There it was—in thinking of him one always expected, one always came back to, the bizarre, the incongruous and ridiculous. It was the overpowering instinct for the dramatic, the theatrical, in him, without any taste to guide or to limit it. That was what made it impossible to take him, or his emotions and attitudes, seriously; Waldo’s “all that” seemed just the applicable description. I walked away wondering just what particular line his bamboozlement of Signor Alessandro Panizzi might be taking. Moreover, that he could find leisure in his thoughts to posture to somebody else—besides Lucinda and myself—was reassuring. It made his hints of the night before seem even more unreal and fantastic.
That same last word was the only one appropriate to describe what I found happening to my unfortunate salon, when I got back early in the evening. Half a dozen men, under the superintendence of Louis and the fat old portière who lived in a sort of cupboard on the ground floor, opening off the hall, were engaged in transforming it into what they obviously considered to be a scene of splendor. The old portière was rubbing his plump hands in delight; at last Don Arsenio was launching out, spending his money handsomely, doing justice to Palazzo Valdez; the rich English nobleman (this was Godfrey Frost—probably after Arsenio’s own description) would undoubtedly be much impressed. Very possibly—but possibly not quite as old Amedeo expected! The table groaned—or at all events I groaned for it—under silver plate and silver candlesticks. The latter were also stuck galore in sconces on the walls. Table and walls were festooned with chains of white flowers; the like bedecked the one handsome thing that really belonged to the room—the antique chandelier in the middle of the ceiling; I had never put lights in it, but they were there now. And the banquet was to be on a scale commensurate with these trappings. “Prodigious! Considering the times, absolutely prodigious!” Amedeo assured me; he, for his part, could not conceive how Don Arsenio and Signor Louis had contrived to obtain the materials for such a feast. Signor Louis smiled mysteriously; tricks of the trade were insinuated.
It seemed to me that Arsenio had gone stark mad. What were we in for this evening?
Just as this thought once again seized on my mind, I saw something that gave me a little start. The butt of a revolver or pistol protruded from the side-pocket of Louis’s jacket, and the pocket bulged with the rest of the weapon.
“What in the world are you carrying that thing about for?” I exclaimed.
“Monsieur Valdez told me to clean it,” he answered quietly. “He gave it to me for that purpose—out of his bureau.”
“He didn’t tell you to carry it about with you while you did your work, did he?”
“No, he didn’t,” said Arsenio’s voice just behind me. The door stood open for the workers, and he had come in, in his usual quiet fashion. I turned round, to find him grinning at me. “Give it here, Louis,” he ordered, and slipped the thing into his own pocket. “The room looks fine now, doesn’t it?” he asked.
“What do you want with your revolver to-day?” I asked.