<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
<p class="pch">THE WINNING TICKET</p>
<p class="drop-cap04">THEN came the astonishing turn of fortune’s
wheel—that is almost fact, scarcely
metaphor—which seemed to transform the
whole situation. It came to my knowledge on the
very day on which those protracted labors of ours
reached a conclusion at last.</p>
<p>We had had a long and tedious final session—for
this time there was not only business to wind up,
but compliments to be exchanged too—and I came
out of it at half-past six in the evening so exhausted
that I turned into the nearest <i>café</i> at which I was
known, and procured a whisky-and-soda. With it
the waiter brought me a copy of <i>Le Soir</i>, and, as I
sipped my “refresher” and smoked a cigar, I glanced
through it, hoping (to be candid) to find some complimentary
notice of the achievements of my Conference.
I did not find that—perhaps it was too
soon to expect it—but I did find something which
interested me a great deal more. Among the miscellaneous
items of “intelligence” I read the following:</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</SPAN></span></p>
<p class="pbq p1">“The first prize in yesterday’s draw of the Reparation
Lottery Loan has been won by M. Arsenio
Valdez of Nice. The amount of the prize is three
million francs. The number of the winning ticket
was two hundred and twelve thousand, one hundred
and twenty-one. We understand that the fortunate
winner purchased it for a trifling sum from a chance
acquaintance at Monte Carlo.”</p>
<p class="p1">I re-read the winning number; indeed, I took my
pencil out of my pocket and wrote it down—in figures—on
the margin of the newspaper. I believe
that I said softly, “Well, I’m damned!” The astonishing
creature had brought it off at last, and
brought it off to some tune. Three million francs!
Pretty good—for anybody except the Frosts of this
world, of course!</p>
<p>Aye, Arsenio would buy that ticket from a chance
acquaintance (probably one of the same kidney as
himself) if he had the coin, or could beg, borrow,
or steal it! Number 212, 121! There it was three
times over—21—21—21. He would have seemed
to himself absolutely mad if he had let that ticket
escape him, when chance threw it in his way. It
was, indeed, as though Fortune said, “I have teased
you long enough, O faithful votary, but I give myself
to you at last!” And she had—she actually
had. Arsenio’s long quest was accomplished.</p>
<p>What would he do with it, I pondered, as I
puffed and sipped. I saw him resplendent again as<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</SPAN></span>
he had been on that never forgotten Twenty-first,
and smiling in monkeyish triumph over all of us who
had mocked him for a fool. I even saw him paying
back Nina and Godfrey Frost, though possibly this
was a detail which might be omitted, as being a distasteful
reminder of his days of poverty. I saw
him dazzling Lucinda with something picturesquely
extravagant, a pearl necklace or a carpet of banknotes—what
you will in that line. I heard him
saying to her, “Number twenty-one! Always
twenty-one. <i>Your</i> number, Lucinda!” And I saw
her flushing like a girl just out of the schoolroom,
as Godfrey had seen her flush at Nice.</p>
<p>Ah, Godfrey Frost! This event was—to put
the thing vulgarly—one in the eye for him, wasn’t
it? He had lost his pull; his lever failed him.
He could no longer pose, either to himself or to
anybody else, as the chivalrous reliever of distress,
the indignant friend to starving beauty. And Nina’s
gracious, though sadly unappreciated, bounty to a
fallen rival—that went by the board too.</p>
<p>These things were to the good; but at the back
of my mind there lurked a discontent, even a revolt.
Godfrey had proposed to buy Valdez; to
buy Lucinda from Valdez, he had meant. Now Arsenio
himself would buy her with his winning ticket,
coating the transaction with such veneer of romance
as might still lie in magic Twenty-one, thrice
repeated. One could trust him to make the most
of that, skillfully to eke it out to cover the surface<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</SPAN></span>
as completely as possible. Would it be enough?
