“First class, thank you,” answered Godfrey. “Ah, here’s my cold chicken!”
With the arrival of the stranger Arsenio had assumed his best manner, his most distinguished air; he could do the high style very well when he chose, and if his dress suit was a trifle shabby, there was always the war to account for a trifle like that. He was evidently bent on making a favorable impression. The talk turned on the tables, where Godfrey had been trying his luck with some success. But Arsenio was no longer the crazy gambler with a strange hallucination about Number 21; he was a clear-sighted, cool-minded gentleman who, knowing that the odds against him must tell in the end, still from time to time risked a few louis for his pleasure.
“After all, it’s one of the best forms of relaxation I know. Just enough excitement and not too much.”
“I never play for more than I can afford to lose,” said Godfrey. “But I must confess that I get pretty excited all the same.”
“It can’t make much difference to you what you lose,” I growled. This meeting, for which I felt responsible, somehow put me out of temper. What was the Monkey up to? He was so anxious to make a good impression!
“It would be affectation to pretend not to know that you can afford to treat the freaks of fortune with composure,” he said to Godfrey with a smile.
Godfrey looked pleased. He was still fresh to his position and his money; he enjoyed the prestige; he liked to have the Frost greatness admired, just as his cousin Nina did.
“When I played more than I do now,” Arsenio pursued, “I used to play a system. I don’t really believe in any of them, but I should like to show it to you. It might interest you—though I’ve come now to prefer a long shot—a bold gamble—win or lose—and there’s an end of it! Still my old system might——”
I got up. I had had enough of this—whatever Arsenio’s game might be. “It’s time we were getting back,” I said to Godfrey. “Have you your car here?”