PARTIE CARRÉE

WHEN I awoke the next morning, it was with the memory of one of the queerest hours that I had ever spent in my life. After I had drunk my coffee, I lay late in bed, reviewing it, smiling over Arsenio’s malicious gayety, over Godfrey’s surly puzzlement, over myself struggling between amusement and disgust, over Lucinda’s delicate aloofness and assumed unconsciousness of anything peculiar in the situation.

For the devil and all—to use his own phrase—took possession of Monkey Valdez. Lucinda was not the only one to whom the infliction of pain and punishment might become a joy. Arsenio had been powerless to prevent Godfrey from coming to Venice; he meant to make him pay for having come; to make him pay, I suppose, for having sought to take advantage of Arsenio’s need, for having dared to think that he could buy Lucinda—from a husband who all but told him that he was willing to sell her! Great crimes in the eyes of Arsenio, now no more in need, now grown rich, yet with his riches turned to useless dross, because of him, and of them, Lucinda would have nothing.

He could not pose as the happy husband. That would not be plausible; Lucinda would not second it, and Godfrey knew too much. But by every means within the range of his wonderful and impish ingenuity, by insinuation and innuendo, by glances, smiles, and gestures, he pointed Godfrey to the inference that I was the favored man, the aspiring, perhaps already the successful, lover. In that Godfrey was to find the explanation of the “funny” way in which we lived—an apartment for each of us, husband and wife meeting only at my board, her cool defensive demeanor towards him, my friendly toleration of his presence, which I must dislike, but also must endure because it was a cover and a screen. None of this, of course, in words, but all acted—admirably acted, so that it was equally impossible for Godfrey not to accept it, and for either Lucinda or myself to repudiate it. Had we tried, he would have made us appear ridiculous; there was not a definite word on which we could fasten, not a peg on which to hang the denial.

Lucinda did not want to deny, to judge by her demeanor; but neither did she do anything or show any signs that could be construed into an admission. She behaved just as a woman of the world would behave in such a situation—with a husband so unreasonable, so ill-bred as to let his jealousy appear in the presence of an outsider! To see nothing of what he meant, not to consider it possible that he could mean it—that would be the woman of the world’s cue; it was perfectly taken up in Lucinda’s cool and remote self-possession, the aloofness of her eyes as she listened to Arsenio, her easy cordiality towards both myself and Godfrey, her absolute ignoring of the “funniness” of our way of living. No, she did not want to deny, any more than she meant actively to aid, the impression. It was Arsenio’s game—let him play it. If to behave naturally tended to strengthen it, that was not her fault. Meanwhile she enjoyed the comedy; not a single direct glance at me told that—only an occasional faint smile at Arsenio’s adroitest touches.

She might be pardoned for enjoying the comedy; it was good. Perhaps for not sharing the distaste that mingled with my own appreciation—for not feeling the disgust that I felt at this cheapening of her. In her eyes Arsenio had already cheapened her to the uttermost; he could do nothing more in that direction. He could still give her pleasure—of a kind; by suffering cruelty himself, as it seemed, or by being cleverly cruel to others. He could no longer give her pain; he had exhausted his power to do that.

He knew what he could do and what he could not. If she was a character in his comedy, she was his audience too. He played to her for all he was worth; he saw the occasional smile and understood it as well as I did. His eyes sought for any faint indications of her applause.

And the victim? As I said, he carried off the meeting well at first; the Frost composure stood him in good stead; he was not readily to be shaken out of it. But at last, under Arsenio’s swift succession of pricks, he grew sullen and restive. His puzzled ill-humor vented itself on me, not on his dexterous tormentor.

“When did you make up your mind to come here? You said nothing about anything of the sort in Paris!”

The half-smothered resentment in his tone accused me of treachery—of having stolen a march on him. Arsenio smiled impishly as he listened—himself at last silent for a minute.

“The news of our friends’ good fortune encouraged me to join them,” I said. It was true—roughly; and I was very far from acknowledging any treachery.

This was the first reference that any one had made to the grand coup—to the winning ticket—a reticence which had, no doubt, increased Godfrey’s puzzle. He could not put questions himself, but I had seen him eyeing Lucinda’s black frock; Arsenio too was uncommonly shabby; and, as the latter had incidentally mentioned, I was paying rent: “I can’t afford not to charge it,” he had added with a rueful air, ostentatiously skirting the topic. Now he took it up, quite artificially. “Ah, that bit of luck! Oh, all to the good! It settles our future—doesn’t it, Lucinda?” (Here came one of her rare faint smiles.) “But we’re simple folk with simple tastes. We haven’t substantially altered our mode of living. Lucinda has her work—she likes it. I stick on in the old ancestral garrets.” (“Ancestral” was stretching things a bit—his father had bought the palazzo, and re-christened it.) “But we shall find a use for that windfall yet. Still, now you’ve come, we really must launch out a bit. Julius is one of the family—almost; but you’re an honored guest. Mustn’t we launch out a little, Lucinda?”

“Do as you like. It’s your money,” she answered. “At least, what you don’t owe of it is.”

Then, at that, for a sudden short moment, the real man broke through. “Then none of it’s mine, because I owe it all to you,” he said. The words might have been a continuation of his mockery; they would have borne that construction. But they were not; his voice shook a little; his mind was back on Number Twenty-one and what that meant—or had meant—to him. But he recovered his chosen tone in an instant. “And behold her generosity! She gives it back to me—she won’t touch a penny of it!”

At that a sudden gleam of intelligence shot into Godfrey’s eyes. He fixed them inquiringly on Lucinda. She was in great looks that evening—in her plain, close-fitting, black frock, with never an ornament save a single scarlet flower in her fair hair; he might well look at her; but it was not her beauty that drew his gaze at that moment. He was questioning more than admiring. She gave him back his look steadily, smiling a little, ready to let him make what he could of her husband’s exclamation.

“Let me give one dinner party out of it,” implored Arsenio. “Just we four—a perfect partie carrÉe. If I do, will you come to it, Lucinda?”

She gave him an amused little nod; he had touched her humor. “Yes, if you give Mr. Frost a dinner, I’ll come,” she said. “What day?”

“Why, the first on which we can eat a dinner! And that’s to-morrow! Upstairs—in my apartment?”

“No—here—if Julius will let us,” she said mildly, but very firmly. “You accept, Mr. Frost? And we’ll all dress up and be smart,—to honor Mr. Frost, and Arsenio’s banquet.”

So the arrangement was made, and it promised, to my thinking, as I lay in bed, another queer evening. Somebody, surely, would break the thin ice on which Arsenio was cutting his capers! What if we all began to speak our true thoughts about one another? But the evening that I was recalling held still something more in it—the most vivid of all its impressions, although the whole of it was vivid enough in my memory.

Godfrey rose to take his leave. “Till to-morrow, then!” he said, as he took Lucinda’s hand, bowing slightly over it; he pressed it, I think, for her fingers stiffened and she frowned—Arsenio standing by, smiling.

“See him down the stairs, Arsenio,” she ordered. “The light’s very dim, and two or three of the steps are broken.”

The two went out! I heard Arsenio’s voice chattering away in the distance as they went down the high steep stairs. Lucinda stood where she was for a minute, and then came across to the chair on which I had sat down, after saying good-night to Godfrey. She dropped on her knees beside it, laying her arms across my knees, and looking up at me with eyes full of tears.

“I do pity him,” she murmured, “I do! And I’d be kind to him. I don’t want him to go on being as bitter and unhappy as he is—oh, you saw! One can’t help being amused, but every time he hit Godfrey, he hit himself too—and harder. But what’s the use? Nothing’s any use except the thing that I can’t do!”

I laid my hand on hers—they lay side by side on my knee. “It’s rather a case of ‘God help us all!’ I think.”

“You too?”

“Yes—when you’re unhappy.”

I felt her hands rise under my hand, and I released them. She took mine between hers and raised it to her lips. Then a silence fell between us, until I became conscious that Arsenio was standing on the threshold, holding the knob of the opened door. He had stolen back with the quietness of a cat; we had neither of us heard a sound of him.

Lucinda saw him, and slowly rose to her feet; she was without a trace of embarrassment. She walked across to the door; he held it wide open for her to pass—she always went upstairs alone—But to-night—against the custom of their nightly parting during the last week—she stopped and took his hand. Her back was towards me now; I could not see her eyes, but there must have been an invitation in them, for he slowly advanced his head towards hers. She did not need to stoop—she was as tall as he was. She kissed him on the forehead.

“If you will be content with peace, peace let it be,” she said.

He made no motion to return the kiss—the invitation could not have carried so far as that; he stood quite still while she passed out and while her footsteps sounded on the stairs.

There came the noise of a door opening and shutting, up above us, on the top floor. He shut the door that he had been still holding, and came slowly up to the hearthrug, by which I sat.

I lit a cigarette. All the while that it took me to smoke it he stood there in silence, with his hands in the pockets of his jacket. His impishness had dropped from him, exorcised, as it seemed, by Lucinda’s kiss. His face was calm and quiet.

“Well, that’s finished!” he said at last, more to himself than to me. I did not speak; he looked down at me and addressed me more directly. “You saw her? You saw what she meant by that? It was—good-by!”

“I’m afraid I think so too, old friend—especially in view of what she’d just been saying to me. She’s greatly distressed about it, but——” At that moment I myself was greatly distressed for him, indeed for both of them; but the next he spoilt my feeling (so to say) as far as he was concerned, and made Lucinda’s distress look overdone, or even gratuitous. He drew himself up pompously and spread his arms out on either side of him, holding his hands palms uppermost, rather as if he were expounding an argument to a public meeting.

“Very well! I accept. Whatever her future feelings may be, I take her at her word, and accept—once and for all! It is not consonant with my dignity, my self-respect——” I sighed. He gave me a short, sharp look, but then went on in just the same fashion—“to prolong this situation, to persecute, to trouble. I will relieve her of my presence, of the thought of me. She is still young—almost a girl. She will find another life to live. She will find love again—though not the love I gave her. And if ever she thinks of Arsenio Valdez, let it be with charity and forgiveness!”

It seemed rather cruel to recognize the fact,—but a fact it obstinately and obviously was—that Lucinda’s future thinking of him formed part of the program; relieving her of the thought of him was a mere flourish; whatever he proposed to do with himself, he did not propose to do that.

“Time softens bitter memories, the mind dwells on what is sweet in the past. So may it be with her, when I am gone, Julius!”

“Where do you propose to go?’” I asked irritably. His pomposity and sentimentality seemed to me transpontine. The man could not be sincere for five minutes; he was cutting a figure again.

“Ah! that, my friend, need not be put in words. There is one course always open to a gentleman who has staked his all and lost.”

It occurred to me that Arsenio had very often staked his all and lost, and that his course had been to borrow some more from other people. But what was the good of saying that to him when he was on his high horse—a very prancing steed? In a different mood, though, he would have laughed at the reminder himself.

Of course I knew what he meant me to understand. But, frankly, I did not at the time believe a word of it; and now, as I lay thinking it over, I believed in it even less, if possible. I took it for another flourish, and smiled to myself at it, as Lucinda had laughed at the threat when she mentioned it to me on the Lido.

“Sleep on it, old fellow,” I advised him. “You’ll feel better about it, perhaps, in the morning. If you so decide to give her a separation or a divorce, it can all be arranged in a friendly way. She wants to be as kind and friendly as she can to you.”

“As I say, I trust that her memory of me will be that,” he said in his most solemn sepulchral voice. “And you, my friend, you too——”

“Oh, damn it all, let my memories of you alone, Arsenio! I assure you that talking this sort of stuff won’t improve them.” I got up from my chair. “Go to bed now—think it over to-morrow. At any rate, you’ve got your dinner to-morrow evening; you can’t do anything till after that.”

“Yes,” he agreed thoughtfully. “Yes, I’ve got my dinner to-morrow.” He seemed to meditate on the prospect with a gloomy satisfaction. I meditated on the same prospect now with considerable apprehension. He had finally left me the night before still in his tragic vein, still on his high horse. But who in the world could tell in what mood this evening would find him? On whom might he not turn? What outrage on the social decencies might he not commit? Last night we had been presented with an extensive selection from his rÉpertoire, ranging from schoolboy naughtiness to the beau geste—the insufferable beau geste—of a romantically contemplated suicide. What might we not be treated to to-night? And I did not feel at all sure how much Lucinda could stand—or how much Godfrey Frost would.

With a knock at the door, Louis came in, in his usual sleek and deferential fashion. He laid a little bundle of letters on the table by the bed, and inquired whether Monsieur would take dÉjeuner at home to-day—or would he perhaps prefer to go out? It was obvious, from the way the question was put, which Louis himself preferred. And the next moment he murmured the humble suggestion that there were the preparations, for dinner to-night, of course.

“Are there? Special preparations, do you mean, Louis?”

“Monsieur Valdez is, I understand, with your permission, Monsieur, intending to provide a few decorations for the salon. He tells me that he entertains to-night in honor of the arrival of his friend Monsieur Frost.” (Froost, he called it).

“Oh, all right! I’ll certainly lunch out, if it makes things easier for you, Louis.”

When he was gone, I opened my letters. Among them was one from Waldo, and another from Sir Paget, both of some length, touching the family arrangement which Waldo had suggested with regard to Cragsfoot. I decided to put them in my pocket and read them later—while I had my lunch. I had lain already overlong in bed, my thoughts busy with the events of the partie carrÉe of last night.