<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER XX</h2>
<p class="pch">LIVING FUNNILY</p>
<p class="drop-cap04">THE “housewarming” so adroitly suggested
by Arsenio duly took place; it was followed
by other meetings of the same kind. Louis
had evidently received his instructions; every evening
at half-past seven he laid dinner for three in my
<i>salon</i>; and this without any apology or explanation.
When his table was spread, he would say, “I will inform
Madame and Monsieur that dinner is served.”
Presently Madame and Monsieur would arrive—separately;
Madame first (I think Arsenio listened
until he heard her step passing his landing), Monsieur
completing the party. I played host—rather
ostentatiously; there had to be no mistake as to who
was the host; and every morning I gave Louis
money for the marketing.</p>
<p>Except for this evening meeting, we three saw
little of one another. Arsenio was either out or
shut up in his own apartment all day; Lucinda went
punctually to her work in the morning and did not
return till six o’clock; I did the sights, went sailing
sometimes, or just mooned about; I met Lucinda
now and then, but beyond a nod and a smile she<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</SPAN></span>
took no notice of me; there were no more excursions
to the Lido. Perhaps the claims of business did not
permit them to her; perhaps she thought them unnecessary,
in view of our opportunities for conversation
in the evening.</p>
<p>For we had many. Arsenio’s views on the position
in which he found himself had appeared pretty
clearly from what he had said. By an incomprehensible
perversity—of fate, of woman, of English
temperament and morals—his grand <i>coup</i> had
proved a failure; he would not accept that failure as
final, but neither for the moment could he alter it.
He always seemed to himself on the brink of success;
every day he was tantalized by a fresh rebuff.
She was friendly, but icily cold and, beyond doubt,
subtly, within herself, ridiculing him. The result
was that, in the old phrase, he could live neither
with her nor without her. The daily meeting which
he had engineered, with my aid (and at my expense),
was a daily disappointment; his temper could endure
only a certain amount of her society in the mood in
which she presented herself to him. After that,
his patience gave; he probably felt that his self-control
would. So always, soon after our meal was
finished, he would go off on some pretext or another;
sometimes we heard him above in his own
apartment, walking about restlessly; sometimes we
heard him go downstairs past my landing—out
somewhere. He seldom came back before ten
o’clock; and his return was always the signal for<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</SPAN></span>
Lucinda to retire to her own quarters at the top of
the house.</p>
<p>During his absence she and I sat together, talking
or in silence, I smoking, she sewing; if the evening
was fine and warm, we sat in the armchairs by the
little table in the window; if the weather was chilly—and
in that dingy stone-floored room it was apt to
seem chillier than it was—Louis made us a little fire
of chips and logs, and we sat close by it. The old
fleeting intimacy of Ste. Maxime renewed itself between
us. After five or six evenings spent in this
fashion, it almost seemed as though Arsenio were
a visitor who came and went, while she and I belonged
to the establishment.</p>
<p>“The atmosphere’s quite domestic,” I said to her
with a smile. It was cold that night; we were close
by the fire; her fingers were busy with her work
under the light of the one lamp which showed up
her face in clear outline—just as it had been defined
against the gloom of the dark <i>salle-à-manger</i> at Ste.
Maxime.</p>
<p>“Well, you see, you’re a restful sort of person to
be with,” she answered, smiling, but not looking up,
and going on with her sewing.</p>
<p>We had not talked much more about her affairs,
or Arsenio’s. She seemed to think that enough had
been said as to those, on the Lido; her conversation
had been mostly on general matters, though she also
took pleasure in describing to me the incidents and
humors of her business hours, both here at Venice<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</SPAN></span>
and in the past at Ste. Maxime and Nice. To-night
I felt impelled to get a little nearer to her secret
thoughts again.</p>
<p>“Wasn’t Waldo restful—barring an occasional
storm?”</p>
<p>“Yes; but then—as I’ve told you—at that time I
wasn’t. Never for an hour really. Now I am.
