AN INTRODUCTION

ARSENIO VALDEZ was in the highest of spirits that evening—the effect of the registered letter, no doubt! His fun and gayety brought back, or even bettered, the boy that he had been at Cragsfoot; and he assumed a greater, a more easy, intimacy with me: we had been boy to man then; we were both men now. He was very friendly; whatever his feelings might be about encountering my kindred, evidently he found nothing awkward in meeting me. As we walked up from the station at Monte Carlo, he put his arm in mine and said, “You must dine with me to-night. Yes, yes, it’s no good shaking your head.” He smiled as he added, “You may just as well dine with me as with Lady Dundrannan. But if you feel any scruples, you may consider the dinner as taken out of your fifty, you know!”

It was a polite way of telling me that I had seen the last of my fifty.

“I didn’t send that money altogether for you alone,” I ventured to observe.

He looked at me. “You remind me, Julius! Let me do it before we dine, or I might forget. Half of this little windfall that I have had goes to Lucinda. Half of it! Ah! there’s a post office. Wait for me, I won’t be a minute.” And he darted into the place. When he rejoined me, he wore an air of great self-satisfaction. “Now I shall enjoy my evening,” he said; “and all the more when I think of what I should otherwise have been doing.”

“And what’s that?” I asked; the question did not seem impertinent in view of his own introduction of the subject.

“Do you ever frequent what are pharisaically known as ‘hells’? For my part, I should sooner call them ‘heavens.’ If you do, you’ll remember a little bureau, or sometimes just a table, under the care of a civil official, by whose kind help you change notes that you had not meant to change, and cash checks that you had never expected to have to write? My suave and distinguished manners, together with my mastery of several languages, enable me to perform my functions in an ideal way—so much so that even an occasional indisposition, such as overtook me this evening, is sure to be benevolently overlooked. Yes, I’m a cashier in a gambling den, Julius.”

“Well, I’m hanged!” said I, as we entered the CafÉ de Paris.

We sat down, and Arsenio ordered the best dinner that was to be had. This done, he proceeded: “You see, I’m a man who prizes his independence. In that I resemble Lucinda; it’s one of our points of union. She insists on pursuing her own occupation, and accepts an occasional present from me—such as I’ve just had the pleasure of sending her—only under protest. When I’m in funds, I insist. So with me. I also like to have my own occupation; it gives me the sense of independence that I like.”

“But occasionally you have recourse to——?”

His eyes sparkled at me over his glass of wine. “My dear Julius, an occasional deviation from one’s ruling principle—what is it? To err is human, to forgive divine. And since you’ve forgiven me that fifty, I shall be positively hurt if you don’t make an excellent dinner!”

“It’s difficult to over value the privilege of being your guest,” I observed rather grimly.

He laughed, and went on with his merry chatter. I tried to take stock of him, as I listened and threw in a remark here and there. Was he trying to deceive himself with his talk of independence, or was he merely trying to deceive me? Or was it that he did not really care a straw about deceiving either of us? He might like to puzzle me; that would be in his monkey vein. Evidently he had given none of my fifty pounds to Lucinda. Had he really sent her anything when he went into the post office this evening? And, if anything, what proportion of his “windfall”? As much as half? Did Lucinda take money from him—under protest? Or did she never get the chance? And did she give him money? If his object were to puzzle me—he did it! But I believed what he told me about his occupation; there was the evidence of his dress suit, and of Madame’s playful rebuke. Besides, it was in character with him. When he lacked the wherewithal to play himself, he would be where others played. At least he got the atmosphere. Perhaps, too, his suave manners and linguistic services were worth the price of a stake to him now and then.

“Yes,” he went on, with a laugh, after describing one or two odd shifts to which he had been put, “the war may have paid my dear adopted country all right—sacro egoismo, you know, Julius!—but it played the devil with me. Zeppelins and ‘planes over Venice! All the tenants bolted from my palazzo, and forgot to leave the rent behind them. Up to now they’ve not come back. Hence this temporary fall in my fortunes. But it’ll all come right.”

“It won’t, if you go on gambling with any money that you happen to get hold of.”

He became serious; at least, I think so. At all events, he looked serious.

“Julius, I have no more doubt about it than I have about the fact that I sit here, on this chair, in this restaurant. Some day—some day soon—I shall bring off a great coup, a really great coup. That will reËstablish me. And then I shall have done with it.” The odd creature’s face took on a rapt, an almost inspired look. “And that coup will be made, not at trente-et-quarante, not at baccarat, but at good old roulette, and by backing Number 21. It happened once before—you know when. Well, it’ll happen again, my friend, and happen even bigger. Then I shall resume my proper position; I shall be able to give Lucinda her proper position. Our happy days will come again.” His voice, always a melodious one, fell to a soft, caressing note: “We haven’t lost our love for one another. It’s only that things have been difficult. But the change will come!” His voice rose and grew eager again. “It nearly came with your fifty. It was coming. I actually saw it coming. But a fellow with a damned ugly squint came and backed my play, the devil take him! Oh, you may smile, but I know a jettatore when I see one! Of course every blessed penny went!”

