The simplicity of this retort went home. I felt guilty myself, and Lucinda was touched to remorse, if not to shame. “I told you not to come to-night,” she murmured. “I told you that he only wanted to tease you. You’d better go away, perhaps.” She looked at him, and his glance obeyed hers instantly; she put out her hand and laid it on one of his for just a moment. “And, after all, I did like the lunches. You’re quite right there! Arsenio, can’t we part friends to-night—since we must part, all of us?” “Oh, as you like!” said Arsenio impatiently. A sudden and deep depression seemed to fall upon him; he sat back, staring dejectedly at the table. He reminded one of a comedian whose jokes do not carry. This banquet was to have been a great, grim joke. But it had fallen flat—sunk now into just a wrangle. And at last his buoyant malice failed to lift it—failed him indeed completely. We three men sat in a dull silence; I saw Lucinda’s eyes grow dim with tears. Godfrey broke the silence by rising to his feet, clumsily, almost with a stumble; I think that he caught his foot in the tablecloth, which hung down almost to the floor. “I’ll go,” he said. “I’m sorry for all this. I’ve made a damned fool of myself.” Nobody else spoke, or rose. “If it’s any excuse”—he almost stumbled in his speech, as he had almost stumbled with his feet—“I love Lucinda. And you’ve used her damnably, Valdez.” “For what I’ve done, I pay. For you—go and learn what love is.” This, though as recorded it sounds like his theatrical manner, was not so delivered. It came from him in a low, dreary voice, as though he were totally dispirited. He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece; it had gone ten o’clock; he seemed to shiver as he noted the hour. He looked across at me with a helpless appeal in his eyes. He looked like an animal in a trap; a trap bites no less deeply for being of one’s own devising. Godfrey was staring at him now in a dull, uncomprehending bewilderment. Lucinda put her elbows on the table, and supported her chin in her hands, her eyes set inquiringly on his face. I myself stretched out my hand and clasped one of his. But he shook off my grasp, raised his hands in the air and let them fall with a thud on the table; all the things on it rattled; even the heavy plate that he had bought or hired—I didn’t know which—for his futile banquet. Then he blurted out, in the queerest mixture of justification, excuse, defiance, bravado: “Oh, you don’t understand, but to me it means damnation! And I can’t do it; now—now the time’s come, I can’t!” There was no doubt about his actual, physical shuddering now. Lucinda did not move; she just raised her eyes from where he sat to where Godfrey stood. “You’d better go,” she said. “Julius and I must manage this.” Her tone was contemptuous still.