"PART ONE\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\n\nCertain streets have an atmosphere of their own, a sort of universal fame\nand the particular affection of their citizens.  One of such streets is\nthe Cannebiere, and the jest: \"If Paris had a Cannebiere it would be a\nlittle Marseilles\" is the jocular expression of municipal pride.  I, too,\nI have been under the spell.  For me it has been a street leading into\nthe unknown.\n\nThere was a part of it where one could see as many as five big cafes in a\nresplendent row.  That evening I strolled into one of them.  It was by no\nmeans full.  It looked deserted, in fact, festal and overlighted, but\ncheerful.  The wonderful street was distinctly cold (it was an evening of\ncarnival), I was very idle, and I was feeling a little lonely.  So I went\nin and sat down.\n\nThe carnival time was drawing to an end.  Everybody, high and low, was\nanxious to have the last fling.  Companies of masks with linked arms and\nwhooping like red Indians swept the streets in crazy rushes while gusts\nof cold mistral swayed the gas lights as far as the eye could reach.\nThere was a touch of bedlam in all this.\n\nPerhaps it was that which made me feel lonely, since I was neither\nmasked, nor disguised, nor yelling, nor in any other way in harmony with\nthe bedlam element of life.  But I was not sad.  I was merely in a state\nof sobriety.  I had just returned from my second West Indies voyage.  My\neyes were still full of tropical splendour, my memory of my experiences,\nlawful and lawless, which had their charm and their thrill; for they had\nstartled me a little and had amused me considerably.  But they had left\nme untouched.  Indeed they were other men's adventures, not mine.  Except\nfor a little habit of responsibility which I had acquired they had not\nmatured me.  I was as young as before.  Inconceivably young--still\nbeautifully unthinking--infinitely receptive.\n\nYou may believe that I was not thinking of Don Carlos and his fight for a\nkingdom.  Why should I?  You don't want to think of things which you meet\nevery day in the newspapers and in conversation.  I had paid some calls\nsince my return and most of my acquaintance were legitimists and\nintensely interested in the events of the frontier of Spain, for\npolitical, religious, or romantic reasons.  But I was not interested.\nApparently I was not romantic enough.  Or was it that I was even more\nromantic than all those good people?  The affair seemed to me\ncommonplace.  That man was attending to his business of a Pretender.\n\nOn the front page of the illustrated paper I saw lying on a table near\nme, he looked picturesque enough, seated on a boulder, a big strong man\nwith a square-cut beard, his hands resting on the hilt of a cavalry\nsabre--and all around him a landscape of savage mountains.  He caught my\neye on that spiritedly composed woodcut.  (There were no inane\nsnapshot-reproductions in those days.)  It was the obvious romance for\nthe use of royalists but it arrested my attention.\n\nJust then some masks from outside invaded the cafe, dancing hand in hand\nin a single file led by a burly man with a cardboard nose.  He gambolled\nin wildly and behind him twenty others perhaps, mostly Pierrots and\nPierrettes holding each other by the hand and winding in and out between\nthe chairs and tables: eyes shining in the holes of cardboard faces,\nbreasts panting; but all preserving a mysterious silence.\n\nThey were people of the poorer sort (white calico with red spots,\ncostumes), but amongst them there was a girl in a black dress sewn over\nwith gold half moons, very high in the neck and very short in the skirt.\nMost of the ordinary clients of the cafe didn't even look up from their\ngames or papers.  I, being alone and idle, stared abstractedly.  The girl\ncostumed as Night wore a small black velvet mask, what is called in\nFrench a \"_loup_.\"  What made her daintiness join that obviously rough\nlot I can't imagine.  Her uncovered mouth and chin suggested refined\nprettiness.\n\nThey filed past my table; the Night noticed perhaps my fixed gaze and\nthrowing her body forward out of the wriggling chain shot out at me a\nslender tongue like a pink dart.  I was not prepared for this, not even\nto the extent of an appreciative \"_Tres foli_,\" before she wriggled and\nhopped away.  But having been thus distinguished I could do no less than\nfollow her with my eyes to the door where the chain of hands being broken\nall the masks were trying to get out at once.  Two gentlemen coming in\nout of the street stood arrested in the crush.  The Night (it must have\nbeen her idiosyncrasy) put her tongue out at them, too.  The taller of\nthe two (he was in evening clothes under a light wide-open overcoat) with\ngreat presence of mind chucked her under the chin, giving me the view at\nthe same time of a flash of white teeth in his dark, lean face.  The\nother man was very different; fair, with smooth, ruddy cheeks and burly\nshoulders.  He was wearing a grey suit, obviously bought ready-made, for\nit seemed too tight for his powerful frame.\n\nThat man was not altogether a stranger to me.  For the last week or so I\nhad been rather on the look-out for him in all the public places where in\na provincial town men may expect to meet each other.  I saw him for the\nfirst time (wearing that same grey ready-made suit) in a legitimist\ndrawing-room where, clearly, he was an object of interest, especially to\nthe women.  I had caught his name as Monsieur Mills.  The lady who had\nintroduced me took the earliest opportunity to murmur into my ear: \"A\nrelation of Lord X.\"  (_Un proche parent de Lord X_.)  And then she\nadded, casting up her eyes: \"A good friend of the King.\"  Meaning Don\nCarlos of course.\n\nI looked at the _proche parent_; not on account of the parentage but\nmarvelling at his air of ease in that cumbrous body and in such tight\nclothes, too.  But presently the same lady informed me further: \"He has\ncome here amongst us _un naufrage_.\"\n\nI became then really interested.  I had never seen a shipwrecked person\nbefore.  All the boyishness in me was aroused.  I considered a shipwreck\nas an unavoidable event sooner or later in my future.\n\nMeantime the man thus distinguished in my eyes glanced quietly about and\nnever spoke unless addressed directly by one of the ladies present.\nThere were more than a dozen people in that drawing-room, mostly women\neating fine pastry and talking passionately.  It might have been a\nCarlist committee meeting of a particularly fatuous character.  Even my\nyouth and inexperience were aware of that.  And I was by a long way the\nyoungest person in the room.  That quiet Monsieur Mills intimidated me a\nlittle by his age (I suppose he was thirty-five), his massive\ntranquillity, his clear, watchful eyes.  But the temptation was too\ngreat--and I addressed him impulsively on the subject of that shipwreck.\n\nHe turned his big fair face towards me with surprise in his keen glance,\nwhich (as though he had seen through me in an instant and found nothing\nobjectionable) changed subtly into friendliness.  On the matter of the\nshipwreck he did not say much.  He only told me that it had not occurred\nin the Mediterranean, but on the other side of Southern France--in the\nBay of Biscay.  \"But this is hardly the place to enter on a story of that\nkind,\" he observed, looking round at the room with a faint smile as\nattractive as the rest of his rustic but well-bred personality.\n\nI expressed my regret.  I should have liked to hear all about it.  To\nthis he said that it was not a secret and that perhaps next time we\nmet. . .\n\n\"But where can we meet?\" I cried.  \"I don't come often to this house, you\nknow.\"\n\n\"Where?  Why on the Cannebiere to be sure.  Everybody meets everybody\nelse at least once a day on the pavement opposite the _Bourse_.\"\n\nThis was absolutely true.  But though I looked for him on each succeeding\nday he was nowhere to be seen at the usual times.  The companions of my\nidle hours (and all my hours were idle just then) noticed my\npreoccupation and chaffed me about it in a rather obvious way.  They\nwanted to know whether she, whom I expected to see, was dark or fair;\nwhether that fascination which kept me on tenterhooks of expectation was\none of my aristocrats or one of my marine beauties: for they knew I had a\nfooting in both these--shall we say circles?  As to themselves they were\nthe bohemian circle, not very wide--half a dozen of us led by a sculptor\nwhom we called Prax for short.  My own nick-name was \"Young Ulysses.\"\n\nI liked it.\n\nBut chaff or no chaff they would have been surprised to see me leave them\nfor the burly and sympathetic Mills.  I was ready to drop any easy\ncompany of equals to approach that interesting man with every mental\ndeference.  It was not precisely because of that shipwreck.  He attracted\nand interested me the more because he was not to be seen.  The fear that\nhe might have departed suddenly for England--(or for Spain)--caused me a\nsort of ridiculous depression as though I had missed a unique\nopportunity.  And it was a joyful reaction which emboldened me to signal\nto him with a raised arm across that cafe.\n\nI was abashed immediately afterwards, when I saw him advance towards my\ntable with his friend.  The latter was eminently elegant.  He was exactly\nlike one of those figures one can see of a fine May evening in the\nneighbourhood of the Opera-house in Paris.  Very Parisian indeed.  And\nyet he struck me as not so perfectly French as he ought to have been, as\nif one's nationality were an accomplishment with varying degrees of\nexcellence.  As to Mills, he was perfectly insular.  There could be no\ndoubt about him.  They were both smiling faintly at me.  The burly Mills\nattended to the introduction: \"Captain Blunt.\"\n\nWe shook hands.  The name didn't tell me much.  What surprised me was\nthat Mills should have remembered mine so well.  I don't want to boast of\nmy modesty but it seemed to me that two or three days was more than\nenough for a man like Mills to forget my very existence.  As to the\nCaptain, I was struck on closer view by the perfect correctness of his\npersonality.  Clothes, slight figure, clear-cut, thin, sun-tanned face,\npose, all this was so good that it was saved from the danger of banality\nonly by the mobile black eyes of a keenness that one doesn't meet every\nday in the south of France and still less in Italy.  Another thing was\nthat, viewed as an officer in mufti, he did not look sufficiently\nprofessional.  That imperfection was interesting, too.\n\nYou may think that I am subtilizing my impressions on purpose, but you\nmay take it from a man who has lived a rough, a very rough life, that it\nis the subtleties of personalities, and contacts, and events, that count\nfor interest and memory--and pretty well nothing else.  This--you see--is\nthe last evening of that part of my life in which I did not know that\nwoman.  These are like the last hours of a previous existence.  It isn't\nmy fault that they are associated with nothing better at the decisive\nmoment than the banal splendours of a gilded cafe and the bedlamite yells\nof carnival in the street.\n\nWe three, however (almost complete strangers to each other), had assumed\nattitudes of serious amiability round our table.  A waiter approached for\norders and it was then, in relation to my order for coffee, that the\nabsolutely first thing I learned of Captain Blunt was the fact that he\nwas a sufferer from insomnia.  In his immovable way Mills began charging\nhis pipe.  I felt extremely embarrassed all at once, but became\npositively annoyed when I saw our Prax enter the cafe in a sort of\nmediaeval costume very much like what Faust wears in the third act.  I\nhave no doubt it was meant for a purely operatic Faust.  A light mantle\nfloated from his shoulders.  He strode theatrically up to our table and\naddressing me as \"Young Ulysses\" proposed I should go outside on the\nfields of asphalt and help him gather a few marguerites to decorate a\ntruly infernal supper which was being organized across the road at the\nMaison Doree--upstairs.  With expostulatory shakes of the head and\nindignant glances I called his attention to the fact that I was not\nalone.  He stepped back a pace as if astonished by the discovery, took\noff his plumed velvet toque with a low obeisance so that the feathers\nswept the floor, and swaggered off the stage with his left hand resting\non the hilt of the property dagger at his belt.\n\nMeantime the well-connected but rustic Mills had been busy lighting his\nbriar and the distinguished Captain sat smiling to himself.  I was\nhorribly vexed and apologized for that intrusion, saying that the fellow\nwas a future great sculptor and perfectly harmless; but he had been\nswallowing lots of night air which had got into his head apparently.\n\nMills peered at me with his friendly but awfully searching blue eyes\nthrough the cloud of smoke he had wreathed about his big head.  The slim,\ndark Captain's smile took on an amiable expression.  Might he know why I\nwas addressed as \"Young Ulysses\" by my friend? and immediately he added\nthe remark with urbane playfulness that Ulysses was an astute person.\nMills did not give me time for a reply.  He struck in: \"That old Greek\nwas famed as a wanderer--the first historical seaman.\"  He waved his pipe\nvaguely at me.\n\n\"Ah!  _Vraiment_!\"  The polite Captain seemed incredulous and as if\nweary.  \"Are you a seaman?  In what sense, pray?\"  We were talking French\nand he used the term _homme de mer_.\n\nAgain Mills interfered quietly.  \"In the same sense in which you are a\nmilitary man.\"  (_Homme de guerre_.)\n\nIt was then that I heard Captain Blunt produce one of his striking\ndeclarations.  He had two of them, and this was the first.\n\n\"I live by my sword.\"\n\nIt was said in an extraordinary dandified manner which in conjunction\nwith the matter made me forget my tongue in my head.  I could only stare\nat him.  He added more naturally: \"2nd Reg.  Castille, Cavalry.\"  Then\nwith marked stress in Spanish, \"_En las filas legitimas_.\"\n\nMills was heard, unmoved, like Jove in his cloud: \"He's on leave here.\"\n\n\"Of course I don't shout that fact on the housetops,\" the Captain\naddressed me pointedly, \"any more than our friend his shipwreck\nadventure.  We must not strain the toleration of the French authorities\ntoo much!  It wouldn't be correct--and not very safe either.\"\n\nI became suddenly extremely delighted with my company.  A man who \"lived\nby his sword,\" before my eyes, close at my elbow!  So such people did\nexist in the world yet!  I had not been born too late!  And across the\ntable with his air of watchful, unmoved benevolence, enough in itself to\narouse one's interest, there was the man with the story of a shipwreck\nthat mustn't be shouted on housetops.  Why?\n\nI understood very well why, when he told me that he had joined in the\nClyde a small steamer chartered by a relative of his, \"a very wealthy\nman,\" he observed (probably Lord X, I thought), to carry arms and other\nsupplies to the Carlist army.  And it was not a shipwreck in the ordinary\nsense.  Everything went perfectly well to the last moment when suddenly\nthe _Numancia_ (a Republican ironclad) had appeared and chased them\nashore on the French coast below Bayonne.  In a few words, but with\nevident appreciation of the adventure, Mills described to us how he swam\nto the beach clad simply in a money belt and a pair of trousers.  Shells\nwere falling all round till a tiny French gunboat came out of Bayonne and\nshooed the _Numancia_ away out of territorial waters.\n\nHe was very amusing and I was fascinated by the mental picture of that\ntranquil man rolling in the surf and emerging breathless, in the costume\nyou know, on the fair land of France, in the character of a smuggler of\nwar material.  However, they had never arrested or expelled him, since he\nwas there before my eyes.  But how and why did he get so far from the\nscene of his sea adventure was an interesting question.  And I put it to\nhim with most naive indiscretion which did not shock him visibly.  He\ntold me that the ship being only stranded, not sunk, the contraband cargo\naboard was doubtless in good condition.  The French custom-house men were\nguarding the wreck.  If their vigilance could be--h'm--removed by some\nmeans, or even merely reduced, a lot of these rifles and cartridges could\nbe taken off quietly at night by certain Spanish fishing boats.  In fact,\nsalved for the Carlists, after all.  He thought it could be done. . . .\n\nI said with professional gravity that given a few perfectly quiet nights\n(rare on that coast) it could certainly be done.\n\nMr. Mills was not afraid of the elements.  It was the highly inconvenient\nzeal of the French custom-house people that had to be dealt with in some\nway.\n\n\"Heavens!\" I cried, astonished.  \"You can't bribe the French Customs.\nThis isn't a South-American republic.\"\n\n\"Is it a republic?\" he murmured, very absorbed in smoking his wooden\npipe.\n\n\"Well, isn't it?\"\n\nHe murmured again, \"Oh, so little.\"  At this I laughed, and a faintly\nhumorous expression passed over Mills' face.  No.  Bribes were out of the\nquestion, he admitted.  But there were many legitimist sympathies in\nParis.  A proper person could set them in motion and a mere hint from\nhigh quarters to the officials on the spot not to worry over-much about\nthat wreck. . . .\n\nWhat was most amusing was the cool, reasonable tone of this amazing\nproject.  Mr. Blunt sat by very detached, his eyes roamed here and there\nall over the cafe; and it was while looking upward at the pink foot of a\nfleshy and very much foreshortened goddess of some sort depicted on the\nceiling in an enormous composition in the Italian style that he let fall\ncasually the words, \"She will manage it for you quite easily.\"\n\n\"Every Carlist agent in Bayonne assured me of that,\" said Mr. Mills.  \"I\nwould have gone straight to Paris only I was told she had fled here for a\nrest; tired, discontented.  Not a very encouraging report.\"\n\n\"These flights are well known,\" muttered Mr. Blunt.  \"You shall see her\nall right.\"\n\n\"Yes.  They told me that you . . . \"\n\nI broke in: \"You mean to say that you expect a woman to arrange that sort\nof thing for you?\"\n\n\"A trifle, for her,\" Mr. Blunt remarked indifferently.  \"At that sort of\nthing women are best.  They have less scruples.\"\n\n\"More audacity,\" interjected Mr. Mills almost in a whisper.\n\nMr. Blunt kept quiet for a moment, then: \"You see,\" he addressed me in a\nmost refined tone, \"a mere man may suddenly find himself being kicked\ndown the stairs.\"\n\nI don't know why I should have felt shocked by that statement.  It could\nnot be because it was untrue.  The other did not give me time to offer\nany remark.  He inquired with extreme politeness what did I know of South\nAmerican republics?  I confessed that I knew very little of them.\nWandering about the Gulf of Mexico I had a look-in here and there; and\namongst others I had a few days in Haiti which was of course unique,\nbeing a negro republic.  On this Captain Blunt began to talk of negroes\nat large.  He talked of them with knowledge, intelligence, and a sort of\ncontemptuous affection.  He generalized, he particularized about the\nblacks; he told anecdotes.  I was interested, a little incredulous, and\nconsiderably surprised.  What could this man with such a boulevardier\nexterior that he looked positively like, an exile in a provincial town,\nand with his drawing-room manner--what could he know of negroes?\n\nMills, sitting silent with his air of watchful intelligence, seemed to\nread my thoughts, waved his pipe slightly and explained: \"The Captain is\nfrom South Carolina.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" I murmured, and then after the slightest of pauses I heard the\nsecond of Mr. J. K. Blunt's declarations.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said.  \"_Je suis Americain_, _catholique et gentil-homme_,\" in\na tone contrasting so strongly with the smile, which, as it were,\nunderlined the uttered words, that I was at a loss whether to return the\nsmile in kind or acknowledge the words with a grave little bow.  Of\ncourse I did neither and there fell on us an odd, equivocal silence.  It\nmarked our final abandonment of the French language.  I was the one to\nspeak first, proposing that my companions should sup with me, not across\nthe way, which would be riotous with more than one \"infernal\" supper, but\nin another much more select establishment in a side street away from the\nCannebiere.  It flattered my vanity a little to be able to say that I had\na corner table always reserved in the Salon des Palmiers, otherwise Salon\nBlanc, where the atmosphere was legitimist and extremely decorous\nbesides--even in Carnival time.  \"Nine tenths of the people there,\" I\nsaid, \"would be of your political opinions, if that's an inducement.\nCome along.  Let's be festive,\" I encouraged them.\n\nI didn't feel particularly festive.  What I wanted was to remain in my\ncompany and break an inexplicable feeling of constraint of which I was\naware.  Mills looked at me steadily with a faint, kind smile.\n\n\"No,\" said Blunt.  \"Why should we go there?  They will be only turning us\nout in the small hours, to go home and face insomnia.  Can you imagine\nanything more disgusting?\"\n\nHe was smiling all the time, but his deep-set eyes did not lend\nthemselves to the expression of whimsical politeness which he tried to\nachieve.  He had another suggestion to offer.  Why shouldn't we adjourn\nto his rooms?  He had there materials for a dish of his own invention for\nwhich he was famous all along the line of the Royal Cavalry outposts, and\nhe would cook it for us.  There were also a few bottles of some white\nwine, quite possible, which we could drink out of Venetian cut-glass\ngoblets.  A _bivouac_ feast, in fact.  And he wouldn't turn us out in the\nsmall hours.  Not he.  He couldn't sleep.\n\nNeed I say I was fascinated by the idea?  Well, yes.  But somehow I\nhesitated and looked towards Mills, so much my senior.  He got up without\na word.  This was decisive; for no obscure premonition, and of something\nindefinite at that, could stand against the example of his tranquil\npersonality.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\n\nThe street in which Mr. Blunt lived presented itself to our eyes, narrow,\nsilent, empty, and dark, but with enough gas-lamps in it to disclose its\nmost striking feature: a quantity of flag-poles sticking out above many\nof its closed portals.  It was the street of Consuls and I remarked to\nMr. Blunt that coming out in the morning he could survey the flags of all\nnations almost--except his own.  (The U. S. consulate was on the other\nside of the town.)  He mumbled through his teeth that he took good care\nto keep clear of his own consulate.\n\n\"Are you afraid of the consul's dog?\" I asked jocularly.  The consul's\ndog weighed about a pound and a half and was known to the whole town as\nexhibited on the consular fore-arm in all places, at all hours, but\nmainly at the hour of the fashionable promenade on the Prado.\n\nBut I felt my jest misplaced when Mills growled low in my ear: \"They are\nall Yankees there.\"\n\nI murmured a confused \"Of course.\"\n\nBooks are nothing.  I discovered that I had never been aware before that\nthe Civil War in America was not printed matter but a fact only about ten\nyears old.  Of course.  He was a South Carolinian gentleman.  I was a\nlittle ashamed of my want of tact.  Meantime, looking like the\nconventional conception of a fashionable reveller, with his opera-hat\npushed off his forehead, Captain Blunt was having some slight difficulty\nwith his latch-key; for the house before which we had stopped was not one\nof those many-storied houses that made up the greater part of the street.\nIt had only one row of windows above the ground floor.  Dead walls\nabutting on to it indicated that it had a garden.  Its dark front\npresented no marked architectural character, and in the flickering light\nof a street lamp it looked a little as though it had gone down in the\nworld.  The greater then was my surprise to enter a hall paved in black\nand white marble and in its dimness appearing of palatial proportions.\nMr. Blunt did not turn up the small solitary gas-jet, but led the way\nacross the black and white pavement past the end of the staircase, past a\ndoor of gleaming dark wood with a heavy bronze handle.  It gave access to\nhis rooms he said; but he took us straight on to the studio at the end of\nthe passage.\n\nIt was rather a small place tacked on in the manner of a lean-to to the\ngarden side of the house.  A large lamp was burning brightly there.  The\nfloor was of mere flag-stones but the few rugs scattered about though\nextremely worn were very costly.  There was also there a beautiful sofa\nupholstered in pink figured silk, an enormous divan with many cushions,\nsome splendid arm-chairs of various shapes (but all very shabby), a round\ntable, and in the midst of these fine things a small common iron stove.\nSomebody must have been attending it lately, for the fire roared and the\nwarmth of the place was very grateful after the bone-searching cold\nblasts of mistral outside.\n\nMills without a word flung himself on the divan and, propped on his arm,\ngazed thoughtfully at a distant corner where in the shadow of a\nmonumental carved wardrobe an articulated dummy without head or hands but\nwith beautifully shaped limbs composed in a shrinking attitude, seemed to\nbe embarrassed by his stare.\n\nAs we sat enjoying the _bivouac_ hospitality (the dish was really\nexcellent and our host in a shabby grey jacket still looked the\naccomplished man-about-town) my eyes kept on straying towards that\ncorner.  Blunt noticed this and remarked that I seemed to be attracted by\nthe Empress.\n\n\"It's disagreeable,\" I said.  \"It seems to lurk there like a shy skeleton\nat the feast.  But why do you give the name of Empress to that dummy?\"\n\n\"Because it sat for days and days in the robes of a Byzantine Empress to\na painter. . . I wonder where he discovered these priceless stuffs. . .\nYou knew him, I believe?\"\n\nMills lowered his head slowly, then tossed down his throat some wine out\nof a Venetian goblet.\n\n\"This house is full of costly objects.  So are all his other houses, so\nis his place in Paris--that mysterious Pavilion hidden away in Passy\nsomewhere.\"\n\nMills knew the Pavilion.  The wine had, I suppose, loosened his tongue.\nBlunt, too, lost something of his reserve.  From their talk I gathered\nthe notion of an eccentric personality, a man of great wealth, not so\nmuch solitary as difficult of access, a collector of fine things, a\npainter known only to very few people and not at all to the public\nmarket.  But as meantime I had been emptying my Venetian goblet with a\ncertain regularity (the amount of heat given out by that iron stove was\namazing; it parched one's throat, and the straw-coloured wine didn't seem\nmuch stronger than so much pleasantly flavoured water) the voices and the\nimpressions they conveyed acquired something fantastic to my mind.\nSuddenly I perceived that Mills was sitting in his shirt-sleeves.  I had\nnot noticed him taking off his coat.  Blunt had unbuttoned his shabby\njacket, exposing a lot of starched shirt-front with the white tie under\nhis dark shaved chin.  He had a strange air of insolence--or so it seemed\nto me.  I addressed him much louder than I intended really.\n\n\"Did you know that extraordinary man?\"\n\n\"To know him personally one had to be either very distinguished or very\nlucky.  Mr. Mills here . . .\"\n\n\"Yes, I have been lucky,\" Mills struck in.  \"It was my cousin who was\ndistinguished.  That's how I managed to enter his house in Paris--it was\ncalled the Pavilion--twice.\"\n\n\"And saw Dona Rita twice, too?\" asked Blunt with an indefinite smile and\na marked emphasis.  Mills was also emphatic in his reply but with a\nserious face.\n\n\"I am not an easy enthusiast where women are concerned, but she was\nwithout doubt the most admirable find of his amongst all the priceless\nitems he had accumulated in that house--the most admirable. . . \"\n\n\"Ah!  But, you see, of all the objects there she was the only one that\nwas alive,\" pointed out Blunt with the slightest possible flavour of\nsarcasm.\n\n\"Immensely so,\" affirmed Mills.  \"Not because she was restless, indeed\nshe hardly ever moved from that couch between the windows--you know.\"\n\n\"No.  I don't know.  I've never been in there,\" announced Blunt with that\nflash of white teeth so strangely without any character of its own that\nit was merely disturbing.\n\n\"But she radiated life,\" continued Mills.  \"She had plenty of it, and it\nhad a quality.  My cousin and Henry Allegre had a lot to say to each\nother and so I was free to talk to her.  At the second visit we were like\nold friends, which was absurd considering that all the chances were that\nwe would never meet again in this world or in the next.  I am not\nmeddling with theology but it seems to me that in the Elysian fields\nshe'll have her place in a very special company.\"\n\nAll this in a sympathetic voice and in his unmoved manner.  Blunt\nproduced another disturbing white flash and muttered:\n\n\"I should say mixed.\"  Then louder: \"As for instance . . . \"\n\n\"As for instance Cleopatra,\" answered Mills quietly.  He added after a\npause: \"Who was not exactly pretty.\"\n\n\"I should have thought rather a La Valliere,\" Blunt dropped with an\nindifference of which one did not know what to make.  He may have begun\nto be bored with the subject.  But it may have been put on, for the whole\npersonality was not clearly definable.  I, however, was not indifferent.\nA woman is always an interesting subject and I was thoroughly awake to\nthat interest.  Mills pondered for a while with a sort of dispassionate\nbenevolence, at last:\n\n\"Yes, Dona Rita as far as I know her is so varied in her simplicity that\neven that is possible,\" he said.  \"Yes.  A romantic resigned La Valliere\n. . . who had a big mouth.\"\n\nI felt moved to make myself heard.\n\n\"Did you know La Valliere, too?\" I asked impertinently.\n\nMills only smiled at me.  \"No.  I am not quite so old as that,\" he said.\n\"But it's not very difficult to know facts of that kind about a\nhistorical personage.  There were some ribald verses made at the time,\nand Louis XIV was congratulated on the possession--I really don't\nremember how it goes--on the possession of:\n\n   \". . . de ce bec amoureux\n   Qui d'une oreille a l'autre va,\n   Tra la la.\n\nor something of the sort.  It needn't be from ear to ear, but it's a fact\nthat a big mouth is often a sign of a certain generosity of mind and\nfeeling.  Young man, beware of women with small mouths.  Beware of the\nothers, too, of course; but a small mouth is a fatal sign.  Well, the\nroyalist sympathizers can't charge Dona Rita with any lack of generosity\nfrom what I hear.  Why should I judge her?  I have known her for, say,\nsix hours altogether.  It was enough to feel the seduction of her native\nintelligence and of her splendid physique.  And all that was brought home\nto me so quickly,\" he concluded, \"because she had what some Frenchman has\ncalled the 'terrible gift of familiarity'.\"\n\nBlunt had been listening moodily.  He nodded assent.\n\n\"Yes!\"  Mills' thoughts were still dwelling in the past.  \"And when\nsaying good-bye she could put in an instant an immense distance between\nherself and you.  A slight stiffening of that perfect figure, a change of\nthe physiognomy: it was like being dismissed by a person born in the\npurple.  Even if she did offer you her hand--as she did to me--it was as\nif across a broad river.  Trick of manner or a bit of truth peeping out?\nPerhaps she's really one of those inaccessible beings.  What do you\nthink, Blunt?\"\n\nIt was a direct question which for some reason (as if my range of\nsensitiveness had been increased already) displeased or rather disturbed\nme strangely.  Blunt seemed not to have heard it.  But after a while he\nturned to me.\n\n\"That thick man,\" he said in a tone of perfect urbanity, \"is as fine as a\nneedle.  All these statements about the seduction and then this final\ndoubt expressed after only two visits which could not have included more\nthan six hours altogether and this some three years ago!  But it is Henry\nAllegre that you should ask this question, Mr. Mills.\"\n\n\"I haven't the secret of raising the dead,\" answered Mills good\nhumouredly.  \"And if I had I would hesitate.  It would seem such a\nliberty to take with a person one had known so slightly in life.\"\n\n\"And yet Henry Allegre is the only person to ask about her, after all\nthis uninterrupted companionship of years, ever since he discovered her;\nall the time, every breathing moment of it, till, literally, his very\nlast breath.  I don't mean to say she nursed him.  He had his\nconfidential man for that.  He couldn't bear women about his person.  But\nthen apparently he couldn't bear this one out of his sight.  She's the\nonly woman who ever sat to him, for he would never suffer a model inside\nhis house.  That's why the 'Girl in the Hat' and the 'Byzantine Empress'\nhave that family air, though neither of them is really a likeness of Dona\nRita. . . You know my mother?\"\n\nMills inclined his body slightly and a fugitive smile vanished from his\nlips.  Blunt's eyes were fastened on the very centre of his empty plate.\n\n\"Then perhaps you know my mother's artistic and literary associations,\"\nBlunt went on in a subtly changed tone.  \"My mother has been writing\nverse since she was a girl of fifteen.  She's still writing verse.  She's\nstill fifteen--a spoiled girl of genius.  So she requested one of her\npoet friends--no less than Versoy himself--to arrange for a visit to\nHenry Allegre's house.  At first he thought he hadn't heard aright.  You\nmust know that for my mother a man that doesn't jump out of his skin for\nany woman's caprice is not chivalrous.  But perhaps you do know? . . .\"\n\nMills shook his head with an amused air.  Blunt, who had raised his eyes\nfrom his plate to look at him, started afresh with great deliberation.\n\n\"She gives no peace to herself or her friends.  My mother's exquisitely\nabsurd.  You understand that all these painters, poets, art collectors\n(and dealers in bric-a-brac, he interjected through his teeth) of my\nmother are not in my way; but Versoy lives more like a man of the world.\nOne day I met him at the fencing school.  He was furious.  He asked me to\ntell my mother that this was the last effort of his chivalry.  The jobs\nshe gave him to do were too difficult.  But I daresay he had been pleased\nenough to show the influence he had in that quarter.  He knew my mother\nwould tell the world's wife all about it.  He's a spiteful, gingery\nlittle wretch.  The top of his head shines like a billiard ball.  I\nbelieve he polishes it every morning with a cloth.  Of course they didn't\nget further than the big drawing-room on the first floor, an enormous\ndrawing-room with three pairs of columns in the middle.  The double doors\non the top of the staircase had been thrown wide open, as if for a visit\nfrom royalty.  You can picture to yourself my mother, with her white hair\ndone in some 18th century fashion and her sparkling black eyes,\npenetrating into those splendours attended by a sort of bald-headed,\nvexed squirrel--and Henry Allegre coming forward to meet them like a\nsevere prince with the face of a tombstone Crusader, big white hands,\nmuffled silken voice, half-shut eyes, as if looking down at them from a\nbalcony.  You remember that trick of his, Mills?\"\n\nMills emitted an enormous cloud of smoke out of his distended cheeks.\n\n\"I daresay he was furious, too,\"  Blunt continued dispassionately.  \"But\nhe was extremely civil.  He showed her all the 'treasures' in the room,\nivories, enamels, miniatures, all sorts of monstrosities from Japan, from\nIndia, from Timbuctoo . . . for all I know. . . He pushed his\ncondescension so far as to have the 'Girl in the Hat' brought down into\nthe drawing-room--half length, unframed.  They put her on a chair for my\nmother to look at.  The 'Byzantine Empress' was already there, hung on\nthe end wall--full length, gold frame weighing half a ton.  My mother\nfirst overwhelms the 'Master' with thanks, and then absorbs herself in\nthe adoration of the 'Girl in the Hat.'  Then she sighs out: 'It should\nbe called Diaphaneite, if there is such a word.  Ah!  This is the last\nexpression of modernity!'  She puts up suddenly her face-a-main and looks\ntowards the end wall.  'And that--Byzantium itself!  Who was she, this\nsullen and beautiful Empress?'\n\n\"'The one I had in my mind was Theodosia!'  Allegre consented to answer.\n'Originally a slave girl--from somewhere.'\n\n\"My mother can be marvellously indiscreet when the whim takes her.  She\nfinds nothing better to do than to ask the 'Master' why he took his\ninspiration for those two faces from the same model.  No doubt she was\nproud of her discerning eye.  It was really clever of her.  Allegre,\nhowever, looked on it as a colossal impertinence; but he answered in his\nsilkiest tones:\n\n\"'Perhaps it is because I saw in that woman something of the women of all\ntime.'\n\n\"My mother might have guessed that she was on thin ice there.  She is\nextremely intelligent.  Moreover, she ought to have known.  But women can\nbe miraculously dense sometimes.  So she exclaims, 'Then she is a\nwonder!'  And with some notion of being complimentary goes on to say that\nonly the eyes of the discoverer of so many wonders of art could have\ndiscovered something so marvellous in life.  I suppose Allegre lost his\ntemper altogether then; or perhaps he only wanted to pay my mother out,\nfor all these 'Masters' she had been throwing at his head for the last\ntwo hours.  He insinuates with the utmost politeness:\n\n\"'As you are honouring my poor collection with a visit you may like to\njudge for yourself as to the inspiration of these two pictures.  She is\nupstairs changing her dress after our morning ride.  But she wouldn't be\nvery long.  She might be a little surprised at first to be called down\nlike this, but with a few words of preparation and purely as a matter of\nart . . .'\n\n\"There were never two people more taken aback.  Versoy himself confesses\nthat he dropped his tall hat with a crash.  I am a dutiful son, I hope,\nbut I must say I should have liked to have seen the retreat down the\ngreat staircase.  Ha!  Ha!  Ha!\"\n\nHe laughed most undutifully and then his face twitched grimly.\n\n\"That implacable brute Allegre followed them down ceremoniously and put\nmy mother into the fiacre at the door with the greatest deference.  He\ndidn't open his lips though, and made a great bow as the fiacre drove\naway.  My mother didn't recover from her consternation for three days.  I\nlunch with her almost daily and I couldn't imagine what was the matter.\nThen one day . . .\"\n\nHe glanced round the table, jumped up and with a word of excuse left the\nstudio by a small door in a corner.  This startled me into the\nconsciousness that I had been as if I had not existed for these two men.\nWith his elbows propped on the table Mills had his hands in front of his\nface clasping the pipe from which he extracted now and then a puff of\nsmoke, staring stolidly across the room.\n\nI was moved to ask in a whisper:\n\n\"Do you know him well?\"\n\n\"I don't know what he is driving at,\" he answered drily.  \"But as to his\nmother she is not as volatile as all that.  I suspect it was business.\nIt may have been a deep plot to get a picture out of Allegre for\nsomebody.  My cousin as likely as not.  Or simply to discover what he\nhad.  The Blunts lost all their property and in Paris there are various\nways of making a little money, without actually breaking anything.  Not\neven the law.  And Mrs. Blunt really had a position once--in the days of\nthe Second Empire--and so. . .\"\n\nI listened open-mouthed to these things into which my West-Indian\nexperiences could not have given me an insight.  But Mills checked\nhimself and ended in a changed tone.\n\n\"It's not easy to know what she would be at, either, in any given\ninstance.  For the rest, spotlessly honourable.  A delightful,\naristocratic old lady.  Only poor.\"\n\nA bump at the door silenced him and immediately Mr. John Blunt, Captain\nof Cavalry in the Army of Legitimity, first-rate cook (as to one dish at\nleast), and generous host, entered clutching the necks of four more\nbottles between the fingers of his hand.\n\n\"I stumbled and nearly smashed the lot,\" he remarked casually.  But even\nI, with all my innocence, never for a moment believed he had stumbled\naccidentally.  During the uncorking and the filling up of glasses a\nprofound silence reigned; but neither of us took it seriously--any more\nthan his stumble.\n\n\"One day,\" he went on again in that curiously flavoured voice of his, \"my\nmother took a heroic decision and made up her mind to get up in the\nmiddle of the night.  You must understand my mother's phraseology.  It\nmeant that she would be up and dressed by nine o'clock.  This time it was\nnot Versoy that was commanded for attendance, but I.  You may imagine how\ndelighted I was. . . .\"\n\nIt was very plain to me that Blunt was addressing himself exclusively to\nMills: Mills the mind, even more than Mills the man.  It was as if Mills\nrepresented something initiated and to be reckoned with.  I, of course,\ncould have no such pretensions.  If I represented anything it was a\nperfect freshness of sensations and a refreshing ignorance, not so much\nof what life may give one (as to that I had some ideas at least) but of\nwhat it really contains.  I knew very well that I was utterly\ninsignificant in these men's eyes.  Yet my attention was not checked by\nthat knowledge.  It's true they were talking of a woman, but I was yet at\nthe age when this subject by itself is not of overwhelming interest.  My\nimagination would have been more stimulated probably by the adventures\nand fortunes of a man.  What kept my interest from flagging was Mr. Blunt\nhimself.  The play of the white gleams of his smile round the suspicion\nof grimness of his tone fascinated me like a moral incongruity.\n\nSo at the age when one sleeps well indeed but does feel sometimes as if\nthe need of sleep were a mere weakness of a distant old age, I kept\neasily awake; and in my freshness I was kept amused by the contrast of\npersonalities, of the disclosed facts and moral outlook with the rough\ninitiations of my West-Indian experience.  And all these things were\ndominated by a feminine figure which to my imagination had only a\nfloating outline, now invested with the grace of girlhood, now with the\nprestige of a woman; and indistinct in both these characters.  For these\ntwo men had _seen_ her, while to me she was only being \"presented,\"\nelusively, in vanishing words, in the shifting tones of an unfamiliar\nvoice.\n\nShe was being presented to me now in the Bois de Boulogne at the early\nhour of the ultra-fashionable world (so I understood), on a light bay\n\"bit of blood\" attended on the off side by that Henry Allegre mounted on\na dark brown powerful weight carrier; and on the other by one of\nAllegre's acquaintances (the man had no real friends), distinguished\nfrequenters of that mysterious Pavilion.  And so that side of the frame\nin which that woman appeared to one down the perspective of the great\nAllee was not permanent.  That morning when Mr. Blunt had to escort his\nmother there for the gratification of her irresistible curiosity (of\nwhich he highly disapproved) there appeared in succession, at that\nwoman's or girl's bridle-hand, a cavalry general in red breeches, on whom\nshe was smiling; a rising politician in a grey suit, who talked to her\nwith great animation but left her side abruptly to join a personage in a\nred fez and mounted on a white horse; and then, some time afterwards, the\nvexed Mr. Blunt and his indiscreet mother (though I really couldn't see\nwhere the harm was) had one more chance of a good stare.  The third party\nthat time was the Royal Pretender (Allegre had been painting his portrait\nlately), whose hearty, sonorous laugh was heard long before the mounted\ntrio came riding very slowly abreast of the Blunts.  There was colour in\nthe girl's face.  She was not laughing.  Her expression was serious and\nher eyes thoughtfully downcast.  Blunt admitted that on that occasion the\ncharm, brilliance, and force of her personality was adequately framed\nbetween those magnificently mounted, paladin-like attendants, one older\nthan the other but the two composing together admirably in the different\nstages of their manhood.  Mr. Blunt had never before seen Henry Allegre\nso close.  Allegre was riding nearest to the path on which Blunt was\ndutifully giving his arm to his mother (they had got out of their fiacre)\nand wondering if that confounded fellow would have the impudence to take\noff his hat.  But he did not.  Perhaps he didn't notice.  Allegre was not\na man of wandering glances.  There were silver hairs in his beard but he\nlooked as solid as a statue.  Less than three months afterwards he was\ngone.\n\n\"What was it?\" asked Mills, who had not changed his pose for a very long\ntime.\n\n\"Oh, an accident.  But he lingered.  They were on their way to Corsica.\nA yearly pilgrimage.  Sentimental perhaps.  It was to Corsica that he\ncarried her off--I mean first of all.\"\n\nThere was the slightest contraction of Mr. Blunt's facial muscles.  Very\nslight; but I, staring at the narrator after the manner of all simple\nsouls, noticed it; the twitch of a pain which surely must have been\nmental.  There was also a suggestion of effort before he went on: \"I\nsuppose you know how he got hold of her?\" in a tone of ease which was\nastonishingly ill-assumed for such a worldly, self-controlled,\ndrawing-room person.\n\nMills changed his attitude to look at him fixedly for a moment.  Then he\nleaned back in his chair and with interest--I don't mean curiosity, I\nmean interest: \"Does anybody know besides the two parties concerned?\" he\nasked, with something as it were renewed (or was it refreshed?) in his\nunmoved quietness.  \"I ask because one has never heard any tales.  I\nremember one evening in a restaurant seeing a man come in with a lady--a\nbeautiful lady--very particularly beautiful, as though she had been\nstolen out of Mahomet's paradise.  With Dona Rita it can't be anything as\ndefinite as that.  But speaking of her in the same strain, I've always\nfelt that she looked as though Allegre had caught her in the precincts of\nsome temple . . . in the mountains.\"\n\nI was delighted.  I had never heard before a woman spoken about in that\nway, a real live woman that is, not a woman in a book.  For this was no\npoetry and yet it seemed to put her in the category of visions.  And I\nwould have lost myself in it if Mr. Blunt had not, most unexpectedly,\naddressed himself to me.\n\n\"I told you that man was as fine as a needle.\"\n\nAnd then to Mills: \"Out of a temple?  We know what that means.\"  His dark\neyes flashed: \"And must it be really in the mountains?\" he added.\n\n\"Or in a desert,\" conceded Mills, \"if you prefer that.  There have been\ntemples in deserts, you know.\"\n\nBlunt had calmed down suddenly and assumed a nonchalant pose.\n\n\"As a matter of fact, Henry Allegre caught her very early one morning in\nhis own old garden full of thrushes and other small birds.  She was\nsitting on a stone, a fragment of some old balustrade, with her feet in\nthe damp grass, and reading a tattered book of some kind.  She had on a\nshort, black, two-penny frock (_une petite robe de deux sous_) and there\nwas a hole in one of her stockings.  She raised her eyes and saw him\nlooking down at her thoughtfully over that ambrosian beard of his, like\nJove at a mortal.  They exchanged a good long stare, for at first she was\ntoo startled to move; and then he murmured, \"_Restez donc_.\"  She lowered\nher eyes again on her book and after a while heard him walk away on the\npath.  Her heart thumped while she listened to the little birds filling\nthe air with their noise.  She was not frightened.  I am telling you this\npositively because she has told me the tale herself.  What better\nauthority can you have . . .?\" Blunt paused.\n\n\"That's true.  She's not the sort of person to lie about her own\nsensations,\" murmured Mills above his clasped hands.\n\n\"Nothing can escape his penetration,\" Blunt remarked to me with that\nequivocal urbanity which made me always feel uncomfortable on Mills'\naccount.  \"Positively nothing.\"  He turned to Mills again.  \"After some\nminutes of immobility--she told me--she arose from her stone and walked\nslowly on the track of that apparition.  Allegre was nowhere to be seen\nby that time.  Under the gateway of the extremely ugly tenement house,\nwhich hides the Pavilion and the garden from the street, the wife of the\nporter was waiting with her arms akimbo.  At once she cried out to Rita:\n'You were caught by our gentleman.'\n\n\"As a matter of fact, that old woman, being a friend of Rita's aunt,\nallowed the girl to come into the garden whenever Allegre was away.  But\nAllegre's goings and comings were sudden and unannounced; and that\nmorning, Rita, crossing the narrow, thronged street, had slipped in\nthrough the gateway in ignorance of Allegre's return and unseen by the\nporter's wife.\n\n\"The child, she was but little more than that then, expressed her regret\nof having perhaps got the kind porter's wife into trouble.\n\n\"The old woman said with a peculiar smile: 'Your face is not of the sort\nthat gets other people into trouble.  My gentleman wasn't angry.  He says\nyou may come in any morning you like.'\n\n\"Rita, without saying anything to this, crossed the street back again to\nthe warehouse full of oranges where she spent most of her waking hours.\nHer dreaming, empty, idle, thoughtless, unperturbed hours, she calls\nthem.  She crossed the street with a hole in her stocking.  She had a\nhole in her stocking not because her uncle and aunt were poor (they had\naround them never less than eight thousand oranges, mostly in cases) but\nbecause she was then careless and untidy and totally unconscious of her\npersonal appearance.  She told me herself that she was not even conscious\nthen of her personal existence.  She was a mere adjunct in the twilight\nlife of her aunt, a Frenchwoman, and her uncle, the orange merchant, a\nBasque peasant, to whom her other uncle, the great man of the family, the\npriest of some parish in the hills near Tolosa, had sent her up at the\nage of thirteen or thereabouts for safe keeping.  She is of peasant\nstock, you know.  This is the true origin of the 'Girl in the Hat' and of\nthe 'Byzantine Empress' which excited my dear mother so much; of the\nmysterious girl that the privileged personalities great in art, in\nletters, in politics, or simply in the world, could see on the big sofa\nduring the gatherings in Allegre's exclusive Pavilion: the Dona Rita of\ntheir respectful addresses, manifest and mysterious, like an object of\nart from some unknown period; the Dona Rita of the initiated Paris.  Dona\nRita and nothing more--unique and indefinable.\"  He stopped with a\ndisagreeable smile.\n\n\"And of peasant stock?\" I exclaimed in the strangely conscious silence\nthat fell between Mills and Blunt.\n\n\"Oh!  All these Basques have been ennobled by Don Sanche II,\" said\nCaptain Blunt moodily.  \"You see coats of arms carved over the doorways\nof the most miserable _caserios_.  As far as that goes she's Dona Rita\nright enough whatever else she is or is not in herself or in the eyes of\nothers.  In your eyes, for instance, Mills.  Eh?\"\n\nFor a time Mills preserved that conscious silence.\n\n\"Why think about it at all?\" he murmured coldly at last.  \"A strange bird\nis hatched sometimes in a nest in an unaccountable way and then the fate\nof such a bird is bound to be ill-defined, uncertain, questionable.  And\nso that is how Henry Allegre saw her first?  And what happened next?\"\n\n\"What happened next?\" repeated Mr. Blunt, with an affected surprise in\nhis tone.  \"Is it necessary to ask that question?  If you had asked _how_\nthe next happened. . .  But as you may imagine she hasn't told me\nanything about that.  She didn't,\" he continued with polite sarcasm,\n\"enlarge upon the facts.  That confounded Allegre, with his impudent\nassumption of princely airs, must have (I shouldn't wonder) made the fact\nof his notice appear as a sort of favour dropped from Olympus.  I really\ncan't tell how the minds and the imaginations of such aunts and uncles\nare affected by such rare visitations.  Mythology may give us a hint.\nThere is the story of Danae, for instance.\"\n\n\"There is,\" remarked Mills calmly, \"but I don't remember any aunt or\nuncle in that connection.\"\n\n\"And there are also certain stories of the discovery and acquisition of\nsome unique objects of art.  The sly approaches, the astute negotiations,\nthe lying and the circumventing . . . for the love of beauty, you know.\"\n\nWith his dark face and with the perpetual smiles playing about his\ngrimness, Mr. Blunt appeared to me positively satanic.  Mills' hand was\ntoying absently with an empty glass.  Again they had forgotten my\nexistence altogether.\n\n\"I don't know how an object of art would feel,\" went on Blunt, in an\nunexpectedly grating voice, which, however, recovered its tone\nimmediately.  \"I don't know.  But I do know that Rita herself was not a\nDanae, never, not at any time of her life.  She didn't mind the holes in\nher stockings.  She wouldn't mind holes in her stockings now. . . That is\nif she manages to keep any stockings at all,\" he added, with a sort of\nsuppressed fury so funnily unexpected that I would have burst into a\nlaugh if I hadn't been lost in astonishment of the simplest kind.\n\n\"No--really!\"  There was a flash of interest from the quiet Mills.\n\n\"Yes, really,\"  Blunt nodded and knitted his brows very devilishly\nindeed.  \"She may yet be left without a single pair of stockings.\"\n\n\"The world's a thief,\" declared Mills, with the utmost composure.  \"It\nwouldn't mind robbing a lonely traveller.\"\n\n\"He is so subtle.\"  Blunt remembered my existence for the purpose of that\nremark and as usual it made me very uncomfortable.  \"Perfectly true.  A\nlonely traveller.  They are all in the scramble from the lowest to the\nhighest.  Heavens!  What a gang!  There was even an Archbishop in it.\"\n\n\"_Vous plaisantez_,\" said Mills, but without any marked show of\nincredulity.\n\n\"I joke very seldom,\" Blunt protested earnestly.  \"That's why I haven't\nmentioned His Majesty--whom God preserve.  That would have been an\nexaggeration. . . However, the end is not yet.  We were talking about the\nbeginning.  I have heard that some dealers in fine objects, quite\nmercenary people of course (my mother has an experience in that world),\nshow sometimes an astonishing reluctance to part with some specimens,\neven at a good price.  It must be very funny.  It's just possible that\nthe uncle and the aunt have been rolling in tears on the floor, amongst\ntheir oranges, or beating their heads against the walls from rage and\ndespair.  But I doubt it.  And in any case Allegre is not the sort of\nperson that gets into any vulgar trouble.  And it's just possible that\nthose people stood open-mouthed at all that magnificence.  They weren't\npoor, you know; therefore it wasn't incumbent on them to be honest.  They\nare still there in the old respectable warehouse, I understand.  They\nhave kept their position in their _quartier_, I believe.  But they didn't\nkeep their niece.  It might have been an act of sacrifice!  For I seem to\nremember hearing that after attending for a while some school round the\ncorner the child had been set to keep the books of that orange business.\nHowever it might have been, the first fact in Rita's and Allegre's common\nhistory is a journey to Italy, and then to Corsica.  You know Allegre had\na house in Corsica somewhere.  She has it now as she has everything he\never had; and that Corsican palace is the portion that will stick the\nlongest to Dona Rita, I imagine.  Who would want to buy a place like\nthat?  I suppose nobody would take it for a gift.  The fellow was having\nhouses built all over the place.  This very house where we are sitting\nbelonged to him.  Dona Rita has given it to her sister, I understand.  Or\nat any rate the sister runs it.  She is my landlady . . .\"\n\n\"Her sister here!\" I exclaimed.  \"Her sister!\"\n\nBlunt turned to me politely, but only for a long mute gaze.  His eyes\nwere in deep shadow and it struck me for the first time then that there\nwas something fatal in that man's aspect as soon as he fell silent.  I\nthink the effect was purely physical, but in consequence whatever he said\nseemed inadequate and as if produced by a commonplace, if uneasy, soul.\n\n\"Dona Rita brought her down from her mountains on purpose.  She is asleep\nsomewhere in this house, in one of the vacant rooms.  She lets them, you\nknow, at extortionate prices, that is, if people will pay them, for she\nis easily intimidated.  You see, she has never seen such an enormous town\nbefore in her life, nor yet so many strange people.  She has been keeping\nhouse for the uncle-priest in some mountain gorge for years and years.\nIt's extraordinary he should have let her go.  There is something\nmysterious there, some reason or other.  It's either theology or Family.\nThe saintly uncle in his wild parish would know nothing of any other\nreasons.  She wears a rosary at her waist.  Directly she had seen some\nreal money she developed a love of it.  If you stay with me long enough,\nand I hope you will (I really can't sleep), you will see her going out to\nmass at half-past six; but there is nothing remarkable in her; just a\npeasant woman of thirty-four or so.  A rustic nun. . . .\"\n\nI may as well say at once that we didn't stay as long as that.  It was\nnot that morning that I saw for the first time Therese of the whispering\nlips and downcast eyes slipping out to an early mass from the house of\niniquity into the early winter murk of the city of perdition, in a world\nsteeped in sin.  No.  It was not on that morning that I saw Dona Rita's\nincredible sister with her brown, dry face, her gliding motion, and her\nreally nun-like dress, with a black handkerchief enfolding her head\ntightly, with the two pointed ends hanging down her back.  Yes, nun-like\nenough.  And yet not altogether.  People would have turned round after\nher if those dartings out to the half-past six mass hadn't been the only\noccasion on which she ventured into the impious streets.  She was\nfrightened of the streets, but in a particular way, not as if of a danger\nbut as if of a contamination.  Yet she didn't fly back to her mountains\nbecause at bottom she had an indomitable character, a peasant tenacity of\npurpose, predatory instincts. . . .\n\nNo, we didn't remain long enough with Mr. Blunt to see even as much as\nher back glide out of the house on her prayerful errand.  She was\nprayerful.  She was terrible.  Her one-idead peasant mind was as\ninaccessible as a closed iron safe.  She was fatal. . . It's perfectly\nridiculous to confess that they all seem fatal to me now; but writing to\nyou like this in all sincerity I don't mind appearing ridiculous.  I\nsuppose fatality must be expressed, embodied, like other forces of this\nearth; and if so why not in such people as well as in other more glorious\nor more frightful figures?\n\nWe remained, however, long enough to let Mr. Blunt's half-hidden acrimony\ndevelop itself or prey on itself in further talk about the man Allegre\nand the girl Rita.  Mr. Blunt, still addressing Mills with that story,\npassed on to what he called the second act, the disclosure, with, what he\ncalled, the characteristic Allegre impudence--which surpassed the\nimpudence of kings, millionaires, or tramps, by many degrees--the\nrevelation of Rita's existence to the world at large.  It wasn't a very\nlarge world, but then it was most choicely composed.  How is one to\ndescribe it shortly?  In a sentence it was the world that rides in the\nmorning in the Bois.\n\nIn something less than a year and a half from the time he found her\nsitting on a broken fragment of stone work buried in the grass of his\nwild garden, full of thrushes, starlings, and other innocent creatures of\nthe air, he had given her amongst other accomplishments the art of\nsitting admirably on a horse, and directly they returned to Paris he took\nher out with him for their first morning ride.\n\n\"I leave you to judge of the sensation,\" continued Mr. Blunt, with a\nfaint grimace, as though the words had an acrid taste in his mouth.  \"And\nthe consternation,\" he added venomously.  \"Many of those men on that\ngreat morning had some one of their womankind with them.  But their hats\nhad to go off all the same, especially the hats of the fellows who were\nunder some sort of obligation to Allegre.  You would be astonished to\nhear the names of people, of real personalities in the world, who, not to\nmince matters, owed money to Allegre.  And I don't mean in the world of\nart only.  In the first rout of the surprise some story of an adopted\ndaughter was set abroad hastily, I believe.  You know 'adopted' with a\npeculiar accent on the word--and it was plausible enough.  I have been\ntold that at that time she looked extremely youthful by his side, I mean\nextremely youthful in expression, in the eyes, in the smile.  She must\nhave been . . .\"\n\nBlunt pulled himself up short, but not so short as not to let the\nconfused murmur of the word \"adorable\" reach our attentive ears.\n\nThe heavy Mills made a slight movement in his chair.  The effect on me\nwas more inward, a strange emotion which left me perfectly still; and for\nthe moment of silence Blunt looked more fatal than ever.\n\n\"I understand it didn't last very long,\" he addressed us politely again.\n\"And no wonder!  The sort of talk she would have heard during that first\nspringtime in Paris would have put an impress on a much less receptive\npersonality; for of course Allegre didn't close his doors to his friends\nand this new apparition was not of the sort to make them keep away.\nAfter that first morning she always had somebody to ride at her bridle\nhand.  Old Doyen, the sculptor, was the first to approach them.  At that\nage a man may venture on anything.  He rides a strange animal like a\ncircus horse.  Rita had spotted him out of the corner of her eye as he\npassed them, putting up his enormous paw in a still more enormous glove,\nairily, you know, like this\" (Blunt waved his hand above his head), \"to\nAllegre.  He passes on.  All at once he wheels his fantastic animal round\nand comes trotting after them.  With the merest casual '_Bonjour_,\nAllegre' he ranges close to her on the other side and addresses her, hat\nin hand, in that booming voice of his like a deferential roar of the sea\nvery far away.  His articulation is not good, and the first words she\nreally made out were 'I am an old sculptor. . . Of course there is that\nhabit. . . But I can see you through all that. . . '\n\nHe put his hat on very much on one side.  'I am a great sculptor of\nwomen,' he declared.  'I gave up my life to them, poor unfortunate\ncreatures, the most beautiful, the wealthiest, the most loved. . . Two\ngenerations of them. . . Just look at me full in the eyes, _mon enfant_.'\n\n\"They stared at each other.  Dona Rita confessed to me that the old\nfellow made her heart beat with such force that she couldn't manage to\nsmile at him.  And she saw his eyes run full of tears.  He wiped them\nsimply with the back of his hand and went on booming faintly.  'Thought\nso.  You are enough to make one cry.  I thought my artist's life was\nfinished, and here you come along from devil knows where with this young\nfriend of mine, who isn't a bad smearer of canvases--but it's marble and\nbronze that you want. . . I shall finish my artist's life with your face;\nbut I shall want a bit of those shoulders, too. . . You hear, Allegre, I\nmust have a bit of her shoulders, too.  I can see through the cloth that\nthey are divine.  If they aren't divine I will eat my hat.  Yes, I will\ndo your head and then--_nunc dimittis_.'\n\n\"These were the first words with which the world greeted her, or should I\nsay civilization did; already both her native mountains and the cavern of\noranges belonged to a prehistoric age.  'Why don't you ask him to come\nthis afternoon?' Allegre's voice suggested gently.  'He knows the way to\nthe house.'\n\n\"The old man said with extraordinary fervour, 'Oh, yes I will,' pulled up\nhis horse and they went on.  She told me that she could feel her\nheart-beats for a long time.  The remote power of that voice, those old\neyes full of tears, that noble and ruined face, had affected her\nextraordinarily she said.  But perhaps what affected her was the shadow,\nthe still living shadow of a great passion in the man's heart.\n\n\"Allegre remarked to her calmly: 'He has been a little mad all his\nlife.'\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\n\nMills lowered the hands holding the extinct and even cold pipe before his\nbig face.\n\n\"H'm, shoot an arrow into that old man's heart like this?  But was there\nanything done?\"\n\n\"A terra-cotta bust, I believe.  Good?  I don't know.  I rather think\nit's in this house.  A lot of things have been sent down from Paris here,\nwhen she gave up the Pavilion.  When she goes up now she stays in hotels,\nyou know.  I imagine it is locked up in one of these things,\" went on\nBlunt, pointing towards the end of the studio where amongst the\nmonumental presses of dark oak lurked the shy dummy which had worn the\nstiff robes of the Byzantine Empress and the amazing hat of the \"Girl,\"\nrakishly.  I wondered whether that dummy had travelled from Paris, too,\nand whether with or without its head.  Perhaps that head had been left\nbehind, having rolled into a corner of some empty room in the dismantled\nPavilion.  I represented it to myself very lonely, without features, like\na turnip, with a mere peg sticking out where the neck should have been.\nAnd Mr. Blunt was talking on.\n\n\"There are treasures behind these locked doors, brocades, old jewels,\nunframed pictures, bronzes, chinoiseries, Japoneries.\"\n\nHe growled as much as a man of his accomplished manner and voice could\ngrowl.  \"I don't suppose she gave away all that to her sister, but I\nshouldn't be surprised if that timid rustic didn't lay a claim to the lot\nfor the love of God and the good of the Church. . .\n\n\"And held on with her teeth, too,\" he added graphically.\n\nMills' face remained grave.  Very grave.  I was amused at those little\nvenomous outbreaks of the fatal Mr. Blunt.  Again I knew myself utterly\nforgotten.  But I didn't feel dull and I didn't even feel sleepy.  That\nlast strikes me as strange at this distance of time, in regard of my\ntender years and of the depressing hour which precedes the dawn.  We had\nbeen drinking that straw-coloured wine, too, I won't say like water\n(nobody would have drunk water like that) but, well . . . and the haze of\ntobacco smoke was like the blue mist of great distances seen in dreams.\n\nYes, that old sculptor was the first who joined them in the sight of all\nParis.  It was that old glory that opened the series of companions of\nthose morning rides; a series which extended through three successive\nParisian spring-times and comprised a famous physiologist, a fellow who\nseemed to hint that mankind could be made immortal or at least\neverlastingly old; a fashionable philosopher and psychologist who used to\nlecture to enormous audiences of women with his tongue in his cheek (but\nnever permitted himself anything of the kind when talking to Rita); that\nsurly dandy Cabanel (but he only once, from mere vanity), and everybody\nelse at all distinguished including also a celebrated person who turned\nout later to be a swindler.  But he was really a genius. . . All this\naccording to Mr. Blunt, who gave us all those details with a sort of\nlanguid zest covering a secret irritation.\n\n\"Apart from that, you know,\" went on Mr. Blunt, \"all she knew of the\nworld of men and women (I mean till Allegre's death) was what she had\nseen of it from the saddle two hours every morning during four months of\nthe year or so.  Absolutely all, with Allegre self-denyingly on her right\nhand, with that impenetrable air of guardianship.  Don't touch!  He\ndidn't like his treasures to be touched unless he actually put some\nunique object into your hands with a sort of triumphant murmur, 'Look\nclose at that.'  Of course I only have heard all this.  I am much too\nsmall a person, you understand, to even . . .\"\n\nHe flashed his white teeth at us most agreeably, but the upper part of\nhis face, the shadowed setting of his eyes, and the slight drawing in of\nhis eyebrows gave a fatal suggestion.  I thought suddenly of the\ndefinition he applied to himself: \"_Americain_, _catholique et\ngentil-homme_\" completed by that startling \"I live by my sword\" uttered\nin a light drawing-room tone tinged by a flavour of mockery lighter even\nthan air.\n\nHe insisted to us that the first and only time he had seen Allegre a\nlittle close was that morning in the Bois with his mother.  His Majesty\n(whom God preserve), then not even an active Pretender, flanked the girl,\nstill a girl, on the other side, the usual companion for a month past or\nso.  Allegre had suddenly taken it into his head to paint his portrait.\nA sort of intimacy had sprung up.  Mrs. Blunt's remark was that of the\ntwo striking horsemen Allegre looked the more kingly.\n\n\"The son of a confounded millionaire soap-boiler,\" commented Mr. Blunt\nthrough his clenched teeth.  \"A man absolutely without parentage.\nWithout a single relation in the world.  Just a freak.\"\n\n\"That explains why he could leave all his fortune to her,\" said Mills.\n\n\"The will, I believe,\" said Mr. Blunt moodily, \"was written on a half\nsheet of paper, with his device of an Assyrian bull at the head.  What\nthe devil did he mean by it?  Anyway it was the last time that she\nsurveyed the world of men and women from the saddle.  Less than three\nmonths later. . .\"\n\n\"Allegre died and. . . \" murmured Mills in an interested manner.\n\n\"And she had to dismount,\" broke in Mr. Blunt grimly.  \"Dismount right\ninto the middle of it.  Down to the very ground, you understand.  I\nsuppose you can guess what that would mean.  She didn't know what to do\nwith herself.  She had never been on the ground.  She . . . \"\n\n\"Aha!\" said Mills.\n\n\"Even eh! eh! if you like,\" retorted Mr. Blunt, in an unrefined tone,\nthat made me open my eyes, which were well opened before, still wider.\n\nHe turned to me with that horrible trick of his of commenting upon Mills\nas though that quiet man whom I admired, whom I trusted, and for whom I\nhad already something resembling affection had been as much of a dummy as\nthat other one lurking in the shadows, pitiful and headless in its\nattitude of alarmed chastity.\n\n\"Nothing escapes his penetration.  He can perceive a haystack at an\nenormous distance when he is interested.\"\n\nI thought this was going rather too far, even to the borders of\nvulgarity; but Mills remained untroubled and only reached for his tobacco\npouch.\n\n\"But that's nothing to my mother's interest.  She can never see a\nhaystack, therefore she is always so surprised and excited.  Of course\nDona Rita was not a woman about whom the newspapers insert little\nparagraphs.  But Allegre was the sort of man.  A lot came out in print\nabout him and a lot was talked in the world about her; and at once my\ndear mother perceived a haystack and naturally became unreasonably\nabsorbed in it.  I thought her interest would wear out.  But it didn't.\nShe had received a shock and had received an impression by means of that\ngirl.  My mother has never been treated with impertinence before, and the\naesthetic impression must have been of extraordinary strength.  I must\nsuppose that it amounted to a sort of moral revolution, I can't account\nfor her proceedings in any other way.  When Rita turned up in Paris a\nyear and a half after Allegre's death some shabby journalist (smart\ncreature) hit upon the notion of alluding to her as the heiress of Mr.\nAllegre.  'The heiress of Mr. Allegre has taken up her residence again\namongst the treasures of art in that Pavilion so well known to the elite\nof the artistic, scientific, and political world, not to speak of the\nmembers of aristocratic and even royal families. . . '  You know the sort\nof thing.  It appeared first in the _Figaro_, I believe.  And then at the\nend a little phrase: 'She is alone.'  She was in a fair way of becoming a\ncelebrity of a sort.  Daily little allusions and that sort of thing.\nHeaven only knows who stopped it.  There was a rush of 'old friends' into\nthat garden, enough to scare all the little birds away.  I suppose one or\nseveral of them, having influence with the press, did it.  But the gossip\ndidn't stop, and the name stuck, too, since it conveyed a very certain\nand very significant sort of fact, and of course the Venetian episode was\ntalked about in the houses frequented by my mother.  It was talked about\nfrom a royalist point of view with a kind of respect.  It was even said\nthat the inspiration and the resolution of the war going on now over the\nPyrenees had come out from that head. . . Some of them talked as if she\nwere the guardian angel of Legitimacy.  You know what royalist gush is\nlike.\"\n\nMr. Blunt's face expressed sarcastic disgust.  Mills moved his head the\nleast little bit.  Apparently he knew.\n\n\"Well, speaking with all possible respect, it seems to have affected my\nmother's brain.  I was already with the royal army and of course there\ncould be no question of regular postal communications with France.  My\nmother hears or overhears somewhere that the heiress of Mr. Allegre is\ncontemplating a secret journey.  All the noble Salons were full of\nchatter about that secret naturally.  So she sits down and pens an\nautograph: 'Madame, Informed that you are proceeding to the place on\nwhich the hopes of all the right thinking people are fixed, I trust to\nyour womanly sympathy with a mother's anxious feelings, etc., etc.,' and\nending with a request to take messages to me and bring news of me. . .\nThe coolness of my mother!\"\n\nMost unexpectedly Mills was heard murmuring a question which seemed to me\nvery odd.\n\n\"I wonder how your mother addressed that note?\"\n\nA moment of silence ensued.\n\n\"Hardly in the newspaper style, I should think,\" retorted Mr. Blunt, with\none of his grins that made me doubt the stability of his feelings and the\nconsistency of his outlook in regard to his whole tale.  \"My mother's\nmaid took it in a fiacre very late one evening to the Pavilion and\nbrought an answer scrawled on a scrap of paper: 'Write your messages at\nonce' and signed with a big capital R.  So my mother sat down again to\nher charming writing desk and the maid made another journey in a fiacre\njust before midnight; and ten days later or so I got a letter thrust into\nmy hand at the _avanzadas_ just as I was about to start on a night\npatrol, together with a note asking me to call on the writer so that she\nmight allay my mother's anxieties by telling her how I looked.\n\n\"It was signed R only, but I guessed at once and nearly fell off my horse\nwith surprise.\"\n\n\"You mean to say that Dona Rita was actually at the Royal Headquarters\nlately?\" exclaimed Mills, with evident surprise.  \"Why,\nwe--everybody--thought that all this affair was over and done with.\"\n\n\"Absolutely.  Nothing in the world could be more done with than that\nepisode.  Of course the rooms in the hotel at Tolosa were retained for\nher by an order from Royal Headquarters.  Two garret-rooms, the place was\nso full of all sorts of court people; but I can assure you that for the\nthree days she was there she never put her head outside the door.\nGeneral Mongroviejo called on her officially from the King.  A general,\nnot anybody of the household, you see.  That's a distinct shade of the\npresent relation.  He stayed just five minutes.  Some personage from the\nForeign department at Headquarters was closeted for about a couple of\nhours.  That was of course business.  Then two officers from the staff\ncame together with some explanations or instructions to her.  Then Baron\nH., a fellow with a pretty wife, who had made so many sacrifices for the\ncause, raised a great to-do about seeing her and she consented to receive\nhim for a moment.  They say he was very much frightened by her arrival,\nbut after the interview went away all smiles.  Who else?  Yes, the\nArchbishop came.  Half an hour.  This is more than is necessary to give a\nblessing, and I can't conceive what else he had to give her.  But I am\nsure he got something out of her.  Two peasants from the upper valley\nwere sent for by military authorities and she saw them, too.  That friar\nwho hangs about the court has been in and out several times.  Well, and\nlastly, I myself.  I got leave from the outposts.  That was the first\ntime I talked to her.  I would have gone that evening back to the\nregiment, but the friar met me in the corridor and informed me that I\nwould be ordered to escort that most loyal and noble lady back to the\nFrench frontier as a personal mission of the highest honour.  I was\ninclined to laugh at him.  He himself is a cheery and jovial person and\nhe laughed with me quite readily--but I got the order before dark all\nright.  It was rather a job, as the Alphonsists were attacking the right\nflank of our whole front and there was some considerable disorder there.\nI mounted her on a mule and her maid on another.  We spent one night in a\nruined old tower occupied by some of our infantry and got away at\ndaybreak under the Alphonsist shells.  The maid nearly died of fright and\none of the troopers with us was wounded.  To smuggle her back across the\nfrontier was another job but it wasn't my job.  It wouldn't have done for\nher to appear in sight of French frontier posts in the company of Carlist\nuniforms.  She seems to have a fearless streak in her nature.  At one\ntime as we were climbing a slope absolutely exposed to artillery fire I\nasked her on purpose, being provoked by the way she looked about at the\nscenery, 'A little emotion, eh?'  And she answered me in a low voice:\n'Oh, yes!  I am moved.  I used to run about these hills when I was\nlittle.'  And note, just then the trooper close behind us had been\nwounded by a shell fragment.  He was swearing awfully and fighting with\nhis horse.  The shells were falling around us about two to the minute.\n\n\"Luckily the Alphonsist shells are not much better than our own.  But\nwomen are funny.  I was afraid the maid would jump down and clear out\namongst the rocks, in which case we should have had to dismount and catch\nher.  But she didn't do that; she sat perfectly still on her mule and\nshrieked.  Just simply shrieked.  Ultimately we came to a curiously\nshaped rock at the end of a short wooded valley.  It was very still there\nand the sunshine was brilliant.  I said to Dona Rita: 'We will have to\npart in a few minutes.  I understand that my mission ends at this rock.'\nAnd she said: 'I know this rock well.  This is my country.'\n\n\"Then she thanked me for bringing her there and presently three peasants\nappeared, waiting for us, two youths and one shaven old man, with a thin\nnose like a sword blade and perfectly round eyes, a character well known\nto the whole Carlist army.  The two youths stopped under the trees at a\ndistance, but the old fellow came quite close up and gazed at her,\nscrewing up his eyes as if looking at the sun.  Then he raised his arm\nvery slowly and took his red _boina_ off his bald head.  I watched her\nsmiling at him all the time.  I daresay she knew him as well as she knew\nthe old rock.  Very old rock.  The rock of ages--and the aged\nman--landmarks of her youth.  Then the mules started walking smartly\nforward, with the three peasants striding alongside of them, and vanished\nbetween the trees.  These fellows were most likely sent out by her uncle\nthe Cura.\n\n\"It was a peaceful scene, the morning light, the bit of open country\nframed in steep stony slopes, a high peak or two in the distance, the\nthin smoke of some invisible _caserios_, rising straight up here and\nthere.  Far away behind us the guns had ceased and the echoes in the\ngorges had died out.  I never knew what peace meant before. . .\n\n\"Nor since,\" muttered Mr. Blunt after a pause and then went on.  \"The\nlittle stone church of her uncle, the holy man of the family, might have\nbeen round the corner of the next spur of the nearest hill.  I dismounted\nto bandage the shoulder of my trooper.  It was only a nasty long scratch.\nWhile I was busy about it a bell began to ring in the distance.  The\nsound fell deliciously on the ear, clear like the morning light.  But it\nstopped all at once.  You know how a distant bell stops suddenly.  I\nnever knew before what stillness meant.  While I was wondering at it the\nfellow holding our horses was moved to uplift his voice.  He was a\nSpaniard, not a Basque, and he trolled out in Castilian that song you\nknow,\n\n   \"'Oh bells of my native village,\n   I am going away . . . good-bye!'\n\nHe had a good voice.  When the last note had floated away I remounted,\nbut there was a charm in the spot, something particular and individual\nbecause while we were looking at it before turning our horses' heads away\nthe singer said: 'I wonder what is the name of this place,' and the other\nman remarked: 'Why, there is no village here,' and the first one\ninsisted: 'No, I mean this spot, this very place.'  The wounded trooper\ndecided that it had no name probably.  But he was wrong.  It had a name.\nThe hill, or the rock, or the wood, or the whole had a name.  I heard of\nit by chance later.  It was--Lastaola.\"\n\nA cloud of tobacco smoke from Mills' pipe drove between my head and the\nhead of Mr. Blunt, who, strange to say, yawned slightly.  It seemed to me\nan obvious affectation on the part of that man of perfect manners, and,\nmoreover, suffering from distressing insomnia.\n\n\"This is how we first met and how we first parted,\" he said in a weary,\nindifferent tone.  \"It's quite possible that she did see her uncle on the\nway.  It's perhaps on this occasion that she got her sister to come out\nof the wilderness.  I have no doubt she had a pass from the French\nGovernment giving her the completest freedom of action.  She must have\ngot it in Paris before leaving.\"\n\nMr. Blunt broke out into worldly, slightly cynical smiles.\n\n\"She can get anything she likes in Paris.  She could get a whole army\nover the frontier if she liked.  She could get herself admitted into the\nForeign Office at one o'clock in the morning if it so pleased her.  Doors\nfly open before the heiress of Mr. Allegre.  She has inherited the old\nfriends, the old connections . . . Of course, if she were a toothless old\nwoman . . . But, you see, she isn't.  The ushers in all the ministries\nbow down to the ground therefore, and voices from the innermost sanctums\ntake on an eager tone when they say, '_Faites entrer_.'  My mother knows\nsomething about it.  She has followed her career with the greatest\nattention.  And Rita herself is not even surprised.  She accomplishes\nmost extraordinary things, as naturally as buying a pair of gloves.\nPeople in the shops are very polite and people in the world are like\npeople in the shops.  What did she know of the world?  She had seen it\nonly from the saddle.  Oh, she will get your cargo released for you all\nright.  How will she do it? . . Well, when it's done--you follow me,\nMills?--when it's done she will hardly know herself.\"\n\n\"It's hardly possible that she shouldn't be aware,\" Mills pronounced\ncalmly.\n\n\"No, she isn't an idiot,\" admitted Mr. Blunt, in the same matter-of-fact\nvoice.  \"But she confessed to myself only the other day that she suffered\nfrom a sense of unreality.  I told her that at any rate she had her own\nfeelings surely.  And she said to me: Yes, there was one of them at least\nabout which she had no doubt; and you will never guess what it was.\nDon't try.  I happen to know, because we are pretty good friends.\"\n\nAt that moment we all changed our attitude slightly.  Mills' staring eyes\nmoved for a glance towards Blunt, I, who was occupying the divan, raised\nmyself on the cushions a little and Mr. Blunt, with half a turn, put his\nelbow on the table.\n\n\"I asked her what it was.  I don't see,\" went on Mr. Blunt, with a\nperfectly horrible gentleness, \"why I should have shown particular\nconsideration to the heiress of Mr. Allegre.  I don't mean to that\nparticular mood of hers.  It was the mood of weariness.  And so she told\nme.  It's fear.  I will say it once again: Fear. . . .\"\n\nHe added after a pause, \"There can be not the slightest doubt of her\ncourage.  But she distinctly uttered the word fear.\"\n\nThere was under the table the noise of Mills stretching his legs.\n\n\"A person of imagination,\" he began, \"a young, virgin intelligence,\nsteeped for nearly five years in the talk of Allegre's studio, where\nevery hard truth had been cracked and every belief had been worried into\nshreds.  They were like a lot of intellectual dogs, you know . . .\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, of course,\" Blunt interrupted hastily, \"the intellectual\npersonality altogether adrift, a soul without a home . . . but I, who am\nneither very fine nor very deep, I am convinced that the fear is\nmaterial.\"\n\n\"Because she confessed to it being that?\" insinuated Mills.\n\n\"No, because she didn't,\" contradicted Blunt, with an angry frown and in\nan extremely suave voice.  \"In fact, she bit her tongue.  And considering\nwhat good friends we are (under fire together and all that) I conclude\nthat there is nothing there to boast of.  Neither is my friendship, as a\nmatter of fact.\"\n\nMills' face was the very perfection of indifference.  But I who was\nlooking at him, in my innocence, to discover what it all might mean, I\nhad a notion that it was perhaps a shade too perfect.\n\n\"My leave is a farce,\" Captain Blunt burst out, with a most unexpected\nexasperation.  \"As an officer of Don Carlos, I have no more standing than\na bandit.  I ought to have been interned in those filthy old barracks in\nAvignon a long time ago. . . Why am I not?  Because Dona Rita exists and\nfor no other reason on earth.  Of course it's known that I am about.  She\nhas only to whisper over the wires to the Minister of the Interior, 'Put\nthat bird in a cage for me,' and the thing would be done without any more\nformalities than that. . . Sad world this,\" he commented in a changed\ntone.  \"Nowadays a gentleman who lives by his sword is exposed to that\nsort of thing.\"\n\nIt was then for the first time I heard Mr. Mills laugh.  It was a deep,\npleasant, kindly note, not very loud and altogether free from that\nquality of derision that spoils so many laughs and gives away the secret\nhardness of hearts.  But neither was it a very joyous laugh.\n\n\"But the truth of the matter is that I am '_en mission_,'\" continued\nCaptain Blunt.  \"I have been instructed to settle some things, to set\nother things going, and, by my instructions, Dona Rita is to be the\nintermediary for all those objects.  And why?  Because every bald head in\nthis Republican Government gets pink at the top whenever her dress\nrustles outside the door.  They bow with immense deference when the door\nopens, but the bow conceals a smirk because of those Venetian days.  That\nconfounded Versoy shoved his nose into that business; he says\naccidentally.  He saw them together on the Lido and (those writing\nfellows are horrible) he wrote what he calls a vignette (I suppose\naccidentally, too) under that very title.  There was in it a Prince and a\nlady and a big dog.  He described how the Prince on landing from the\ngondola emptied his purse into the hands of a picturesque old beggar,\nwhile the lady, a little way off, stood gazing back at Venice with the\ndog romantically stretched at her feet.  One of Versoy's beautiful prose\nvignettes in a great daily that has a literary column.  But some other\npapers that didn't care a cent for literature rehashed the mere fact.\nAnd that's the sort of fact that impresses your political man, especially\nif the lady is, well, such as she is . . .\"\n\nHe paused.  His dark eyes flashed fatally, away from us, in the direction\nof the shy dummy; and then he went on with cultivated cynicism.\n\n\"So she rushes down here.  Overdone, weary, rest for her nerves.\nNonsense.  I assure you she has no more nerves than I have.\"\n\nI don't know how he meant it, but at that moment, slim and elegant, he\nseemed a mere bundle of nerves himself, with the flitting expressions on\nhis thin, well-bred face, with the restlessness of his meagre brown hands\namongst the objects on the table.  With some pipe ash amongst a little\nspilt wine his forefinger traced a capital R.  Then he looked into an\nempty glass profoundly.  I have a notion that I sat there staring and\nlistening like a yokel at a play.  Mills' pipe was lying quite a foot\naway in front of him, empty, cold.  Perhaps he had no more tobacco.  Mr.\nBlunt assumed his dandified air--nervously.\n\n\"Of course her movements are commented on in the most exclusive\ndrawing-rooms and also in other places, also exclusive, but where the\ngossip takes on another tone.  There they are probably saying that she\nhas got a '_coup de coeur_' for some one.  Whereas I think she is utterly\nincapable of that sort of thing.  That Venetian affair, the beginning of\nit and the end of it, was nothing but a _coup de tete_, and all those\nactivities in which I am involved, as you see (by order of Headquarters,\nha, ha, ha!), are nothing but that, all this connection, all this\nintimacy into which I have dropped . . . Not to speak of my mother, who\nis delightful, but as irresponsible as one of those crazy princesses that\nshock their Royal families. . . \"\n\nHe seemed to bite his tongue and I observed that Mills' eyes seemed to\nhave grown wider than I had ever seen them before.  In that tranquil face\nit was a great play of feature.  \"An intimacy,\" began Mr. Blunt, with an\nextremely refined grimness of tone, \"an intimacy with the heiress of Mr.\nAllegre on the part of . . . on my part, well, it isn't exactly . . .\nit's open . . . well, I leave it to you, what does it look like?\"\n\n\"Is there anybody looking on?\" Mills let fall, gently, through his kindly\nlips.\n\n\"Not actually, perhaps, at this moment.  But I don't need to tell a man\nof the world, like you, that such things cannot remain unseen.  And that\nthey are, well, compromising, because of the mere fact of the fortune.\"\n\nMills got on his feet, looked for his jacket and after getting into it\nmade himself heard while he looked for his hat.\n\n\"Whereas the woman herself is, so to speak, priceless.\"\n\nMr. Blunt muttered the word \"Obviously.\"\n\nBy then we were all on our feet.  The iron stove glowed no longer and the\nlamp, surrounded by empty bottles and empty glasses, had grown dimmer.\n\nI know that I had a great shiver on getting away from the cushions of the\ndivan.\n\n\"We will meet again in a few hours,\" said Mr. Blunt.\n\n\"Don't forget to come,\" he said, addressing me.  \"Oh, yes, do.  Have no\nscruples.  I am authorized to make invitations.\"\n\nHe must have noticed my shyness, my surprise, my embarrassment.  And\nindeed I didn't know what to say.\n\n\"I assure you there isn't anything incorrect in your coming,\" he\ninsisted, with the greatest civility.  \"You will be introduced by two\ngood friends, Mills and myself.  Surely you are not afraid of a very\ncharming woman. . . .\"\n\nI was not afraid, but my head swam a little and I only looked at him\nmutely.\n\n\"Lunch precisely at midday.  Mills will bring you along.  I am sorry you\ntwo are going.  I shall throw myself on the bed for an hour or two, but I\nam sure I won't sleep.\"\n\nHe accompanied us along the passage into the black-and-white hall, where\nthe low gas flame glimmered forlornly.  When he opened the front door the\ncold blast of the mistral rushing down the street of the Consuls made me\nshiver to the very marrow of my bones.\n\nMills and I exchanged but a few words as we walked down towards the\ncentre of the town.  In the chill tempestuous dawn he strolled along\nmusingly, disregarding the discomfort of the cold, the depressing\ninfluence of the hour, the desolation of the empty streets in which the\ndry dust rose in whirls in front of us, behind us, flew upon us from the\nside streets.  The masks had gone home and our footsteps echoed on the\nflagstones with unequal sound as of men without purpose, without hope.\n\n\"I suppose you will come,\" said Mills suddenly.\n\n\"I really don't know,\" I said.\n\n\"Don't you?  Well, remember I am not trying to persuade you; but I am\nstaying at the Hotel de Louvre and I shall leave there at a quarter to\ntwelve for that lunch.  At a quarter to twelve, not a minute later.  I\nsuppose you can sleep?\"\n\nI laughed.\n\n\"Charming age, yours,\" said Mills, as we came out on the quays.  Already\ndim figures of the workers moved in the biting dawn and the masted forms\nof ships were coming out dimly, as far as the eye could reach down the\nold harbour.\n\n\"Well,\" Mills began again, \"you may oversleep yourself.\"\n\nThis suggestion was made in a cheerful tone, just as we shook hands at\nthe lower end of the Cannebiere.  He looked very burly as he walked away\nfrom me.  I went on towards my lodgings.  My head was very full of\nconfused images, but I was really too tired to think.\n\n\n\n\nPART TWO\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\n\nSometimes I wonder yet whether Mills wished me to oversleep myself or\nnot: that is, whether he really took sufficient interest to care.  His\nuniform kindliness of manner made it impossible for me to tell.  And I\ncan hardly remember my own feelings.  Did I care?  The whole recollection\nof that time of my life has such a peculiar quality that the beginning\nand the end of it are merged in one sensation of profound emotion,\ncontinuous and overpowering, containing the extremes of exultation, full\nof careless joy and of an invincible sadness--like a day-dream.  The\nsense of all this having been gone through as if in one great rush of\nimagination is all the stronger in the distance of time, because it had\nsomething of that quality even then: of fate unprovoked, of events that\ndidn't cast any shadow before.\n\nNot that those events were in the least extraordinary.  They were, in\ntruth, commonplace.  What to my backward glance seems startling and a\nlittle awful is their punctualness and inevitability.  Mills was\npunctual.  Exactly at a quarter to twelve he appeared under the lofty\nportal of the Hotel de Louvre, with his fresh face, his ill-fitting grey\nsuit, and enveloped in his own sympathetic atmosphere.\n\nHow could I have avoided him?  To this day I have a shadowy conviction of\nhis inherent distinction of mind and heart, far beyond any man I have\never met since.  He was unavoidable: and of course I never tried to avoid\nhim.  The first sight on which his eyes fell was a victoria pulled up\nbefore the hotel door, in which I sat with no sentiment I can remember\nnow but that of some slight shyness.  He got in without a moment's\nhesitation, his friendly glance took me in from head to foot and (such\nwas his peculiar gift) gave me a pleasurable sensation.\n\nAfter we had gone a little way I couldn't help saying to him with a\nbashful laugh: \"You know, it seems very extraordinary that I should be\ndriving out with you like this.\"\n\nHe turned to look at me and in his kind voice:\n\n\"You will find everything extremely simple,\" he said.  \"So simple that\nyou will be quite able to hold your own.  I suppose you know that the\nworld is selfish, I mean the majority of the people in it, often\nunconsciously I must admit, and especially people with a mission, with a\nfixed idea, with some fantastic object in view, or even with only some\nfantastic illusion.  That doesn't mean that they have no scruples.  And I\ndon't know that at this moment I myself am not one of them.\"\n\n\"That, of course, I can't say,\" I retorted.\n\n\"I haven't seen her for years,\" he said, \"and in comparison with what she\nwas then she must be very grown up by now.  From what we heard from Mr.\nBlunt she had experiences which would have matured her more than they\nwould teach her.  There are of course people that are not teachable.  I\ndon't know that she is one of them.  But as to maturity that's quite\nanother thing.  Capacity for suffering is developed in every human being\nworthy of the name.\"\n\n\"Captain Blunt doesn't seem to be a very happy person,\" I said.  \"He\nseems to have a grudge against everybody.  People make him wince.  The\nthings they do, the things they say.  He must be awfully mature.\"\n\nMills gave me a sidelong look.  It met mine of the same character and we\nboth smiled without openly looking at each other.  At the end of the Rue\nde Rome the violent chilly breath of the mistral enveloped the victoria\nin a great widening of brilliant sunshine without heat.  We turned to the\nright, circling at a stately pace about the rather mean obelisk which\nstands at the entrance to the Prado.\n\n\"I don't know whether you are mature or not,\" said Mills humorously.\n\"But I think you will do.  You . . . \"\n\n\"Tell me,\" I interrupted, \"what is really Captain Blunt's position\nthere?\"\n\nAnd I nodded at the alley of the Prado opening before us between the rows\nof the perfectly leafless trees.\n\n\"Thoroughly false, I should think.  It doesn't accord either with his\nillusions or his pretensions, or even with the real position he has in\nthe world.  And so what between his mother and the General Headquarters\nand the state of his own feelings he. . . \"\n\n\"He is in love with her,\" I interrupted again.\n\n\"That wouldn't make it any easier.  I'm not at all sure of that.  But if\nso it can't be a very idealistic sentiment.  All the warmth of his\nidealism is concentrated upon a certain '_Americain_, _Catholique et\ngentil-homme_. . . '\"\n\nThe smile which for a moment dwelt on his lips was not unkind.\n\n\"At the same time he has a very good grip of the material conditions that\nsurround, as it were, the situation.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?  That Dona Rita\" (the name came strangely familiar to\nmy tongue) \"is rich, that she has a fortune of her own?\"\n\n\"Yes, a fortune,\" said Mills.  \"But it was Allegre's fortune before. . .\nAnd then there is Blunt's fortune: he lives by his sword.  And there is\nthe fortune of his mother, I assure you a perfectly charming, clever, and\nmost aristocratic old lady, with the most distinguished connections.  I\nreally mean it.  She doesn't live by her sword.  She . . . she lives by\nher wits.  I have a notion that those two dislike each other heartily at\ntimes. . . Here we are.\"\n\nThe victoria stopped in the side alley, bordered by the low walls of\nprivate grounds.  We got out before a wrought-iron gateway which stood\nhalf open and walked up a circular drive to the door of a large villa of\na neglected appearance.  The mistral howled in the sunshine, shaking the\nbare bushes quite furiously.  And everything was bright and hard, the air\nwas hard, the light was hard, the ground under our feet was hard.\n\nThe door at which Mills rang came open almost at once.  The maid who\nopened it was short, dark, and slightly pockmarked.  For the rest, an\nobvious \"_femme-de-chambre_,\" and very busy.  She said quickly, \"Madame\nhas just returned from her ride,\" and went up the stairs leaving us to\nshut the front door ourselves.\n\nThe staircase had a crimson carpet.  Mr. Blunt appeared from somewhere in\nthe hall.  He was in riding breeches and a black coat with ample square\nskirts.  This get-up suited him but it also changed him extremely by\ndoing away with the effect of flexible slimness he produced in his\nevening clothes.  He looked to me not at all himself but rather like a\nbrother of the man who had been talking to us the night before.  He\ncarried about him a delicate perfume of scented soap.  He gave us a flash\nof his white teeth and said:\n\n\"It's a perfect nuisance.  We have just dismounted.  I will have to lunch\nas I am.  A lifelong habit of beginning her day on horseback.  She\npretends she is unwell unless she does.  I daresay, when one thinks there\nhas been hardly a day for five or six years that she didn't begin with a\nride.  That's the reason she is always rushing away from Paris where she\ncan't go out in the morning alone.  Here, of course, it's different.  And\nas I, too, am a stranger here I can go out with her.  Not that I\nparticularly care to do it.\"\n\nThese last words were addressed to Mills specially, with the addition of\na mumbled remark: \"It's a confounded position.\"  Then calmly to me with a\nswift smile: \"We have been talking of you this morning.  You are expected\nwith impatience.\"\n\n\"Thank you very much,\" I said, \"but I can't help asking myself what I am\ndoing here.\"\n\nThe upward cast in the eyes of Mills who was facing the staircase made us\nboth, Blunt and I, turn round.  The woman of whom I had heard so much, in\na sort of way in which I had never heard a woman spoken of before, was\ncoming down the stairs, and my first sensation was that of profound\nastonishment at this evidence that she did really exist.  And even then\nthe visual impression was more of colour in a picture than of the forms\nof actual life.  She was wearing a wrapper, a sort of dressing-gown of\npale blue silk embroidered with black and gold designs round the neck and\ndown the front, lapped round her and held together by a broad belt of the\nsame material.  Her slippers were of the same colour, with black bows at\nthe instep.  The white stairs, the deep crimson of the carpet, and the\nlight blue of the dress made an effective combination of colour to set\noff the delicate carnation of that face, which, after the first glance\ngiven to the whole person, drew irresistibly your gaze to itself by an\nindefinable quality of charm beyond all analysis and made you think of\nremote races, of strange generations, of the faces of women sculptured on\nimmemorial monuments and of those lying unsung in their tombs.  While she\nmoved downwards from step to step with slightly lowered eyes there\nflashed upon me suddenly the recollection of words heard at night, of\nAllegre's words about her, of there being in her \"something of the women\nof all time.\"\n\nAt the last step she raised her eyelids, treated us to an exhibition of\nteeth as dazzling as Mr. Blunt's and looking even stronger; and indeed,\nas she approached us she brought home to our hearts (but after all I am\nspeaking only for myself) a vivid sense of her physical perfection in\nbeauty of limb and balance of nerves, and not so much of grace, probably,\nas of absolute harmony.\n\nShe said to us, \"I am sorry I kept you waiting.\"  Her voice was low\npitched, penetrating, and of the most seductive gentleness.  She offered\nher hand to Mills very frankly as to an old friend.  Within the\nextraordinarily wide sleeve, lined with black silk, I could see the arm,\nvery white, with a pearly gleam in the shadow.  But to me she extended\nher hand with a slight stiffening, as it were a recoil of her person,\ncombined with an extremely straight glance.  It was a finely shaped,\ncapable hand.  I bowed over it, and we just touched fingers.  I did not\nlook then at her face.\n\nNext moment she caught sight of some envelopes lying on the round\nmarble-topped table in the middle of the hall.  She seized one of them\nwith a wonderfully quick, almost feline, movement and tore it open,\nsaying to us, \"Excuse me, I must . . . Do go into the dining-room.\nCaptain Blunt, show the way.\"\n\nHer widened eyes stared at the paper.  Mr. Blunt threw one of the doors\nopen, but before we passed through it we heard a petulant exclamation\naccompanied by childlike stamping with both feet and ending in a laugh\nwhich had in it a note of contempt.\n\nThe door closed behind us; we had been abandoned by Mr. Blunt.  He had\nremained on the other side, possibly to soothe.  The room in which we\nfound ourselves was long like a gallery and ended in a rotunda with many\nwindows.  It was long enough for two fireplaces of red polished granite.\nA table laid out for four occupied very little space.  The floor inlaid\nin two kinds of wood in a bizarre pattern was highly waxed, reflecting\nobjects like still water.\n\nBefore very long Dona Rita and Blunt rejoined us and we sat down around\nthe table; but before we could begin to talk a dramatically sudden ring\nat the front door stilled our incipient animation.  Dona Rita looked at\nus all in turn, with surprise and, as it were, with suspicion.  \"How did\nhe know I was here?\" she whispered after looking at the card which was\nbrought to her.   She passed it to Blunt, who passed it to Mills, who\nmade a faint grimace, dropped it on the table-cloth, and only whispered\nto me, \"A journalist from Paris.\"\n\n\"He has run me to earth,\" said Dona Rita.  \"One would bargain for peace\nagainst hard cash if these fellows weren't always ready to snatch at\none's very soul with the other hand.  It frightens me.\"\n\nHer voice floated mysterious and penetrating from her lips, which moved\nvery little.  Mills was watching her with sympathetic curiosity.  Mr.\nBlunt muttered: \"Better not make the brute angry.\"  For a moment Dona\nRita's face, with its narrow eyes, its wide brow, and high cheek bones,\nbecame very still; then her colour was a little heightened.  \"Oh,\" she\nsaid softly, \"let him come in.  He would be really dangerous if he had a\nmind--you know,\" she said to Mills.\n\nThe person who had provoked all those remarks and as much hesitation as\nthough he had been some sort of wild beast astonished me on being\nadmitted, first by the beauty of his white head of hair and then by his\npaternal aspect and the innocent simplicity of his manner.  They laid a\ncover for him between Mills and Dona Rita, who quite openly removed the\nenvelopes she had brought with her, to the other side of her plate.  As\nopenly the man's round china-blue eyes followed them in an attempt to\nmake out the handwriting of the addresses.\n\nHe seemed to know, at least slightly, both Mills and Blunt.  To me he\ngave a stare of stupid surprise.  He addressed our hostess.\n\n\"Resting?  Rest is a very good thing.  Upon my word, I thought I would\nfind you alone.  But you have too much sense.  Neither man nor woman has\nbeen created to live alone. . . .\"  After this opening he had all the\ntalk to himself.  It was left to him pointedly, and I verily believe that\nI was the only one who showed an appearance of interest.  I couldn't help\nit.  The others, including Mills, sat like a lot of deaf and dumb people.\nNo.  It was even something more detached.  They sat rather like a very\nsuperior lot of waxworks, with the fixed but indetermined facial\nexpression and with that odd air wax figures have of being aware of their\nexistence being but a sham.\n\nI was the exception; and nothing could have marked better my status of a\nstranger, the completest possible stranger in the moral region in which\nthose people lived, moved, enjoying or suffering their incomprehensible\nemotions.  I was as much of a stranger as the most hopeless castaway\nstumbling in the dark upon a hut of natives and finding them in the grip\nof some situation appertaining to the mentalities, prejudices, and\nproblems of an undiscovered country--of a country of which he had not\neven had one single clear glimpse before.\n\nIt was even worse in a way.  It ought to have been more disconcerting.\nFor, pursuing the image of the cast-away blundering upon the\ncomplications of an unknown scheme of life, it was I, the castaway, who\nwas the savage, the simple innocent child of nature.  Those people were\nobviously more civilized than I was.  They had more rites, more\nceremonies, more complexity in their sensations, more knowledge of evil,\nmore varied meanings to the subtle phrases of their language.  Naturally!\nI was still so young!  And yet I assure you, that just then I lost all\nsense of inferiority.  And why?  Of course the carelessness and the\nignorance of youth had something to do with that.  But there was\nsomething else besides.  Looking at Dona Rita, her head leaning on her\nhand, with her dark lashes lowered on the slightly flushed cheek, I felt\nno longer alone in my youth.  That woman of whom I had heard these things\nI have set down with all the exactness of unfailing memory, that woman\nwas revealed to me young, younger than anybody I had ever seen, as young\nas myself (and my sensation of my youth was then very acute); revealed\nwith something peculiarly intimate in the conviction, as if she were\nyoung exactly in the same way in which I felt myself young; and that\ntherefore no misunderstanding between us was possible and there could be\nnothing more for us to know about each other.  Of course this sensation\nwas momentary, but it was illuminating; it was a light which could not\nlast, but it left no darkness behind.  On the contrary, it seemed to have\nkindled magically somewhere within me a glow of assurance, of\nunaccountable confidence in myself: a warm, steady, and eager sensation\nof my individual life beginning for good there, on that spot, in that\nsense of solidarity, in that seduction.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\n\nFor this, properly speaking wonderful, reason I was the only one of the\ncompany who could listen without constraint to the unbidden guest with\nthat fine head of white hair, so beautifully kept, so magnificently\nwaved, so artistically arranged that respect could not be felt for it any\nmore than for a very expensive wig in the window of a hair-dresser.  In\nfact, I had an inclination to smile at it.  This proves how unconstrained\nI felt.  My mind was perfectly at liberty; and so of all the eyes in that\nroom mine was the only pair able to look about in easy freedom.  All the\nother listeners' eyes were cast down, including Mills' eyes, but that I\nam sure was only because of his perfect and delicate sympathy.  He could\nnot have been concerned otherwise.\n\nThe intruder devoured the cutlets--if they were cutlets.  Notwithstanding\nmy perfect liberty of mind I was not aware of what we were eating.  I\nhave a notion that the lunch was a mere show, except of course for the\nman with the white hair, who was really hungry and who, besides, must\nhave had the pleasant sense of dominating the situation.  He stooped over\nhis plate and worked his jaw deliberately while his blue eyes rolled\nincessantly; but as a matter of fact he never looked openly at any one of\nus.  Whenever he laid down his knife and fork he would throw himself back\nand start retailing in a light tone some Parisian gossip about prominent\npeople.\n\nHe talked first about a certain politician of mark.  His \"dear Rita\" knew\nhim.  His costume dated back to '48, he was made of wood and parchment\nand still swathed his neck in a white cloth; and even his wife had never\nbeen seen in a low-necked dress.  Not once in her life.  She was buttoned\nup to the chin like her husband.  Well, that man had confessed to him\nthat when he was engaged in political controversy, not on a matter of\nprinciple but on some special measure in debate, he felt ready to kill\neverybody.\n\nHe interrupted himself for a comment.  \"I am something like that myself.\nI believe it's a purely professional feeling.  Carry one's point whatever\nit is.  Normally I couldn't kill a fly.  My sensibility is too acute for\nthat.  My heart is too tender also.  Much too tender.  I am a Republican.\nI am a Red.  As to all our present masters and governors, all those\npeople you are trying to turn round your little finger, they are all\nhorrible Royalists in disguise.  They are plotting the ruin of all the\ninstitutions to which I am devoted.  But I have never tried to spoil your\nlittle game, Rita.  After all, it's but a little game.  You know very\nwell that two or three fearless articles, something in my style, you\nknow, would soon put a stop to all that underhand backing of your king.\nI am calling him king because I want to be polite to you.  He is an\nadventurer, a blood-thirsty, murderous adventurer, for me, and nothing\nelse.  Look here, my dear child, what are you knocking yourself about\nfor?  For the sake of that bandit?  _Allons donc_!  A pupil of Henry\nAllegre can have no illusions of that sort about any man.  And such a\npupil, too!  Ah, the good old days in the Pavilion!  Don't think I claim\nany particular intimacy.  It was just enough to enable me to offer my\nservices to you, Rita, when our poor friend died.  I found myself handy\nand so I came.  It so happened that I was the first.  You remember, Rita?\nWhat made it possible for everybody to get on with our poor dear Allegre\nwas his complete, equable, and impartial contempt for all mankind.  There\nis nothing in that against the purest democratic principles; but that\nyou, Rita, should elect to throw so much of your life away for the sake\nof a Royal adventurer, it really knocks me over.  For you don't love him.\nYou never loved him, you know.\"\n\nHe made a snatch at her hand, absolutely pulled it away from under her\nhead (it was quite startling) and retaining it in his grasp, proceeded to\na paternal patting of the most impudent kind.  She let him go on with\napparent insensibility.  Meanwhile his eyes strayed round the table over\nour faces.  It was very trying.  The stupidity of that wandering stare\nhad a paralysing power.  He talked at large with husky familiarity.\n\n\"Here I come, expecting to find a good sensible girl who had seen at last\nthe vanity of all those things; half-light in the rooms; surrounded by\nthe works of her favourite poets, and all that sort of thing.  I say to\nmyself: I must just run in and see the dear wise child, and encourage her\nin her good resolutions. . . And I fall into the middle of an _intime_\nlunch-party.  For I suppose it is _intime_.  Eh?  Very?  H'm, yes . . . \"\n\nHe was really appalling.  Again his wandering stare went round the table,\nwith an expression incredibly incongruous with the words.  It was as\nthough he had borrowed those eyes from some idiot for the purpose of that\nvisit.  He still held Dona Rita's hand, and, now and then, patted it.\n\n\"It's discouraging,\" he cooed.  \"And I believe not one of you here is a\nFrenchman.  I don't know what you are all about.  It's beyond me.  But if\nwe were a Republic--you know I am an old Jacobin, sans-culotte and\nterrorist--if this were a real Republic with the Convention sitting and a\nCommittee of Public Safety attending to national business, you would all\nget your heads cut off.  Ha, ha . . . I am joking, ha, ha! . . . and\nserve you right, too.  Don't mind my little joke.\"\n\nWhile he was still laughing he released her hand and she leaned her head\non it again without haste.  She had never looked at him once.\n\nDuring the rather humiliating silence that ensued he got a leather cigar\ncase like a small valise out of his pocket, opened it and looked with\ncritical interest at the six cigars it contained.  The tireless\n_femme-de-chambre_ set down a tray with coffee cups on the table.  We\neach (glad, I suppose, of something to do) took one, but he, to begin\nwith, sniffed at his.  Dona Rita continued leaning on her elbow, her lips\nclosed in a reposeful expression of peculiar sweetness.  There was\nnothing drooping in her attitude.  Her face with the delicate carnation\nof a rose and downcast eyes was as if veiled in firm immobility and was\nso appealing that I had an insane impulse to walk round and kiss the\nforearm on which it was leaning; that strong, well-shaped forearm,\ngleaming not like marble but with a living and warm splendour.  So\nfamiliar had I become already with her in my thoughts!  Of course I\ndidn't do anything of the sort.  It was nothing uncontrollable, it was\nbut a tender longing of a most respectful and purely sentimental kind.  I\nperformed the act in my thought quietly, almost solemnly, while the\ncreature with the silver hair leaned back in his chair, puffing at his\ncigar, and began to speak again.\n\nIt was all apparently very innocent talk.  He informed his \"dear Rita\"\nthat he was really on his way to Monte Carlo.  A lifelong habit of his at\nthis time of the year; but he was ready to run back to Paris if he could\ndo anything for his \"_chere enfant_,\" run back for a day, for two days,\nfor three days, for any time; miss Monte Carlo this year altogether, if\nhe could be of the slightest use and save her going herself.  For\ninstance he could see to it that proper watch was kept over the Pavilion\nstuffed with all these art treasures.  What was going to happen to all\nthose things? . . . Making herself heard for the first time Dona Rita\nmurmured without moving that she had made arrangements with the police to\nhave it properly watched.  And I was enchanted by the almost\nimperceptible play of her lips.\n\nBut the anxious creature was not reassured.  He pointed out that things\nhad been stolen out of the Louvre, which was, he dared say, even better\nwatched.  And there was that marvellous cabinet on the landing, black\nlacquer with silver herons, which alone would repay a couple of burglars.\nA wheelbarrow, some old sacking, and they could trundle it off under\npeople's noses.\n\n\"Have you thought it all out?\" she asked in a cold whisper, while we\nthree sat smoking to give ourselves a countenance (it was certainly no\nenjoyment) and wondering what we would hear next.\n\nNo, he had not.  But he confessed that for years and years he had been in\nlove with that cabinet.  And anyhow what was going to happen to the\nthings?  The world was greatly exercised by that problem.  He turned\nslightly his beautifully groomed white head so as to address Mr. Blunt\ndirectly.\n\n\"I had the pleasure of meeting your mother lately.\"\n\nMr. Blunt took his time to raise his eyebrows and flash his teeth at him\nbefore he dropped negligently, \"I can't imagine where you could have met\nmy mother.\"\n\n\"Why, at Bing's, the curio-dealer,\" said the other with an air of the\nheaviest possible stupidity.  And yet there was something in these few\nwords which seemed to imply that if Mr. Blunt was looking for trouble he\nwould certainly get it.  \"Bing was bowing her out of his shop, but he was\nso angry about something that he was quite rude even to me afterwards.  I\ndon't think it's very good for _Madame votre mere_ to quarrel with Bing.\nHe is a Parisian personality.  He's quite a power in his sphere.  All\nthese fellows' nerves are upset from worry as to what will happen to the\nAllegre collection.  And no wonder they are nervous.  A big art event\nhangs on your lips, my dear, great Rita.  And by the way, you too ought\nto remember that it isn't wise to quarrel with people.  What have you\ndone to that poor Azzolati?  Did you really tell him to get out and never\ncome near you again, or something awful like that?  I don't doubt that he\nwas of use to you or to your king.  A man who gets invitations to shoot\nwith the President at Rambouillet!  I saw him only the other evening; I\nheard he had been winning immensely at cards; but he looked perfectly\nwretched, the poor fellow.  He complained of your conduct--oh, very much!\nHe told me you had been perfectly brutal with him.  He said to me: 'I am\nno good for anything, _mon cher_.  The other day at Rambouillet, whenever\nI had a hare at the end of my gun I would think of her cruel words and my\neyes would run full of tears.  I missed every shot' . . . You are not fit\nfor diplomatic work, you know, _ma chere_.  You are a mere child at it.\nWhen you want a middle-aged gentleman to do anything for you, you don't\nbegin by reducing him to tears.  I should have thought any woman would\nhave known that much.  A nun would have known that much.  What do you\nsay?  Shall I run back to Paris and make it up for you with Azzolati?\"\n\nHe waited for her answer.  The compression of his thin lips was full of\nsignificance.  I was surprised to see our hostess shake her head\nnegatively the least bit, for indeed by her pose, by the thoughtful\nimmobility of her face she seemed to be a thousand miles away from us\nall, lost in an infinite reverie.\n\nHe gave it up.  \"Well, I must be off.  The express for Nice passes at\nfour o'clock.  I will be away about three weeks and then you shall see me\nagain.  Unless I strike a run of bad luck and get cleaned out, in which\ncase you shall see me before then.\"\n\nHe turned to Mills suddenly.\n\n\"Will your cousin come south this year, to that beautiful villa of his at\nCannes?\"\n\nMills hardly deigned to answer that he didn't know anything about his\ncousin's movements.\n\n\"A _grand seigneur_ combined with a great connoisseur,\" opined the other\nheavily.  His mouth had gone slack and he looked a perfect and grotesque\nimbecile under his wig-like crop of white hair.  Positively I thought he\nwould begin to slobber.  But he attacked Blunt next.\n\n\"Are you on your way down, too?  A little flutter. . . It seems to me you\nhaven't been seen in your usual Paris haunts of late.  Where have you\nbeen all this time?\"\n\n\"Don't you know where I have been?\" said Mr. Blunt with great precision.\n\n\"No, I only ferret out things that may be of some use to me,\" was the\nunexpected reply, uttered with an air of perfect vacancy and swallowed by\nMr. Blunt in blank silence.