“Immensely, thanks. But I’d better be getting back now, I think.”
“Well, it’s about time I got to business.” He jerked his thumb in the direction of the Casino. “Let me pay, and we’ll be off.”
In another five minutes we should have parted company, and my indiscretion in visiting Arsenio Valdez from Villa San Carlo would have had no consequences. But things were not fated to end that way. While my host was paying the bill—he put down very openly, perhaps with some slight flourish, a note for five hundred francs—I felt a hand laid on my shoulder. I looked up, and saw Godfrey Frost.
“Ah!” said he, with a laugh, “you’re not the only truant! I got a little bored myself, and thought I’d run over here and have a flutter. We’ll go back together, shall we? May I sit down at your table? I’m late, but they say they can give me something cold.”
Arsenio’s eyes were upon me; with his infernal quickness the fellow must have detected an embarrassment on my face; his own puckered into a malicious smile. He settled back into the chair which he had been about to vacate—and waited.
What could I do? With fate and Monkey Valdez both against me? He divined that for some reason I did not want to introduce him. Therefore I must be made to! Godfrey also waited—quite innocently, of course, just expecting the proper, the obvious thing. I had to do it; but, with a faint hope that they might not identify one another, I said merely, “Sit down, of course. Mr. Frost—my friend, Mr. Valdez.”
The Monkey twisted his face; I believe that he was really vexed. (Had not Lucinda said that he had taken against all things English?) “I’m not Mr. Valdez, Julius. I’m Monsieur Valdez, if you like, or, more properly, Don Arsenio Valdez.”
“Delighted to meet you, Don Arsenio,” said young Frost, composedly taking his seat. “I think I’ve heard of you from my cousin, Lady Dundrannan.”
“An old acquaintanceship,” said the Monkey. “One of the many that, alas, the war interrupted! I hope that your cousin is well?”