while his thoughts were far away.

In all his moments of profound anger, when unable to put his feelings into immediate and violent action, his nervous excitation was followed by a certain lassitude which caused his muscles and nerves to relax.

It was with a real pleasure that he entered Villa Sirena, finding an unwonted voluptuousness in all the details of its comforts. He spent the time he was waiting for the Colonel in reading. At nine o'clock he was obliged to eat alone. Then he returned to his book, but this time in his bedroom, finally lying down, book in hand. He smiled with a smile that was almost a grimace, as he thought that his nervous fatigue had caused him to stretch out in the same posture as the dead.

He went on turning the pages without losing a single line, and nevertheless he could not have told what he was reading. Suddenly, he concentrated his attention in an effort to remember. Something had happened; something was awaiting him. What was it? "Oh, yes!" And after reconstructing in his memory what had taken place that afternoon, and imagining what was to take place the following day, he returned to his meaningless reading.

The pages melted away like snowflakes; he felt his hand grow lighter; the book finally fell on the bed. Instinctively he sought the electric button to darken the room, and before completely losing all perception of the outer world, he could hear his own first regular breathing.

A light striking against his eyes made him sit up. He saw the Colonel beside his bed. The deep silence of the night, which seemed even more absolute when emphasized by the sound of the sea, was broken off by the panting of a motor-car.

The Prince rubbed his eyes. What time was it?

"One o'clock," said Don Marcos.

Everything was arranged. The meeting was to take place on the following day, at two o'clock in the afternoon. It could not be managed earlier! There were still a great many things left to be done. The place selected was Lewis' castle; an encounter in the principality of Monaco would be impossible. All the houses there were close together, without a single quiet spot where two men might face each other, pistol in hand.

Lubimoff almost jumped out of bed, so great was his surprise. The choice of arms was his, as the injured person, and he had mentioned to his representative the saber, the favorite weapon of his youthful duels. Toledo, for the first time faced the furious look of his Prince without a tremor.

"Marquis," he said with dignity. "It could not be anything else! You must remember that this poor young man is a convalescent, almost an invalid. I am astonished that he should have persuaded his seconds to allow even pistols. His representatives did not want to accept anything. They are among those who feel that this duel ought not to take place."

The Prince calmed himself. A sense of equity caused him to accept Toledo's decision. That sick fellow was not an enemy worthy of his saber; it was necessary to establish a certain equality between them, and the pistol would do that, being the only weapon that lends itself to surprises and whims of chance.

"At any event I shall kill him," thought Michael, remembering his skill as a marksman.

"I must tell your Highness," the Colonel went on, "that all weapons are the same to him. This young man and his two friends are well acquainted with everything that concerns warfare, but they haven't the slightest notion of duelling and the weapons that are used on such occasions."

Then he enumerated the conditions. The distance was to be fifteen meters; each one was to fire a single shot, but each might aim and fire while he, who was to direct the combat, was counting from one to three. With a marksman like the Prince, such conditions would be serious.

Exactly! The Prince found them acceptable.

"Good-night," he said, burying himself in the bed, and pulling the coverlet up to his eyes.

Once more sleep overwhelmed him, now that his curiosity was satisfied.

Toledo would have liked to do the same, but he was obliged to fulfill the sacred duties of his exalted position, and he went from room to room looking through every drawer and climbing on chairs to rummage around on the top shelves of the closets. He was looking for a box of duelling pistols, that had been given to him in Russia by one of the Generals who was a friend of the dead Marquis. When he finally found it, he was obliged to spend more than an hour in cleaning the luxurious weapons, which had lost their silvery brilliancy in the oblivion of their long confinement.

He felt tired, yet at the same time his feeling of importance warded off sleep. Was he not the soul of the drama which was being prepared for the following day, he alone? Without him, neither his Highness nor Martinez could fight. Lord Lewis and the two soldiers who represented the adversary were incapable of a single idea, and had to follow him as though they were his pupils.

Consciousness of this superiority caused him to recall from mid-afternoon to mid-night all his past negotiations and triumphs.

He had gone in quest of Martinez, with a certain hesitation. In spite of his old beliefs, he felt Atilio's protests were quite reasonable. Perhaps what he said was right, that this duel was a piece of foolishness, madness even, on the part of the Prince. But his traditional ideas revolted against such scruples.

"Honor is honor." And, hearing the Lieutenant accept reparation by arms, with joy, and with a certain haste, as though he were afraid that Toledo would repent and withdraw the proposal, the Colonel felt the satisfaction of a person who, after long hesitation, becomes convinced that he is in the right. Heroic youth, ready to maintain all points of honor! Don Marcos found it natural that he should act thus. Martinez was from the same land as himself!

For a moment his memory dwelt on the image of the Duchess. Perhaps she was the involuntary cause of this clash, and the boy was animated by a feeling of vanity. He was going to figure in a duel such as he had read about in the story books of his youth; he was going to be a chief actor in one of those dreams of high life that seemed to him to belong to another world. But the Colonel immediately put aside such speculations, which had been suggested by the frank rejoicing with which Martinez accepted the challenge, as though it were an invitation to a party.

From that moment on Toledo began to be more and more bewildered. The world had changed, changed completely, and he advanced from amazement to amazement.

To favor his compatriot, he wanted to know the arms for which the latter had a preference.

"I am acquainted with so many!" exclaimed Martinez.

In an attack he had wounded with the point of a saber a gigantic German who was threatening him with his bayonet. The thrust had met something hard that crunched, and spurted a shower of blood into his face. Then, on growing calm, he saw that he had driven the weapon through his adversary's mouth, breaking his spinal column. He was also acquainted with the revolver, but was not a marksman. He was more expert with other weapons: the hand grenade, which reminded him of youthful ball games; the machine gun, which he had handled as a mere aid; explosive hurled with a sling. He was even fairly skilled in artillery, but trench artillery, in loading short range mortars, used in firing torpedoes and asphyxiating projectiles into the neighboring trench!