\n\nAt last he made ready to rise from the table.  \"Think over what I have\nsaid, my dear Rita.\"\n\n\"It's all over and done with,\" was Dona Rita's answer, in a louder tone\nthan I had ever heard her use before.  It thrilled me while she\ncontinued: \"I mean, this thinking.\"  She was back from the remoteness of\nher meditation, very much so indeed.  She rose and moved away from the\ntable, inviting by a sign the other to follow her; which he did at once,\nyet slowly and as it were warily.\n\nIt was a conference in the recess of a window.  We three remained seated\nround the table from which the dark maid was removing the cups and the\nplates with brusque movements.  I gazed frankly at Dona Rita's profile,\nirregular, animated, and fascinating in an undefinable way, at her\nwell-shaped head with the hair twisted high up and apparently held in its\nplace by a gold arrow with a jewelled shaft.  We couldn't hear what she\nsaid, but the movement of her lips and the play of her features were full\nof charm, full of interest, expressing both audacity and gentleness.  She\nspoke with fire without raising her voice.  The man listened\nround-shouldered, but seeming much too stupid to understand.  I could see\nnow and then that he was speaking, but he was inaudible.  At one moment\nDona Rita turned her head to the room and called out to the maid, \"Give\nme my hand-bag off the sofa.\"\n\nAt this the other was heard plainly, \"No, no,\" and then a little lower,\n\"You have no tact, Rita. . . .\"  Then came her argument in a low,\npenetrating voice which I caught, \"Why not?  Between such old friends.\"\nHowever, she waved away the hand-bag, he calmed down, and their voices\nsank again.  Presently I saw him raise her hand to his lips, while with\nher back to the room she continued to contemplate out of the window the\nbare and untidy garden.  At last he went out of the room, throwing to the\ntable an airy \"_Bonjour, bonjour_,\" which was not acknowledged by any of\nus three.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\n\nMills got up and approached the figure at the window.  To my extreme\nsurprise, Mr. Blunt, after a moment of obviously painful hesitation,\nhastened out after the man with the white hair.\n\nIn consequence of these movements I was left to myself and I began to be\nuncomfortably conscious of it when Dona Rita, near the window, addressed\nme in a raised voice.\n\n\"We have no confidences to exchange, Mr. Mills and I.\"\n\nI took this for an encouragement to join them.  They were both looking at\nme.  Dona Rita added, \"Mr. Mills and I are friends from old times, you\nknow.\"\n\nBathed in the softened reflection of the sunshine, which did not fall\ndirectly into the room, standing very straight with her arms down, before\nMills, and with a faint smile directed to me, she looked extremely young,\nand yet mature.  There was even, for a moment, a slight dimple in her\ncheek.\n\n\"How old, I wonder?\" I said, with an answering smile.\n\n\"Oh, for ages, for ages,\" she exclaimed hastily, frowning a little, then\nshe went on addressing herself to Mills, apparently in continuation of\nwhat she was saying before.\n\n. . .  \"This man's is an extreme case, and yet perhaps it isn't the\nworst.  But that's the sort of thing.  I have no account to render to\nanybody, but I don't want to be dragged along all the gutters where that\nman picks up his living.\"\n\nShe had thrown her head back a little but there was no scorn, no angry\nflash under the dark-lashed eyelids.  The words did not ring.  I was\nstruck for the first time by the even, mysterious quality of her voice.\n\n\"Will you let me suggest,\" said Mills, with a grave, kindly face, \"that\nbeing what you are, you have nothing to fear?\"\n\n\"And perhaps nothing to lose,\" she went on without bitterness.  \"No.  It\nisn't fear.  It's a sort of dread.  You must remember that no nun could\nhave had a more protected life.  Henry Allegre had his greatness.  When\nhe faced the world he also masked it.  He was big enough for that.  He\nfilled the whole field of vision for me.\"\n\n\"You found that enough?\" asked Mills.\n\n\"Why ask now?\" she remonstrated.  \"The truth--the truth is that I never\nasked myself.  Enough or not there was no room for anything else.  He was\nthe shadow and the light and the form and the voice.  He would have it\nso.  The morning he died they came to call me at four o'clock.  I ran\ninto his room bare-footed.  He recognized me and whispered, 'You are\nflawless.'  I was very frightened.  He seemed to think, and then said\nvery plainly, 'Such is my character.  I am like that.'  These were the\nlast words he spoke.  I hardly noticed them then.  I was thinking that he\nwas lying in a very uncomfortable position and I asked him if I should\nlift him up a little higher on the pillows.  You know I am very strong.\nI could have done it.  I had done it before.  He raised his hand off the\nblanket just enough to make a sign that he didn't want to be touched.  It\nwas the last gesture he made.  I hung over him and then--and then I\nnearly ran out of the house just as I was, in my night-gown.  I think if\nI had been dressed I would have run out of the garden, into the\nstreet--run away altogether.  I had never seen death.  I may say I had\nnever heard of it.  I wanted to run from it.\"\n\nShe paused for a long, quiet breath.  The harmonized sweetness and daring\nof her face was made pathetic by her downcast eyes.\n\n\"_Fuir la mort_,\" she repeated, meditatively, in her mysterious voice.\n\nMills' big head had a little movement, nothing more.  Her glance glided\nfor a moment towards me like a friendly recognition of my right to be\nthere, before she began again.\n\n\"My life might have been described as looking at mankind from a\nfourth-floor window for years.  When the end came it was like falling out\nof a balcony into the street.  It was as sudden as that.  Once I remember\nsomebody was telling us in the Pavilion a tale about a girl who jumped\ndown from a fourth-floor window. . . For love, I believe,\" she\ninterjected very quickly, \"and came to no harm.  Her guardian angel must\nhave slipped his wings under her just in time.  He must have.  But as to\nme, all I know is that I didn't break anything--not even my heart.  Don't\nbe shocked, Mr. Mills.  It's very likely that you don't understand.\"\n\n\"Very likely,\" Mills assented, unmoved.  \"But don't be too sure of that.\"\n\n\"Henry Allegre had the highest opinion of your intelligence,\" she said\nunexpectedly and with evident seriousness.  \"But all this is only to tell\nyou that when he was gone I found myself down there unhurt, but dazed,\nbewildered, not sufficiently stunned.  It so happened that that creature\nwas somewhere in the neighbourhood.  How he found out. . . But it's his\nbusiness to find out things.  And he knows, too, how to worm his way in\nanywhere.  Indeed, in the first days he was useful and somehow he made it\nlook as if Heaven itself had sent him.  In my distress I thought I could\nnever sufficiently repay. . . Well, I have been paying ever since.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" asked Mills softly.  \"In hard cash?\"\n\n\"Oh, it's really so little,\" she said.  \"I told you it wasn't the worst\ncase.  I stayed on in that house from which I nearly ran away in my\nnightgown.  I stayed on because I didn't know what to do next.  He\nvanished as he had come on the track of something else, I suppose.  You\nknow he really has got to get his living some way or other.  But don't\nthink I was deserted.  On the contrary.  People were coming and going,\nall sorts of people that Henry Allegre used to know--or had refused to\nknow.  I had a sensation of plotting and intriguing around me, all the\ntime.  I was feeling morally bruised, sore all over, when, one day, Don\nRafael de Villarel sent in his card.  A grandee.  I didn't know him, but,\nas you are aware, there was hardly a personality of mark or position that\nhasn't been talked about in the Pavilion before me.  Of him I had only\nheard that he was a very austere and pious person, always at Mass, and\nthat sort of thing.  I saw a frail little man with a long, yellow face\nand sunken fanatical eyes, an Inquisitor, an unfrocked monk.  One missed\na rosary from his thin fingers.  He gazed at me terribly and I couldn't\nimagine what he might want.  I waited for him to pull out a crucifix and\nsentence me to the stake there and then.  But no; he dropped his eyes and\nin a cold, righteous sort of voice informed me that he had called on\nbehalf of the prince--he called him His Majesty.  I was amazed by the\nchange.  I wondered now why he didn't slip his hands into the sleeves of\nhis coat, you know, as begging Friars do when they come for a\nsubscription.  He explained that the Prince asked for permission to call\nand offer me his condolences in person.  We had seen a lot of him our\nlast two months in Paris that year.  Henry Allegre had taken a fancy to\npaint his portrait.  He used to ride with us nearly every morning.\nAlmost without thinking I said I should be pleased.  Don Rafael was\nshocked at my want of formality, but bowed to me in silence, very much as\na monk bows, from the waist.  If he had only crossed his hands flat on\nhis chest it would have been perfect.  Then, I don't know why, something\nmoved me to make him a deep curtsy as he backed out of the room, leaving\nme suddenly impressed, not only with him but with myself too.  I had my\ndoor closed to everybody else that afternoon and the Prince came with a\nvery proper sorrowful face, but five minutes after he got into the room\nhe was laughing as usual, made the whole little house ring with it.  You\nknow his big, irresistible laugh. . . .\"\n\n\"No,\" said Mills, a little abruptly, \"I have never seen him.\"\n\n\"No,\" she said, surprised, \"and yet you . . . \"\n\n\"I understand,\" interrupted Mills.  \"All this is purely accidental.  You\nmust know that I am a solitary man of books but with a secret taste for\nadventure which somehow came out; surprising even me.\"\n\nShe listened with that enigmatic, still, under the eyelids glance, and a\nfriendly turn of the head.\n\n\"I know you for a frank and loyal gentleman. . . Adventure--and books?\nAh, the books!  Haven't I turned stacks of them over!  Haven't I? . . .\"\n\n\"Yes,\" murmured Mills.  \"That's what one does.\"\n\nShe put out her hand and laid it lightly on Mills' sleeve.\n\n\"Listen, I don't need to justify myself, but if I had known a single\nwoman in the world, if I had only had the opportunity to observe a single\none of them, I would have been perhaps on my guard.  But you know I\nhadn't.  The only woman I had anything to do with was myself, and they\nsay that one can't know oneself.  It never entered my head to be on my\nguard against his warmth and his terrible obviousness.  You and he were\nthe only two, infinitely different, people, who didn't approach me as if\nI had been a precious object in a collection, an ivory carving or a piece\nof Chinese porcelain.  That's why I have kept you in my memory so well.\nOh! you were not obvious!  As to him--I soon learned to regret I was not\nsome object, some beautiful, carved object of bone or bronze; a rare\npiece of porcelain, _pate dure_, not _pate tendre_.  A pretty specimen.\"\n\n\"Rare, yes.  Even unique,\" said Mills, looking at her steadily with a\nsmile.  \"But don't try to depreciate yourself.  You were never pretty.\nYou are not pretty.  You are worse.\"\n\nHer narrow eyes had a mischievous gleam.  \"Do you find such sayings in\nyour books?\" she asked.\n\n\"As a matter of fact I have,\" said Mills, with a little laugh, \"found\nthis one in a book.  It was a woman who said that of herself.  A woman\nfar from common, who died some few years ago.  She was an actress.  A\ngreat artist.\"\n\n\"A great! . . . Lucky person!  She had that refuge, that garment, while I\nstand here with nothing to protect me from evil fame; a naked temperament\nfor any wind to blow upon.  Yes, greatness in art is a protection.  I\nwonder if there would have been anything in me if I had tried?  But Henry\nAllegre would never let me try.  He told me that whatever I could achieve\nwould never be good enough for what I was.  The perfection of flattery!\nWas it that he thought I had not talent of any sort?  It's possible.  He\nwould know.  I've had the idea since that he was jealous.  He wasn't\njealous of mankind any more than he was afraid of thieves for his\ncollection; but he may have been jealous of what he could see in me, of\nsome passion that could be aroused.  But if so he never repented.  I\nshall never forget his last words.  He saw me standing beside his bed,\ndefenceless, symbolic and forlorn, and all he found to say was, 'Well, I\nam like that.'\"\n\nI forgot myself in watching her.  I had never seen anybody speak with\nless play of facial muscles.  In the fullness of its life her face\npreserved a sort of immobility.  The words seemed to form themselves,\nfiery or pathetic, in the air, outside her lips.  Their design was hardly\ndisturbed; a design of sweetness, gravity, and force as if born from the\ninspiration of some artist; for I had never seen anything to come up to\nit in nature before or since.\n\nAll this was part of the enchantment she cast over me; and I seemed to\nnotice that Mills had the aspect of a man under a spell.  If he too was a\ncaptive then I had no reason to feel ashamed of my surrender.\n\n\"And you know,\" she began again abruptly, \"that I have been accustomed to\nall the forms of respect.\"\n\n\"That's true,\" murmured Mills, as if involuntarily.\n\n\"Well, yes,\" she reaffirmed.  \"My instinct may have told me that my only\nprotection was obscurity, but I didn't know how and where to find it.\nOh, yes, I had that instinct . . . But there were other instincts and\n. . . How am I to tell you?  I didn't know how to be on guard against myself,\neither.  Not a soul to speak to, or to get a warning from.  Some woman\nsoul that would have known, in which perhaps I could have seen my own\nreflection.  I assure you the only woman that ever addressed me directly,\nand that was in writing, was . . . \"\n\nShe glanced aside, saw Mr. Blunt returning from the hall and added\nrapidly in a lowered voice,\n\n\"His mother.\"\n\nThe bright, mechanical smile of Mr. Blunt gleamed at us right down the\nroom, but he didn't, as it were, follow it in his body.  He swerved to\nthe nearest of the two big fireplaces and finding some cigarettes on the\nmantelpiece remained leaning on his elbow in the warmth of the bright\nwood fire.  I noticed then a bit of mute play.  The heiress of Henry\nAllegre, who could secure neither obscurity nor any other alleviation to\nthat invidious position, looked as if she would speak to Blunt from a\ndistance; but in a moment the confident eagerness of her face died out as\nif killed by a sudden thought.  I didn't know then her shrinking from all\nfalsehood and evasion; her dread of insincerity and disloyalty of every\nkind.  But even then I felt that at the very last moment her being had\nrecoiled before some shadow of a suspicion.  And it occurred to me, too,\nto wonder what sort of business Mr. Blunt could have had to transact with\nour odious visitor, of a nature so urgent as to make him run out after\nhim into the hall?  Unless to beat him a little with one of the sticks\nthat were to be found there?  White hair so much like an expensive wig\ncould not be considered a serious protection.  But it couldn't have been\nthat.  The transaction, whatever it was, had been much too quiet.  I must\nsay that none of us had looked out of the window and that I didn't know\nwhen the man did go or if he was gone at all.  As a matter of fact he was\nalready far away; and I may just as well say here that I never saw him\nagain in my life.  His passage across my field of vision was like that of\nother figures of that time: not to be forgotten, a little fantastic,\ninfinitely enlightening for my contempt, darkening for my memory which\nstruggles still with the clear lights and the ugly shadows of those\nunforgotten days.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\n\nIt was past four o'clock before I left the house, together with Mills.\nMr. Blunt, still in his riding costume, escorted us to the very door.  He\nasked us to send him the first fiacre we met on our way to town.  \"It's\nimpossible to walk in this get-up through the streets,\" he remarked, with\nhis brilliant smile.\n\nAt this point I propose to transcribe some notes I made at the time in\nlittle black books which I have hunted up in the litter of the past; very\ncheap, common little note-books that by the lapse of years have acquired\na touching dimness of aspect, the frayed, worn-out dignity of documents.\n\nExpression on paper has never been my forte.  My life had been a thing of\noutward manifestations.  I never had been secret or even systematically\ntaciturn about my simple occupations which might have been foolish but\nhad never required either caution or mystery.  But in those four hours\nsince midday a complete change had come over me.  For good or evil I left\nthat house committed to an enterprise that could not be talked about;\nwhich would have appeared to many senseless and perhaps ridiculous, but\nwas certainly full of risks, and, apart from that, commanded discretion\non the ground of simple loyalty.  It would not only close my lips but it\nwould to a certain extent cut me off from my usual haunts and from the\nsociety of my friends; especially of the light-hearted, young,\nharum-scarum kind.  This was unavoidable.  It was because I felt myself\nthrown back upon my own thoughts and forbidden to seek relief amongst\nother lives--it was perhaps only for that reason at first I started an\nirregular, fragmentary record of my days.\n\nI made these notes not so much to preserve the memory (one cared not for\nany to-morrow then) but to help me to keep a better hold of the\nactuality.  I scribbled them on shore and I scribbled them on the sea;\nand in both cases they are concerned not only with the nature of the\nfacts but with the intensity of my sensations.  It may be, too, that I\nlearned to love the sea for itself only at that time.  Woman and the sea\nrevealed themselves to me together, as it were: two mistresses of life's\nvalues.  The illimitable greatness of the one, the unfathomable seduction\nof the other working their immemorial spells from generation to\ngeneration fell upon my heart at last: a common fortune, an unforgettable\nmemory of the sea's formless might and of the sovereign charm in that\nwoman's form wherein there seemed to beat the pulse of divinity rather\nthan blood.\n\nI begin here with the notes written at the end of that very day.\n\n--Parted with Mills on the quay.  We had walked side by side in absolute\nsilence.  The fact is he is too old for me to talk to him freely.  For\nall his sympathy and seriousness I don't know what note to strike and I\nam not at all certain what he thinks of all this.  As we shook hands at\nparting, I asked him how much longer he expected to stay.  And he\nanswered me that it depended on R.  She was making arrangements for him\nto cross the frontier.  He wanted to see the very ground on which the\nPrinciple of Legitimacy was actually asserting itself arms in hand.  It\nsounded to my positive mind the most fantastic thing in the world, this\nelimination of personalities from what seemed but the merest political,\ndynastic adventure.  So it wasn't Dona Rita, it wasn't Blunt, it wasn't\nthe Pretender with his big infectious laugh, it wasn't all that lot of\npoliticians, archbishops, and generals, of monks, guerrilleros, and\nsmugglers by sea and land, of dubious agents and shady speculators and\nundoubted swindlers, who were pushing their fortunes at the risk of their\nprecious skins.  No.  It was the Legitimist Principle asserting itself!\nWell, I would accept the view but with one reservation.  All the others\nmight have been merged into the idea, but I, the latest recruit, I would\nnot be merged in the Legitimist Principle.  Mine was an act of\nindependent assertion.  Never before had I felt so intensely aware of my\npersonality.  But I said nothing of that to Mills.  I only told him I\nthought we had better not be seen very often together in the streets.  He\nagreed.  Hearty handshake.  Looked affectionately after his broad back.\nIt never occurred to him to turn his head.  What was I in comparison with\nthe Principle of Legitimacy?\n\nLate that night I went in search of Dominic.  That Mediterranean sailor\nwas just the man I wanted.  He had a great experience of all unlawful\nthings that can be done on the seas and he brought to the practice of\nthem much wisdom and audacity.  That I didn't know where he lived was\nnothing since I knew where he loved.  The proprietor of a small, quiet\ncafe on the quay, a certain Madame Leonore, a woman of thirty-five with\nan open Roman face and intelligent black eyes, had captivated his heart\nyears ago.  In that cafe with our heads close together over a marble\ntable, Dominic and I held an earnest and endless confabulation while\nMadame Leonore, rustling a black silk skirt, with gold earrings, with her\nraven hair elaborately dressed and something nonchalant in her movements,\nwould take occasion, in passing to and fro, to rest her hand for a moment\non Dominic's shoulder.  Later when the little cafe had emptied itself of\nits habitual customers, mostly people connected with the work of ships\nand cargoes, she came quietly to sit at our table and looking at me very\nhard with her black, sparkling eyes asked Dominic familiarly what had\nhappened to his Signorino.  It was her name for me.  I was Dominic's\nSignorino.  She knew me by no other; and our connection has always been\nsomewhat of a riddle to her.  She said that I was somehow changed since\nshe saw me last.  In her rich voice she urged Dominic only to look at my\neyes.  I must have had some piece of luck come to me either in love or at\ncards, she bantered.  But Dominic answered half in scorn that I was not\nof the sort that runs after that kind of luck.  He stated generally that\nthere were some young gentlemen very clever in inventing new ways of\ngetting rid of their time and their money.  However, if they needed a\nsensible man to help them he had no objection himself to lend a hand.\nDominic's general scorn for the beliefs, and activities, and abilities of\nupper-class people covered the Principle of Legitimacy amply; but he\ncould not resist the opportunity to exercise his special faculties in a\nfield he knew of old.  He had been a desperate smuggler in his younger\ndays.  We settled the purchase of a fast sailing craft.  Agreed that it\nmust be a balancelle and something altogether out of the common.  He knew\nof one suitable but she was in Corsica.  Offered to start for Bastia by\nmail-boat in the morning.  All the time the handsome and mature Madame\nLeonore sat by, smiling faintly, amused at her great man joining like\nthis in a frolic of boys.  She said the last words of that evening: \"You\nmen never grow up,\" touching lightly the grey hair above his temple.\n\nA fortnight later.\n\n. . . In the afternoon to the Prado.  Beautiful day.  At the moment of\nringing at the door a strong emotion of an anxious kind.  Why?  Down the\nlength of the dining-room in the rotunda part full of afternoon light\nDona R., sitting cross-legged on the divan in the attitude of a very old\nidol or a very young child and surrounded by many cushions, waves her\nhand from afar pleasantly surprised, exclaiming: \"What!  Back already!\"\nI give her all the details and we talk for two hours across a large brass\nbowl containing a little water placed between us, lighting cigarettes and\ndropping them, innumerable, puffed at, yet untasted in the overwhelming\ninterest of the conversation.  Found her very quick in taking the points\nand very intelligent in her suggestions.  All formality soon vanished\nbetween us and before very long I discovered myself sitting cross-legged,\ntoo, while I held forth on the qualities of different Mediterranean\nsailing craft and on the romantic qualifications of Dominic for the task.\nI believe I gave her the whole history of the man, mentioning even the\nexistence of Madame Leonore, since the little cafe would have to be the\nheadquarters of the marine part of the plot.\n\nShe murmured, \"_Ah_! _Une belle Romaine_,\" thoughtfully.  She told me\nthat she liked to hear people of that sort spoken of in terms of our\ncommon humanity.  She observed also that she wished to see Dominic some\nday; to set her eyes for once on a man who could be absolutely depended\non.  She wanted to know whether he had engaged himself in this adventure\nsolely for my sake.\n\nI said that no doubt it was partly that.  We had been very close\nassociates in the West Indies from where we had returned together, and he\nhad a notion that I could be depended on, too.  But mainly, I suppose, it\nwas from taste.  And there was in him also a fine carelessness as to what\nhe did and a love of venturesome enterprise.\n\n\"And you,\" she said.  \"Is it carelessness, too?\"\n\n\"In a measure,\" I said.  \"Within limits.\"\n\n\"And very soon you will get tired.\"\n\n\"When I do I will tell you.  But I may also get frightened.  I suppose\nyou know there are risks, I mean apart from the risk of life.\"\n\n\"As for instance,\" she said.\n\n\"For instance, being captured, tried, and sentenced to what they call\n'the galleys,' in Ceuta.\"\n\n\"And all this from that love for . . .\"\n\n\"Not for Legitimacy,\" I interrupted the inquiry lightly.  \"But what's the\nuse asking such questions?  It's like asking the veiled figure of fate.\nIt doesn't know its own mind nor its own heart.  It has no heart.  But\nwhat if I were to start asking you--who have a heart and are not veiled\nto my sight?\"  She dropped her charming adolescent head, so firm in\nmodelling, so gentle in expression.  Her uncovered neck was round like\nthe shaft of a column.  She wore the same wrapper of thick blue silk.  At\nthat time she seemed to live either in her riding habit or in that\nwrapper folded tightly round her and open low to a point in front.\nBecause of the absence of all trimming round the neck and from the deep\nview of her bare arms in the wide sleeve this garment seemed to be put\ndirectly on her skin and gave one the impression of one's nearness to her\nbody which would have been troubling but for the perfect unconsciousness\nof her manner.  That day she carried no barbarous arrow in her hair.  It\nwas parted on one side, brushed back severely, and tied with a black\nribbon, without any bronze mist about her forehead or temple.  This\nsmoothness added to the many varieties of her expression also that of\nchild-like innocence.\n\nGreat progress in our intimacy brought about unconsciously by our\nenthusiastic interest in the matter of our discourse and, in the moments\nof silence, by the sympathetic current of our thoughts.  And this rapidly\ngrowing familiarity (truly, she had a terrible gift for it) had all the\nvarieties of earnestness: serious, excited, ardent, and even gay.  She\nlaughed in contralto; but her laugh was never very long; and when it had\nceased, the silence of the room with the light dying in all its many\nwindows seemed to lie about me warmed by its vibration.\n\nAs I was preparing to take my leave after a longish pause into which we\nhad fallen as into a vague dream, she came out of it with a start and a\nquiet sigh.  She said, \"I had forgotten myself.\"  I took her hand and was\nraising it naturally, without premeditation, when I felt suddenly the arm\nto which it belonged become insensible, passive, like a stuffed limb, and\nthe whole woman go inanimate all over!  Brusquely I dropped the hand\nbefore it reached my lips; and it was so lifeless that it fell heavily on\nto the divan.\n\nI remained standing before her.  She raised to me not her eyes but her\nwhole face, inquisitively--perhaps in appeal.\n\n\"No!  This isn't good enough for me,\" I said.\n\nThe last of the light gleamed in her long enigmatic eyes as if they were\nprecious enamel in that shadowy head which in its immobility suggested a\ncreation of a distant past: immortal art, not transient life.  Her voice\nhad a profound quietness.  She excused herself.\n\n\"It's only habit--or instinct--or what you like.  I have had to practise\nthat in self-defence lest I should be tempted sometimes to cut the arm\noff.\"\n\nI remembered the way she had abandoned this very arm and hand to the\nwhite-haired ruffian.  It rendered me gloomy and idiotically obstinate.\n\n\"Very ingenious.  But this sort of thing is of no use to me,\" I declared.\n\n\"Make it up,\" suggested her mysterious voice, while her shadowy figure\nremained unmoved, indifferent amongst the cushions.\n\nI didn't stir either.  I refused in the same low tone.\n\n\"No.  Not before you give it to me yourself some day.\"\n\n\"Yes--some day,\" she repeated in a breath in which there was no irony but\nrather hesitation, reluctance what did I know?\n\nI walked away from the house in a curious state of gloomy satisfaction\nwith myself.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\nAnd this is the last extract.  A month afterwards.\n\n--This afternoon going up to the Villa I was for the first time\naccompanied in my way by some misgivings.  To-morrow I sail.\n\nFirst trip and therefore in the nature of a trial trip; and I can't\novercome a certain gnawing emotion, for it is a trip that _mustn't_ fail.\nIn that sort of enterprise there is no room for mistakes.  Of all the\nindividuals engaged in it will every one be intelligent enough, faithful\nenough, bold enough?  Looking upon them as a whole it seems impossible;\nbut as each has got only a limited part to play they may be found\nsufficient each for his particular trust.  And will they be all punctual,\nI wonder?  An enterprise that hangs on the punctuality of many people, no\nmatter how well disposed and even heroic, hangs on a thread.  This I have\nperceived to be also the greatest of Dominic's concerns.  He, too,\nwonders.  And when he breathes his doubts the smile lurking under the\ndark curl of his moustaches is not reassuring.\n\nBut there is also something exciting in such speculations and the road to\nthe Villa seemed to me shorter than ever before.\n\nLet in by the silent, ever-active, dark lady's maid, who is always on the\nspot and always on the way somewhere else, opening the door with one\nhand, while she passes on, turning on one for a moment her quick, black\neyes, which just miss being lustrous, as if some one had breathed on them\nlightly.\n\nOn entering the long room I perceive Mills established in an armchair\nwhich he had dragged in front of the divan.  I do the same to another and\nthere we sit side by side facing R., tenderly amiable yet somehow distant\namong her cushions, with an immemorial seriousness in her long, shaded\neyes and her fugitive smile hovering about but never settling on her\nlips.  Mills, who is just back from over the frontier, must have been\nasking R. whether she had been worried again by her devoted friend with\nthe white hair.  At least I concluded so because I found them talking of\nthe heart-broken Azzolati.  And after having answered their greetings I\nsit and listen to Rita addressing Mills earnestly.\n\n\"No, I assure you Azzolati had done nothing to me.  I knew him.  He was a\nfrequent visitor at the Pavilion, though I, personally, never talked with\nhim very much in Henry Allegre's lifetime.  Other men were more\ninteresting, and he himself was rather reserved in his manner to me.  He\nwas an international politician and financier--a nobody.  He, like many\nothers, was admitted only to feed and amuse Henry Allegre's scorn of the\nworld, which was insatiable--I tell you.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mills.  \"I can imagine.\"\n\n\"But I know.  Often when we were alone Henry Allegre used to pour it into\nmy ears.  If ever anybody saw mankind stripped of its clothes as the\nchild sees the king in the German fairy tale, it's I!  Into my ears!  A\nchild's!  Too young to die of fright.  Certainly not old enough to\nunderstand--or even to believe.  But then his arm was about me.  I used\nto laugh, sometimes.  Laugh!  At this destruction--at these ruins!\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mills, very steady before her fire.  \"But you have at your\nservice the everlasting charm of life; you are a part of the\nindestructible.\"\n\n\"Am I? . . . But there is no arm about me now.  The laugh!  Where is my\nlaugh?  Give me back my laugh. . . .\"\n\nAnd she laughed a little on a low note.  I don't know about Mills, but\nthe subdued shadowy vibration of it echoed in my breast which felt empty\nfor a moment and like a large space that makes one giddy.\n\n\"The laugh is gone out of my heart, which at any rate used to feel\nprotected.  That feeling's gone, too.  And I myself will have to die some\nday.\"\n\n\"Certainly,\" said Mills in an unaltered voice.  \"As to this body you . . .\"\n\n\"Oh, yes!  Thanks.  It's a very poor jest.  Change from body to body as\ntravellers used to change horses at post houses.  I've heard of this\nbefore. . . .\"\n\n\"I've no doubt you have,\" Mills put on a submissive air.  \"But are we to\nhear any more about Azzolati?\"\n\n\"You shall.  Listen.  I had heard that he was invited to shoot at\nRambouillet--a quiet party, not one of these great shoots.  I hear a lot\nof things.  I wanted to have a certain information, also certain hints\nconveyed to a diplomatic personage who was to be there, too.  A personage\nthat would never let me get in touch with him though I had tried many\ntimes.\"\n\n\"Incredible!\" mocked Mills solemnly.\n\n\"The personage mistrusts his own susceptibility.  Born cautious,\"\nexplained Dona Rita crisply with the slightest possible quiver of her\nlips.  \"Suddenly I had the inspiration to make use of Azzolati, who had\nbeen reminding me by a constant stream of messages that he was an old\nfriend.  I never took any notice of those pathetic appeals before.  But\nin this emergency I sat down and wrote a note asking him to come and dine\nwith me in my hotel.  I suppose you know I don't live in the Pavilion.  I\ncan't bear the Pavilion now.  When I have to go there I begin to feel\nafter an hour or so that it is haunted.  I seem to catch sight of\nsomebody I know behind columns, passing through doorways, vanishing here\nand there.  I hear light footsteps behind closed doors. . . My own!\"\n\nHer eyes, her half-parted lips, remained fixed till Mills suggested\nsoftly, \"Yes, but Azzolati.\"\n\nHer rigidity vanished like a flake of snow in the sunshine.  \"Oh!\nAzzolati.  It was a most solemn affair.  It had occurred to me to make a\nvery elaborate toilet.  It was most successful.  Azzolati looked\npositively scared for a moment as though he had got into the wrong suite\nof rooms.  He had never before seen me _en toilette_, you understand.  In\nthe old days once out of my riding habit I would never dress.  I draped\nmyself, you remember, Monsieur Mills.  To go about like that suited my\nindolence, my longing to feel free in my body, as at that time when I\nused to herd goats. . . But never mind.  My aim was to impress Azzolati.\nI wanted to talk to him seriously.\"\n\nThere was something whimsical in the quick beat of her eyelids and in the\nsubtle quiver of her lips.  \"And behold! the same notion had occurred to\nAzzolati.  Imagine that for this tete-a-tete dinner the creature had got\nhimself up as if for a reception at court.  He displayed a brochette of\nall sorts of decorations on the lapel of his _frac_ and had a broad\nribbon of some order across his shirt front.  An orange ribbon.\nBavarian, I should say.  Great Roman Catholic, Azzolati.  It was always\nhis ambition to be the banker of all the Bourbons in the world.  The last\nremnants of his hair were dyed jet black and the ends of his moustache\nwere like knitting needles.  He was disposed to be as soft as wax in my\nhands.  Unfortunately I had had some irritating interviews during the\nday.  I was keeping down sudden impulses to smash a glass, throw a plate\non the floor, do something violent to relieve my feelings.  His\nsubmissive attitude made me still more nervous.  He was ready to do\nanything in the world for me providing that I would promise him that he\nwould never find my door shut against him as long as he lived.  You\nunderstand the impudence of it, don't you?  And his tone was positively\nabject, too.  I snapped back at him that I had no door, that I was a\nnomad.  He bowed ironically till his nose nearly touched his plate but\nbegged me to remember that to his personal knowledge I had four houses of\nmy own about the world.  And you know this made me feel a homeless\noutcast more than ever--like a little dog lost in the street--not knowing\nwhere to go.  I was ready to cry and there the creature sat in front of\nme with an imbecile smile as much as to say 'here is a poser for you.\n. . .'  I gnashed my teeth at him.  Quietly, you know . . . I suppose you two\nthink that I am stupid.\"\n\nShe paused as if expecting an answer but we made no sound and she\ncontinued with a remark.\n\n\"I have days like that.  Often one must listen to false protestations,\nempty words, strings of lies all day long, so that in the evening one is\nnot fit for anything, not even for truth if it comes in one's way.  That\nidiot treated me to a piece of brazen sincerity which I couldn't stand.\nFirst of all he began to take me into his confidence; he boasted of his\ngreat affairs, then started groaning about his overstrained life which\nleft him no time for the amenities of existence, for beauty, or\nsentiment, or any sort of ease of heart.  His heart!  He wanted me to\nsympathize with his sorrows.  Of course I ought to have listened.  One\nmust pay for service.  Only I was nervous and tired.  He bored me.  I\ntold him at last that I was surprised that a man of such immense wealth\nshould still keep on going like this reaching for more and more.  I\nsuppose he must have been sipping a good deal of wine while we talked and\nall at once he let out an atrocity which was too much for me.  He had\nbeen moaning and sentimentalizing but then suddenly he showed me his\nfangs.  'No,' he cries, 'you can't imagine what a satisfaction it is to\nfeel all that penniless, beggarly lot of the dear, honest, meritorious\npoor wriggling and slobbering under one's boots.'  You may tell me that\nhe is a contemptible animal anyhow, but you should have heard the tone!\nI felt my bare arms go cold like ice.  A moment before I had been hot and\nfaint with sheer boredom.  I jumped up from the table, rang for Rose, and\ntold her to bring me my fur cloak.  He remained in his chair leering at\nme curiously.  When I had the fur on my shoulders and the girl had gone\nout of the room I gave him the surprise of his life.  'Take yourself off\ninstantly,' I said.  'Go trample on the poor if you like but never dare\nspeak to me again.'  At this he leaned his head on his arm and sat so\nlong at the table shading his eyes with his hand that I had to ask,\ncalmly--you know--whether he wanted me to have him turned out into the\ncorridor.  He fetched an enormous sigh.  'I have only tried to be honest\nwith you, Rita.'  But by the time he got to the door he had regained some\nof his impudence.  'You know how to trample on a poor fellow, too,' he\nsaid.  'But I don't mind being made to wriggle under your pretty shoes,\nRita.  I forgive you.  I thought you were free from all vulgar\nsentimentalism and that you had a more independent mind.  I was mistaken\nin you, that's all.'  With that he pretends to dash a tear from his\neye-crocodile!--and goes out, leaving me in my fur by the blazing fire,\nmy teeth going like castanets. . . Did you ever hear of anything so\nstupid as this affair?\" she concluded in a tone of extreme candour and a\nprofound unreadable stare that went far beyond us both.  And the\nstillness of her lips was so perfect directly she ceased speaking that I\nwondered whether all this had come through them or only had formed itself\nin my mind.\n\nPresently she continued as if speaking for herself only.\n\n\"It's like taking the lids off boxes and seeing ugly toads staring at\nyou.  In every one.  Every one.  That's what it is having to do with men\nmore than mere--Good-morning--Good evening.  And if you try to avoid\nmeddling with their lids, some of them will take them off themselves.\nAnd they don't even know, they don't even suspect what they are showing\nyou.  Certain confidences--they don't see it--are the bitterest kind of\ninsult.  I suppose Azzolati imagines himself a noble beast of prey.  Just\nas some others imagine themselves to be most delicate, noble, and refined\ngentlemen.  And as likely as not they would trade on a woman's\ntroubles--and in the end make nothing of that either.  Idiots!\"\n\nThe utter absence of all anger in this spoken meditation gave it a\ncharacter of touching simplicity.  And as if it had been truly only a\nmeditation we conducted ourselves as though we had not heard it.  Mills\nbegan to speak of his experiences during his visit to the army of the\nLegitimist King.  And I discovered in his speeches that this man of books\ncould be graphic and picturesque.  His admiration for the devotion and\nbravery of the army was combined with the greatest distaste for what he\nhad seen of the way its great qualities were misused.  In the conduct of\nthis great enterprise he had seen a deplorable levity of outlook, a fatal\nlack of decision, an absence of any reasoned plan.\n\nHe shook his head.\n\n\"I feel that you of all people, Dona Rita, ought to be told the truth.  I\ndon't know exactly what you have at stake.\"\n\nShe was rosy like some impassive statue in a desert in the flush of the\ndawn.\n\n\"Not my heart,\" she said quietly.  \"You must believe that.\"\n\n\"I do.  Perhaps it would have been better if you. . . \"\n\n\"No, _Monsieur le Philosophe_.  It would not have been better.  Don't\nmake that serious face at me,\" she went on with tenderness in a playful\nnote, as if tenderness had been her inheritance of all time and\nplayfulness the very fibre of her being.  \"I suppose you think that a\nwoman who has acted as I did and has not staked her heart on it is . . .\nHow do you know to what the heart responds as it beats from day to day?\"\n\n\"I wouldn't judge you.  What am I before the knowledge you were born to?\nYou are as old as the world.\"\n\nShe accepted this with a smile.  I who was innocently watching them was\namazed to discover how much a fleeting thing like that could hold of\nseduction without the help of any other feature and with that unchanging\nglance.\n\n\"With me it is _pun d'onor_.  To my first independent friend.\"\n\n\"You were soon parted,\" ventured Mills, while I sat still under a sense\nof oppression.\n\n\"Don't think for a moment that I have been scared off,\" she said.  \"It is\nthey who were frightened.  I suppose you heard a lot of Headquarters\ngossip?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" Mills said meaningly.  \"The fair and the dark are succeeding\neach other like leaves blown in the wind dancing in and out.  I suppose\nyou have noticed that leaves blown in the wind have a look of happiness.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she said, \"that sort of leaf is dead.  Then why shouldn't it look\nhappy?  And so I suppose there is no uneasiness, no occasion for fears\namongst the 'responsibles.'\"\n\n\"Upon the whole not.  Now and then a leaf seems as if it would stick.\nThere is for instance Madame . . .\"\n\n\"Oh, I don't want to know, I understand it all, I am as old as the\nworld.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mills thoughtfully, \"you are not a leaf, you might have been\na tornado yourself.\"\n\n\"Upon my word,\" she said, \"there was a time that they thought I could\ncarry him off, away from them all--beyond them all.  Verily, I am not\nvery proud of their fears.  There was nothing reckless there worthy of a\ngreat passion.  There was nothing sad there worthy of a great\ntenderness.\"\n\n\"And is _this_ the word of the Venetian riddle?\" asked Mills, fixing her\nwith his keen eyes.\n\n\"If it pleases you to think so, Senor,\" she said indifferently.  The\nmovement of her eyes, their veiled gleam became mischievous when she\nasked, \"And Don Juan Blunt, have you seen him over there?\"\n\n\"I fancy he avoided me.  Moreover, he is always with his regiment at the\noutposts.  He is a most valorous captain.  I heard some people describe\nhim as foolhardy.\"\n\n\"Oh, he needn't seek death,\" she said in an indefinable tone.  \"I mean as\na refuge.  There will be nothing in his life great enough for that.\"\n\n\"You are angry.  You miss him, I believe, Dona Rita.\"\n\n\"Angry?  No!  Weary.  But of course it's very inconvenient.  I can't very\nwell ride out alone.  A solitary amazon swallowing the dust and the salt\nspray of the Corniche promenade would attract too much attention.  And\nthen I don't mind you two knowing that I am afraid of going out alone.\"\n\n\"Afraid?\" we both exclaimed together.\n\n\"You men are extraordinary.  Why do you want me to be courageous?  Why\nshouldn't I be afraid?  Is it because there is no one in the world to\ncare what would happen to me?\"\n\nThere was a deep-down vibration in her tone for the first time.  We had\nnot a word to say.  And she added after a long silence:\n\n\"There is a very good reason.  There is a danger.\"\n\nWith wonderful insight Mills affirmed at once:\n\n\"Something ugly.\"\n\nShe nodded slightly several times.  Then Mills said with conviction:\n\n\"Ah!  Then it can't be anything in yourself.  And if so . . . \"\n\nI was moved to extravagant advice.\n\n\"You should come out with me to sea then.  There may be some danger there\nbut there's nothing ugly to fear.\"\n\nShe gave me a startled glance quite unusual with her, more than wonderful\nto me; and suddenly as though she had seen me for the first time she\nexclaimed in a tone of compunction:\n\n\"Oh!  And there is this one, too!  Why!  Oh, why should he run his head\ninto danger for those things that will all crumble into dust before\nlong?\"\n\nI said: \"_You_ won't crumble into dust.\"  And Mills chimed in:\n\n\"That young enthusiast will always have his sea.\"\n\nWe were all standing up now.  She kept her eyes on me, and repeated with\na sort of whimsical enviousness:\n\n\"The sea!  The violet sea--and he is longing to rejoin it! . . . At\nnight!  Under the stars! . . . A lovers' meeting,\" she went on, thrilling\nme from head to foot with those two words, accompanied by a wistful smile\npointed by a suspicion of mockery.  She turned away.\n\n\"And you, Monsieur Mills?\" she asked.\n\n\"I am going back to my books,\" he declared with a very serious face.  \"My\nadventure is over.\"\n\n\"Each one to his love,\" she bantered us gently.  \"Didn't I love books,\ntoo, at one time!  They seemed to contain all wisdom and hold a magic\npower, too.  Tell me, Monsieur Mills, have you found amongst them in some\nblack-letter volume the power of foretelling a poor mortal's destiny, the\npower to look into the future?  Anybody's future . . .\"  Mills shook his\nhead. . . \"What, not even mine?\" she coaxed as if she really believed in\na magic power to be found in books.\n\nMills shook his head again.  \"No, I have not the power,\" he said.  \"I am\nno more a great magician, than you are a poor mortal.  You have your\nancient spells.  You are as old as the world.  Of us two it's you that\nare more fit to foretell the future of the poor mortals on whom you\nhappen to cast your eyes.\"\n\nAt these words she cast her eyes down and in the moment of deep silence I\nwatched the slight rising and falling of her breast.  Then Mills\npronounced distinctly: \"Good-bye, old Enchantress.\"\n\nThey shook hands cordially.  \"Good-bye, poor Magician,\" she said.\n\nMills made as if to speak but seemed to think better of it.  Dona Rita\nreturned my distant bow with a slight, charmingly ceremonious inclination\nof her body.\n\n\"_Bon voyage_ and a happy return,\" she said formally.\n\nI was following Mills through the door when I heard her voice behind us\nraised in recall:\n\n\"Oh, a moment . . . I forgot . . .\"\n\nI turned round.  The call was for me, and I walked slowly back wondering\nwhat she could have forgotten.  She waited in the middle of the room with\nlowered head, with a mute gleam in her deep blue eyes.  When I was near\nenough she extended to me without a word her bare white arm and suddenly\npressed the back of her hand against my lips.  I was too startled to\nseize it with rapture.  It detached itself from my lips and fell slowly\nby her side.  We had made it up and there was nothing to say.  She turned\naway to the window and I hurried out of the room.\n\n\n\n\nPART THREE\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\n\nIt was on our return from that first trip that I took Dominic up to the\nVilla to be presented to Dona Rita.  If she wanted to look on the\nembodiment of fidelity, resource, and courage, she could behold it all in\nthat man.  Apparently she was not disappointed.  Neither was Dominic\ndisappointed.  During the half-hour's interview they got into touch with\neach other in a wonderful way as if they had some common and secret\nstandpoint in life.  Maybe it was their common lawlessness, and their\nknowledge of things as old as the world.  Her seduction, his\nrecklessness, were both simple, masterful and, in a sense, worthy of each\nother.\n\nDominic was, I won't say awed by this interview.  No woman could awe\nDominic.  But he was, as it were, rendered thoughtful by it, like a man\nwho had not so much an experience as a sort of revelation vouchsafed to\nhim.  Later, at sea, he used to refer to La Senora in a particular tone\nand I knew that henceforth his devotion was not for me alone.  And I\nunderstood the inevitability of it extremely well.  As to Dona Rita she,\nafter Dominic left the room, had turned to me with animation and said:\n\"But he is perfect, this man.\"  Afterwards she often asked after him and\nused to refer to him in conversation.  More than once she said to me:\n\"One would like to put the care of one's personal safety into the hands\nof that man.  He looks as if he simply couldn't fail one.\"  I admitted\nthat this was very true, especially at sea.  Dominic couldn't fail.  But\nat the same time I rather chaffed Rita on her preoccupation as to\npersonal safety that so often cropped up in her talk.\n\n\"One would think you were a crowned head in a revolutionary world,\" I\nused to tell her.\n\n\"That would be different.  One would be standing then for something,\neither worth or not worth dying for.  One could even run away then and be\ndone with it.  But I can't run away unless I got out of my skin and left\nthat behind.  Don't you understand?  You are very stupid . . .\"  But she\nhad the grace to add, \"On purpose.\"\n\nI don't know about the on purpose.  I am not certain about the stupidity.\nHer words bewildered one often and bewilderment is a sort of stupidity.\nI remedied it by simply disregarding the sense of what she said.  The\nsound was there and also her poignant heart-gripping presence giving\noccupation enough to one's faculties.  In the power of those things over\none there was mystery enough.  It was more absorbing than the mere\nobscurity of her speeches.  But I daresay she couldn't understand that.\n\nHence, at times, the amusing outbreaks of temper in word and gesture that\nonly strengthened the natural, the invincible force of the spell.\nSometimes the brass bowl would get upset or the cigarette box would fly\nup, dropping a shower of cigarettes on the floor.  We would pick them up,\nre-establish everything, and fall into a long silence, so close that the\nsound of the first word would come with all the pain of a separation.\n\nIt was at that time, too, that she suggested I should take up my quarters\nin her house in the street of the Consuls.  There were certain advantages\nin that move.  In my present abode my sudden absences might have been in\nthe long run subject to comment.  On the other hand, the house in the\nstreet of Consuls was a known out-post of Legitimacy.  But then it was\ncovered by the occult influence of her who was referred to in\nconfidential talks, secret communications, and discreet whispers of\nRoyalist salons as: \"Madame de Lastaola.\"\n\nThat was the name which the heiress of Henry Allegre had decided to adopt\nwhen, according to her own expression, she had found herself precipitated\nat a moment's notice into the crowd of mankind.  It is strange how the\ndeath of Henry Allegre, which certainly the poor man had not planned,\nacquired in my view the character of a heartless desertion.  It gave one\na glimpse of amazing egoism in a sentiment to which one could hardly give\na name, a mysterious appropriation of one human being by another as if in\ndefiance of unexpressed things and for an unheard-of satisfaction of an\ninconceivable pride.  If he had hated her he could not have flung that\nenormous fortune more brutally at her head.  And his unrepentant death\nseemed to lift for a moment the curtain on something lofty and sinister\nlike an Olympian's caprice.\n\nDona Rita said to me once with humorous resignation: \"You know, it\nappears that one must have a name.  That's what Henry Allegre's man of\nbusiness told me.  He was quite impatient with me about it.  But my name,\n_amigo_, Henry Allegre had taken from me like all the rest of what I had\nbeen once.  All that is buried with him in his grave.  It wouldn't have\nbeen true.  That is how I felt about it.  So I took that one.\"  She\nwhispered to herself: \"Lastaola,\" not as if to test the sound but as if\nin a dream.\n\nTo this day I am not quite certain whether it was the name of any human\nhabitation, a lonely _caserio_ with a half-effaced carving of a coat of\narms over its door, or of some hamlet at the dead end of a ravine with a\nstony slope at the back.  It might have been a hill for all I know or\nperhaps a stream.  A wood, or perhaps a combination of all these: just a\nbit of the earth's surface.  Once I asked her where exactly it was\nsituated and she answered, waving her hand cavalierly at the dead wall of\nthe room: \"Oh, over there.\"  I thought that this was all that I was going\nto hear but she added moodily, \"I used to take my goats there, a dozen or\nso of them, for the day.  From after my uncle had said his Mass till the\nringing of the evening bell.\"\n\nI saw suddenly the lonely spot, sketched for me some time ago by a few\nwords from Mr. Blunt, populated by the agile, bearded beasts with cynical\nheads, and a little misty figure dark in the sunlight with a halo of\ndishevelled rust-coloured hair about its head.\n\nThe epithet of rust-coloured comes from her.  It was really tawny.  Once\nor twice in my hearing she had referred to \"my rust-coloured hair\" with\nlaughing vexation.  Even then it was unruly, abhorring the restraints of\ncivilization, and often in the heat of a dispute getting into the eyes of\nMadame de Lastaola, the possessor of coveted art treasures, the heiress\nof Henry Allegre.  She proceeded in a reminiscent mood, with a faint\nflash of gaiety all over her face, except her dark blue eyes that moved\nso seldom out of their fixed scrutiny of things invisible to other human\nbeings.\n\n\"The goats were very good.  We clambered amongst the stones together.\nThey beat me at that game.  I used to catch my hair in the bushes.\"\n\n\"Your rust-coloured hair,\" I whispered.\n\n\"Yes, it was always this colour.  And I used to leave bits of my frock on\nthorns here and there.  It was pretty thin, I can tell you.  There wasn't\nmuch at that time between my skin and the blue of the sky.  My legs were\nas sunburnt as my face; but really I didn't tan very much.  I had plenty\nof freckles though.  There were no looking-glasses in the Presbytery but\nuncle had a piece not bigger than my two hands for his shaving.  One\nSunday I crept into his room and had a peep at myself.  And wasn't I\nstartled to see my own eyes looking at me!  But it was fascinating, too.\nI was about eleven years old then, and I was very friendly with the\ngoats, and I was as shrill as a cicada and as slender as a match.\nHeavens!  When I overhear myself speaking sometimes, or look at my limbs,\nit doesn't seem to be possible.  And yet it is the same one.  I do\nremember every single goat.  They were very clever.  Goats are no trouble\nreally; they don't scatter much.  Mine never did even if I had to hide\nmyself out of their sight for ever so long.\"\n\nIt was but natural to ask her why she wanted to hide, and she uttered\nvaguely what was rather a comment on my question:\n\n\"It was like fate.\"  But I chose to take it otherwise, teasingly, because\nwe were often like a pair of children.\n\n\"Oh, really,\" I said, \"you talk like a pagan.  What could you know of\nfate at that time?  What was it like?  Did it come down from Heaven?\"\n\n\"Don't be stupid.  It used to come along a cart-track that was there and\nit looked like a boy.  Wasn't he a little devil though.  You understand,\nI couldn't know that.  He was a wealthy cousin of mine.  Round there we\nare all related, all cousins--as in Brittany.  He wasn't much bigger than\nmyself but he was older, just a boy in blue breeches and with good shoes\non his feet, which of course interested and impressed me.  He yelled to\nme from below, I screamed to him from above, he came up and sat down near\nme on a stone, never said a word, let me look at him for half an hour\nbefore he condescended to ask me who I was.  And the airs he gave\nhimself!  He quite intimidated me sitting there perfectly dumb.  I\nremember trying to hide my bare feet under the edge of my skirt as I sat\nbelow him on the ground.\n\n\"_C'est comique_, _eh_!\" she interrupted herself to comment in a\nmelancholy tone.  I looked at her sympathetically and she went on:\n\n\"He was the only son from a rich farmhouse two miles down the slope.  In\nwinter they used to send him to school at Tolosa.  He had an enormous\nopinion of himself; he was going to keep a shop in a town by and by and\nhe was about the most dissatisfied creature I have ever seen.  He had an\nunhappy mouth and unhappy eyes and he was always wretched about\nsomething: about the treatment he received, about being kept in the\ncountry and chained to work.  He was moaning and complaining and\nthreatening all the world, including his father and mother.  He used to\ncurse God, yes, that boy, sitting there on a piece of rock like a\nwretched little Prometheus with a sparrow pecking at his miserable little\nliver.  And the grand scenery of mountains all round, ha, ha, ha!\"\n\nShe laughed in contralto: a penetrating sound with something generous in\nit; not infectious, but in others provoking a smile.\n\n\"Of course I, poor little animal, I didn't know what to make of it, and I\nwas even a little frightened.  But at first because of his miserable eyes\nI was sorry for him, almost as much as if he had been a sick goat.  But,\nfrightened or sorry, I don't know how it is, I always wanted to laugh at\nhim, too, I mean from the very first day when he let me admire him for\nhalf an hour.  Yes, even then I had to put my hand over my mouth more\nthan once for the sake of good manners, you understand.  And yet, you\nknow, I was never a laughing child.\n\n\"One day he came up and sat down very dignified a little bit away from me\nand told me he had been thrashed for wandering in the hills.\n\n\"'To be with me?' I asked.  And he said: 'To be with you!  No.  My people\ndon't know what I do.'  I can't tell why, but I was annoyed.  So instead\nof raising a clamour of pity over him, which I suppose he expected me to\ndo, I asked him if the thrashing hurt very much.  He got up, he had a\nswitch in his hand, and walked up to me, saying, 'I will soon show you.'\nI went stiff with fright; but instead of slashing at me he dropped down\nby my side and kissed me on the cheek.  Then he did it again, and by that\ntime I was gone dead all over and he could have done what he liked with\nthe corpse but he left off suddenly and then I came to life again and I\nbolted away.  Not very far.  I couldn't leave the goats altogether.  He\nchased me round and about the rocks, but of course I was too quick for\nhim in his nice town boots.  When he got tired of that game he started\nthrowing stones.  After that he made my life very lively for me.\nSometimes he used to come on me unawares and then I had to sit still and\nlisten to his miserable ravings, because he would catch me round the\nwaist and hold me very tight.  And yet, I often felt inclined to laugh.\nBut if I caught sight of him at a distance and tried to dodge out of the\nway he would start stoning me into a shelter I knew of and then sit\noutside with a heap of stones at hand so that I daren't show the end of\nmy nose for hours.  He would sit there and rave and abuse me till I would\nburst into a crazy laugh in my hole; and then I could see him through the\nleaves rolling on the ground and biting his fists with rage.  