I should be quite content to go on just as we are forever.”
She looked up and gave me a smile. “I include
you in ‘we’, Julius. You give me a sense of
safety.”</p>
<p>“You can’t sell needlework on the Piazza all your
life,” I expostulated.</p>
<p>“Really I could quite happily, if only I were let
alone—otherwise. But I shan’t be, of course. Arsenio
will get tired of his present tactics soon—the
ones he’s followed since you came. We shall either
go back to storms and heroics again, or he’ll discover
something else. Just now he’s trying the patient,
the pathetic! But he won’t stick to that long. It’s
not in his nature.”</p>
<p>How calmly now she analyzed and dissected him!
With amusement still mingled with her scorn, but—it
must be repeated—with the old proportions terribly
reversed. It cannot be denied that there was
something cruel in the relentless vision of him which
she had now achieved.</p>
<p>“He’ll try something spectacular next, I expect,”
she pursued, delicately biting off a thread.</p>
<p>“You don’t mean—what you referred to on the<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</SPAN></span>
Lido?” I asked, raising my brows and passing my
hand across my jugular vein.</p>
<p>“Oh, no! That would be something real. His
will be a performance of some sort. It’s ten days
since he poured all his bank notes on the table before
me, and swore he’d burn them and kill himself if I
didn’t pick them up. Of course he hasn’t done
either! He’s locked them up again, and he’s trying
to get you to persuade me to see reason—in the way
he sees it!”</p>
<p>“But I’ve told him that—I’ve told what I think of
him—or as good as!”</p>
<p>“Well, as soon as he’s convinced this plan won’t
work, he’ll try another. You’ll see!” She smiled
again. “I shouldn’t wonder if the arrival of Godfrey
Frost were to produce some manifestation,
some change in his campaign.”</p>
<p>It was almost the first—I am not sure that it was
not absolutely the first—time that she had referred
to Godfrey. Though I felt considerable curiosity
about her feelings with regard to that young man, I
had forborne to question her. Whatever he might
be in himself, he was friend, partner, kinsman to
Nina Dundrannan. The subject might not be
agreeable.</p>
<p>“What’s that young man coming here for?” I
asked.</p>
<p>Something in my tone evidently amused her. She
laid her work down beside her, drew her chair nearer
the fire, and stretched out her legs towards the<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</SPAN></span>
blaze. She was thoughtful as well as amused, questioning
herself as well as talking to me; it was quite
in her old fashion.</p>
<p>“I liked him; he amused me—and it amused me.
He’s Nina, isn’t he? Nina writ large and clumsily?
What she is delicately, he is coarsely. Oh,
well, that’s rather a hard word, perhaps. I mean,
obviously, insistently. Where she carries an atmosphere,
he works an air pump. Still I liked him;
he was kind to me; he gave me treats—as you did.
And it was fun poaching on Nina’s preserves. After
all, she didn’t have it all her own way when we met at
Cimiez!”</p>
<p>“She’s not having it now, I should imagine—since
he’s coming to Venice.”</p>
<p>“I like treats, and I like being admired, and I
liked the poaching,” Lucinda pursued. “He gave
me all that. And he really was generously indignant
at my having to earn an honest living—no,
having to earn a poor living, I mean.”</p>
<p>“He gave Arsenio money too, didn’t he?” Of
course I knew the answer, but I had my reason for
putting the question.</p>
<p>“Yes; I didn’t know it, but I suspected it—or Arsenio
wouldn’t have been so accommodating to him.
But he really wanted to help me, to make things
easier for me. That wasn’t her motive!”</p>
<p>Remembering what I did of Lady Dundrannan’s
attitude and demeanor during my stay at Villa San
Carlo, I did not feel equal to arguing that it was.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>“So—altogether—I let him flirt with me a good
deal. I don’t think you know much about flirtation,
do you, Julius? Oh, I don’t mean love!
Well, it’s a series of advances and retreats, you see.”
