The Devourers

The allusion to the autograph poem made Aldo realize that it was impossible that his wife, the celebrated author, could keep a shop, so he sighed, and said: "I have a good mind to try Monte Carlo. I have never been there, but my friend Delmonte once gave me a system."

"Why doesn't he play it himself?" said Nancy. "He looks as if he needed it."

"He has played it," said Aldo; "but he is a man lacking the strength of character that one needs to play a system. A system is a thing one has to stick to and go through with, no matter how one may be tempted to do something else. This is really a rather wonderful system."

And Aldo took out a pencil and a note-book, and showed the system to Valeria and Nancy.

"You see, N. is black and R. is red." Then he made rows of little dots irregularly under each initial. "You see, I win on all this."

"Do you?" said Nancy and Valeria, bending over the table with heads close together.

"Yes; I win on the intermittences."

"What are they?"

"Oh, never mind what they are," said Aldo. "And I win on all the twos, and the threes, and the fives."

"And the fours," said Nancy, who did not understand what he was saying, but wanted to show an interest.

"No, I don't win on the fours," said Aldo. "I lose on the fours. But I win on the fives and sixes, and everything else. And, of course, fours come seldom."

"Of course," echoed Nancy and Valeria, looking vacantly at the little dots under the N. and the R.

"I could make the game cheaper," said Aldo thoughtfully, "by waiting, and letting the intermittences pass, and only starting my play on the twos."

"Perhaps that would be a good plan," said Nancy, with vacant eyes.

"But," said Valeria, "I thought you won on the intermittences."

"I do," said Aldo, frowning, "if they are intermittences. But supposing they are fours?"

This closed the door on all comprehension so far as Nancy was concerned. But Valeria, who had been to Monte Carlo for four days on her wedding-tour, said decisively: "Then I think I should wait and see. If they are fours, then play only on the fives and sixes."

"There is something in that," said Aldo, rubbing his chin. "But I must try it. Now you just say 'black' or 'red' at random, as it comes into your head."

Nancy and Valeria said "black" and "red" at random, and Aldo staked imaginary five-franc pieces, and doubled them, and played the system. After about fifteen minutes he had won nearly two thousand francs.

So it was decided that he should quietly go to Monte Carlo and try the system, starting as soon as possible.

"Do not speak about it to anyone," he said. "Delmonte made a special point of that. If too many people knew of a thing like this, it would spoil everything."

So no one was told, but they set about making preparations for Aldo's departure.

"I shall not stay more than a month at a time," said Aldo. "One must be careful not to arouse suspicions that one is playing a winning game."

"Of course," said Valeria.

And Nancy said: "Is it not rather mean to go there when you know that you must win?"

Aldo explained that the administration was not a person, and added that the few thousand francs that he needed every year would never be missed by such a wealthy company.

Then Nancy said: "I know Monte Carlo is a dreadful place. Full of horrid women. I hope—oh dear–!"

Aldo kissed her troubled brow. "Dear little girl, I am going there to make money, and nothing else will interest me."

"I know that," said Nancy, with a little laugh and a little sigh. "But the nasty creatures are sure to look at you."

"That cannot be helped," said Aldo, raising superior eyebrows.

Nancy kissed him and laughed. "Such a funny boy!" she said. "I believe your Closed Garden, your hortus conclusus, is nothing but a potato patch! But I like to sit in it all the same."

II

May brought the baby a tooth. June brought it another tooth and a golden shine for its hair. August brought it a word or two; September stood it, upright and exultant, with its back to the wall; and October sent it tottering and trilling into its mother's arms.

Its names were Lilien Astrid Rosalynd Anne-Marie.

"Now baby can walk," said Valeria to her daughter, "you ought to take up your work again."

"Indeed I must," said Nancy, lifting the baby to her lap. "Have you seen her bracelets?" And she held the chubby wrist out to Valeria, showing three little lines dinting the tender flesh. "Three little bracelets for luck." And Nancy kissed the small, fat wrist, and bit it softly.

"Where has your manuscript been put?" said Valeria.

"Oh, somewhere upstairs," said Nancy, pretending to eat the baby's arm. "Good, good! Veddy nice! Mother, this baby tastes of grass, and cowslips, and violets. Taste!" And she held the baby's arm out to Valeria.

