<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER XIX</h2>
<p class="pch">VIEWS AND WHIMS</p>
<p class="drop-cap08">SUCH, then, was Lucinda’s state of mind with
regard to the matter. Her encounter with
Nina at Cimiez had opened her eyes; after
that, no evasions or lies from Arsenio could avail to
blind her. The keys of the fort had been sold behind
her back. The one thing that she had preserved
and cherished out of the wreck of her fortunes,
out of the sordid tragedy of her relations
with her husband, had been filched from her; her
proud and fastidious independence had been bartered;
Arsenio had sold it; Nina Dundrannan had
bought it. It was in effect that wearing of Nina’s
cast-off frocks which, long ago at Ste. Maxime, she
had pictured, with a smile, as an inconceivable emblem
of humiliation. Arsenio had brought her to
it, tricked her into it by his “presents” out of his
“winnings.”</p>
<p>A point of sentiment? Precisely—and entirely;
of a sentiment rooted deep in the nature of the two
women, and deep in the history of their lives, in the
rivalry and clash that there had been between them
and between their destinies. The affair of the blue<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</SPAN></span>
frock (to sum up the offense under that nickname—there
had probably been other “presents”) might be
regarded as merely the climax of the indignities
which Arsenio had brought upon her—the proverbial
last straw. To her it was different in kind from all
the rest. In her <i>midinette’s</i> frock, in her Venetian
shawl, she could make or sell her needlework contentedly;
if on that score Nina felt exultation and
dealt out scorn, Nina was wrong; nay, Nina was
vulgar, and therefore a proper object for the
laughter which had amazed and impressed Godfrey
Frost. But she had been made Nina’s dependent,
the object of her triumphant contemptuous bounty.
That was iron entering her soul, a sharp point
piercing to the very heart of it. This deadly stroke
at her pride was fatal also to the last of her tenderness
for Arsenio. The old tie between them—once
so strong, so imperious, surviving so much—was
finally broken. She was willing to be friendly—if
friendliness can co-exist with undisguised resentment,
with a sense of outrage bitter as death itself.
But, in truth, how could it?</p>
<p>That same afternoon I made my way to the <i>palazzo</i>,
rather a gloomy, ruinous-looking old building, on
a narrow side canal, facing across it on to the heavy
blank bulk of a convent. This, then, was the scene
of “Venice,” of the old romance. To this they had
come back—not indeed quite in the manner that I
had imagined their return in my musings at Paris,
but still, I could not doubt, on his part at least with<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</SPAN></span>
something of the idea and the impulse which my
fancy had attributed to him. How was he now
finding—and facing—the situation as it stood?</p>
<p>I climbed up the stone staircase—past the <i>piano
nóbile</i>, now let, as I had learnt, past another apartment
<i>al secondo</i>—to the third floor. There I
knocked. The door was opened by a small wizened
man, dressed in seedy black. He looked like a
waiter or a valet, run to seed. I asked for Valdez.
Yes, Monsieur was in, and would no doubt see Monsieur.
He himself was Monsieur Valdez’s servant—might
he take my hat and stick? He talked
while he did it; he had come with Monsieur from the
Riviera—from Nice; he had been—er—in the same
business establishment with Monsieur at Nice before—before
Monsieur’s great <i>coup</i>. In fact—here he
smiled proudly and detained me in the passage, laying
one grimy finger on my arm—Monsieur considered
him a mascot; it was from him that Monsieur
had purchased ticket 212,121. Imagine that!
