“Now, Julius, if you’re returning to Villa—Villa—?—yes, San Carlo!—this afternoon, I’ll do myself the pleasure of accompanying you as far as Monte Carlo. That will enable me to see more of you, my friend, and—who knows but that Number 21 may be kind to me to-night?” “Monte Carlo is very near Mentone,” I remarked. “True, true! But delicacy of feeling, however desirable and praiseworthy, must not interfere with the serious business of life. We must take our chance, Julius. If any unlucky meeting should occur, I authorize and indeed implore you to cut me dead! They will cut me, I shall cut them, I shall cut you, you will cut me! We shall all cut, and all be cut! And no harm will be done, no blood shed. _Voilà_, Julius! See how, as they say in French, at the very worst the thing will arrange itself!” CHAPTER XIII AN INTRODUCTION ARSENIO VALDEZ was in the highest of spirits that evening—the effect of the registered letter, no doubt! His fun and gayety brought back, or even bettered, the boy that he had been at Cragsfoot; and he assumed a greater, a more easy, intimacy with me: we had been boy to man then; we were both men now. He was very friendly; whatever his feelings might be about encountering my kindred, evidently he found nothing awkward in meeting me. As we walked up from the station at Monte Carlo, he put his arm in mine and said, “You must dine with me to-night. Yes, yes, it’s no good shaking your head.” He smiled as he added, “You may just as well dine with me as with Lady Dundrannan. But if you feel any scruples, you may consider the dinner as taken out of your fifty, you know!” It was a polite way of telling me that I had seen the last of my fifty. “I didn’t send that money altogether for you alone,” I ventured to observe. He looked at me. “You remind me, Julius! Let me do it before we dine, or I might forget. Half of this little windfall that I have had goes to Lucinda. Half of it! Ah! there’s a post office. Wait for me, I won’t be a minute.” And he darted into the place. When he rejoined me, he wore an air of great self-satisfaction. “Now I shall enjoy my evening,” he said; “and all the more when I think of what I should otherwise have been doing.” “And what’s that?” I asked; the question did not seem impertinent in view of his own introduction of the subject. “Do you ever frequent what are pharisaically known as ‘hells’? For my part, I should sooner call them ‘heavens.’ If you do, you’ll remember a little bureau, or sometimes just a table, under the care of a civil official, by whose kind help you change notes that you had not meant to change, and cash checks that you had never expected to have to write? My suave and distinguished manners, together with my mastery of several languages, enable me to perform my functions in an ideal way—so much so that even an occasional indisposition, such as overtook me this evening, is sure to be benevolently overlooked. Yes, I’m a cashier in a gambling den, Julius.”