"Tace," said the baby. So the grandmother tasted and found it very nice. Then she had to taste the other arm, and then a small piece of cheek. Then the baby stuck out her foot in its white leather shoe, but grandmamma would not taste it, and called it nasty-nasty. And the other foot was held up and called nasty-nasty. But the baby said "Tace!" and the corners of her mouth drooped. So grandmamma tasted the shoe and found it very nice, and then the other shoe, and it was very nice. And then Nancy had to taste everything all over again.

Thus the days passed busily, bringing much to do.

Aldo wrote that "the system" was incomparable. His only fear was that the administration might notice it. He now played with double stakes. A few days later he wrote again. There was a flaw in the system. But never mind. He had found another one, a much better one. He had bought it for a hundred francs from a man who had been shut out of the Casino because the administration was afraid of his system. Of course, he had promised to give the man a handsome present before he left. He had won eight hundred francs in ten minutes with the new system last night. Of course, he had to be very careful, because the flaw of the other system had been disastrous.

A third letter came. After winning steadily for four days, he had had the most incredible guigne: a run of twenty-four on black when he was doubling on red. But he would stick to the system; it was the only way. People that pottered round and skipped about from one thing to another were bound to lose. Love to all.

Then came a postcard. "Have discovered that all previous "s's" were wrong. Have made friends with a 'cr,' who will put things all right again."

Valeria and Nancy puzzled over the "cr." The "s's" of course meant "systems," but what could a "cr" be? Valeria felt anxious, and sent a messenger for Nino. Nino left Carlo's office at once, and hurried to Via Senato, where, since Aldo's departure, Valeria was staying with Nancy and the baby. All three were on the balcony, and waved hands to him as he crossed the Ponte Sant' Andrea, and hurried across the Boschetti to No. 12.

"How do you do, Valeria?" and he kissed her cheek. "How do you do, Nancy?" and he kissed her hand. "How do you do, Anne-Marie?" and he kissed the baby on the top of the head. "What is the matter? What has Aldo done?"

"Oh!" exclaimed Nancy. "How could you guess that it was about Aldo?"

Nino smiled.

Valeria held the postcard out for him to see, and covering everything but the last line, said: "What does 'cr' mean?"

Nino looked, and said: "Where does he write from?"

Nancy and Valeria exchanged glances, and decided that they could trust Nino. He would not use the system or give it to other people. Besides, the system had a flaw.

"Monte Carlo," they said in unison.

Nino made a mouth as if to whistle, and did not whistle. The baby sitting on the rug watched him and wished he would do it again.

"I suppose 'cr' is croupier," said Nino. Then there was silence. After a while Nino said: "How much did he take with him?"

"Everything," said Valeria.

Then Nino made the mouth again, and the baby was pleased.

"You had better go and fetch him. Quick!" said Nino, looking at Nancy.

"Oh!" gasped Nancy, "must I? Is it bad?"

"Quite bad," said Nino. "He has probably lost half of your forty thousand francs already."

"He only had eighteen," said Nancy, with a twinkle in her grey eye.

"That's better," said Nino. "But go and fetch him all the same."

Nancy was greatly excited and rather pleased. The baby should see the Mediterranean. Valeria, "grandmamma," must come too, of course.

"No, dear," said Valeria, "I cannot. I have promised Aunt Carlotta to help her with her reception to-morrow evening. But I will take you part of the way—as far as Alessandria or Genoa."

"But I am sure Nino could come," said Nancy, looking up at him interrogatively.

"Yes," said Nino, and then quickly said no, he was sorry, he could not possibly leave Carlo's office. Besides, she would manage Aldo better without him.

The next morning he went to the station to see them off. Valeria had Anne-Marie in her arms, and Nancy walked beside them, looking like the baby's elder sister. They had no luggage but a small valise, for Valeria was returning to Milan in the afternoon, and Nancy was sure that she would come back with Aldo the day after to-morrow.

Nino found comfortable places for them, and then stepped down and stood in front of the window, looking up with that vacant half-smile that everyone has who, having said good-bye, stands waiting for the train to start. Nancy was looking down at him with sweet eyes. There was something blue in her hat that made her eyes look bluer. Behind her the baby, held up by Valeria, was waving a short arm up and down as the spirit of Valeria's hand moved it. The bell rang, the whistle blew, and as the train passed him slowly, Nino suddenly jumped on to the step at the end of the carriage, turned the stiff handle, and went in. "I will come as far as Valeria does," he said. He was greeted with delight, but the baby continued irrelevantly to wave good-bye to him for a long time. They passed Alessandria and Genoa, and went on to Savona. The baby looked at the Mediterranean, and Nancy looked at the baby, and Nino looked at Nancy, and Valeria looked at them all, and loved them all with an aching maternal love. At Savona Valeria and Nino got out. They had half an hour to wait for the return train that would take them back to Milan.