He smiled scornfully when Don Marcos insisted on the fencing formalities to be employed with the saber. He had his own style of fencing; to go straight up to the enemy and strike first. But in hand to hand fighting he preferred the knife. With a revolver he had never bothered about aiming. He didn't fire until he found himself close to the enemy, and was sure of his shot.

"And the duelling pistol?" asked the Colonel.

"I am not acquainted with it at all. I should like to see one: it must be something curious."

Toledo's hesitating glance wandered over the officer's breast, as though taking an inventory of his decorations, pausing at the stars that dotted the striped ribbons of his War Cross. Each one of them symbolized a great deed.

When the Lieutenant presented his seconds, the bewilderment of Don Marcos was not relieved. They were two extremely young captains. Toledo guessed they were twenty-five or twenty-six years of age. Their uniforms fitting very tight about the waist, their kepis of the latest style, their neatness and elegance pleased the Colonel, who immediately took them to be professional soldiers. They must have come from the school of Saint-Cyr; his professional eye could not be mistaken; they were of a different stock from humble Martinez!

One of them had had his face burned on one side by German liquid fire: the other's face was burrowed with a network of scarlet threads, which were the remains of scars. They both limped; one of them, with an enormous foot covered with wrappings and shod with a felt shoe, was quite frankly leaning on a stick; while his companion, who had a stiff leg, wore a trim tiny shoe, displaying a certain vanity also in a slender rattan cane, which he really used for support.

Their first words were rather embarrassing for the Colonel and Lewis. What was the meaning of this, a civilian daring to insult a soldier who was recovering from his wounds? What was the idea in proposing a duel in the midst of war? Any one who wanted to die himself or kill someone else had only to go to the front, like the rest. But Martinez, who was still present, intervened, entering into a rapid discussion with them. Did they want to do him this favor he had asked them as comrades, or not? Yes, but they were giving their own opinion of the matter. In their judgment the logical thing would have been to put an end to the quarrel right there on the Casino steps: two good punches at that slacker who wasn't going to war and took the liberty of annoying those who were doing their duty! They talked like men thoroughly aware of the fragility of life, like men who know how easy it is to take another man's life, or to lose one's. They laughed instinctively at the importance, the ceremonies and the so-called "equities" with which in peace times a private encounter is surrounded. But in the end, since their comrade insisted on their representing him in this farce, they would do it to please him, even though their compliance might get them into the guard house.

Scarcely had Martinez withdrawn, when one of the Captains, the one with the elephantine foot in a felt shoe, confessed his lack of competence in such matters.

"I never saw a duel in Bordeaux. I have no idea what it's like. Before the war I was a traveling salesman in Mexico. Wine was my line. I sailed with all the Frenchmen who were living there, and by a miracle we were not captured by a Boche pirate. I started in as a second class private; but I did what I could. If it were a business matter I would give my opinion, but in a thing like this!... Perhaps my comrade here." Another Martinez! Don Marcos forgot the Captain with the felt shoe. He was the Lewis of the opposite side. He concentrated all his attention on the Captain with the shiny boots and the toy cane. The latter must be an adversary worthy of him. It was a shame that his clear eyes should have the ironical expression of a man who makes a joke of everything, and that under his red mustache, trimmed short, in the English fashion, there should flit a faint look of insolence!

He was born in Paris, as he proudly declared as soon as he started to speak; and when Don Marcos slyly sounded him to find out whether or not he was an expert in affairs of honor and had witnessed many duels, he said in a simple way:

"More than a hundred."

Toledo had not been mistaken. This was the man with whom he would have the struggle. Then he thought of the number, and compared it with the Captain's age. More than a hundred, and surely he was not over twenty-six! He had a presentiment that he was going to be up against some famous swordsman, whose glorious name has been momentarily obscured by the war.

The Captain and the Colonel were the only ones to do any talking. In the beginning the Captain had had an air of jesting, with a Parisian sense of humor, at the solemn, high-sounding terms in which Don Marcos treated questions of honor. But the Colonel's reserved and persistent grandiloquence finally got the better of the other's inclination to banter. The young Captain took the same tone as the Colonel, finally interested in the affair and recognizing its importance.

At certain moments, the Colonel felt doubtful on listening to the way in which his rival formulated amazing heresies, revealing absolute ignorance of the great authorities who have codified the laws of encounters between gentlemen. And this man had been present at more than a hundred duels! Later, Don Marcos was amazed at the promptness with which the texts he had cited himself were appropriated by the young man; at the ease with which his classics had been assimilated, somewhat inverted in meaning, to be sure, the better to sustain affirmations contrary to his own.

When the encounter was arranged for in its slightest details, the Captain summed up his impressions with a simplicity that made the blood of Don Marcos run cold.

"One or both perhaps will be wounded. There is nothing extraordinary about that. Who isn't wounded these days? Surgery has made great progress; it is quite different from what it was at the beginning of the war. If a man doesn't die on the spot, he is nearly always saved. Besides, they will put them to bed and they won't remain abandoned on the field for days and days, as happens in war."

But the placid expression with which he talked about wounds was clouded over, giving way to a grim look.

"I am assuming, of course," he continued, "that no one is killed. Because if, for example, my comrade, Martinez, who is as gentle as a lamb and of whom I am very fond, should die in this farce, I'll kill your Prince on the spot, without any rules whatsoever, the way we kill a Boche at the front."

The tone in which he said these words was so sincere, that the Colonel, deeply impressed by them, did not observe how strange they sounded in the mouth of an expert in the laws of honor.

