“With the greatest of pleasure,” I agreed, but with some surprise. It would have seemed more natural in him to invite me on the first night.
He saw my surprise; what didn’t he see when he exercised his wits?
“It must be that way; because she never comes into my apartment,” he said, but now quietly, cheerfully, as if he were mentioning another of those whims which are so powerful with women.
CHAPTER XX
LIVING FUNNILY
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 salon; 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.
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 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.
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 coup 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 Lucinda to retire to her own quarters at the top of the house.