“A pity you didn’t keep it!” said I. He just
shrugged his shoulders, a weary smile acquiescing in
that bit of bad luck. “However, Monsieur is very
good to me,” he ended as he—at last—opened an
inner door. Apparently Monsieur’s wonderful luck
gave him a sort of divinity in a fellow-gambler’s
eyes.</p>
<p>I found myself in a long narrow room, with three
windows facing on the canal and the convent. The
furniture was sparse, and looked old and rickety,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</SPAN></span>
but it had the remains of elegance; only a small rug
or two mitigated the severity of the stone floor; one
could see by dirty marks where pictures had once
hung on the walls, but they hung there no more; altogether
a depressing apartment.</p>
<p>Arsenio Valdez was sitting at a big bureau between
two of the windows, with his back towards the
door. He turned round a dreary-looking face as he
heard my entrance. But the moment he saw who I
was, he sprang up and greeted me warmly, with evident
pleasure. He even held my hand while I accounted
for my presence as best I could. I had a
holiday, I thought that perhaps the change in his
fortunes would bring him back to Venice, and I
couldn’t resist the chance of congratulating him. I
tried to make a joke of the whole business, and ended
by squeezing his hand and felicitating him anew on
his magnificent luck. “It took my breath away
when I read it in the papers,” I said.</p>
<p>“Oh, but I knew, I knew!” he declared, as he led
me to where a couple of armchairs were placed by
a small table in the third window, and made me sit
down. “It was a question of time, only of time.
If I could keep afloat, it was bound to come! That
was what nobody would believe. People are so
queer! And when Louis, that poor little chap who
showed you in, offered me the ticket—he worked at
that little den in Nice—when he offered me that
ticket—well, it was growing dark, and I had to spell
out the figures one by one—two one, two one, two<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</SPAN></span>
one! You see! There it was. I was as certain as
if I had the prize in my pocket. Hard luck on him?
No—he’d never have won with it—though the little
fool may think he would. That number would
never have won except for me. It was my number—and
again my number—and once again!”</p>
<p>He poured this out in a torrent of excited triumph,
every bit of him from top to toe full of movement
and animation. It was a great vindication of himself,
of his faith, that he was putting before the
skeptic’s eyes. He stood justified by it in all that he
had done and suffered, in all that he had asked
others to do and to endure. He was more than
justified. It was a glorification of him, Arsenio
Valdez, who had never doubted or faltered, who
had pursued Fortune for years, unwearied, undaunted.
He had caught her by the mantle at last.
<i>Voilà!</i> He ended with a last tumultuous waving of
both his hands.</p>
<p>“Well, you’re entitled to your crow, old chap,” I
said, “even if it doesn’t alter the fact that you were
a damned fool.”</p>
<p>“Ah, you never had any poetry, romance, imagination
in you!” he retorted, now with his old mocking
smile. “You haven’t got it, you Rillingtons—neither
you, nor yet Waldo. That was why I——”
He stopped, looking monkeyish.</p>
<p>“Why Twenty-one became your lucky number?
Exactly; I remember the day very well myself. By<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</SPAN></span>
the way, I ought to tell you that I’ve already seen
Lucinda.”</p>
<p>He listened to a brief account of our meeting and
excursion in silence, seeming to watch my face
keenly. “You and she have always been very good
friends,” he remarked thoughtfully at the end. He
seemed to be considering—perhaps whether to take
me into his confidence, to consult me. I did not, of
course, feel entitled—or inclined!—to tell him of
the confidences that Lucinda had reposed in me.</p>
<p>“Meanwhile,” I observed, “beyond acquiring a
manservant——”</p>
<p>“Louis? Oh, well, I should have been a fool not
to keep him about me, shouldn’t I?”</p>
<p>“Yes! Didn’t Roman Generals at their triumphs
carry a slave along, whose business it was to remind
them that they were mortal? If you look at the
unfortunate Louis from that point of view——”</p>
<p>“That fellow will bring me luck again,” he asserted
positively and seriously.</p>
<p>“Rot! What I was going to say was that you
don’t seem to have launched out much on the
strength of your three millions.” I cast a glance
round the faded room.</p>
<p>He jerked his head towards the big bureau at
which I had found him seated. “The money’s all
in there. I haven’t touched a penny of it. I
shan’t—just yet.” Again he was watching me; he
was, I think, wondering how much Lucinda had said
to me. “I’ve got a tenant for the first floor, and<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</SPAN></span>
get along on the rent of that. And Lucinda——”
He gave what may be called an experimental smile,
a silent “feeler”——“Well, she persists in her
whim, as you’ve seen. Whatever may be said of it
down at Nice, it’s purely a whim now, isn’t it?”</p>
<p>“Whims are powerful things with women,” I remarked.