The conversation became more intimate and cordial as always happens when a difficult matter has been settled. Toledo was obliged to tell them about his life as a soldier—at least the way he imagined it had been, after so many years—and both young men, who had witnessed the combats of millions of men, showed the same interest as children listening to a strange tale, as he related obscure encounters in the mountains, battles that did not even have a name and were remembered only in an exaggerated fashion by Don Marcos himself.

The Parisian Captain, elegant and charming, also talked about his past.

"As for me, before the war, I worked in the Box Office of the theaters on the Boulevard. I haven't any other position."

Don Marcos had to make an effort to conceal his surprise. Indeed, he had seen more than a hundred duels; but in plays on the stage, between actors, who draw out the preliminaries of the encounters with ceremonious deliberation, in order to prolong the suspense of the audience. He should have guessed it on hearing his nonsense! What a fool that boy had made of him!

But immediately his eyes fell on the coats of the two young men. The same as Martinez: The Legion of Honor, the Military Medal and the War Cross, with stars. That of the former ticket seller was even crossed by a golden palm.

Ah, indeed! The world had changed. Where were the days of Don Marcos? Then he thought of all he had done in his life to increase his own self esteem; by appearing in full ceremony at various duels where most often no blood was shed. He also thought of what these young men had done and seen in less than four years. Their obscure origin brought to his memory the various warriors of Napoleon, whose names were celebrated and whose origin had been even worse. Some of them had succeeded in becoming kings, while these poor Captains once the war was over, would have to return, laden with glory, to their former occupations, struggling day by day to earn their bread!

They separated, agreeing to meet after dinner, to sign the paper stating the conditions of the encounter. They were all four in accord, but on mentioning this number, Toledo noticed that there were only three. Lewis had witnessed the long preliminaries with a certain impatience, seated on a divan in the ante-room of the Casino.

"There's a friend waiting for me. I'll be back in a moment."

And he had entered the gambling rooms, which were forbidden to the officers.

The Colonel had no illusions as to the duration of that moment, about two hours having passed. After leaving the Captains, he found Lewis at a trente et quarante table, with a heap of thousand franc chips in front of him. Of course he did not understand what Toledo whispered in his ear. He had to make an effort to recall.

"Oh, yes, the matter of the duel! I have every confidence in you; do whatever you please, I shall sign what you give me, but I am not going to get up, even though they might tell me Lubimoff was dead. What a day this has been, my friends! If they were all like this!"

And he turned his back, to make the most of his time, before the flight of luck would change.

Don Marcos had dined in the CafÉ de Paris, going over in his mind the various articles he should put in the dueling agreement. The consideration that they were all relying on his superior knowledge caused him to be very exacting with himself. He wanted something concise and brilliant which would inspire respect in those boys, who were covered with glory. And he spent more than an hour, with the dessert dishes in front of him on the table, scribbling over sheet after sheet of paper, tearing each one up and beginning all over again on another. It was futile work: both signed in the reading room of the Casino, hardly giving the eloquent text a glance. As for Lewis he was obliged to get him out of the private gambling rooms by every sort of trick, and entreaty. The Englishman had forgotten to dine, in order not to offend Madame Fortune by his absence, and that stubborn Colonel came and disturbed him with his damned affair of the duel!

He signed the document without looking at it; he gave his word to the officers that he would come and get them in an automobile to take them to his castle. Then he ran away immediately, not without first saying to Don Marcos in a gruff tone:

"Until four o'clock, no later! If it isn't all over at four, I'll let them kill each other alone and come back here. That's the hour that the fine deals commence. To-day's luck is going to continue."

And he fled, smiling with pity on people who were occupied with less important things.

On finding himself alone, the Colonel began to make preparations for the encounter. He needed a doctor. He would go next morning and find an old physician in Monte Carlo who visited the Prince from time to time. He needed powder and balls; he proposed to go in quest of them to-morrow also. He needed two cases of pistols, and he had only one!

The matter of the two cases he considered essential. The other man's seconds did not know where to get theirs. No matter; he would find them one. The indispensable thing was that there should be two, so that fate might decide which they should use. Without that, the conditions would not be equal. And he spent the time until about one o'clock in the morning, asking hotel employees, rousing people out of bed, going down to the rooms of the Sporting Club, until an American whom he knew gave him a note for a certain fellow-countryman, a gloomy, half crazy fellow, who lived in an isolated villa on Cap-Ferrat. He thought he would conclude this negotiation the following day; and to do so he had rented an automobile.

Owing to the lack of vehicles and gas, the cost of the car was enormous; but it was necessary owing to the importance of his functions.

But now he was in Villa Sirena, at two o'clock in the morning, slowly cleaning the pistols, as though they were fragile jewels.

In the silence of his bedroom, far from mankind, influenced by the lonely mystery of the small hours of the night, which puts a certain vagueness in things and ideas, he felt an enormous self-aggrandizement. No; his world had not changed as much as he thought. The proof was that he was there, cleaning weapons for a duel!

On waking up the next morning, the Prince could not find his "chamberlain". The rented auto had carried him off at seven o'clock, to complete his preparations.

Lubimoff wandered about the gardens, stopping in front of the cages, which sheltered various exotic birds. Then with an absent-minded look, he followed the evolutions of various peacocks, spreading their tails, colored blue and golden, or a royal black, in the sunlight.

His old valet interrupted his promenade. Some men had come with a truck to get SeÑor Castro's baggage.

Michael showed no surprise; they might hand over everything to them that belonged to Don Atilio. But the servant added that the same men also wanted to take away the little that belonged to SeÑor Spadoni, news which amazed the Prince. He, too! What reason had Spadoni to desert him?

