They descended the large stairway in the Club, and were standing in the vestibule, she wrapped in a silk cape embroidered with gold and adorned with rich furs, which recalled her evenings after the opera in Paris; he, with his overcoat open and a soft silk-lined hat on his head.
The employees in the vestibule, informed of what had happened in the gambling rooms, hurried to the glass door in a hope of a handsome tip. "A carriage for the Duchess!"
But she wanted to walk in the silence of the night. She was numbed from remaining motionless so long, and felt the need, like every one who feels happy, of prolonging the joy of her triumph by a long walk.
She descended the outer stairway leaning on Michael's arm. They passed between the drivers and the few chauffeurs who were standing about in groups, waiting for the owners of their machines, or for possible patrons.
They went down into the cool night air, with their eyes still tired, from the splendor of the illumination, their skins hot from the heavy atmosphere of the gaming rooms. They both noticed that it was a moonlight night, with a sad, waning moon that was beginning to drop behind the dark barrier of the Alps. The submarine menace kept the city in darkness. At long intervals, pale lamps, the glass of which was painted blue, cast above themselves a narrow circle of funereal light.
After a few steps, they grew accustomed to the darkness. In the street the ground was divided into two bands, one a pale, dim white reflected from the dying moon, the other dark, with the heavy black shade of ebony. Instinctively, they walked along the dark sidewalk, as though afraid of being seen. They wound along through a curving, sloping street, the same that made its way underground by the Pompeian corridor and which the Prince had taken a few hours before.
At their backs they could still hear the conversations of the drivers hidden by a turn in the street, the voices of the Club servants calling by the owners' names for the carriages; the stamping of the horses, shaking off sleep as they waited, and the first humming of the motors that began once more to function. Michael, who was walking along in silence, with a desire to get away from there as soon as possible and seek absolute solitude, on seeing her pause, was obliged to stop. She had anticipated his thoughts: she did not care to go any farther.
"I must reward you!" she murmured. "I told you that at any event you would gain by coming, even though I should lose. There ... there."
Her bare arms, freeing themselves from the silken cape, closed about his shoulders, forming a tight ring; submissively her mouth sought his, humbly abandoning itself, with a desire of giving happiness.
At the end of the street a sudden illumination flared up, making the scene stand out against the shadows, like a flash of lightning. It was the searchlight of an automobile. She did not move, she was not afraid of being surprised: people were mere phantoms, without any reality whatsoever. Nothing existed in the world at that moment save themselves and the heap of paper bills, and pieces of ivory guarded in the steel vault.