“Yes, here he was sincere. It was perhaps his one sincerity, his only faith. Or could the love he spoke of—his love for his wife—also be taken as sincere? Possibly, but there I felt small patience with him. As to his faith in his gambler’s star, that was in its way pathetic. Besides, are not we all of us prone to be somehow infected by a faith like that, however ridiculous our reason tells us that it is?

“That’s a rum idea of yours about Number 21,” I said (I apologize for saying it thoughtfully!); “you somehow associate it with——?”

“There’s really no need of your diplomacy,” he mocked me. “What I didn’t tell you about it, Lucinda did. Number 21 won me Lucinda.” He paused, gave a pull to his cigarette—we had by now begun smoking—and added, “Won me Lucinda back, I mean. But you know, I think, all about us.”

“And you know, it seems, about my meeting with her—it must be nearly three years ago. I mean—at Ste. Maxime?”

“She told me about it. She had been so delighted to see you. You made great friends, you and she? Well, she always liked you. I think you liked her. In fact”—he smoked, he sipped his coffee, then his cognac—“in fact, I’ve always wondered why you chose to consider yourself out of the running that summer at Cragsfoot long ago. You chose to play the fogy, and leave Waldo and me to do battle.”

“She was a child, and I——”

“As for a child—well, I found her more than that. So did Waldo. As for your venerable years—a girl is apt to take a man’s age at his own reckoning. Short of a Methuselah, that is. Well, if you ever had a chance—I think you had—you’ve lost it. You’ll never get her now, Julius!”

“How much more damned nonsense are you going to talk to-night, you—you Monkey?”

“Yes, yes, I’m still Monkey Valdez, aren’t I? The Monkey that stole the fruit! But I got it, and I shall keep it. After what she’s done for me, could I ever distrust her?” His voice sounded as it had when he spoke of Number 21.

“I certainly think that you’ve tried her pretty high already,” I remarked dryly.

“And you’re very angry with me about it?”

“What would be the good? Only I wish the devil you’d pull yourself together now.”

“Remember Number 21!” And now his voice sounded as it had when he spoke of Lucinda!

“Where is she now, Arsenio? Still at Ste. Maxime?”

“I couldn’t possibly tell you where she is without her permission.”

“Oh, stuff! If you think that she and I are such friends—I hope we are—surely——?”

“I don’t think that she would care to receive visits from a member of Lady Dundrannan’s house party.”

“Good Lord, I forgot that!”

“And I certainly wouldn’t take the responsibility of concealing that fact about you—with the chance of her discovering it afterwards. As for you, wouldn’t you get into hot water with both ladies, if your duplicity happened to be discovered? As regards one another, aren’t they a trifle sensitive?” He leaned back in his chair, with an air of amusement at the situation which he had suggested. “Even your little visit to me you thought it judicious to make on the quiet,” he reminded me with a chuckle.

I sat silent; if the truth must be told, I was rather abashed. On reflection—and on a reflection prompted by Monkey Valdez!—what I had been proposing to do seemed not quite the square thing. Anyhow, a doubtful case; it is a good working rule not to do things that you would not like to be found out in.

“Then I suppose I oughtn’t to have come to see you either?”

“Oh, I don’t matter so much. Nina has no animosity against me.” His eyes twinkled. “Still, don’t mention it, there’s a good fellow. You see, she’d question you, and I am rather down on my luck. Lucinda and I both are. I daresay you’ll understand that we shouldn’t care for that to get round through Nina to Waldo?”

That feeling seemed natural and intelligible enough. The contrast between splendor and—well—something like squalor—in view of the past they would hardly wish Lady Dundrannan and her husband to be in a position to draw it.

“Oh, well, what’s done’s done; but you and I had perhaps better not meet any more just for the present.”

“I’ve roused your scruples?” he laughed. “I, the moralist! Just as you like, old fellow. I’m glad you happened to hit on a lucky night—hope you’ve enjoyed the dinner?”

“Immensely, thanks. But I’d better be getting back now, I think.”

“Well, it’s about time I got to business.” He jerked his thumb in the direction of the Casino. “Let me pay, and we’ll be off.”

In another five minutes we should have parted company, and my indiscretion in visiting Arsenio Valdez from Villa San Carlo would have had no consequences. But things were not fated to end that way. While my host was paying the bill—he put down very openly, perhaps with some slight flourish, a note for five hundred francs—I felt a hand laid on my shoulder. I looked up, and saw Godfrey Frost.

“Ah!” said he, with a laugh, “you’re not the only truant! I got a little bored myself, and thought I’d run over here and have a flutter. We’ll go back together, shall we? May I sit down at your table? I’m late, but they say they can give me something cold.”

Arsenio’s eyes were upon me; with his infernal quickness the fellow must have detected an embarrassment on my face; his own puckered into a malicious smile. He settled back into the chair which he had been about to vacate—and waited.

What could I do? With fate and Monkey Valdez both against me? He divined that for some reason I did not want to introduce him. Therefore I must be made to! Godfrey also waited—quite innocently, of course, just expecting the proper, the obvious thing. I had to do it; but, with a faint hope that they might not identify one another, I said merely, “Sit down, of course. Mr. Frost—my friend, Mr. Valdez.”

