summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
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<a href="#startoftext">The Arrow of Gold, by Joseph Conrad</a>
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Title: The Arrow of Gold

Author: Joseph Conrad

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<p>Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<h1>THE ARROW OF GOLD&mdash;A STORY BETWEEN TWO NOTES</h1>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<h2>FIRST NOTE</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>The pages which follow have been extracted from a pile of manuscript
which was apparently meant for the eye of one woman only.&nbsp; She
seems to have been the writer&rsquo;s childhood&rsquo;s friend.&nbsp;
They had parted as children, or very little more than children.&nbsp;
Years passed.&nbsp; Then something recalled to the woman the companion
of her young days and she wrote to him: &ldquo;I have been hearing of
you lately.&nbsp; I know where life has brought you.&nbsp; You certainly
selected your own road.&nbsp; But to us, left behind, it always looked
as if you had struck out into a pathless desert.&nbsp; We always regarded
you as a person that must be given up for lost.&nbsp; But you have turned
up again; and though we may never see each other, my memory welcomes
you and I confess to you I should like to know the incidents on the
road which has led you to where you are now.&rdquo;</p>
<p>And he answers her: &ldquo;I believe you are the only one now alive
who remembers me as a child.&nbsp; I have heard of you from time to
time, but I wonder what sort of person you are now.&nbsp; Perhaps if
I did know I wouldn&rsquo;t dare put pen to paper.&nbsp; But I don&rsquo;t
know.&nbsp; I only remember that we were great chums.&nbsp; In fact,
I chummed with you even more than with your brothers.&nbsp; But I am
like the pigeon that went away in the fable of the Two Pigeons.&nbsp;
If I once start to tell you I would want you to feel that you have been
there yourself.&nbsp; I may overtax your patience with the story of
my life so different from yours, not only in all the facts but altogether
in spirit.&nbsp; You may not understand.&nbsp; You may even be shocked.&nbsp;
I say all this to myself; but I know I shall succumb!&nbsp; I have a
distinct recollection that in the old days, when you were about fifteen,
you always could make me do whatever you liked.&rdquo;</p>
<p>He succumbed.&nbsp; He begins his story for her with the minute narration
of this adventure which took about twelve months to develop.&nbsp; In
the form in which it is presented here it has been pruned of all allusions
to their common past, of all asides, disquisitions, and explanations
addressed directly to the friend of his childhood.&nbsp; And even as
it is the whole thing is of considerable length.&nbsp; It seems that
he had not only a memory but that he also knew how to remember.&nbsp;
But as to that opinions may differ.</p>
<p>This, his first great adventure, as he calls it, begins in Marseilles.&nbsp;
It ends there, too.&nbsp; Yet it might have happened anywhere.&nbsp;
This does not mean that the people concerned could have come together
in pure space.&nbsp; The locality had a definite importance.&nbsp; As
to the time, it is easily fixed by the events at about the middle years
of the seventies, when Don Carlos de Bourbon, encouraged by the general
reaction of all Europe against the excesses of communistic Republicanism,
made his attempt for the throne of Spain, arms in hand, amongst the
hills and gorges of Guipuzcoa.&nbsp; It is perhaps the last instance
of a Pretender&rsquo;s adventure for a Crown that History will have
to record with the usual grave moral disapproval tinged by a shamefaced
regret for the departing romance.&nbsp; Historians are very much like
other people.</p>
<p>However, History has nothing to do with this tale.&nbsp; Neither
is the moral justification or condemnation of conduct aimed at here.&nbsp;
If anything it is perhaps a little sympathy that the writer expects
for his buried youth, as he lives it over again at the end of his insignificant
course on this earth.&nbsp; Strange person&mdash;yet perhaps not so
very different from ourselves.</p>
<p>A few words as to certain facts may be added.</p>
<p>It may seem that he was plunged very abruptly into this long adventure.&nbsp;
But from certain passages (suppressed here because mixed up with irrelevant
matter) it appears clearly that at the time of the meeting in the caf&eacute;,
Mills had already gathered, in various quarters, a definite view of
the eager youth who had been introduced to him in that ultra-legitimist
salon.&nbsp; What Mills had learned represented him as a young gentleman
who had arrived furnished with proper credentials and who apparently
was doing his best to waste his life in an eccentric fashion, with a
bohemian set (one poet, at least, emerged out of it later) on one side,
and on the other making friends with the people of the Old Town, pilots,
coasters, sailors, workers of all sorts.&nbsp; He pretended rather absurdly
to be a seaman himself and was already credited with an ill-defined
and vaguely illegal enterprise in the Gulf of Mexico.&nbsp; At once
it occurred to Mills that this eccentric youngster was the very person
for what the legitimist sympathizers had very much at heart just then:
to organize a supply by sea of arms and ammunition to the Carlist detachments
in the South.&nbsp; It was precisely to confer on that matter with Do&ntilde;a
Rita that Captain Blunt had been despatched from Headquarters.</p>
<p>Mills got in touch with Blunt at once and put the suggestion before
him.&nbsp; The Captain thought this the very thing.&nbsp; As a matter
of fact, on that evening of Carnival, those two, Mills and Blunt, had
been actually looking everywhere for our man.&nbsp; They had decided
that he should be drawn into the affair if it could be done.&nbsp; Blunt
naturally wanted to see him first.&nbsp; He must have estimated him
a promising person, but, from another point of view, not dangerous.&nbsp;
Thus lightly was the notorious (and at the same time mysterious) Monsieur
George brought into the world; out of the contact of two minds which
did not give a single thought to his flesh and blood.</p>
<p>Their purpose explains the intimate tone given to their first conversation
and the sudden introduction of Do&ntilde;a Rita&rsquo;s history.&nbsp;
Mills, of course, wanted to hear all about it.&nbsp; As to Captain Blunt&mdash;I
suspect that, at the time, he was thinking of nothing else.&nbsp; In
addition it was Do&ntilde;a Rita who would have to do the persuading;
for, after all, such an enterprise with its ugly and desperate risks
was not a trifle to put before a man&mdash;however young.</p>
<p>It cannot be denied that Mills seems to have acted somewhat unscrupulously.&nbsp;
He himself appears to have had some doubt about it, at a given moment,
as they were driving to the Prado.&nbsp; But perhaps Mills, with his
penetration, understood very well the nature he was dealing with.&nbsp;
He might even have envied it.&nbsp; But it&rsquo;s not my business to
excuse Mills.&nbsp; As to him whom we may regard as Mills&rsquo; victim
it is obvious that he has never harboured a single reproachful thought.&nbsp;
For him Mills is not to be criticized.&nbsp; A remarkable instance of
the great power of mere individuality over the young.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<h2>PART ONE</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER I</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Certain streets have an atmosphere of their own, a sort of universal
fame and the particular affection of their citizens.&nbsp; One of such
streets is the Cannebi&egrave;re, and the jest: &ldquo;If Paris had
a Cannebi&egrave;re it would be a little Marseilles&rdquo; is the jocular
expression of municipal pride.&nbsp; I, too, I have been under the spell.&nbsp;
For me it has been a street leading into the unknown.</p>
<p>There was a part of it where one could see as many as five big caf&eacute;s
in a resplendent row.&nbsp; That evening I strolled into one of them.&nbsp;
It was by no means full.&nbsp; It looked deserted, in fact, festal and
overlighted, but cheerful.&nbsp; The wonderful street was distinctly
cold (it was an evening of carnival), I was very idle, and I was feeling
a little lonely.&nbsp; So I went in and sat down.</p>
<p>The carnival time was drawing to an end.&nbsp; Everybody, high and
low, was anxious to have the last fling.&nbsp; Companies of masks with
linked arms and whooping like red Indians swept the streets in crazy
rushes while gusts of cold mistral swayed the gas lights as far as the
eye could reach.&nbsp; There was a touch of bedlam in all this.</p>
<p>Perhaps it was that which made me feel lonely, since I was neither
masked, nor disguised, nor yelling, nor in any other way in harmony
with the bedlam element of life.&nbsp; But I was not sad.&nbsp; I was
merely in a state of sobriety.&nbsp; I had just returned from my second
West Indies voyage.&nbsp; My eyes were still full of tropical splendour,
my memory of my experiences, lawful and lawless, which had their charm
and their thrill; for they had startled me a little and had amused me
considerably.&nbsp; But they had left me untouched.&nbsp; Indeed they
were other men&rsquo;s adventures, not mine.&nbsp; Except for a little
habit of responsibility which I had acquired they had not matured me.&nbsp;
I was as young as before.&nbsp; Inconceivably young&mdash;still beautifully
unthinking&mdash;infinitely receptive.</p>
<p>You may believe that I was not thinking of Don Carlos and his fight
for a kingdom.&nbsp; Why should I?&nbsp; You don&rsquo;t want to think
of things which you meet every day in the newspapers and in conversation.&nbsp;
I had paid some calls since my return and most of my acquaintance were
legitimists and intensely interested in the events of the frontier of
Spain, for political, religious, or romantic reasons.&nbsp; But I was
not interested.&nbsp; Apparently I was not romantic enough.&nbsp; Or
was it that I was even more romantic than all those good people?&nbsp;
The affair seemed to me commonplace.&nbsp; That man was attending to
his business of a Pretender.</p>
<p>On the front page of the illustrated paper I saw lying on a table
near me, he looked picturesque enough, seated on a boulder, a big strong
man with a square-cut beard, his hands resting on the hilt of a cavalry
sabre&mdash;and all around him a landscape of savage mountains.&nbsp;
He caught my eye on that spiritedly composed woodcut.&nbsp; (There were
no inane snapshot-reproductions in those days.)&nbsp; It was the obvious
romance for the use of royalists but it arrested my attention.</p>
<p>Just then some masks from outside invaded the caf&eacute;, dancing
hand in hand in a single file led by a burly man with a cardboard nose.&nbsp;
He gambolled in wildly and behind him twenty others perhaps, mostly
Pierrots and Pierrettes holding each other by the hand and winding in
and out between the chairs and tables: eyes shining in the holes of
cardboard faces, breasts panting; but all preserving a mysterious silence.</p>
<p>They were people of the poorer sort (white calico with red spots,
costumes), but amongst them there was a girl in a black dress sewn over
with gold half moons, very high in the neck and very short in the skirt.&nbsp;
Most of the ordinary clients of the caf&eacute; didn&rsquo;t even look
up from their games or papers.&nbsp; I, being alone and idle, stared
abstractedly.&nbsp; The girl costumed as Night wore a small black velvet
mask, what is called in French a &ldquo;<i>loup</i>.&rdquo;&nbsp; What
made her daintiness join that obviously rough lot I can&rsquo;t imagine.&nbsp;
Her uncovered mouth and chin suggested refined prettiness.</p>
<p>They filed past my table; the Night noticed perhaps my fixed gaze
and throwing her body forward out of the wriggling chain shot out at
me a slender tongue like a pink dart.&nbsp; I was not prepared for this,
not even to the extent of an appreciative &ldquo;<i>Tr&egrave;s foli</i>,&rdquo;
before she wriggled and hopped away.&nbsp; But having been thus distinguished
I could do no less than follow her with my eyes to the door where the
chain of hands being broken all the masks were trying to get out at
once.&nbsp; Two gentlemen coming in out of the street stood arrested
in the crush.&nbsp; The Night (it must have been her idiosyncrasy) put
her tongue out at them, too.&nbsp; The taller of the two (he was in
evening clothes under a light wide-open overcoat) with great presence
of mind chucked her under the chin, giving me the view at the same time
of a flash of white teeth in his dark, lean face.&nbsp; The other man
was very different; fair, with smooth, ruddy cheeks and burly shoulders.&nbsp;
He was wearing a grey suit, obviously bought ready-made, for it seemed
too tight for his powerful frame.</p>
<p>That man was not altogether a stranger to me.&nbsp; For the last
week or so I had been rather on the look-out for him in all the public
places where in a provincial town men may expect to meet each other.&nbsp;
I saw him for the first time (wearing that same grey ready-made suit)
in a legitimist drawing-room where, clearly, he was an object of interest,
especially to the women.&nbsp; I had caught his name as Monsieur Mills.&nbsp;
The lady who had introduced me took the earliest opportunity to murmur
into my ear: &ldquo;A relation of Lord X.&rdquo;&nbsp; (<i>Un proche
parent de Lord X</i>.)&nbsp; And then she added, casting up her eyes:
&ldquo;A good friend of the King.&rdquo;&nbsp; Meaning Don Carlos of
course.</p>
<p>I looked at the <i>proche parent</i>; not on account of the parentage
but marvelling at his air of ease in that cumbrous body and in such
tight clothes, too.&nbsp; But presently the same lady informed me further:
&ldquo;He has come here amongst us <i>un naufrag&eacute;</i>.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I became then really interested.&nbsp; I had never seen a shipwrecked
person before.&nbsp; All the boyishness in me was aroused.&nbsp; I considered
a shipwreck as an unavoidable event sooner or later in my future.</p>
<p>Meantime the man thus distinguished in my eyes glanced quietly about
and never spoke unless addressed directly by one of the ladies present.&nbsp;
There were more than a dozen people in that drawing-room, mostly women
eating fine pastry and talking passionately.&nbsp; It might have been
a Carlist committee meeting of a particularly fatuous character.&nbsp;
Even my youth and inexperience were aware of that.&nbsp; And I was by
a long way the youngest person in the room.&nbsp; That quiet Monsieur
Mills intimidated me a little by his age (I suppose he was thirty-five),
his massive tranquillity, his clear, watchful eyes.&nbsp; But the temptation
was too great&mdash;and I addressed him impulsively on the subject of
that shipwreck.</p>
<p>He turned his big fair face towards me with surprise in his keen
glance, which (as though he had seen through me in an instant and found
nothing objectionable) changed subtly into friendliness.&nbsp; On the
matter of the shipwreck he did not say much.&nbsp; He only told me that
it had not occurred in the Mediterranean, but on the other side of Southern
France&mdash;in the Bay of Biscay.&nbsp; &ldquo;But this is hardly the
place to enter on a story of that kind,&rdquo; he observed, looking
round at the room with a faint smile as attractive as the rest of his
rustic but well-bred personality.</p>
<p>I expressed my regret.&nbsp; I should have liked to hear all about
it.&nbsp; To this he said that it was not a secret and that perhaps
next time we met. . .</p>
<p>&ldquo;But where can we meet?&rdquo; I cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t
come often to this house, you know.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Where?&nbsp; Why on the Cannebi&egrave;re to be sure.&nbsp;
Everybody meets everybody else at least once a day on the pavement opposite
the <i>Bourse</i>.&rdquo;</p>
<p>This was absolutely true.&nbsp; But though I looked for him on each
succeeding day he was nowhere to be seen at the usual times.&nbsp; The
companions of my idle hours (and all my hours were idle just then) noticed
my preoccupation and chaffed me about it in a rather obvious way.&nbsp;
They wanted to know whether she, whom I expected to see, was dark or
fair; whether that fascination which kept me on tenterhooks of expectation
was one of my aristocrats or one of my marine beauties: for they knew
I had a footing in both these&mdash;shall we say circles?&nbsp; As to
themselves they were the bohemian circle, not very wide&mdash;half a
dozen of us led by a sculptor whom we called Prax for short.&nbsp; My
own nick-name was &ldquo;Young Ulysses.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I liked it.</p>
<p>But chaff or no chaff they would have been surprised to see me leave
them for the burly and sympathetic Mills.&nbsp; I was ready to drop
any easy company of equals to approach that interesting man with every
mental deference.&nbsp; It was not precisely because of that shipwreck.&nbsp;
He attracted and interested me the more because he was not to be seen.&nbsp;
The fear that he might have departed suddenly for England&mdash;(or
for Spain)&mdash;caused me a sort of ridiculous depression as though
I had missed a unique opportunity.&nbsp; And it was a joyful reaction
which emboldened me to signal to him with a raised arm across that caf&eacute;.</p>
<p>I was abashed immediately afterwards, when I saw him advance towards
my table with his friend.&nbsp; The latter was eminently elegant.&nbsp;
He was exactly like one of those figures one can see of a fine May evening
in the neighbourhood of the Opera-house in Paris.&nbsp; Very Parisian
indeed.&nbsp; And yet he struck me as not so perfectly French as he
ought to have been, as if one&rsquo;s nationality were an accomplishment
with varying degrees of excellence.&nbsp; As to Mills, he was perfectly
insular.&nbsp; There could be no doubt about him.&nbsp; They were both
smiling faintly at me.&nbsp; The burly Mills attended to the introduction:
&ldquo;Captain Blunt.&rdquo;</p>
<p>We shook hands.&nbsp; The name didn&rsquo;t tell me much.&nbsp; What
surprised me was that Mills should have remembered mine so well.&nbsp;
I don&rsquo;t want to boast of my modesty but it seemed to me that two
or three days was more than enough for a man like Mills to forget my
very existence.&nbsp; As to the Captain, I was struck on closer view
by the perfect correctness of his personality.&nbsp; Clothes, slight
figure, clear-cut, thin, sun-tanned face, pose, all this was so good
that it was saved from the danger of banality only by the mobile black
eyes of a keenness that one doesn&rsquo;t meet every day in the south
of France and still less in Italy.&nbsp; Another thing was that, viewed
as an officer in mufti, he did not look sufficiently professional.&nbsp;
That imperfection was interesting, too.</p>
<p>You may think that I am subtilizing my impressions on purpose, but
you may take it from a man who has lived a rough, a very rough life,
that it is the subtleties of personalities, and contacts, and events,
that count for interest and memory&mdash;and pretty well nothing else.&nbsp;
This&mdash;you see&mdash;is the last evening of that part of my life
in which I did not know that woman.&nbsp; These are like the last hours
of a previous existence.&nbsp; It isn&rsquo;t my fault that they are
associated with nothing better at the decisive moment than the banal
splendours of a gilded caf&eacute; and the bedlamite yells of carnival
in the street.</p>
<p>We three, however (almost complete strangers to each other), had
assumed attitudes of serious amiability round our table.&nbsp; A waiter
approached for orders and it was then, in relation to my order for coffee,
that the absolutely first thing I learned of Captain Blunt was the fact
that he was a sufferer from insomnia.&nbsp; In his immovable way Mills
began charging his pipe.&nbsp; I felt extremely embarrassed all at once,
but became positively annoyed when I saw our Prax enter the caf&eacute;
in a sort of mediaeval costume very much like what Faust wears in the
third act.&nbsp; I have no doubt it was meant for a purely operatic
Faust.&nbsp; A light mantle floated from his shoulders.&nbsp; He strode
theatrically up to our table and addressing me as &ldquo;Young Ulysses&rdquo;
proposed I should go outside on the fields of asphalt and help him gather
a few marguerites to decorate a truly infernal supper which was being
organized across the road at the Maison Dor&eacute;e&mdash;upstairs.&nbsp;
With expostulatory shakes of the head and indignant glances I called
his attention to the fact that I was not alone.&nbsp; He stepped back
a pace as if astonished by the discovery, took off his plumed velvet
toque with a low obeisance so that the feathers swept the floor, and
swaggered off the stage with his left hand resting on the hilt of the
property dagger at his belt.</p>
<p>Meantime the well-connected but rustic Mills had been busy lighting
his briar and the distinguished Captain sat smiling to himself.&nbsp;
I was horribly vexed and apologized for that intrusion, saying that
the fellow was a future great sculptor and perfectly harmless; but he
had been swallowing lots of night air which had got into his head apparently.</p>
<p>Mills peered at me with his friendly but awfully searching blue eyes
through the cloud of smoke he had wreathed about his big head.&nbsp;
The slim, dark Captain&rsquo;s smile took on an amiable expression.&nbsp;
Might he know why I was addressed as &ldquo;Young Ulysses&rdquo; by
my friend? and immediately he added the remark with urbane playfulness
that Ulysses was an astute person.&nbsp; Mills did not give me time
for a reply.&nbsp; He struck in: &ldquo;That old Greek was famed as
a wanderer&mdash;the first historical seaman.&rdquo;&nbsp; He waved
his pipe vaguely at me.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Ah!&nbsp; <i>Vraiment</i>!&rdquo;&nbsp; The polite Captain
seemed incredulous and as if weary.&nbsp; &ldquo;Are you a seaman?&nbsp;
In what sense, pray?&rdquo;&nbsp; We were talking French and he used
the term <i>homme de mer.</i></p>
<p>Again Mills interfered quietly.&nbsp; &ldquo;In the same sense in
which you are a military man.&rdquo;&nbsp; (<i>Homme de guerre</i>.)</p>
<p>It was then that I heard Captain Blunt produce one of his striking
declarations.&nbsp; He had two of them, and this was the first.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I live by my sword.&rdquo;</p>
<p>It was said in an extraordinary dandified manner which in conjunction
with the matter made me forget my tongue in my head.&nbsp; I could only
stare at him.&nbsp; He added more naturally: &ldquo;2nd Reg.&nbsp; Castille,
Cavalry.&rdquo;&nbsp; Then with marked stress in Spanish, &ldquo;<i>En
las filas legitimas</i>.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Mills was heard, unmoved, like Jove in his cloud: &ldquo;He&rsquo;s
on leave here.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Of course I don&rsquo;t shout that fact on the housetops,&rdquo;
the Captain addressed me pointedly, &ldquo;any more than our friend
his shipwreck adventure.&nbsp; We must not strain the toleration of
the French authorities too much!&nbsp; It wouldn&rsquo;t be correct&mdash;and
not very safe either.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I became suddenly extremely delighted with my company.&nbsp; A man
who &ldquo;lived by his sword,&rdquo; before my eyes, close at my elbow!&nbsp;
So such people did exist in the world yet!&nbsp; I had not been born
too late!&nbsp; And across the table with his air of watchful, unmoved
benevolence, enough in itself to arouse one&rsquo;s interest, there
was the man with the story of a shipwreck that mustn&rsquo;t be shouted
on housetops.&nbsp; Why?</p>
<p>I understood very well why, when he told me that he had joined in
the Clyde a small steamer chartered by a relative of his, &ldquo;a very
wealthy man,&rdquo; he observed (probably Lord X, I thought), to carry
arms and other supplies to the Carlist army.&nbsp; And it was not a
shipwreck in the ordinary sense.&nbsp; Everything went perfectly well
to the last moment when suddenly the <i>Numancia</i> (a Republican ironclad)
had appeared and chased them ashore on the French coast below Bayonne.&nbsp;
In a few words, but with evident appreciation of the adventure, Mills
described to us how he swam to the beach clad simply in a money belt
and a pair of trousers.&nbsp; Shells were falling all round till a tiny
French gunboat came out of Bayonne and shooed the <i>Numancia</i> away
out of territorial waters.</p>
<p>He was very amusing and I was fascinated by the mental picture of
that tranquil man rolling in the surf and emerging breathless, in the
costume you know, on the fair land of France, in the character of a
smuggler of war material.&nbsp; However, they had never arrested or
expelled him, since he was there before my eyes.&nbsp; But how and why
did he get so far from the scene of his sea adventure was an interesting
question.&nbsp; And I put it to him with most na&iuml;ve indiscretion
which did not shock him visibly.&nbsp; He told me that the ship being
only stranded, not sunk, the contraband cargo aboard was doubtless in
good condition.&nbsp; The French custom-house men were guarding the
wreck.&nbsp; If their vigilance could be&mdash;h&rsquo;m&mdash;removed
by some means, or even merely reduced, a lot of these rifles and cartridges
could be taken off quietly at night by certain Spanish fishing boats.&nbsp;
In fact, salved for the Carlists, after all.&nbsp; He thought it could
be done. . . .</p>
<p>I said with professional gravity that given a few perfectly quiet
nights (rare on that coast) it could certainly be done.</p>
<p>Mr. Mills was not afraid of the elements.&nbsp; It was the highly
inconvenient zeal of the French custom-house people that had to be dealt
with in some way.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Heavens!&rdquo; I cried, astonished.&nbsp; &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t
bribe the French Customs.&nbsp; This isn&rsquo;t a South-American republic.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Is it a republic?&rdquo; he murmured, very absorbed in smoking
his wooden pipe.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Well, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;</p>
<p>He murmured again, &ldquo;Oh, so little.&rdquo;&nbsp; At this I laughed,
and a faintly humorous expression passed over Mills&rsquo; face.&nbsp;
No.&nbsp; Bribes were out of the question, he admitted.&nbsp; But there
were many legitimist sympathies in Paris.&nbsp; A proper person could
set them in motion and a mere hint from high quarters to the officials
on the spot not to worry over-much about that wreck. . . .</p>
<p>What was most amusing was the cool, reasonable tone of this amazing
project.&nbsp; Mr. Blunt sat by very detached, his eyes roamed here
and there all over the caf&eacute;; and it was while looking upward
at the pink foot of a fleshy and very much foreshortened goddess of
some sort depicted on the ceiling in an enormous composition in the
Italian style that he let fall casually the words, &ldquo;She will manage
it for you quite easily.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Every Carlist agent in Bayonne assured me of that,&rdquo;
said Mr. Mills.&nbsp; &ldquo;I would have gone straight to Paris only
I was told she had fled here for a rest; tired, discontented.&nbsp;
Not a very encouraging report.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;These flights are well known,&rdquo; muttered Mr. Blunt.&nbsp;
&ldquo;You shall see her all right.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes.&nbsp; They told me that you . . . &rdquo;</p>
<p>I broke in: &ldquo;You mean to say that you expect a woman to arrange
that sort of thing for you?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;A trifle, for her,&rdquo; Mr. Blunt remarked indifferently.&nbsp;
&ldquo;At that sort of thing women are best.&nbsp; They have less scruples.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;More audacity,&rdquo; interjected Mr. Mills almost in a whisper.</p>
<p>Mr. Blunt kept quiet for a moment, then: &ldquo;You see,&rdquo; he
addressed me in a most refined tone, &ldquo;a mere man may suddenly
find himself being kicked down the stairs.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I don&rsquo;t know why I should have felt shocked by that statement.&nbsp;
It could not be because it was untrue.&nbsp; The other did not give
me time to offer any remark.&nbsp; He inquired with extreme politeness
what did I know of South American republics?&nbsp; I confessed that
I knew very little of them.&nbsp; Wandering about the Gulf of Mexico
I had a look-in here and there; and amongst others I had a few days
in Haiti which was of course unique, being a negro republic.&nbsp; On
this Captain Blunt began to talk of negroes at large.&nbsp; He talked
of them with knowledge, intelligence, and a sort of contemptuous affection.&nbsp;
He generalized, he particularized about the blacks; he told anecdotes.&nbsp;
I was interested, a little incredulous, and considerably surprised.&nbsp;
What could this man with such a boulevardier exterior that he looked
positively like, an exile in a provincial town, and with his drawing-room
manner&mdash;what could he know of negroes?</p>
<p>Mills, sitting silent with his air of watchful intelligence, seemed
to read my thoughts, waved his pipe slightly and explained: &ldquo;The
Captain is from South Carolina.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; I murmured, and then after the slightest of pauses
I heard the second of Mr. J. K. Blunt&rsquo;s declarations.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said.&nbsp; <i>&ldquo;Je suis Am&eacute;ricain,
catholique et gentil</i>-<i>homme</i>,&rdquo; in a tone contrasting
so strongly with the smile, which, as it were, underlined the uttered
words, that I was at a loss whether to return the smile in kind or acknowledge
the words with a grave little bow.&nbsp; Of course I did neither and
there fell on us an odd, equivocal silence.&nbsp; It marked our final
abandonment of the French language.&nbsp; I was the one to speak first,
proposing that my companions should sup with me, not across the way,
which would be riotous with more than one &ldquo;infernal&rdquo; supper,
but in another much more select establishment in a side street away
from the Cannebi&egrave;re.&nbsp; It flattered my vanity a little to
be able to say that I had a corner table always reserved in the Salon
des Palmiers, otherwise Salon Blanc, where the atmosphere was legitimist
and extremely decorous besides&mdash;even in Carnival time.&nbsp; &ldquo;Nine
tenths of the people there,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;would be of your political
opinions, if that&rsquo;s an inducement.&nbsp; Come along.&nbsp; Let&rsquo;s
be festive,&rdquo; I encouraged them.</p>
<p>I didn&rsquo;t feel particularly festive.&nbsp; What I wanted was
to remain in my company and break an inexplicable feeling of constraint
of which I was aware.&nbsp; Mills looked at me steadily with a faint,
kind smile.</p>
<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Blunt.&nbsp; &ldquo;Why should we go there?&nbsp;
They will be only turning us out in the small hours, to go home and
face insomnia.&nbsp; Can you imagine anything more disgusting?&rdquo;</p>
<p>He was smiling all the time, but his deep-set eyes did not lend themselves
to the expression of whimsical politeness which he tried to achieve.&nbsp;
He had another suggestion to offer.&nbsp; Why shouldn&rsquo;t we adjourn
to his rooms?&nbsp; He had there materials for a dish of his own invention
for which he was famous all along the line of the Royal Cavalry outposts,
and he would cook it for us.&nbsp; There were also a few bottles of
some white wine, quite possible, which we could drink out of Venetian
cut-glass goblets.&nbsp; A <i>bivouac</i> feast, in fact.&nbsp; And
he wouldn&rsquo;t turn us out in the small hours.&nbsp; Not he.&nbsp;
He couldn&rsquo;t sleep.</p>
<p>Need I say I was fascinated by the idea?&nbsp; Well, yes.&nbsp; But
somehow I hesitated and looked towards Mills, so much my senior.&nbsp;
He got up without a word.&nbsp; This was decisive; for no obscure premonition,
and of something indefinite at that, could stand against the example
of his tranquil personality.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER II</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>The street in which Mr. Blunt lived presented itself to our eyes,
narrow, silent, empty, and dark, but with enough gas-lamps in it to
disclose its most striking feature: a quantity of flag-poles sticking
out above many of its closed portals.&nbsp; It was the street of Consuls
and I remarked to Mr. Blunt that coming out in the morning he could
survey the flags of all nations almost&mdash;except his own.&nbsp; (The
U. S. consulate was on the other side of the town.)&nbsp; He mumbled
through his teeth that he took good care to keep clear of his own consulate.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Are you afraid of the consul&rsquo;s dog?&rdquo; I asked jocularly.&nbsp;
The consul&rsquo;s dog weighed about a pound and a half and was known
to the whole town as exhibited on the consular fore-arm in all places,
at all hours, but mainly at the hour of the fashionable promenade on
the Prado.</p>
<p>But I felt my jest misplaced when Mills growled low in my ear: &ldquo;They
are all Yankees there.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I murmured a confused &ldquo;Of course.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Books are nothing.&nbsp; I discovered that I had never been aware
before that the Civil War in America was not printed matter but a fact
only about ten years old.&nbsp; Of course.&nbsp; He was a South Carolinian
gentleman.&nbsp; I was a little ashamed of my want of tact.&nbsp; Meantime,
looking like the conventional conception of a fashionable reveller,
with his opera-hat pushed off his forehead, Captain Blunt was having
some slight difficulty with his latch-key; for the house before which
we had stopped was not one of those many-storied houses that made up
the greater part of the street.&nbsp; It had only one row of windows
above the ground floor.&nbsp; Dead walls abutting on to it indicated
that it had a garden.&nbsp; Its dark front presented no marked architectural
character, and in the flickering light of a street lamp it looked a
little as though it had gone down in the world.&nbsp; The greater then
was my surprise to enter a hall paved in black and white marble and
in its dimness appearing of palatial proportions.&nbsp; Mr. Blunt did
not turn up the small solitary gas-jet, but led the way across the black
and white pavement past the end of the staircase, past a door of gleaming
dark wood with a heavy bronze handle.&nbsp; It gave access to his rooms
he said; but he took us straight on to the studio at the end of the
passage.</p>
<p>It was rather a small place tacked on in the manner of a lean-to
to the garden side of the house.&nbsp; A large lamp was burning brightly
there.&nbsp; The floor was of mere flag-stones but the few rugs scattered
about though extremely worn were very costly.&nbsp; There was also there
a beautiful sofa upholstered in pink figured silk, an enormous divan
with many cushions, some splendid arm-chairs of various shapes (but
all very shabby), a round table, and in the midst of these fine things
a small common iron stove.&nbsp; Somebody must have been attending it
lately, for the fire roared and the warmth of the place was very grateful
after the bone-searching cold blasts of mistral outside.</p>
<p>Mills without a word flung himself on the divan and, propped on his
arm, gazed thoughtfully at a distant corner where in the shadow of a
monumental carved wardrobe an articulated dummy without head or hands
but with beautifully shaped limbs composed in a shrinking attitude,
seemed to be embarrassed by his stare.</p>
<p>As we sat enjoying the <i>bivouac</i> hospitality (the dish was really
excellent and our host in a shabby grey jacket still looked the accomplished
man-about-town) my eyes kept on straying towards that corner.&nbsp;
Blunt noticed this and remarked that I seemed to be attracted by the
Empress.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s disagreeable,&rdquo; I said.&nbsp; &ldquo;It seems
to lurk there like a shy skeleton at the feast.&nbsp; But why do you
give the name of Empress to that dummy?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Because it sat for days and days in the robes of a Byzantine
Empress to a painter. . . I wonder where he discovered these priceless
stuffs. . . You knew him, I believe?&rdquo;</p>
<p>Mills lowered his head slowly, then tossed down his throat some wine
out of a Venetian goblet.</p>
<p>&ldquo;This house is full of costly objects.&nbsp; So are all his
other houses, so is his place in Paris&mdash;that mysterious Pavilion
hidden away in Passy somewhere.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Mills knew the Pavilion.&nbsp; The wine had, I suppose, loosened
his tongue.&nbsp; Blunt, too, lost something of his reserve.&nbsp; From
their talk I gathered the notion of an eccentric personality, a man
of great wealth, not so much solitary as difficult of access, a collector
of fine things, a painter known only to very few people and not at all
to the public market.&nbsp; But as meantime I had been emptying my Venetian
goblet with a certain regularity (the amount of heat given out by that
iron stove was amazing; it parched one&rsquo;s throat, and the straw-coloured
wine didn&rsquo;t seem much stronger than so much pleasantly flavoured
water) the voices and the impressions they conveyed acquired something
fantastic to my mind.&nbsp; Suddenly I perceived that Mills was sitting
in his shirt-sleeves.&nbsp; I had not noticed him taking off his coat.&nbsp;
Blunt had unbuttoned his shabby jacket, exposing a lot of starched shirt-front
with the white tie under his dark shaved chin.&nbsp; He had a strange
air of insolence&mdash;or so it seemed to me.&nbsp; I addressed him
much louder than I intended really.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Did you know that extraordinary man?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;To know him personally one had to be either very distinguished
or very lucky.&nbsp; Mr. Mills here . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes, I have been lucky,&rdquo; Mills struck in.&nbsp; &ldquo;It
was my cousin who was distinguished.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s how I managed
to enter his house in Paris&mdash;it was called the Pavilion&mdash;twice.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;And saw Do&ntilde;a Rita twice, too?&rdquo; asked Blunt with
an indefinite smile and a marked emphasis.&nbsp; Mills was also emphatic
in his reply but with a serious face.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I am not an easy enthusiast where women are concerned, but
she was without doubt the most admirable find of his amongst all the
priceless items he had accumulated in that house&mdash;the most admirable.
. . &rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Ah!&nbsp; But, you see, of all the objects there she was the
only one that was alive,&rdquo; pointed out Blunt with the slightest
possible flavour of sarcasm.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Immensely so,&rdquo; affirmed Mills.&nbsp; &ldquo;Not because
she was restless, indeed she hardly ever moved from that couch between
the windows&mdash;you know.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;No.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t know.&nbsp; I&rsquo;ve never been
in there,&rdquo; announced Blunt with that flash of white teeth so strangely
without any character of its own that it was merely disturbing.</p>
<p>&ldquo;But she radiated life,&rdquo; continued Mills.&nbsp; &ldquo;She
had plenty of it, and it had a quality.&nbsp; My cousin and Henry All&egrave;gre
had a lot to say to each other and so I was free to talk to her.&nbsp;
At the second visit we were like old friends, which was absurd considering
that all the chances were that we would never meet again in this world
or in the next.&nbsp; I am not meddling with theology but it seems to
me that in the Elysian fields she&rsquo;ll have her place in a very
special company.&rdquo;</p>
<p>All this in a sympathetic voice and in his unmoved manner.&nbsp;
Blunt produced another disturbing white flash and muttered:</p>
<p>&ldquo;I should say mixed.&rdquo;&nbsp; Then louder: &ldquo;As for
instance . . . &rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;As for instance Cleopatra,&rdquo; answered Mills quietly.&nbsp;
He added after a pause: &ldquo;Who was not exactly pretty.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I should have thought rather a La Valli&egrave;re,&rdquo;
Blunt dropped with an indifference of which one did not know what to
make.&nbsp; He may have begun to be bored with the subject.&nbsp; But
it may have been put on, for the whole personality was not clearly definable.&nbsp;
I, however, was not indifferent.&nbsp; A woman is always an interesting
subject and I was thoroughly awake to that interest.&nbsp; Mills pondered
for a while with a sort of dispassionate benevolence, at last:</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes, Do&ntilde;a Rita as far as I know her is so varied in
her simplicity that even that is possible,&rdquo; he said.&nbsp; &ldquo;Yes.&nbsp;
A romantic resigned La Valli&egrave;re . . . who had a big mouth.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I felt moved to make myself heard.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Did you know La Valli&egrave;re, too?&rdquo; I asked impertinently.</p>
<p>Mills only smiled at me.&nbsp; &ldquo;No.&nbsp; I am not quite so
old as that,&rdquo; he said.&nbsp; &ldquo;But it&rsquo;s not very difficult
to know facts of that kind about a historical personage.&nbsp; There
were some ribald verses made at the time, and Louis XIV was congratulated
on the possession&mdash;I really don&rsquo;t remember how it goes&mdash;on
the possession of:</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;. . . de ce bec amoureux<br />Qui d&rsquo;une oreille &agrave;
l&rsquo;autre va,<br />Tra l&agrave; l&agrave;.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>or something of the sort.&nbsp; It needn&rsquo;t be from ear to ear,
but it&rsquo;s a fact that a big mouth is often a sign of a certain
generosity of mind and feeling.&nbsp; Young man, beware of women with
small mouths.&nbsp; Beware of the others, too, of course; but a small
mouth is a fatal sign.&nbsp; Well, the royalist sympathizers can&rsquo;t
charge Do&ntilde;a Rita with any lack of generosity from what I hear.&nbsp;
Why should I judge her?&nbsp; I have known her for, say, six hours altogether.&nbsp;
It was enough to feel the seduction of her native intelligence and of
her splendid physique.&nbsp; And all that was brought home to me so
quickly,&rdquo; he concluded, &ldquo;because she had what some Frenchman
has called the &lsquo;terrible gift of familiarity&rsquo;.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Blunt had been listening moodily.&nbsp; He nodded assent.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes!&rdquo;&nbsp; Mills&rsquo; thoughts were still dwelling
in the past.&nbsp; &ldquo;And when saying good-bye she could put in
an instant an immense distance between herself and you.&nbsp; A slight
stiffening of that perfect figure, a change of the physiognomy: it was
like being dismissed by a person born in the purple.&nbsp; Even if she
did offer you her hand&mdash;as she did to me&mdash;it was as if across
a broad river.&nbsp; Trick of manner or a bit of truth peeping out?&nbsp;
Perhaps she&rsquo;s really one of those inaccessible beings.&nbsp; What
do you think, Blunt?&rdquo;</p>
<p>It was a direct question which for some reason (as if my range of
sensitiveness had been increased already) displeased or rather disturbed
me strangely.&nbsp; Blunt seemed not to have heard it.&nbsp; But after
a while he turned to me.</p>
<p>&ldquo;That thick man,&rdquo; he said in a tone of perfect urbanity,
&ldquo;is as fine as a needle.&nbsp; All these statements about the
seduction and then this final doubt expressed after only two visits
which could not have included more than six hours altogether and this
some three years ago!&nbsp; But it is Henry All&egrave;gre that you
should ask this question, Mr. Mills.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t the secret of raising the dead,&rdquo; answered
Mills good humouredly.&nbsp; &ldquo;And if I had I would hesitate.&nbsp;
It would seem such a liberty to take with a person one had known so
slightly in life.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;And yet Henry All&egrave;gre is the only person to ask about
her, after all this uninterrupted companionship of years, ever since
he discovered her; all the time, every breathing moment of it, till,
literally, his very last breath.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t mean to say she
nursed him.&nbsp; He had his confidential man for that.&nbsp; He couldn&rsquo;t
bear women about his person.&nbsp; But then apparently he couldn&rsquo;t
bear this one out of his sight.&nbsp; She&rsquo;s the only woman who
ever sat to him, for he would never suffer a model inside his house.&nbsp;
That&rsquo;s why the &lsquo;Girl in the Hat&rsquo; and the &lsquo;Byzantine
Empress&rsquo; have that family air, though neither of them is really
a likeness of Do&ntilde;a Rita. . . You know my mother?&rdquo;</p>
<p>Mills inclined his body slightly and a fugitive smile vanished from
his lips.&nbsp; Blunt&rsquo;s eyes were fastened on the very centre
of his empty plate.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Then perhaps you know my mother&rsquo;s artistic and literary
associations,&rdquo; Blunt went on in a subtly changed tone.&nbsp; &ldquo;My
mother has been writing verse since she was a girl of fifteen.&nbsp;
She&rsquo;s still writing verse.&nbsp; She&rsquo;s still fifteen&mdash;a
spoiled girl of genius.&nbsp; So she requested one of her poet friends&mdash;no
less than Versoy himself&mdash;to arrange for a visit to Henry All&egrave;gre&rsquo;s
house.&nbsp; At first he thought he hadn&rsquo;t heard aright.&nbsp;
You must know that for my mother a man that doesn&rsquo;t jump out of
his skin for any woman&rsquo;s caprice is not chivalrous.&nbsp; But
perhaps you do know? . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>Mills shook his head with an amused air.&nbsp; Blunt, who had raised
his eyes from his plate to look at him, started afresh with great deliberation.</p>
<p>&ldquo;She gives no peace to herself or her friends.&nbsp; My mother&rsquo;s
exquisitely absurd.&nbsp; You understand that all these painters, poets,
art collectors (and dealers in bric-&agrave;-brac, he interjected through
his teeth) of my mother are not in my way; but Versoy lives more like
a man of the world.&nbsp; One day I met him at the fencing school.&nbsp;
He was furious.&nbsp; He asked me to tell my mother that this was the
last effort of his chivalry.&nbsp; The jobs she gave him to do were
too difficult.&nbsp; But I daresay he had been pleased enough to show
the influence he had in that quarter.&nbsp; He knew my mother would
tell the world&rsquo;s wife all about it.&nbsp; He&rsquo;s a spiteful,
gingery little wretch.&nbsp; The top of his head shines like a billiard
ball.&nbsp; I believe he polishes it every morning with a cloth.&nbsp;
Of course they didn&rsquo;t get further than the big drawing-room on
the first floor, an enormous drawing-room with three pairs of columns
in the middle.&nbsp; The double doors on the top of the staircase had
been thrown wide open, as if for a visit from royalty.&nbsp; You can
picture to yourself my mother, with her white hair done in some 18th
century fashion and her sparkling black eyes, penetrating into those
splendours attended by a sort of bald-headed, vexed squirrel&mdash;and
Henry All&egrave;gre coming forward to meet them like a severe prince
with the face of a tombstone Crusader, big white hands, muffled silken
voice, half-shut eyes, as if looking down at them from a balcony.&nbsp;
You remember that trick of his, Mills?&rdquo;</p>
<p>Mills emitted an enormous cloud of smoke out of his distended cheeks.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I daresay he was furious, too,&rdquo;&nbsp; Blunt continued
dispassionately.&nbsp; &ldquo;But he was extremely civil.&nbsp; He showed
her all the &lsquo;treasures&rsquo; in the room, ivories, enamels, miniatures,
all sorts of monstrosities from Japan, from India, from Timbuctoo .
. . for all I know. . . He pushed his condescension so far as to have
the &lsquo;Girl in the Hat&rsquo; brought down into the drawing-room&mdash;half
length, unframed.&nbsp; They put her on a chair for my mother to look
at.&nbsp; The &lsquo;Byzantine Empress&rsquo; was already there, hung
on the end wall&mdash;full length, gold frame weighing half a ton.&nbsp;
My mother first overwhelms the &lsquo;Master&rsquo; with thanks, and
then absorbs herself in the adoration of the &lsquo;Girl in the Hat.&rsquo;&nbsp;
Then she sighs out: &lsquo;It should be called Diaphan&eacute;it&eacute;,
if there is such a word.&nbsp; Ah!&nbsp; This is the last expression
of modernity!&rsquo;&nbsp; She puts up suddenly her face-&agrave;-main
and looks towards the end wall.&nbsp; &lsquo;And that&mdash;Byzantium
itself!&nbsp; Who was she, this sullen and beautiful Empress?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;The one I had in my mind was Theodosia!&rsquo;&nbsp;
All&egrave;gre consented to answer.&nbsp; &lsquo;Originally a slave
girl&mdash;from somewhere.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;My mother can be marvellously indiscreet when the whim takes
her.&nbsp; She finds nothing better to do than to ask the &lsquo;Master&rsquo;
why he took his inspiration for those two faces from the same model.&nbsp;
No doubt she was proud of her discerning eye.&nbsp; It was really clever
of her.&nbsp; All&egrave;gre, however, looked on it as a colossal impertinence;
but he answered in his silkiest tones:</p>
<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;Perhaps it is because I saw in that woman something
of the women of all time.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;My mother might have guessed that she was on thin ice there.&nbsp;
She is extremely intelligent.&nbsp; Moreover, she ought to have known.&nbsp;
But women can be miraculously dense sometimes.&nbsp; So she exclaims,
&lsquo;Then she is a wonder!&rsquo;&nbsp; And with some notion of being
complimentary goes on to say that only the eyes of the discoverer of
so many wonders of art could have discovered something so marvellous
in life.&nbsp; I suppose All&egrave;gre lost his temper altogether then;
or perhaps he only wanted to pay my mother out, for all these &lsquo;Masters&rsquo;
she had been throwing at his head for the last two hours.&nbsp; He insinuates
with the utmost politeness:</p>
<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;As you are honouring my poor collection with a visit
you may like to judge for yourself as to the inspiration of these two
pictures.&nbsp; She is upstairs changing her dress after our morning
ride.&nbsp; But she wouldn&rsquo;t be very long.&nbsp; She might be
a little surprised at first to be called down like this, but with a
few words of preparation and purely as a matter of art . . .&rsquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;There were never two people more taken aback.&nbsp; Versoy
himself confesses that he dropped his tall hat with a crash.&nbsp; I
am a dutiful son, I hope, but I must say I should have liked to have
seen the retreat down the great staircase.&nbsp; Ha!&nbsp; Ha!&nbsp;
Ha!&rdquo;</p>
<p>He laughed most undutifully and then his face twitched grimly.</p>
<p>&ldquo;That implacable brute All&egrave;gre followed them down ceremoniously
and put my mother into the fiacre at the door with the greatest deference.&nbsp;
He didn&rsquo;t open his lips though, and made a great bow as the fiacre
drove away.&nbsp; My mother didn&rsquo;t recover from her consternation
for three days.&nbsp; I lunch with her almost daily and I couldn&rsquo;t
imagine what was the matter.&nbsp; Then one day . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>He glanced round the table, jumped up and with a word of excuse left
the studio by a small door in a corner.&nbsp; This startled me into
the consciousness that I had been as if I had not existed for these
two men.&nbsp; With his elbows propped on the table Mills had his hands
in front of his face clasping the pipe from which he extracted now and
then a puff of smoke, staring stolidly across the room.</p>
<p>I was moved to ask in a whisper:</p>
<p>&ldquo;Do you know him well?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what he is driving at,&rdquo; he answered
drily.&nbsp; &ldquo;But as to his mother she is not as volatile as all
that.&nbsp; I suspect it was business.&nbsp; It may have been a deep
plot to get a picture out of All&egrave;gre for somebody.&nbsp; My cousin
as likely as not.&nbsp; Or simply to discover what he had.&nbsp; The
Blunts lost all their property and in Paris there are various ways of
making a little money, without actually breaking anything.&nbsp; Not
even the law.&nbsp; And Mrs. Blunt really had a position once&mdash;in
the days of the Second Empire&mdash;and so. . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>I listened open-mouthed to these things into which my West-Indian
experiences could not have given me an insight.&nbsp; But Mills checked
himself and ended in a changed tone.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not easy to know what she would be at, either,
in any given instance.&nbsp; For the rest, spotlessly honourable.&nbsp;
A delightful, aristocratic old lady.&nbsp; Only poor.&rdquo;</p>
<p>A bump at the door silenced him and immediately Mr. John Blunt, Captain
of Cavalry in the Army of Legitimity, first-rate cook (as to one dish
at least), and generous host, entered clutching the necks of four more
bottles between the fingers of his hand.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I stumbled and nearly smashed the lot,&rdquo; he remarked
casually.&nbsp; But even I, with all my innocence, never for a moment
believed he had stumbled accidentally.&nbsp; During the uncorking and
the filling up of glasses a profound silence reigned; but neither of
us took it seriously&mdash;any more than his stumble.</p>
<p>&ldquo;One day,&rdquo; he went on again in that curiously flavoured
voice of his, &ldquo;my mother took a heroic decision and made up her
mind to get up in the middle of the night.&nbsp; You must understand
my mother&rsquo;s phraseology.&nbsp; It meant that she would be up and
dressed by nine o&rsquo;clock.&nbsp; This time it was not Versoy that
was commanded for attendance, but I.&nbsp; You may imagine how delighted
I was. . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>It was very plain to me that Blunt was addressing himself exclusively
to Mills: Mills the mind, even more than Mills the man.&nbsp; It was
as if Mills represented something initiated and to be reckoned with.&nbsp;
I, of course, could have no such pretensions.&nbsp; If I represented
anything it was a perfect freshness of sensations and a refreshing ignorance,
not so much of what life may give one (as to that I had some ideas at
least) but of what it really contains.&nbsp; I knew very well that I
was utterly insignificant in these men&rsquo;s eyes.&nbsp; Yet my attention
was not checked by that knowledge.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s true they were talking
of a woman, but I was yet at the age when this subject by itself is
not of overwhelming interest.&nbsp; My imagination would have been more
stimulated probably by the adventures and fortunes of a man.&nbsp; What
kept my interest from flagging was Mr. Blunt himself.&nbsp; The play
of the white gleams of his smile round the suspicion of grimness of
his tone fascinated me like a moral incongruity.</p>
<p>So at the age when one sleeps well indeed but does feel sometimes
as if the need of sleep were a mere weakness of a distant old age, I
kept easily awake; and in my freshness I was kept amused by the contrast
of personalities, of the disclosed facts and moral outlook with the
rough initiations of my West-Indian experience.&nbsp; And all these
things were dominated by a feminine figure which to my imagination had
only a floating outline, now invested with the grace of girlhood, now
with the prestige of a woman; and indistinct in both these characters.&nbsp;
For these two men had <i>seen</i> her, while to me she was only being
&ldquo;presented,&rdquo; elusively, in vanishing words, in the shifting
tones of an unfamiliar voice.</p>
<p>She was being presented to me now in the Bois de Boulogne at the
early hour of the ultra-fashionable world (so I understood), on a light
bay &ldquo;bit of blood&rdquo; attended on the off side by that Henry
All&egrave;gre mounted on a dark brown powerful weight carrier; and
on the other by one of All&egrave;gre&rsquo;s acquaintances (the man
had no real friends), distinguished frequenters of that mysterious Pavilion.&nbsp;
And so that side of the frame in which that woman appeared to one down
the perspective of the great All&eacute;e was not permanent.&nbsp; That
morning when Mr. Blunt had to escort his mother there for the gratification
of her irresistible curiosity (of which he highly disapproved) there
appeared in succession, at that woman&rsquo;s or girl&rsquo;s bridle-hand,
a cavalry general in red breeches, on whom she was smiling; a rising
politician in a grey suit, who talked to her with great animation but
left her side abruptly to join a personage in a red fez and mounted
on a white horse; and then, some time afterwards, the vexed Mr. Blunt
and his indiscreet mother (though I really couldn&rsquo;t see where
the harm was) had one more chance of a good stare.&nbsp; The third party
that time was the Royal Pretender (All&egrave;gre had been painting
his portrait lately), whose hearty, sonorous laugh was heard long before
the mounted trio came riding very slowly abreast of the Blunts.&nbsp;
There was colour in the girl&rsquo;s face.&nbsp; She was not laughing.&nbsp;
Her expression was serious and her eyes thoughtfully downcast.&nbsp;
Blunt admitted that on that occasion the charm, brilliance, and force
of her personality was adequately framed between those magnificently
mounted, paladin-like attendants, one older than the other but the two
composing together admirably in the different stages of their manhood.&nbsp;
Mr. Blunt had never before seen Henry All&egrave;gre so close.&nbsp;
All&egrave;gre was riding nearest to the path on which Blunt was dutifully
giving his arm to his mother (they had got out of their fiacre) and
wondering if that confounded fellow would have the impudence to take
off his hat.&nbsp; But he did not.&nbsp; Perhaps he didn&rsquo;t notice.&nbsp;
All&egrave;gre was not a man of wandering glances.&nbsp; There were
silver hairs in his beard but he looked as solid as a statue.&nbsp;
Less than three months afterwards he was gone.</p>
<p>&ldquo;What was it?&rdquo; asked Mills, who had not changed his pose
for a very long time.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, an accident.&nbsp; But he lingered.&nbsp; They were on
their way to Corsica.&nbsp; A yearly pilgrimage.&nbsp; Sentimental perhaps.&nbsp;
It was to Corsica that he carried her off&mdash;I mean first of all.&rdquo;</p>
<p>There was the slightest contraction of Mr. Blunt&rsquo;s facial muscles.&nbsp;
Very slight; but I, staring at the narrator after the manner of all
simple souls, noticed it; the twitch of a pain which surely must have
been mental.&nbsp; There was also a suggestion of effort before he went
on: &ldquo;I suppose you know how he got hold of her?&rdquo; in a tone
of ease which was astonishingly ill-assumed for such a worldly, self-controlled,
drawing-room person.</p>
<p>Mills changed his attitude to look at him fixedly for a moment.&nbsp;
Then he leaned back in his chair and with interest&mdash;I don&rsquo;t
mean curiosity, I mean interest: &ldquo;Does anybody know besides the
two parties concerned?&rdquo; he asked, with something as it were renewed
(or was it refreshed?) in his unmoved quietness.&nbsp; &ldquo;I ask
because one has never heard any tales.&nbsp; I remember one evening
in a restaurant seeing a man come in with a lady&mdash;a beautiful lady&mdash;very
particularly beautiful, as though she had been stolen out of Mahomet&rsquo;s
paradise.&nbsp; With Do&ntilde;a Rita it can&rsquo;t be anything as
definite as that.&nbsp; But speaking of her in the same strain, I&rsquo;ve
always felt that she looked as though All&egrave;gre had caught her
in the precincts of some temple . . . in the mountains.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I was delighted.&nbsp; I had never heard before a woman spoken about
in that way, a real live woman that is, not a woman in a book.&nbsp;
For this was no poetry and yet it seemed to put her in the category
of visions.&nbsp; And I would have lost myself in it if Mr. Blunt had
not, most unexpectedly, addressed himself to me.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I told you that man was as fine as a needle.&rdquo;</p>
<p>And then to Mills: &ldquo;Out of a temple?&nbsp; We know what that
means.&rdquo;&nbsp; His dark eyes flashed: &ldquo;And must it be really
in the mountains?&rdquo; he added.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Or in a desert,&rdquo; conceded Mills, &ldquo;if you prefer
that.&nbsp; There have been temples in deserts, you know.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Blunt had calmed down suddenly and assumed a nonchalant pose.</p>
<p>&ldquo;As a matter of fact, Henry All&egrave;gre caught her very
early one morning in his own old garden full of thrushes and other small
birds.&nbsp; She was sitting on a stone, a fragment of some old balustrade,
with her feet in the damp grass, and reading a tattered book of some
kind.&nbsp; She had on a short, black, two-penny frock (<i>une petite
robe de</i> <i>deux sous</i>) and there was a hole in one of her stockings.&nbsp;
She raised her eyes and saw him looking down at her thoughtfully over
that ambrosian beard of his, like Jove at a mortal.&nbsp; They exchanged
a good long stare, for at first she was too startled to move; and then
he murmured, &ldquo;<i>Restez donc</i>.&rdquo;&nbsp; She lowered her
eyes again on her book and after a while heard him walk away on the
path.&nbsp; Her heart thumped while she listened to the little birds
filling the air with their noise.&nbsp; She was not frightened.&nbsp;
I am telling you this positively because she has told me the tale herself.&nbsp;
What better authority can you have . . .?&rdquo; Blunt paused.</p>
<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s true.&nbsp; She&rsquo;s not the sort of person
to lie about her own sensations,&rdquo; murmured Mills above his clasped
hands.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Nothing can escape his penetration,&rdquo; Blunt remarked
to me with that equivocal urbanity which made me always feel uncomfortable
on Mills&rsquo; account.&nbsp; &ldquo;Positively nothing.&rdquo;&nbsp;
He turned to Mills again.&nbsp; &ldquo;After some minutes of immobility&mdash;she
told me&mdash;she arose from her stone and walked slowly on the track
of that apparition.&nbsp; All&egrave;gre was nowhere to be seen by that
time.&nbsp; Under the gateway of the extremely ugly tenement house,
which hides the Pavilion and the garden from the street, the wife of
the porter was waiting with her arms akimbo.&nbsp; At once she cried
out to Rita: &lsquo;You were caught by our gentleman.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;As a matter of fact, that old woman, being a friend of Rita&rsquo;s
aunt, allowed the girl to come into the garden whenever All&egrave;gre
was away.&nbsp; But All&egrave;gre&rsquo;s goings and comings were sudden
and unannounced; and that morning, Rita, crossing the narrow, thronged
street, had slipped in through the gateway in ignorance of All&egrave;gre&rsquo;s
return and unseen by the porter&rsquo;s wife.</p>
<p>&ldquo;The child, she was but little more than that then, expressed
her regret of having perhaps got the kind porter&rsquo;s wife into trouble.</p>
<p>&ldquo;The old woman said with a peculiar smile: &lsquo;Your face
is not of the sort that gets other people into trouble.&nbsp; My gentleman
wasn&rsquo;t angry.&nbsp; He says you may come in any morning you like.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Rita, without saying anything to this, crossed the street
back again to the warehouse full of oranges where she spent most of
her waking hours.&nbsp; Her dreaming, empty, idle, thoughtless, unperturbed
hours, she calls them.&nbsp; She crossed the street with a hole in her
stocking.&nbsp; She had a hole in her stocking not because her uncle
and aunt were poor (they had around them never less than eight thousand
oranges, mostly in cases) but because she was then careless and untidy
and totally unconscious of her personal appearance.&nbsp; She told me
herself that she was not even conscious then of her personal existence.&nbsp;
She was a mere adjunct in the twilight life of her aunt, a Frenchwoman,
and her uncle, the orange merchant, a Basque peasant, to whom her other
uncle, the great man of the family, the priest of some parish in the
hills near Tolosa, had sent her up at the age of thirteen or thereabouts
for safe keeping.&nbsp; She is of peasant stock, you know.&nbsp; This
is the true origin of the &lsquo;Girl in the Hat&rsquo; and of the &lsquo;Byzantine
Empress&rsquo; which excited my dear mother so much; of the mysterious
girl that the privileged personalities great in art, in letters, in
politics, or simply in the world, could see on the big sofa during the
gatherings in All&egrave;gre&rsquo;s exclusive Pavilion: the Do&ntilde;a
Rita of their respectful addresses, manifest and mysterious, like an
object of art from some unknown period; the Do&ntilde;a Rita of the
initiated Paris.&nbsp; Do&ntilde;a Rita and nothing more&mdash;unique
and indefinable.&rdquo;&nbsp; He stopped with a disagreeable smile.</p>
<p>&ldquo;And of peasant stock?&rdquo; I exclaimed in the strangely
conscious silence that fell between Mills and Blunt.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh!&nbsp; All these Basques have been ennobled by Don Sanche
II,&rdquo; said Captain Blunt moodily.&nbsp; &ldquo;You see coats of
arms carved over the doorways of the most miserable <i>caserios</i>.&nbsp;
As far as that goes she&rsquo;s Do&ntilde;a Rita right enough whatever
else she is or is not in herself or in the eyes of others.&nbsp; In
your eyes, for instance, Mills.&nbsp; Eh?&rdquo;</p>
<p>For a time Mills preserved that conscious silence.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Why think about it at all?&rdquo; he murmured coldly at last.&nbsp;
&ldquo;A strange bird is hatched sometimes in a nest in an unaccountable
way and then the fate of such a bird is bound to be ill-defined, uncertain,
questionable.&nbsp; And so that is how Henry All&egrave;gre saw her
first?&nbsp; And what happened next?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;What happened next?&rdquo; repeated Mr. Blunt, with an affected
surprise in his tone.&nbsp; &ldquo;Is it necessary to ask that question?&nbsp;
If you had asked <i>how</i> the next happened. . .&nbsp; But as you
may imagine she hasn&rsquo;t told me anything about that.&nbsp; She
didn&rsquo;t,&rdquo; he continued with polite sarcasm, &ldquo;enlarge
upon the facts.&nbsp; That confounded All&egrave;gre, with his impudent
assumption of princely airs, must have (I shouldn&rsquo;t wonder) made
the fact of his notice appear as a sort of favour dropped from Olympus.&nbsp;
I really can&rsquo;t tell how the minds and the imaginations of such
aunts and uncles are affected by such rare visitations.&nbsp; Mythology
may give us a hint.&nbsp; There is the story of Danae, for instance.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&nbsp;&ldquo;There is,&rdquo; remarked Mills calmly, &ldquo;but I
don&rsquo;t remember any aunt or uncle in that connection.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;And there are also certain stories of the discovery and acquisition
of some unique objects of art.&nbsp; The sly approaches, the astute
negotiations, the lying and the circumventing . . . for the love of
beauty, you know.&rdquo;</p>
<p>With his dark face and with the perpetual smiles playing about his
grimness, Mr. Blunt appeared to me positively satanic.&nbsp; Mills&rsquo;
hand was toying absently with an empty glass.&nbsp; Again they had forgotten
my existence altogether.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know how an object of art would feel,&rdquo;
went on Blunt, in an unexpectedly grating voice, which, however, recovered
its tone immediately.&nbsp; &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know.&nbsp; But I do
know that Rita herself was not a Danae, never, not at any time of her
life.&nbsp; She didn&rsquo;t mind the holes in her stockings.&nbsp;
She wouldn&rsquo;t mind holes in her stockings now. . . That is if she
manages to keep any stockings at all,&rdquo; he added, with a sort of
suppressed fury so funnily unexpected that I would have burst into a
laugh if I hadn&rsquo;t been lost in astonishment of the simplest kind.</p>
<p>&ldquo;No&mdash;really!&rdquo;&nbsp; There was a flash of interest
from the quiet Mills.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes, really,&rdquo;&nbsp; Blunt nodded and knitted his brows
very devilishly indeed.&nbsp; &ldquo;She may yet be left without a single
pair of stockings.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;The world&rsquo;s a thief,&rdquo; declared Mills, with the
utmost composure.&nbsp; &ldquo;It wouldn&rsquo;t mind robbing a lonely
traveller.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;He is so subtle.&rdquo;&nbsp; Blunt remembered my existence
for the purpose of that remark and as usual it made me very uncomfortable.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Perfectly true.&nbsp; A lonely traveller.&nbsp; They are all
in the scramble from the lowest to the highest.&nbsp; Heavens!&nbsp;
What a gang!&nbsp; There was even an Archbishop in it.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;<i>Vous plaisantez</i>,&rdquo; said Mills, but without any
marked show of incredulity.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I joke very seldom,&rdquo; Blunt protested earnestly.&nbsp;
&ldquo;That&rsquo;s why I haven&rsquo;t mentioned His Majesty&mdash;whom
God preserve.&nbsp; That would have been an exaggeration. . . However,
the end is not yet.&nbsp; We were talking about the beginning.&nbsp;
I have heard that some dealers in fine objects, quite mercenary people
of course (my mother has an experience in that world), show sometimes
an astonishing reluctance to part with some specimens, even at a good
price.&nbsp; It must be very funny.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s just possible that
the uncle and the aunt have been rolling in tears on the floor, amongst
their oranges, or beating their heads against the walls from rage and
despair.&nbsp; But I doubt it.&nbsp; And in any case All&egrave;gre
is not the sort of person that gets into any vulgar trouble.&nbsp; And
it&rsquo;s just possible that those people stood open-mouthed at all
that magnificence.&nbsp; They weren&rsquo;t poor, you know; therefore
it wasn&rsquo;t incumbent on them to be honest.&nbsp; They are still
there in the old respectable warehouse, I understand.&nbsp; They have
kept their position in their <i>quartier</i>, I believe.&nbsp; But they
didn&rsquo;t keep their niece.&nbsp; It might have been an act of sacrifice!&nbsp;
For I seem to remember hearing that after attending for a while some
school round the corner the child had been set to keep the books of
that orange business.&nbsp; However it might have been, the first fact
in Rita&rsquo;s and All&egrave;gre&rsquo;s common history is a journey
to Italy, and then to Corsica.&nbsp; You know All&egrave;gre had a house
in Corsica somewhere.&nbsp; She has it now as she has everything he
ever had; and that Corsican palace is the portion that will stick the
longest to Do&ntilde;a Rita, I imagine.&nbsp; Who would want to buy
a place like that?&nbsp; I suppose nobody would take it for a gift.&nbsp;
The fellow was having houses built all over the place.&nbsp; This very
house where we are sitting belonged to him.&nbsp; Do&ntilde;a Rita has
given it to her sister, I understand.&nbsp; Or at any rate the sister
runs it.&nbsp; She is my landlady . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Her sister here!&rdquo; I exclaimed.&nbsp; &ldquo;Her sister!&rdquo;</p>
<p>Blunt turned to me politely, but only for a long mute gaze.&nbsp;
His eyes were in deep shadow and it struck me for the first time then
that there was something fatal in that man&rsquo;s aspect as soon as
he fell silent.&nbsp; I think the effect was purely physical, but in
consequence whatever he said seemed inadequate and as if produced by
a commonplace, if uneasy, soul.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Do&ntilde;a Rita brought her down from her mountains on purpose.&nbsp;
She is asleep somewhere in this house, in one of the vacant rooms.&nbsp;
She lets them, you know, at extortionate prices, that is, if people
will pay them, for she is easily intimidated.&nbsp; You see, she has
never seen such an enormous town before in her life, nor yet so many
strange people.&nbsp; She has been keeping house for the uncle-priest
in some mountain gorge for years and years.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s extraordinary
he should have let her go.&nbsp; There is something mysterious there,
some reason or other.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s either theology or Family.&nbsp;
The saintly uncle in his wild parish would know nothing of any other
reasons.&nbsp; She wears a rosary at her waist.&nbsp; Directly she had
seen some real money she developed a love of it.&nbsp; If you stay with
me long enough, and I hope you will (I really can&rsquo;t sleep), you
will see her going out to mass at half-past six; but there is nothing
remarkable in her; just a peasant woman of thirty-four or so.&nbsp;
A rustic nun. . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>I may as well say at once that we didn&rsquo;t stay as long as that.&nbsp;
It was not that morning that I saw for the first time Therese of the
whispering lips and downcast eyes slipping out to an early mass from
the house of iniquity into the early winter murk of the city of perdition,
in a world steeped in sin.&nbsp; No.&nbsp; It was not on that morning
that I saw Do&ntilde;a Rita&rsquo;s incredible sister with her brown,
dry face, her gliding motion, and her really nun-like dress, with a
black handkerchief enfolding her head tightly, with the two pointed
ends hanging down her back.&nbsp; Yes, nun-like enough.&nbsp; And yet
not altogether.&nbsp; People would have turned round after her if those
dartings out to the half-past six mass hadn&rsquo;t been the only occasion
on which she ventured into the impious streets.&nbsp; She was frightened
of the streets, but in a particular way, not as if of a danger but as
if of a contamination.&nbsp; Yet she didn&rsquo;t fly back to her mountains
because at bottom she had an indomitable character, a peasant tenacity
of purpose, predatory instincts. . . .</p>
<p>No, we didn&rsquo;t remain long enough with Mr. Blunt to see even
as much as her back glide out of the house on her prayerful errand.&nbsp;
She was prayerful.&nbsp; She was terrible.&nbsp; Her one-idead peasant
mind was as inaccessible as a closed iron safe.&nbsp; She was fatal.
. . It&rsquo;s perfectly ridiculous to confess that they all seem fatal
to me now; but writing to you like this in all sincerity I don&rsquo;t
mind appearing ridiculous.&nbsp; I suppose fatality must be expressed,
embodied, like other forces of this earth; and if so why not in such
people as well as in other more glorious or more frightful figures?</p>
<p>We remained, however, long enough to let Mr. Blunt&rsquo;s half-hidden
acrimony develop itself or prey on itself in further talk about the
man All&egrave;gre and the girl Rita.&nbsp; Mr. Blunt, still addressing
Mills with that story, passed on to what he called the second act, the
disclosure, with, what he called, the characteristic All&egrave;gre
impudence&mdash;which surpassed the impudence of kings, millionaires,
or tramps, by many degrees&mdash;the revelation of Rita&rsquo;s existence
to the world at large.&nbsp; It wasn&rsquo;t a very large world, but
then it was most choicely composed.&nbsp; How is one to describe it
shortly?&nbsp; In a sentence it was the world that rides in the morning
in the Bois.</p>
<p>In something less than a year and a half from the time he found her
sitting on a broken fragment of stone work buried in the grass of his
wild garden, full of thrushes, starlings, and other innocent creatures
of the air, he had given her amongst other accomplishments the art of
sitting admirably on a horse, and directly they returned to Paris he
took her out with him for their first morning ride.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I leave you to judge of the sensation,&rdquo; continued Mr.
Blunt, with a faint grimace, as though the words had an acrid taste
in his mouth.&nbsp; &ldquo;And the consternation,&rdquo; he added venomously.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Many of those men on that great morning had some one of their
womankind with them.&nbsp; But their hats had to go off all the same,
especially the hats of the fellows who were under some sort of obligation
to All&egrave;gre.&nbsp; You would be astonished to hear the names of
people, of real personalities in the world, who, not to mince matters,
owed money to All&egrave;gre.&nbsp; And I don&rsquo;t mean in the world
of art only.&nbsp; In the first rout of the surprise some story of an
adopted daughter was set abroad hastily, I believe.&nbsp; You know &lsquo;adopted&rsquo;
with a peculiar accent on the word&mdash;and it was plausible enough.&nbsp;
I have been told that at that time she looked extremely youthful by
his side, I mean extremely youthful in expression, in the eyes, in the
smile.&nbsp; She must have been . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>Blunt pulled himself up short, but not so short as not to let the
confused murmur of the word &ldquo;adorable&rdquo; reach our attentive
ears.</p>
<p>The heavy Mills made a slight movement in his chair.&nbsp; The effect
on me was more inward, a strange emotion which left me perfectly still;
and for the moment of silence Blunt looked more fatal than ever.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I understand it didn&rsquo;t last very long,&rdquo; he addressed
us politely again.&nbsp; &ldquo;And no wonder!&nbsp; The sort of talk
she would have heard during that first springtime in Paris would have
put an impress on a much less receptive personality; for of course All&egrave;gre
didn&rsquo;t close his doors to his friends and this new apparition
was not of the sort to make them keep away.&nbsp; After that first morning
she always had somebody to ride at her bridle hand.&nbsp; Old Doyen,
the sculptor, was the first to approach them.&nbsp; At that age a man
may venture on anything.&nbsp; He rides a strange animal like a circus
horse.&nbsp; Rita had spotted him out of the corner of her eye as he
passed them, putting up his enormous paw in a still more enormous glove,
airily, you know, like this&rdquo; (Blunt waved his hand above his head),
&ldquo;to All&egrave;gre.&nbsp; He passes on.&nbsp; All at once he wheels
his fantastic animal round and comes trotting after them.&nbsp; With
the merest casual &lsquo;<i>Bonjour</i>, All&egrave;gre&rsquo; he ranges
close to her on the other side and addresses her, hat in hand, in that
booming voice of his like a deferential roar of the sea very far away.&nbsp;
His articulation is not good, and the first words she really made out
were &lsquo;I am an old sculptor. . . Of course there is that habit.
. . But I can see you through all that. . . &rsquo;</p>
<p>He put his hat on very much on one side.&nbsp; &lsquo;I am a great
sculptor of women,&rsquo; he declared.&nbsp; &lsquo;I gave up my life
to them, poor unfortunate creatures, the most beautiful, the wealthiest,
the most loved. . . Two generations of them. . . Just look at me full
in the eyes, <i>mon enfant</i>.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;They stared at each other.&nbsp; Do&ntilde;a Rita confessed
to me that the old fellow made her heart beat with such force that she
couldn&rsquo;t manage to smile at him.&nbsp; And she saw his eyes run
full of tears.&nbsp; He wiped them simply with the back of his hand
and went on booming faintly.&nbsp; &lsquo;Thought so.&nbsp; You are
enough to make one cry.&nbsp; I thought my artist&rsquo;s life was finished,
and here you come along from devil knows where with this young friend
of mine, who isn&rsquo;t a bad smearer of canvases&mdash;but it&rsquo;s
marble and bronze that you want. . . I shall finish my artist&rsquo;s
life with your face; but I shall want a bit of those shoulders, too.
