"Silly! Do you really think I don't care for you at all. If I felt indifferent toward you would I have sought you formerly, and would I be here with you now?"

He was disconcerted. "Well, then?" And he made an effort to discover what obstacle stood in the way of his desire. If it was on account of what had happened in her past life, he had forgotten it. He, Prince Lubimoff, had had many affairs that it was better not to recall.

"Let's not talk about the past at all. You are a different woman. I know what your life has been during the last few years; besides, the other morning you told me what you have been since your son began to live by your side. I take you from the time you recognized the seriousness of life, on seeing beside you a man formed from your own flesh and blood. I have forgotten the Venus of former years, the Helen of the 'old man on the wall.' I desire you, seeing you as you are to-day, the Venus Sorrowful, weeping, suffering and in need of consolation and care that will sustain and sweeten life."

She stopped smiling. Her lips trembled with a pitiful expression of grat.i.tude; her eyes were moist with tears.

"No," she said in a humble voice. "It is impossible for that very reason. My son! How my son has changed me! I know what all this love means. We are not two children to be deceived by dreams of purity and talk about the soul and heaven, while our bodies are drawn together by a natural impulse. If I accept your love, I know what that means at once, perhaps before the dawning of a new day. Can you imagine such a thing?

My son,--I don't know where he is, perhaps he is dead. At least he is suffering at the present moment hardships which a beggar woman would not allow a son of hers to suffer, and I, in the meantime, abandoning myself to a great love, to a pa.s.sion such that it would absorb all my time and thoughts, as though I were still in my early youth.... Oh, no! How shameful! I know what love between us fatally demands, and it frightens me. I feel powerless in the face of things which formerly seemed to me as nothing. You have spoken the truth: I am a different woman."

The Prince regained hope on learning the nature of the obstacle. Her son was still alive: he was sure of it, He had written to the King of Spain and to influential friends of his in Paris; he had even sent letters to Germany through diplomatic channels. They might find him any moment; he would succeed in returning him to his mother's side. Why should the poor boy stand in the way of both their futures? Her son knew life; the years that he had spent with his mother had familiarized him with the irregularities which are so common in the world of the fortunate. He would not consider it unusual for her, submitting to a marriage that was not a lie, to rebuild her life discreetly with a man whom she had known since her youth. Besides, he would love him like a younger brother. He could count on influential friends capable of helping the boy if he wanted to work. When he died what was left of his fortune would go to him.

Alicia clasped one of his hands with the tenderness of grat.i.tude. "How good you are!" But suddenly she dried her tears, and her eyes shone with a glow of energy that seemed to reflect her struggle with herself, and she continued, in a firm tone:

"No, no. I don't want to. I am looking to the immediate future: to what would happen to us if I gave in to your glowing words; I can see my son--or I should say, I cannot see him, I don't know what has become of him, I don't know whether or not he is alive. I tell you no. It is useless for you to insist."

There was a long silence. A soldier pa.s.sed with his head bandaged beneath his _kepis_ and a flower behind his ear. He was smiling at a red-faced girl, who was leaning on his arm. They were both humming a tune. The Prince and the d.u.c.h.ess separated slightly on the bench, and remained in silence, he, looking on the ground, absorbed and frowning, she, with her eyes on the horizon line, following the slow progress of the schooners, the sails of which were filling with the breeze that announced the coming twilight.

The obstinacy with which Michael kept his eyes riveted on the ground caused Alicia to make a mistake. Her ankles showed somewhat owing to her posture and her short skirt; trim ankles with the whiteness of her skin visible through the meshes of snuff-colored silk.

"You are looking at my stockings?" she asked, her mood suddenly changing from sadness to gaiety. "Look. What you see on the side there is not embroidery, it is darning. My maid mends them nicely. What can you expect? We are poor."

And doubtless, for the sake of amusing her frowning companion, she went on to enumerate in gay tones the various difficulties arising from her poverty. Oh, the war, with the terrible cost of living! Silk stockings were so bad! One got holes in them after putting them on once, and they came only at fabulous prices. She preferred to prolong the existence of those that she had kept since the days of her wealth, because they were stronger. She might say the same of her dresses. It had been two years since her wardrobe had received any replenishing, so frequent before.

"We are poor," she repeated, with mock solemnity. "Besides, we are fond of gambling, and, like all gamblers, we lose thousands of francs and economize on the little things that make life pleasant."

She had been waiting for an enormous stroke of luck after which she would stop playing and begin to think again of the wardrobe.

But the Prince, by his gestures and the expression on his face gave her to understand how little he was interested in these confidences. It was useless for her to try and change the conversation. Michael, offended by Alicia's negative reply, was still absorbed in his question. Perhaps with another man she would have shown herself more clement.

She realized that she must return to the subject which interested her companion, and said with masculine frankness:

"I know what is the matter with you. I am going to forget we belong to different s.e.xes and talk to you like a comrade, just as I talked to you that night in my study. I know the life you are leading; I know also all about the 'enemies of women': a silly idea. What you need, after several months of living alone like a maniac, is a woman. Choose from those about you; you can find them whenever you like, younger and more beautiful than I, who am beginning to see myself as I am. Why do you choose me? Why do you disturb my tranquillity, now that I have forgotten all about such things?"

The Prince smiled bitterly at the suggested remedy. He had often thought of it. The censor that he kept within had repeated the same advice: "Find a female, and it will all pa.s.s away immediately; a woman who inspires only a momentary interest; no women and no love complications.

Do what you recommended to Castro." He had frequented the Casino with the resolute air of a slaughter-house man about to choose his prey from the flock. He would glance over the troop of girls in the gambling rooms, who kept one eye on the green baize, while with the other they watched the men who were walking about behind them.

He felt physically attracted by certain women; by one, because of her features, by another, because of her figure or stature, and by some, because of their strange ugliness or stimulating irregularity of form and feature, which affected his nerves much as sharp or biting food affects the palate. He had had only to make a sign or say a brief word to many who, seeing themselves noticed by that famous person, smiled ready to follow him. But suddenly he felt the dislike which is inspired by things repeated to the point of satiety, and by the emptiness of what is familiar to the point of weariness. He could not expect anything new; he was horrified at the thought of the vain prattle of an unknown woman desirous of appearing interesting; of the lies inspired by a sudden and false sentimentality; and by the gross animalism of the pairing which would end the tiresome preliminaries. No; he couldn't.

Only once, with a desperate energy of a patient gulping down a disgusting medicine, he had followed one of these beautiful animals, and shortly afterwards he felt disgusted with his baseness and ashamed of his backsliding.

"It is you; you and no one else," he said gloomily. "You, or no one."

Alicia replied in the same grave tone. She knew by experience what this meant "We desire with greater eagerness what is impossible for us to obtain; we single out as unique whatever is beyond our grasp."

But these reasonings exasperated Lubimoff to the extent of making him unjust.

"I know you," he said, drawing nearer on the bench, as he gazed at her more closely, with angry, pa.s.sionate eyes. "I know what you women are like; you're all vain and revengeful. You can't forget the evening you wanted me and I was not willing, and now you are taking delight in my torment; you enjoy making me suffer."

"Oh, Michael!" she interrupted, in a tone of protest.

The Prince continued to express his rancour, and his indignation stirred Alicia more than the humble question of a few moments before. It was the desperate pleading of a patient who is past recovery and desires to return to normal life.

"I love you.... I need you. I'll get you!"

Above the promontory of Cap-d'Ail the orange-colored globe of the sun was descending. Its lower edge was already touching the undulating line of garden and buildings. For a moment its rays were concentrated in a sheaf seen through the colonnade of a pergola, as though showing itself through an arch of triumph before dying. A dark azure light seemed to emerge from the sea driving the fading gold of the afternoon from the gardens.

"No!... No, I won't!"

Alicia's voice suddenly broke the vibrant silence with the tremulousness of surprise, and immediately changed to a long gasp, as though something were weighing on her lips. Michael had thrown both his arms around her shoulders, mastering her, drawing her breast forward, pressing it against his own. His lips sought hers, but she made an effort to resist, by turning away with a violent straining of her neck. Finally the moan of protest ceased. Both heads remained motionless.

"Michael ... Michael!" she sighed, freeing herself for a moment from the caress. But a moment later she submitted again to those lips which pursued hers so eagerly.

She spoke in a tone of surrender. She was suddenly back in her past life, trembling at the contact of all those foreign things which seemed absolutely new through long continence. His ardent lips had overpowered her, awakened her from a dream that had lasted for years, in a sleep longer and deeper than Michael's.

She forgot everything around her. Her eyes were still open but the vision of the sea, the golden sunset in the sky, and even the pine boughs forming a canopy above their heads, had disappeared from her gaze.

Suddenly she saw them all once more, and at the same time she drew back her shoulders repelling him.

"No, I won't.... Stop! They might see us. How crazy of us!"

The Prince was an athlete, but his emotion weakened him. Besides, his energy was scattered in the double effort of trying to master the woman and at the same time of enjoying her caress in the overwhelming fury of pa.s.sion. She bent and straightened several times, with all the suppleness of a reptile, finally succeeding in escaping from the chain of his arms, as she gave a sigh of weariness and relief.

Lubimoff, coming to himself again, saw Alicia standing in front of him, smoothing her disordered clothing, and raising her hands to her hair, to her tilted hat and her boa, which was slipping from her shoulders.

"Let us go," she said, with angry brevity.

And the Prince followed her, crestfallen, repenting his violence. After walking a few steps, she seemed moved by his silence, which showed his repentance, and smiled again:

"It is quite evident that from now on I must not see you alone. I forgot that you were a sailor, accustomed to making port in a hurry without caring to lose any time." They walked along slowly, in a tranquillity like that of the serene twilight.

On leaving the gardens, they found themselves cut off by the Museum.

Must they return by the way they had come? Michael discovered on one side of the building a rustic stairway cut at intervals in the rock, the hollows of which were filled with brick steps. It descended to the edge of the sea in various flights of stairs, and at the farther end, a walk following the edge of the coast led to the harbor.

She hesitated for a moment at the archway of the entrance.

"I warn you," she said, shaking her finger at Michael, "that if you return to your old tricks, I shall call for help. Do you promise me you'll be good? Word of honor?... All right; go on ahead: I don't trust you."

He went ahead down the stairway to explore. The walls of the Museum seemed to expand as they continued to descend. Besides the building with its roof at their feet, there was a second building below, rising with its stone walls pierced by large windows, from the rocky slopes. At a turn of the path, the Prince faltered to wait for his companion. She was slowly descending, maintaining a distance of several steps between them.

Her feet were higher than Lubimoff's head, and it was only necessary for the latter to raise his eyes slightly to see the stockings the darning in which Alicia had explained.

With the lightness of a spring released, he slipped up the various steps that separated them.

"Michael! I'll shout!" she exclaimed on seeing him coming, and she held out her hands to repel him, trying at the same time to flee.

With his arms he had embraced the lower part of that adorable body. He could not climb any further; Alicia's hands repulsed his head with a nervous violence. And he in pa.s.sionate madness pressed his lips to her feet and her ankles, kissing her skirts wherever he could reach them.

She was angry at feeling that she could not stir and would be unable to escape.

"Let me go! It's ridiculous! Stop!"