His hope lay in what that flush represented, the
memories it meant, that feeling in her which she
herself, long ago, had declared to be hers because
she was a primitive woman.</p>
<p>I did not, I fear, pay much attention to the
speeches—though I made one of them—at the farewell
dinner of our Conference that night; and next
day, my first free day, was still filled with the
thought of Arsenio and his three million francs;
my mind, vacant now of pressing preoccupations,
fell a prey to recollections, fancies, images. A restlessness
took possession of me; I could not stay in
Paris. I was entitled to a holiday; where should
I pass it? I did not want to go to Cragsfoot; I
had had enough of the Riviera. (There was possibly
a common element, ungallant towards a certain
lady and therefore not explicitly confessed to myself,
in my reluctance to turn my steps in either of
those directions.) Where should I go? Something
within me answered—Venice!</p>
<p>Why not? Always a pleasant place for a holiday
in times of peace; and one read that “peace
conditions” were returning; the pictures, and so on,
were returning too, or being dug up, or taken out
of their sandbags. And the place was reported to
be quite gay. Decidedly my holiday should be
passed at Venice.</p>
<p>Quite so! And a sporting gamble on my knowledge
of Arsenio, of his picturesque instinct, his eye<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</SPAN></span>
for a situation! As a minor attraction, there were
the needy aristocrats, his father’s old set, whom he
had been wont to “touch” in days of adversity; it
would be fine to flaunt his money in their eyes; they
would not sniff, Frost-like, at three million francs.
Here I felt even confident that he would speak
gracefully of repayment, though with care not to
wound Castilian pride by pressing the suggestion unduly.
But the great thing would be the association,
the memory, the two floors at the top of the <i>palazzo</i>.
Surely she would go there with him if she
would go anywhere? Surely there, if anywhere,
she would come back to him? That, beyond all
others, was the place to offer the pearl necklace, to
spread the carpet of bank notes. If the two were
to be found anywhere in the world together, it would
be at Venice, at the <i>palazzo</i>.</p>
<p>So to Venice I went—on an errand never defined
to myself, urged by an impulse, a curiosity, a longing,
to which many things in the past united to give
force, which the present position sharpened. “I
must know; I must see for myself.” That feeling,
which had made me unable to rest at Villa San
Carlo, now drove me to Venice. Putting money in
my pocket and giving my Paris bankers the name
of my hotel, I set out, on a road the end of which
I could not see, but which I was determined to tread,
if I could, and to explore.</p>
<p>In spite of my “facilities”—I had them again, and
certainly this time Lady Dundrannan, if she knew<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</SPAN></span>
my errand, would not have offered to secure them—my
journey was slow, and interrupted at one point
by a railway strike. When I arrived at my hotel
on the Grand Canal—Arsenio’s <i>palazzo</i> was just
round the corner by water, to be reached by land
through a short but tortuous network of alleys with
a little high stone bridge to finish up the approach
to its back door—a telegram had been waiting
forty-eight hours for me, forwarded from Cragsfoot
by way of Paris. In it Waldo told me of Aunt
Bertha’s death; influenza had swooped down on the
weakened old body, and after three days’ illness
made an end. It was hopeless to think of getting
back in time for the funeral; I could have done it
from Paris; I could not from Venice. I despatched
the proper reply, and went out to the Piazza. My
mind was for the moment switched off from what I
had come about; but I thought more about Sir Paget
than about poor old Aunt Bertha herself. He
would be very lonely. Would Briarmount allay his
loneliness?</p>
<p>It was about eleven o’clock on a bright sunny
morning. They were clearing away the protective
structures that had been erected round the buildings—St.
Mark’s, the Ducal Palace, the new Campanile.
I sat in a chair outside Florian’s and
watched. There on that fine morning the war
seemed somehow just a bad dream—or, rather, a
play that had been played and was finished; a tragedy
on which the curtain had fallen. See, they<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</SPAN></span>
were clearing away the properties, and turning to
real ordinary life again. So, for a space, it seemed
to a man seduced by beauty into forgetfulness.</p>
<p>They came and went, men, women and children,
all on their business and their recreations; there
were soldiers too in abundance, some draggled,
dirty, almost in rags, some tidy, trim and new, but
all with a subtle air of something finished, a job
done, comparative liberty at least secured; even the
prisoners—several gangs of them were marched by—had
that same air of release about them. Hawkers
plied their wares—women mostly, a few old
men and young boys; baskets were thrust under my
nose; I motioned them away impatiently. I had
traveled all night, and uncomfortably, with little
sleep. Here was peace; I wanted peace; I was
drowsy.</p>
<p>Thus, half as though in a dream, half as if it
were an answer to what my mood demanded,—beauty
back into the world, that was it—she came
across the Piazza towards the place where I sat.