. . You hear, All&egrave;gre, I must have a bit of her shoulders, too.&nbsp;
I can see through the cloth that they are divine.&nbsp; If they aren&rsquo;t
divine I will eat my hat.&nbsp; Yes, I will do your head and then&mdash;<i>nunc
dimittis</i>.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;These were the first words with which the world greeted her,
or should I say civilization did; already both her native mountains
and the cavern of oranges belonged to a prehistoric age.&nbsp; &lsquo;Why
don&rsquo;t you ask him to come this afternoon?&rsquo; All&egrave;gre&rsquo;s
voice suggested gently.&nbsp; &lsquo;He knows the way to the house.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;The old man said with extraordinary fervour, &lsquo;Oh, yes
I will,&rsquo; pulled up his horse and they went on.&nbsp; She told
me that she could feel her heart-beats for a long time.&nbsp; The remote
power of that voice, those old eyes full of tears, that noble and ruined
face, had affected her extraordinarily she said.&nbsp; But perhaps what
affected her was the shadow, the still living shadow of a great passion
in the man&rsquo;s heart.</p>
<p>&ldquo;All&egrave;gre remarked to her calmly: &lsquo;He has been
a little mad all his life.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER III</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Mills lowered the hands holding the extinct and even cold pipe before
his big face.</p>
<p>&ldquo;H&rsquo;m, shoot an arrow into that old man&rsquo;s heart
like this?&nbsp; But was there anything done?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;A terra-cotta bust, I believe.&nbsp; Good?&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t
know.&nbsp; I rather think it&rsquo;s in this house.&nbsp; A lot of
things have been sent down from Paris here, when she gave up the Pavilion.&nbsp;
When she goes up now she stays in hotels, you know.&nbsp; I imagine
it is locked up in one of these things,&rdquo; went on Blunt, pointing
towards the end of the studio where amongst the monumental presses of
dark oak lurked the shy dummy which had worn the stiff robes of the
Byzantine Empress and the amazing hat of the &ldquo;Girl,&rdquo; rakishly.&nbsp;
I wondered whether that dummy had travelled from Paris, too, and whether
with or without its head.&nbsp; Perhaps that head had been left behind,
having rolled into a corner of some empty room in the dismantled Pavilion.&nbsp;
I represented it to myself very lonely, without features, like a turnip,
with a mere peg sticking out where the neck should have been.&nbsp;
And Mr. Blunt was talking on.</p>
<p>&ldquo;There are treasures behind these locked doors, brocades, old
jewels, unframed pictures, bronzes, chinoiseries, Japoneries.&rdquo;</p>
<p>He growled as much as a man of his accomplished manner and voice
could growl.&nbsp; &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t suppose she gave away all that
to her sister, but I shouldn&rsquo;t be surprised if that timid rustic
didn&rsquo;t lay a claim to the lot for the love of God and the good
of the Church. . .</p>
<p>&ldquo;And held on with her teeth, too,&rdquo; he added graphically.</p>
<p>Mills&rsquo; face remained grave.&nbsp; Very grave.&nbsp; I was amused
at those little venomous outbreaks of the fatal Mr. Blunt.&nbsp; Again
I knew myself utterly forgotten.&nbsp; But I didn&rsquo;t feel dull
and I didn&rsquo;t even feel sleepy.&nbsp; That last strikes me as strange
at this distance of time, in regard of my tender years and of the depressing
hour which precedes the dawn.&nbsp; We had been drinking that straw-coloured
wine, too, I won&rsquo;t say like water (nobody would have drunk water
like that) but, well . . . and the haze of tobacco smoke was like the
blue mist of great distances seen in dreams.</p>
<p>Yes, that old sculptor was the first who joined them in the sight
of all Paris.&nbsp; It was that old glory that opened the series of
companions of those morning rides; a series which extended through three
successive Parisian spring-times and comprised a famous physiologist,
a fellow who seemed to hint that mankind could be made immortal or at
least everlastingly old; a fashionable philosopher and psychologist
who used to lecture to enormous audiences of women with his tongue in
his cheek (but never permitted himself anything of the kind when talking
to Rita); that surly dandy Cabanel (but he only once, from mere vanity),
and everybody else at all distinguished including also a celebrated
person who turned out later to be a swindler.&nbsp; But he was really
a genius. . . All this according to Mr. Blunt, who gave us all those
details with a sort of languid zest covering a secret irritation.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Apart from that, you know,&rdquo; went on Mr. Blunt, &ldquo;all
she knew of the world of men and women (I mean till All&egrave;gre&rsquo;s
death) was what she had seen of it from the saddle two hours every morning
during four months of the year or so.&nbsp; Absolutely all, with All&egrave;gre
self-denyingly on her right hand, with that impenetrable air of guardianship.&nbsp;
Don&rsquo;t touch!&nbsp; He didn&rsquo;t like his treasures to be touched
unless he actually put some unique object into your hands with a sort
of triumphant murmur, &lsquo;Look close at that.&rsquo;&nbsp; Of course
I only have heard all this.&nbsp; I am much too small a person, you
understand, to even . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>He flashed his white teeth at us most agreeably, but the upper part
of his face, the shadowed setting of his eyes, and the slight drawing
in of his eyebrows gave a fatal suggestion.&nbsp; I thought suddenly
of the definition he applied to himself: &ldquo;<i>Am&eacute;ricain,
catholique et gentil</i>-<i>homme</i>&rdquo; completed by that startling
&ldquo;I live by my sword&rdquo; uttered in a light drawing-room tone
tinged by a flavour of mockery lighter even than air.</p>
<p>He insisted to us that the first and only time he had seen All&egrave;gre
a little close was that morning in the Bois with his mother.&nbsp; His
Majesty (whom God preserve), then not even an active Pretender, flanked
the girl, still a girl, on the other side, the usual companion for a
month past or so.&nbsp; All&egrave;gre had suddenly taken it into his
head to paint his portrait.&nbsp; A sort of intimacy had sprung up.&nbsp;
Mrs. Blunt&rsquo;s remark was that of the two striking horsemen All&egrave;gre
looked the more kingly.</p>
<p>&ldquo;The son of a confounded millionaire soap-boiler,&rdquo; commented
Mr. Blunt through his clenched teeth.&nbsp; &ldquo;A man absolutely
without parentage.&nbsp; Without a single relation in the world.&nbsp;
Just a freak.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;That explains why he could leave all his fortune to her,&rdquo;
said Mills.</p>
<p>&ldquo;The will, I believe,&rdquo; said Mr. Blunt moodily, &ldquo;was
written on a half sheet of paper, with his device of an Assyrian bull
at the head.&nbsp; What the devil did he mean by it?&nbsp; Anyway it
was the last time that she surveyed the world of men and women from
the saddle.&nbsp; Less than three months later. . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;All&egrave;gre died and. . . &rdquo; murmured Mills in an
interested manner.</p>
<p>&ldquo;And she had to dismount,&rdquo; broke in Mr. Blunt grimly.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Dismount right into the middle of it.&nbsp; Down to the very
ground, you understand.&nbsp; I suppose you can guess what that would
mean.&nbsp; She didn&rsquo;t know what to do with herself.&nbsp; She
had never been on the ground.&nbsp; She . . . &rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Aha!&rdquo; said Mills.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Even eh! eh! if you like,&rdquo; retorted Mr. Blunt, in an
unrefined tone, that made me open my eyes, which were well opened before,
still wider.</p>
<p>He turned to me with that horrible trick of his of commenting upon
Mills as though that quiet man whom I admired, whom I trusted, and for
whom I had already something resembling affection had been as much of
a dummy as that other one lurking in the shadows, pitiful and headless
in its attitude of alarmed chastity.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Nothing escapes his penetration.&nbsp; He can perceive a haystack
at an enormous distance when he is interested.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I thought this was going rather too far, even to the borders of vulgarity;
but Mills remained untroubled and only reached for his tobacco pouch.</p>
<p>&ldquo;But that&rsquo;s nothing to my mother&rsquo;s interest.&nbsp;
She can never see a haystack, therefore she is always so surprised and
excited.&nbsp; Of course Do&ntilde;a Rita was not a woman about whom
the newspapers insert little paragraphs.&nbsp; But All&egrave;gre was
the sort of man.&nbsp; A lot came out in print about him and a lot was
talked in the world about her; and at once my dear mother perceived
a haystack and naturally became unreasonably absorbed in it.&nbsp; I
thought her interest would wear out.&nbsp; But it didn&rsquo;t.&nbsp;
She had received a shock and had received an impression by means of
that girl.&nbsp; My mother has never been treated with impertinence
before, and the aesthetic impression must have been of extraordinary
strength.&nbsp; I must suppose that it amounted to a sort of moral revolution,
I can&rsquo;t account for her proceedings in any other way.&nbsp; When
Rita turned up in Paris a year and a half after All&egrave;gre&rsquo;s
death some shabby journalist (smart creature) hit upon the notion of
alluding to her as the heiress of Mr. All&egrave;gre.&nbsp; &lsquo;The
heiress of Mr. All&egrave;gre has taken up her residence again amongst
the treasures of art in that Pavilion so well known to the &eacute;lite
of the artistic, scientific, and political world, not to speak of the
members of aristocratic and even royal families. . . &rsquo;&nbsp; You
know the sort of thing.&nbsp; It appeared first in the <i>Figaro</i>,
I believe.&nbsp; And then at the end a little phrase: &lsquo;She is
alone.&rsquo;&nbsp; She was in a fair way of becoming a celebrity of
a sort.&nbsp; Daily little allusions and that sort of thing.&nbsp; Heaven
only knows who stopped it.&nbsp; There was a rush of &lsquo;old friends&rsquo;
into that garden, enough to scare all the little birds away.&nbsp; I
suppose one or several of them, having influence with the press, did
it.&nbsp; But the gossip didn&rsquo;t stop, and the name stuck, too,
since it conveyed a very certain and very significant sort of fact,
and of course the Venetian episode was talked about in the houses frequented
by my mother.&nbsp; It was talked about from a royalist point of view
with a kind of respect.&nbsp; It was even said that the inspiration
and the resolution of the war going on now over the Pyrenees had come
out from that head. . . Some of them talked as if she were the guardian
angel of Legitimacy.&nbsp; You know what royalist gush is like.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Blunt&rsquo;s face expressed sarcastic disgust.&nbsp; Mills moved
his head the least little bit.&nbsp; Apparently he knew.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Well, speaking with all possible respect, it seems to have
affected my mother&rsquo;s brain.&nbsp; I was already with the royal
army and of course there could be no question of regular postal communications
with France.&nbsp; My mother hears or overhears somewhere that the heiress
of Mr. All&egrave;gre is contemplating a secret journey.&nbsp; All the
noble Salons were full of chatter about that secret naturally.&nbsp;
So she sits down and pens an autograph: &lsquo;Madame, Informed that
you are proceeding to the place on which the hopes of all the right
thinking people are fixed, I trust to your womanly sympathy with a mother&rsquo;s
anxious feelings, etc., etc.,&rsquo; and ending with a request to take
messages to me and bring news of me. . . The coolness of my mother!&rdquo;</p>
<p>Most unexpectedly Mills was heard murmuring a question which seemed
to me very odd.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I wonder how your mother addressed that note?&rdquo;</p>
<p>A moment of silence ensued.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Hardly in the newspaper style, I should think,&rdquo; retorted
Mr. Blunt, with one of his grins that made me doubt the stability of
his feelings and the consistency of his outlook in regard to his whole
tale.&nbsp; &ldquo;My mother&rsquo;s maid took it in a fiacre very late
one evening to the Pavilion and brought an answer scrawled on a scrap
of paper: &lsquo;Write your messages at once&rsquo; and signed with
a big capital R.&nbsp; So my mother sat down again to her charming writing
desk and the maid made another journey in a fiacre just before midnight;
and ten days later or so I got a letter thrust into my hand at the <i>avanzadas</i>
just as I was about to start on a night patrol, together with a note
asking me to call on the writer so that she might allay my mother&rsquo;s
anxieties by telling her how I looked.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It was signed R only, but I guessed at once and nearly fell
off my horse with surprise.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You mean to say that Do&ntilde;a Rita was actually at the
Royal Headquarters lately?&rdquo; exclaimed Mills, with evident surprise.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Why, we&mdash;everybody&mdash;thought that all this affair was
over and done with.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Absolutely.&nbsp; Nothing in the world could be more done
with than that episode.&nbsp; Of course the rooms in the hotel at Tolosa
were retained for her by an order from Royal Headquarters.&nbsp; Two
garret-rooms, the place was so full of all sorts of court people; but
I can assure you that for the three days she was there she never put
her head outside the door.&nbsp; General Mongroviejo called on her officially
from the King.&nbsp; A general, not anybody of the household, you see.&nbsp;
That&rsquo;s a distinct shade of the present relation.&nbsp; He stayed
just five minutes.&nbsp; Some personage from the Foreign department
at Headquarters was closeted for about a couple of hours.&nbsp; That
was of course business.&nbsp; Then two officers from the staff came
together with some explanations or instructions to her.&nbsp; Then Baron
H., a fellow with a pretty wife, who had made so many sacrifices for
the cause, raised a great to-do about seeing her and she consented to
receive him for a moment.&nbsp; They say he was very much frightened
by her arrival, but after the interview went away all smiles.&nbsp;
Who else?&nbsp; Yes, the Archbishop came.&nbsp; Half an hour.&nbsp;
This is more than is necessary to give a blessing, and I can&rsquo;t
conceive what else he had to give her.&nbsp; But I am sure he got something
out of her.&nbsp; Two peasants from the upper valley were sent for by
military authorities and she saw them, too.&nbsp; That friar who hangs
about the court has been in and out several times.&nbsp; Well, and lastly,
I myself.&nbsp; I got leave from the outposts.&nbsp; That was the first
time I talked to her.&nbsp; I would have gone that evening back to the
regiment, but the friar met me in the corridor and informed me that
I would be ordered to escort that most loyal and noble lady back to
the French frontier as a personal mission of the highest honour.&nbsp;
I was inclined to laugh at him.&nbsp; He himself is a cheery and jovial
person and he laughed with me quite readily&mdash;but I got the order
before dark all right.&nbsp; It was rather a job, as the Alphonsists
were attacking the right flank of our whole front and there was some
considerable disorder there.&nbsp; I mounted her on a mule and her maid
on another.&nbsp; We spent one night in a ruined old tower occupied
by some of our infantry and got away at daybreak under the Alphonsist
shells.&nbsp; The maid nearly died of fright and one of the troopers
with us was wounded.&nbsp; To smuggle her back across the frontier was
another job but it wasn&rsquo;t my job.&nbsp; It wouldn&rsquo;t have
done for her to appear in sight of French frontier posts in the company
of Carlist uniforms.&nbsp; She seems to have a fearless streak in her
nature.&nbsp; At one time as we were climbing a slope absolutely exposed
to artillery fire I asked her on purpose, being provoked by the way
she looked about at the scenery, &lsquo;A little emotion, eh?&rsquo;&nbsp;
And she answered me in a low voice: &lsquo;Oh, yes!&nbsp; I am moved.&nbsp;
I used to run about these hills when I was little.&rsquo;&nbsp; And
note, just then the trooper close behind us had been wounded by a shell
fragment.&nbsp; He was swearing awfully and fighting with his horse.&nbsp;
The shells were falling around us about two to the minute.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Luckily the Alphonsist shells are not much better than our
own.&nbsp; But women are funny.&nbsp; I was afraid the maid would jump
down and clear out amongst the rocks, in which case we should have had
to dismount and catch her.&nbsp; But she didn&rsquo;t do that; she sat
perfectly still on her mule and shrieked.&nbsp; Just simply shrieked.&nbsp;
Ultimately we came to a curiously shaped rock at the end of a short
wooded valley.&nbsp; It was very still there and the sunshine was brilliant.&nbsp;
I said to Do&ntilde;a Rita: &lsquo;We will have to part in a few minutes.&nbsp;
I understand that my mission ends at this rock.&rsquo;&nbsp; And she
said: &lsquo;I know this rock well.&nbsp; This is my country.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Then she thanked me for bringing her there and presently three
peasants appeared, waiting for us, two youths and one shaven old man,
with a thin nose like a sword blade and perfectly round eyes, a character
well known to the whole Carlist army.&nbsp; The two youths stopped under
the trees at a distance, but the old fellow came quite close up and
gazed at her, screwing up his eyes as if looking at the sun.&nbsp; Then
he raised his arm very slowly and took his red <i>boina</i> off his
bald head.&nbsp; I watched her smiling at him all the time.&nbsp; I
daresay she knew him as well as she knew the old rock.&nbsp; Very old
rock.&nbsp; The rock of ages&mdash;and the aged man&mdash;landmarks
of her youth.&nbsp; Then the mules started walking smartly forward,
with the three peasants striding alongside of them, and vanished between
the trees.&nbsp; These fellows were most likely sent out by her uncle
the Cura.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It was a peaceful scene, the morning light, the bit of open
country framed in steep stony slopes, a high peak or two in the distance,
the thin smoke of some invisible <i>caserios</i>, rising straight up
here and there.&nbsp; Far away behind us the guns had ceased and the
echoes in the gorges had died out.&nbsp; I never knew what peace meant
before. . .</p>
<p>&ldquo;Nor since,&rdquo; muttered Mr. Blunt after a pause and then
went on.&nbsp; &ldquo;The little stone church of her uncle, the holy
man of the family, might have been round the corner of the next spur
of the nearest hill.&nbsp; I dismounted to bandage the shoulder of my
trooper.&nbsp; It was only a nasty long scratch.&nbsp; While I was busy
about it a bell began to ring in the distance.&nbsp; The sound fell
deliciously on the ear, clear like the morning light.&nbsp; But it stopped
all at once.&nbsp; You know how a distant bell stops suddenly.&nbsp;
I never knew before what stillness meant.&nbsp; While I was wondering
at it the fellow holding our horses was moved to uplift his voice.&nbsp;
He was a Spaniard, not a Basque, and he trolled out in Castilian that
song you know,</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;Oh bells of my native village,<br />I am going away
. . . good-bye!&rsquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>He had a good voice.&nbsp; When the last note had floated away I
remounted, but there was a charm in the spot, something particular and
individual because while we were looking at it before turning our horses&rsquo;
heads away the singer said: &lsquo;I wonder what is the name of this
place,&rsquo; and the other man remarked: &lsquo;Why, there is no village
here,&rsquo; and the first one insisted: &lsquo;No, I mean this spot,
this very place.&rsquo;&nbsp; The wounded trooper decided that it had
no name probably.&nbsp; But he was wrong.&nbsp; It had a name.&nbsp;
The hill, or the rock, or the wood, or the whole had a name.&nbsp; I
heard of it by chance later.&nbsp; It was&mdash;Lastaola.&rdquo;</p>
<p>A cloud of tobacco smoke from Mills&rsquo; pipe drove between my
head and the head of Mr. Blunt, who, strange to say, yawned slightly.&nbsp;
It seemed to me an obvious affectation on the part of that man of perfect
manners, and, moreover, suffering from distressing insomnia.</p>
<p>&ldquo;This is how we first met and how we first parted,&rdquo; he
said in a weary, indifferent tone.&nbsp; &ldquo;It&rsquo;s quite possible
that she did see her uncle on the way.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s perhaps on this
occasion that she got her sister to come out of the wilderness.&nbsp;
I have no doubt she had a pass from the French Government giving her
the completest freedom of action.&nbsp; She must have got it in Paris
before leaving.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Blunt broke out into worldly, slightly cynical smiles.</p>
<p>&ldquo;She can get anything she likes in Paris.&nbsp; She could get
a whole army over the frontier if she liked.&nbsp; She could get herself
admitted into the Foreign Office at one o&rsquo;clock in the morning
if it so pleased her.&nbsp; Doors fly open before the heiress of Mr.
All&egrave;gre.&nbsp; She has inherited the old friends, the old connections
. . . Of course, if she were a toothless old woman . . . But, you see,
she isn&rsquo;t.&nbsp; The ushers in all the ministries bow down to
the ground therefore, and voices from the innermost sanctums take on
an eager tone when they say, &lsquo;<i>Faites entrer</i>.&rsquo;&nbsp;
My mother knows something about it.&nbsp; She has followed her career
with the greatest attention.&nbsp; And Rita herself is not even surprised.&nbsp;
She accomplishes most extraordinary things, as naturally as buying a
pair of gloves.&nbsp; People in the shops are very polite and people
in the world are like people in the shops.&nbsp; What did she know of
the world?&nbsp; She had seen it only from the saddle.&nbsp; Oh, she
will get your cargo released for you all right.&nbsp; How will she do
it? . . Well, when it&rsquo;s done&mdash;you follow me, Mills?&mdash;when
it&rsquo;s done she will hardly know herself.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s hardly possible that she shouldn&rsquo;t be aware,&rdquo;
Mills pronounced calmly.</p>
<p>&ldquo;No, she isn&rsquo;t an idiot,&rdquo; admitted Mr. Blunt, in
the same matter-of-fact voice.&nbsp; &ldquo;But she confessed to myself
only the other day that she suffered from a sense of unreality.&nbsp;
I told her that at any rate she had her own feelings surely.&nbsp; And
she said to me: Yes, there was one of them at least about which she
had no doubt; and you will never guess what it was.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t
try.&nbsp; I happen to know, because we are pretty good friends.&rdquo;</p>
<p>At that moment we all changed our attitude slightly.&nbsp; Mills&rsquo;
staring eyes moved for a glance towards Blunt, I, who was occupying
the divan, raised myself on the cushions a little and Mr. Blunt, with
half a turn, put his elbow on the table.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I asked her what it was.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t see,&rdquo; went
on Mr. Blunt, with a perfectly horrible gentleness, &ldquo;why I should
have shown particular consideration to the heiress of Mr. All&egrave;gre.&nbsp;
I don&rsquo;t mean to that particular mood of hers.&nbsp; It was the
mood of weariness.&nbsp; And so she told me.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s fear.&nbsp;
I will say it once again: Fear. . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>He added after a pause, &ldquo;There can be not the slightest doubt
of her courage.&nbsp; But she distinctly uttered the word fear.&rdquo;</p>
<p>There was under the table the noise of Mills stretching his legs.</p>
<p>&ldquo;A person of imagination,&rdquo; he began, &ldquo;a young,
virgin intelligence, steeped for nearly five years in the talk of All&egrave;gre&rsquo;s
studio, where every hard truth had been cracked and every belief had
been worried into shreds.&nbsp; They were like a lot of intellectual
dogs, you know . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes, yes, of course,&rdquo; Blunt interrupted hastily, &ldquo;the
intellectual personality altogether adrift, a soul without a home .
. . but I, who am neither very fine nor very deep, I am convinced that
the fear is material.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Because she confessed to it being that?&rdquo; insinuated
Mills.</p>
<p>&ldquo;No, because she didn&rsquo;t,&rdquo; contradicted Blunt, with
an angry frown and in an extremely suave voice.&nbsp; &ldquo;In fact,
she bit her tongue.&nbsp; And considering what good friends we are (under
fire together and all that) I conclude that there is nothing there to
boast of.&nbsp; Neither is my friendship, as a matter of fact.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Mills&rsquo; face was the very perfection of indifference.&nbsp;
But I who was looking at him, in my innocence, to discover what it all
might mean, I had a notion that it was perhaps a shade too perfect.</p>
<p>&ldquo;My leave is a farce,&rdquo; Captain Blunt burst out, with
a most unexpected exasperation.&nbsp; &ldquo;As an officer of Don Carlos,
I have no more standing than a bandit.&nbsp; I ought to have been interned
in those filthy old barracks in Avignon a long time ago. . . Why am
I not?&nbsp; Because Do&ntilde;a Rita exists and for no other reason
on earth.&nbsp; Of course it&rsquo;s known that I am about.&nbsp; She
has only to whisper over the wires to the Minister of the Interior,
&lsquo;Put that bird in a cage for me,&rsquo; and the thing would be
done without any more formalities than that. . . Sad world this,&rdquo;
he commented in a changed tone.&nbsp; &ldquo;Nowadays a gentleman who
lives by his sword is exposed to that sort of thing.&rdquo;</p>
<p>It was then for the first time I heard Mr. Mills laugh.&nbsp; It
was a deep, pleasant, kindly note, not very loud and altogether free
from that quality of derision that spoils so many laughs and gives away
the secret hardness of hearts.&nbsp; But neither was it a very joyous
laugh.</p>
<p>&ldquo;But the truth of the matter is that I am &lsquo;<i>en mission</i>,&rsquo;&rdquo;
continued Captain Blunt.&nbsp; &ldquo;I have been instructed to settle
some things, to set other things going, and, by my instructions, Do&ntilde;a
Rita is to be the intermediary for all those objects.&nbsp; And why?&nbsp;
Because every bald head in this Republican Government gets pink at the
top whenever her dress rustles outside the door.&nbsp; They bow with
immense deference when the door opens, but the bow conceals a smirk
because of those Venetian days.&nbsp; That confounded Versoy shoved
his nose into that business; he says accidentally.&nbsp; He saw them
together on the Lido and (those writing fellows are horrible) he wrote
what he calls a vignette (I suppose accidentally, too) under that very
title.&nbsp; There was in it a Prince and a lady and a big dog.&nbsp;
He described how the Prince on landing from the gondola emptied his
purse into the hands of a picturesque old beggar, while the lady, a
little way off, stood gazing back at Venice with the dog romantically
stretched at her feet.&nbsp; One of Versoy&rsquo;s beautiful prose vignettes
in a great daily that has a literary column.&nbsp; But some other papers
that didn&rsquo;t care a cent for literature rehashed the mere fact.&nbsp;
And that&rsquo;s the sort of fact that impresses your political man,
especially if the lady is, well, such as she is . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>He paused.&nbsp; His dark eyes flashed fatally, away from us, in
the direction of the shy dummy; and then he went on with cultivated
cynicism.</p>
<p>&ldquo;So she rushes down here.&nbsp; Overdone, weary, rest for her
nerves.&nbsp; Nonsense.&nbsp; I assure you she has no more nerves than
I have.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I don&rsquo;t know how he meant it, but at that moment, slim and
elegant, he seemed a mere bundle of nerves himself, with the flitting
expressions on his thin, well-bred face, with the restlessness of his
meagre brown hands amongst the objects on the table.&nbsp; With some
pipe ash amongst a little spilt wine his forefinger traced a capital
R.&nbsp; Then he looked into an empty glass profoundly.&nbsp; I have
a notion that I sat there staring and listening like a yokel at a play.&nbsp;
Mills&rsquo; pipe was lying quite a foot away in front of him, empty,
cold.&nbsp; Perhaps he had no more tobacco.&nbsp; Mr. Blunt assumed
his dandified air&mdash;nervously.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Of course her movements are commented on in the most exclusive
drawing-rooms and also in other places, also exclusive, but where the
gossip takes on another tone.&nbsp; There they are probably saying that
she has got a &lsquo;<i>coup de coeur</i>&rsquo; for some one.&nbsp;
Whereas I think she is utterly incapable of that sort of thing.&nbsp;
That Venetian affair, the beginning of it and the end of it, was nothing
but a <i>coup</i> <i>de t&ecirc;te</i>, and all those activities in
which I am involved, as you see (by order of Headquarters, ha, ha, ha!),
are nothing but that, all this connection, all this intimacy into which
I have dropped . . . Not to speak of my mother, who is delightful, but
as irresponsible as one of those crazy princesses that shock their Royal
families. . . &rdquo;</p>
<p>He seemed to bite his tongue and I observed that Mills&rsquo; eyes
seemed to have grown wider than I had ever seen them before.&nbsp; In
that tranquil face it was a great play of feature.&nbsp; &ldquo;An intimacy,&rdquo;
began Mr. Blunt, with an extremely refined grimness of tone, &ldquo;an
intimacy with the heiress of Mr. All&egrave;gre on the part of . . .
on my part, well, it isn&rsquo;t exactly . . . it&rsquo;s open . . .
well, I leave it to you, what does it look like?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Is there anybody looking on?&rdquo; Mills let fall, gently,
through his kindly lips.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Not actually, perhaps, at this moment.&nbsp; But I don&rsquo;t
need to tell a man of the world, like you, that such things cannot remain
unseen.&nbsp; And that they are, well, compromising, because of the
mere fact of the fortune.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Mills got on his feet, looked for his jacket and after getting into
it made himself heard while he looked for his hat.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Whereas the woman herself is, so to speak, priceless.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Blunt muttered the word &ldquo;Obviously.&rdquo;</p>
<p>By then we were all on our feet.&nbsp; The iron stove glowed no longer
and the lamp, surrounded by empty bottles and empty glasses, had grown
dimmer.</p>
<p>I know that I had a great shiver on getting away from the cushions
of the divan.</p>
<p>&ldquo;We will meet again in a few hours,&rdquo; said Mr. Blunt.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t forget to come,&rdquo; he said, addressing me.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Oh, yes, do.&nbsp; Have no scruples.&nbsp; I am authorized to
make invitations.&rdquo;</p>
<p>He must have noticed my shyness, my surprise, my embarrassment.&nbsp;
And indeed I didn&rsquo;t know what to say.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I assure you there isn&rsquo;t anything incorrect in your
coming,&rdquo; he insisted, with the greatest civility.&nbsp; &ldquo;You
will be introduced by two good friends, Mills and myself.&nbsp; Surely
you are not afraid of a very charming woman. . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>I was not afraid, but my head swam a little and I only looked at
him mutely.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Lunch precisely at midday.&nbsp; Mills will bring you along.&nbsp;
I am sorry you two are going.&nbsp; I shall throw myself on the bed
for an hour or two, but I am sure I won&rsquo;t sleep.&rdquo;</p>
<p>He accompanied us along the passage into the black-and-white hall,
where the low gas flame glimmered forlornly.&nbsp; When he opened the
front door the cold blast of the mistral rushing down the street of
the Consuls made me shiver to the very marrow of my bones.</p>
<p>Mills and I exchanged but a few words as we walked down towards the
centre of the town.&nbsp; In the chill tempestuous dawn he strolled
along musingly, disregarding the discomfort of the cold, the depressing
influence of the hour, the desolation of the empty streets in which
the dry dust rose in whirls in front of us, behind us, flew upon us
from the side streets.&nbsp; The masks had gone home and our footsteps
echoed on the flagstones with unequal sound as of men without purpose,
without hope.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I suppose you will come,&rdquo; said Mills suddenly.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I really don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; I said.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you?&nbsp; Well, remember I am not trying to persuade
you; but I am staying at the H&ocirc;tel de Louvre and I shall leave
there at a quarter to twelve for that lunch.&nbsp; At a quarter to twelve,
not a minute later.&nbsp; I suppose you can sleep?&rdquo;</p>
<p>I laughed.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Charming age, yours,&rdquo; said Mills, as we came out on
the quays.&nbsp; Already dim figures of the workers moved in the biting
dawn and the masted forms of ships were coming out dimly, as far as
the eye could reach down the old harbour.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; Mills began again, &ldquo;you may oversleep yourself.&rdquo;</p>
<p>This suggestion was made in a cheerful tone, just as we shook hands
at the lower end of the Cannebi&egrave;re.&nbsp; He looked very burly
as he walked away from me.&nbsp; I went on towards my lodgings.&nbsp;
My head was very full of confused images, but I was really too tired
to think.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<h2>PART TWO</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER I</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Sometimes I wonder yet whether Mills wished me to oversleep myself
or not: that is, whether he really took sufficient interest to care.&nbsp;
His uniform kindliness of manner made it impossible for me to tell.&nbsp;
And I can hardly remember my own feelings.&nbsp; Did I care?&nbsp; The
whole recollection of that time of my life has such a peculiar quality
that the beginning and the end of it are merged in one sensation of
profound emotion, continuous and overpowering, containing the extremes
of exultation, full of careless joy and of an invincible sadness&mdash;like
a day-dream.&nbsp; The sense of all this having been gone through as
if in one great rush of imagination is all the stronger in the distance
of time, because it had something of that quality even then: of fate
unprovoked, of events that didn&rsquo;t cast any shadow before.</p>
<p>Not that those events were in the least extraordinary.&nbsp; They
were, in truth, commonplace.&nbsp; What to my backward glance seems
startling and a little awful is their punctualness and inevitability.&nbsp;
Mills was punctual.&nbsp; Exactly at a quarter to twelve he appeared
under the lofty portal of the H&ocirc;tel de Louvre, with his fresh
face, his ill-fitting grey suit, and enveloped in his own sympathetic
atmosphere.</p>
<p>How could I have avoided him?&nbsp; To this day I have a shadowy
conviction of his inherent distinction of mind and heart, far beyond
any man I have ever met since.&nbsp; He was unavoidable: and of course
I never tried to avoid him.&nbsp; The first sight on which his eyes
fell was a victoria pulled up before the hotel door, in which I sat
with no sentiment I can remember now but that of some slight shyness.&nbsp;
He got in without a moment&rsquo;s hesitation, his friendly glance took
me in from head to foot and (such was his peculiar gift) gave me a pleasurable
sensation.</p>
<p>After we had gone a little way I couldn&rsquo;t help saying to him
with a bashful laugh: &ldquo;You know, it seems very extraordinary that
I should be driving out with you like this.&rdquo;</p>
<p>He turned to look at me and in his kind voice:</p>
<p>&ldquo;You will find everything extremely simple,&rdquo; he said.&nbsp;
&ldquo;So simple that you will be quite able to hold your own.&nbsp;
I suppose you know that the world is selfish, I mean the majority of
the people in it, often unconsciously I must admit, and especially people
with a mission, with a fixed idea, with some fantastic object in view,
or even with only some fantastic illusion.&nbsp; That doesn&rsquo;t
mean that they have no scruples.&nbsp; And I don&rsquo;t know that at
this moment I myself am not one of them.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;That, of course, I can&rsquo;t say,&rdquo; I retorted.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t seen her for years,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and
in comparison with what she was then she must be very grown up by now.&nbsp;
From what we heard from Mr. Blunt she had experiences which would have
matured her more than they would teach her.&nbsp; There are of course
people that are not teachable.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t know that she is
one of them.&nbsp; But as to maturity that&rsquo;s quite another thing.&nbsp;
Capacity for suffering is developed in every human being worthy of the
name.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Captain Blunt doesn&rsquo;t seem to be a very happy person,&rdquo;
I said.&nbsp; &ldquo;He seems to have a grudge against everybody.&nbsp;
People make him wince.&nbsp; The things they do, the things they say.&nbsp;
He must be awfully mature.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Mills gave me a sidelong look.&nbsp; It met mine of the same character
and we both smiled without openly looking at each other.&nbsp; At the
end of the Rue de Rome the violent chilly breath of the mistral enveloped
the victoria in a great widening of brilliant sunshine without heat.&nbsp;
We turned to the right, circling at a stately pace about the rather
mean obelisk which stands at the entrance to the Prado.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know whether you are mature or not,&rdquo; said
Mills humorously.&nbsp; &ldquo;But I think you will do.&nbsp; You .
. . &rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Tell me,&rdquo; I interrupted, &ldquo;what is really Captain
Blunt&rsquo;s position there?&rdquo;</p>
<p>And I nodded at the alley of the Prado opening before us between
the rows of the perfectly leafless trees.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Thoroughly false, I should think.&nbsp; It doesn&rsquo;t accord
either with his illusions or his pretensions, or even with the real
position he has in the world.&nbsp; And so what between his mother and
the General Headquarters and the state of his own feelings he. . . &rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;He is in love with her,&rdquo; I interrupted again.</p>
<p>&ldquo;That wouldn&rsquo;t make it any easier.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m not
at all sure of that.&nbsp; But if so it can&rsquo;t be a very idealistic
sentiment.&nbsp; All the warmth of his idealism is concentrated upon
a certain &lsquo;<i>Am&eacute;ricain, Catholique et gentil-homme</i>.
. . &rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
<p>The smile which for a moment dwelt on his lips was not unkind.</p>
<p>&ldquo;At the same time he has a very good grip of the material conditions
that surround, as it were, the situation.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;What do you mean?&nbsp; That Do&ntilde;a Rita&rdquo; (the
name came strangely familiar to my tongue) &ldquo;is rich, that she
has a fortune of her own?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes, a fortune,&rdquo; said Mills.&nbsp; &ldquo;But it was
All&egrave;gre&rsquo;s fortune before. . . And then there is Blunt&rsquo;s
fortune: he lives by his sword.&nbsp; And there is the fortune of his
mother, I assure you a perfectly charming, clever, and most aristocratic
old lady, with the most distinguished connections.&nbsp; I really mean
it.&nbsp; She doesn&rsquo;t live by her sword.&nbsp; She . . . she lives
by her wits.&nbsp; I have a notion that those two dislike each other
heartily at times. . . Here we are.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The victoria stopped in the side alley, bordered by the low walls
of private grounds.&nbsp; We got out before a wrought-iron gateway which
stood half open and walked up a circular drive to the door of a large
villa of a neglected appearance.&nbsp; The mistral howled in the sunshine,
shaking the bare bushes quite furiously.&nbsp; And everything was bright
and hard, the air was hard, the light was hard, the ground under our
feet was hard.</p>
<p>The door at which Mills rang came open almost at once.&nbsp; The
maid who opened it was short, dark, and slightly pockmarked.&nbsp; For
the rest, an obvious &ldquo;<i>femme-de-chambre</i>,&rdquo; and very
busy.&nbsp; She said quickly, &ldquo;Madame has just returned from her
ride,&rdquo; and went up the stairs leaving us to shut the front door
ourselves.</p>
<p>The staircase had a crimson carpet.&nbsp; Mr. Blunt appeared from
somewhere in the hall.&nbsp; He was in riding breeches and a black coat
with ample square skirts.&nbsp; This get-up suited him but it also changed
him extremely by doing away with the effect of flexible slimness he
produced in his evening clothes.&nbsp; He looked to me not at all himself
but rather like a brother of the man who had been talking to us the
night before.&nbsp; He carried about him a delicate perfume of scented
soap.&nbsp; He gave us a flash of his white teeth and said:</p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a perfect nuisance.&nbsp; We have just dismounted.&nbsp;
I will have to lunch as I am.&nbsp; A lifelong habit of beginning her
day on horseback.&nbsp; She pretends she is unwell unless she does.&nbsp;
I daresay, when one thinks there has been hardly a day for five or six
years that she didn&rsquo;t begin with a ride.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s the
reason she is always rushing away from Paris where she can&rsquo;t go
out in the morning alone.&nbsp; Here, of course, it&rsquo;s different.&nbsp;
And as I, too, am a stranger here I can go out with her.&nbsp; Not that
I particularly care to do it.&rdquo;</p>
<p>These last words were addressed to Mills specially, with the addition
of a mumbled remark: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a confounded position.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Then calmly to me with a swift smile: &ldquo;We have been talking of
you this morning.&nbsp; You are expected with impatience.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Thank you very much,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;but I can&rsquo;t
help asking myself what I am doing here.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The upward cast in the eyes of Mills who was facing the staircase
made us both, Blunt and I, turn round.&nbsp; The woman of whom I had
heard so much, in a sort of way in which I had never heard a woman spoken
of before, was coming down the stairs, and my first sensation was that
of profound astonishment at this evidence that she did really exist.&nbsp;
And even then the visual impression was more of colour in a picture
than of the forms of actual life.&nbsp; She was wearing a wrapper, a
sort of dressing-gown of pale blue silk embroidered with black and gold
designs round the neck and down the front, lapped round her and held
together by a broad belt of the same material.&nbsp; Her slippers were
of the same colour, with black bows at the instep.&nbsp; The white stairs,
the deep crimson of the carpet, and the light blue of the dress made
an effective combination of colour to set off the delicate carnation
of that face, which, after the first glance given to the whole person,
drew irresistibly your gaze to itself by an indefinable quality of charm
beyond all analysis and made you think of remote races, of strange generations,
of the faces of women sculptured on immemorial monuments and of those
lying unsung in their tombs.&nbsp; While she moved downwards from step
to step with slightly lowered eyes there flashed upon me suddenly the
recollection of words heard at night, of All&egrave;gre&rsquo;s words
about her, of there being in her &ldquo;something of the women of all
time.&rdquo;</p>
<p>At the last step she raised her eyelids, treated us to an exhibition
of teeth as dazzling as Mr. Blunt&rsquo;s and looking even stronger;
and indeed, as she approached us she brought home to our hearts (but
after all I am speaking only for myself) a vivid sense of her physical
perfection in beauty of limb and balance of nerves, and not so much
of grace, probably, as of absolute harmony.</p>
<p>She said to us, &ldquo;I am sorry I kept you waiting.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Her voice was low pitched, penetrating, and of the most seductive gentleness.&nbsp;
She offered her hand to Mills very frankly as to an old friend.&nbsp;
Within the extraordinarily wide sleeve, lined with black silk, I could
see the arm, very white, with a pearly gleam in the shadow.&nbsp; But
to me she extended her hand with a slight stiffening, as it were a recoil
of her person, combined with an extremely straight glance.&nbsp; It
was a finely shaped, capable hand.&nbsp; I bowed over it, and we just
touched fingers.&nbsp; I did not look then at her face.</p>
<p>Next moment she caught sight of some envelopes lying on the round
marble-topped table in the middle of the hall.&nbsp; She seized one
of them with a wonderfully quick, almost feline, movement and tore it
open, saying to us, &ldquo;Excuse me, I must . . . Do go into the dining-room.&nbsp;
Captain Blunt, show the way.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Her widened eyes stared at the paper.&nbsp; Mr. Blunt threw one of
the doors open, but before we passed through it we heard a petulant
exclamation accompanied by childlike stamping with both feet and ending
in a laugh which had in it a note of contempt.</p>
<p>The door closed behind us; we had been abandoned by Mr. Blunt.&nbsp;
He had remained on the other side, possibly to soothe.&nbsp; The room
in which we found ourselves was long like a gallery and ended in a rotunda
with many windows.&nbsp; It was long enough for two fireplaces of red
polished granite.&nbsp; A table laid out for four occupied very little
space.&nbsp; The floor inlaid in two kinds of wood in a bizarre pattern
was highly waxed, reflecting objects like still water.</p>
<p>Before very long Do&ntilde;a Rita and Blunt rejoined us and we sat
down around the table; but before we could begin to talk a dramatically
sudden ring at the front door stilled our incipient animation.&nbsp;
Do&ntilde;a Rita looked at us all in turn, with surprise and, as it
were, with suspicion.&nbsp; &ldquo;How did he know I was here?&rdquo;
she whispered after looking at the card which was brought to her.&nbsp;
 She passed it to Blunt, who passed it to Mills, who made a faint grimace,
dropped it on the table-cloth, and only whispered to me, &ldquo;A journalist
from Paris.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;He has run me to earth,&rdquo; said Do&ntilde;a Rita.&nbsp;
&ldquo;One would bargain for peace against hard cash if these fellows
weren&rsquo;t always ready to snatch at one&rsquo;s very soul with the
other hand.&nbsp; It frightens me.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Her voice floated mysterious and penetrating from her lips, which
moved very little.&nbsp; Mills was watching her with sympathetic curiosity.&nbsp;
Mr. Blunt muttered: &ldquo;Better not make the brute angry.&rdquo;&nbsp;
For a moment Do&ntilde;a Rita&rsquo;s face, with its narrow eyes, its
wide brow, and high cheek bones, became very still; then her colour
was a little heightened.&nbsp; &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; she said softly, &ldquo;let
him come in.&nbsp; He would be really dangerous if he had a mind&mdash;you
know,&rdquo; she said to Mills.</p>
<p>The person who had provoked all those remarks and as much hesitation
as though he had been some sort of wild beast astonished me on being
admitted, first by the beauty of his white head of hair and then by
his paternal aspect and the innocent simplicity of his manner.&nbsp;
They laid a cover for him between Mills and Do&ntilde;a Rita, who quite
openly removed the envelopes she had brought with her, to the other
side of her plate.&nbsp; As openly the man&rsquo;s round china-blue
eyes followed them in an attempt to make out the handwriting of the
addresses.</p>
<p>He seemed to know, at least slightly, both Mills and Blunt.&nbsp;
To me he gave a stare of stupid surprise.&nbsp; He addressed our hostess.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Resting?&nbsp; Rest is a very good thing.&nbsp; Upon my word,
I thought I would find you alone.&nbsp; But you have too much sense.&nbsp;
Neither man nor woman has been created to live alone. . . .&rdquo;&nbsp;
After this opening he had all the talk to himself.&nbsp; It was left
to him pointedly, and I verily believe that I was the only one who showed
an appearance of interest.&nbsp; I couldn&rsquo;t help it.&nbsp; The
others, including Mills, sat like a lot of deaf and dumb people.&nbsp;
No.&nbsp; It was even something more detached.&nbsp; They sat rather
like a very superior lot of waxworks, with the fixed but indetermined
facial expression and with that odd air wax figures have of being aware
of their existence being but a sham.</p>
<p>I was the exception; and nothing could have marked better my status
of a stranger, the completest possible stranger in the moral region
in which those people lived, moved, enjoying or suffering their incomprehensible
emotions.&nbsp; I was as much of a stranger as the most hopeless castaway
stumbling in the dark upon a hut of natives and finding them in the
grip of some situation appertaining to the mentalities, prejudices,
and problems of an undiscovered country&mdash;of a country of which
he had not even had one single clear glimpse before.</p>
<p>It was even worse in a way.&nbsp; It ought to have been more disconcerting.&nbsp;
For, pursuing the image of the cast-away blundering upon the complications
of an unknown scheme of life, it was I, the castaway, who was the savage,
the simple innocent child of nature.&nbsp; Those people were obviously
more civilized than I was.&nbsp; They had more rites, more ceremonies,
more complexity in their sensations, more knowledge of evil, more varied
meanings to the subtle phrases of their language.&nbsp; Naturally!&nbsp;
I was still so young!&nbsp; And yet I assure you, that just then I lost
all sense of inferiority.&nbsp; And why?&nbsp; Of course the carelessness
and the ignorance of youth had something to do with that.&nbsp; But
there was something else besides.&nbsp; Looking at Do&ntilde;a Rita,
her head leaning on her hand, with her dark lashes lowered on the slightly
flushed cheek, I felt no longer alone in my youth.&nbsp; That woman
of whom I had heard these things I have set down with all the exactness
of unfailing memory, that woman was revealed to me young, younger than
anybody I had ever seen, as young as myself (and my sensation of my
youth was then very acute); revealed with something peculiarly intimate
in the conviction, as if she were young exactly in the same way in which
I felt myself young; and that therefore no misunderstanding between
us was possible and there could be nothing more for us to know about
each other.&nbsp; Of course this sensation was momentary, but it was
illuminating; it was a light which could not last, but it left no darkness
behind.&nbsp; On the contrary, it seemed to have kindled magically somewhere
within me a glow of assurance, of unaccountable confidence in myself:
a warm, steady, and eager sensation of my individual life beginning
for good there, on that spot, in that sense of solidarity, in that seduction.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER II</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>For this, properly speaking wonderful, reason I was the only one
of the company who could listen without constraint to the unbidden guest
with that fine head of white hair, so beautifully kept, so magnificently
waved, so artistically arranged that respect could not be felt for it
any more than for a very expensive wig in the window of a hair-dresser.&nbsp;
In fact, I had an inclination to smile at it.&nbsp; This proves how
unconstrained I felt.&nbsp; My mind was perfectly at liberty; and so
of all the eyes in that room mine was the only pair able to look about
in easy freedom.&nbsp; All the other listeners&rsquo; eyes were cast
down, including Mills&rsquo; eyes, but that I am sure was only because
of his perfect and delicate sympathy.&nbsp; He could not have been concerned
otherwise.</p>
<p>The intruder devoured the cutlets&mdash;if they were cutlets.&nbsp;
Notwithstanding my perfect liberty of mind I was not aware of what we
were eating.&nbsp; I have a notion that the lunch was a mere show, except
of course for the man with the white hair, who was really hungry and
who, besides, must have had the pleasant sense of dominating the situation.&nbsp;
He stooped over his plate and worked his jaw deliberately while his
blue eyes rolled incessantly; but as a matter of fact he never looked
openly at any one of us.&nbsp; Whenever he laid down his knife and fork
he would throw himself back and start retailing in a light tone some
Parisian gossip about prominent people.</p>
<p>He talked first about a certain politician of mark.&nbsp; His &ldquo;dear
Rita&rdquo; knew him.&nbsp; His costume dated back to &rsquo;48, he
was made of wood and parchment and still swathed his neck in a white
cloth; and even his wife had never been seen in a low-necked dress.&nbsp;
Not once in her life.&nbsp; She was buttoned up to the chin like her
husband.&nbsp; Well, that man had confessed to him that when he was
engaged in political controversy, not on a matter of principle but on
some special measure in debate, he felt ready to kill everybody.</p>
<p>He interrupted himself for a comment.&nbsp; &ldquo;I am something
like that myself.&nbsp; I believe it&rsquo;s a purely professional feeling.&nbsp;
Carry one&rsquo;s point whatever it is.&nbsp; Normally I couldn&rsquo;t
kill a fly.&nbsp; My sensibility is too acute for that.&nbsp; My heart
is too tender also.&nbsp; Much too tender.&nbsp; I am a Republican.&nbsp;
I am a Red.&nbsp; As to all our present masters and governors, all those
people you are trying to turn round your little finger, they are all
horrible Royalists in disguise.&nbsp; They are plotting the ruin of
all the institutions to which I am devoted.&nbsp; But I have never tried
to spoil your little game, Rita.&nbsp; After all, it&rsquo;s but a little
game.&nbsp; You know very well that two or three fearless articles,
something in my style, you know, would soon put a stop to all that underhand
backing of your king.&nbsp; I am calling him king because I want to
be polite to you.&nbsp; He is an adventurer, a blood-thirsty, murderous
adventurer, for me, and nothing else.&nbsp; Look here, my dear child,
what are you knocking yourself about for?&nbsp; For the sake of that
bandit?&nbsp; <i>Allons donc</i>!&nbsp; A pupil of Henry All&egrave;gre
can have no illusions of that sort about any man.&nbsp; And such a pupil,
too!&nbsp; Ah, the good old days in the Pavilion!&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t
think I claim any particular intimacy.&nbsp; It was just enough to enable
me to offer my services to you, Rita, when our poor friend died.&nbsp;
I found myself handy and so I came.&nbsp; It so happened that I was
the first.&nbsp; You remember, Rita?&nbsp; What made it possible for
everybody to get on with our poor dear All&egrave;gre was his complete,
equable, and impartial contempt for all mankind.&nbsp; There is nothing
in that against the purest democratic principles; but that you, Rita,
should elect to throw so much of your life away for the sake of a Royal
adventurer, it really knocks me over.&nbsp; For you don&rsquo;t love
him.&nbsp; You never loved him, you know.&rdquo;</p>
<p>He made a snatch at her hand, absolutely pulled it away from under
her head (it was quite startling) and retaining it in his grasp, proceeded
to a paternal patting of the most impudent kind.&nbsp; She let him go
on with apparent insensibility.&nbsp; Meanwhile his eyes strayed round
the table over our faces.&nbsp; It was very trying.&nbsp; The stupidity
of that wandering stare had a paralysing power.&nbsp; He talked at large
with husky familiarity.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Here I come, expecting to find a good sensible girl who had
seen at last the vanity of all those things; half-light in the rooms;
surrounded by the works of her favourite poets, and all that sort of
thing.&nbsp; I say to myself: I must just run in and see the dear wise
child, and encourage her in her good resolutions. . . And I fall into
the middle of an <i>intime</i> lunch-party.&nbsp; For I suppose it is
<i>intime</i>.&nbsp; Eh?&nbsp; Very?&nbsp; H&rsquo;m, yes . . . &rdquo;</p>
<p>He was really appalling.&nbsp; Again his wandering stare went round
the table, with an expression incredibly incongruous with the words.&nbsp;
It was as though he had borrowed those eyes from some idiot for the
purpose of that visit.&nbsp; He still held Do&ntilde;a Rita&rsquo;s
hand, and, now and then, patted it.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s discouraging,&rdquo; he cooed.&nbsp; &ldquo;And
I believe not one of you here is a Frenchman.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t know
what you are all about.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s beyond me.&nbsp; But if we
were a Republic&mdash;you know I am an old Jacobin, sans-culotte and
terrorist&mdash;if this were a real Republic with the Convention sitting
and a Committee of Public Safety attending to national business, you
would all get your heads cut off.&nbsp; Ha, ha . . . I am joking, ha,
ha! . . . and serve you right, too.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t mind my little
joke.&rdquo;</p>
<p>While he was still laughing he released her hand and she leaned her
head on it again without haste.&nbsp; She had never looked at him once.</p>
<p>During the rather humiliating silence that ensued he got a leather
cigar case like a small valise out of his pocket, opened it and looked
with critical interest at the six cigars it contained.&nbsp; The tireless
<i>femme-de-chambre</i> set down a tray with coffee cups on the table.&nbsp;
We each (glad, I suppose, of something to do) took one, but he, to begin
with, sniffed at his.&nbsp; Do&ntilde;a Rita continued leaning on her
elbow, her lips closed in a reposeful expression of peculiar sweetness.&nbsp;
There was nothing drooping in her attitude.&nbsp; Her face with the
delicate carnation of a rose and downcast eyes was as if veiled in firm
immobility and was so appealing that I had an insane impulse to walk
round and kiss the forearm on which it was leaning; that strong, well-shaped
forearm, gleaming not like marble but with a living and warm splendour.&nbsp;
So familiar had I become already with her in my thoughts!&nbsp; Of course
I didn&rsquo;t do anything of the sort.&nbsp; It was nothing uncontrollable,
it was but a tender longing of a most respectful and purely sentimental
kind.&nbsp; I performed the act in my thought quietly, almost solemnly,
while the creature with the silver hair leaned back in his chair, puffing
at his cigar, and began to speak again.</p>
<p>It was all apparently very innocent talk.&nbsp; He informed his &ldquo;dear
Rita&rdquo; that he was really on his way to Monte Carlo.&nbsp; A lifelong
habit of his at this time of the year; but he was ready to run back
to Paris if he could do anything for his &ldquo;<i>ch&egrave;re enfant</i>,&rdquo;
run back for a day, for two days, for three days, for any time; miss
Monte Carlo this year altogether, if he could be of the slightest use
and save her going herself.&nbsp; For instance he could see to it that
proper watch was kept over the Pavilion stuffed with all these art treasures.&nbsp;
What was going to happen to all those things? . . . Making herself heard
for the first time Do&ntilde;a Rita murmured without moving that she
had made arrangements with the police to have it properly watched.&nbsp;
And I was enchanted by the almost imperceptible play of her lips.</p>
<p>But the anxious creature was not reassured.&nbsp; He pointed out
that things had been stolen out of the Louvre, which was, he dared say,
even better watched.&nbsp; And there was that marvellous cabinet on
the landing, black lacquer with silver herons, which alone would repay
a couple of burglars.&nbsp; A wheelbarrow, some old sacking, and they
could trundle it off under people&rsquo;s noses.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Have you thought it all out?&rdquo; she asked in a cold whisper,
while we three sat smoking to give ourselves a countenance (it was certainly
no enjoyment) and wondering what we would hear next.</p>
<p>No, he had not.&nbsp; But he confessed that for years and years he
had been in love with that cabinet.&nbsp; And anyhow what was going
to happen to the things?&nbsp; The world was greatly exercised by that
problem.&nbsp; He turned slightly his beautifully groomed white head
so as to address Mr. Blunt directly.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I had the pleasure of meeting your mother lately.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Blunt took his time to raise his eyebrows and flash his teeth
at him before he dropped negligently, &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t imagine where
you could have met my mother.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Why, at Bing&rsquo;s, the curio-dealer,&rdquo; said the other
with an air of the heaviest possible stupidity.&nbsp; And yet there
was something in these few words which seemed to imply that if Mr. Blunt
was looking for trouble he would certainly get it.&nbsp; &ldquo;Bing
was bowing her out of his shop, but he was so angry about something
that he was quite rude even to me afterwards.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t think
it&rsquo;s very good for <i>Madame</i> <i>votre m&egrave;re</i> to quarrel
with Bing.&nbsp; He is a Parisian personality.&nbsp; He&rsquo;s quite
a power in his sphere.&nbsp; All these fellows&rsquo; nerves are upset
from worry as to what will happen to the All&egrave;gre collection.&nbsp;
And no wonder they are nervous.&nbsp; A big art event hangs on your
lips, my dear, great Rita.&nbsp; And by the way, you too ought to remember
that it isn&rsquo;t wise to quarrel with people.&nbsp; What have you
done to that poor Azzolati?&nbsp; Did you really tell him to get out
and never come near you again, or something awful like that?&nbsp; I
don&rsquo;t doubt that he was of use to you or to your king.&nbsp; A
man who gets invitations to shoot with the President at Rambouillet!&nbsp;
I saw him only the other evening; I heard he had been winning immensely
at cards; but he looked perfectly wretched, the poor fellow.&nbsp; He
complained of your conduct&mdash;oh, very much!&nbsp; He told me you
had been perfectly brutal with him.&nbsp; He said to me: &lsquo;I am
no good for anything, <i>mon cher</i>.&nbsp; The other day at Rambouillet,
whenever I had a hare at the end of my gun I would think of her cruel
words and my eyes would run full of tears.&nbsp; I missed every shot&rsquo;
. . . You are not fit for diplomatic work, you know, <i>ma ch&egrave;re</i>.&nbsp;
You are a mere child at it.&nbsp; When you want a middle-aged gentleman
to do anything for you, you don&rsquo;t begin by reducing him to tears.&nbsp;
I should have thought any woman would have known that much.&nbsp; A
nun would have known that much.&nbsp; What do you say?&nbsp; Shall I
run back to Paris and make it up for you with Azzolati?&rdquo;</p>
<p>He waited for her answer.&nbsp; The compression of his thin lips
was full of significance.&nbsp; I was surprised to see our hostess shake
her head negatively the least bit, for indeed by her pose, by the thoughtful
immobility of her face she seemed to be a thousand miles away from us
all, lost in an infinite reverie.</p>
<p>He gave it up.&nbsp; &ldquo;Well, I must be off.&nbsp; The express
for Nice passes at four o&rsquo;clock.&nbsp; I will be away about three
weeks and then you shall see me again.&nbsp; Unless I strike a run of
bad luck and get cleaned out, in which case you shall see me before
then.&rdquo;</p>
<p>He turned to Mills suddenly.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Will your cousin come south this year, to that beautiful villa
of his at Cannes?&rdquo;</p>
<p>Mills hardly deigned to answer that he didn&rsquo;t know anything
about his cousin&rsquo;s movements.</p>
<p>&ldquo;A <i>grand seigneur</i> combined with a great connoisseur,&rdquo;
opined the other heavily.&nbsp; His mouth had gone slack and he looked
a perfect and grotesque imbecile under his wig-like crop of white hair.&nbsp;
Positively I thought he would begin to slobber.&nbsp; But he attacked
Blunt next.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Are you on your way down, too?&nbsp; A little flutter. . .
It seems to me you haven&rsquo;t been seen in your usual Paris haunts
of late.&nbsp; Where have you been all this time?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you know where I have been?&rdquo; said Mr. Blunt
with great precision.</p>
<p>&ldquo;No, I only ferret out things that may be of some use to me,&rdquo;
was the unexpected reply, uttered with an air of perfect vacancy and
swallowed by Mr. Blunt in blank silence.</p>
<p>At last he made ready to rise from the table.&nbsp; &ldquo;Think
over what I have said, my dear Rita.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s all over and done with,&rdquo; was Do&ntilde;a
Rita&rsquo;s answer, in a louder tone than I had ever heard her use
before.&nbsp; It thrilled me while she continued: &ldquo;I mean, this
thinking.&rdquo;&nbsp; She was back from the remoteness of her meditation,
very much so indeed.&nbsp; She rose and moved away from the table, inviting
by a sign the other to follow her; which he did at once, yet slowly
and as it were warily.</p>
<p>It was a conference in the recess of a window.&nbsp; We three remained
seated round the table from which the dark maid was removing the cups
and the plates with brusque movements.&nbsp; I gazed frankly at Do&ntilde;a
Rita&rsquo;s profile, irregular, animated, and fascinating in an undefinable
way, at her well-shaped head with the hair twisted high up and apparently
held in its place by a gold arrow with a jewelled shaft.&nbsp; We couldn&rsquo;t
hear what she said, but the movement of her lips and the play of her
features were full of charm, full of interest, expressing both audacity
and gentleness.&nbsp; She spoke with fire without raising her voice.&nbsp;
The man listened round-shouldered, but seeming much too stupid to understand.&nbsp;
I could see now and then that he was speaking, but he was inaudible.&nbsp;
At one moment Do&ntilde;a Rita turned her head to the room and called
out to the maid, &ldquo;Give me my hand-bag off the sofa.&rdquo;</p>
<p>At this the other was heard plainly, &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; and then
a little lower, &ldquo;You have no tact, Rita. . . .&rdquo;&nbsp; Then
came her argument in a low, penetrating voice which I caught, &ldquo;Why
not?&nbsp; Between such old friends.&rdquo;&nbsp; However, she waved
away the hand-bag, he calmed down, and their voices sank again.&nbsp;
Presently I saw him raise her hand to his lips, while with her back
to the room she continued to contemplate out of the window the bare
and untidy garden.&nbsp; At last he went out of the room, throwing to
the table an airy &ldquo;<i>Bonjour, bonjour</i>,&rdquo; which was not
acknowledged by any of us three.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER III</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Mills got up and approached the figure at the window.&nbsp; To my
extreme surprise, Mr. Blunt, after a moment of obviously painful hesitation,
hastened out after the man with the white hair.</p>
<p>In consequence of these movements I was left to myself and I began
to be uncomfortably conscious of it when Do&ntilde;a Rita, near the
window, addressed me in a raised voice.</p>
<p>&ldquo;We have no confidences to exchange, Mr. Mills and I.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I took this for an encouragement to join them.&nbsp; They were both
looking at me.&nbsp; Do&ntilde;a Rita added, &ldquo;Mr. Mills and I
are friends from old times, you know.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Bathed in the softened reflection of the sunshine, which did not
fall directly into the room, standing very straight with her arms down,
before Mills, and with a faint smile directed to me, she looked extremely
young, and yet mature.&nbsp; There was even, for a moment, a slight
dimple in her cheek.</p>
<p>&ldquo;How old, I wonder?&rdquo; I said, with an answering smile.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, for ages, for ages,&rdquo; she exclaimed hastily, frowning
a little, then she went on addressing herself to Mills, apparently in
continuation of what she was saying before.</p>
<p>. . .&nbsp; &ldquo;This man&rsquo;s is an extreme case, and yet perhaps
it isn&rsquo;t the worst.&nbsp; But that&rsquo;s the sort of thing.&nbsp;
I have no account to render to anybody, but I don&rsquo;t want to be
dragged along all the gutters where that man picks up his living.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She had thrown her head back a little but there was no scorn, no
angry flash under the dark-lashed eyelids.&nbsp; The words did not ring.&nbsp;
I was struck for the first time by the even, mysterious quality of her
voice.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Will you let me suggest,&rdquo; said Mills, with a grave,
kindly face, &ldquo;that being what you are, you have nothing to fear?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;And perhaps nothing to lose,&rdquo; she went on without bitterness.&nbsp;
&ldquo;No.&nbsp; It isn&rsquo;t fear.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s a sort of dread.&nbsp;
You must remember that no nun could have had a more protected life.&nbsp;
Henry All&egrave;gre had his greatness.&nbsp; When he faced the world
he also masked it.&nbsp; He was big enough for that.&nbsp; He filled
the whole field of vision for me.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You found that enough?&rdquo; asked Mills.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Why ask now?&rdquo; she remonstrated.&nbsp; &ldquo;The truth&mdash;the
truth is that I never asked myself.&nbsp; Enough or not there was no
room for anything else.&nbsp; He was the shadow and the light and the
form and the voice.&nbsp; He would have it so.&nbsp; The morning he
died they came to call me at four o&rsquo;clock.&nbsp; I ran into his
room bare-footed.&nbsp; He recognized me and whispered, &lsquo;You are
flawless.&rsquo;&nbsp; I was very frightened.&nbsp; He seemed to think,
and then said very plainly, &lsquo;Such is my character.&nbsp; I am
like that.&rsquo;&nbsp; These were the last words he spoke.&nbsp; I
hardly noticed them then.&nbsp; I was thinking that he was lying in
a very uncomfortable position and I asked him if I should lift him up
a little higher on the pillows.&nbsp; You know I am very strong.&nbsp;
I could have done it.&nbsp; I had done it before.&nbsp; He raised his
hand off the blanket just enough to make a sign that he didn&rsquo;t
want to be touched.&nbsp; It was the last gesture he made.&nbsp; I hung
over him and then&mdash;and then I nearly ran out of the house just
as I was, in my night-gown.&nbsp; I think if I had been dressed I would
have run out of the garden, into the street&mdash;run away altogether.&nbsp;
I had never seen death.&nbsp; I may say I had never heard of it.&nbsp;
I wanted to run from it.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She paused for a long, quiet breath.&nbsp; The harmonized sweetness
and daring of her face was made pathetic by her downcast eyes.</p>
<p>&ldquo;<i>Fuir la mort</i>,&rdquo; she repeated, meditatively, in
her mysterious voice.</p>
<p>Mills&rsquo; big head had a little movement, nothing more.&nbsp;
Her glance glided for a moment towards me like a friendly recognition
of my right to be there, before she began again.</p>
<p>&ldquo;My life might have been described as looking at mankind from
a fourth-floor window for years.&nbsp; When the end came it was like
falling out of a balcony into the street.&nbsp; It was as sudden as
that.&nbsp; Once I remember somebody was telling us in the Pavilion
a tale about a girl who jumped down from a fourth-floor window. . .
For love, I believe,&rdquo; she interjected very quickly, &ldquo;and
came to no harm.&nbsp; Her guardian angel must have slipped his wings
under her just in time.&nbsp; He must have.&nbsp; But as to me, all
I know is that I didn&rsquo;t break anything&mdash;not even my heart.&nbsp;
Don&rsquo;t be shocked, Mr. Mills.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s very likely that
you don&rsquo;t understand.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Very likely,&rdquo; Mills assented, unmoved.&nbsp; &ldquo;But
don&rsquo;t be too sure of that.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Henry All&egrave;gre had the highest opinion of your intelligence,&rdquo;
she said unexpectedly and with evident seriousness.&nbsp; &ldquo;But
all this is only to tell you that when he was gone I found myself down
there unhurt, but dazed, bewildered, not sufficiently stunned.&nbsp;
It so happened that that creature was somewhere in the neighbourhood.&nbsp;
How he found out. . . But it&rsquo;s his business to find out things.&nbsp;
And he knows, too, how to worm his way in anywhere.&nbsp; Indeed, in
the first days he was useful and somehow he made it look as if Heaven
itself had sent him.&nbsp; In my distress I thought I could never sufficiently
repay. . . Well, I have been paying ever since.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo; asked Mills softly.&nbsp; &ldquo;In
hard cash?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, it&rsquo;s really so little,&rdquo; she said.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
told you it wasn&rsquo;t the worst case.&nbsp; I stayed on in that house
from which I nearly ran away in my nightgown.&nbsp; I stayed on because
I didn&rsquo;t know what to do next.&nbsp; He vanished as he had come
on the track of something else, I suppose.&nbsp; You know he really
has got to get his living some way or other.&nbsp; But don&rsquo;t think
I was deserted.&nbsp; On the contrary.&nbsp; People were coming and
going, all sorts of people that Henry All&egrave;gre used to know&mdash;or
had refused to know.&nbsp; I had a sensation of plotting and intriguing
around me, all the time.&nbsp; I was feeling morally bruised, sore all
over, when, one day, Don Rafael de Villarel sent in his card.&nbsp;
A grandee.&nbsp; I didn&rsquo;t know him, but, as you are aware, there
was hardly a personality of mark or position that hasn&rsquo;t been
talked about in the Pavilion before me.&nbsp; Of him I had only heard
that he was a very austere and pious person, always at Mass, and that
sort of thing.&nbsp; I saw a frail little man with a long, yellow face
and sunken fanatical eyes, an Inquisitor, an unfrocked monk.&nbsp; One
missed a rosary from his thin fingers.&nbsp; He gazed at me terribly
and I couldn&rsquo;t imagine what he might want.&nbsp; I waited for
him to pull out a crucifix and sentence me to the stake there and then.&nbsp;
But no; he dropped his eyes and in a cold, righteous sort of voice informed
me that he had called on behalf of the prince&mdash;he called him His
Majesty.&nbsp; I was amazed by the change.&nbsp; I wondered now why
he didn&rsquo;t slip his hands into the sleeves of his coat, you know,
as begging Friars do when they come for a subscription.&nbsp; He explained
that the Prince asked for permission to call and offer me his condolences
in person.&nbsp; We had seen a lot of him our last two months in Paris
that year.&nbsp; Henry All&egrave;gre had taken a fancy to paint his
portrait.&nbsp; He used to ride with us nearly every morning.&nbsp;
Almost without thinking I said I should be pleased.&nbsp; Don Rafael
was shocked at my want of formality, but bowed to me in silence, very
much as a monk bows, from the waist.&nbsp; If he had only crossed his
hands flat on his chest it would have been perfect.&nbsp; Then, I don&rsquo;t
know why, something moved me to make him a deep curtsy as he backed
out of the room, leaving me suddenly impressed, not only with him but
with myself too.&nbsp; I had my door closed to everybody else that afternoon
and the Prince came with a very proper sorrowful face, but five minutes
after he got into the room he was laughing as usual, made the whole
little house ring with it.&nbsp; You know his big, irresistible laugh.
. . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Mills, a little abruptly, &ldquo;I have never
seen him.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; she said, surprised, &ldquo;and yet you . . . &rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I understand,&rdquo; interrupted Mills.&nbsp; &ldquo;All this
is purely accidental.&nbsp; You must know that I am a solitary man of
books but with a secret taste for adventure which somehow came out;
surprising even me.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She listened with that enigmatic, still, under the eyelids glance,
and a friendly turn of the head.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I know you for a frank and loyal gentleman. . . Adventure&mdash;and
books?&nbsp; Ah, the books!&nbsp; Haven&rsquo;t I turned stacks of them
over!&nbsp; Haven&rsquo;t I? . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; murmured Mills.&nbsp; &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what
one does.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She put out her hand and laid it lightly on Mills&rsquo; sleeve.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Listen, I don&rsquo;t need to justify myself, but if I had
known a single woman in the world, if I had only had the opportunity
to observe a single one of them, I would have been perhaps on my guard.&nbsp;
But you know I hadn&rsquo;t.&nbsp; The only woman I had anything to
do with was myself, and they say that one can&rsquo;t know oneself.&nbsp;
It never entered my head to be on my guard against his warmth and his
terrible obviousness.&nbsp; You and he were the only two, infinitely
different, people, who didn&rsquo;t approach me as if I had been a precious
object in a collection, an ivory carving or a piece of Chinese porcelain.&nbsp;
That&rsquo;s why I have kept you in my memory so well.&nbsp; Oh! you
were not obvious!&nbsp; As to him&mdash;I soon learned to regret I was
not some object, some beautiful, carved object of bone or bronze; a
rare piece of porcelain, <i>p&acirc;te dure</i>, not <i>p&acirc;te</i>
<i>tendre</i>.&nbsp; A pretty specimen.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Rare, yes.&nbsp; Even unique,&rdquo; said Mills, looking at
her steadily with a smile.&nbsp; &ldquo;But don&rsquo;t try to depreciate
yourself.&nbsp; You were never pretty.&nbsp; You are not pretty.&nbsp;
You are worse.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Her narrow eyes had a mischievous gleam.&nbsp; &ldquo;Do you find
such sayings in your books?&rdquo; she asked.</p>
<p>&ldquo;As a matter of fact I have,&rdquo; said Mills, with a little
laugh, &ldquo;found this one in a book.&nbsp; It was a woman who said
that of herself.&nbsp; A woman far from common, who died some few years
ago.&nbsp; She was an actress.&nbsp; A great artist.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;A great! . . . Lucky person!&nbsp; She had that refuge, that
garment, while I stand here with nothing to protect me from evil fame;
a naked temperament for any wind to blow upon.&nbsp; Yes, greatness
in art is a protection.&nbsp; I wonder if there would have been anything
in me if I had tried?&nbsp; But Henry All&egrave;gre would never let
me try.&nbsp; He told me that whatever I could achieve would never be
good enough for what I was.&nbsp; The perfection of flattery!&nbsp;
Was it that he thought I had not talent of any sort?&nbsp; It&rsquo;s
possible.&nbsp; He would know.&nbsp; I&rsquo;ve had the idea since that
he was jealous.&nbsp; He wasn&rsquo;t jealous of mankind any more than
he was afraid of thieves for his collection; but he may have been jealous
of what he could see in me, of some passion that could be aroused.&nbsp;
But if so he never repented.&nbsp; I shall never forget his last words.&nbsp;
He saw me standing beside his bed, defenceless, symbolic and forlorn,
and all he found to say was, &lsquo;Well, I am like that.&rsquo;</p>
<p>I forgot myself in watching her.&nbsp; I had never seen anybody speak
with less play of facial muscles.&nbsp; In the fullness of its life
her face preserved a sort of immobility.&nbsp; The words seemed to form
themselves, fiery or pathetic, in the air, outside her lips.&nbsp; Their
design was hardly disturbed; a design of sweetness, gravity, and force
as if born from the inspiration of some artist; for I had never seen
anything to come up to it in nature before or since.</p>
<p>All this was part of the enchantment she cast over me; and I seemed
to notice that Mills had the aspect of a man under a spell.&nbsp; If
he too was a captive then I had no reason to feel ashamed of my surrender.</p>
<p>&ldquo;And you know,&rdquo; she began again abruptly, &ldquo;that
I have been accustomed to all the forms of respect.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s true,&rdquo; murmured Mills, as if involuntarily.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Well, yes,&rdquo; she reaffirmed.&nbsp; &ldquo;My instinct
may have told me that my only protection was obscurity, but I didn&rsquo;t
know how and where to find it.&nbsp; Oh, yes, I had that instinct .
