The world seemed to have stopped at home that night, and in the large room—a thing Sophia had never known before—there was no one playing. The croupiers were all at their posts, some of them idly spinning the wheels, or dealing right and left for imaginary trente et quarante; but the visitors, perhaps only twenty in all, were lounging by the open windows, silently watching the gathering of the storm. Due south, and far over the sea, a terrific thunderstorm was going on; to the west, a separate and distinct display winked and grumbled. Both storms were certainly moving nearer; it was as if the elements were banded together for the destruction of Monte Carlo, and the whole world seemed to be waiting, finger on lip, for an imminent judgment. The air was windless, but every few minutes a sudden gust swept rattling and hissing across the garden, some outlying feeler, cast down like a grappling-iron from a balloon, of the fearful tumult that was raging fathoms overhead. In such a way seaweed and ooze feel the suck of a swell{258} above, stir and wave madly through the translucent water, and are still again.
Close to the window near where they entered the large room a very tall figure of a man lounged against the wall, his face averted. Over it—no uncommon sight—was tied a black domino, for the more finished gamblers of that day—gamblers, that is, of the first water, who cultivated style—often concealed their faces in this way, for fear that some ungovernable seizure of the muscles might declare their emotion. Princess Sophia had often talked this curious custom over with Blanche.
‘It is a ridiculous invention,’ she said, ‘for the involuntary and ungovernable spasms of emotion are betrayed, not by the face, but by the hands. I, as you know, have had some experience of the table, and though no one—this sounds hardly modest, but it is true—can conceal their excitement better than I, I cannot always check little sudden movements of the fingers. The muscles of my face I have in perfect control. There is no difficulty. It is a mask; but if you watch my third and fourth fingers, you will see them, if I am more than usually interested in the game, make little movements which I simply cannot control. It is hardly a movement, it is more a vibration; and to conceal this, as you have noticed, I sometimes wear dark gloves at the tables.’
They passed on into their private room, where Pierre—he always left Rhodopé with the Princess—was awaiting them. Even he seemed touched by{259} the weather, and his bow lacked briskness, and his moustache looked limp.
‘Pierre, Pierre, this will never do!’ cried Sophia. ‘We are all like old rags in this weather, and we need more players. Let us have all the windows open; we shall soon have to shut them. Yet in the other room—no, no one is playing. Whom can we get? Is not the lightning amazing!’
‘There are some good players there, your Royal Highness, though no one is playing yet,’ said Pierre—‘a tall man, for instance, in a black domino.’
‘Yes, I saw him,’ said the Princess. ‘He even bowed to me as I came in, which is impertinent of a stranger.’
‘He bowed to the Queen of Monte Carlo, madam,’ said Pierre, brisking up a little, for Sophia always stimulated him, ‘not to the Princess of Rhodopé.’
The Princess laughed.
‘But he wears a domino,’ she said; ‘he must be a bad gambler if he cannot control his face.’
‘Watch his hands, madam,’ returned Pierre; ‘they are as if of ice.’
‘Then, why does he wear a domino?’
‘Perhaps to conceal some deformity, poor gentleman!’ said Pierre, ‘or perhaps he has the dance of St. Vitus. Your Royal Highness will find he plays well.’
‘Ask him to come in, then,’ she said, ‘and ask three others; we are short to-night.’
Pierre hurried into the other room to do her bidding, and a moment afterwards returned with{260} the desired number. It was considered a sort of brevet rank among card-players to join the Princess’s table, and her requests were always eagerly obeyed. Last of the four came the Black Domino, and as the Princess bowed to him, ‘Your Royal Highness will be so kind as to excuse my domino,’ he said; ‘it is a practice of mine to wear it.’
‘And gloves?’ asked the Princess, with interest.
‘No, madam; I have my hands under control,’ he replied.
‘That is odd,’ said she. ‘My face I have under control, you shall see, but occasionally I have to wear gloves.’
Princess Aline was not gifted by nature with the best of temper, and for the first hour she had certainly the worst of luck. Eight times she betted limit stakes on the second half-dozen—no mean form of play—and seven times she lost. The limit was one hundred napoleons, and the seven rolls were expensive. At the end of the seventh she lost her temper as well as her stake, and in a spasm of irony quite ineffectual against inanimate objects she laid two sous with much asperity on the same half-dozen, although the lowest stake was understood to be a napoleon; but her bet was addressed, not to the company, but to the offending marble. This time, of course, she won, and in a fit of rage she hurled the innocuous penny-piece which Pierre had hastily fished out of his pocket on to the floor.
