“I don’t want you to interrupt for a little while, if you don’t mind. Of course, I didn’t win; I never supposed I should. But the system worked. I found Madame Valdez. Be quiet! After two nights of the system, I politely—more or less politely—intimated that I was sick of it; also that I didn’t see my way to finance any further the peculiarly idiotic game which he played on his own account, in the intervals of superintending the system. The man’s mad to think that he’s got a dog’s chance, playing like that! He’d stayed with me in Monte those two days. I said that I was afraid his wife would never forgive me if I kept him from her any longer. He said that, having for the moment lost _la veine_, he was not in a position to return my hospitality; otherwise he and his wife would have been delighted to see me at Nice. Well, with the usual polite circumlocutions, he conveyed to me that there was a pleasant, quiet little hotel in Nice where he generally stayed—when he was in funds, he meant, I suppose—and that, although Madame Valdez was not staying there at present, she might be prevailed upon to join him there, and certainly we should make a pleasant party. ‘I am _le bienvenu_ at a very cozy little place in Nice, if we want an hour’s distraction in the evening. My wife goes to bed early. She’s a woman with her own profession, and it takes her out early in the morning.’ So that seemed all right, only—you can guess! I smoothed over the difficulty. At that little hotel, at dinner on the next Sunday, I, Valdez’s welcome guest, had the privilege of being presented to Madame Valdez—or, as he called her, Donna Lucinda.” “Yes, the system worked, Godfrey,” I observed. He did not rebuke my interruption, but he took no heed of it. His own story held him in its grip, whatever effect it might be having on his auditor. “She came just as if she were an invited guest, and rather a shy one at that; a timid handshake for Valdez, a distant, shy bow for me. He greeted her as he might have a girl he was courting, but who would generally have nothing to do with him—who had condescended just this once, you know. Only she said to him—rather bashfully—‘Do you like the frock I bought, Arsenio?’ It was a pretty little frock—a brightish blue. Quite inexpensive material, I should say, but very nicely put together; and it suited her eyes and hair. What eyes and hair she has, by Jove, Julius!” He had told me not to interrupt; I didn’t. “Why didn’t you tell me what she was like?” he asked suddenly and rather fiercely. “It was what you told me you meant to find out for yourself, Godfrey.” “Well, we sat there and had dinner. She seemed to enjoy herself very much; made a good dinner, you know, and seemed to accept his compliments—Valdez’s, I mean—with a good deal of pleasure; he was flowery. I didn’t say much. I was damned dull, in fact. But she glanced at me out of the corner of her eye now and then. Look here, Julius, I’m an ass at telling about things!”