<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
<p class="pch">THE BANQUET</p>
<p class="drop-cap08">SINCE I was not to play host that evening, I
decided to let Arsenio be first on the gaudy
scene which he had prepared. He should
receive the other guests; he should take undivided
responsibility for the decorations. I waited until I
heard him come down and speak to Louis, and even
until I heard—as I very well could, in my little bedroom
adjoining the <i>salon</i>—Louis announcing first
“Monsieur Froost,” and then—no, it was fat old
Amedeo who effected the second announcement, arrogating
to himself the rights of an old family servant—that
of the most excellent and noble Signora
Donna Lucinda Valdez. Thereupon I entered,
Amedeo favoring me with no laudatory epithets,
but leaving me to content myself with Louis’ brief
“Monsieur Reelinton.”</p>
<p>Lucinda was in splendor; she was—as I, at least,
had never before seen her—a grown woman in a
grown woman’s evening finery. Through all her
wanderings she must have dragged this gown about,
a relic of her pre-war status—for all I knew, part of
the <i>trousseau</i> of the prospective Mrs. Waldo Rillington!<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</SPAN></span>
But it did not look seriously out of
fashion. (If I remember right, women dressed on
substantially the same lines just before the war as
they did in the first months after it.) It was a
white gown, simple but artistic, of sumptuous material.
She wore no ornaments—it was not difficult
to conjecture the reason for that—only her favorite
scarlet flower in her fair hair; yet the effect of her
was one of magnificence—of a restrained, tantalizing
richness, both of body and of raiment.</p>
<p>Whether she had arrayed herself thus in kindness
or in cruelty, or in some odd mixture of the two, indulging
Arsenio’s freak with one hand, while the
other buffeted him with a vision of what he had lost,
I know not; but a glance at her face showed that her
tenderer mood was now past. Arsenio’s decorations
had done for it! She was looking about her
with brows delicately raised, with amusement
triumphant on her lips and in her eyes. If Arsenio’s
frippery had been meant to appeal to anything except
her humor, it had failed disastrously. It had
driven her back to her scorn, back to her conception
of him as a trickster, a mountebank, a creature
whose promises meant nothing, whose threats meant
less; an amusing ape—and there an end of him!</p>
<p>But perhaps the plate and the festoons might impress
the third guest, who completed Arsenio’s
party. Godfrey Frost did not, at first sight, seem
so much as to notice them, to know that they were
there. His eyes were all for Lucinda. Small<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</SPAN></span>
wonder, indeed! but they did not seek or follow her
in frank and honest admiration, nor yet in the chivalrous
though sorrowful longing of unsuccessful love.
There was avidity in them, but also anger and
grudge; rancor struggling with desire. He was not
looking amiable, the third guest. He set me wondering
what had passed on the Lido that afternoon.</p>
<p>Arsenio sat down with the air of a man who had
done a good day’s work and felt justified in enjoying
his dinner and his company. He set Lucinda
to his right at the little square table, Godfrey to his
left, myself opposite. He gave a glance round the
three of us.</p>
<p>“Ah, you’re amused,” he said to Lucinda, with
his quick reading of faces. “Well, you know my
ways by now!” His voice sounded good-humored,
free from chagrin or disappointment. “And, after
all, it’s my first and last celebration of the bit of
luck that Number Twenty-one at last brought me.”</p>
<p>“The first and last bit of luck too, I expect,” she
said; but she too was gay and easy.</p>
<p>“Yes, I shall back it no more; its work is done.
Not bad champagne, is it, considering? Louis got
it somehow. I told you he’d bring luck, Julius!
Louis, fill Mr. Frost’s glass!” He sipped at his
own, and then went on. “The charm of a long
shot, of facing long odds—that’s what I’ve always
liked. That’s the thing for us gamblers! And
who isn’t a gambler—willingly or <i>malgré lui</i>? He
who lives gambles; so does he who dies—except,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</SPAN></span>
of course, for the saving rites of the Church.”</p>
<p>“You were a little late with that reservation, Arsenio,”
I remarked.</p>
<p>“You heretics are hardly worthy of it at all,” he
retorted, smiling. “But, to gamble well, you must
gamble whole-heartedly. No balancing of chances,
no cutting the loss, no trying to have it both ways.
Don’t you agree with me, Frost?”</p>
<p>“I don’t believe that Mr. Frost agrees with you
in the least,” Lucinda put in. “He thinks it’s quite
possible to have it both ways. Don’t you, Mr.
Frost? To win without losing is your idea!”</p>
<p>He gave her a long look, a reluctant sour smile.
