DON MARCOS had never seen the Prince so vexed as he was that morning, when he announced that the Duchess de Delille was waiting for him down-stairs in the hall.

"You should have told her I'd gone out; any sort of a pretext—a lunch at Nice.... There must be some understanding between you. You certainly look out for your Infanta!"

The Colonel, flushed with emotion, made an effort to reply to these accusations. If the Duchess had now suddenly presented herself, it was perhaps because he had refused to take any of her messages for the Prince.

As the latter went down to the hall, he ran straight into Alicia, who was standing close to a window, and looking at the gardens and the sea. Her back was towards him, just as he had seen her coming out of the concert. When she turned her head, Michael thought to himself that he would surely never have recognized her had he met her anywhere else. She was a beautiful woman, but scarcely like the person he had seen that last time in the "study" on the Avenue du Bois, with its weird oriental nick-nacks and unwholesome perfumes. Several years of her life had passed away since then, and yet she seemed fresher, and younger. Her eyes had lost the veiled disturbing fire, that made them look larger, and gave them a fixed, unnatural stare. The dull, sickly whiteness of her skin had taken on color from the sun and the open air. Her airy, undulating litheness had become less willowy, giving her person the calm tranquillity of bodies that are beginning to crystallize in their definitive form.

The Prince, interrupted by Alicia's smiling glance, was unable to continue his scrutiny. It seemed from her quiet easy manner as though she had been there in that very place only the day before. Moreover, Michael suddenly began to wonder how he should start the conversation. Should he talk English or French? Should he speak informally as before?... She put an end to his hesitation, speaking familiarly in Spanish, just as when they were children.

"How hard it is to get in touch with you! Practically impossible," Alicia said as she sat down, after shaking hands with him. "So I decided to pay you this visit. It isn't exactly proper for a lady to call on a person with such a terrible reputation as you have; but I'm not the first one who has come here. There have been lots of others!"

She laughed teasingly as she said this. Immediately she became serious, and said timidly:

"I came here on business—a money matter."

Not wanting to take up such a subject at once, she talked about the obstacles which had obliged her to come unannounced to Villa Sirena. The Prince could have absolute confidence in the fidelity with which his "chamberlain" carried out his orders. This Colonel was a nice fellow, but there was no approaching him, any more than a ferocious dog, when some one tries to make him disobey his master. She had vainly asked him to announce her visit; and he had even refused to accept her card for his Prince.

"I might have written you; but I was afraid you wouldn't reply, or would simply tell me to deal with your agent in Paris. It has been such a long time since we've seen each other! Our friendship has been so intermittent! So that is why I finally decided last night to come and surprise you in your den, with the hope that you wouldn't show me the door."

Michael smiled, making a gesture of indignant denial.

"I came about my debt ... the loans your mother made me some time ago. I didn't know how much they amounted to. Your agent now says they are over four hundred thousand francs. It must be so, if he maintains it. At times when I was in straits I asked for something, and the Princess, who was such a great lady, kept giving and giving, without either of us paying any attention to the amounts. Now I see how tremendously generous she must have been."

This was surprising news for Lubimoff. Then he gradually recalled that when his mother died she had left a long memorandum of all the loans she had made, and that Alicia's name figured among the debtors. But he had left the papers in the hands of his administrator, without thinking any more about the matter.

He immediately understood the reason for Alicia's visit. His agent had wanted to raise some money, and owing to the lack of funds from Russia, he was raising all he could in the West: credits ... advances made to friends or dependents, guaranty deposits, and even the loans made by the Princess, which, according to his express orders, were not to be demanded except in case of strict necessity.

The general pressure of circumstances had reached Alicia. For the last four months the Lubimoff estate had been sending her letter after letter, demanding the payment of her enormous debt. Already the agent's last note had become threatening because of her silence. It notified her that action would be brought against her in court. The estate was holding many of her letters thanking the Princess for the latter's generosity. Besides, all the money had been paid by checks cashed by the Duchess herself.

"Your administrator is certainly an insolent fellow. The other day I saw you in the Casino,—I saw you from behind as you were running away from people. You frightened me: I imagined then that you had changed, that you were very different from the man I knew, and that we would never come to an understanding. Later I thought you mustn't be quite so terrible as you seem ... and I came."

Michael, remaining silent, seemed to be saying something with his eyes, which were fixed on Alicia. Well, why had she come? What was it she wished to propose to him?

She smiled with an expression of cynical amusement.

"I came to tell you that I can't pay now—and perhaps never; to beg you to wait, I don't know how long, and to ask you to see that that disagreeable fellow who is managing your estate doesn't annoy me with his insolence."

And as the Prince made no move, she continued,

"I'm ruined."

"So am I," said Michael. "We're all ruined. The munition makers are the only people with any money now."

"Oh! You ruined!" Alicia protested. "With you it is simply a question of being hard pressed for the moment. Things in Russia will be straightened out some time or other. Besides, you are Prince Lubimoff, the famous millionaire. If I had your name, who would refuse me a loan?"

Suddenly she lost the audacious smile which she had worked up for the interview. Her eyes grew darker; the corners of her mouth drooped.

"I am really ruined. Look."

She pointed to the triangle of bare flesh visible at the throat of her low cut dress. A pearl necklace rested on her white bosom. Michael, as she insisted, finally looked at the pearls. False, scandalously false; all the luster gone, opaque and yellow as drops of wax. He knew something about pearls; he had given away so many necklaces! Then Alicia showed him her hands. Two artistically made finger rings, but without any jewels, and of slight intrinsic value, were all that adorned her fingers.

"This is a last year's dress," she added in a mournful voice, as though confessing something most shameful. "They won't trust me any more in Paris. I owe so much! Nothing but the hat is new. What woman, no matter how poor she might feel, wouldn't buy a hat! It is the most conspicuous thing about one,—something that changes all the time; and must be looked after at all costs. Luckily, on account of the war, they are not using plumes.... I'm poor, Michael, poorer than any woman you ever knew."

"And your mother?"

The Prince asked this instinctively, without thinking. A moment later he suspected that he had read, some years before, he didn't know where, perhaps while he was roving the seas, the news of the death of DoÑa Mercedes. He was not sure; but her daughter removed all doubt.

"Poor seÑora! Let's not talk about her."