The Black Domino, who was seated next her, pushed back his chair, and picked it up for her.{261}
‘I think this slipped from the hand of your Serene Highness,’ he said gravely, and with such suavity and seriousness of tone that none thought to laugh.
The Princess meantime, as she so often was accustomed to do when beginning a night’s play, trifled and coquetted with Luck, to see in what mood the goddess was, as some gourmet who is ordering his dinner will sit over the choice of dishes with an olive or a glass of bitters, testing the quality and leanings of his appetite. She bet a napoleon or two on a single number once or twice, and lost; she bet on a few half-dozens, and lost also; she even bet occasionally on the colour, but Luck seemed to have turned its back on her. These insignificant triflings gave her time to observe the Black Domino, and before long her candour told her that Luck had been right to leave her. If she was, as Pierre said, the Queen of Monte Carlo, here indeed was the King. The domino, of course, concealed his face; but, even as Pierre had said, his hands might have been of ice. He seemed to stake nothing lower than the limit, and he never staked on more than a half-dozen. Once, when he had bet on a single number, she noticed he had just lit a match for his cigarette, and his hand was half raised, the elbow off the table, when the marble, as sometimes happens, after some few wild dashes backwards and forwards, began to slow down very suddenly. Watching it, he forgot to light his cigarette, and though his arm was unsupported, she saw his white fingers cut like a cameo across his black coat, and the edge never{262} wavered. She grew so interested in watching him that more than once she forgot to stake on a roll, to the extreme amazement of all present, including herself.
After an hour or two Pierre went to get his supper, and in the momentary pause before the new croupier took his place she leaned forward across the table.
‘Let me have the honour of complimenting you on your play,’ she said to the Black Domino; ‘it is perfection, and I have seen a good deal of play.’
The man bowed.
‘Praise from the Princess Sophia is praise indeed,’ he said. ‘You see, your Royal Highness, I make it a rule never to get up a loser; that gives one a certain calmness. One only has to play long enough.’
She laughed.
‘A good rule,’ she said. ‘Your methods are the same as my own. It will come to a duel between us.’
‘That shall be as your Royal Highness pleases,’ he said.
Prince Victor was of that imbecile type of gambler which is usually known as the prudent; in other words, after having lost a specified sum, he closed his performances for the evening. This consummation he usually attained after about three hours’ hesitating and inglorious adventure; but this evening his rate of progress was somewhat more advanced, and he rose from the table shortly before midnight. On the stroke of the clock, without warning, the two battalions of storm burst overhead; a wicked flicker{263} of lightning zigzagged across the darkness close outside the room where they were playing, and simultaneously, it seemed, a crack of thunder so appalling burst above them that even the Princess, who seldom showed emotion, half rose from her seat with a little cry of fright. Princess Aline buried her face in her hands; Pierre, who had returned from his supper, cried ‘Mon Dieu!’ in a trembling voice and crossed himself; the Black Domino alone remained perfectly unmoved.
‘Your Royal Highness should recollect,’ he said to Sophia, ‘that when one has heard the thunder it is proof-positive that one has not been struck by the lightning. I am quite sure we all heard the thunder. Personally, I am deafened; my ears sing. I see no has staked on this roll.’
Shortly after one Princess Aline got up rather hastily from the table. She said something in a loud, angry tone; but her words, luckily perhaps, were drowned by a prodigious explosion overhead. Outside the rain was falling like a shower of lead, and now and then a lightning flash crossing the black square of the windows would turn the water into a deluge of prismatic colour. Already the air was cooler, but the chariots of God still drove backwards and forwards over their very heads. As Aline left the table, the Black Domino asked for a whisky-and-soda, and Princess Sophia put on her gloves; for her hands trembled perceptibly, and her little finger made strange twitching movements. The Black Domino must already have made a for{264}tune, and Princess Sophia thought with dismay that her Civil list would not be paid till September, and she was not very good at economizing.
On the retirement of Aline and Victor, the Princess had sent out for two others to take their places; but when at three o’clock Blanche also rose, she sent in vain for another. Play had ceased in the large room, and there was positively no one there. Half an hour afterwards two others got up, and the Princess, looking round the table, saw that weariness sat on all faces.
She rose at once.
‘Do not let me detain you, ladies and gentlemen, if any of you wish to go,’ she said. ‘I am infinitely obliged to you for your charming company. The storm, I think, is passing over; you can get to your hotels without a drenching. Good-night—I wish you all a very good-night.’
A sigh of relief went round the room—for it was not etiquette to leave the Princess’s table, except for her intimates, till she herself suggested it—and all rose. The Black Domino, however, lingered.
‘Am I to understand that your Royal ............