He glanced at the brief note written to the Colonel and signed by them both. In his flight, Castro was taking with him the dreamy pianist.

"All right," he thought; "let them all leave; let them leave me alone. If they think that by doing so they are going to make me refrain from carrying out my intention!..."

Then he resumed his walk.

Only a few hours remained before he would find himself facing that young man whom he so hated. He was going coldly to do away with him, so that he would not continue to be a nuisance. The conditions planned by the Colonel were sufficient for a marksman of his skill to bring down his adversary. He needed only a single shot.

For a moment he thought of going to the end of the gardens, where he sometimes passed the time shooting. It was a good idea that he should practise steadiness of hand—the pistol is full of surprises. Then he decided not to, as it seemed unworthy that he should add these preparations to his evident superiority. His mediocre adversary could not be practising at that time. He had no facilities for doing so in Monte Carlo where he had no other friends than his convalescent comrades and a few ladies. He, on the other hand!... he held out his muscular arm, keeping it rigid for a few seconds with his eye glued on his fist. There was not the slightest tremor! He would be able to place a ball wherever he wanted. Poor Martinez might consider himself a dead man. And not the slightest sign of remorse disturbed the Prince's infernal pride in his implacable strength.

His consciousness of superiority was so great and his certainty in the result so absolute, that he finally began to feel some doubt, that feeling of uneasiness which is inspired by the mystery of things still to be accomplished. Suddenly there came crowding into his memory stories of combats in which the weak unexpectedly triumphed over the strong, through an obscure mandate of inherent justice. He recalled many novels in which the reader draws a sigh of relief on seeing that the hero, modest and agreeable, placed in danger of death by the "villain," who is stronger and wickeder than he, not only saves his own life, but in addition kills his adversary, through some happy chance; all of which goes to show the existence of some superior and just power which on most occasions seems asleep, but at certain moments awakens, giving each person what he deserves. Since the time of David, the little barefoot shepherd, killing with a stone the huge giant clad in bronze, humanity has enjoyed such stories.

Pistols are capricious weapons, and lend themselves to the absurd determinations of fate. Might he not fall, with all his skill, at the poor Lieutenant's first shot?

He held out his arm again, as before, looking at his clenched first. Then he smiled, with the smile of his ancestors, which gave his features a Mongolian ugliness. Mere traditional fiction, inventions of story writers, to flatter the public in a sentimental love of equality! The strong are always the strong. Within a few hours he would sweep that nuisance out of the way, calmly and without remorse, the way superior men always act.

A roaring sound coming from the railway line drew him from his thoughts. It was a trainload of soldiers approaching, like all the others, with an ovation of shouts, acclamations and whistling. It was rolling along towards Italy, in the direction opposite to that of the numerous trains coming to the French front. The Prince walked over to a garden terrace, the stone flower-covered wall of which descended to the track. The cars seemed to pass of their own will before his eyes, showing him one side as they rounded the curve, and then the other as they reached another curve, where they were lost to view.

The uniform of these combatants puzzled the Prince for a moment, as an unexpected novelty. They were dressed in dark blue serge, with their blouses open at the neck, and sleeves rolled up. On their heads they wore white caps with the brims turned up all around, like the little paper boats that children make.

He finally recognized them: they were sailors from the United States, a battalion, sailors from the fleet, going to Italy so that the Stars and Stripes might represent the huge republic on the icy summits of the Alps and on the hot marshy plains of Venetia.

With the rapidity of mental visions, which reveal, one superimposed upon the other but nevertheless distinct, a great number of diverse images, the Prince recalled the harbors of North America which he had visited in his youth, aquatic beehives, gathering together all the work and riches of the earth; monstrous, interminable cities, with populations as large as nations, and in which liberty and well-being seemed to have reached their highest limits.... And these men were leaving the comforts of a scientifically organized existence, their productive business, their amply remunerative work, their immediate hopes of wealth, perhaps to die for an ideal in the Old World, merely for an ideal, since they were not seeking new strips of land nor indemnities for their country! And until then, the average person had considered this country as the most materialistic, the least poetic and idealist of all nations, calling it the land of the dollar!... It was true that unselfish ideals were something more than words, since millions of men were coming across the sea to give their blood for them!

The sailors, after passing through the city of Monte Carlo, where they were greeted with cheers and waving flags, were entering the open country, where their shouts faded away with no answering echoes. For this reason their attention was attracted by that flowering terrace and the man appearing above it. It was like a procession on review: the carriages, one by one, came to life as they passed the Prince. From all the car windows arms with sleeves rolled up projected, shaking white caps. On the car roofs, a few strapping lads were gesticulating, with arms and legs extended, while the wind rippled in the folds of their dark trousers, above the white leggings. More than a thousand throats greeted the solitary man on the terrace with gay whistling, hurrahs, or unintelligible cries, which gave vent to the exuberant feelings of those youths, hungry for danger and glory, full of joy and curiosity, as they passed through an Old World which to them was new.

Lubimoff remained motionless, with his elbows on the railing, and his chin in one hand, as though he did not see that pent-up river of men, gliding along below his feet. The gay sailors, as they passed, turned their heads, repeating their shouts and greetings, as though anxious to awaken that human figure, rigid and clinging to the balustrade as though forming a part of its decoration.

He had completely forgotten the thoughts and worries of a moment before. All he saw was that torrent of young men rushing to meet danger and death for certain ideals as simple and beautiful as their blossoming youth. They were coming from the other side of the earth with that naÏve faith that accomplishes the great miracles of history; and in the meantime, Prince Lubimoff, who, by dint of seeking after superior ideas and exquisite sensations, had finally come to believe in nothing, was there at his garden rail, calculating the surest means of killing a man, a man who was useful, like those who were passing.

