Toledo did not appear until a few moments later, coming out of the gardener's pavilion, to meet the Prince, who was returning pensively toward the villa.
Lubimoff spoke and gave an order in stern tones.
"I am leaving for Paris. I want to go to-morrow. Make all the necessary arrangements."
Then, as he gazed into the Colonel's eyes, he continued in a gentler voice:
"I think I shall never return here.... I am going to sell Villa Sirena."
CHAPTER XII
DON MARCOS is descending the slopes of the public gardens toward the Casino Square, in conversation with a soldier.
He is no longer the ceremonious Colonel who used to kiss the hands of the elderly and noble ladies in the gambling rooms, and was present as the inevitable guest at the luncheons of all the titled families stopping at the Hôtel de Paris. There is nothing about his person to recall the long velvet lined frock coats, the high white silk hats, and the other splendors of his eccentric elegance. He is soberly dressed in a dark suit, and there is something rustic about his appearance, which reveals the man who lives in the country, enjoys cultivating the soil, and feels constraint on returning to city life. He is wearing gloves, just as in the good old days; but now it is out of necessity. His hands remind him of a certain narrow garden around his diminutive villa, with five trees, twelve rose bushes, and some forty shrubs all of which he knows individually, by names he has given them. He has been caring for them so fondly, and caressing them so often, that his fingers have become calloused.
The soldier is also walking along like a country man, looking with curiosity in every direction. A stiff mustache covers his upper lip, one of those stiff and aggressive mustaches which come out after long periods of continual shaving. His uniform is old, faded by the sun and rain. The yellowish cloth has the neutral color of the soil. His right arm hangs inert from the shoulder and moves in rhythm with his step, like a dangling inanimate object. His hand is covered with a glove, the rigidity of which reveals the outline of something hard and mechanical. The other hand leans on a knotty cane, and smoke is curling from a pipe in his lips. On his sleeves, almost mingling with the color of the cloth, is the one narrow officer's stripe.
"It has been ten months and twenty days, since your Highness left here. How many things have happened!"