"If you don't come, you'll never see me again. I shall think you want to break with me, that you think I'm a bore, and don't like me. I shall expect you."
As the carriage drove off, she waved farewell.
"It was about time!" Michael exclaimed, on finding himself alone.
It had been a visit of an hour and a half. It had kept him continuously at a nervous tension, weighing his words, and avoiding too great an expression of friendliness, giving advice without any interest whatsoever, and leaving the past in silence. He preferred the confidence and lack of restraint of the conversations with his comrades.
On thinking of the latter, his feeling of annoyance returned. How Castro would smile, when he sat down at the table! He could hear his voice already saying ironically: "No women!" And the first to appear had made him as sheepishly obedient as a prior breaking the rule of the monastery to receive a Queen.
This worry caused him to speak to the Colonel, who was walking along at his side in silence, accompanying him from the gate to the house. Where was Castro?
"In the library with Lord Lewis. His Lordship arrived while Your Highness was in the garden. He has come to lunch."
He was a nice Englishman! He had taken it into his head of his own accord to choose this day, after so many futile invitations! While that Englishman was present, Castro would talk of nothing but gaming. And Michael went in search of Lewis.
The latter was the son of the great historian, whose country had rewarded him with the title of lord. But this title was only to be inherited by the oldest son of the family, and no one but Toledo, who always exaggerated the importance of his friends, called the second son Lord Lewis. He had been in Monte Carlo for twenty-five years, and the old employees in the Casino, seeing his bald head sadly bowed above the gaming tables, recalled the gentleman of former times, elegant, gay, and vigorous. He had come to the Riviera, on one of his Byronic "pilgrimages," and there he had remained, not caring to see any more of the world. The passion for gambling was the one inexhaustible pleasure for this man who had tried them all, and who was bored by the majority.
The real Lord Lewis, a solemn person, who maintained the prestige of the family name, had several children, and had served his country in various high positions in the Colonies. As for the Colonel's "Lord," he was gradually losing all his former connections, and becoming a mere Monte Carlo gambler.