Castro's image arose in his mind. He, too, had witnessed two days before, the passing of a train. He recalled the impression so deep and powerful that had impelled him to leave Villa Sirena, and break with his relative. He could see, just as it had been described to him, the bitter look of that red-headed soldier insulting him with scorn.

"There's room here for one more!"

The American sailors continued their whistling, and their exuberantly youthful shouting; but it seemed to him that these voices and waving of hands said the same as the other man's words, inviting him with ironical politeness: "Come; there's a place here for you!" A little later, and the voices were dumb, but he could still hear them, deep in his soul, like the far-off booming of a bell. He had considered himself a brave man, who as a matter of distinction, of sophistication, of refined indifference, preferred to keep aloof from things which rouse enthusiasm in other mortals. But the far-off tolling of the bell protested, ringing in his ear, repeating a single word: "Coward! Coward!"

He walked about the garden in a pensive mood until Toledo arrived in the afternoon. They had lunch in a hurry, and the Colonel made several recommendations. His knowledge of dueling matters, which has as many branches as the tree of science, touched in one of its ramifications on cooking. The Prince should not take any wine; since he must keep his hand steady. And as the Colonel said this he was praying inside that the bullets would all go astray, since both contestants inspired an equal interest in him. Some soft boiled eggs, nothing more; and not much liquid. At the last moment he should remember to empty his bladder. A terrible thing a wound with internal leakage! Nothing escaped the Colonel—he thought of everything.

He went up to his room to put on the frock coat he wore at duels. The moment for officiating had arrived. He remained hesitating in front of the mirror, realizing the lack of harmony between this majestic garment and the derby that topped off his appearance. Oh, the war! He smiled at the absurd thought of presenting himself thus four years before—it seemed like four centuries—in those Paris duels, in which the seconds and adversaries felt that it was only decent to go to meet death with an elegant, shiny, high hat.

Having omitted this solemn touch, he felt that he might look somewhat ridiculous sitting in the automobile beside the Prince, with his long frock coat and the two pistol cases on his knees.

The carriage stopped in the Boulevard des Moulins, in front of the doctor's house. Wounded soldiers were passing, some with fixed stares, tapping the pavement in front of them with sticks, others tottering along out of weakness or owing to an amputation.

A woman's voice, smooth and sweet, greeted the Prince. It was the voice of an extremely slender nurse, who was walking arm and arm with two blind officers. Michael and Don Marcos recognized Lewis' niece. She smiled at them, showing them the two strapping Englishmen whom she was serving as a guide; two fair-haired Apollos, tanned by the sun, with Roman profiles, shining teeth, and lithe bodies, strong and symmetrical, but with vacant eyes—like fires that have gone out—and a tragic expression on their lips, an expression of despair and protest at finding themselves dead in the midst of life.

"They are my two 'crushes'. How do you like them?" She was jesting in order to cheer up her companions, with that joyousness and daring of a Virgin Dolorosa, passing through the world scattering pale rays of Northern sunlight in the ambulances and hospitals. She seemed to be made entirely of the same stuff as the sacramental Host, fragile, anÆmic, white and transparent, like dim crystal. And she went away, guiding like children the two blind men, despairing and handsome, whose heads towered above her own. A slight pressure of their fingers would have been enough to crush that body, like an alabaster lamp, all light, of no more substance than was necessary to guard the inner flame and cause it to shine through.

"Good-by, Lady Lewis!" said the Prince.

Don Marcos started on hearing his voice; it was a solemn voice such as he had never heard, a tremulous voice like a sentimental song in the depths of which lay teardrops.

The doctor laid his surgical case on the frayed carpet in the auto. There were three such cases now. It was not until then that the Colonel decided to relieve himself of the two precious boxes, placing them on top of the doctor's.

The car started off up the mountain, by a road that rose in sharp zigzags. At the end of each angle, Monte Carlo was revealed, smaller and smaller, and more sunken, like a toy city built of blocks with its red roof and many ants threading its streets to gather together in the Square. On the other hand, the sea seemed to arch its back, constantly rising, devouring with its blue rectilinear jaws a portion of the sky at each turn in the climb.

On the crest of the hill a huge mass of masonry kept growing more and more gigantic; La Trophee, a name which had finally changed to La Turbie, the medieval name of the little gray, walled village, which huddled about the monument. Two slender columns of white marble flanking the rubble-work, and a piece of the cornice were all that remained of the proudest of Roman trophies—a tower 30 meters in height, with a gigantic statue of Augustus, on its summit, which marked on the Alps the boundary between the lands of the Empire and those of the conquered Gauls. The auto, leaving the hamlet of La Turbie behind, was now running along the ancient Roman road.

"I can see the Legions," Don Marcos gravely murmured.

It was a mania of his. He had never had sufficient imagination to be able to see the Legions for himself; but after witnessing in a moving picture film a procession of supers, with bare legs and short swords, following Julius CÆsar's horse, Roman military life had had no mysteries for him, and every time he went up to La Turbie he murmured the same words: "I can see the Legions."

A few minutes later he forgot his resurrection of the warlike past to point out various buildings, of such a bluish gray color that they blended with the hills behind them. It was Lewis' castle. Standing out from it, one could see solitary towers, joined to the square mass of the buildings by causeways; watch towers flanking the gates; sharp slate roofs, with double rows of tiny dormers; roofs that only had the wooden rafters, through which one could see, as though the interior had been gutted by a fire; walls half built, descending at a right angle like a stone carpenter's square riveted to the ground on its long edge.

