Petros went down to Mavromáti to meet the Felatrune, and she seemed pleased and a little surprised to see him.
‘I should have thought your duties in the Assembly would not have allowed you leisure to come,’ she said. Then, suddenly laying her hand on his shoulder, ‘How you have grown, Petros!’ she said; and it seemed to Petros that she was in the mood to be amused, for she laughed at her own remark, which seemed to him so void of point that he did not even remember to repeat it to Malakopf, who would probably not have been amused at all.
CHAPTER VII.
THE PRINCESS’S CLUB.
Princess Sophia, on her return to Amandos, found the affairs of State more irksome, if possible, than ever. The innumerable petty businesses to which she had to give her attention seemed more than usually futile to her, and there was no table handy where, after a day of unutterably wearisome routine, she could forget the Mayor and the wife of the Mayor, and the potatoes and tobacco, in the enchanting uncertainties of roulette. Prince Petros, at her request, relieved her during the day of a large part of her duties; but in the evening, when she would have been glad to get a game of bezique even with him—for his card-playing had strangely gone off of late—there was often some committee at which, so he assured her, the presence of one of them necessary.
It had more than once seemed to her that this recurrence of committees waxing more frequent than under her father, and she noted the circumstance as a curious one. There seemed, now that the House had risen, an interminable deal of business to be transacted, and it was more often than not that Malakopf was closeted with the Prince for an hour or two after dinner. Again and again it happened that she and her husband would have just sat down to a game, when it was announced that the Prime Minister was below, and wished to consult the Princess on a matter of urgent importance. On such occasions she always asked Petros to represent her, since she really could not face Malakopf, and he obeyed with cheerful alacrity.
It was during one of these interviews—a tiresome after-dinner interruption—when the Princess was left yawning to herself in the drawing-room, that an idea occurred to her, so simple in itself, and so easy of execution, that she was lost in astonishment at her own stupidity that she had not thought of it before. What could be more obvious than that the remedy for these terrible days and interrupted evenings was in the establishment of a casino at Amandos, where she could play not this tiresome bezique, but the real unapproachable roulette? And she rose from her chair, and fairly danced round the room at the thought. She would send for Pierre—the inimitable Pierre—the most discreet and attentive of croupiers. He should manage the tables for her, and receive a magnificent salary. Oh, heavens! what a relief it would be to slip out of the House for a recuperative hour in the casino—to forget for a little the unrivalled tedium of State affairs! The casino should be built on Crown land, close to the Palace garden, and there should be a quiet entrance through a private gate into the place, to save going round the garden walls. There should be a little red room, like that in which she had played so often at Monte Carlo, and which of late the obsequious manager had reserved for her when there was a party with her, where Pierre, urbane and infallible, should set the little ball spinning, with his thrilling plain-song chant, ‘Faites vos jeux, messieurs et mesdames—faites vos jeux!’
The entrance of Petros interrupted her rosy visions, and before he was well inside the room:
‘Oh, Petros, I have such an idea!’ she cried. ‘I shall start a nice little casino here at Amandos, and while you, you dear industrious old thing, are having your endless interviews with centipede Malakopf, I shall run across and just take ten minutes at roulette—a breath of fresh air. It shall be built on that piece of land, just outside the garden, where you wanted to have an asylum for decayed and idiotic old gentlemen, and Pierre shall be the manager.’
Now, though Malakopf often groaned under the slowness of the Prince, Petros was not altogether without wits. Perhaps his late interview with Malakopf had sharpened them—indeed, he seemed to Sophia to have acquired a certain quickness lately, though not at cards; but, at any rate, he saw at once that Sophia was coming to meet their schemes half-way, as Malakopf had wished she should. A reigning Princess, winning and losing money from her loyal subjects, could not be construed into an edifying spectacle, and he made no doubt that the people of Rhodopé would agree with him. She could not, so he thought, have hit on a more simple and direct method of dividing the folk into two parties—one for her (a small one, he hoped), and one (consequently a large one) against her. Truly she was sowing the seed of a revolution broadcast, and it would grow up armed men against herself. His face was a miracle of delighted sympathy.
‘Oh, Sophia,’ he cried, ‘how great an idiot you must think me for never having suggested that! Oh, if I had only had the idea, the casino should have been ready when you returned! It should have been built in a day, like a fairy-palace, to pleasure you. And Pierre, Pierre is just the man—sober and steady, and full of the divine fire. I remember his laying his hand on his heart one night after one of those evenings, those dear evenings, we spent together at Monte Carlo, and saying: “I adore the Princess! None plays so finely as she!”’