Didn't he\nhate me!  At the same time I was often terrified.  I am convinced now\nthat if I had started crying he would have rushed in and perhaps\nstrangled me there.  Then as the sun was about to set he would make me\nswear that I would marry him when I was grown up.  'Swear, you little\nwretched beggar,' he would yell to me.  And I would swear.  I was hungry,\nand I didn't want to be made black and blue all over with stones.  Oh, I\nswore ever so many times to be his wife.  Thirty times a month for two\nmonths.  I couldn't help myself.  It was no use complaining to my sister\nTherese.  When I showed her my bruises and tried to tell her a little\nabout my trouble she was quite scandalized.  She called me a sinful girl,\na shameless creature.  I assure you it puzzled my head so that, between\nTherese my sister and Jose the boy, I lived in a state of idiocy almost.\nBut luckily at the end of the two months they sent him away from home for\ngood.  Curious story to happen to a goatherd living all her days out\nunder God's eye, as my uncle the Cura might have said.  My sister Therese\nwas keeping house in the Presbytery.  She's a terrible person.\"\n\n\"I have heard of your sister Therese,\" I said.\n\n\"Oh, you have!  Of my big sister Therese, six, ten years older than\nmyself perhaps?  She just comes a little above my shoulder, but then I\nwas always a long thing.  I never knew my mother.  I don't even know how\nshe looked.  There are no paintings or photographs in our farmhouses\namongst the hills.  I haven't even heard her described to me.  I believe\nI was never good enough to be told these things.  Therese decided that I\nwas a lump of wickedness, and now she believes that I will lose my soul\naltogether unless I take some steps to save it.  Well, I have no\nparticular taste that way.  I suppose it is annoying to have a sister\ngoing fast to eternal perdition, but there are compensations.  The\nfunniest thing is that it's Therese, I believe, who managed to keep me\nout of the Presbytery when I went out of my way to look in on them on my\nreturn from my visit to the _Quartel Real_ last year.  I couldn't have\nstayed much more than half an hour with them anyway, but still I would\nhave liked to get over the old doorstep.  I am certain that Therese\npersuaded my uncle to go out and meet me at the bottom of the hill.  I\nsaw the old man a long way off and I understood how it was.  I dismounted\nat once and met him on foot.  We had half an hour together walking up and\ndown the road.  He is a peasant priest, he didn't know how to treat me.\nAnd of course I was uncomfortable, too.  There wasn't a single goat about\nto keep me in countenance.  I ought to have embraced him.  I was always\nfond of the stern, simple old man.  But he drew himself up when I\napproached him and actually took off his hat to me.  So simple as that!\nI bowed my head and asked for his blessing.  And he said 'I would never\nrefuse a blessing to a good Legitimist.'  So stern as that!  And when I\nthink that I was perhaps the only girl of the family or in the whole\nworld that he ever in his priest's life patted on the head!  When I think\nof that I . . . I believe at that moment I was as wretched as he was\nhimself.  I handed him an envelope with a big red seal which quite\nstartled him.  I had asked the Marquis de Villarel to give me a few words\nfor him, because my uncle has a great influence in his district; and the\nMarquis penned with his own hand some compliments and an inquiry about\nthe spirit of the population.  My uncle read the letter, looked up at me\nwith an air of mournful awe, and begged me to tell his excellency that\nthe people were all for God, their lawful King and their old privileges.\nI said to him then, after he had asked me about the health of His Majesty\nin an awfully gloomy tone--I said then: 'There is only one thing that\nremains for me to do, uncle, and that is to give you two pounds of the\nvery best snuff I have brought here for you.'  What else could I have got\nfor the poor old man?  I had no trunks with me.  I had to leave behind a\nspare pair of shoes in the hotel to make room in my little bag for that\nsnuff.  And fancy!  That old priest absolutely pushed the parcel away.  I\ncould have thrown it at his head; but I thought suddenly of that hard,\nprayerful life, knowing nothing of any ease or pleasure in the world,\nabsolutely nothing but a pinch of snuff now and then.  I remembered how\nwretched he used to be when he lacked a copper or two to get some snuff\nwith.  My face was hot with indignation, but before I could fly out at\nhim I remembered how simple he was.  So I said with great dignity that as\nthe present came from the King and as he wouldn't receive it from my hand\nthere was nothing else for me to do but to throw it into the brook; and I\nmade as if I were going to do it, too.  He shouted: 'Stay, unhappy girl!\nIs it really from His Majesty, whom God preserve?'  I said\ncontemptuously, 'Of course.'  He looked at me with great pity in his\neyes, sighed deeply, and took the little tin from my hand.  I suppose he\nimagined me in my abandoned way wheedling the necessary cash out of the\nKing for the purchase of that snuff.  You can't imagine how simple he is.\nNothing was easier than to deceive him; but don't imagine I deceived him\nfrom the vainglory of a mere sinner.  I lied to the dear man, simply\nbecause I couldn't bear the idea of him being deprived of the only\ngratification his big, ascetic, gaunt body ever knew on earth.  As I\nmounted my mule to go away he murmured coldly: 'God guard you, Senora!'\nSenora!  What sternness!  We were off a little way already when his heart\nsoftened and he shouted after me in a terrible voice: 'The road to Heaven\nis repentance!'  And then, after a silence, again the great shout\n'Repentance!' thundered after me.  Was that sternness or simplicity, I\nwonder?  Or a mere unmeaning superstition, a mechanical thing?  If there\nlives anybody completely honest in this world, surely it must be my\nuncle.  And yet--who knows?\n\n\"Would you guess what was the next thing I did?  Directly I got over the\nfrontier I wrote from Bayonne asking the old man to send me out my sister\nhere.  I said it was for the service of the King.  You see, I had thought\nsuddenly of that house of mine in which you once spent the night talking\nwith Mr. Mills and Don Juan Blunt.  I thought it would do extremely well\nfor Carlist officers coming this way on leave or on a mission.  In hotels\nthey might have been molested, but I knew that I could get protection for\nmy house.  Just a word from the ministry in Paris to the Prefect.  But I\nwanted a woman to manage it for me.  And where was I to find a\ntrustworthy woman?  How was I to know one when I saw her?  I don't know\nhow to talk to women.  Of course my Rose would have done for me that or\nanything else; but what could I have done myself without her?  She has\nlooked after me from the first.  It was Henry Allegre who got her for me\neight years ago.  I don't know whether he meant it for a kindness but\nshe's the only human being on whom I can lean.  She knows . . . What\ndoesn't she know about me!  She has never failed to do the right thing\nfor me unasked.  I couldn't part with her.  And I couldn't think of\nanybody else but my sister.\n\n\"After all it was somebody belonging to me.  But it seemed the wildest\nidea.  Yet she came at once.  Of course I took care to send her some\nmoney.  She likes money.  As to my uncle there is nothing that he\nwouldn't have given up for the service of the King.  Rose went to meet\nher at the railway station.  She told me afterwards that there had been\nno need for me to be anxious about her recognizing Mademoiselle Therese.\nThere was nobody else in the train that could be mistaken for her.  I\nshould think not!  She had made for herself a dress of some brown stuff\nlike a nun's habit and had a crooked stick and carried all her belongings\ntied up in a handkerchief.  She looked like a pilgrim to a saint's\nshrine.  Rose took her to the house.  She asked when she saw it: 'And\ndoes this big place really belong to our Rita?'  My maid of course said\nthat it was mine.  'And how long did our Rita live here?'--'Madame has\nnever seen it unless perhaps the outside, as far as I know.  I believe\nMr. Allegre lived here for some time when he was a young man.'--'The\nsinner that's dead?'--'Just so,' says Rose.  You know nothing ever\nstartles Rose.  'Well, his sins are gone with him,' said my sister, and\nbegan to make herself at home.\n\n\"Rose was going to stop with her for a week but on the third day she was\nback with me with the remark that Mlle. Therese knew her way about very\nwell already and preferred to be left to herself.  Some little time\nafterwards I went to see that sister of mine.  The first thing she said\nto me, 'I wouldn't have recognized you, Rita,' and I said, 'What a funny\ndress you have, Therese, more fit for the portress of a convent than for\nthis house.'--'Yes,' she said, 'and unless you give this house to me,\nRita, I will go back to our country.  I will have nothing to do with your\nlife, Rita.  Your life is no secret for me.'\n\n\"I was going from room to room and Therese was following me.  'I don't\nknow that my life is a secret to anybody,' I said to her, 'but how do you\nknow anything about it?'  And then she told me that it was through a\ncousin of ours, that horrid wretch of a boy, you know.  He had finished\nhis schooling and was a clerk in a Spanish commercial house of some kind,\nin Paris, and apparently had made it his business to write home whatever\nhe could hear about me or ferret out from those relations of mine with\nwhom I lived as a girl.  I got suddenly very furious.  I raged up and\ndown the room (we were alone upstairs), and Therese scuttled away from me\nas far as the door.  I heard her say to herself, 'It's the evil spirit in\nher that makes her like this.'  She was absolutely convinced of that.\nShe made the sign of the cross in the air to protect herself.  I was\nquite astounded.  And then I really couldn't help myself.  I burst into a\nlaugh.  I laughed and laughed; I really couldn't stop till Therese ran\naway.  I went downstairs still laughing and found her in the hall with\nher face to the wall and her fingers in her ears kneeling in a corner.  I\nhad to pull her out by the shoulders from there.  I don't think she was\nfrightened; she was only shocked.  But I don't suppose her heart is\ndesperately bad, because when I dropped into a chair feeling very tired\nshe came and knelt in front of me and put her arms round my waist and\nentreated me to cast off from me my evil ways with the help of saints and\npriests.  Quite a little programme for a reformed sinner.  I got away at\nlast.  I left her sunk on her heels before the empty chair looking after\nme.  'I pray for you every night and morning, Rita,' she said.--'Oh, yes.\nI know you are a good sister,' I said to her.  I was letting myself out\nwhen she called after me, 'And what about this house, Rita?'  I said to\nher, 'Oh, you may keep it till the day I reform and enter a convent.'\nThe last I saw of her she was still on her knees looking after me with\nher mouth open.  I have seen her since several times, but our intercourse\nis, at any rate on her side, as of a frozen nun with some great lady.\nBut I believe she really knows how to make men comfortable.  Upon my word\nI think she likes to look after men.  They don't seem to be such great\nsinners as women are.  I think you could do worse than take up your\nquarters at number 10.  She will no doubt develop a saintly sort of\naffection for you, too.\"\n\nI don't know that the prospect of becoming a favourite of Dona Rita's\npeasant sister was very fascinating to me.  If I went to live very\nwillingly at No. 10 it was because everything connected with Dona Rita\nhad for me a peculiar fascination.  She had only passed through the house\nonce as far as I knew; but it was enough.  She was one of those beings\nthat leave a trace.  I am not unreasonable--I mean for those that knew\nher.  That is, I suppose, because she was so unforgettable.  Let us\nremember the tragedy of Azzolati the ruthless, the ridiculous financier\nwith a criminal soul (or shall we say heart) and facile tears.  No\nwonder, then, that for me, who may flatter myself without undue vanity\nwith being much finer than that grotesque international intriguer, the\nmere knowledge that Dona Rita had passed through the very rooms in which\nI was going to live between the strenuous times of the sea-expeditions,\nwas enough to fill my inner being with a great content.  Her glance, her\ndarkly brilliant blue glance, had run over the walls of that room which\nmost likely would be mine to slumber in.  Behind me, somewhere near the\ndoor, Therese, the peasant sister, said in a funnily compassionate tone\nand in an amazingly landlady-of-a-boarding-house spirit of false\npersuasiveness:\n\n\"You will be very comfortable here, Senor.  It is so peaceful here in the\nstreet.  Sometimes one may think oneself in a village.  It's only a\nhundred and twenty-five francs for the friends of the King.  And I shall\ntake such good care of you that your very heart will be able to rest.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\n\nDona Rita was curious to know how I got on with her peasant sister and\nall I could say in return for that inquiry was that the peasant sister\nwas in her own way amiable.  At this she clicked her tongue amusingly and\nrepeated a remark she had made before: \"She likes young men.  The younger\nthe better.\"  The mere thought of those two women being sisters aroused\none's wonder.  Physically they were altogether of different design.  It\nwas also the difference between living tissue of glowing loveliness with\na divine breath, and a hard hollow figure of baked clay.\n\nIndeed Therese did somehow resemble an achievement, wonderful enough in\nits way, in unglazed earthenware.  The only gleam perhaps that one could\nfind on her was that of her teeth, which one used to get between her dull\nlips unexpectedly, startlingly, and a little inexplicably, because it was\nnever associated with a smile.  She smiled with compressed mouth.  It was\nindeed difficult to conceive of those two birds coming from the same\nnest.  And yet . . . Contrary to what generally happens, it was when one\nsaw those two women together that one lost all belief in the possibility\nof their relationship near or far.  It extended even to their common\nhumanity.  One, as it were, doubted it.  If one of the two was\nrepresentative, then the other was either something more or less than\nhuman.  One wondered whether these two women belonged to the same scheme\nof creation.  One was secretly amazed to see them standing together,\nspeaking to each other, having words in common, understanding each other.\nAnd yet! . . . Our psychological sense is the crudest of all; we don't\nknow, we don't perceive how superficial we are.  The simplest shades\nescape us, the secret of changes, of relations.  No, upon the whole, the\nonly feature (and yet with enormous differences) which Therese had in\ncommon with her sister, as I told Dona Rita, was amiability.\n\n\"For, you know, you are a most amiable person yourself,\" I went on.\n\"It's one of your characteristics, of course much more precious than in\nother people.  You transmute the commonest traits into gold of your own;\nbut after all there are no new names.  You are amiable.  You were most\namiable to me when I first saw you.\"\n\n\"Really.  I was not aware.  Not specially . . . \"\n\n\"I had never the presumption to think that it was special.  Moreover, my\nhead was in a whirl.  I was lost in astonishment first of all at what I\nhad been listening to all night.  Your history, you know, a wonderful\ntale with a flavour of wine in it and wreathed in clouds, with that\namazing decapitated, mutilated dummy of a woman lurking in a corner, and\nwith Blunt's smile gleaming through a fog, the fog in my eyes, from\nMills' pipe, you know.  I was feeling quite inanimate as to body and\nfrightfully stimulated as to mind all the time.  I had never heard\nanything like that talk about you before.  Of course I wasn't sleepy, but\nstill I am not used to do altogether without sleep like Blunt . . .\"\n\n\"Kept awake all night listening to my story!\"  She marvelled.\n\n\"Yes.  You don't think I am complaining, do you?  I wouldn't have missed\nit for the world.  Blunt in a ragged old jacket and a white tie and that\nincisive polite voice of his seemed strange and weird.  It seemed as\nthough he were inventing it all rather angrily.  I had doubts as to your\nexistence.\"\n\n\"Mr. Blunt is very much interested in my story.\"\n\n\"Anybody would be,\" I said.  \"I was.  I didn't sleep a wink.  I was\nexpecting to see you soon--and even then I had my doubts.\"\n\n\"As to my existence?\"\n\n\"It wasn't exactly that, though of course I couldn't tell that you\nweren't a product of Captain Blunt's sleeplessness.  He seemed to dread\nexceedingly to be left alone and your story might have been a device to\ndetain us . . .\"\n\n\"He hasn't enough imagination for that,\" she said.\n\n\"It didn't occur to me.  But there was Mills, who apparently believed in\nyour existence.  I could trust Mills.  My doubts were about the\npropriety.  I couldn't see any good reason for being taken to see you.\nStrange that it should be my connection with the sea which brought me\nhere to the Villa.\"\n\n\"Unexpected perhaps.\"\n\n\"No.  I mean particularly strange and significant.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because my friends are in the habit of telling me (and each other) that\nthe sea is my only love.  They were always chaffing me because they\ncouldn't see or guess in my life at any woman, open or secret. . .\"\n\n\"And is that really so?\" she inquired negligently.\n\n\"Why, yes.  I don't mean to say that I am like an innocent shepherd in\none of those interminable stories of the eighteenth century.  But I don't\nthrow the word love about indiscriminately.  It may be all true about the\nsea; but some people would say that they love sausages.\"\n\n\"You are horrible.\"\n\n\"I am surprised.\"\n\n\"I mean your choice of words.\"\n\n\"And you have never uttered a word yet that didn't change into a pearl as\nit dropped from your lips.  At least not before me.\"\n\nShe glanced down deliberately and said, \"This is better.  But I don't see\nany of them on the floor.\"\n\n\"It's you who are horrible in the implications of your language.  Don't\nsee any on the floor!  Haven't I caught up and treasured them all in my\nheart?  I am not the animal from which sausages are made.\"\n\nShe looked at me suavely and then with the sweetest possible smile\nbreathed out the word: \"No.\"\n\nAnd we both laughed very loud.  O! days of innocence!  On this occasion\nwe parted from each other on a light-hearted note.  But already I had\nacquired the conviction that there was nothing more lovable in the world\nthan that woman; nothing more life-giving, inspiring, and illuminating\nthan the emanation of her charm.  I meant it absolutely--not excepting\nthe light of the sun.\n\nFrom this there was only one step further to take.  The step into a\nconscious surrender; the open perception that this charm, warming like a\nflame, was also all-revealing like a great light; giving new depth to\nshades, new brilliance to colours, an amazing vividness to all sensations\nand vitality to all thoughts: so that all that had been lived before\nseemed to have been lived in a drab world and with a languid pulse.\n\nA great revelation this.  I don't mean to say it was soul-shaking.  The\nsoul was already a captive before doubt, anguish, or dismay could touch\nits surrender and its exaltation.  But all the same the revelation turned\nmany things into dust; and, amongst others, the sense of the careless\nfreedom of my life.  If that life ever had any purpose or any aim outside\nitself I would have said that it threw a shadow across its path.  But it\nhadn't.  There had been no path.  But there was a shadow, the inseparable\ncompanion of all light.  No illumination can sweep all mystery out of the\nworld.  After the departed darkness the shadows remain, more mysterious\nbecause as if more enduring; and one feels a dread of them from which one\nwas free before.  What if they were to be victorious at the last?  They,\nor what perhaps lurks in them: fear, deception, desire, disillusion--all\nsilent at first before the song of triumphant love vibrating in the\nlight.  Yes.  Silent.  Even desire itself!  All silent.  But not for\nlong!\n\nThis was, I think, before the third expedition.  Yes, it must have been\nthe third, for I remember that it was boldly planned and that it was\ncarried out without a hitch.  The tentative period was over; all our\narrangements had been perfected.  There was, so to speak, always an\nunfailing smoke on the hill and an unfailing lantern on the shore.  Our\nfriends, mostly bought for hard cash and therefore valuable, had acquired\nconfidence in us.  This, they seemed to say, is no unfathomable roguery\nof penniless adventurers.  This is but the reckless enterprise of men of\nwealth and sense and needn't be inquired into.  The young _caballero_ has\ngot real gold pieces in the belt he wears next his skin; and the man with\nthe heavy moustaches and unbelieving eyes is indeed very much of a man.\nThey gave to Dominic all their respect and to me a great show of\ndeference; for I had all the money, while they thought that Dominic had\nall the sense.  That judgment was not exactly correct.  I had my share of\njudgment and audacity which surprises me now that the years have chilled\nthe blood without dimming the memory.  I remember going about the\nbusiness with light-hearted, clear-headed recklessness which, according\nas its decisions were sudden or considered, made Dominic draw his breath\nthrough his clenched teeth, or look hard at me before he gave me either a\nslight nod of assent or a sarcastic \"Oh, certainly\"--just as the humour\nof the moment prompted him.\n\nOne night as we were lying on a bit of dry sand under the lee of a rock,\nside by side, watching the light of our little vessel dancing away at sea\nin the windy distance, Dominic spoke suddenly to me.\n\n\"I suppose Alphonso and Carlos, Carlos and Alphonso, they are nothing to\nyou, together or separately?\"\n\nI said: \"Dominic, if they were both to vanish from the earth together or\nseparately it would make no difference to my feelings.\"\n\nHe remarked: \"Just so.  A man mourns only for his friends.  I suppose\nthey are no more friends to you than they are to me.  Those Carlists make\na great consumption of cartridges.  That is well.  But why should we do\nall those mad things that you will insist on us doing till my hair,\" he\npursued with grave, mocking exaggeration, \"till my hair tries to stand up\non my head? and all for that Carlos, let God and the devil each guard his\nown, for that Majesty as they call him, but after all a man like another\nand--no friend.\"\n\n\"Yes, why?\" I murmured, feeling my body nestled at ease in the sand.\n\nIt was very dark under the overhanging rock on that night of clouds and\nof wind that died and rose and died again.  Dominic's voice was heard\nspeaking low between the short gusts.\n\n\"Friend of the Senora, eh?\"\n\n\"That's what the world says, Dominic.\"\n\n\"Half of what the world says are lies,\" he pronounced dogmatically.  \"For\nall his majesty he may be a good enough man.  Yet he is only a king in\nthe mountains and to-morrow he may be no more than you.  Still a woman\nlike that--one, somehow, would grudge her to a better king.  She ought to\nbe set up on a high pillar for people that walk on the ground to raise\ntheir eyes up to.  But you are otherwise, you gentlemen.  You, for\ninstance, Monsieur, you wouldn't want to see her set up on a pillar.\"\n\n\"That sort of thing, Dominic,\" I said, \"that sort of thing, you\nunderstand me, ought to be done early.\"\n\nHe was silent for a time.  And then his manly voice was heard in the\nshadow of the rock.\n\n\"I see well enough what you mean.  I spoke of the multitude, that only\nraise their eyes.  But for kings and suchlike that is not enough.  Well,\nno heart need despair; for there is not a woman that wouldn't at some\ntime or other get down from her pillar for no bigger bribe perhaps than\njust a flower which is fresh to-day and withered to-morrow.  And then,\nwhat's the good of asking how long any woman has been up there?  There is\na true saying that lips that have been kissed do not lose their\nfreshness.\"\n\nI don't know what answer I could have made.  I imagine Dominic thought\nhimself unanswerable.  As a matter of fact, before I could speak, a voice\ncame to us down the face of the rock crying secretly, \"Ola, down there!\nAll is safe ashore.\"\n\nIt was the boy who used to hang about the stable of a muleteer's inn in a\nlittle shallow valley with a shallow little stream in it, and where we\nhad been hiding most of the day before coming down to the shore.  We both\nstarted to our feet and Dominic said, \"A good boy that.  You didn't hear\nhim either come or go above our heads.  Don't reward him with more than\none peseta, Senor, whatever he does.  If you were to give him two he\nwould go mad at the sight of so much wealth and throw up his job at the\nFonda, where he is so useful to run errands, in that way he has of\nskimming along the paths without displacing a stone.\"\n\nMeantime he was busying himself with striking a fire to set alight a\nsmall heap of dry sticks he had made ready beforehand on that spot which\nin all the circuit of the Bay was perfectly screened from observation\nfrom the land side.\n\nThe clear flame shooting up revealed him in the black cloak with a hood\nof a Mediterranean sailor.  His eyes watched the dancing dim light to\nseaward.  And he talked the while.\n\n\"The only fault you have, Senor, is being too generous with your money.\nIn this world you must give sparingly.  The only things you may deal out\nwithout counting, in this life of ours which is but a little fight and a\nlittle love, is blows to your enemy and kisses to a woman. . . . Ah! here\nthey are coming in.\"\n\nI noticed the dancing light in the dark west much closer to the shore\nnow.  Its motion had altered.  It swayed slowly as it ran towards us,\nand, suddenly, the darker shadow as of a great pointed wing appeared\ngliding in the night.  Under it a human voice shouted something\nconfidently.\n\n\"_Bueno_,\" muttered Dominic.  From some receptacle I didn't see he poured\na lot of water on the blaze, like a magician at the end of a successful\nincantation that had called out a shadow and a voice from the immense\nspace of the sea.  And his hooded figure vanished from my sight in a\ngreat hiss and the warm feel of ascending steam.\n\n\"That's all over,\" he said, \"and now we go back for more work, more toil,\nmore trouble, more exertion with hands and feet, for hours and hours.\nAnd all the time the head turned over the shoulder, too.\"\n\nWe were climbing a precipitous path sufficiently dangerous in the dark,\nDominic, more familiar with it, going first and I scrambling close behind\nin order that I might grab at his cloak if I chanced to slip or miss my\nfooting.  I remonstrated against this arrangement as we stopped to rest.\nI had no doubt I would grab at his cloak if I felt myself falling.  I\ncouldn't help doing that.  But I would probably only drag him down with\nme.\n\nWith one hand grasping a shadowy bush above his head he growled that all\nthis was possible, but that it was all in the bargain, and urged me\nonwards.\n\nWhen we got on to the level that man whose even breathing no exertion, no\ndanger, no fear or anger could disturb, remarked as we strode side by\nside:\n\n\"I will say this for us, that we are carrying out all this deadly\nfoolishness as conscientiously as though the eyes of the Senora were on\nus all the time.  And as to risk, I suppose we take more than she would\napprove of, I fancy, if she ever gave a moment's thought to us out here.\nNow, for instance, in the next half hour, we may come any moment on three\ncarabineers who would let off their pieces without asking questions.\nEven your way of flinging money about cannot make safety for men set on\ndefying a whole big country for the sake of--what is it exactly?--the\nblue eyes, or the white arms of the Senora.\"\n\nHe kept his voice equably low.  It was a lonely spot and but for a vague\nshape of a dwarf tree here and there we had only the flying clouds for\ncompany.  Very far off a tiny light twinkled a little way up the seaward\nshoulder of an invisible mountain.  Dominic moved on.\n\n\"Fancy yourself lying here, on this wild spot, with a leg smashed by a\nshot or perhaps with a bullet in your side.  It might happen.  A star\nmight fall.  I have watched stars falling in scores on clear nights in\nthe Atlantic.  And it was nothing.  The flash of a pinch of gunpowder in\nyour face may be a bigger matter.  Yet somehow it's pleasant as we\nstumble in the dark to think of our Senora in that long room with a shiny\nfloor and all that lot of glass at the end, sitting on that divan, you\ncall it, covered with carpets as if expecting a king indeed.  And very\nstill . . .\"\n\nHe remembered her--whose image could not be dismissed.\n\nI laid my hand on his shoulder.\n\n\"That light on the mountain side flickers exceedingly, Dominic.  Are we\nin the path?\"\n\nHe addressed me then in French, which was between us the language of more\nformal moments.\n\n\"_Prenez mon bras_, _monsieur_.  Take a firm hold, or I will have you\nstumbling again and falling into one of those beastly holes, with a good\nchance to crack your head.  And there is no need to take offence.  For,\nspeaking with all respect, why should you, and I with you, be here on\nthis lonely spot, barking our shins in the dark on the way to a\nconfounded flickering light where there will be no other supper but a\npiece of a stale sausage and a draught of leathery wine out of a stinking\nskin.  Pah!\"\n\nI had good hold of his arm.  Suddenly he dropped the formal French and\npronounced in his inflexible voice:\n\n\"For a pair of white arms, Senor.  _Bueno_.\"\n\nHe could understand.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\n\nOn our return from that expedition we came gliding into the old harbour\nso late that Dominic and I, making for the cafe kept by Madame Leonore,\nfound it empty of customers, except for two rather sinister fellows\nplaying cards together at a corner table near the door.  The first thing\ndone by Madame Leonore was to put her hands on Dominic's shoulders and\nlook at arm's length into the eyes of that man of audacious deeds and\nwild stratagems who smiled straight at her from under his heavy and, at\nthat time, uncurled moustaches.\n\nIndeed we didn't present a neat appearance, our faces unshaven, with the\ntraces of dried salt sprays on our smarting skins and the sleeplessness\nof full forty hours filming our eyes.  At least it was so with me who saw\nas through a mist Madame Leonore moving with her mature nonchalant grace,\nsetting before us wine and glasses with a faint swish of her ample black\nskirt.  Under the elaborate structure of black hair her jet-black eyes\nsparkled like good-humoured stars and even I could see that she was\ntremendously excited at having this lawless wanderer Dominic within her\nreach and as it were in her power.  Presently she sat down by us, touched\nlightly Dominic's curly head silvered on the temples (she couldn't really\nhelp it), gazed at me for a while with a quizzical smile, observed that I\nlooked very tired, and asked Dominic whether for all that I was likely to\nsleep soundly to-night.\n\n\"I don't know,\" said Dominic, \"He's young.  And there is always the\nchance of dreams.\"\n\n\"What do you men dream of in those little barques of yours tossing for\nmonths on the water?\"\n\n\"Mostly of nothing,\" said Dominic.  \"But it has happened to me to dream\nof furious fights.\"\n\n\"And of furious loves, too, no doubt,\" she caught him up in a mocking\nvoice.\n\n\"No, that's for the waking hours,\" Dominic drawled, basking sleepily with\nhis head between his hands in her ardent gaze.  \"The waking hours are\nlonger.\"\n\n\"They must be, at sea,\" she said, never taking her eyes off him.  \"But I\nsuppose you do talk of your loves sometimes.\"\n\n\"You may be sure, Madame Leonore,\" I interjected, noticing the hoarseness\nof my voice, \"that you at any rate are talked about a lot at sea.\"\n\n\"I am not so sure of that now.  There is that strange lady from the Prado\nthat you took him to see, Signorino.  She went to his head like a glass\nof wine into a tender youngster's.  He is such a child, and I suppose\nthat I am another.  Shame to confess it, the other morning I got a friend\nto look after the cafe for a couple of hours, wrapped up my head, and\nwalked out there to the other end of the town. . . . Look at these two\nsitting up!  And I thought they were so sleepy and tired, the poor\nfellows!\"\n\nShe kept our curiosity in suspense for a moment.\n\n\"Well, I have seen your marvel, Dominic,\" she continued in a calm voice.\n\"She came flying out of the gate on horseback and it would have been all\nI would have seen of her if--and this is for you, Signorino--if she\nhadn't pulled up in the main alley to wait for a very good-looking\ncavalier.  He had his moustaches so, and his teeth were very white when\nhe smiled at her.  But his eyes are too deep in his head for my taste.  I\ndidn't like it.  It reminded me of a certain very severe priest who used\nto come to our village when I was young; younger even than your marvel,\nDominic.\"\n\n\"It was no priest in disguise, Madame Leonore,\" I said, amused by her\nexpression of disgust.  \"That's an American.\"\n\n\"Ah!  _Un Americano_!  Well, never mind him.  It was her that I went to\nsee.\"\n\n\"What!  Walked to the other end of the town to see Dona Rita!\"  Dominic\naddressed her in a low bantering tone.  \"Why, you were always telling me\nyou couldn't walk further than the end of the quay to save your life--or\neven mine, you said.\"\n\n\"Well, I did; and I walked back again and between the two walks I had a\ngood look.  And you may be sure--that will surprise you both--that on the\nway back--oh, Santa Madre, wasn't it a long way, too--I wasn't thinking\nof any man at sea or on shore in that connection.\"\n\n\"No.  And you were not thinking of yourself, either, I suppose,\" I said.\nSpeaking was a matter of great effort for me, whether I was too tired or\ntoo sleepy, I can't tell.  \"No, you were not thinking of yourself.  You\nwere thinking of a woman, though.\"\n\n\"_Si_.  As much a woman as any of us that ever breathed in the world.\nYes, of her!  Of that very one!  You see, we women are not like you men,\nindifferent to each other unless by some exception.  Men say we are\nalways against one another but that's only men's conceit.  What can she\nbe to me?  I am not afraid of the big child here,\" and she tapped\nDominic's forearm on which he rested his head with a fascinated stare.\n\"With us two it is for life and death, and I am rather pleased that there\nis something yet in him that can catch fire on occasion.  I would have\nthought less of him if he hadn't been able to get out of hand a little,\nfor something really fine.  As for you, Signorino,\" she turned on me with\nan unexpected and sarcastic sally, \"I am not in love with you yet.\"  She\nchanged her tone from sarcasm to a soft and even dreamy note.  \"A head\nlike a gem,\" went on that woman born in some by-street of Rome, and a\nplaything for years of God knows what obscure fates.  \"Yes, Dominic!\n_Antica_.  I haven't been haunted by a face since--since I was sixteen\nyears old.  It was the face of a young cavalier in the street.  He was on\nhorseback, too.  He never looked at me, I never saw him again, and I\nloved him for--for days and days and days.  That was the sort of face he\nhad.  And her face is of the same sort.  She had a man's hat, too, on her\nhead.  So high!\"\n\n\"A man's hat on her head,\" remarked with profound displeasure Dominic, to\nwhom this wonder, at least, of all the wonders of the earth, was\napparently unknown.\n\n\"_Si_.  And her face has haunted me.  Not so long as that other but more\ntouchingly because I am no longer sixteen and this is a woman.  Yes, I\ndid think of her, I myself was once that age and I, too, had a face of my\nown to show to the world, though not so superb.  And I, too, didn't know\nwhy I had come into the world any more than she does.\"\n\n\"And now you know,\" Dominic growled softly, with his head still between\nhis hands.\n\nShe looked at him for a long time, opened her lips but in the end only\nsighed lightly.\n\n\"And what do you know of her, you who have seen her so well as to be\nhaunted by her face?\" I asked.\n\nI wouldn't have been surprised if she had answered me with another sigh.\nFor she seemed only to be thinking of herself and looked not in my\ndirection.  But suddenly she roused up.\n\n\"Of her?\" she repeated in a louder voice.  \"Why should I talk of another\nwoman?  And then she is a great lady.\"\n\nAt this I could not repress a smile which she detected at once.\n\n\"Isn't she?  Well, no, perhaps she isn't; but you may be sure of one\nthing, that she is both flesh and shadow more than any one that I have\nseen.  Keep that well in your mind: She is for no man!  She would be\nvanishing out of their hands like water that cannot be held.\"\n\nI caught my breath.  \"Inconstant,\" I whispered.\n\n\"I don't say that.  Maybe too proud, too wilful, too full of pity.\nSignorino, you don't know much about women.  And you may learn something\nyet or you may not; but what you learn from her you will never forget.\"\n\n\"Not to be held,\" I murmured; and she whom the quayside called Madame\nLeonore closed her outstretched hand before my face and opened it at once\nto show its emptiness in illustration of her expressed opinion.  Dominic\nnever moved.\n\nI wished good-night to these two and left the cafe for the fresh air and\nthe dark spaciousness of the quays augmented by all the width of the old\nPort where between the trails of light the shadows of heavy hulls\nappeared very black, merging their outlines in a great confusion.  I left\nbehind me the end of the Cannebiere, a wide vista of tall houses and\nmuch-lighted pavements losing itself in the distance with an extinction\nof both shapes and lights.  I slunk past it with only a side glance and\nsought the dimness of quiet streets away from the centre of the usual\nnight gaieties of the town.  The dress I wore was just that of a sailor\ncome ashore from some coaster, a thick blue woollen shirt or rather a\nsort of jumper with a knitted cap like a tam-o'-shanter worn very much on\none side and with a red tuft of wool in the centre.  This was even the\nreason why I had lingered so long in the cafe.  I didn't want to be\nrecognized in the streets in that costume and still less to be seen\nentering the house in the street of the Consuls.  At that hour when the\nperformances were over and all the sensible citizens in their beds I\ndidn't hesitate to cross the Place of the Opera.  It was dark, the\naudience had already dispersed.  The rare passers-by I met hurrying on\ntheir last affairs of the day paid no attention to me at all.  The street\nof the Consuls I expected to find empty, as usual at that time of the\nnight.  But as I turned a corner into it I overtook three people who must\nhave belonged to the locality.  To me, somehow, they appeared strange.\nTwo girls in dark cloaks walked ahead of a tall man in a top hat.  I\nslowed down, not wishing to pass them by, the more so that the door of\nthe house was only a few yards distant.  But to my intense surprise those\npeople stopped at it and the man in the top hat, producing a latchkey,\nlet his two companions through, followed them, and with a heavy slam cut\nhimself off from my astonished self and the rest of mankind.\n\nIn the stupid way people have I stood and meditated on the sight, before\nit occurred to me that this was the most useless thing to do.  After\nwaiting a little longer to let the others get away from the hall I\nentered in my turn.  The small gas-jet seemed not to have been touched\never since that distant night when Mills and I trod the black-and-white\nmarble hall for the first time on the heels of Captain Blunt--who lived\nby his sword.  And in the dimness and solitude which kept no more trace\nof the three strangers than if they had been the merest ghosts I seemed\nto hear the ghostly murmur, \"_Americain_, _Catholique et gentilhomme_.\n_Amer. . . _\"  Unseen by human eye I ran up the flight of steps swiftly\nand on the first floor stepped into my sitting-room of which the door was\nopen . . . \"_et gentilhomme_.\"  I tugged at the bell pull and somewhere\ndown below a bell rang as unexpected for Therese as a call from a ghost.\n\nI had no notion whether Therese could hear me.  I seemed to remember that\nshe slept in any bed that happened to be vacant.  For all I knew she\nmight have been asleep in mine.  As I had no matches on me I waited for a\nwhile in the dark.  The house was perfectly still.  Suddenly without the\nslightest preliminary sound light fell into the room and Therese stood in\nthe open door with a candlestick in her hand.\n\nShe had on her peasant brown skirt.  The rest of her was concealed in a\nblack shawl which covered her head, her shoulders, arms, and elbows\ncompletely, down to her waist.  The hand holding the candle protruded\nfrom that envelope which the other invisible hand clasped together under\nher very chin.  And her face looked like a face in a painting.  She said\nat once:\n\n\"You startled me, my young Monsieur.\"\n\nShe addressed me most frequently in that way as though she liked the very\nword \"young.\"  Her manner was certainly peasant-like with a sort of\nplaint in the voice, while the face was that of a serving Sister in some\nsmall and rustic convent.\n\n\"I meant to do it,\" I said.  \"I am a very bad person.\"\n\n\"The young are always full of fun,\" she said as if she were gloating over\nthe idea.  \"It is very pleasant.\"\n\n\"But you are very brave,\" I chaffed her, \"for you didn't expect a ring,\nand after all it might have been the devil who pulled the bell.\"\n\n\"It might have been.  But a poor girl like me is not afraid of the devil.\nI have a pure heart.  I have been to confession last evening.  No.  But\nit might have been an assassin that pulled the bell ready to kill a poor\nharmless woman.  This is a very lonely street.  What could prevent you to\nkill me now and then walk out again free as air?\"\n\nWhile she was talking like this she had lighted the gas and with the last\nwords she glided through the bedroom door leaving me thunderstruck at the\nunexpected character of her thoughts.\n\nI couldn't know that there had been during my absence a case of atrocious\nmurder which had affected the imagination of the whole town; and though\nTherese did not read the papers (which she imagined to be full of\nimpieties and immoralities invented by godless men) yet if she spoke at\nall with her kind, which she must have done at least in shops, she could\nnot have helped hearing of it.  It seems that for some days people could\ntalk of nothing else.  She returned gliding from the bedroom hermetically\nsealed in her black shawl just as she had gone in, with the protruding\nhand holding the lighted candle and relieved my perplexity as to her\nmorbid turn of mind by telling me something of the murder story in a\nstrange tone of indifference even while referring to its most horrible\nfeatures.  \"That's what carnal sin (_peche de chair_) leads to,\" she\ncommented severely and passed her tongue over her thin lips.  \"And then\nthe devil furnishes the occasion.\"\n\n\"I can't imagine the devil inciting me to murder you, Therese,\" I said,\n\"and I didn't like that ready way you took me for an example, as it were.\nI suppose pretty near every lodger might be a potential murderer, but I\nexpected to be made an exception.\"\n\nWith the candle held a little below her face, with that face of one tone\nand without relief she looked more than ever as though she had come out\nof an old, cracked, smoky painting, the subject of which was altogether\nbeyond human conception.  And she only compressed her lips.\n\n\"All right,\" I said, making myself comfortable on a sofa after pulling\noff my boots.  \"I suppose any one is liable to commit murder all of a\nsudden.  Well, have you got many murderers in the house?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she said, \"it's pretty good.  Upstairs and downstairs,\" she\nsighed.  \"God sees to it.\"\n\n\"And by the by, who is that grey-headed murderer in a tall hat whom I saw\nshepherding two girls into this house?\"\n\nShe put on a candid air in which one could detect a little of her peasant\ncunning.\n\n\"Oh, yes.  They are two dancing girls at the Opera, sisters, as different\nfrom each other as I and our poor Rita.  But they are both virtuous and\nthat gentleman, their father, is very severe with them.  Very severe\nindeed, poor motherless things.  And it seems to be such a sinful\noccupation.\"\n\n\"I bet you make them pay a big rent, Therese.  With an occupation like\nthat . . .\"\n\nShe looked at me with eyes of invincible innocence and began to glide\ntowards the door, so smoothly that the flame of the candle hardly swayed.\n\"Good-night,\" she murmured.\n\n\"Good-night, Mademoiselle.\"\n\nThen in the very doorway she turned right round as a marionette would\nturn.\n\n\"Oh, you ought to know, my dear young Monsieur, that Mr. Blunt, the dear\nhandsome man, has arrived from Navarre three days ago or more.  Oh,\" she\nadded with a priceless air of compunction, \"he is such a charming\ngentleman.\"\n\nAnd the door shut after her.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\n\nThat night I passed in a state, mostly open-eyed, I believe, but always\non the border between dreams and waking.  The only thing absolutely\nabsent from it was the feeling of rest.  The usual sufferings of a youth\nin love had nothing to do with it.  I could leave her, go away from her,\nremain away from her, without an added pang or any augmented\nconsciousness of that torturing sentiment of distance so acute that often\nit ends by wearing itself out in a few days.  Far or near was all one to\nme, as if one could never get any further but also never any nearer to\nher secret: the state like that of some strange wild faiths that get hold\nof mankind with the cruel mystic grip of unattainable perfection, robbing\nthem of both liberty and felicity on earth.  A faith presents one with\nsome hope, though.  But I had no hope, and not even desire as a thing\noutside myself, that would come and go, exhaust or excite.  It was in me\njust like life was in me; that life of which a popular saying affirms\nthat \"it is sweet.\"  For the general wisdom of mankind will always stop\nshort on the limit of the formidable.\n\nWhat is best in a state of brimful, equable suffering is that it does\naway with the gnawings of petty sensations.  Too far gone to be sensible\nto hope and desire I was spared the inferior pangs of elation and\nimpatience.  Hours with her or hours without her were all alike, all in\nher possession!  But still there are shades and I will admit that the\nhours of that morning were perhaps a little more difficult to get through\nthan the others.  I had sent word of my arrival of course.  I had written\na note.  I had rung the bell.  Therese had appeared herself in her brown\ngarb and as monachal as ever.  I had said to her:\n\n\"Have this sent off at once.\"\n\nShe had gazed at the addressed envelope, smiled (I was looking up at her\nfrom my desk), and at last took it up with an effort of sanctimonious\nrepugnance.  But she remained with it in her hand looking at me as though\nshe were piously gloating over something she could read in my face.\n\n\"Oh, that Rita, that Rita,\" she murmured.  \"And you, too!  Why are you\ntrying, you, too, like the others, to stand between her and the mercy of\nGod?  What's the good of all this to you?  And you such a nice, dear,\nyoung gentleman.  For no earthly good only making all the kind saints in\nheaven angry, and our mother ashamed in her place amongst the blessed.\"\n\n\"Mademoiselle Therese,\" I said, \"_vous etes folle_.\"\n\nI believed she was crazy.  She was cunning, too.  I added an imperious:\n\"_Allez_,\" and with a strange docility she glided out without another\nword.  All I had to do then was to get dressed and wait till eleven\no'clock.\n\nThe hour struck at last.  If I could have plunged into a light wave and\nbeen transported instantaneously to Dona Rita's door it would no doubt\nhave saved me an infinity of pangs too complex for analysis; but as this\nwas impossible I elected to walk from end to end of that long way.  My\nemotions and sensations were childlike and chaotic inasmuch that they\nwere very intense and primitive, and that I lay very helpless in their\nunrelaxing grasp.  If one could have kept a record of one's physical\nsensations it would have been a fine collection of absurdities and\ncontradictions.  Hardly touching the ground and yet leaden-footed; with a\nsinking heart and an excited brain; hot and trembling with a secret\nfaintness, and yet as firm as a rock and with a sort of indifference to\nit all, I did reach the door which was frightfully like any other\ncommonplace door, but at the same time had a fateful character: a few\nplanks put together--and an awful symbol; not to be approached without\nawe--and yet coming open in the ordinary way to the ring of the bell.\n\nIt came open.  Oh, yes, very much as usual.  But in the ordinary course\nof events the first sight in the hall should have been the back of the\nubiquitous, busy, silent maid hurrying off and already distant.  But not\nat all!  She actually waited for me to enter.  I was extremely taken\naback and I believe spoke to her for the first time in my life.\n\n\"_Bonjour_, Rose.\"\n\nShe dropped her dark eyelids over those eyes that ought to have been\nlustrous but were not, as if somebody had breathed on them the first\nthing in the morning.  She was a girl without smiles.  She shut the door\nafter me, and not only did that but in the incredible idleness of that\nmorning she, who had never a moment to spare, started helping me off with\nmy overcoat.  It was positively embarrassing from its novelty.  While\nbusying herself with those trifles she murmured without any marked\nintention:\n\n\"Captain Blunt is with Madame.\"\n\nThis didn't exactly surprise me.  I knew he had come up to town; I only\nhappened to have forgotten his existence for the moment.  I looked at the\ngirl also without any particular intention.  But she arrested my movement\ntowards the dining-room door by a low, hurried, if perfectly unemotional\nappeal:\n\n\"Monsieur George!\"\n\nThat of course was not my name.  It served me then as it will serve for\nthis story.  In all sorts of strange places I was alluded to as \"that\nyoung gentleman they call Monsieur George.\"  Orders came from \"Monsieur\nGeorge\" to men who nodded knowingly.  Events pivoted about \"Monsieur\nGeorge.\"  I haven't the slightest doubt that in the dark and tortuous\nstreets of the old Town there were fingers pointed at my back: there goes\n\"Monsieur George.\"  I had been introduced discreetly to several\nconsiderable persons as \"Monsieur George.\"  I had learned to answer to\nthe name quite naturally; and to simplify matters I was also \"Monsieur\nGeorge\" in the street of the Consuls and in the Villa on the Prado.  I\nverily believe that at that time I had the feeling that the name of\nGeorge really belonged to me.  I waited for what the girl had to say.  I\nhad to wait some time, though during that silence she gave no sign of\ndistress or agitation.  It was for her obviously a moment of reflection.\nHer lips were compressed a little in a characteristic, capable manner.  I\nlooked at her with a friendliness I really felt towards her slight,\nunattractive, and dependable person.\n\n\"Well,\" I said at last, rather amused by this mental hesitation.  I never\ntook it for anything else.  I was sure it was not distrust.  She\nappreciated men and things and events solely in relation to Dona Rita's\nwelfare and safety.  And as to that I believed myself above suspicion.\nAt last she spoke.\n\n\"Madame is not happy.\"  This information was given to me not emotionally\nbut as it were officially.  It hadn't even a tone of warning.  A mere\nstatement.  Without waiting to see the effect she opened the dining-room\ndoor, not to announce my name in the usual way but to go in and shut it\nbehind her.  In that short moment I heard no voices inside.  Not a sound\nreached me while the door remained shut; but in a few seconds it came\nopen again and Rose stood aside to let me pass.\n\nThen I heard something: Dona Rita's voice raised a little on an impatient\nnote (a very, very rare thing) finishing some phrase of protest with the\nwords \" . . . Of no consequence.\"\n\nI heard them as I would have heard any other words, for she had that kind\nof voice which carries a long distance.  But the maid's statement\noccupied all my mind.  \"_Madame n'est pas heureuse_.\"  It had a dreadful\nprecision . . . \"Not happy . . .\"  This unhappiness had almost a concrete\nform--something resembling a horrid bat.  I was tired, excited, and\ngenerally overwrought.  My head felt empty.  What were the appearances of\nunhappiness?  I was still naive enough to associate them with tears,\nlamentations, extraordinary attitudes of the body and some sort of facial\ndistortion, all very dreadful to behold.  I didn't know what I should\nsee; but in what I did see there was nothing startling, at any rate from\nthat nursery point of view which apparently I had not yet outgrown.\n\nWith immense relief the apprehensive child within me beheld Captain Blunt\nwarming his back at the more distant of the two fireplaces; and as to\nDona Rita there was nothing extraordinary in her attitude either, except\nperhaps that her hair was all loose about her shoulders.  I hadn't the\nslightest doubt they had been riding together that morning, but she, with\nher impatience of all costume (and yet she could dress herself admirably\nand wore her dresses triumphantly), had divested herself of her riding\nhabit and sat cross-legged enfolded in that ample blue robe like a young\nsavage chieftain in a blanket.  It covered her very feet.  And before the\nnormal fixity of her enigmatical eyes the smoke of the cigarette ascended\nceremonially, straight up, in a slender spiral.\n\n\"How are you,\" was the greeting of Captain Blunt with the usual smile\nwhich would have been more amiable if his teeth hadn't been, just then,\nclenched quite so tight.  How he managed to force his voice through that\nshining barrier I could never understand.  Dona Rita tapped the couch\nengagingly by her side but I sat down instead in the armchair nearly\nopposite her, which, I imagine, must have been just vacated by Blunt.\nShe inquired with that particular gleam of the eyes in which there was\nsomething immemorial and gay:\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"Perfect success.\"\n\n\"I could hug you.\"\n\nAt any time her lips moved very little but in this instance the intense\nwhisper of these words seemed to form itself right in my very heart; not\nas a conveyed sound but as an imparted emotion vibrating there with an\nawful intimacy of delight.  And yet it left my heart heavy.\n\n\"Oh, yes, for joy,\" I said bitterly but very low; \"for your Royalist,\nLegitimist, joy.\"  Then with that trick of very precise politeness which\nI must have caught from Mr. Blunt I added:\n\n\"I don't want to be embraced--for the King.\"\n\nAnd I might have stopped there.  But I didn't.  With a perversity which\nshould be forgiven to those who suffer night and day and are as if drunk\nwith an exalted unhappiness, I went on: \"For the sake of an old cast-off\nglove; for I suppose a disdained love is not much more than a soiled,\nflabby thing that finds itself on a private rubbish heap because it has\nmissed the fire.\"\n\nShe listened to me unreadable, unmoved, narrowed eyes, closed lips,\nslightly flushed face, as if carved six thousand years ago in order to\nfix for ever that something secret and obscure which is in all women.\nNot the gross immobility of a Sphinx proposing roadside riddles but the\nfiner immobility, almost sacred, of a fateful figure seated at the very\nsource of the passions that have moved men from the dawn of ages.\n\nCaptain Blunt, with his elbow on the high mantelpiece, had turned away a\nlittle from us and his attitude expressed excellently the detachment of a\nman who does not want to hear.  As a matter of fact, I don't suppose he\ncould have heard.  He was too far away, our voices were too contained.\nMoreover, he didn't want to hear.  There could be no doubt about it; but\nshe addressed him unexpectedly.\n\n\"As I was saying to you, Don Juan, I have the greatest difficulty in\ngetting myself, I won't say understood, but simply believed.\"\n\nNo pose of detachment could avail against the warm waves of that voice.\nHe had to hear.  After a moment he altered his position as it were\nreluctantly, to answer her.\n\n\"That's a difficulty that women generally have.\"\n\n\"Yet I have always spoken the truth.\"\n\n\"All women speak the truth,\" said Blunt imperturbably.  And this annoyed\nher.\n\n\"Where are the men I have deceived?\" she cried.\n\n\"Yes, where?\" said Blunt in a tone of alacrity as though he had been\nready to go out and look for them outside.\n\n\"No!  But show me one.  I say--where is he?\"\n\nHe threw his affectation of detachment to the winds, moved his shoulders\nslightly, very slightly, made a step nearer to the couch, and looked down\non her with an expression of amused courtesy.\n\n\"Oh, I don't know.  Probably nowhere.  But if such a man could be found I\nam certain he would turn out a very stupid person.  You can't be expected\nto furnish every one who approaches you with a mind.  To expect that\nwould be too much, even from you who know how to work wonders at such\nlittle cost to yourself.\"\n\n\"To myself,\" she repeated in a loud tone.\n\n\"Why this indignation?  I am simply taking your word for it.\"\n\n\"Such little cost!\" she exclaimed under her breath.\n\n\"I mean to your person.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" she murmured, glanced down, as it were upon herself, then\nadded very low: \"This body.\"\n\n\"Well, it is you,\" said Blunt with visibly contained irritation.  \"You\ndon't pretend it's somebody else's.  It can't be.  You haven't borrowed\nit. . . . It fits you too well,\" he ended between his teeth.\n\n\"You take pleasure in tormenting yourself,\" she remonstrated, suddenly\nplacated; \"and I would be sorry for you if I didn't think it's the mere\nrevolt of your pride.  And you know you are indulging your pride at my\nexpense.  As to the rest of it, as to my living, acting, working wonders\nat a little cost. . . . it has all but killed me morally.  Do you hear?\nKilled.\"\n\n\"Oh, you are not dead yet,\" he muttered,\n\n\"No,\" she said with gentle patience.  \"There is still some feeling left\nin me; and if it is any satisfaction to you to know it, you may be\ncertain that I shall be conscious of the last stab.\"\n\nHe remained silent for a while and then with a polite smile and a\nmovement of the head in my direction he warned her.\n\n\"Our audience will get bored.\"\n\n\"I am perfectly aware that Monsieur George is here, and that he has been\nbreathing a very different atmosphere from what he gets in this room.\nDon't you find this room extremely confined?\" she asked me.\n\nThe room was very large but it is a fact that I felt oppressed at that\nmoment.  This mysterious quarrel between those two people, revealing\nsomething more close in their intercourse than I had ever before\nsuspected, made me so profoundly unhappy that I didn't even attempt to\nanswer.  And she continued:\n\n\"More space.  More air.  Give me air, air.\"  She seized the embroidered\nedges of her blue robe under her white throat and made as if to tear them\napart, to fling it open on her breast, recklessly, before our eyes.  We\nboth remained perfectly still.  Her hands dropped nervelessly by her\nside.  \"I envy you, Monsieur George.  If I am to go under I should prefer\nto be drowned in the sea with the wind on my face.  What luck, to feel\nnothing less than all the world closing over one's head!\"\n\nA short silence ensued before Mr. Blunt's drawing-room voice was heard\nwith playful familiarity.\n\n\"I have often asked myself whether you weren't really a very ambitious\nperson, Dona Rita.\"\n\n\"And I ask myself whether you have any heart.\"  She was looking straight\nat him and he gratified her with the usual cold white flash of his even\nteeth before he answered.\n\n\"Asking yourself?  That means that you are really asking me.  But why do\nit so publicly?  