From a distance the castle might have been taken for an abandoned ruin. Lewis, having lost hope of being able to finish it, declared in good faith that it was better thus, since it would save him the trouble of decorating it with artificial ruins. It looked like some legendary fortress, such as those his father, the historian, had described, made for gray skies, for moist green forests, and which seemed anxious to escape from the sun-baked landscape of scanty vegetation, and to shrink from contact with the olive trees, the cacti, and the woody thickets covered with coarse flowers.

They got out of the car on a smooth piece of ground, bordered on two sides by two buildings, meeting to form a right angle. It was the court of honor, the future parade ground of the castle. On the other two sides, some walls that rose only a meter above the soil, suggested what the courtyard might some day be, if Fortune would only cease being so intractable for the proprietor. At the open end of the flat ground was another hired car, and beside it the three soldiers.

Lewis came forward to greet the Prince. They had arrived a short time before, and as he was in a hurry, he went into conference with the Colonel at once.

Don Marcos was the oracle that he must consult in order not to lose any time. Might they end this business right here? Would it not be better to do it behind the castle, in an orchard surrounded by old olive trees? The Colonel, with a pistol case under each arm, was examining the terrain. The one thing that really concerned him at first was his own person. He felt, indeed, that he looked ridiculous. There were these three officers with their uniforms; the Prince, with his dark blue street suit; the doctor, dressed like an old man; Lewis, as usual, with the wide straw hat, without which he would never dream of taking a trip to the castle; and there he was himself wrapped in his large, solemn frock coat, which seemed to frighten the very doves, that had taken refuge in the gables and the ruined walls.

After taking a glance behind the castle, he decided on the court-yard, which was free from trees. He would place the two contestants so that their figures would not stand out as targets, against a wall in the background.

Lewis, in spite of his haste, felt it necessary to do the honors of the house.

"A glass of whiskey?" As they had not given him time to make preparations, and as he was now living at Monte Carlo, his cellar was exhausted. But he was sure that by looking around a little he could come across a good bottle. What respectable house could not produce a bottle of whiskey for friends?

"When we have finished, my Lord," said Don Marcos, scandalized at this invitation which was an infringement upon solemn regulations.

The four seconds and the doctor were in a room on the ground floor, adorned with ancient battle trophies. The two contestants had been forgotten in the courtyard, like actors waiting for their turn to appear.

Toledo opened the pistol cases, and gave the captains the one he had found that morning at Cap-Ferrat. Fate was to decide which of the two were to be used.

"It isn't necessary," said the Parisian. "Either one, it's all the same to us. Arrange it all to suit yourself."

Don Marcos protested against this irreverent desire to shorten the ceremonials. It was all quite necessary; they were there on very grave business.

A five-franc piece shone in his hand. What efforts it had cost him to obtain that piece of money. Of all the preparations of the morning, that had taken the most time and been the most difficult to arrange. Coins had disappeared with the coming of the war. One could find nothing but paper money, and a five-franc note was of no use in a matter of heads or tails! He had been obliged to ask one of the important officers in the Casino to hand over that precious disc.

"Heads or tails?"

And the Colonel felt a secret thrill of joy as luck favored his ancient pistols. He was beginning to triumph!

The doctor, in the meantime, was looking out of the drawing room door, with a certain air of amazement, not to say of indignation. His eyes were fixed on the Colonel. Finally, he called Don Marcos aside. Was that Lieutenant the man who was going to fight the Prince? He knew the boy; a friend of his, an army surgeon had talked to him about the Lieutenant's case as an astonishing instance of vitality. It was a disgusting piece of foolishness that was being planned: it amounted to murder. Why, that boy might fall stark dead before the first shot was fired! They had performed an amazingly delicate operation on his skull; it was a miracle that he had survived at all, and he might fall dead instantly at the slightest emotion.

Don Marcos found an heroic answer, worthy of himself.

"Doctor, for a man like that, fighting is not an emotion."

He then proceeded with slow solemnity to carry out the most delicate part of the proceedings: the loading of the pistols. The two captains followed with a look of curiosity this operation, which was quite strange for them, though they imagined they had seen a whole lot of military life. The Parisian almost laughed as he watched how Toledo handled the diminutive ivory spoon which contained the charge of powder, scrutinizing it carefully before pouring it into the barrel of the weapon, with a certain fear of having put a grain more in one than in the other. Toledo was sure the heroic jester was making fun of his scrupulous precautions. But the Captain would not dare deny his interest in the novelty of the ceremony.

Lewis went out to get the automobiles moved away as far as a nearby grove, much to the disgust of the chauffeurs. They obeyed reluctantly, intending to return, even though they might have to creep along the ground, to witness the spectacle.

Toledo left the two pistols on an ancient Venetian table. They were ready! No one was to touch them! They were something sacred. Then his eyes, falling on the wall in front of him, were lighted with a sudden gleam of inspiration; he hurriedly advanced and unhooked two rusty swords from a panoply and went out with them into the courtyard.

Deserted by their seconds, the contestants had begun to pace up and down, pretending they did not see each other, and each catching the other looking at him from the corner of his eye.

They both suddenly found themselves in the situation of the preceding afternoon. It was as though no time had passed, as though they were still on the top steps of the Casino.

All that the Prince had been thinking over in the last few hours and that had followed him until then in his thoughts, with a suggestion of remorse, immediately vanished. So this young gentleman was the man who had tried to strike him, Prince Lubimoff! He would soon find out what such daring was to cost him.

But his anger seemed less violent than on the preceding day, something more reasoned, more completely the product of his will; and this weakening finally made him angry at himself.The other man was more instinctive in his rancor. As he looked at the Prince, he saw also the sweet image of that great lady, his benefactress. It was because the Prince was rich that he had tried to trample on him, treating him like one of his serfs, on his far-off estates in Russia. All the best things in life had been for this aristocrat, and now he was claiming possession of the few scattered crumbs, even of happiness that fall to the unfortunate! He did not know how to kill a man in these regulated combats; but he was going to kill, nevertheless, and felt the absolute confidence in himself that had animated him out there in the trenches in the cruelest days of danger and success.

