“Do you know the sudden change that comes in her voice when she means to be extra friendly? I can’t begin to describe it—something like the jolliest kitten in the world purring! No, that’s absurd——Oh, well! What she said was, ‘I like you and I like your dinners. But aren’t you rather silly to do it?’ Yes, she was very friendly, but just a bit contemptuous too. ‘Because you’re a great young man, aren’t you? And I’m a _midinette_! Besides, you know about me, I expect. And so you’ll know that Arsenio and I are married. Ask your cousin, Mr. Frost.’ “All I said was, ‘I’m glad you like me.’ She laughed. ‘And you like me? Why?’ “Then I made a most damned fool of myself, Julius. I don’t really know how I came to do it, except that the thing’s true, of course. I’ve laughed at the thing myself ever since I laughed at anything—in revues, and _Punch_, and everywhere. I said,—yes, by Jove, I did!—I said, ‘You’re so different from other women, Donna Lucinda!’ “What an ass! Of course you can’t help laughing too, Julius! But, after all, I’m glad I did make such an ass of myself, because she just burst into an honest guffaw—and so did I, a minute later. We became a thousand times better friends just in that minute.” Godfrey paused in his narrative and gazed at me. I am afraid that a smile still lingered on my face. “You didn’t do yourself justice; you tell the story very well,” I said. “Of course I wasn’t quite such an ass as I sounded,” said he. “What I really meant, but couldn’t exactly have said, was——” “I know exactly what it was, Godfrey. But I think it was much cleverer of you to know you meant it than it is of me to know that you meant it. You meant that Donna Lucinda Valdez has a personality markedly different from that possessed by Lady Dundrannan?” “I don’t suppose that I did know that I meant it—at that moment.” “But you know that you mean it now?” “That—and more,” he said. “Your idea of seeing whether Arsenio’s system worked seems to have led you a little further than you contemplated,” I observed. He had chaffed me that evening, after my dinner at Arsenio’s—or Nina’s—expense; he had aired his shrewdness. I seemed entitled to give him a dig. “Are you surprised?” he asked, after a pause, suddenly, taking not the least heed of my gibe. There were a hundred flippant answers that I might have given him. But I gave him none of them. His young, strong face wore a dour look—the look of a man up against something big, determined to tackle it, not yet seeing how. The animation which had filled him, as he warmed to his story, had for the moment worked itself out. He looked dull, heavy, tired. “No, I’m not surprised,” I said. “But what’s the use? You know her story.” “What do you mean by that?” he demanded, rather peremptorily.