They stood on the platform in front of the carriage window, and looked up at Nancy with that vacant half-smile that people have when they have said good-bye.... Nancy leaned out of the window and looked down tenderly at her mother's upturned face, and then at Nino, and then at her mother again. The baby stood on the seat beside her, waving its short arm up and down, with yellow curls falling over its eyes.

"In vettura!" called the guard.

"We shall be back the day after to-morrow," said Nancy for the fourth time; "or perhaps to-morrow."

"Perhaps to-mollow," echoed the baby, who always repeated what other people said. Nino went close to the window, and put up his hand to touch the baby's.

"You don't know what 'to-morrow' means," he said. Anne-Marie let him take her hand. He felt the small, warm fist closed in his. "When is to-morrow, Anne-Marie?"

"To-mollow is … to-mollow is when I am to have evlything," explained Anne-Marie.

"That sounds like a long time away," said Nancy, laughing.

"Yes, indeed," said Valeria.

"Yeth, indeed," echoed the baby.

"Pronti, partenza?" said the guard.

"Good-bye, Nancy! Good-bye, baby!" The bell sounded and the whistle blew.

"Good-bye, mother dear." The train moved slightly and Nancy waved her hand.

"Good-bye, Nancy! Good-bye, baby! Good-bye, my two darlings!"

The train was moving swiftly away.

"Perhaps to-morrow," cried Nancy, waving again. Then she drew back, lest a spark should fly into the baby's eyes.

Valeria stood like a statue looking after them. "Good-bye, Nancy! Good-bye, baby!"

They were gone.

And to-morrow was a long time away.

III

When the leisurely Riviera train drew into the station at Monte Carlo, Nancy looked out of the window to see Aldo, to whom she had telegraphed. He was not there. A group of laughing women in light gowns, two Englishmen with their hands in their pockets, and a German honeymoon-couple were on the platform. No one else. A handsome, indolent porter helped Nancy and the baby to descend, and, taking their valise, walked out in front of them, and handed it to the omnibus-driver of the Hôtel de Paris.

"Non, non," said Nancy. "J'attends mon mari."

"Ah!" said the porter; "elle attend son mari." Then he and the omnibus-driver grinned, and spat, and looked at her.

"Donnez-moi ma valise," said Nancy.

"Donnez-lui sa valise," said the porter.

"J'vas la lui donner," said the omnibus-driver, climbing slowly up the little ladder, and taking the valise down again.

"Voilà la valise." And he put it on the ground. Nancy told the porter to take it. The omnibus-driver looked astonished. "Quoi? Et moi donc? Pas de pourboire?" And the porter spat and grinned, and said to Nancy: "Faut lui donner son pourboire."

So Nancy gave the omnibus-driver fifty centimes, and told the porter to take the valise to the Hôtel des Colonies. He shouldered the small portmanteau, and stepped briskly and lightly up the flight of steps that leads to the Place du Casino. Nancy followed, with Anne-Marie holding on to her skirts. An old woman sitting with her basket at the foot of the stairs offered them oranges. Nancy said, "Non, merci," and hurried on. But Anne-Marie wanted one. She was tired and hungry, and began to cry. So Nancy stopped and bought an orange. Then she lifted Anne-Marie in her arms, and hurried up the steps after the porter. At the top of the winding flight Nancy looked round. It was a light June evening. Where the sky was palest the new moon looked like a little gilt slit in the sky, letting the light of heaven show through.

The street was deserted. The porter had vanished. Anne-Marie began to cry because she wanted her orange peeled, and Nancy, after hurrying forward a few steps, stopped, lifted the child on to the low wall, sat down beside her, and peeled the orange. Nancy was convinced that her portmanteau was gone for ever, but nothing seemed to matter much, so long as Anne-Marie did not cry. She looked at the light sky, the palm-trees, and the smooth pearl-grey sea. She wondered where the Hôtel des Colonies was, and whether Aldo had not received the telegram. The legends of Monte Carlo murders and suicides traversed her mind for an instant. Then Anne-Marie, who had never sat on a wall eating oranges, lifted her face, smudged with tears and juice, and said: "Nice! Nice evelything. I like." So Nancy liked too.