I mean it.  One single, detached presence is enough to\nmake a public.  One alone.  Why not wait till he returns to those regions\nof space and air--from which he came.\"\n\nHis particular trick of speaking of any third person as of a lay figure\nwas exasperating.  Yet at the moment I did not know how to resent it,\nbut, in any case, Dona Rita would not have given me time.  Without a\nmoment's hesitation she cried out:\n\n\"I only wish he could take me out there with him.\"\n\nFor a moment Mr. Blunt's face became as still as a mask and then instead\nof an angry it assumed an indulgent expression.  As to me I had a rapid\nvision of Dominic's astonishment, awe, and sarcasm which was always as\ntolerant as it is possible for sarcasm to be.  But what a charming,\ngentle, gay, and fearless companion she would have made!  I believed in\nher fearlessness in any adventure that would interest her.  It would be a\nnew occasion for me, a new viewpoint for that faculty of admiration she\nhad awakened in me at sight--at first sight--before she opened her\nlips--before she ever turned her eyes on me.  She would have to wear some\nsort of sailor costume, a blue woollen shirt open at the throat. . . .\nDominic's hooded cloak would envelop her amply, and her face under the\nblack hood would have a luminous quality, adolescent charm, and an\nenigmatic expression.  The confined space of the little vessel's\nquarterdeck would lend itself to her cross-legged attitudes, and the blue\nsea would balance gently her characteristic immobility that seemed to\nhide thoughts as old and profound as itself.  As restless, too--perhaps.\n\nBut the picture I had in my eye, coloured and simple like an illustration\nto a nursery-book tale of two venturesome children's escapade, was what\nfascinated me most.  Indeed I felt that we two were like children under\nthe gaze of a man of the world--who lived by his sword.  And I said\nrecklessly:\n\n\"Yes, you ought to come along with us for a trip.  You would see a lot of\nthings for yourself.\"\n\nMr. Blunt's expression had grown even more indulgent if that were\npossible.  Yet there was something ineradicably ambiguous about that man.\nI did not like the indefinable tone in which he observed:\n\n\"You are perfectly reckless in what you say, Dona Rita.  It has become a\nhabit with you of late.\"\n\n\"While with you reserve is a second nature, Don Juan.\"\n\nThis was uttered with the gentlest, almost tender, irony.  Mr. Blunt\nwaited a while before he said:\n\n\"Certainly. . . . Would you have liked me to be otherwise?\"\n\nShe extended her hand to him on a sudden impulse.\n\n\"Forgive me!  I may have been unjust, and you may only have been loyal.\nThe falseness is not in us.  The fault is in life itself, I suppose.  I\nhave been always frank with you.\"\n\n\"And I obedient,\" he said, bowing low over her hand.  He turned away,\npaused to look at me for some time and finally gave me the correct sort\nof nod.  But he said nothing and went out, or rather lounged out with his\nworldly manner of perfect ease under all conceivable circumstances.  With\nher head lowered Dona Rita watched him till he actually shut the door\nbehind him.  I was facing her and only heard the door close.\n\n\"Don't stare at me,\" were the first words she said.\n\nIt was difficult to obey that request.  I didn't know exactly where to\nlook, while I sat facing her.  So I got up, vaguely full of goodwill,\nprepared even to move off as far as the window, when she commanded:\n\n\"Don't turn your back on me.\"\n\nI chose to understand it symbolically.\n\n\"You know very well I could never do that.  I couldn't.  Not even if I\nwanted to.\"  And I added: \"It's too late now.\"\n\n\"Well, then, sit down.  Sit down on this couch.\"\n\nI sat down on the couch.  Unwillingly?  Yes.  I was at that stage when\nall her words, all her gestures, all her silences were a heavy trial to\nme, put a stress on my resolution, on that fidelity to myself and to her\nwhich lay like a leaden weight on my untried heart.  But I didn't sit\ndown very far away from her, though that soft and billowy couch was big\nenough, God knows!  No, not very far from her.  Self-control, dignity,\nhopelessness itself, have their limits.  The halo of her tawny hair\nstirred as I let myself drop by her side.  Whereupon she flung one arm\nround my neck, leaned her temple against my shoulder and began to sob;\nbut that I could only guess from her slight, convulsive movements because\nin our relative positions I could only see the mass of her tawny hair\nbrushed back, yet with a halo of escaped hair which as I bent my head\nover her tickled my lips, my cheek, in a maddening manner.\n\nWe sat like two venturesome children in an illustration to a tale, scared\nby their adventure.  But not for long.  As I instinctively, yet timidly,\nsought for her other hand I felt a tear strike the back of mine, big and\nheavy as if fallen from a great height.  It was too much for me.  I must\nhave given a nervous start.  At once I heard a murmur: \"You had better go\naway now.\"\n\nI withdrew myself gently from under the light weight of her head, from\nthis unspeakable bliss and inconceivable misery, and had the absurd\nimpression of leaving her suspended in the air.  And I moved away on\ntiptoe.\n\nLike an inspired blind man led by Providence I found my way out of the\nroom but really I saw nothing, till in the hall the maid appeared by\nenchantment before me holding up my overcoat.  I let her help me into it.\nAnd then (again as if by enchantment) she had my hat in her hand.\n\n\"No.  Madame isn't happy,\" I whispered to her distractedly.\n\nShe let me take my hat out of her hand and while I was putting it on my\nhead I heard an austere whisper:\n\n\"Madame should listen to her heart.\"\n\nAustere is not the word; it was almost freezing, this unexpected,\ndispassionate rustle of words.  I had to repress a shudder, and as coldly\nas herself I murmured:\n\n\"She has done that once too often.\"\n\nRose was standing very close to me and I caught distinctly the note of\nscorn in her indulgent compassion.\n\n\"Oh, that! . . . Madame is like a child.\"  It was impossible to get the\nbearing of that utterance from that girl who, as Dona Rita herself had\ntold me, was the most taciturn of human beings; and yet of all human\nbeings the one nearest to herself.  I seized her head in my hands and\nturning up her face I looked straight down into her black eyes which\nshould have been lustrous.  Like a piece of glass breathed upon they\nreflected no light, revealed no depths, and under my ardent gaze remained\ntarnished, misty, unconscious.\n\n\"Will Monsieur kindly let me go.  Monsieur shouldn't play the child,\neither.\"  (I let her go.)  \"Madame could have the world at her feet.\nIndeed she has it there only she doesn't care for it.\"\n\nHow talkative she was, this maid with unsealed lips!  For some reason or\nother this last statement of hers brought me immense comfort.\n\n\"Yes?\" I whispered breathlessly.\n\n\"Yes!  But in that case what's the use of living in fear and torment?\"\nshe went on, revealing a little more of herself to my astonishment.  She\nopened the door for me and added:\n\n\"Those that don't care to stoop ought at least make themselves happy.\"\n\nI turned in the very doorway: \"There is something which prevents that?\" I\nsuggested.\n\n\"To be sure there is.  _Bonjour_, Monsieur.\"\n\n\n\n\nPART FOUR\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\n\n\"Such a charming lady in a grey silk dress and a hand as white as snow.\nShe looked at me through such funny glasses on the end of a long handle.\nA very great lady but her voice was as kind as the voice of a saint.  I\nhave never seen anything like that.  She made me feel so timid.\"\n\nThe voice uttering these words was the voice of Therese and I looked at\nher from a bed draped heavily in brown silk curtains fantastically looped\nup from ceiling to floor.  The glow of a sunshiny day was toned down by\nclosed jalousies to a mere transparency of darkness.  In this thin medium\nTherese's form appeared flat, without detail, as if cut out of black\npaper.  It glided towards the window and with a click and a scrape let in\nthe full flood of light which smote my aching eyeballs painfully.\n\nIn truth all that night had been the abomination of desolation to me.\nAfter wrestling with my thoughts, if the acute consciousness of a woman's\nexistence may be called a thought, I had apparently dropped off to sleep\nonly to go on wrestling with a nightmare, a senseless and terrifying\ndream of being in bonds which, even after waking, made me feel powerless\nin all my limbs.  I lay still, suffering acutely from a renewed sense of\nexistence, unable to lift an arm, and wondering why I was not at sea, how\nlong I had slept, how long Therese had been talking before her voice had\nreached me in that purgatory of hopeless longing and unanswerable\nquestions to which I was condemned.\n\nIt was Therese's habit to begin talking directly she entered the room\nwith the tray of morning coffee.  This was her method for waking me up.\nI generally regained the consciousness of the external world on some\npious phrase asserting the spiritual comfort of early mass, or on angry\nlamentations about the unconscionable rapacity of the dealers in fish and\nvegetables; for after mass it was Therese's practice to do the marketing\nfor the house.  As a matter of fact the necessity of having to pay, to\nactually give money to people, infuriated the pious Therese.  But the\nmatter of this morning's speech was so extraordinary that it might have\nbeen the prolongation of a nightmare: a man in bonds having to listen to\nweird and unaccountable speeches against which, he doesn't know why, his\nvery soul revolts.\n\nIn sober truth my soul remained in revolt though I was convinced that I\nwas no longer dreaming.  I watched Therese coming away from the window\nwith that helpless dread a man bound hand and foot may be excused to\nfeel.  For in such a situation even the absurd may appear ominous.  She\ncame up close to the bed and folding her hands meekly in front of her\nturned her eyes up to the ceiling.\n\n\"If I had been her daughter she couldn't have spoken more softly to me,\"\nshe said sentimentally.\n\nI made a great effort to speak.\n\n\"Mademoiselle Therese, you are raving.\"\n\n\"She addressed me as Mademoiselle, too, so nicely.  I was struck with\nveneration for her white hair but her face, believe me, my dear young\nMonsieur, has not so many wrinkles as mine.\"\n\nShe compressed her lips with an angry glance at me as if I could help her\nwrinkles, then she sighed.\n\n\"God sends wrinkles, but what is our face?\" she digressed in a tone of\ngreat humility.  \"We shall have glorious faces in Paradise.  But meantime\nGod has permitted me to preserve a smooth heart.\"\n\n\"Are you going to keep on like this much longer?\" I fairly shouted at\nher.  \"What are you talking about?\"\n\n\"I am talking about the sweet old lady who came in a carriage.  Not a\nfiacre.  I can tell a fiacre.  In a little carriage shut in with glass\nall in front.  I suppose she is very rich.  The carriage was very shiny\noutside and all beautiful grey stuff inside.  I opened the door to her\nmyself.  She got out slowly like a queen.  I was struck all of a heap.\nSuch a shiny beautiful little carriage.  There were blue silk tassels\ninside, beautiful silk tassels.\"\n\nObviously Therese had been very much impressed by a brougham, though she\ndidn't know the name for it.  Of all the town she knew nothing but the\nstreets which led to a neighbouring church frequented only by the poorer\nclasses and the humble quarter around, where she did her marketing.\nBesides, she was accustomed to glide along the walls with her eyes cast\ndown; for her natural boldness would never show itself through that\nnun-like mien except when bargaining, if only on a matter of threepence.\nSuch a turn-out had never been presented to her notice before.  The\ntraffic in the street of the Consuls was mostly pedestrian and far from\nfashionable.  And anyhow Therese never looked out of the window.  She\nlurked in the depths of the house like some kind of spider that shuns\nattention.  She used to dart at one from some dark recesses which I never\nexplored.\n\nYet it seemed to me that she exaggerated her raptures for some reason or\nother.  With her it was very difficult to distinguish between craft and\ninnocence.\n\n\"Do you mean to say,\" I asked suspiciously, \"that an old lady wants to\nhire an apartment here?  I hope you told her there was no room, because,\nyou know, this house is not exactly the thing for venerable old ladies.\"\n\n\"Don't make me angry, my dear young Monsieur.  I have been to confession\nthis morning.  Aren't you comfortable?  Isn't the house appointed richly\nenough for anybody?\"\n\nThat girl with a peasant-nun's face had never seen the inside of a house\nother than some half-ruined _caserio_ in her native hills.\n\nI pointed out to her that this was not a matter of splendour or comfort\nbut of \"convenances.\"  She pricked up her ears at that word which\nprobably she had never heard before; but with woman's uncanny intuition I\nbelieve she understood perfectly what I meant.  Her air of saintly\npatience became so pronounced that with my own poor intuition I perceived\nthat she was raging at me inwardly.  Her weather-tanned complexion,\nalready affected by her confined life, took on an extraordinary clayey\naspect which reminded me of a strange head painted by El Greco which my\nfriend Prax had hung on one of his walls and used to rail at; yet not\nwithout a certain respect.\n\nTherese, with her hands still meekly folded about her waist, had mastered\nthe feelings of anger so unbecoming to a person whose sins had been\nabsolved only about three hours before, and asked me with an insinuating\nsoftness whether she wasn't an honest girl enough to look after any old\nlady belonging to a world which after all was sinful.  She reminded me\nthat she had kept house ever since she was \"so high\" for her uncle the\npriest: a man well-known for his saintliness in a large district\nextending even beyond Pampeluna.  The character of a house depended upon\nthe person who ruled it.  She didn't know what impenitent wretches had\nbeen breathing within these walls in the time of that godless and wicked\nman who had planted every seed of perdition in \"our Rita's\" ill-disposed\nheart.  But he was dead and she, Therese, knew for certain that\nwickedness perished utterly, because of God's anger (_la colere du bon\nDieu_).  She would have no hesitation in receiving a bishop, if need be,\nsince \"our, Rita,\" with her poor, wretched, unbelieving heart, had\nnothing more to do with the house.\n\nAll this came out of her like an unctuous trickle of some acrid oil.  The\nlow, voluble delivery was enough by itself to compel my attention.\n\n\"You think you know your sister's heart,\" I asked.\n\nShe made small eyes at me to discover if I was angry.  She seemed to have\nan invincible faith in the virtuous dispositions of young men.  And as I\nhad spoken in measured tones and hadn't got red in the face she let\nherself go.\n\n\"Black, my dear young Monsieur.  Black.  I always knew it.  Uncle, poor\nsaintly man, was too holy to take notice of anything.  He was too busy\nwith his thoughts to listen to anything I had to say to him.  For\ninstance as to her shamelessness.  She was always ready to run half naked\nabout the hills. . . \"\n\n\"Yes.  After your goats.  All day long.  Why didn't you mend her frocks?\"\n\n\"Oh, you know about the goats.  My dear young Monsieur, I could never\ntell when she would fling over her pretended sweetness and put her tongue\nout at me.  Did she tell you about a boy, the son of pious and rich\nparents, whom she tried to lead astray into the wildness of thoughts like\nher own, till the poor dear child drove her off because she outraged his\nmodesty?  I saw him often with his parents at Sunday mass.  The grace of\nGod preserved him and made him quite a gentleman in Paris.  Perhaps it\nwill touch Rita's heart, too, some day.  But she was awful then.  When I\nwouldn't listen to her complaints she would say: 'All right, sister, I\nwould just as soon go clothed in rain and wind.'  And such a bag of\nbones, too, like the picture of a devil's imp.  Ah, my dear young\nMonsieur, you don't know how wicked her heart is.  You aren't bad enough\nfor that yourself.  I don't believe you are evil at all in your innocent\nlittle heart.  I never heard you jeer at holy things.  You are only\nthoughtless.  For instance, I have never seen you make the sign of the\ncross in the morning.  Why don't you make a practice of crossing yourself\ndirectly you open your eyes.  It's a very good thing.  It keeps Satan off\nfor the day.\"\n\nShe proffered that advice in a most matter-of-fact tone as if it were a\nprecaution against a cold, compressed her lips, then returning to her\nfixed idea, \"But the house is mine,\" she insisted very quietly with an\naccent which made me feel that Satan himself would never manage to tear\nit out of her hands.\n\n\"And so I told the great lady in grey.  I told her that my sister had\ngiven it to me and that surely God would not let her take it away again.\"\n\n\"You told that grey-headed lady, an utter stranger!  You are getting more\ncrazy every day.  You have neither good sense nor good feeling,\nMademoiselle Therese, let me tell you.  Do you talk about your sister to\nthe butcher and the greengrocer, too?  A downright savage would have more\nrestraint.  What's your object?  What do you expect from it?  What\npleasure do you get from it?  Do you think you please God by abusing your\nsister?  What do you think you are?\"\n\n\"A poor lone girl amongst a lot of wicked people.  Do you think I wanted\nto go forth amongst those abominations? it's that poor sinful Rita that\nwouldn't let me be where I was, serving a holy man, next door to a\nchurch, and sure of my share of Paradise.  I simply obeyed my uncle.\nIt's he who told me to go forth and attempt to save her soul, bring her\nback to us, to a virtuous life.  But what would be the good of that?  She\nis given over to worldly, carnal thoughts.  Of course we are a good\nfamily and my uncle is a great man in the country, but where is the\nreputable farmer or God-fearing man of that kind that would dare to bring\nsuch a girl into his house to his mother and sisters.  No, let her give\nher ill-gotten wealth up to the deserving and devote the rest of her life\nto repentance.\"\n\nShe uttered these righteous reflections and presented this programme for\nthe salvation of her sister's soul in a reasonable convinced tone which\nwas enough to give goose flesh to one all over.\n\n\"Mademoiselle Therese,\" I said, \"you are nothing less than a monster.\"\n\nShe received that true expression of my opinion as though I had given her\na sweet of a particularly delicious kind.  She liked to be abused.  It\npleased her to be called names.  I did let her have that satisfaction to\nher heart's content.  At last I stopped because I could do no more,\nunless I got out of bed to beat her.  I have a vague notion that she\nwould have liked that, too, but I didn't try.  After I had stopped she\nwaited a little before she raised her downcast eyes.\n\n\"You are a dear, ignorant, flighty young gentleman,\" she said.  \"Nobody\ncan tell what a cross my sister is to me except the good priest in the\nchurch where I go every day.\"\n\n\"And the mysterious lady in grey,\" I suggested sarcastically.\n\n\"Such a person might have guessed it,\" answered Therese, seriously, \"but\nI told her nothing except that this house had been given me in full\nproperty by our Rita.  And I wouldn't have done that if she hadn't spoken\nto me of my sister first.  I can't tell too many people about that.  One\ncan't trust Rita.  I know she doesn't fear God but perhaps human respect\nmay keep her from taking this house back from me.  If she doesn't want me\nto talk about her to people why doesn't she give me a properly stamped\npiece of paper for it?\"\n\nShe said all this rapidly in one breath and at the end had a sort of\nanxious gasp which gave me the opportunity to voice my surprise.  It was\nimmense.\n\n\"That lady, the strange lady, spoke to you of your sister first!\" I\ncried.\n\n\"The lady asked me, after she had been in a little time, whether really\nthis house belonged to Madame de Lastaola.  She had been so sweet and\nkind and condescending that I did not mind humiliating my spirit before\nsuch a good Christian.  I told her that I didn't know how the poor sinner\nin her mad blindness called herself, but that this house had been given\nto me truly enough by my sister.  She raised her eyebrows at that but she\nlooked at me at the same time so kindly, as much as to say, 'Don't trust\nmuch to that, my dear girl,' that I couldn't help taking up her hand,\nsoft as down, and kissing it.  She took it away pretty quick but she was\nnot offended.  But she only said, 'That's very generous on your sister's\npart,' in a way that made me run cold all over.  I suppose all the world\nknows our Rita for a shameless girl.  It was then that the lady took up\nthose glasses on a long gold handle and looked at me through them till I\nfelt very much abashed.  She said to me, 'There is nothing to be unhappy\nabout.  Madame de Lastaola is a very remarkable person who has done many\nsurprising things.  She is not to be judged like other people and as far\nas I know she has never wronged a single human being. . . .'  That put\nheart into me, I can tell you; and the lady told me then not to disturb\nher son.  She would wait till he woke up.  She knew he was a bad sleeper.\nI said to her: 'Why, I can hear the dear sweet gentleman this moment\nhaving his bath in the fencing-room,' and I took her into the studio.\nThey are there now and they are going to have their lunch together at\ntwelve o'clock.\"\n\n\"Why on earth didn't you tell me at first that the lady was Mrs. Blunt?\"\n\n\"Didn't I?  I thought I did,\" she said innocently.  I felt a sudden\ndesire to get out of that house, to fly from the reinforced Blunt element\nwhich was to me so oppressive.\n\n\"I want to get up and dress, Mademoiselle Therese,\" I said.\n\nShe gave a slight start and without looking at me again glided out of the\nroom, the many folds of her brown skirt remaining undisturbed as she\nmoved.\n\nI looked at my watch; it was ten o'clock.  Therese had been late with my\ncoffee.  The delay was clearly caused by the unexpected arrival of Mr.\nBlunt's mother, which might or might not have been expected by her son.\nThe existence of those Blunts made me feel uncomfortable in a peculiar\nway as though they had been the denizens of another planet with a subtly\ndifferent point of view and something in the intelligence which was bound\nto remain unknown to me.  It caused in me a feeling of inferiority which\nI intensely disliked.  This did not arise from the actual fact that those\npeople originated in another continent.  I had met Americans before.  And\nthe Blunts were Americans.  But so little!  That was the trouble.\nCaptain Blunt might have been a Frenchman as far as languages, tones, and\nmanners went.  But you could not have mistaken him for one. . . . Why?\nYou couldn't tell.  It was something indefinite.  It occurred to me while\nI was towelling hard my hair, face, and the back of my neck, that I could\nnot meet J. K. Blunt on equal terms in any relation of life except\nperhaps arms in hand, and in preference with pistols, which are less\nintimate, acting at a distance--but arms of some sort.  For physically\nhis life, which could be taken away from him, was exactly like mine, held\non the same terms and of the same vanishing quality.\n\nI would have smiled at my absurdity if all, even the most intimate,\nvestige of gaiety had not been crushed out of my heart by the intolerable\nweight of my love for Rita.  It crushed, it overshadowed, too, it was\nimmense.  If there were any smiles in the world (which I didn't believe)\nI could not have seen them.  Love for Rita . . . if it was love, I asked\nmyself despairingly, while I brushed my hair before a glass.  It did not\nseem to have any sort of beginning as far as I could remember.  A thing\nthe origin of which you cannot trace cannot be seriously considered.  It\nis an illusion.  Or perhaps mine was a physical state, some sort of\ndisease akin to melancholia which is a form of insanity?  The only\nmoments of relief I could remember were when she and I would start\nsquabbling like two passionate infants in a nursery, over anything under\nheaven, over a phrase, a word sometimes, in the great light of the glass\nrotunda, disregarding the quiet entrances and exits of the ever-active\nRose, in great bursts of voices and peals of laughter. . . .\n\nI felt tears come into my eyes at the memory of her laughter, the true\nmemory of the senses almost more penetrating than the reality itself.  It\nhaunted me.  All that appertained to her haunted me with the same awful\nintimacy, her whole form in the familiar pose, her very substance in its\ncolour and texture, her eyes, her lips, the gleam of her teeth, the tawny\nmist of her hair, the smoothness of her forehead, the faint scent that\nshe used, the very shape, feel, and warmth of her high-heeled slipper\nthat would sometimes in the heat of the discussion drop on the floor with\na crash, and which I would (always in the heat of the discussion) pick up\nand toss back on the couch without ceasing to argue.  And besides being\nhaunted by what was Rita on earth I was haunted also by her waywardness,\nher gentleness and her flame, by that which the high gods called Rita\nwhen speaking of her amongst themselves.  Oh, yes, certainly I was\nhaunted by her but so was her sister Therese--who was crazy.  It proved\nnothing.  As to her tears, since I had not caused them, they only aroused\nmy indignation.  To put her head on my shoulder, to weep these strange\ntears, was nothing short of an outrageous liberty.  It was a mere\nemotional trick.  She would have just as soon leaned her head against the\nover-mantel of one of those tall, red granite chimney-pieces in order to\nweep comfortably.  And then when she had no longer any need of support\nshe dispensed with it by simply telling me to go away.  How convenient!\nThe request had sounded pathetic, almost sacredly so, but then it might\nhave been the exhibition of the coolest possible impudence.  With her one\ncould not tell.  Sorrow, indifference, tears, smiles, all with her seemed\nto have a hidden meaning.  Nothing could be trusted. . . Heavens!  Am I\nas crazy as Therese I asked myself with a passing chill of fear, while\noccupied in equalizing the ends of my neck-tie.\n\nI felt suddenly that \"this sort of thing\" would kill me.  The definition\nof the cause was vague, but the thought itself was no mere morbid\nartificiality of sentiment but a genuine conviction.  \"That sort of\nthing\" was what I would have to die from.  It wouldn't be from the\ninnumerable doubts.  Any sort of certitude would be also deadly.  It\nwouldn't be from a stab--a kiss would kill me as surely.  It would not be\nfrom a frown or from any particular word or any particular act--but from\nhaving to bear them all, together and in succession--from having to live\nwith \"that sort of thing.\"  About the time I finished with my neck-tie I\nhad done with life too.  I absolutely did not care because I couldn't\ntell whether, mentally and physically, from the roots of my hair to the\nsoles of my feet--whether I was more weary or unhappy.\n\nAnd now my toilet was finished, my occupation was gone.  An immense\ndistress descended upon me.  It has been observed that the routine of\ndaily life, that arbitrary system of trifles, is a great moral support.\nBut my toilet was finished, I had nothing more to do of those things\nconsecrated by usage and which leave you no option.  The exercise of any\nkind of volition by a man whose consciousness is reduced to the sensation\nthat he is being killed by \"that sort of thing\" cannot be anything but\nmere trifling with death, an insincere pose before himself.  I wasn't\ncapable of it.  It was then that I discovered that being killed by \"that\nsort of thing,\" I mean the absolute conviction of it, was, so to speak,\nnothing in itself.  The horrible part was the waiting.  That was the\ncruelty, the tragedy, the bitterness of it.  \"Why the devil don't I drop\ndead now?\" I asked myself peevishly, taking a clean handkerchief out of\nthe drawer and stuffing it in my pocket.\n\nThis was absolutely the last thing, the last ceremony of an imperative\nrite.  I was abandoned to myself now and it was terrible.  Generally I\nused to go out, walk down to the port, take a look at the craft I loved\nwith a sentiment that was extremely complex, being mixed up with the\nimage of a woman; perhaps go on board, not because there was anything for\nme to do there but just for nothing, for happiness, simply as a man will\nsit contented in the companionship of the beloved object.  For lunch I\nhad the choice of two places, one Bohemian, the other select, even\naristocratic, where I had still my reserved table in the _petit salon_,\nup the white staircase.  In both places I had friends who treated my\nerratic appearances with discretion, in one case tinged with respect, in\nthe other with a certain amused tolerance.  I owed this tolerance to the\nmost careless, the most confirmed of those Bohemians (his beard had\nstreaks of grey amongst its many other tints) who, once bringing his\nheavy hand down on my shoulder, took my defence against the charge of\nbeing disloyal and even foreign to that milieu of earnest visions taking\nbeautiful and revolutionary shapes in the smoke of pipes, in the jingle\nof glasses.\n\n\"That fellow (_ce garcon_) is a primitive nature, but he may be an artist\nin a sense.  He has broken away from his conventions.  He is trying to\nput a special vibration and his own notion of colour into his life; and\nperhaps even to give it a modelling according to his own ideas.  And for\nall you know he may be on the track of a masterpiece; but observe: if it\nhappens to be one nobody will see it.  It can be only for himself.  And\neven he won't be able to see it in its completeness except on his\ndeath-bed.  There is something fine in that.\"\n\nI had blushed with pleasure; such fine ideas had never entered my head.\nBut there was something fine. . . . How far all this seemed!  How mute\nand how still!  What a phantom he was, that man with a beard of at least\nseven tones of brown.  And those shades of the other kind such as\nBaptiste with the shaven diplomatic face, the _maitre d'hotel_ in charge\nof the _petit salon_, taking my hat and stick from me with a deferential\nremark: \"Monsieur is not very often seen nowadays.\"  And those other\nwell-groomed heads raised and nodding at my passage--\"_Bonjour_.\"\n\"_Bonjour_\"--following me with interested eyes; these young X.s and Z.s,\nlow-toned, markedly discreet, lounging up to my table on their way out\nwith murmurs: \"Are you well?\"--\"Will one see you anywhere this\nevening?\"--not from curiosity, God forbid, but just from friendliness;\nand passing on almost without waiting for an answer.  What had I to do\nwith them, this elegant dust, these moulds of provincial fashion?\n\nI also often lunched with Dona Rita without invitation.  But that was now\nunthinkable.  What had I to do with a woman who allowed somebody else to\nmake her cry and then with an amazing lack of good feeling did her\noffensive weeping on my shoulder?  Obviously I could have nothing to do\nwith her.  My five minutes' meditation in the middle of the bedroom came\nto an end without even a sigh.  The dead don't sigh, and for all\npractical purposes I was that, except for the final consummation, the\ngrowing cold, the _rigor mortis_--that blessed state!  With measured\nsteps I crossed the landing to my sitting-room.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\n\nThe windows of that room gave out on the street of the Consuls which as\nusual was silent.  And the house itself below me and above me was\nsoundless, perfectly still.  In general the house was quiet, dumbly\nquiet, without resonances of any sort, something like what one would\nimagine the interior of a convent would be.  I suppose it was very\nsolidly built.  Yet that morning I missed in the stillness that feeling\nof security and peace which ought to have been associated with it.  It\nis, I believe, generally admitted that the dead are glad to be at rest.\nBut I wasn't at rest.  What was wrong with that silence?  There was\nsomething incongruous in that peace.  What was it that had got into that\nstillness?  Suddenly I remembered: the mother of Captain Blunt.\n\nWhy had she come all the way from Paris?  And why should I bother my head\nabout it?  H'm--the Blunt atmosphere, the reinforced Blunt vibration\nstealing through the walls, through the thick walls and the almost more\nsolid stillness.  Nothing to me, of course--the movements of Mme. Blunt,\n_mere_.  It was maternal affection which had brought her south by either\nthe evening or morning Rapide, to take anxious stock of the ravages of\nthat insomnia.  Very good thing, insomnia, for a cavalry officer\nperpetually on outpost duty, a real godsend, so to speak; but on leave a\ntruly devilish condition to be in.\n\nThe above sequence of thoughts was entirely unsympathetic and it was\nfollowed by a feeling of satisfaction that I, at any rate, was not\nsuffering from insomnia.  I could always sleep in the end.  In the end.\nEscape into a nightmare.  Wouldn't he revel in that if he could!  But\nthat wasn't for him.  He had to toss about open-eyed all night and get up\nweary, weary.  But oh, wasn't I weary, too, waiting for a sleep without\ndreams.\n\nI heard the door behind me open.  I had been standing with my face to the\nwindow and, I declare, not knowing what I was looking at across the\nroad--the Desert of Sahara or a wall of bricks, a landscape of rivers and\nforests or only the Consulate of Paraguay.  But I had been thinking,\napparently, of Mr. Blunt with such intensity that when I saw him enter\nthe room it didn't really make much difference.  When I turned about the\ndoor behind him was already shut.  He advanced towards me, correct,\nsupple, hollow-eyed, and smiling; and as to his costume ready to go out\nexcept for the old shooting jacket which he must have affectioned\nparticularly, for he never lost any time in getting into it at every\nopportunity.  Its material was some tweed mixture; it had gone\ninconceivably shabby, it was shrunk from old age, it was ragged at the\nelbows; but any one could see at a glance that it had been made in London\nby a celebrated tailor, by a distinguished specialist.  Blunt came\ntowards me in all the elegance of his slimness and affirming in every\nline of his face and body, in the correct set of his shoulders and the\ncareless freedom of his movements, the superiority, the inexpressible\nsuperiority, the unconscious, the unmarked, the not-to-be-described, and\neven not-to-be-caught, superiority of the naturally born and the\nperfectly finished man of the world, over the simple young man.  He was\nsmiling, easy, correct, perfectly delightful, fit to kill.\n\nHe had come to ask me, if I had no other engagement, to lunch with him\nand his mother in about an hour's time.  He did it in a most _degage_\ntone.  His mother had given him a surprise.  The completest . . . The\nfoundation of his mother's psychology was her delightful unexpectedness.\nShe could never let things be (this in a peculiar tone which he checked\nat once) and he really would take it very kindly of me if I came to break\nthe tete-a-tete for a while (that is if I had no other engagement.  Flash\nof teeth).  His mother was exquisitely and tenderly absurd.  She had\ntaken it into her head that his health was endangered in some way.  And\nwhen she took anything into her head . . . Perhaps I might find something\nto say which would reassure her.  His mother had two long conversations\nwith Mills on his passage through Paris and had heard of me (I knew how\nthat thick man could speak of people, he interjected ambiguously) and his\nmother, with an insatiable curiosity for anything that was rare (filially\nhumorous accent here and a softer flash of teeth), was very anxious to\nhave me presented to her (courteous intonation, but no teeth).  He hoped\nI wouldn't mind if she treated me a little as an \"interesting young man.\"\nHis mother had never got over her seventeenth year, and the manner of the\nspoilt beauty of at least three counties at the back of the Carolinas.\nThat again got overlaid by the _sans-facon_ of a _grande dame_ of the\nSecond Empire.\n\nI accepted the invitation with a worldly grin and a perfectly just\nintonation, because I really didn't care what I did.  I only wondered\nvaguely why that fellow required all the air in the room for himself.\nThere did not seem enough left to go down my throat.  I didn't say that I\nwould come with pleasure or that I would be delighted, but I said that I\nwould come.  He seemed to forget his tongue in his head, put his hands in\nhis pockets and moved about vaguely.  \"I am a little nervous this\nmorning,\" he said in French, stopping short and looking me straight in\nthe eyes.  His own were deep sunk, dark, fatal.  I asked with some\nmalice, that no one could have detected in my intonation, \"How's that\nsleeplessness?\"\n\nHe muttered through his teeth, \"_Mal_.  _Je ne dors plus_.\"  He moved off\nto stand at the window with his back to the room.  I sat down on a sofa\nthat was there and put my feet up, and silence took possession of the\nroom.\n\n\"Isn't this street ridiculous?\" said Blunt suddenly, and crossing the\nroom rapidly waved his hand to me, \"_A bientot donc_,\" and was gone.  He\nhad seared himself into my mind.  I did not understand him nor his mother\nthen; which made them more impressive; but I have discovered since that\nthose two figures required no mystery to make them memorable.  Of course\nit isn't every day that one meets a mother that lives by her wits and a\nson that lives by his sword, but there was a perfect finish about their\nambiguous personalities which is not to be met twice in a life-time.  I\nshall never forget that grey dress with ample skirts and long corsage yet\nwith infinite style, the ancient as if ghostly beauty of outlines, the\nblack lace, the silver hair, the harmonious, restrained movements of\nthose white, soft hands like the hands of a queen--or an abbess; and in\nthe general fresh effect of her person the brilliant eyes like two stars\nwith the calm reposeful way they had of moving on and off one, as if\nnothing in the world had the right to veil itself before their once\nsovereign beauty.  Captain Blunt with smiling formality introduced me by\nname, adding with a certain relaxation of the formal tone the comment:\n\"The Monsieur George! whose fame you tell me has reached even Paris.\"\nMrs. Blunt's reception of me, glance, tones, even to the attitude of the\nadmirably corseted figure, was most friendly, approaching the limit of\nhalf-familiarity.  I had the feeling that I was beholding in her a\ncaptured ideal.  No common experience!  But I didn't care.  It was very\nlucky perhaps for me that in a way I was like a very sick man who has yet\npreserved all his lucidity.  I was not even wondering to myself at what\non earth I was doing there.  She breathed out: \"_Comme c'est\nromantique_,\" at large to the dusty studio as it were; then pointing to a\nchair at her right hand, and bending slightly towards me she said:\n\n\"I have heard this name murmured by pretty lips in more than one royalist\nsalon.\"\n\nI didn't say anything to that ingratiating speech.  I had only an odd\nthought that she could not have had such a figure, nothing like it, when\nshe was seventeen and wore snowy muslin dresses on the family plantation\nin South Carolina, in pre-abolition days.\n\n\"You won't mind, I am sure, if an old woman whose heart is still young\nelects to call you by it,\" she declared.\n\n\"Certainly, Madame.  It will be more romantic,\" I assented with a\nrespectful bow.\n\nShe dropped a calm: \"Yes--there is nothing like romance while one is\nyoung.  So I will call you Monsieur George,\" she paused and then added,\n\"I could never get old,\" in a matter-of-fact final tone as one would\nremark, \"I could never learn to swim,\" and I had the presence of mind to\nsay in a tone to match, \"_C'est evident_, Madame.\"  It was evident.  She\ncouldn't get old; and across the table her thirty-year-old son who\ncouldn't get sleep sat listening with courteous detachment and the\nnarrowest possible line of white underlining his silky black moustache.\n\n\"Your services are immensely appreciated,\" she said with an amusing touch\nof importance as of a great official lady.  \"Immensely appreciated by\npeople in a position to understand the great significance of the Carlist\nmovement in the South.  There it has to combat anarchism, too.  I who\nhave lived through the Commune . . .\"\n\nTherese came in with a dish, and for the rest of the lunch the\nconversation so well begun drifted amongst the most appalling inanities\nof the religious-royalist-legitimist order.  The ears of all the Bourbons\nin the world must have been burning.  Mrs. Blunt seemed to have come into\npersonal contact with a good many of them and the marvellous insipidity\nof her recollections was astonishing to my inexperience.  I looked at her\nfrom time to time thinking: She has seen slavery, she has seen the\nCommune, she knows two continents, she has seen a civil war, the glory of\nthe Second Empire, the horrors of two sieges; she has been in contact\nwith marked personalities, with great events, she has lived on her\nwealth, on her personality, and there she is with her plumage unruffled,\nas glossy as ever, unable to get old:--a sort of Phoenix free from the\nslightest signs of ashes and dust, all complacent amongst those inanities\nas if there had been nothing else in the world.  In my youthful haste I\nasked myself what sort of airy soul she had.\n\nAt last Therese put a dish of fruit on the table, a small collection of\noranges, raisins, and nuts.  No doubt she had bought that lot very cheap\nand it did not look at all inviting.  Captain Blunt jumped up.  \"My\nmother can't stand tobacco smoke.  Will you keep her company, _mon cher_,\nwhile I take a turn with a cigar in that ridiculous garden.  The brougham\nfrom the hotel will be here very soon.\"\n\nHe left us in the white flash of an apologetic grin.  Almost directly he\nreappeared, visible from head to foot through the glass side of the\nstudio, pacing up and down the central path of that \"ridiculous\" garden:\nfor its elegance and its air of good breeding the most remarkable figure\nthat I have ever seen before or since.  He had changed his coat.  Madame\nBlunt _mere_ lowered the long-handled glasses through which she had been\ncontemplating him with an appraising, absorbed expression which had\nnothing maternal in it.  But what she said to me was:\n\n\"You understand my anxieties while he is campaigning with the King.\"\n\nShe had spoken in French and she had used the expression \"_mes transes_\"\nbut for all the rest, intonation, bearing, solemnity, she might have been\nreferring to one of the Bourbons.  I am sure that not a single one of\nthem looked half as aristocratic as her son.\n\n\"I understand perfectly, Madame.  But then that life is so romantic.\"\n\n\"Hundreds of young men belonging to a certain sphere are doing that,\" she\nsaid very distinctly, \"only their case is different.  They have their\npositions, their families to go back to; but we are different.  We are\nexiles, except of course for the ideals, the kindred spirit, the\nfriendships of old standing we have in France.  Should my son come out\nunscathed he has no one but me and I have no one but him.  I have to\nthink of his life.  Mr. Mills (what a distinguished mind that is!) has\nreassured me as to my son's health.  But he sleeps very badly, doesn't\nhe?\"\n\nI murmured something affirmative in a doubtful tone and she remarked\nquaintly, with a certain curtness, \"It's so unnecessary, this worry!  The\nunfortunate position of an exile has its advantages.  At a certain height\nof social position (wealth has got nothing to do with it, we have been\nruined in a most righteous cause), at a certain established height one\ncan disregard narrow prejudices.  You see examples in the aristocracies\nof all the countries.  A chivalrous young American may offer his life for\na remote ideal which yet may belong to his familial tradition.  We, in\nour great country, have every sort of tradition.  But a young man of good\nconnections and distinguished relations must settle down some day,\ndispose of his life.\"\n\n\"No doubt, Madame,\" I said, raising my eyes to the figure\noutside--\"_Americain_, _Catholique et gentilhomme_\"--walking up and down\nthe path with a cigar which he was not smoking.  \"For myself, I don't\nknow anything about those necessities.  I have broken away for ever from\nthose things.\"\n\n\"Yes, Mr. Mills talked to me about you.  What a golden heart that is.\nHis sympathies are infinite.\"\n\nI thought suddenly of Mills pronouncing on Mme. Blunt, whatever his text\non me might have been: \"She lives by her wits.\"  Was she exercising her\nwits on me for some purpose of her own?  And I observed coldly:\n\n\"I really know your son so very little.\"\n\n\"Oh, _voyons_,\" she protested.  \"I am aware that you are very much\nyounger, but the similitudes of opinions, origins and perhaps at bottom,\nfaintly, of character, of chivalrous devotion--no, you must be able to\nunderstand him in a measure.  He is infinitely scrupulous and recklessly\nbrave.\"\n\nI listened deferentially to the end yet with every nerve in my body\ntingling in hostile response to the Blunt vibration, which seemed to have\ngot into my very hair.\n\n\"I am convinced of it, Madame.  I have even heard of your son's bravery.\nIt's extremely natural in a man who, in his own words, 'lives by his\nsword.'\"\n\nShe suddenly departed from her almost inhuman perfection, betrayed\n\"nerves\" like a common mortal, of course very slightly, but in her it\nmeant more than a blaze of fury from a vessel of inferior clay.  Her\nadmirable little foot, marvellously shod in a black shoe, tapped the\nfloor irritably.  But even in that display there was something\nexquisitely delicate.  The very anger in her voice was silvery, as it\nwere, and more like the petulance of a seventeen-year-old beauty.\n\n\"What nonsense!  A Blunt doesn't hire himself.\"\n\n\"Some princely families,\" I said, \"were founded by men who have done that\nvery thing.  The great Condottieri, you know.\"\n\nIt was in an almost tempestuous tone that she made me observe that we\nwere not living in the fifteenth century.  She gave me also to understand\nwith some spirit that there was no question here of founding a family.\nHer son was very far from being the first of the name.  His importance\nlay rather in being the last of a race which had totally perished, she\nadded in a completely drawing-room tone, \"in our Civil War.\"\n\nShe had mastered her irritation and through the glass side of the room\nsent a wistful smile to his address, but I noticed the yet unextinguished\nanger in her eyes full of fire under her beautiful white eyebrows.  For\nshe was growing old!  Oh, yes, she was growing old, and secretly weary,\nand perhaps desperate.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\n\nWithout caring much about it I was conscious of sudden illumination.  I\nsaid to myself confidently that these two people had been quarrelling all\nthe morning.  I had discovered the secret of my invitation to that lunch.\nThey did not care to face the strain of some obstinate, inconclusive\ndiscussion for fear, maybe, of it ending in a serious quarrel.  And so\nthey had agreed that I should be fetched downstairs to create a\ndiversion.  I cannot say I felt annoyed.  I didn't care.  My perspicacity\ndid not please me either.  I wished they had left me alone--but nothing\nmattered.  They must have been in their superiority accustomed to make\nuse of people, without compunction.  From necessity, too.  She\nespecially.  She lived by her wits.  The silence had grown so marked that\nI had at last to raise my eyes; and the first thing I observed was that\nCaptain Blunt was no longer to be seen in the garden.  Must have gone\nindoors.  Would rejoin us in a moment.  Then I would leave mother and son\nto themselves.\n\nThe next thing I noticed was that a great mellowness had descended upon\nthe mother of the last of his race.  But these terms, irritation,\nmellowness, appeared gross when applied to her.  It is impossible to give\nan idea of the refinement and subtlety of all her transformations.  She\nsmiled faintly at me.\n\n\"But all this is beside the point.  The real point is that my son, like\nall fine natures, is a being of strange contradictions which the trials\nof life have not yet reconciled in him.  With me it is a little\ndifferent.  The trials fell mainly to my share--and of course I have\nlived longer.  And then men are much more complex than women, much more\ndifficult, too.  And you, Monsieur George?  Are you complex, with\nunexpected resistances and difficulties in your _etre intime_--your inner\nself?  I wonder now . . .\"\n\nThe Blunt atmosphere seemed to vibrate all over my skin.  I disregarded\nthe symptom.  \"Madame,\" I said, \"I have never tried to find out what sort\nof being I am.\"\n\n\"Ah, that's very wrong.  We ought to reflect on what manner of beings we\nare.  Of course we are all sinners.  My John is a sinner like the\nothers,\" she declared further, with a sort of proud tenderness as though\nour common lot must have felt honoured and to a certain extent purified\nby this condescending recognition.\n\n\"You are too young perhaps as yet . . . But as to my John,\" she broke\noff, leaning her elbow on the table and supporting her head on her old,\nimpeccably shaped, white fore-arm emerging from a lot of precious, still\nolder, lace trimming the short sleeve.  \"The trouble is that he suffers\nfrom a profound discord between the necessary reactions to life and even\nthe impulses of nature and the lofty idealism of his feelings; I may say,\nof his principles.  I assure you that he won't even let his heart speak\nuncontradicted.\"\n\nI am sure I don't know what particular devil looks after the associations\nof memory, and I can't even imagine the shock which it would have been\nfor Mrs. Blunt to learn that the words issuing from her lips had awakened\nin me the visual perception of a dark-skinned, hard-driven lady's maid\nwith tarnished eyes; even of the tireless Rose handing me my hat while\nbreathing out the enigmatic words: \"Madame should listen to her heart.\"\nA wave from the atmosphere of another house rolled in, overwhelming and\nfiery, seductive and cruel, through the Blunt vibration, bursting through\nit as through tissue paper and filling my heart with sweet murmurs and\ndistracting images, till it seemed to break, leaving an empty stillness\nin my breast.\n\nAfter that for a long time I heard Mme. Blunt _mere_ talking with extreme\nfluency and I even caught the individual words, but I could not in the\nrevulsion of my feelings get hold of the sense.  She talked apparently of\nlife in general, of its difficulties, moral and physical, of its\nsurprising turns, of its unexpected contacts, of the choice and rare\npersonalities that drift on it as if on the sea; of the distinction that\nletters and art gave to it, the nobility and consolations there are in\naesthetics, of the privileges they confer on individuals and (this was\nthe first connected statement I caught) that Mills agreed with her in the\ngeneral point of view as to the inner worth of individualities and in the\nparticular instance of it on which she had opened to him her innermost\nheart.  Mills had a universal mind.  His sympathy was universal, too.  He\nhad that large comprehension--oh, not cynical, not at all cynical, in\nfact rather tender--which was found in its perfection only in some rare,\nvery rare Englishmen.  The dear creature was romantic, too.  Of course he\nwas reserved in his speech but she understood Mills perfectly.  Mills\napparently liked me very much.\n\nIt was time for me to say something.  There was a challenge in the\nreposeful black eyes resting upon my face.  I murmured that I was very\nglad to hear it.  She waited a little, then uttered meaningly, \"Mr. Mills\nis a little bit uneasy about you.\"\n\n\"It's very good of him,\" I said.  And indeed I thought that it was very\ngood of him, though I did ask myself vaguely in my dulled brain why he\nshould be uneasy.\n\nSomehow it didn't occur to me to ask Mrs. Blunt.  Whether she had\nexpected me to do so or not I don't know but after a while she changed\nthe pose she had kept so long and folded her wonderfully preserved white\narms.  She looked a perfect picture in silver and grey, with touches of\nblack here and there.  Still I said nothing more in my dull misery.  She\nwaited a little longer, then she woke me up with a crash.  It was as if\nthe house had fallen, and yet she had only asked me:\n\n\"I believe you are received on very friendly terms by Madame de Lastaola\non account of your common exertions for the cause.  Very good friends,\nare you not?\"\n\n\"You mean Rita,\" I said stupidly, but I felt stupid, like a man who wakes\nup only to be hit on the head.\n\n\"Oh, Rita,\" she repeated with unexpected acidity, which somehow made me\nfeel guilty of an incredible breach of good manners.  \"H'm, Rita. . . .\nOh, well, let it be Rita--for the present.  Though why she should be\ndeprived of her name in conversation about her, really I don't\nunderstand.  Unless a very special intimacy . . .\"\n\nShe was distinctly annoyed.  I said sulkily, \"It isn't her name.\"\n\n\"It is her choice, I understand, which seems almost a better title to\nrecognition on the part of the world.  It didn't strike you so before?\nWell, it seems to me that choice has got more right to be respected than\nheredity or law.  Moreover, Mme. de Lastaola,\" she continued in an\ninsinuating voice, \"that most rare and fascinating young woman is, as a\nfriend like you cannot deny, outside legality altogether.  Even in that\nshe is an exceptional creature.  For she is exceptional--you agree?\"\n\nI had gone dumb, I could only stare at her.\n\n\"Oh, I see, you agree.  No friend of hers could deny.\"\n\n\"Madame,\" I burst out, \"I don't know where a question of friendship comes\nin here with a person whom you yourself call so exceptional.  I really\ndon't know how she looks upon me.  Our intercourse is of course very\nclose and confidential.  Is that also talked about in Paris?\"\n\n\"Not at all, not in the least,\" said Mrs. Blunt, easy, equable, but with\nher calm, sparkling eyes holding me in angry subjection.  \"Nothing of the\nsort is being talked about.  The references to Mme. de Lastaola are in a\nvery different tone, I can assure you, thanks to her discretion in\nremaining here.  And, I must say, thanks to the discreet efforts of her\nfriends.  I am also a friend of Mme. de Lastaola, you must know.  Oh, no,\nI have never spoken to her in my life and have seen her only twice, I\nbelieve.  I wrote to her though, that I admit.  She or rather the image\nof her has come into my life, into that part of it where art and letters\nreign undisputed like a sort of religion of beauty to which I have been\nfaithful through all the vicissitudes of my existence.  Yes, I did write\nto her and I have been preoccupied with her for a long time.  It arose\nfrom a picture, from two pictures and also from a phrase pronounced by a\nman, who in the science of life and in the perception of aesthetic truth\nhad no equal in the world of culture.  He said that there was something\nin her of the women of all time.  I suppose he meant the inheritance of\nall the gifts that make up an irresistible fascination--a great\npersonality.  Such women are not born often.  Most of them lack\nopportunities.  They never develop.  They end obscurely.  Here and there\none survives to make her mark even in history. . . . And even that is not\na very enviable fate.  They are at another pole from the so-called\ndangerous women who are merely coquettes.  A coquette has got to work for\nher success.  The others have nothing to do but simply exist.  You\nperceive the view I take of the difference?\"\n\nI perceived the view.  I said to myself that nothing in the world could\nbe more aristocratic.  This was the slave-owning woman who had never\nworked, even if she had been reduced to live by her wits.  She was a\nwonderful old woman.  She made me dumb.  She held me fascinated by the\nwell-bred attitude, something sublimely aloof in her air of wisdom.\n\nI just simply let myself go admiring her as though I had been a mere\nslave of aesthetics: the perfect grace, the amazing poise of that\nvenerable head, the assured as if royal--yes, royal even flow of the\nvoice. . . . But what was it she was talking about now?  These were no\nlonger considerations about fatal women.  She was talking about her son\nagain.  My interest turned into mere bitterness of contemptuous\nattention.  For I couldn't withhold it though I tried to let the stuff go\nby.  Educated in the most aristocratic college in Paris . . . at eighteen\n. . . call of duty . . . with General Lee to the very last cruel minute\n. . . after that catastrophe end of the world--return to France--to old\nfriendships, infinite kindness--but a life hollow, without occupation\n. . . Then 1870--and chivalrous response to adopted country's call and again\nemptiness, the chafing of a proud spirit without aim and handicapped not\nexactly by poverty but by lack of fortune.  And she, the mother, having\nto look on at this wasting of a most accomplished man, of a most\nchivalrous nature that practically had no future before it.\n\n\"You understand me well, Monsieur George.  A nature like this!  It is the\nmost refined cruelty of fate to look at.  I don't know whether I suffered\nmore in times of war or in times of peace.  You understand?\"\n\nI bowed my head in silence.  What I couldn't understand was why he\ndelayed so long in joining us again.  Unless he had had enough of his\nmother?  I thought without any great resentment that I was being\nvictimized; but then it occurred to me that the cause of his absence was\nquite simple.  I was familiar enough with his habits by this time to know\nthat he often managed to snatch an hour's sleep or so during the day.  He\nhad gone and thrown himself on his bed.\n\n\"I admire him exceedingly,\" Mrs. Blunt was saying in a tone which was not\nat all maternal.  \"His distinction, his fastidiousness, the earnest\nwarmth of his heart.  I know him well.  I assure you that I would never\nhave dared to suggest,\" she continued with an extraordinary haughtiness\nof attitude and tone that aroused my attention, \"I would never have dared\nto put before him my views of the extraordinary merits and the uncertain\nfate of the exquisite woman of whom we speak, if I had not been certain\nthat, partly by my fault, I admit, his attention has been attracted to\nher and his--his--his heart engaged.\"\n\nIt was as if some one had poured a bucket of cold water over my head.  I\nwoke up with a great shudder to the acute perception of my own feelings\nand of that aristocrat's incredible purpose.  How it could have\ngerminated, grown and matured in that exclusive soil was inconceivable.\nShe had been inciting her son all the time to undertake wonderful salvage\nwork by annexing the heiress of Henry Allegre--the woman and the fortune.\n\nThere must have been an amazed incredulity in my eyes, to which her own\nresponded by an unflinching black brilliance which suddenly seemed to\ndevelop a scorching quality even to the point of making me feel extremely\nthirsty all of a sudden.  For a time my tongue literally clove to the\nroof of my mouth.  I don't know whether it was an illusion but it seemed\nto me that Mrs. Blunt had nodded at me twice as if to say: \"You are\nright, that's so.\"  I made an effort to speak but it was very poor.  If\nshe did hear me it was because she must have been on the watch for the\nfaintest sound.\n\n\"His heart engaged.  Like two hundred others, or two thousand, all\naround,\" I mumbled.\n\n\"Altogether different.  And it's no disparagement to a woman surely.  Of\ncourse her great fortune protects her in a certain measure.\"\n\n\"Does it?\" I faltered out and that time I really doubt whether she heard\nme.  Her aspect in my eyes had changed.  Her purpose being disclosed, her\nwell-bred ease appeared sinister, her aristocratic repose a treacherous\ndevice, her venerable graciousness a mask of unbounded contempt for all\nhuman beings whatever.  She was a terrible old woman with those straight,\nwhite wolfish eye-brows.  How blind I had been!  Those eyebrows alone\nought to have been enough to give her away.  