And platitudes are often useful conversational
refuges.</p>
<p>He sat frowning for a minute, with the weary
baffled air that his face had worn before he caught
sight of me. “Perhaps you don’t care for such a
short let, but, if it suits you, I’ll take the second
floor for a month certain,” I continued.</p>
<p>In an instant his face lit up. “You, Julius!
Why, that’s splendid! You’ll have to rough it a
bit; but Louis will look after you. He’s really very
good. Will you actually do it?”</p>
<p>“Of course I will—and glad to get it.”</p>
<p>“Well now, that is good!”</p>
<p>I knew that he was friendly towards me, but this
seemed an excess of pleasure. Besides, his face,
lately so weary and dreary, had assumed now the
monkey smile which I knew so well—the smile it
wore when he was “doing” somebody, getting the
better of somebody by one of his tricks. But whom
could he be doing now? Me? Lucinda? We two
seemed the only possible victims. That we were
victims—that we fitted into his plan—appeared
clear, later on. But it was a mistake to suppose that<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</SPAN></span>
we only were concerned. His next words enlightened
me as to that.</p>
<p>“I should be most delighted to have you for a
neighbor, under my roof, in any case. I’m sure you
know that. Oh, yes, I’m grateful to you. You
might have cut me! I know it. But you’ve taken
a broad view. You’ve allowed for the heart—though
not for the imagination, for the certainties
that lie beyond probability. Besides all that—which
I feel deeply—by taking that floor you relieve
me of a little difficulty.”</p>
<p>“I’m glad to hear it. How’s that?”</p>
<p>“Since I came here, I have naturally paid some
visits among my old friends. You smile! Oh, yes,
I’m human enough to like congratulations. Some of
them are people of rank, as you know—you used to
chaff me about my grandees! Their names appear
in the papers—those society paragraphs—the Paris
editions of American papers—Oh, my Lord! My
name appeared—an item—‘Don Arsenio Valdez has
returned to Palazzo Valdez!” He rose, went to
the big bureau, and came back with a telegram.
“Received to-day,” he added, as he put it into my
hands.</p>
<p>I read it, looked across at him, and laughed. It
was what I had expected; the only surprise was that
Godfrey had taken rather long to track them.
Scruples still obstinate, perhaps!</p>
<p>“So he wants to take an apartment in your
<i>palazzo</i>, does he?”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>“I’ve been under some obligations to him; it
would be difficult to refuse. We’re good friends,
but—I didn’t want him here. It wouldn’t be—convenient.”
Now he was looking furtive and rather
embarrassed, as if he were uncertain how much
truth and how much lie he had better administer to
me.</p>
<p>“I saw him in Paris,” I remarked, “the other day,
and from what he said it seemed that he’d made very
good friends both with you and with your wife.”</p>
<p>He smiled; having no such shame as ordinary
mortals have, he accepted exposure easily. He relapsed
into the truth quite gracefully. “I don’t
know how the devil Lucinda feels about him,” he
confessed. “I wish he wouldn’t come at all, but I
can’t help that. At all events he needn’t be in the
house with us now!”</p>
<p>“Have you any reason to suppose she doesn’t like
him?” I asked.</p>
<p>His restlessness returned, and with it his dreary
look. He got up and began to wander about the
long room, fingering furniture and ornaments, then
drifting back to me at the window, and the next
moment away again. Suddenly, from the other end
of the room, he came out with, “What have they
told between them? Godfrey at Paris, and Lucinda
here to-day?”</p>
<p>“Well, pretty nearly everything, I fancy. If you
mean the money and Nina Dundrannan, and so<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</SPAN></span>
forth. He described that meeting at Cimiez, for
example.”</p>
<p>“Yes, they’ve told you everything—everything
that matters. Well, what do you think?”</p>
<p>“If we’re to be friends, I’d sooner not offer an
opinion.”</p>
<p>He flashed out at me. “There’s your code—your
damned code! Didn’t I learn it in England?
Didn’t I have it literally drubbed into me—thrashed
into me—at school? And you keep it even when
you love a woman!”</p>
<p>“H’m! Not always in that case, I’m afraid, Arsenio.”</p>
<p>“If you ever do love a woman,” he went on contemptuously.
