“It may be tactful; it’s also rather convenient,” I commented gruffly. “It avoids explanations.”
A gleam of amusement lit up her eyes. “Poor Arsenio! He was in a difficulty—in a corner. And he’d been losing, his nerves were terribly wrong. There was the question of—me! And the question of Cragsfoot! And then Waldo came into it—oh, I’m sure of that. Those two men—it’s very odd. They seem fated to—to cross one another—to affect one another sometimes. I wonder whether——!” She broke off, knitting her brow. “He sounded most genuine in that outbreak of his when he mentioned Waldo. I think he was somehow realizing what Waldo would think and say, if he knew about Venice. Perhaps so, perhaps not! As for the rest of it——”
“You think he wasn’t quite as angry as he pretended to be?”
She seemed to reflect for a moment. “I didn’t say his anger was unreal, did I? I said it was childish. When a child runs heedlessly into something and hurts himself, he kicks the thing and tells his mother that it’s horrid. I was the thing, you see. Arsenio’s half a child.” Again she paused. “He’s also an actor. And he contrived, on the whole, a pretty effective exit!”
“That you ever let him come back again is the wonder!” I cried.
“No. It’s what happened before he came back that puzzles me,” she said.
CHAPTER VII
SELF-DEFENSE