The presence of Don Marcos with a sword in either hand disturbed their reflections and interrupted their walking back and forth. They both came to a standstill. The Colonel looked at the sky, then took several paces in different directions. He wanted to fix it so that neither of the contestants would have the sun in his eyes.

Finally he proudly thrust one of the swords into the ground. It seemed to him appropriate to the character of the place, to make use of these ancient weapons. They seemed to him more in harmony with Lewis' romantic castle, than two stakes or two cans. But his satisfaction this time was of short duration. On raising his eyes, he saw that Prince, and he saw Martinez....

Poor Colonel! Up to that moment he had proceeded like a priest intoxicated by his own ceremonious words and his own incense, without thinking of the person in whose interest they are offered up. He had prepared all these formalities with the blind fervor of a professional who resumes his functions after several years of inaction, and thinks only of his work, forgetting for whom it is being done. He had managed everything in accordance with the rites, so that two gentlemen might kill each other in compliance with the strictest conventions; but now, at the supreme moment, he realized for the first time that these two men were his Prince and his Martinez, his fellow countryman, his hero.

He was amazed to think that he had been able to go as far as he had gone up to that point. He felt the astonishment of a drunken man recovering his reason in the midst of objects broken by him in a fierce delirium. He recalled Castro's words and those of the doctor; why had he not seen that this duel was a piece of foolishness? Repentance seemed to rush upon him. There was a burning sensation in his eyes, which began to fill with tears. But now it was too late. He must go on, even though his serenity should fail him.

The one thing that he had forgotten in his minute preparations was the tape measure, and he saw in this omission an act of Providence. Starting from the sword planted in the ground he began to pace off the terrain. But they were not paces that he took; they were enormous strides. He fairly leaped. Now he was absolutely sure of the ridiculousness of his appearance, as his coattails flapped back and forth like wings, as they were thrust aside by the vigorous movements of his legs. "Fifteen paces." And he planted the second sword.

If he could have had his way, he would have gone to the farthest end of the open field; perhaps as far as the place where the automobiles were awaiting. Then he looked uneasily at the ground he had measured. It was surely over twenty meters; a betrayal! What cowardice! Might God and gentlemen forgive him!

Once more he brought out the five-franc piece. He had to decide again by chance the position of each contestant. The Parisian captain greeted this proposal with a bored air.

"But I told you before to do whatever you pleased!"

Lewis was muttering impatiently under his mustache.

When the coin had marked the position of each one, Don Marcos placed the Prince beside one sword.

"Marquis: your hat," he said in a low voice.

Lubimoff, understanding this suggestion, took off his hat, throwing it some distance away. His adversary could not fight with his kepis on his head. Its yellowish color and the emblem of the Legion embroidered on the brim of the cap made him conspicuous in an unfair manner. His uniform also worried Toledo, who tried to do away with all the visible details on it.

Assisted by one of the captains, he proceeded to strip Martinez of his decorations of honor, after placing him beside the other sword. It was like a ceremony of degradation. They took off his kepis, then his medals, the red ribbon that hung from his shoulder, and the dark tan strips across his breast and the belt of the same color around his waist. The Lieutenant seemed reduced in stature and dignity in his loose uniform, without his decorations. The Parisian, always in a merry mood, compared him to a plucked bird.

The Colonel felt that it was necessary to repeat aloud the conditions of the duel. The Prince knew them and was accustomed to such encounters. It was Martinez who needed his suggestions. After he, as the director of the combat, should give the word "Fire!" he would slowly count, "one, two, three." They might aim and fire in that space of time. "Be very careful, Lieutenant!" Don Marcos spoke with tragic solemnity.

"If you fire before the one or after the three, you will be declared a felon."

The matter of being declared a felon frightened the young man. He didn't know exactly what it was, but the Colonel's look as he said this terrible word, made a deep impression on him. He no longer thought so vehemently of killing his adversary. This desire retreated into the background. Nor did he think of the fact that he himself might be killed. His one preoccupation was to calculate the time properly and obey instructions without bothering about aiming; to fire before the terrible three; so that he should not be given that horrible mysterious name that made his hair stand on end.

Don Marcos entered the castle, and appeared again with the two loaded pistols. He gave one to the Prince. The latter did not need any lessons. He put the other in the Lieutenant's right hand, and told him how he should stand, with his arm bent, holding the weapon high, presenting only the narrow side of his body to his adversary. Once more he dwelt on his warning. He should be careful not to make a mistake! Now he knew! One ... two ... three....

He himself stood midway between the adversaries withdrawing only a few paces from the line of fire. At that moment he was willing to die, so they both might remain unharmed!

He took off his hat solemnly, and with a gesture of profound sadness.

"Gentlemen ..."

During the entire morning, as he walked from one place to another, making his preparations, he had not ceased to think of what he would say at that moment, working up a superb piece of oratory, brief and stirring. He had frequently spoken at duels, meriting the approval of the other seconds, retired Generals, and such experts, accustomed to formalities of the kind. But the short harangue of to-day was going to be his masterpiece.

"Gentlemen ..." he repeated. He hesitated, not knowing what to add, as it had all been blotted from his memory. With a stammering voice, he went on saying whatever occurred to him, with no attempt at order, and without remembering a single word of the phrases which he had so carefully polished some hours before.

"There was still time ... a little good will on their part; they were both men of courage who had proved their valor ... an explanation at the last moment was no dishonor!"

His words were lost in a tense silence. But this silence was not absolute. There was somebody behind the Colonel, kicking the ground. It was Lewis who was consulting his watch, with a scowl. It was after three o'clock; the good series in the Casino had already begun.

