“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.