Toledo's voice as he said this was as sad as the Prince's had been on enumerating to his friends the advantages of living away from women. On the other hand, Michael was now himself submitting to a woman's domination, and almost envied the scientist returning to his former modest life in order to meet the woman he loved more frequently.
As for himself, Michael was less happy. Days went by without his being able to repeat his promenade with Alicia in the gardens of Monaco.
"I love you!" she said. "You may believe that I haven't forgotten that afternoon. Later on we will take the same trip, but not now, I know how it would end. It is impossible for me.... I am thinking of my son."
Michael had no doubt that this was true, but something more than worry over the absent one was at the time in her thoughts. She had abandoned herself once more to gambling with the money she had found in her house. The Prince even suspected that she had sold or pawned the pin with which he had repaired the tear in her dress. After giving her the Princess Lubimoff's pearl, he had not seen it again. Alicia seemed unmoved at the first splendor of Spring.
"Some day we shall go there," she said, when he recalled to her the gardens of San Martino, "I promise you. But I must be free from worry, I must lose everything or win everything. I must make the most of my time. As you see, luck seems to be remembering me again."
She was winning little, but she was winning, and this caused her to hope that that sudden burst of good luck which had stirred the Casino, would be repeated.
In the evening she withdrew contented. She had three or four thousand francs more, but what did that amount to? She lamented the smallness of her capital. She wanted to play the "grand jeu" and win back all that she had lost. Winning thus little by little, she would never get anywhere. If she could only get together again the thirty thousand francs, which rose and fell, but always remained faithful!
Michael remained in the Casino for hours at a time near her table, watching for a propitious occasion, without being able to obtain more than brief conversation when she was resting from the play, or taking tea in the bar of the private rooms.
One morning he went to surprise her in her villa. It was ten o'clock. He met Valeria who had just put on her hat, and seemed annoyed at this visit. Perhaps she was going to Monaco, perhaps her man of Science was waiting for her in one of the side streets of Monte Carlo.
"The Duchess has gone," she said, smiling, "she must be in the midst of her work."