He took his hat and walked out of the office.
He wrote to Zio Giacomo, who said he was an addlepated and clot-headed imbecile. Aldo explained the situation mathematically to Valeria and Nancy, who looked vague, and said that it seemed true.
"Eighteen thousand francs," said Aldo, "cleverly used, might set us on our feet. Now, what shall we do with it?"
Valeria folded gentle hands; and Nancy said: "Peek-a-boo." So the baby, at Aide's request, was sent out for a walk with the sour-faced thing chosen by Aunt Carlotta to be its nurse.
"You could go into partnership with someone," said Nancy sweetly, with her head on one side, to show that she took an interest.
Valeria nodded, and said: "Mines are a good thing."
Aldo was silent. "Eighteen thousand francs," he said thoughtfully. "It is not much." Then he said: "Of course, one could buy a shop."
In his deep, dreaming eyes passed the vision of his grandfather's nice little negozio in the Strada Caracciolo at Naples, with its strings of coral hanging row on row; tortoise-shell combs and brushes with silver initials; brooches of lava and of mosaic, that were sold for a franc each; shells of polished mother-of-pearl; pictures of Vesuvius by night, reproduced on convex glass; and booklets of photographs, that English people would always come to look at. He could see his grandfather now, stepping in front of the counter with a booklet of views in his hand, and shaking it out suddenly, br-r-r … in front of his English customers. Also he could see his grandfather tying up neat little parcels, giving change, bowing and smiling with still handsome eye and gleaming smile, and accompanying people to the door, waving an obsequious and yet benevolent hand. Aldo would have liked a little shop in Naples, and easy-going, trustful English customers who would not haggle and bargain, but pass friendly remarks about the weather, and pay their good money. Ah, the good little money coming in that one can count every evening, and put away, and look at, and count again; not this vague, distant "salary," that one does not see, or count, or have, with no surprises and no possibilities.
But Valeria was speaking. "A shop! My dear Aldo! What a dreadful idea! How can you say such a thing?"
And Nancy, who thought he was joking, said, with all her dimples alight: "That's right, Aldo. We shall have a toy-shop—five hundred rattles for the baby, eight hundred rubber dolls for the baby, ten thousand woolly sheep and cows that squeak when you squeeze them. Let us have a toy-shop, there's a dear boy." She jumped up and kissed his straight, narrow parting on the top of his shining black head. "And if all the toys are broken by the baby, and have the paint licked off, and the woolliness pulled out," she added, with her cheek against his, "I shall give away an autograph poem with each of the damaged beasts, and charge two francs extra."
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.