For we had many. Arsenio’s views on the position in which he found himself had appeared pretty clearly from what he had said. By an incomprehensible perversity—of fate, of woman, of English temperament and morals—his grand _coup_ had proved a failure; he would not accept that failure as final, but neither for the moment could he alter it. He always seemed to himself on the brink of success; every day he was tantalized by a fresh rebuff. She was friendly, but icily cold and, beyond doubt, subtly, within herself, ridiculing him. The result was that, in the old phrase, he could live neither with her nor without her. The daily meeting which he had engineered, with my aid (and at my expense), was a daily disappointment; his temper could endure only a certain amount of her society in the mood in which she presented herself to him. After that, his patience gave; he probably felt that his self-control would. So always, soon after our meal was finished, he would go off on some pretext or another; sometimes we heard him above in his own apartment, walking about restlessly; sometimes we heard him go downstairs past my landing—out somewhere. He seldom came back before ten o’clock; and his return was always the signal for Lucinda to retire to her own quarters at the top of the house. During his absence she and I sat together, talking or in silence, I smoking, she sewing; if the evening was fine and warm, we sat in the armchairs by the little table in the window; if the weather was chilly—and in that dingy stone-floored room it was apt to seem chillier than it was—Louis made us a little fire of chips and logs, and we sat close by it. The old fleeting intimacy of Ste. Maxime renewed itself between us. After five or six evenings spent in this fashion, it almost seemed as though Arsenio were a visitor who came and went, while she and I belonged to the establishment. “The atmosphere’s quite domestic,” I said to her with a smile. It was cold that night; we were close by the fire; her fingers were busy with her work under the light of the one lamp which showed up her face in clear outline—just as it had been defined against the gloom of the dark _salle-à-manger_ at Ste. Maxime. “Well, you see, you’re a restful sort of person to be with,” she answered, smiling, but not looking up, and going on with her sewing. We had not talked much more about her affairs, or Arsenio’s. She seemed to think that enough had been said as to those, on the Lido; her conversation had been mostly on general matters, though she also took pleasure in describing to me the incidents and humors of her business hours, both here at Venice and in the past at Ste. Maxime and Nice. To-night I felt impelled to get a little nearer to her secret thoughts again. “Wasn’t Waldo restful—barring an occasional storm?”