She was bantering him—over something known to
them, only to be conjectured by Arsenio and me;
something that had passed on the Lido? She had
for him a touch of the detached scornful amusement
which Arsenio’s decorations had roused in her, but
with a sharper tang in it—more bite to less laughter.</p>
<p>“I’m not a gambler, though I’m not afraid of a
business risk,” he answered.</p>
<p>She laughed lightly. “A business risk would
never have brought the splendor of to-night!” She
smiled round at the ridiculously festooned walls.</p>
<p>We were quickly disposing of an excellent, well-served
dinner; Louis was quick and quiet, fat Amedeo
more sensible than he looked, undoubtedly a
good cook was in the background. Growing physically
very comfortable, I got largely rid of the queer
apprehensions which had haunted me; I paid less<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</SPAN></span>
heed to Arsenio, and more to the secret subtle duel
which seemed to be going on between the other two.
Arsenio played more with his topic—birth, death,
life, love—all gambles into which men and women
were involuntarily thrown, with no choice but to
play the cards or handle the dice; all true and obvious
in a superficial sort of way, but it seemed
rather trifling—a mood in which life can be regarded,
but one in which few men or women really
live it. That he was one of the few himself, however,
I was quite prepared to concede; the magnitude
of his gains—and of his loss—as convincing.</p>
<p>Louis and Amedeo served us with coffee and Louis
set a decanter of brandy in front of Arsenio.</p>
<p>Then they left us alone. Arsenio poured himself
out a glass of brandy, and handed the decanter
round. Holding his glass in his hand, he turned to
Lucinda. “Will you drink with me—to show that
you forgive my sins?”</p>
<p>Her eyes widened a little at the suddenness of the
appeal; but she smiled still, and answered lightly,
“Oh, I’ll drink with you——” She sipped her
brandy—“in memory of old days, Arsenio!”</p>
<p>“I see,” he said, nodding his head at her gravely.
She had refused to drink with him on his terms;
she would do it only on her own. “Still—you shall
forgive,” he persisted with one of his cunning smiles.
Then he turned suddenly to Godfrey Frost with a
change of manner—with a cold malice that I had
never seen in him before, a malice with no humor<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</SPAN></span>
in it, a straightforward viciousness. “Then let us
drink together, my friend!” he said. “It was with
that object that I brought you here to-night. We’ll
drink together, as we have failed together, Godfrey
Frost! A business risk you spoke of just now! It
wasn’t a bad speculation! A couple of hundred or
so—Oh, I had more from your cousin, but her
motives were purely charitable, eh?—just a beggarly
couple of hundred for a chance at that!” A gesture
indicated Lucinda. His voice rose; it took on
its rhetorical note, and the words fell into harmony
with it. “To buy a man’s honor and beauty like
that for a couple of hundred—not a bad risk!”</p>
<p>Godfrey looked as if he had been suddenly hit in
the face; he turned a deep red and leant forward
towards his host—his very queer host. He was too
shaken up to be ready with a reply. Lucinda sat
motionless, apparently aloof from the scene. But
a very faint smile was still on her lips.</p>
<p>“What the devil’s the use of this sort of thing?”
I expostulated—in a purely conventional spirit, with
one’s traditional reprobation of “scenes.” My feeling
somehow went no deeper. It seemed then an
inevitable thing that these three should have it out,
before they went their several ways; the conventions
were all broken between them.</p>
<p>“Because the truth’s good for him—and for me;
for both of us who trafficked in her.”</p>
<p>Lucinda suddenly interposed, in a delicate scorn,
an unsparing truthfulness. “It’s only because you’ve<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</SPAN></span>
failed yourself that you’re angry with him, Arsenio.
Let him alone; he’s had enough truth from me this
afternoon—and a lot of good advice. I told him
to go home—to Nina Dundrannan. And for
Heaven’s sake don’t talk about ‘trafficking,’ as if you
were some kind of a social reformer!”</p>
<p>She turned to me, actually laughing; and I began
to laugh too. Well, Godfrey looked absurd—like
a dog being whipped by two people at once, not
knowing which he most wanted to bite, not sure
whether he dared bite either—possibly thinking
also of a third whipping which would certainly befall
him if he followed Lucinda’s good advice. And
Arsenio, cruelly let down from his heroics, looked
funnily crestfallen too. He was not allowed to be
picturesquely, rhetorically indignant—not with Godfrey,
not even with himself!</p>
<p>“Besides,” she added, “he did offer to stick to
his engagement to lunch with me that day at Cimiez!”</p>
<p>The mock admiration and gratitude with which
she recalled this valiant deed—to which she might,
in my opinion, well have dedicated a friendlier tone,
since it was no slight exploit for him to beard his
Nina in that fashion—put a limit to poor Godfrey’s
tongue-tied endurance.</p>
<p>“Yes, you were ready enough to take my lunches,
and what else you could get!” he sneered.</p>
<p>Lucinda gave me just a glance; here was a business
reckoner indeed! Of course he had some right<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</SPAN></span>
on his side, but he saw his right so carnally; why
couldn’t he have told her that they’d been friends—and
who could be only a friend to her? That
was what, I expect, he meant in his heart; but his
instincts were blunt, and he had been lashed into
soreness.</p>
<p>Still, though I was feeling for him to that extent,
I could not help returning Lucinda’s glance with a
smile, while Arsenio chuckled in an exasperating
fashion. It was small wonder really that he pushed
back his chair from the table and, looking round
at the company, groaned out, “Oh, damn the lot
of you!”</p>
<p>The simplicity of this retort went home. I felt
guilty myself, and Lucinda was touched to remorse,
if not to shame. “I told you not to come to-night,”
she murmured. “I told you that he only wanted
to tease you. You’d better go away, perhaps.” She
looked at him, and his glance obeyed hers instantly;
she put out her hand and laid it on one of his for
just a moment. “And, after all, I did like the
lunches. You’re quite right there! Arsenio, can’t
we part friends to-night—since we must part, all
of us?”</p>
<p>“Oh, as you like!” said Arsenio impatiently. A
sudden and deep depression seemed to fall upon
him; he sat back, staring dejectedly at the table.