But nevertheless Alicia did talk, but only to lament her mother's devout prodigality. She had given millions for the construction of an enormous hospital in Spain, on the advice of her Aragonese chaplain, the astronomer of the Champs-ÉlysÉes. Marble was used in the construction for the mere masonry; the garden fence was forged by a celebrated Parisian artist who devoted himself to molding bronze statues for drawing-rooms. But when the vicar left, tired of such generosity, the monster building remained unfinished, and the precious fence lay on the ground in pieces, like so much old iron. Later, the "Monsignor" directed the worthy lady's funds into other channels. It was necessary to spread the faith by means of the "good book," and a new publishing house arose in Paris, which was most extraordinary and unheard of. Packages of books were stored on mahogany shelves, and the leaves were folded on lacquer tables.

"The priests got everything that belonged to me," Alicia continued. "At times they egged mamma on to the most absurd outlays of money just for the sake of collecting commissions from the contractors. From numerous belfries in both hemispheres chimes rang thanks to DoÑa Mercedes. One entire bell foundry was kept going just on mamma's gifts. Besides, she was often carried away by a sort of loving weakness for all the saints who were not especially famous.

"In her last years she devoted herself to 'launching' saints. Every one in the calendar who was little known, or of some unusual name, aroused in her the desire to repair a great injustice. She had their lives written, churches dedicated to them; and corresponded with the high dignitaries of Rome to push many a dead man, who had waited centuries in vain for the hour when he should become a Saint."

Lubimoff finally began to laugh at the resentful tone in which Alicia spoke of her mother's mystic pleasures. DoÑa Mercedes was a great one! And finally she began to laugh likewise.

"In that way all our income, which was enormous, was spent. She should have left me a real fortune, unencumbered, in the bank. A lady that spent so little on herself! And nevertheless, I had to pay out huge sums for all the orders she had contracted before her death. You can be sure the Monsignor and the rest of them are much richer than I."

"How about your mines? And your lands in Mexico?"

The Duchess repeated the same gesture of despair. It was as though they did not exist! She was poor, absolutely poor.

"You say you are ruined, and you haven't suffered from the money shortage for more than the last two years, perhaps less. I haven't seen a cent of my fortune for some time before the war. Every one is talking about Russia, and Bolshevism, because it is something that concerns the Old World directly. But how about Mexico, and the situation there which goes back to the time when Europe was at peace?"

Her lands had been lost as though they were so much personal property, that could be transported and hidden. An agrarian revolution, the echoes of which had scarcely reached the Old Continent, had swallowed them up, suppressing all traces of her former property rights. The half-breeds had divided them to suit themselves, to work them, or leave them more unproductive than before. To whom could she appeal, if these lands were in provinces that were constantly changing hands, and the Mexican government had no authority over them?

The silver mines, which for three generations of Barrios had been the basis of their fortune, were in a still worse situation.

"One of the so-called 'Generals,' an Indian, has fortified himself in the territory where my mines are, and from there he defies the rulers in the Capital. They tell me that every month he takes out half a million francs in silver bars. He cuts them up in disks, puts his stamp on them and makes money thus to pay his men. You can imagine he has plenty of followers, with pure silver money, worth more than that of civilized countries! They will never be able to put him out; all he has to do to create armies for himself is to dig down into what belongs to me. This bad joke has gone on now for several years; I, who live in Europe, getting poorer and poorer every day, am paying for an endless war on the other side of the earth."

In spite of the fact that the Prince had never taken care of his own business he wanted to give her some advice. She ought to go over there and ask for assistance; she was born in the United States.

"I've already seen to that," she replied. "I have some one in New York who looks after my affairs. But would they go to war just on my account? Perhaps I shall take the trip later. Not now: I haven't the strength. There is something that is bothering me terribly just now, and it would be even worse if I were to leave France."

Her eyes began to fill with tears. Her face contracted with an expression of pain, and her hand moved toward her purse for a handkerchief. Michael recalled the young man that Castro had been noticing at Alicia's side during the last few years. Perhaps he was the cause of her emotion, and inability to make the trip.

"Love!" he thought to himself. "Love, even now when she's growing old."

He tried to change the conversation and asked about the Duke de Delille. He knew that he was at the front; and even thought he remembered a report of his being wounded in one of the early battles. Was he still alive?

In speaking of her husband, Alicia looked grave, to Michael's great surprise. Formerly she used to treat him with a certain scorn. He had accepted his wife's freedom, with all its consequences, in exchange for an enormous allowance. They lived apart, and although she found her independence very sweet, she could not help but feel a sort of feminine dislike for her accommodating husband, so little given to tragic jealousy. But at present her ideas seemed to have changed, and she spoke rapidly as though afraid of noticing Lubimoff smile as she used to smile herself, in mentioning the Duke.

"Yes; he joined the service. You know of course that he is some twenty years older than I. He was exempted from bearing arms on account of his age; but he remembered that he had been an officer in his youth, and was one of the first to go. Who would have thought it of a man who didn't seem to have any cares, and made fun of everything that didn't affect his own selfish pleasures!"

The Germans had picked him up in a dying condition during one of their victorious advances at the beginning of the war. He was covered with wounds. After two years as a prisoner they had exchanged him as useless, and he was living interned in Switzerland, with one arm gone.

"Poor man! He writes me every month. He fishes in Lake Geneva, and thinks of me more than he ever thought before. His epistles are almost love letters. What a transformation misfortune can make in a character. He says that he sees life from a different angle; and hopes that after the cataclysm, which will have made us better, we shall be able to come together again, and be happy. Oh, if only I could want to!..."

Her tone was ironical as she spoke of this illusionary happiness, but at the same time there was in it a note of respect and admiration. The Duke whom she had known as a great dowry hunter, accommodating and unscrupulous, was forgotten. At present she saw in him only the white-haired warrior, the invalid, who according to the doctors, would not live long, owing to the operations he had undergone. And she was trying to keep up the exile's hopes, replying to his long letters, with brief, affectionate notes.

"So it's on account of your husband that you don't take the trip?" Michael asked, pretending that he was inquiring in good faith.

Alicia was ruffled by such a supposition. Poor Delille! It was something else that was troubling her. Her husband wasn't the only one who had gone to war. There were others, who were younger, and had better reasons to love life, but who had suffered the same fate. How many hidden griefs there were these days!

The Duchess's eyes moistened, and her eyes and lips frankly expressed her sorrow.

"It's the little lover; there's no doubt of it," Michael said to himself. "It's the young chap Castro saw."

As though she read his thoughts and were anxious to switch them, Alicia began to talk once more about the reason for her visit, and about her situation.

