I got up and took Godfrey’s arm. He let me lead him out of the room without resistance, and, while I was helping him on with his hat and coat, asked in a bewildered way, “What does it mean?” “He meant to go out in a blaze of glory—with a _beau geste_! But he hasn’t got the pluck for it at the finish. That’s about the size of it.” “My God, what a chap! What a queer chap!” he mumbled, as he began to go downstairs. He turned his head back. “See you to-morrow?” “Lord, I don’t know! I’ve got him to look after. He might find his courage again! I can’t leave him alone. Good-night.” I watched him down to the next landing, and then went back towards the _salon_. I did not think of shutting the outer door behind me. Just on the threshold of the _salon_ I met Arsenio himself in the act of walking out of the room, rather unsteadily. “Where are you going?” I demanded angrily. “Only to get some whisky. I’ve a bottle in my room. I want a whisky-and-soda. It’s all right; it really is now, old fellow.” “I shall come with you.” I knew of a certain thing that he had in his own room upstairs, and was not going to trust him alone. He shrugged his shoulders slightly, but made no further objection. “We’ll be back in a minute,” I called out to Lucinda, who was still sitting at the table, her attitude unchanged. Then Arsenio and I passed through the open door and went up the stairs together. As we started on our way, he said, with a curious splutter that was half a sob in his voice, “Lucinda knows me best, and you see she’s not afraid. She didn’t try to stop me.” “She’s never believed you meant it at all; but I did,” I answered. CHAPTER XXIV THE MASCOT ARSENIO opened the door of the apartment with his latchkey and stood aside to let me pass in first. The door of his sitting room, the long, narrow room which I have described before, stood slightly ajar, and a light shone through it. I advanced across the passage—the hall could hardly be called more—and flung the door wide open as I entered, Arsenio following just behind. There, in the middle of the room, two or three paces from the big bureau, one side of which flapped open, showing shelves and drawers, stood Louis the valet, the waiter from that “establishment” of Arsenio’s at Nice, the seller of the winning ticket, the author of Arsenio’s luck. In his left hand he held, clasped against his body, a large black leather portfolio or letter case; in his right was the revolver which his master had given him to clean.