. . But there were other instincts and . . . How am I to tell you?&nbsp;
I didn&rsquo;t know how to be on guard against myself, either.&nbsp;
Not a soul to speak to, or to get a warning from.&nbsp; Some woman soul
that would have known, in which perhaps I could have seen my own reflection.&nbsp;
I assure you the only woman that ever addressed me directly, and that
was in writing, was . . . &rdquo;</p>
<p>She glanced aside, saw Mr. Blunt returning from the ball and added
rapidly in a lowered voice,</p>
<p>&ldquo;His mother.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The bright, mechanical smile of Mr. Blunt gleamed at us right down
the room, but he didn&rsquo;t, as it were, follow it in his body.&nbsp;
He swerved to the nearest of the two big fireplaces and finding some
cigarettes on the mantelpiece remained leaning on his elbow in the warmth
of the bright wood fire.&nbsp; I noticed then a bit of mute play.&nbsp;
The heiress of Henry All&egrave;gre, who could secure neither obscurity
nor any other alleviation to that invidious position, looked as if she
would speak to Blunt from a distance; but in a moment the confident
eagerness of her face died out as if killed by a sudden thought.&nbsp;
I didn&rsquo;t know then her shrinking from all falsehood and evasion;
her dread of insincerity and disloyalty of every kind.&nbsp; But even
then I felt that at the very last moment her being had recoiled before
some shadow of a suspicion.&nbsp; And it occurred to me, too, to wonder
what sort of business Mr. Blunt could have had to transact with our
odious visitor, of a nature so urgent as to make him run out after him
into the hall?&nbsp; Unless to beat him a little with one of the sticks
that were to be found there?&nbsp; White hair so much like an expensive
wig could not be considered a serious protection.&nbsp; But it couldn&rsquo;t
have been that.&nbsp; The transaction, whatever it was, had been much
too quiet.&nbsp; I must say that none of us had looked out of the window
and that I didn&rsquo;t know when the man did go or if he was gone at
all.&nbsp; As a matter of fact he was already far away; and I may just
as well say here that I never saw him again in my life.&nbsp; His passage
across my field of vision was like that of other figures of that time:
not to be forgotten, a little fantastic, infinitely enlightening for
my contempt, darkening for my memory which struggles still with the
clear lights and the ugly shadows of those unforgotten days.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>It was past four o&rsquo;clock before I left the house, together
with Mills.&nbsp; Mr. Blunt, still in his riding costume, escorted us
to the very door.&nbsp; He asked us to send him the first fiacre we
met on our way to town.&nbsp; &ldquo;It&rsquo;s impossible to walk in
this get-up through the streets,&rdquo; he remarked, with his brilliant
smile.</p>
<p>At this point I propose to transcribe some notes I made at the time
in little black books which I have hunted up in the litter of the past;
very cheap, common little note-books that by the lapse of years have
acquired a touching dimness of aspect, the frayed, worn-out dignity
of documents.</p>
<p>Expression on paper has never been my forte.&nbsp; My life had been
a thing of outward manifestations.&nbsp; I never had been secret or
even systematically taciturn about my simple occupations which might
have been foolish but had never required either caution or mystery.&nbsp;
But in those four hours since midday a complete change had come over
me.&nbsp; For good or evil I left that house committed to an enterprise
that could not be talked about; which would have appeared to many senseless
and perhaps ridiculous, but was certainly full of risks, and, apart
from that, commanded discretion on the ground of simple loyalty.&nbsp;
It would not only close my lips but it would to a certain extent cut
me off from my usual haunts and from the society of my friends; especially
of the light-hearted, young, harum-scarum kind.&nbsp; This was unavoidable.&nbsp;
It was because I felt myself thrown back upon my own thoughts and forbidden
to seek relief amongst other lives&mdash;it was perhaps only for that
reason at first I started an irregular, fragmentary record of my days.</p>
<p>I made these notes not so much to preserve the memory (one cared
not for any to-morrow then) but to help me to keep a better hold of
the actuality.&nbsp; I scribbled them on shore and I scribbled them
on the sea; and in both cases they are concerned not only with the nature
of the facts but with the intensity of my sensations.&nbsp; It may be,
too, that I learned to love the sea for itself only at that time.&nbsp;
Woman and the sea revealed themselves to me together, as it were: two
mistresses of life&rsquo;s values.&nbsp; The illimitable greatness of
the one, the unfathomable seduction of the other working their immemorial
spells from generation to generation fell upon my heart at last: a common
fortune, an unforgettable memory of the sea&rsquo;s formless might and
of the sovereign charm in that woman&rsquo;s form wherein there seemed
to beat the pulse of divinity rather than blood.</p>
<p>I begin here with the notes written at the end of that very day.</p>
<p>&mdash;Parted with Mills on the quay.&nbsp; We had walked side by
side in absolute silence.&nbsp; The fact is he is too old for me to
talk to him freely.&nbsp; For all his sympathy and seriousness I don&rsquo;t
know what note to strike and I am not at all certain what he thinks
of all this.&nbsp; As we shook hands at parting, I asked him how much
longer he expected to stay.&nbsp; And he answered me that it depended
on R.&nbsp; She was making arrangements for him to cross the frontier.&nbsp;
He wanted to see the very ground on which the Principle of Legitimacy
was actually asserting itself arms in hand.&nbsp; It sounded to my positive
mind the most fantastic thing in the world, this elimination of personalities
from what seemed but the merest political, dynastic adventure.&nbsp;
So it wasn&rsquo;t Do&ntilde;a Rita, it wasn&rsquo;t Blunt, it wasn&rsquo;t
the Pretender with his big infectious laugh, it wasn&rsquo;t all that
lot of politicians, archbishops, and generals, of monks, guerrilleros,
and smugglers by sea and land, of dubious agents and shady speculators
and undoubted swindlers, who were pushing their fortunes at the risk
of their precious skins.&nbsp; No.&nbsp; It was the Legitimist Principle
asserting itself!&nbsp; Well, I would accept the view but with one reservation.&nbsp;
All the others might have been merged into the idea, but I, the latest
recruit, I would not be merged in the Legitimist Principle.&nbsp; Mine
was an act of independent assertion.&nbsp; Never before had I felt so
intensely aware of my personality.&nbsp; But I said nothing of that
to Mills.&nbsp; I only told him I thought we had better not be seen
very often together in the streets.&nbsp; He agreed.&nbsp; Hearty handshake.&nbsp;
Looked affectionately after his broad back.&nbsp; It never occurred
to him to turn his head.&nbsp; What was I in comparison with the Principle
of Legitimacy?</p>
<p>Late that night I went in search of Dominic.&nbsp; That Mediterranean
sailor was just the man I wanted.&nbsp; He had a great experience of
all unlawful things that can be done on the seas and he brought to the
practice of them much wisdom and audacity.&nbsp; That I didn&rsquo;t
know where he lived was nothing since I knew where he loved.&nbsp; The
proprietor of a small, quiet caf&eacute; on the quay, a certain Madame
L&eacute;onore, a woman of thirty-five with an open Roman face and intelligent
black eyes, had captivated his heart years ago.&nbsp; In that caf&eacute;
with our heads close together over a marble table, Dominic and I held
an earnest and endless confabulation while Madame L&eacute;onore, rustling
a black silk skirt, with gold earrings, with her raven hair elaborately
dressed and something nonchalant in her movements, would take occasion,
in passing to and fro, to rest her hand for a moment on Dominic&rsquo;s
shoulder.&nbsp; Later when the little caf&eacute; had emptied itself
of its habitual customers, mostly people connected with the work of
ships and cargoes, she came quietly to sit at our table and looking
at me very hard with her black, sparkling eyes asked Dominic familiarly
what had happened to his Signorino.&nbsp; It was her name for me.&nbsp;
I was Dominic&rsquo;s Signorino.&nbsp; She knew me by no other; and
our connection has always been somewhat of a riddle to her.&nbsp; She
said that I was somehow changed since she saw me last.&nbsp; In her
rich voice she urged Dominic only to look at my eyes.&nbsp; I must have
had some piece of luck come to me either in love or at cards, she bantered.&nbsp;
But Dominic answered half in scorn that I was not of the sort that runs
after that kind of luck.&nbsp; He stated generally that there were some
young gentlemen very clever in inventing new ways of getting rid of
their time and their money.&nbsp; However, if they needed a sensible
man to help them he had no objection himself to lend a hand.&nbsp; Dominic&rsquo;s
general scorn for the beliefs, and activities, and abilities of upper-class
people covered the Principle of Legitimacy amply; but he could not resist
the opportunity to exercise his special faculties in a field he knew
of old.&nbsp; He had been a desperate smuggler in his younger days.&nbsp;
We settled the purchase of a fast sailing craft.&nbsp; Agreed that it
must be a balancelle and something altogether out of the common.&nbsp;
He knew of one suitable but she was in Corsica.&nbsp; Offered to start
for Bastia by mail-boat in the morning.&nbsp; All the time the handsome
and mature Madame L&eacute;onore sat by, smiling faintly, amused at
her great man joining like this in a frolic of boys.&nbsp; She said
the last words of that evening: &ldquo;You men never grow up,&rdquo;
touching lightly the grey hair above his temple.</p>
<p>A fortnight later.</p>
<p>. . . In the afternoon to the Prado.&nbsp; Beautiful day.&nbsp; At
the moment of ringing at the door a strong emotion of an anxious kind.&nbsp;
Why?&nbsp; Down the length of the dining-room in the rotunda part full
of afternoon light Do&ntilde;a R., sitting cross-legged on the divan
in the attitude of a very old idol or a very young child and surrounded
by many cushions, waves her hand from afar pleasantly surprised, exclaiming:
&ldquo;What!&nbsp; Back already!&rdquo;&nbsp; I give her all the details
and we talk for two hours across a large brass bowl containing a little
water placed between us, lighting cigarettes and dropping them, innumerable,
puffed at, yet untasted in the overwhelming interest of the conversation.&nbsp;
Found her very quick in taking the points and very intelligent in her
suggestions.&nbsp; All formality soon vanished between us and before
very long I discovered myself sitting cross-legged, too, while I held
forth on the qualities of different Mediterranean sailing craft and
on the romantic qualifications of Dominic for the task.&nbsp; I believe
I gave her the whole history of the man, mentioning even the existence
of Madame L&eacute;onore, since the little caf&eacute; would have to
be the headquarters of the marine part of the plot.</p>
<p>She murmured, &ldquo;<i>Ah</i>! <i>Une belle Romaine</i>,&rdquo;
thoughtfully.&nbsp; She told me that she liked to hear people of that
sort spoken of in terms of our common humanity.&nbsp; She observed also
that she wished to see Dominic some day; to set her eyes for once on
a man who could be absolutely depended on.&nbsp; She wanted to know
whether he had engaged himself in this adventure solely for my sake.</p>
<p>I said that no doubt it was partly that.&nbsp; We had been very close
associates in the West Indies from where we had returned together, and
he had a notion that I could be depended on, too.&nbsp; But mainly,
I suppose, it was from taste.&nbsp; And there was in him also a fine
carelessness as to what he did and a love of venturesome enterprise.</p>
<p>&ldquo;And you,&rdquo; she said.&nbsp; &ldquo;Is it carelessness,
too?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;In a measure,&rdquo; I said.&nbsp; &ldquo;Within limits.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;And very soon you will get tired.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;When I do I will tell you.&nbsp; But I may also get frightened.&nbsp;
I suppose you know there are risks, I mean apart from the risk of life.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;As for instance,&rdquo; she said.</p>
<p>&ldquo;For instance, being captured, tried, and sentenced to what
they call &lsquo;the galleys,&rsquo; in Ceuta.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;And all this from that love for . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Not for Legitimacy,&rdquo; I interrupted the inquiry lightly.&nbsp;
&ldquo;But what&rsquo;s the use asking such questions?&nbsp; It&rsquo;s
like asking the veiled figure of fate.&nbsp; It doesn&rsquo;t know its
own mind nor its own heart.&nbsp; It has no heart.&nbsp; But what if
I were to start asking you&mdash;who have a heart and are not veiled
to my sight?&rdquo;&nbsp; She dropped her charming adolescent head,
so firm in modelling, so gentle in expression.&nbsp; Her uncovered neck
was round like the shaft of a column.&nbsp; She wore the same wrapper
of thick blue silk.&nbsp; At that time she seemed to live either in
her riding habit or in that wrapper folded tightly round her and open
low to a point in front.&nbsp; Because of the absence of all trimming
round the neck and from the deep view of her bare arms in the wide sleeve
this garment seemed to be put directly on her skin and gave one the
impression of one&rsquo;s nearness to her body which would have been
troubling but for the perfect unconsciousness of her manner.&nbsp; That
day she carried no barbarous arrow in her hair.&nbsp; It was parted
on one side, brushed back severely, and tied with a black ribbon, without
any bronze mist about her forehead or temple.&nbsp; This smoothness
added to the many varieties of her expression also that of child-like
innocence.</p>
<p>Great progress in our intimacy brought about unconsciously by our
enthusiastic interest in the matter of our discourse and, in the moments
of silence, by the sympathetic current of our thoughts.&nbsp; And this
rapidly growing familiarity (truly, she had a terrible gift for it)
had all the varieties of earnestness: serious, excited, ardent, and
even gay.&nbsp; She laughed in contralto; but her laugh was never very
long; and when it had ceased, the silence of the room with the light
dying in all its many windows seemed to lie about me warmed by its vibration.</p>
<p>As I was preparing to take my leave after a longish pause into which
we had fallen as into a vague dream, she came out of it with a start
and a quiet sigh.&nbsp; She said, &ldquo;I had forgotten myself.&rdquo;&nbsp;
I took her hand and was raising it naturally, without premeditation,
when I felt suddenly the arm to which it belonged become insensible,
passive, like a stuffed limb, and the whole woman go inanimate all over!&nbsp;
Brusquely I dropped the hand before it reached my lips; and it was so
lifeless that it fell heavily on to the divan.</p>
<p>I remained standing before her.&nbsp; She raised to me not her eyes
but her whole face, inquisitively&mdash;perhaps in appeal.</p>
<p>&ldquo;No!&nbsp; This isn&rsquo;t good enough for me,&rdquo; I said.</p>
<p>The last of the light gleamed in her long enigmatic eyes as if they
were precious enamel in that shadowy head which in its immobility suggested
a creation of a distant past: immortal art, not transient life.&nbsp;
Her voice had a profound quietness.&nbsp; She excused herself.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s only habit&mdash;or instinct&mdash;or what you
like.&nbsp; I have had to practise that in self-defence lest I should
be tempted sometimes to cut the arm off.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I remembered the way she had abandoned this very arm and hand to
the white-haired ruffian.&nbsp; It rendered me gloomy and idiotically
obstinate.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Very ingenious.&nbsp; But this sort of thing is of no use
to me,&rdquo; I declared.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Make it up,&rdquo; suggested her mysterious voice, while her
shadowy figure remained unmoved, indifferent amongst the cushions.</p>
<p>I didn&rsquo;t stir either.&nbsp; I refused in the same low tone.</p>
<p>&ldquo;No.&nbsp; Not before you give it to me yourself some day.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes&mdash;some day,&rdquo; she repeated in a breath in which
there was no irony but rather hesitation, reluctance what did I know?</p>
<p>I walked away from the house in a curious state of gloomy satisfaction
with myself.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>And this is the last extract.&nbsp; A month afterwards.</p>
<p>&mdash;This afternoon going up to the Villa I was for the first time
accompanied in my way by some misgivings.&nbsp; To-morrow I sail.</p>
<p>First trip and therefore in the nature of a trial trip; and I can&rsquo;t
overcome a certain gnawing emotion, for it is a trip that <i>mustn&rsquo;t</i>
fail.&nbsp; In that sort of enterprise there is no room for mistakes.&nbsp;
Of all the individuals engaged in it will every one be intelligent enough,
faithful enough, bold enough?&nbsp; Looking upon them as a whole it
seems impossible; but as each has got only a limited part to play they
may be found sufficient each for his particular trust.&nbsp; And will
they be all punctual, I wonder?&nbsp; An enterprise that hangs on the
punctuality of many people, no matter how well disposed and even heroic,
hangs on a thread.&nbsp; This I have perceived to be also the greatest
of Dominic&rsquo;s concerns.&nbsp; He, too, wonders.&nbsp; And when
he breathes his doubts the smile lurking under the dark curl of his
moustaches is not reassuring.</p>
<p>But there is also something exciting in such speculations and the
road to the Villa seemed to me shorter than ever before.</p>
<p>Let in by the silent, ever-active, dark lady&rsquo;s maid, who is
always on the spot and always on the way somewhere else, opening the
door with one hand, while she passes on, turning on one for a moment
her quick, black eyes, which just miss being lustrous, as if some one
had breathed on them lightly.</p>
<p>On entering the long room I perceive Mills established in an armchair
which he had dragged in front of the divan.&nbsp; I do the same to another
and there we sit side by side facing R., tenderly amiable yet somehow
distant among her cushions, with an immemorial seriousness in her long,
shaded eyes and her fugitive smile hovering about but never settling
on her lips.&nbsp; Mills, who is just back from over the frontier, must
have been asking R. whether she had been worried again by her devoted
friend with the white hair.&nbsp; At least I concluded so because I
found them talking of the heart-broken Azzolati.&nbsp; And after having
answered their greetings I sit and listen to Rita addressing Mills earnestly.</p>
<p>&ldquo;No, I assure you Azzolati had done nothing to me.&nbsp; I
knew him.&nbsp; He was a frequent visitor at the Pavilion, though I,
personally, never talked with him very much in Henry All&egrave;gre&rsquo;s
lifetime.&nbsp; Other men were more interesting, and he himself was
rather reserved in his manner to me.&nbsp; He was an international politician
and financier&mdash;a nobody.&nbsp; He, like many others, was admitted
only to feed and amuse Henry All&egrave;gre&rsquo;s scorn of the world,
which was insatiable&mdash;I tell you.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Mills.&nbsp; &ldquo;I can imagine.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;But I know.&nbsp; Often when we were alone Henry All&egrave;gre
used to pour it into my ears.&nbsp; If ever anybody saw mankind stripped
of its clothes as the child sees the king in the German fairy tale,
it&rsquo;s I!&nbsp; Into my ears!&nbsp; A child&rsquo;s!&nbsp; Too young
to die of fright.&nbsp; Certainly not old enough to understand&mdash;or
even to believe.&nbsp; But then his arm was about me.&nbsp; I used to
laugh, sometimes.&nbsp; Laugh!&nbsp; At this destruction&mdash;at these
ruins!&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Mills, very steady before her fire.&nbsp;
&ldquo;But you have at your service the everlasting charm of life; you
are a part of the indestructible.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Am I? . . . But there is no arm about me now.&nbsp; The laugh!&nbsp;
Where is my laugh?&nbsp; Give me back my laugh. . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>And she laughed a little on a low note.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t know
about Mills, but the subdued shadowy vibration of it echoed in my breast
which felt empty for a moment and like a large space that makes one
giddy.</p>
<p>&ldquo;The laugh is gone out of my heart, which at any rate used
to feel protected.&nbsp; That feeling&rsquo;s gone, too.&nbsp; And I
myself will have to die some day.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Certainly,&rdquo; said Mills in an unaltered voice.&nbsp;
&ldquo;As to this body you . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, yes!&nbsp; Thanks.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s a very poor jest.&nbsp;
Change from body to body as travellers used to change horses at post
houses.&nbsp; I&rsquo;ve heard of this before. . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve no doubt you have,&rdquo; Mills put on a submissive
air.&nbsp; &ldquo;But are we to hear any more about Azzolati?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You shall.&nbsp; Listen.&nbsp; I had heard that he was invited
to shoot at Rambouillet&mdash;a quiet party, not one of these great
shoots.&nbsp; I hear a lot of things.&nbsp; I wanted to have a certain
information, also certain hints conveyed to a diplomatic personage who
was to be there, too.&nbsp; A personage that would never let me get
in touch with him though I had tried many times.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Incredible!&rdquo; mocked Mills solemnly.</p>
<p>&ldquo;The personage mistrusts his own susceptibility.&nbsp; Born
cautious,&rdquo; explained Do&ntilde;a Rita crisply with the slightest
possible quiver of her lips.&nbsp; &ldquo;Suddenly I had the inspiration
to make use of Azzolati, who had been reminding me by a constant stream
of messages that he was an old friend.&nbsp; I never took any notice
of those pathetic appeals before.&nbsp; But in this emergency I sat
down and wrote a note asking him to come and dine with me in my hotel.&nbsp;
I suppose you know I don&rsquo;t live in the Pavilion.&nbsp; I can&rsquo;t
bear the Pavilion now.&nbsp; When I have to go there I begin to feel
after an hour or so that it is haunted.&nbsp; I seem to catch sight
of somebody I know behind columns, passing through doorways, vanishing
here and there.&nbsp; I hear light footsteps behind closed doors. .
. My own!&rdquo;</p>
<p>Her eyes, her half-parted lips, remained fixed till Mills suggested
softly, &ldquo;Yes, but Azzolati.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Her rigidity vanished like a flake of snow in the sunshine.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Oh! Azzolati.&nbsp; It was a most solemn affair.&nbsp; It had
occurred to me to make a very elaborate toilet.&nbsp; It was most successful.&nbsp;
Azzolati looked positively scared for a moment as though he had got
into the wrong suite of rooms.&nbsp; He had never before seen me <i>en
toilette</i>, you understand.&nbsp; In the old days once out of my riding
habit I would never dress.&nbsp; I draped myself, you remember, Monsieur
Mills.&nbsp; To go about like that suited my indolence, my longing to
feel free in my body, as at that time when I used to herd goats. . .
But never mind.&nbsp; My aim was to impress Azzolati.&nbsp; I wanted
to talk to him seriously.&rdquo;</p>
<p>There was something whimsical in the quick beat of her eyelids and
in the subtle quiver of her lips.&nbsp; &ldquo;And behold! the same
notion had occurred to Azzolati.&nbsp; Imagine that for this t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te
dinner the creature had got himself up as if for a reception at court.&nbsp;
He displayed a brochette of all sorts of decorations on the lapel of
his <i>frac</i> and had a broad ribbon of some order across his shirt
front.&nbsp; An orange ribbon.&nbsp; Bavarian, I should say.&nbsp; Great
Roman Catholic, Azzolati.&nbsp; It was always his ambition to be the
banker of all the Bourbons in the world.&nbsp; The last remnants of
his hair were dyed jet black and the ends of his moustache were like
knitting needles.&nbsp; He was disposed to be as soft as wax in my hands.&nbsp;
Unfortunately I had had some irritating interviews during the day.&nbsp;
I was keeping down sudden impulses to smash a glass, throw a plate on
the floor, do something violent to relieve my feelings.&nbsp; His submissive
attitude made me still more nervous.&nbsp; He was ready to do anything
in the world for me providing that I would promise him that he would
never find my door shut against him as long as he lived.&nbsp; You understand
the impudence of it, don&rsquo;t you?&nbsp; And his tone was positively
abject, too.&nbsp; I snapped back at him that I had no door, that I
was a nomad.&nbsp; He bowed ironically till his nose nearly touched
his plate but begged me to remember that to his personal knowledge I
had four houses of my own about the world.&nbsp; And you know this made
me feel a homeless outcast more than ever&mdash;like a little dog lost
in the street&mdash;not knowing where to go.&nbsp; I was ready to cry
and there the creature sat in front of me with an imbecile smile as
much as to say &lsquo;here is a poser for you. . . .&rsquo;&nbsp; I
gnashed my teeth at him.&nbsp; Quietly, you know . . . I suppose you
two think that I am stupid.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She paused as if expecting an answer but we made no sound and she
continued with a remark.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I have days like that.&nbsp; Often one must listen to false
protestations, empty words, strings of lies all day long, so that in
the evening one is not fit for anything, not even for truth if it comes
in one&rsquo;s way.&nbsp; That idiot treated me to a piece of brazen
sincerity which I couldn&rsquo;t stand.&nbsp; First of all he began
to take me into his confidence; he boasted of his great affairs, then
started groaning about his overstrained life which left him no time
for the amenities of existence, for beauty, or sentiment, or any sort
of ease of heart.&nbsp; His heart!&nbsp; He wanted me to sympathize
with his sorrows.&nbsp; Of course I ought to have listened.&nbsp; One
must pay for service.&nbsp; Only I was nervous and tired.&nbsp; He bored
me.&nbsp; I told him at last that I was surprised that a man of such
immense wealth should still keep on going like this reaching for more
and more.&nbsp; I suppose he must have been sipping a good deal of wine
while we talked and all at once he let out an atrocity which was too
much for me.&nbsp; He had been moaning and sentimentalizing but then
suddenly he showed me his fangs.&nbsp; &lsquo;No,&rsquo; he cries, &lsquo;you
can&rsquo;t imagine what a satisfaction it is to feel all that penniless,
beggarly lot of the dear, honest, meritorious poor wriggling and slobbering
under one&rsquo;s boots.&rsquo;&nbsp; You may tell me that he is a contemptible
animal anyhow, but you should have heard the tone!&nbsp; I felt my bare
arms go cold like ice.&nbsp; A moment before I had been hot and faint
with sheer boredom.&nbsp; I jumped up from the table, rang for Rose,
and told her to bring me my fur cloak.&nbsp; He remained in his chair
leering at me curiously.&nbsp; When I had the fur on my shoulders and
the girl had gone out of the room I gave him the surprise of his life.&nbsp;
&lsquo;Take yourself off instantly,&rsquo; I said.&nbsp; &lsquo;Go trample
on the poor if you like but never dare speak to me again.&rsquo;&nbsp;
At this he leaned his head on his arm and sat so long at the table shading
his eyes with his hand that I had to ask, calmly&mdash;you know&mdash;whether
he wanted me to have him turned out into the corridor.&nbsp; He fetched
an enormous sigh.&nbsp; &lsquo;I have only tried to be honest with you,
Rita.&rsquo;&nbsp; But by the time he got to the door he had regained
some of his impudence.&nbsp; &lsquo;You know how to trample on a poor
fellows too,&rsquo; he said.&nbsp; &lsquo;But I don&rsquo;t mind being
made to wriggle under your pretty shoes, Rita.&nbsp; I forgive you.&nbsp;
I thought you were free from all vulgar sentimentalism and that you
had a more independent mind.&nbsp; I was mistaken in you, that&rsquo;s
all.&rsquo;&nbsp; With that he pretends to dash a tear from his eye-crocodile!&mdash;and
goes out, leaving me in my fur by the blazing fire, my teeth going like
castanets. . . Did you ever hear of anything so stupid as this affair?&rdquo;
she concluded in a tone of extreme candour and a profound unreadable
stare that went far beyond us both.&nbsp; And the stillness of her lips
was so perfect directly she ceased speaking that I wondered whether
all this had come through them or only had formed itself in my mind.</p>
<p>Presently she continued as if speaking for herself only.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s like taking the lids off boxes and seeing ugly
toads staring at you.&nbsp; In every one.&nbsp; Every one.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s
what it is having to do with men more than mere&mdash;Good-morning&mdash;Good
evening.&nbsp; And if you try to avoid meddling with their lids, some
of them will take them off themselves.&nbsp; And they don&rsquo;t even
know, they don&rsquo;t even suspect what they are showing you.&nbsp;
Certain confidences&mdash;they don&rsquo;t see it&mdash;are the bitterest
kind of insult.&nbsp; I suppose Azzolati imagines himself a noble beast
of prey.&nbsp; Just as some others imagine themselves to be most delicate,
noble, and refined gentlemen.&nbsp; And as likely as not they would
trade on a woman&rsquo;s troubles&mdash;and in the end make nothing
of that either.&nbsp; Idiots!&rdquo;</p>
<p>The utter absence of all anger in this spoken meditation gave it
a character of touching simplicity.&nbsp; And as if it had been truly
only a meditation we conducted ourselves as though we had not heard
it.&nbsp; Mills began to speak of his experiences during his visit to
the army of the Legitimist King.&nbsp; And I discovered in his speeches
that this man of books could be graphic and picturesque.&nbsp; His admiration
for the devotion and bravery of the army was combined with the greatest
distaste for what he had seen of the way its great qualities were misused.&nbsp;
In the conduct of this great enterprise he had seen a deplorable levity
of outlook, a fatal lack of decision, an absence of any reasoned plan.</p>
<p>He shook his head.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I feel that you of all people, Do&ntilde;a Rita, ought to
be told the truth.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t know exactly what you have at
stake.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She was rosy like some impassive statue in a desert in the flush
of the dawn.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Not my heart,&rdquo; she said quietly.&nbsp; &ldquo;You must
believe that.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I do.&nbsp; Perhaps it would have been better if you. . .
&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;No, <i>Monsieur le Philosophe</i>.&nbsp; It would not have
been better.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t make that serious face at me,&rdquo;
she went on with tenderness in a playful note, as if tenderness had
been her inheritance of all time and playfulness the very fibre of her
being.&nbsp; &ldquo;I suppose you think that a woman who has acted as
I did and has not staked her heart on it is . . . How do you know to
what the heart responds as it beats from day to day?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t judge you.&nbsp; What am I before the knowledge
you were born to?&nbsp; You are as old as the world.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She accepted this with a smile.&nbsp; I who was innocently watching
them was amazed to discover how much a fleeting thing like that could
hold of seduction without the help of any other feature and with that
unchanging glance.</p>
<p>&ldquo;With me it is <i>pun d&rsquo;onor</i>.&nbsp; To my first independent
friend.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You were soon parted,&rdquo; ventured Mills, while I sat still
under a sense of oppression.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t think for a moment that I have been scared off,&rdquo;
she said.&nbsp; &ldquo;It is they who were frightened.&nbsp; I suppose
you heard a lot of Headquarters gossip?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, yes,&rdquo; Mills said meaningly.&nbsp; &ldquo;The fair
and the dark are succeeding each other like leaves blown in the wind
dancing in and out.&nbsp; I suppose you have noticed that leaves blown
in the wind have a look of happiness.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;that sort of leaf is dead.&nbsp;
Then why shouldn&rsquo;t it look happy?&nbsp; And so I suppose there
is no uneasiness, no occasion for fears amongst the &lsquo;responsibles.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Upon the whole not.&nbsp; Now and then a leaf seems as if
it would stick.&nbsp; There is for instance Madame . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, I don&rsquo;t want to know, I understand it all, I am
as old as the world.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Mills thoughtfully, &ldquo;you are not a
leaf, you might have been a tornado yourself.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Upon my word,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;there was a time that
they thought I could carry him off, away from them all&mdash;beyond
them all.&nbsp; Verily, I am not very proud of their fears.&nbsp; There
was nothing reckless there worthy of a great passion.&nbsp; There was
nothing sad there worthy of a great tenderness.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;And is <i>this</i> the word of the Venetian riddle?&rdquo;
asked Mills, fixing her with his keen eyes.</p>
<p>&ldquo;If it pleases you to think so, Se&ntilde;or,&rdquo; she said
indifferently.&nbsp; The movement of her eyes, their veiled gleam became
mischievous when she asked, &ldquo;And Don Juan Blunt, have you seen
him over there?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I fancy he avoided me.&nbsp; Moreover, he is always with his
regiment at the outposts.&nbsp; He is a most valorous captain.&nbsp;
I heard some people describe him as foolhardy.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, he needn&rsquo;t seek death,&rdquo; she said in an indefinable
tone.&nbsp; &ldquo;I mean as a refuge.&nbsp; There will be nothing in
his life great enough for that.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You are angry.&nbsp; You miss him, I believe, Do&ntilde;a
Rita.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Angry?&nbsp; No!&nbsp; Weary.&nbsp; But of course it&rsquo;s
very inconvenient.&nbsp; I can&rsquo;t very well ride out alone.&nbsp;
A solitary amazon swallowing the dust and the salt spray of the Corniche
promenade would attract too much attention.&nbsp; And then I don&rsquo;t
mind you two knowing that I am afraid of going out alone.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Afraid?&rdquo; we both exclaimed together.</p>
<p>&ldquo;You men are extraordinary.&nbsp; Why do you want me to be
courageous?&nbsp; Why shouldn&rsquo;t I be afraid?&nbsp; Is it because
there is no one in the world to care what would happen to me?&rdquo;</p>
<p>There was a deep-down vibration in her tone for the first time.&nbsp;
We had not a word to say.&nbsp; And she added after a long silence:</p>
<p>&ldquo;There is a very good reason.&nbsp; There is a danger.&rdquo;</p>
<p>With wonderful insight Mills affirmed at once:</p>
<p>&ldquo;Something ugly.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She nodded slightly several times.&nbsp; Then Mills said with conviction:</p>
<p>&ldquo;Ah!&nbsp; Then it can&rsquo;t be anything in yourself.&nbsp;
And if so . . . &rdquo;</p>
<p>I was moved to extravagant advice.</p>
<p>&ldquo;You should come out with me to sea then.&nbsp; There may be
some danger there but there&rsquo;s nothing ugly to fear.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She gave me a startled glance quite unusual with her, more than wonderful
to me; and suddenly as though she had seen me for the first time she
exclaimed in a tone of compunction:</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh!&nbsp; And there is this one, too!&nbsp; Why!&nbsp; Oh,
why should he run his head into danger for those things that will all
crumble into dust before long?&rdquo;</p>
<p>I said: &ldquo;<i>You</i> won&rsquo;t crumble into dust.&rdquo;&nbsp;
And Mills chimed in:</p>
<p>&ldquo;That young enthusiast will always have his sea.&rdquo;</p>
<p>We were all standing up now.&nbsp; She kept her eyes on me, and repeated
with a sort of whimsical enviousness:</p>
<p>&ldquo;The sea!&nbsp; The violet sea&mdash;and he is longing to rejoin
it! . . . At night!&nbsp; Under the stars! . . . A lovers&rsquo; meeting,&rdquo;
she went on, thrilling me from head to foot with those two words, accompanied
by a wistful smile pointed by a suspicion of mockery.&nbsp; She turned
away.</p>
<p>&ldquo;And you, Monsieur Mills?&rdquo; she asked.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I am going back to my books,&rdquo; he declared with a very
serious face.&nbsp; &ldquo;My adventure is over.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Each one to his love,&rdquo; she bantered us gently.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t I love books, too, at one time!&nbsp; They seemed
to contain all wisdom and hold a magic power, too.&nbsp; Tell me, Monsieur
Mills, have you found amongst them in some black-letter volume the power
of foretelling a poor mortal&rsquo;s destiny, the power to look into
the future?&nbsp; Anybody&rsquo;s future . . .&rdquo;&nbsp; Mills shook
his head. . . &ldquo;What, not even mine?&rdquo; she coaxed as if she
really believed in a magic power to be found in books.</p>
<p>Mills shook his head again.&nbsp; &ldquo;No, I have not the power,&rdquo;
he said.&nbsp; &ldquo;I am no more a great magician, than you are a
poor mortal.&nbsp; You have your ancient spells.&nbsp; You are as old
as the world.&nbsp; Of us two it&rsquo;s you that are more fit to foretell
the future of the poor mortals on whom you happen to cast your eyes.&rdquo;</p>
<p>At these words she cast her eyes down and in the moment of deep silence
I watched the slight rising and falling of her breast.&nbsp; Then Mills
pronounced distinctly: &ldquo;Good-bye, old Enchantress.&rdquo;</p>
<p>They shook hands cordially.&nbsp; &ldquo;Good-bye, poor Magician,&rdquo;
she said.</p>
<p>Mills made as if to speak but seemed to think better of it.&nbsp;
Do&ntilde;a Rita returned my distant how with a slight, charmingly ceremonious
inclination of her body.</p>
<p>&ldquo;<i>Bon voyage</i> and a happy return,&rdquo; she said formally.</p>
<p>I was following Mills through the door when I heard her voice behind
us raised in recall:</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, a moment . . . I forgot . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>I turned round.&nbsp; The call was for me, and I walked slowly back
wondering what she could have forgotten.&nbsp; She waited in the middle
of the room with lowered head, with a mute gleam in her deep blue eyes.&nbsp;
When I was near enough she extended to me without a word her bare white
arm and suddenly pressed the back of her hand against my lips.&nbsp;
I was too startled to seize it with rapture.&nbsp; It detached itself
from my lips and fell slowly by her side.&nbsp; We had made it up and
there was nothing to say.&nbsp; She turned away to the window and I
hurried out of the room.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<h2>PART THREE</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER I</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>It was on our return from that first trip that I took Dominic up
to the Villa to be presented to Do&ntilde;a Rita.&nbsp; If she wanted
to look on the embodiment of fidelity, resource, and courage, she could
behold it all in that man.&nbsp; Apparently she was not disappointed.&nbsp;
Neither was Dominic disappointed.&nbsp; During the half-hour&rsquo;s
interview they got into touch with each other in a wonderful way as
if they had some common and secret standpoint in life.&nbsp; Maybe it
was their common lawlessness, and their knowledge of things as old as
the world.&nbsp; Her seduction, his recklessness, were both simple,
masterful and, in a sense, worthy of each other.</p>
<p>Dominic was, I won&rsquo;t say awed by this interview.&nbsp; No woman
could awe Dominic.&nbsp; But he was, as it were, rendered thoughtful
by it, like a man who had not so much an experience as a sort of revelation
vouchsafed to him.&nbsp; Later, at sea, he used to refer to La Se&ntilde;ora
in a particular tone and I knew that henceforth his devotion was not
for me alone.&nbsp; And I understood the inevitability of it extremely
well.&nbsp; As to Do&ntilde;a Rita she, after Dominic left the room,
had turned to me with animation and said: &ldquo;But he is perfect,
this man.&rdquo;&nbsp; Afterwards she often asked after him and used
to refer to him in conversation.&nbsp; More than once she said to me:
&ldquo;One would like to put the care of one&rsquo;s personal safety
into the hands of that man.&nbsp; He looks as if he simply couldn&rsquo;t
fail one.&rdquo;&nbsp; I admitted that this was very true, especially
at sea.&nbsp; Dominic couldn&rsquo;t fail.&nbsp; But at the same time
I rather chaffed Rita on her preoccupation as to personal safety that
so often cropped up in her talk.</p>
<p>&ldquo;One would think you were a crowned head in a revolutionary
world,&rdquo; I used to tell her.</p>
<p>&ldquo;That would be different.&nbsp; One would be standing then
for something, either worth or not worth dying for.&nbsp; One could
even run away then and be done with it.&nbsp; But I can&rsquo;t run
away unless I got out of my skin and left that behind.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t
you understand?&nbsp; You are very stupid . . .&rdquo;&nbsp; But she
had the grace to add, &ldquo;On purpose.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I don&rsquo;t know about the on purpose.&nbsp; I am not certain about
the stupidity.&nbsp; Her words bewildered one often and bewilderment
is a sort of stupidity.&nbsp; I remedied it by simply disregarding the
sense of what she said.&nbsp; The sound was there and also her poignant
heart-gripping presence giving occupation enough to one&rsquo;s faculties.&nbsp;
In the power of those things over one there was mystery enough.&nbsp;
It was more absorbing than the mere obscurity of her speeches.&nbsp;
But I daresay she couldn&rsquo;t understand that.</p>
<p>Hence, at times, the amusing outbreaks of temper in word and gesture
that only strengthened the natural, the invincible force of the spell.&nbsp;
Sometimes the brass bowl would get upset or the cigarette box would
fly up, dropping a shower of cigarettes on the floor.&nbsp; We would
pick them up, re-establish everything, and fall into a long silence,
so close that the sound of the first word would come with all the pain
of a separation.</p>
<p>It was at that time, too, that she suggested I should take up my
quarters in her house in the street of the Consuls.&nbsp; There were
certain advantages in that move.&nbsp; In my present abode my sudden
absences might have been in the long run subject to comment.&nbsp; On
the other hand, the house in the street of Consuls was a known out-post
of Legitimacy.&nbsp; But then it was covered by the occult influence
of her who was referred to in confidential talks, secret communications,
and discreet whispers of Royalist salons as: &ldquo;Madame de Lastaola.&rdquo;</p>
<p>That was the name which the heiress of Henry All&egrave;gre had decided
to adopt when, according to her own expression, she had found herself
precipitated at a moment&rsquo;s notice into the crowd of mankind.&nbsp;
It is strange how the death of Henry All&egrave;gre, which certainly
the poor man had not planned, acquired in my view the character of a
heartless desertion.&nbsp; It gave one a glimpse of amazing egoism in
a sentiment to which one could hardly give a name, a mysterious appropriation
of one human being by another as if in defiance of unexpressed things
and for an unheard-of satisfaction of an inconceivable pride.&nbsp;
If he had hated her he could not have flung that enormous fortune more
brutally at her head.&nbsp; And his unrepentant death seemed to lift
for a moment the curtain on something lofty and sinister like an Olympian&rsquo;s
caprice.</p>
<p>Do&ntilde;a Rita said to me once with humorous resignation: &ldquo;You
know, it appears that one must have a name.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s what
Henry All&egrave;gre&rsquo;s man of business told me.&nbsp; He was quite
impatient with me about it.&nbsp; But my name, <i>amigo</i>, Henry All&egrave;gre
had taken from me like all the rest of what I had been once.&nbsp; All
that is buried with him in his grave.&nbsp; It wouldn&rsquo;t have been
true.&nbsp; That is how I felt about it.&nbsp; So I took that one.&rdquo;&nbsp;
She whispered to herself: &ldquo;Lastaola,&rdquo; not as if to test
the sound but as if in a dream.</p>
<p>To this day I am not quite certain whether it was the name of any
human habitation, a lonely <i>caserio</i> with a half-effaced carving
of a coat of arms over its door, or of some hamlet at the dead end of
a ravine with a stony slope at the back.&nbsp; It might have been a
hill for all I know or perhaps a stream.&nbsp; A wood, or perhaps a
combination of all these: just a bit of the earth&rsquo;s surface.&nbsp;
Once I asked her where exactly it was situated and she answered, waving
her hand cavalierly at the dead wall of the room: &ldquo;Oh, over there.&rdquo;&nbsp;
I thought that this was all that I was going to hear but she added moodily,
&ldquo;I used to take my goats there, a dozen or so of them, for the
day.&nbsp; From after my uncle had said his Mass till the ringing of
the evening bell.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I saw suddenly the lonely spot, sketched for me some time ago by
a few words from Mr. Blunt, populated by the agile, bearded beasts with
cynical heads, and a little misty figure dark in the sunlight with a
halo of dishevelled rust-coloured hair about its head.</p>
<p>The epithet of rust-coloured comes from her.&nbsp; It was really
tawny.&nbsp; Once or twice in my hearing she had referred to &ldquo;my
rust-coloured hair&rdquo; with laughing vexation.&nbsp; Even then it
was unruly, abhorring the restraints of civilization, and often in the
heat of a dispute getting into the eyes of Madame de Lastaola, the possessor
of coveted art treasures, the heiress of Henry All&egrave;gre.&nbsp;
She proceeded in a reminiscent mood, with a faint flash of gaiety all
over her face, except her dark blue eyes that moved so seldom out of
their fixed scrutiny of things invisible to other human beings.</p>
<p>&ldquo;The goats were very good.&nbsp; We clambered amongst the stones
together.&nbsp; They beat me at that game.&nbsp; I used to catch my
hair in the bushes.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Your rust-coloured hair,&rdquo; I whispered.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes, it was always this colour.&nbsp; And I used to leave
bits of my frock on thorns here and there.&nbsp; It was pretty thin,
I can tell you.&nbsp; There wasn&rsquo;t much at that time between my
skin and the blue of the sky.&nbsp; My legs were as sunburnt as my face;
but really I didn&rsquo;t tan very much.&nbsp; I had plenty of freckles
though.&nbsp; There were no looking-glasses in the Presbytery but uncle
had a piece not bigger than my two hands for his shaving.&nbsp; One
Sunday I crept into his room and had a peep at myself.&nbsp; And wasn&rsquo;t
I startled to see my own eyes looking at me!&nbsp; But it was fascinating,
too.&nbsp; I was about eleven years old then, and I was very friendly
with the goats, and I was as shrill as a cicada and as slender as a
match.&nbsp; Heavens!&nbsp; When I overhear myself speaking sometimes,
or look at my limbs, it doesn&rsquo;t seem to be possible.&nbsp; And
yet it is the same one.&nbsp; I do remember every single goat.&nbsp;
They were very clever.&nbsp; Goats are no trouble really; they don&rsquo;t
scatter much.&nbsp; Mine never did even if I had to hide myself out
of their sight for ever so long.&rdquo;</p>
<p>It was but natural to ask her why she wanted to hide, and she uttered
vaguely what was rather a comment on my question:</p>
<p>&ldquo;It was like fate.&rdquo;&nbsp; But I chose to take it otherwise,
teasingly, because we were often like a pair of children.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, really,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;you talk like a pagan.&nbsp;
What could you know of fate at that time?&nbsp; What was it like?&nbsp;
Did it come down from Heaven?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be stupid.&nbsp; It used to come along a cart-track
that was there and it looked like a boy.&nbsp; Wasn&rsquo;t he a little
devil though.&nbsp; You understand, I couldn&rsquo;t know that.&nbsp;
He was a wealthy cousin of mine.&nbsp; Round there we are all related,
all cousins&mdash;as in Brittany.&nbsp; He wasn&rsquo;t much bigger
than myself but he was older, just a boy in blue breeches and with good
shoes on his feet, which of course interested and impressed me.&nbsp;
He yelled to me from below, I screamed to him from above, he came up
and sat down near me on a stone, never said a word, let me look at him
for half an hour before he condescended to ask me who I was.&nbsp; And
the airs he gave himself!&nbsp; He quite intimidated me sitting there
perfectly dumb.&nbsp; I remember trying to hide my bare feet under the
edge of my skirt as I sat below him on the ground.</p>
<p>&ldquo;<i>C&rsquo;est comique, eh</i>!&rdquo; she interrupted herself
to comment in a melancholy tone.&nbsp; I looked at her sympathetically
and she went on:</p>
<p>&ldquo;He was the only son from a rich farmhouse two miles down the
slope.&nbsp; In winter they used to send him to school at Tolosa.&nbsp;
He had an enormous opinion of himself; he was going to keep a shop in
a town by and by and he was about the most dissatisfied creature I have
ever seen.&nbsp; He had an unhappy mouth and unhappy eyes and he was
always wretched about something: about the treatment he received, about
being kept in the country and chained to work.&nbsp; He was moaning
and complaining and threatening all the world, including his father
and mother.&nbsp; He used to curse God, yes, that boy, sitting there
on a piece of rock like a wretched little Prometheus with a sparrow
peeking at his miserable little liver.&nbsp; And the grand scenery of
mountains all round, ha, ha, ha!&rdquo;</p>
<p>She laughed in contralto: a penetrating sound with something generous
in it; not infectious, but in others provoking a smile.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Of course I, poor little animal, I didn&rsquo;t know what
to make of it, and I was even a little frightened.&nbsp; But at first
because of his miserable eyes I was sorry for him, almost as much as
if he had been a sick goat.&nbsp; But, frightened or sorry, I don&rsquo;t
know how it is, I always wanted to laugh at him, too, I mean from the
very first day when he let me admire him for half an hour.&nbsp; Yes,
even then I had to put my hand over my mouth more than once for the
sake of good manners, you understand.&nbsp; And yet, you know, I was
never a laughing child.</p>
<p>&ldquo;One day he came up and sat down very dignified a little bit
away from me and told me he had been thrashed for wandering in the hills.</p>
<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;To be with me?&rsquo; I asked.&nbsp; And he said: &lsquo;To
be with you!&nbsp; No.&nbsp; My people don&rsquo;t know what I do.&rsquo;&nbsp;
I can&rsquo;t tell why, but I was annoyed.&nbsp; So instead of raising
a clamour of pity over him, which I suppose he expected me to do, I
asked him if the thrashing hurt very much.&nbsp; He got up, he had a
switch in his hand, and walked up to me, saying, &lsquo;I will soon
show you.&rsquo;&nbsp; I went stiff with fright; but instead of slashing
at me he dropped down by my side and kissed me on the cheek.&nbsp; Then
he did it again, and by that time I was gone dead all over and he could
have done what he liked with the corpse but he left off suddenly and
then I came to life again and I bolted away.&nbsp; Not very far.&nbsp;
I couldn&rsquo;t leave the goats altogether.&nbsp; He chased me round
and about the rocks, but of course I was too quick for him in his nice
town boots.&nbsp; When he got tired of that game he started throwing
stones.&nbsp; After that he made my life very lively for me.&nbsp; Sometimes
he used to come on me unawares and then I had to sit still and listen
to his miserable ravings, because he would catch me round the waist
and hold me very tight.&nbsp; And yet, I often felt inclined to laugh.&nbsp;
But if I caught sight of him at a distance and tried to dodge out of
the way he would start stoning me into a shelter I knew of and then
sit outside with a heap of stones at hand so that I daren&rsquo;t show
the end of my nose for hours.&nbsp; He would sit there and rave and
abuse me till I would burst into a crazy laugh in my hole; and then
I could see him through the leaves rolling on the ground and biting
his fists with rage.&nbsp; Didn&rsquo;t he hate me!&nbsp; At the same
time I was often terrified.&nbsp; I am convinced now that if I had started
crying he would have rushed in and perhaps strangled me there.&nbsp;
Then as the sun was about to set he would make me swear that I would
marry him when I was grown up.&nbsp; &lsquo;Swear, you little wretched
beggar,&rsquo; he would yell to me.&nbsp; And I would swear.&nbsp; I
was hungry, and I didn&rsquo;t want to be made black and blue all over
with stones.&nbsp; Oh, I swore ever so many times to be his wife.&nbsp;
Thirty times a month for two months.&nbsp; I couldn&rsquo;t help myself.&nbsp;
It was no use complaining to my sister Therese.&nbsp; When I showed
her my bruises and tried to tell her a little about my trouble she was
quite scandalized.&nbsp; She called me a sinful girl, a shameless creature.&nbsp;
I assure you it puzzled my head so that, between Therese my sister and
Jos&eacute; the boy, I lived in a state of idiocy almost.&nbsp; But
luckily at the end of the two months they sent him away from home for
good.&nbsp; Curious story to happen to a goatherd living all her days
out under God&rsquo;s eye, as my uncle the Cura might have said.&nbsp;
My sister Therese was keeping house in the Presbytery.&nbsp; She&rsquo;s
a terrible person.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I have heard of your sister Therese,&rdquo; I said.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, you have!&nbsp; Of my big sister Therese, six, ten years
older than myself perhaps?&nbsp; She just comes a little above my shoulder,
but then I was always a long thing.&nbsp; I never knew my mother.&nbsp;
I don&rsquo;t even know how she looked.&nbsp; There are no paintings
or photographs in our farmhouses amongst the hills.&nbsp; I haven&rsquo;t
even heard her described to me.&nbsp; I believe I was never good enough
to be told these things.&nbsp; Therese decided that I was a lump of
wickedness, and now she believes that I will lose my soul altogether
unless I take some steps to save it.&nbsp; Well, I have no particular
taste that way.&nbsp; I suppose it is annoying to have a sister going
fast to eternal perdition, but there are compensations.&nbsp; The funniest
thing is that it&rsquo;s Therese, I believe, who managed to keep me
out of the Presbytery when I went out of my way to look in on them on
my return from my visit to the <i>Quartel Real</i> last year.&nbsp;
I couldn&rsquo;t have stayed much more than half an hour with them anyway,
but still I would have liked to get over the old doorstep.&nbsp; I am
certain that Therese persuaded my uncle to go out and meet me at the
bottom of the hill.&nbsp; I saw the old man a long way off and I understood
how it was.&nbsp; I dismounted at once and met him on foot.&nbsp; We
had half an hour together walking up and down the road.&nbsp; He is
a peasant priest, he didn&rsquo;t know how to treat me.&nbsp; And of
course I was uncomfortable, too.&nbsp; There wasn&rsquo;t a single goat
about to keep me in countenance.&nbsp; I ought to have embraced him.&nbsp;
I was always fond of the stern, simple old man.&nbsp; But he drew himself
up when I approached him and actually took off his hat to me.&nbsp;
So simple as that!&nbsp; I bowed my head and asked for his blessing.&nbsp;
And he said &lsquo;I would never refuse a blessing to a good Legitimist.&rsquo;&nbsp;
So stern as that!&nbsp; And when I think that I was perhaps the only
girl of the family or in the whole world that he ever in his priest&rsquo;s
life patted on the head!&nbsp; When I think of that I . . . I believe
at that moment I was as wretched as he was himself.&nbsp; I handed him
an envelope with a big red seal which quite startled him.&nbsp; I had
asked the Marquis de Villarel to give me a few words for him, because
my uncle has a great influence in his district; and the Marquis penned
with his own hand some compliments and an inquiry about the spirit of
the population.&nbsp; My uncle read the letter, looked up at me with
an air of mournful awe, and begged me to tell his excellency that the
people were all for God, their lawful King and their old privileges.&nbsp;
I said to him then, after he had asked me about the health of His Majesty
in an awfully gloomy tone&mdash;I said then: &lsquo;There is only one
thing that remains for me to do, uncle, and that is to give you two
pounds of the very best snuff I have brought here for you.&rsquo;&nbsp;
What else could I have got for the poor old man?&nbsp; I had no trunks
with me.&nbsp; I had to leave behind a spare pair of shoes in the hotel
to make room in my little bag for that snuff.&nbsp; And fancy!&nbsp;
That old priest absolutely pushed the parcel away.&nbsp; I could have
thrown it at his head; but I thought suddenly of that hard, prayerful
life, knowing nothing of any ease or pleasure in the world, absolutely
nothing but a pinch of snuff now and then.&nbsp; I remembered how wretched
he used to be when he lacked a copper or two to get some snuff with.&nbsp;
My face was hot with indignation, but before I could fly out at him
I remembered how simple he was.&nbsp; So I said with great dignity that
as the present came from the King and as he wouldn&rsquo;t receive it
from my hand there was nothing else for me to do but to throw it into
the brook; and I made as if I were going to do it, too.&nbsp; He shouted:
&lsquo;Stay, unhappy girl!&nbsp; Is it really from His Majesty, whom
God preserve?&rsquo;&nbsp; I said contemptuously, &lsquo;Of course.&rsquo;&nbsp;
He looked at me with great pity in his eyes, sighed deeply, and took
the little tin from my hand.&nbsp; I suppose he imagined me in my abandoned
way wheedling the necessary cash out of the King for the purchase of
that snuff.&nbsp; You can&rsquo;t imagine how simple he is.&nbsp; Nothing
was easier than to deceive him; but don&rsquo;t imagine I deceived him
from the vainglory of a mere sinner.&nbsp; I lied to the dear man, simply
because I couldn&rsquo;t bear the idea of him being deprived of the
only gratification his big, ascetic, gaunt body ever knew on earth.&nbsp;
As I mounted my mule to go away he murmured coldly: &lsquo;God guard
you, Se&ntilde;ora!&rsquo;&nbsp; Se&ntilde;ora!&nbsp; What sternness!&nbsp;
We were off a little way already when his heart softened and he shouted
after me in a terrible voice: &lsquo;The road to Heaven is repentance!&rsquo;&nbsp;
And then, after a silence, again the great shout &lsquo;Repentance!&rsquo;
thundered after me.&nbsp; Was that sternness or simplicity, I wonder?&nbsp;
Or a mere unmeaning superstition, a mechanical thing?&nbsp; If there
lives anybody completely honest in this world, surely it must be my
uncle.&nbsp; And yet&mdash;who knows?</p>
<p>&ldquo;Would you guess what was the next thing I did?&nbsp; Directly
I got over the frontier I wrote from Bayonne asking the old man to send
me out my sister here.&nbsp; I said it was for the service of the King.&nbsp;
You see, I had thought suddenly of that house of mine in which you once
spent the night talking with Mr. Mills and Don Juan Blunt.&nbsp; I thought
it would do extremely well for Carlist officers coming this way on leave
or on a mission.&nbsp; In hotels they might have been molested, but
I knew that I could get protection for my house.&nbsp; Just a word from
the ministry in Paris to the Prefect.&nbsp; But I wanted a woman to
manage it for me.&nbsp; And where was I to find a trustworthy woman?&nbsp;
How was I to know one when I saw her?&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t know how to
talk to women.&nbsp; Of course my Rose would have done for me that or
anything else; but what could I have done myself without her?&nbsp;
She has looked after me from the first.&nbsp; It was Henry All&egrave;gre
who got her for me eight years ago.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t know whether
he meant it for a kindness but she&rsquo;s the only human being on whom
I can lean.&nbsp; She knows . . . What doesn&rsquo;t she know about
me!&nbsp; She has never failed to do the right thing for me unasked.&nbsp;
I couldn&rsquo;t part with her.&nbsp; And I couldn&rsquo;t think of
anybody else but my sister.</p>
<p>&ldquo;After all it was somebody belonging to me.&nbsp; But it seemed
the wildest idea.&nbsp; Yet she came at once.&nbsp; Of course I took
care to send her some money.&nbsp; She likes money.&nbsp; As to my uncle
there is nothing that he wouldn&rsquo;t have given up for the service
of the King.&nbsp; Rose went to meet her at the railway station.&nbsp;
She told me afterwards that there had been no need for me to be anxious
about her recognizing Mademoiselle Therese.&nbsp; There was nobody else
in the train that could be mistaken for her.&nbsp; I should think not!&nbsp;
She had made for herself a dress of some brown stuff like a nun&rsquo;s
habit and had a crooked stick and carried all her belongings tied up
in a handkerchief.&nbsp; She looked like a pilgrim to a saint&rsquo;s
shrine.&nbsp; Rose took her to the house.&nbsp; She asked when she saw
it: &lsquo;And does this big place really belong to our Rita?&rsquo;&nbsp;
My maid of course said that it was mine.&nbsp; &lsquo;And how long did
our Rita live here?&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Madame has never seen it unless
perhaps the outside, as far as I know.&nbsp; I believe Mr. All&egrave;gre
lived here for some time when he was a young man.&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;The
sinner that&rsquo;s dead?&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Just so,&rsquo; says Rose.&nbsp;
You know nothing ever startles Rose.&nbsp; &lsquo;Well, his sins are
gone with him,&rsquo; said my sister, and began to make herself at home.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Rose was going to stop with her for a week but on the third
day she was back with me with the remark that Mlle. Therese knew her
way about very well already and preferred to be left to herself.&nbsp;
Some little time afterwards I went to see that sister of mine.&nbsp;
The first thing she said to me, &lsquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t have recognized
you, Rita,&rsquo; and I said, &lsquo;What a funny dress you have, Therese,
more fit for the portress of a convent than for this house.&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;Yes,&rsquo;
she said, &lsquo;and unless you give this house to me, Rita, I will
go back to our country.&nbsp; I will have nothing to do with your life,
Rita.&nbsp; Your life is no secret for me.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I was going from room to room and Therese was following me.&nbsp;
&lsquo;I don&rsquo;t know that my life is a secret to anybody,&rsquo;
I said to her, &lsquo;but how do you know anything about it?&rsquo;&nbsp;
And then she told me that it was through a cousin of ours, that horrid
wretch of a boy, you know.&nbsp; He had finished his schooling and was
a clerk in a Spanish commercial house of some kind, in Paris, and apparently
had made it his business to write home whatever he could hear about
me or ferret out from those relations of mine with whom I lived as a
girl.&nbsp; I got suddenly very furious.&nbsp; I raged up and down the
room (we were alone upstairs), and Therese scuttled away from me as
far as the door.&nbsp; I heard her say to herself, &lsquo;It&rsquo;s
the evil spirit in her that makes her like this.&rsquo;&nbsp; She was
absolutely convinced of that.&nbsp; She made the sign of the cross in
the air to protect herself.&nbsp; I was quite astounded.&nbsp; And then
I really couldn&rsquo;t help myself.&nbsp; I burst into a laugh.&nbsp;
I laughed and laughed; I really couldn&rsquo;t stop till Therese ran
away.&nbsp; I went downstairs still laughing and found her in the hall
with her face to the wall and her fingers in her ears kneeling in a
corner.&nbsp; I had to pull her out by the shoulders from there.&nbsp;
I don&rsquo;t think she was frightened; she was only shocked.&nbsp;
But I don&rsquo;t suppose her heart is desperately bad, because when
I dropped into a chair feeling very tired she came and knelt in front
of me and put her arms round my waist and entreated me to cast off from
me my evil ways with the help of saints and priests.&nbsp; Quite a little
programme for a reformed sinner.&nbsp; I got away at last.&nbsp; I left
her sunk on her heels before the empty chair looking after me.&nbsp;
&lsquo;I pray for you every night and morning, Rita,&rsquo; she said.&mdash;&lsquo;Oh,
yes.&nbsp; I know you are a good sister,&rsquo; I said to her.&nbsp;
I was letting myself out when she called after me, &lsquo;And what about
this house, Rita?&rsquo;&nbsp; I said to her, &lsquo;Oh, you may keep
it till the day I reform and enter a convent.&rsquo;&nbsp; The last
I saw of her she was still on her knees looking after me with her mouth
open.&nbsp; I have seen her since several times, but our intercourse
is, at any rate on her side, as of a frozen nun with some great lady.&nbsp;
But I believe she really knows how to make men comfortable.&nbsp; Upon
my word I think she likes to look after men.&nbsp; They don&rsquo;t
seem to be such great sinners as women are.&nbsp; I think you could
do worse than take up your quarters at number 10.&nbsp; She will no
doubt develop a saintly sort of affection for you, too.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I don&rsquo;t know that the prospect of becoming a favourite of Do&ntilde;a
Rita&rsquo;s peasant sister was very fascinating to me.&nbsp; If I went
to live very willingly at No. 10 it was because everything connected
with Do&ntilde;a Rita had for me a peculiar fascination.&nbsp; She had
only passed through the house once as far as I knew; but it was enough.&nbsp;
She was one of those beings that leave a trace.&nbsp; I am not unreasonable&mdash;I
mean for those that knew her.&nbsp; That is, I suppose, because she
was so unforgettable.&nbsp; Let us remember the tragedy of Azzolati
the ruthless, the ridiculous financier with a criminal soul (or shall
we say heart) and facile tears.&nbsp; No wonder, then, that for me,
who may flatter myself without undue vanity with being much finer than
that grotesque international intriguer, the mere knowledge that Do&ntilde;a
Rita had passed through the very rooms in which I was going to live
between the strenuous times of the sea-expeditions, was enough to fill
my inner being with a great content.&nbsp; Her glance, her darkly brilliant
blue glance, had run over the walls of that room which most likely would
be mine to slumber in.&nbsp; Behind me, somewhere near the door, Therese,
the peasant sister, said in a funnily compassionate tone and in an amazingly
landlady-of-a-boarding-house spirit of false persuasiveness:</p>
<p>&ldquo;You will be very comfortable here, Se&ntilde;or.&nbsp; It
is so peaceful here in the street.&nbsp; Sometimes one may think oneself
in a village.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s only a hundred and twenty-five francs
for the friends of the King.&nbsp; And I shall take such good care of
you that your very heart will be able to rest.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER II</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Do&ntilde;a Rita was curious to know how I got on with her peasant
sister and all I could say in return for that inquiry was that the peasant
sister was in her own way amiable.&nbsp; At this she clicked her tongue
amusingly and repeated a remark she had made before: &ldquo;She likes
young men.&nbsp; The younger the better.&rdquo;&nbsp; The mere thought
of those two women being sisters aroused one&rsquo;s wonder.&nbsp; Physically
they were altogether of different design.&nbsp; It was also the difference
between living tissue of glowing loveliness with a divine breath, and
a hard hollow figure of baked clay.</p>
<p>Indeed Therese did somehow resemble an achievement, wonderful enough
in its way, in unglazed earthenware.&nbsp; The only gleam perhaps that
one could find on her was that of her teeth, which one used to get between
her dull lips unexpectedly, startlingly, and a little inexplicably,
because it was never associated with a smile.&nbsp; She smiled with
compressed mouth.&nbsp; It was indeed difficult to conceive of those
two birds coming from the same nest.&nbsp; And yet . . . Contrary to
what generally happens, it was when one saw those two women together
that one lost all belief in the possibility of their relationship near
or far.&nbsp; It extended even to their common humanity.&nbsp; One,
as it were, doubted it.&nbsp; If one of the two was representative,
then the other was either something more or less than human.&nbsp; One
wondered whether these two women belonged to the same scheme of creation.&nbsp;
One was secretly amazed to see them standing together, speaking to each
other, having words in common, understanding each other.&nbsp; And yet!
