"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.