The Prince, as though he guessed their thoughts, added:
"It's the end of all that: I don't know whether forever or for many years. … And even if things should be the same some day as they were before the war, what a long time we shall have to wait! … I may die before then. … That is why I am going to make a proposal to you."
He paused a moment, to enjoy the curiosity he read in the eyes of his auditors.
Then he asked Castro:
"Are you satisfied with your present life?"
In spite of Castro's good natured, smiling placidity, he started in surprise as if indignant at such a question. His life was unbearable. The war had upset his habits and pleasures, scattering his friendships to the four winds. He did not know the fate of hundreds of persons of various nationalities, who had filled his life before the war, and without whom he would then have thought it impossible to live.
"Besides, I have less money than ever. I am staying at Monte Carlo just for the gambling; and even if I always lose in the end, like everyone else, I always keep a tight grip on a little something to live on! … But what a life!"
He glanced at Novoa as though the recency of his acquaintance inspired a certain suspicion, but immediately he went on, with an air of assurance:
"There is no reason why I should not speak quite plainly. A little while ago the Professor told us how much he earned: some hundred dollars a month; less than any employee at the Casino. I am going to be as frank as he. I live in the Hôtel de Paris: Atilio Castro cannot afford to live anywhere else; he must keep up his connections. But there are many weeks when I have the greatest difficulty in paying for my room, and I eat in cheap restaurants and Italian wine shops, when no one invites me out to dine. I pay three or four times as much for my bed as I do for my board. Evenings when luck is against me, and I lose everything to the last chip, I get along with a ham sandwich at the Casino bar. I belong to the same school as the Madrid gambler we nicknamed the 'Master,' and who used to say to us: 'Boys, money was made for gambling; and what's left, for eating.'"
"And in spite of that, you like good food," said the Prince.
Castro's laments took on a comical seriousness. With the war the good old customs had been forgotten. No one kept house; everyone lived in hotels, and the proprietors of the luxurious palaces took the scarcity of food as a pretext to serve the sort of meals one gets in third rate restaurants, scanty and poor. An invitation merely gave one a chance to fool one's hunger.
"It has been months, maybe years, since I've eaten as I have to-day, and I've sat at the tables of all the big hotels on the Riviera. I had ceased to believe that such chicken as you have just served existed in the world any longer. I imagined they were dream birds, mythological fowl."
The Colonel smiled, bowing as if that were a tribute to him.
"And you, Spadoni?" the Prince went on inquiringly. "How are you enjoying life?"
"Your Highness—I—I," stammered the musician, at the sudden question.
Castro intervened, coming to his rescue.
"Our friend Spadoni can always get a free meal at the villas of a number of invalid ladies, who live at Cap-Martin and who are mad about music. Besides some English people at Nice often invite him. He doesn't need to bother about paying hotel bills either. He has at his disposal a whole big villa, large and well-furnished: it goes with his job, as watchman over a corpse."
Novoa started with surprise at the news.
"Don't be astonished," continued Atilio. "He has the benefit of a magnificent house in exchange for looking after a tomb."
"Oh, Professor! … Don't mind him," groaned the musician with the air of a martyr.
"But with all these advantages," Castro went on saying, "there is one terrible drawback: he is a worse gambler than I. He has a nickname in the Casino 'the number five gentleman.' He never plays any other number. Anything he can get hold of he puts on five, and loses it. I am the 'number seventeen gentleman' and it turns out as badly with me as with him. … Besides, he has his English friends. Queer ducks! They come from Nice every day in a two horse landau, and just as if they didn't get enough gambling with the Casino, they set up a green table on their knees and take out a deck of cards. They play poker with the Corniche landscape, that people come from all over the world to see, right before their eyes. And our artist, when he takes a fourth hand with the two Englishmen and an old maid, there within the sight of the Mediterranean, golden in the setting sun, loses everything he took in at some concert at Cannes or Monte Carlo."
Spadoni started to say something, but stopped, seeing that the Prince turned to Novoa:
"I shan't ask you," said the Prince; "I know your situation. You live in the old part of Monaco, in the house of an employee of the Museum; and his lodgings can't be much. Besides, as Atilio was saying, you receive much less than a croupier at the Casino."
And looking at his guests he added:
"What I want to propose to you is that you live with me. The invitation is a selfish one on my part; I'm not denying that. I intend to stay here until the world quiets down, and life is pleasant once more. If my Colonel and I were here alone we would end by hating each other. You will keep me company in my retreat."
All three remained dumbfounded at such an unexpected proposal. Novoa was the first to regain the use of his tongue.
"Prince, you scarcely know me. We saw each other for the first time three days ago. … I don't know whether I ought. … "
The Prince interrupted him with the sharp tone and imperious manner of a man who is not accustomed to considering objections.
"We have known each other for many years; we have known each other all our lives." Then he added soothingly:
"It isn't much that I'm offering you. Servants are scarce. There are no men except my old valet and those two Italian monkeys that the Colonel managed to recruit somewhere. The rest of the service is done by women. … But even so, our life will be pleasant. We shall isolate ourselves from a world gone crazy. We will not mention this war. We shall lead a comfortable existence, as the monks did in the monasteries of the Middle Ages, which were refreshing oases of tranquillity in the midst of violence and massacres. We shall eat well; the Colonel guarantees me that. The Library from the yacht is here. When I sold the boat, I had Don Marcos install all my books on the top floor. Our friend Novoa will find some volumes there which perhaps he does not know. Everyone will do what he pleases; free monks all of us, with no other obligation than to repair to the refectory at the proper hour. And if the 'number five gentleman' and the 'number seventeen gentleman' want to drop in at the Casino, they can do so, and someone will see to it that their pockets are kept filled. We must give something to vice, what the devil! Without vices, life wouldn't be worth living."
A silent approbation greeted these words of the master of Villa Sirena.
"The one thing I insist on," continued the Prince after a long pause, "is that we live alone, as men among men. No women! Women must be excluded from our life in common."
The pianist opened his eyes in astonishment; Castro stirred in his chair; Novoa removed his glasses with a mechanical gesture of surprise, immediately adjusting them once more to his nose.
There was another silence.
"What you propose," said Atilio, at last, with a smile, "reminds me of a comedy of Shakespeare. No women! And the hero in the end gets married."
"I know that play," replied the Prince, "but I am not in the habit of governing my life according to comedies,