the stroke of a pen. Oh, the Pompeian nights of Villa Sirena!...

Spadoni saw, rather, the Gaviotta II, a palace with propellers, which, when anchored in the small harbor of La Condamine, seemed to fill it completely and to make the yachts of the American millionaires and the Prince of Monaco look like tiny things indeed. It was an alcazar, a palace of the Arabian Nights, topped off with two smoke stacks, and parading over every sea of the planet, its private parlors adorned with fountains and statues, its enormous library, its ball room with a raised platform, from which fifty musicians, many of them celebrated, gave concerts for a single visible auditor, Prince Michael, who half reclined on a divan, while the tropical breeze came through the high windows, caressing the heads of the officers and chief functionaries of the steamer crowding about the openings. The pianist could see once more the lonely harbors of dead historic countries, with flights of seagulls wheeling against the quiet azure vault; the mighty bays, filled with the smoke and bustle of North America; the coasts of the Antilles with groves of cocoanut palms, black at sunset against the reddish sky; the islands of the Pacific, of hard coral, forming a ring about an inner lake.... And that omnipotent magician confessed the loss of his wealth!...

The Prince, as though he guessed their thoughts, added:

"It's the end of all that: I don't know whether forever or for many years.... And even if things should be the same some day as they were before the war, what a long time we shall have to wait!... I may die before then.... That is why I am going to make a proposal to you."

He paused a moment, to enjoy the curiosity he read in the eyes of his auditors.

Then he asked Castro:

"Are you satisfied with your present life?"

In spite of Castro's good natured, smiling placidity, he started in surprise as if indignant at such a question. His life was unbearable. The war had upset his habits and pleasures, scattering his friendships to the four winds. He did not know the fate of hundreds of persons of various nationalities, who had filled his life before the war, and without whom he would then have thought it impossible to live.

"Besides, I have less money than ever. I am staying at Monte Carlo just for the gambling; and even if I always lose in the end, like everyone else, I always keep a tight grip on a little something to live on!... But what a life!"

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