He had told me not to interrupt; I didn’t.
“Why didn’t you tell me what she was like?” he asked suddenly and rather fiercely.
“It was what you told me you meant to find out for yourself, Godfrey.”
“Well, we sat there and had dinner. She seemed to enjoy herself very much; made a good dinner, you know, and seemed to accept his compliments—Valdez’s, I mean—with a good deal of pleasure; he was flowery. I didn’t say much. I was damned dull, in fact. But she glanced at me out of the corner of her eye now and then. Look here, Julius, I’m an ass at telling about things!”
“I’ve known better raconteurs; but get on with it, if you want to.”
“Want to? I must. As a matter of fact, I’ve come to Paris just to tell you about it. And now I can’t.”
“She isn’t exactly easy to describe, to—to give the impression of. But remember—I know her.”
He had been walking up and down; he jerked himself into a chair, and relit his cigar—it had gone out. “I don’t much remember what we talked about at first—oh, except that she said, ‘I don’t like your gambling, and I should hate to be dependent on your winnings, Arsenio.’—My God, his winnings! He leant across the table towards her—he seemed to forget me altogether for the minute—and said, ‘I never make you even a present out of them except when I back Number 21.’ She blushed at that, like a girl just out of the schoolroom. Rather funny! Some secret between them, I suppose. The beggar was always backing twenty-one; though he very seldom brings it off. What’s his superstition? Did he meet her when she was twenty-one, or marry her when she was, or was it the date when they got married, or what?”
“It’s the date—the day of the month—when she and Waldo didn’t get married,” I explained.