The Enemies of Women Part 29

"How ugly she looks!"

Yes, she was ugly, like all the women who gamble and seem to suffer at an ever increasing rate, the weight of years crus.h.i.+ng out their youth under the stress of emotion. Every loss meant another year, every winning meant a look of tenseness which spoiled the regularity of their features. Michael took a certain joy in noting the wrinkles which fixed attention formed about her eyes. Her nose seemed to grow sharp, and two deep furrows drew down the corners of her mouth, giving her an expression of premature old age. All the little feminine attentions disappeared as the hours went by. Her hat tilted to one side; locks of hair made an effort to escape, as though disarranged by currents of human electricity darting among their roots. She seemed ten years older.

But a second voice within gave forth a different opinion. "Yes, she was very ugly, but so interesting!" Surely when she arose from the table she would be once more the same Alicia as ever.

One afternoon, on entering the Casino, he had a sense of something extraordinary happening. People were talking together, asking news, all of them hurrying toward the same table.

His friend Lewis pa.s.sed him without stopping.

"It was bound to happen. She doesn't know how to play. I expected it."

A little farther on Spadoni came forward to greet him.

"She would never listen to me. She acts on her whims. She doesn't follow any system. She is done for."

All the gamblers were talking as though they were lamenting somebody's death; but it was a question of hypocritical compunction, inwardly they felt a sense of envious triumph on seeing at an end that absurd run of luck, which had embittered their evenings.

Lubimoff, thrusting his head between the shoulders of two onlookers, saw Alicia at the same time that she raised her eyes. Their glances met. She looked at him with dismay, as though lamenting, making him responsible for her misfortune. "Why did you abandon me?"

The Prince fled: it hurt him to see her with that humble look of rage, like that of a cornered sheep, bleating in pain and defending itself.

At nightfall he returned to the Casino. A few people were still talking about the d.u.c.h.ess, but in low tones, with sad gestures, as though referring to a dying person. The crowd had thinned about the table. He saw Alicia in the same place. Valeria stood behind her chair, with a sad face, while Dona Clorinda bent over her friend, talking in her ear. He guessed her words. She was pleading with her to come away: next day she would have better luck. But she did not seem to hear, and remained with her eyes fixed on the few five hundred and a thousand franc chips, which were all that remained. Suddenly she lost her patience, and turning her head she said one word, nothing more, something very strong, but nothing without precedent in that intimate friends.h.i.+p which was broken off at least once every week. Dona Clorinda immediately retorted, looking daggers, and went away, haughtily and disdainfully, while Valeria looked at the ceiling in despair.

Michael fled once more. He was frightened by the expression on Alicia's face and the nervous hostility in her voice, which he had not been able to hear, but which was easily guessed from the trembling of her lips. He wandered about the rooms for half an hour, listening at a distance to the words of those who were still talking about the d.u.c.h.ess. One afternoon had been sufficient to sweep away all that she had won in many successful days. Her misfortune was as extraordinary as her good luck had been. She had not won a single bet.

Suddenly he felt the contact of a nervous hand on his shoulder. He turned his eyes. It was Alicia, but with an eager gesture, and with an expression which was both bold and imploring.

"Have you any money?"

Her voice and the expression on her face were not unknown to Michael.

Before the war, the Casino had been the scene of his most unexpected and dazzling conquests. Women who were very cold and treated him with visible antipathy, and women of well-known virtue whose very looks repelled all audacity, had approached him with an air of sudden decision, requesting a loan, and immediately asking point blank at what hour the Prince might offer them a cup of tea at Villa Sirena. He thought of the Colonel, who considered gambling the worst of women's enemies. It caused them to lose all sense of shame. In a few hours the standards built up during an entire lifetime were suddenly demolished.

In order to go on gambling, they offered of their own free will what they had never thought of granting.

The Prince replied, with surprise, at this sudden request. He carried very little money on his person: he was not a gambler. How much did she want?

"Twenty thousand francs."

She mentioned the figure in the same manner as she might have said a hundred thousand or five thousand. It was the same to her at that moment. Besides, during the last few days she had lost all sense of values.

Michael replied with a laugh. Did she imagine, by any chance, that he came to the Casino with twenty thousand francs in his pocketbook, as though he were a money lender or a p.a.w.n broker?

"Ask for a loan," said the d.u.c.h.ess. "They will give you anything you ask for."

He went on laughing at this absurd proposition, but was won over immediately by the simplicity with which Alicia formulated her request.

"How about you? Why don't you ask for one?"

Oh, as for her!... In the midst of her proud triumph, she had forgotten to pay various debts contracted before her sudden burst of luck. At present it was useless to ask. It was a difficult moment for her; every one considered her ruined, and incapable of recouping.

"And they are mistaken, Michael; I feel the inspiration of luck. You shall see how I get on my feet again after a few days. It is my secret.

If I tell it to you, fortune will abandon me. Do me this favor! Ask for the twenty thousand from that little old man over there who is looking at us. He can't refuse you; you are Prince Lubimoff. If you like we will form a partners.h.i.+p: I shall share half my winnings with you."

Michael kept on smiling, while inwardly he was scandalized by this proposition. Imagine the things in which this woman was trying to involve him! He, asking for money from a money lender in the Casino!

But, like certain invalids who do things most contrary to their will, no sooner did he leave Alicia with gestures of protest, than his legs mechanically took him in the direction of the divan where the old man with the short beard, and the badge of the Sacred Heart on his lapel, was squatting, with his hat in one hand and a silk cap on his bald head.

"I need twenty thousand francs."

The Prince seemed to be in doubt as he faced this little man, who had arisen, surprised and suspicious on seeing that he was talking with so lofty a personage. Was it really his own voice that he heard? Yes, it was his voice, but he felt a sensation of immense surprise, as though it were some one else who was talking. He felt a desire to withdraw without waiting for the gnome's reply; but the latter had already responded, stammering:

"Prince ... such an amount! I am a poor man. From time to time I do favors to distinguished people, two or three thousand francs ... but twenty thousand! Twenty thousand!"

He muttered this sum with a groan of torture, but meanwhile his shrewd eyes were penetrating Lubimoff like a probe. This look irritated Michael, causing him to take an interest in the operation as though his honor were at stake. Doubtless, the usurer was thinking about Russia, and the disaster of the revolution and of the impossibility of being paid this loan even though the great man were to offer all his fortune.

"You must know me," he said in an irritated tone. "I am Prince Lubimoff; I am the owner of Villa Sirena. I need twenty thousand francs; not a franc less. If you are unable...."

He was about to turn his back on him, but the dwarf humbly restrained him, considering useless on this occasion all the excuses and delays which he usually made his clients endure, like a slow torture. He slipped out between the groups of people, begging "His Highness" to wait an instant. Perhaps he did not have the entire sum with him, and was obliged to ask for aid from the Cas.h.i.+er of the Casino; perhaps he was going to secrete himself for a moment in the lavatories, to take bank notes from various hiding places in his clothes, even from his shoes.

Michael felt a discreet hand touch his own, thrusting between his fingers a roll of paper. The old man had returned without his seeing him come; bobbing up between two groups, small and sprightly, like an imp from a trap door on the stage.

"You know the Colonel? To-morrow he will interview you about the payment and the interest."

And the Prince turned his back without more words, leaving the usurer satisfied with his discourteous brevity. A great gentleman could not talk in any other way. He liked to have dealings with men of that sort.

Alicia, who had followed the scene from a distance, came forward to meet him, holding out her hands inconspicuously.

"Take it!" Michael's right hand thrust the bank notes forward so rudely that the offer was almost a blow.

His shame for what he had just done expressed itself in a confusion of protests.

"Women! Of all the fool things I have ever done!"

But Alicia, with the bank notes in her hand, was already thinking of nothing but the tables.

"You will see great things. You know we have formed a partners.h.i.+p: you get half."

Mastered once more by the invisible demon that was singing numbers and colors in her ear, she went away without thanking him.

He also left. He was afraid of meeting the money lender again, and having him bow familiarly; he imagined the entire crowd in the rooms had followed attentively his interview with the old man and had smiled when he received the money.

He left the Casino. He would never come back again: he swore it!

Castro, whom he had seen from a distance gambling at one of the tables, returned to Villa Sirena at the dinner hour. He was in a bad humor; but he forgot his own misfortune long enough to console himself by relating Alicia's mishaps:

"After losing everything in _trente et quarante_, she appeared at a last minute with more money: a roll of thousand franc notes. And she, who never felt any special inclination for roulette, began to play the wheel. And how she played! At first she won a few long shots, two or three; but after that nothing: she kept losing and losing! She left everything on the table. I did not see her go out, but they told me she looked like a corpse, leaning on Valeria's arm. They say she suffers from heart trouble. All I say is: it isn't every one who pretends to be a gambler that is one; you need a strong const.i.tution. The 'General'

doesn't play so much, but she is cooler and doesn't lose her head."

Michael slept badly. He was angry with Alicia. Instead of lamenting her misfortune he considered it logical. Imagine a woman trying to make money! Women can only get it from men's hands, and it is useless for them to try and get it for themselves, even by appealing to gambling.