(She entered on this exposition with a feigned and
hollow gravity.) “When the man advances, the
woman retreats. But if the man retreats, the
woman advances. And so it goes on. Do you at
all see, Julius?”</p>
<p>“I’m disposed to believe that you’re giving me a
practical demonstration—of the advance!”</p>
<p>She laughed gaily. “Pure theory—for the moment,
at all events! But he didn’t always advance
at the proper moment. Never you dare to tell Nina
that! But he didn’t. I’m not a vain woman, am I,
or I shouldn’t tell even you! Something always
seemed to bring him up short. Fear of Nina, do
you think? Or was he too big a man? Or had he
scruples?”</p>
<p>“A bit of all three, perhaps.” I had had the
benefit of another version of this story—at Paris.</p>
<p>“Anyhow he never did, or suggested, anything
very desperate. And so—I’m rather wondering
what’s bringing him to Venice. Because now we’re
rich—we have at least a competence. We’re respectable.
Monsieur Valdez can afford to be
honest; Madame Valdez can afford to keep straight.
Desperation might have had its chance at Nice.
Oh, yes, it might easily! It hasn’t surely got half<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</SPAN></span>
such a good chance now? I mean, it couldn’t seem
to have—to Godfrey Frost.”</p>
<p>“I’m not quite sure about that. He saw the
famous meeting at Cimiez. He’s told me about it—I
told you I’d seen him since, didn’t I? I fancy
he understands your feelings better than you think.
He has a good brain and—plenty of curiosity.”</p>
<p>“Then if he does understand—and still comes to
Venice——?” She looked at me with her brows
raised and a smile on her lips. “Looks serious,
doesn’t it?” she ended. She broke into low
laughter. “It would be such glorious fun to become
Mrs. Godfrey Frost!”</p>
<p>“You’ve got a husband still, remember!”</p>
<p>“That’s nothing—now. Or do you set up Arsenio
as morality?”</p>
<p>“Oh, no! If Arsenio’s morality, why, damn
morality!” I said.</p>
<p>“And there’s just the piquant touch of uncertainty
as to whether I could do it—whether I could become
even so much as an unofficial Mrs. Godfrey—whom
Nina didn’t know, but whom she’d think about!
Still—he is coming to Venice. It’s rather tempting,
isn’t it, Julius?”</p>
<p>“Does a revenge on Arsenio come into it at all?”</p>
<p>Her smile disappeared, her face suddenly grew
sad. “Oh, no, I’m having that already. I don’t
want to have—not as revenge—but I can’t help it.
It is so with me—no credit to me, either.”</p>
<p>“All the same, Arsenio isn’t pleased at our friend<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</SPAN></span>
coming to Venice. He was very glad when I took
this apartment—mainly because then Godfrey
couldn’t.”</p>
<p>“If you hadn’t come, and he had—I wonder!”</p>
<p>“Do you care for him in the very least?” I asked,
perhaps rather hotly.</p>
<p>“No,” she answered with cool carelessness.
“But is that the question?” She dropped out of her
chair on to her knees before the fire, holding out her
hands to warm them. Her face, pale under the
lamp, was ruddy in the blaze of the logs. “You’re
a silly old idealist, Julius. You idealize even me—me,
who did, in this very place, what shouldn’t be
done—me who ran away from a good marriage and
a better man—me who have knocked about anyhow
for years—knowing I was always on sale—I’m on
sale every afternoon on the Piazza—if only I chose
to make the bargain. But you choose to see me as
I was once.” She laughed gently. “Well, I think
you’ve saved my life—or my reason—twice—here
and at Ste. Maxime—so I suppose I must put up
with you!”</p>
<p>“You’ll never go to a man unless you love him,”
I said obstinately.</p>
<p>Suddenly she flung her hands high above her head.