. . . Our psychological sense is the crudest of all; we don&rsquo;t
know, we don&rsquo;t perceive how superficial we are.&nbsp; The simplest
shades escape us, the secret of changes, of relations.&nbsp; No, upon
the whole, the only feature (and yet with enormous differences) which
Therese had in common with her sister, as I told Do&ntilde;a Rita, was
amiability.</p>
<p>&ldquo;For, you know, you are a most amiable person yourself,&rdquo;
I went on.&nbsp; &ldquo;It&rsquo;s one of your characteristics, of course
much more precious than in other people.&nbsp; You transmute the commonest
traits into gold of your own; but after all there are no new names.&nbsp;
You are amiable.&nbsp; You were most amiable to me when I first saw
you.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Really.&nbsp; I was not aware.&nbsp; Not specially . . . &rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I had never the presumption to think that it was special.&nbsp;
Moreover, my head was in a whirl.&nbsp; I was lost in astonishment first
of all at what I had been listening to all night.&nbsp; Your history,
you know, a wonderful tale with a flavour of wine in it and wreathed
in clouds, with that amazing decapitated, mutilated dummy of a woman
lurking in a corner, and with Blunt&rsquo;s smile gleaming through a
fog, the fog in my eyes, from Mills&rsquo; pipe, you know.&nbsp; I was
feeling quite inanimate as to body and frightfully stimulated as to
mind all the time.&nbsp; I had never heard anything like that talk about
you before.&nbsp; Of course I wasn&rsquo;t sleepy, but still I am not
used to do altogether without sleep like Blunt . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Kept awake all night listening to my story!&rdquo;&nbsp; She
marvelled.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes.&nbsp; You don&rsquo;t think I am complaining, do you?&nbsp;
I wouldn&rsquo;t have missed it for the world.&nbsp; Blunt in a ragged
old jacket and a white tie and that incisive polite voice of his seemed
strange and weird.&nbsp; It seemed as though he were inventing it all
rather angrily.&nbsp; I had doubts as to your existence.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Mr. Blunt is very much interested in my story.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Anybody would be,&rdquo; I said.&nbsp; &ldquo;I was.&nbsp;
I didn&rsquo;t sleep a wink.&nbsp; I was expecting to see you soon&mdash;and
even then I had my doubts.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;As to my existence?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t exactly that, though of course I couldn&rsquo;t
tell that you weren&rsquo;t a product of Captain Blunt&rsquo;s sleeplessness.&nbsp;
He seemed to dread exceedingly to be left alone and your story might
have been a device to detain us . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;He hasn&rsquo;t enough imagination for that,&rdquo; she said.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It didn&rsquo;t occur to me.&nbsp; But there was Mills, who
apparently believed in your existence.&nbsp; I could trust Mills.&nbsp;
My doubts were about the propriety.&nbsp; I couldn&rsquo;t see any good
reason for being taken to see you.&nbsp; Strange that it should be my
connection with the sea which brought me here to the Villa.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Unexpected perhaps.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;No.&nbsp; I mean particularly strange and significant.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Why?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Because my friends are in the habit of telling me (and each
other) that the sea is my only love.&nbsp; They were always chaffing
me because they couldn&rsquo;t see or guess in my life at any woman,
open or secret. . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;And is that really so?&rdquo; she inquired negligently.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Why, yes.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t mean to say that I am like an
innocent shepherd in one of those interminable stories of the eighteenth
century.&nbsp; But I don&rsquo;t throw the word love about indiscriminately.&nbsp;
It may be all true about the sea; but some people would say that they
love sausages.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You are horrible.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I am surprised.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I mean your choice of words.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;And you have never uttered a word yet that didn&rsquo;t change
into a pearl as it dropped from your lips.&nbsp; At least not before
me.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She glanced down deliberately and said, &ldquo;This is better.&nbsp;
But I don&rsquo;t see any of them on the floor.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s you who are horrible in the implications of your
language.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t see any on the floor!&nbsp; Haven&rsquo;t
I caught up and treasured them all in my heart?&nbsp; I am not the animal
from which sausages are made.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She looked at me suavely and then with the sweetest possible smile
breathed out the word: &ldquo;No.&rdquo;</p>
<p>And we both laughed very loud.&nbsp; O! days of innocence!&nbsp;
On this occasion we parted from each other on a light-hearted note.&nbsp;
But already I had acquired the conviction that there was nothing more
lovable in the world than that woman; nothing more life-giving, inspiring,
and illuminating than the emanation of her charm.&nbsp; I meant it absolutely&mdash;not
excepting the light of the sun.</p>
<p>From this there was only one step further to take.&nbsp; The step
into a conscious surrender; the open perception that this charm, warming
like a flame, was also all-revealing like a great light; giving new
depth to shades, new brilliance to colours, an amazing vividness to
all sensations and vitality to all thoughts: so that all that had been
lived before seemed to have been lived in a drab world and with a languid
pulse.</p>
<p>A great revelation this.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t mean to say it was soul-shaking.&nbsp;
The soul was already a captive before doubt, anguish, or dismay could
touch its surrender and its exaltation.&nbsp; But all the same the revelation
turned many things into dust; and, amongst others, the sense of the
careless freedom of my life.&nbsp; If that life ever had any purpose
or any aim outside itself I would have said that it threw a shadow across
its path.&nbsp; But it hadn&rsquo;t.&nbsp; There had been no path.&nbsp;
But there was a shadow, the inseparable companion of all light.&nbsp;
No illumination can sweep all mystery out of the world.&nbsp; After
the departed darkness the shadows remain, more mysterious because as
if more enduring; and one feels a dread of them from which one was free
before.&nbsp; What if they were to be victorious at the last?&nbsp;
They, or what perhaps lurks in them: fear, deception, desire, disillusion&mdash;all
silent at first before the song of triumphant love vibrating in the
light.&nbsp; Yes.&nbsp; Silent.&nbsp; Even desire itself!&nbsp; All
silent.&nbsp; But not for long!</p>
<p>This was, I think, before the third expedition.&nbsp; Yes, it must
have been the third, for I remember that it was boldly planned and that
it was carried out without a hitch.&nbsp; The tentative period was over;
all our arrangements had been perfected.&nbsp; There was, so to speak,
always an unfailing smoke on the hill and an unfailing lantern on the
shore.&nbsp; Our friends, mostly bought for hard cash and therefore
valuable, had acquired confidence in us.&nbsp; This, they seemed to
say, is no unfathomable roguery of penniless adventurers.&nbsp; This
is but the reckless enterprise of men of wealth and sense and needn&rsquo;t
be inquired into.&nbsp; The young <i>caballero</i> has got real gold
pieces in the belt he wears next his skin; and the man with the heavy
moustaches and unbelieving eyes is indeed very much of a man.&nbsp;
They gave to Dominic all their respect and to me a great show of deference;
for I had all the money, while they thought that Dominic had all the
sense.&nbsp; That judgment was not exactly correct.&nbsp; I had my share
of judgment and audacity which surprises me now that the years have
chilled the blood without dimming the memory.&nbsp; I remember going
about the business with light-hearted, clear-headed recklessness which,
according as its decisions were sudden or considered, made Dominic draw
his breath through his clenched teeth, or look hard at me before he
gave me either a slight nod of assent or a sarcastic &ldquo;Oh, certainly&rdquo;&mdash;just
as the humour of the moment prompted him.</p>
<p>One night as we were lying on a bit of dry sand under the lee of
a rock, side by side, watching the light of our little vessel dancing
away at sea in the windy distance, Dominic spoke suddenly to me.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I suppose Alphonso and Carlos, Carlos and Alphonso, they are
nothing to you, together or separately?&rdquo;</p>
<p>I said: &ldquo;Dominic, if they were both to vanish from the earth
together or separately it would make no difference to my feelings.&rdquo;</p>
<p>He remarked: &ldquo;Just so.&nbsp; A man mourns only for his friends.&nbsp;
I suppose they are no more friends to you than they are to me.&nbsp;
Those Carlists make a great consumption of cartridges.&nbsp; That is
well.&nbsp; But why should we do all those mad things that you will
insist on us doing till my hair,&rdquo; he pursued with grave, mocking
exaggeration, &ldquo;till my hair tries to stand up on my head? and
all for that Carlos, let God and the devil each guard his own, for that
Majesty as they call him, but after all a man like another and&mdash;no
friend.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes, why?&rdquo; I murmured, feeling my body nestled at ease
in the sand.</p>
<p>It was very dark under the overhanging rock on that night of clouds
and of wind that died and rose and died again.&nbsp; Dominic&rsquo;s
voice was heard speaking low between the short gusts.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Friend of the Se&ntilde;ora, eh?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s what the world says, Dominic.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Half of what the world says are lies,&rdquo; he pronounced
dogmatically.&nbsp; &ldquo;For all his majesty he may be a good enough
man.&nbsp; Yet he is only a king in the mountains and to-morrow he may
be no more than you.&nbsp; Still a woman like that&mdash;one, somehow,
would grudge her to a better king.&nbsp; She ought to be set up on a
high pillar for people that walk on the ground to raise their eyes up
to.&nbsp; But you are otherwise, you gentlemen.&nbsp; You, for instance,
Monsieur, you wouldn&rsquo;t want to see her set up on a pillar.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;That sort of thing, Dominic,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;that sort
of thing, you understand me, ought to be done early.&rdquo;</p>
<p>He was silent for a time.&nbsp; And then his manly voice was heard
in the shadow of the rock.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I see well enough what you mean.&nbsp; I spoke of the multitude,
that only raise their eyes.&nbsp; But for kings and suchlike that is
not enough.&nbsp; Well, no heart need despair; for there is not a woman
that wouldn&rsquo;t at some time or other get down from her pillar for
no bigger bribe perhaps than just a flower which is fresh to-day and
withered to-morrow.&nbsp; And then, what&rsquo;s the good of asking
how long any woman has been up there?&nbsp; There is a true saying that
lips that have been kissed do not lose their freshness.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I don&rsquo;t know what answer I could have made.&nbsp; I imagine
Dominic thought himself unanswerable.&nbsp; As a matter of fact, before
I could speak, a voice came to us down the face of the rock crying secretly,
&ldquo;Ol&agrave;, down there!&nbsp; All is safe ashore.&rdquo;</p>
<p>It was the boy who used to hang about the stable of a muleteer&rsquo;s
inn in a little shallow valley with a shallow little stream in it, and
where we had been hiding most of the day before coming down to the shore.&nbsp;
We both started to our feet and Dominic said, &ldquo;A good boy that.&nbsp;
You didn&rsquo;t hear him either come or go above our heads.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t
reward him with more than one peseta, Se&ntilde;or, whatever he does.&nbsp;
If you were to give him two he would go mad at the sight of so much
wealth and throw up his job at the Fonda, where he is so useful to run
errands, in that way he has of skimming along the paths without displacing
a stone.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Meantime he was busying himself with striking a fire to set alight
a small heap of dry sticks he had made ready beforehand on that spot
which in all the circuit of the Bay was perfectly screened from observation
from the land side.</p>
<p>The clear flame shooting up revealed him in the black cloak with
a hood of a Mediterranean sailor.&nbsp; His eyes watched the dancing
dim light to seaward.&nbsp; And he talked the while.</p>
<p>&ldquo;The only fault you have, Se&ntilde;or, is being too generous
with your money.&nbsp; In this world you must give sparingly.&nbsp;
The only things you may deal out without counting, in this life of ours
which is but a little fight and a little love, is blows to your enemy
and kisses to a woman. . . . Ah! here they are coming in.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I noticed the dancing light in the dark west much closer to the shore
now.&nbsp; Its motion had altered.&nbsp; It swayed slowly as it ran
towards us, and, suddenly, the darker shadow as of a great pointed wing
appeared gliding in the night.&nbsp; Under it a human voice shouted
something confidently.</p>
<p>&ldquo;<i>Bueno</i>,&rdquo; muttered Dominic.&nbsp; From some receptacle
I didn&rsquo;t see he poured a lot of water on the blaze, like a magician
at the end of a successful incantation that had called out a shadow
and a voice from the immense space of the sea.&nbsp; And his hooded
figure vanished from my sight in a great hiss and the warm feel of ascending
steam.</p>
<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s all over,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and now we go
back for more work, more toil, more trouble, more exertion with hands
and feet, for hours and hours.&nbsp; And all the time the head turned
over the shoulder, too.&rdquo;</p>
<p>We were climbing a precipitous path sufficiently dangerous in the
dark, Dominic, more familiar with it, going first and I scrambling close
behind in order that I might grab at his cloak if I chanced to slip
or miss my footing.&nbsp; I remonstrated against this arrangement as
we stopped to rest.&nbsp; I had no doubt I would grab at his cloak if
I felt myself falling.&nbsp; I couldn&rsquo;t help doing that.&nbsp;
But I would probably only drag him down with me.</p>
<p>With one hand grasping a shadowy bush above his head he growled that
all this was possible, but that it was all in the bargain, and urged
me onwards.</p>
<p>When we got on to the level that man whose even breathing no exertion,
no danger, no fear or anger could disturb, remarked as we strode side
by side:</p>
<p>&ldquo;I will say this for us, that we are carrying out all this
deadly foolishness as conscientiously as though the eyes of the Se&ntilde;ora
were on us all the time.&nbsp; And as to risk, I suppose we take more
than she would approve of, I fancy, if she ever gave a moment&rsquo;s
thought to us out here.&nbsp; Now, for instance, in the next half hour,
we may come any moment on three carabineers who would let off their
pieces without asking questions.&nbsp; Even your way of flinging money
about cannot make safety for men set on defying a whole big country
for the sake of&mdash;what is it exactly?&mdash;the blue eyes, or the
white arms of the Se&ntilde;ora.&rdquo;</p>
<p>He kept his voice equably low.&nbsp; It was a lonely spot and but
for a vague shape of a dwarf tree here and there we had only the flying
clouds for company.&nbsp; Very far off a tiny light twinkled a little
way up the seaward shoulder of an invisible mountain.&nbsp; Dominic
moved on.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Fancy yourself lying here, on this wild spot, with a leg smashed
by a shot or perhaps with a bullet in your side.&nbsp; It might happen.&nbsp;
A star might fall.&nbsp; I have watched stars falling in scores on clear
nights in the Atlantic.&nbsp; And it was nothing.&nbsp; The flash of
a pinch of gunpowder in your face may be a bigger matter.&nbsp; Yet
somehow it&rsquo;s pleasant as we stumble in the dark to think of our
Se&ntilde;ora in that long room with a shiny floor and all that lot
of glass at the end, sitting on that divan, you call it, covered with
carpets as if expecting a king indeed.&nbsp; And very still . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>He remembered her&mdash;whose image could not be dismissed.</p>
<p>I laid my hand on his shoulder.</p>
<p>&ldquo;That light on the mountain side flickers exceedingly, Dominic.&nbsp;
Are we in the path?&rdquo;</p>
<p>He addressed me then in French, which was between us the language
of more formal moments.</p>
<p>&ldquo;<i>Prenez mon bras, monsieur</i>.&nbsp; Take a firm hold,
or I will have you stumbling again and falling into one of those beastly
holes, with a good chance to crack your head.&nbsp; And there is no
need to take offence.&nbsp; For, speaking with all respect, why should
you, and I with you, be here on this lonely spot, barking our shins
in the dark on the way to a confounded flickering light where there
will be no other supper but a piece of a stale sausage and a draught
of leathery wine out of a stinking skin.&nbsp; Pah!&rdquo;</p>
<p>I had good hold of his arm.&nbsp; Suddenly he dropped the formal
French and pronounced in his inflexible voice:</p>
<p>&ldquo;For a pair of white arms, Se&ntilde;or.&nbsp; <i>Bueno</i>.&rdquo;</p>
<p>He could understand.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER III</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>On our return from that expedition we came gliding into the old harbour
so late that Dominic and I, making for the caf&eacute; kept by Madame
L&eacute;onore, found it empty of customers, except for two rather sinister
fellows playing cards together at a corner table near the door.&nbsp;
The first thing done by Madame L&eacute;onore was to put her hands on
Dominic&rsquo;s shoulders and look at arm&rsquo;s length into the eyes
of that man of audacious deeds and wild stratagems who smiled straight
at her from under his heavy and, at that time, uncurled moustaches.</p>
<p>Indeed we didn&rsquo;t present a neat appearance, our faces unshaven,
with the traces of dried salt sprays on our smarting skins and the sleeplessness
of full forty hours filming our eyes.&nbsp; At least it was so with
me who saw as through a mist Madame L&eacute;onore moving with her mature
nonchalant grace, setting before us wine and glasses with a faint swish
of her ample black skirt.&nbsp; Under the elaborate structure of black
hair her jet-black eyes sparkled like good-humoured stars and even I
could see that she was tremendously excited at having this lawless wanderer
Dominic within her reach and as it were in her power.&nbsp; Presently
she sat down by us, touched lightly Dominic&rsquo;s curly head silvered
on the temples (she couldn&rsquo;t really help it), gazed at me for
a while with a quizzical smile, observed that I looked very tired, and
asked Dominic whether for all that I was likely to sleep soundly to-night.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; said Dominic, &ldquo;He&rsquo;s
young.&nbsp; And there is always the chance of dreams.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;What do you men dream of in those little barques of yours
tossing for months on the water?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Mostly of nothing,&rdquo; said Dominic.&nbsp; &ldquo;But it
has happened to me to dream of furious fights.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;And of furious loves, too, no doubt,&rdquo; she caught him
up in a mocking voice.</p>
<p>&ldquo;No, that&rsquo;s for the waking hours,&rdquo; Dominic drawled,
basking sleepily with his head between his hands in her ardent gaze.&nbsp;
&ldquo;The waking hours are longer.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;They must be, at sea,&rdquo; she said, never taking her eyes
off him.&nbsp; &ldquo;But I suppose you do talk of your loves sometimes.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You may be sure, Madame L&eacute;onore,&rdquo; I interjected,
noticing the hoarseness of my voice, &ldquo;that you at any rate are
talked about a lot at sea.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I am not so sure of that now.&nbsp; There is that strange
lady from the Prado that you took him to see, Signorino.&nbsp; She went
to his head like a glass of wine into a tender youngster&rsquo;s.&nbsp;
He is such a child, and I suppose that I am another.&nbsp; Shame to
confess it, the other morning I got a friend to look after the caf&eacute;
for a couple of hours, wrapped up my head, and walked out there to the
other end of the town. . . . Look at these two sitting up!&nbsp; And
I thought they were so sleepy and tired, the poor fellows!&rdquo;</p>
<p>She kept our curiosity in suspense for a moment.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Well, I have seen your marvel, Dominic,&rdquo; she continued
in a calm voice.&nbsp; &ldquo;She came flying out of the gate on horseback
and it would have been all I would have seen of her if&mdash;and this
is for you, Signorino&mdash;if she hadn&rsquo;t pulled up in the main
alley to wait for a very good-looking cavalier.&nbsp; He had his moustaches
so, and his teeth were very white when he smiled at her.&nbsp; But his
eyes are too deep in his head for my taste.&nbsp; I didn&rsquo;t like
it.&nbsp; It reminded me of a certain very severe priest who used to
come to our village when I was young; younger even than your marvel,
Dominic.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;It was no priest in disguise, Madame L&eacute;onore,&rdquo;
I said, amused by her expression of disgust.&nbsp; &ldquo;That&rsquo;s
an American.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Ah!&nbsp; <i>Un Americano</i>!&nbsp; Well, never mind him.&nbsp;
It was her that I went to see.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;What!&nbsp; Walked to the other end of the town to see Do&ntilde;a
Rita!&rdquo;&nbsp; Dominic addressed her in a low bantering tone.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Why, you were always telling me you couldn&rsquo;t walk further
than the end of the quay to save your life&mdash;or even mine, you said.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Well, I did; and I walked back again and between the two walks
I had a good look.&nbsp; And you may be sure&mdash;that will surprise
you both&mdash;that on the way back&mdash;oh, Santa Madre, wasn&rsquo;t
it a long way, too&mdash;I wasn&rsquo;t thinking of any man at sea or
on shore in that connection.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;No.&nbsp; And you were not thinking of yourself, either, I
suppose,&rdquo; I said.&nbsp; Speaking was a matter of great effort
for me, whether I was too tired or too sleepy, I can&rsquo;t tell.&nbsp;
&ldquo;No, you were not thinking of yourself.&nbsp; You were thinking
of a woman, though.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;<i>Si</i>.&nbsp; As much a woman as any of us that ever breathed
in the world.&nbsp; Yes, of her!&nbsp; Of that very one!&nbsp; You see,
we woman are not like you men, indifferent to each other unless by some
exception.&nbsp; Men say we are always against one another but that&rsquo;s
only men&rsquo;s conceit.&nbsp; What can she be to me?&nbsp; I am not
afraid of the big child here,&rdquo; and she tapped Dominic&rsquo;s
forearm on which he rested his head with a fascinated stare.&nbsp; &ldquo;With
us two it is for life and death, and I am rather pleased that there
is something yet in him that can catch fire on occasion.&nbsp; I would
have thought less of him if he hadn&rsquo;t been able to get out of
hand a little, for something really fine.&nbsp; As for you, Signorino,&rdquo;
she turned on me with an unexpected and sarcastic sally, &ldquo;I am
not in love with you yet.&rdquo;&nbsp; She changed her tone from sarcasm
to a soft and even dreamy note.&nbsp; &ldquo;A head like a gem,&rdquo;
went on that woman born in some by-street of Rome, and a plaything for
years of God knows what obscure fates.&nbsp; &ldquo;Yes, Dominic!&nbsp;
<i>Antica</i>.&nbsp; I haven&rsquo;t been haunted by a face since&mdash;since
I was sixteen years old.&nbsp; It was the face of a young cavalier in
the street.&nbsp; He was on horseback, too.&nbsp; He never looked at
me, I never saw him again, and I loved him for&mdash;for days and days
and days.&nbsp; That was the sort of face he had.&nbsp; And her face
is of the same sort.&nbsp; She had a man&rsquo;s hat, too, on her head.&nbsp;
So high!&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;A man&rsquo;s hat on her head,&rdquo; remarked with profound
displeasure Dominic, to whom this wonder, at least, of all the wonders
of the earth, was apparently unknown.</p>
<p>&ldquo;<i>Si</i>.&nbsp; And her face has haunted me.&nbsp; Not so
long as that other but more touchingly because I am no longer sixteen
and this is a woman.&nbsp; Yes, I did think of her, I myself was once
that age and I, too, had a face of my own to show to the world, though
not so superb.&nbsp; And I, too, didn&rsquo;t know why I had come into
the world any more than she does.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;And now you know,&rdquo; Dominic growled softly, with his
head still between his hands.</p>
<p>She looked at him for a long time, opened her lips but in the end
only sighed lightly.</p>
<p>&ldquo;And what do you know of her, you who have seen her so well
as to be haunted by her face?&rdquo; I asked.</p>
<p>I wouldn&rsquo;t have been surprised if she had answered me with
another sigh.&nbsp; For she seemed only to be thinking of herself and
looked not in my direction.&nbsp; But suddenly she roused up.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Of her?&rdquo; she repeated in a louder voice.&nbsp; &ldquo;Why
should I talk of another woman?&nbsp; And then she is a great lady.&rdquo;</p>
<p>At this I could not repress a smile which she detected at once.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t she?&nbsp; Well, no, perhaps she isn&rsquo;t;
but you may be sure of one thing, that she is both flesh and shadow
more than any one that I have seen.&nbsp; Keep that well in your mind:
She is for no man!&nbsp; She would be vanishing out of their hands like
water that cannot be held.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I caught my breath.&nbsp; &ldquo;Inconstant,&rdquo; I whispered.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t say that.&nbsp; Maybe too proud, too wilful,
too full of pity.&nbsp; Signorino, you don&rsquo;t know much about women.&nbsp;
And you may learn something yet or you may not; but what you learn from
her you will never forget.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Not to be held,&rdquo; I murmured; and she whom the quayside
called Madame L&eacute;onore closed her outstretched hand before my
face and opened it at once to show its emptiness in illustration of
her expressed opinion.&nbsp; Dominic never moved.</p>
<p>I wished good-night to these two and left the caf&eacute; for the
fresh air and the dark spaciousness of the quays augmented by all the
width of the old Port where between the trails of light the shadows
of heavy hulls appeared very black, merging their outlines in a great
confusion.&nbsp; I left behind me the end of the Cannebi&egrave;re,
a wide vista of tall houses and much-lighted pavements losing itself
in the distance with an extinction of both shapes and lights.&nbsp;
I slunk past it with only a side glance and sought the dimness of quiet
streets away from the centre of the usual night gaieties of the town.&nbsp;
The dress I wore was just that of a sailor come ashore from some coaster,
a thick blue woollen shirt or rather a sort of jumper with a knitted
cap like a tam-o&rsquo;-shanter worn very much on one side and with
a red tuft of wool in the centre.&nbsp; This was even the reason why
I had lingered so long in the caf&eacute;.&nbsp; I didn&rsquo;t want
to be recognized in the streets in that costume and still less to be
seen entering the house in the street of the Consuls.&nbsp; At that
hour when the performances were over and all the sensible citizens in
their beds I didn&rsquo;t hesitate to cross the Place of the Opera.&nbsp;
It was dark, the audience had already dispersed.&nbsp; The rare passers-by
I met hurrying on their last affairs of the day paid no attention to
me at all.&nbsp; The street of the Consuls I expected to find empty,
as usual at that time of the night.&nbsp; But as I turned a corner into
it I overtook three people who must have belonged to the locality.&nbsp;
To me, somehow, they appeared strange.&nbsp; Two girls in dark cloaks
walked ahead of a tall man in a top hat.&nbsp; I slowed down, not wishing
to pass them by, the more so that the door of the house was only a few
yards distant.&nbsp; But to my intense surprise those people stopped
at it and the man in the top hat, producing a latchkey, let his two
companions through, followed them, and with a heavy slam cut himself
off from my astonished self and the rest of mankind.</p>
<p>In the stupid way people have I stood and meditated on the sight,
before it occurred to me that this was the most useless thing to do.&nbsp;
After waiting a little longer to let the others get away from the hall
I entered in my turn.&nbsp; The small gas-jet seemed not to have been
touched ever since that distant night when Mills and I trod the black-and-white
marble hall for the first time on the heels of Captain Blunt&mdash;who
lived by his sword.&nbsp; And in the dimness and solitude which kept
no more trace of the three strangers than if they had been the merest
ghosts I seemed to hear the ghostly murmur, &ldquo;<i>Am&eacute;ricain</i>,
<i>Catholique</i> <i>et</i> <i>gentilhomne.&nbsp; Amer</i>. . . &rdquo;&nbsp;
Unseen by human eye I ran up the flight of steps swiftly and on the
first floor stepped into my sitting-room of which the door was open
. . . &ldquo;<i>et</i> <i>gentilhomme</i>.&rdquo;&nbsp; I tugged at
the bell pull and somewhere down below a bell rang as unexpected for
Therese as a call from a ghost.</p>
<p>I had no notion whether Therese could hear me.&nbsp; I seemed to
remember that she slept in any bed that happened to be vacant.&nbsp;
For all I knew she might have been asleep in mine.&nbsp; As I had no
matches on me I waited for a while in the dark.&nbsp; The house was
perfectly still.&nbsp; Suddenly without the slightest preliminary sound
light fell into the room and Therese stood in the open door with a candlestick
in her hand.</p>
<p>She had on her peasant brown skirt.&nbsp; The rest of her was concealed
in a black shawl which covered her head, her shoulders, arms, and elbows
completely, down to her waist.&nbsp; The hand holding the candle protruded
from that envelope which the other invisible hand clasped together under
her very chin.&nbsp; And her face looked like a face in a painting.&nbsp;
She said at once:</p>
<p>&ldquo;You startled me, my young Monsieur.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She addressed me most frequently in that way as though she liked
the very word &ldquo;young.&rdquo;&nbsp; Her manner was certainly peasant-like
with a sort of plaint in the voice, while the face was that of a serving
Sister in some small and rustic convent.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I meant to do it,&rdquo; I said.&nbsp; &ldquo;I am a very
bad person.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;The young are always full of fun,&rdquo; she said as if she
were gloating over the idea.&nbsp; &ldquo;It is very pleasant.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;But you are very brave,&rdquo; I chaffed her, &ldquo;for you
didn&rsquo;t expect a ring, and after all it might have been the devil
who pulled the bell.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;It might have been.&nbsp; But a poor girl like me is not afraid
of the devil.&nbsp; I have a pure heart.&nbsp; I have been to confession
last evening.&nbsp; No.&nbsp; But it might have been an assassin that
pulled the bell ready to kill a poor harmless woman.&nbsp; This is a
very lonely street.&nbsp; What could prevent you to kill me now and
then walk out again free as air?&rdquo;</p>
<p>While she was talking like this she had lighted the gas and with
the last words she glided through the bedroom door leaving me thunderstruck
at the unexpected character of her thoughts.</p>
<p>I couldn&rsquo;t know that there had been during my absence a case
of atrocious murder which had affected the imagination of the whole
town; and though Therese did not read the papers (which she imagined
to be full of impieties and immoralities invented by godless men) yet
if she spoke at all with her kind, which she must have done at least
in shops, she could not have helped hearing of it.&nbsp; It seems that
for some days people could talk of nothing else.&nbsp; She returned
gliding from the bedroom hermetically sealed in her black shawl just
as she had gone in, with the protruding hand holding the lighted candle
and relieved my perplexity as to her morbid turn of mind by telling
me something of the murder story in a strange tone of indifference even
while referring to its most horrible features.&nbsp; &ldquo;That&rsquo;s
what carnal sin (<i>p&ecirc;ch&eacute; de chair</i>) leads to,&rdquo;
she commented severely and passed her tongue over her thin lips.&nbsp;
&ldquo;And then the devil furnishes the occasion.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t imagine the devil inciting me to murder you,
Therese,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;and I didn&rsquo;t like that ready way
you took me for an example, as it were.&nbsp; I suppose pretty near
every lodger might be a potential murderer, but I expected to be made
an exception.&rdquo;</p>
<p>With the candle held a little below her face, with that face of one
tone and without relief she looked more than ever as though she had
come out of an old, cracked, smoky painting, the subject of which was
altogether beyond human conception.&nbsp; And she only compressed her
lips.</p>
<p>&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; I said, making myself comfortable on a sofa
after pulling off my boots.&nbsp; &ldquo;I suppose any one is liable
to commit murder all of a sudden.&nbsp; Well, have you got many murderers
in the house?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s pretty good.&nbsp;
Upstairs and downstairs,&rdquo; she sighed.&nbsp; &ldquo;God sees to
it.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;And by the by, who is that grey-headed murderer in a tall
hat whom I saw shepherding two girls into this house?&rdquo;</p>
<p>She put on a candid air in which one could detect a little of her
peasant cunning.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, yes.&nbsp; They are two dancing girls at the Opera, sisters,
as different from each other as I and our poor Rita.&nbsp; But they
are both virtuous and that gentleman, their father, is very severe with
them.&nbsp; Very severe indeed, poor motherless things.&nbsp; And it
seems to be such a sinful occupation.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I bet you make them pay a big rent, Therese.&nbsp; With an
occupation like that . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>She looked at me with eyes of invincible innocence and began to glide
towards the door, so smoothly that the flame of the candle hardly swayed.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Good-night,&rdquo; she murmured.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Good-night, Mademoiselle.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Then in the very doorway she turned right round as a marionette would
turn.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, you ought to know, my dear young Monsieur, that Mr. Blunt,
the dear handsome man, has arrived from Navarre three days ago or more.&nbsp;
Oh,&rdquo; she added with a priceless air of compunction, &ldquo;he
is such a charming gentleman.&rdquo;</p>
<p>And the door shut after her.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>That night I passed in a state, mostly open-eyed, I believe, but
always on the border between dreams and waking.&nbsp; The only thing
absolutely absent from it was the feeling of rest.&nbsp; The usual sufferings
of a youth in love had nothing to do with it.&nbsp; I could leave her,
go away from her, remain away from her, without an added pang or any
augmented consciousness of that torturing sentiment of distance so acute
that often it ends by wearing itself out in a few days.&nbsp; Far or
near was all one to me, as if one could never get any further but also
never any nearer to her secret: the state like that of some strange
wild faiths that get hold of mankind with the cruel mystic grip of unattainable
perfection, robbing them of both liberty and felicity on earth.&nbsp;
A faith presents one with some hope, though.&nbsp; But I had no hope,
and not even desire as a thing outside myself, that would come and go,
exhaust or excite.&nbsp; It was in me just like life was in me; that
life of which a popular saying affirms that &ldquo;it is sweet.&rdquo;&nbsp;
For the general wisdom of mankind will always stop short on the limit
of the formidable.</p>
<p>What is best in a state of brimful, equable suffering is that it
does away with the gnawings of petty sensations.&nbsp; Too far gone
to be sensible to hope and desire I was spared the inferior pangs of
elation and impatience.&nbsp; Hours with her or hours without her were
all alike, all in her possession!&nbsp; But still there are shades and
I will admit that the hours of that morning were perhaps a little more
difficult to get through than the others.&nbsp; I had sent word of my
arrival of course.&nbsp; I had written a note.&nbsp; I had rung the
bell.&nbsp; Therese had appeared herself in her brown garb and as monachal
as ever.&nbsp; I had said to her:</p>
<p>&ldquo;Have this sent off at once.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She had gazed at the addressed envelope, smiled (I was looking up
at her from my desk), and at last took it up with an effort of sanctimonious
repugnance.&nbsp; But she remained with it in her hand looking at me
as though she were piously gloating over something she could read in
my face.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, that Rita, that Rita,&rdquo; she murmured.&nbsp; &ldquo;And
you, too!&nbsp; Why are you trying, you, too, like the others, to stand
between her and the mercy of God?&nbsp; What&rsquo;s the good of all
this to you?&nbsp; And you such a nice, dear, young gentleman.&nbsp;
For no earthly good only making all the kind saints in heaven angry,
and our mother ashamed in her place amongst the blessed.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Mademoiselle Therese,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;<i>vous &ecirc;tes
folle</i>.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I believed she was crazy.&nbsp; She was cunning, too.&nbsp; I added
an imperious: &ldquo;<i>Allez</i>,&rdquo; and with a strange docility
she glided out without another word.&nbsp; All I had to do then was
to get dressed and wait till eleven o&rsquo;clock.</p>
<p>The hour struck at last.&nbsp; If I could have plunged into a light
wave and been transported instantaneously to Do&ntilde;a Rita&rsquo;s
door it would no doubt have saved me an infinity of pangs too complex
for analysis; but as this was impossible I elected to walk from end
to end of that long way.&nbsp; My emotions and sensations were childlike
and chaotic inasmuch that they were very intense and primitive, and
that I lay very helpless in their unrelaxing grasp.&nbsp; If one could
have kept a record of one&rsquo;s physical sensations it would have
been a fine collection of absurdities and contradictions.&nbsp; Hardly
touching the ground and yet leaden-footed; with a sinking heart and
an excited brain; hot and trembling with a secret faintness, and yet
as firm as a rock and with a sort of indifference to it all, I did reach
the door which was frightfully like any other commonplace door, but
at the same time had a fateful character: a few planks put together&mdash;and
an awful symbol; not to be approached without awe&mdash;and yet coming
open in the ordinary way to the ring of the bell.</p>
<p>It came open.&nbsp; Oh, yes, very much as usual.&nbsp; But in the
ordinary course of events the first sight in the hall should have been
the back of the ubiquitous, busy, silent maid hurrying off and already
distant.&nbsp; But not at all!&nbsp; She actually waited for me to enter.&nbsp;
I was extremely taken aback and I believe spoke to her for the first
time in my life.</p>
<p>&ldquo;<i>Bonjour</i>, Rose.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She dropped her dark eyelids over those eyes that ought to have been
lustrous but were not, as if somebody had breathed on them the first
thing in the morning.&nbsp; She was a girl without smiles.&nbsp; She
shut the door after me, and not only did that but in the incredible
idleness of that morning she, who had never a moment to spare, started
helping me off with my overcoat.&nbsp; It was positively embarrassing
from its novelty.&nbsp; While busying herself with those trifles she
murmured without any marked intention:</p>
<p>&ldquo;Captain Blunt is with Madame.&rdquo;</p>
<p>This didn&rsquo;t exactly surprise me.&nbsp; I knew he had come up
to town; I only happened to have forgotten his existence for the moment.&nbsp;
I looked at the girl also without any particular intention.&nbsp; But
she arrested my movement towards the dining-room door by a low, hurried,
if perfectly unemotional appeal:</p>
<p>&ldquo;Monsieur George!&rdquo;</p>
<p>That of course was not my name.&nbsp; It served me then as it will
serve for this story.&nbsp; In all sorts of strange places I was alluded
to as &ldquo;that young gentleman they call Monsieur George.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Orders came from &ldquo;Monsieur George&rdquo; to men who nodded knowingly.&nbsp;
Events pivoted about &ldquo;Monsieur George.&rdquo;&nbsp; I haven&rsquo;t
the slightest doubt that in the dark and tortuous streets of the old
Town there were fingers pointed at my back: there goes &ldquo;Monsieur
George.&rdquo;&nbsp; I had been introduced discreetly to several considerable
persons as &ldquo;Monsieur George.&rdquo;&nbsp; I had learned to answer
to the name quite naturally; and to simplify matters I was also &ldquo;Monsieur
George&rdquo; in the street of the Consuls and in the Villa on the Prado.&nbsp;
I verify believe that at that time I had the feeling that the name of
George really belonged to me.&nbsp; I waited for what the girl had to
say.&nbsp; I had to wait some time, though during that silence she gave
no sign of distress or agitation.&nbsp; It was for her obviously a moment
of reflection.&nbsp; Her lips were compressed a little in a characteristic,
capable manner.&nbsp; I looked at her with a friendliness I really felt
towards her slight, unattractive, and dependable person.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; I said at last, rather amused by this mental
hesitation.&nbsp; I never took it for anything else.&nbsp; I was sure
it was not distrust.&nbsp; She appreciated men and things and events
solely in relation to Do&ntilde;a Rita&rsquo;s welfare and safety.&nbsp;
And as to that I believed myself above suspicion.&nbsp; At last she
spoke.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Madame is not happy.&rdquo;&nbsp; This information was given
to me not emotionally but as it were officially.&nbsp; It hadn&rsquo;t
even a tone of warning.&nbsp; A mere statement.&nbsp; Without waiting
to see the effect she opened the dining-room door, not to announce my
name in the usual way but to go in and shut it behind her.&nbsp; In
that short moment I heard no voices inside.&nbsp; Not a sound reached
me while the door remained shut; but in a few seconds it came open again
and Rose stood aside to let me pass.</p>
<p>Then I heard something: Do&ntilde;a Rita&rsquo;s voice raised a little
on an impatient note (a very, very rare thing) finishing some phrase
of protest with the words &ldquo; . . . Of no consequence.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I heard them as I would have heard any other words, for she had that
kind of voice which carries a long distance.&nbsp; But the maid&rsquo;s
statement occupied all my mind.&nbsp; &ldquo;<i>Madame</i> <i>n&rsquo;est
pas heureuse</i>.&rdquo;&nbsp; It had a dreadful precision . . . &ldquo;Not
happy . . .&rdquo;&nbsp; This unhappiness had almost a concrete form&mdash;something
resembling a horrid bat.&nbsp; I was tired, excited, and generally overwrought.&nbsp;
My head felt empty.&nbsp; What were the appearances of unhappiness?&nbsp;
I was still naive enough to associate them with tears, lamentations,
extraordinary attitudes of the body and some sort of facial distortion,
all very dreadful to behold.&nbsp; I didn&rsquo;t know what I should
see; but in what I did see there was nothing startling, at any rate
from that nursery point of view which apparently I had not yet outgrown.</p>
<p>With immense relief the apprehensive child within me beheld Captain
Blunt warming his back at the more distant of the two fireplaces; and
as to Do&ntilde;a Rita there was nothing extraordinary in her attitude
either, except perhaps that her hair was all loose about her shoulders.&nbsp;
I hadn&rsquo;t the slightest doubt they had been riding together that
morning, but she, with her impatience of all costume (and yet she could
dress herself admirably and wore her dresses triumphantly), had divested
herself of her riding habit and sat cross-legged enfolded in that ample
blue robe like a young savage chieftain in a blanket.&nbsp; It covered
her very feet.&nbsp; And before the normal fixity of her enigmatical
eyes the smoke of the cigarette ascended ceremonially, straight up,
in a slender spiral.</p>
<p>&ldquo;How are you,&rdquo; was the greeting of Captain Blunt with
the usual smile which would have been more amiable if his teeth hadn&rsquo;t
been, just then, clenched quite so tight.&nbsp; How he managed to force
his voice through that shining barrier I could never understand.&nbsp;
Do&ntilde;a Rita tapped the couch engagingly by her side but I sat down
instead in the armchair nearly opposite her, which, I imagine, must
have been just vacated by Blunt.&nbsp; She inquired with that particular
gleam of the eyes in which there was something immemorial and gay:</p>
<p>&ldquo;Well?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Perfect success.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I could hug you.&rdquo;</p>
<p>At any time her lips moved very little but in this instance the intense
whisper of these words seemed to form itself right in my very heart;
not as a conveyed sound but as an imparted emotion vibrating there with
an awful intimacy of delight.&nbsp; And yet it left my heart heavy.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, yes, for joy,&rdquo; I said bitterly but very low; &ldquo;for
your Royalist, Legitimist, joy.&rdquo;&nbsp; Then with that trick of
very precise politeness which I must have caught from Mr. Blunt I added:</p>
<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to be embraced&mdash;for the King.&rdquo;</p>
<p>And I might have stopped there.&nbsp; But I didn&rsquo;t.&nbsp; With
a perversity which should be forgiven to those who suffer night and
day and are as if drunk with an exalted unhappiness, I went on: &ldquo;For
the sake of an old cast-off glove; for I suppose a disdained love is
not much more than a soiled, flabby thing that finds itself on a private
rubbish heap because it has missed the fire.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She listened to me unreadable, unmoved, narrowed eyes, closed lips,
slightly flushed face, as if carved six thousand years ago in order
to fix for ever that something secret and obscure which is in all women.&nbsp;
Not the gross immobility of a Sphinx proposing roadside riddles but
the finer immobility, almost sacred, of a fateful figure seated at the
very source of the passions that have moved men from the dawn of ages.</p>
<p>Captain Blunt, with his elbow on the high mantelpiece, had turned
away a little from us and his attitude expressed excellently the detachment
of a man who does not want to hear.&nbsp; As a matter of fact, I don&rsquo;t
suppose he could have heard.&nbsp; He was too far away, our voices were
too contained.&nbsp; Moreover, he didn&rsquo;t want to hear.&nbsp; There
could be no doubt about it; but she addressed him unexpectedly.</p>
<p>&ldquo;As I was saying to you, Don Juan, I have the greatest difficulty
in getting myself, I won&rsquo;t say understood, but simply believed.&rdquo;</p>
<p>No pose of detachment could avail against the warm waves of that
voice.&nbsp; He had to hear.&nbsp; After a moment he altered his position
as it were reluctantly, to answer her.</p>
<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a difficulty that women generally have.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yet I have always spoken the truth.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;All women speak the truth,&rdquo; said Blunt imperturbably.&nbsp;
And this annoyed her.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Where are the men I have deceived?&rdquo; she cried.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes, where?&rdquo; said Blunt in a tone of alacrity as though
he had been ready to go out and look for them outside.</p>
<p>&ldquo;No!&nbsp; But show me one.&nbsp; I say&mdash;where is he?&rdquo;</p>
<p>He threw his affectation of detachment to the winds, moved his shoulders
slightly, very slightly, made a step nearer to the couch, and looked
down on her with an expression of amused courtesy.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, I don&rsquo;t know.&nbsp; Probably nowhere.&nbsp; But
if such a man could be found I am certain he would turn out a very stupid
person.&nbsp; You can&rsquo;t be expected to furnish every one who approaches
you with a mind.&nbsp; To expect that would be too much, even from you
who know how to work wonders at such little cost to yourself.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;To myself,&rdquo; she repeated in a loud tone.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Why this indignation?&nbsp; I am simply taking your word for
it.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Such little cost!&rdquo; she exclaimed under her breath.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I mean to your person.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, yes,&rdquo; she murmured, glanced down, as it were upon
herself, then added very low: &ldquo;This body.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Well, it is you,&rdquo; said Blunt with visibly contained
irritation.&nbsp; &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t pretend it&rsquo;s somebody
else&rsquo;s.&nbsp; It can&rsquo;t be.&nbsp; You haven&rsquo;t borrowed
it. . . . It fits you too well,&rdquo; he ended between his teeth.</p>
<p>&ldquo;You take pleasure in tormenting yourself,&rdquo; she remonstrated,
suddenly placated; &ldquo;and I would be sorry for you if I didn&rsquo;t
think it&rsquo;s the mere revolt of your pride.&nbsp; And you know you
are indulging your pride at my expense.&nbsp; As to the rest of it,
as to my living, acting, working wonders at a little cost. . . . it
has all but killed me morally.&nbsp; Do you hear?&nbsp; Killed.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, you are not dead yet,&rdquo; he muttered,</p>
<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; she said with gentle patience.&nbsp; &ldquo;There
is still some feeling left in me; and if it is any satisfaction to you
to know it, you may be certain that I shall be conscious of the last
stab.&rdquo;</p>
<p>He remained silent for a while and then with a polite smile and a
movement of the head in my direction he warned her.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Our audience will get bored.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I am perfectly aware that Monsieur George is here, and that
he has been breathing a very different atmosphere from what he gets
in this room.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t you find this room extremely confined?&rdquo;
she asked me.</p>
<p>The room was very large but it is a fact that I felt oppressed at
that moment.&nbsp; This mysterious quarrel between those two people,
revealing something more close in their intercourse than I had ever
before suspected, made me so profoundly unhappy that I didn&rsquo;t
even attempt to answer.&nbsp; And she continued:</p>
<p>&ldquo;More space.&nbsp; More air.&nbsp; Give me air, air.&rdquo;&nbsp;
She seized the embroidered edges of her blue robe under her white throat
and made as if to tear them apart, to fling it open on her breast, recklessly,
before our eyes.&nbsp; We both remained perfectly still.&nbsp; Her hands
dropped nervelessly by her side.&nbsp; &ldquo;I envy you, Monsieur George.&nbsp;
If I am to go under I should prefer to be drowned in the sea with the
wind on my face.&nbsp; What luck, to feel nothing less than all the
world closing over one&rsquo;s head!&rdquo;</p>
<p>A short silence ensued before Mr. Blunt&rsquo;s drawing-room voice
was heard with playful familiarity.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I have often asked myself whether you weren&rsquo;t really
a very ambitious person, Do&ntilde;a Rita.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;And I ask myself whether you have any heart.&rdquo;&nbsp;
She was looking straight at him and he gratified her with the usual
cold white flash of his even teeth before he answered.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Asking yourself?&nbsp; That means that you are really asking
me.&nbsp; But why do it so publicly?&nbsp; I mean it.&nbsp; One single,
detached presence is enough to make a public.&nbsp; One alone.&nbsp;
Why not wait till he returns to those regions of space and air&mdash;from
which he came.&rdquo;</p>
<p>His particular trick of speaking of any third person as of a lay
figure was exasperating.&nbsp; Yet at the moment I did not know how
to resent it, but, in any case, Do&ntilde;a Rita would not have given
me time.&nbsp; Without a moment&rsquo;s hesitation she cried out:</p>
<p>&ldquo;I only wish he could take me out there with him.&rdquo;</p>
<p>For a moment Mr. Blunt&rsquo;s face became as still as a mask and
then instead of an angry it assumed an indulgent expression.&nbsp; As
to me I had a rapid vision of Dominic&rsquo;s astonishment, awe, and
sarcasm which was always as tolerant as it is possible for sarcasm to
be.&nbsp; But what a charming, gentle, gay, and fearless companion she
would have made!&nbsp; I believed in her fearlessness in any adventure
that would interest her.&nbsp; It would be a new occasion for me, a
new viewpoint for that faculty of admiration she had awakened in me
at sight&mdash;at first sight&mdash;before she opened her lips&mdash;before
she ever turned her eyes on me.&nbsp; She would have to wear some sort
of sailor costume, a blue woollen shirt open at the throat. . . . Dominic&rsquo;s
hooded cloak would envelop her amply, and her face under the black hood
would have a luminous quality, adolescent charm, and an enigmatic expression.&nbsp;
The confined space of the little vessel&rsquo;s quarterdeck would lend
itself to her cross-legged attitudes, and the blue sea would balance
gently her characteristic immobility that seemed to hide thoughts as
old and profound as itself.&nbsp; As restless, too&mdash;perhaps.</p>
<p>But the picture I had in my eye, coloured and simple like an illustration
to a nursery-book tale of two venturesome children&rsquo;s escapade,
was what fascinated me most.&nbsp; Indeed I felt that we two were like
children under the gaze of a man of the world&mdash;who lived by his
sword.&nbsp; And I said recklessly:</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes, you ought to come along with us for a trip.&nbsp; You
would see a lot of things for yourself.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Blunt&rsquo;s expression had grown even more indulgent if that
were possible.&nbsp; Yet there was something ineradicably ambiguous
about that man.&nbsp; I did not like the indefinable tone in which he
observed:</p>
<p>&ldquo;You are perfectly reckless in what you say, Do&ntilde;a Rita.&nbsp;
It has become a habit with you of late.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;While with you reserve is a second nature, Don Juan.&rdquo;</p>
<p>This was uttered with the gentlest, almost tender, irony.&nbsp; Mr.
Blunt waited a while before he said:</p>
<p>&ldquo;Certainly. . . . Would you have liked me to be otherwise?&rdquo;</p>
<p>She extended her hand to him on a sudden impulse.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Forgive me!&nbsp; I may have been unjust, and you may only
have been loyal.&nbsp; The falseness is not in us.&nbsp; The fault is
in life itself, I suppose.&nbsp; I have been always frank with you.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;And I obedient,&rdquo; he said, bowing low over her hand.&nbsp;
He turned away, paused to look at me for some time and finally gave
me the correct sort of nod.&nbsp; But he said nothing and went out,
or rather lounged out with his worldly manner of perfect ease under
all conceivable circumstances.&nbsp; With her head lowered Do&ntilde;a
Rita watched him till he actually shut the door behind him.&nbsp; I
was facing her and only heard the door close.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t stare at me,&rdquo; were the first words she said.</p>
<p>It was difficult to obey that request.&nbsp; I didn&rsquo;t know
exactly where to look, while I sat facing her.&nbsp; So I got up, vaguely
full of goodwill, prepared even to move off as far as the window, when
she commanded:</p>
<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t turn your back on me.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I chose to understand it symbolically.</p>
<p>&ldquo;You know very well I could never do that.&nbsp; I couldn&rsquo;t.&nbsp;
Not even if I wanted to.&rdquo;&nbsp; And I added: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
too late now.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Well, then, sit down.&nbsp; Sit down on this couch.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I sat down on the couch.&nbsp; Unwillingly?&nbsp; Yes.&nbsp; I was
at that stage when all her words, all her gestures, all her silences
were a heavy trial to me, put a stress on my resolution, on that fidelity
to myself and to her which lay like a leaden weight on my untried heart.&nbsp;
But I didn&rsquo;t sit down very far away from her, though that soft
and billowy couch was big enough, God knows!&nbsp; No, not very far
from her.&nbsp; Self-control, dignity, hopelessness itself, have their
limits.&nbsp; The halo of her tawny hair stirred as I let myself drop
by her side.&nbsp; Whereupon she flung one arm round my neck, leaned
her temple against my shoulder and began to sob; but that I could only
guess from her slight, convulsive movements because in our relative
positions I could only see the mass of her tawny hair brushed back,
yet with a halo of escaped hair which as I bent my head over her tickled
my lips, my cheek, in a maddening manner.</p>
<p>We sat like two venturesome children in an illustration to a tale,
scared by their adventure.&nbsp; But not for long.&nbsp; As I instinctively,
yet timidly, sought for her other hand I felt a tear strike the back
of mine, big and heavy as if fallen from a great height.&nbsp; It was
too much for me.&nbsp; I must have given a nervous start.&nbsp; At once
I heard a murmur: &ldquo;You had better go away now.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I withdrew myself gently from under the light weight of her head,
from this unspeakable bliss and inconceivable misery, and had the absurd
impression of leaving her suspended in the air.&nbsp; And I moved away
on tiptoe.</p>
<p>Like an inspired blind man led by Providence I found my way out of
the room but really I saw nothing, till in the hall the maid appeared
by enchantment before me holding up my overcoat.&nbsp; I let her help
me into it.&nbsp; And then (again as if by enchantment) she had my hat
in her hand.</p>
<p>&ldquo;No.&nbsp; Madame isn&rsquo;t happy,&rdquo; I whispered to
her distractedly.</p>
<p>She let me take my hat out of her hand and while I was putting it
on my head I heard an austere whisper:</p>
<p>&ldquo;Madame should listen to her heart.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Austere is not the word; it was almost freezing, this unexpected,
dispassionate rustle of words.&nbsp; I had to repress a shudder, and
as coldly as herself I murmured:</p>
<p>&ldquo;She has done that once too often.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Rose was standing very close to me and I caught distinctly the note
of scorn in her indulgent compassion.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, that! . . . Madame is like a child.&rdquo;&nbsp; It was
impossible to get the bearing of that utterance from that girl who,
as Do&ntilde;a Rita herself had told me, was the most taciturn of human
beings; and yet of all human beings the one nearest to herself.&nbsp;
I seized her head in my hands and turning up her face I looked straight
down into her black eyes which should have been lustrous.&nbsp; Like
a piece of glass breathed upon they reflected no light, revealed no
depths, and under my ardent gaze remained tarnished, misty, unconscious.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Will Monsieur kindly let me go.&nbsp; Monsieur shouldn&rsquo;t
play the child, either.&rdquo;&nbsp; (I let her go.)&nbsp; &ldquo;Madame
could have the world at her feet.&nbsp; Indeed she has it there only
she doesn&rsquo;t care for it.&rdquo;</p>
<p>How talkative she was, this maid with unsealed lips!&nbsp; For some
reason or other this last statement of hers brought me immense comfort.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes?&rdquo; I whispered breathlessly.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes!&nbsp; But in that case what&rsquo;s the use of living
in fear and torment?&rdquo; she went on, revealing a little more of
herself to my astonishment.&nbsp; She opened the door for me and added:</p>
<p>&ldquo;Those that don&rsquo;t care to stoop ought at least make themselves
happy.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I turned in the very doorway: &ldquo;There is something which prevents
that?&rdquo; I suggested.</p>
<p>&ldquo;To be sure there is.&nbsp; <i>Bonjour</i>, Monsieur.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<h2>PART FOUR</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER I</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;Such a charming lady in a grey silk dress and a hand as white
as snow.&nbsp; She looked at me through such funny glasses on the end
of a long handle.&nbsp; A very great lady but her voice was as kind
as the voice of a saint.&nbsp; I have never seen anything like that.&nbsp;
She made me feel so timid.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The voice uttering these words was the voice of Therese and I looked
at her from a bed draped heavily in brown silk curtains fantastically
looped up from ceiling to floor.&nbsp; The glow of a sunshiny day was
toned down by closed jalousies to a mere transparency of darkness.&nbsp;
In this thin medium Therese&rsquo;s form appeared flat, without detail,
as if cut out of black paper.&nbsp; It glided towards the window and
with a click and a scrape let in the full flood of light which smote
my aching eyeballs painfully.</p>
<p>In truth all that night had been the abomination of desolation to
me.&nbsp; After wrestling with my thoughts, if the acute consciousness
of a woman&rsquo;s existence may be called a thought, I had apparently
dropped off to sleep only to go on wrestling with a nightmare, a senseless
and terrifying dream of being in bonds which, even after waking, made
me feel powerless in all my limbs.&nbsp; I lay still, suffering acutely
from a renewed sense of existence, unable to lift an arm, and wondering
why I was not at sea, how long I had slept, how long Therese had been
talking before her voice had reached me in that purgatory of hopeless
longing and unanswerable questions to which I was condemned.</p>
<p>It was Therese&rsquo;s habit to begin talking directly she entered
the room with the tray of morning coffee.&nbsp; This was her method
for waking me up.&nbsp; I generally regained the consciousness of the
external world on some pious phrase asserting the spiritual comfort
of early mass, or on angry lamentations about the unconscionable rapacity
of the dealers in fish and vegetables; for after mass it was Therese&rsquo;s
practice to do the marketing for the house.&nbsp; As a matter of fact
the necessity of having to pay, to actually give money to people, infuriated
the pious Therese.&nbsp; But the matter of this morning&rsquo;s speech
was so extraordinary that it might have been the prolongation of a nightmare:
a man in bonds having to listen to weird and unaccountable speeches
against which, he doesn&rsquo;t know why, his very soul revolts.</p>
<p>In sober truth my soul remained in revolt though I was convinced
that I was no longer dreaming.&nbsp; I watched Therese coming away from
the window with that helpless dread a man bound hand and foot may be
excused to feel.&nbsp; For in such a situation even the absurd may appear
ominous.&nbsp; She came up close to the bed and folding her hands meekly
in front of her turned her eyes up to the ceiling.</p>
<p>&ldquo;If I had been her daughter she couldn&rsquo;t have spoken
more softly to me,&rdquo; she said sentimentally.</p>
<p>I made a great effort to speak.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Mademoiselle Therese, you are raving.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;She addressed me as Mademoiselle, too, so nicely.&nbsp; I
was struck with veneration for her white hair but her face, believe
me, my dear young Monsieur, has not so many wrinkles as mine.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She compressed her lips with an angry glance at me as if I could
help her wrinkles, then she sighed.</p>
<p>&ldquo;God sends wrinkles, but what is our face?&rdquo; she digressed
in a tone of great humility.&nbsp; &ldquo;We shall have glorious faces
in Paradise.&nbsp; But meantime God has permitted me to preserve a smooth
heart.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Are you going to keep on like this much longer?&rdquo; I fairly
shouted at her.&nbsp; &ldquo;What are you talking about?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I am talking about the sweet old lady who came in a carriage.&nbsp;
Not a fiacre.&nbsp; I can tell a fiacre.&nbsp; In a little carriage
shut in with glass all in front.&nbsp; I suppose she is very rich.&nbsp;
The carriage was very shiny outside and all beautiful grey stuff inside.&nbsp;
I opened the door to her myself.&nbsp; She got out slowly like a queen.&nbsp;
I was struck all of a heap.&nbsp; Such a shiny beautiful little carriage.&nbsp;
There were blue silk tassels inside, beautiful silk tassels.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Obviously Therese had been very much impressed by a brougham, though
she didn&rsquo;t know the name for it.&nbsp; Of all the town she knew
nothing but the streets which led to a neighbouring church frequented
only by the poorer classes and the humble quarter around, where she
did her marketing.&nbsp; Besides, she was accustomed to glide along
the walls with her eyes cast down; for her natural boldness would never
show itself through that nun-like mien except when bargaining, if only
on a matter of threepence.&nbsp; Such a turn-out had never been presented
to her notice before.&nbsp; The traffic in the street of the Consuls
was mostly pedestrian and far from fashionable.&nbsp; And anyhow Therese
never looked out of the window.&nbsp; She lurked in the depths of the
house like some kind of spider that shuns attention.&nbsp; She used
to dart at one from some dark recesses which I never explored.</p>
<p>Yet it seemed to me that she exaggerated her raptures for some reason
or other.&nbsp; With her it was very difficult to distinguish between
craft and innocence.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Do you mean to say,&rdquo; I asked suspiciously, &ldquo;that
an old lady wants to hire an apartment here?&nbsp; I hope you told her
there was no room, because, you know, this house is not exactly the
thing for venerable old ladies.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t make me angry, my dear young Monsieur.&nbsp; I
have been to confession this morning.&nbsp; Aren&rsquo;t you comfortable?&nbsp;
Isn&rsquo;t the house appointed richly enough for anybody?&rdquo;</p>
<p>That girl with a peasant-nun&rsquo;s face had never seen the inside
of a house other than some half-ruined <i>caserio</i> in her native
hills.</p>
<p>I pointed out to her that this was not a matter of splendour or comfort
but of &ldquo;convenances.&rdquo;&nbsp; She pricked up her ears at that
word which probably she had never heard before; but with woman&rsquo;s
uncanny intuition I believe she understood perfectly what I meant.&nbsp;
Her air of saintly patience became so pronounced that with my own poor
intuition I perceived that she was raging at me inwardly.&nbsp; Her
weather-tanned complexion, already affected by her confined life, took
on an extraordinary clayey aspect which reminded me of a strange head
painted by El Greco which my friend Prax had hung on one of his walls
and used to rail at; yet not without a certain respect.</p>
<p>Therese, with her hands still meekly folded about her waist, had
mastered the feelings of anger so unbecoming to a person whose sins
had been absolved only about three hours before, and asked me with an
insinuating softness whether she wasn&rsquo;t an honest girl enough
to look after any old lady belonging to a world which after all was
sinful.&nbsp; She reminded me that she had kept house ever since she
was &ldquo;so high&rdquo; for her uncle the priest: a man well-known
for his saintliness in a large district extending even beyond Pampeluna.&nbsp;
The character of a house depended upon the person who ruled it.&nbsp;
She didn&rsquo;t know what impenitent wretches had been breathing within
these walls in the time of that godless and wicked man who had planted
every seed of perdition in &ldquo;our Rita&rsquo;s&rdquo; ill-disposed
heart.&nbsp; But he was dead and she, Therese, knew for certain that
wickedness perished utterly, because of God&rsquo;s anger (<i>la col&egrave;re
du bon Dieu</i>).&nbsp; She would have no hesitation in receiving a
bishop, if need be, since &ldquo;our, Rita,&rdquo; with her poor, wretched,
unbelieving heart, had nothing more to do with the house.</p>
<p>All this came out of her like an unctuous trickle of some acrid oil.&nbsp;
The low, voluble delivery was enough by itself to compel my attention.</p>
<p>&ldquo;You think you know your sister&rsquo;s heart,&rdquo; I asked.</p>
<p>She made small eyes at me to discover if I was angry.&nbsp; She seemed
to have an invincible faith in the virtuous dispositions of young men.&nbsp;
And as I had spoken in measured tones and hadn&rsquo;t got red in the
face she let herself go.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Black, my dear young Monsieur.&nbsp; Black.&nbsp; I always
knew it.&nbsp; Uncle, poor saintly man, was too holy to take notice
of anything.&nbsp; He was too busy with his thoughts to listen to anything
I had to say to him.&nbsp; For instance as to her shamelessness.&nbsp;
She was always ready to run half naked about the hills. . . &rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes.&nbsp; After your goats.&nbsp; All day long.&nbsp; Why
didn&rsquo;t you mend her frocks?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, you know about the goats.&nbsp; My dear young Monsieur,
I could never tell when she would fling over her pretended sweetness
and put her tongue out at me.&nbsp; Did she tell you about a boy, the
son of pious and rich parents, whom she tried to lead astray into the
wildness of thoughts like her own, till the poor dear child drove her
off because she outraged his modesty?&nbsp; I saw him often with his
parents at Sunday mass.&nbsp; The grace of God preserved him and made
him quite a gentleman in Paris.&nbsp; Perhaps it will touch Rita&rsquo;s
heart, too, some day.&nbsp; But she was awful then.&nbsp; When I wouldn&rsquo;t
listen to her complaints she would say: &lsquo;All right, sister, I
would just as soon go clothed in rain and wind.&rsquo;&nbsp; And such
a bag of bones, too, like the picture of a devil&rsquo;s imp.&nbsp;
Ah, my dear young Monsieur, you don&rsquo;t know how wicked her heart
is.&nbsp; You aren&rsquo;t bad enough for that yourself.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t
believe you are evil at all in your innocent little heart.&nbsp; I never
heard you jeer at holy things.&nbsp; You are only thoughtless.&nbsp;
For instance, I have never seen you make the sign of the cross in the
morning.&nbsp; Why don&rsquo;t you make a practice of crossing yourself
directly you open your eyes.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s a very good thing.&nbsp;
It keeps Satan off for the day.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She proffered that advice in a most matter-of-fact tone as if it
were a precaution against a cold, compressed her lips, then returning
to her fixed idea, &ldquo;But the house is mine,&rdquo; she insisted
very quietly with an accent which made me feel that Satan himself would
never manage to tear it out of her hands.</p>
<p>&ldquo;And so I told the great lady in grey.&nbsp; I told her that
my sister had given it to me and that surely God would not let her take
it away again.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You told that grey-headed lady, an utter stranger!&nbsp; You
are getting more crazy every day.&nbsp; You have neither good sense
nor good feeling, Mademoiselle Therese, let me tell you.&nbsp; Do you
talk about your sister to the butcher and the greengrocer, too?&nbsp;
A downright savage would have more restraint.&nbsp; What&rsquo;s your
object?&nbsp; What do you expect from it?&nbsp; What pleasure do you
get from it?&nbsp; Do you think you please God by abusing your sister?&nbsp;
What do you think you are?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;A poor lone girl amongst a lot of wicked people.&nbsp; Do
you think I wanted to go forth amongst those abominations? it&rsquo;s
that poor sinful Rita that wouldn&rsquo;t let me be where I was, serving
a holy man, next door to a church, and sure of my share of Paradise.&nbsp;
I simply obeyed my uncle.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s he who told me to go forth
and attempt to save her soul, bring her back to us, to a virtuous life.&nbsp;
But what would be the good of that?&nbsp; She is given over to worldly,
carnal thoughts.&nbsp; Of course we are a good family and my uncle is
a great man in the country, but where is the reputable farmer or God-fearing
man of that kind that would dare to bring such a girl into his house
to his mother and sisters.&nbsp; No, let her give her ill-gotten wealth
up to the deserving and devote the rest of her life to repentance.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She uttered these righteous reflections and presented this programme
for the salvation of her sister&rsquo;s soul in a reasonable convinced
tone which was enough to give goose flesh to one all over.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Mademoiselle Therese,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;you are nothing
less than a monster.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She received that true expression of my opinion as though I had given
her a sweet of a particularly delicious kind.&nbsp; She liked to be
abused.&nbsp; It pleased her to be called names.&nbsp; I did let her
have that satisfaction to her heart&rsquo;s content.&nbsp; At last I
stopped because I could do no more, unless I got out of bed to beat
her.&nbsp; I have a vague notion that she would have liked that, too,
but I didn&rsquo;t try.&nbsp; After I had stopped she waited a little
before she raised her downcast eyes.</p>
<p>&ldquo;You are a dear, ignorant, flighty young gentleman,&rdquo;
she said.&nbsp; &ldquo;Nobody can tell what a cross my sister is to
me except the good priest in the church where I go every day.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;And the mysterious lady in grey,&rdquo; I suggested sarcastically.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Such a person might have guessed it,&rdquo; answered Therese,
seriously, &ldquo;but I told her nothing except that this house had
been given me in full property by our Rita.&nbsp; And I wouldn&rsquo;t
have done that if she hadn&rsquo;t spoken to me of my sister first.&nbsp;
I can&rsquo;t tell too many people about that.&nbsp; One can&rsquo;t
trust Rita.&nbsp; I know she doesn&rsquo;t fear God but perhaps human
respect may keep her from taking this house back from me.&nbsp; If she
doesn&rsquo;t want me to talk about her to people why doesn&rsquo;t
she give me a properly stamped piece of paper for it?&rdquo;</p>
<p>She said all this rapidly in one breath and at the end had a sort
of anxious gasp which gave me the opportunity to voice my surprise.&nbsp;
It was immense.</p>
<p>&ldquo;That lady, the strange lady, spoke to you of your sister first!&rdquo;
I cried.</p>
<p>&ldquo;The lady asked me, after she had been in a little time, whether
really this house belonged to Madame de Lastaola.&nbsp; She had been
so sweet and kind and condescending that I did not mind humiliating
my spirit before such a good Christian.&nbsp; I told her that I didn&rsquo;t
know how the poor sinner in her mad blindness called herself, but that
this house had been given to me truly enough by my sister.&nbsp; She
raised her eyebrows at that but she looked at me at the same time so
kindly, as much as to say, &lsquo;Don&rsquo;t trust much to that, my
dear girl,&rsquo; that I couldn&rsquo;t help taking up her hand, soft
as down, and kissing it.&nbsp; She took it away pretty quick but she
was not offended.&nbsp; But she only said, &lsquo;That&rsquo;s very
generous on your sister&rsquo;s part,&rsquo; in a way that made me run
cold all over.&nbsp; I suppose all the world knows our Rita for a shameless
girl.&nbsp; It was then that the lady took up those glasses on a long
gold handle and looked at me through them till I felt very much abashed.&nbsp;
She said to me, &lsquo;There is nothing to be unhappy about.&nbsp; Madame
de Lastaola is a very remarkable person who has done many surprising
things.&nbsp; She is not to be judged like other people and as far as
I know she has never wronged a single human being. . . .&rsquo;&nbsp;
That put heart into me, I can tell you; and the lady told me then not
to disturb her son.&nbsp; She would wait till he woke up.&nbsp; She
knew he was a bad sleeper.&nbsp; I said to her: &lsquo;Why, I can hear
the dear sweet gentleman this moment having his bath in the fencing-room,&rsquo;
and I took her into the studio.&nbsp; They are there now and they are
going to have their lunch together at twelve o&rsquo;clock.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Why on earth didn&rsquo;t you tell me at first that the lady
was Mrs. Blunt?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t I?&nbsp; I thought I did,&rdquo; she said innocently.&nbsp;
I felt a sudden desire to get out of that house, to fly from the reinforced
Blunt element which was to me so oppressive.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I want to get up and dress, Mademoiselle Therese,&rdquo; I
said.</p>
<p>She gave a slight start and without looking at me again glided out
of the room, the many folds of her brown skirt remaining undisturbed
as she moved.</p>
<p>I looked at my watch; it was ten o&rsquo;clock.&nbsp; Therese had
been late with my coffee.&nbsp; The delay was clearly caused by the
unexpected arrival of Mr. Blunt&rsquo;s mother, which might or might
not have been expected by her son.&nbsp; The existence of those Blunts
made me feel uncomfortable in a peculiar way as though they had been
the denizens of another planet with a subtly different point of view
and something in the intelligence which was bound to remain unknown
to me.&nbsp; It caused in me a feeling of inferiority which I intensely
disliked.&nbsp; This did not arise from the actual fact that those people
originated in another continent.&nbsp; I had met Americans before.&nbsp;
And the Blunts were Americans.&nbsp; But so little!&nbsp; That was the
trouble.&nbsp; Captain Blunt might have been a Frenchman as far as languages,
tones, and manners went.&nbsp; But you could not have mistaken him for
one. . . . Why?&nbsp; You couldn&rsquo;t tell.&nbsp; It was something
indefinite.&nbsp; It occurred to me while I was towelling hard my hair,
face, and the back of my neck, that I could not meet J. K. Blunt on
equal terms in any relation of life except perhaps arms in hand, and
in preference with pistols, which are less intimate, acting at a distance&mdash;but
arms of some sort.&nbsp; For physically his life, which could be taken
away from him, was exactly like mine, held on the same terms and of
the same vanishing quality.</p>
<p>I would have smiled at my absurdity if all, even the most intimate,
vestige of gaiety had not been crushed out of my heart by the intolerable
weight of my love for Rita.&nbsp; It crushed, it overshadowed, too,
it was immense.&nbsp; If there were any smiles in the world (which I
didn&rsquo;t believe) I could not have seen them.&nbsp; Love for Rita
. . . if it was love, I asked myself despairingly, while I brushed my
hair before a glass.&nbsp; It did not seem to have any sort of beginning
as far as I could remember.&nbsp; A thing the origin of which you cannot
trace cannot be seriously considered.&nbsp; It is an illusion.&nbsp;
Or perhaps mine was a physical state, some sort of disease akin to melancholia
which is a form of insanity?&nbsp; The only moments of relief I could
remember were when she and I would start squabbling like two passionate
infants in a nursery, over anything under heaven, over a phrase, a word
sometimes, in the great light of the glass rotunda, disregarding the
quiet entrances and exits of the ever-active Rose, in great bursts of
voices and peals of laughter. . . .</p>
<p>I felt tears come into my eyes at the memory of her laughter, the
true memory of the senses almost more penetrating than the reality itself.&nbsp;
It haunted me.&nbsp; All that appertained to her haunted me with the
same awful intimacy, her whole form in the familiar pose, her very substance
in its colour and texture, her eyes, her lips, the gleam of her teeth,
the tawny mist of her hair, the smoothness of her forehead, the faint
scent that she used, the very shape, feel, and warmth of her high-heeled
slipper that would sometimes in the heat of the discussion drop on the
floor with a crash, and which I would (always in the heat of the discussion)
pick up and toss back on the couch without ceasing to argue.&nbsp; And
besides being haunted by what was Rita on earth I was haunted also by
her waywardness, her gentleness and her flame, by that which the high
gods called Rita when speaking of her amongst themselves.&nbsp; Oh,
yes, certainly I was haunted by her but so was her sister Therese&mdash;who
was crazy.&nbsp; It proved nothing.&nbsp; As to her tears, since I had
not caused them, they only aroused my indignation.&nbsp; To put her
head on my shoulder, to weep these strange tears, was nothing short
of an outrageous liberty.&nbsp; It was a mere emotional trick.&nbsp;
She would have just as soon leaned her head against the over-mantel
of one of those tall, red granite chimney-pieces in order to weep comfortably.&nbsp;
And then when she had no longer any need of support she dispensed with
it by simply telling me to go away.&nbsp; How convenient!&nbsp; The
request had sounded pathetic, almost sacredly so, but then it might
have been the exhibition of the coolest possible impudence.&nbsp; With
her one could not tell.&nbsp; Sorrow, indifference, tears, smiles, all
with her seemed to have a hidden meaning.&nbsp; Nothing could be trusted.
. . Heavens!&nbsp; Am I as crazy as Therese I asked myself with a passing
chill of fear, while occupied in equalizing the ends of my neck-tie.</p>
<p>I felt suddenly that &ldquo;this sort of thing&rdquo; would kill
me.&nbsp; The definition of the cause was vague, but the thought itself
was no mere morbid artificiality of sentiment but a genuine conviction.&nbsp;
&ldquo;That sort of thing&rdquo; was what I would have to die from.&nbsp;
It wouldn&rsquo;t be from the innumerable doubts.&nbsp; Any sort of
certitude would be also deadly.&nbsp; It wouldn&rsquo;t be from a stab&mdash;a
kiss would kill me as surely.&nbsp; It would not be from a frown or
from any particular word or any particular act&mdash;but from having
to bear them all, together and in succession&mdash;from having to live
with &ldquo;that sort of thing.&rdquo;&nbsp; About the time I finished
with my neck-tie I had done with life too.&nbsp; I absolutely did not
care because I couldn&rsquo;t tell whether, mentally and physically,
from the roots of my hair to the soles of my feet&mdash;whether I was
more weary or unhappy.</p>
<p>And now my toilet was finished, my occupation was gone.&nbsp; An
immense distress descended upon me.&nbsp; It has been observed that
the routine of daily life, that arbitrary system of trifles, is a great
moral support.&nbsp; But my toilet was finished, I had nothing more
to do of those things consecrated by usage and which leave you no option.&nbsp;
The exercise of any kind of volition by a man whose consciousness is
reduced to the sensation that he is being killed by &ldquo;that sort
of thing&rdquo; cannot be anything but mere trifling with death, an
insincere pose before himself.&nbsp; I wasn&rsquo;t capable of it.&nbsp;
It was then that I discovered that being killed by &ldquo;that sort
of thing,&rdquo; I mean the absolute conviction of it, was, so to speak,
nothing in itself.&nbsp; The horrible part was the waiting.&nbsp; That
was the cruelty, the tragedy, the bitterness of it.&nbsp; &ldquo;Why
the devil don&rsquo;t I drop dead now?&rdquo; I asked myself peevishly,
taking a clean handkerchief out of the drawer and stuffing it in my
pocket.</p>
<p>This was absolutely the last thing, the last ceremony of an imperative
rite.&nbsp; I was abandoned to myself now and it was terrible.&nbsp;
Generally I used to go out, walk down to the port, take a look at the
craft I loved with a sentiment that was extremely complex, being mixed
up with the image of a woman; perhaps go on board, not because there
was anything for me to do there but just for nothing, for happiness,
simply as a man will sit contented in the companionship of the beloved
object.&nbsp; For lunch I had the choice of two places, one Bohemian,
the other select, even aristocratic, where I had still my reserved table
in the <i>petit salon</i>, up the white staircase.&nbsp; In both places
I had friends who treated my erratic appearances with discretion, in
one case tinged with respect, in the other with a certain amused tolerance.&nbsp;
I owed this tolerance to the most careless, the most confirmed of those
Bohemians (his beard had streaks of grey amongst its many other tints)
who, once bringing his heavy hand down on my shoulder, took my defence
against the charge of being disloyal and even foreign to that milieu
of earnest visions taking beautiful and revolutionary shapes in the
smoke of pipes, in the jingle of glasses.</p>
<p>&ldquo;That fellow (<i>ce gar&ccedil;on</i>) is a primitive nature,
but he may be an artist in a sense.&nbsp; He has broken away from his
conventions.&nbsp; He is trying to put a special vibration and his own
notion of colour into his life; and perhaps even to give it a modelling
according to his own ideas.&nbsp; And for all you know he may be on
the track of a masterpiece; but observe: if it happens to be one nobody
will see it.&nbsp; It can be only for himself.&nbsp; And even he won&rsquo;t
be able to see it in its completeness except on his death-bed.&nbsp;
There is something fine in that.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I had blushed with pleasure; such fine ideas had never entered my
head.&nbsp; But there was something fine. . . . How far all this seemed!&nbsp;
How mute and how still!&nbsp; What a phantom he was, that man with a
beard of at least seven tones of brown.&nbsp; And those shades of the
other kind such as Baptiste with the shaven diplomatic face, the <i>ma&icirc;tre</i>
<i>d&rsquo;h&ocirc;tel</i> in charge of the <i>petit salon</i>, taking
my hat and stick from me with a deferential remark: &ldquo;Monsieur
is not very often seen nowadays.&rdquo;&nbsp; And those other well-groomed
heads raised and nodding at my passage&mdash;&ldquo;<i>Bonjour</i>.&rdquo;&nbsp;
&ldquo;<i>Bonjour</i>&rdquo;&mdash;following me with interested eyes;
these young X.s and Z.s, low-toned, markedly discreet, lounging up to
my table on their way out with murmurs: &ldquo;Are you well?&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Will
one see you anywhere this evening?&rdquo;&mdash;not from curiosity,
God forbid, but just from friendliness; and passing on almost without
waiting for an answer.&nbsp; What had I to do with them, this elegant
dust, these moulds of provincial fashion?</p>
<p>I also often lunched with Do&ntilde;a Rita without invitation.&nbsp;
But that was now unthinkable.&nbsp; What had I to do with a woman who
allowed somebody else to make her cry and then with an amazing lack
of good feeling did her offensive weeping on my shoulder?&nbsp; Obviously
I could have nothing to do with her.&nbsp; My five minutes&rsquo; meditation
in the middle of the bedroom came to an end without even a sigh.&nbsp;
The dead don&rsquo;t sigh, and for all practical purposes I was that,
except for the final consummation, the growing cold, the <i>rigor mortis</i>&mdash;that
blessed state!&nbsp; With measured steps I crossed the landing to my
sitting-room.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER II</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>The windows of that room gave out on the street of the Consuls which
as usual was silent.&nbsp; And the house itself below me and above me
was soundless, perfectly still.&nbsp; In general the house was quiet,
dumbly quiet, without resonances of any sort, something like what one
would imagine the interior of a convent would be.&nbsp; I suppose it
was very solidly built.&nbsp; Yet that morning I missed in the stillness
that feeling of security and peace which ought to have been associated
with it.&nbsp; It is, I believe, generally admitted that the dead are
glad to be at rest.&nbsp; But I wasn&rsquo;t at rest.&nbsp; What was
wrong with that silence?&nbsp; There was something incongruous in that
peace.&nbsp; What was it that had got into that stillness?&nbsp; Suddenly
I remembered: the mother of Captain Blunt.</p>
<p>Why had she come all the way from Paris?&nbsp; And why should I bother
my head about it?&nbsp; H&rsquo;m&mdash;the Blunt atmosphere, the reinforced
Blunt vibration stealing through the walls, through the thick walls
and the almost more solid stillness.&nbsp; Nothing to me, of course&mdash;the
movements of Mme. Blunt, <i>m&egrave;re</i>.&nbsp; It was maternal affection
which had brought her south by either the evening or morning Rapide,
to take anxious stock of the ravages of that insomnia.&nbsp; Very good
thing, insomnia, for a cavalry officer perpetually on outpost duty,
a real godsend, so to speak; but on leave a truly devilish condition
to be in.</p>
<p>The above sequence of thoughts was entirely unsympathetic and it
was followed by a feeling of satisfaction that I, at any rate, was not
suffering from insomnia.&nbsp; I could always sleep in the end.&nbsp;
In the end.&nbsp; Escape into a nightmare.&nbsp; Wouldn&rsquo;t he revel
in that if he could!&nbsp; But that wasn&rsquo;t for him.&nbsp; He had
to toss about open-eyed all night and get up weary, weary.&nbsp; But
oh, wasn&rsquo;t I weary, too, waiting for a sleep without dreams.</p>
<p>I heard the door behind me open.&nbsp; I had been standing with my
face to the window and, I declare, not knowing what I was looking at
across the road&mdash;the Desert of Sahara or a wall of bricks, a landscape
of rivers and forests or only the Consulate of Paraguay.&nbsp; But I
had been thinking, apparently, of Mr. Blunt with such intensity that
when I saw him enter the room it didn&rsquo;t really make much difference.&nbsp;
When I turned about the door behind him was already shut.&nbsp; He advanced
towards me, correct, supple, hollow-eyed, and smiling; and as to his
costume ready to go out except for the old shooting jacket which he
must have affectioned particularly, for he never lost any time in getting
into it at every opportunity.&nbsp; Its material was some tweed mixture;
it had gone inconceivably shabby, it was shrunk from old age, it was
ragged at the elbows; but any one could see at a glance that it had
been made in London by a celebrated tailor, by a distinguished specialist.&nbsp;
Blunt came towards me in all the elegance of his slimness and affirming
in every line of his face and body, in the correct set of his shoulders
and the careless freedom of his movements, the superiority, the inexpressible
superiority, the unconscious, the unmarked, the not-to-be-described,
and even not-to-be-caught, superiority of the naturally born and the
perfectly finished man of the world, over the simple young man.&nbsp;
He was smiling, easy, correct, perfectly delightful, fit to kill</p>
<p>He had come to ask me, if I had no other engagement, to lunch with
him and his mother in about an hour&rsquo;s time.&nbsp; He did it in
a most <i>d&eacute;gag&eacute;</i> tone.&nbsp; His mother had given
him a surprise.&nbsp; The completest . . . The foundation of his mother&rsquo;s
psychology was her delightful unexpectedness.&nbsp; She could never
let things be (this in a peculiar tone which he checked at once) and
he really would take it very kindly of me if I came to break the t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te
for a while (that is if I had no other engagement.&nbsp; Flash of teeth).&nbsp;
His mother was exquisitely and tenderly absurd.&nbsp; She had taken
it into her head that his health was endangered in some way.&nbsp; And
when she took anything into her head . . . Perhaps I might find something
to say which would reassure her.&nbsp; His mother had two long conversations
with Mills on his passage through Paris and had heard of me (I knew
how that thick man could speak of people, he interjected ambiguously)
and his mother, with an insatiable curiosity for anything that was rare
(filially humorous accent here and a softer flash of teeth), was very
anxious to have me presented to her (courteous intonation, but no teeth).&nbsp;
He hoped I wouldn&rsquo;t mind if she treated me a little as an &ldquo;interesting
young man.&rdquo;&nbsp; His mother had never got over her seventeenth
year, and the manner of the spoilt beauty of at least three counties
at the back of the Carolinas.&nbsp; That again got overlaid by the <i>sans-fa&ccedil;on</i>
of a <i>grande dame</i> of the Second Empire.</p>
<p>I accepted the invitation with a worldly grin and a perfectly just
intonation, because I really didn&rsquo;t care what I did.&nbsp; I only
wondered vaguely why that fellow required all the air in the room for
himself.&nbsp; There did not seem enough left to go down my throat.&nbsp;
I didn&rsquo;t say that I would come with pleasure or that I would be
delighted, but I said that I would come.&nbsp; He seemed to forget his
tongue in his head, put his hands in his pockets and moved about vaguely.&nbsp;
&ldquo;I am a little nervous this morning,&rdquo; he said in French,
stopping short and looking me straight in the eyes.&nbsp; His own were
deep sunk, dark, fatal.&nbsp; I asked with some malice, that no one
could have detected in my intonation, &ldquo;How&rsquo;s that sleeplessness?&rdquo;</p>
<p>He muttered through his teeth, &ldquo;<i>Mal.&nbsp; Je ne dors</i>
<i>plus</i>.&rdquo;&nbsp; He moved off to stand at the window with his
back to the room.&nbsp; I sat down on a sofa that was there and put
my feet up, and silence took possession of the room.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t this street ridiculous?&rdquo; said Blunt suddenly,
and crossing the room rapidly waved his hand to me, &ldquo;<i>A</i>
<i>bient&ocirc;t donc</i>,&rdquo; and was gone.&nbsp; He had seared
himself into my mind.&nbsp; I did not understand him nor his mother
then; which made them more impressive; but I have discovered since that
those two figures required no mystery to make them memorable.&nbsp;
Of course it isn&rsquo;t every day that one meets a mother that lives
by her wits and a son that lives by his sword, but there was a perfect
finish about their ambiguous personalities which is not to be met twice
in a life-time.&nbsp; I shall never forget that grey dress with ample
skirts and long corsage yet with infinite style, the ancient as if ghostly
beauty of outlines, the black lace, the silver hair, the harmonious,
restrained movements of those white, soft hands like the hands of a
queen&mdash;or an abbess; and in the general fresh effect of her person
the brilliant eyes like two stars with the calm reposeful way they had
of moving on and off one, as if nothing in the world had the right to
veil itself before their once sovereign beauty.&nbsp; Captain Blunt
with smiling formality introduced me by name, adding with a certain
relaxation of the formal tone the comment: &ldquo;The Monsieur George!
whose fame you tell me has reached even Paris.&rdquo;&nbsp; Mrs. Blunt&rsquo;s
reception of me, glance, tones, even to the attitude of the admirably
corseted figure, was most friendly, approaching the limit of half-familiarity.&nbsp;
I had the feeling that I was beholding in her a captured ideal.&nbsp;
No common experience!&nbsp; But I didn&rsquo;t care.&nbsp; It was very
lucky perhaps for me that in a way I was like a very sick man who has
yet preserved all his lucidity.&nbsp; I was not even wondering to myself
at what on earth I was doing there.&nbsp; She breathed out: &ldquo;<i>Comme
c&rsquo;est romantique</i>,&rdquo; at large to the dusty studio as it
were; then pointing to a chair at her right hand, and bending slightly
towards me she said:</p>
<p>&ldquo;I have heard this name murmured by pretty lips in more than
one royalist salon.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I didn&rsquo;t say anything to that ingratiating speech.&nbsp; I
had only an odd thought that she could not have had such a figure, nothing
like it, when she was seventeen and wore snowy muslin dresses on the
family plantation in South Carolina, in pre-abolition days.</p>
<p>&ldquo;You won&rsquo;t mind, I am sure, if an old woman whose heart
is still young elects to call you by it,&rdquo; she declared.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Certainly, Madame.&nbsp; It will be more romantic,&rdquo;
I assented with a respectful bow.</p>
<p>She dropped a calm: &ldquo;Yes&mdash;there is nothing like romance
while one is young.&nbsp; So I will call you Monsieur George,&rdquo;
she paused and then added, &ldquo;I could never get old,&rdquo; in a
matter-of-fact final tone as one would remark, &ldquo;I could never
learn to swim,&rdquo; and I had the presence of mind to say in a tone
to match, &ldquo;<i>C&rsquo;est &eacute;vident</i>, Madame.&rdquo;&nbsp;
It was evident.&nbsp; She couldn&rsquo;t get old; and across the table
her thirty-year-old son who couldn&rsquo;t get sleep sat listening with
courteous detachment and the narrowest possible line of white underlining
his silky black moustache.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Your services are immensely appreciated,&rdquo; she said with
an amusing touch of importance as of a great official lady.&nbsp; &ldquo;Immensely
appreciated by people in a position to understand the great significance
of the Carlist movement in the South.&nbsp; There it has to combat anarchism,
too.&nbsp; I who have lived through the Commune . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>Therese came in with a dish, and for the rest of the lunch the conversation
so well begun drifted amongst the most appalling inanities of the religious-royalist-legitimist
order.&nbsp; The ears of all the Bourbons in the world must have been
burning.&nbsp; Mrs. Blunt seemed to have come into personal contact
with a good many of them and the marvellous insipidity of her recollections
was astonishing to my inexperience.&nbsp; I looked at her from time
to time thinking: She has seen slavery, she has seen the Commune, she
knows two continents, she has seen a civil war, the glory of the Second
Empire, the horrors of two sieges; she has been in contact with marked
personalities, with great events, she has lived on her wealth, on her
personality, and there she is with her plumage unruffled, as glossy
as ever, unable to get old:&mdash;a sort of Phoenix free from the slightest
signs of ashes and dust, all complacent amongst those inanities as if
there had been nothing else in the world.&nbsp; In my youthful haste
I asked myself what sort of airy soul she had.</p>
<p>At last Therese put a dish of fruit on the table, a small collection
of oranges, raisins, and nuts.&nbsp; No doubt she had bought that lot
very cheap and it did not look at all inviting.&nbsp; Captain Blunt
jumped up.&nbsp; &ldquo;My mother can&rsquo;t stand tobacco smoke.&nbsp;
Will you keep her company, <i>mon cher</i>, while I take a turn with
a cigar in that ridiculous garden.&nbsp; The brougham from the hotel
will be here very soon.&rdquo;</p>
<p>He left us in the white flash of an apologetic grin.&nbsp; Almost
directly he reappeared, visible from head to foot through the glass
side of the studio, pacing up and down the central path of that &ldquo;ridiculous&rdquo;
garden: for its elegance and its air of good breeding the most remarkable
figure that I have ever seen before or since.&nbsp; He had changed his
coat.&nbsp; Madame Blunt <i>m&egrave;re</i> lowered the long-handled
glasses through which she had been contemplating him with an appraising,
absorbed expression which had nothing maternal in it.&nbsp; But what
she said to me was:</p>
<p>&ldquo;You understand my anxieties while he is campaigning with the
King.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She had spoken in French and she had used the expression &ldquo;<i>mes
transes</i>&rdquo; but for all the rest, intonation, bearing, solemnity,
she might have been referring to one of the Bourbons.&nbsp; I am sure
that not a single one of them looked half as aristocratic as her son.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I understand perfectly, Madame.&nbsp; But then that life is
so romantic.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Hundreds of young men belonging to a certain sphere are doing
that,&rdquo; she said very distinctly, &ldquo;only their case is different.&nbsp;
They have their positions, their families to go back to; but we are
different.&nbsp; We are exiles, except of course for the ideals, the
kindred spirit, the friendships of old standing we have in France.&nbsp;
Should my son come out unscathed he has no one but me and I have no
one but him.&nbsp; I have to think of his life.&nbsp; Mr. Mills (what
a distinguished mind that is!) has reassured me as to my son&rsquo;s
health.&nbsp; But he sleeps very badly, doesn&rsquo;t he?&rdquo;</p>
<p>I murmured something affirmative in a doubtful tone and she remarked
quaintly, with a certain curtness, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s so unnecessary,
this worry!&nbsp; The unfortunate position of an exile has its advantages.&nbsp;
At a certain height of social position (wealth has got nothing to do
with it, we have been ruined in a most righteous cause), at a certain
established height one can disregard narrow prejudices.&nbsp; You see
examples in the aristocracies of all the countries.&nbsp; A chivalrous
young American may offer his life for a remote ideal which yet may belong
to his familial tradition.&nbsp; We, in our great country, have every
sort of tradition.&nbsp; But a young man of good connections and distinguished
relations must settle down some day, dispose of his life.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;No doubt, Madame,&rdquo; I said, raising my eyes to the figure
outside&mdash;&ldquo;<i>Am&eacute;ricain</i>, <i>Catholique et gentilhomme</i>&rdquo;&mdash;walking
up and down the path with a cigar which he was not smoking.&nbsp; &ldquo;For
myself, I don&rsquo;t know anything about those necessities.&nbsp; I
have broken away for ever from those things.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes, Mr. Mills talked to me about you.&nbsp; What a golden
heart that is.&nbsp; His sympathies are infinite.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I thought suddenly of Mills pronouncing on Mme. Blunt, whatever his
text on me might have been: &ldquo;She lives by her wits.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Was she exercising her wits on me for some purpose of her own?&nbsp;
And I observed coldly:</p>
<p>&ldquo;I really know your son so very little.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, <i>voyons</i>,&rdquo; she protested.&nbsp; &ldquo;I am
aware that you are very much younger, but the similitudes of opinions,
origins and perhaps at bottom, faintly, of character, of chivalrous
devotion&mdash;no, you must be able to understand him in a measure.&nbsp;
He is infinitely scrupulous and recklessly brave.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I listened deferentially to the end yet with every nerve in my body
tingling in hostile response to the Blunt vibration, which seemed to
have got into my very hair.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I am convinced of it, Madame.&nbsp; I have even heard of your
son&rsquo;s bravery.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s extremely natural in a man who,
in his own words, &lsquo;lives by his sword.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
<p>She suddenly departed from her almost inhuman perfection, betrayed
&ldquo;nerves&rdquo; like a common mortal, of course very slightly,
but in her it meant more than a blaze of fury from a vessel of inferior
clay.&nbsp; Her admirable little foot, marvellously shod in a black
shoe, tapped the floor irritably.&nbsp; But even in that display there
was something exquisitely delicate.&nbsp; The very anger in her voice
was silvery, as it were, and more like the petulance of a seventeen-year-old
beauty.</p>
<p>&ldquo;What nonsense!&nbsp; A Blunt doesn&rsquo;t hire himself.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Some princely families,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;were founded
by men who have done that very thing.&nbsp; The great Condottieri, you
know.&rdquo;</p>
<p>It was in an almost tempestuous tone that she made me observe that
we were not living in the fifteenth century.&nbsp; She gave me also
to understand with some spirit that there was no question here of founding
a family.&nbsp; Her son was very far from being the first of the name.&nbsp;
His importance lay rather in being the last of a race which had totally
perished, she added in a completely drawing-room tone, &ldquo;in our
Civil War.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She had mastered her irritation and through the glass side of the
room sent a wistful smile to his address, but I noticed the yet unextinguished
anger in her eyes full of fire under her beautiful white eyebrows.&nbsp;
For she was growing old!&nbsp; Oh, yes, she was growing old, and secretly
weary, and perhaps desperate.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER III</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Without caring much about it I was conscious of sudden illumination.&nbsp;
I said to myself confidently that these two people had been quarrelling
all the morning.&nbsp; I had discovered the secret of my invitation
to that lunch.&nbsp; They did not care to face the strain of some obstinate,
inconclusive discussion for fear, maybe, of it ending in a serious quarrel.&nbsp;
And so they had agreed that I should be fetched downstairs to create
a diversion.&nbsp; I cannot say I felt annoyed.&nbsp; I didn&rsquo;t
care.&nbsp; My perspicacity did not please me either.&nbsp; I wished
they had left me alone&mdash;but nothing mattered.&nbsp; They must have
been in their superiority accustomed to make use of people, without
compunction.&nbsp; From necessity, too.&nbsp; She especially.&nbsp;
She lived by her wits.&nbsp; The silence had grown so marked that I
had at last to raise my eyes; and the first thing I observed was that
Captain Blunt was no longer to be seen in the garden.&nbsp; Must have
gone indoors.&nbsp; Would rejoin us in a moment.&nbsp; Then I would
leave mother and son to themselves.</p>
<p>The next thing I noticed was that a great mellowness had descended
upon the mother of the last of his race.&nbsp; But these terms, irritation,
mellowness, appeared gross when applied to her.&nbsp; It is impossible
to give an idea of the refinement and subtlety of all her transformations.&nbsp;
She smiled faintly at me.</p>
<p>&ldquo;But all this is beside the point.&nbsp; The real point is
that my son, like all fine natures, is a being of strange contradictions
which the trials of life have not yet reconciled in him.&nbsp; With
me it is a little different.&nbsp; The trials fell mainly to my share&mdash;and
of course I have lived longer.&nbsp; And then men are much more complex
than women, much more difficult, too.&nbsp; And you, Monsieur George?&nbsp;
Are you complex, with unexpected resistances and difficulties in your
<i>&ecirc;tre intime</i>&mdash;your inner self?&nbsp; I wonder now .