“For my part, I don’t believe any of
you know how!” He came to a stand before me.
“Why didn’t Waldo come after me and shoot me
through the head?”</p>
<p>“There was the greatest difficulty in stopping him,
I honestly assure you. But the war came, you
know, and it was his duty——”</p>
<p>“His duty! Oh, my Lord, his duty!” He positively
groaned at the point of view. “I give you my
word, if he had come after me, I would have never
returned his fire. I would have bared my breast—so!”
A rapid motion of his hands made as though
to tear the clothes from his chest; it was a very
dramatic gesture. “But when he didn’t come—pooh!”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>“He was fighting for his country,” I suggested
mildly.</p>
<p>“And even you might have taken up the quarrel
with great propriety,” he said gravely.</p>
<p>“I apologize for not having shot you. Try not
to be such an ass, Arsenio.”</p>
<p>“You and he can sit down under such an affront
as I put on you and your family, and shelter yourselves
under duty. Duty! But up go your noses
and down go your lips when I, adoring the adorable,
milk a couple of vulgar millionaires of a few pounds
to make her happy, splendid, rich as she ought to be.
Yes, yes, about that you—offer no opinion! And
these people—my dupes, eh?”</p>
<p>“The word’s rather theatrical—as you’re being,
Arsenio. But let it pass.”</p>
<p>“Oh, yes, theatrical! I know! If a man doesn’t
love just like, and no more than, a bull, in England,
he’s theatrical. Well, what about my dupes? The
woman with her moneybags, meanly revengeful—Ah,
you give her up to me! You haven’t a word to
say, friend Julius! And the young man? Let us
forgive the good God for creating the young man!
He would buy my wife! Ah, would he? And buy
her cheap! All I’ve had of him would perhaps buy
her a fur coat! For the rest, he relied on his fascinations.
Cheaper than cash! I would have
cashed a million pounds and flung them at her feet!”</p>
<p>“But that’s just as vulgar,” I protested, rather
weakly. I was a little carried away by Arsenio’s<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</SPAN></span>
eloquence; it was at least a point of view which I
had not sufficiently considered.</p>
<p>“Not from him! It would be giving what he
loves best!” He laughed in a bitter triumph, then
suddenly flung himself down into his chair again.
“I had ten louis left—five of hers, five of his. With
hers I bought the ticket; on his I starved till the
draw came. Am I not revenged on the woman who
would humiliate my wife, on the man who would
buy the honor of Donna Lucinda Valdez?”</p>
<p>“It’s about the oddest kind of revenge I ever
heard of,” was all I found to say. “You’ll complete
it, I suppose, by dazzling Godfrey, when he arrives,
with the spectacle of Luanda’s virtuous
splendor? Or is he to find her still selling needlework
on the Piazza?”</p>
<p>He leant across the little table and laid his hand
on my arm. I imagined that it must be the table at
which Lucinda had once sat, mending her gloves—most
skillfully no doubt, for had she not proved herself
a fine needlewoman?</p>
<p>“You too are against me?” he asked in a low
voice. “Bitterly against me, Julius?”</p>
<p>“Once you took her—yes, here. Then you forsook
her. Then you took her again. And you’ve
dragged her in the dirt.”</p>
<p>“But now I can——!”</p>
<p>“That to her would be dirt too,” I said. “I suppose
she won’t touch that money? That’s why she’s
still peddling her wares on the Piazza?”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>He made a despairing gesture of assent with his
hands—despairing, uncomprehending. Then he
raised his head and said proudly, “But if she doesn’t
yet understand, I shall make her!” Then, with a
sudden change of manner, he added, “And you’ll
move into the floor below to-morrow? That’s
capital! You might ask us both to dinner—give a
housewarming! Louis will look after your marketing
and cooking.”</p>
<p>“With the greatest of pleasure,” I agreed, but
with some surprise. It would have seemed more
natural in him to invite me on the first night.</p>
<p>He saw my surprise; what didn’t he see when he
exercised his wits?</p>
<p>“It must be that way; because she never comes
into my apartment,” he said, but now quietly, cheerfully,
as if he were mentioning another of those
whims which are so powerful with women.</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />