Half a dozen times I was on the point of flying into a rage with him—when he talked easily of “buying Valdez,” when he assumed Lucinda’s assent to that not very pretty transaction, when he hinted at the luxury which would reward that assent, and so on. But the genuineness of his conflict, of his scruples on the one hand, of his passion on the other, made anger seem cruel, while the bluntness of his perception seemed to make it ridiculous. Perhaps on this latter point I exaggerated a little—asking from him an insight into the situation to which I was helped by a more intimate knowledge of the past and of the persons; but at all events he was, as I conceived, radically wrong in his estimate of the possibilities. At last I was impelled to tell him so.
It was very late; in disregard of his “Don’t go yet, I haven’t finished,” I had actually put on my coat, and taken my hat and stick in my hand. I stood like that, opposite to where he sat, and expounded my views to him. I imagine that to a cool spectator I should have looked rather absurd, for by now I too was somehow wrought up and excited; he had got me back into my pre-Paris state of mind, the one in which I had been when I intimated to Nina that I must hunt the Riviera for Lucinda and find out the truth about her at all costs. The Conference on Tonnage was routed, driven pell-mell out of my thoughts.
“You can’t buy Valdez,” I told him, “not in the sense that you mean. He’ll sell himself, body and soul, for money—to you, or me, or Nina, or all of us, or anybody else. But he won’t sell Lucinda. He sells himself for money, but it’s because of her that he must have the money—to dazzle her, to cut a figure in her eyes, to get her back to him. He used her to tempt you with, to make you shell out—just as he did, in another way, with Nina. But he knew he was safe; he knew he’d never have to deliver what he was pretending to sell. She’s not only the one woman to him, she’s the one idea in his head, the one stake he always plays for. He’d sell his soul for her, but he wouldn’t sell her in return for all you have. You sit here, balancing her against this and that—now against God, now against Mammon! He doesn’t set either of them for a moment in the scales against her.”
If what I said sharpened his perception, it blunted his scruples. The idea of Valdez’s passion was a spur to his own.
“Then it’s man against man,” he said in a sullen, dogged voice. “If I find I can’t buy her, I’ll take her.”
“You can try. If she lets you, she’s a changed woman. That’s all I can say. I need hardly add that I shall not offer you my assistance. Why, hang it, man, if she’s to be got, why shouldn’t I have a shot at her myself?”
He gave a short gruff laugh. “I don’t quite associate the idea with you, but of course you’d be within your rights, as far as I’m concerned.”
I laughed too. “There’s fair warning to you, then! And no bad blood, I hope? Also, perhaps, enough debate on what is, after all, rather a delicate subject—a lady’s honor—as some scrupulous people might remind us. By way of apology to the proprieties, I’ll just add that in my private opinion we should neither of us have the least chance of success. She may not be Valdez’s any more—as to that I express no opinion, though I have one—but I don’t believe she’ll be any one else’s.”
“What makes you say that?” he grumbled out surlily.
“She herself makes me say it; she herself and what I know about her. And, considering your condition, it seems common kindness to tell you my view, for what it’s worth. Now, my friend, thanks for your dinner, and—good-night!”