They found the Hôtel des Colonies after many wanderings, and there was the porter with the valise waiting for them. Did Monsieur della Rocca live here? Yes. Had he received a telegram? No; here was the telegram waiting for monsieur. Did they know where was monsieur?

"Eh! you will find him at the Casino," said the stout proprietress.

Nancy asked to be shown to her husband's room, but as it turned out to be a very small mansarde at the top of the house, Nancy took another room, and there Anne-Marie went to bed under the mosquito-netting, and was asleep at once. Nancy went downstairs. The salon was dark. Madame la Propriétaire sat in the garden with an old lady and a little fat boy.

"If you want to go to the Casino," she said, "I will look after the little angel upstairs!"

But Nancy said: "Oh no, thank you."

Then the old lady said: "Allez donc! Allez donc! Vous savez bien les hommes!… Ça pourrait ne pas rentrer." Then she added: "I have been here twelve years. This, my little grandson, was born here. You can go, tranquillement. The petit ange will be all right."

Nancy went upstairs for her hat. Anne-Marie was asleep and never stirred. So Nancy went through the little garden again with hesitant feet, and turned her face to the Casino. The streets were almost empty. She was in her dark travelling-dress, and nobody noticed her. As she passed the Hôtel de Paris she saw the people dining at the tables with the little red lights lit. In the square round the flower-beds other people sat in twos and threes; and over the way, in the Café de Paris, the Tziganes in red coats were playing "Sous la Feuillée."

Nancy suddenly felt frightened and sad. What was she doing here, all alone, at night in this unknown place, and little Anne-Marie sleeping in that large bed all alone in a strange hotel? She felt as if she were in a dream, and hurried on, dizzy and scared. A man, passing, said: "Bonsoir, mademoiselle;" and Nancy ran on with a beating heart, up the steps and into the brilliantly lighted atrium. Two men in scarlet and white livery stopped her, and asked what she wanted; then they showed her into an open room on the left, where men that looked like judges and lawyers sat in two rows behind desks waiting for her.

She stepped uncertainly up to one of them—he was bald with a pointed beard—and said: "Pardon … I am looking for Monsieur della Rocca."

"Ah, indeed," said the man with the beard. "I have not the pleasure of his acquaintance." And a fair man sitting near him smiled.

"Have you no idea where I can find him?" said Nancy, blushing until tears came to her eyes.

"What is he? What does he do?" asked the fair man.

"He—he came here three weeks ago. He—has a system," stammered Nancy. "I telegraphed, but he did not receive my telegram. And the lady of the hotel said I should find him here."

A few people who had entered and stood about were listening with amused faces.

"Ha, ha! You say monsieur has a system?" said the man with a beard in a loud voice. And he nodded significantly to someone opposite him whom Nancy could not see. She felt that by mentioning the system she had ruined her husband's chances for ever. But nothing seemed to matter except to find him, and not to be alone any more.

"At what hotel are you staying, mademoiselle?" asked the fair man.

"Hôtel des Colonies," said Nancy, in a trembling voice.

"And your name, mademoiselle?"

"Giovanna Desiderata Felicita della Rocca," said Nancy. And the whole row of men smiled, while the one before whom she stood wrote her name in a large book.

"Your profession?"

Nancy had read "Alice in Wonderland" when she was a child, and now she knew that she was asleep. Otherwise, why should she be telling these people that she wrote poems?

She told them so. And they pinched their noses and pulled their moustaches, because they were laughing—they were pouffant de rire—and they did not want to show it.

"And … she did nothing else but write poems? Nothing else at all?"

"No, nothing." And as the man with the beard seemed suddenly to be staring her through and through, she added nervously: "Except … I have begun a book … a novel. But it is not finished."

The fair man suddenly handed her a little piece of blue cardboard, and requested her to write her name on it. She said, "Why?" and the man made a gesture with his hand that meant, "It has nothing to do with me. Do not do so if you do not wish."

All the others smiled and bent their heads down, and pretended to write.