Yet they were as beautifully\nsmooth as her voice when she admitted: \"That protection naturally is only\npartial.  There is the danger of her own self, poor girl.  She requires\nguidance.\"\n\nI marvelled at the villainy of my tone as I spoke, but it was only\nassumed.\n\n\"I don't think she has done badly for herself, so far,\" I forced myself\nto say.  \"I suppose you know that she began life by herding the village\ngoats.\"\n\nIn the course of that phrase I noticed her wince just the least bit.  Oh,\nyes, she winced; but at the end of it she smiled easily.\n\n\"No, I didn't know.  So she told you her story!  Oh, well, I suppose you\nare very good friends.  A goatherd--really?  In the fairy tale I believe\nthe girl that marries the prince is--what is it?--a _gardeuse d'oies_.\nAnd what a thing to drag out against a woman.  One might just as soon\nreproach any of them for coming unclothed into the world.  They all do,\nyou know.  And then they become--what you will discover when you have\nlived longer, Monsieur George--for the most part futile creatures,\nwithout any sense of truth and beauty, drudges of all sorts, or else\ndolls to dress.  In a word--ordinary.\"\n\nThe implication of scorn in her tranquil manner was immense.  It seemed\nto condemn all those that were not born in the Blunt connection.  It was\nthe perfect pride of Republican aristocracy, which has no gradations and\nknows no limit, and, as if created by the grace of God, thinks it\nennobles everything it touches: people, ideas, even passing tastes!\n\n\"How many of them,\" pursued Mrs. Blunt, \"have had the good fortune, the\nleisure to develop their intelligence and their beauty in aesthetic\nconditions as this charming woman had?  Not one in a million.  Perhaps\nnot one in an age.\"\n\n\"The heiress of Henry Allegre,\" I murmured.\n\n\"Precisely.  But John wouldn't be marrying the heiress of Henry Allegre.\"\n\nIt was the first time that the frank word, the clear idea, came into the\nconversation and it made me feel ill with a sort of enraged faintness.\n\n\"No,\" I said.  \"It would be Mme. de Lastaola then.\"\n\n\"Mme. la Comtesse de Lastaola as soon as she likes after the success of\nthis war.\"\n\n\"And you believe in its success?\"\n\n\"Do you?\"\n\n\"Not for a moment,\" I declared, and was surprised to see her look\npleased.\n\nShe was an aristocrat to the tips of her fingers; she really didn't care\nfor anybody.  She had passed through the Empire, she had lived through a\nsiege, had rubbed shoulders with the Commune, had seen everything, no\ndoubt, of what men are capable in the pursuit of their desires or in the\nextremity of their distress, for love, for money, and even for honour;\nand in her precarious connection with the very highest spheres she had\nkept her own honourability unscathed while she had lost all her\nprejudices.  She was above all that.  Perhaps \"the world\" was the only\nthing that could have the slightest checking influence; but when I\nventured to say something about the view it might take of such an\nalliance she looked at me for a moment with visible surprise.\n\n\"My dear Monsieur George, I have lived in the great world all my life.\nIt's the best that there is, but that's only because there is nothing\nmerely decent anywhere.  It will accept anything, forgive anything,\nforget anything in a few days.  And after all who will he be marrying?  A\ncharming, clever, rich and altogether uncommon woman.  What did the world\nhear of her?  Nothing.  The little it saw of her was in the Bois for a\nfew hours every year, riding by the side of a man of unique distinction\nand of exclusive tastes, devoted to the cult of aesthetic impressions; a\nman of whom, as far as aspect, manner, and behaviour goes, she might have\nbeen the daughter.  I have seen her myself.  I went on purpose.  I was\nimmensely struck.  I was even moved.  Yes.  She might have been--except\nfor that something radiant in her that marked her apart from all the\nother daughters of men.  The few remarkable personalities that count in\nsociety and who were admitted into Henry Allegre's Pavilion treated her\nwith punctilious reserve.  I know that, I have made enquiries.  I know\nshe sat there amongst them like a marvellous child, and for the rest what\ncan they say about her?  That when abandoned to herself by the death of\nAllegre she has made a mistake?  I think that any woman ought to be\nallowed one mistake in her life.  The worst they can say of her is that\nshe discovered it, that she had sent away a man in love directly she\nfound out that his love was not worth having; that she had told him to go\nand look for his crown, and that, after dismissing him she had remained\ngenerously faithful to his cause, in her person and fortune.  And this,\nyou will allow, is rather uncommon upon the whole.\"\n\n\"You make her out very magnificent,\"  I murmured, looking down upon the\nfloor.\n\n\"Isn't she?\" exclaimed the aristocratic Mrs. Blunt, with an almost\nyouthful ingenuousness, and in those black eyes which looked at me so\ncalmly there was a flash of the Southern beauty, still naive and\nromantic, as if altogether untouched by experience.  \"I don't think there\nis a single grain of vulgarity in all her enchanting person.  Neither is\nthere in my son.  I suppose you won't deny that he is uncommon.\"  She\npaused.\n\n\"Absolutely,\" I said in a perfectly conventional tone, I was now on my\nmettle that she should not discover what there was humanly common in my\nnature.  She took my answer at her own valuation and was satisfied.\n\n\"They can't fail to understand each other on the very highest level of\nidealistic perceptions.  Can you imagine my John thrown away on some\nenamoured white goose out of a stuffy old salon?  Why, she couldn't even\nbegin to understand what he feels or what he needs.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said impenetrably, \"he is not easy to understand.\"\n\n\"I have reason to think,\" she said with a suppressed smile, \"that he has\na certain power over women.  Of course I don't know anything about his\nintimate life but a whisper or two have reached me, like that, floating\nin the air, and I could hardly suppose that he would find an exceptional\nresistance in that quarter of all others.  But I should like to know the\nexact degree.\"\n\nI disregarded an annoying tendency to feel dizzy that came over me and\nwas very careful in managing my voice.\n\n\"May I ask, Madame, why you are telling me all this?\"\n\n\"For two reasons,\" she condescended graciously.  \"First of all because\nMr. Mills told me that you were much more mature than one would expect.\nIn fact you look much younger than I was prepared for.\"\n\n\"Madame,\" I interrupted her, \"I may have a certain capacity for action\nand for responsibility, but as to the regions into which this very\nunexpected conversation has taken me I am a great novice.  They are\noutside my interest.  I have had no experience.\"\n\n\"Don't make yourself out so hopeless,\" she said in a spoilt-beauty tone.\n\"You have your intuitions.  At any rate you have a pair of eyes.  You are\neverlastingly over there, so I understand.  Surely you have seen how far\nthey are . . .\"\n\nI interrupted again and this time bitterly, but always in a tone of\npolite enquiry:\n\n\"You think her facile, Madame?\"\n\nShe looked offended.  \"I think her most fastidious.  It is my son who is\nin question here.\"\n\nAnd I understood then that she looked on her son as irresistible.  For my\npart I was just beginning to think that it would be impossible for me to\nwait for his return.  I figured him to myself lying dressed on his bed\nsleeping like a stone.  But there was no denying that the mother was\nholding me with an awful, tortured interest.  Twice Therese had opened\nthe door, had put her small head in and drawn it back like a tortoise.\nBut for some time I had lost the sense of us two being quite alone in the\nstudio.  I had perceived the familiar dummy in its corner but it lay now\non the floor as if Therese had knocked it down angrily with a broom for a\nheathen idol.  It lay there prostrate, handless, without its head,\npathetic, like the mangled victim of a crime.\n\n\"John is fastidious, too,\" began Mrs. Blunt again.  \"Of course you\nwouldn't suppose anything vulgar in his resistances to a very real\nsentiment.  One has got to understand his psychology.  He can't leave\nhimself in peace.  He is exquisitely absurd.\"\n\nI recognized the phrase.  Mother and son talked of each other in\nidentical terms.  But perhaps \"exquisitely absurd\" was the Blunt family\nsaying?  There are such sayings in families and generally there is some\ntruth in them.  Perhaps this old woman was simply absurd.  She continued:\n\n\"We had a most painful discussion all this morning.  He is angry with me\nfor suggesting the very thing his whole being desires.  I don't feel\nguilty.  It's he who is tormenting himself with his infinite\nscrupulosity.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" I said, looking at the mangled dummy like the model of some\natrocious murder.  \"Ah, the fortune.  But that can be left alone.\"\n\n\"What nonsense!  How is it possible?  It isn't contained in a bag, you\ncan't throw it into the sea.  And moreover, it isn't her fault.  I am\nastonished that you should have thought of that vulgar hypocrisy.  No, it\nisn't her fortune that cheeks my son; it's something much more subtle.\nNot so much her history as her position.  He is absurd.  It isn't what\nhas happened in her life.  It's her very freedom that makes him torment\nhimself and her, too--as far as I can understand.\"\n\nI suppressed a groan and said to myself that I must really get away from\nthere.\n\nMrs. Blunt was fairly launched now.\n\n\"For all his superiority he is a man of the world and shares to a certain\nextent its current opinions.  He has no power over her.  She intimidates\nhim.  He wishes he had never set eyes on her.  Once or twice this morning\nhe looked at me as if he could find it in his heart to hate his old\nmother.  There is no doubt about it--he loves her, Monsieur George.  He\nloves her, this poor, luckless, perfect _homme du monde_.\"\n\nThe silence lasted for some time and then I heard a murmur: \"It's a\nmatter of the utmost delicacy between two beings so sensitive, so proud.\nIt has to be managed.\"\n\nI found myself suddenly on my feet and saying with the utmost politeness\nthat I had to beg her permission to leave her alone as I had an\nengagement; but she motioned me simply to sit down--and I sat down again.\n\n\"I told you I had a request to make,\" she said.  \"I have understood from\nMr. Mills that you have been to the West Indies, that you have some\ninterests there.\"\n\nI was astounded.  \"Interests!  I certainly have been there,\" I said, \"but\n. . .\"\n\nShe caught me up.  \"Then why not go there again?  I am speaking to you\nfrankly because . . .\"\n\n\"But, Madame, I am engaged in this affair with Dona Rita, even if I had\nany interests elsewhere.  I won't tell you about the importance of my\nwork.  I didn't suspect it but you brought the news of it to me, and so I\nneedn't point it out to you.\"\n\nAnd now we were frankly arguing with each other.\n\n\"But where will it lead you in the end?  You have all your life before\nyou, all your plans, prospects, perhaps dreams, at any rate your own\ntastes and all your life-time before you.  And would you sacrifice all\nthis to--the Pretender?  A mere figure for the front page of illustrated\npapers.\"'\n\n\"I never think of him,\"  I said curtly, \"but I suppose Dona Rita's\nfeelings, instincts, call it what you like--or only her chivalrous\nfidelity to her mistakes--\"\n\n\"Dona Rita's presence here in this town, her withdrawal from the possible\ncomplications of her life in Paris has produced an excellent effect on my\nson.  It simplifies infinite difficulties, I mean moral as well as\nmaterial.  It's extremely to the advantage of her dignity, of her future,\nand of her peace of mind.  But I am thinking, of course, mainly of my\nson.  He is most exacting.\"\n\nI felt extremely sick at heart.  \"And so I am to drop everything and\nvanish,\" I said, rising from my chair again.  And this time Mrs. Blunt\ngot up, too, with a lofty and inflexible manner but she didn't dismiss me\nyet.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said distinctly.  \"All this, my dear Monsieur George, is such\nan accident.  What have you got to do here?  You look to me like somebody\nwho would find adventures wherever he went as interesting and perhaps\nless dangerous than this one.\"\n\nShe slurred over the word dangerous but I picked it up.\n\n\"What do you know of its dangers, Madame, may I ask?\"  But she did not\ncondescend to hear.\n\n\"And then you, too, have your chivalrous feelings,\" she went on,\nunswerving, distinct, and tranquil.  \"You are not absurd.  But my son is.\nHe would shut her up in a convent for a time if he could.\"\n\n\"He isn't the only one,\" I muttered.\n\n\"Indeed!\" she was startled, then lower, \"Yes.  That woman must be the\ncentre of all sorts of passions,\" she mused audibly.  \"But what have you\ngot to do with all this?  It's nothing to you.\"\n\nShe waited for me to speak.\n\n\"Exactly, Madame,\" I said, \"and therefore I don't see why I should\nconcern myself in all this one way or another.\"\n\n\"No,\" she assented with a weary air, \"except that you might ask yourself\nwhat is the good of tormenting a man of noble feelings, however absurd.\nHis Southern blood makes him very violent sometimes.  I fear--\"  And then\nfor the first time during this conversation, for the first time since I\nleft Dona Rita the day before, for the first time I laughed.\n\n\"Do you mean to hint, Madame, that Southern gentlemen are dead shots?  I\nam aware of that--from novels.\"\n\nI spoke looking her straight in the face and I made that exquisite,\naristocratic old woman positively blink by my directness.  There was a\nfaint flush on her delicate old cheeks but she didn't move a muscle of\nher face.  I made her a most respectful bow and went out of the studio.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\n\nThrough the great arched window of the hall I saw the hotel brougham\nwaiting at the door.  On passing the door of the front room (it was\noriginally meant for a drawing-room but a bed for Blunt was put in there)\nI banged with my fist on the panel and shouted: \"I am obliged to go out.\nYour mother's carriage is at the door.\"  I didn't think he was asleep.\nMy view now was that he was aware beforehand of the subject of the\nconversation, and if so I did not wish to appear as if I had slunk away\nfrom him after the interview.  But I didn't stop--I didn't want to see\nhim--and before he could answer I was already half way up the stairs\nrunning noiselessly up the thick carpet which also covered the floor of\nthe landing.  Therefore opening the door of my sitting-room quickly I\ncaught by surprise the person who was in there watching the street half\nconcealed by the window curtain.  It was a woman.  A totally unexpected\nwoman.  A perfect stranger.  She came away quickly to meet me.  Her face\nwas veiled and she was dressed in a dark walking costume and a very\nsimple form of hat.  She murmured: \"I had an idea that Monsieur was in\nthe house,\" raising a gloved hand to lift her veil.  It was Rose and she\ngave me a shock.  I had never seen her before but with her little black\nsilk apron and a white cap with ribbons on her head.  This outdoor dress\nwas like a disguise.  I asked anxiously:\n\n\"What has happened to Madame?\"\n\n\"Nothing.  I have a letter,\" she murmured, and I saw it appear between\nthe fingers of her extended hand, in a very white envelope which I tore\nopen impatiently.  It consisted of a few lines only.  It began abruptly:\n\n\"If you are gone to sea then I can't forgive you for not sending the\nusual word at the last moment.  If you are not gone why don't you come?\nWhy did you leave me yesterday?  You leave me crying--I who haven't cried\nfor years and years, and you haven't the sense to come back within the\nhour, within twenty hours!  This conduct is idiotic\"--and a sprawling\nsignature of the four magic letters at the bottom.\n\nWhile I was putting the letter in my pocket the girl said in an earnest\nundertone: \"I don't like to leave Madame by herself for any length of\ntime.\"\n\n\"How long have you been in my room?\" I asked.\n\n\"The time seemed long.  I hope Monsieur won't mind the liberty.  I sat\nfor a little in the hall but then it struck me I might be seen.  In fact,\nMadame told me not to be seen if I could help it.\"\n\n\"Why did she tell you that?\"\n\n\"I permitted myself to suggest that to Madame.  It might have given a\nfalse impression.  Madame is frank and open like the day but it won't do\nwith everybody.  There are people who would put a wrong construction on\nanything.  Madame's sister told me Monsieur was out.\"\n\n\"And you didn't believe her?\"\n\n\"_Non_, Monsieur.  I have lived with Madame's sister for nearly a week\nwhen she first came into this house.  She wanted me to leave the message,\nbut I said I would wait a little.  Then I sat down in the big porter's\nchair in the hall and after a while, everything being very quiet, I stole\nup here.  I know the disposition of the apartments.  I reckoned Madame's\nsister would think that I got tired of waiting and let myself out.\"\n\n\"And you have been amusing yourself watching the street ever since?\"\n\n\"The time seemed long,\" she answered evasively.  \"An empty _coupe_ came\nto the door about an hour ago and it's still waiting,\" she added, looking\nat me inquisitively.\n\n\"It seems strange.\"\n\n\"There are some dancing girls staying in the house,\" I said negligently.\n\"Did you leave Madame alone?\"\n\n\"There's the gardener and his wife in the house.\"\n\n\"Those people keep at the back.  Is Madame alone?  That's what I want to\nknow.\"\n\n\"Monsieur forgets that I have been three hours away; but I assure\nMonsieur that here in this town it's perfectly safe for Madame to be\nalone.\"\n\n\"And wouldn't it be anywhere else?  It's the first I hear of it.\"\n\n\"In Paris, in our apartments in the hotel, it's all right, too; but in\nthe Pavilion, for instance, I wouldn't leave Madame by herself, not for\nhalf an hour.\"\n\n\"What is there in the Pavilion?\" I asked.\n\n\"It's a sort of feeling I have,\" she murmured reluctantly . . . \"Oh!\nThere's that _coupe_ going away.\"\n\nShe made a movement towards the window but checked herself.  I hadn't\nmoved.  The rattle of wheels on the cobble-stones died out almost at\nonce.\n\n\"Will Monsieur write an answer?\" Rose suggested after a short silence.\n\n\"Hardly worth while,\" I said.  \"I will be there very soon after you.\nMeantime, please tell Madame from me that I am not anxious to see any\nmore tears.  Tell her this just like that, you understand.  I will take\nthe risk of not being received.\"\n\nShe dropped her eyes, said: \"_Oui_, Monsieur,\" and at my suggestion\nwaited, holding the door of the room half open, till I went downstairs to\nsee the road clear.\n\nIt was a kind of deaf-and-dumb house.  The black-and-white hall was empty\nand everything was perfectly still.  Blunt himself had no doubt gone away\nwith his mother in the brougham, but as to the others, the dancing girls,\nTherese, or anybody else that its walls may have contained, they might\nhave been all murdering each other in perfect assurance that the house\nwould not betray them by indulging in any unseemly murmurs.  I emitted a\nlow whistle which didn't seem to travel in that peculiar atmosphere more\nthan two feet away from my lips, but all the same Rose came tripping down\nthe stairs at once.  With just a nod to my whisper: \"Take a fiacre,\" she\nglided out and I shut the door noiselessly behind her.\n\nThe next time I saw her she was opening the door of the house on the\nPrado to me, with her cap and the little black silk apron on, and with\nthat marked personality of her own, which had been concealed so perfectly\nin the dowdy walking dress, very much to the fore.\n\n\"I have given Madame the message,\" she said in her contained voice,\nswinging the door wide open.  Then after relieving me of my hat and coat\nshe announced me with the simple words: \"_Voila_ Monsieur,\" and hurried\naway.  Directly I appeared Dona Rita, away there on the couch, passed the\ntips of her fingers over her eyes and holding her hands up palms outwards\non each side of her head, shouted to me down the whole length of the\nroom: \"The dry season has set in.\"  I glanced at the pink tips of her\nfingers perfunctorily and then drew back.  She let her hands fall\nnegligently as if she had no use for them any more and put on a serious\nexpression.\n\n\"So it seems,\" I said, sitting down opposite her.  \"For how long, I\nwonder.\"\n\n\"For years and years.  One gets so little encouragement.  First you bolt\naway from my tears, then you send an impertinent message, and then when\nyou come at last you pretend to behave respectfully, though you don't\nknow how to do it.  You should sit much nearer the edge of the chair and\nhold yourself very stiff, and make it quite clear that you don't know\nwhat to do with your hands.\"\n\nAll this in a fascinating voice with a ripple of badinage that seemed to\nplay upon the sober surface of her thoughts.  Then seeing that I did not\nanswer she altered the note a bit.\n\n\"_Amigo_ George,\" she said, \"I take the trouble to send for you and here\nI am before you, talking to you and you say nothing.\"\n\n\"What am I to say?\"\n\n\"How can I tell?  You might say a thousand things.  You might, for\ninstance, tell me that you were sorry for my tears.\"\n\n\"I might also tell you a thousand lies.  What do I know about your tears?\nI am not a susceptible idiot.  It all depends upon the cause.  There are\ntears of quiet happiness.  Peeling onions also will bring tears.\"\n\n\"Oh, you are not susceptible,\" she flew out at me.  \"But you are an idiot\nall the same.\"\n\n\"Is it to tell me this that you have written to me to come?\" I asked with\na certain animation.\n\n\"Yes.  And if you had as much sense as the talking parrot I owned once\nyou would have read between the lines that all I wanted you here for was\nto tell you what I think of you.\"\n\n\"Well, tell me what you think of me.\"\n\n\"I would in a moment if I could be half as impertinent as you are.\"\n\n\"What unexpected modesty,\" I said.\n\n\"These, I suppose, are your sea manners.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't put up with half that nonsense from anybody at sea.  Don't\nyou remember you told me yourself to go away?  What was I to do?\"\n\n\"How stupid you are.  I don't mean that you pretend.  You really are.  Do\nyou understand what I say?  I will spell it for you.  S-t-u-p-i-d.  Ah,\nnow I feel better.  Oh, _amigo_ George, my dear fellow-conspirator for\nthe king--the king.  Such a king!  _Vive le Roi_!  Come, why don't you\nshout _Vive le Roi_, too?\"\n\n\"I am not your parrot,\" I said.\n\n\"No, he never sulked.  He was a charming, good-mannered bird, accustomed\nto the best society, whereas you, I suppose, are nothing but a heartless\nvagabond like myself.\"\n\n\"I daresay you are, but I suppose nobody had the insolence to tell you\nthat to your face.\"\n\n\"Well, very nearly.  It was what it amounted to.  I am not stupid.  There\nis no need to spell out simple words for me.  It just came out.  Don Juan\nstruggled desperately to keep the truth in.  It was most pathetic.  And\nyet he couldn't help himself.  He talked very much like a parrot.\"\n\n\"Of the best society,\" I suggested.\n\n\"Yes, the most honourable of parrots.  I don't like parrot-talk.  It\nsounds so uncanny.  Had I lived in the Middle Ages I am certain I would\nhave believed that a talking bird must be possessed by the devil.  I am\nsure Therese would believe that now.  My own sister!  She would cross\nherself many times and simply quake with terror.\"\n\n\"But you were not terrified,\" I said.  \"May I ask when that interesting\ncommunication took place?\"\n\n\"Yesterday, just before you blundered in here of all days in the year.  I\nwas sorry for him.\"\n\n\"Why tell me this?  I couldn't help noticing it.  I regretted I hadn't my\numbrella with me.\"\n\n\"Those unforgiven tears!  Oh, you simple soul!  Don't you know that\npeople never cry for anybody but themselves? . . . _Amigo_ George, tell\nme--what are we doing in this world?\"\n\n\"Do you mean all the people, everybody?\"\n\n\"No, only people like you and me.  Simple people, in this world which is\neaten up with charlatanism of all sorts so that even we, the simple,\ndon't know any longer how to trust each other.\"\n\n\"Don't we?  Then why don't you trust him?  You are dying to do so, don't\nyou know?\"\n\nShe dropped her chin on her breast and from under her straight eyebrows\nthe deep blue eyes remained fixed on me, impersonally, as if without\nthought.\n\n\"What have you been doing since you left me yesterday?\" she asked.\n\n\"The first thing I remember I abused your sister horribly this morning.\"\n\n\"And how did she take it?\"\n\n\"Like a warm shower in spring.  She drank it all in and unfolded her\npetals.\"\n\n\"What poetical expressions he uses!  That girl is more perverted than one\nwould think possible, considering what she is and whence she came.  It's\ntrue that I, too, come from the same spot.\"\n\n\"She is slightly crazy.  I am a great favourite with her.  I don't say\nthis to boast.\"\n\n\"It must be very comforting.\"\n\n\"Yes, it has cheered me immensely.  Then after a morning of delightful\nmusings on one thing and another I went to lunch with a charming lady and\nspent most of the afternoon talking with her.\"\n\nDona Rita raised her head.\n\n\"A lady!  Women seem such mysterious creatures to me.  I don't know them.\nDid you abuse her?  Did she--how did you say that?--unfold her petals,\ntoo?  Was she really and truly . . .?\"\n\n\"She is simply perfection in her way and the conversation was by no means\nbanal.  I fancy that if your late parrot had heard it, he would have\nfallen off his perch.  For after all, in that Allegre Pavilion, my dear\nRita, you were but a crowd of glorified _bourgeois_.\"\n\nShe was beautifully animated now.  In her motionless blue eyes like\nmelted sapphires, around those red lips that almost without moving could\nbreathe enchanting sounds into the world, there was a play of light, that\nmysterious ripple of gaiety that seemed always to run and faintly quiver\nunder her skin even in her gravest moods; just as in her rare moments of\ngaiety its warmth and radiance seemed to come to one through infinite\nsadness, like the sunlight of our life hiding the invincible darkness in\nwhich the universe must work out its impenetrable destiny.\n\n\"Now I think of it! . . . Perhaps that's the reason I never could feel\nperfectly serious while they were demolishing the world about my ears.  I\nfancy now that I could tell beforehand what each of them was going to\nsay.  They were repeating the same words over and over again, those great\nclever men, very much like parrots who also seem to know what they say.\nThat doesn't apply to the master of the house, who never talked much.  He\nsat there mostly silent and looming up three sizes bigger than any of\nthem.\"\n\n\"The ruler of the aviary,\" I muttered viciously.\n\n\"It annoys you that I should talk of that time?\" she asked in a tender\nvoice.  \"Well, I won't, except for once to say that you must not make a\nmistake: in that aviary he was the man.  I know because he used to talk\nto me afterwards sometimes.  Strange!  For six years he seemed to carry\nall the world and me with it in his hand. . . . \"\n\n\"He dominates you yet,\" I shouted.\n\nShe shook her head innocently as a child would do.\n\n\"No, no.  You brought him into the conversation yourself.  You think of\nhim much more than I do.\"  Her voice drooped sadly to a hopeless note.\n\"I hardly ever do.  He is not the sort of person to merely flit through\none's mind and so I have no time.  Look.  I had eleven letters this\nmorning and there were also five telegrams before midday, which have\ntangled up everything.  I am quite frightened.\"\n\nAnd she explained to me that one of them--the long one on the top of the\npile, on the table over there--seemed to contain ugly inferences directed\nat herself in a menacing way.  She begged me to read it and see what I\ncould make of it.\n\nI knew enough of the general situation to see at a glance that she had\nmisunderstood it thoroughly and even amazingly.  I proved it to her very\nquickly.  But her mistake was so ingenious in its wrongheadedness and\narose so obviously from the distraction of an acute mind, that I couldn't\nhelp looking at her admiringly.\n\n\"Rita,\" I said, \"you are a marvellous idiot.\"\n\n\"Am I?  Imbecile,\" she retorted with an enchanting smile of relief.  \"But\nperhaps it only seems so to you in contrast with the lady so perfect in\nher way.  What is her way?\"\n\n\"Her way, I should say, lies somewhere between her sixtieth and\nseventieth year, and I have walked tete-a-tete with her for some little\ndistance this afternoon.\"\n\n\"Heavens,\" she whispered, thunderstruck.  \"And meantime I had the son\nhere.  He arrived about five minutes after Rose left with that note for\nyou,\" she went on in a tone of awe.  \"As a matter of fact, Rose saw him\nacross the street but she thought she had better go on to you.\"\n\n\"I am furious with myself for not having guessed that much,\" I said\nbitterly.  \"I suppose you got him out of the house about five minutes\nafter you heard I was coming here.  Rose ought to have turned back when\nshe saw him on his way to cheer your solitude.  That girl is stupid after\nall, though she has got a certain amount of low cunning which no doubt is\nvery useful at times.\"\n\n\"I forbid you to talk like this about Rose.  I won't have it.  Rose is\nnot to be abused before me.\"\n\n\"I only mean to say that she failed in this instance to read your mind,\nthat's all.\"\n\n\"This is, without exception, the most unintelligent thing you have said\never since I have known you.  You may understand a lot about running\ncontraband and about the minds of a certain class of people, but as to\nRose's mind let me tell you that in comparison with hers yours is\nabsolutely infantile, my adventurous friend.  It would be contemptible if\nit weren't so--what shall I call it?--babyish.  You ought to be slapped\nand put to bed.\"  There was an extraordinary earnestness in her tone and\nwhen she ceased I listened yet to the seductive inflexions of her voice,\nthat no matter in what mood she spoke seemed only fit for tenderness and\nlove.  And I thought suddenly of Azzolati being ordered to take himself\noff from her presence for ever, in that voice the very anger of which\nseemed to twine itself gently round one's heart.  No wonder the poor\nwretch could not forget the scene and couldn't restrain his tears on the\nplain of Rambouillet.  My moods of resentment against Rita, hot as they\nwere, had no more duration than a blaze of straw.  So I only said:\n\n\"Much _you_ know about the management of children.\"  The corners of her\nlips stirred quaintly; her animosity, especially when provoked by a\npersonal attack upon herself, was always tinged by a sort of wistful\nhumour of the most disarming kind.\n\n\"Come, _amigo_ George, let us leave poor Rose alone.  You had better tell\nme what you heard from the lips of the charming old lady.  Perfection,\nisn't she?  I have never seen her in my life, though she says she has\nseen me several times.  But she has written to me on three separate\noccasions and every time I answered her as if I were writing to a queen.\n_Amigo_ George, how does one write to a queen?  How should a goatherd\nthat could have been mistress of a king, how should she write to an old\nqueen from very far away; from over the sea?\"\n\n\"I will ask you as I have asked the old queen: why do you tell me all\nthis, Dona Rita?\"\n\n\"To discover what's in your mind,\" she said, a little impatiently.\n\n\"If you don't know that yet!\" I exclaimed under my breath.\n\n\"No, not in your mind.  Can any one ever tell what is in a man's mind?\nBut I see you won't tell.\"\n\n\"What's the good?  You have written to her before, I understand.  Do you\nthink of continuing the correspondence?\"\n\n\"Who knows?\" she said in a profound tone.  \"She is the only woman that\never wrote to me.  I returned her three letters to her with my last\nanswer, explaining humbly that I preferred her to burn them herself.  And\nI thought that would be the end of it.  But an occasion may still arise.\"\n\n\"Oh, if an occasion arises,\" I said, trying to control my rage, \"you may\nbe able to begin your letter by the words '_Chere Maman_.'\"\n\nThe cigarette box, which she had taken up without removing her eyes from\nme, flew out of her hand and opening in mid-air scattered cigarettes for\nquite a surprising distance all over the room.  I got up at once and\nwandered off picking them up industriously.  Dona Rita's voice behind me\nsaid indifferently:\n\n\"Don't trouble, I will ring for Rose.\"\n\n\"No need,\" I growled, without turning my head, \"I can find my hat in the\nhall by myself, after I've finished picking up . . . \"\n\n\"Bear!\"\n\nI returned with the box and placed it on the divan near her.  She sat\ncross-legged, leaning back on her arms, in the blue shimmer of her\nembroidered robe and with the tawny halo of her unruly hair about her\nface which she raised to mine with an air of resignation.\n\n\"George, my friend,\" she said, \"we have no manners.\"\n\n\"You would never have made a career at court, Dona Rita,\" I observed.\n\"You are too impulsive.\"\n\n\"This is not bad manners, that's sheer insolence.  This has happened to\nyou before.  If it happens again, as I can't be expected to wrestle with\na savage and desperate smuggler single-handed, I will go upstairs and\nlock myself in my room till you leave the house.  Why did you say this to\nme?\"\n\n\"Oh, just for nothing, out of a full heart.\"\n\n\"If your heart is full of things like that, then my dear friend, you had\nbetter take it out and give it to the crows.  No! you said that for the\npleasure of appearing terrible.  And you see you are not terrible at all,\nyou are rather amusing.  Go on, continue to be amusing.  Tell me\nsomething of what you heard from the lips of that aristocratic old lady\nwho thinks that all men are equal and entitled to the pursuit of\nhappiness.\"\n\n\"I hardly remember now.  I heard something about the unworthiness of\ncertain white geese out of stuffy drawing-rooms.  It sounds mad, but the\nlady knows exactly what she wants.  I also heard your praises sung.  I\nsat there like a fool not knowing what to say.\"\n\n\"Why?  You might have joined in the singing.\"\n\n\"I didn't feel in the humour, because, don't you see, I had been\nincidentally given to understand that I was an insignificant and\nsuperfluous person who had better get out of the way of serious people.\"\n\n\"Ah, _par exemple_!\"\n\n\"In a sense, you know, it was flattering; but for the moment it made me\nfeel as if I had been offered a pot of mustard to sniff.\"\n\nShe nodded with an amused air of understanding and I could see that she\nwas interested.  \"Anything more?\" she asked, with a flash of radiant\neagerness in all her person and bending slightly forward towards me.\n\n\"Oh, it's hardly worth mentioning.  It was a sort of threat wrapped up, I\nbelieve, in genuine anxiety as to what might happen to my youthful\ninsignificance.  If I hadn't been rather on the alert just then I\nwouldn't even have perceived the meaning.  But really an allusion to 'hot\nSouthern blood' I could have only one meaning.  Of course I laughed at\nit, but only '_pour l'honneur_' and to show I understood perfectly.  In\nreality it left me completely indifferent.\"\n\nDona Rita looked very serious for a minute.\n\n\"Indifferent to the whole conversation?\"\n\nI looked at her angrily.\n\n\"To the whole . . . You see I got up rather out of sorts this morning.\nUnrefreshed, you know.  As if tired of life.\"\n\nThe liquid blue in her eyes remained directed at me without any\nexpression except that of its usual mysterious immobility, but all her\nface took on a sad and thoughtful cast.  Then as if she had made up her\nmind under the pressure of necessity:\n\n\"Listen, _amigo_,\" she said, \"I have suffered domination and it didn't\ncrush me because I have been strong enough to live with it; I have known\ncaprice, you may call it folly if you like, and it left me unharmed\nbecause I was great enough not to be captured by anything that wasn't\nreally worthy of me.  My dear, it went down like a house of cards before\nmy breath.  There is something in me that will not be dazzled by any sort\nof prestige in this world, worthy or unworthy.  I am telling you this\nbecause you are younger than myself.\"\n\n\"If you want me to say that there is nothing petty or mean about you,\nDona Rita, then I do say it.\"\n\nShe nodded at me with an air of accepting the rendered justice and went\non with the utmost simplicity.\n\n\"And what is it that is coming to me now with all the airs of virtue?\nAll the lawful conventions are coming to me, all the glamours of\nrespectability!  And nobody can say that I have made as much as the\nslightest little sign to them.  Not so much as lifting my little finger.\nI suppose you know that?\"\n\n\"I don't know.  I do not doubt your sincerity in anything you say.  I am\nready to believe.  You are not one of those who have to work.\"\n\n\"Have to work--what do you mean?\"\n\n\"It's a phrase I have heard.  What I meant was that it isn't necessary\nfor you to make any signs.\"\n\nShe seemed to meditate over this for a while.\n\n\"Don't be so sure of that,\" she said, with a flash of mischief, which\nmade her voice sound more melancholy than before.  \"I am not so sure\nmyself,\" she continued with a curious, vanishing, intonation of despair.\n\"I don't know the truth about myself because I never had an opportunity\nto compare myself to anything in the world.  I have been offered mock\nadulation, treated with mock reserve or with mock devotion, I have been\nfawned upon with an appalling earnestness of purpose, I can tell you; but\nthese later honours, my dear, came to me in the shape of a very loyal and\nvery scrupulous gentleman.  For he is all that.  And as a matter of fact\nI was touched.\"\n\n\"I know.  Even to tears,\" I said provokingly.  But she wasn't provoked,\nshe only shook her head in negation (which was absurd) and pursued the\ntrend of her spoken thoughts.\n\n\"That was yesterday,\" she said.  \"And yesterday he was extremely correct\nand very full of extreme self-esteem which expressed itself in the\nexaggerated delicacy with which he talked.  But I know him in all his\nmoods.  I have known him even playful.  I didn't listen to him.  I was\nthinking of something else.  Of things that were neither correct nor\nplayful and that had to be looked at steadily with all the best that was\nin me.  And that was why, in the end--I cried--yesterday.\"\n\n\"I saw it yesterday and I had the weakness of being moved by those tears\nfor a time.\"\n\n\"If you want to make me cry again I warn you you won't succeed.\"\n\n\"No, I know.  He has been here to-day and the dry season has set in.\"\n\n\"Yes, he has been here.  I assure you it was perfectly unexpected.\nYesterday he was railing at the world at large, at me who certainly have\nnot made it, at himself and even at his mother.  All this rather in\nparrot language, in the words of tradition and morality as understood by\nthe members of that exclusive club to which he belongs.  And yet when I\nthought that all this, those poor hackneyed words, expressed a sincere\npassion I could have found in my heart to be sorry for him.  But he ended\nby telling me that one couldn't believe a single word I said, or\nsomething like that.  You were here then, you heard it yourself.\"\n\n\"And it cut you to the quick,\" I said.  \"It made you depart from your\ndignity to the point of weeping on any shoulder that happened to be\nthere.  And considering that it was some more parrot talk after all (men\nhave been saying that sort of thing to women from the beginning of the\nworld) this sensibility seems to me childish.\"\n\n\"What perspicacity,\" she observed, with an indulgent, mocking smile, then\nchanged her tone.  \"Therefore he wasn't expected to-day when he turned\nup, whereas you, who were expected, remained subject to the charms of\nconversation in that studio.  It never occurred to you . . . did it?  No!\nWhat had become of your perspicacity?\"\n\n\"I tell you I was weary of life,\" I said in a passion.\n\nShe had another faint smile of a fugitive and unrelated kind as if she\nhad been thinking of far-off things, then roused herself to grave\nanimation.\n\n\"He came in full of smiling playfulness.  How well I know that mood!\nSuch self-command has its beauty; but it's no great help for a man with\nsuch fateful eyes.  I could see he was moved in his correct, restrained\nway, and in his own way, too, he tried to move me with something that\nwould be very simple.  He told me that ever since we became friends, we\ntwo, he had not an hour of continuous sleep, unless perhaps when coming\nback dead-tired from outpost duty, and that he longed to get back to it\nand yet hadn't the courage to tear himself away from here.  He was as\nsimple as that.  He's a _tres galant homme_ of absolute probity, even\nwith himself.  I said to him: The trouble is, Don Juan, that it isn't\nlove but mistrust that keeps you in torment.  I might have said jealousy,\nbut I didn't like to use that word.  A parrot would have added that I had\ngiven him no right to be jealous.  But I am no parrot.  I recognized the\nrights of his passion which I could very well see.  He is jealous.  He is\nnot jealous of my past or of the future; but he is jealously mistrustful\nof me, of what I am, of my very soul.  He believes in a soul in the same\nway Therese does, as something that can be touched with grace or go to\nperdition; and he doesn't want to be damned with me before his own\njudgment seat.  He is a most noble and loyal gentleman, but I have my own\nBasque peasant soul and don't want to think that every time he goes away\nfrom my feet--yes, _mon cher_, on this carpet, look for the marks of\nscorching--that he goes away feeling tempted to brush the dust off his\nmoral sleeve.  That!  Never!\"\n\nWith brusque movements she took a cigarette out of the box, held it in\nher fingers for a moment, then dropped it unconsciously.\n\n\"And then, I don't love him,\" she uttered slowly as if speaking to\nherself and at the same time watching the very quality of that thought.\n\"I never did.  At first he fascinated me with his fatal aspect and his\ncold society smiles.  But I have looked into those eyes too often.  There\nare too many disdains in this aristocratic republican without a home.\nHis fate may be cruel, but it will always be commonplace.  While he sat\nthere trying in a worldly tone to explain to me the problems, the\nscruples, of his suffering honour, I could see right into his heart and I\nwas sorry for him.  I was sorry enough for him to feel that if he had\nsuddenly taken me by the throat and strangled me slowly, _avec delices_,\nI could forgive him while I choked.  How correct he was!  But bitterness\nagainst me peeped out of every second phrase.  At last I raised my hand\nand said to him, 'Enough.'  I believe he was shocked by my plebeian\nabruptness but he was too polite to show it.  His conventions will always\nstand in the way of his nature.  I told him that everything that had been\nsaid and done during the last seven or eight months was inexplicable\nunless on the assumption that he was in love with me,--and yet in\neverything there was an implication that he couldn't forgive me my very\nexistence.  I did ask him whether he didn't think that it was absurd on\nhis part . . . \"\n\n\"Didn't you say that it was exquisitely absurd?\" I asked.\n\n\"Exquisitely! . . . \" Dona Rita was surprised at my question.  \"No.  Why\nshould I say that?\"\n\n\"It would have reconciled him to your abruptness.  It's their family\nexpression.  It would have come with a familiar sound and would have been\nless offensive.\"\n\n\"Offensive,\" Dona Rita repeated earnestly.  \"I don't think he was\noffended; he suffered in another way, but I didn't care for that.  It was\nI that had become offended in the end, without spite, you understand, but\npast bearing.  I didn't spare him.  I told him plainly that to want a\nwoman formed in mind and body, mistress of herself, free in her choice,\nindependent in her thoughts; to love her apparently for what she is and\nat the same time to demand from her the candour and the innocence that\ncould be only a shocking pretence; to know her such as life had made her\nand at the same time to despise her secretly for every touch with which\nher life had fashioned her--that was neither generous nor high minded; it\nwas positively frantic.  He got up and went away to lean against the\nmantelpiece, there, on his elbow and with his head in his hand.  You have\nno idea of the charm and the distinction of his pose.  I couldn't help\nadmiring him: the expression, the grace, the fatal suggestion of his\nimmobility.  Oh, yes, I am sensible to aesthetic impressions, I have been\neducated to believe that there is a soul in them.\"\n\nWith that enigmatic, under the eyebrows glance fixed on me she laughed\nher deep contralto laugh without mirth but also without irony, and\nprofoundly moving by the mere purity of the sound.\n\n\"I suspect he was never so disgusted and appalled in his life.  His\nself-command is the most admirable worldly thing I have ever seen.  What\nmade it beautiful was that one could feel in it a tragic suggestion as in\na great work of art.\"\n\nShe paused with an inscrutable smile that a great painter might have put\non the face of some symbolic figure for the speculation and wonder of\nmany generations.  I said:\n\n\"I always thought that love for you could work great wonders.  And now I\nam certain.\"\n\n\"Are you trying to be ironic?\" she said sadly and very much as a child\nmight have spoken.\n\n\"I don't know,\" I answered in a tone of the same simplicity.  \"I find it\nvery difficult to be generous.\"\n\n\"I, too,\" she said with a sort of funny eagerness.  \"I didn't treat him\nvery generously.  Only I didn't say much more.  I found I didn't care\nwhat I said--and it would have been like throwing insults at a beautiful\ncomposition.  He was well inspired not to move.  It has spared him some\ndisagreeable truths and perhaps I would even have said more than the\ntruth.  I am not fair.  I am no more fair than other people.  I would\nhave been harsh.  My very admiration was making me more angry.  It's\nridiculous to say of a man got up in correct tailor clothes, but there\nwas a funereal grace in his attitude so that he might have been\nreproduced in marble on a monument to some woman in one of those\natrocious Campo Santos: the bourgeois conception of an aristocratic\nmourning lover.  When I came to that conclusion I became glad that I was\nangry or else I would have laughed right out before him.\"\n\n\"I have heard a woman say once, a woman of the people--do you hear me,\nDona Rita?--therefore deserving your attention, that one should never\nlaugh at love.\"\n\n\"My dear,\" she said gently, \"I have been taught to laugh at most things\nby a man who never laughed himself; but it's true that he never spoke of\nlove to me, love as a subject that is.  So perhaps . . . But why?\"\n\n\"Because (but maybe that old woman was crazy), because, she said, there\nwas death in the mockery of love.\"\n\nDona Rita moved slightly her beautiful shoulders and went on:\n\n\"I am glad, then, I didn't laugh.  And I am also glad I said nothing\nmore.  I was feeling so little generous that if I had known something\nthen of his mother's allusion to 'white geese' I would have advised him\nto get one of them and lead it away on a beautiful blue ribbon.  Mrs.\nBlunt was wrong, you know, to be so scornful.  A white goose is exactly\nwhat her son wants.  But look how badly the world is arranged.  Such\nwhite birds cannot be got for nothing and he has not enough money even to\nbuy a ribbon.  Who knows!  Maybe it was this which gave that tragic\nquality to his pose by the mantelpiece over there.  Yes, that was it.\nThough no doubt I didn't see it then.  As he didn't offer to move after I\nhad done speaking I became quite unaffectedly sorry and advised him very\ngently to dismiss me from his mind definitely.  He moved forward then and\nsaid to me in his usual voice and with his usual smile that it would have\nbeen excellent advice but unfortunately I was one of those women who\ncan't be dismissed at will.  And as I shook my head he insisted rather\ndarkly: 'Oh, yes, Dona Rita, it is so.  Cherish no illusions about that\nfact.'  It sounded so threatening that in my surprise I didn't even\nacknowledge his parting bow.  He went out of that false situation like a\nwounded man retreating after a fight.  No, I have nothing to reproach\nmyself with.  I did nothing.  I led him into nothing.  Whatever illusions\nhave passed through my head I kept my distance, and he was so loyal to\nwhat he seemed to think the redeeming proprieties of the situation that\nhe has gone from me for good without so much as kissing the tips of my\nfingers.  He must have felt like a man who had betrayed himself for\nnothing.  It's horrible.  It's the fault of that enormous fortune of\nmine, and I wish with all my heart that I could give it to him; for he\ncouldn't help his hatred of the thing that is: and as to his love, which\nis just as real, well--could I have rushed away from him to shut myself\nup in a convent?  Could I?  After all I have a right to my share of\ndaylight.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\n\nI took my eyes from her face and became aware that dusk was beginning to\nsteal into the room.  How strange it seemed.  Except for the glazed\nrotunda part its long walls, divided into narrow panels separated by an\norder of flat pilasters, presented, depicted on a black background and in\nvivid colours, slender women with butterfly wings and lean youths with\nnarrow birds' wings.  The effect was supposed to be Pompeiian and Rita\nand I had often laughed at the delirious fancy of some enriched\nshopkeeper.  But still it was a display of fancy, a sign of grace; but at\nthat moment these figures appeared to me weird and intrusive and\nstrangely alive in their attenuated grace of unearthly beings concealing\na power to see and hear.\n\nWithout words, without gestures, Dona Rita was heard again.  \"It may have\nbeen as near coming to pass as this.\"  She showed me the breadth of her\nlittle finger nail.  \"Yes, as near as that.  Why?  How?  Just like that,\nfor nothing.  Because it had come up.  Because a wild notion had entered\na practical old woman's head.  Yes.  And the best of it is that I have\nnothing to complain of.  Had I surrendered I would have been perfectly\nsafe with these two.  It is they or rather he who couldn't trust me, or\nrather that something which I express, which I stand for.  Mills would\nnever tell me what it was.  Perhaps he didn't know exactly himself.  He\nsaid it was something like genius.  My genius!  Oh, I am not conscious of\nit, believe me, I am not conscious of it.  But if I were I wouldn't pluck\nit out and cast it away.  I am ashamed of nothing, of nothing!  Don't be\nstupid enough to think that I have the slightest regret.  There is no\nregret.  First of all because I am I--and then because . . . My dear,\nbelieve me, I have had a horrible time of it myself lately.\"\n\nThis seemed to be the last word.  Outwardly quiet, all the time, it was\nonly then that she became composed enough to light an enormous cigarette\nof the same pattern as those made specially for the king--_por el Rey_!\nAfter a time, tipping the ash into the bowl on her left hand, she asked\nme in a friendly, almost tender, tone:\n\n\"What are you thinking of, _amigo_?\"\n\n\"I was thinking of your immense generosity.  You want to give a crown to\none man, a fortune to another.  That is very fine.  But I suppose there\nis a limit to your generosity somewhere.\"\n\n\"I don't see why there should be any limit--to fine intentions!  Yes, one\nwould like to pay ransom and be done with it all.\"\n\n\"That's the feeling of a captive; and yet somehow I can't think of you as\never having been anybody's captive.\"\n\n\"You do display some wonderful insight sometimes.  My dear, I begin to\nsuspect that men are rather conceited about their powers.  They think\nthey dominate us.  Even exceptional men will think that; men too great\nfor mere vanity, men like Henry Allegre for instance, who by his\nconsistent and serene detachment was certainly fit to dominate all sorts\nof people.  Yet for the most part they can only do it because women\nchoose more or less consciously to let them do so.  Henry Allegre, if any\nman, might have been certain of his own power; and yet, look: I was a\nchit of a girl, I was sitting with a book where I had no business to be,\nin his own garden, when he suddenly came upon me, an ignorant girl of\nseventeen, a most uninviting creature with a tousled head, in an old\nblack frock and shabby boots.  I could have run away.  I was perfectly\ncapable of it.  But I stayed looking up at him and--in the end it was HE\nwho went away and it was I who stayed.\"\n\n\"Consciously?\" I murmured.\n\n\"Consciously?  You may just as well ask my shadow that lay so still by me\non the young grass in that morning sunshine.  I never knew before how\nstill I could keep.  It wasn't the stillness of terror.  I remained,\nknowing perfectly well that if I ran he was not the man to run after me.\nI remember perfectly his deep-toned, politely indifferent '_Restez\ndonc_.'  He was mistaken.  Already then I hadn't the slightest intention\nto move.  And if you ask me again how far conscious all this was the\nnearest answer I can make you is this: that I remained on purpose, but I\ndidn't know for what purpose I remained.  Really, that couldn't be\nexpected. . . . Why do you sigh like this?  Would you have preferred me\nto be idiotically innocent or abominably wise?\"\n\n\"These are not the questions that trouble me,\" I said.  \"If I sighed it\nis because I am weary.\"\n\n\"And getting stiff, too, I should say, in this Pompeiian armchair.  You\nhad better get out of it and sit on this couch as you always used to do.\nThat, at any rate, is not Pompeiian.  You have been growing of late\nextremely formal, I don't know why.  If it is a pose then for goodness'\nsake drop it.  Are you going to model yourself on Captain Blunt?  You\ncouldn't, you know.  You are too young.\"\n\n\"I don't want to model myself on anybody,\" I said.  \"And anyway Blunt is\ntoo romantic; and, moreover, he has been and is yet in love with you--a\nthing that requires some style, an attitude, something of which I am\naltogether incapable.\"\n\n\"You know it isn't so stupid, this what you have just said.  Yes, there\nis something in this.\"\n\n\"I am not stupid,\" I protested, without much heat.\n\n\"Oh, yes, you are.  You don't know the world enough to judge.  You don't\nknow how wise men can be.  Owls are nothing to them.  Why do you try to\nlook like an owl?  There are thousands and thousands of them waiting for\nme outside the door: the staring, hissing beasts.  You don't know what a\nrelief of mental ease and intimacy you have been to me in the frankness\nof gestures and speeches and thoughts, sane or insane, that we have been\nthrowing at each other.  I have known nothing of this in my life but with\nyou.  There had always been some fear, some constraint, lurking in the\nbackground behind everybody, everybody--except you, my friend.\"\n\n\"An unmannerly, Arcadian state of affairs.  I am glad you like it.\nPerhaps it's because you were intelligent enough to perceive that I was\nnot in love with you in any sort of style.\"\n\n\"No, you were always your own self, unwise and reckless and with\nsomething in it kindred to mine, if I may say so without offence.\"\n\n\"You may say anything without offence.  But has it never occurred to your\nsagacity that I just, simply, loved you?\"\n\n\"Just--simply,\" she repeated in a wistful tone.\n\n\"You didn't want to trouble your head about it, is that it?\"\n\n\"My poor head.  From your tone one might think you yearned to cut it off.\nNo, my dear, I have made up my mind not to lose my head.\"\n\n\"You would be astonished to know how little I care for your mind.\"\n\n\"Would I?  Come and sit on the couch all the same,\" she said after a\nmoment of hesitation.  Then, as I did not move at once, she added with\nindifference: \"You may sit as far away as you like, it's big enough,\ngoodness knows.\"\n\nThe light was ebbing slowly out of the rotunda and to my bodily eyes she\nwas beginning to grow shadowy.  I sat down on the couch and for a long\ntime no word passed between us.  We made no movement.  We did not even\nturn towards each other.  All I was conscious of was the softness of the\nseat which seemed somehow to cause a relaxation of my stern mood, I won't\nsay against my will but without any will on my part.  Another thing I was\nconscious of, strangely enough, was the enormous brass bowl for cigarette\nends.  Quietly, with the least possible action, Dona Rita moved it to the\nother side of her motionless person.  Slowly, the fantastic women with\nbutterflies' wings and the slender-limbed youths with the gorgeous\npinions on their shoulders were vanishing into their black backgrounds\nwith an effect of silent discretion, leaving us to ourselves.\n\nI felt suddenly extremely exhausted, absolutely overcome with fatigue\nsince I had moved; as if to sit on that Pompeiian chair had been a task\nalmost beyond human strength, a sort of labour that must end in collapse.\nI fought against it for a moment and then my resistance gave way.  Not\nall at once but as if yielding to an irresistible pressure (for I was not\nconscious of any irresistible attraction) I found myself with my head\nresting, with a weight I felt must be crushing, on Dona Rita's shoulder\nwhich yet did not give way, did not flinch at all.  A faint scent of\nviolets filled the tragic emptiness of my head and it seemed impossible\nto me that I should not cry from sheer weakness.  But I remained\ndry-eyed.  I only felt myself slipping lower and lower and I caught her\nround the waist clinging to her not from any intention but purely by\ninstinct.  All that time she hadn't stirred.  There was only the slight\nmovement of her breathing that showed her to be alive; and with closed\neyes I imagined her to be lost in thought, removed by an incredible\nmeditation while I clung to her, to an immense distance from the earth.\nThe distance must have been immense because the silence was so perfect,\nthe feeling as if of eternal stillness.  I had a distinct impression of\nbeing in contact with an infinity that had the slightest possible rise\nand fall, was pervaded by a warm, delicate scent of violets and through\nwhich came a hand from somewhere to rest lightly on my head.  Presently\nmy ear caught the faint and regular pulsation of her heart, firm and\nquick, infinitely touching in its persistent mystery, disclosing itself\ninto my very ear--and my felicity became complete.\n\nIt was a dreamlike state combined with a dreamlike sense of insecurity.\nThen in that warm and scented infinity, or eternity, in which I rested\nlost in bliss but ready for any catastrophe, I heard the distant, hardly\naudible, and fit to strike terror into the heart, ringing of a bell.  At\nthis sound the greatness of spaces departed.  I felt the world close\nabout me; the world of darkened walls, of very deep grey dusk against the\npanes, and I asked in a pained voice:\n\n\"Why did you ring, Rita?\"\n\nThere was a bell rope within reach of her hand.  I had not felt her move,\nbut she said very low:\n\n\"I rang for the lights.\"\n\n\"You didn't want the lights.\"\n\n\"It was time,\" she whispered secretly.\n\nSomewhere within the house a door slammed.  I got away from her feeling\nsmall and weak as if the best part of me had been torn away and\nirretrievably lost.  Rose must have been somewhere near the door.\n\n\"It's abominable,\" I murmured to the still, idol-like shadow on the\ncouch.\n\nThe answer was a hurried, nervous whisper: \"I tell you it was time.  I\nrang because I had no strength to push you away.\"\n\nI suffered a moment of giddiness before the door opened, light streamed\nin, and Rose entered, preceding a man in a green baize apron whom I had\nnever seen, carrying on an enormous tray three Argand lamps fitted into\nvases of Pompeiian form.  Rose distributed them over the room.  In the\nflood of soft light the winged youths and the butterfly women reappeared\non the panels, affected, gorgeous, callously unconscious of anything\nhaving happened during their absence.  Rose attended to the lamp on the\nnearest mantelpiece, then turned about and asked in a confident\nundertone.