He listened to a brief account of our meeting and excursion in silence, seeming to watch my face keenly. “You and she have always been very good friends,” he remarked thoughtfully at the end. He seemed to be considering—perhaps whether to take me into his confidence, to consult me. I did not, of course, feel entitled—or inclined!—to tell him of the confidences that Lucinda had reposed in me. “Meanwhile,” I observed, “beyond acquiring a manservant——” “Louis? Oh, well, I should have been a fool not to keep him about me, shouldn’t I?” “Yes! Didn’t Roman Generals at their triumphs carry a slave along, whose business it was to remind them that they were mortal? If you look at the unfortunate Louis from that point of view——” “That fellow will bring me luck again,” he asserted positively and seriously. “Rot! What I was going to say was that you don’t seem to have launched out much on the strength of your three millions.” I cast a glance round the faded room. He jerked his head towards the big bureau at which I had found him seated. “The money’s all in there. I haven’t touched a penny of it. I shan’t—just yet.” Again he was watching me; he was, I think, wondering how much Lucinda had said to me. “I’ve got a tenant for the first floor, and get along on the rent of that. And Lucinda——” He gave what may be called an experimental smile, a silent “feeler”——“Well, she persists in her whim, as you’ve seen. Whatever may be said of it down at Nice, it’s purely a whim now, isn’t it?” “Whims are powerful things with women,” I remarked. And platitudes are often useful conversational refuges. He sat frowning for a minute, with the weary baffled air that his face had worn before he caught sight of me. “Perhaps you don’t care for such a short let, but, if it suits you, I’ll take the second floor for a month certain,” I continued. In an instant his face lit up. “You, Julius! Why, that’s splendid! You’ll have to rough it a bit; but Louis will look after you. He’s really very good. Will you actually do it?” “Of course I will—and glad to get it.” “Well now, that is good!” I knew that he was friendly towards me, but this seemed an excess of pleasure. Besides, his face, lately so weary and dreary, had assumed now the monkey smile which I knew so well—the smile it wore when he was “doing” somebody, getting the better of somebody by one of his tricks. But whom could he be doing now? Me? Lucinda? We two seemed the only possible victims. That we were victims—that we fitted into his plan—appeared clear, later on. But it was a mistake to suppose that we only were concerned. His next words enlightened me as to that.