. .&rdquo;</p>
<p>The Blunt atmosphere seemed to vibrate all over my skin.&nbsp; I
disregarded the symptom.&nbsp; &ldquo;Madame,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;I
have never tried to find out what sort of being I am.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Ah, that&rsquo;s very wrong.&nbsp; We ought to reflect on
what manner of beings we are.&nbsp; Of course we are all sinners.&nbsp;
My John is a sinner like the others,&rdquo; she declared further, with
a sort of proud tenderness as though our common lot must have felt honoured
and to a certain extent purified by this condescending recognition.</p>
<p>&ldquo;You are too young perhaps as yet . . . But as to my John,&rdquo;
she broke off, leaning her elbow on the table and supporting her head
on her old, impeccably shaped, white fore-arm emerging from a lot of
precious, still older, lace trimming the short sleeve.&nbsp; &ldquo;The
trouble is that he suffers from a profound discord between the necessary
reactions to life and even the impulses of nature and the lofty idealism
of his feelings; I may say, of his principles.&nbsp; I assure you that
he won&rsquo;t even let his heart speak uncontradicted.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I am sure I don&rsquo;t know what particular devil looks after the
associations of memory, and I can&rsquo;t even imagine the shock which
it would have been for Mrs. Blunt to learn that the words issuing from
her lips had awakened in me the visual perception of a dark-skinned,
hard-driven lady&rsquo;s maid with tarnished eyes; even of the tireless
Rose handing me my hat while breathing out the enigmatic words: &ldquo;Madame
should listen to her heart.&rdquo;&nbsp; A wave from the atmosphere
of another house rolled in, overwhelming and fiery, seductive and cruel,
through the Blunt vibration, bursting through it as through tissue paper
and filling my heart with sweet murmurs and distracting images, till
it seemed to break, leaving an empty stillness in my breast.</p>
<p>After that for a long time I heard Mme. Blunt <i>m&egrave;re</i>
talking with extreme fluency and I even caught the individual words,
but I could not in the revulsion of my feelings get hold of the sense.&nbsp;
She talked apparently of life in general, of its difficulties, moral
and physical, of its surprising turns, of its unexpected contacts, of
the choice and rare personalities that drift on it as if on the sea;
of the distinction that letters and art gave to it, the nobility and
consolations there are in aesthetics, of the privileges they confer
on individuals and (this was the first connected statement I caught)
that Mills agreed with her in the general point of view as to the inner
worth of individualities and in the particular instance of it on which
she had opened to him her innermost heart.&nbsp; Mills had a universal
mind.&nbsp; His sympathy was universal, too.&nbsp; He had that large
comprehension&mdash;oh, not cynical, not at all cynical, in fact rather
tender&mdash;which was found in its perfection only in some rare, very
rare Englishmen.&nbsp; The dear creature was romantic, too.&nbsp; Of
course he was reserved in his speech but she understood Mills perfectly.&nbsp;
Mills apparently liked me very much.</p>
<p>It was time for me to say something.&nbsp; There was a challenge
in the reposeful black eyes resting upon my face.&nbsp; I murmured that
I was very glad to hear it.&nbsp; She waited a little, then uttered
meaningly, &ldquo;Mr. Mills is a little bit uneasy about you.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s very good of him,&rdquo; I said.&nbsp; And indeed
I thought that it was very good of him, though I did ask myself vaguely
in my dulled brain why he should be uneasy.</p>
<p>Somehow it didn&rsquo;t occur to me to ask Mrs. Blunt.&nbsp; Whether
she had expected me to do so or not I don&rsquo;t know but after a while
she changed the pose she had kept so long and folded her wonderfully
preserved white arms.&nbsp; She looked a perfect picture in silver and
grey, with touches of black here and there.&nbsp; Still I said nothing
more in my dull misery.&nbsp; She waited a little longer, then she woke
me up with a crash.&nbsp; It was as if the house had fallen, and yet
she had only asked me:</p>
<p>&ldquo;I believe you are received on very friendly terms by Madame
de Lastaola on account of your common exertions for the cause.&nbsp;
Very good friends, are you not?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You mean Rita,&rdquo; I said stupidly, but I felt stupid,
like a man who wakes up only to be hit on the head.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, Rita,&rdquo; she repeated with unexpected acidity, which
somehow made me feel guilty of an incredible breach of good manners.&nbsp;
&ldquo;H&rsquo;m, Rita. . . . Oh, well, let it be Rita&mdash;for the
present.&nbsp; Though why she should be deprived of her name in conversation
about her, really I don&rsquo;t understand.&nbsp; Unless a very special
intimacy . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>She was distinctly annoyed.&nbsp; I said sulkily, &ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t
her name.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;It is her choice, I understand, which seems almost a better
title to recognition on the part of the world.&nbsp; It didn&rsquo;t
strike you so before?&nbsp; Well, it seems to me that choice has got
more right to be respected than heredity or law.&nbsp; Moreover, Mme.
de Lastaola,&rdquo; she continued in an insinuating voice, &ldquo;that
most rare and fascinating young woman is, as a friend like you cannot
deny, outside legality altogether.&nbsp; Even in that she is an exceptional
creature.&nbsp; For she is exceptional&mdash;you agree?&rdquo;</p>
<p>I had gone dumb, I could only stare at her.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, I see, you agree.&nbsp; No friend of hers could deny.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Madame,&rdquo; I burst out, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know where
a question of friendship comes in here with a person whom you yourself
call so exceptional.&nbsp; I really don&rsquo;t know how she looks upon
me.&nbsp; Our intercourse is of course very close and confidential.&nbsp;
Is that also talked about in Paris?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Not at all, not in the least,&rdquo; said Mrs. Blunt, easy,
equable, but with her calm, sparkling eyes holding me in angry subjection.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Nothing of the sort is being talked about.&nbsp; The references
to Mme. de Lastaola are in a very different tone, I can assure you,
thanks to her discretion in remaining here.&nbsp; And, I must say, thanks
to the discreet efforts of her friends.&nbsp; I am also a friend of
Mme. de Lastaola, you must know.&nbsp; Oh, no, I have never spoken to
her in my life and have seen her only twice, I believe.&nbsp; I wrote
to her though, that I admit.&nbsp; She or rather the image of her has
come into my life, into that part of it where art and letters reign
undisputed like a sort of religion of beauty to which I have been faithful
through all the vicissitudes of my existence.&nbsp; Yes, I did write
to her and I have been preoccupied with her for a long time.&nbsp; It
arose from a picture, from two pictures and also from a phrase pronounced
by a man, who in the science of life and in the perception of aesthetic
truth had no equal in the world of culture.&nbsp; He said that there
was something in her of the women of all time.&nbsp; I suppose he meant
the inheritance of all the gifts that make up an irresistible fascination&mdash;a
great personality.&nbsp; Such women are not born often.&nbsp; Most of
them lack opportunities.&nbsp; They never develop.&nbsp; They end obscurely.&nbsp;
Here and there one survives to make her mark even in history. . . .
And even that is not a very enviable fate.&nbsp; They are at another
pole from the so-called dangerous women who are merely coquettes.&nbsp;
A coquette has got to work for her success.&nbsp; The others have nothing
to do but simply exist.&nbsp; You perceive the view I take of the difference?&rdquo;</p>
<p>I perceived the view.&nbsp; I said to myself that nothing in the
world could be more aristocratic.&nbsp; This was the slave-owning woman
who had never worked, even if she had been reduced to live by her wits.&nbsp;
She was a wonderful old woman.&nbsp; She made me dumb.&nbsp; She held
me fascinated by the well-bred attitude, something sublimely aloof in
her air of wisdom.</p>
<p>I just simply let myself go admiring her as though I had been a mere
slave of aesthetics: the perfect grace, the amazing poise of that venerable
head, the assured as if royal&mdash;yes, royal even flow of the voice.
. . . But what was it she was talking about now?&nbsp; These were no
longer considerations about fatal women.&nbsp; She was talking about
her son again.&nbsp; My interest turned into mere bitterness of contemptuous
attention.&nbsp; For I couldn&rsquo;t withhold it though I tried to
let the stuff go by.&nbsp; Educated in the most aristocratic college
in Paris . . . at eighteen . . . call of duty . . . with General Lee
to the very last cruel minute . . . after that catastrophe end of the
world&mdash;return to France&mdash;to old friendships, infinite kindness&mdash;but
a life hollow, without occupation. . . Then 1870&mdash;and chivalrous
response to adopted country&rsquo;s call and again emptiness, the chafing
of a proud spirit without aim and handicapped not exactly by poverty
but by lack of fortune.&nbsp; And she, the mother, having to look on
at this wasting of a most accomplished man, of a most chivalrous nature
that practically had no future before it.</p>
<p>&ldquo;You understand me well, Monsieur George.&nbsp; A nature like
this!&nbsp; It is the most refined cruelty of fate to look at.&nbsp;
I don&rsquo;t know whether I suffered more in times of war or in times
of peace.&nbsp; You understand?&rdquo;</p>
<p>I bowed my head in silence.&nbsp; What I couldn&rsquo;t understand
was why he delayed so long in joining us again.&nbsp; Unless he had
had enough of his mother?&nbsp; I thought without any great resentment
that I was being victimized; but then it occurred to me that the cause
of his absence was quite simple.&nbsp; I was familiar enough with his
habits by this time to know that he often managed to snatch an hour&rsquo;s
sleep or so during the day.&nbsp; He had gone and thrown himself on
his bed.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I admire him exceedingly,&rdquo; Mrs. Blunt was saying in
a tone which was not at all maternal.&nbsp; &ldquo;His distinction,
his fastidiousness, the earnest warmth of his heart.&nbsp; I know him
well.&nbsp; I assure you that I would never have dared to suggest,&rdquo;
she continued with an extraordinary haughtiness of attitude and tone
that aroused my attention, &ldquo;I would never have dared to put before
him my views of the extraordinary merits and the uncertain fate of the
exquisite woman of whom we speak, if I had not been certain that, partly
by my fault, I admit, his attention has been attracted to her and his&mdash;his&mdash;his
heart engaged.&rdquo;</p>
<p>It was as if some one had poured a bucket of cold water over my head.&nbsp;
I woke up with a great shudder to the acute perception of my own feelings
and of that aristocrat&rsquo;s incredible purpose.&nbsp; How it could
have germinated, grown and matured in that exclusive soil was inconceivable.&nbsp;
She had been inciting her son all the time to undertake wonderful salvage
work by annexing the heiress of Henry All&egrave;gre&mdash;the woman
and the fortune.</p>
<p>There must have been an amazed incredulity in my eyes, to which her
own responded by an unflinching black brilliance which suddenly seemed
to develop a scorching quality even to the point of making me feel extremely
thirsty all of a sudden.&nbsp; For a time my tongue literally clove
to the roof of my mouth.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t know whether it was an
illusion but it seemed to me that Mrs. Blunt had nodded at me twice
as if to say: &ldquo;You are right, that&rsquo;s so.&rdquo;&nbsp; I
made an effort to speak but it was very poor.&nbsp; If she did hear
me it was because she must have been on the watch for the faintest sound.</p>
<p>&ldquo;His heart engaged.&nbsp; Like two hundred others, or two thousand,
all around,&rdquo; I mumbled.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Altogether different.&nbsp; And it&rsquo;s no disparagement
to a woman surely.&nbsp; Of course her great fortune protects her in
a certain measure.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Does it?&rdquo; I faltered out and that time I really doubt
whether she heard me.&nbsp; Her aspect in my eyes had changed.&nbsp;
Her purpose being disclosed, her well-bred ease appeared sinister, her
aristocratic repose a treacherous device, her venerable graciousness
a mask of unbounded contempt for all human beings whatever.&nbsp; She
was a terrible old woman with those straight, white wolfish eye-brows.&nbsp;
How blind I had been!&nbsp; Those eyebrows alone ought to have been
enough to give her away.&nbsp; Yet they were as beautifully smooth as
her voice when she admitted: &ldquo;That protection naturally is only
partial.&nbsp; There is the danger of her own self, poor girl.&nbsp;
She requires guidance.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I marvelled at the villainy of my tone as I spoke, but it was only
assumed.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think she has done badly for herself, so far,&rdquo;
I forced myself to say.&nbsp; &ldquo;I suppose you know that she began
life by herding the village goats.&rdquo;</p>
<p>In the course of that phrase I noticed her wince just the least bit.&nbsp;
Oh, yes, she winced; but at the end of it she smiled easily.</p>
<p>&ldquo;No, I didn&rsquo;t know.&nbsp; So she told you her story!&nbsp;
Oh, well, I suppose you are very good friends.&nbsp; A goatherd&mdash;really?&nbsp;
In the fairy tale I believe the girl that marries the prince is&mdash;what
is it?&mdash;<i>a gardeuse d&rsquo;oies</i>.&nbsp; And what a thing
to drag out against a woman.&nbsp; One might just as soon reproach any
of them for coming unclothed into the world.&nbsp; They all do, you
know.&nbsp; And then they become&mdash;what you will discover when you
have lived longer, Monsieur George&mdash;for the most part futile creatures,
without any sense of truth and beauty, drudges of all sorts, or else
dolls to dress.&nbsp; In a word&mdash;ordinary.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The implication of scorn in her tranquil manner was immense.&nbsp;
It seemed to condemn all those that were not born in the Blunt connection.&nbsp;
It was the perfect pride of Republican aristocracy, which has no gradations
and knows no limit, and, as if created by the grace of God, thinks it
ennobles everything it touches: people, ideas, even passing tastes!</p>
<p>&ldquo;How many of them,&rdquo; pursued Mrs. Blunt, &ldquo;have had
the good fortune, the leisure to develop their intelligence and their
beauty in aesthetic conditions as this charming woman had?&nbsp; Not
one in a million.&nbsp; Perhaps not one in an age.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;The heiress of Henry All&egrave;gre,&rdquo; I murmured.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Precisely.&nbsp; But John wouldn&rsquo;t be marrying the heiress
of Henry All&egrave;gre.&rdquo;</p>
<p>It was the first time that the frank word, the clear idea, came into
the conversation and it made me feel ill with a sort of enraged faintness.</p>
<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; I said.&nbsp; &ldquo;It would be Mme. de Lastaola
then.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Mme. la Comtesse de Lastaola as soon as she likes after the
success of this war.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;And you believe in its success?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Do you?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Not for a moment,&rdquo; I declared, and was surprised to
see her look pleased.</p>
<p>She was an aristocrat to the tips of her fingers; she really didn&rsquo;t
care for anybody.&nbsp; She had passed through the Empire, she had lived
through a siege, had rubbed shoulders with the Commune, had seen everything,
no doubt, of what men are capable in the pursuit of their desires or
in the extremity of their distress, for love, for money, and even for
honour; and in her precarious connection with the very highest spheres
she had kept her own honourability unscathed while she had lost all
her prejudices.&nbsp; She was above all that.&nbsp; Perhaps &ldquo;the
world&rdquo; was the only thing that could have the slightest checking
influence; but when I ventured to say something about the view it might
take of such an alliance she looked at me for a moment with visible
surprise.</p>
<p>&ldquo;My dear Monsieur George, I have lived in the great world all
my life.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s the best that there is, but that&rsquo;s only
because there is nothing merely decent anywhere.&nbsp; It will accept
anything, forgive anything, forget anything in a few days.&nbsp; And
after all who will he be marrying?&nbsp; A charming, clever, rich and
altogether uncommon woman.&nbsp; What did the world hear of her?&nbsp;
Nothing.&nbsp; The little it saw of her was in the Bois for a few hours
every year, riding by the side of a man of unique distinction and of
exclusive tastes, devoted to the cult of aesthetic impressions; a man
of whom, as far as aspect, manner, and behaviour goes, she might have
been the daughter.&nbsp; I have seen her myself.&nbsp; I went on purpose.&nbsp;
I was immensely struck.&nbsp; I was even moved.&nbsp; Yes.&nbsp; She
might have been&mdash;except for that something radiant in her that
marked her apart from all the other daughters of men.&nbsp; The few
remarkable personalities that count in society and who were admitted
into Henry All&egrave;gre&rsquo;s Pavilion treated her with punctilious
reserve.&nbsp; I know that, I have made enquiries.&nbsp; I know she
sat there amongst them like a marvellous child, and for the rest what
can they say about her?&nbsp; That when abandoned to herself by the
death of All&egrave;gre she has made a mistake?&nbsp; I think that any
woman ought to be allowed one mistake in her life.&nbsp; The worst they
can say of her is that she discovered it, that she had sent away a man
in love directly she found out that his love was not worth having; that
she had told him to go and look for his crown, and that, after dismissing
him she had remained generously faithful to his cause, in her person
and fortune.&nbsp; And this, you will allow, is rather uncommon upon
the whole.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You make her out very magnificent,&rdquo;&nbsp; I murmured,
looking down upon the floor.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t she?&rdquo; exclaimed the aristocratic Mrs. Blunt,
with an almost youthful ingenuousness, and in those black eyes which
looked at me so calmly there was a flash of the Southern beauty, still
naive and romantic, as if altogether untouched by experience.&nbsp;
&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think there is a single grain of vulgarity in all
her enchanting person.&nbsp; Neither is there in my son.&nbsp; I suppose
you won&rsquo;t deny that he is uncommon.&rdquo;&nbsp; She paused.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Absolutely,&rdquo; I said in a perfectly conventional tone,
I was now on my mettle that she should not discover what there was humanly
common in my nature.&nbsp; She took my answer at her own valuation and
was satisfied.</p>
<p>&ldquo;They can&rsquo;t fail to understand each other on the very
highest level of idealistic perceptions.&nbsp; Can you imagine my John
thrown away on some enamoured white goose out of a stuffy old salon?&nbsp;
Why, she couldn&rsquo;t even begin to understand what he feels or what
he needs.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I said impenetrably, &ldquo;he is not easy to
understand.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I have reason to think,&rdquo; she said with a suppressed
smile, &ldquo;that he has a certain power over women.&nbsp; Of course
I don&rsquo;t know anything about his intimate life but a whisper or
two have reached me, like that, floating in the air, and I could hardly
suppose that he would find an exceptional resistance in that quarter
of all others.&nbsp; But I should like to know the exact degree.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I disregarded an annoying tendency to feel dizzy that came over me
and was very careful in managing my voice.</p>
<p>&ldquo;May I ask, Madame, why you are telling me all this?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;For two reasons,&rdquo; she condescended graciously.&nbsp;
&ldquo;First of all because Mr. Mills told me that you were much more
mature than one would expect.&nbsp; In fact you look much younger than
I was prepared for.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Madame,&rdquo; I interrupted her, &ldquo;I may have a certain
capacity for action and for responsibility, but as to the regions into
which this very unexpected conversation has taken me I am a great novice.&nbsp;
They are outside my interest.&nbsp; I have had no experience.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t make yourself out so hopeless,&rdquo; she said
in a spoilt-beauty tone.&nbsp; &ldquo;You have your intuitions.&nbsp;
At any rate you have a pair of eyes.&nbsp; You are everlastingly over
there, so I understand.&nbsp; Surely you have seen how far they are
. . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>I interrupted again and this time bitterly, but always in a tone
of polite enquiry:</p>
<p>&ldquo;You think her facile, Madame?&rdquo;</p>
<p>She looked offended.&nbsp; &ldquo;I think her most fastidious.&nbsp;
It is my son who is in question here.&rdquo;</p>
<p>And I understood then that she looked on her son as irresistible.&nbsp;
For my part I was just beginning to think that it would be impossible
for me to wait for his return.&nbsp; I figured him to myself lying dressed
on his bed sleeping like a stone.&nbsp; But there was no denying that
the mother was holding me with an awful, tortured interest.&nbsp; Twice
Therese had opened the door, had put her small head in and drawn it
back like a tortoise.&nbsp; But for some time I had lost the sense of
us two being quite alone in the studio.&nbsp; I had perceived the familiar
dummy in its corner but it lay now on the floor as if Therese had knocked
it down angrily with a broom for a heathen idol.&nbsp; It lay there
prostrate, handless, without its head, pathetic, like the mangled victim
of a crime.</p>
<p>&ldquo;John is fastidious, too,&rdquo; began Mrs. Blunt again.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Of course you wouldn&rsquo;t suppose anything vulgar in his resistances
to a very real sentiment.&nbsp; One has got to understand his psychology.&nbsp;
He can&rsquo;t leave himself in peace.&nbsp; He is exquisitely absurd.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I recognized the phrase.&nbsp; Mother and son talked of each other
in identical terms.&nbsp; But perhaps &ldquo;exquisitely absurd&rdquo;
was the Blunt family saying?&nbsp; There are such sayings in families
and generally there is some truth in them.&nbsp; Perhaps this old woman
was simply absurd.&nbsp; She continued:</p>
<p>&ldquo;We had a most painful discussion all this morning.&nbsp; He
is angry with me for suggesting the very thing his whole being desires.&nbsp;
I don&rsquo;t feel guilty.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s he who is tormenting himself
with his infinite scrupulosity.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; I said, looking at the mangled dummy like the model
of some atrocious murder.&nbsp; &ldquo;Ah, the fortune.&nbsp; But that
can be left alone.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;What nonsense!&nbsp; How is it possible?&nbsp; It isn&rsquo;t
contained in a bag, you can&rsquo;t throw it into the sea.&nbsp; And
moreover, it isn&rsquo;t her fault.&nbsp; I am astonished that you should
have thought of that vulgar hypocrisy.&nbsp; No, it isn&rsquo;t her
fortune that cheeks my son; it&rsquo;s something much more subtle.&nbsp;
Not so much her history as her position.&nbsp; He is absurd.&nbsp; It
isn&rsquo;t what has happened in her life.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s her very
freedom that makes him torment himself and her, too&mdash;as far as
I can understand.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I suppressed a groan and said to myself that I must really get away
from there.</p>
<p>Mrs. Blunt was fairly launched now.</p>
<p>&ldquo;For all his superiority he is a man of the world and shares
to a certain extent its current opinions.&nbsp; He has no power over
her.&nbsp; She intimidates him.&nbsp; He wishes he had never set eyes
on her.&nbsp; Once or twice this morning he looked at me as if he could
find it in his heart to hate his old mother.&nbsp; There is no doubt
about it&mdash;he loves her, Monsieur George.&nbsp; He loves her, this
poor, luckless, perfect <i>homme du monde</i>.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The silence lasted for some time and then I heard a murmur: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
a matter of the utmost delicacy between two beings so sensitive, so
proud.&nbsp; It has to be managed.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I found myself suddenly on my feet and saying with the utmost politeness
that I had to beg her permission to leave her alone as I had an engagement;
but she motioned me simply to sit down&mdash;and I sat down again.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I told you I had a request to make,&rdquo; she said.&nbsp;
&ldquo;I have understood from Mr. Mills that you have been to the West
Indies, that you have some interests there.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I was astounded.&nbsp; &ldquo;Interests!&nbsp; I certainly have been
there,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;but . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>She caught me up.&nbsp; &ldquo;Then why not go there again?&nbsp;
I am speaking to you frankly because . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;But, Madame, I am engaged in this affair with Do&ntilde;a
Rita, even if I had any interests elsewhere.&nbsp; I won&rsquo;t tell
you about the importance of my work.&nbsp; I didn&rsquo;t suspect it
but you brought the news of it to me, and so I needn&rsquo;t point it
out to you.&rdquo;</p>
<p>And now we were frankly arguing with each other.</p>
<p>&ldquo;But where will it lead you in the end?&nbsp; You have all
your life before you, all your plans, prospects, perhaps dreams, at
any rate your own tastes and all your life-time before you.&nbsp; And
would you sacrifice all this to&mdash;the Pretender?&nbsp; A mere figure
for the front page of illustrated papers.&rdquo;&rsquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I never think of him,&rdquo;&nbsp; I said curtly, &ldquo;but
I suppose Do&ntilde;a Rita&rsquo;s feelings, instincts, call it what
you like&mdash;or only her chivalrous fidelity to her mistakes&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Do&ntilde;a Rita&rsquo;s presence here in this town, her withdrawal
from the possible complications of her life in Paris has produced an
excellent effect on my son.&nbsp; It simplifies infinite difficulties,
I mean moral as well as material.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s extremely to the
advantage of her dignity, of her future, and of her peace of mind.&nbsp;
But I am thinking, of course, mainly of my son.&nbsp; He is most exacting.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I felt extremely sick at heart.&nbsp; &ldquo;And so I am to drop
everything and vanish,&rdquo; I said, rising from my chair again.&nbsp;
And this time Mrs. Blunt got up, too, with a lofty and inflexible manner
but she didn&rsquo;t dismiss me yet.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said distinctly.&nbsp; &ldquo;All this, my
dear Monsieur George, is such an accident.&nbsp; What have you got to
do here?&nbsp; You look to me like somebody who would find adventures
wherever he went as interesting and perhaps less dangerous than this
one.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She slurred over the word dangerous but I picked it up.</p>
<p>&ldquo;What do you know of its dangers, Madame, may I ask?&rdquo;&nbsp;
But she did not condescend to hear.</p>
<p>&ldquo;And then you, too, have your chivalrous feelings,&rdquo; she
went on, unswerving, distinct, and tranquil.&nbsp; &ldquo;You are not
absurd.&nbsp; But my son is.&nbsp; He would shut her up in a convent
for a time if he could.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;He isn&rsquo;t the only one,&rdquo; I muttered.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; she was startled, then lower, &ldquo;Yes.&nbsp;
That woman must be the centre of all sorts of passions,&rdquo; she mused
audibly.&nbsp; &ldquo;But what have you got to do with all this?&nbsp;
It&rsquo;s nothing to you.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She waited for me to speak.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Exactly, Madame,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;and therefore I don&rsquo;t
see why I should concern myself in all this one way or another.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; she assented with a weary air, &ldquo;except that
you might ask yourself what is the good of tormenting a man of noble
feelings, however absurd.&nbsp; His Southern blood makes him very violent
sometimes.&nbsp; I fear&mdash;&rdquo;&nbsp; And then for the first time
during this conversation, for the first time since I left Do&ntilde;a
Rita the day before, for the first time I laughed.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Do you mean to hint, Madame, that Southern gentlemen are dead
shots?&nbsp; I am aware of that&mdash;from novels.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I spoke looking her straight in the face and I made that exquisite,
aristocratic old woman positively blink by my directness.&nbsp; There
was a faint flush on her delicate old cheeks but she didn&rsquo;t move
a muscle of her face.&nbsp; I made her a most respectful bow and went
out of the studio.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Through the great arched window of the hall I saw the hotel brougham
waiting at the door.&nbsp; On passing the door of the front room (it
was originally meant for a drawing-room but a bed for Blunt was put
in there) I banged with my fist on the panel and shouted: &ldquo;I am
obliged to go out.&nbsp; Your mother&rsquo;s carriage is at the door.&rdquo;&nbsp;
I didn&rsquo;t think he was asleep.&nbsp; My view now was that he was
aware beforehand of the subject of the conversation, and if so I did
not wish to appear as if I had slunk away from him after the interview.&nbsp;
But I didn&rsquo;t stop&mdash;I didn&rsquo;t want to see him&mdash;and
before he could answer I was already half way up the stairs running
noiselessly up the thick carpet which also covered the floor of the
landing.&nbsp; Therefore opening the door of my sitting-room quickly
I caught by surprise the person who was in there watching the street
half concealed by the window curtain.&nbsp; It was a woman.&nbsp; A
totally unexpected woman.&nbsp; A perfect stranger.&nbsp; She came away
quickly to meet me.&nbsp; Her face was veiled and she was dressed in
a dark walking costume and a very simple form of hat.&nbsp; She murmured:
&ldquo;I had an idea that Monsieur was in the house,&rdquo; raising
a gloved hand to lift her veil.&nbsp; It was Rose and she gave me a
shock.&nbsp; I had never seen her before but with her little black silk
apron and a white cap with ribbons on her head.&nbsp; This outdoor dress
was like a disguise.&nbsp; I asked anxiously:</p>
<p>&ldquo;What has happened to Madame?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Nothing.&nbsp; I have a letter,&rdquo; she murmured, and I
saw it appear between the fingers of her extended hand, in a very white
envelope which I tore open impatiently.&nbsp; It consisted of a few
lines only.&nbsp; It began abruptly:</p>
<p>&ldquo;If you are gone to sea then I can&rsquo;t forgive you for
not sending the usual word at the last moment.&nbsp; If you are not
gone why don&rsquo;t you come?&nbsp; Why did you leave me yesterday?&nbsp;
You leave me crying&mdash;I who haven&rsquo;t cried for years and years,
and you haven&rsquo;t the sense to come back within the hour, within
twenty hours!&nbsp; This conduct is idiotic&rdquo;&mdash;and a sprawling
signature of the four magic letters at the bottom.</p>
<p>While I was putting the letter in my pocket the girl said in an earnest
undertone: &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like to leave Madame by herself for
any length of time.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;How long have you been in my room?&rdquo; I asked.</p>
<p>&ldquo;The time seemed long.&nbsp; I hope Monsieur won&rsquo;t mind
the liberty.&nbsp; I sat for a little in the hall but then it struck
me I might be seen.&nbsp; In fact, Madame told me not to be seen if
I could help it.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Why did she tell you that?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I permitted myself to suggest that to Madame.&nbsp; It might
have given a false impression.&nbsp; Madame is frank and open like the
day but it won&rsquo;t do with everybody.&nbsp; There are people who
would put a wrong construction on anything.&nbsp; Madame&rsquo;s sister
told me Monsieur was out.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;And you didn&rsquo;t believe her?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;<i>Non</i>, Monsieur.&nbsp; I have lived with Madame&rsquo;s
sister for nearly a week when she first came into this house.&nbsp;
She wanted me to leave the message, but I said I would wait a little.&nbsp;
Then I sat down in the big porter&rsquo;s chair in the hall and after
a while, everything being very quiet, I stole up here.&nbsp; I know
the disposition of the apartments.&nbsp; I reckoned Madame&rsquo;s sister
would think that I got tired of waiting and let myself out.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;And you have been amusing yourself watching the street ever
since?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;The time seemed long,&rdquo; she answered evasively.&nbsp;
&ldquo;An empty <i>coup&eacute;</i> came to the door about an hour ago
and it&rsquo;s still waiting,&rdquo; she added, looking at me inquisitively.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It seems strange.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;There are some dancing girls staying in the house,&rdquo;
I said negligently.&nbsp; &ldquo;Did you leave Madame alone?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s the gardener and his wife in the house.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Those people keep at the back.&nbsp; Is Madame alone?&nbsp;
That&rsquo;s what I want to know.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Monsieur forgets that I have been three hours away; but I
assure Monsieur that here in this town it&rsquo;s perfectly safe for
Madame to be alone.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;And wouldn&rsquo;t it be anywhere else?&nbsp; It&rsquo;s the
first I hear of it.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;In Paris, in our apartments in the hotel, it&rsquo;s all right,
too; but in the Pavilion, for instance, I wouldn&rsquo;t leave Madame
by herself, not for half an hour.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;What is there in the Pavilion?&rdquo; I asked.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a sort of feeling I have,&rdquo; she murmured reluctantly
. . . &ldquo;Oh!&nbsp; There&rsquo;s that <i>coup&eacute;</i> going
away.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She made a movement towards the window but checked herself.&nbsp;
I hadn&rsquo;t moved.&nbsp; The rattle of wheels on the cobble-stones
died out almost at once.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Will Monsieur write an answer?&rdquo; Rose suggested after
a short silence.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Hardly worth while,&rdquo; I said.&nbsp; &ldquo;I will be
there very soon after you.&nbsp; Meantime, please tell Madame from me
that I am not anxious to see any more tears.&nbsp; Tell her this just
like that, you understand.&nbsp; I will take the risk of not being received.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She dropped her eyes, said: &ldquo;<i>Oui</i>, Monsieur,&rdquo; and
at my suggestion waited, holding the door of the room half open, till
I went downstairs to see the road clear.</p>
<p>It was a kind of deaf-and-dumb house.&nbsp; The black-and-white hall
was empty and everything was perfectly still.&nbsp; Blunt himself had
no doubt gone away with his mother in the brougham, but as to the others,
the dancing girls, Therese, or anybody else that its walls may have
contained, they might have been all murdering each other in perfect
assurance that the house would not betray them by indulging in any unseemly
murmurs.&nbsp; I emitted a low whistle which didn&rsquo;t seem to travel
in that peculiar atmosphere more than two feet away from my lips, but
all the same Rose came tripping down the stairs at once.&nbsp; With
just a nod to my whisper: &ldquo;Take a fiacre,&rdquo; she glided out
and I shut the door noiselessly behind her.</p>
<p>The next time I saw her she was opening the door of the house on
the Prado to me, with her cap and the little black silk apron on, and
with that marked personality of her own, which had been concealed so
perfectly in the dowdy walking dress, very much to the fore.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I have given Madame the message,&rdquo; she said in her contained
voice, swinging the door wide open.&nbsp; Then after relieving me of
my hat and coat she announced me with the simple words: &ldquo;<i>Voil&agrave;</i>
Monsieur,&rdquo; and hurried away.&nbsp; Directly I appeared Do&ntilde;a
Rita, away there on the couch, passed the tips of her fingers over her
eyes and holding her hands up palms outwards on each side of her head,
shouted to me down the whole length of the room: &ldquo;The dry season
has set in.&rdquo;&nbsp; I glanced at the pink tips of her fingers perfunctorily
and then drew back.&nbsp; She let her hands fall negligently as if she
had no use for them any more and put on a serious expression.</p>
<p>&ldquo;So it seems,&rdquo; I said, sitting down opposite her.&nbsp;
&ldquo;For how long, I wonder.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;For years and years.&nbsp; One gets so little encouragement.&nbsp;
First you bolt away from my tears, then you send an impertinent message,
and then when you come at last you pretend to behave respectfully, though
you don&rsquo;t know how to do it.&nbsp; You should sit much nearer
the edge of the chair and hold yourself very stiff, and make it quite
clear that you don&rsquo;t know what to do with your hands.&rdquo;</p>
<p>All this in a fascinating voice with a ripple of badinage that seemed
to play upon the sober surface of her thoughts.&nbsp; Then seeing that
I did not answer she altered the note a bit.</p>
<p>&ldquo;<i>Amigo</i> George,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I take the trouble
to send for you and here I am before you, talking to you and you say
nothing.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;What am I to say?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;How can I tell?&nbsp; You might say a thousand things.&nbsp;
You might, for instance, tell me that you were sorry for my tears.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I might also tell you a thousand lies.&nbsp; What do I know
about your tears?&nbsp; I am not a susceptible idiot.&nbsp; It all depends
upon the cause.&nbsp; There are tears of quiet happiness.&nbsp; Peeling
onions also will bring tears.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, you are not susceptible,&rdquo; she flew out at me.&nbsp;
&ldquo;But you are an idiot all the same.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Is it to tell me this that you have written to me to come?&rdquo;
I asked with a certain animation.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes.&nbsp; And if you had as much sense as the talking parrot
I owned once you would have read between the lines that all I wanted
you here for was to tell you what I think of you.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Well, tell me what you think of me.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I would in a moment if I could be half as impertinent as you
are.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;What unexpected modesty,&rdquo; I said.</p>
<p>&ldquo;These, I suppose, are your sea manners.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t put up with half that nonsense from anybody
at sea.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t you remember you told me yourself to go away?&nbsp;
What was I to do?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;How stupid you are.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t mean that you pretend.&nbsp;
You really are.&nbsp; Do you understand what I say?&nbsp; I will spell
it for you.&nbsp; S-t-u-p-i-d.&nbsp; Ah, now I feel better.&nbsp; Oh,
<i>amigo</i> George, my dear fellow-conspirator for the king&mdash;the
king.&nbsp; Such a king!&nbsp; <i>Vive le</i> <i>Roi</i>!&nbsp; Come,
why don&rsquo;t you shout <i>Vive</i> <i>le Roi</i>, too?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I am not your parrot,&rdquo; I said.</p>
<p>&ldquo;No, he never sulked.&nbsp; He was a charming, good-mannered
bird, accustomed to the best society, whereas you, I suppose, are nothing
but a heartless vagabond like myself.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I daresay you are, but I suppose nobody had the insolence
to tell you that to your face.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Well, very nearly.&nbsp; It was what it amounted to.&nbsp;
I am not stupid.&nbsp; There is no need to spell out simple words for
me.&nbsp; It just came out.&nbsp; Don Juan struggled desperately to
keep the truth in.&nbsp; It was most pathetic.&nbsp; And yet he couldn&rsquo;t
help himself.&nbsp; He talked very much like a parrot.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Of the best society,&rdquo; I suggested.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes, the most honourable of parrots.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t like
parrot-talk.&nbsp; It sounds so uncanny.&nbsp; Had I lived in the Middle
Ages I am certain I would have believed that a talking bird must be
possessed by the devil.&nbsp; I am sure Therese would believe that now.&nbsp;
My own sister!&nbsp; She would cross herself many times and simply quake
with terror.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;But you were not terrified,&rdquo; I said.&nbsp; &ldquo;May
I ask when that interesting communication took place?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yesterday, just before you blundered in here of all days in
the year.&nbsp; I was sorry for him.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Why tell me this?&nbsp; I couldn&rsquo;t help noticing it.&nbsp;
I regretted I hadn&rsquo;t my umbrella with me.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Those unforgiven tears!&nbsp; Oh, you simple soul!&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t
you know that people never cry for anybody but themselves? . . . <i>Amigo</i>
George, tell me&mdash;what are we doing in this world?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Do you mean all the people, everybody?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;No, only people like you and me.&nbsp; Simple people, in this
world which is eaten up with charlatanism of all sorts so that even
we, the simple, don&rsquo;t know any longer how to trust each other.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t we?&nbsp; Then why don&rsquo;t you trust him?&nbsp;
You are dying to do so, don&rsquo;t you know?&rdquo;</p>
<p>She dropped her chin on her breast and from under her straight eyebrows
the deep blue eyes remained fixed on me, impersonally, as if without
thought.</p>
<p>&ldquo;What have you been doing since you left me yesterday?&rdquo;
she asked.</p>
<p>&ldquo;The first thing I remember I abused your sister horribly this
morning.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;And how did she take it?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Like a warm shower in spring.&nbsp; She drank it all in and
unfolded her petals.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;What poetical expressions he uses!&nbsp; That girl is more
perverted than one would think possible, considering what she is and
whence she came.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s true that I, too, come from the same
spot.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;She is slightly crazy.&nbsp; I am a great favourite with her.&nbsp;
I don&rsquo;t say this to boast.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;It must be very comforting.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes, it has cheered me immensely.&nbsp; Then after a morning
of delightful musings on one thing and another I went to lunch with
a charming lady and spent most of the afternoon talking with her.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Do&ntilde;a Rita raised her head.</p>
<p>&ldquo;A lady!&nbsp; Women seem such mysterious creatures to me.&nbsp;
I don&rsquo;t know them.&nbsp; Did you abuse her?&nbsp; Did she&mdash;how
did you say that?&mdash;unfold her petals, too?&nbsp; Was she really
and truly . . .?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;She is simply perfection in her way and the conversation was
by no means banal.&nbsp; I fancy that if your late parrot had heard
it, he would have fallen off his perch.&nbsp; For after all, in that
All&egrave;gre Pavilion, my dear Rita, you were but a crowd of glorified
<i>bourgeois</i>.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She was beautifully animated now.&nbsp; In her motionless blue eyes
like melted sapphires, around those red lips that almost without moving
could breathe enchanting sounds into the world, there was a play of
light, that mysterious ripple of gaiety that seemed always to run and
faintly quiver under her skin even in her gravest moods; just as in
her rare moments of gaiety its warmth and radiance seemed to come to
one through infinite sadness, like the sunlight of our life hiding the
invincible darkness in which the universe must work out its impenetrable
destiny.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Now I think of it! . . . Perhaps that&rsquo;s the reason I
never could feel perfectly serious while they were demolishing the world
about my ears.&nbsp; I fancy now that I could tell beforehand what each
of them was going to say.&nbsp; They were repeating the same words over
and over again, those great clever men, very much like parrots who also
seem to know what they say.&nbsp; That doesn&rsquo;t apply to the master
of the house, who never talked much.&nbsp; He sat there mostly silent
and looming up three sizes bigger than any of them.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;The ruler of the aviary,&rdquo; I muttered viciously.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It annoys you that I should talk of that time?&rdquo; she
asked in a tender voice.&nbsp; &ldquo;Well, I won&rsquo;t, except for
once to say that you must not make a mistake: in that aviary he was
the man.&nbsp; I know because he used to talk to me afterwards sometimes.&nbsp;
Strange!&nbsp; For six years he seemed to carry all the world and me
with it in his hand. . . . &rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;He dominates you yet,&rdquo; I shouted.</p>
<p>She shook her head innocently as a child would do.</p>
<p>&ldquo;No, no.&nbsp; You brought him into the conversation yourself.&nbsp;
You think of him much more than I do.&rdquo;&nbsp; Her voice drooped
sadly to a hopeless note.&nbsp; &ldquo;I hardly ever do.&nbsp; He is
not the sort of person to merely flit through one&rsquo;s mind and so
I have no time.&nbsp; Look.&nbsp; I had eleven letters this morning
and there were also five telegrams before midday, which have tangled
up everything.&nbsp; I am quite frightened.&rdquo;</p>
<p>And she explained to me that one of them&mdash;the long one on the
top of the pile, on the table over there&mdash;seemed to contain ugly
inferences directed at herself in a menacing way.&nbsp; She begged me
to read it and see what I could make of it.</p>
<p>I knew enough of the general situation to see at a glance that she
had misunderstood it thoroughly and even amazingly.&nbsp; I proved it
to her very quickly.&nbsp; But her mistake was so ingenious in its wrongheadedness
and arose so obviously from the distraction of an acute mind, that I
couldn&rsquo;t help looking at her admiringly.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Rita,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;you are a marvellous idiot.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Am I?&nbsp; Imbecile,&rdquo; she retorted with an enchanting
smile of relief.&nbsp; &ldquo;But perhaps it only seems so to you in
contrast with the lady so perfect in her way.&nbsp; What is her way?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Her way, I should say, lies somewhere between her sixtieth
and seventieth year, and I have walked t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te
with her for some little distance this afternoon.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Heavens,&rdquo; she whispered, thunderstruck.&nbsp; &ldquo;And
meantime I had the son here.&nbsp; He arrived about five minutes after
Rose left with that note for you,&rdquo; she went on in a tone of awe.&nbsp;
&ldquo;As a matter of fact, Rose saw him across the street but she thought
she had better go on to you.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I am furious with myself for not having guessed that much,&rdquo;
I said bitterly.&nbsp; &ldquo;I suppose you got him out of the house
about five minutes after you heard I was coming here.&nbsp; Rose ought
to have turned back when she saw him on his way to cheer your solitude.&nbsp;
That girl is stupid after all, though she has got a certain amount of
low cunning which no doubt is very useful at times.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I forbid you to talk like this about Rose.&nbsp; I won&rsquo;t
have it.&nbsp; Rose is not to be abused before me.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I only mean to say that she failed in this instance to read
your mind, that&rsquo;s all.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;This is, without exception, the most unintelligent thing you
have said ever since I have known you.&nbsp; You may understand a lot
about running contraband and about the minds of a certain class of people,
but as to Rose&rsquo;s mind let me tell you that in comparison with
hers yours is absolutely infantile, my adventurous friend.&nbsp; It
would be contemptible if it weren&rsquo;t so&mdash;what shall I call
it?&mdash;babyish.&nbsp; You ought to be slapped and put to bed.&rdquo;&nbsp;
There was an extraordinary earnestness in her tone and when she ceased
I listened yet to the seductive inflexions of her voice, that no matter
in what mood she spoke seemed only fit for tenderness and love.&nbsp;
And I thought suddenly of Azzolati being ordered to take himself off
from her presence for ever, in that voice the very anger of which seemed
to twine itself gently round one&rsquo;s heart.&nbsp; No wonder the
poor wretch could not forget the scene and couldn&rsquo;t restrain his
tears on the plain of Rambouillet.&nbsp; My moods of resentment against
Rita, hot as they were, had no more duration than a blaze of straw.&nbsp;
So I only said:</p>
<p>&ldquo;Much <i>you</i> know about the management of children.&rdquo;&nbsp;
The corners of her lips stirred quaintly; her animosity, especially
when provoked by a personal attack upon herself, was always tinged by
a sort of wistful humour of the most disarming kind.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Come, <i>amigo</i> George, let us leave poor Rose alone.&nbsp;
You had better tell me what you heard from the lips of the charming
old lady.&nbsp; Perfection, isn&rsquo;t she?&nbsp; I have never seen
her in my life, though she says she has seen me several times.&nbsp;
But she has written to me on three separate occasions and every time
I answered her as if I were writing to a queen.&nbsp; <i>Amigo</i> George,
how does one write to a queen?&nbsp; How should a goatherd that could
have been mistress of a king, how should she write to an old queen from
very far away; from over the sea?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I will ask you as I have asked the old queen: why do you tell
me all this, Do&ntilde;a Rita?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;To discover what&rsquo;s in your mind,&rdquo; she said, a
little impatiently.</p>
<p>&ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t know that yet!&rdquo; I exclaimed under
my breath.</p>
<p>&ldquo;No, not in your mind.&nbsp; Can any one ever tell what is
in a man&rsquo;s mind?&nbsp; But I see you won&rsquo;t tell.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;What&rsquo;s the good?&nbsp; You have written to her before,
I understand.&nbsp; Do you think of continuing the correspondence?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Who knows?&rdquo; she said in a profound tone.&nbsp; &ldquo;She
is the only woman that ever wrote to me.&nbsp; I returned her three
letters to her with my last answer, explaining humbly that I preferred
her to burn them herself.&nbsp; And I thought that would be the end
of it.&nbsp; But an occasion may still arise.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, if an occasion arises,&rdquo; I said, trying to control
my rage, &ldquo;you may be able to begin your letter by the words &lsquo;<i>Ch&egrave;re
Maman</i>.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
<p>The cigarette box, which she had taken up without removing her eyes
from me, flew out of her hand and opening in mid-air scattered cigarettes
for quite a surprising distance all over the room.&nbsp; I got up at
once and wandered off picking them up industriously.&nbsp; Do&ntilde;a
Rita&rsquo;s voice behind me said indifferently:</p>
<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t trouble, I will ring for Rose.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;No need,&rdquo; I growled, without turning my head, &ldquo;I
can find my hat in the hall by myself, after I&rsquo;ve finished picking
up . . . &rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Bear!&rdquo;</p>
<p>I returned with the box and placed it on the divan near her.&nbsp;
She sat cross-legged, leaning back on her arms, in the blue shimmer
of her embroidered robe and with the tawny halo of her unruly hair about
her face which she raised to mine with an air of resignation.</p>
<p>&ldquo;George, my friend,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;we have no manners.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You would never have made a career at court, Do&ntilde;a Rita,&rdquo;
I observed.&nbsp; &ldquo;You are too impulsive.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;This is not bad manners, that&rsquo;s sheer insolence.&nbsp;
This has happened to you before.&nbsp; If it happens again, as I can&rsquo;t
be expected to wrestle with a savage and desperate smuggler single-handed,
I will go upstairs and lock myself in my room till you leave the house.&nbsp;
Why did you say this to me?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, just for nothing, out of a full heart.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;If your heart is full of things like that, then my dear friend,
you had better take it out and give it to the crows.&nbsp; No! you said
that for the pleasure of appearing terrible.&nbsp; And you see you are
not terrible at all, you are rather amusing.&nbsp; Go on, continue to
be amusing.&nbsp; Tell me something of what you heard from the lips
of that aristocratic old lady who thinks that all men are equal and
entitled to the pursuit of happiness.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I hardly remember now.&nbsp; I heard something about the unworthiness
of certain white geese out of stuffy drawing-rooms.&nbsp; It sounds
mad, but the lady knows exactly what she wants.&nbsp; I also heard your
praises sung.&nbsp; I sat there like a fool not knowing what to say.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Why?&nbsp; You might have joined in the singing.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t feel in the humour, because, don&rsquo;t you
see, I had been incidentally given to understand that I was an insignificant
and superfluous person who had better get out of the way of serious
people.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Ah, <i>par example</i>!&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;In a sense, you know, it was flattering; but for the moment
it made me feel as if I had been offered a pot of mustard to sniff.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She nodded with an amused air of understanding and I could see that
she was interested.&nbsp; &ldquo;Anything more?&rdquo; she asked, with
a flash of radiant eagerness in all her person and bending slightly
forward towards me.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, it&rsquo;s hardly worth mentioning.&nbsp; It was a sort
of threat wrapped up, I believe, in genuine anxiety as to what might
happen to my youthful insignificance.&nbsp; If I hadn&rsquo;t been rather
on the alert just then I wouldn&rsquo;t even have perceived the meaning.&nbsp;
But really an allusion to &lsquo;hot Southern blood&rsquo; I could have
only one meaning.&nbsp; Of course I laughed at it, but only &lsquo;<i>pour
l&rsquo;honneur</i>&rsquo; and to show I understood perfectly.&nbsp;
In reality it left me completely indifferent.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Do&ntilde;a Rita looked very serious for a minute.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Indifferent to the whole conversation?&rdquo;</p>
<p>I looked at her angrily.</p>
<p>&ldquo;To the whole . . . You see I got up rather out of sorts this
morning.&nbsp; Unrefreshed, you know.&nbsp; As if tired of life.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The liquid blue in her eyes remained directed at me without any expression
except that of its usual mysterious immobility, but all her face took
on a sad and thoughtful cast.&nbsp; Then as if she had made up her mind
under the pressure of necessity:</p>
<p>&ldquo;Listen, <i>amigo</i>,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I have suffered
domination and it didn&rsquo;t crush me because I have been strong enough
to live with it; I have known caprice, you may call it folly if you
like, and it left me unharmed because I was great enough not to be captured
by anything that wasn&rsquo;t really worthy of me.&nbsp; My dear, it
went down like a house of cards before my breath.&nbsp; There is something
in me that will not be dazzled by any sort of prestige in this world,
worthy or unworthy.&nbsp; I am telling you this because you are younger
than myself.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;If you want me to say that there is nothing petty or mean
about you, Do&ntilde;a Rita, then I do say it.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She nodded at me with an air of accepting the rendered justice and
went on with the utmost simplicity.</p>
<p>&ldquo;And what is it that is coming to me now with all the airs
of virtue?&nbsp; All the lawful conventions are coming to me, all the
glamours of respectability!&nbsp; And nobody can say that I have made
as much as the slightest little sign to them.&nbsp; Not so much as lifting
my little finger.&nbsp; I suppose you know that?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know.&nbsp; I do not doubt your sincerity in
anything you say.&nbsp; I am ready to believe.&nbsp; You are not one
of those who have to work.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Have to work&mdash;what do you mean?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a phrase I have heard.&nbsp; What I meant was that
it isn&rsquo;t necessary for you to make any signs.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She seemed to meditate over this for a while.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be so sure of that,&rdquo; she said, with a flash
of mischief, which made her voice sound more melancholy than before.&nbsp;
&ldquo;I am not so sure myself,&rdquo; she continued with a curious,
vanishing, intonation of despair.&nbsp; &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know the
truth about myself because I never had an opportunity to compare myself
to anything in the world.&nbsp; I have been offered mock adulation,
treated with mock reserve or with mock devotion, I have been fawned
upon with an appalling earnestness of purpose, I can tell you; but these
later honours, my dear, came to me in the shape of a very loyal and
very scrupulous gentleman.&nbsp; For he is all that.&nbsp; And as a
matter of fact I was touched.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I know.&nbsp; Even to tears,&rdquo; I said provokingly.&nbsp;
But she wasn&rsquo;t provoked, she only shook her head in negation (which
was absurd) and pursued the trend of her spoken thoughts.</p>
<p>&ldquo;That was yesterday,&rdquo; she said.&nbsp; &ldquo;And yesterday
he was extremely correct and very full of extreme self-esteem which
expressed itself in the exaggerated delicacy with which he talked.&nbsp;
But I know him in all his moods.&nbsp; I have known him even playful.&nbsp;
I didn&rsquo;t listen to him.&nbsp; I was thinking of something else.&nbsp;
Of things that were neither correct nor playful and that had to be looked
at steadily with all the best that was in me.&nbsp; And that was why,
in the end&mdash;I cried&mdash;yesterday.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I saw it yesterday and I had the weakness of being moved by
those tears for a time.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;If you want to make me cry again I warn you you won&rsquo;t
succeed.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;No, I know.&nbsp; He has been here to-day and the dry season
has set in.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes, he has been here.&nbsp; I assure you it was perfectly
unexpected.&nbsp; Yesterday he was railing at the world at large, at
me who certainly have not made it, at himself and even at his mother.&nbsp;
All this rather in parrot language, in the words of tradition and morality
as understood by the members of that exclusive club to which he belongs.&nbsp;
And yet when I thought that all this, those poor hackneyed words, expressed
a sincere passion I could have found in my heart to be sorry for him.&nbsp;
But he ended by telling me that one couldn&rsquo;t believe a single
word I said, or something like that.&nbsp; You were here then, you heard
it yourself.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;And it cut you to the quick,&rdquo; I said.&nbsp; &ldquo;It
made you depart from your dignity to the point of weeping on any shoulder
that happened to be there.&nbsp; And considering that it was some more
parrot talk after all (men have been saying that sort of thing to women
from the beginning of the world) this sensibility seems to me childish.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;What perspicacity,&rdquo; she observed, with an indulgent,
mocking smile, then changed her tone.&nbsp; &ldquo;Therefore he wasn&rsquo;t
expected to-day when he turned up, whereas you, who were expected, remained
subject to the charms of conversation in that studio.&nbsp; It never
occurred to you . . . did it?&nbsp; No!&nbsp; What had become of your
perspicacity?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I tell you I was weary of life,&rdquo; I said in a passion.</p>
<p>She had another faint smile of a fugitive and unrelated kind as if
she had been thinking of far-off things, then roused herself to grave
animation.</p>
<p>&ldquo;He came in full of smiling playfulness.&nbsp; How well I know
that mood!&nbsp; Such self-command has its beauty; but it&rsquo;s no
great help for a man with such fateful eyes.&nbsp; I could see he was
moved in his correct, restrained way, and in his own way, too, he tried
to move me with something that would be very simple.&nbsp; He told me
that ever since we became friends, we two, he had not an hour of continuous
sleep, unless perhaps when coming back dead-tired from outpost duty,
and that he longed to get back to it and yet hadn&rsquo;t the courage
to tear himself away from here.&nbsp; He was as simple as that.&nbsp;
He&rsquo;s a <i>tr&egrave;s galant homme</i> of absolute probity, even
with himself.&nbsp; I said to him: The trouble is, Don Juan, that it
isn&rsquo;t love but mistrust that keeps you in torment.&nbsp; I might
have said jealousy, but I didn&rsquo;t like to use that word.&nbsp;
A parrot would have added that I had given him no right to be jealous.&nbsp;
But I am no parrot.&nbsp; I recognized the rights of his passion which
I could very well see.&nbsp; He is jealous.&nbsp; He is not jealous
of my past or of the future; but he is jealously mistrustful of me,
of what I am, of my very soul.&nbsp; He believes in a soul in the same
way Therese does, as something that can be touched with grace or go
to perdition; and he doesn&rsquo;t want to be damned with me before
his own judgment seat.&nbsp; He is a most noble and loyal gentleman,
but I have my own Basque peasant soul and don&rsquo;t want to think
that every time he goes away from my feet&mdash;yes, <i>mon cher</i>,
on this carpet, look for the marks of scorching&mdash;that he goes away
feeling tempted to brush the dust off his moral sleeve.&nbsp; That!&nbsp;
Never!&rdquo;</p>
<p>With brusque movements she took a cigarette out of the box, held
it in her fingers for a moment, then dropped it unconsciously.</p>
<p>&ldquo;And then, I don&rsquo;t love him,&rdquo; she uttered slowly
as if speaking to herself and at the same time watching the very quality
of that thought.&nbsp; &ldquo;I never did.&nbsp; At first he fascinated
me with his fatal aspect and his cold society smiles.&nbsp; But I have
looked into those eyes too often.&nbsp; There are too many disdains
in this aristocratic republican without a home.&nbsp; His fate may be
cruel, but it will always be commonplace.&nbsp; While he sat there trying
in a worldly tone to explain to me the problems, the scruples, of his
suffering honour, I could see right into his heart and I was sorry for
him.&nbsp; I was sorry enough for him to feel that if he had suddenly
taken me by the throat and strangled me slowly, <i>avec d&eacute;lices</i>,
I could forgive him while I choked.&nbsp; How correct he was!&nbsp;
But bitterness against me peeped out of every second phrase.&nbsp; At
last I raised my hand and said to him, &lsquo;Enough.&rsquo;&nbsp; I
believe he was shocked by my plebeian abruptness but he was too polite
to show it.&nbsp; His conventions will always stand in the way of his
nature.&nbsp; I told him that everything that had been said and done
during the last seven or eight months was inexplicable unless on the
assumption that he was in love with me,&mdash;and yet in everything
there was an implication that he couldn&rsquo;t forgive me my very existence.&nbsp;
I did ask him whether he didn&rsquo;t think that it was absurd on his
part . . . &rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t you say that it was exquisitely absurd?&rdquo;
I asked.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Exquisitely! . . . &rdquo; Do&ntilde;a Rita was surprised
at my question.&nbsp; &ldquo;No.&nbsp; Why should I say that?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;It would have reconciled him to your abruptness.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s
their family expression.&nbsp; It would have come with a familiar sound
and would have been less offensive.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Offensive,&rdquo; Do&ntilde;a Rita repeated earnestly.&nbsp;
&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think he was offended; he suffered in another way,
but I didn&rsquo;t care for that.&nbsp; It was I that had become offended
in the end, without spite, you understand, but past bearing.&nbsp; I
didn&rsquo;t spare him.&nbsp; I told him plainly that to want a woman
formed in mind and body, mistress of herself, free in her choice, independent
in her thoughts; to love her apparently for what she is and at the same
time to demand from her the candour and the innocence that could be
only a shocking pretence; to know her such as life had made her and
at the same time to despise her secretly for every touch with which
her life had fashioned her&mdash;that was neither generous nor high
minded; it was positively frantic.&nbsp; He got up and went away to
lean against the mantelpiece, there, on his elbow and with his head
in his hand.&nbsp; You have no idea of the charm and the distinction
of his pose.&nbsp; I couldn&rsquo;t help admiring him: the expression,
the grace, the fatal suggestion of his immobility.&nbsp; Oh, yes, I
am sensible to aesthetic impressions, I have been educated to believe
that there is a soul in them.&rdquo;</p>
<p>With that enigmatic, under the eyebrows glance fixed on me she laughed
her deep contralto laugh without mirth but also without irony, and profoundly
moving by the mere purity of the sound.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I suspect he was never so disgusted and appalled in his life.&nbsp;
His self-command is the most admirable worldly thing I have ever seen.&nbsp;
What made it beautiful was that one could feel in it a tragic suggestion
as in a great work of art.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She paused with an inscrutable smile that a great painter might have
put on the face of some symbolic figure for the speculation and wonder
of many generations.&nbsp; I said:</p>
<p>&ldquo;I always thought that love for you could work great wonders.&nbsp;
And now I am certain.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Are you trying to be ironic?&rdquo; she said sadly and very
much as a child might have spoken.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; I answered in a tone of the same
simplicity.&nbsp; &ldquo;I find it very difficult to be generous.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I, too,&rdquo; she said with a sort of funny eagerness.&nbsp;
&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t treat him very generously.&nbsp; Only I didn&rsquo;t
say much more.&nbsp; I found I didn&rsquo;t care what I said&mdash;and
it would have been like throwing insults at a beautiful composition.&nbsp;
He was well inspired not to move.&nbsp; It has spared him some disagreeable
truths and perhaps I would even have said more than the truth.&nbsp;
I am not fair.&nbsp; I am no more fair than other people.&nbsp; I would
have been harsh.&nbsp; My very admiration was making me more angry.&nbsp;
It&rsquo;s ridiculous to say of a man got up in correct tailor clothes,
but there was a funereal grace in his attitude so that he might have
been reproduced in marble on a monument to some woman in one of those
atrocious Campo Santos: the bourgeois conception of an aristocratic
mourning lover.&nbsp; When I came to that conclusion I became glad that
I was angry or else I would have laughed right out before him.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I have heard a woman say once, a woman of the people&mdash;do
you hear me, Do&ntilde;a Rita?&mdash;therefore deserving your attention,
that one should never laugh at love.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;My dear,&rdquo; she said gently, &ldquo;I have been taught
to laugh at most things by a man who never laughed himself; but it&rsquo;s
true that he never spoke of love to me, love as a subject that is.&nbsp;
So perhaps . . . But why?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Because (but maybe that old woman was crazy), because, she
said, there was death in the mockery of love.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Do&ntilde;a Rita moved slightly her beautiful shoulders and went
on:</p>
<p>&ldquo;I am glad, then, I didn&rsquo;t laugh.&nbsp; And I am also
glad I said nothing more.&nbsp; I was feeling so little generous that
if I had known something then of his mother&rsquo;s allusion to &lsquo;white
geese&rsquo; I would have advised him to get one of them and lead it
away on a beautiful blue ribbon.&nbsp; Mrs. Blunt was wrong, you know,
to be so scornful.&nbsp; A white goose is exactly what her son wants.&nbsp;
But look how badly the world is arranged.&nbsp; Such white birds cannot
be got for nothing and he has not enough money even to buy a ribbon.&nbsp;
Who knows!&nbsp; Maybe it was this which gave that tragic quality to
his pose by the mantelpiece over there.&nbsp; Yes, that was it.&nbsp;
Though no doubt I didn&rsquo;t see it then.&nbsp; As he didn&rsquo;t
offer to move after I had done speaking I became quite unaffectedly
sorry and advised him very gently to dismiss me from his mind definitely.&nbsp;
He moved forward then and said to me in his usual voice and with his
usual smile that it would have been excellent advice but unfortunately
I was one of those women who can&rsquo;t be dismissed at will.&nbsp;
And as I shook my head he insisted rather darkly: &lsquo;Oh, yes, Do&ntilde;a
Rita, it is so.&nbsp; Cherish no illusions about that fact.&rsquo;&nbsp;
It sounded so threatening that in my surprise I didn&rsquo;t even acknowledge
his parting bow.&nbsp; He went out of that false situation like a wounded
man retreating after a fight.&nbsp; No, I have nothing to reproach myself
with.&nbsp; I did nothing.&nbsp; I led him into nothing.&nbsp; Whatever
illusions have passed through my head I kept my distance, and he was
so loyal to what he seemed to think the redeeming proprieties of the
situation that he has gone from me for good without so much as kissing
the tips of my fingers.&nbsp; He must have felt like a man who had betrayed
himself for nothing.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s horrible.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s the
fault of that enormous fortune of mine, and I wish with all my heart
that I could give it to him; for he couldn&rsquo;t help his hatred of
the thing that is: and as to his love, which is just as real, well&mdash;could
I have rushed away from him to shut myself up in a convent?&nbsp; Could
I?&nbsp; After all I have a right to my share of daylight.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER V</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>I took my eyes from her face and became aware that dusk was beginning
to steal into the room.&nbsp; How strange it seemed.&nbsp; Except for
the glazed rotunda part its long walls, divided into narrow panels separated
by an order of flat pilasters, presented, depicted on a black background
and in vivid colours, slender women with butterfly wings and lean youths
with narrow birds&rsquo; wings.&nbsp; The effect was supposed to be
Pompeiian and Rita and I had often laughed at the delirious fancy of
some enriched shopkeeper.&nbsp; But still it was a display of fancy,
a sign of grace; but at that moment these figures appeared to me weird
and intrusive and strangely alive in their attenuated grace of unearthly
beings concealing a power to see and hear.</p>
<p>Without words, without gestures, Do&ntilde;a Rita was heard again.&nbsp;
&ldquo;It may have been as near coming to pass as this.&rdquo;&nbsp;
She showed me the breadth of her little finger nail.&nbsp; &ldquo;Yes,
as near as that.&nbsp; Why?&nbsp; How?&nbsp; Just like that, for nothing.&nbsp;
Because it had come up.&nbsp; Because a wild notion had entered a practical
old woman&rsquo;s head.&nbsp; Yes.&nbsp; And the best of it is that
I have nothing to complain of.&nbsp; Had I surrendered I would have
been perfectly safe with these two.&nbsp; It is they or rather he who
couldn&rsquo;t trust me, or rather that something which I express, which
I stand for.&nbsp; Mills would never tell me what it was.&nbsp; Perhaps
he didn&rsquo;t know exactly himself.&nbsp; He said it was something
like genius.&nbsp; My genius!&nbsp; Oh, I am not conscious of it, believe
me, I am not conscious of it.&nbsp; But if I were I wouldn&rsquo;t pluck
it out and cast it away.&nbsp; I am ashamed of nothing, of nothing!&nbsp;
Don&rsquo;t be stupid enough to think that I have the slightest regret.&nbsp;
There is no regret.&nbsp; First of all because I am I&mdash;and then
because . . . My dear, believe me, I have had a horrible time of it
myself lately.&rdquo;</p>
<p>This seemed to be the last word.&nbsp; Outwardly quiet, all the time,
it was only then that she became composed enough to light an enormous
cigarette of the same pattern as those made specially for the king&mdash;<i>por</i>
<i>el Rey</i>! After a time, tipping the ash into the bowl on her left
hand, she asked me in a friendly, almost tender, tone:</p>
<p>&ldquo;What are you thinking of, <i>amigo</i>?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I was thinking of your immense generosity.&nbsp; You want
to give a crown to one man, a fortune to another.&nbsp; That is very
fine.&nbsp; But I suppose there is a limit to your generosity somewhere.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see why there should be any limit&mdash;to fine
intentions!&nbsp; Yes, one would like to pay ransom and be done with
it all.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the feeling of a captive; and yet somehow I can&rsquo;t
think of you as ever having been anybody&rsquo;s captive.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You do display some wonderful insight sometimes.&nbsp; My
dear, I begin to suspect that men are rather conceited about their powers.&nbsp;
They think they dominate us.&nbsp; Even exceptional men will think that;
men too great for mere vanity, men like Henry All&egrave;gre for instance,
who by his consistent and serene detachment was certainly fit to dominate
all sorts of people.&nbsp; Yet for the most part they can only do it
because women choose more or less consciously to let them do so.&nbsp;
Henry All&egrave;gre, if any man, might have been certain of his own
power; and yet, look: I was a chit of a girl, I was sitting with a book
where I had no business to be, in his own garden, when he suddenly came
upon me, an ignorant girl of seventeen, a most uninviting creature with
a tousled head, in an old black frock and shabby boots.&nbsp; I could
have run away.&nbsp; I was perfectly capable of it.&nbsp; But I stayed
looking up at him and&mdash;in the end it was HE who went away and it
was I who stayed.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Consciously?&rdquo; I murmured.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Consciously?&nbsp; You may just as well ask my shadow that
lay so still by me on the young grass in that morning sunshine.&nbsp;
I never knew before how still I could keep.&nbsp; It wasn&rsquo;t the
stillness of terror.&nbsp; I remained, knowing perfectly well that if
I ran he was not the man to run after me.&nbsp; I remember perfectly
his deep-toned, politely indifferent &lsquo;<i>Restez donc</i>.&rsquo;&nbsp;
He was mistaken.&nbsp; Already then I hadn&rsquo;t the slightest intention
to move.&nbsp; And if you ask me again how far conscious all this was
the nearest answer I can make you is this: that I remained on purpose,
but I didn&rsquo;t know for what purpose I remained.&nbsp; Really, that
couldn&rsquo;t be expected. . . . Why do you sigh like this?&nbsp; Would
you have preferred me to be idiotically innocent or abominably wise?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;These are not the questions that trouble me,&rdquo; I said.&nbsp;
&ldquo;If I sighed it is because I am weary.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;And getting stiff, too, I should say, in this Pompeiian armchair.&nbsp;
You had better get out of it and sit on this couch as you always used
to do.&nbsp; That, at any rate, is not Pompeiian.&nbsp; You have been
growing of late extremely formal, I don&rsquo;t know why.&nbsp; If it
is a pose then for goodness&rsquo; sake drop it.&nbsp; Are you going
to model yourself on Captain Blunt?&nbsp; You couldn&rsquo;t, you know.&nbsp;
You are too young.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to model myself on anybody,&rdquo; I said.&nbsp;
&ldquo;And anyway Blunt is too romantic; and, moreover, he has been
and is yet in love with you&mdash;a thing that requires some style,
an attitude, something of which I am altogether incapable.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You know it isn&rsquo;t so stupid, this what you have just
said.&nbsp; Yes, there is something in this.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I am not stupid,&rdquo; I protested, without much heat.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, yes, you are.&nbsp; You don&rsquo;t know the world enough
to judge.&nbsp; You don&rsquo;t know how wise men can be.&nbsp; Owls
are nothing to them.&nbsp; Why do you try to look like an owl?&nbsp;
There are thousands and thousands of them waiting for me outside the
door: the staring, hissing beasts.&nbsp; You don&rsquo;t know what a
relief of mental ease and intimacy you have been to me in the frankness
of gestures and speeches and thoughts, sane or insane, that we have
been throwing at each other.&nbsp; I have known nothing of this in my
life but with you.&nbsp; There had always been some fear, some constraint,
lurking in the background behind everybody, everybody&mdash;except you,
my friend.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;An unmannerly, Arcadian state of affairs.&nbsp; I am glad
you like it.&nbsp; Perhaps it&rsquo;s because you were intelligent enough
to perceive that I was not in love with you in any sort of style.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;No, you were always your own self, unwise and reckless and
with something in it kindred to mine, if I may say so without offence.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You may say anything without offence.&nbsp; But has it never
occurred to your sagacity that I just, simply, loved you?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Just&mdash;simply,&rdquo; she repeated in a wistful tone.</p>
<p>&ldquo;You didn&rsquo;t want to trouble your head about it, is that
it?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;My poor head.&nbsp; From your tone one might think you yearned
to cut it off.&nbsp; No, my dear, I have made up my mind not to lose
my head.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You would be astonished to know how little I care for your
mind.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Would I?&nbsp; Come and sit on the couch all the same,&rdquo;
she said after a moment of hesitation.&nbsp; Then, as I did not move
at once, she added with indifference: &ldquo;You may sit as far away
as you like, it&rsquo;s big enough, goodness knows.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The light was ebbing slowly out of the rotunda and to my bodily eyes
she was beginning to grow shadowy.&nbsp; I sat down on the couch and
for a long time no word passed between us.&nbsp; We made no movement.&nbsp;
We did not even turn towards each other.&nbsp; All I was conscious of
was the softness of the seat which seemed somehow to cause a relaxation
of my stern mood, I won&rsquo;t say against my will but without any
will on my part.&nbsp; Another thing I was conscious of, strangely enough,
was the enormous brass bowl for cigarette ends.&nbsp; Quietly, with
the least possible action, Do&ntilde;a Rita moved it to the other side
of her motionless person.&nbsp; Slowly, the fantastic women with butterflies&rsquo;
wings and the slender-limbed youths with the gorgeous pinions on their
shoulders were vanishing into their black backgrounds with an effect
of silent discretion, leaving us to ourselves.</p>
<p>I felt suddenly extremely exhausted, absolutely overcome with fatigue
since I had moved; as if to sit on that Pompeiian chair had been a task
almost beyond human strength, a sort of labour that must end in collapse.&nbsp;
I fought against it for a moment and then my resistance gave way.&nbsp;
Not all at once but as if yielding to an irresistible pressure (for
I was not conscious of any irresistible attraction) I found myself with
my head resting, with a weight I felt must be crushing, on Do&ntilde;a
Rita&rsquo;s shoulder which yet did not give way, did not flinch at
all.&nbsp; A faint scent of violets filled the tragic emptiness of my
head and it seemed impossible to me that I should not cry from sheer
weakness.&nbsp; But I remained dry-eyed.&nbsp; I only felt myself slipping
lower and lower and I caught her round the waist clinging to her not
from any intention but purely by instinct.&nbsp; All that time she hadn&rsquo;t
stirred.&nbsp; There was only the slight movement of her breathing that
showed her to be alive; and with closed eyes I imagined her to be lost
in thought, removed by an incredible meditation while I clung to her,
to an immense distance from the earth.&nbsp; The distance must have
been immense because the silence was so perfect, the feeling as if of
eternal stillness.&nbsp; I had a distinct impression of being in contact
with an infinity that had the slightest possible rise and fall, was
pervaded by a warm, delicate scent of violets and through which came
a hand from somewhere to rest lightly on my head.&nbsp; Presently my
ear caught the faint and regular pulsation of her heart, firm and quick,
infinitely touching in its persistent mystery, disclosing itself into
my very ear&mdash;and my felicity became complete.</p>
<p>It was a dreamlike state combined with a dreamlike sense of insecurity.&nbsp;
Then in that warm and scented infinity, or eternity, in which I rested
lost in bliss but ready for any catastrophe, I heard the distant, hardly
audible, and fit to strike terror into the heart, ringing of a bell.&nbsp;
At this sound the greatness of spaces departed.&nbsp; I felt the world
close about me; the world of darkened walls, of very deep grey dusk
against the panes, and I asked in a pained voice:</p>
<p>&ldquo;Why did you ring, Rita?&rdquo;</p>
<p>There was a bell rope within reach of her hand.&nbsp; I had not felt
her move, but she said very low:</p>
<p>&ldquo;I rang for the lights.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You didn&rsquo;t want the lights.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;It was time,&rdquo; she whispered secretly.</p>
<p>Somewhere within the house a door slammed.&nbsp; I got away from
her feeling small and weak as if the best part of me had been torn away
and irretrievably lost.&nbsp; Rose must have been somewhere near the
door.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s abominable,&rdquo; I murmured to the still, idol-like
shadow on the couch.</p>
<p>The answer was a hurried, nervous whisper: &ldquo;I tell you it was
time.&nbsp; I rang because I had no strength to push you away.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I suffered a moment of giddiness before the door opened, light streamed
in, and Rose entered, preceding a man in a green baize apron whom I
had never seen, carrying on an enormous tray three Argand lamps fitted
into vases of Pompeiian form.&nbsp; Rose distributed them over the room.&nbsp;
In the flood of soft light the winged youths and the butterfly women
reappeared on the panels, affected, gorgeous, callously unconscious
of anything having happened during their absence.&nbsp; Rose attended
to the lamp on the nearest mantelpiece, then turned about and asked
in a confident undertone.</p>
<p>&ldquo;<i>Monsieur d&icirc;ne</i>?&rdquo;</p>
<p>I had lost myself with my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands,
but I heard the words distinctly.&nbsp; I heard also the silence which
ensued.&nbsp; I sat up and took the responsibility of the answer on
myself.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Impossible.&nbsp; I am going to sea this evening.&rdquo;</p>
<p>This was perfectly true only I had totally forgotten it till then.&nbsp;
For the last two days my being was no longer composed of memories but
exclusively of sensations of the most absorbing, disturbing, exhausting
nature.&nbsp; I was like a man who has been buffeted by the sea or by
a mob till he loses all hold on the world in the misery of his helplessness.&nbsp;
But now I was recovering.&nbsp; And naturally the first thing I remembered
was the fact that I was going to sea.</p>
<p>&ldquo;You have heard, Rose,&rdquo; Do&ntilde;a Rita said at last
with some impatience.</p>
<p>The girl waited a moment longer before she said:</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, yes!&nbsp; There is a man waiting for Monsieur in the
hall.&nbsp; A seaman.&rdquo;</p>
<p>It could be no one but Dominic.&nbsp; It dawned upon me that since
the evening of our return I had not been near him or the ship, which
was completely unusual, unheard of, and well calculated to startle Dominic.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I have seen him before,&rdquo; continued Rose, &ldquo;and
as he told me he has been pursuing Monsieur all the afternoon and didn&rsquo;t
like to go away without seeing Monsieur for a moment, I proposed to
him to wait in the hall till Monsieur was at liberty.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I said: &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; and with a sudden resumption of
her extremely busy, not-a-moment-to-lose manner Rose departed from the
room.&nbsp; I lingered in an imaginary world full of tender light, of
unheard-of colours, with a mad riot of flowers and an inconceivable
happiness under the sky arched above its yawning precipices, while a
feeling of awe enveloped me like its own proper atmosphere.&nbsp; But
everything vanished at the sound of Do&ntilde;a Rita&rsquo;s loud whisper
full of boundless dismay, such as to make one&rsquo;s hair stir on one&rsquo;s
head.</p>
<p>&ldquo;<i>Mon Dieu</i>!&nbsp; And what is going to happen now?&rdquo;</p>
<p>She got down from the couch and walked to a window.&nbsp; When the
lights had been brought into the room all the panes had turned inky
black; for the night had come and the garden was full of tall bushes
and trees screening off the gas lamps of the main alley of the Prado.&nbsp;
Whatever the question meant she was not likely to see an answer to it
outside.&nbsp; But her whisper had offended me, had hurt something infinitely
deep, infinitely subtle and infinitely clear-eyed in my nature.&nbsp;
I said after her from the couch on which I had remained, &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t
lose your composure.&nbsp; You will always have some sort of bell at
hand.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I saw her shrug her uncovered shoulders impatiently.&nbsp; Her forehead
was against the very blackness of the panes; pulled upward from the
beautiful, strong nape of her neck, the twisted mass of her tawny hair
was held high upon her head by the arrow of gold.</p>
<p>&ldquo;You set up for being unforgiving,&rdquo; she said without
anger.</p>
<p>I sprang to my feet while she turned about and came towards me bravely,
with a wistful smile on her bold, adolescent face.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It seems to me,&rdquo; she went on in a voice like a wave
of love itself, &ldquo;that one should try to understand before one
sets up for being unforgiving.&nbsp; Forgiveness is a very fine word.&nbsp;
It is a fine invocation.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;There are other fine words in the language such as fascination,
fidelity, also frivolity; and as for invocations there are plenty of
them, too; for instance: alas, heaven help me.&rdquo;</p>
<p>We stood very close together, her narrow eyes were as enigmatic as
ever, but that face, which, like some ideal conception of art, was incapable
of anything like untruth and grimace, expressed by some mysterious means
such a depth of infinite patience that I felt profoundly ashamed of
myself.</p>
<p>&ldquo;This thing is beyond words altogether,&rdquo; I said.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Beyond forgiveness, beyond forgetting, beyond anger or jealousy.