The Colonel decided to end his speech. Besides, he was frightened at the motionless and rigid figure of his Prince, with his pistol raised. He had never seen him so ugly. His face was an earthen color, there was a squint in his eyes, and his cheek bones protruded. His features had been changed in a moment, as though the savagery of his remote ancestors, awakened within, had risen to his face.

"Since there is no possible agreement ..."

At that moment the Colonel thought he had recalled the last part of his forgotten speech. But the tread of brilliant words escaped him again, and he was obliged to improvise, so he ended in a solemn fashion:

"Come, gentlemen! Honor ... is honor; and the laws of chivalry ... are the laws of chivalry."

He heard at his back the murmur of approval. It was the voice of the former ticket-seller. "Bravo! Wonderful!" But he did not care to hear what he said. You could never tell when that fellow was in earnest.

"Ready?"

The silence of the two adversaries gave the Colonel to understand that he might give the words of command."Fire!... One ..."

A shot rang out. Martinez, who was only thinking of the terrible three, had fired.

He saw the Prince standing in front of him. He looked much taller; he could see the black hole of his weapon, and above that hole an eye, with a look of cold ferocity, which was choosing a point on his antagonist's body to send the obedient bullet. And with unconscious arrogance, he turned on his heel, so as to present not his profile, but the whole breadth of his body.

The four seconds did not see this. Their eyes had focused on Lubimoff, the personification of death.

Time contracts and expands us, according to our emotions. Its measure and rhythm depend on the state of the human mind. Sometimes it gallops along at a dizzy rate, over the faces of clocks that seem to have gone mad; at other times, it collapses and refuses to proceed, and a thousandth of a second embraces more emotions than months and years of ordinary life. The four witnesses felt as though the hours had been paralyzed, and the sun were remaining motionless forever. Time did not exist.

"Two!" sighed Don Marcos, and it seemed to him that his lips would never cease uttering this word, as though it were composed of an infinite number of syllables.

Lewis had forgotten the existence of the Casino; he was conscious only of the present. The Captain from Bordeaux, bending forward, was leaning on his wounded foot, without feeling any pain; the other officer was swearing between his teeth, and shaking his rattan cane until it hummed. The doctor, with professional instinct, was stooping over the surgical case that lay at his feet.

Lubimoff was going to kill him! All four were sure that he was going to kill him. An implacable expression of security, and of ferocious coolness, radiated from that man, with arm upraised, so motionless, and pitiless. The expression on his Kalmuck face was of such deep fatality, his one eye tightly shut and the other open, that they could all see an imaginary line drawn from the mouth of the pistol to the breast of the man opposite, the road that the tiny sphere of lead was going to follow with inexorable accuracy.

Proud of his superiority, the Prince postponed the moment of dealing death, with a sort of savage playfulness. He had his enemy in his claws, and could toy with him during those three months, that were as long as centuries.

In the dizzy coincidence of image whirling through his brain, he could see the Princess, his mother, beautiful and arrogant, as she was when she recounted to him as a little boy, the greatness of the Lubimoffs. Then he saw his father, the General, somber and kindly, saying in a rough voice: "The strong man must be kind."

As he thought of his father, his pistol swerved slightly, but immediately he corrected his aim.

In his imagination a train was slowly passing. French soldiers. He saw Castro and the insolent red-haired fellow who was offering him a seat. Another train advanced in the opposite direction, an endless train that kept coming from the depths of the ocean. Hurrahs, whistling, dark blouses, blue collars, little caps that looked as though made of paper. "Good afternoon, Prince!" The luminous smile of a pale Virgin: Lady Lewis with her two blind men, handsome and tragic....

His pistol fell. Above it he could see the entire body of his adversary, that obscure soldier, condemned to die before long no doubt, from wounds received in a land that was not his own, for a cause which was that of all men.

"Three!" said the Colonel.

But before he could finish the word, a shot rang out. The grass stirred at intervals along the soil as the invisible bullet ricocheted into the distance.

The scythe-like stroke passed close to the legs of the Director of the combat; but Don Marcos was in no mood to notice such a thing. His child-like joy made him run hither and thither. His frock coat seemed to laugh as its tails flapped up and down.

He was so happy, that he almost embraced Martinez. The latter must shake hands with the Prince, a reconciliation was necessary.

The officer refused to take this advice. He had his doubts about the way the combat had ended. The Prince had fired at the ground, and he was not going to let him spare his life like that.

"Young man!" said Don Marcos, with an air of authority, "you are new in such affairs. Let yourself be guided by those who know more and give the Prince your hand."

Immediately he went in quest of Lubimoff.

He saw him standing on the same spot. He had thrown the pistol away and was covering his face with his hands.

The only one beside him was Lewis.

"Come, Prince! What's this? Be calm! Perhaps a good glass of whiskey." Toledo heard a sob of anguish, the choking of a stifled breast.

Respectfully he drew away one of the Prince's hands leaving his face uncovered. At present it was a dull brick red, shiny with sweat and tears.

Lubimoff was weeping.

The Colonel recalled the dead Princess in her days of stormy humor, when, after an explosion of wrath, she would wring her hands, and ask forgiveness, weeping hysterically.

As he gently took his hand, he felt that the Prince was following him, meekly without any will of his own. Martinez was waiting a few steps away.

"Shake hands. It's all over. Gentlemen are always ... gentlemen."

They shook hands.

And then something unexpected happened which produced a long silence of surprise and amazement.

Michael bent forward, knelt down, and raised to his lips the hand he was holding in his own, with the same humble gesture that the serfs of the Steppes had used in the presence of his powerful ancestors.

Then he kissed it, moistening it with his tears.