\n\n\"_Monsieur dine_?\"\n\nI had lost myself with my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands, but\nI heard the words distinctly.  I heard also the silence which ensued.  I\nsat up and took the responsibility of the answer on myself.\n\n\"Impossible.  I am going to sea this evening.\"\n\nThis was perfectly true only I had totally forgotten it till then.  For\nthe last two days my being was no longer composed of memories but\nexclusively of sensations of the most absorbing, disturbing, exhausting\nnature.  I was like a man who has been buffeted by the sea or by a mob\ntill he loses all hold on the world in the misery of his helplessness.\nBut now I was recovering.  And naturally the first thing I remembered was\nthe fact that I was going to sea.\n\n\"You have heard, Rose,\" Dona Rita said at last with some impatience.\n\nThe girl waited a moment longer before she said:\n\n\"Oh, yes!  There is a man waiting for Monsieur in the hall.  A seaman.\"\n\nIt could be no one but Dominic.  It dawned upon me that since the evening\nof our return I had not been near him or the ship, which was completely\nunusual, unheard of, and well calculated to startle Dominic.\n\n\"I have seen him before,\" continued Rose, \"and as he told me he has been\npursuing Monsieur all the afternoon and didn't like to go away without\nseeing Monsieur for a moment, I proposed to him to wait in the hall till\nMonsieur was at liberty.\"\n\nI said: \"Very well,\" and with a sudden resumption of her extremely busy,\nnot-a-moment-to-lose manner Rose departed from the room.  I lingered in\nan imaginary world full of tender light, of unheard-of colours, with a\nmad riot of flowers and an inconceivable happiness under the sky arched\nabove its yawning precipices, while a feeling of awe enveloped me like\nits own proper atmosphere.  But everything vanished at the sound of Dona\nRita's loud whisper full of boundless dismay, such as to make one's hair\nstir on one's head.\n\n\"_Mon Dieu_!  And what is going to happen now?\"\n\nShe got down from the couch and walked to a window.  When the lights had\nbeen brought into the room all the panes had turned inky black; for the\nnight had come and the garden was full of tall bushes and trees screening\noff the gas lamps of the main alley of the Prado.  Whatever the question\nmeant she was not likely to see an answer to it outside.  But her whisper\nhad offended me, had hurt something infinitely deep, infinitely subtle\nand infinitely clear-eyed in my nature.  I said after her from the couch\non which I had remained, \"Don't lose your composure.  You will always\nhave some sort of bell at hand.\"\n\nI saw her shrug her uncovered shoulders impatiently.  Her forehead was\nagainst the very blackness of the panes; pulled upward from the\nbeautiful, strong nape of her neck, the twisted mass of her tawny hair\nwas held high upon her head by the arrow of gold.\n\n\"You set up for being unforgiving,\" she said without anger.\n\nI sprang to my feet while she turned about and came towards me bravely,\nwith a wistful smile on her bold, adolescent face.\n\n\"It seems to me,\" she went on in a voice like a wave of love itself,\n\"that one should try to understand before one sets up for being\nunforgiving.  Forgiveness is a very fine word.  It is a fine invocation.\"\n\n\"There are other fine words in the language such as fascination,\nfidelity, also frivolity; and as for invocations there are plenty of\nthem, too; for instance: alas, heaven help me.\"\n\nWe stood very close together, her narrow eyes were as enigmatic as ever,\nbut that face, which, like some ideal conception of art, was incapable of\nanything like untruth and grimace, expressed by some mysterious means\nsuch a depth of infinite patience that I felt profoundly ashamed of\nmyself.\n\n\"This thing is beyond words altogether,\" I said.  \"Beyond forgiveness,\nbeyond forgetting, beyond anger or jealousy. . . . There is nothing\nbetween us two that could make us act together.\"\n\n\"Then we must fall back perhaps on something within us, that--you admit\nit?--we have in common.\"\n\n\"Don't be childish,\" I said.  \"You give one with a perpetual and intense\nfreshness feelings and sensations that are as old as the world itself,\nand you imagine that your enchantment can be broken off anywhere, at any\ntime!  But it can't be broken.  And forgetfulness, like everything else,\ncan only come from you.  It's an impossible situation to stand up\nagainst.\"\n\nShe listened with slightly parted lips as if to catch some further\nresonances.\n\n\"There is a sort of generous ardour about you,\" she said, \"which I don't\nreally understand.  No, I don't know it.  Believe me, it is not of myself\nI am thinking.  And you--you are going out to-night to make another\nlanding.\"\n\n\"Yes, it is a fact that before many hours I will be sailing away from you\nto try my luck once more.\"\n\n\"Your wonderful luck,\" she breathed out.\n\n\"Oh, yes, I am wonderfully lucky.  Unless the luck really is yours--in\nhaving found somebody like me, who cares at the same time so much and so\nlittle for what you have at heart.\"\n\n\"What time will you be leaving the harbour?\" she asked.\n\n\"Some time between midnight and daybreak.  Our men may be a little late\nin joining, but certainly we will be gone before the first streak of\nlight.\"\n\n\"What freedom!\" she murmured enviously.  \"It's something I shall never\nknow. . . .\"\n\n\"Freedom!\" I protested.  \"I am a slave to my word.  There will be a\nsiring of carts and mules on a certain part of the coast, and a most\nruffianly lot of men, men you understand, men with wives and children and\nsweethearts, who from the very moment they start on a trip risk a bullet\nin the head at any moment, but who have a perfect conviction that I will\nnever fail them.  That's my freedom.  I wonder what they would think if\nthey knew of your existence.\"\n\n\"I don't exist,\" she said.\n\n\"That's easy to say.  But I will go as if you didn't exist--yet only\nbecause you do exist.  You exist in me.  I don't know where I end and you\nbegin.  You have got into my heart and into my veins and into my brain.\"\n\n\"Take this fancy out and trample it down in the dust,\" she said in a tone\nof timid entreaty.\n\n\"Heroically,\" I suggested with the sarcasm of despair.\n\n\"Well, yes, heroically,\" she said; and there passed between us dim\nsmiles, I have no doubt of the most touching imbecility on earth.  We\nwere standing by then in the middle of the room with its vivid colours on\na black background, with its multitude of winged figures with pale limbs,\nwith hair like halos or flames, all strangely tense in their strained,\ndecorative attitudes.  Dona Rita made a step towards me, and as I\nattempted to seize her hand she flung her arms round my neck.  I felt\ntheir strength drawing me towards her and by a sort of blind and\ndesperate effort I resisted.  And all the time she was repeating with\nnervous insistence:\n\n\"But it is true that you will go.  You will surely.  Not because of those\npeople but because of me.  You will go away because you feel you must.\"\n\nWith every word urging me to get away, her clasp tightened, she hugged my\nhead closer to her breast.  I submitted, knowing well that I could free\nmyself by one more effort which it was in my power to make.  But before I\nmade it, in a sort of desperation, I pressed a long kiss into the hollow\nof her throat.  And lo--there was no need for any effort.  With a stifled\ncry of surprise her arms fell off me as if she had been shot.  I must\nhave been giddy, and perhaps we both were giddy, but the next thing I\nknew there was a good foot of space between us in the peaceful glow of\nthe ground-glass globes, in the everlasting stillness of the winged\nfigures.  Something in the quality of her exclamation, something utterly\nunexpected, something I had never heard before, and also the way she was\nlooking at me with a sort of incredulous, concentrated attention,\ndisconcerted me exceedingly.  I knew perfectly well what I had done and\nyet I felt that I didn't understand what had happened.  I became suddenly\nabashed and I muttered that I had better go and dismiss that poor\nDominic.  She made no answer, gave no sign.  She stood there lost in a\nvision--or was it a sensation?--of the most absorbing kind.  I hurried\nout into the hall, shamefaced, as if I were making my escape while she\nwasn't looking.  And yet I felt her looking fixedly at me, with a sort of\nstupefaction on her features--in her whole attitude--as though she had\nnever even heard of such a thing as a kiss in her life.\n\nA dim lamp (of Pompeiian form) hanging on a long chain left the hall\npractically dark.  Dominic, advancing towards me from a distant corner,\nwas but a little more opaque shadow than the others.  He had expected me\non board every moment till about three o'clock, but as I didn't turn up\nand gave no sign of life in any other way he started on his hunt.  He\nsought news of me from the _garcons_ at the various cafes, from the\n_cochers de fiacre_ in front of the Exchange, from the tobacconist lady\nat the counter of the fashionable _Debit de Tabac_, from the old man who\nsold papers outside the _cercle_, and from the flower-girl at the door of\nthe fashionable restaurant where I had my table.  That young woman, whose\nbusiness name was Irma, had come on duty about mid-day.  She said to\nDominic: \"I think I've seen all his friends this morning but I haven't\nseen him for a week.  What has become of him?\"\n\n\"That's exactly what I want to know,\" Dominic replied in a fury and then\nwent back to the harbour on the chance that I might have called either on\nboard or at Madame Leonore's cafe.\n\nI expressed to him my surprise that he should fuss about me like an old\nhen over a chick.  It wasn't like him at all.  And he said that \"_en\neffet_\" it was Madame Leonore who wouldn't give him any peace.  He hoped\nI wouldn't mind, it was best to humour women in little things; and so he\nstarted off again, made straight for the street of the Consuls, was told\nthere that I wasn't at home but the woman of the house looked so funny\nthat he didn't know what to make of it.  Therefore, after some\nhesitation, he took the liberty to inquire at this house, too, and being\ntold that I couldn't be disturbed, had made up his mind not to go on\nboard without actually setting his eyes on me and hearing from my own\nlips that nothing was changed as to sailing orders.\n\n\"There is nothing changed, Dominic,\" I said.\n\n\"No change of any sort?\" he insisted, looking very sombre and speaking\ngloomily from under his black moustaches in the dim glow of the alabaster\nlamp hanging above his head.  He peered at me in an extraordinary manner\nas if he wanted to make sure that I had all my limbs about me.  I asked\nhim to call for my bag at the other house, on his way to the harbour, and\nhe departed reassured, not, however, without remarking ironically that\never since she saw that American cavalier Madame Leonore was not easy in\nher mind about me.\n\nAs I stood alone in the hall, without a sound of any sort, Rose appeared\nbefore me.\n\n\"Monsieur will dine after all,\" she whispered calmly.\n\n\"My good girl, I am going to sea to-night.\"\n\n\"What am I going to do with Madame?\" she murmured to herself.  \"She will\ninsist on returning to Paris.\"\n\n\"Oh, have you heard of it?\"\n\n\"I never get more than two hours' notice,\" she said.  \"But I know how it\nwill be,\" her voice lost its calmness.  \"I can look after Madame up to a\ncertain point but I cannot be altogether responsible.  There is a\ndangerous person who is everlastingly trying to see Madame alone.  I have\nmanaged to keep him off several times but there is a beastly old\njournalist who is encouraging him in his attempts, and I daren't even\nspeak to Madame about it.\"\n\n\"What sort of person do you mean?\"\n\n\"Why, a man,\" she said scornfully.\n\nI snatched up my coat and hat.\n\n\"Aren't there dozens of them?\"\n\n\"Oh!  But this one is dangerous.  Madame must have given him a hold on\nher in some way.  I ought not to talk like this about Madame and I\nwouldn't to anybody but Monsieur.  I am always on the watch, but what is\na poor girl to do? . . . Isn't Monsieur going back to Madame?\"\n\n\"No, I am not going back.  Not this time.\"  A mist seemed to fall before\nmy eyes.  I could hardly see the girl standing by the closed door of the\nPempeiian room with extended hand, as if turned to stone.  But my voice\nwas firm enough.  \"Not this time,\" I repeated, and became aware of the\ngreat noise of the wind amongst the trees, with the lashing of a rain\nsquall against the door.\n\n\"Perhaps some other time,\" I added.\n\nI heard her say twice to herself: \"_Mon Dieu_!  _Mon_, _Dieu_!\" and then\na dismayed: \"What can Monsieur expect me to do?\"  But I had to appear\ninsensible to her distress and that not altogether because, in fact, I\nhad no option but to go away.  I remember also a distinct wilfulness in\nmy attitude and something half-contemptuous in my words as I laid my hand\non the knob of the front door.\n\n\"You will tell Madame that I am gone.  It will please her.  Tell her that\nI am gone--heroically.\"\n\nRose had come up close to me.  She met my words by a despairing outward\nmovement of her hands as though she were giving everything up.\n\n\"I see it clearly now that Madame has no friends,\" she declared with such\na force of restrained bitterness that it nearly made me pause.  But the\nvery obscurity of actuating motives drove me on and I stepped out through\nthe doorway muttering: \"Everything is as Madame wishes it.\"\n\nShe shot at me a swift: \"You should resist,\" of an extraordinary\nintensity, but I strode on down the path.  Then Rose's schooled temper\ngave way at last and I heard her angry voice screaming after me furiously\nthrough the wind and rain: \"No!  Madame has no friends.  Not one!\"\n\n\n\n\nPART FIVE\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\n\nThat night I didn't get on board till just before midnight and Dominic\ncould not conceal his relief at having me safely there.  Why he should\nhave been so uneasy it was impossible to say but at the time I had a sort\nof impression that my inner destruction (it was nothing less) had\naffected my appearance, that my doom was as it were written on my face.\nI was a mere receptacle for dust and ashes, a living testimony to the\nvanity of all things.  My very thoughts were like a ghostly rustle of\ndead leaves.  But we had an extremely successful trip, and for most of\nthe time Dominic displayed an unwonted jocularity of a dry and biting\nkind with which, he maintained, he had been infected by no other person\nthan myself.  As, with all his force of character, he was very responsive\nto the moods of those he liked I have no doubt he spoke the truth.  But I\nknow nothing about it.  The observer, more or less alert, whom each of us\ncarries in his own consciousness, failed me altogether, had turned away\nhis face in sheer horror, or else had fainted from the strain.  And thus\nI had to live alone, unobserved even by myself.\n\nBut the trip had been successful.  We re-entered the harbour very quietly\nas usual and when our craft had been moored unostentatiously amongst the\nplebeian stone-carriers, Dominic, whose grim joviality had subsided in\nthe last twenty-four hours of our homeward run, abandoned me to myself as\nthough indeed I had been a doomed man.  He only stuck his head for a\nmoment into our little cuddy where I was changing my clothes and being\ntold in answer to his question that I had no special orders to give went\nashore without waiting for me.\n\nGenerally we used to step on the quay together and I never failed to\nenter for a moment Madame Leonore's cafe.  But this time when I got on\nthe quay Dominic was nowhere to be seen.  What was it?\nAbandonment--discretion--or had he quarrelled with his Leonore before\nleaving on the trip?\n\nMy way led me past the cafe and through the glass panes I saw that he was\nalready there.  On the other side of the little marble table Madame\nLeonore, leaning with mature grace on her elbow, was listening to him\nabsorbed.  Then I passed on and--what would you have!--I ended by making\nmy way into the street of the Consuls.  I had nowhere else to go.  There\nwere my things in the apartment on the first floor.  I couldn't bear the\nthought of meeting anybody I knew.\n\nThe feeble gas flame in the hall was still there, on duty, as though it\nhad never been turned off since I last crossed the hall at half-past\neleven in the evening to go to the harbour.  The small flame had watched\nme letting myself out; and now, exactly of the same size, the poor little\ntongue of light (there was something wrong with that burner) watched me\nletting myself in, as indeed it had done many times before.  Generally\nthe impression was that of entering an untenanted house, but this time\nbefore I could reach the foot of the stairs Therese glided out of the\npassage leading into the studio.  After the usual exclamations she\nassured me that everything was ready for me upstairs, had been for days,\nand offered to get me something to eat at once.  I accepted and said I\nwould be down in the studio in half an hour.  I found her there by the\nside of the laid table ready for conversation.  She began by telling\nme--the dear, poor young Monsieur--in a sort of plaintive chant, that\nthere were no letters for me, no letters of any kind, no letters from\nanybody.  Glances of absolutely terrifying tenderness mingled with\nflashes of cunning swept over me from head to foot while I tried to eat.\n\n\"Are you giving me Captain Blunt's wine to drink?\" I asked, noting the\nstraw-coloured liquid in my glass.\n\nShe screwed up her mouth as if she had a twinge of toothache and assured\nme that the wine belonged to the house.  I would have to pay her for it.\nAs far as personal feelings go, Blunt, who addressed her always with\npolite seriousness, was not a favourite with her.  The \"charming, brave\nMonsieur\" was now fighting for the King and religion against the impious\nLiberals.  He went away the very morning after I had left and, oh! she\nremembered, he had asked her before going away whether I was still in the\nhouse.  Wanted probably to say good-bye to me, shake my hand, the dear,\npolite Monsieur.\n\nI let her run on in dread expectation of what she would say next but she\nstuck to the subject of Blunt for some time longer.  He had written to\nher once about some of his things which he wanted her to send to Paris to\nhis mother's address; but she was going to do nothing of the kind.  She\nannounced this with a pious smile; and in answer to my questions I\ndiscovered that it was a stratagem to make Captain Blunt return to the\nhouse.\n\n\"You will get yourself into trouble with the police, Mademoiselle\nTherese, if you go on like that,\" I said.  But she was as obstinate as a\nmule and assured me with the utmost confidence that many people would be\nready to defend a poor honest girl.  There was something behind this\nattitude which I could not fathom.  Suddenly she fetched a deep sigh.\n\n\"Our Rita, too, will end by coming to her sister.\"\n\nThe name for which I had been waiting deprived me of speech for the\nmoment.  The poor mad sinner had rushed off to some of her wickednesses\nin Paris.  Did I know?  No?  How could she tell whether I did know or\nnot?  Well!  I had hardly left the house, so to speak, when Rita was down\nwith her maid behaving as if the house did really still belong to her\n. . .\n\n\"What time was it?\" I managed to ask.  And with the words my life itself\nwas being forced out through my lips.  But Therese, not noticing anything\nstrange about me, said it was something like half-past seven in the\nmorning.  The \"poor sinner\" was all in black as if she were going to\nchurch (except for her expression, which was enough to shock any honest\nperson), and after ordering her with frightful menaces not to let anybody\nknow she was in the house she rushed upstairs and locked herself up in my\nbedroom, while \"that French creature\" (whom she seemed to love more than\nher own sister) went into my salon and hid herself behind the window\ncurtain.\n\nI had recovered sufficiently to ask in a quiet natural voice whether Dona\nRita and Captain Blunt had seen each other.  Apparently they had not seen\neach other.  The polite captain had looked so stern while packing up his\nkit that Therese dared not speak to him at all.  And he was in a hurry,\ntoo.  He had to see his dear mother off to Paris before his own\ndeparture.  Very stern.  But he shook her hand with a very nice bow.\n\nTherese elevated her right hand for me to see.  It was broad and short\nwith blunt fingers, as usual.  The pressure of Captain Blunt's handshake\nhad not altered its unlovely shape.\n\n\"What was the good of telling him that our Rita was here?\" went on\nTherese.  \"I would have been ashamed of her coming here and behaving as\nif the house belonged to her!  I had already said some prayers at his\nintention at the half-past six mass, the brave gentleman.  That maid of\nmy sister Rita was upstairs watching him drive away with her evil eyes,\nbut I made a sign of the cross after the fiacre, and then I went upstairs\nand banged at your door, my dear kind young Monsieur, and shouted to Rita\nthat she had no right to lock herself in any of my _locataires_' rooms.\nAt last she opened it--and what do you think?  All her hair was loose\nover her shoulders.  I suppose it all came down when she flung her hat on\nyour bed.  I noticed when she arrived that her hair wasn't done properly.\nShe used your brushes to do it up again in front of your glass.\"\n\n\"Wait a moment,\" I said, and jumped up, upsetting my wine to run upstairs\nas fast as I could.  I lighted the gas, all the three jets in the middle\nof the room, the jet by the bedside and two others flanking the\ndressing-table.  I had been struck by the wild hope of finding a trace of\nRita's passage, a sign or something.  I pulled out all the drawers\nviolently, thinking that perhaps she had hidden there a scrap of paper, a\nnote.  It was perfectly mad.  Of course there was no chance of that.\nTherese would have seen to it.  I picked up one after another all the\nvarious objects on the dressing-table.  On laying my hands on the brushes\nI had a profound emotion, and with misty eyes I examined them\nmeticulously with the new hope of finding one of Rita's tawny hairs\nentangled amongst the bristles by a miraculous chance.  But Therese would\nhave done away with that chance, too.  There was nothing to be seen,\nthough I held them up to the light with a beating heart.  It was written\nthat not even that trace of her passage on the earth should remain with\nme; not to help but, as it were, to soothe the memory.  Then I lighted a\ncigarette and came downstairs slowly.  My unhappiness became dulled, as\nthe grief of those who mourn for the dead gets dulled in the overwhelming\nsensation that everything is over, that a part of themselves is lost\nbeyond recall taking with it all the savour of life.\n\nI discovered Therese still on the very same spot of the floor, her hands\nfolded over each other and facing my empty chair before which the spilled\nwine had soaked a large portion of the table-cloth.  She hadn't moved at\nall.  She hadn't even picked up the overturned glass.  But directly I\nappeared she began to speak in an ingratiating voice.\n\n\"If you have missed anything of yours upstairs, my dear young Monsieur,\nyou mustn't say it's me.  You don't know what our Rita is.\"\n\n\"I wish to goodness,\" I said, \"that she had taken something.\"\n\nAnd again I became inordinately agitated as though it were my absolute\nfate to be everlastingly dying and reviving to the tormenting fact of her\nexistence.  Perhaps she had taken something?  Anything.  Some small\nobject.  I thought suddenly of a Rhenish-stone match-box.  Perhaps it was\nthat.  I didn't remember having seen it when upstairs.  I wanted to make\nsure at once.  At once.  But I commanded myself to sit still.\n\n\"And she so wealthy,\" Therese went on.  \"Even you with your dear generous\nlittle heart can do nothing for our Rita.  No man can do anything for\nher--except perhaps one, but she is so evilly disposed towards him that\nshe wouldn't even see him, if in the goodness of his forgiving heart he\nwere to offer his hand to her.  It's her bad conscience that frightens\nher.  He loves her more than his life, the dear, charitable man.\"\n\n\"You mean some rascal in Paris that I believe persecutes Dona Rita.\nListen, Mademoiselle Therese, if you know where he hangs out you had\nbetter let him have word to be careful.  I believe he, too, is mixed up\nin the Carlist intrigue.  Don't you know that your sister can get him\nshut up any day or get him expelled by the police?\"\n\nTherese sighed deeply and put on a look of pained virtue.\n\n\"Oh, the hardness of her heart.  She tried to be tender with me.  She is\nawful.  I said to her, 'Rita, have you sold your soul to the Devil?' and\nshe shouted like a fiend: 'For happiness!  Ha, ha, ha!'  She threw\nherself backwards on that couch in your room and laughed and laughed and\nlaughed as if I had been tickling her, and she drummed on the floor with\nthe heels of her shoes.  She is possessed.  Oh, my dear innocent young\nMonsieur, you have never seen anything like that.  That wicked girl who\nserves her rushed in with a tiny glass bottle and put it to her nose; but\nI had a mind to run out and fetch the priest from the church where I go\nto early mass.  Such a nice, stout, severe man.  But that false, cheating\ncreature (I am sure she is robbing our Rita from morning to night), she\ntalked to our Rita very low and quieted her down.  I am sure I don't know\nwhat she said.  She must be leagued with the devil.  And then she asked\nme if I would go down and make a cup of chocolate for her Madame.\nMadame--that's our Rita.  Madame!  It seems they were going off directly\nto Paris and her Madame had had nothing to eat since the morning of the\nday before.  Fancy me being ordered to make chocolate for our Rita!\nHowever, the poor thing looked so exhausted and white-faced that I went.\nAh! the devil can give you an awful shake up if he likes.\"\n\nTherese fetched another deep sigh and raising her eyes looked at me with\ngreat attention.  I preserved an inscrutable expression, for I wanted to\nhear all she had to tell me of Rita.  I watched her with the greatest\nanxiety composing her face into a cheerful expression.\n\n\"So Dona Rita is gone to Paris?\" I asked negligently.\n\n\"Yes, my dear Monsieur.  I believe she went straight to the railway\nstation from here.  When she first got up from the couch she could hardly\nstand.  But before, while she was drinking the chocolate which I made for\nher, I tried to get her to sign a paper giving over the house to me, but\nshe only closed her eyes and begged me to try and be a good sister and\nleave her alone for half an hour.  And she lying there looking as if she\nwouldn't live a day.  But she always hated me.\"\n\nI said bitterly, \"You needn't have worried her like this.  If she had not\nlived for another day you would have had this house and everything else\nbesides; a bigger bit than even your wolfish throat can swallow,\nMademoiselle Therese.\"\n\nI then said a few more things indicative of my disgust with her rapacity,\nbut they were quite inadequate, as I wasn't able to find words strong\nenough to express my real mind.  But it didn't matter really because I\ndon't think Therese heard me at all.  She seemed lost in rapt amazement.\n\n\"What do you say, my dear Monsieur?  What!  All for me without any sort\nof paper?\"\n\nShe appeared distracted by my curt: \"Yes.\"  Therese believed in my\ntruthfulness.  She believed me implicitly, except when I was telling her\nthe truth about herself, mincing no words, when she used to stand\nsmilingly bashful as if I were overwhelming her with compliments.  I\nexpected her to continue the horrible tale but apparently she had found\nsomething to think about which checked the flow.  She fetched another\nsigh and muttered:\n\n\"Then the law can be just, if it does not require any paper.  After all,\nI am her sister.\"\n\n\"It's very difficult to believe that--at sight,\" I said roughly.\n\n\"Ah, but that I could prove.  There are papers for that.\"\n\nAfter this declaration she began to clear the table, preserving a\nthoughtful silence.\n\nI was not very surprised at the news of Dona Rita's departure for Paris.\nIt was not necessary to ask myself why she had gone.  I didn't even ask\nmyself whether she had left the leased Villa on the Prado for ever.\nLater talking again with Therese, I learned that her sister had given it\nup for the use of the Carlist cause and that some sort of unofficial\nConsul, a Carlist agent of some sort, either was going to live there or\nhad already taken possession.  This, Rita herself had told her before her\ndeparture on that agitated morning spent in the house--in my rooms.  A\nclose investigation demonstrated to me that there was nothing missing\nfrom them.  Even the wretched match-box which I really hoped was gone\nturned up in a drawer after I had, delightedly, given it up.  It was a\ngreat blow.  She might have taken that at least!  She knew I used to\ncarry it about with me constantly while ashore.  She might have taken it!\nApparently she meant that there should be no bond left even of that kind;\nand yet it was a long time before I gave up visiting and revisiting all\nthe corners of all possible receptacles for something that she might have\nleft behind on purpose.  It was like the mania of those disordered minds\nwho spend their days hunting for a treasure.  I hoped for a forgotten\nhairpin, for some tiny piece of ribbon.  Sometimes at night I reflected\nthat such hopes were altogether insensate; but I remember once getting up\nat two in the morning to search for a little cardboard box in the\nbathroom, into which, I remembered, I had not looked before.  Of course\nit was empty; and, anyway, Rita could not possibly have known of its\nexistence.  I got back to bed shivering violently, though the night was\nwarm, and with a distinct impression that this thing would end by making\nme mad.  It was no longer a question of \"this sort of thing\" killing me.\nThe moral atmosphere of this torture was different.  It would make me\nmad.  And at that thought great shudders ran down my prone body, because,\nonce, I had visited a famous lunatic asylum where they had shown me a\npoor wretch who was mad, apparently, because he thought he had been\nabominably fooled by a woman.  They told me that his grievance was quite\nimaginary.  He was a young man with a thin fair beard, huddled up on the\nedge of his bed, hugging himself forlornly; and his incessant and\nlamentable wailing filled the long bare corridor, striking a chill into\none's heart long before one came to the door of his cell.\n\nAnd there was no one from whom I could hear, to whom I could speak, with\nwhom I could evoke the image of Rita.  Of course I could utter that word\nof four letters to Therese; but Therese for some reason took it into her\nhead to avoid all topics connected with her sister.  I felt as if I could\npull out great handfuls of her hair hidden modestly under the black\nhandkerchief of which the ends were sometimes tied under her chin.  But,\nreally, I could not have given her any intelligible excuse for that\noutrage.  Moreover, she was very busy from the very top to the very\nbottom of the house, which she persisted in running alone because she\ncouldn't make up her mind to part with a few francs every month to a\nservant.  It seemed to me that I was no longer such a favourite with her\nas I used to be.  That, strange to say, was exasperating, too.  It was as\nif some idea, some fruitful notion had killed in her all the softer and\nmore humane emotions.  She went about with brooms and dusters wearing an\nair of sanctimonious thoughtfulness.\n\nThe man who to a certain extent took my place in Therese's favour was the\nold father of the dancing girls inhabiting the ground floor.  In a tall\nhat and a well-to-do dark blue overcoat he allowed himself to be\nbutton-holed in the hall by Therese who would talk to him interminably\nwith downcast eyes.  He smiled gravely down at her, and meanwhile tried\nto edge towards the front door.  I imagine he didn't put a great value on\nTherese's favour.  Our stay in harbour was prolonged this time and I kept\nindoors like an invalid.  One evening I asked that old man to come in and\ndrink and smoke with me in the studio.  He made no difficulties to\naccept, brought his wooden pipe with him, and was very entertaining in a\npleasant voice.  One couldn't tell whether he was an uncommon person or\nsimply a ruffian, but in any case with his white beard he looked quite\nvenerable.  Naturally he couldn't give me much of his company as he had\nto look closely after his girls and their admirers; not that the girls\nwere unduly frivolous, but of course being very young they had no\nexperience.  They were friendly creatures with pleasant, merry voices and\nhe was very much devoted to them.  He was a muscular man with a high\ncolour and silvery locks curling round his bald pate and over his ears,\nlike a _barocco_ apostle.  I had an idea that he had had a lurid past and\nhad seen some fighting in his youth.  The admirers of the two girls stood\nin great awe of him, from instinct no doubt, because his behaviour to\nthem was friendly and even somewhat obsequious, yet always with a certain\ntruculent glint in his eye that made them pause in everything but their\ngenerosity--which was encouraged.  I sometimes wondered whether those two\ncareless, merry hard-working creatures understood the secret moral beauty\nof the situation.\n\nMy real company was the dummy in the studio and I can't say it was\nexactly satisfying.  After taking possession of the studio I had raised\nit tenderly, dusted its mangled limbs and insensible, hard-wood bosom,\nand then had propped it up in a corner where it seemed to take on, of\nitself, a shy attitude.  I knew its history.  It was not an ordinary\ndummy.  One day, talking with Dona Rita about her sister, I had told her\nthat I thought Therese used to knock it down on purpose with a broom, and\nDona Rita had laughed very much.  This, she had said, was an instance of\ndislike from mere instinct.  That dummy had been made to measure years\nbefore.  It had to wear for days and days the Imperial Byzantine robes in\nwhich Dona Rita sat only once or twice herself; but of course the folds\nand bends of the stuff had to be preserved as in the first sketch.  Dona\nRita described amusingly how she had to stand in the middle of her room\nwhile Rose walked around her with a tape measure noting the figures down\non a small piece of paper which was then sent to the maker, who presently\nreturned it with an angry letter stating that those proportions were\naltogether impossible in any woman.  Apparently Rose had muddled them all\nup; and it was a long time before the figure was finished and sent to the\nPavilion in a long basket to take on itself the robes and the hieratic\npose of the Empress.  Later, it wore with the same patience the\nmarvellous hat of the \"Girl in the Hat.\"  But Dona Rita couldn't\nunderstand how the poor thing ever found its way to Marseilles minus its\nturnip head.  Probably it came down with the robes and a quantity of\nprecious brocades which she herself had sent down from Paris.  The\nknowledge of its origin, the contempt of Captain Blunt's references to\nit, with Therese's shocked dislike of the dummy, invested that summary\nreproduction with a sort of charm, gave me a faint and miserable illusion\nof the original, less artificial than a photograph, less precise, too.\n. . . But it can't be explained.  I felt positively friendly to it as if it\nhad been Rita's trusted personal attendant.  I even went so far as to\ndiscover that it had a sort of grace of its own.  But I never went so far\nas to address set speeches to it where it lurked shyly in its corner, or\ndrag it out from there for contemplation.  I left it in peace.  I wasn't\nmad.  I was only convinced that I soon would be.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\n\nNotwithstanding my misanthropy I had to see a few people on account of\nall these Royalist affairs which I couldn't very well drop, and in truth\ndid not wish to drop.  They were my excuse for remaining in Europe, which\nsomehow I had not the strength of mind to leave for the West Indies, or\nelsewhere.  On the other hand, my adventurous pursuit kept me in contact\nwith the sea where I found occupation, protection, consolation, the\nmental relief of grappling with concrete problems, the sanity one\nacquires from close contact with simple mankind, a little self-confidence\nborn from the dealings with the elemental powers of nature.  I couldn't\ngive all that up.  And besides all this was related to Dona Rita.  I had,\nas it were, received it all from her own hand, from that hand the clasp\nof which was as frank as a man's and yet conveyed a unique sensation.\nThe very memory of it would go through me like a wave of heat.  It was\nover that hand that we first got into the habit of quarrelling, with the\nirritability of sufferers from some obscure pain and yet half unconscious\nof their disease.  Rita's own spirit hovered over the troubled waters of\nLegitimity.  But as to the sound of the four magic letters of her name I\nwas not very likely to hear it fall sweetly on my ear.  For instance, the\ndistinguished personality in the world of finance with whom I had to\nconfer several times, alluded to the irresistible seduction of the power\nwhich reigned over my heart and my mind; which had a mysterious and\nunforgettable face, the brilliance of sunshine together with the\nunfathomable splendour of the night as--Madame de Lastaola.  That's how\nthat steel-grey man called the greatest mystery of the universe.  When\nuttering that assumed name he would make for himself a guardedly solemn\nand reserved face as though he were afraid lest I should presume to\nsmile, lest he himself should venture to smile, and the sacred formality\nof our relations should be outraged beyond mending.\n\nHe would refer in a studiously grave tone to Madame de Lastaola's wishes,\nplans, activities, instructions, movements; or picking up a letter from\nthe usual litter of paper found on such men's desks, glance at it to\nrefresh his memory; and, while the very sight of the handwriting would\nmake my lips go dry, would ask me in a bloodless voice whether perchance\nI had \"a direct communication from--er--Paris lately.\"  And there would\nbe other maddening circumstances connected with those visits.  He would\ntreat me as a serious person having a clear view of certain\neventualities, while at the very moment my vision could see nothing but\nstreaming across the wall at his back, abundant and misty, unearthly and\nadorable, a mass of tawny hair that seemed to have hot sparks tangled in\nit.  Another nuisance was the atmosphere of Royalism, of Legitimacy, that\npervaded the room, thin as air, intangible, as though no Legitimist of\nflesh and blood had ever existed to the man's mind except perhaps myself.\nHe, of course, was just simply a banker, a very distinguished, a very\ninfluential, and a very impeccable banker.  He persisted also in\ndeferring to my judgment and sense with an over-emphasis called out by\nhis perpetual surprise at my youth.  Though he had seen me many times (I\neven knew his wife) he could never get over my immature age.  He himself\nwas born about fifty years old, all complete, with his iron-grey whiskers\nand his bilious eyes, which he had the habit of frequently closing during\na conversation.  On one occasion he said to me.  \"By the by, the Marquis\nof Villarel is here for a time.  He inquired after you the last time he\ncalled on me.  May I let him know that you are in town?\"\n\nI didn't say anything to that.  The Marquis of Villarel was the Don\nRafael of Rita's own story.  What had I to do with Spanish grandees?  And\nfor that matter what had she, the woman of all time, to do with all the\nvillainous or splendid disguises human dust takes upon itself?  All this\nwas in the past, and I was acutely aware that for me there was no\npresent, no future, nothing but a hollow pain, a vain passion of such\nmagnitude that being locked up within my breast it gave me an illusion of\nlonely greatness with my miserable head uplifted amongst the stars.  But\nwhen I made up my mind (which I did quickly, to be done with it) to call\non the banker's wife, almost the first thing she said to me was that the\nMarquis de Villarel was \"amongst us.\"  She said it joyously.  If in her\nhusband's room at the bank legitimism was a mere unpopulated principle,\nin her salon Legitimacy was nothing but persons.  \"_Il m'a cause beaucoup\nde vous_,\" she said as if there had been a joke in it of which I ought to\nbe proud.  I slunk away from her.  I couldn't believe that the grandee\nhad talked to her about me.  I had never felt myself part of the great\nRoyalist enterprise.  I confess that I was so indifferent to everything,\nso profoundly demoralized, that having once got into that drawing-room I\nhadn't the strength to get away; though I could see perfectly well my\nvolatile hostess going from one to another of her acquaintances in order\nto tell them with a little gesture, \"Look!  Over there--in that corner.\nThat's the notorious Monsieur George.\"  At last she herself drove me out\nby coming to sit by me vivaciously and going into ecstasies over \"_ce\ncher_ Monsieur Mills\" and that magnificent Lord X; and ultimately, with a\nperfectly odious snap in the eyes and drop in the voice, dragging in the\nname of Madame de Lastaola and asking me whether I was really so much in\nthe confidence of that astonishing person.  \"_Vous devez bien regretter\nson depart pour Paris_,\" she cooed, looking with affected bashfulness at\nher fan. . . . How I got out of the room I really don't know.  There was\nalso a staircase.  I did not fall down it head first--that much I am\ncertain of; and I also remember that I wandered for a long time about the\nseashore and went home very late, by the way of the Prado, giving in\npassing a fearful glance at the Villa.  It showed not a gleam of light\nthrough the thin foliage of its trees.\n\nI spent the next day with Dominic on board the little craft watching the\nshipwrights at work on her deck.  From the way they went about their\nbusiness those men must have been perfectly sane; and I felt greatly\nrefreshed by my company during the day.  Dominic, too, devoted himself to\nhis business, but his taciturnity was sardonic.  Then I dropped in at the\ncafe and Madame Leonore's loud \"Eh, Signorino, here you are at last!\"\npleased me by its resonant friendliness.  But I found the sparkle of her\nblack eyes as she sat down for a moment opposite me while I was having my\ndrink rather difficult to bear.  That man and that woman seemed to know\nsomething.  What did they know?  At parting she pressed my hand\nsignificantly.  What did she mean?  But I didn't feel offended by these\nmanifestations.  The souls within these people's breasts were not\nvolatile in the manner of slightly scented and inflated bladders.\nNeither had they the impervious skins which seem the rule in the fine\nworld that wants only to get on.  Somehow they had sensed that there was\nsomething wrong; and whatever impression they might have formed for\nthemselves I had the certitude that it would not be for them a matter of\ngrins at my expense.\n\nThat day on returning home I found Therese looking out for me, a very\nunusual occurrence of late.  She handed me a card bearing the name of the\nMarquis de Villarel.\n\n\"How did you come by this?\" I asked.  She turned on at once the tap of\nher volubility and I was not surprised to learn that the grandee had not\ndone such an extraordinary thing as to call upon me in person.  A young\ngentleman had brought it.  Such a nice young gentleman, she interjected\nwith her piously ghoulish expression.  He was not very tall.  He had a\nvery smooth complexion (that woman was incorrigible) and a nice, tiny\nblack moustache.  Therese was sure that he must have been an officer _en\nlas filas legitimas_.  With that notion in her head she had asked him\nabout the welfare of that other model of charm and elegance, Captain\nBlunt.  To her extreme surprise the charming young gentleman with\nbeautiful eyes had apparently never heard of Blunt.  But he seemed very\nmuch interested in his surroundings, looked all round the hall, noted the\ncostly wood of the door panels, paid some attention to the silver\nstatuette holding up the defective gas burner at the foot of the stairs,\nand, finally, asked whether this was in very truth the house of the most\nexcellent Senora Dona Rita de Lastaola.  The question staggered Therese,\nbut with great presence of mind she answered the young gentleman that she\ndidn't know what excellence there was about it, but that the house was\nher property, having been given to her by her own sister.  At this the\nyoung gentleman looked both puzzled and angry, turned on his heel, and\ngot back into his fiacre.  Why should people be angry with a poor girl\nwho had never done a single reprehensible thing in her whole life?\n\n\"I suppose our Rita does tell people awful lies about her poor sister.\"\nShe sighed deeply (she had several kinds of sighs and this was the\nhopeless kind) and added reflectively, \"Sin on sin, wickedness on\nwickedness!  And the longer she lives the worse it will be.  It would be\nbetter for our Rita to be dead.\"\n\nI told \"Mademoiselle Therese\" that it was really impossible to tell\nwhether she was more stupid or atrocious; but I wasn't really very much\nshocked.  These outbursts did not signify anything in Therese.  One got\nused to them.  They were merely the expression of her rapacity and her\nrighteousness; so that our conversation ended by my asking her whether\nshe had any dinner ready for me that evening.\n\n\"What's the good of getting you anything to eat, my dear young Monsieur,\"\nshe quizzed me tenderly.  \"You just only peck like a little bird.  Much\nbetter let me save the money for you.\"  It will show the\nsuper-terrestrial nature of my misery when I say that I was quite\nsurprised at Therese's view of my appetite.  Perhaps she was right.  I\ncertainly did not know.  I stared hard at her and in the end she admitted\nthat the dinner was in fact ready that very moment.\n\nThe new young gentleman within Therese's horizon didn't surprise me very\nmuch.  Villarel would travel with some sort of suite, a couple of\nsecretaries at least.  I had heard enough of Carlist headquarters to know\nthat the man had been (very likely was still) Captain General of the\nRoyal Bodyguard and was a person of great political (and domestic)\ninfluence at Court.  The card was, under its social form, a mere command\nto present myself before the grandee.  No Royalist devoted by conviction,\nas I must have appeared to him, could have mistaken the meaning.  I put\nthe card in my pocket and after dining or not dining--I really don't\nremember--spent the evening smoking in the studio, pursuing thoughts of\ntenderness and grief, visions exalting and cruel.  From time to time I\nlooked at the dummy.  I even got up once from the couch on which I had\nbeen writhing like a worm and walked towards it as if to touch it, but\nrefrained, not from sudden shame but from sheer despair.  By and by\nTherese drifted in.  It was then late and, I imagine, she was on her way\nto bed.  She looked the picture of cheerful, rustic innocence and started\npropounding to me a conundrum which began with the words:\n\n\"If our Rita were to die before long . . .\"\n\nShe didn't get any further because I had jumped up and frightened her by\nshouting: \"Is she ill?  What has happened?  Have you had a letter?\"\n\nShe had had a letter.  I didn't ask her to show it to me, though I\ndaresay she would have done so.  I had an idea that there was no meaning\nin anything, at least no meaning that mattered.  But the interruption had\nmade Therese apparently forget her sinister conundrum.  She observed me\nwith her shrewd, unintelligent eyes for a bit, and then with the fatuous\nremark about the Law being just she left me to the horrors of the studio.\nI believe I went to sleep there from sheer exhaustion.  Some time during\nthe night I woke up chilled to the bone and in the dark.  These were\nhorrors and no mistake.  I dragged myself upstairs to bed past the\nindefatigable statuette holding up the ever-miserable light.  The\nblack-and-white hall was like an ice-house.\n\nThe main consideration which induced me to call on the Marquis of\nVillarel was the fact that after all I was a discovery of Dona Rita's,\nher own recruit.  My fidelity and steadfastness had been guaranteed by\nher and no one else.  I couldn't bear the idea of her being criticized by\nevery empty-headed chatterer belonging to the Cause.  And as, apart from\nthat, nothing mattered much, why, then--I would get this over.\n\nBut it appeared that I had not reflected sufficiently on all the\nconsequences of that step.  First of all the sight of the Villa looking\nshabbily cheerful in the sunshine (but not containing her any longer) was\nso perturbing that I very nearly went away from the gate.  Then when I\ngot in after much hesitation--being admitted by the man in the green\nbaize apron who recognized me--the thought of entering that room, out of\nwhich she was gone as completely as if she had been dead, gave me such an\nemotion that I had to steady myself against the table till the faintness\nwas past.  Yet I was irritated as at a treason when the man in the baize\napron instead of letting me into the Pompeiian dining-room crossed the\nhall to another door not at all in the Pompeiian style (more Louis XV\nrather--that Villa was like a _Salade Russe_ of styles) and introduced me\ninto a big, light room full of very modern furniture.  The portrait _en\npied_ of an officer in a sky-blue uniform hung on the end wall.  The\nofficer had a small head, a black beard cut square, a robust body, and\nleaned with gauntleted hands on the simple hilt of a straight sword.\nThat striking picture dominated a massive mahogany desk, and, in front of\nthis desk, a very roomy, tall-backed armchair of dark green velvet.  I\nthought I had been announced into an empty room till glancing along the\nextremely loud carpet I detected a pair of feet under the armchair.\n\nI advanced towards it and discovered a little man, who had made no sound\nor movement till I came into his view, sunk deep in the green velvet.  He\naltered his position slowly and rested his hollow, black, quietly burning\neyes on my face in prolonged scrutiny.  I detected something comminatory\nin his yellow, emaciated countenance, but I believe now he was simply\nstartled by my youth.  I bowed profoundly.  He extended a meagre little\nhand.\n\n\"Take a chair, Don Jorge.\"\n\nHe was very small, frail, and thin, but his voice was not languid, though\nhe spoke hardly above his breath.  Such was the envelope and the voice of\nthe fanatical soul belonging to the Grand-master of Ceremonies and\nCaptain General of the Bodyguard at the Headquarters of the Legitimist\nCourt, now detached on a special mission.  He was all fidelity,\ninflexibility, and sombre conviction, but like some great saints he had\nvery little body to keep all these merits in.\n\n\"You are very young,\" he remarked, to begin with.  \"The matters on which\nI desired to converse with you are very grave.\"\n\n\"I was under the impression that your Excellency wished to see me at\nonce.  But if your Excellency prefers it I will return in, say, seven\nyears' time when I may perhaps be old enough to talk about grave\nmatters.\"\n\nHe didn't stir hand or foot and not even the quiver of an eyelid proved\nthat he had heard my shockingly unbecoming retort.\n\n\"You have been recommended to us by a noble and loyal lady, in whom His\nMajesty--whom God preserve--reposes an entire confidence.  God will\nreward her as she deserves and you, too, Senor, according to the\ndisposition you bring to this great work which has the blessing (here he\ncrossed himself) of our Holy Mother the Church.\"\n\n\"I suppose your Excellency understands that in all this I am not looking\nfor reward of any kind.\"\n\nAt this he made a faint, almost ethereal grimace.\n\n\"I was speaking of the spiritual blessing which rewards the service of\nreligion and will be of benefit to your soul,\" he explained with a slight\ntouch of acidity.  \"The other is perfectly understood and your fidelity\nis taken for granted.  His Majesty--whom God preserve--has been already\npleased to signify his satisfaction with your services to the most noble\nand loyal Dona Rita by a letter in his own hand.\"\n\nPerhaps he expected me to acknowledge this announcement in some way,\nspeech, or bow, or something, because before my immobility he made a\nslight movement in his chair which smacked of impatience.  \"I am afraid,\nSenor, that you are affected by the spirit of scoffing and irreverence\nwhich pervades this unhappy country of France in which both you and I are\nstrangers, I believe.  Are you a young man of that sort?\"\n\n\"I am a very good gun-runner, your Excellency,\" I answered quietly.\n\nHe bowed his head gravely.  \"We are aware.  But I was looking for the\nmotives which ought to have their pure source in religion.\"\n\n\"I must confess frankly that I have not reflected on my motives,\" I said.\n\"It is enough for me to know that they are not dishonourable and that\nanybody can see they are not the motives of an adventurer seeking some\nsordid advantage.\"\n\nHe had listened patiently and when he saw that there was nothing more to\ncome he ended the discussion.\n\n\"Senor, we should reflect upon our motives.  It is salutary for our\nconscience and is recommended (he crossed himself) by our Holy Mother the\nChurch.  I have here certain letters from Paris on which I would consult\nyour young sagacity which is accredited to us by the most loyal Dona\nRita.\"\n\nThe sound of that name on his lips was simply odious.  I was convinced\nthat this man of forms and ceremonies and fanatical royalism was\nperfectly heartless.  Perhaps he reflected on his motives; but it seemed\nto me that his conscience could be nothing else but a monstrous thing\nwhich very few actions could disturb appreciably.  Yet for the credit of\nDona Rita I did not withhold from him my young sagacity.  What he thought\nof it I don't know. The matters we discussed were not of course of high\npolicy, though from the point of view of the war in the south they were\nimportant enough.  We agreed on certain things to be done, and finally,\nalways out of regard for Dona Rita's credit, I put myself generally at\nhis disposition or of any Carlist agent he would appoint in his place;\nfor I did not suppose that he would remain very long in Marseilles.  He\ngot out of the chair laboriously, like a sick child might have done.  The\naudience was over but he noticed my eyes wandering to the portrait and he\nsaid in his measured, breathed-out tones:\n\n\"I owe the pleasure of having this admirable work here to the gracious\nattention of Madame de Lastaola, who, knowing my attachment to the royal\nperson of my Master, has sent it down from Paris to greet me in this\nhouse which has been given up for my occupation also through her\ngenerosity to the Royal Cause.  Unfortunately she, too, is touched by the\ninfection of this irreverent and unfaithful age.  But she is young yet.\nShe is young.\"\n\nThese last words were pronounced in a strange tone of menace as though he\nwere supernaturally aware of some suspended disasters.  With his burning\neyes he was the image of an Inquisitor with an unconquerable soul in that\nfrail body.  But suddenly he dropped his eyelids and the conversation\nfinished as characteristically as it had begun: with a slow, dismissing\ninclination of the head and an \"Adios, Senor--may God guard you from\nsin.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\n\nI must say that for the next three months I threw myself into my unlawful\ntrade with a sort of desperation, dogged and hopeless, like a fairly\ndecent fellow who takes deliberately to drink.  The business was getting\ndangerous.  The bands in the South were not very well organized, worked\nwith no very definite plan, and now were beginning to be pretty closely\nhunted.  The arrangements for the transport of supplies were going to\npieces; our friends ashore were getting scared; and it was no joke to\nfind after a day of skilful dodging that there was no one at the landing\nplace and have to go out again with our compromising cargo, to slink and\nlurk about the coast for another week or so, unable to trust anybody and\nlooking at every vessel we met with suspicion.  Once we were ambushed by\na lot of \"rascally Carabineers,\" as Dominic called them, who hid\nthemselves among the rocks after disposing a train of mules well in view\non the seashore.  Luckily, on evidence which I could never understand,\nDominic detected something suspicious.  Perhaps it was by virtue of some\nsixth sense that men born for unlawful occupations may be gifted with.\n\"There is a smell of treachery about this,\" he remarked suddenly, turning\nat his oar.  (He and I were pulling alone in a little boat to\nreconnoitre.)  I couldn't detect any smell and I regard to this day our\nescape on that occasion as, properly speaking, miraculous.  Surely some\nsupernatural power must have struck upwards the barrels of the\nCarabineers' rifles, for they missed us by yards.  And as the Carabineers\nhave the reputation of shooting straight, Dominic, after swearing most\nhorribly, ascribed our escape to the particular guardian angel that looks\nafter crazy young gentlemen.  Dominic believed in angels in a\nconventional way, but laid no claim to having one of his own.  Soon\nafterwards, while sailing quietly at night, we found ourselves suddenly\nnear a small coasting vessel, also without lights, which all at once\ntreated us to a volley of rifle fire.  Dominic's mighty and inspired\nyell: \"_A plat ventre_!\" and also an unexpected roll to windward saved\nall our lives.  Nobody got a scratch.  We were past in a moment and in a\nbreeze then blowing we had the heels of anything likely to give us chase.\nBut an hour afterwards, as we stood side by side peering into the\ndarkness, Dominic was heard to mutter through his teeth: \"_Le metier se\ngate_.\"  I, too, had the feeling that the trade, if not altogether\nspoiled, had seen its best days.  But I did not care.  In fact, for my\npurpose it was rather better, a more potent influence; like the stronger\nintoxication of raw spirit.  A volley in the dark after all was not such\na bad thing.  Only a moment before we had received it, there, in that\ncalm night of the sea full of freshness and soft whispers, I had been\nlooking at an enchanting turn of a head in a faint light of its own, the\ntawny hair with snared red sparks brushed up from the nape of a white\nneck and held up on high by an arrow of gold feathered with brilliants\nand with ruby gleams all along its shaft.  That jewelled ornament, which\nI remember often telling Rita was of a very Philistinish conception (it\nwas in some way connected with a tortoiseshell comb) occupied an undue\nplace in my memory, tried to come into some sort of significance even in\nmy sleep.  Often I dreamed of her with white limbs shimmering in the\ngloom like a nymph haunting a riot of foliage, and raising a perfect\nround arm to take an arrow of gold out of her hair to throw it at me by\nhand, like a dart.  It came on, a whizzing trail of light, but I always\nwoke up before it struck.  Always.  Invariably.  It never had a chance.\nA volley of small arms was much more likely to do the business some\nday--or night.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\nAt last came the day when everything slipped out of my grasp.  The little\nvessel, broken and gone like the only toy of a lonely child, the sea\nitself, which had swallowed it, throwing me on shore after a shipwreck\nthat instead of a fair fight left in me the memory of a suicide.  It took\naway all that there was in me of independent life, but just failed to\ntake me out of the world, which looked then indeed like Another World fit\nfor no one else but unrepentant sinners.  Even Dominic failed me, his\nmoral entity destroyed by what to him was a most tragic ending of our\ncommon enterprise.  The lurid swiftness of it all was like a stunning\nthunder-clap--and, one evening, I found myself weary, heartsore, my brain\nstill dazed and with awe in my heart entering Marseilles by way of the\nrailway station, after many adventures, one more disagreeable than\nanother, involving privations, great exertions, a lot of difficulties\nwith all sorts of people who looked upon me evidently more as a\ndiscreditable vagabond deserving the attentions of gendarmes than a\nrespectable (if crazy) young gentleman attended by a guardian angel of\nhis own.  