. . . There is nothing between us two that could make us act together.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Then we must fall back perhaps on something within us, that&mdash;you
admit it?&mdash;we have in common.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be childish,&rdquo; I said.&nbsp; &ldquo;You give
one with a perpetual and intense freshness feelings and sensations that
are as old as the world itself, and you imagine that your enchantment
can be broken off anywhere, at any time!&nbsp; But it can&rsquo;t be
broken.&nbsp; And forgetfulness, like everything else, can only come
from you.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s an impossible situation to stand up against.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She listened with slightly parted lips as if to catch some further
resonances.</p>
<p>&ldquo;There is a sort of generous ardour about you,&rdquo; she said,
&ldquo;which I don&rsquo;t really understand.&nbsp; No, I don&rsquo;t
know it.&nbsp; Believe me, it is not of myself I am thinking.&nbsp;
And you&mdash;you are going out to-night to make another landing.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes, it is a fact that before many hours I will be sailing
away from you to try my luck once more.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Your wonderful luck,&rdquo; she breathed out.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, yes, I am wonderfully lucky.&nbsp; Unless the luck really
is yours&mdash;in having found somebody like me, who cares at the same
time so much and so little for what you have at heart.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;What time will you be leaving the harbour?&rdquo; she asked.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Some time between midnight and daybreak.&nbsp; Our men may
be a little late in joining, but certainly we will be gone before the
first streak of light.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;What freedom!&rdquo; she murmured enviously.&nbsp; &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
something I shall never know. . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Freedom!&rdquo; I protested.&nbsp; &ldquo;I am a slave to
my word.&nbsp; There will be a siring of carts and mules on a certain
part of the coast, and a most ruffianly lot of men, men you understand,
men with wives and children and sweethearts, who from the very moment
they start on a trip risk a bullet in the head at any moment, but who
have a perfect conviction that I will never fail them.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s
my freedom.&nbsp; I wonder what they would think if they knew of your
existence.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t exist,&rdquo; she said.</p>
<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s easy to say.&nbsp; But I will go as if you didn&rsquo;t
exist&mdash;yet only because you do exist.&nbsp; You exist in me.&nbsp;
I don&rsquo;t know where I end and you begin.&nbsp; You have got into
my heart and into my veins and into my brain.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Take this fancy out and trample it down in the dust,&rdquo;
she said in a tone of timid entreaty.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Heroically,&rdquo; I suggested with the sarcasm of despair.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Well, yes, heroically,&rdquo; she said; and there passed between
us dim smiles, I have no doubt of the most touching imbecility on earth.&nbsp;
We were standing by then in the middle of the room with its vivid colours
on a black background, with its multitude of winged figures with pale
limbs, with hair like halos or flames, all strangely tense in their
strained, decorative attitudes.&nbsp; Do&ntilde;a Rita made a step towards
me, and as I attempted to seize her hand she flung her arms round my
neck.&nbsp; I felt their strength drawing me towards her and by a sort
of blind and desperate effort I resisted.&nbsp; And all the time she
was repeating with nervous insistence:</p>
<p>&ldquo;But it is true that you will go.&nbsp; You will surely.&nbsp;
Not because of those people but because of me.&nbsp; You will go away
because you feel you must.&rdquo;</p>
<p>With every word urging me to get away, her clasp tightened, she hugged
my head closer to her breast.&nbsp; I submitted, knowing well that I
could free myself by one more effort which it was in my power to make.&nbsp;
But before I made it, in a sort of desperation, I pressed a long kiss
into the hollow of her throat.&nbsp; And lo&mdash;there was no need
for any effort.&nbsp; With a stifled cry of surprise her arms fell off
me as if she had been shot.&nbsp; I must have been giddy, and perhaps
we both were giddy, but the next thing I knew there was a good foot
of space between us in the peaceful glow of the ground-glass globes,
in the everlasting stillness of the winged figures.&nbsp; Something
in the quality of her exclamation, something utterly unexpected, something
I had never heard before, and also the way she was looking at me with
a sort of incredulous, concentrated attention, disconcerted me exceedingly.&nbsp;
I knew perfectly well what I had done and yet I felt that I didn&rsquo;t
understand what had happened.&nbsp; I became suddenly abashed and I
muttered that I had better go and dismiss that poor Dominic.&nbsp; She
made no answer, gave no sign.&nbsp; She stood there lost in a vision&mdash;or
was it a sensation?&mdash;of the most absorbing kind.&nbsp; I hurried
out into the hall, shamefaced, as if I were making my escape while she
wasn&rsquo;t looking.&nbsp; And yet I felt her looking fixedly at me,
with a sort of stupefaction on her features&mdash;in her whole attitude&mdash;as
though she had never even heard of such a thing as a kiss in her life.</p>
<p>A dim lamp (of Pompeiian form) hanging on a long chain left the hall
practically dark.&nbsp; Dominic, advancing towards me from a distant
corner, was but a little more opaque shadow than the others.&nbsp; He
had expected me on board every moment till about three o&rsquo;clock,
but as I didn&rsquo;t turn up and gave no sign of life in any other
way he started on his hunt.&nbsp; He sought news of me from the <i>gar&ccedil;ons</i>
at the various caf&eacute;s, from the <i>cochers de fiacre</i> in front
of the Exchange, from the tobacconist lady at the counter of the fashionable
<i>D&eacute;bit de Tabac</i>, from the old man who sold papers outside
the <i>cercle</i>, and from the flower-girl at the door of the fashionable
restaurant where I had my table.&nbsp; That young woman, whose business
name was Irma, had come on duty about mid-day.&nbsp; She said to Dominic:
&ldquo;I think I&rsquo;ve seen all his friends this morning but I haven&rsquo;t
seen him for a week.&nbsp; What has become of him?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s exactly what I want to know,&rdquo; Dominic replied
in a fury and then went back to the harbour on the chance that I might
have called either on board or at Madame L&eacute;onore&rsquo;s caf&eacute;.</p>
<p>I expressed to him my surprise that he should fuss about me like
an old hen over a chick.&nbsp; It wasn&rsquo;t like him at all.&nbsp;
And he said that &ldquo;<i>en effet</i>&rdquo; it was Madame L&eacute;onore
who wouldn&rsquo;t give him any peace.&nbsp; He hoped I wouldn&rsquo;t
mind, it was best to humour women in little things; and so he started
off again, made straight for the street of the Consuls, was told there
that I wasn&rsquo;t at home but the woman of the house looked so funny
that he didn&rsquo;t know what to make of it.&nbsp; Therefore, after
some hesitation, he took the liberty to inquire at this house, too,
and being told that I couldn&rsquo;t be disturbed, had made up his mind
not to go on board without actually setting his eyes on me and hearing
from my own lips that nothing was changed as to sailing orders.</p>
<p>&ldquo;There is nothing changed, Dominic,&rdquo; I said.</p>
<p>&ldquo;No change of any sort?&rdquo; he insisted, looking very sombre
and speaking gloomily from under his black moustaches in the dim glow
of the alabaster lamp hanging above his head.&nbsp; He peered at me
in an extraordinary manner as if he wanted to make sure that I had all
my limbs about me.&nbsp; I asked him to call for my bag at the other
house, on his way to the harbour, and he departed reassured, not, however,
without remarking ironically that ever since she saw that American cavalier
Madame L&eacute;onore was not easy in her mind about me.</p>
<p>As I stood alone in the hall, without a sound of any sort, Rose appeared
before me.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Monsieur will dine after all,&rdquo; she whispered calmly,</p>
<p>&ldquo;My good girl, I am going to sea to-night.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;What am I going to do with Madame?&rdquo; she murmured to
herself.&nbsp; &ldquo;She will insist on returning to Paris.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, have you heard of it?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I never get more than two hours&rsquo; notice,&rdquo; she
said.&nbsp; &ldquo;But I know how it will be,&rdquo; her voice lost
its calmness.&nbsp; &ldquo;I can look after Madame up to a certain point
but I cannot be altogether responsible.&nbsp; There is a dangerous person
who is everlastingly trying to see Madame alone.&nbsp; I have managed
to keep him off several times but there is a beastly old journalist
who is encouraging him in his attempts, and I daren&rsquo;t even speak
to Madame about it.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;What sort of person do you mean?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Why, a man,&rdquo; she said scornfully.</p>
<p>I snatched up my coat and hat.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Aren&rsquo;t there dozens of them?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh!&nbsp; But this one is dangerous.&nbsp; Madame must have
given him a hold on her in some way.&nbsp; I ought not to talk like
this about Madame and I wouldn&rsquo;t to anybody but Monsieur.&nbsp;
I am always on the watch, but what is a poor girl to do? . . . Isn&rsquo;t
Monsieur going back to Madame?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;No, I am not going back.&nbsp; Not this time.&rdquo;&nbsp;
A mist seemed to fall before my eyes.&nbsp; I could hardly see the girl
standing by the closed door of the Pempeiian room with extended hand,
as if turned to stone.&nbsp; But my voice was firm enough.&nbsp; &ldquo;Not
this time,&rdquo; I repeated, and became aware of the great noise of
the wind amongst the trees, with the lashing of a rain squall against
the door.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Perhaps some other time,&rdquo; I added.</p>
<p>I heard her say twice to herself: &ldquo;<i>Mon Dieu</i>!&nbsp; <i>Mon,
Dieu</i>!&rdquo; and then a dismayed: &ldquo;What can Monsieur expect
me to do?&rdquo;&nbsp; But I had to appear insensible to her distress
and that not altogether because, in fact, I had no option but to go
away.&nbsp; I remember also a distinct wilfulness in my attitude and
something half-contemptuous in my words as I laid my hand on the knob
of the front door.</p>
<p>&ldquo;You will tell Madame that I am gone.&nbsp; It will please
her.&nbsp; Tell her that I am gone&mdash;heroically.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Rose had come up close to me.&nbsp; She met my words by a despairing
outward movement of her hands as though she were giving everything up.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I see it clearly now that Madame has no friends,&rdquo; she
declared with such a force of restrained bitterness that it nearly made
me pause.&nbsp; But the very obscurity of actuating motives drove me
on and I stepped out through the doorway muttering: &ldquo;Everything
is as Madame wishes it.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She shot at me a swift: &ldquo;You should resist,&rdquo; of an extraordinary
intensity, but I strode on down the path.&nbsp; Then Rose&rsquo;s schooled
temper gave way at last and I heard her angry voice screaming after
me furiously through the wind and rain: &ldquo;No!&nbsp; Madame has
no friends.&nbsp; Not one!&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<h2>PART FIVE</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER I</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>That night I didn&rsquo;t get on board till just before midnight
and Dominic could not conceal his relief at having me safely there.&nbsp;
Why he should have been so uneasy it was impossible to say but at the
time I had a sort of impression that my inner destruction (it was nothing
less) had affected my appearance, that my doom was as it were written
on my face.&nbsp; I was a mere receptacle for dust and ashes, a living
testimony to the vanity of all things.&nbsp; My very thoughts were like
a ghostly rustle of dead leaves.&nbsp; But we had an extremely successful
trip, and for most of the time Dominic displayed an unwonted jocularity
of a dry and biting kind with which, he maintained, he had been infected
by no other person than myself.&nbsp; As, with all his force of character,
he was very responsive to the moods of those he liked I have no doubt
he spoke the truth.&nbsp; But I know nothing about it.&nbsp; The observer,
more or less alert, whom each of us carries in his own consciousness,
failed me altogether, had turned away his face in sheer horror, or else
had fainted from the strain.&nbsp; And thus I had to live alone, unobserved
even by myself.</p>
<p>But the trip had been successful.&nbsp; We re-entered the harbour
very quietly as usual and when our craft had been moored unostentatiously
amongst the plebeian stone-carriers, Dominic, whose grim joviality had
subsided in the last twenty-four hours of our homeward run, abandoned
me to myself as though indeed I had been a doomed man.&nbsp; He only
stuck his head for a moment into our little cuddy where I was changing
my clothes and being told in answer to his question that I had no special
orders to give went ashore without waiting for me.</p>
<p>Generally we used to step on the quay together and I never failed
to enter for a moment Madame L&eacute;onore&rsquo;s caf&eacute;.&nbsp;
But this time when I got on the quay Dominic was nowhere to be seen.&nbsp;
What was it?&nbsp; Abandonment&mdash;discretion&mdash;or had he quarrelled
with his L&eacute;onore before leaving on the trip?</p>
<p>My way led me past the caf&eacute; and through the glass panes I
saw that he was already there.&nbsp; On the other side of the little
marble table Madame L&eacute;onore, leaning with mature grace on her
elbow, was listening to him absorbed.&nbsp; Then I passed on and&mdash;what
would you have!&mdash;I ended by making my way into the street of the
Consuls.&nbsp; I had nowhere else to go.&nbsp; There were my things
in the apartment on the first floor.&nbsp; I couldn&rsquo;t bear the
thought of meeting anybody I knew.</p>
<p>The feeble gas flame in the hall was still there, on duty, as though
it had never been turned off since I last crossed the hall at half-past
eleven in the evening to go to the harbour.&nbsp; The small flame had
watched me letting myself out; and now, exactly of the same size, the
poor little tongue of light (there was something wrong with that burner)
watched me letting myself in, as indeed it had done many times before.&nbsp;
Generally the impression was that of entering an untenanted house, but
this time before I could reach the foot of the stairs Therese glided
out of the passage leading into the studio.&nbsp; After the usual exclamations
she assured me that everything was ready for me upstairs, had been for
days, and offered to get me something to eat at once.&nbsp; I accepted
and said I would be down in the studio in half an hour.&nbsp; I found
her there by the side of the laid table ready for conversation.&nbsp;
She began by telling me&mdash;the dear, poor young Monsieur&mdash;in
a sort of plaintive chant, that there were no letters for me, no letters
of any kind, no letters from anybody.&nbsp; Glances of absolutely terrifying
tenderness mingled with flashes of cunning swept over me from head to
foot while I tried to eat.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Are you giving me Captain Blunt&rsquo;s wine to drink?&rdquo;
I asked, noting the straw-coloured liquid in my glass.</p>
<p>She screwed up her mouth as if she had a twinge of toothache and
assured me that the wine belonged to the house.&nbsp; I would have to
pay her for it.&nbsp; As far as personal feelings go, Blunt, who addressed
her always with polite seriousness, was not a favourite with her.&nbsp;
The &ldquo;charming, brave Monsieur&rdquo; was now fighting for the
King and religion against the impious Liberals.&nbsp; He went away the
very morning after I had left and, oh! she remembered, he had asked
her before going away whether I was still in the house.&nbsp; Wanted
probably to say good-bye to me, shake my hand, the dear, polite Monsieur.</p>
<p>I let her run on in dread expectation of what she would say next
but she stuck to the subject of Blunt for some time longer.&nbsp; He
had written to her once about some of his things which he wanted her
to send to Paris to his mother&rsquo;s address; but she was going to
do nothing of the kind.&nbsp; She announced this with a pious smile;
and in answer to my questions I discovered that it was a stratagem to
make Captain Blunt return to the house.</p>
<p>&ldquo;You will get yourself into trouble with the police, Mademoiselle
Therese, if you go on like that,&rdquo; I said.&nbsp; But she was as
obstinate as a mule and assured me with the utmost confidence that many
people would be ready to defend a poor honest girl.&nbsp; There was
something behind this attitude which I could not fathom.&nbsp; Suddenly
she fetched a deep sigh.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Our Rita, too, will end by coming to her sister.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The name for which I had been waiting deprived me of speech for the
moment.&nbsp; The poor mad sinner had rushed off to some of her wickednesses
in Paris.&nbsp; Did I know?&nbsp; No?&nbsp; How could she tell whether
I did know or not?&nbsp; Well!&nbsp; I had hardly left the house, so
to speak, when Rita was down with her maid behaving as if the house
did really still belong to her. . .</p>
<p>&ldquo;What time was it?&rdquo; I managed to ask.&nbsp; And with
the words my life itself was being forced out through my lips.&nbsp;
But Therese, not noticing anything strange about me, said it was something
like half-past seven in the morning.&nbsp; The &ldquo;poor sinner&rdquo;
was all in black as if she were going to church (except for her expression,
which was enough to shock any honest person), and after ordering her
with frightful menaces not to let anybody know she was in the house
she rushed upstairs and locked herself up in my bedroom, while &ldquo;that
French creature&rdquo; (whom she seemed to love more than her own sister)
went into my salon and hid herself behind the window curtain.</p>
<p>I had recovered sufficiently to ask in a quiet natural voice whether
Do&ntilde;a Rita and Captain Blunt had seen each other.&nbsp; Apparently
they had not seen each other.&nbsp; The polite captain had looked so
stern while packing up his kit that Therese dared not speak to him at
all.&nbsp; And he was in a hurry, too.&nbsp; He had to see his dear
mother off to Paris before his own departure.&nbsp; Very stern.&nbsp;
But he shook her hand with a very nice bow.</p>
<p>Therese elevated her right hand for me to see.&nbsp; It was broad
and short with blunt fingers, as usual.&nbsp; The pressure of Captain
Blunt&rsquo;s handshake had not altered its unlovely shape.</p>
<p>&ldquo;What was the good of telling him that our Rita was here?&rdquo;
went on Therese.&nbsp; &ldquo;I would have been ashamed of her coming
here and behaving as if the house belonged to her!&nbsp; I had already
said some prayers at his intention at the half-past six mass, the brave
gentleman.&nbsp; That maid of my sister Rita was upstairs watching him
drive away with her evil eyes, but I made a sign of the cross after
the fiacre, and then I went upstairs and banged at your door, my dear
kind young Monsieur, and shouted to Rita that she had no right to lock
herself in any of my <i>locataires&rsquo;</i> rooms.&nbsp; At last she
opened it&mdash;and what do you think?&nbsp; All her hair was loose
over her shoulders.&nbsp; I suppose it all came down when she flung
her hat on your bed.&nbsp; I noticed when she arrived that her hair
wasn&rsquo;t done properly.&nbsp; She used your brushes to do it up
again in front of your glass.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Wait a moment,&rdquo; I said, and jumped up, upsetting my
wine to run upstairs as fast as I could.&nbsp; I lighted the gas, all
the three jets in the middle of the room, the jet by the bedside and
two others flanking the dressing-table.&nbsp; I had been struck by the
wild hope of finding a trace of Rita&rsquo;s passage, a sign or something.&nbsp;
I pulled out all the drawers violently, thinking that perhaps she had
hidden there a scrap of paper, a note.&nbsp; It was perfectly mad.&nbsp;
Of course there was no chance of that.&nbsp; Therese would have seen
to it.&nbsp; I picked up one after another all the various objects on
the dressing-table.&nbsp; On laying my hands on the brushes I had a
profound emotion, and with misty eyes I examined them meticulously with
the new hope of finding one of Rita&rsquo;s tawny hairs entangled amongst
the bristles by a miraculous chance.&nbsp; But Therese would have done
away with that chance, too.&nbsp; There was nothing to be seen, though
I held them up to the light with a beating heart.&nbsp; It was written
that not even that trace of her passage on the earth should remain with
me; not to help but, as it were, to soothe the memory.&nbsp; Then I
lighted a cigarette and came downstairs slowly.&nbsp; My unhappiness
became dulled, as the grief of those who mourn for the dead gets dulled
in the overwhelming sensation that everything is over, that a part of
themselves is lost beyond recall taking with it all the savour of life.</p>
<p>I discovered Therese still on the very same spot of the floor, her
hands folded over each other and facing my empty chair before which
the spilled wine had soaked a large portion of the table-cloth.&nbsp;
She hadn&rsquo;t moved at all.&nbsp; She hadn&rsquo;t even picked up
the overturned glass.&nbsp; But directly I appeared she began to speak
in an ingratiating voice.</p>
<p>&ldquo;If you have missed anything of yours upstairs, my dear young
Monsieur, you mustn&rsquo;t say it&rsquo;s me.&nbsp; You don&rsquo;t
know what our Rita is.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I wish to goodness,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;that she had taken
something.&rdquo;</p>
<p>And again I became inordinately agitated as though it were my absolute
fate to be everlastingly dying and reviving to the tormenting fact of
her existence.&nbsp; Perhaps she had taken something?&nbsp; Anything.&nbsp;
Some small object.&nbsp; I thought suddenly of a Rhenish-stone match-box.&nbsp;
Perhaps it was that.&nbsp; I didn&rsquo;t remember having seen it when
upstairs.&nbsp; I wanted to make sure at once.&nbsp; At once.&nbsp;
But I commanded myself to sit still.</p>
<p>&ldquo;And she so wealthy,&rdquo; Therese went on.&nbsp; &ldquo;Even
you with your dear generous little heart can do nothing for our Rita.&nbsp;
No man can do anything for her&mdash;except perhaps one, but she is
so evilly disposed towards him that she wouldn&rsquo;t even see him,
if in the goodness of his forgiving heart he were to offer his hand
to her.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s her bad conscience that frightens her.&nbsp;
He loves her more than his life, the dear, charitable man.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You mean some rascal in Paris that I believe persecutes Do&ntilde;a
Rita.&nbsp; Listen, Mademoiselle Therese, if you know where he hangs
out you had better let him have word to be careful I believe he, too,
is mixed up in the Carlist intrigue.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t you know that
your sister can get him shut up any day or get him expelled by the police?&rdquo;</p>
<p>Therese sighed deeply and put on a look of pained virtue.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, the hardness of her heart.&nbsp; She tried to be tender
with me.&nbsp; She is awful.&nbsp; I said to her, &lsquo;Rita, have
you sold your soul to the Devil?&rsquo; and she shouted like a fiend:
&lsquo;For happiness!&nbsp; Ha, ha, ha!&rsquo;&nbsp; She threw herself
backwards on that couch in your room and laughed and laughed and laughed
as if I had been tickling her, and she drummed on the floor with the
heels of her shoes.&nbsp; She is possessed.&nbsp; Oh, my dear innocent
young Monsieur, you have never seen anything like that.&nbsp; That wicked
girl who serves her rushed in with a tiny glass bottle and put it to
her nose; but I had a mind to run out and fetch the priest from the
church where I go to early mass.&nbsp; Such a nice, stout, severe man.&nbsp;
But that false, cheating creature (I am sure she is robbing our Rita
from morning to night), she talked to our Rita very low and quieted
her down.&nbsp; I am sure I don&rsquo;t know what she said.&nbsp; She
must be leagued with the devil.&nbsp; And then she asked me if I would
go down and make a cup of chocolate for her Madame.&nbsp; Madame&mdash;that&rsquo;s
our Rita.&nbsp; Madame!&nbsp; It seems they were going off directly
to Paris and her Madame had had nothing to eat since the morning of
the day before.&nbsp; Fancy me being ordered to make chocolate for our
Rita!&nbsp; However, the poor thing looked so exhausted and white-faced
that I went.&nbsp; Ah! the devil can give you an awful shake up if he
likes.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Therese fetched another deep sigh and raising her eyes looked at
me with great attention.&nbsp; I preserved an inscrutable expression,
for I wanted to hear all she had to tell me of Rita.&nbsp; I watched
her with the greatest anxiety composing her face into a cheerful expression.</p>
<p>&ldquo;So Do&ntilde;a Rita is gone to Paris?&rdquo; I asked negligently.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes, my dear Monsieur.&nbsp; I believe she went straight to
the railway station from here.&nbsp; When she first got up from the
couch she could hardly stand.&nbsp; But before, while she was drinking
the chocolate which I made for her, I tried to get her to sign a paper
giving over the house to me, but she only closed her eyes and begged
me to try and be a good sister and leave her alone for half an hour.&nbsp;
And she lying there looking as if she wouldn&rsquo;t live a day.&nbsp;
But she always hated me.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I said bitterly, &ldquo;You needn&rsquo;t have worried her like this.&nbsp;
If she had not lived for another day you would have had this house and
everything else besides; a bigger bit than even your wolfish throat
can swallow, Mademoiselle Therese.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I then said a few more things indicative of my disgust with her rapacity,
but they were quite inadequate, as I wasn&rsquo;t able to find words
strong enough to express my real mind.&nbsp; But it didn&rsquo;t matter
really because I don&rsquo;t think Therese heard me at all.&nbsp; She
seemed lost in rapt amazement.</p>
<p>&ldquo;What do you say, my dear Monsieur?&nbsp; What!&nbsp; All for
me without any sort of paper?&rdquo;</p>
<p>She appeared distracted by my curt: &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;&nbsp; Therese
believed in my truthfulness.&nbsp; She believed me implicitly, except
when I was telling her the truth about herself, mincing no words, when
she used to stand smilingly bashful as if I were overwhelming her with
compliments.&nbsp; I expected her to continue the horrible tale but
apparently she had found something to think about which checked the
flow.&nbsp; She fetched another sigh and muttered:</p>
<p>&ldquo;Then the law can be just, if it does not require any paper.&nbsp;
After all, I am her sister.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s very difficult to believe that&mdash;at sight,&rdquo;
I said roughly.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Ah, but that I could prove.&nbsp; There are papers for that.&rdquo;</p>
<p>After this declaration she began to clear the table, preserving a
thoughtful silence.</p>
<p>I was not very surprised at the news of Do&ntilde;a Rita&rsquo;s
departure for Paris.&nbsp; It was not necessary to ask myself why she
had gone.&nbsp; I didn&rsquo;t even ask myself whether she had left
the leased Villa on the Prado for ever.&nbsp; Later talking again with
Therese, I learned that her sister had given it up for the use of the
Carlist cause and that some sort of unofficial Consul, a Carlist agent
of some sort, either was going to live there or had already taken possession.&nbsp;
This, Rita herself had told her before her departure on that agitated
morning spent in the house&mdash;in my rooms.&nbsp; A close investigation
demonstrated to me that there was nothing missing from them.&nbsp; Even
the wretched match-box which I really hoped was gone turned up in a
drawer after I had, delightedly, given it up.&nbsp; It was a great blow.&nbsp;
She might have taken that at least!&nbsp; She knew I used to carry it
about with me constantly while ashore.&nbsp; She might have taken it!&nbsp;
Apparently she meant that there should be no bond left even of that
kind; and yet it was a long time before I gave up visiting and revisiting
all the corners of all possible receptacles for something that she might
have left behind on purpose.&nbsp; It was like the mania of those disordered
minds who spend their days hunting for a treasure.&nbsp; I hoped for
a forgotten hairpin, for some tiny piece of ribbon.&nbsp; Sometimes
at night I reflected that such hopes were altogether insensate; but
I remember once getting up at two in the morning to search for a little
cardboard box in the bathroom, into which, I remembered, I had not looked
before.&nbsp; Of course it was empty; and, anyway, Rita could not possibly
have known of its existence.&nbsp; I got back to bed shivering violently,
though the night was warm, and with a distinct impression that this
thing would end by making me mad.&nbsp; It was no longer a question
of &ldquo;this sort of thing&rdquo; killing me.&nbsp; The moral atmosphere
of this torture was different.&nbsp; It would make me mad.&nbsp; And
at that thought great shudders ran down my prone body, because, once,
I had visited a famous lunatic asylum where they had shown me a poor
wretch who was mad, apparently, because he thought he had been abominably
fooled by a woman.&nbsp; They told me that his grievance was quite imaginary.&nbsp;
He was a young man with a thin fair beard, huddled up on the edge of
his bed, hugging himself forlornly; and his incessant and lamentable
wailing filled the long bare corridor, striking a chill into one&rsquo;s
heart long before one came to the door of his cell.</p>
<p>And there was no one from whom I could hear, to whom I could speak,
with whom I could evoke the image of Rita.&nbsp; Of course I could utter
that word of four letters to Therese; but Therese for some reason took
it into her head to avoid all topics connected with her sister.&nbsp;
I felt as if I could pull out great handfuls of her hair hidden modestly
under the black handkerchief of which the ends were sometimes tied under
her chin.&nbsp; But, really, I could not have given her any intelligible
excuse for that outrage.&nbsp; Moreover, she was very busy from the
very top to the very bottom of the house, which she persisted in running
alone because she couldn&rsquo;t make up her mind to part with a few
francs every month to a servant.&nbsp; It seemed to me that I was no
longer such a favourite with her as I used to be.&nbsp; That, strange
to say, was exasperating, too.&nbsp; It was as if some idea, some fruitful
notion had killed in her all the softer and more humane emotions.&nbsp;
She went about with brooms and dusters wearing an air of sanctimonious
thoughtfulness.</p>
<p>The man who to a certain extent took my place in Therese&rsquo;s
favour was the old father of the dancing girls inhabiting the ground
floor.&nbsp; In a tall hat and a well-to-do dark blue overcoat he allowed
himself to be button-holed in the hall by Therese who would talk to
him interminably with downcast eyes.&nbsp; He smiled gravely down at
her, and meanwhile tried to edge towards the front door.&nbsp; I imagine
he didn&rsquo;t put a great value on Therese&rsquo;s favour.&nbsp; Our
stay in harbour was prolonged this time and I kept indoors like an invalid.&nbsp;
One evening I asked that old man to come in and drink and smoke with
me in the studio.&nbsp; He made no difficulties to accept, brought his
wooden pipe with him, and was very entertaining in a pleasant voice.&nbsp;
One couldn&rsquo;t tell whether he was an uncommon person or simply
a ruffian, but in any case with his white beard he looked quite venerable.&nbsp;
Naturally he couldn&rsquo;t give me much of his company as he had to
look closely after his girls and their admirers; not that the girls
were unduly frivolous, but of course being very young they had no experience.&nbsp;
They were friendly creatures with pleasant, merry voices and he was
very much devoted to them.&nbsp; He was a muscular man with a high colour
and silvery locks curling round his bald pate and over his ears, like
a <i>barocco</i> apostle.&nbsp; I had an idea that he had had a lurid
past and had seen some fighting in his youth.&nbsp; The admirers of
the two girls stood in great awe of him, from instinct no doubt, because
his behaviour to them was friendly and even somewhat obsequious, yet
always with a certain truculent glint in his eye that made them pause
in everything but their generosity&mdash;which was encouraged.&nbsp;
I sometimes wondered whether those two careless, merry hard-working
creatures understood the secret moral beauty of the situation.</p>
<p>My real company was the dummy in the studio and I can&rsquo;t say
it was exactly satisfying.&nbsp; After taking possession of the studio
I had raised it tenderly, dusted its mangled limbs and insensible, hard-wood
bosom, and then had propped it up in a corner where it seemed to take
on, of itself, a shy attitude.&nbsp; I knew its history.&nbsp; It was
not an ordinary dummy.&nbsp; One day, talking with Do&ntilde;a Rita
about her sister, I had told her that I thought Therese used to knock
it down on purpose with a broom, and Do&ntilde;a Rita had laughed very
much.&nbsp; This, she had said, was an instance of dislike from mere
instinct.&nbsp; That dummy had been made to measure years before.&nbsp;
It had to wear for days and days the Imperial Byzantine robes in which
Do&ntilde;a Rita sat only once or twice herself; but of course the folds
and bends of the stuff had to be preserved as in the first sketch.&nbsp;
Do&ntilde;a Rita described amusingly how she had to stand in the middle
of her room while Rose walked around her with a tape measure noting
the figures down on a small piece of paper which was then sent to the
maker, who presently returned it with an angry letter stating that those
proportions were altogether impossible in any woman.&nbsp; Apparently
Rose had muddled them all up; and it was a long time before the figure
was finished and sent to the Pavilion in a long basket to take on itself
the robes and the hieratic pose of the Empress.&nbsp; Later, it wore
with the same patience the marvellous hat of the &ldquo;Girl in the
Hat.&rdquo;&nbsp; But Do&ntilde;a Rita couldn&rsquo;t understand how
the poor thing ever found its way to Marseilles minus its turnip head.&nbsp;
Probably it came down with the robes and a quantity of precious brocades
which she herself had sent down from Paris.&nbsp; The knowledge of its
origin, the contempt of Captain Blunt&rsquo;s references to it, with
Therese&rsquo;s shocked dislike of the dummy, invested that summary
reproduction with a sort of charm, gave me a faint and miserable illusion
of the original, less artificial than a photograph, less precise, too.
. . . But it can&rsquo;t be explained.&nbsp; I felt positively friendly
to it as if it had been Rita&rsquo;s trusted personal attendant.&nbsp;
I even went so far as to discover that it had a sort of grace of its
own.&nbsp; But I never went so far as to address set speeches to it
where it lurked shyly in its corner, or drag it out from there for contemplation.&nbsp;
I left it in peace.&nbsp; I wasn&rsquo;t mad.&nbsp; I was only convinced
that I soon would be.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER II</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Notwithstanding my misanthropy I had to see a few people on account
of all these Royalist affairs which I couldn&rsquo;t very well drop,
and in truth did not wish to drop.&nbsp; They were my excuse for remaining
in Europe, which somehow I had not the strength of mind to leave for
the West Indies, or elsewhere.&nbsp; On the other hand, my adventurous
pursuit kept me in contact with the sea where I found occupation, protection,
consolation, the mental relief of grappling with concrete problems,
the sanity one acquires from close contact with simple mankind, a little
self-confidence born from the dealings with the elemental powers of
nature.&nbsp; I couldn&rsquo;t give all that up.&nbsp; And besides all
this was related to Do&ntilde;a Rita.&nbsp; I had, as it were, received
it all from her own hand, from that hand the clasp of which was as frank
as a man&rsquo;s and yet conveyed a unique sensation.&nbsp; The very
memory of it would go through me like a wave of heat.&nbsp; It was over
that hand that we first got into the habit of quarrelling, with the
irritability of sufferers from some obscure pain and yet half unconscious
of their disease.&nbsp; Rita&rsquo;s own spirit hovered over the troubled
waters of Legitimity.&nbsp; But as to the sound of the four magic letters
of her name I was not very likely to hear it fall sweetly on my ear.&nbsp;
For instance, the distinguished personality in the world of finance
with whom I had to confer several times, alluded to the irresistible
seduction of the power which reigned over my heart and my mind; which
had a mysterious and unforgettable face, the brilliance of sunshine
together with the unfathomable splendour of the night as&mdash;Madame
de Lastaola.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s how that steel-grey man called the greatest
mystery of the universe.&nbsp; When uttering that assumed name he would
make for himself a guardedly solemn and reserved face as though he were
afraid lest I should presume to smile, lest he himself should venture
to smile, and the sacred formality of our relations should be outraged
beyond mending.</p>
<p>He would refer in a studiously grave tone to Madame de Lastaola&rsquo;s
wishes, plans, activities, instructions, movements; or picking up a
letter from the usual litter of paper found on such men&rsquo;s desks,
glance at it to refresh his memory; and, while the very sight of the
handwriting would make my lips go dry, would ask me in a bloodless voice
whether perchance I had &ldquo;a direct communication from&mdash;er&mdash;Paris
lately.&rdquo;&nbsp; And there would be other maddening circumstances
connected with those visits.&nbsp; He would treat me as a serious person
having a clear view of certain eventualities, while at the very moment
my vision could see nothing but streaming across the wall at his back,
abundant and misty, unearthly and adorable, a mass of tawny hair that
seemed to have hot sparks tangled in it.&nbsp; Another nuisance was
the atmosphere of Royalism, of Legitimacy, that pervaded the room, thin
as air, intangible, as though no Legitimist of flesh and blood had ever
existed to the man&rsquo;s mind except perhaps myself.&nbsp; He, of
course, was just simply a banker, a very distinguished, a very influential,
and a very impeccable banker.&nbsp; He persisted also in deferring to
my judgment and sense with an over-emphasis called out by his perpetual
surprise at my youth.&nbsp; Though he had seen me many times (I even
knew his wife) he could never get over my immature age.&nbsp; He himself
was born about fifty years old, all complete, with his iron-grey whiskers
and his bilious eyes, which he had the habit of frequently closing during
a conversation.&nbsp; On one occasion he said to me.&nbsp; &ldquo;By
the by, the Marquis of Villarel is here for a time.&nbsp; He inquired
after you the last time he called on me.&nbsp; May I let him know that
you are in town?&rdquo;</p>
<p>I didn&rsquo;t say anything to that.&nbsp; The Marquis of Villarel
was the Don Rafael of Rita&rsquo;s own story.&nbsp; What had I to do
with Spanish grandees?&nbsp; And for that matter what had she, the woman
of all time, to do with all the villainous or splendid disguises human
dust takes upon itself?&nbsp; All this was in the past, and I was acutely
aware that for me there was no present, no future, nothing but a hollow
pain, a vain passion of such magnitude that being locked up within my
breast it gave me an illusion of lonely greatness with my miserable
head uplifted amongst the stars.&nbsp; But when I made up my mind (which
I did quickly, to be done with it) to call on the banker&rsquo;s wife,
almost the first thing she said to me was that the Marquis de Villarel
was &ldquo;amongst us.&rdquo;&nbsp; She said it joyously.&nbsp; If in
her husband&rsquo;s room at the bank legitimism was a mere unpopulated
principle, in her salon Legitimacy was nothing but persons.&nbsp; &ldquo;<i>Il
m&rsquo;a caus&eacute; beaucoup</i> <i>de vous</i>,&rdquo; she said
as if there had been a joke in it of which I ought to be proud.&nbsp;
I slunk away from her.&nbsp; I couldn&rsquo;t believe that the grandee
had talked to her about me.&nbsp; I had never felt myself part of the
great Royalist enterprise.&nbsp; I confess that I was so indifferent
to everything, so profoundly demoralized, that having once got into
that drawing-room I hadn&rsquo;t the strength to get away; though I
could see perfectly well my volatile hostess going from one to another
of her acquaintances in order to tell them with a little gesture, &ldquo;Look!&nbsp;
Over there&mdash;in that corner.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s the notorious Monsieur
George.&rdquo;&nbsp; At last she herself drove me out by coming to sit
by me vivaciously and going into ecstasies over &ldquo;<i>ce cher</i>
Monsieur Mills&rdquo; and that magnificent Lord X; and ultimately, with
a perfectly odious snap in the eyes and drop in the voice, dragging
in the name of Madame de Lastaola and asking me whether I was really
so much in the confidence of that astonishing person.&nbsp; &ldquo;<i>Vous
devez bien regretter son</i> <i>d&eacute;part pour Paris</i>,&rdquo;
she cooed, looking with affected bashfulness at her fan. . . . How I
got out of the room I really don&rsquo;t know.&nbsp; There was also
a staircase.&nbsp; I did not fall down it head first&mdash;that much
I am certain of; and I also remember that I wandered for a long time
about the seashore and went home very late, by the way of the Prado,
giving in passing a fearful glance at the Villa.&nbsp; It showed not
a gleam of light through the thin foliage of its trees.</p>
<p>I spent the next day with Dominic on board the little craft watching
the shipwrights at work on her deck.&nbsp; From the way they went about
their business those men must have been perfectly sane; and I felt greatly
refreshed by my company during the day.&nbsp; Dominic, too, devoted
himself to his business, but his taciturnity was sardonic.&nbsp; Then
I dropped in at the caf&eacute; and Madame L&eacute;onore&rsquo;s loud
&ldquo;Eh, Signorino, here you are at last!&rdquo; pleased me by its
resonant friendliness.&nbsp; But I found the sparkle of her black eyes
as she sat down for a moment opposite me while I was having my drink
rather difficult to bear.&nbsp; That man and that woman seemed to know
something.&nbsp; What did they know?&nbsp; At parting she pressed my
hand significantly.&nbsp; What did she mean?&nbsp; But I didn&rsquo;t
feel offended by these manifestations.&nbsp; The souls within these
people&rsquo;s breasts were not volatile in the manner of slightly scented
and inflated bladders.&nbsp; Neither had they the impervious skins which
seem the rule in the fine world that wants only to get on.&nbsp; Somehow
they had sensed that there was something wrong; and whatever impression
they might have formed for themselves I had the certitude that it would
not be for them a matter of grins at my expense.</p>
<p>That day on returning home I found Therese looking out for me, a
very unusual occurrence of late.&nbsp; She handed me a card bearing
the name of the Marquis de Villarel.</p>
<p>&ldquo;How did you come by this?&rdquo; I asked.&nbsp; She turned
on at once the tap of her volubility and I was not surprised to learn
that the grandee had not done such an extraordinary thing as to call
upon me in person.&nbsp; A young gentleman had brought it.&nbsp; Such
a nice young gentleman, she interjected with her piously ghoulish expression.&nbsp;
He was not very tall.&nbsp; He had a very smooth complexion (that woman
was incorrigible) and a nice, tiny black moustache.&nbsp; Therese was
sure that he must have been an officer <i>en las filas legitimas</i>.&nbsp;
With that notion in her head she had asked him about the welfare of
that other model of charm and elegance, Captain Blunt.&nbsp; To her
extreme surprise the charming young gentleman with beautiful eyes had
apparently never heard of Blunt.&nbsp; But he seemed very much interested
in his surroundings, looked all round the hall, noted the costly wood
of the door panels, paid some attention to the silver statuette holding
up the defective gas burner at the foot of the stairs, and, finally,
asked whether this was in very truth the house of the most excellent
Se&ntilde;ora Do&ntilde;a Rita de Lastaola.&nbsp; The question staggered
Therese, but with great presence of mind she answered the young gentleman
that she didn&rsquo;t know what excellence there was about it, but that
the house was her property, having been given to her by her own sister.&nbsp;
At this the young gentleman looked both puzzled and angry, turned on
his heel, and got back into his fiacre.&nbsp; Why should people be angry
with a poor girl who had never done a single reprehensible thing in
her whole life?</p>
<p>&ldquo;I suppose our Rita does tell people awful lies about her poor
sister.&rdquo;&nbsp; She sighed deeply (she had several kinds of sighs
and this was the hopeless kind) and added reflectively, &ldquo;Sin on
sin, wickedness on wickedness!&nbsp; And the longer she lives the worse
it will be.&nbsp; It would be better for our Rita to be dead.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I told &ldquo;Mademoiselle Therese&rdquo; that it was really impossible
to tell whether she was more stupid or atrocious; but I wasn&rsquo;t
really very much shocked.&nbsp; These outbursts did not signify anything
in Therese.&nbsp; One got used to them.&nbsp; They were merely the expression
of her rapacity and her righteousness; so that our conversation ended
by my asking her whether she had any dinner ready for me that evening.</p>
<p>&ldquo;What&rsquo;s the good of getting you anything to eat, my dear
young Monsieur,&rdquo; she quizzed me tenderly.&nbsp; &ldquo;You just
only peck like a little bird.&nbsp; Much better let me save the money
for you.&rdquo;&nbsp; It will show the super-terrestrial nature of my
misery when I say that I was quite surprised at Therese&rsquo;s view
of my appetite.&nbsp; Perhaps she was right.&nbsp; I certainly did not
know.&nbsp; I stared hard at her and in the end she admitted that the
dinner was in fact ready that very moment.</p>
<p>The new young gentleman within Therese&rsquo;s horizon didn&rsquo;t
surprise me very much.&nbsp; Villarel would travel with some sort of
suite, a couple of secretaries at least.&nbsp; I had heard enough of
Carlist headquarters to know that the man had been (very likely was
still) Captain General of the Royal Bodyguard and was a person of great
political (and domestic) influence at Court.&nbsp; The card was, under
its social form, a mere command to present myself before the grandee.&nbsp;
No Royalist devoted by conviction, as I must have appeared to him, could
have mistaken the meaning.&nbsp; I put the card in my pocket and after
dining or not dining&mdash;I really don&rsquo;t remember&mdash;spent
the evening smoking in the studio, pursuing thoughts of tenderness and
grief, visions exalting and cruel.&nbsp; From time to time I looked
at the dummy.&nbsp; I even got up once from the couch on which I had
been writhing like a worm and walked towards it as if to touch it, but
refrained, not from sudden shame but from sheer despair.&nbsp; By and
by Therese drifted in.&nbsp; It was then late and, I imagine, she was
on her way to bed.&nbsp; She looked the picture of cheerful, rustic
innocence and started propounding to me a conundrum which began with
the words:</p>
<p>&ldquo;If our Rita were to die before long . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>She didn&rsquo;t get any further because I had jumped up and frightened
her by shouting: &ldquo;Is she ill?&nbsp; What has happened?&nbsp; Have
you had a letter?&rdquo;</p>
<p>She had had a letter.&nbsp; I didn&rsquo;t ask her to show it to
me, though I daresay she would have done so.&nbsp; I had an idea that
there was no meaning in anything, at least no meaning that mattered.&nbsp;
But the interruption had made Therese apparently forget her sinister
conundrum.&nbsp; She observed me with her shrewd, unintelligent eyes
for a bit, and then with the fatuous remark about the Law being just
she left me to the horrors of the studio.&nbsp; I believe I went to
sleep there from sheer exhaustion.&nbsp; Some time during the night
I woke up chilled to the bone and in the dark.&nbsp; These were horrors
and no mistake.&nbsp; I dragged myself upstairs to bed past the indefatigable
statuette holding up the ever-miserable light.&nbsp; The black-and-white
hall was like an ice-house.</p>
<p>The main consideration which induced me to call on the Marquis of
Villarel was the fact that after all I was a discovery of Do&ntilde;a
Rita&rsquo;s, her own recruit.&nbsp; My fidelity and steadfastness had
been guaranteed by her and no one else.&nbsp; I couldn&rsquo;t bear
the idea of her being criticized by every empty-headed chatterer belonging
to the Cause.&nbsp; And as, apart from that, nothing mattered much,
why, then&mdash;I would get this over.</p>
<p>But it appeared that I had not reflected sufficiently on all the
consequences of that step.&nbsp; First of all the sight of the Villa
looking shabbily cheerful in the sunshine (but not containing her any
longer) was so perturbing that I very nearly went away from the gate.&nbsp;
Then when I got in after much hesitation&mdash;being admitted by the
man in the green baize apron who recognized me&mdash;the thought of
entering that room, out of which she was gone as completely as if she
had been dead, gave me such an emotion that I had to steady myself against
the table till the faintness was past.&nbsp; Yet I was irritated as
at a treason when the man in the baize apron instead of letting me into
the Pompeiian dining-room crossed the hall to another door not at all
in the Pompeiian style (more Louis XV rather&mdash;that Villa was like
a <i>Salade Russe</i> of styles) and introduced me into a big, light
room full of very modern furniture.&nbsp; The portrait <i>en pied</i>
of an officer in a sky-blue uniform hung on the end wall.&nbsp; The
officer had a small head, a black beard cut square, a robust body, and
leaned with gauntleted hands on the simple hilt of a straight sword.&nbsp;
That striking picture dominated a massive mahogany desk, and, in front
of this desk, a very roomy, tall-backed armchair of dark green velvet.&nbsp;
I thought I had been announced into an empty room till glancing along
the extremely loud carpet I detected a pair of feet under the armchair.</p>
<p>I advanced towards it and discovered a little man, who had made no
sound or movement till I came into his view, sunk deep in the green
velvet.&nbsp; He altered his position slowly and rested his hollow,
black, quietly burning eyes on my face in prolonged scrutiny.&nbsp;
I detected something comminatory in his yellow, emaciated countenance,
but I believe now he was simply startled by my youth.&nbsp; I bowed
profoundly.&nbsp; He extended a meagre little hand.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Take a chair, Don Jorge.&rdquo;</p>
<p>He was very small, frail, and thin, but his voice was not languid,
though he spoke hardly above his breath.&nbsp; Such was the envelope
and the voice of the fanatical soul belonging to the Grand-master of
Ceremonies and Captain General of the Bodyguard at the Headquarters
of the Legitimist Court, now detached on a special mission.&nbsp; He
was all fidelity, inflexibility, and sombre conviction, but like some
great saints he had very little body to keep all these merits in.</p>
<p>&ldquo;You are very young,&rdquo; he remarked, to begin with.&nbsp;
&ldquo;The matters on which I desired to converse with you are very
grave.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I was under the impression that your Excellency wished to
see me at once.&nbsp; But if your Excellency prefers it I will return
in, say, seven years&rsquo; time when I may perhaps be old enough to
talk about grave matters.&rdquo;</p>
<p>He didn&rsquo;t stir hand or foot and not even the quiver of an eyelid
proved that he had heard my shockingly unbecoming retort.</p>
<p>&ldquo;You have been recommended to us by a noble and loyal lady,
in whom His Majesty&mdash;whom God preserve&mdash;reposes an entire
confidence.&nbsp; God will reward her as she deserves and you, too,
Se&ntilde;or, according to the disposition you bring to this great work
which has the blessing (here he crossed himself) of our Holy Mother
the Church.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I suppose your Excellency understands that in all this I am
not looking for reward of any kind.&rdquo;</p>
<p>At this he made a faint, almost ethereal grimace.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I was speaking of the spiritual blessing which rewards the
service of religion and will be of benefit to your soul,&rdquo; he explained
with a slight touch of acidity.&nbsp; &ldquo;The other is perfectly
understood and your fidelity is taken for granted.&nbsp; His Majesty&mdash;whom
God preserve&mdash;has been already pleased to signify his satisfaction
with your services to the most noble and loyal Do&ntilde;a Rita by a
letter in his own hand.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Perhaps he expected me to acknowledge this announcement in some way,
speech, or bow, or something, because before my immobility he made a
slight movement in his chair which smacked of impatience.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
am afraid, Se&ntilde;or, that you are affected by the spirit of scoffing
and irreverence which pervades this unhappy country of France in which
both you and I are strangers, I believe.&nbsp; Are you a young man of
that sort?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I am a very good gun-runner, your Excellency,&rdquo; I answered
quietly.</p>
<p>He bowed his head gravely.&nbsp; &ldquo;We are aware.&nbsp; But I
was looking for the motives which ought to have their pure source in
religion.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I must confess frankly that I have not reflected on my motives,&rdquo;
I said.&nbsp; &ldquo;It is enough for me to know that they are not dishonourable
and that anybody can see they are not the motives of an adventurer seeking
some sordid advantage.&rdquo;</p>
<p>He had listened patiently and when he saw that there was nothing
more to come he ended the discussion.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Se&ntilde;or, we should reflect upon our motives.&nbsp; It
is salutary for our conscience and is recommended (he crossed himself)
by our Holy Mother the Church.&nbsp; I have here certain letters from
Paris on which I would consult your young sagacity which is accredited
to us by the most loyal Do&ntilde;a Rita.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The sound of that name on his lips was simply odious.&nbsp; I was
convinced that this man of forms and ceremonies and fanatical royalism
was perfectly heartless.&nbsp; Perhaps he reflected on his motives;
but it seemed to me that his conscience could be nothing else but a
monstrous thing which very few actions could disturb appreciably.&nbsp;
Yet for the credit of Do&ntilde;a Rita I did not withhold from him my
young sagacity.&nbsp; What he thought of it I don&rsquo;t know, The
matters we discussed were not of course of high policy, though from
the point of view of the war in the south they were important enough.&nbsp;
We agreed on certain things to be done, and finally, always out of regard
for Do&ntilde;a Rita&rsquo;s credit, I put myself generally at his disposition
or of any Carlist agent he would appoint in his place; for I did not
suppose that he would remain very long in Marseilles.&nbsp; He got out
of the chair laboriously, like a sick child might have done.&nbsp; The
audience was over but he noticed my eyes wandering to the portrait and
he said in his measured, breathed-out tones:</p>
<p>&ldquo;I owe the pleasure of having this admirable work here to the
gracious attention of Madame de Lastaola, who, knowing my attachment
to the royal person of my Master, has sent it down from Paris to greet
me in this house which has been given up for my occupation also through
her generosity to the Royal Cause.&nbsp; Unfortunately she, too, is
touched by the infection of this irreverent and unfaithful age.&nbsp;
But she is young yet.&nbsp; She is young.&rdquo;</p>
<p>These last words were pronounced in a strange tone of menace as though
he were supernaturally aware of some suspended disasters.&nbsp; With
his burning eyes he was the image of an Inquisitor with an unconquerable
soul in that frail body.&nbsp; But suddenly he dropped his eyelids and
the conversation finished as characteristically as it had begun: with
a slow, dismissing inclination of the head and an &ldquo;Adios, Se&ntilde;or&mdash;may
God guard you from sin.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER III</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>I must say that for the next three months I threw myself into my
unlawful trade with a sort of desperation, dogged and hopeless, like
a fairly decent fellow who takes deliberately to drink.&nbsp; The business
was getting dangerous.&nbsp; The bands in the South were not very well
organized, worked with no very definite plan, and now were beginning
to be pretty closely hunted.&nbsp; The arrangements for the transport
of supplies were going to pieces; our friends ashore were getting scared;
and it was no joke to find after a day of skilful dodging that there
was no one at the landing place and have to go out again with our compromising
cargo, to slink and lurk about the coast for another week or so, unable
to trust anybody and looking at every vessel we met with suspicion.&nbsp;
Once we were ambushed by a lot of &ldquo;rascally Carabineers,&rdquo;
as Dominic called them, who hid themselves among the rocks after disposing
a train of mules well in view on the seashore.&nbsp; Luckily, on evidence
which I could never understand, Dominic detected something suspicious.&nbsp;
Perhaps it was by virtue of some sixth sense that men born for unlawful
occupations may be gifted with.&nbsp; &ldquo;There is a smell of treachery
about this,&rdquo; he remarked suddenly, turning at his oar.&nbsp; (He
and I were pulling alone in a little boat to reconnoitre.)&nbsp; I couldn&rsquo;t
detect any smell and I regard to this day our escape on that occasion
as, properly speaking, miraculous.&nbsp; Surely some supernatural power
must have struck upwards the barrels of the Carabineers&rsquo; rifles,
for they missed us by yards.&nbsp; And as the Carabineers have the reputation
of shooting straight, Dominic, after swearing most horribly, ascribed
our escape to the particular guardian angel that looks after crazy young
gentlemen.&nbsp; Dominic believed in angels in a conventional way, but
laid no claim to having one of his own.&nbsp; Soon afterwards, while
sailing quietly at night, we found ourselves suddenly near a small coasting
vessel, also without lights, which all at once treated us to a volley
of rifle fire.&nbsp; Dominic&rsquo;s mighty and inspired yell: &ldquo;<i>A
plat ventre</i>!&rdquo; and also an unexpected roll to windward saved
all our lives.&nbsp; Nobody got a scratch.&nbsp; We were past in a moment
and in a breeze then blowing we had the heels of anything likely to
give us chase.&nbsp; But an hour afterwards, as we stood side by side
peering into the darkness, Dominic was heard to mutter through his teeth:
&ldquo;<i>Le m&eacute;tier se g&acirc;te</i>.&rdquo;&nbsp; I, too, had
the feeling that the trade, if not altogether spoiled, had seen its
best days.&nbsp; But I did not care.&nbsp; In fact, for my purpose it
was rather better, a more potent influence; like the stronger intoxication
of raw spirit.&nbsp; A volley in the dark after all was not such a bad
thing.&nbsp; Only a moment before we had received it, there, in that
calm night of the sea full of freshness and soft whispers, I had been
looking at an enchanting turn of a head in a faint light of its own,
the tawny hair with snared red sparks brushed up from the nape of a
white neck and held up on high by an arrow of gold feathered with brilliants
and with ruby gleams all along its shaft.&nbsp; That jewelled ornament,
which I remember often telling Rita was of a very Philistinish conception
(it was in some way connected with a tortoiseshell comb) occupied an
undue place in my memory, tried to come into some sort of significance
even in my sleep.&nbsp; Often I dreamed of her with white limbs shimmering
in the gloom like a nymph haunting a riot of foliage, and raising a
perfect round arm to take an arrow of gold out of her hair to throw
it at me by hand, like a dart.&nbsp; It came on, a whizzing trail of
light, but I always woke up before it struck.&nbsp; Always.&nbsp; Invariably.&nbsp;
It never had a chance.&nbsp; A volley of small arms was much more likely
to do the business some day&mdash;or night.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>At last came the day when everything slipped out of my grasp.&nbsp;
The little vessel, broken and gone like the only toy of a lonely child,
the sea itself, which had swallowed it, throwing me on shore after a
shipwreck that instead of a fair fight left in me the memory of a suicide.&nbsp;
It took away all that there was in me of independent life, but just
failed to take me out of the world, which looked then indeed like Another
World fit for no one else but unrepentant sinners.&nbsp; Even Dominic
failed me, his moral entity destroyed by what to him was a most tragic
ending of our common enterprise.&nbsp; The lurid swiftness of it all
was like a stunning thunder-clap&mdash;and, one evening, I found myself
weary, heartsore, my brain still dazed and with awe in my heart entering
Marseilles by way of the railway station, after many adventures, one
more disagreeable than another, involving privations, great exertions,
a lot of difficulties with all sorts of people who looked upon me evidently
more as a discreditable vagabond deserving the attentions of gendarmes
than a respectable (if crazy) young gentleman attended by a guardian
angel of his own.&nbsp; I must confess that I slunk out of the railway
station shunning its many lights as if, invariably, failure made an
outcast of a man.&nbsp; I hadn&rsquo;t any money in my pocket.&nbsp;
I hadn&rsquo;t even the bundle and the stick of a destitute wayfarer.&nbsp;
I was unshaven and unwashed, and my heart was faint within me.&nbsp;
My attire was such that I daren&rsquo;t approach the rank of fiacres,
where indeed I could perceive only two pairs of lamps, of which one
suddenly drove away while I looked.&nbsp; The other I gave up to the
fortunate of this earth.&nbsp; I didn&rsquo;t believe in my power of
persuasion.&nbsp; I had no powers.&nbsp; I slunk on and on, shivering
with cold, through the uproarious streets.&nbsp; Bedlam was loose in
them.&nbsp; It was the time of Carnival.</p>
<p>Small objects of no value have the secret of sticking to a man in
an astonishing way.&nbsp; I had nearly lost my liberty and even my life,
I had lost my ship, a money-belt full of gold, I had lost my companions,
had parted from my friend; my occupation, my only link with life, my
touch with the sea, my cap and jacket were gone&mdash;but a small penknife
and a latchkey had never parted company with me.&nbsp; With the latchkey
I opened the door of refuge.&nbsp; The hall wore its deaf-and-dumb air,
its black-and-white stillness.</p>
<p>The sickly gas-jet still struggled bravely with adversity at the
end of the raised silver arm of the statuette which had kept to a hair&rsquo;s
breadth its graceful pose on the toes of its left foot; and the staircase
lost itself in the shadows above.&nbsp; Therese was parsimonious with
the lights.&nbsp; To see all this was surprising.&nbsp; It seemed to
me that all the things I had known ought to have come down with a crash
at the moment of the final catastrophe on the Spanish coast.&nbsp; And
there was Therese herself descending the stairs, frightened but plucky.&nbsp;
Perhaps she thought that she would be murdered this time for certain.&nbsp;
She had a strange, unemotional conviction that the house was particularly
convenient for a crime.&nbsp; One could never get to the bottom of her
wild notions which she held with the stolidity of a peasant allied to
the outward serenity of a nun.&nbsp; She quaked all over as she came
down to her doom, but when she recognized me she got such a shock that
she sat down suddenly on the lowest step.&nbsp; She did not expect me
for another week at least, and, besides, she explained, the state I
was in made her blood take &ldquo;one turn.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Indeed my plight seemed either to have called out or else repressed
her true nature.&nbsp; But who had ever fathomed her nature!&nbsp; There
was none of her treacly volubility.&nbsp; There were none of her &ldquo;dear
young gentlemans&rdquo; and &ldquo;poor little hearts&rdquo; and references
to sin.&nbsp; In breathless silence she ran about the house getting
my room ready, lighting fires and gas-jets and even hauling at me to
help me up the stairs.&nbsp; Yes, she did lay hands on me for that charitable
purpose.&nbsp; They trembled.&nbsp; Her pale eyes hardly left my face.&nbsp;
&ldquo;What brought you here like this?&rdquo; she whispered once.</p>
<p>&ldquo;If I were to tell you, Mademoiselle Therese, you would see
there the hand of God.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She dropped the extra pillow she was carrying and then nearly fell
over it.&nbsp; &ldquo;Oh, dear heart,&rdquo; she murmured, and ran off
to the kitchen.</p>
<p>I sank into bed as into a cloud and Therese reappeared very misty
and offering me something in a cup.&nbsp; I believe it was hot milk,
and after I drank it she took the cup and stood looking at me fixedly.&nbsp;
I managed to say with difficulty: &ldquo;Go away,&rdquo; whereupon she
vanished as if by magic before the words were fairly out of my mouth.&nbsp;
Immediately afterwards the sunlight forced through the slats of the
jalousies its diffused glow, and Therese was there again as if by magic,
saying in a distant voice: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s midday&rdquo;. . . Youth
will have its rights.&nbsp; I had slept like a stone for seventeen hours.</p>
<p>I suppose an honourable bankrupt would know such an awakening: the
sense of catastrophe, the shrinking from the necessity of beginning
life again, the faint feeling that there are misfortunes which must
be paid for by a hanging.&nbsp; In the course of the morning Therese
informed me that the apartment usually occupied by Mr. Blunt was vacant
and added mysteriously that she intended to keep it vacant for a time,
because she had been instructed to do so.&nbsp; I couldn&rsquo;t imagine
why Blunt should wish to return to Marseilles.&nbsp; She told me also
that the house was empty except for myself and the two dancing girls
with their father.&nbsp; Those people had been away for some time as
the girls had engagements in some Italian summer theatres, but apparently
they had secured a re-engagement for the winter and were now back.&nbsp;
I let Therese talk because it kept my imagination from going to work
on subjects which, I had made up my mind, were no concern of mine.&nbsp;
But I went out early to perform an unpleasant task.&nbsp; It was only
proper that I should let the Carlist agent ensconced in the Prado Villa
know of the sudden ending of my activities.&nbsp; It would be grave
enough news for him, and I did not like to be its bearer for reasons
which were mainly personal.&nbsp; I resembled Dominic in so far that
I, too, disliked failure.</p>
<p>The Marquis of Villarel had of course gone long before.&nbsp; The
man who was there was another type of Carlist altogether, and his temperament
was that of a trader.&nbsp; He was the chief purveyor of the Legitimist
armies, an honest broker of stores, and enjoyed a great reputation for
cleverness.&nbsp; His important task kept him, of course, in France,
but his young wife, whose beauty and devotion to her King were well
known, represented him worthily at Headquarters, where his own appearances
were extremely rare.&nbsp; The dissimilar but united loyalties of those
two people had been rewarded by the title of baron and the ribbon of
some order or other.&nbsp; The gossip of the Legitimist circles appreciated
those favours with smiling indulgence.&nbsp; He was the man who had
been so distressed and frightened by Do&ntilde;a Rita&rsquo;s first
visit to Tolosa.&nbsp; He had an extreme regard for his wife.&nbsp;
And in that sphere of clashing arms and unceasing intrigue nobody would
have smiled then at his agitation if the man himself hadn&rsquo;t been
somewhat grotesque.</p>
<p>He must have been startled when I sent in my name, for he didn&rsquo;t
of course expect to see me yet&mdash;nobody expected me.&nbsp; He advanced
soft-footed down the room.&nbsp; With his jutting nose, flat-topped
skull and sable garments he recalled an obese raven, and when he heard
of the disaster he manifested his astonishment and concern in a most
plebeian manner by a low and expressive whistle.&nbsp; I, of course,
could not share his consternation.&nbsp; My feelings in that connection
were of a different order; but I was annoyed at his unintelligent stare.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I suppose,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;you will take it on yourself
to advise Do&ntilde;a Rita, who is greatly interested in this affair.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes, but I was given to understand that Madame de Lastaola
was to leave Paris either yesterday or this morning.&rdquo;</p>
<p>It was my turn to stare dumbly before I could manage to ask: &ldquo;For
Tolosa?&rdquo; in a very knowing tone.</p>
<p>Whether it was the droop of his head, play of light, or some other
subtle cause, his nose seemed to have grown perceptibly longer.</p>
<p>&ldquo;That, Se&ntilde;or, is the place where the news has got to
be conveyed without undue delay,&rdquo; he said in an agitated wheeze.&nbsp;
&ldquo;I could, of course, telegraph to our agent in Bayonne who would
find a messenger.&nbsp; But I don&rsquo;t like, I don&rsquo;t like!&nbsp;
The Alphonsists have agents, too, who hang about the telegraph offices.&nbsp;
It&rsquo;s no use letting the enemy get that news.&rdquo;</p>
<p>He was obviously very confused, unhappy, and trying to think of two
different things at once.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Sit down, Don George, sit down.&rdquo;&nbsp; He absolutely
forced a cigar on me.&nbsp; &ldquo;I am extremely distressed.&nbsp;
That&mdash;I mean Do&ntilde;a Rita is undoubtedly on her way to Tolosa.&nbsp;
This is very frightful.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I must say, however, that there was in the man some sense of duty.&nbsp;
He mastered his private fears.&nbsp; After some cogitation he murmured:
&ldquo;There is another way of getting the news to Headquarters.&nbsp;
Suppose you write me a formal letter just stating the facts, the unfortunate
facts, which I will be able to forward.&nbsp; There is an agent of ours,
a fellow I have been employing for purchasing supplies, a perfectly
honest man.&nbsp; He is coming here from the north by the ten o&rsquo;clock
train with some papers for me of a confidential nature.&nbsp; I was
rather embarrassed about it.&nbsp; It wouldn&rsquo;t do for him to get
into any sort of trouble.&nbsp; He is not very intelligent.&nbsp; I
wonder, Don George, whether you would consent to meet him at the station
and take care of him generally till to-morrow.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t like
the idea of him going about alone.&nbsp; Then, to-morrow night, we would
send him on to Tolosa by the west coast route, with the news; and then
he can also call on Do&ntilde;a Rita who will no doubt be already there.
