Prince Petros meantime watched the rising walls with a daily accession of disgust and misgiving. He was a skilful card-player, but he was not a gambler. His daydream of seeing Sophia go evening after evening to empty and depopulated rooms, to find Pierre mournfully yawning behind his hand, and regretting the gay stir and bustle of Monte Carlo, was replaced by a vision which showed him Sophia crowned and honoured queen of the gamblers. He was both more sanguine and more easily cast down than his acuter colleague. He had foreseen a complete and immediate success when the idea of a club was put to him by his wife, where Malakopf had only seen a possible factor of success; and similarly now, while Malakopf was dubious, the Prince was frankly despondent.
‘There is no hope here,’ he said to the Prime Minister one day, ‘where I had hoped so much. She is more popular than ever, and the gold burns in the people’s pockets while they wait for the club to be opened. They are gamblers—born gamblers—I am sure of it, and she is the finest of them all. You can take my word for it, there is no one in the world with so fine a style. They will worship her method of play, they will adopt it universally, so far as their more timorous natures permit, and she will pile success on success. Half Rhodopé will think of nothing but doubling their winnings, the other half of repairing their losses. I almost wish I had never come to this damnable country. Rhodopé will become a roulette-board, and I of infinitely less moment than the marble which the croupier sets spinning.’
Malakopf moved impatiently in his chair. He no longer treated the Prince in private with the least form of ceremony.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, do not be so fretful and childish!’ he said. ‘If I, who am as cunning as the devil and as wise as the original serpent, cannot yet make up my mind how this experiment of your wife’s will turn out, how is it possible for you to see the issues with such clearness? You do not grasp the situation. This new club is a new factor in our scheme; it is quite likely that it is a factor against us. On the other hand, it may indirectly give us an opportunity. We have to wait, so let us do so like reasonable men. I have no patience with prophets—there is no such thing as prophecy; the whole world is one calculation. You have not calculated; you only prophesy. I never prophesy; but I am not without a mathematical gift.’
‘You are not tied by the ankle to the steps of a throne,’ retorted Petros. ‘You do not know Sophia as I know her, and, what is more, you have only a thousand pounds in this precious club.’
Malakopf had not told, and did not intend to tell, Petros about his further investment, and he replied:
‘You are wholly wrong, my dear Prince. Because you drink tea with Princess Sophia, and see her in her stays, you think you know her better than I. Perhaps you know the people better also. I, at any rate, know that she is capable of almost anything—certainly of any piece of extravagant folly, but also, I am afraid, of a consummate stroke of Statecraft. If I were to take to prophesying in your spirit, an uneasy man would be standing in your shoes. You don’t see a quarter of the possible risks we may have to run, but you see no more of our possible opportunities. But observe, I never prophesy, and I have not yet enough data to tell how this affair will turn out. Be good enough to wait; nothing was ever done in a hurry, though things may be done fast.’
Pierre, obedient to the commands of his adored Princess, arrived in the month of April, and expressed himself charmed with all the arrangements, and more than gratified with his salary. The Princess gave him audience at the Palace on the day of his arrival, talked to him for an hour with great vivacity, and would have liked to ask him to dinner, if it were only to see Petros’ face when she told him who her guest was. But she refrained, and Pierre, who would have been greatly embarrassed by the honour, was allowed to take his departure in peace.
The club was formally opened on the first of May, so breathless had been the speed with which the Princess’s plans were put into execution, and she herself performed the ceremony in full state. Levée dress with orders was worn, and the gardens of the Casino presented the most brilliant appearance. Only those who had paid their subscriptions and become members of the club were allowed in the spacious grounds, but it really seemed as if all Rhodopé were members. The Princess had arranged quite an imposing little ceremony, resembling the enthronement of a bishop. Followed by Petros and her ministers, she walked up the steps of the south veranda, and in breathless silence tapped at the closed doors leading into the great hall. From inside Pierre’s voice asked, ‘Who is there?’ The Princess thereupon replied: ‘I, Sophia, hereditary Princess of Rhodopé,’ on which Pierre threw the doors open, and, bowing low, preceded her to the big public room, while the Guards’ band in the gallery trumpeted out the Rhodopé anthem. Arrived at the large roulette room, she, Prince Petros, Malakopf, the Mayor of Amandos, the Minister of the Interior, the first Lord of the Admiralty, the Commander-in-Chief, the Lord Chancellor, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and the Chairman of Council, took their places round the table, and Pierre seated himself in the croupier’s place. Sophia had also asked the Bishop of Amandos to take his place with them, adding, however, that as scruples might stand in his lordship’s way, this was to be considered as an invitation and not a command, and as an invitation he had refused it. Everyone then staked twenty-seven napoleons (the same number being the years of the Princess) on a half-dozen of numbers, and Pierre set the momentous ball spinning. Round and round it went, slowed down, wavered, and finally lurched into zero, the number backed by the bank.
Princess Sophia sprang up and clapped her hands.