Others sat there too—a row of them on my left
hand; I had taken a chair rather apart, at the end
of the row. She wore the little black frock—the
one she had worn at Ste. Maxime, the one Godfrey
had seen her in at Cimiez, or the fellow of it. On
her left arm hung an open basket; it was full of
fine needlework. I saw her take out the pieces, unfold
them, wave them in the air. She found customers;
distant echoes of chaff and chaffering<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</SPAN></span>
reached my ears. From chair to chair she passed,
coming nearer to me always.</p>
<p>I had upon me at this moment no surprise at seeing
her, no wonder why she, wife of the now opulent
Don Arsenio Valdez, was hawking fine needlework
on the Piazza. The speculation as to the state of
affairs, with which my mind had been so insatiably
busy, did not now occupy it. I was just boyishly
wrapped up in the anticipation of the joke that was
going to happen—that must happen unless—horrible
thought!—she sold out all her stock before she
got to me. But no! She smiled and joked, but she
stood out for her price. The basket would hold
out—surely it would!—As she came near, I turned
my head away—absorbed in the contemplation of
St. Mark’s—just of St. Mark’s!</p>
<p>I felt her by me before she spoke. Then I heard,
“Julius!” and a little gurgle of laughter. I turned
my head with an answering laugh; her eyes were
looking down at my face with their old misty
wonder.</p>
<p>“You here! I can’t sit down by you here. I’ll
walk across the Piazzetta, along to the quay. Follow
me in a minute. Don’t lose sight of me!”</p>
<p>“I don’t propose to do that,” I whispered back,
as she swung away from me. I paid my account,
and followed her some fifty yards behind. I did
not overtake her till we were at the Danieli Hotel.
“Where shall we go to talk?” I asked.</p>
<p>“Once or twice I’ve done good business on the<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</SPAN></span>
Lido. There’s a boat just going to start. Shall we
go on board, Julius?”</p>
<p>I agreed eagerly and followed her on to the little
boat. She set me down in the bows, went off with
her basket, and presently came back without it.
“I’ve left it with the captain,” she explained; “he
knows me already, and will take care of it for me.
No more work to-day, since you’ve come! And
you must give me lunch, as you used to at Ste. Maxime.
Somewhere very humble, because I’m in my
working clothes.” She indicated the black frock,
and the black shawl which she wore over her fair
hair, after the fashion of the Venetian girls; I was
myself in an uncommonly shabby suit of pre-war
tweeds; we matched well enough so far as gentility
was concerned. I studied her face. It had grown
older, rather sharper in outline, though not lined
or worn. And it still preserved its serenity; she
still seemed to look out on this troublesome world,
with all its experiences and vicissitudes, from somewhere
else, from an inner sanctum in which she
dwelt and from which no one could wholly draw
her forth.</p>
<p>“How long have you been here?” I asked her,
as the little steamboat sped on its short passage
across to the Lido.</p>
<p>“Oh, about a fortnight or three weeks. I like
it, and I got work at once. I’d rather sew than sell,
but they sew so well here! And they tell me I sell
so well. So selling it mainly is!”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>“Then you came before the—the result of the
lottery?”</p>
<p>“Oh, you’ve heard about the lottery, have you?
From Arsenio, or——?”</p>
<p>“No. I just saw it in the papers.”</p>
<p>The mention of the lottery seemed to afford her
fresh amusement, but she said nothing more about
it at the moment. “You see, I wanted to come away
from the Riviera—never mind why!”</p>
<p>“I believe I know why!”</p>
<p>“How can you? If you’ve not heard from Arsenio!”</p>
<p>“I’ve been in Paris—and there I saw Godfrey
Frost.”</p>
<p>“Oh!” The exclamation was long drawn out;
it seemed to recognize that my having seen Godfrey
Frost might explain a good deal of knowledge on
my part. But she went on with her explanation.