. . .&rdquo;&nbsp; He became again distracted all in a moment and actually
went so far as to wring his fat hands.&nbsp; &ldquo;Oh, yes, she will
be there!&rdquo; he exclaimed in most pathetic accents.</p>
<p>I was not in the humour to smile at anything, and he must have been
satisfied with the gravity with which I beheld his extraordinary antics.&nbsp;
My mind was very far away.&nbsp; I thought: Why not?&nbsp; Why shouldn&rsquo;t
I also write a letter to Do&ntilde;a Rita, telling her that now nothing
stood in the way of my leaving Europe, because, really, the enterprise
couldn&rsquo;t be begun again; that things that come to an end can never
be begun again.&nbsp; The idea&mdash;never again&mdash;had complete
possession of my mind.&nbsp; I could think of nothing else.&nbsp; Yes,
I would write.&nbsp; The worthy Commissary General of the Carlist forces
was under the impression that I was looking at him; but what I had in
my eye was a jumble of butterfly women and winged youths and the soft
sheen of Argand lamps gleaming on an arrow of gold in the hair of a
head that seemed to evade my outstretched hand.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, yes,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;I have nothing to do and even
nothing to think of just now, I will meet your man as he gets off the
train at ten o&rsquo;clock to-night.&nbsp; What&rsquo;s he like?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, he has a black moustache and whiskers, and his chin is
shaved,&rdquo; said the newly-fledged baron cordially.&nbsp; &ldquo;A
very honest fellow.&nbsp; I always found him very useful.&nbsp; His
name is Jos&eacute; Ortega.&rdquo;</p>
<p>He was perfectly self-possessed now, and walking soft-footed accompanied
me to the door of the room.&nbsp; He shook hands with a melancholy smile.&nbsp;
&ldquo;This is a very frightful situation.&nbsp; My poor wife will be
quite distracted.&nbsp; She is such a patriot.&nbsp; Many thanks, Don
George.&nbsp; You relieve me greatly.&nbsp; The fellow is rather stupid
and rather bad-tempered.&nbsp; Queer creature, but very honest!&nbsp;
Oh, very honest!&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>It was the last evening of Carnival.&nbsp; The same masks, the same
yells, the same mad rushes, the same bedlam of disguised humanity blowing
about the streets in the great gusts of mistral that seemed to make
them dance like dead leaves on an earth where all joy is watched by
death.</p>
<p>It was exactly twelve months since that other carnival evening when
I had felt a little weary and a little lonely but at peace with all
mankind.&nbsp; It must have been&mdash;to a day or two.&nbsp; But on
this evening it wasn&rsquo;t merely loneliness that I felt.&nbsp; I
felt bereaved with a sense of a complete and universal loss in which
there was perhaps more resentment than mourning; as if the world had
not been taken away from me by an august decree but filched from my
innocence by an underhand fate at the very moment when it had disclosed
to my passion its warm and generous beauty.&nbsp; This consciousness
of universal loss had this advantage that it induced something resembling
a state of philosophic indifference.&nbsp; I walked up to the railway
station caring as little for the cold blasts of wind as though I had
been going to the scaffold.&nbsp; The delay of the train did not irritate
me in the least.&nbsp; I had finally made up my mind to write a letter
to Do&ntilde;a Rita; and this &ldquo;honest fellow&rdquo; for whom I
was waiting would take it to her.&nbsp; He would have no difficulty
in Tolosa in finding Madame de Lastaola.&nbsp; The General Headquarters,
which was also a Court, would be buzzing with comments on her presence.&nbsp;
Most likely that &ldquo;honest fellow&rdquo; was already known to Do&ntilde;a
Rita.&nbsp; For all I knew he might have been her discovery just as
I was.&nbsp; Probably I, too, was regarded as an &ldquo;honest fellow&rdquo;
enough; but stupid&mdash;since it was clear that my luck was not inexhaustible.&nbsp;
I hoped that while carrying my letter the man would not let himself
be caught by some Alphonsist guerilla who would, of course, shoot him.&nbsp;
But why should he?&nbsp; I, for instance, had escaped with my life from
a much more dangerous enterprise than merely passing through the frontier
line in charge of some trustworthy guide.&nbsp; I pictured the fellow
to myself trudging over the stony slopes and scrambling down wild ravines
with my letter to Do&ntilde;a Rita in his pocket.&nbsp; It would be
such a letter of farewell as no lover had ever written, no woman in
the world had ever read, since the beginning of love on earth.&nbsp;
It would be worthy of the woman.&nbsp; No experience, no memories, no
dead traditions of passion or language would inspire it.&nbsp; She herself
would be its sole inspiration.&nbsp; She would see her own image in
it as in a mirror; and perhaps then she would understand what it was
I was saying farewell to on the very threshold of my life.&nbsp; A breath
of vanity passed through my brain.&nbsp; A letter as moving as her mere
existence was moving would be something unique.&nbsp; I regretted I
was not a poet.</p>
<p>I woke up to a great noise of feet, a sudden influx of people through
the doors of the platform.&nbsp; I made out my man&rsquo;s whiskers
at once&mdash;not that they were enormous, but because I had been warned
beforehand of their existence by the excellent Commissary General.&nbsp;
At first I saw nothing of him but his whiskers: they were black and
cut somewhat in the shape of a shark&rsquo;s fin and so very fine that
the least breath of air animated them into a sort of playful restlessness.&nbsp;
The man&rsquo;s shoulders were hunched up and when he had made his way
clear of the throng of passengers I perceived him as an unhappy and
shivery being.&nbsp; Obviously he didn&rsquo;t expect to be met, because
when I murmured an enquiring, &ldquo;Se&ntilde;or Ortega?&rdquo; into
his ear he swerved away from me and nearly dropped a little handbag
he was carrying.&nbsp; His complexion was uniformly pale, his mouth
was red, but not engaging.&nbsp; His social status was not very definite.&nbsp;
He was wearing a dark blue overcoat of no particular cut, his aspect
had no relief; yet those restless side-whiskers flanking his red mouth
and the suspicious expression of his black eyes made him noticeable.&nbsp;
This I regretted the more because I caught sight of two skulking fellows,
looking very much like policemen in plain clothes, watching us from
a corner of the great hall.&nbsp; I hurried my man into a fiacre.&nbsp;
He had been travelling from early morning on cross-country lines and
after we got on terms a little confessed to being very hungry and cold.&nbsp;
His red lips trembled and I noted an underhand, cynical curiosity when
he had occasion to raise his eyes to my face.&nbsp; I was in some doubt
how to dispose of him but as we rolled on at a jog trot I came to the
conclusion that the best thing to do would be to organize for him a
shake-down in the studio.&nbsp; Obscure lodging houses are precisely
the places most looked after by the police, and even the best hotels
are bound to keep a register of arrivals.&nbsp; I was very anxious that
nothing should stop his projected mission of courier to headquarters.&nbsp;
As we passed various street corners where the mistral blast struck at
us fiercely I could feel him shivering by my side.&nbsp; However, Therese
would have lighted the iron stove in the studio before retiring for
the night, and, anyway, I would have to turn her out to make up a bed
on the couch.&nbsp; Service of the King!&nbsp; I must say that she was
amiable and didn&rsquo;t seem to mind anything one asked her to do.&nbsp;
Thus while the fellow slumbered on the divan I would sit upstairs in
my room setting down on paper those great words of passion and sorrow
that seethed in my brain and even must have forced themselves in murmurs
on to my lips, because the man by my side suddenly asked me: &ldquo;What
did you say?&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo; I answered, very much
surprised.&nbsp; In the shifting light of the street lamps he looked
the picture of bodily misery with his chattering teeth and his whiskers
blown back flat over his ears.&nbsp; But somehow he didn&rsquo;t arouse
my compassion.&nbsp; He was swearing to himself, in French and Spanish,
and I tried to soothe him by the assurance that we had not much farther
to go.&nbsp; &ldquo;I am starving,&rdquo; he remarked acidly, and I
felt a little compunction.&nbsp; Clearly, the first thing to do was
to feed him.&nbsp; We were then entering the Cannebi&egrave;re and as
I didn&rsquo;t care to show myself with him in the fashionable restaurant
where a new face (and such a face, too) would be remarked, I pulled
up the fiacre at the door of the Maison Dor&eacute;e.&nbsp; That was
more of a place of general resort where, in the multitude of casual
patrons, he would pass unnoticed.</p>
<p>For this last night of carnival the big house had decorated all its
balconies with rows of coloured paper lanterns right up to the roof.&nbsp;
I led the way to the grand salon, for as to private rooms they had been
all retained days before.&nbsp; There was a great crowd of people in
costume, but by a piece of good luck we managed to secure a little table
in a corner.&nbsp; The revellers, intent on their pleasure, paid no
attention to us.&nbsp; Se&ntilde;or Ortega trod on my heels and after
sitting down opposite me threw an ill-natured glance at the festive
scene.&nbsp; It might have been about half-past ten, then.</p>
<p>Two glasses of wine he drank one after another did not improve his
temper.&nbsp; He only ceased to shiver.&nbsp; After he had eaten something
it must have occurred to him that he had no reason to bear me a grudge
and he tried to assume a civil and even friendly manner.&nbsp; His mouth,
however, betrayed an abiding bitterness.&nbsp; I mean when he smiled.&nbsp;
In repose it was a very expressionless mouth, only it was too red to
be altogether ordinary.&nbsp; The whole of him was like that: the whiskers
too black, the hair too shiny, the forehead too white, the eyes too
mobile; and he lent you his attention with an air of eagerness which
made you uncomfortable.&nbsp; He seemed to expect you to give yourself
away by some unconsidered word that he would snap up with delight.&nbsp;
It was that peculiarity that somehow put me on my guard.&nbsp; I had
no idea who I was facing across the table and as a matter of fact I
did not care.&nbsp; All my impressions were blurred; and even the promptings
of my instinct were the haziest thing imaginable.&nbsp; Now and then
I had acute hallucinations of a woman with an arrow of gold in her hair.&nbsp;
This caused alternate moments of exaltation and depression from which
I tried to take refuge in conversation; but Se&ntilde;or Ortega was
not stimulating.&nbsp; He was preoccupied with personal matters.&nbsp;
When suddenly he asked me whether I knew why he had been called away
from his work (he had been buying supplies from peasants somewhere in
Central France), I answered that I didn&rsquo;t know what the reason
was originally, but I had an idea that the present intention was to
make of him a courier, bearing certain messages from Baron H. to the
Quartel Real in Tolosa.</p>
<p>He glared at me like a basilisk.&nbsp; &ldquo;And why have I been
met like this?&rdquo; he enquired with an air of being prepared to hear
a lie.</p>
<p>I explained that it was the Baron&rsquo;s wish, as a matter of prudence
and to avoid any possible trouble which might arise from enquiries by
the police.</p>
<p>He took it badly.&nbsp; &ldquo;What nonsense.&rdquo;&nbsp; He was&mdash;he
said&mdash;an employ&eacute; (for several years) of Hernandez Brothers
in Paris, an importing firm, and he was travelling on their business&mdash;as
he could prove.&nbsp; He dived into his side pocket and produced a handful
of folded papers of all sorts which he plunged back again instantly.</p>
<p>And even then I didn&rsquo;t know whom I had there, opposite me,
busy now devouring a slice of p&acirc;t&eacute; de foie gras.&nbsp;
Not in the least.&nbsp; It never entered my head.&nbsp; How could it?&nbsp;
The Rita that haunted me had no history; she was but the principle of
life charged with fatality.&nbsp; Her form was only a mirage of desire
decoying one step by step into despair.</p>
<p>Se&ntilde;or Ortega gulped down some more wine and suggested I should
tell him who I was.&nbsp; &ldquo;It&rsquo;s only right I should know,&rdquo;
he added.</p>
<p>This could not be gainsaid; and to a man connected with the Carlist
organization the shortest way was to introduce myself as that &ldquo;Monsieur
George&rdquo; of whom he had probably heard.</p>
<p>He leaned far over the table, till his very breast-bone was over
the edge, as though his eyes had been stilettos and he wanted to drive
them home into my brain.&nbsp; It was only much later that I understood
how near death I had been at that moment.&nbsp; But the knives on the
tablecloth were the usual restaurant knives with rounded ends and about
as deadly as pieces of hoop-iron.&nbsp; Perhaps in the very gust of
his fury he remembered what a French restaurant knife is like and something
sane within him made him give up the sudden project of cutting my heart
out where I sat.&nbsp; For it could have been nothing but a sudden impulse.&nbsp;
His settled purpose was quite other.&nbsp; It was not my heart that
he was after.&nbsp; His fingers indeed were groping amongst the knife
handles by the side of his plate but what captivated my attention for
a moment were his red lips which were formed into an odd, sly, insinuating
smile.&nbsp; Heard!&nbsp; To be sure he had heard!&nbsp; The chief of
the great arms smuggling organization!</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;that&rsquo;s giving me too much
importance.&rdquo;&nbsp; The person responsible and whom I looked upon
as chief of all the business was, as he might have heard, too, a certain
noble and loyal lady.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I am as noble as she is,&rdquo; he snapped peevishly, and
I put him down at once as a very offensive beast.&nbsp; &ldquo;And as
to being loyal, what is that?&nbsp; It is being truthful!&nbsp; It is
being faithful!&nbsp; I know all about her.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I managed to preserve an air of perfect unconcern.&nbsp; He wasn&rsquo;t
a fellow to whom one could talk of Do&ntilde;a Rita.</p>
<p>&ldquo;You are a Basque,&rdquo; I said.</p>
<p>He admitted rather contemptuously that he was a Basque and even then
the truth did not dawn upon me.&nbsp; I suppose that with the hidden
egoism of a lover I was thinking of myself, of myself alone in relation
to Do&ntilde;a Rita, not of Do&ntilde;a Rita herself.&nbsp; He, too,
obviously.&nbsp; He said: &ldquo;I am an educated man, but I know her
people, all peasants.&nbsp; There is a sister, an uncle, a priest, a
peasant, too, and perfectly unenlightened.&nbsp; One can&rsquo;t expect
much from a priest (I am a free-thinker of course), but he is really
too bad, more like a brute beast.&nbsp; As to all her people, mostly
dead now, they never were of any account.&nbsp; There was a little land,
but they were always working on other people&rsquo;s farms, a barefooted
gang, a starved lot.&nbsp; I ought to know because we are distant relations.&nbsp;
Twentieth cousins or something of the sort.&nbsp; Yes, I am related
to that most loyal lady.&nbsp; And what is she, after all, but a Parisian
woman with innumerable lovers, as I have been told.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think your information is very correct,&rdquo;
I said, affecting to yawn slightly.&nbsp; &ldquo;This is mere gossip
of the gutter and I am surprised at you, who really know nothing about
it&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
<p>But the disgusting animal had fallen into a brown study.&nbsp; The
hair of his very whiskers was perfectly still.&nbsp; I had now given
up all idea of the letter to Rita.&nbsp; Suddenly he spoke again:</p>
<p>&ldquo;Women are the origin of all evil.&nbsp; One should never trust
them.&nbsp; They have no honour.&nbsp; No honour!&rdquo; he repeated,
striking his breast with his closed fist on which the knuckles stood
out very white.&nbsp; &ldquo;I left my village many years ago and of
course I am perfectly satisfied with my position and I don&rsquo;t know
why I should trouble my head about this loyal lady.&nbsp; I suppose
that&rsquo;s the way women get on in the world.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I felt convinced that he was no proper person to be a messenger to
headquarters.&nbsp; He struck me as altogether untrustworthy and perhaps
not quite sane.&nbsp; This was confirmed by him saying suddenly with
no visible connection and as if it had been forced from him by some
agonizing process: &ldquo;I was a boy once,&rdquo; and then stopping
dead short with a smile.&nbsp; He had a smile that frightened one by
its association of malice and anguish.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Will you have anything more to eat?&rdquo; I asked.</p>
<p>He declined dully.&nbsp; He had had enough.&nbsp; But he drained
the last of a bottle into his glass and accepted a cigar which I offered
him.&nbsp; While he was lighting it I had a sort of confused impression
that he wasn&rsquo;t such a stranger to me as I had assumed he was;
and yet, on the other hand, I was perfectly certain I had never seen
him before.&nbsp; Next moment I felt that I could have knocked him down
if he hadn&rsquo;t looked so amazingly unhappy, while he came out with
the astounding question: &ldquo;Se&ntilde;or, have you ever been a lover
in your young days?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo; I asked.&nbsp; &ldquo;How old do
you think I am?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s true,&rdquo; he said, gazing at me in a way in
which the damned gaze out of their cauldrons of boiling pitch at some
soul walking scot free in the place of torment.&nbsp; &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
true, you don&rsquo;t seem to have anything on your mind.&rdquo;&nbsp;
He assumed an air of ease, throwing an arm over the back of his chair
and blowing the smoke through the gash of his twisted red mouth.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Tell me,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;between men, you know, has this&mdash;wonderful
celebrity&mdash;what does she call herself?&nbsp; How long has she been
your mistress?&rdquo;</p>
<p>I reflected rapidly that if I knocked him over, chair and all, by
a sudden blow from the shoulder it would bring about infinite complications
beginning with a visit to the Commissaire de Police on night-duty, and
ending in God knows what scandal and disclosures of political kind;
because there was no telling what, or how much, this outrageous brute
might choose to say and how many people he might not involve in a most
undesirable publicity.&nbsp; He was smoking his cigar with a poignantly
mocking air and not even looking at me.&nbsp; One can&rsquo;t hit like
that a man who isn&rsquo;t even looking at one; and then, just as I
was looking at him swinging his leg with a caustic smile and stony eyes,
I felt sorry for the creature.&nbsp; It was only his body that was there
in that chair.&nbsp; It was manifest to me that his soul was absent
in some hell of its own.&nbsp; At that moment I attained the knowledge
of who it was I had before me.&nbsp; This was the man of whom both Do&ntilde;a
Rita and Rose were so much afraid.&nbsp; It remained then for me to
look after him for the night and then arrange with Baron H. that he
should be sent away the very next day&mdash;and anywhere but to Tolosa.&nbsp;
Yes, evidently, I mustn&rsquo;t lose sight of him.&nbsp; I proposed
in the calmest tone that we should go on where he could get his much-needed
rest.&nbsp; He rose with alacrity, picked up his little hand-bag, and,
walking out before me, no doubt looked a very ordinary person to all
eyes but mine.&nbsp; It was then past eleven, not much, because we had
not been in that restaurant quite an hour, but the routine of the town&rsquo;s
night-life being upset during the Carnival the usual row of fiacres
outside the Maison Dor&eacute;e was not there; in fact, there were very
few carriages about.&nbsp; Perhaps the coachmen had assumed Pierrot
costumes and were rushing about the streets on foot yelling with the
rest of the population.&nbsp; &ldquo;We will have to walk,&rdquo; I
said after a while.&mdash;&ldquo;Oh, yes, let us walk,&rdquo; assented
Se&ntilde;or Ortega, &ldquo;or I will be frozen here.&rdquo;&nbsp; It
was like a plaint of unutterable wretchedness.&nbsp; I had a fancy that
all his natural heat had abandoned his limbs and gone to his brain.&nbsp;
It was otherwise with me; my head was cool but I didn&rsquo;t find the
night really so very cold.&nbsp; We stepped out briskly side by side.&nbsp;
My lucid thinking was, as it were, enveloped by the wide shouting of
the consecrated Carnival gaiety.&nbsp; I have heard many noises since,
but nothing that gave me such an intimate impression of the savage instincts
hidden in the breast of mankind; these yells of festivity suggested
agonizing fear, rage of murder, ferocity of lust, and the irremediable
joylessness of human condition: yet they were emitted by people who
were convinced that they were amusing themselves supremely, traditionally,
with the sanction of ages, with the approval of their conscience&mdash;and
no mistake about it whatever!&nbsp; Our appearance, the soberness of
our gait made us conspicuous.&nbsp; Once or twice, by common inspiration,
masks rushed forward and forming a circle danced round us uttering discordant
shouts of derision; for we were an outrage to the peculiar proprieties
of the hour, and besides we were obviously lonely and defenceless.&nbsp;
On those occasions there was nothing for it but to stand still till
the flurry was over.&nbsp; My companion, however, would stamp his feet
with rage, and I must admit that I myself regretted not having provided
for our wearing a couple of false noses, which would have been enough
to placate the just resentment of those people.&nbsp; We might have
also joined in the dance, but for some reason or other it didn&rsquo;t
occur to us; and I heard once a high, clear woman&rsquo;s voice stigmatizing
us for a &ldquo;species of swelled heads&rdquo; (<i>esp&egrave;ce d&rsquo;enfl&eacute;s</i>).&nbsp;
We proceeded sedately, my companion muttered with rage, and I was able
to resume my thinking.&nbsp; It was based on the deep persuasion that
the man at my side was insane with quite another than Carnivalesque
lunacy which comes on at one stated time of the year.&nbsp; He was fundamentally
mad, though not perhaps completely; which of course made him all the
greater, I won&rsquo;t say danger but, nuisance.</p>
<p>I remember once a young doctor expounding the theory that most catastrophes
in family circles, surprising episodes in public affairs and disasters
in private life, had their origin in the fact that the world was full
of half-mad people.&nbsp; He asserted that they were the real majority.&nbsp;
When asked whether he considered himself as belonging to the majority,
he said frankly that he didn&rsquo;t think so; unless the folly of voicing
this view in a company, so utterly unable to appreciate all its horror,
could be regarded as the first symptom of his own fate.&nbsp; We shouted
down him and his theory, but there is no doubt that it had thrown a
chill on the gaiety of our gathering.</p>
<p>We had now entered a quieter quarter of the town and Se&ntilde;or
Ortega had ceased his muttering.&nbsp; For myself I had not the slightest
doubt of my own sanity.&nbsp; It was proved to me by the way I could
apply my intelligence to the problem of what was to be done with Se&ntilde;or
Ortega.&nbsp; Generally, he was unfit to be trusted with any mission
whatever.&nbsp; The unstability of his temper was sure to get him into
a scrape.&nbsp; Of course carrying a letter to Headquarters was not
a very complicated matter; and as to that I would have trusted willingly
a properly trained dog.&nbsp; My private letter to Do&ntilde;a Rita,
the wonderful, the unique letter of farewell, I had given up for the
present.&nbsp; Naturally I thought of the Ortega problem mainly in the
terms of Do&ntilde;a Rita&rsquo;s safety.&nbsp; Her image presided at
every council, at every conflict of my mind, and dominated every faculty
of my senses.&nbsp; It floated before my eyes, it touched my elbow,
it guarded my right side and my left side; my ears seemed to catch the
sound of her footsteps behind me, she enveloped me with passing whiffs
of warmth and perfume, with filmy touches of the hair on my face.&nbsp;
She penetrated me, my head was full of her . . . And his head, too,
I thought suddenly with a side glance at my companion.&nbsp; He walked
quietly with hunched-up shoulders carrying his little hand-bag and he
looked the most commonplace figure imaginable.</p>
<p>Yes.&nbsp; There was between us a most horrible fellowship; the association
of his crazy torture with the sublime suffering of my passion.&nbsp;
We hadn&rsquo;t been a quarter of an hour together when that woman had
surged up fatally between us; between this miserable wretch and myself.&nbsp;
We were haunted by the same image.&nbsp; But I was sane!&nbsp; I was
sane!&nbsp; Not because I was certain that the fellow must not be allowed
to go to Tolosa, but because I was perfectly alive to the difficulty
of stopping him from going there, since the decision was absolutely
in the hands of Baron H.</p>
<p>If I were to go early in the morning and tell that fat, bilious man:
&ldquo;Look here, your Ortega&rsquo;s mad,&rdquo; he would certainly
think at once that I was, get very frightened, and . . . one couldn&rsquo;t
tell what course he would take.&nbsp; He would eliminate me somehow
out of the affair.&nbsp; And yet I could not let the fellow proceed
to where Do&ntilde;a Rita was, because, obviously, he had been molesting
her, had filled her with uneasiness and even alarm, was an unhappy element
and a disturbing influence in her life&mdash;incredible as the thing
appeared!&nbsp; I couldn&rsquo;t let him go on to make himself a worry
and a nuisance, drive her out from a town in which she wished to be
(for whatever reason) and perhaps start some explosive scandal.&nbsp;
And that girl Rose seemed to fear something graver even than a scandal.&nbsp;
But if I were to explain the matter fully to H. he would simply rejoice
in his heart.&nbsp; Nothing would please him more than to have Do&ntilde;a
Rita driven out of Tolosa.&nbsp; What a relief from his anxieties (and
his wife&rsquo;s, too); and if I were to go further, if I even went
so far as to hint at the fears which Rose had not been able to conceal
from me, why then&mdash;I went on thinking coldly with a stoical rejection
of the most elementary faith in mankind&rsquo;s rectitude&mdash;why
then, that accommodating husband would simply let the ominous messenger
have his chance.&nbsp; He would see there only his natural anxieties
being laid to rest for ever.&nbsp; Horrible?&nbsp; Yes.&nbsp; But I
could not take the risk.&nbsp; In a twelvemonth I had travelled a long
way in my mistrust of mankind.</p>
<p>We paced on steadily.&nbsp; I thought: &ldquo;How on earth am I going
to stop you?&rdquo;&nbsp; Had this arisen only a month before, when
I had the means at hand and Dominic to confide in, I would have simply
kidnapped the fellow.&nbsp; A little trip to sea would not have done
Se&ntilde;or Ortega any harm; though no doubt it would have been abhorrent
to his feelings.&nbsp; But now I had not the means.&nbsp; I couldn&rsquo;t
even tell where my poor Dominic was hiding his diminished head.</p>
<p>Again I glanced at him sideways.&nbsp; I was the taller of the two
and as it happened I met in the light of the street lamp his own stealthy
glance directed up at me with an agonized expression, an expression
that made me fancy I could see the man&rsquo;s very soul writhing in
his body like an impaled worm.&nbsp; In spite of my utter inexperience
I had some notion of the images that rushed into his mind at the sight
of any man who had approached Do&ntilde;a Rita.&nbsp; It was enough
to awaken in any human being a movement of horrified compassion; but
my pity went out not to him but to Do&ntilde;a Rita.&nbsp; It was for
her that I felt sorry; I pitied her for having that damned soul on her
track.&nbsp; I pitied her with tenderness and indignation, as if this
had been both a danger and a dishonour.</p>
<p>I don&rsquo;t mean to say that those thoughts passed through my head
consciously.&nbsp; I had only the resultant, settled feeling.&nbsp;
I had, however, a thought, too.&nbsp; It came on me suddenly, and I
asked myself with rage and astonishment: &ldquo;Must I then kill that
brute?&rdquo;&nbsp; There didn&rsquo;t seem to be any alternative.&nbsp;
Between him and Do&ntilde;a Rita I couldn&rsquo;t hesitate.&nbsp; I
believe I gave a slight laugh of desperation.&nbsp; The suddenness of
this sinister conclusion had in it something comic and unbelievable.&nbsp;
It loosened my grip on my mental processes.&nbsp; A Latin tag came into
my head about the facile descent into the abyss.&nbsp; I marvelled at
its aptness, and also that it should have come to me so pat.&nbsp; But
I believe now that it was suggested simply by the actual declivity of
the street of the Consuls which lies on a gentle slope.&nbsp; We had
just turned the corner.&nbsp; All the houses were dark and in a perspective
of complete solitude our two shadows dodged and wheeled about our feet.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Here we are,&rdquo; I said.</p>
<p>He was an extraordinarily chilly devil.&nbsp; When we stopped I could
hear his teeth chattering again.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t know what came
over me, I had a sort of nervous fit, was incapable of finding my pockets,
let alone the latchkey.&nbsp; I had the illusion of a narrow streak
of light on the wall of the house as if it had been cracked.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
hope we will be able to get in,&rdquo; I murmured.</p>
<p>Se&ntilde;or Ortega stood waiting patiently with his handbag, like
a rescued wayfarer.&nbsp; &ldquo;But you live in this house, don&rsquo;t
you?&rdquo; he observed.</p>
<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; I said, without hesitation.&nbsp; I didn&rsquo;t
know how that man would behave if he were aware that I was staying under
the same roof.&nbsp; He was half mad.&nbsp; He might want to talk all
night, try crazily to invade my privacy.&nbsp; How could I tell?&nbsp;
Moreover, I wasn&rsquo;t so sure that I would remain in the house.&nbsp;
I had some notion of going out again and walking up and down the street
of the Consuls till daylight.&nbsp; &ldquo;No, an absent friend lets
me use . . . I had that latchkey this morning . . . Ah! here it is.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I let him go in first.&nbsp; The sickly gas flame was there on duty,
undaunted, waiting for the end of the world to come and put it out.&nbsp;
I think that the black-and-white hall surprised Ortega.&nbsp; I had
closed the front door without noise and stood for a moment listening,
while he glanced about furtively.&nbsp; There were only two other doors
in the hall, right and left.&nbsp; Their panels of ebony were decorated
with bronze applications in the centre.&nbsp; The one on the left was
of course Blunt&rsquo;s door.&nbsp; As the passage leading beyond it
was dark at the further end I took Se&ntilde;or Ortega by the hand and
led him along, unresisting, like a child.&nbsp; For some reason or other
I moved on tip-toe and he followed my example.&nbsp; The light and the
warmth of the studio impressed him favourably; he laid down his little
bag, rubbed his hands together, and produced a smile of satisfaction;
but it was such a smile as a totally ruined man would perhaps force
on his lips, or a man condemned to a short shrift by his doctor.&nbsp;
I begged him to make himself at home and said that I would go at once
and hunt up the woman of the house who would make him up a bed on the
big couch there.&nbsp; He hardly listened to what I said.&nbsp; What
were all those things to him!&nbsp; He knew that his destiny was to
sleep on a bed of thorns, to feed on adders.&nbsp; But he tried to show
a sort of polite interest.&nbsp; He asked: &ldquo;What is this place?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;It used to belong to a painter,&rdquo;&nbsp; I mumbled.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Ah, your absent friend,&rdquo; he said, making a wry mouth.&nbsp;
&ldquo;I detest all those artists, and all those writers, and all politicos
who are thieves; and I would go even farther and higher, laying a curse
on all idle lovers of women.&nbsp; You think perhaps I am a Royalist?&nbsp;
No.&nbsp; If there was anybody in heaven or hell to pray to I would
pray for a revolution&mdash;a red revolution everywhere.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You astonish me,&rdquo; I said, just to say something.</p>
<p>&ldquo;No!&nbsp; But there are half a dozen people in the world with
whom I would like to settle accounts.&nbsp; One could shoot them like
partridges and no questions asked.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s what revolution
would mean to me.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a beautifully simple view,&rdquo; I said.&nbsp;
&ldquo;I imagine you are not the only one who holds it; but I really
must look after your comforts.&nbsp; You mustn&rsquo;t forget that we
have to see Baron H. early to-morrow morning.&rdquo;&nbsp; And I went
out quietly into the passage wondering in what part of the house Therese
had elected to sleep that night.&nbsp; But, lo and behold, when I got
to the foot of the stairs there was Therese coming down from the upper
regions in her nightgown, like a sleep-walker.&nbsp; However, it wasn&rsquo;t
that, because, before I could exclaim, she vanished off the first floor
landing like a streak of white mist and without the slightest sound.&nbsp;
Her attire made it perfectly clear that she could not have heard us
coming in.&nbsp; In fact, she must have been certain that the house
was empty, because she was as well aware as myself that the Italian
girls after their work at the opera were going to a masked ball to dance
for their own amusement, attended of course by their conscientious father.&nbsp;
But what thought, need, or sudden impulse had driven Therese out of
bed like this was something I couldn&rsquo;t conceive.</p>
<p>I didn&rsquo;t call out after her.&nbsp; I felt sure that she would
return.&nbsp; I went up slowly to the first floor and met her coming
down again, this time carrying a lighted candle.&nbsp; She had managed
to make herself presentable in an extraordinarily short time.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, my dear young Monsieur, you have given me a fright.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes.&nbsp; And I nearly fainted, too,&rdquo; I said.&nbsp;
&ldquo;You looked perfectly awful.&nbsp; What&rsquo;s the matter with
you?&nbsp; Are you ill?&rdquo;</p>
<p>She had lighted by then the gas on the landing and I must say that
I had never seen exactly that manner of face on her before.&nbsp; She
wriggled, confused and shifty-eyed, before me; but I ascribed this behaviour
to her shocked modesty and without troubling myself any more about her
feelings I informed her that there was a Carlist downstairs who must
be put up for the night.&nbsp; Most unexpectedly she betrayed a ridiculous
consternation, but only for a moment.&nbsp; Then she assumed at once
that I would give him hospitality upstairs where there was a camp-bedstead
in my dressing-room.&nbsp; I said:</p>
<p>&ldquo;No.&nbsp; Give him a shake-down in the studio, where he is
now.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s warm in there.&nbsp; And remember! I charge you
strictly not to let him know that I sleep in this house.&nbsp; In fact,
I don&rsquo;t know myself that I will; I have certain matters to attend
to this very night.&nbsp; You will also have to serve him his coffee
in the morning.&nbsp; I will take him away before ten o&rsquo;clock.&rdquo;</p>
<p>All this seemed to impress her more than I had expected.&nbsp; As
usual when she felt curious, or in some other way excited, she assumed
a saintly, detached expression, and asked:</p>
<p>&ldquo;The dear gentleman is your friend, I suppose?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I only know he is a Spaniard and a Carlist,&rdquo; I said:
&ldquo;and that ought to be enough for you.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Instead of the usual effusive exclamations she murmured: &ldquo;Dear
me, dear me,&rdquo; and departed upstairs with the candle to get together
a few blankets and pillows, I suppose.&nbsp; As for me I walked quietly
downstairs on my way to the studio.&nbsp; I had a curious sensation
that I was acting in a preordained manner, that life was not at all
what I had thought it to be, or else that I had been altogether changed
sometime during the day, and that I was a different person from the
man whom I remembered getting out of my bed in the morning.</p>
<p>Also feelings had altered all their values.&nbsp; The words, too,
had become strange.&nbsp; It was only the inanimate surroundings that
remained what they had always been.&nbsp; For instance the studio. .
. .</p>
<p>During my absence Se&ntilde;or Ortega had taken off his coat and
I found him as it were in the air, sitting in his shirt sleeves on a
chair which he had taken pains to place in the very middle of the floor.&nbsp;
I repressed an absurd impulse to walk round him as though he had been
some sort of exhibit.&nbsp; His hands were spread over his knees and
he looked perfectly insensible.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t mean strange, or
ghastly, or wooden, but just insensible&mdash;like an exhibit.&nbsp;
And that effect persisted even after he raised his black suspicious
eyes to my face.&nbsp; He lowered them almost at once.&nbsp; It was
very mechanical.&nbsp; I gave him up and became rather concerned about
myself.&nbsp; My thought was that I had better get out of that before
any more queer notions came into my head.&nbsp; So I only remained long
enough to tell him that the woman of the house was bringing down some
bedding and that I hoped that he would have a good night&rsquo;s rest.&nbsp;
And directly I spoke it struck me that this was the most extraordinary
speech that ever was addressed to a figure of that sort.&nbsp; He, however,
did not seem startled by it or moved in any way.&nbsp; He simply said:</p>
<p>&ldquo;Thank you.&rdquo;</p>
<p>In the darkest part of the long passage outside I met Therese with
her arms full of pillows and blankets.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER V</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Coming out of the bright light of the studio I didn&rsquo;t make
out Therese very distinctly.&nbsp; She, however, having groped in dark
cupboards, must have had her pupils sufficiently dilated to have seen
that I had my hat on my head.&nbsp; This has its importance because
after what I had said to her upstairs it must have convinced her that
I was going out on some midnight business.&nbsp; I passed her without
a word and heard behind me the door of the studio close with an unexpected
crash.&nbsp; It strikes me now that under the circumstances I might
have without shame gone back to listen at the keyhole.&nbsp; But truth
to say the association of events was not so clear in my mind as it may
be to the reader of this story.&nbsp; Neither were the exact connections
of persons present to my mind.&nbsp; And, besides, one doesn&rsquo;t
listen at a keyhole but in pursuance of some plan; unless one is afflicted
by a vulgar and fatuous curiosity.&nbsp; But that vice is not in my
character.&nbsp; As to plan, I had none.&nbsp; I moved along the passage
between the dead wall and the black-and-white marble elevation of the
staircase with hushed footsteps, as though there had been a mortally
sick person somewhere in the house.&nbsp; And the only person that could
have answered to that description was Se&ntilde;or Ortega.&nbsp; I moved
on, stealthy, absorbed, undecided; asking myself earnestly: &ldquo;What
on earth am I going to do with him?&rdquo;&nbsp; That exclusive preoccupation
of my mind was as dangerous to Se&ntilde;or Ortega as typhoid fever
would have been.&nbsp; It strikes me that this comparison is very exact.&nbsp;
People recover from typhoid fever, but generally the chance is considered
poor.&nbsp; This was precisely his case.&nbsp; His chance was poor;
though I had no more animosity towards him than a virulent disease has
against the victim it lays low.&nbsp; He really would have nothing to
reproach me with; he had run up against me, unwittingly, as a man enters
an infected place, and now he was very ill, very ill indeed.&nbsp; No,
I had no plans against him.&nbsp; I had only the feeling that he was
in mortal danger.</p>
<p>I believe that men of the most daring character (and I make no claim
to it) often do shrink from the logical processes of thought.&nbsp;
It is only the devil, they say, that loves logic.&nbsp; But I was not
a devil.&nbsp; I was not even a victim of the devil.&nbsp; It was only
that I had given up the direction of my intelligence before the problem;
or rather that the problem had dispossessed my intelligence and reigned
in its stead side by side with a superstitious awe.&nbsp; A dreadful
order seemed to lurk in the darkest shadows of life.&nbsp; The madness
of that Carlist with the soul of a Jacobin, the vile fears of Baron
H., that excellent organizer of supplies, the contact of their two ferocious
stupidities, and last, by a remote disaster at sea, my love brought
into direct contact with the situation: all that was enough to make
one shudder&mdash;not at the chance, but at the design.</p>
<p>For it was my love that was called upon to act here, and nothing
else.&nbsp; And love which elevates us above all safeguards, above restraining
principles, above all littlenesses of self-possession, yet keeps its
feet always firmly on earth, remains marvellously practical in its suggestions.</p>
<p>I discovered that however much I had imagined I had given up Rita,
that whatever agonies I had gone through, my hope of her had never been
lost.&nbsp; Plucked out, stamped down, torn to shreds, it had remained
with me secret, intact, invincible.&nbsp; Before the danger of the situation
it sprang, full of life, up in arms&mdash;the undying child of immortal
love.&nbsp; What incited me was independent of honour and compassion;
it was the prompting of a love supreme, practical, remorseless in its
aim; it was the practical thought that no woman need be counted as lost
for ever, unless she be dead!</p>
<p>This excluded for the moment all considerations of ways and means
and risks and difficulties.&nbsp; Its tremendous intensity robbed it
of all direction and left me adrift in the big black-and-white hall
as on a silent sea.&nbsp; It was not, properly speaking, irresolution.&nbsp;
It was merely hesitation as to the next immediate step, and that step
even of no great importance: hesitation merely as to the best way I
could spend the rest of the night.&nbsp; I didn&rsquo;t think further
forward for many reasons, more or less optimistic, but mainly because
I have no homicidal vein in my composition.&nbsp; The disposition to
gloat over homicide was in that miserable creature in the studio, the
potential Jacobin; in that confounded buyer of agricultural produce,
the punctual employ&eacute; of Hernandez Brothers, the jealous wretch
with an obscene tongue and an imagination of the same kind to drive
him mad.&nbsp; I thought of him without pity but also without contempt.&nbsp;
I reflected that there were no means of sending a warning to Do&ntilde;a
Rita in Tolosa; for of course no postal communication existed with the
Headquarters.&nbsp; And moreover what would a warning be worth in this
particular case, supposing it would reach her, that she would believe
it, and that she would know what to do?&nbsp; How could I communicate
to another that certitude which was in my mind, the more absolute because
without proofs that one could produce?</p>
<p>The last expression of Rose&rsquo;s distress rang again in my ears:
&ldquo;Madame has no friends.&nbsp; Not one!&rdquo; and I saw Do&ntilde;a
Rita&rsquo;s complete loneliness beset by all sorts of insincerities,
surrounded by pitfalls; her greatest dangers within herself, in her
generosity, in her fears, in her courage, too.&nbsp; What I had to do
first of all was to stop that wretch at all costs.&nbsp; I became aware
of a great mistrust of Therese.&nbsp; I didn&rsquo;t want her to find
me in the hall, but I was reluctant to go upstairs to my rooms from
an unreasonable feeling that there I would be too much out of the way;
not sufficiently on the spot.&nbsp; There was the alternative of a live-long
night of watching outside, before the dark front of the house.&nbsp;
It was a most distasteful prospect.&nbsp; And then it occurred to me
that Blunt&rsquo;s former room would be an extremely good place to keep
a watch from.&nbsp; I knew that room.&nbsp; When Henry All&egrave;gre
gave the house to Rita in the early days (long before he made his will)
he had planned a complete renovation and this room had been meant for
the drawing-room.&nbsp; Furniture had been made for it specially, upholstered
in beautiful ribbed stuff, made to order, of dull gold colour with a
pale blue tracery of arabesques and oval medallions enclosing Rita&rsquo;s
monogram, repeated on the backs of chairs and sofas, and on the heavy
curtains reaching from ceiling to floor.&nbsp; To the same time belonged
the ebony and bronze doors, the silver statuette at the foot of the
stairs, the forged iron balustrade reproducing right up the marble staircase
Rita&rsquo;s decorative monogram in its complicated design.&nbsp; Afterwards
the work was stopped and the house had fallen into disrepair.&nbsp;
When Rita devoted it to the Carlist cause a bed was put into that drawing-room,
just simply the bed.&nbsp; The room next to that yellow salon had been
in All&egrave;gre&rsquo;s young days fitted as a fencing-room containing
also a bath, and a complicated system of all sorts of shower and jet
arrangements, then quite up to date.&nbsp; That room was very large,
lighted from the top, and one wall of it was covered by trophies of
arms of all sorts, a choice collection of cold steel disposed on a background
of Indian mats and rugs Blunt used it as a dressing-room.&nbsp; It communicated
by a small door with the studio.</p>
<p>I had only to extend my hand and make one step to reach the magnificent
bronze handle of the ebony door, and if I didn&rsquo;t want to be caught
by Therese there was no time to lose.&nbsp; I made the step and extended
the hand, thinking that it would be just like my luck to find the door
locked.&nbsp; But the door came open to my push.&nbsp; In contrast to
the dark hall the room was most unexpectedly dazzling to my eyes, as
if illuminated <i>a giorno</i> for a reception.&nbsp; No voice came
from it, but nothing could have stopped me now.&nbsp; As I turned round
to shut the door behind me noiselessly I caught sight of a woman&rsquo;s
dress on a chair, of other articles of apparel scattered about.&nbsp;
The mahogany bed with a piece of light silk which Therese found somewhere
and used for a counterpane was a magnificent combination of white and
crimson between the gleaming surfaces of dark wood; and the whole room
had an air of splendour with marble consoles, gilt carvings, long mirrors
and a sumptuous Venetian lustre depending from the ceiling: a darkling
mass of icy pendants catching a spark here and there from the candles
of an eight-branched candelabra standing on a little table near the
head of a sofa which had been dragged round to face the fireplace.&nbsp;
The faintest possible whiff of a familiar perfume made my head swim
with its suggestion.</p>
<p>I grabbed the back of the nearest piece of furniture and the splendour
of marbles and mirrors, of cut crystals and carvings, swung before my
eyes in the golden mist of walls and draperies round an extremely conspicuous
pair of black stockings thrown over a music stool which remained motionless.&nbsp;
The silence was profound.&nbsp; It was like being in an enchanted place.&nbsp;
Suddenly a voice began to speak, clear, detached, infinitely touching
in its calm weariness.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Haven&rsquo;t you tormented me enough to-day?&rdquo; it said.
. . . My head was steady now but my heart began to beat violently.&nbsp;
I listened to the end without moving, &ldquo;Can&rsquo;t you make up
your mind to leave me alone for to-night?&rdquo;&nbsp; It pleaded with
an accent of charitable scorn.</p>
<p>The penetrating quality of these tones which I had not heard for
so many, many days made my eyes run full of tears.&nbsp; I guessed easily
that the appeal was addressed to the atrocious Therese.&nbsp; The speaker
was concealed from me by the high back of the sofa, but her apprehension
was perfectly justified.&nbsp; For was it not I who had turned back
Therese the pious, the insatiable, coming downstairs in her nightgown
to torment her sister some more?&nbsp; Mere surprise at Do&ntilde;a
Rita&rsquo;s presence in the house was enough to paralyze me; but I
was also overcome by an enormous sense of relief, by the assurance of
security for her and for myself.&nbsp; I didn&rsquo;t even ask myself
how she came there.&nbsp; It was enough for me that she was not in Tolosa.&nbsp;
I could have smiled at the thought that all I had to do now was to hasten
the departure of that abominable lunatic&mdash;for Tolosa: an easy task,
almost no task at all.&nbsp; Yes, I would have smiled, had not I felt
outraged by the presence of Se&ntilde;or Ortega under the same roof
with Do&ntilde;a Rita.&nbsp; The mere fact was repugnant to me, morally
revolting; so that I should have liked to rush at him and throw him
out into the street.&nbsp; But that was not to be done for various reasons.&nbsp;
One of them was pity.&nbsp; I was suddenly at peace with all mankind,
with all nature.&nbsp; I felt as if I couldn&rsquo;t hurt a fly.&nbsp;
The intensity of my emotion sealed my lips.&nbsp; With a fearful joy
tugging at my heart I moved round the head of the couch without a word.</p>
<p>In the wide fireplace on a pile of white ashes the logs had a deep
crimson glow; and turned towards them Do&ntilde;a Rita reclined on her
side enveloped in the skins of wild beasts like a charming and savage
young chieftain before a camp fire.&nbsp; She never even raised her
eyes, giving me the opportunity to contemplate mutely that adolescent,
delicately masculine head, so mysteriously feminine in the power of
instant seduction, so infinitely suave in its firm design, almost childlike
in the freshness of detail: altogether ravishing in the inspired strength
of the modelling.&nbsp; That precious head reposed in the palm of her
hand; the face was slightly flushed (with anger perhaps).&nbsp; She
kept her eyes obstinately fixed on the pages of a book which she was
holding with her other hand.&nbsp; I had the time to lay my infinite
adoration at her feet whose white insteps gleamed below the dark edge
of the fur out of quilted blue silk bedroom slippers, embroidered with
small pearls.&nbsp; I had never seen them before; I mean the slippers.&nbsp;
The gleam of the insteps, too, for that matter.&nbsp; I lost myself
in a feeling of deep content, something like a foretaste of a time of
felicity which must be quiet or it couldn&rsquo;t be eternal.&nbsp;
I had never tasted such perfect quietness before.&nbsp; It was not of
this earth.&nbsp; I had gone far beyond.&nbsp; It was as if I had reached
the ultimate wisdom beyond all dreams and all passions.&nbsp; She was
That which is to be contemplated to all Infinity.</p>
<p>The perfect stillness and silence made her raise her eyes at last,
reluctantly, with a hard, defensive expression which I had never seen
in them before.&nbsp; And no wonder!&nbsp; The glance was meant for
Therese and assumed in self-defence.&nbsp; For some time its character
did not change and when it did it turned into a perfectly stony stare
of a kind which I also had never seen before.&nbsp; She had never wished
so much to be left in peace.&nbsp; She had never been so astonished
in her life.&nbsp; She had arrived by the evening express only two hours
before Se&ntilde;or Ortega, had driven to the house, and after having
something to eat had become for the rest of the evening the helpless
prey of her sister who had fawned and scolded and wheedled and threatened
in a way that outraged all Rita&rsquo;s feelings.&nbsp; Seizing this
unexpected occasion Therese had displayed a distracting versatility
of sentiment: rapacity, virtue, piety, spite, and false tenderness&mdash;while,
characteristically enough, she unpacked the dressing-bag, helped the
sinner to get ready for bed, brushed her hair, and finally, as a climax,
kissed her hands, partly by surprise and partly by violence.&nbsp; After
that she had retired from the field of battle slowly, undefeated, still
defiant, firing as a last shot the impudent question: &ldquo;Tell me
only, have you made your will, Rita?&rdquo;&nbsp; To this poor Do&ntilde;a
Rita with the spirit of opposition strung to the highest pitch answered:
&ldquo;No, and I don&rsquo;t mean to&rdquo;&mdash;being under the impression
that this was what her sister wanted her to do.&nbsp; There can be no
doubt, however, that all Therese wanted was the information.</p>
<p>Rita, much too agitated to expect anything but a sleepless night,
had not the courage to get into bed.&nbsp; She thought she would remain
on the sofa before the fire and try to compose herself with a book.&nbsp;
As she had no dressing-gown with her she put on her long fur coat over
her night-gown, threw some logs on the fire, and lay down.&nbsp; She
didn&rsquo;t hear the slightest noise of any sort till she heard me
shut the door gently.&nbsp; Quietness of movement was one of Therese&rsquo;s
accomplishments, and the harassed heiress of the All&egrave;gre millions
naturally thought it was her sister coming again to renew the scene.&nbsp;
Her heart sank within her.&nbsp; In the end she became a little frightened
at the long silence, and raised her eyes.&nbsp; She didn&rsquo;t believe
them for a long time.&nbsp; She concluded that I was a vision.&nbsp;
In fact, the first word which I heard her utter was a low, awed &ldquo;No,&rdquo;
which, though I understood its meaning, chilled my blood like an evil
omen.</p>
<p>It was then that I spoke.&nbsp; &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s
me that you see,&rdquo; and made a step forward.&nbsp; She didn&rsquo;t
start; only her other hand flew to the edges of the fur coat, gripping
them together over her breast.&nbsp; Observing this gesture I sat down
in the nearest chair.&nbsp; The book she had been reading slipped with
a thump on the floor.</p>
<p>&ldquo;How is it possible that you should be here?&rdquo; she said,
still in a doubting voice.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I am really here,&rdquo; I said.&nbsp; &ldquo;Would you like
to touch my hand?&rdquo;</p>
<p>She didn&rsquo;t move at all; her fingers still clutched the fur
coat.</p>
<p>&ldquo;What has happened?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a long story, but you may take it from me that
all is over.&nbsp; The tie between us is broken.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t
know that it was ever very close.&nbsp; It was an external thing.&nbsp;
The true misfortune is that I have ever seen you.&rdquo;</p>
<p>This last phrase was provoked by an exclamation of sympathy on her
part.&nbsp; She raised herself on her elbow and looked at me intently.&nbsp;
&ldquo;All over,&rdquo; she murmured.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes, we had to wreck the little vessel.&nbsp; It was awful.&nbsp;
I feel like a murderer.&nbsp; But she had to be killed.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Why?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Because I loved her too much.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t you know that
love and death go very close together?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I could feel almost happy that it is all over, if you hadn&rsquo;t
had to lose your love.&nbsp; Oh, <i>amigo</i> George, it was a safe
love for you.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I said.&nbsp; &ldquo;It was a faithful little
vessel.&nbsp; She would have saved us all from any plain danger.&nbsp;
But this was a betrayal.&nbsp; It was&mdash;never mind.&nbsp; All that&rsquo;s
past.&nbsp; The question is what will the next one be.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Why should it be that?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know.&nbsp; Life seems but a series of betrayals.&nbsp;
There are so many kinds of them.&nbsp; This was a betrayed plan, but
one can betray confidence, and hope and&mdash;desire, and the most sacred
. . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;But what are you doing here?&rdquo; she interrupted.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, yes!&nbsp; The eternal why.&nbsp; Till a few hours ago
I didn&rsquo;t know what I was here for.&nbsp; And what are you here
for?&rdquo; I asked point blank and with a bitterness she disregarded.&nbsp;
She even answered my question quite readily with many words out of which
I could make very little.&nbsp; I only learned that for at least five
mixed reasons, none of which impressed me profoundly, Do&ntilde;a Rita
had started at a moment&rsquo;s notice from Paris with nothing but a
dressing-bag, and permitting Rose to go and visit her aged parents for
two days, and then follow her mistress.&nbsp; That girl of late had
looked so perturbed and worried that the sensitive Rita, fearing that
she was tired of her place, proposed to settle a sum of money on her
which would have enabled her to devote herself entirely to her aged
parents.&nbsp; And did I know what that extraordinary girl said?&nbsp;
She had said: &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t let Madame think that I would be too
proud to accept anything whatever from her; but I can&rsquo;t even dream
of leaving Madame.&nbsp; I believe Madame has no friends.&nbsp; Not
one.&rdquo;&nbsp; So instead of a large sum of money Do&ntilde;a Rita
gave the girl a kiss and as she had been worried by several people who
wanted her to go to Tolosa she bolted down this way just to get clear
of all those busybodies.&nbsp; &ldquo;Hide from them,&rdquo; she went
on with ardour.&nbsp; &ldquo;Yes, I came here to hide,&rdquo; she repeated
twice as if delighted at last to have hit on that reason among so many
others.&nbsp; &ldquo;How could I tell that you would be here?&rdquo;&nbsp;
Then with sudden fire which only added to the delight with which I had
been watching the play of her physiognomy she added: &ldquo;Why did
you come into this room?&rdquo;</p>
<p>She enchanted me.&nbsp; The ardent modulations of the sound, the
slight play of the beautiful lips, the still, deep sapphire gleam in
those long eyes inherited from the dawn of ages and that seemed always
to watch unimaginable things, that underlying faint ripple of gaiety
that played under all her moods as though it had been a gift from the
high gods moved to pity for this lonely mortal, all this within the
four walls and displayed for me alone gave me the sense of almost intolerable
joy.&nbsp; The words didn&rsquo;t matter.&nbsp; They had to be answered,
of course.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I came in for several reasons.&nbsp; One of them is that I
didn&rsquo;t know you were here.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Therese didn&rsquo;t tell you?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;No.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Never talked to you about me?&rdquo;</p>
<p>I hesitated only for a moment.&nbsp; &ldquo;Never,&rdquo; I said.&nbsp;
Then I asked in my turn, &ldquo;Did she tell you I was here?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; she said.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s very clear she did not mean us to come together
again.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Neither did I, my dear.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;What do you mean by speaking like this, in this tone, in these
words?&nbsp; You seem to use them as if they were a sort of formula.&nbsp;
Am I a dear to you?&nbsp; Or is anybody? . . . or everybody? . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>She had been for some time raised on her elbow, but then as if something
had happened to her vitality she sank down till her head rested again
on the sofa cushion.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Why do you try to hurt my feelings?&rdquo; she asked.</p>
<p>&ldquo;For the same reason for which you call me dear at the end
of a sentence like that: for want of something more amusing to do.&nbsp;
You don&rsquo;t pretend to make me believe that you do it for any sort
of reason that a decent person would confess to.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The colour had gone from her face; but a fit of wickedness was on
me and I pursued, &ldquo;What are the motives of your speeches?&nbsp;
What prompts your actions?&nbsp; On your own showing your life seems
to be a continuous running away.&nbsp; You have just run away from Paris.&nbsp;
Where will you run to-morrow?&nbsp; What are you everlastingly running
from&mdash;or is it that you are running after something?&nbsp; What
is it?&nbsp; A man, a phantom&mdash;or some sensation that you don&rsquo;t
like to own to?&rdquo;</p>
<p>Truth to say, I was abashed by the silence which was her only answer
to this sally.&nbsp; I said to myself that I would not let my natural
anger, my just fury be disarmed by any assumption of pathos or dignity.&nbsp;
I suppose I was really out of my mind and what in the middle ages would
have been called &ldquo;possessed&rdquo; by an evil spirit.&nbsp; I
went on enjoying my own villainy.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Why aren&rsquo;t you in Tolosa?&nbsp; You ought to be in Tolosa.&nbsp;
Isn&rsquo;t Tolosa the proper field for your abilities, for your sympathies,
for your profusions, for your generosities&mdash;the king without a
crown, the man without a fortune!&nbsp; But here there is nothing worthy
of your talents.&nbsp; No, there is no longer anything worth any sort
of trouble here.&nbsp; There isn&rsquo;t even that ridiculous Monsieur
George.&nbsp; I understand that the talk of the coast from here to Cette
is that Monsieur George is drowned.&nbsp; Upon my word I believe he
is.&nbsp; And serve him right, too.&nbsp; There&rsquo;s Therese, but
I don&rsquo;t suppose that your love for your sister . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;For goodness&rsquo; sake don&rsquo;t let her come in and find
you here.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Those words recalled me to myself, exorcised the evil spirit by the
mere enchanting power of the voice.&nbsp; They were also impressive
by their suggestion of something practical, utilitarian, and remote
from sentiment.&nbsp; The evil spirit left me and I remained taken aback
slightly.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;if you mean that you want me to
leave the room I will confess to you that I can&rsquo;t very well do
it yet.&nbsp; But I could lock both doors if you don&rsquo;t mind that.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Do what you like as long as you keep her out.&nbsp; You two
together would be too much for me to-night.&nbsp; Why don&rsquo;t you
go and lock those doors?&nbsp; I have a feeling she is on the prowl.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I got up at once saying, &ldquo;I imagine she has gone to bed by
this time.&rdquo;&nbsp; I felt absolutely calm and responsible.&nbsp;
I turned the keys one after another so gently that I couldn&rsquo;t
hear the click of the locks myself.&nbsp; This done I recrossed the
room with measured steps, with downcast eyes, and approaching the couch
without raising them from the carpet I sank down on my knees and leaned
my forehead on its edge.&nbsp; That penitential attitude had but little
remorse in it.&nbsp; I detected no movement and heard no sound from
her.&nbsp; In one place a bit of the fur coat touched my cheek softly,
but no forgiving hand came to rest on my bowed head.&nbsp; I only breathed
deeply the faint scent of violets, her own particular fragrance enveloping
my body, penetrating my very heart with an inconceivable intimacy, bringing
me closer to her than the closest embrace, and yet so subtle that I
sensed her existence in me only as a great, glowing, indeterminate tenderness,
something like the evening light disclosing after the white passion
of the day infinite depths in the colours of the sky and an unsuspected
soul of peace in the protean forms of life.&nbsp; I had not known such
quietness for months; and I detected in myself an immense fatigue, a
longing to remain where I was without changing my position to the end
of time.&nbsp; Indeed to remain seemed to me a complete solution for
all the problems that life presents&mdash;even as to the very death
itself.</p>
<p>Only the unwelcome reflection that this was impossible made me get
up at last with a sigh of deep grief at the end of the dream.&nbsp;
But I got up without despair.&nbsp; She didn&rsquo;t murmur, she didn&rsquo;t
stir.&nbsp; There was something august in the stillness of the room.&nbsp;
It was a strange peace which she shared with me in this unexpected shelter
full of disorder in its neglected splendour.&nbsp; What troubled me
was the sudden, as it were material, consciousness of time passing as
water flows.&nbsp; It seemed to me that it was only the tenacity of
my sentiment that held that woman&rsquo;s body, extended and tranquil
above the flood.&nbsp; But when I ventured at last to look at her face
I saw her flushed, her teeth clenched&mdash;it was visible&mdash;her
nostrils dilated, and in her narrow, level-glancing eyes a look of inward
and frightened ecstasy.&nbsp; The edges of the fur coat had fallen open
and I was moved to turn away.&nbsp; I had the same impression as on
the evening we parted that something had happened which I did not understand;
only this time I had not touched her at all.&nbsp; I really didn&rsquo;t
understand.&nbsp; At the slightest whisper I would now have gone out
without a murmur, as though that emotion had given her the right to
be obeyed.&nbsp; But there was no whisper; and for a long time I stood
leaning on my arm, looking into the fire and feeling distinctly between
the four walls of that locked room the unchecked time flow past our
two stranded personalities.</p>
<p>And suddenly she spoke.&nbsp; She spoke in that voice that was so
profoundly moving without ever being sad, a little wistful perhaps and
always the supreme expression of her grace.&nbsp; She asked as if nothing
had happened:</p>
<p>&ldquo;What are you thinking of, <i>amigo</i>?&rdquo;</p>
<p>I turned about.&nbsp; She was lying on her side, tranquil above the
smooth flow of time, again closely wrapped up in her fur, her head resting
on the old-gold sofa cushion bearing like everything else in that room
the decoratively enlaced letters of her monogram; her face a little
pale now, with the crimson lobe of her ear under the tawny mist of her
loose hair, the lips a little parted, and her glance of melted sapphire
level and motionless, darkened by fatigue.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Can I think of anything but you?&rdquo; I murmured, taking
a seat near the foot of the couch.&nbsp; &ldquo;Or rather it isn&rsquo;t
thinking, it is more like the consciousness of you always being present
in me, complete to the last hair, to the faintest shade of expression,
and that not only when we are apart but when we are together, alone,
as close as this.&nbsp; I see you now lying on this couch but that is
only the insensible phantom of the real you that is in me.&nbsp; And
it is the easier for me to feel this because that image which others
see and call by your name&mdash;how am I to know that it is anything
else but an enchanting mist?&nbsp; You have always eluded me except
in one or two moments which seem still more dream-like than the rest.&nbsp;
Since I came into this room you have done nothing to destroy my conviction
of your unreality apart from myself.&nbsp; You haven&rsquo;t offered
me your hand to touch.&nbsp; Is it because you suspect that apart from
me you are but a mere phantom, and that you fear to put it to the test?&rdquo;</p>
<p>One of her hands was under the fur and the other under her cheek.&nbsp;
She made no sound.&nbsp; She didn&rsquo;t offer to stir.&nbsp; She didn&rsquo;t
move her eyes, not even after I had added after waiting for a while,</p>
<p>&ldquo;Just what I expected.&nbsp; You are a cold illusion.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She smiled mysteriously, right away from me, straight at the fire,
and that was all.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER VI</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>I had a momentary suspicion that I had said something stupid.&nbsp;
Her smile amongst many other things seemed to have meant that, too.&nbsp;
And I answered it with a certain resignation:</p>
<p>&ldquo;Well, I don&rsquo;t know that you are so much mist.&nbsp;
I remember once hanging on to you like a drowning man . . . But perhaps
I had better not speak of this.&nbsp; It wasn&rsquo;t so very long ago,
and you may . . . &rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t mind.&nbsp; Well . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Well, I have kept an impression of great solidity.&nbsp; I&rsquo;ll
admit that.&nbsp; A woman of granite.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;A doctor once told me that I was made to last for ever,&rdquo;
she said.</p>
<p>&ldquo;But essentially it&rsquo;s the same thing,&rdquo; I went on.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Granite, too, is insensible.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I watched her profile against the pillow and there came on her face
an expression I knew well when with an indignation full of suppressed
laughter she used to throw at me the word &ldquo;Imbecile.&rdquo;&nbsp;
I expected it to come, but it didn&rsquo;t come.&nbsp; I must say, though,
that I was swimmy in my head and now and then had a noise as of the
sea in my ears, so I might not have heard it.&nbsp; The woman of granite,
built to last for ever, continued to look at the glowing logs which
made a sort of fiery ruin on the white pile of ashes.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
will tell you how it is,&rdquo; I said.&nbsp; &ldquo;When I have you
before my eyes there is such a projection of my whole being towards
you that I fail to see you distinctly.&nbsp; It was like that from the
beginning.&nbsp; I may say that I never saw you distinctly till after
we had parted and I thought you had gone from my sight for ever.&nbsp;
It was then that you took body in my imagination and that my mind seized
on a definite form of you for all its adorations&mdash;for its profanations,
too.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t imagine me grovelling in spiritual abasement
before a mere image.&nbsp; I got a grip on you that nothing can shake
now.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t speak like this,&rdquo; she said.&nbsp; &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
too much for me.&nbsp; And there is a whole long night before us.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t think that I dealt with you sentimentally
enough perhaps?&nbsp; But the sentiment was there; as clear a flame
as ever burned on earth from the most remote ages before that eternal
thing which is in you, which is your heirloom.&nbsp; And is it my fault
that what I had to give was real flame, and not a mystic&rsquo;s incense?&nbsp;
It is neither your fault nor mine.&nbsp; And now whatever we say to
each other at night or in daylight, that sentiment must be taken for
granted.&nbsp; It will be there on the day I die&mdash;when you won&rsquo;t
be there.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She continued to look fixedly at the red embers; and from her lips
that hardly moved came the quietest possible whisper: &ldquo;Nothing
would be easier than to die for you.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Really,&rdquo; I cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;And you expect me perhaps
after this to kiss your feet in a transport of gratitude while I hug
the pride of your words to my breast.&nbsp; But as it happens there
is nothing in me but contempt for this sublime declaration.&nbsp; How
dare you offer me this charlatanism of passion?&nbsp; What has it got
to do between you and me who are the only two beings in the world that
may safely say that we have no need of shams between ourselves?&nbsp;
Is it possible that you are a charlatan at heart?&nbsp; Not from egoism,
I admit, but from some sort of fear.&nbsp; Yet, should you be sincere,
then&mdash;listen well to me&mdash;I would never forgive you.&nbsp;
I would visit your grave every day to curse you for an evil thing.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Evil thing,&rdquo; she echoed softly.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Would you prefer to be a sham&mdash;that one could forget?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You will never forget me,&rdquo; she said in the same tone
at the glowing embers.&nbsp; &ldquo;Evil or good.&nbsp; But, my dear,
I feel neither an evil nor a sham.&nbsp; I have got to be what I am,
and that, <i>amigo</i>, is not so easy; because I may be simple, but
like all those on whom there is no peace I am not One.&nbsp; No, I am
not One!&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You are all the women in the world,&rdquo; I whispered bending
over her.&nbsp; She didn&rsquo;t seem to be aware of anything and only
spoke&mdash;always to the glow.</p>
<p>&ldquo;If I were that I would say: God help them then.&nbsp; But
that would be more appropriate for Therese.&nbsp; For me, I can only
give them my infinite compassion.&nbsp; I have too much reverence in
me to invoke the name of a God of whom clever men have robbed me a long
time ago.&nbsp; How could I help it?&nbsp; For the talk was clever and&mdash;and
I had a mind.&nbsp; And I am also, as Therese says, naturally sinful.&nbsp;
Yes, my dear, I may be naturally wicked but I am not evil and I could
die for you.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You!&rdquo; I said.&nbsp; &ldquo;You are afraid to die.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes.&nbsp; But not for you.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The whole structure of glowing logs fell down, raising a small turmoil
of white ashes and sparks.&nbsp; The tiny crash seemed to wake her up
thoroughly.&nbsp; She turned her head upon the cushion to look at me.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a very extraordinary thing, we two coming together
like this,&rdquo; she said with conviction.&nbsp; &ldquo;You coming
in without knowing I was here and then telling me that you can&rsquo;t
very well go out of the room.&nbsp; That sounds funny.&nbsp; I wouldn&rsquo;t
have been angry if you had said that you wouldn&rsquo;t.&nbsp; It would
have hurt me.&nbsp; But nobody ever paid much attention to my feelings.&nbsp;
Why do you smile like this?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;At a thought.&nbsp; Without any charlatanism of passion I
am able to tell you of something to match your devotion.&nbsp; I was
not afraid for your sake to come within a hair&rsquo;s breadth of what
to all the world would have been a squalid crime.&nbsp; Note that you
and I are persons of honour.&nbsp; And there might have been a criminal
trial at the end of it for me.&nbsp; Perhaps the scaffold.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Do you say these horrors to make me tremble?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, you needn&rsquo;t tremble.&nbsp; There shall be no crime.&nbsp;
I need not risk the scaffold, since now you are safe.&nbsp; But I entered
this room meditating resolutely on the ways of murder, calculating possibilities
and chances without the slightest compunction.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s all
over now.&nbsp; It was all over directly I saw you here, but it had
been so near that I shudder yet.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She must have been very startled because for a time she couldn&rsquo;t
speak.&nbsp; Then in a faint voice:</p>
<p>&ldquo;For me!&nbsp; For me!&rdquo; she faltered out twice.</p>
<p>&ldquo;For you&mdash;or for myself?&nbsp; Yet it couldn&rsquo;t have
been selfish.&nbsp; What would it have been to me that you remained
in the world?&nbsp; I never expected to see you again.&nbsp; I even
composed a most beautiful letter of farewell.&nbsp; Such a letter as
no woman had ever received.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Instantly she shot out a hand towards me.&nbsp; The edges of the
fur cloak fell apart.&nbsp; A wave of the faintest possible scent floated
into my nostrils.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Let me have it,&rdquo; she said imperiously.</p>
<p>&ldquo;You can&rsquo;t have it.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s all in my head.&nbsp;
No woman will read it.&nbsp; I suspect it was something that could never
have been written.&nbsp; But what a farewell!&nbsp; And now I suppose
we shall say good-bye without even a handshake.&nbsp; But you are safe!&nbsp;
Only I must ask you not to come out of this room till I tell you you
may.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I was extremely anxious that Se&ntilde;or Ortega should never even
catch a glimpse of Do&ntilde;a Rita, never guess how near he had been
to her.&nbsp; I was extremely anxious the fellow should depart for Tolosa
and get shot in a ravine; or go to the Devil in his own way, as long
as he lost the track of Do&ntilde;a Rita completely.&nbsp; He then,
probably, would get mad and get shut up, or else get cured, forget all
about it, and devote himself to his vocation, whatever it was&mdash;keep
a shop and grow fat.&nbsp; All this flashed through my mind in an instant
and while I was still dazzled by those comforting images, the voice
of Do&ntilde;a Rita pulled me up with a jerk.</p>
<p>&ldquo;You mean not out of the house?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;No, I mean not out of this room,&rdquo; I said with some embarrassment.</p>
<p>&ldquo;What do you mean?&nbsp; Is there something in the house then?&nbsp;
This is most extraordinary!&nbsp; Stay in this room?&nbsp; And you,
too, it seems?&nbsp; Are you also afraid for yourself?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t even give you an idea how afraid I was.&nbsp;
I am not so much now.&nbsp; But you know very well, Do&ntilde;a Rita,
that I never carry any sort of weapon in my pocket.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t you, then?&rdquo; she asked in a flash of
scorn which bewitched me so completely for an instant that I couldn&rsquo;t
even smile at it.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Because if I am unconventionalized I am an old European,&rdquo;
I murmured gently.&nbsp; &ldquo;No, <i>Excellentissima</i>, I shall
go through life without as much as a switch in my hand.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s
no use you being angry.&nbsp; Adapting to this great moment some words
you&rsquo;ve heard before: I am like that.&nbsp; Such is my character!&rdquo;</p>
<p>Do&ntilde;a Rita frankly stared at me&mdash;a most unusual expression
for her to have.&nbsp; Suddenly she sat up.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Don George,&rdquo; she said with lovely animation, &ldquo;I
insist upon knowing who is in my house.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You insist! . . . But Therese says it is <i>her</i> house.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Had there been anything handy, such as a cigarette box, for instance,
it would have gone sailing through the air spouting cigarettes as it
went.&nbsp; Rosy all over, cheeks, neck, shoulders, she seemed lighted
up softly from inside like a beautiful transparency.&nbsp; But she didn&rsquo;t
raise her voice.</p>
<p>&ldquo;You and Therese have sworn my ruin.&nbsp; If you don&rsquo;t
tell me what you mean I will go outside and shout up the stairs to make
her come down.&nbsp; I know there is no one but the three of us in the
house.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes, three; but not counting my Jacobin.&nbsp; There is a
Jacobin in the house.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;A Jac . . .!&nbsp; Oh, George, is this the time to jest?&rdquo;
she began in persuasive tones when a faint but peculiar noise stilled
her lips as though they had been suddenly frozen.&nbsp; She became quiet
all over instantly.&nbsp; I, on the contrary, made an involuntary movement
before I, too, became as still as death.&nbsp; We strained our ears;
but that peculiar metallic rattle had been so slight and the silence
now was so perfect that it was very difficult to believe one&rsquo;s
senses.&nbsp; Do&ntilde;a Rita looked inquisitively at me.&nbsp; I gave
her a slight nod.&nbsp; We remained looking into each other&rsquo;s
eyes while we listened and listened till the silence became unbearable.&nbsp;
Do&ntilde;a Rita whispered composedly: &ldquo;Did you hear?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I am asking myself . . . I almost think I didn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t shuffle with me.&nbsp; It was a scraping noise.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Something fell.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Something!&nbsp; What thing?&nbsp; What are the things that
fall by themselves?&nbsp; Who is that man of whom you spoke?&nbsp; Is
there a man?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;No doubt about it whatever.&nbsp; I brought him here myself.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;What for?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Why shouldn&rsquo;t I have a Jacobin of my own?&nbsp; Haven&rsquo;t
you one, too?&nbsp; But mine is a different problem from that white-haired
humbug of yours.&nbsp; He is a genuine article.&nbsp; There must be
plenty like him about.&nbsp; He has scores to settle with half a dozen
people, he says, and he clamours for revolutions to give him a chance.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;But why did you bring him here?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know&mdash;from sudden affection . . . &rdquo;</p>
<p>All this passed in such low tones that we seemed to make out the
words more by watching each other&rsquo;s lips than through our sense
of hearing.&nbsp; Man is a strange animal.&nbsp; I didn&rsquo;t care
what I said.&nbsp; All I wanted was to keep her in her pose, excited
and still, sitting up with her hair loose, softly glowing, the dark
brown fur making a wonderful contrast with the white lace on her breast.&nbsp;
All I was thinking of was that she was adorable and too lovely for words!&nbsp;
I cared for nothing but that sublimely aesthetic impression.&nbsp; It
summed up all life, all joy, all poetry!&nbsp; It had a divine strain.&nbsp;
I am certain that I was not in my right mind.&nbsp; I suppose I was
not quite sane.&nbsp; I am convinced that at that moment of the four
people in the house it was Do&ntilde;a Rita who upon the whole was the
most sane.&nbsp; She observed my face and I am sure she read there something
of my inward exaltation.&nbsp; She knew what to do.&nbsp; In the softest
possible tone and hardly above her breath she commanded: &ldquo;George,
come to yourself.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Her gentleness had the effect of evening light.&nbsp; I was soothed.&nbsp;
Her confidence in her own power touched me profoundly.&nbsp; I suppose
my love was too great for madness to get hold of me.&nbsp; I can&rsquo;t
say that I passed to a complete calm, but I became slightly ashamed
of myself.&nbsp; I whispered:</p>
<p>&ldquo;No, it was not from affection, it was for the love of you
that I brought him here.&nbsp; That imbecile H. was going to send him
to Tolosa.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;That Jacobin!&rdquo; Do&ntilde;a Rita was immensely surprised,
as she might well have been.&nbsp; Then resigned to the incomprehensible:
&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she breathed out, &ldquo;what did you do with him?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I put him to bed in the studio.&rdquo;</p>
<p>How lovely she was with the effort of close attention depicted in
the turn of her head and in her whole face honestly trying to approve.&nbsp;
&ldquo;And then?&rdquo; she inquired.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Then I came in here to face calmly the necessity of doing
away with a human life.&nbsp; I didn&rsquo;t shirk it for a moment.&nbsp;
That&rsquo;s what a short twelvemonth has brought me to.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t
think I am reproaching you, O blind force!&nbsp; You are justified because
you <i>are</i>.&nbsp; Whatever had to happen you would not even have
heard of it.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Horror darkened her marvellous radiance.&nbsp; Then her face became
utterly blank with the tremendous effort to understand.&nbsp; Absolute
silence reigned in the house.&nbsp; It seemed to me that everything
had been said now that mattered in the world; and that the world itself
had reached its ultimate stage, had reached its appointed end of an
eternal, phantom-like silence.&nbsp; Suddenly Do&ntilde;a Rita raised
a warning finger.&nbsp; I had heard nothing and shook my head; but she
nodded hers and murmured excitedly,</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes, yes, in the fencing-room, as before.&rdquo;</p>
<p>In the same way I answered her: &ldquo;Impossible!&nbsp; The door
is locked and Therese has the key.&rdquo;&nbsp; She asked then in the
most cautious manner,</p>
<p>&ldquo;Have you seen Therese to-night?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I confessed without misgiving.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
left her making up the fellow&rsquo;s bed when I came in here.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;The bed of the Jacobin?&rdquo; she said in a peculiar tone
as if she were humouring a lunatic.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I think I had better tell you he is a Spaniard&mdash;that
he seems to know you from early days. . . .&rdquo;&nbsp; I glanced at
her face, it was extremely tense, apprehensive.&nbsp; For myself I had
no longer any doubt as to the man and I hoped she would reach the correct
conclusion herself.&nbsp; But I believe she was too distracted and worried
to think consecutively.&nbsp; She only seemed to feel some terror in
the air.&nbsp; In very pity I bent down and whispered carefully near
her ear, &ldquo;His name is Ortega.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I expected some effect from that name but I never expected what happened.&nbsp;
With the sudden, free, spontaneous agility of a young animal she leaped
off the sofa, leaving her slippers behind, and in one bound reached
almost the middle of the room.&nbsp; The vigour, the instinctive precision
of that spring, were something amazing.&nbsp; I just escaped being knocked
over.&nbsp; She landed lightly on her bare feet with a perfect balance,
without the slightest suspicion of swaying in her instant immobility.&nbsp;
It lasted less than a second, then she spun round distractedly and darted
at the first door she could see.&nbsp; My own agility was just enough
to enable me to grip the back of the fur coat and then catch her round
the body before she could wriggle herself out of the sleeves.&nbsp;
She was muttering all the time, &ldquo;No, no, no.&rdquo;&nbsp; She
abandoned herself to me just for an instant during which I got her back
to the middle of the room.&nbsp; There she attempted to free herself
and I let her go at once.&nbsp; With her face very close to mine, but
apparently not knowing what she was looking at she repeated again twice,
&ldquo;No&mdash;No,&rdquo; with an intonation which might well have
brought dampness to my eyes but which only made me regret that I didn&rsquo;t
kill the honest Ortega at sight.&nbsp; Suddenly Do&ntilde;a Rita swung
round and seizing her loose hair with both hands started twisting it
up before one of the sumptuous mirrors.&nbsp; The wide fur sleeves slipped
down her white arms.&nbsp; In a brusque movement like a downward stab
she transfixed the whole mass of tawny glints and sparks with the arrow
of gold which she perceived lying there, before her, on the marble console.&nbsp;
Then she sprang away from the glass muttering feverishly, &ldquo;Out&mdash;out&mdash;out
of this house,&rdquo; and trying with an awful, senseless stare to dodge
past me who had put myself in her way with open arms.&nbsp; At last
I managed to seize her by the shoulders and in the extremity of my distress
I shook her roughly.&nbsp; If she hadn&rsquo;t quieted down then I believe
my heart would have broken.&nbsp; I spluttered right into her face:
&ldquo;I won&rsquo;t let you.&nbsp; Here you stay.&rdquo;&nbsp; She
seemed to recognize me at last, and suddenly still, perfectly firm on
her white feet, she let her arms fall and, from an abyss of desolation,
whispered, &ldquo;O! George!&nbsp; No!&nbsp; No!&nbsp; Not Ortega.&rdquo;</p>
<p>There was a passion of mature grief in this tone of appeal.&nbsp;
And yet she remained as touching and helpless as a distressed child.&nbsp;
It had all the simplicity and depth of a child&rsquo;s emotion.&nbsp;
It tugged at one&rsquo;s heart-strings in the same direct way.&nbsp;
But what could one do?&nbsp; How could one soothe her?&nbsp; It was
impossible to pat her on the head, take her on the knee, give her a
chocolate or show her a picture-book.&nbsp; I found myself absolutely
without resource.&nbsp; Completely at a loss.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes, Ortega.&nbsp; Well, what of it?&rdquo; I whispered with
immense assurance.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER VII</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>My brain was in a whirl.&nbsp; I am safe to say that at this precise
moment there was nobody completely sane in the house.&nbsp; Setting
apart Therese and Ortega, both in the grip of unspeakable passions,
all the moral economy of Do&ntilde;a Rita had gone to pieces.&nbsp;
Everything was gone except her strong sense of life with all its implied
menaces.&nbsp; The woman was a mere chaos of sensations and vitality.&nbsp;
I, too, suffered most from inability to get hold of some fundamental
thought.&nbsp; The one on which I could best build some hopes was the
thought that, of course, Ortega did not know anything.&nbsp; I whispered
this into the ear of Do&ntilde;a Rita, into her precious, her beautifully
shaped ear.</p>
<p>But she shook her head, very much like an inconsolable child and
very much with a child&rsquo;s complete pessimism she murmured, &ldquo;Therese
has told him.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The words, &ldquo;Oh, nonsense,&rdquo; never passed my lips, because
I could not cheat myself into denying that there had been a noise; and
that the noise was in the fencing-room.&nbsp; I knew that room.&nbsp;
There was nothing there that by the wildest stretch of imagination could
be conceived as falling with that particular sound.&nbsp; There was
a table with a tall strip of looking-glass above it at one end; but
since Blunt took away his campaigning kit there was no small object
of any sort on the console or anywhere else that could have been jarred
off in some mysterious manner.&nbsp; Along one of the walls there was
the whole complicated apparatus of solid brass pipes, and quite close
to it an enormous bath sunk into the floor.&nbsp; The greatest part
of the room along its whole length was covered with matting and had
nothing else but a long, narrow leather-upholstered bench fixed to the
wall.&nbsp; And that was all.&nbsp; And the door leading to the studio
was locked.&nbsp; And Therese had the key.&nbsp; And it flashed on my
mind, independently of Do&ntilde;a Rita&rsquo;s pessimism, by the force
of personal conviction, that, of course, Therese would tell him.&nbsp;
I beheld the whole succession of events perfectly connected and tending
to that particular conclusion.&nbsp; Therese would tell him!&nbsp; I
could see the contrasted heads of those two formidable lunatics close
together in a dark mist of whispers compounded of greed, piety, and
jealousy, plotting in a sense of perfect security as if under the very
wing of Providence.&nbsp; So at least Therese would think.&nbsp; She
could not be but under the impression that (providentially) I had been
called out for the rest of the night.</p>
<p>And now there was one sane person in the house, for I had regained
complete command of my thoughts.&nbsp; Working in a logical succession
of images they showed me at last as clearly as a picture on a wall,
Therese pressing with fervour the key into the fevered palm of the rich,
prestigious, virtuous cousin, so that he should go and urge his self-sacrificing
offer to Rita, and gain merit before Him whose Eye sees all the actions
of men.&nbsp; And this image of those two with the key in the studio
seemed to me a most monstrous conception of fanaticism, of a perfectly
horrible aberration.&nbsp; For who could mistake the state that made
Jos&eacute; Ortega the figure he was, inspiring both pity and fear?&nbsp;
I could not deny that I understood, not the full extent but the exact
nature of his suffering.&nbsp; Young as I was I had solved for myself
that grotesque and sombre personality.&nbsp; His contact with me, the
personal contact with (as he thought) one of the actual lovers of that
woman who brought to him as a boy the curse of the gods, had tipped
over the trembling scales.&nbsp; No doubt I was very near death in the
&ldquo;grand salon&rdquo; of the Maison Dor&eacute;e, only that his
torture had gone too far.&nbsp; It seemed to me that I ought to have
heard his very soul scream while we were seated at supper.&nbsp; But
in a moment he had ceased to care for me.&nbsp; I was nothing.&nbsp;
To the crazy exaggeration of his jealousy I was but one amongst a hundred
thousand.&nbsp; What was my death?&nbsp; Nothing.&nbsp; All mankind
had possessed that woman.&nbsp; I knew what his wooing of her would
be: Mine&mdash;or Dead.</p>
<p>All this ought to have had the clearness of noon-day, even to the
veriest idiot that ever lived; and Therese was, properly speaking, exactly
that.&nbsp; An idiot.&nbsp; A one-ideaed creature.&nbsp; Only the idea
was complex; therefore it was impossible really to say what she wasn&rsquo;t
capable of.&nbsp; This was what made her obscure processes so awful.&nbsp;
She had at times the most amazing perceptions.&nbsp; Who could tell
where her simplicity ended and her cunning began?&nbsp; She had also
the faculty of never forgetting any fact bearing upon her one idea;
and I remembered now that the conversation with me about the will had
produced on her an indelible impression of the Law&rsquo;s surprising
justice.&nbsp; Recalling her naive admiration of the &ldquo;just&rdquo;
law that required no &ldquo;paper&rdquo; from a sister, I saw her casting
loose the raging fate with a sanctimonious air.&nbsp; And Therese would
naturally give the key of the fencing-room to her dear, virtuous, grateful,
disinterested cousin, to that damned soul with delicate whiskers, because
she would think it just possible that Rita might have locked the door
leading front her room into the hall; whereas there was no earthly reason,
not the slightest likelihood, that she would bother about the other.&nbsp;
Righteousness demanded that the erring sister should be taken unawares.</p>
<p>All the above is the analysis of one short moment.&nbsp; Images are
to words like light to sound&mdash;incomparably swifter.&nbsp; And all
this was really one flash of light through my mind.&nbsp; A comforting
thought succeeded it: that both doors were locked and that really there
was no danger.</p>
<p>However, there had been that noise&mdash;the why and the how of it?&nbsp;
Of course in the dark he might have fallen into the bath, but that wouldn&rsquo;t
have been a faint noise.&nbsp; It wouldn&rsquo;t have been a rattle.&nbsp;
There was absolutely nothing he could knock over.&nbsp; He might have
dropped a candle-stick if Therese had left him her own.&nbsp; That was
possible, but then those thick mats&mdash;and then, anyway, why should
he drop it? and, hang it all, why shouldn&rsquo;t he have gone straight
on and tried the door?&nbsp; I had suddenly a sickening vision of the
fellow crouching at the key-hole, listening, listening, listening, for
some movement or sigh of the sleeper he was ready to tear away from
the world, alive or dead.&nbsp; I had a conviction that he was still
listening.&nbsp; Why?&nbsp; Goodness knows!&nbsp; He may have been only
gloating over the assurance that the night was long and that he had
all these hours to himself.</p>
<p>I was pretty certain that he could have heard nothing of our whispers,
the room was too big for that and the door too solid.&nbsp; I hadn&rsquo;t
the same confidence in the efficiency of the lock.&nbsp; Still I . .