Nancy looked round her with the expression of a hunted rabbit. A man was coming in, sauntering along with his hand in his pocket. He was English, Nancy saw at a glance. He reminded her a little of Mr. Kingsley. Tom Avory's daughter went straight towards the new-comer, and said:

"You are English?"

"I am," said the Englishman.

"Will you please help me? My father was English," said Nancy, with a little break in her voice. "They … they want me to write my name. Shall I do it?"

The Englishman smiled slightly under his straight-clipped, light moustache. "Do you want to go into the gaming-rooms?"

"Yes," said Nancy.

"Well, write your name, then," he said, and walked back to the desk beside her. "You will see me do it too," he added, smiling, as he gave up a card and got another one in return, on the back of which he wrote "Frederick Allen."

All the employés were quite serious again, and seemed to have forgotten Nancy's existence. She signed her card, and entered the atrium at the Englishman's side.

"I am looking for my husband," she explained, and told him the story of the system, and the telegram, and the hotel. "I feel as if I had been telling all this over and over and over again, like the history of the wolf." She smiled, and the dimple dipped sweetly in her left cheek. She was flushed, and her dark hair had twisted itself into little damp ringlets on her forehead. Mr. Allen looked at her curiously.

"I am sure I have seen you before," he said. But he could not remember where. Nancy said she thought not.

"Oh, I am sure of it," said Mr. Allen. "I remember your smile."

But the smile he remembered had belonged to Valeria, when she stood on a little bridge in Hertfordshire, and took from his hands a garden hat that had fallen into the water.

They went through the rooms, and the chink, chink, of the money, and the heavy perfume, made Nancy dizzy and bewildered. Aldo was nowhere to be seen. They went from table to table—the season was ended, and one could see each player at a glance—then into the trente-et-quarante rooms, which were hushed and darkened; then through the "buffet," and out into the atrium again.

Nancy looked up at her companion, and tears gathered in her eyes. "I cannot imagine where he is! You do not think—you do not think–" And in her wide, frightened eyes passed the vision of Aldo, lifeless under a palm-tree in the gardens, his divine eyes broken, his soft hair clotted with blood.

"I think he is all right enough," said the Englishman. "We can look in the Café de Paris."

They left the atrium and went down the steps and out into the square again. The "Valse Bleue" was swaying its hackneyed sweetness across the dusk. Nancy started—surely that was Aldo! There, coming out of the Café de Paris, with a fat woman in white walking beside him. That was Aldo! Nancy hurried on, then stopped. The Englishman stood still beside her, and stared discreetly at the trees on his right-hand side. Aldo and the woman had sauntered off to the left, and now sat down on a bench facing the Crédit Lyonnais.

"Will you wait a minute?" said Nancy. And she ran off towards the bench, while Mr. Allen waited and gazed into the trees.

Yes, it was Aldo. She heard him laugh. Who could that fat woman be? She hurried on, and stopped a few paces from them.

Aldo, turning round, saw her. He was motionless with astonishment for one moment. Then he bent forward, and said a word or two to his companion. She nodded, and he rose and came quickly forward to Nancy.

"What is it?" he said. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, Aldo!" she said, tears of relief filling her eyes. "At last! I have looked for you everywhere."

"What is it?" repeated Aldo, in an impatient whisper. "Not—not Anne-Marie? She is all right?"

"Oh yes, dear," said Nancy, drying her eyes. "Poor little sweet thing! She is fast asleep at the hotel. Come along! Come and thank an English gentleman who–" She was about to slip her arm through his when he drew back.

"Don't!" he said. "Go back to the hotel at once! I shall be there in five minutes. You don't want to spoil everything, do you?"

"Spoil what?" said Nancy.

"Everything," said Aldo. "Our prospects, our future, everything."

"Why? How? What do you mean?" Nancy looked across at the broad figure in white sitting on the bench; she had turned round, and seemed to be looking at Nancy through a lorgnon. Nancy could discern a large face and golden hair under a white straw hat. "Who is that?"

"Oh, she's all right," said Aldo. "I have no time to explain now. Go home, and do as I tell you. If you don't," he added, as he saw indignant protest rising to Nancy's lips, "you and the child will have to bear the consequences. Remember what I tell you–you and the child."

Then he raised his hat, and went back to the bench where the woman was awaiting him. Nancy, paralyzed with astonishment, saw him sit down, saw his plausible back and explanatory gestures, while the woman still looked at her through her long-handled lorgnon.