He reminded one of a comedian whose jokes do not
carry. This banquet was to have been a great, grim
joke. But it had fallen flat—sunk now into just<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</SPAN></span>
a wrangle. And at last his buoyant malice failed
to lift it—failed him indeed completely. We three
men sat in a dull silence; I saw Lucinda’s eyes grow
dim with tears.</p>
<p>Godfrey broke the silence by rising to his feet,
clumsily, almost with a stumble; I think that he
caught his foot in the tablecloth, which hung down
almost to the floor.</p>
<p>“I’ll go,” he said. “I’m sorry for all this. I’ve
made a damned fool of myself.”</p>
<p>Nobody else spoke, or rose.</p>
<p>“If it’s any excuse”—he almost stumbled in his
speech, as he had almost stumbled with his feet—“I
love Lucinda. And you’ve used her damnably,
Valdez.”</p>
<p>“For what I’ve done, I pay. For you—go and
learn what love is.” This, though as recorded it
sounds like his theatrical manner, was not so delivered.
It came from him in a low, dreary voice,
as though he were totally dispirited. He glanced
at the clock on the mantelpiece; it had gone ten
o’clock; he seemed to shiver as he noted the hour.
He looked across at me with a helpless appeal in
his eyes. He looked like an animal in a trap; a
trap bites no less deeply for being of one’s own
devising.</p>
<p>Godfrey was staring at him now in a dull, uncomprehending
bewilderment. Lucinda put her elbows
on the table, and supported her chin in her
hands, her eyes set inquiringly on his face. I myself<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</SPAN></span>
stretched out my hand and clasped one of his. But
he shook off my grasp, raised his hands in the air
and let them fall with a thud on the table; all the
things on it rattled; even the heavy plate that he
had bought or hired—I didn’t know which—for his
futile banquet. Then he blurted out, in the queerest
mixture of justification, excuse, defiance, bravado:
“Oh, you don’t understand, but to me it means damnation!
And I can’t do it; now—now the time’s
come, I can’t!” There was no doubt about his actual,
physical shuddering now.</p>
<p>Lucinda did not move; she just raised her eyes
from where he sat to where Godfrey stood. “You’d
better go,” she said. “Julius and I must manage
this.” Her tone was contemptuous still.</p>
<p>I got up and took Godfrey’s arm. He let me
lead him out of the room without resistance, and,
while I was helping him on with his hat and coat,
asked in a bewildered way, “What does it mean?”</p>
<p>“He meant to go out in a blaze of glory—with
a <i>beau geste</i>! But he hasn’t got the pluck for it at
the finish. That’s about the size of it.”</p>
<p>“My God, what a chap! What a queer chap!”
he mumbled, as he began to go downstairs. He
turned his head back. “See you to-morrow?”</p>
<p>“Lord, I don’t know! I’ve got him to look after.
He might find his courage again! I can’t leave
him alone. Good-night.” I watched him down to
the next landing, and then went back towards the<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</SPAN></span>
<i>salon</i>. I did not think of shutting the outer door
behind me.</p>
<p>Just on the threshold of the <i>salon</i> I met Arsenio
himself in the act of walking out of the room, rather
unsteadily. “Where are you going?” I demanded
angrily.</p>
<p>“Only to get some whisky. I’ve a bottle in my
room. I want a whisky-and-soda. It’s all right;
it really is now, old fellow.”</p>
<p>“I shall come with you.” I knew of a certain
thing that he had in his own room upstairs, and
was not going to trust him alone.</p>
<p>He shrugged his shoulders slightly, but made no
further objection. “We’ll be back in a minute,” I
called out to Lucinda, who was still sitting at the
table, her attitude unchanged. Then Arsenio and
I passed through the open door and went up the
stairs together. As we started on our way, he said,
with a curious splutter that was half a sob in his
voice, “Lucinda knows me best, and you see she’s
not afraid. She didn’t try to stop me.”</p>
<p>“She’s never believed you meant it at all; but
I did,” I answered.</p>
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