"It's a system of stakes invented by an English lord, now dead, who won millions by it. They explained it to me yesterday. First you place...."
"No, no, you satanic pianist!" exclaimed Atilio. "You can explain it to me in the Casino, providing I have the curiosity to listen. You've made me lose a lot, with all your systems. I had better go on playing your 'number five.'"
The Colonel, who had listened in silence to the conversation in regard to women, seemed to recall something when Castro mentioned gambling.
"Last evening," he said to the Prince, in a mysterious voice, "I met the Duchess in the Casino"....
A look of silent questioning halted his words.
"What Duchess is that?"
"The question is quite in point, Michael," said Atilio. "Your 'chamberlain' is better acquainted in society than any man on the Riviera. He knows princesses and duchesses by the dozen. I have seen him dining in the Hôtel de Paris with all the ancient French nobility, who come here to console themselves for the long time it takes to bring back their former kings. In the private rooms in the Casino, he is always kissing wrinkled hands and bowing to some group of disgusting mummies loaded down with the oldest and most famous names. Some of them call him simply 'Colonel'; others introduce him with the title of 'aide de camp of Prince Lubimoff'."
Don Marcos stiffened, offended by the waggish tone in which his high estate was being mentioned, and said haughtily:
"Señor de Castro, I am a soldier grown old in defense of Legitimacy; I shed my blood for the sacred tradition, and there is nothing remarkable about my association with...."
The Prince knowing by experience that the Colonel did not know what time was, when once he began to talk about "legitimacy" and the blood he had shed, hastened to interrupt him.