The Monkey twisted his face; I believe that he was really vexed. (Had not Lucinda said that he had taken against all things English?) “I’m not Mr. Valdez, Julius. I’m Monsieur Valdez, if you like, or, more properly, Don Arsenio Valdez.”

“Delighted to meet you, Don Arsenio,” said young Frost, composedly taking his seat. “I think I’ve heard of you from my cousin, Lady Dundrannan.”

“An old acquaintanceship,” said the Monkey. “One of the many that, alas, the war interrupted! I hope that your cousin is well?”

“First class, thank you,” answered Godfrey. “Ah, here’s my cold chicken!”

With the arrival of the stranger Arsenio had assumed his best manner, his most distinguished air; he could do the high style very well when he chose, and if his dress suit was a trifle shabby, there was always the war to account for a trifle like that. He was evidently bent on making a favorable impression. The talk turned on the tables, where Godfrey had been trying his luck with some success. But Arsenio was no longer the crazy gambler with a strange hallucination about Number 21; he was a clear-sighted, cool-minded gentleman who, knowing that the odds against him must tell in the end, still from time to time risked a few louis for his pleasure.

“After all, it’s one of the best forms of relaxation I know. Just enough excitement and not too much.”

“I never play for more than I can afford to lose,” said Godfrey. “But I must confess that I get pretty excited all the same.”

“It can’t make much difference to you what you lose,” I growled. This meeting, for which I felt responsible, somehow put me out of temper. What was the Monkey up to? He was so anxious to make a good impression!

“It would be affectation to pretend not to know that you can afford to treat the freaks of fortune with composure,” he said to Godfrey with a smile.

Godfrey looked pleased. He was still fresh to his position and his money; he enjoyed the prestige; he liked to have the Frost greatness admired, just as his cousin Nina did.

“When I played more than I do now,” Arsenio pursued, “I used to play a system. I don’t really believe in any of them, but I should like to show it to you. It might interest you—though I’ve come now to prefer a long shot—a bold gamble—win or lose—and there’s an end of it! Still my old system might——”

I got up. I had had enough of this—whatever Arsenio’s game might be. “It’s time we were getting back,” I said to Godfrey. “Have you your car here?”

“Yes, and we’ll go. But look here, Don Arsenio, I should like to hear about your system. If you’re free, lunch with me here to-morrow, and afterwards we’ll drop in and try it—in a small way, just for fun, you know.”

“To-morrow? Yes, I shall be delighted. About half-past twelve? Shall I see you, too, Julius?”

“No; systems bore me to death,” I said gruffly. “Besides, those Forrester people are coming to lunch at the Villa to-morrow, Godfrey.”

“All the more reason for being out!” laughed Godfrey. “We’ll meet, then, Don Arsenio, whether this old chap comes or not. That’s agreed?”

Arsenio assented. We left him outside the cafÉ, waving his hand to us as the car started. At the last moment he darted one of his mischievous glances at me. At least, he was thoroughly enjoying the situation; at most—well, at most he might be up to almost anything. He had told us that he did not, after all, feel like playing that night, since we had to leave him; he would go straight home, he said. That probably meant that he was saving up his money for something!

Godfrey was silent on the way home, and did not refer to Arsenio till we found ourselves in the smoking room at the Villa: we had it to ourselves; the others had gone to bed.

“I was interested to meet that fellow,” he then remarked. “Where did you run into him?”

I told him of my visit. “For the sake of old times I just wanted to see how he was getting on,” I added apologetically. “But I doubt whether I did right, and I don’t mean to see any more of him at present.”

“Why do you doubt whether you did right?”

“Well, I’m Nina’s guest just now; frankly, I don’t think she’d like it.”

“There’s no reason to tell, is there?”

“As a matter of fact, I didn’t mean to tell her. But you turned up!”

He laughed. “Oh, I won’t tell her either. We’ll keep it dark, old fellow.”

“But you’ve arranged to meet him at lunch again to-morrow.”

“Nina will be lunching here—with the Forresters, so that will be all right, though it’s a doubtful point whether affording us bed and board gives Nina a right of control over the company we keep outside the house.”

“I just had a feeling——”

“Yes. Well, perhaps you’re right.” He was standing before the fire, smoking a cigar; he seemed to ponder the little question of morals, or etiquette, for a moment. Then he smiled. “So that’s the dashing lover who cut out poor Waldo and ran away with the famous Lucinda, is it? But where’s the lady, Julius?”

“I haven’t any idea. She wasn’t at the place where I found him to-day. Why do you want to know where she is?”

I suppose that my tone was irritable. He raised his brows, smiling still. “Don’t you think that a little curiosity is natural? She is, after all, an important figure in the family history. And she is, so far as I’m aware, the only woman who’s ever got the better of Nina. I should like to see her.” He paused a moment, his lips set in the firm and resolute smile with which I was familiar on Lady Dundrannan’s lips—the Frost smile. “Yes, I should certainly like to see her. And I’m not really much interested in roulette systems. That for your information, Julius!”