In another five minutes we should have parted company, and my indiscretion in visiting Arsenio Valdez from Villa San Carlo would have had no consequences. But things were not fated to end that way. While my host was paying the bill—he put down very openly, perhaps with some slight flourish, a note for five hundred francs—I felt a hand laid on my shoulder. I looked up, and saw Godfrey Frost. “Ah!” said he, with a laugh, “you’re not the only truant! I got a little bored myself, and thought I’d run over here and have a flutter. We’ll go back together, shall we? May I sit down at your table? I’m late, but they say they can give me something cold.” Arsenio’s eyes were upon me; with his infernal quickness the fellow must have detected an embarrassment on my face; his own puckered into a malicious smile. He settled back into the chair which he had been about to vacate—and waited. What could I do? With fate and Monkey Valdez both against me? He divined that for some reason I did not want to introduce him. Therefore I must be made to! Godfrey also waited—quite innocently, of course, just expecting the proper, the obvious thing. I had to do it; but, with a faint hope that they might not identify one another, I said merely, “Sit down, of course. Mr. Frost—my friend, Mr. Valdez.” The Monkey twisted his face; I believe that he was really vexed. (Had not Lucinda said that he had taken against all things English?) “I’m not _Mr._ Valdez, Julius. I’m Monsieur Valdez, if you like, or, more properly, Don Arsenio Valdez.” “Delighted to meet you, Don Arsenio,” said young Frost, composedly taking his seat. “I think I’ve heard of you from my cousin, Lady Dundrannan.” “An old acquaintanceship,” said the Monkey. “One of the many that, alas, the war interrupted! I hope that your cousin is well?” “First class, thank you,” answered Godfrey. “Ah, here’s my cold chicken!” With the arrival of the stranger Arsenio had assumed his best manner, his most distinguished air; he could do the high style very well when he chose, and if his dress suit was a trifle shabby, there was always the war to account for a trifle like that. He was evidently bent on making a favorable impression. The talk turned on the tables, where Godfrey had been trying his luck with some success. But Arsenio was no longer the crazy gambler with a strange hallucination about Number 21; he was a clear-sighted, cool-minded gentleman who, knowing that the odds against him must tell in the end, still from time to time risked a few louis for his pleasure. “After all, it’s one of the best forms of relaxation I know. Just enough excitement and not too much.” “I never play for more than I can afford to lose,” said Godfrey. “But I must confess that I get pretty excited all the same.” “It can’t make much difference to you what you lose,” I growled. This meeting, for which I felt responsible, somehow put me out of temper. What was the Monkey up to? He was so anxious to make a good impression!