“Since the air raids have stopped, Arsenio has managed
to let one floor of the <i>palazzo</i>—the <i>piano
nóbile</i>; and I suggested to him that I might come and
live on the top floor. I’d saved enough money for
the journey, and I pay Arsenio rent. I’m entirely
independent.”</p>
<p>“As you were at Ste. Maxime—and at Nice—or
Cimiez?”</p>
<p>“I believe you do know all about it!”</p>
<p>“Shall I mention a certain blue frock?”</p>
<p>She flushed—for her, quite brightly—and slowly
nodded her head. Then she sat silent till we<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</SPAN></span>
reached the Lido, and had disembarked. Now she
seemed unwilling to talk more of her affairs; she
preferred to question me on mine. I told her of
Aunt Bertha’s death.</p>
<p>“Ah, she liked me once. Poor Sir Paget!” was
her only comment. “I think he likes you still,” I
suggested. She shook her head doubtfully, and insisted
on hearing about what I had been doing in
Paris.</p>
<p>It was not till after we had lunched and were
sitting drinking our coffee—just as in old days at
Ste. Maxime—that I brought her back to her own
affairs—to the present position.</p>
<p>“And you’re alone here—on the top floor of the
<i>palazzo</i>?” I asked.</p>
<p>“Yes,” she answered, smiling. “Alone—alone
on the top floor. I came here alone; we had had a
quarrel over—over what we’ll call the blue frock.
Arsenio promised not to follow me here unless I
gave him leave—which I told him I never should do.
‘Oh, yes, you will some day,’ he said; but he gave
me the promise. Oh, well, a promise from him!
What is it? Of course he’s broken it. He arrived
here the day before yesterday. He’s now at the
<i>palazzo</i>—on the floor below mine. It’s just like
Arsenio, isn’t it?”</p>
<p>She spoke of him with a sharper bitterness than
she had ever shown at Ste. Maxime, though the old
amusement at him was not entirely obscured by it.
Her tone made me—in spite of everything—feel<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</SPAN></span>
rather sorry for him. The dream of his life—was
it to come only half true? Was the half that had
come true to have no power to bring the other half
with it? However little one might wish him success,
or he deserve it, one pang of pity for him was inevitable.</p>
<p>“Well, perhaps he had some excuse,” I suggested.
“He was naturally—well, elated. That wonderful
piece of luck, you know!”</p>
<p>“Oh, that!” she murmured contemptuously—really
as if winning three million francs, on a million
to one chance or something like it, was nothing at all
to make a fuss about! And that to a man who had
spent years of his life, and certainly sacrificed any
decency and self-respect that he possessed, in an apparently
insane effort to do it.</p>
<p>Her profile was turned to me now; she was looking
over the sands towards the Adriatic. I watched
her face as I went. “And he won on his favorite
number! On twenty-one, three times repeated!
That must have seemed to him——” There was
no sign of emotion on her face. “Well, he called
it your number, didn’t he?”</p>
<p>She knew what I meant, and she turned to me.
But now she did not flush like a girl just out of the
schoolroom. There was no change of color, no
softening of her face such as the flush must have
brought with it.</p>
<p>“You’re speaking of a dead thing,” she told me in<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</SPAN></span>
a low calm voice. “Of a thing that is at last quite
dead.”</p>
<p>“It died hard, Lucinda.”</p>
<p>“Yes, it lived through a great deal; it lived long
enough—obstinately enough—to do sore wrong to—to
other people,—better people than either Arsenio
or me; long enough to make me do bad things—and
suffer them. But now it’s dead. He’s killed
it at last.”</p>
<p>At the moment I found nothing to say. Of
course I was glad—no use in denying that. Yet it
was grievous in its way. The thing was dead—the
thing that so long, through so much, had bound her
to Arsenio Valdez. The thing which had begun
with the kiss in the garden at Cragsfoot, years ago,
was finished.</p>
<p>“He put me to utter shame; he made me eat dirt,”
she whispered with a sudden note of passion in her
voice. She laid her arm on mine, and rose from her
chair. “It spoils my meeting with you to think of
it. Come back; I can do some work before it’s
dark, and you can go and see him—he’ll be at the
<i>palazzo</i>. There’s no reason you shouldn’t be
friends with him still.”</p>
<p>“I don’t quite know about that,” I observed cautiously.</p>
<p>“I’m willing enough to be friendly with him, for
that matter. But that’s—that’s not enough.
Come along, we shall just about catch a boat, I
think.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>We began to walk along to the quay where we
were to embark.</p>
<p>“So he says he’s going to kill himself!” Lucinda
added with a scornful laugh.</p>
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