“Oh, what does one keep in this wicked world, what
does one keep?”</p>
<p>Her hands sank down on to her knees—as though
their reluctant fall pictured the downward drag of
the world on the spirit. In that posture she<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</SPAN></span>
crouched many minutes without moving; and I, not
stirring either, watched her.</p>
<p>“I had my one virtue,” she said at last. “My
primitive virtue. I was faithful to my man—even
when I tried not to be, still I was. Now I’ve lost
even that. It wouldn’t cost me an hour’s sleep to
deceive or desert Arsenio. I should, in fact, rather
enjoy it, just for its own sake.”</p>
<p>“I daresay. But you’re not for sale—in marriage
or out of it. And, as you said, isn’t your revenge
complete?”</p>
<p>“That’s the worst of revenge; is it ever, in the
end, really complete?” She turned round on me
suddenly and laid a hand on my knee. “Yes—that’s
what has been in my mind. But it’s only just
this minute that I’ve seen it. I daresay you’ve seen
it, though, haven’t you? I’m becoming cruel; I’m
beginning to enjoy tormenting him. I’ve read
somewhere that people who have to punish do sometimes
get like that, even when it’s a just punishment.
But it’s rather an awful idea.”</p>
<p>Her face was full of a horrified surprise. “I do
get things out so, in talking to you,” she added in
a hurried murmur. “Oh, not words; thoughts, I
mean. You let me go on talking, and I straighten
myself out before my own eyes. You know? Till
now, I’ve never seen what I was coming down to.
Poor old Arsenio! After all, he’s not a snake or a
toad, is he?” She laughed tremulously. “Though
why should one be cruel even to toads and snakes?<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</SPAN></span>
One just leaves them alone. That’s what I must do
with Arsenio.”</p>
<p>“An illogical conclusion—since he isn’t snake or
toad,” I said, as lightly as I could.</p>
<p>“Oh, you know! That’s it! Yes, I’ve been
saying that I was very just, and fine, and all that!
And I’ve really been enjoying it! Julius dear, has
my honest work been all just viciousness—cattiness,
you know?”</p>
<p>“God bless you, no! Why do you round on
yourself like this? You’ve come through the whole
thing splendidly. Oh, you’re human! There’s
Nina, and all that, of course. But it’s nonsense to
twist the whole thing like that.”</p>
<p>“Yes, it is,” she decided—this time quickly, even
abruptly. “It hasn’t been that—not most of it anyhow.
But it’s in danger of being it now. It almost
is it, isn’t it?”</p>
<p>“Sometimes, at dinner, I’ve thought you a little
cruel.”</p>
<p>“Yes—I have been.” She rose to her feet almost
with a jump. “If I have to go—to rescue myself
from that—will you help me, Julius? Because I’ve
no money to go far—to take myself out of his
reach.”</p>
<p>As—on this question—we stood opposite to one
another, she just murmuring “Yes, that’s it,” I nonplussed
at her question, at the whole turn her talk
had taken—we heard the tramp of steps on the stone
staircase. She flung me a glance; more than one<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</SPAN></span>
person was coming up. “It’s just like Arsenio not
to have told us!” she whispered with a smile.</p>
<p>“You mean——?” I whispered back.</p>
<p>“He’s been to meet him at the station, of course!
Julius, how shall I behave?”</p>
<p>We heard the door of the apartment opened.
The next moment Arsenio opened the door of the
room, and ushered in Godfrey Frost, in a big fur
coat, fresh from the train evidently.</p>
<p>“Here he is!” Arsenio cried, almost triumphantly.</p>
<p>Godfrey stood on the threshold, obviously taken
aback. It was clear that Arsenio had not told him
that he was to meet the pair of us.</p>
<p>Arsenio wore his most characteristic grin. I
could not help smiling at it. Lucinda laughed openly.
Godfrey, caught unawares as he was, carried
the position off bravely.</p>
<p>“Delightful to see you both! But where am I?
Whose charming room is this?”</p>
<p>“It’s the devil and all to know that! We live so
funnily,” said Monkey Valdez.</p>
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