The Prince nodded when she described to him her amazement at finding that wealth was not something infinite and immutable, and that it was slipping from her grasp ... slipping and slipping, without her being able to do anything to avoid the gradual ruin.

"I sold inopportunely; I took the money they cared to give me, without paying any attention to the conditions. All my jewels went; I sold some in Paris, others here in this very place. You say you are ruined. No, you don't know what it means; but I know all right! I've been shipwrecked longer than you; my boat was smaller. I don't want to bore you with an account of my poverty. I haven't a house in Paris any more. I shall never go back there again, unless my affairs are straightened out. The only house I have is a villa here, which I bought in the good old days. Don't smile; there are two mortgages on it. Almost any day they may put me out of it. It was a very pleasant sort of house before, when I had money; but now, with everything so scarce on account of the war! There's no coal, and wood is dear; it gets cold at night, and it takes a fortune to keep the old furnace going. Besides, I haven't any servants except my former lady's maid, the gardener, and his wife who does the cooking. For that reason all the rooms are closed, and Valeria and I live our lives in two rooms on the first floor. We eat there, and sleep there. Valeria is a girl from Paris, a seÑorita whom I am 'protecting.' Imagine how poor she must be if she trusts her future to me!"

"But you gamble," said the Prince.

Alicia seemed shocked at these words. They sounded like an accusation.

"I play, but what can you expect me to do? I have to do something to keep body and soul together, to earn my living. How else could a woman like myself do it? I know what you're going to say to me: that I've lost a great deal. True; I sold my pearl necklace here, the real one, and a great many other jewels; I have lost large amounts, more than I care to think of. But at that time I didn't know all I know to-day.... When as luck will have it, I haven't much money to play!"

Lubimoff was astonished at the way this woman spoke in all seriousness of her present adeptness.

"Besides," she added in a tone of sadness, "what would become of me if I didn't play? Surely you haven't forgotten how I was when we saw each other last. You must have noticed certain tastes of mine."

Michael recalled the invitation to smoke "the pipe," and the odor that filled the "study" in the palace on the Avenue du Bois.

"I put a stop to all that: gambling and something else made me give it up. Now I think of it with disgust. That's why I live in Monte Carlo. I have a feeling deep down in my heart that fortune will come back in search of me here, and nowhere else. Don't you play?"

Michael was annoyed at this question. Hadn't he told her that he was ruined? Was he going to follow her example, and make his situation still worse by losing the remnants of his fortune?

"Ruined!" exclaimed Alicia. "Your hard times can't last long. This Russian business will finally be settled. The great powers have too large interests at stake there, not to take a hand in straightening everything out. It's this affair of mine that won't be arranged for years. The only hope I have is to enjoy a run of luck in the Casino and win some two or three hundred thousand francs, and, with that amount, wait for things to change."

The Prince shrugged his shoulders. He knew gamblers. This woman, dominated by her wild dream, would forget the object of her visit, and go raving on about the possible whims of fortune, like Spadoni, or like Castro himself.

"And what do you want of me?"

Alicia seemed to wake up, and once more her smile became bold, and engaging, as it had been at the beginning of the interview; the smile of a petitioner who comes with the firm determination to get what he wants. She had already told him at the very beginning what her object was; that the Prince's agent shouldn't bother her any more in regard to that forgotten debt.

"I shall pay it some day, if it is possible for me.... But you had better count on my never paying it at all. Give it up as lost, and tell that horrid gentleman not to write me any more."

Michael, fascinated by the simple way in which this woman announced her extraordinary desire, imitated the tone of her voice.

"Very well; I shall tell this horrid gentleman not to bother you; to forget you."

And he laughed like a child, without paying any attention to the fact that his own interests were at stake. The only thing he thought of was the expression on the face of his solemn agent when he received such an order.

"I always thought you were kind and generous," she said. "Thanks, Michael! At times I have had a discussion with the 'General' about you, to convince her that you are a big hearted man."

"Oh, so DoÑa Clorinda is an enemy of mine? Why I've never seen her!"

"She's an extraordinary woman. In her eyes, every man who has a good time, and doesn't do wonderful things, is displeasing to her. Only yesterday we quarreled for good. Let's not talk about her. I have something more to ask of you."

More? The Prince looked at her in astonishment, but Alicia hastened to add that what she wanted was some advice.

War had upset their modes of life with amazing rapidity. Social values were reversed: the fortunes that seemed most solid were crumbling.

"Things will change, surely? It's impossible for this to last."

"Yes it is impossible," he said gravely.

Both of them seemed to be living in another world, surrounded by the senseless visions of a nightmare. To think that they would have to worry of money, after it had been, up to that time, a natural part of their existence, much as sunlight, air, or water is for every one! To think that they should find themselves obliged to pursue it in its flight through unknown ways! No, it wasn't logical; surely a passing whim of destiny. Their lives would again be the same as before, with the regularity of the laws of nature, which seem to swerve at times, but finally return to their orderly predestined course.

Being harder pressed, and having suffered economic hardships for a longer time, it was impossible for her to adopt the serenity with which Lubimoff accepted his momentary ruin.

"Things will change, that's certain; but in the meantime, how can I live? You have just freed me from a moral burden by forgetting about this debt. I thank you. But I must work, I want to earn some money! What is your advice?"

He was astounded. What work could Alicia do? Her question was laughable. But there she was, gravely facing him, convinced of her determination to work, and expecting illuminating counsel, as though her fate depended on him.

Fortunately Alicia herself, unable to bear the silence, began to explain her own ideas on the subject. The topsy-turvy state of things at the present time justified the wildest plans. A great lady might adopt means of support which some years previously would have caused a scandal. She knew a number of Russian ladies in Nice who used to give wonderful parties in their drawing rooms before the war, and who at present, having been reduced to poverty, were devising schemes to earn their living in their own way. One was going to open a millinery shop, and count on her former friendships to form a circle of customers. Another had changed her villa on the Promenade des Anglais into a boarding house. She would admit only people of distinction. Allied officers, from Colonels up. She intended to treat her boarders like visitors, with all the courtesy of a great lady receiving her guests; save that from now on every day in the week would be her reception day.

"What do you think of my turning my villa into a boarding house? Could you help me with a little money to renew the furniture, and buy whatever is lacking? Nothing but aristocratic guests; generals, and retired ambassadors who come here in quest of sunlight."

The Prince replied with a burst of laughter.

"Why, you're crazy. They would all make love to you. In a few weeks your establishment would be a regular inferno."

Alicia, considering his observation quite accurate, did not insist any further. The Russian lady in Nice was old and terrible looking compared with her. Besides, she thought it perfectly natural and logical that her guests should become enamored of her.

The "General" had suggested another plan to her. She might open a tea-room in Monte Carlo, a very elegant one. The attraction of seeing her at the counter would draw people. For this she would not need a financial backer.

Once more Lubimoff burst out laughing.

"The Duchess de Delille's tea-room! That would be delightful; but once people's curiosity had been satisfied the only customers you would have would be those who were interested in your charms. No; that's not business."

She gave a look of somewhat comic dismay; what was she to do? A lady who is anxious for work can find no occupation in a world controlled and monopolized by men. She had nothing to fall back on except gambling. It was an exciting pleasure which made her forget her worries, and at the same time gave her hope. Each day with gambling she opened a window to fortune, in case it should deign to remember her. Who knows but what some time it might fold its golden wings and alight on a Casino table, and allow Alicia's slender hands to caress it, like a tame eagle!

"In the first few months of the war," she continued, "I didn't feel the need of anything to distract my mind; the reality of what was happening was enough. What anguish I went through! But one gets used to everything; the deepest emotions get monotonous if they are too long drawn out. One can't live forever with one's nerves at a high tension. And this war is so long, and so tiresome! I might have had recourse to philanthropic work to take my mind off my troubles; go into a hospital, and take care of the wounded. But I've never been clever at such things, and I don't want to make a nuisance of myself and be a hindrance, out of pure vanity, like a great many other women. Besides, we are in the habit of giving orders, and always coming first, and no matter how deeply we may feel the spirit of sacrifice, we finally leave, unable to endure finding ourselves ordered about by more skillful and useful women, who have previously been our inferiors. Take Clorinda for instance; she was a nurse the first two years; she was one of the prettiest and most interesting with her white dress and her little blue cape. She is attracted by everything great; heroism, sacrifices, etc., but she finally quarreled with her superiors and gave up her fine rÔle."

In gesture and facial expression Alicia seemed to be pitying her own uselessness.

"What could I do? I was reduced to worse and worse straits. In Paris my creditors were right at my heels, constantly bothering me; that's why I came to Monte Carlo, and gambled to forget, and to make a living. There is love, an old Academician, a friend of mine, said to me, with a selfish motive to be the first to make advantage of his advice. Just imagine: real passionate love, wholehearted love, as the only solution for the sorrows of life, and at such a time! Oh, if only I could! But I feel I'm old, two thousand years old. You are younger, but you can count your life in centuries too. Love, for such as you and me!"

At first Lubimoff smiled at the tone of irony and disenchantment in which she spoke. Yes, they were very old. The great remedies, useful for the majority of people, had no effect on them. They, as it were, had become insensible from satiety and weariness. Suddenly the Prince was moved by an indiscreet desire. He decided to take advantage of the opportunity to ask her a question that had often occurred to him.

"Indeed," he said with masculine frankness, as though talking with a comrade, "you still believe in love? They told me about a boy, almost a child, whom you used to take everywhere before the war. Really, we are beginning to get old," he added with a smile, "and feel we need the contact of youth. Was he your lover? Is he the reason for your worries?"

At these questions, the Duchess paled, and seemed to hesitate. Then she made an effort to speak. It was evident that she was eager to be sincere. But her pallor was followed by a wave of crimson. Twice she tried to say something, and finally, mastering her desire to talk, she forced a mischievous smile.

"Let's not talk about that. We each have a right to our secrets," she said.

And to keep the Prince from relapsing into his curiosity, she went on talking about gambling. But he was absorbed in his thoughts, and was not listening to her. He had hit the nail on the head; that young stripling was her lover, and she was suffering on his account. Perhaps he was wounded, or a prisoner. That was the great obstacle which stood in the way of her trip; which was keeping her pinned down in Europe, in the superstitious belief that we can ward off dangers better if we remain close at hand. And she seemed very much in love! Here the Prince gave vent to a series of mental exclamations.

"Forty years old, with a past that would fill a book! To feel such a powerful, such a youthful passion! Still to believe in love!"

Michael looked at her with an expression that was almost one of hatred. Her passion for the boy annoyed him, without his being able to tell just why; perhaps because of the indignation which is always aroused by people who cling to some harmful lie, accepting it as truth and consolation. Whatever the cause, her conduct annoyed him.

This sudden feeling of hostility towards Alicia finally caused him to pay attention once more to what she was saying.

"If only I had as much money as I had before, when your mother was still alive, and we used to live in Monte Carlo! But at that time I didn't know as much as I know to-day about gambling. I used to play just for excitement, just to enjoy the sensation of losing, which, as a matter of fact, didn't affect me very deeply. I used only chips for a thousand francs in betting. I thought it was beneath me so much as to touch any others; and besides, I never risked them one at a time. I always staked them in a row."

"How much have you lost?"

She shrugged her shoulders, and pursed her lips disdainfully.

"Who could possibly know? I've been coming here for twelve years or more. Even the people in the Casino wouldn't be able to calculate what I've given them. In those days, I never used to keep any track of it myself. When I needed money I telegraphed to Paris. Besides, I had your mother; and I had my own, who usually gave in to my requests, in the end. I wouldn't like to know how much I've lost: it would make me furious. It must be millions."

The smile of commiseration with which Michael listened to her, seemed to make her bolder.

"But at that time I didn't know how to play! Now I must win, and I play in a different way. What I need is capital. If I only had a working capital!"

This last expression changed his smile into frank laughter. "A working capital!" The Duchess would go on talking seriously about her "work." She lamented the slenderness of her means. Some thirty thousand francs was all the capital she had at her disposal. At times it dwindled in alarming fashion: the thirty thousand often shrunk to a single digit. Then the ciphers would reappear, and the product of her "work" expand, gradually rising above the thirty thousand; but this amount seemed to be the fatal number for Alicia, for soon after reaching it her winnings would always fall to their usual level.

"Last night I was lucky; I succeeded in winning fourteen thousand francs. But last week was bad. Sum total, I'm still at thirty thousand: impossible to get any farther. And I don't run any chances, I'm afraid, and don't take advantage of the good runs of luck I do have. I ought to go on doubling, and doubling. I'm afraid of losing it all on a single stake. If I only had a working capital! If I were to go into the Casino some afternoon with a hundred and fifty or two hundred thousand francs! That's the way to master luck. I ought to play big stakes. Imagine me, betting a hundred, and even as low as twenty franc chips, like a retired money lender! That's the reason fortune doesn't notice me, and passes by on the other side."The Prince shook his head. He refused to help her with her follies. Wasn't it better to keep those thousands of francs, instead of losing them in no time, as would happen when she was least expecting it?

"You're not a gambler, I know," she said. "You have never felt attracted to that sort of pleasure. That's why you don't realize the mysterious power of the game, and give advice about something you don't understand. If I were to give up playing, I would feel my poverty at once; then I would be really poor. While you play, you always have money in your hands; you win, and lose, but you never lack the necessities of life. And if you lose everything you can still get what you need to start in again. I don't know how it is, but a gambler always has plenty of money. A single coin puts him on his feet again in five minutes. It's the poor man who doesn't play who goes around with empty pockets, without hope or means of improving his situation."

Michael continued his mimicry of protest. That was all an old story to him; it was the way Spadoni, and even Castro, talked, but with a certain added fanaticism, characteristic of women, who, mystics in money matters, are always inclined to believe in presentiments and mysterious influences.

"Don't count on my helping you to gamble. Besides, I'm poor. At the present moment the Colonel must have less cash in the strong box than you. I'm almost tempted to ask you to loan me your thirty thousand francs."

They both laughed at the idea of this loan. And she had come as a debtor to ask his aid!

"I don't know what I can do for you; it's impossible for me to tell just what my situation is; but I'll do what I can. Let's have hope: one must be patient. These times can't last."

"No; they can't last."

Again the thought of the ridiculousness of their being poor so unexpectedly, came over them. But was it logical to think that the world would go on in the same normal fashion after such radical divergences from the natural order?

They felt drawn together in the solidarity of misfortune; they suddenly met, like brother and sister, fallen at the foot of a mountain peak, on the heights of which they had previously avoided each other, rudely clashing in uncontrollable hostility.

At present Michael had a feeling of being attracted to her, for a reason that was absolutely novel. Since his youth he had hated the daughter of DoÑa Mercedes, for her pride, and for the air of overwhelming superiority which she maintained even in those moments of love when nearly every woman freely humbles herself to take shelter in a man's arms like a happy slave. She could give herself only with a manner of haughty condescension, as a haughty alms, much as a goddess might come to a poor mortal.

And now, seeing her come to him thus simply, to entreat his aid, without the rancor of humiliated pride, hiding her fear with friendly merriment, desirous of forgetting the past, he felt all his old antipathy melt away.

He had always been a protector, a lover in the oriental fashion, incapable of caring for any women except those of his harem, who owed everything to his munificence, from their slippers to the plumes in their turbans, from the jewels that adorned their breasts, to the sweetmeats they ate, the pipes they smoked, and the musical instruments which accompanied their songs. Alicia did not interest him as a woman; neither she nor any other! But he felt the sympathy of comradeship in seeing her in need of his protection; somewhat the same feeling that he had towards Castro, the Colonel, and the other occupants of Villa Sirena. He even thought to himself that misfortune was acceptable, so long as it tended to make people show their real character once more. This Alicia, so odious to him in early youth, might finally turn out to be quite a good friend, now that she found herself freed from the influence of vanity and of her bad bringing up.

"You have done enough just in receiving me here," she continued. "I know the limitation of my rights: I'm in hostile territory. This is the house of 'The Enemies of Women.'"

The Prince pretended not to hear her. Somebody had been talking; perhaps it was Castro, who could never keep anything from DoÑa Clorinda.

They walked through the gardens. Alicia stopped suddenly in front of a little piece of cultivated ground, where a few vegetables were beginning to spring from the soil.

"This is where you work? I know you amuse yourself working in your garden, just as other Russian princes do by making shoes."

So she knew this too? Oh, that tattle-tale rogue of a Castro!

In the Greek garden, one of the marble benches supported by four winged Victories attracted her attention, causing her to stop for a moment with a pensive expression on her face.

"Do you remember the old man on the bench near the Trojan wall?" she suddenly said.

Michael did not know how to answer her question; but after a few moments he remembered, as though her fixed stare communicated to him the vision of that night in which he had brutally left her.

"How you laughed at me! What a fool I must have seemed! Yes: I was unbearable. I was Venus; I was the center of the world; everything in existence, people and things, had been created for my special benefit. I felt it was my mission to make the world endure my whims, and that the world ought to thank me on its knees for paying any attention to it. What can you expect! It was youth, and the childish pride of our Springtime, which imagines itself eternal. And afterwards! If I were to tell you all the disillusionments, and all the sorrows that I experienced, even back in the days when I didn't have to worry about money! Winter sweeps away all our fancies of Maytime!"

"But you're not an old woman yet!" Michael exclaimed. "You still inspire romantic love in young men. You're fooling yourself or trying to make fun of me. There are still lots of men who, when they see you, would...."

"Perhaps," she replied, "but you, my dear, are not one of them. Confess it; I've never pleased you."

The Prince decided not to confess anything, and changed the conversation. These allusions to the past annoyed him. Alicia irritated him, every time she attempted to revive her charms as a siren of men.

They wandered about for more than half an hour on the various garden terraces. From time to time, in passing a clearing in the shrubbery, Michael cast a stealthy glance in the direction of the villa. No one was at the windows; but he himself felt an inner agitation at this visit. He was sure they were spying on him. Atilio, from behind the window curtains, was undoubtedly following their promenade among the trees. Perhaps Spadoni, who had spent the night at Villa Sirena, was jumping out of bed, and losing two hours of sleep, in order to contemplate this surprising spectacle. Even Novoa might have stopped reading to look in the direction of the garden.

Alicia herself noticed the fact that no one was visible, neither guest nor servants. She and the Prince seemed to be walking through an enchanted park.

As they went in the direction of the gate they met Don Marcos, who was hurriedly coming out of the gardener's lodge.

The Duchess held out her hand to Michael, who kissed it ceremoniously.

"I hope we are to see each other again in the Casino."

He shook his head. The gaming rooms bored him: he had no idea of going there.

"I would have liked to meet you there. I'm sure you would bring me luck."

For a moment she seemed undecided. She had no thought of returning to Villa Sirena, where there was no one but men: she was convinced that she was a nuisance there.

"Come and see me to-morrow. The Colonel knows where I live. Come, and we'll have a laugh at the way the Duchess de Delille is living. It's rather interesting."

She went over to the livery carriage which was waiting for her outside the gate. Before getting in she turned to urge him, in a tone of playful threat:

"If you don't come, you'll never see me again. I shall think you want to break with me, that you think I'm a bore, and don't like me. I shall expect you."

As the carriage drove off, she waved farewell.

"It was about time!" Michael exclaimed, on finding himself alone.

It had been a visit of an hour and a half. It had kept him continuously at a nervous tension, weighing his words, and avoiding too great an expression of friendliness, giving advice without any interest whatsoever, and leaving the past in silence. He preferred the confidence and lack of restraint of the conversations with his comrades.

On thinking of the latter, his feeling of annoyance returned. How Castro would smile, when he sat down at the table! He could hear his voice already saying ironically: "No women!" And the first to appear had made him as sheepishly obedient as a prior breaking the rule of the monastery to receive a Queen.

This worry caused him to speak to the Colonel, who was walking along at his side in silence, accompanying him from the gate to the house. Where was Castro?

"In the library with Lord Lewis. His Lordship arrived while Your Highness was in the garden. He has come to lunch."

He was a nice Englishman! He had taken it into his head of his own accord to choose this day, after so many futile invitations! While that Englishman was present, Castro would talk of nothing but gaming. And Michael went in search of Lewis.

The latter was the son of the great historian, whose country had rewarded him with the title of lord. But this title was only to be inherited by the oldest son of the family, and no one but Toledo, who always exaggerated the importance of his friends, called the second son Lord Lewis. He had been in Monte Carlo for twenty-five years, and the old employees in the Casino, seeing his bald head sadly bowed above the gaming tables, recalled the gentleman of former times, elegant, gay, and vigorous. He had come to the Riviera, on one of his Byronic "pilgrimages," and there he had remained, not caring to see any more of the world. The passion for gambling was the one inexhaustible pleasure for this man who had tried them all, and who was bored by the majority.

The real Lord Lewis, a solemn person, who maintained the prestige of the family name, had several children, and had served his country in various high positions in the Colonies. As for the Colonel's "Lord," he was gradually losing all his former connections, and becoming a mere Monte Carlo gambler.

"Twenty-five years!" he had remarked with sadness one day to the Prince. "And I shall never be able to do anything else! It's too late now to get a fresh start. My life is ended, and they will bury me here, I'm sure; all that I inherited from my father, and all that several old aunts left me will remain here. There have been times, when I saw things as they are, and undertook to run away. But when I'm at a distance, I feel violently indignant. I remember that I've dropped more than a million here, I think that I ought not to resign myself to the loss, and in order to recover it, I come back at once to play, and lose again. I shall go on doing like that until I die. Besides, there's the castle...."

Michael was acquainted with the castle. It was on a peak of the Maritime Alps, in sight of Monte Carlo, near the village of La Turbie and the remains of the Trophy of Augustus which marks the ancient Roman road.

During his first years of life on the Riviera, the aristocratic Lewis had bought for a few thousand francs the ruins of a lordly stronghold that possessed the romantic tradition of having witnessed wars with the Counts of Provence, and scenes of family violence and murder. The son of the Historian, fonder of sport than of literature, considered it a matter of filial homage to reconstruct within sight of the Mediterranean a castle such as his father had described in telling the legends of his country. Part of his fortune had gone into this. The rest had been devoted to gambling. "With what I win," he used to say to himself, "I shall finish the castle." And since he imagined he would win fabulous sums, he started the reconstruction on a gigantic scale, directing it himself, according to the architectural fancies he had studied out from the drawings of Gustave DorÉ. The castle had remained half built, standing thus for many years. On the one side that was completed, the walls displayed huge gloomy-looking windows with stained glass. On the side opposite, the timber of the scaffolding was rotting; the unfinished walls stood there meeting at right angles, and the wind and rain entered the future drawing rooms, for lack of a fourth wall to shut them off. They were open to the view like a stage setting.

Whenever Lord Lewis' friends did not meet him in Monte Carlo it was because he was out of money, and was staying in his castle, sadly contemplating all that remained to be done. He lived in one of the wings that was most nearly completed, and passed the lonely hours in fighting with his peasant neighbors, the market people, and with every one in the district in fact, who considered it a duty to annoy him and exploit him in every possible way.

Whenever a remittance of a thousand or two thousand pounds sterling arrived from England, he proudly descended from his mountain to the Castle. He had a great aim in life, and he felt he must accomplish it. This time he was going to triumph! And when, after exciting fluctuations—his capital sometimes increasing, as though his hopes were about to be realized—he finally lost everything, Lewis would return to his refuge on the heights, and to his hermit's life, in hopes of new remittances, which were less frequent and more difficult to get each time.

The Prince had visited him once, in this new yet crumbling stronghold, to invite him on a long voyage on his yacht. But Lewis refused. He must continue his duel with the Casino to get back his money; he was under obligation to finish his undertaking.

The war had awakened him for a few weeks from the grip of his wild dream. His brother had died a few weeks before; but countless young nephews still remained. They had given up their comforts and pleasures in high society to offer their lives. Some of them, who were in the navy, had embarked on small vessels, torpedo-boats and submarines, seeking the greatest dangers; others entered the army as officers. A niece of his even, delicate in health, had been decorated on the firing line, for her sacrifices as a nurse.

"And I, miserable selfish man that I am," he said, in talking with the Colonel at the Casino, "go on being a mere Monte Carlo gambler. I ought to be out there, where the men are, but I can't.... I can't! My days are over; I'm a corpse that eats and sleeps just to go on gambling. Add to that the fact that some of my relatives, older than I am, are in the army!"

At the age of fifty-four, the consciousness of his moral decay, and his continual losses, had embittered his nature. Besides, the evenings that luck was against him he kept going out to the Casino bar, seeking inspiration in one whisky after another gulped down in haste. Heavy set, with square shoulders, a small head, deep blue eyes and a red mustache streaked with gray, he reminded Atilio somewhat of a wild boar, perhaps because of his aggressiveness and gruffness when he was in a bad humor. He gambled with his head sunk between his shoulders, his strong hands resting on the green baize, without looking at any one, and without allowing any one to talk to him, since it disturbed his calculations. The days when things were going wrong, and he was having arguments in regard to some doubtful play, with the employees or with those who were sitting near him at the tables, Lewis's outburst of rage broke the discreet calm of the gaming rooms. He insulted the croupiers, inviting them to step outside on the Square, while his biceps swelled like a prize fighter's. It was necessary to call one of the principal directors to pacify him with all the paternal considerations which a steady patron deserved.

This man, who in his youth had believed in neither God nor devil, lived a constant prey to superstitions which were Castro's delight. He detested strange faces, feeling certain that they exercised on him an evil influence. It was enough that he should see one across the green table, or behind his seat, to cause him to begin to growl in an undertone, until finally he would get up and go out to the bar, with the idea that a whisky taken in time would change his luck. His intimate friend, the only one who could live with him for several days in succession, was a French count, older than Lewis, and who was simply called by his title, as though he were nameless, or as though he were just naturally "The Count." The latter never gambled, but he was ever so wise, in spite of the fact that many people considered him insane! One day, thirty years ago, he had stepped out of his house in Paris, saying that he was going out to buy some tobacco, and he had not yet returned. His wife had died without seeing him, and his children, and countless grand-children, who had been born and had grown up during his absence, were anxious that he should never finish making his purchase.

While Lewis played, the Count, seated on a divan, quietly read some book, without paying any attention to the curiosity of the public, which stared at his long white hair brushed back, his enormous wild-looking mustache, his round green eyes, gleaming with phosphorescence like those of a night hawk. Castro's curiosity was aroused by the Count's books. They were always new volumes of the sort that are never seen in any book store, and are published by obscure unknown firms; conscientious treatises on the nectars and ambrosias of modern life—opium, cocaine, morphine, and ether—formulas by which one can enter into direct communication with the mysterious powers—spirits, hobgoblins, and familiar demons—old books of magic brought to light by up-to-date sorcerers.

He never deigned to give his friend advice as to gambling; his thoughts were on higher things; but Lewis felt surer whenever he raised his eyes and saw him, by chance, reading in a corner. As long as he was there, he always won, or at least he did not lose much. His presence was enough to conjure the evil power of the infinite number of enemies which the Englishman felt were surrounding the table. Besides, he was aware of the object which the Count was fondling secretly with one hand, while he went on reading.

After he had had the misfortune to lose for several days in succession, Lewis would come to him, entreatingly:

"Count, my dear Count, if you would please lend me your Satan's rosary!"

The learned personage would look up, doubtful and hesitating. But since it was his best friend who asked for it, he would hand the rosary over, which meant that one of his hands would be left without anything to do. It was a rosary like any other, with large red beads and black ones to mark off the tens. The chief thing about it was the group of objects which hung in place of the missing cross: an ivory elephant picked up by the Count in India, an authentic coin of the Emperor Constantine found in the excavations at Anatolia, and another charm which even Lewis could scarcely look upon without a sense of revulsion.

Ill luck was vanquished. At times Lewis had lost while he was secretly telling the beads of the diabolical rosary under the table; but he always lost less than when he was deprived of the marvelous talisman. He only cared to remember how one afternoon, aided by the obscene sacrilegious thing so highly prized he had succeeded in winning eighty thousand francs.

If he stopped winning it was the Count's fault. He was as fickle as a coquette. He would suddenly disappear, repeating the same unexplainable flight that had amazed his family. He never left Lewis to go and buy tobacco; but if any of the books he bought told about some narcotic used in Asia to enable one to see the future, or about a gypsy woman in Granada who could kill people by merely wishing and saying a few words, then off he would go, accepting as gospel truth the saying of some anonymous writer who had never been out of Paris. He never lacked money for these mysterious trips: doubtless his family was interested in keeping him at a distance. He might be three months or five years in reappearing. At last the rumor would reach Lewis that his friend was living in Nice or Cannes, and he would then write him frequently, inviting him to come over to Monte Carlo. He even used to go after him and the Count would allow himself to be brought back with his mysterious books and his prodigious rosary, without ever saying a word about what discoveries he had made on his trips.

On seeing Lewis, after a year's absence, the Prince was obliged to conceal his surprise. Nothing save the clear, quiet, gentle eyes, recalled the vanished freshness of the athletic and elegant gentleman. He had grown thin in an alarming manner, with the emaciation of illness. His skull seemed to have shrunk, and across his baldness strayed the few scattered ashen locks that still remained.

A remark made by the Colonel came to his mind. Toledo had made a study of the decadence of gamblers. It was when they reached the last limits of depression and despair that they began to stoop, to shrivel up, and become wrinkled. Lewis' hat was getting too big for him; each day it sat farther down on his head until it rested on his ears. His shirt collar was also getting larger, as though it were making room for his sorrowing heart to take flight.

During the lunch, Lewis, Castro and Spadoni kept up the conversation. They talked about gambling and the Casino, but no one dared ask the Englishman if he had been winning. He had a superstitious fear of this question, as if it brought misfortune. On the other hand, he talked about other people's good luck, and the great stakes that had been won in a night. He kept in his mind all that he had been told, and all that he had imagined he had seen during twenty-five years of life at Monte Carlo. An American had gone away with a million; an Englishman had won ten thousand pounds sterling with five louis that he had borrowed. Thus he went on talking about the wonders that had happened in the Casino. And after that could there still be people to assert that all, absolutely all, of the gamblers, lose in the end?

With eyes that glistened with astonishment and greed, the pianist listened to the tales of the "Dean of the Gamblers." Castro was more skeptical. He had heard of these extraordinary winnings, and of many others, but had never witnessed a single one of them, although he had been coming to Monte Carlo for a good many years. It was true that he had seen as much as five hundred thousand francs won in a single night. But the next day things had changed, and the winner had lost all his gains, and all the money he had brought, into the bargain, finally being obliged to ask for the customary viaticum in order to be able to return to his country.

"I think," he said, "all these stories are invented by the advertising department of the Casino. They tell me they have engaged a popular novelist, whose business it is to start a story like that every week, in order to encourage the gamblers."

The Prince smiled at this invention of his friend, but Lewis would not listen to jokes on such a serious subject, and asserted that he had witnessed everything that he related. He was lying unconsciously in making this statement. In reality he had seen the same things as Atilio: people who won to lose later on; but he felt the need of the supernatural and was inclined to believe everything in advance. He had the soul of a fanatic, who, when told of a miracle, affirms a few days later with sincerity: "I saw it with my own eyes."

Every now and then the Prince would eye Castro, expecting to surprise some ironic glance, something which would reveal his impressions in regard to the visit he had received that morning. Lewis' presence seemed to have obliterated all memory of anything unrelated to gambling.

When the luncheon was over they talked in the hall, over their coffee, about those who played for big stakes in the private rooms. The names of some of them were spoken of with respect, as though they were masters, worthy of admiration.

"So-and-so knows how to play," was the one comment.

The amusing part of it for Michael was the fact that Lewis also figured among the masters "who knew how to play," and every one of them lost, like those who were "ignorant." Their one merit rested on their ability to put off the hour of final ruin, and prolong the annihilating emotion, growing old like prisoners in the shadow of the rocky cliffs of the Principality.

The Prince looked at Castro once more, as at a clever enemy who is hiding his thoughts. He ventured to ask a question.

"And how does my relative, the Duchess de Delille, play?"

Atilio looked at him, with not so much as a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, surprised at the interest shown by the Prince. But before he could reply, Lewis broke in with an answer. The latter hated women, especially at the gaming tables. They were only a nuisance, interrupting the calculations of the men, with their nervous looks and gestures.

"She plays like an idiot," he said brutally. "She plays like any woman.... The money she's lost like a fool!"

Castro intervened as though desiring the conversation to go no further.

"How about the Count?" he asked Lewis. "Where is he? The Colonel is very much interested in him."

Don Marcos gave an exclamation of surprise and reproach. He had formed his own opinion of that person a long time ago. He was a crazy man! He would never forget the brief dialogue they had had one afternoon in the Casino, after Atilio had introduced them. On learning Toledo's nationality he had launched into a great eulogy of Spain. Oh, Spain! What an interesting language it had! And when the Colonel was about to thank him for his extreme politeness, he was dumbfounded by the following remark, that took away his breath:

"Because, as you probably know, Spanish is the preferred language of the devil, after Latin. The most powerful charms are written in Spanish. What wonderful necromancers in Toledo! What learned sorcerers in Salamanca!"

The old soldier who had fought for the Most Catholic king was always greatly disturbed when he thought of the Count and his rosary. For this reason when Lewis declared that he had no idea of the whereabouts of his friend, he solemnly replied:

"I know where he is: in a mad house."

Suddenly the roar of a train was heard passing Villa Sirena, accompanied by shouts and whistling. They were more Englishmen on their way to Italy.

This caused them to take up the subject of the war. Lewis, who had imbibed freely at the table, was overcome at once with an intense sadness, the talk of gambling having reminded him of the worthlessness of his life. His intoxication was of the solemn, melancholy kind.

"Two of my nephews died in the Jutland naval battle. Six of my brother's sons were killed in France, in a single afternoon: they belonged to the same battalion. They were all young, spirited, and anxious to do something. I'm the only man left in the family; I'm the worthless one, the old man, good for nothing. It's terrible!"

No one said anything, realizing the shame and despair of this man, who seemed to be weeping over the ruins of his aimless existence. Novoa nodded slightly, as though approving of his words.

"My family is extinct. And there were so many young men in it! Life is strange. Time goes by without anything extraordinary happening, and then all of a sudden the hours are like months, the days like years, and in a few minutes things take place that usually require centuries. All dead! None left but my niece Mary, the nurse. She is here; her superiors ordered her away almost by force, to take a rest and recuperate. But, anxious to resume her service, she got away to Menton and Nice, where there are wounded men. If at least she would only marry! But it can't be: she will die like the rest. And I shall remain alone, and be a lord, the third Lord Lewis; Lord Lewis the Historian, Lord Lewis the Colonel Governor, and Lord Lewis the Wastrel...."

At this point they all stopped him in affectionate protest. The misfortune of his family had been extraordinary, but he ought not to torture himself like that.

"If you don't mind, Prince," said the Englishman, changing the conversation, "some day I shall bring my niece to let her see your gardens. She is so fond of such things! She is the only one of the family to inherit my father's spirit."

After saying that, Lewis showed signs of desiring to go. It was necessary for him to forget, and he knew where oblivion was waiting for him. For a gambler like him, it was no more possible to sit still than it would be for a drunkard who is thinking of a bar with its rows of glasses. Castro and Spadoni exchanged several glances with him.

"What do you say to dropping in at the Casino?" one of them proposed.

And all three disappeared.

The Colonel also left, and the Prince spent the remainder of the afternoon talking with Novoa, walking about the gardens, and looking at the sunset. Finally, he sat down in the hall under a tall rose-shaded floor lamp, to read.

Castro returned alone, long before the dinner hour. He was sad; he whistled occasionally. His smile was a savage grin. It had been a bad afternoon. He had lost everything! The next day he would have to ask his relative for a fresh loan in order to return to his "work."

Once more Michael felt compelled to talk to him about the call he had received that morning. It was better to have a frank explanation and avoid ironical allusions.

"Yes, I saw her," Castro said. "I watched you from a window while you were walking through the gardens."

The Prince looked at him, astonished at his brevity. Was that all he had to say? At present he felt he would have preferred his joking.

"What of it if she did come?" at last he said brusquely. "That's natural; poor woman! I warn you that you've begun the conquest of an enemy."

He had met "the General" in the Casino. She and Alicia had just had another reconciliation, and to seal their renewed friendship with a fresh burst of confidence, the Duchess Delille had related her interview with the Prince.

"DoÑa Clorinda used to be unable to stand you. She considered you a frivolous fellow, a worthless loafer. But now she praises you to the skies, because of your cancelling that enormous debt, and proposing to help the Duchess. She says you are like a knight of old times, and that you are big hearted."

Michael shrugged his shoulders. A lot he cared what DoÑa Clorinda thought! This exasperated Castro.

"Why shouldn't your relatives come here?" he said sharply. "You're getting bored living just among men all the time. You don't believe it, but it's true. It's the same with all of us. One has to talk with a woman from time to time, even if it's only out of friendship. What you claimed when you came from Paris is impossible."

"Perhaps you think I'm going to fall in love with Alicia?"

And the Prince laughed for a long time, as though never tiring of seeing the funny side of such an absurd supposition.

"You'll find that out later on," Castro replied. "All I have to say is that we can't live much longer as enemies of women. Look at the Colonel: he's your 'Chamberlain,' your Aide, the man who obeys you blindly. Well, even he is deserting you. Just notice: whenever he can, he spends his time in the Porter's lodge. He has to talk to the gardener's daughter, a little brat he used to see crawling around on all fours, but who is sixteen now, and not bad looking. She worked in a millinery shop in Monte Carlo, but follows the styles like a young society girl. The Colonel keeps her provided with high-heeled shoes, short skirts, tams, and smart hats, and buys her imitation amber beads. That's how he spends all the money you allow him to take for his services. Sometimes he follows her at a distance in the street, admiring her seductive outline and her ankles, much in evidence, and always in silk-stockings. He patiently cultivates his garden; and smiles like a fool when he thinks of his future harvest."