. Guarding my lips with my hand I urged Do&ntilde;a Rita to go back
to the sofa.&nbsp; She wouldn&rsquo;t answer me and when I got hold
of her arm I discovered that she wouldn&rsquo;t move.&nbsp; She had
taken root in that thick-pile Aubusson carpet; and she was so rigidly
still all over that the brilliant stones in the shaft of the arrow of
gold, with the six candles at the head of the sofa blazing full on them,
emitted no sparkle.</p>
<p>I was extremely anxious that she shouldn&rsquo;t betray herself.&nbsp;
I reasoned, save the mark, as a psychologist.&nbsp; I had no doubt that
the man knew of her being there; but he only knew it by hearsay.&nbsp;
And that was bad enough.&nbsp; I could not help feeling that if he obtained
some evidence for his senses by any sort of noise, voice, or movement,
his madness would gain strength enough to burst the lock.&nbsp; I was
rather ridiculously worried about the locks.&nbsp; A horrid mistrust
of the whole house possessed me.&nbsp; I saw it in the light of a deadly
trap.&nbsp; I had no weapon, I couldn&rsquo;t say whether he had one
or not.&nbsp; I wasn&rsquo;t afraid of a struggle as far as I, myself,
was concerned, but I was afraid of it for Do&ntilde;a Rita.&nbsp; To
be rolling at her feet, locked in a literally tooth-and-nail struggle
with Ortega would have been odious.&nbsp; I wanted to spare her feelings,
just as I would have been anxious to save from any contact with mud
the feet of that goatherd of the mountains with a symbolic face.&nbsp;
I looked at her face.&nbsp; For immobility it might have been a carving.&nbsp;
I wished I knew how to deal with that embodied mystery, to influence
it, to manage it.&nbsp; Oh, how I longed for the gift of authority!&nbsp;
In addition, since I had become completely sane, all my scruples against
laying hold of her had returned.&nbsp; I felt shy and embarrassed.&nbsp;
My eyes were fixed on the bronze handle of the fencing-room door as
if it were something alive.&nbsp; I braced myself up against the moment
when it would move.&nbsp; This was what was going to happen next.&nbsp;
It would move very gently.&nbsp; My heart began to thump.&nbsp; But
I was prepared to keep myself as still as death and I hoped Do&ntilde;a
Rita would have sense enough to do the same.&nbsp; I stole another glance
at her face and at that moment I heard the word: &ldquo;Beloved!&rdquo;
form itself in the still air of the room, weak, distinct, piteous, like
the last request of the dying.</p>
<p>With great presence of mind I whispered into Do&ntilde;a Rita&rsquo;s
ear: &ldquo;Perfect silence!&rdquo; and was overjoyed to discover that
she had heard me, understood me; that she even had command over her
rigid lips.&nbsp; She answered me in a breath (our cheeks were nearly
touching): &ldquo;Take me out of this house.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I glanced at all her clothing scattered about the room and hissed
forcibly the warning &ldquo;Perfect immobility&rdquo;; noticing with
relief that she didn&rsquo;t offer to move, though animation was returning
to her and her lips had remained parted in an awful, unintended effect
of a smile.&nbsp; And I don&rsquo;t know whether I was pleased when
she, who was not to be touched, gripped my wrist suddenly.&nbsp; It
had the air of being done on purpose because almost instantly another:
&ldquo;Beloved!&rdquo; louder, more agonized if possible, got into the
room and, yes, went home to my heart.&nbsp; It was followed without
any transition, preparation, or warning, by a positively bellowed: &ldquo;Speak,
perjured beast!&rdquo; which I felt pass in a thrill right through Do&ntilde;a
Rita like an electric shock, leaving her as motionless as before.</p>
<p>Till he shook the door handle, which he did immediately afterwards,
I wasn&rsquo;t certain through which door he had spoken.&nbsp; The two
doors (in different walls) were rather near each other.&nbsp; It was
as I expected.&nbsp; He was in the fencing-room, thoroughly aroused,
his senses on the alert to catch the slightest sound.&nbsp; A situation
not to be trifled with.&nbsp; Leaving the room was for us out of the
question.&nbsp; It was quite possible for him to dash round into the
hall before we could get clear of the front door.&nbsp; As to making
a bolt of it upstairs there was the same objection; and to allow ourselves
to be chased all over the empty house by this maniac would have been
mere folly.&nbsp; There was no advantage in locking ourselves up anywhere
upstairs where the original doors and locks were much lighter.&nbsp;
No, true safety was in absolute stillness and silence, so that even
his rage should be brought to doubt at last and die expended, or choke
him before it died; I didn&rsquo;t care which.</p>
<p>For me to go out and meet him would have been stupid.&nbsp; Now I
was certain that he was armed.&nbsp; I had remembered the wall in the
fencing-room decorated with trophies of cold steel in all the civilized
and savage forms; sheaves of assegais, in the guise of columns and grouped
between them stars and suns of choppers, swords, knives; from Italy,
from Damascus, from Abyssinia, from the ends of the world.&nbsp; Ortega
had only to make his barbarous choice.&nbsp; I suppose he had got up
on the bench, and fumbling about amongst them must have brought one
down, which, falling, had produced that rattling noise.&nbsp; But in
any case to go to meet him would have been folly, because, after all,
I might have been overpowered (even with bare hands) and then Do&ntilde;a
Rita would have been left utterly defenceless.</p>
<p>&ldquo;He will speak,&rdquo; came to me the ghostly, terrified murmur
of her voice.&nbsp; &ldquo;Take me out of the house before he begins
to speak.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Keep still,&rdquo; I whispered.&nbsp; &ldquo;He will soon
get tired of this.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t know him.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, yes, I do.&nbsp; Been with him two hours.&rdquo;</p>
<p>At this she let go my wrist and covered her face with her hands passionately.&nbsp;
When she dropped them she had the look of one morally crushed.</p>
<p>&ldquo;What did he say to you?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;He raved.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Listen to me.&nbsp; It was all true!&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I daresay, but what of that?&rdquo;</p>
<p>These ghostly words passed between us hardly louder than thoughts;
but after my last answer she ceased and gave me a searching stare, then
drew in a long breath.&nbsp; The voice on the other side of the door
burst out with an impassioned request for a little pity, just a little,
and went on begging for a few words, for two words, for one word&mdash;one
poor little word.&nbsp; Then it gave up, then repeated once more, &ldquo;Say
you are there, Rita, Say one word, just one word.&nbsp; Say &lsquo;yes.&rsquo;&nbsp;
Come!&nbsp; Just one little yes.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You see,&rdquo; I said.&nbsp; She only lowered her eyelids
over the anxious glance she had turned on me.</p>
<p>For a minute we could have had the illusion that he had stolen away,
unheard, on the thick mats.&nbsp; But I don&rsquo;t think that either
of us was deceived.&nbsp; The voice returned, stammering words without
connection, pausing and faltering, till suddenly steadied it soared
into impassioned entreaty, sank to low, harsh tones, voluble, lofty
sometimes and sometimes abject.&nbsp; When it paused it left us looking
profoundly at each other.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s almost comic,&rdquo; I whispered.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes.&nbsp; One could laugh,&rdquo; she assented, with a sort
of sinister conviction.&nbsp; Never had I seen her look exactly like
that, for an instant another, an incredible Rita!&nbsp; &ldquo;Haven&rsquo;t
I laughed at him innumerable times?&rdquo; she added in a sombre whisper.</p>
<p>He was muttering to himself out there, and unexpectedly shouted:
&ldquo;What?&rdquo; as though he had fancied he had heard something.&nbsp;
He waited a while before he started up again with a loud: &ldquo;Speak
up, Queen of the goats, with your goat tricks. . .&rdquo;&nbsp; All
was still for a time, then came a most awful bang on the door.&nbsp;
He must have stepped back a pace to hurl himself bodily against the
panels.&nbsp; The whole house seemed to shake.&nbsp; He repeated that
performance once more, and then varied it by a prolonged drumming with
his fists.&nbsp; It <i>was</i> comic.&nbsp; But I felt myself struggling
mentally with an invading gloom as though I were no longer sure of myself.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Take me out,&rdquo; whispered Do&ntilde;a Rita feverishly,
&ldquo;take me out of this house before it is too late.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You will have to stand it,&rdquo; I answered.</p>
<p>&ldquo;So be it; but then you must go away yourself.&nbsp; Go now,
before it is too late.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I didn&rsquo;t condescend to answer this.&nbsp; The drumming on the
panels stopped and the absurd thunder of it died out in the house.&nbsp;
I don&rsquo;t know why precisely then I had the acute vision of the
red mouth of Jos&eacute; Ortega wriggling with rage between his funny
whiskers.&nbsp; He began afresh but in a tired tone:</p>
<p>&ldquo;Do you expect a fellow to forget your tricks, you wicked little
devil?&nbsp; Haven&rsquo;t you ever seen me dodging about to get a sight
of you amongst those pretty gentlemen, on horseback, like a princess,
with pure cheeks like a carved saint?&nbsp; I wonder I didn&rsquo;t
throw stones at you, I wonder I didn&rsquo;t run after you shouting
the tale&mdash;curse my timidity!&nbsp; But I daresay they knew as much
as I did.&nbsp; More.&nbsp; All the new tricks&mdash;if that were possible.&rdquo;</p>
<p>While he was making this uproar, Do&ntilde;a Rita put her fingers
in her ears and then suddenly changed her mind and clapped her hands
over my ears.&nbsp; Instinctively I disengaged my head but she persisted.&nbsp;
We had a short tussle without moving from the spot, and suddenly I had
my head free, and there was complete silence.&nbsp; He had screamed
himself out of breath, but Do&ntilde;a Rita muttering; &ldquo;Too late,
too late,&rdquo; got her hands away from my grip and slipping altogether
out of her fur coat seized some garment lying on a chair near by (I
think it was her skirt), with the intention of dressing herself, I imagine,
and rushing out of the house.&nbsp; Determined to prevent this, but
indeed without thinking very much what I was doing, I got hold of her
arm.&nbsp; That struggle was silent, too; but I used the least force
possible and she managed to give me an unexpected push.&nbsp; Stepping
back to save myself from falling I overturned the little table, bearing
the six-branched candlestick.&nbsp; It hit the floor, rebounded with
a dull ring on the carpet, and by the time it came to a rest every single
candle was out.&nbsp; He on the other side of the door naturally heard
the noise and greeted it with a triumphant screech: &ldquo;Aha!&nbsp;
I&rsquo;ve managed to wake you up,&rdquo; the very savagery of which
had a laughable effect.&nbsp; I felt the weight of Do&ntilde;a Rita
grow on my arm and thought it best to let her sink on the floor, wishing
to be free in my movements and really afraid that now he had actually
heard a noise he would infallibly burst the door.&nbsp; But he didn&rsquo;t
even thump it.&nbsp; He seemed to have exhausted himself in that scream.&nbsp;
There was no other light in the room but the darkened glow of the embers
and I could hardly make out amongst the shadows of furniture Do&ntilde;a
Rita sunk on her knees in a penitential and despairing attitude.&nbsp;
Before this collapse I, who had been wrestling desperately with her
a moment before, felt that I dare not touch her.&nbsp; This emotion,
too, I could not understand; this abandonment of herself, this conscience-stricken
humility.&nbsp; A humbly imploring request to open the door came from
the other side.&nbsp; Ortega kept on repeating: &ldquo;Open the door,
open the door,&rdquo; in such an amazing variety of intonations, imperative,
whining, persuasive, insinuating, and even unexpectedly jocose, that
I really stood there smiling to myself, yet with a gloomy and uneasy
heart.&nbsp; Then he remarked, parenthetically as it were, &ldquo;Oh,
you know how to torment a man, you brown-skinned, lean, grinning, dishevelled
imp, you.&nbsp; And mark,&rdquo; he expounded further, in a curiously
doctoral tone&mdash;&ldquo;you are in all your limbs hateful: your eyes
are hateful and your mouth is hateful, and your hair is hateful, and
your body is cold and vicious like a snake&mdash;and altogether you
are perdition.&rdquo;</p>
<p>This statement was astonishingly deliberate.&nbsp; He drew a moaning
breath after it and uttered in a heart-rending tone, &ldquo;You know,
Rita, that I cannot live without you.&nbsp; I haven&rsquo;t lived.&nbsp;
I am not living now.&nbsp; This isn&rsquo;t life.&nbsp; Come, Rita,
you can&rsquo;t take a boy&rsquo;s soul away and then let him grow up
and go about the world, poor devil, while you go amongst the rich from
one pair of arms to another, showing all your best tricks.&nbsp; But
I will forgive you if you only open the door,&rdquo; he ended in an
inflated tone: &ldquo;You remember how you swore time after time to
be my wife.&nbsp; You are more fit to be Satan&rsquo;s wife but I don&rsquo;t
mind.&nbsp; You shall be my wife!&rdquo;</p>
<p>A sound near the floor made me bend down hastily with a stern: &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t
laugh,&rdquo; for in his grotesque, almost burlesque discourses there
seemed to me to be truth, passion, and horror enough to move a mountain.</p>
<p>Suddenly suspicion seized him out there.&nbsp; With perfectly farcical
unexpectedness he yelled shrilly: &ldquo;Oh, you deceitful wretch!&nbsp;
You won&rsquo;t escape me!&nbsp; I will have you. . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>And in a manner of speaking he vanished.&nbsp; Of course I couldn&rsquo;t
see him but somehow that was the impression.&nbsp; I had hardly time
to receive it when crash! . . . he was already at the other door.&nbsp;
I suppose he thought that his prey was escaping him.&nbsp; His swiftness
was amazing, almost inconceivable, more like the effect of a trick or
of a mechanism.&nbsp; The thump on the door was awful as if he had not
been able to stop himself in time.&nbsp; The shock seemed enough to
stun an elephant.&nbsp; It was really funny.&nbsp; And after the crash
there was a moment of silence as if he were recovering himself.&nbsp;
The next thing was a low grunt, and at once he picked up the thread
of his fixed idea.</p>
<p>&ldquo;You will have to be my wife.&nbsp; I have no shame.&nbsp;
You swore you would be and so you will have to be.&rdquo;&nbsp; Stifled
low sounds made me bend down again to the kneeling form, white in the
flush of the dark red glow.&nbsp; &ldquo;For goodness&rsquo; sake don&rsquo;t,&rdquo;
I whispered down.&nbsp; She was struggling with an appalling fit of
merriment, repeating to herself, &ldquo;Yes, every day, for two months.&nbsp;
Sixty times at least, sixty times at least.&rdquo;&nbsp; Her voice was
rising high.&nbsp; She was struggling against laughter, but when I tried
to put my hand over her lips I felt her face wet with tears.&nbsp; She
turned it this way and that, eluding my hand with repressed low, little
moans.&nbsp; I lost my caution and said, &ldquo;Be quiet,&rdquo; so
sharply as to startle myself (and her, too) into expectant stillness.</p>
<p>Ortega&rsquo;s voice in the hall asked distinctly: &ldquo;Eh?&nbsp;
What&rsquo;s this?&rdquo; and then he kept still on his side listening,
but he must have thought that his ears had deceived him.&nbsp; He was
getting tired, too.&nbsp; He was keeping quiet out there&mdash;resting.&nbsp;
Presently he sighed deeply; then in a harsh melancholy tone he started
again.</p>
<p>&ldquo;My love, my soul, my life, do speak to me.&nbsp; What am I
that you should take so much trouble to pretend that you aren&rsquo;t
there?&nbsp; Do speak to me,&rdquo; he repeated tremulously, following
this mechanical appeal with a string of extravagantly endearing names,
some of them quite childish, which all of a sudden stopped dead; and
then after a pause there came a distinct, unutterably weary: &ldquo;What
shall I do now?&rdquo; as though he were speaking to himself.</p>
<p>I shuddered to hear rising from the floor, by my side, a vibrating,
scornful: &ldquo;Do!&nbsp; Why, slink off home looking over your shoulder
as you used to years ago when I had done with you&mdash;all but the
laughter.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Rita,&rdquo; I murmured, appalled.&nbsp; He must have been
struck dumb for a moment.&nbsp; Then, goodness only knows why, in his
dismay or rage he was moved to speak in French with a most ridiculous
accent.</p>
<p>&ldquo;So you have found your tongue at last&mdash;<i>Catin</i>!&nbsp;
You were that from the cradle.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t you remember how .
. .&rdquo;</p>
<p>Do&ntilde;a Rita sprang to her feet at my side with a loud cry, &ldquo;No,
George, no,&rdquo; which bewildered me completely.&nbsp; The suddenness,
the loudness of it made the ensuing silence on both sides of the door
perfectly awful.&nbsp; It seemed to me that if I didn&rsquo;t resist
with all my might something in me would die on the instant.&nbsp; In
the straight, falling folds of the night-dress she looked cold like
a block of marble; while I, too, was turned into stone by the terrific
clamour in the hall.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Therese, Therese,&rdquo; yelled Ortega.&nbsp; &ldquo;She has
got a man in there.&rdquo;&nbsp; He ran to the foot of the stairs and
screamed again, &ldquo;Therese, Therese!&nbsp; There is a man with her.&nbsp;
A man!&nbsp; Come down, you miserable, starved peasant, come down and
see.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I don&rsquo;t know where Therese was but I am sure that this voice
reached her, terrible, as if clamouring to heaven, and with a shrill
over-note which made me certain that if she was in bed the only thing
she would think of doing would be to put her head under the bed-clothes.&nbsp;
With a final yell: &ldquo;Come down and see,&rdquo; he flew back at
the door of the room and started shaking it violently.</p>
<p>It was a double door, very tall, and there must have been a lot of
things loose about its fittings, bolts, latches, and all those brass
applications with broken screws, because it rattled, it clattered, it
jingled; and produced also the sound as of thunder rolling in the big,
empty hall.&nbsp; It was deafening, distressing, and vaguely alarming
as if it could bring the house down.&nbsp; At the same time the futility
of it had, it cannot be denied, a comic effect.&nbsp; The very magnitude
of the racket he raised was funny.&nbsp; But he couldn&rsquo;t keep
up that violent exertion continuously, and when he stopped to rest we
could hear him shouting to himself in vengeful tones.&nbsp; He saw it
all!&nbsp; He had been decoyed there!&nbsp; (Rattle, rattle, rattle.)&nbsp;
He had been decoyed into that town, he screamed, getting more and more
excited by the noise he made himself, in order to be exposed to this!&nbsp;
(Rattle, rattle.)&nbsp; By this shameless &ldquo;<i>Catin</i>! <i>Catin</i>!
<i>Catin</i>!&rdquo;</p>
<p>He started at the door again with superhuman vigour.&nbsp; Behind
me I heard Do&ntilde;a Rita laughing softly, statuesque, turned all
dark in the fading glow.&nbsp; I called out to her quite openly, &ldquo;Do
keep your self-control.&rdquo;&nbsp; And she called back to me in a
clear voice: &ldquo;Oh, my dear, will you ever consent to speak to me
after all this?&nbsp; But don&rsquo;t ask for the impossible.&nbsp;
He was born to be laughed at.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;But don&rsquo;t let yourself
go.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I don&rsquo;t know whether Ortega heard us.&nbsp; He was exerting
then his utmost strength of lung against the infamous plot to expose
him to the derision of the fiendish associates of that obscene woman!
. . . Then he began another interlude upon the door, so sustained and
strong that I had the thought that this was growing absurdly impossible,
that either the plaster would begin to fall off the ceiling or he would
drop dead next moment, out there.</p>
<p>He stopped, uttered a few curses at the door, and seemed calmer from
sheer exhaustion.</p>
<p>&ldquo;This story will be all over the world,&rdquo; we heard him
begin.&nbsp; &ldquo;Deceived, decoyed, inveighed, in order to be made
a laughing-stock before the most debased of all mankind, that woman
and her associates.&rdquo;&nbsp; This was really a meditation.&nbsp;
And then he screamed: &ldquo;I will kill you all.&rdquo;&nbsp; Once
more he started worrying the door but it was a startlingly feeble effort
which he abandoned almost at once.&nbsp; He must have been at the end
of his strength.&nbsp; Do&ntilde;a Rita from the middle of the room
asked me recklessly loud: &ldquo;Tell me!&nbsp; Wasn&rsquo;t he born
to be laughed at?&rdquo;&nbsp; I didn&rsquo;t answer her.&nbsp; I was
so near the door that I thought I ought to hear him panting there.&nbsp;
He was terrifying, but he was not serious.&nbsp; He was at the end of
his strength, of his breath, of every kind of endurance, but I did not
know it.&nbsp; He was done up, finished; but perhaps he did not know
it himself.&nbsp; How still he was!&nbsp; Just as I began to wonder
at it, I heard him distinctly give a slap to his forehead.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
see it all!&rdquo; he cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;That miserable, canting peasant-woman
upstairs has arranged it all.&nbsp; No doubt she consulted her priests.&nbsp;
I must regain my self-respect.&nbsp; Let her die first.&rdquo;&nbsp;
I heard him make a dash for the foot of the stairs.&nbsp; I was appalled;
yet to think of Therese being hoisted with her own petard was like a
turn of affairs in a farce.&nbsp; A very ferocious farce.&nbsp; Instinctively
I unlocked the door.&nbsp; Do&ntilde;a Rita&rsquo;s contralto laugh
rang out loud, bitter, and contemptuous; and I heard Ortega&rsquo;s
distracted screaming as if under torture.&nbsp; &ldquo;It hurts!&nbsp;
It hurts!&nbsp; It hurts!&rdquo;&nbsp; I hesitated just an instant,
half a second, no more, but before I could open the door wide there
was in the hall a short groan and the sound of a heavy fall.</p>
<p>The sight of Ortega lying on his back at the foot of the stairs arrested
me in the doorway.&nbsp; One of his legs was drawn up, the other extended
fully, his foot very near the pedestal of the silver statuette holding
the feeble and tenacious gleam which made the shadows so heavy in that
hall.&nbsp; One of his arms lay across his breast.&nbsp; The other arm
was extended full length on the white-and-black pavement with the hand
palm upwards and the fingers rigidly spread out.&nbsp; The shadow of
the lowest step slanted across his face but one whisker and part of
his chin could be made out.&nbsp; He appeared strangely flattened.&nbsp;
He didn&rsquo;t move at all.&nbsp; He was in his shirt-sleeves.&nbsp;
I felt an extreme distaste for that sight.&nbsp; The characteristic
sound of a key worrying in the lock stole into my ears.&nbsp; I couldn&rsquo;t
locate it but I didn&rsquo;t attend much to that at first.&nbsp; I was
engaged in watching Se&ntilde;or Ortega.&nbsp; But for his raised leg
he clung so flat to the floor and had taken on himself such a distorted
shape that he might have been the mere shadow of Se&ntilde;or Ortega.&nbsp;
It was rather fascinating to see him so quiet at the end of all that
fury, clamour, passion, and uproar.&nbsp; Surely there was never anything
so still in the world as this Ortega.&nbsp; I had a bizarre notion that
he was not to be disturbed.</p>
<p>A noise like the rattling of chain links, a small grind and click
exploded in the stillness of the hall and a eciov began to swear in
Italian.&nbsp; These surprising sounds were quite welcome, they recalled
me to myself, and I perceived they came from the front door which seemed
pushed a little ajar.&nbsp; Was somebody trying to get in?&nbsp; I had
no objection, I went to the door and said: &ldquo;Wait a moment, it&rsquo;s
on the chain.&rdquo;&nbsp; The deep voice on the other side said: &ldquo;What
an extraordinary thing,&rdquo; and I assented mentally.&nbsp; It was
extraordinary.&nbsp; The chain was never put up, but Therese was a thorough
sort of person, and on this night she had put it up to keep no one out
except myself.&nbsp; It was the old Italian and his daughters returning
from the ball who were trying to get in.</p>
<p>Suddenly I became intensely alive to the whole situation.&nbsp; I
bounded back, closed the door of Blunt&rsquo;s room, and the next moment
was speaking to the Italian.&nbsp; &ldquo;A little patience.&rdquo;&nbsp;
My hands trembled but I managed to take down the chain and as I allowed
the door to swing open a little more I put myself in his way.&nbsp;
He was burly, venerable, a little indignant, and full of thanks.&nbsp;
Behind him his two girls, in short-skirted costumes, white stockings,
and low shoes, their heads powdered and earrings sparkling in their
ears, huddled together behind their father, wrapped up in their light
mantles.&nbsp; One had kept her little black mask on her face, the other
held hers in her hand.</p>
<p>The Italian was surprised at my blocking the way and remarked pleasantly,
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s cold outside, Signor.&rdquo;&nbsp; I said, &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo;
and added in a hurried whisper: &ldquo;There is a dead man in the hall.&rdquo;&nbsp;
He didn&rsquo;t say a single word but put me aside a little, projected
his body in for one searching glance.&nbsp; &ldquo;Your daughters,&rdquo;
I murmured.&nbsp; He said kindly, &ldquo;<i>Va bene, va bene</i>.&rdquo;&nbsp;
And then to them, &ldquo;Come in, girls.&rdquo;</p>
<p>There is nothing like dealing with a man who has had a long past
of out-of-the-way experiences.&nbsp; The skill with which he rounded
up and drove the girls across the hall, paternal and irresistible, venerable
and reassuring, was a sight to see.&nbsp; They had no time for more
than one scared look over the shoulder.&nbsp; He hustled them in and
locked them up safely in their part of the house, then crossed the hall
with a quick, practical stride.&nbsp; When near Se&ntilde;or Ortega
he trod short just in time and said: &ldquo;In truth, blood&rdquo;;
then selecting the place, knelt down by the body in his tall hat and
respectable overcoat, his white beard giving him immense authority somehow.&nbsp;
&ldquo;But&mdash;this man is not dead,&rdquo; he exclaimed, looking
up at me.&nbsp; With profound sagacity, inherent as it were in his great
beard, he never took the trouble to put any questions to me and seemed
certain that I had nothing to do with the ghastly sight.&nbsp; &ldquo;He
managed to give himself an enormous gash in his side,&rdquo; was his
calm remark.&nbsp; &ldquo;And what a weapon!&rdquo; he exclaimed, getting
it out from under the body.&nbsp; It was an Abyssinian or Nubian production
of a bizarre shape; the clumsiest thing imaginable, partaking of a sickle
and a chopper with a sharp edge and a pointed end.&nbsp; A mere cruel-looking
curio of inconceivable clumsiness to European eyes.</p>
<p>The old man let it drop with amused disdain.&nbsp; &ldquo;You had
better take hold of his legs,&rdquo; he decided without appeal.&nbsp;
I certainly had no inclination to argue.&nbsp; When we lifted him up
the head of Se&ntilde;or Ortega fell back desolately, making an awful,
defenceless display of his large, white throat.</p>
<p>We found the lamp burning in the studio and the bed made up on the
couch on which we deposited our burden.&nbsp; My venerable friend jerked
the upper sheet away at once and started tearing it into strips.</p>
<p>&ldquo;You may leave him to me,&rdquo; said that efficient sage,
&ldquo;but the doctor is your affair.&nbsp; If you don&rsquo;t want
this business to make a noise you will have to find a discreet man.&rdquo;</p>
<p>He was most benevolently interested in all the proceedings.&nbsp;
He remarked with a patriarchal smile as he tore the sheet noisily: &ldquo;You
had better not lose any time.&rdquo;&nbsp; I didn&rsquo;t lose any time.&nbsp;
I crammed into the next hour an astonishing amount of bodily activity.&nbsp;
Without more words I flew out bare-headed into the last night of Carnival.&nbsp;
Luckily I was certain of the right sort of doctor.&nbsp; He was an iron-grey
man of forty and of a stout habit of body but who was able to put on
a spurt.&nbsp; In the cold, dark, and deserted by-streets, he ran with
earnest, and ponderous footsteps, which echoed loudly in the cold night
air, while I skimmed along the ground a pace or two in front of him.&nbsp;
It was only on arriving at the house that I perceived that I had left
the front door wide open.&nbsp; All the town, every evil in the world
could have entered the black-and-white hall.&nbsp; But I had no time
to meditate upon my imprudence.&nbsp; The doctor and I worked in silence
for nearly an hour and it was only then while he was washing his hands
in the fencing-room that he asked:</p>
<p>&ldquo;What was he up to, that imbecile?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, he was examining this curiosity,&rdquo; I said.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, yes, and it accidentally went off,&rdquo; said the doctor,
looking contemptuously at the Nubian knife I had thrown on the table.&nbsp;
Then while wiping his hands: &ldquo;I would bet there is a woman somewhere
under this; but that of course does not affect the nature of the wound.&nbsp;
I hope this blood-letting will do him good.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Nothing will do him any good,&rdquo; I said.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Curious house this,&rdquo; went on the doctor, &ldquo;It belongs
to a curious sort of woman, too.&nbsp; I happened to see her once or
twice.&nbsp; I shouldn&rsquo;t wonder if she were to raise considerable
trouble in the track of her pretty feet as she goes along.&nbsp; I believe
you know her well.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Curious people in the house, too.&nbsp; There was a Carlist
officer here, a lean, tall, dark man, who couldn&rsquo;t sleep.&nbsp;
He consulted me once.&nbsp; Do you know what became of him?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;No.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The doctor had finished wiping his hands and flung the towel far
away.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Considerable nervous over-strain.&nbsp; Seemed to have a restless
brain.&nbsp; Not a good thing, that.&nbsp; For the rest a perfect gentleman.&nbsp;
And this Spaniard here, do you know him?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Enough not to care what happens to him,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;except
for the trouble he might cause to the Carlist sympathizers here, should
the police get hold of this affair.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Well, then, he must take his chance in the seclusion of that
conservatory sort of place where you have put him.&nbsp; I&rsquo;ll
try to find somebody we can trust to look after him.&nbsp; Meantime,
I will leave the case to you.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>CHAPTER VIII</h3>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Directly I had shut the door after the doctor I started shouting
for Therese.&nbsp; &ldquo;Come down at once, you wretched hypocrite,&rdquo;
I yelled at the foot of the stairs in a sort of frenzy as though I had
been a second Ortega.&nbsp; Not even an echo answered me; but all of
a sudden a small flame flickered descending from the upper darkness
and Therese appeared on the first floor landing carrying a lighted candle
in front of a livid, hard face, closed against remorse, compassion,
or mercy by the meanness of her righteousness and of her rapacious instincts.&nbsp;
She was fully dressed in that abominable brown stuff with motionless
folds, and as I watched her coming down step by step she might have
been made of wood.&nbsp; I stepped back and pointed my finger at the
darkness of the passage leading to the studio.&nbsp; She passed within
a foot of me, her pale eyes staring straight ahead, her face still with
disappointment and fury.&nbsp; Yet it is only my surmise.&nbsp; She
might have been made thus inhuman by the force of an invisible purpose.&nbsp;
I waited a moment, then, stealthily, with extreme caution, I opened
the door of the so-called Captain Blunt&rsquo;s room.</p>
<p>The glow of embers was all but out.&nbsp; It was cold and dark in
there; but before I closed the door behind me the dim light from the
hall showed me Do&ntilde;a Rita standing on the very same spot where
I had left her, statuesque in her night-dress.&nbsp; Even after I shut
the door she loomed up enormous, indistinctly rigid and inanimate.&nbsp;
I picked up the candelabra, groped for a candle all over the carpet,
found one, and lighted it.&nbsp; All that time Do&ntilde;a Rita didn&rsquo;t
stir.&nbsp; When I turned towards her she seemed to be slowly awakening
from a trance.&nbsp; She was deathly pale and by contrast the melted,
sapphire-blue of her eyes looked black as coal.&nbsp; They moved a little
in my direction, incurious, recognizing me slowly.&nbsp; But when they
had recognized me completely she raised her hands and hid her face in
them.&nbsp; A whole minute or more passed.&nbsp; Then I said in a low
tone: &ldquo;Look at me,&rdquo; and she let them fall slowly as if accepting
the inevitable.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Shall I make up the fire?&rdquo; . . . I waited.&nbsp; &ldquo;Do
you hear me?&rdquo;&nbsp; She made no sound and with the tip of my finger
I touched her bare shoulder.&nbsp; But for its elasticity it might have
been frozen.&nbsp; At once I looked round for the fur coat; it seemed
to me that there was not a moment to lose if she was to be saved, as
though we had been lost on an Arctic plain.&nbsp; I had to put her arms
into the sleeves, myself, one after another.&nbsp; They were cold, lifeless,
but flexible.&nbsp; Then I moved in front of her and buttoned the thing
close round her throat.&nbsp; To do that I had actually to raise her
chin with my finger, and it sank slowly down again.&nbsp; I buttoned
all the other buttons right down to the ground.&nbsp; It was a very
long and splendid fur.&nbsp; Before rising from my kneeling position
I felt her feet.&nbsp; Mere ice.&nbsp; The intimacy of this sort of
attendance helped the growth of my authority.&nbsp; &ldquo;Lie down,&rdquo;
I murmured, &ldquo;I shall pile on you every blanket I can find here,&rdquo;
but she only shook her head.</p>
<p>Not even in the days when she ran &ldquo;shrill as a cicada and thin
as a match&rdquo; through the chill mists of her native mountains could
she ever have felt so cold, so wretched, and so desolate.&nbsp; Her
very soul, her grave, indignant, and fantastic soul, seemed to drowse
like an exhausted traveller surrendering himself to the sleep of death.&nbsp;
But when I asked her again to lie down she managed to answer me, &ldquo;Not
in this room.&rdquo;&nbsp; The dumb spell was broken.&nbsp; She turned
her head from side to side, but oh! how cold she was!&nbsp; It seemed
to come out of her, numbing me, too; and the very diamonds on the arrow
of gold sparkled like hoar frost in the light of the one candle.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Not in this room; not here,&rdquo; she protested, with that
peculiar suavity of tone which made her voice unforgettable, irresistible,
no matter what she said.&nbsp; &ldquo;Not after all this!&nbsp; I couldn&rsquo;t
close my eyes in this place.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s full of corruption and
ugliness all round, in me, too, everywhere except in your heart, which
has nothing to do where I breathe.&nbsp; And here you may leave me.&nbsp;
But wherever you go remember that I am not evil, I am not evil.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I said: &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t intend to leave you here.&nbsp; There
is my room upstairs.&nbsp; You have been in it before.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, you have heard of that,&rdquo; she whispered.&nbsp; The
beginning of a wan smile vanished from her lips.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I also think you can&rsquo;t stay in this room; and, surely,
you needn&rsquo;t hesitate . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;No.&nbsp; It doesn&rsquo;t matter now.&nbsp; He has killed
me.&nbsp; Rita is dead.&rdquo;</p>
<p>While we exchanged these words I had retrieved the quilted, blue
slippers and had put them on her feet.&nbsp; She was very tractable.&nbsp;
Then taking her by the arm I led her towards the door.</p>
<p>&ldquo;He has killed me,&rdquo; she repeated in a sigh.&nbsp; &ldquo;The
little joy that was in me.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;He has tried to kill himself out there in the hall,&rdquo;
I said.&nbsp; She put back like a frightened child but she couldn&rsquo;t
be dragged on as a child can be.</p>
<p>I assured her that the man was no longer there but she only repeated,
&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t get through the hall.&nbsp; I can&rsquo;t walk.&nbsp;
I can&rsquo;t . . .&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; I said, flinging the door open and seizing her
suddenly in my arms, &ldquo;if you can&rsquo;t walk then you shall be
carried,&rdquo; and I lifted her from the ground so abruptly that she
could not help catching me round the neck as any child almost will do
instinctively when you pick it up.</p>
<p>I ought really to have put those blue slippers in my pocket.&nbsp;
One dropped off at the bottom of the stairs as I was stepping over an
unpleasant-looking mess on the marble pavement, and the other was lost
a little way up the flight when, for some reason (perhaps from a sense
of insecurity), she began to struggle.&nbsp; Though I had an odd sense
of being engaged in a sort of nursery adventure she was no child to
carry.&nbsp; I could just do it.&nbsp; But not if she chose to struggle.&nbsp;
I set her down hastily and only supported her round the waist for the
rest of the way.&nbsp; My room, of course, was perfectly dark but I
led her straight to the sofa at once and let her fall on it.&nbsp; Then
as if I had in sober truth rescued her from an Alpine height or an Arctic
floe, I busied myself with nothing but lighting the gas and starting
the fire.&nbsp; I didn&rsquo;t even pause to lock my door.&nbsp; All
the time I was aware of her presence behind me, nay, of something deeper
and more my own&mdash;of her existence itself&mdash;of a small blue
flame, blue like her eyes, flickering and clear within her frozen body.&nbsp;
When I turned to her she was sitting very stiff and upright, with her
feet posed, hieratically on the carpet and her head emerging out of
the ample fur collar, such as a gem-like flower above the rim of a dark
vase.&nbsp; I tore the blankets and the pillows off my bed and piled
them up in readiness in a great heap on the floor near the couch.&nbsp;
My reason for this was that the room was large, too large for the fireplace,
and the couch was nearest to the fire.&nbsp; She gave no sign but one
of her wistful attempts at a smile.&nbsp; In a most business-like way
I took the arrow out of her hair and laid it on the centre table.&nbsp;
The tawny mass fell loose at once about her shoulders and made her look
even more desolate than before.&nbsp; But there was an invincible need
of gaiety in her heart.&nbsp; She said funnily, looking at the arrow
sparkling in the gas light:</p>
<p>&ldquo;Ah!&nbsp; That poor philistinish ornament!&rdquo;</p>
<p>An echo of our early days, not more innocent but so much more youthful,
was in her tone; and we both, as if touched with poignant regret, looked
at each other with enlightened eyes.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;how far away all this is.&nbsp;
And you wouldn&rsquo;t leave even that object behind when you came last
in here.&nbsp; Perhaps it is for that reason it haunted me&mdash;mostly
at night.&nbsp; I dreamed of you sometimes as a huntress nymph gleaming
white through the foliage and throwing this arrow like a dart straight
at my heart.&nbsp; But it never reached it.&nbsp; It always fell at
my feet as I woke up.&nbsp; The huntress never meant to strike down
that particular quarry.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;The huntress was wild but she was not evil.&nbsp; And she
was no nymph, but only a goatherd girl.&nbsp; Dream of her no more,
my dear.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I had the strength of mind to make a sign of assent and busied myself
arranging a couple of pillows at one end of the sofa.&nbsp; &ldquo;Upon
my soul, goatherd, you are not responsible,&rdquo; I said.&nbsp; &ldquo;You
are not!&nbsp; Lay down that uneasy head,&rdquo; I continued, forcing
a half-playful note into my immense sadness, &ldquo;that has even dreamed
of a crown&mdash;but not for itself.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She lay down quietly.&nbsp; I covered her up, looked once into her
eyes and felt the restlessness of fatigue over-power me so that I wanted
to stagger out, walk straight before me, stagger on and on till I dropped.&nbsp;
In the end I lost myself in thought.&nbsp; I woke with a start to her
voice saying positively:</p>
<p>&ldquo;No.&nbsp; Not even in this room.&nbsp; I can&rsquo;t close
my eyes.&nbsp; Impossible.&nbsp; I have a horror of myself.&nbsp; That
voice in my ears.&nbsp; All true.&nbsp; All true.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She was sitting up, two masses of tawny hair fell on each side of
her tense face.&nbsp; I threw away the pillows from which she had risen
and sat down behind her on the couch.&nbsp; &ldquo;Perhaps like this,&rdquo;
I suggested, drawing her head gently on my breast.&nbsp; She didn&rsquo;t
resist, she didn&rsquo;t even sigh, she didn&rsquo;t look at me or attempt
to settle herself in any way.&nbsp; It was I who settled her after taking
up a position which I thought I should be able to keep for hours&mdash;for
ages.&nbsp; After a time I grew composed enough to become aware of the
ticking of the clock, even to take pleasure in it.&nbsp; The beat recorded
the moments of her rest, while I sat, keeping as still as if my life
depended upon it with my eyes fixed idly on the arrow of gold gleaming
and glittering dimly on the table under the lowered gas-jet.&nbsp; And
presently my breathing fell into the quiet rhythm of the sleep which
descended on her at last.&nbsp; My thought was that now nothing mattered
in the world because I had the world safe resting in my arms&mdash;or
was it in my heart?</p>
<p>Suddenly my heart seemed torn in two within my breast and half of
my breath knocked out of me.&nbsp; It was a tumultuous awakening.&nbsp;
The day had come.&nbsp; Do&ntilde;a Rita had opened her eyes, found
herself in my arms, and instantly had flung herself out of them with
one sudden effort.&nbsp; I saw her already standing in the filtered
sunshine of the closed shutters, with all the childlike horror and shame
of that night vibrating afresh in the awakened body of the woman.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Daylight,&rdquo; she whispered in an appalled voice.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t look at me, George.&nbsp; I can&rsquo;t face daylight.&nbsp;
No&mdash;not with you.&nbsp; Before we set eyes on each other all that
past was like nothing.&nbsp; I had crushed it all in my new pride.&nbsp;
Nothing could touch the Rita whose hand was kissed by you.&nbsp; But
now!&nbsp; Never in daylight.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I sat there stupid with surprise and grief.&nbsp; This was no longer
the adventure of venturesome children in a nursery-book.&nbsp; A grown
man&rsquo;s bitterness, informed, suspicious, resembling hatred, welled
out of my heart.</p>
<p>&ldquo;All this means that you are going to desert me again?&rdquo;
I said with contempt.&nbsp; &ldquo;All right.&nbsp; I won&rsquo;t throw
stones after you . . . Are you going, then?&rdquo;</p>
<p>She lowered her head slowly with a backward gesture of her arm as
if to keep me off, for I had sprung to my feet all at once as if mad.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Then go quickly,&rdquo; I said.&nbsp; &ldquo;You are afraid
of living flesh and blood.&nbsp; What are you running after?&nbsp; Honesty,
as you say, or some distinguished carcass to feed your vanity on?&nbsp;
I know how cold you can be&mdash;and yet live.&nbsp; What have I done
to you?&nbsp; You go to sleep in my arms, wake up and go away.&nbsp;
Is it to impress me?&nbsp; Charlatanism of character, my dear.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She stepped forward on her bare feet as firm on that floor which
seemed to heave up and down before my eyes as she had ever been&mdash;goatherd
child leaping on the rocks of her native hills which she was never to
see again.&nbsp; I snatched the arrow of gold from the table and threw
it after her.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t forget this thing,&rdquo; I cried, &ldquo;you
would never forgive yourself for leaving it behind.&rdquo;</p>
<p>It struck the back of the fur coat and fell on the floor behind her.&nbsp;
She never looked round.&nbsp; She walked to the door, opened it without
haste, and on the landing in the diffused light from the ground-glass
skylight there appeared, rigid, like an implacable and obscure fate,
the awful Therese&mdash;waiting for her sister.&nbsp; The heavy ends
of a big black shawl thrown over her head hung massively in biblical
folds.&nbsp; With a faint cry of dismay Do&ntilde;a Rita stopped just
within my room.</p>
<p>The two women faced each other for a few moments silently.&nbsp;
Therese spoke first.&nbsp; There was no austerity in her tone.&nbsp;
Her voice was as usual, pertinacious, unfeeling, with a slight plaint
in it; terrible in its unchanged purpose.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I have been standing here before this door all night,&rdquo;
she said.&nbsp; &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know how I lived through it.&nbsp;
I thought I would die a hundred times for shame.&nbsp; So that&rsquo;s
how you are spending your time?&nbsp; You are worse than shameless.&nbsp;
But God may still forgive you.&nbsp; You have a soul.&nbsp; You are
my sister.&nbsp; I will never abandon you&mdash;till you die.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; Do&ntilde;a Rita was heard wistfully, &ldquo;my
soul or this house that you won&rsquo;t abandon.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Come out and bow your head in humiliation.&nbsp; I am your
sister and I shall help you to pray to God and all the Saints.&nbsp;
Come away from that poor young gentleman who like all the others can
have nothing but contempt and disgust for you in his heart.&nbsp; Come
and hide your head where no one will reproach you&mdash;but I, your
sister.&nbsp; Come out and beat your breast: come, poor Sinner, and
let me kiss you, for you are my sister!&rdquo;</p>
<p>While Therese was speaking Do&ntilde;a Rita stepped back a pace and
as the other moved forward still extending the hand of sisterly love,
she slammed the door in Therese&rsquo;s face.&nbsp; &ldquo;You abominable
girl!&rdquo; she cried fiercely.&nbsp; Then she turned about and walked
towards me who had not moved.&nbsp; I felt hardly alive but for the
cruel pain that possessed my whole being.&nbsp; On the way she stooped
to pick up the arrow of gold and then moved on quicker, holding it out
to me in her open palm.</p>
<p>&ldquo;You thought I wouldn&rsquo;t give it to you.&nbsp; <i>Amigo</i>,
I wanted nothing so much as to give it to you.&nbsp; And now, perhaps&mdash;you
will take it.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Not without the woman,&rdquo; I said sombrely.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Take it,&rdquo; she said.&nbsp; &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t the
courage to deliver myself up to Therese.&nbsp; No.&nbsp; Not even for
your sake.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t you think I have been miserable enough
yet?&rdquo;</p>
<p>I snatched the arrow out of her hand then and ridiculously pressed
it to my breast; but as I opened my lips she who knew what was struggling
for utterance in my heart cried in a ringing tone:</p>
<p>&ldquo;Speak no words of love, George!&nbsp; Not yet.&nbsp; Not in
this house of ill-luck and falsehood.&nbsp; Not within a hundred miles
of this house, where they came clinging to me all profaned from the
mouth of that man.&nbsp; Haven&rsquo;t you heard them&mdash;the horrible
things?&nbsp; And what can words have to do between you and me?&rdquo;</p>
<p>Her hands were stretched out imploringly, I said, childishly disconcerted:</p>
<p>&ldquo;But, Rita, how can I help using words of love to you?&nbsp;
They come of themselves on my lips!&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;They come!&nbsp; Ah!&nbsp; But I shall seal your lips with
the thing itself,&rdquo; she said.&nbsp; &ldquo;Like this. . . &rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SECOND NOTE</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<p>The narrative of our man goes on for some six months more, from this,
the last night of the Carnival season up to and beyond the season of
roses.&nbsp; The tone of it is much less of exultation than might have
been expected.&nbsp; Love as is well known having nothing to do with
reason, being insensible to forebodings and even blind to evidence,
the surrender of those two beings to a precarious bliss has nothing
very astonishing in itself; and its portrayal, as he attempts it, lacks
dramatic interest.&nbsp; The sentimental interest could only have a
fascination for readers themselves actually in love.&nbsp; The response
of a reader depends on the mood of the moment, so much so that a book
may seem extremely interesting when read late at night, but might appear
merely a lot of vapid verbiage in the morning.&nbsp; My conviction is
that the mood in which the continuation of his story would appear sympathetic
is very rare.&nbsp; This consideration has induced me to suppress it&mdash;all
but the actual facts which round up the previous events and satisfy
such curiosity as might have been aroused by the foregoing narrative.</p>
<p>It is to be remarked that this period is characterized more by a
deep and joyous tenderness than by sheer passion.&nbsp; All fierceness
of spirit seems to have burnt itself out in their preliminary hesitations
and struggles against each other and themselves.&nbsp; Whether love
in its entirety has, speaking generally, the same elementary meaning
for women as for men, is very doubtful.&nbsp; Civilization has been
at work there.&nbsp; But the fact is that those two display, in every
phase of discovery and response, an exact accord.&nbsp; Both show themselves
amazingly ingenuous in the practice of sentiment.&nbsp; I believe that
those who know women won&rsquo;t be surprised to hear me say that she
was as new to love as he was.&nbsp; During their retreat in the region
of the Maritime Alps, in a small house built of dry stones and embowered
with roses, they appear all through to be less like released lovers
than as companions who had found out each other&rsquo;s fitness in a
specially intense way.&nbsp; Upon the whole, I think that there must
be some truth in his insistence of there having always been something
childlike in their relation.&nbsp; In the unreserved and instant sharing
of all thoughts, all impressions, all sensations, we see the naiveness
of a children&rsquo;s foolhardy adventure.&nbsp; This unreserved expressed
for him the whole truth of the situation.&nbsp; With her it may have
been different.&nbsp; It might have been assumed; yet nobody is altogether
a comedian; and even comedians themselves have got to believe in the
part they play.&nbsp; Of the two she appears much the more assured and
confident.&nbsp; But if in this she was a comedienne then it was but
a great achievement of her ineradicable honesty.&nbsp; Having once renounced
her honourable scruples she took good care that he should taste no flavour
of misgivings in the cup.&nbsp; Being older it was she who imparted
its character to the situation.&nbsp; As to the man if he had any superiority
of his own it was simply the superiority of him who loves with the greater
self-surrender.</p>
<p>This is what appears from the pages I have discreetly suppressed&mdash;partly
out of regard for the pages themselves.&nbsp; In every, even terrestrial,
mystery there is as it were a sacred core.&nbsp; A sustained commentary
on love is not fit for every eye.&nbsp; A universal experience is exactly
the sort of thing which is most difficult to appraise justly in a particular
instance.</p>
<p>How this particular instance affected Rose, who was the only companion
of the two hermits in their rose-embowered hut of stones, I regret not
to be able to report; but I will venture to say that for reasons on
which I need not enlarge, the girl could not have been very reassured
by what she saw.&nbsp; It seems to me that her devotion could never
be appeased; for the conviction must have been growing on her that,
no matter what happened, Madame could never have any friends.&nbsp;
It may be that Do&ntilde;a Rita had given her a glimpse of the unavoidable
end, and that the girl&rsquo;s tarnished eyes masked a certain amount
of apprehensive, helpless desolation.</p>
<p>What meantime was becoming of the fortune of Henry All&egrave;gre
is another curious question.&nbsp; We have been told that it was too
big to be tied up in a sack and thrown into the sea.&nbsp; That part
of it represented by the fabulous collections was still being protected
by the police.&nbsp; But for the rest, it may be assumed that its power
and significance were lost to an interested world for something like
six months.&nbsp; What is certain is that the late Henry All&egrave;gre&rsquo;s
man of affairs found himself comparatively idle.&nbsp; The holiday must
have done much good to his harassed brain.&nbsp; He had received a note
from Do&ntilde;a Rita saying that she had gone into retreat and that
she did not mean to send him her address, not being in the humour to
be worried with letters on any subject whatever.&nbsp; &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
enough for you&rdquo;&mdash;she wrote&mdash;&ldquo;to know that I am
alive.&rdquo;&nbsp; Later, at irregular intervals, he received scraps
of paper bearing the stamps of various post offices and containing the
simple statement: &ldquo;I am still alive,&rdquo; signed with an enormous,
flourished exuberant R.&nbsp; I imagine Rose had to travel some distances
by rail to post those messages.&nbsp; A thick veil of secrecy had been
lowered between the world and the lovers; yet even this veil turned
out not altogether impenetrable.</p>
<p>He&mdash;it would be convenient to call him Monsieur George to the
end&mdash;shared with Do&ntilde;a Rita her perfect detachment from all
mundane affairs; but he had to make two short visits to Marseilles.&nbsp;
The first was prompted by his loyal affection for Dominic.&nbsp; He
wanted to discover what had happened or was happening to Dominic and
to find out whether he could do something for that man.&nbsp; But Dominic
was not the sort of person for whom one can do much.&nbsp; Monsieur
George did not even see him.&nbsp; It looked uncommonly as if Dominic&rsquo;s
heart were broken.&nbsp; Monsieur George remained concealed for twenty-four
hours in the very house in which Madame L&eacute;onore had her caf&eacute;.&nbsp;
He spent most of that time in conversing with Madame L&eacute;onore
about Dominic.&nbsp; She was distressed, but her mind was made up.&nbsp;
That bright-eyed, nonchalant, and passionate woman was making arrangements
to dispose of her caf&eacute; before departing to join Dominic.&nbsp;
She would not say where.&nbsp; Having ascertained that his assistance
was not required Monsieur George, in his own words, &ldquo;managed to
sneak out of the town without being seen by a single soul that mattered.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The second occasion was very prosaic and shockingly incongruous with
the super-mundane colouring of these days.&nbsp; He had neither the
fortune of Henry All&egrave;gre nor a man of affairs of his own.&nbsp;
But some rent had to be paid to somebody for the stone hut and Rose
could not go marketing in the tiny hamlet at the foot of the hill without
a little money.&nbsp; There came a time when Monsieur George had to
descend from the heights of his love in order, in his own words, &ldquo;to
get a supply of cash.&rdquo;&nbsp; As he had disappeared very suddenly
and completely for a time from the eyes of mankind it was necessary
that he should show himself and sign some papers.&nbsp; That business
was transacted in the office of the banker mentioned in the story.&nbsp;
Monsieur George wished to avoid seeing the man himself but in this he
did not succeed.&nbsp; The interview was short.&nbsp; The banker naturally
asked no questions, made no allusions to persons and events, and didn&rsquo;t
even mention the great Legitimist Principle which presented to him now
no interest whatever.&nbsp; But for the moment all the world was talking
of the Carlist enterprise.&nbsp; It had collapsed utterly, leaving behind,
as usual, a large crop of recriminations, charges of incompetency and
treachery, and a certain amount of scandalous gossip.&nbsp; The banker
(his wife&rsquo;s salon had been very Carlist indeed) declared that
he had never believed in the success of the cause.&nbsp; &ldquo;You
are well out of it,&rdquo; he remarked with a chilly smile to Monsieur
George.&nbsp; The latter merely observed that he had been very little
&ldquo;in it&rdquo; as a matter of fact, and that he was quite indifferent
to the whole affair.</p>
<p>&ldquo;You left a few of your feathers in it, nevertheless,&rdquo;
the banker concluded with a wooden face and with the curtness of a man
who knows.</p>
<p>Monsieur George ought to have taken the very next train out of the
town but he yielded to the temptation to discover what had happened
to the house in the street of the Consuls after he and Do&ntilde;a Rita
had stolen out of it like two scared yet jubilant children.&nbsp; All
he discovered was a strange, fat woman, a sort of virago, who had, apparently,
been put in as a caretaker by the man of affairs.&nbsp; She made some
difficulties to admit that she had been in charge for the last four
months; ever since the person who was there before had eloped with some
Spaniard who had been lying in the house ill with fever for more than
six weeks.&nbsp; No, she never saw the person.&nbsp; Neither had she
seen the Spaniard.&nbsp; She had only heard the talk of the street.&nbsp;
Of course she didn&rsquo;t know where these people had gone.&nbsp; She
manifested some impatience to get rid of Monsieur George and even attempted
to push him towards the door.&nbsp; It was, he says, a very funny experience.&nbsp;
He noticed the feeble flame of the gas-jet in the hall still waiting
for extinction in the general collapse of the world.</p>
<p>Then he decided to have a bit of dinner at the Restaurant de la Gare
where he felt pretty certain he would not meet any of his friends.&nbsp;
He could not have asked Madame L&eacute;onore for hospitality because
Madame L&eacute;onore had gone away already.&nbsp; His acquaintances
were not the sort of people likely to happen casually into a restaurant
of that kind and moreover he took the precaution to seat himself at
a small table so as to face the wall.&nbsp; Yet before long he felt
a hand laid gently on his shoulder, and, looking up, saw one of his
acquaintances, a member of the Royalist club, a young man of a very
cheerful disposition but whose face looked down at him with a grave
and anxious expression.</p>
<p>Monsieur George was far from delighted.&nbsp; His surprise was extreme
when in the course of the first phrases exchanged with him he learned
that this acquaintance had come to the station with the hope of finding
him there.</p>
<p>&ldquo;You haven&rsquo;t been seen for some time,&rdquo; he said.&nbsp;
&ldquo;You were perhaps somewhere where the news from the world couldn&rsquo;t
reach you?&nbsp; There have been many changes amongst our friends and
amongst people one used to hear of so much.&nbsp; There is Madame de
Lastaola for instance, who seems to have vanished from the world which
was so much interested in her.&nbsp; You have no idea where she may
be now?&rdquo;</p>
<p>Monsieur George remarked grumpily that he couldn&rsquo;t say.</p>
<p>The other tried to appear at ease.&nbsp; Tongues were wagging about
it in Paris.&nbsp; There was a sort of international financier, a fellow
with an Italian name, a shady personality, who had been looking for
her all over Europe and talked in clubs&mdash;astonishing how such fellows
get into the best clubs&mdash;oh! Azzolati was his name.&nbsp; But perhaps
what a fellow like that said did not matter.&nbsp; The funniest thing
was that there was no man of any position in the world who had disappeared
at the same time.&nbsp; A friend in Paris wrote to him that a certain
well-known journalist had rushed South to investigate the mystery but
had returned no wiser than he went.</p>
<p>Monsieur George remarked more unamiably than before that he really
could not help all that.</p>
<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said the other with extreme gentleness, &ldquo;only
of all the people more or less connected with the Carlist affair you
are the only one that had also disappeared before the final collapse.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;What!&rdquo; cried Monsieur George.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Just so,&rdquo; said the other meaningly.&nbsp; &ldquo;You
know that all my people like you very much, though they hold various
opinions as to your discretion.&nbsp; Only the other day Jane, you know
my married sister, and I were talking about you.&nbsp; She was extremely
distressed.&nbsp; I assured her that you must be very far away or very
deeply buried somewhere not to have given a sign of life under this
provocation.</p>
<p>Naturally Monsieur George wanted to know what it was all about; and
the other appeared greatly relieved.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I was sure you couldn&rsquo;t have heard.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t
want to be indiscreet, I don&rsquo;t want to ask you where you were.&nbsp;
It came to my ears that you had been seen at the bank to-day and I made
a special effort to lay hold of you before you vanished again; for,
after all, we have been always good friends and all our lot here liked
you very much.&nbsp; Listen.&nbsp; You know a certain Captain Blunt,
don&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;</p>
<p>Monsieur George owned to knowing Captain Blunt but only very slightly.&nbsp;
His friend then informed him that this Captain Blunt was apparently
well acquainted with Madame de Lastaola, or, at any rate, pretended
to be.&nbsp; He was an honourable man, a member of a good club, he was
very Parisian in a way, and all this, he continued, made all the worse
that of which he was under the painful necessity of warning Monsieur
George.&nbsp; This Blunt on three distinct occasions when the name of
Madame de Lastaola came up in conversation in a mixed company of men
had expressed his regret that she should have become the prey of a young
adventurer who was exploiting her shamelessly.&nbsp; He talked like
a man certain of his facts and as he mentioned names . . .</p>
<p>&ldquo;In fact,&rdquo; the young man burst out excitedly, &ldquo;it
is your name that he mentions.&nbsp; And in order to fix the exact personality
he always takes care to add that you are that young fellow who was known
as Monsieur George all over the South amongst the initiated Carlists.&rdquo;</p>
<p>How Blunt had got enough information to base that atrocious calumny
upon, Monsieur George couldn&rsquo;t imagine.&nbsp; But there it was.&nbsp;
He kept silent in his indignation till his friend murmured, &ldquo;I
expect you will want him to know that you are here.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Monsieur George, &ldquo;and I hope you will
consent to act for me altogether.&nbsp; First of all, pray, let him
know by wire that I am waiting for him.&nbsp; This will be enough to
fetch him down here, I can assure you.&nbsp; You may ask him also to
bring two friends with him.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t intend this to be an
affair for Parisian journalists to write paragraphs about.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes.&nbsp; That sort of thing must be stopped at once,&rdquo;
the other admitted.&nbsp; He assented to Monsieur George&rsquo;s request
that the meeting should be arranged for at his elder brother&rsquo;s
country place where the family stayed very seldom.&nbsp; There was a
most convenient walled garden there.&nbsp; And then Monsieur George
caught his train promising to be back on the fourth day and leaving
all further arrangements to his friend.&nbsp; He prided himself on his
impenetrability before Do&ntilde;a Rita; on the happiness without a
shadow of those four days.&nbsp; However, Do&ntilde;a Rita must have
had the intuition of there being something in the wind, because on the
evening of the very same day on which he left her again on some pretence
or other, she was already ensconced in the house in the street of the
Consuls, with the trustworthy Rose scouting all over the town to gain
information.</p>
<p>Of the proceedings in the walled garden there is no need to speak
in detail.&nbsp; They were conventionally correct, but an earnestness
of purpose which could be felt in the very air lifted the business above
the common run of affairs of honour.&nbsp; One bit of byplay unnoticed
by the seconds, very busy for the moment with their arrangements, must
be mentioned.&nbsp; Disregarding the severe rules of conduct in such
cases Monsieur George approached his adversary and addressed him directly.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Captain Blunt,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;the result of this meeting
may go against me.&nbsp; In that case you will recognize publicly that
you were wrong.&nbsp; For you are wrong and you know it.&nbsp; May I
trust your honour?&rdquo;</p>
<p>In answer to that appeal Captain Blunt, always correct, didn&rsquo;t
open his lips but only made a little bow.&nbsp; For the rest he was
perfectly ruthless.&nbsp; If he was utterly incapable of being carried
away by love there was nothing equivocal about his jealousy.&nbsp; Such
psychology is not very rare and really from the point of view of the
combat itself one cannot very well blame him.&nbsp; What happened was
this.&nbsp; Monsieur George fired on the word and, whether luck or skill,
managed to hit Captain Blunt in the upper part of the arm which was
holding the pistol.&nbsp; That gentleman&rsquo;s arm dropped powerless
by his side.&nbsp; But he did not drop his weapon.&nbsp; There was nothing
equivocal about his determination.&nbsp; With the greatest deliberation
he reached with his left hand for his pistol and taking careful aim
shot Monsieur George through the left side of his breast.&nbsp; One
may imagine the consternation of the four seconds and the activity of
the two surgeons in the confined, drowsy heat of that walled garden.&nbsp;
It was within an easy drive of the town and as Monsieur George was being
conveyed there at a walking pace a little brougham coming from the opposite
direction pulled up at the side of the road.&nbsp; A thickly veiled
woman&rsquo;s head looked out of the window, took in the state of affairs
at a glance, and called out in a firm voice: &ldquo;Follow my carriage.&rdquo;&nbsp;
The brougham turning round took the lead.&nbsp; Long before this convoy
reached the town another carriage containing four gentlemen (of whom
one was leaning back languidly with his arm in a sling) whisked past
and vanished ahead in a cloud of white, Proven&ccedil;al dust.&nbsp;
And this is the last appearance of Captain Blunt in Monsieur George&rsquo;s
narrative.&nbsp; Of course he was only told of it later.&nbsp; At the
time he was not in a condition to notice things.&nbsp; Its interest
in his surroundings remained of a hazy and nightmarish kind for many
days together.&nbsp; From time to time he had the impression that he
was in a room strangely familiar to him, that he had unsatisfactory
visions of Do&ntilde;a Rita, to whom he tried to speak as if nothing
had happened, but that she always put her hand on his mouth to prevent
him and then spoke to him herself in a very strange voice which sometimes
resembled the voice of Rose.&nbsp; The face, too, sometimes resembled
the face of Rose.&nbsp; There were also one or two men&rsquo;s faces
which he seemed to know well enough though he didn&rsquo;t recall their
names.&nbsp; He could have done so with a slight effort, but it would
have been too much trouble.&nbsp; Then came a time when the hallucinations
of Do&ntilde;a Rita and the faithful Rose left him altogether.&nbsp;
Next came a period, perhaps a year, or perhaps an hour, during which
he seemed to dream all through his past life.&nbsp; He felt no apprehension,
he didn&rsquo;t try to speculate as to the future.&nbsp; He felt that
all possible conclusions were out of his power, and therefore he was
indifferent to everything.&nbsp; He was like that dream&rsquo;s disinterested
spectator who doesn&rsquo;t know what is going to happen next.&nbsp;
Suddenly for the first time in his life he had the soul-satisfying consciousness
of floating off into deep slumber.</p>
<p>When he woke up after an hour, or a day, or a month, there was dusk
in the room; but he recognized it perfectly.&nbsp; It was his apartment
in Do&ntilde;a Rita&rsquo;s house; those were the familiar surroundings
in which he had so often told himself that he must either die or go
mad.&nbsp; But now he felt perfectly clear-headed and the full sensation
of being alive came all over him, languidly delicious.&nbsp; The greatest
beauty of it was that there was no need to move.&nbsp; This gave him
a sort of moral satisfaction.&nbsp; Then the first thought independent
of personal sensations came into his head.&nbsp; He wondered when Therese
would come in and begin talking.&nbsp; He saw vaguely a human figure
in the room but that was a man.&nbsp; He was speaking in a deadened
voice which had yet a preternatural distinctness.</p>
<p>&ldquo;This is the second case I have had in this house, and I am
sure that directly or indirectly it was connected with that woman.&nbsp;
She will go on like this leaving a track behind her and then some day
there will be really a corpse.&nbsp; This young fellow might have been
it.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;In this case, Doctor,&rdquo; said another voice, &ldquo;one
can&rsquo;t blame the woman very much.&nbsp; I assure you she made a
very determined fight.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;What do you mean?&nbsp; That she didn&rsquo;t want to. . .
&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes.&nbsp; A very good fight.&nbsp; I heard all about it.&nbsp;
It is easy to blame her, but, as she asked me despairingly, could she
go through life veiled from head to foot or go out of it altogether
into a convent?&nbsp; No, she isn&rsquo;t guilty.&nbsp; She is simply&mdash;what
she is.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;And what&rsquo;s that?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Very much of a woman.&nbsp; Perhaps a little more at the mercy
of contradictory impulses than other women.&nbsp; But that&rsquo;s not
her fault.&nbsp; I really think she has been very honest.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The voices sank suddenly to a still lower murmur and presently the
shape of the man went out of the room.&nbsp; Monsieur George heard distinctly
the door open and shut.&nbsp; Then he spoke for the first time, discovering,
with a particular pleasure, that it was quite easy to speak.&nbsp; He
was even under the impression that he had shouted:</p>
<p>&ldquo;Who is here?&rdquo;</p>
<p>From the shadow of the room (he recognized at once the characteristic
outlines of the bulky shape) Mills advanced to the side of the bed.&nbsp;
Do&ntilde;a Rita had telegraphed to him on the day of the duel and the
man of books, leaving his retreat, had come as fast as boats and trains
could carry him South.&nbsp; For, as he said later to Monsieur George,
he had become fully awake to his part of responsibility.&nbsp; And he
added: &ldquo;It was not of you alone that I was thinking.&rdquo;&nbsp;
But the very first question that Monsieur George put to him was:</p>
<p>&ldquo;How long is it since I saw you last?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Something like ten months,&rdquo; answered Mills&rsquo; kindly
voice.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Ah!&nbsp; Is Therese outside the door?&nbsp; She stood there
all night, you know.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes, I heard of it.&nbsp; She is hundreds of miles away now.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Well, then, ask Rita to come in.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t do that, my dear boy,&rdquo; said Mills with
affectionate gentleness.&nbsp; He hesitated a moment.&nbsp; &ldquo;Do&ntilde;a
Rita went away yesterday,&rdquo; he said softly.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Went away?&nbsp; Why?&rdquo; asked Monsieur George.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Because, I am thankful to say, your life is no longer in danger.&nbsp;
And I have told you that she is gone because, strange as it may seem,
I believe you can stand this news better now than later when you get
stronger.&rdquo;</p>
<p>It must be believed that Mills was right.&nbsp; Monsieur George fell
asleep before he could feel any pang at that intelligence.&nbsp; A sort
of confused surprise was in his mind but nothing else, and then his
eyes closed.&nbsp; The awakening was another matter.&nbsp; But that,
too, Mills had foreseen.&nbsp; For days he attended the bedside patiently
letting the man in the bed talk to him of Do&ntilde;a Rita but saying
little himself; till one day he was asked pointedly whether she had
ever talked to him openly.&nbsp; And then he said that she had, on more
than one occasion.&nbsp; &ldquo;She told me amongst other things,&rdquo;
Mills said, &ldquo;if this is any satisfaction to you to know, that
till she met you she knew nothing of love.&nbsp; That you were to her
in more senses than one a complete revelation.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;And then she went away.&nbsp; Ran away from the revelation,&rdquo;
said the man in the bed bitterly.</p>
<p>&ldquo;What&rsquo;s the good of being angry?&rdquo; remonstrated
Mills, gently.&nbsp; &ldquo;You know that this world is not a world
for lovers, not even for such lovers as you two who have nothing to
do with the world as it is.&nbsp; No, a world of lovers would be impossible.&nbsp;
It would be a mere ruin of lives which seem to be meant for something
else.&nbsp; What this something is, I don&rsquo;t know; and I am certain,&rdquo;
he said with playful compassion, &ldquo;that she and you will never
find out.&rdquo;</p>
<p>A few days later they were again talking of Do&ntilde;a Rita Mills
said:</p>
<p>&ldquo;Before she left the house she gave me that arrow she used
to wear in her hair to hand over to you as a keepsake and also to prevent
you, she said, from dreaming of her.&nbsp; This message sounds rather
cryptic.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, I understand perfectly,&rdquo; said Monsieur George.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t give me the thing now.&nbsp; Leave it somewhere where
I can find it some day when I am alone.&nbsp; But when you write to
her you may tell her that now at last&mdash;surer than Mr. Blunt&rsquo;s
bullet&mdash;the arrow has found its mark.&nbsp; There will be no more
dreaming.&nbsp; Tell her.&nbsp; She will understand.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t even know where she is,&rdquo; murmured Mills.</p>
<p>&ldquo;No, but her man of affairs knows. . . . Tell me, Mills, what
will become of her?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;She will be wasted,&rdquo; said Mills sadly.&nbsp; &ldquo;She
is a most unfortunate creature.&nbsp; Not even poverty could save her
now.&nbsp; She cannot go back to her goats.&nbsp; Yet who can tell?&nbsp;
She may find something in life.&nbsp; She may!&nbsp; It won&rsquo;t
be love.&nbsp; She has sacrificed that chance to the integrity of your
life&mdash;heroically.&nbsp; Do you remember telling her once that you
meant to live your life integrally&mdash;oh, you lawless young pedant!&nbsp;
Well, she is gone; but you may be sure that whatever she finds now in
life it will not be peace.&nbsp; You understand me?&nbsp; Not even in
a convent.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;She was supremely lovable,&rdquo; said the wounded man, speaking
of her as if she were lying dead already on his oppressed heart.</p>
<p>&ldquo;And elusive,&rdquo; struck in Mills in a low voice.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Some of them are like that.&nbsp; She will never change.&nbsp;
Amid all the shames and shadows of that life there will always lie the
ray of her perfect honesty.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t know about your honesty,
but yours will be the easier lot.&nbsp; You will always have your .
. . other love&mdash;you pig-headed enthusiast of the sea.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Then let me go to it,&rdquo; cried the enthusiast.&nbsp; &ldquo;Let
me go to it.&rdquo;</p>
<p>He went to it as soon as he had strength enough to feel the crushing
weight of his loss (or his gain) fully, and discovered that he could
bear it without flinching.&nbsp; After this discovery he was fit to
face anything.&nbsp; He tells his correspondent that if he had been
more romantic he would never have looked at any other woman.&nbsp; But
on the contrary.&nbsp; No face worthy of attention escaped him.&nbsp;
He looked at them all; and each reminded him of Do&ntilde;a Rita, either
by some profound resemblance or by the startling force of contrast.</p>
<p>The faithful austerity of the sea protected him from the rumours
that fly on the tongues of men.&nbsp; He never heard of her.&nbsp; Even
the echoes of the sale of the great All&egrave;gre collection failed
to reach him.&nbsp; And that event must have made noise enough in the
world.&nbsp; But he never heard.&nbsp; He does not know.&nbsp; Then,
years later, he was deprived even of the arrow.&nbsp; It was lost to
him in a stormy catastrophe; and he confesses that next day he stood
on a rocky, wind-assaulted shore, looking at the seas raging over the
very spot of his loss and thought that it was well.&nbsp; It was not
a thing that one could leave behind one for strange hands&mdash;for
the cold eyes of ignorance.&nbsp; Like the old King of Thule with the
gold goblet of his mistress he would have had to cast it into the sea,
before he died.&nbsp; He says he smiled at the romantic notion.&nbsp;
But what else could he have done with it?</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<p>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE ARROW OF GOLD ***</p>
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