I must confess that I slunk out of the railway station shunning\nits many lights as if, invariably, failure made an outcast of a man.  I\nhadn't any money in my pocket.  I hadn't even the bundle and the stick of\na destitute wayfarer.  I was unshaven and unwashed, and my heart was\nfaint within me.  My attire was such that I daren't approach the rank of\nfiacres, where indeed I could perceive only two pairs of lamps, of which\none suddenly drove away while I looked.  The other I gave up to the\nfortunate of this earth.  I didn't believe in my power of persuasion.  I\nhad no powers.  I slunk on and on, shivering with cold, through the\nuproarious streets.  Bedlam was loose in them.  It was the time of\nCarnival.\n\nSmall objects of no value have the secret of sticking to a man in an\nastonishing way.  I had nearly lost my liberty and even my life, I had\nlost my ship, a money-belt full of gold, I had lost my companions, had\nparted from my friend; my occupation, my only link with life, my touch\nwith the sea, my cap and jacket were gone--but a small penknife and a\nlatchkey had never parted company with me.  With the latchkey I opened\nthe door of refuge.  The hall wore its deaf-and-dumb air, its\nblack-and-white stillness.\n\nThe sickly gas-jet still struggled bravely with adversity at the end of\nthe raised silver arm of the statuette which had kept to a hair's breadth\nits graceful pose on the toes of its left foot; and the staircase lost\nitself in the shadows above.  Therese was parsimonious with the lights.\nTo see all this was surprising.  It seemed to me that all the things I\nhad known ought to have come down with a crash at the moment of the final\ncatastrophe on the Spanish coast.  And there was Therese herself\ndescending the stairs, frightened but plucky.  Perhaps she thought that\nshe would be murdered this time for certain.  She had a strange,\nunemotional conviction that the house was particularly convenient for a\ncrime.  One could never get to the bottom of her wild notions which she\nheld with the stolidity of a peasant allied to the outward serenity of a\nnun.  She quaked all over as she came down to her doom, but when she\nrecognized me she got such a shock that she sat down suddenly on the\nlowest step.  She did not expect me for another week at least, and,\nbesides, she explained, the state I was in made her blood take \"one\nturn.\"\n\nIndeed my plight seemed either to have called out or else repressed her\ntrue nature.  But who had ever fathomed her nature!  There was none of\nher treacly volubility.  There were none of her \"dear young gentlemans\"\nand \"poor little hearts\" and references to sin.  In breathless silence\nshe ran about the house getting my room ready, lighting fires and\ngas-jets and even hauling at me to help me up the stairs.  Yes, she did\nlay hands on me for that charitable purpose.  They trembled.  Her pale\neyes hardly left my face.  \"What brought you here like this?\" she\nwhispered once.\n\n\"If I were to tell you, Mademoiselle Therese, you would see there the\nhand of God.\"\n\nShe dropped the extra pillow she was carrying and then nearly fell over\nit.  \"Oh, dear heart,\" she murmured, and ran off to the kitchen.\n\nI sank into bed as into a cloud and Therese reappeared very misty and\noffering me something in a cup.  I believe it was hot milk, and after I\ndrank it she took the cup and stood looking at me fixedly.  I managed to\nsay with difficulty: \"Go away,\" whereupon she vanished as if by magic\nbefore the words were fairly out of my mouth.  Immediately afterwards the\nsunlight forced through the slats of the jalousies its diffused glow, and\nTherese was there again as if by magic, saying in a distant voice: \"It's\nmidday\". . . Youth will have its rights.  I had slept like a stone for\nseventeen hours.\n\nI suppose an honourable bankrupt would know such an awakening: the sense\nof catastrophe, the shrinking from the necessity of beginning life again,\nthe faint feeling that there are misfortunes which must be paid for by a\nhanging.  In the course of the morning Therese informed me that the\napartment usually occupied by Mr. Blunt was vacant and added mysteriously\nthat she intended to keep it vacant for a time, because she had been\ninstructed to do so.  I couldn't imagine why Blunt should wish to return\nto Marseilles.  She told me also that the house was empty except for\nmyself and the two dancing girls with their father.  Those people had\nbeen away for some time as the girls had engagements in some Italian\nsummer theatres, but apparently they had secured a re-engagement for the\nwinter and were now back.  I let Therese talk because it kept my\nimagination from going to work on subjects which, I had made up my mind,\nwere no concern of mine.  But I went out early to perform an unpleasant\ntask.  It was only proper that I should let the Carlist agent ensconced\nin the Prado Villa know of the sudden ending of my activities.  It would\nbe grave enough news for him, and I did not like to be its bearer for\nreasons which were mainly personal.  I resembled Dominic in so far that\nI, too, disliked failure.\n\nThe Marquis of Villarel had of course gone long before.  The man who was\nthere was another type of Carlist altogether, and his temperament was\nthat of a trader.  He was the chief purveyor of the Legitimist armies, an\nhonest broker of stores, and enjoyed a great reputation for cleverness.\nHis important task kept him, of course, in France, but his young wife,\nwhose beauty and devotion to her King were well known, represented him\nworthily at Headquarters, where his own appearances were extremely rare.\nThe dissimilar but united loyalties of those two people had been rewarded\nby the title of baron and the ribbon of some order or other.  The gossip\nof the Legitimist circles appreciated those favours with smiling\nindulgence.  He was the man who had been so distressed and frightened by\nDona Rita's first visit to Tolosa.  He had an extreme regard for his\nwife.  And in that sphere of clashing arms and unceasing intrigue nobody\nwould have smiled then at his agitation if the man himself hadn't been\nsomewhat grotesque.\n\nHe must have been startled when I sent in my name, for he didn't of\ncourse expect to see me yet--nobody expected me.  He advanced soft-footed\ndown the room.  With his jutting nose, flat-topped skull and sable\ngarments he recalled an obese raven, and when he heard of the disaster he\nmanifested his astonishment and concern in a most plebeian manner by a\nlow and expressive whistle.  I, of course, could not share his\nconsternation.  My feelings in that connection were of a different order;\nbut I was annoyed at his unintelligent stare.\n\n\"I suppose,\" I said, \"you will take it on yourself to advise Dona Rita,\nwho is greatly interested in this affair.\"\n\n\"Yes, but I was given to understand that Madame de Lastaola was to leave\nParis either yesterday or this morning.\"\n\nIt was my turn to stare dumbly before I could manage to ask: \"For\nTolosa?\" in a very knowing tone.\n\nWhether it was the droop of his head, play of light, or some other subtle\ncause, his nose seemed to have grown perceptibly longer.\n\n\"That, Senor, is the place where the news has got to be conveyed without\nundue delay,\" he said in an agitated wheeze.  \"I could, of course,\ntelegraph to our agent in Bayonne who would find a messenger.  But I\ndon't like, I don't like!  The Alphonsists have agents, too, who hang\nabout the telegraph offices.  It's no use letting the enemy get that\nnews.\"\n\nHe was obviously very confused, unhappy, and trying to think of two\ndifferent things at once.\n\n\"Sit down, Don George, sit down.\"  He absolutely forced a cigar on me.\n\"I am extremely distressed.  That--I mean Dona Rita is undoubtedly on her\nway to Tolosa.  This is very frightful.\"\n\nI must say, however, that there was in the man some sense of duty.  He\nmastered his private fears.  After some cogitation he murmured: \"There is\nanother way of getting the news to Headquarters.  Suppose you write me a\nformal letter just stating the facts, the unfortunate facts, which I will\nbe able to forward.  There is an agent of ours, a fellow I have been\nemploying for purchasing supplies, a perfectly honest man.  He is coming\nhere from the north by the ten o'clock train with some papers for me of a\nconfidential nature.  I was rather embarrassed about it.  It wouldn't do\nfor him to get into any sort of trouble.  He is not very intelligent.  I\nwonder, Don George, whether you would consent to meet him at the station\nand take care of him generally till to-morrow.  I don't like the idea of\nhim going about alone.  Then, to-morrow night, we would send him on to\nTolosa by the west coast route, with the news; and then he can also call\non Dona Rita who will no doubt be already there. . . .\"  He became again\ndistracted all in a moment and actually went so far as to wring his fat\nhands.  \"Oh, yes, she will be there!\" he exclaimed in most pathetic\naccents.\n\nI was not in the humour to smile at anything, and he must have been\nsatisfied with the gravity with which I beheld his extraordinary antics.\nMy mind was very far away.  I thought: Why not?  Why shouldn't I also\nwrite a letter to Dona Rita, telling her that now nothing stood in the\nway of my leaving Europe, because, really, the enterprise couldn't be\nbegun again; that things that come to an end can never be begun again.\nThe idea--never again--had complete possession of my mind.  I could think\nof nothing else.  Yes, I would write.  The worthy Commissary General of\nthe Carlist forces was under the impression that I was looking at him;\nbut what I had in my eye was a jumble of butterfly women and winged\nyouths and the soft sheen of Argand lamps gleaming on an arrow of gold in\nthe hair of a head that seemed to evade my outstretched hand.\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" I said, \"I have nothing to do and even nothing to think of\njust now, I will meet your man as he gets off the train at ten o'clock\nto-night.  What's he like?\"\n\n\"Oh, he has a black moustache and whiskers, and his chin is shaved,\" said\nthe newly-fledged baron cordially.  \"A very honest fellow.  I always\nfound him very useful.  His name is Jose Ortega.\"\n\nHe was perfectly self-possessed now, and walking soft-footed accompanied\nme to the door of the room.  He shook hands with a melancholy smile.\n\"This is a very frightful situation.  My poor wife will be quite\ndistracted.  She is such a patriot.  Many thanks, Don George.  You\nrelieve me greatly.  The fellow is rather stupid and rather bad-tempered.\nQueer creature, but very honest!  Oh, very honest!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\n\nIt was the last evening of Carnival.  The same masks, the same yells, the\nsame mad rushes, the same bedlam of disguised humanity blowing about the\nstreets in the great gusts of mistral that seemed to make them dance like\ndead leaves on an earth where all joy is watched by death.\n\nIt was exactly twelve months since that other carnival evening when I had\nfelt a little weary and a little lonely but at peace with all mankind.\nIt must have been--to a day or two.  But on this evening it wasn't merely\nloneliness that I felt.  I felt bereaved with a sense of a complete and\nuniversal loss in which there was perhaps more resentment than mourning;\nas if the world had not been taken away from me by an august decree but\nfilched from my innocence by an underhand fate at the very moment when it\nhad disclosed to my passion its warm and generous beauty.  This\nconsciousness of universal loss had this advantage that it induced\nsomething resembling a state of philosophic indifference.  I walked up to\nthe railway station caring as little for the cold blasts of wind as\nthough I had been going to the scaffold.  The delay of the train did not\nirritate me in the least.  I had finally made up my mind to write a\nletter to Dona Rita; and this \"honest fellow\" for whom I was waiting\nwould take it to her.  He would have no difficulty in Tolosa in finding\nMadame de Lastaola.  The General Headquarters, which was also a Court,\nwould be buzzing with comments on her presence.  Most likely that \"honest\nfellow\" was already known to Dona Rita.  For all I knew he might have\nbeen her discovery just as I was.  Probably I, too, was regarded as an\n\"honest fellow\" enough; but stupid--since it was clear that my luck was\nnot inexhaustible.  I hoped that while carrying my letter the man would\nnot let himself be caught by some Alphonsist guerilla who would, of\ncourse, shoot him.  But why should he?  I, for instance, had escaped with\nmy life from a much more dangerous enterprise than merely passing through\nthe frontier line in charge of some trustworthy guide.  I pictured the\nfellow to myself trudging over the stony slopes and scrambling down wild\nravines with my letter to Dona Rita in his pocket.  It would be such a\nletter of farewell as no lover had ever written, no woman in the world\nhad ever read, since the beginning of love on earth.  It would be worthy\nof the woman.  No experience, no memories, no dead traditions of passion\nor language would inspire it.  She herself would be its sole inspiration.\nShe would see her own image in it as in a mirror; and perhaps then she\nwould understand what it was I was saying farewell to on the very\nthreshold of my life.  A breath of vanity passed through my brain.  A\nletter as moving as her mere existence was moving would be something\nunique.  I regretted I was not a poet.\n\nI woke up to a great noise of feet, a sudden influx of people through the\ndoors of the platform.  I made out my man's whiskers at once--not that\nthey were enormous, but because I had been warned beforehand of their\nexistence by the excellent Commissary General.  At first I saw nothing of\nhim but his whiskers: they were black and cut somewhat in the shape of a\nshark's fin and so very fine that the least breath of air animated them\ninto a sort of playful restlessness.  The man's shoulders were hunched up\nand when he had made his way clear of the throng of passengers I\nperceived him as an unhappy and shivery being.  Obviously he didn't\nexpect to be met, because when I murmured an enquiring, \"Senor Ortega?\"\ninto his ear he swerved away from me and nearly dropped a little handbag\nhe was carrying.  His complexion was uniformly pale, his mouth was red,\nbut not engaging.  His social status was not very definite.  He was\nwearing a dark blue overcoat of no particular cut, his aspect had no\nrelief; yet those restless side-whiskers flanking his red mouth and the\nsuspicious expression of his black eyes made him noticeable.  This I\nregretted the more because I caught sight of two skulking fellows,\nlooking very much like policemen in plain clothes, watching us from a\ncorner of the great hall.  I hurried my man into a fiacre.  He had been\ntravelling from early morning on cross-country lines and after we got on\nterms a little confessed to being very hungry and cold.  His red lips\ntrembled and I noted an underhand, cynical curiosity when he had occasion\nto raise his eyes to my face.  I was in some doubt how to dispose of him\nbut as we rolled on at a jog trot I came to the conclusion that the best\nthing to do would be to organize for him a shake-down in the studio.\nObscure lodging houses are precisely the places most looked after by the\npolice, and even the best hotels are bound to keep a register of\narrivals.  I was very anxious that nothing should stop his projected\nmission of courier to headquarters.  As we passed various street corners\nwhere the mistral blast struck at us fiercely I could feel him shivering\nby my side.  However, Therese would have lighted the iron stove in the\nstudio before retiring for the night, and, anyway, I would have to turn\nher out to make up a bed on the couch.  Service of the King!  I must say\nthat she was amiable and didn't seem to mind anything one asked her to\ndo.  Thus while the fellow slumbered on the divan I would sit upstairs in\nmy room setting down on paper those great words of passion and sorrow\nthat seethed in my brain and even must have forced themselves in murmurs\non to my lips, because the man by my side suddenly asked me: \"What did\nyou say?\"--\"Nothing,\" I answered, very much surprised.  In the shifting\nlight of the street lamps he looked the picture of bodily misery with his\nchattering teeth and his whiskers blown back flat over his ears.  But\nsomehow he didn't arouse my compassion.  He was swearing to himself, in\nFrench and Spanish, and I tried to soothe him by the assurance that we\nhad not much farther to go.  \"I am starving,\" he remarked acidly, and I\nfelt a little compunction.  Clearly, the first thing to do was to feed\nhim.  We were then entering the Cannebiere and as I didn't care to show\nmyself with him in the fashionable restaurant where a new face (and such\na face, too) would be remarked, I pulled up the fiacre at the door of the\nMaison Doree.  That was more of a place of general resort where, in the\nmultitude of casual patrons, he would pass unnoticed.\n\nFor this last night of carnival the big house had decorated all its\nbalconies with rows of coloured paper lanterns right up to the roof.  I\nled the way to the grand salon, for as to private rooms they had been all\nretained days before.  There was a great crowd of people in costume, but\nby a piece of good luck we managed to secure a little table in a corner.\nThe revellers, intent on their pleasure, paid no attention to us.  Senor\nOrtega trod on my heels and after sitting down opposite me threw an\nill-natured glance at the festive scene.  It might have been about\nhalf-past ten, then.\n\nTwo glasses of wine he drank one after another did not improve his\ntemper.  He only ceased to shiver.  After he had eaten something it must\nhave occurred to him that he had no reason to bear me a grudge and he\ntried to assume a civil and even friendly manner.  His mouth, however,\nbetrayed an abiding bitterness.  I mean when he smiled.  In repose it was\na very expressionless mouth, only it was too red to be altogether\nordinary.  The whole of him was like that: the whiskers too black, the\nhair too shiny, the forehead too white, the eyes too mobile; and he lent\nyou his attention with an air of eagerness which made you uncomfortable.\nHe seemed to expect you to give yourself away by some unconsidered word\nthat he would snap up with delight.  It was that peculiarity that somehow\nput me on my guard.  I had no idea who I was facing across the table and\nas a matter of fact I did not care.  All my impressions were blurred; and\neven the promptings of my instinct were the haziest thing imaginable.\nNow and then I had acute hallucinations of a woman with an arrow of gold\nin her hair.  This caused alternate moments of exaltation and depression\nfrom which I tried to take refuge in conversation; but Senor Ortega was\nnot stimulating.  He was preoccupied with personal matters.  When\nsuddenly he asked me whether I knew why he had been called away from his\nwork (he had been buying supplies from peasants somewhere in Central\nFrance), I answered that I didn't know what the reason was originally,\nbut I had an idea that the present intention was to make of him a\ncourier, bearing certain messages from Baron H. to the Quartel Real in\nTolosa.\n\nHe glared at me like a basilisk.  \"And why have I been met like this?\" he\nenquired with an air of being prepared to hear a lie.\n\nI explained that it was the Baron's wish, as a matter of prudence and to\navoid any possible trouble which might arise from enquiries by the\npolice.\n\nHe took it badly.  \"What nonsense.\"  He was--he said--an employe (for\nseveral years) of Hernandez Brothers in Paris, an importing firm, and he\nwas travelling on their business--as he could prove.  He dived into his\nside pocket and produced a handful of folded papers of all sorts which he\nplunged back again instantly.\n\nAnd even then I didn't know whom I had there, opposite me, busy now\ndevouring a slice of pate de foie gras.  Not in the least.  It never\nentered my head.  How could it?  The Rita that haunted me had no history;\nshe was but the principle of life charged with fatality.  Her form was\nonly a mirage of desire decoying one step by step into despair.\n\nSenor Ortega gulped down some more wine and suggested I should tell him\nwho I was.  \"It's only right I should know,\" he added.\n\nThis could not be gainsaid; and to a man connected with the Carlist\norganization the shortest way was to introduce myself as that \"Monsieur\nGeorge\" of whom he had probably heard.\n\nHe leaned far over the table, till his very breast-bone was over the\nedge, as though his eyes had been stilettos and he wanted to drive them\nhome into my brain.  It was only much later that I understood how near\ndeath I had been at that moment.  But the knives on the tablecloth were\nthe usual restaurant knives with rounded ends and about as deadly as\npieces of hoop-iron.  Perhaps in the very gust of his fury he remembered\nwhat a French restaurant knife is like and something sane within him made\nhim give up the sudden project of cutting my heart out where I sat.  For\nit could have been nothing but a sudden impulse.  His settled purpose was\nquite other.  It was not my heart that he was after.  His fingers indeed\nwere groping amongst the knife handles by the side of his plate but what\ncaptivated my attention for a moment were his red lips which were formed\ninto an odd, sly, insinuating smile.  Heard!  To be sure he had heard!\nThe chief of the great arms smuggling organization!\n\n\"Oh!\" I said, \"that's giving me too much importance.\"  The person\nresponsible and whom I looked upon as chief of all the business was, as\nhe might have heard, too, a certain noble and loyal lady.\n\n\"I am as noble as she is,\" he snapped peevishly, and I put him down at\nonce as a very offensive beast.  \"And as to being loyal, what is that?\nIt is being truthful!  It is being faithful!  I know all about her.\"\n\nI managed to preserve an air of perfect unconcern.  He wasn't a fellow to\nwhom one could talk of Dona Rita.\n\n\"You are a Basque,\" I said.\n\nHe admitted rather contemptuously that he was a Basque and even then the\ntruth did not dawn upon me.  I suppose that with the hidden egoism of a\nlover I was thinking of myself, of myself alone in relation to Dona Rita,\nnot of Dona Rita herself.  He, too, obviously.  He said: \"I am an\neducated man, but I know her people, all peasants.  There is a sister, an\nuncle, a priest, a peasant, too, and perfectly unenlightened.  One can't\nexpect much from a priest (I am a free-thinker of course), but he is\nreally too bad, more like a brute beast.  As to all her people, mostly\ndead now, they never were of any account.  There was a little land, but\nthey were always working on other people's farms, a barefooted gang, a\nstarved lot.  I ought to know because we are distant relations.\nTwentieth cousins or something of the sort.  Yes, I am related to that\nmost loyal lady.  And what is she, after all, but a Parisian woman with\ninnumerable lovers, as I have been told.\"\n\n\"I don't think your information is very correct,\" I said, affecting to\nyawn slightly.  \"This is mere gossip of the gutter and I am surprised at\nyou, who really know nothing about it--\"\n\nBut the disgusting animal had fallen into a brown study.  The hair of his\nvery whiskers was perfectly still.  I had now given up all idea of the\nletter to Rita.  Suddenly he spoke again:\n\n\"Women are the origin of all evil.  One should never trust them.  They\nhave no honour.  No honour!\" he repeated, striking his breast with his\nclosed fist on which the knuckles stood out very white.  \"I left my\nvillage many years ago and of course I am perfectly satisfied with my\nposition and I don't know why I should trouble my head about this loyal\nlady.  I suppose that's the way women get on in the world.\"\n\nI felt convinced that he was no proper person to be a messenger to\nheadquarters.  He struck me as altogether untrustworthy and perhaps not\nquite sane.  This was confirmed by him saying suddenly with no visible\nconnection and as if it had been forced from him by some agonizing\nprocess: \"I was a boy once,\" and then stopping dead short with a smile.\nHe had a smile that frightened one by its association of malice and\nanguish.\n\n\"Will you have anything more to eat?\" I asked.\n\nHe declined dully.  He had had enough.  But he drained the last of a\nbottle into his glass and accepted a cigar which I offered him.  While he\nwas lighting it I had a sort of confused impression that he wasn't such a\nstranger to me as I had assumed he was; and yet, on the other hand, I was\nperfectly certain I had never seen him before.  Next moment I felt that I\ncould have knocked him down if he hadn't looked so amazingly unhappy,\nwhile he came out with the astounding question: \"Senor, have you ever\nbeen a lover in your young days?\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" I asked.  \"How old do you think I am?\"\n\n\"That's true,\" he said, gazing at me in a way in which the damned gaze\nout of their cauldrons of boiling pitch at some soul walking scot free in\nthe place of torment.  \"It's true, you don't seem to have anything on\nyour mind.\"  He assumed an air of ease, throwing an arm over the back of\nhis chair and blowing the smoke through the gash of his twisted red\nmouth.  \"Tell me,\" he said, \"between men, you know, has this--wonderful\ncelebrity--what does she call herself?  How long has she been your\nmistress?\"\n\nI reflected rapidly that if I knocked him over, chair and all, by a\nsudden blow from the shoulder it would bring about infinite complications\nbeginning with a visit to the Commissaire de Police on night-duty, and\nending in God knows what scandal and disclosures of political kind;\nbecause there was no telling what, or how much, this outrageous brute\nmight choose to say and how many people he might not involve in a most\nundesirable publicity.  He was smoking his cigar with a poignantly\nmocking air and not even looking at me.  One can't hit like that a man\nwho isn't even looking at one; and then, just as I was looking at him\nswinging his leg with a caustic smile and stony eyes, I felt sorry for\nthe creature.  It was only his body that was there in that chair.  It was\nmanifest to me that his soul was absent in some hell of its own.  At that\nmoment I attained the knowledge of who it was I had before me.  This was\nthe man of whom both Dona Rita and Rose were so much afraid.  It remained\nthen for me to look after him for the night and then arrange with Baron\nH. that he should be sent away the very next day--and anywhere but to\nTolosa.  Yes, evidently, I mustn't lose sight of him.  I proposed in the\ncalmest tone that we should go on where he could get his much-needed\nrest.  He rose with alacrity, picked up his little hand-bag, and, walking\nout before me, no doubt looked a very ordinary person to all eyes but\nmine.  It was then past eleven, not much, because we had not been in that\nrestaurant quite an hour, but the routine of the town's night-life being\nupset during the Carnival the usual row of fiacres outside the Maison\nDoree was not there; in fact, there were very few carriages about.\nPerhaps the coachmen had assumed Pierrot costumes and were rushing about\nthe streets on foot yelling with the rest of the population.  \"We will\nhave to walk,\" I said after a while.--\"Oh, yes, let us walk,\" assented\nSenor Ortega, \"or I will be frozen here.\"  It was like a plaint of\nunutterable wretchedness.  I had a fancy that all his natural heat had\nabandoned his limbs and gone to his brain.  It was otherwise with me; my\nhead was cool but I didn't find the night really so very cold.  We\nstepped out briskly side by side.  My lucid thinking was, as it were,\nenveloped by the wide shouting of the consecrated Carnival gaiety.  I\nhave heard many noises since, but nothing that gave me such an intimate\nimpression of the savage instincts hidden in the breast of mankind; these\nyells of festivity suggested agonizing fear, rage of murder, ferocity of\nlust, and the irremediable joylessness of human condition: yet they were\nemitted by people who were convinced that they were amusing themselves\nsupremely, traditionally, with the sanction of ages, with the approval of\ntheir conscience--and no mistake about it whatever!  Our appearance, the\nsoberness of our gait made us conspicuous.  Once or twice, by common\ninspiration, masks rushed forward and forming a circle danced round us\nuttering discordant shouts of derision; for we were an outrage to the\npeculiar proprieties of the hour, and besides we were obviously lonely\nand defenceless.  On those occasions there was nothing for it but to\nstand still till the flurry was over.  My companion, however, would stamp\nhis feet with rage, and I must admit that I myself regretted not having\nprovided for our wearing a couple of false noses, which would have been\nenough to placate the just resentment of those people.  We might have\nalso joined in the dance, but for some reason or other it didn't occur to\nus; and I heard once a high, clear woman's voice stigmatizing us for a\n\"species of swelled heads\" (_espece d'enfles_).  We proceeded sedately,\nmy companion muttered with rage, and I was able to resume my thinking.\nIt was based on the deep persuasion that the man at my side was insane\nwith quite another than Carnivalesque lunacy which comes on at one stated\ntime of the year.  He was fundamentally mad, though not perhaps\ncompletely; which of course made him all the greater, I won't say danger\nbut, nuisance.\n\nI remember once a young doctor expounding the theory that most\ncatastrophes in family circles, surprising episodes in public affairs and\ndisasters in private life, had their origin in the fact that the world\nwas full of half-mad people.  He asserted that they were the real\nmajority.  When asked whether he considered himself as belonging to the\nmajority, he said frankly that he didn't think so; unless the folly of\nvoicing this view in a company, so utterly unable to appreciate all its\nhorror, could be regarded as the first symptom of his own fate.  We\nshouted down him and his theory, but there is no doubt that it had thrown\na chill on the gaiety of our gathering.\n\nWe had now entered a quieter quarter of the town and Senor Ortega had\nceased his muttering.  For myself I had not the slightest doubt of my own\nsanity.  It was proved to me by the way I could apply my intelligence to\nthe problem of what was to be done with Senor Ortega.  Generally, he was\nunfit to be trusted with any mission whatever.  The unstability of his\ntemper was sure to get him into a scrape.  Of course carrying a letter to\nHeadquarters was not a very complicated matter; and as to that I would\nhave trusted willingly a properly trained dog.  My private letter to Dona\nRita, the wonderful, the unique letter of farewell, I had given up for\nthe present.  Naturally I thought of the Ortega problem mainly in the\nterms of Dona Rita's safety.  Her image presided at every council, at\nevery conflict of my mind, and dominated every faculty of my senses.  It\nfloated before my eyes, it touched my elbow, it guarded my right side and\nmy left side; my ears seemed to catch the sound of her footsteps behind\nme, she enveloped me with passing whiffs of warmth and perfume, with\nfilmy touches of the hair on my face.  She penetrated me, my head was\nfull of her . . . And his head, too, I thought suddenly with a side\nglance at my companion.  He walked quietly with hunched-up shoulders\ncarrying his little hand-bag and he looked the most commonplace figure\nimaginable.\n\nYes.  There was between us a most horrible fellowship; the association of\nhis crazy torture with the sublime suffering of my passion.  We hadn't\nbeen a quarter of an hour together when that woman had surged up fatally\nbetween us; between this miserable wretch and myself.  We were haunted by\nthe same image.  But I was sane!  I was sane!  Not because I was certain\nthat the fellow must not be allowed to go to Tolosa, but because I was\nperfectly alive to the difficulty of stopping him from going there, since\nthe decision was absolutely in the hands of Baron H.\n\nIf I were to go early in the morning and tell that fat, bilious man:\n\"Look here, your Ortega's mad,\" he would certainly think at once that I\nwas, get very frightened, and . . . one couldn't tell what course he\nwould take.  He would eliminate me somehow out of the affair.  And yet I\ncould not let the fellow proceed to where Dona Rita was, because,\nobviously, he had been molesting her, had filled her with uneasiness and\neven alarm, was an unhappy element and a disturbing influence in her\nlife--incredible as the thing appeared!  I couldn't let him go on to make\nhimself a worry and a nuisance, drive her out from a town in which she\nwished to be (for whatever reason) and perhaps start some explosive\nscandal.  And that girl Rose seemed to fear something graver even than a\nscandal.  But if I were to explain the matter fully to H. he would simply\nrejoice in his heart.  Nothing would please him more than to have Dona\nRita driven out of Tolosa.  What a relief from his anxieties (and his\nwife's, too); and if I were to go further, if I even went so far as to\nhint at the fears which Rose had not been able to conceal from me, why\nthen--I went on thinking coldly with a stoical rejection of the most\nelementary faith in mankind's rectitude--why then, that accommodating\nhusband would simply let the ominous messenger have his chance.  He would\nsee there only his natural anxieties being laid to rest for ever.\nHorrible?  Yes.  But I could not take the risk.  In a twelvemonth I had\ntravelled a long way in my mistrust of mankind.\n\nWe paced on steadily.  I thought: \"How on earth am I going to stop you?\"\nHad this arisen only a month before, when I had the means at hand and\nDominic to confide in, I would have simply kidnapped the fellow.  A\nlittle trip to sea would not have done Senor Ortega any harm; though no\ndoubt it would have been abhorrent to his feelings.  But now I had not\nthe means.  I couldn't even tell where my poor Dominic was hiding his\ndiminished head.\n\nAgain I glanced at him sideways.  I was the taller of the two and as it\nhappened I met in the light of the street lamp his own stealthy glance\ndirected up at me with an agonized expression, an expression that made me\nfancy I could see the man's very soul writhing in his body like an\nimpaled worm.  In spite of my utter inexperience I had some notion of the\nimages that rushed into his mind at the sight of any man who had\napproached Dona Rita.  It was enough to awaken in any human being a\nmovement of horrified compassion; but my pity went out not to him but to\nDona Rita.  It was for her that I felt sorry; I pitied her for having\nthat damned soul on her track.  I pitied her with tenderness and\nindignation, as if this had been both a danger and a dishonour.\n\nI don't mean to say that those thoughts passed through my head\nconsciously.  I had only the resultant, settled feeling.  I had, however,\na thought, too.  It came on me suddenly, and I asked myself with rage and\nastonishment: \"Must I then kill that brute?\"  There didn't seem to be any\nalternative.  Between him and Dona Rita I couldn't hesitate.  I believe I\ngave a slight laugh of desperation.  The suddenness of this sinister\nconclusion had in it something comic and unbelievable.  It loosened my\ngrip on my mental processes.  A Latin tag came into my head about the\nfacile descent into the abyss.  I marvelled at its aptness, and also that\nit should have come to me so pat.  But I believe now that it was\nsuggested simply by the actual declivity of the street of the Consuls\nwhich lies on a gentle slope.  We had just turned the corner.  All the\nhouses were dark and in a perspective of complete solitude our two\nshadows dodged and wheeled about our feet.\n\n\"Here we are,\" I said.\n\nHe was an extraordinarily chilly devil.  When we stopped I could hear his\nteeth chattering again.  I don't know what came over me, I had a sort of\nnervous fit, was incapable of finding my pockets, let alone the latchkey.\nI had the illusion of a narrow streak of light on the wall of the house\nas if it had been cracked.  \"I hope we will be able to get in,\" I\nmurmured.\n\nSenor Ortega stood waiting patiently with his handbag, like a rescued\nwayfarer.  \"But you live in this house, don't you?\" he observed.\n\n\"No,\" I said, without hesitation.  I didn't know how that man would\nbehave if he were aware that I was staying under the same roof.  He was\nhalf mad.  He might want to talk all night, try crazily to invade my\nprivacy.  How could I tell?  Moreover, I wasn't so sure that I would\nremain in the house.  I had some notion of going out again and walking up\nand down the street of the Consuls till daylight.  \"No, an absent friend\nlets me use . . . I had that latchkey this morning . . . Ah! here it is.\"\n\nI let him go in first.  The sickly gas flame was there on duty,\nundaunted, waiting for the end of the world to come and put it out.  I\nthink that the black-and-white hall surprised Ortega.  I had closed the\nfront door without noise and stood for a moment listening, while he\nglanced about furtively.  There were only two other doors in the hall,\nright and left.  Their panels of ebony were decorated with bronze\napplications in the centre.  The one on the left was of course Blunt's\ndoor.  As the passage leading beyond it was dark at the further end I\ntook Senor Ortega by the hand and led him along, unresisting, like a\nchild.  For some reason or other I moved on tip-toe and he followed my\nexample.  The light and the warmth of the studio impressed him\nfavourably; he laid down his little bag, rubbed his hands together, and\nproduced a smile of satisfaction; but it was such a smile as a totally\nruined man would perhaps force on his lips, or a man condemned to a short\nshrift by his doctor.  I begged him to make himself at home and said that\nI would go at once and hunt up the woman of the house who would make him\nup a bed on the big couch there.  He hardly listened to what I said.\nWhat were all those things to him!  He knew that his destiny was to sleep\non a bed of thorns, to feed on adders.  But he tried to show a sort of\npolite interest.  He asked: \"What is this place?\"\n\n\"It used to belong to a painter,\"  I mumbled.\n\n\"Ah, your absent friend,\" he said, making a wry mouth.  \"I detest all\nthose artists, and all those writers, and all politicos who are thieves;\nand I would go even farther and higher, laying a curse on all idle lovers\nof women.  You think perhaps I am a Royalist?  No.  If there was anybody\nin heaven or hell to pray to I would pray for a revolution--a red\nrevolution everywhere.\"\n\n\"You astonish me,\" I said, just to say something.\n\n\"No!  But there are half a dozen people in the world with whom I would\nlike to settle accounts.  One could shoot them like partridges and no\nquestions asked.  That's what revolution would mean to me.\"\n\n\"It's a beautifully simple view,\" I said.  \"I imagine you are not the\nonly one who holds it; but I really must look after your comforts.  You\nmustn't forget that we have to see Baron H. early to-morrow morning.\"\nAnd I went out quietly into the passage wondering in what part of the\nhouse Therese had elected to sleep that night.  But, lo and behold, when\nI got to the foot of the stairs there was Therese coming down from the\nupper regions in her nightgown, like a sleep-walker.  However, it wasn't\nthat, because, before I could exclaim, she vanished off the first floor\nlanding like a streak of white mist and without the slightest sound.  Her\nattire made it perfectly clear that she could not have heard us coming\nin.  In fact, she must have been certain that the house was empty,\nbecause she was as well aware as myself that the Italian girls after\ntheir work at the opera were going to a masked ball to dance for their\nown amusement, attended of course by their conscientious father.  But\nwhat thought, need, or sudden impulse had driven Therese out of bed like\nthis was something I couldn't conceive.\n\nI didn't call out after her.  I felt sure that she would return.  I went\nup slowly to the first floor and met her coming down again, this time\ncarrying a lighted candle.  She had managed to make herself presentable\nin an extraordinarily short time.\n\n\"Oh, my dear young Monsieur, you have given me a fright.\"\n\n\"Yes.  And I nearly fainted, too,\" I said.  \"You looked perfectly awful.\nWhat's the matter with you?  Are you ill?\"\n\nShe had lighted by then the gas on the landing and I must say that I had\nnever seen exactly that manner of face on her before.  She wriggled,\nconfused and shifty-eyed, before me; but I ascribed this behaviour to her\nshocked modesty and without troubling myself any more about her feelings\nI informed her that there was a Carlist downstairs who must be put up for\nthe night.  Most unexpectedly she betrayed a ridiculous consternation,\nbut only for a moment.  Then she assumed at once that I would give him\nhospitality upstairs where there was a camp-bedstead in my dressing-room.\nI said:\n\n\"No.  Give him a shake-down in the studio, where he is now.  It's warm in\nthere.  And remember! I charge you strictly not to let him know that I\nsleep in this house.  In fact, I don't know myself that I will; I have\ncertain matters to attend to this very night.  You will also have to\nserve him his coffee in the morning.  I will take him away before ten\no'clock.\"\n\nAll this seemed to impress her more than I had expected.  As usual when\nshe felt curious, or in some other way excited, she assumed a saintly,\ndetached expression, and asked:\n\n\"The dear gentleman is your friend, I suppose?\"\n\n\"I only know he is a Spaniard and a Carlist,\" I said: \"and that ought to\nbe enough for you.\"\n\nInstead of the usual effusive exclamations she murmured: \"Dear me, dear\nme,\" and departed upstairs with the candle to get together a few blankets\nand pillows, I suppose.  As for me I walked quietly downstairs on my way\nto the studio.  I had a curious sensation that I was acting in a\npreordained manner, that life was not at all what I had thought it to be,\nor else that I had been altogether changed sometime during the day, and\nthat I was a different person from the man whom I remembered getting out\nof my bed in the morning.\n\nAlso feelings had altered all their values.  The words, too, had become\nstrange.  It was only the inanimate surroundings that remained what they\nhad always been.  For instance the studio. . . .\n\nDuring my absence Senor Ortega had taken off his coat and I found him as\nit were in the air, sitting in his shirt sleeves on a chair which he had\ntaken pains to place in the very middle of the floor.  I repressed an\nabsurd impulse to walk round him as though he had been some sort of\nexhibit.  His hands were spread over his knees and he looked perfectly\ninsensible.  I don't mean strange, or ghastly, or wooden, but just\ninsensible--like an exhibit.  And that effect persisted even after he\nraised his black suspicious eyes to my face.  He lowered them almost at\nonce.  It was very mechanical.  I gave him up and became rather concerned\nabout myself.  My thought was that I had better get out of that before\nany more queer notions came into my head.  So I only remained long enough\nto tell him that the woman of the house was bringing down some bedding\nand that I hoped that he would have a good night's rest.  And directly I\nspoke it struck me that this was the most extraordinary speech that ever\nwas addressed to a figure of that sort.  He, however, did not seem\nstartled by it or moved in any way.  He simply said:\n\n\"Thank you.\"\n\nIn the darkest part of the long passage outside I met Therese with her\narms full of pillows and blankets.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\n\nComing out of the bright light of the studio I didn't make out Therese\nvery distinctly.  She, however, having groped in dark cupboards, must\nhave had her pupils sufficiently dilated to have seen that I had my hat\non my head.  This has its importance because after what I had said to her\nupstairs it must have convinced her that I was going out on some midnight\nbusiness.  I passed her without a word and heard behind me the door of\nthe studio close with an unexpected crash.  It strikes me now that under\nthe circumstances I might have without shame gone back to listen at the\nkeyhole.  But truth to say the association of events was not so clear in\nmy mind as it may be to the reader of this story.  Neither were the exact\nconnections of persons present to my mind.  And, besides, one doesn't\nlisten at a keyhole but in pursuance of some plan; unless one is\nafflicted by a vulgar and fatuous curiosity.  But that vice is not in my\ncharacter.  As to plan, I had none.  I moved along the passage between\nthe dead wall and the black-and-white marble elevation of the staircase\nwith hushed footsteps, as though there had been a mortally sick person\nsomewhere in the house.  And the only person that could have answered to\nthat description was Senor Ortega.  I moved on, stealthy, absorbed,\nundecided; asking myself earnestly: \"What on earth am I going to do with\nhim?\"  That exclusive preoccupation of my mind was as dangerous to Senor\nOrtega as typhoid fever would have been.  It strikes me that this\ncomparison is very exact.  People recover from typhoid fever, but\ngenerally the chance is considered poor.  This was precisely his case.\nHis chance was poor; though I had no more animosity towards him than a\nvirulent disease has against the victim it lays low.  He really would\nhave nothing to reproach me with; he had run up against me, unwittingly,\nas a man enters an infected place, and now he was very ill, very ill\nindeed.  No, I had no plans against him.  I had only the feeling that he\nwas in mortal danger.\n\nI believe that men of the most daring character (and I make no claim to\nit) often do shrink from the logical processes of thought.  It is only\nthe devil, they say, that loves logic.  But I was not a devil.  I was not\neven a victim of the devil.  It was only that I had given up the\ndirection of my intelligence before the problem; or rather that the\nproblem had dispossessed my intelligence and reigned in its stead side by\nside with a superstitious awe.  A dreadful order seemed to lurk in the\ndarkest shadows of life.  The madness of that Carlist with the soul of a\nJacobin, the vile fears of Baron H., that excellent organizer of\nsupplies, the contact of their two ferocious stupidities, and last, by a\nremote disaster at sea, my love brought into direct contact with the\nsituation: all that was enough to make one shudder--not at the chance,\nbut at the design.\n\nFor it was my love that was called upon to act here, and nothing else.\nAnd love which elevates us above all safeguards, above restraining\nprinciples, above all littlenesses of self-possession, yet keeps its feet\nalways firmly on earth, remains marvellously practical in its\nsuggestions.\n\nI discovered that however much I had imagined I had given up Rita, that\nwhatever agonies I had gone through, my hope of her had never been lost.\nPlucked out, stamped down, torn to shreds, it had remained with me\nsecret, intact, invincible.  Before the danger of the situation it\nsprang, full of life, up in arms--the undying child of immortal love.\nWhat incited me was independent of honour and compassion; it was the\nprompting of a love supreme, practical, remorseless in its aim; it was\nthe practical thought that no woman need be counted as lost for ever,\nunless she be dead!\n\nThis excluded for the moment all considerations of ways and means and\nrisks and difficulties.  Its tremendous intensity robbed it of all\ndirection and left me adrift in the big black-and-white hall as on a\nsilent sea.  It was not, properly speaking, irresolution.  It was merely\nhesitation as to the next immediate step, and that step even of no great\nimportance: hesitation merely as to the best way I could spend the rest\nof the night.  I didn't think further forward for many reasons, more or\nless optimistic, but mainly because I have no homicidal vein in my\ncomposition.  The disposition to gloat over homicide was in that\nmiserable creature in the studio, the potential Jacobin; in that\nconfounded buyer of agricultural produce, the punctual employe of\nHernandez Brothers, the jealous wretch with an obscene tongue and an\nimagination of the same kind to drive him mad.  I thought of him without\npity but also without contempt.  I reflected that there were no means of\nsending a warning to Dona Rita in Tolosa; for of course no postal\ncommunication existed with the Headquarters.  And moreover what would a\nwarning be worth in this particular case, supposing it would reach her,\nthat she would believe it, and that she would know what to do?  How could\nI communicate to another that certitude which was in my mind, the more\nabsolute because without proofs that one could produce?\n\nThe last expression of Rose's distress rang again in my ears: \"Madame has\nno friends.  Not one!\" and I saw Dona Rita's complete loneliness beset by\nall sorts of insincerities, surrounded by pitfalls; her greatest dangers\nwithin herself, in her generosity, in her fears, in her courage, too.\nWhat I had to do first of all was to stop that wretch at all costs.  I\nbecame aware of a great mistrust of Therese.  I didn't want her to find\nme in the hall, but I was reluctant to go upstairs to my rooms from an\nunreasonable feeling that there I would be too much out of the way; not\nsufficiently on the spot.  There was the alternative of a live-long night\nof watching outside, before the dark front of the house.  It was a most\ndistasteful prospect.  And then it occurred to me that Blunt's former\nroom would be an extremely good place to keep a watch from.  I knew that\nroom.  When Henry Allegre gave the house to Rita in the early days (long\nbefore he made his will) he had planned a complete renovation and this\nroom had been meant for the drawing-room.  Furniture had been made for it\nspecially, upholstered in beautiful ribbed stuff, made to order, of dull\ngold colour with a pale blue tracery of arabesques and oval medallions\nenclosing Rita's monogram, repeated on the backs of chairs and sofas, and\non the heavy curtains reaching from ceiling to floor.  To the same time\nbelonged the ebony and bronze doors, the silver statuette at the foot of\nthe stairs, the forged iron balustrade reproducing right up the marble\nstaircase Rita's decorative monogram in its complicated design.\nAfterwards the work was stopped and the house had fallen into disrepair.\nWhen Rita devoted it to the Carlist cause a bed was put into that\ndrawing-room, just simply the bed.  The room next to that yellow salon\nhad been in Allegre's young days fitted as a fencing-room containing also\na bath, and a complicated system of all sorts of shower and jet\narrangements, then quite up to date.  That room was very large, lighted\nfrom the top, and one wall of it was covered by trophies of arms of all\nsorts, a choice collection of cold steel disposed on a background of\nIndian mats and rugs: Blunt used it as a dressing-room.  It communicated\nby a small door with the studio.\n\nI had only to extend my hand and make one step to reach the magnificent\nbronze handle of the ebony door, and if I didn't want to be caught by\nTherese there was no time to lose.  I made the step and extended the\nhand, thinking that it would be just like my luck to find the door\nlocked.  But the door came open to my push.  In contrast to the dark hall\nthe room was most unexpectedly dazzling to my eyes, as if illuminated _a\ngiorno_ for a reception.  No voice came from it, but nothing could have\nstopped me now.  As I turned round to shut the door behind me noiselessly\nI caught sight of a woman's dress on a chair, of other articles of\napparel scattered about.  The mahogany bed with a piece of light silk\nwhich Therese found somewhere and used for a counterpane was a\nmagnificent combination of white and crimson between the gleaming\nsurfaces of dark wood; and the whole room had an air of splendour with\nmarble consoles, gilt carvings, long mirrors and a sumptuous Venetian\nlustre depending from the ceiling: a darkling mass of icy pendants\ncatching a spark here and there from the candles of an eight-branched\ncandelabra standing on a little table near the head of a sofa which had\nbeen dragged round to face the fireplace.  The faintest possible whiff of\na familiar perfume made my head swim with its suggestion.\n\nI grabbed the back of the nearest piece of furniture and the splendour of\nmarbles and mirrors, of cut crystals and carvings, swung before my eyes\nin the golden mist of walls and draperies round an extremely conspicuous\npair of black stockings thrown over a music stool which remained\nmotionless.  The silence was profound.  It was like being in an enchanted\nplace.  Suddenly a voice began to speak, clear, detached, infinitely\ntouching in its calm weariness.\n\n\"Haven't you tormented me enough to-day?\" it said. . . . My head was\nsteady now but my heart began to beat violently.  I listened to the end\nwithout moving, \"Can't you make up your mind to leave me alone for\nto-night?\"  It pleaded with an accent of charitable scorn.\n\nThe penetrating quality of these tones which I had not heard for so many,\nmany days made my eyes run full of tears.  I guessed easily that the\nappeal was addressed to the atrocious Therese.  The speaker was concealed\nfrom me by the high back of the sofa, but her apprehension was perfectly\njustified.  For was it not I who had turned back Therese the pious, the\ninsatiable, coming downstairs in her nightgown to torment her sister some\nmore?  Mere surprise at Dona Rita's presence in the house was enough to\nparalyze me; but I was also overcome by an enormous sense of relief, by\nthe assurance of security for her and for myself.  I didn't even ask\nmyself how she came there.  It was enough for me that she was not in\nTolosa.  I could have smiled at the thought that all I had to do now was\nto hasten the departure of that abominable lunatic--for Tolosa: an easy\ntask, almost no task at all.  Yes, I would have smiled, had not I felt\noutraged by the presence of Senor Ortega under the same roof with Dona\nRita.  The mere fact was repugnant to me, morally revolting; so that I\nshould have liked to rush at him and throw him out into the street.  But\nthat was not to be done for various reasons.  One of them was pity.  I\nwas suddenly at peace with all mankind, with all nature.  I felt as if I\ncouldn't hurt a fly.  The intensity of my emotion sealed my lips.  With a\nfearful joy tugging at my heart I moved round the head of the couch\nwithout a word.\n\nIn the wide fireplace on a pile of white ashes the logs had a deep\ncrimson glow; and turned towards them Dona Rita reclined on her side\nenveloped in the skins of wild beasts like a charming and savage young\nchieftain before a camp fire.  She never even raised her eyes, giving me\nthe opportunity to contemplate mutely that adolescent, delicately\nmasculine head, so mysteriously feminine in the power of instant\nseduction, so infinitely suave in its firm design, almost childlike in\nthe freshness of detail: altogether ravishing in the inspired strength of\nthe modelling.  That precious head reposed in the palm of her hand; the\nface was slightly flushed (with anger perhaps).  She kept her eyes\nobstinately fixed on the pages of a book which she was holding with her\nother hand.  I had the time to lay my infinite adoration at her feet\nwhose white insteps gleamed below the dark edge of the fur out of quilted\nblue silk bedroom slippers, embroidered with small pearls.  I had never\nseen them before; I mean the slippers.  The gleam of the insteps, too,\nfor that matter.  I lost myself in a feeling of deep content, something\nlike a foretaste of a time of felicity which must be quiet or it couldn't\nbe eternal.  I had never tasted such perfect quietness before.  It was\nnot of this earth.  I had gone far beyond.  It was as if I had reached\nthe ultimate wisdom beyond all dreams and all passions.  She was That\nwhich is to be contemplated to all Infinity.\n\nThe perfect stillness and silence made her raise her eyes at last,\nreluctantly, with a hard, defensive expression which I had never seen in\nthem before.  And no wonder!  The glance was meant for Therese and\nassumed in self-defence.  For some time its character did not change and\nwhen it did it turned into a perfectly stony stare of a kind which I also\nhad never seen before.  She had never wished so much to be left in peace.\nShe had never been so astonished in her life.  She had arrived by the\nevening express only two hours before Senor Ortega, had driven to the\nhouse, and after having something to eat had become for the rest of the\nevening the helpless prey of her sister who had fawned and scolded and\nwheedled and threatened in a way that outraged all Rita's feelings.\nSeizing this unexpected occasion Therese had displayed a distracting\nversatility of sentiment: rapacity, virtue, piety, spite, and false\ntenderness--while, characteristically enough, she unpacked the\ndressing-bag, helped the sinner to get ready for bed, brushed her hair,\nand finally, as a climax, kissed her hands, partly by surprise and partly\nby violence.  After that she had retired from the field of battle slowly,\nundefeated, still defiant, firing as a last shot the impudent question:\n\"Tell me only, have you made your will, Rita?\"  To this poor Dona Rita\nwith the spirit of opposition strung to the highest pitch answered: \"No,\nand I don't mean to\"--being under the impression that this was what her\nsister wanted her to do.  There can be no doubt, however, that all\nTherese wanted was the information.\n\nRita, much too agitated to expect anything but a sleepless night, had not\nthe courage to get into bed.  She thought she would remain on the sofa\nbefore the fire and try to compose herself with a book.  As she had no\ndressing-gown with her she put on her long fur coat over her night-gown,\nthrew some logs on the fire, and lay down.  She didn't hear the slightest\nnoise of any sort till she heard me shut the door gently.  Quietness of\nmovement was one of Therese's accomplishments, and the harassed heiress\nof the Allegre millions naturally thought it was her sister coming again\nto renew the scene.  Her heart sank within her.  In the end she became a\nlittle frightened at the long silence, and raised her eyes.  She didn't\nbelieve them for a long time.  She concluded that I was a vision.  In\nfact, the first word which I heard her utter was a low, awed \"No,\" which,\nthough I understood its meaning, chilled my blood like an evil omen.\n\nIt was then that I spoke.  \"Yes,\" I said, \"it's me that you see,\" and\nmade a step forward.  She didn't start; only her other hand flew to the\nedges of the fur coat, gripping them together over her breast.  Observing\nthis gesture I sat down in the nearest chair.  The book she had been\nreading slipped with a thump on the floor.\n\n\"How is it possible that you should be here?\" she said, still in a\ndoubting voice.\n\n\"I am really here,\" I said.  \"Would you like to touch my hand?\"\n\nShe didn't move at all; her fingers still clutched the fur coat.\n\n\"What has happened?\"\n\n\"It's a long story, but you may take it from me that all is over.  The\ntie between us is broken.  I don't know that it was ever very close.  It\nwas an external thing.  The true misfortune is that I have ever seen\nyou.\"\n\nThis last phrase was provoked by an exclamation of sympathy on her part.\nShe raised herself on her elbow and looked at me intently.  \"All over,\"\nshe murmured.\n\n\"Yes, we had to wreck the little vessel.  It was awful.  I feel like a\nmurderer.  But she had to be killed.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because I loved her too much.  Don't you know that love and death go\nvery close together?\"\n\n\"I could feel almost happy that it is all over, if you hadn't had to lose\nyour love.  Oh, _amigo_ George, it was a safe love for you.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said.  \"It was a faithful little vessel.  She would have saved\nus all from any plain danger.  But this was a betrayal.  It was--never\nmind.  All that's past.  The question is what will the next one be.\"\n\n\"Why should it be that?\"\n\n\"I don't know.  Life seems but a series of betrayals.  There are so many\nkinds of them.  This was a betrayed plan, but one can betray confidence,\nand hope and--desire, and the most sacred . . .\"\n\n\"But what are you doing here?\" she interrupted.\n\n\"Oh, yes!  The eternal why.  Till a few hours ago I didn't know what I\nwas here for.  And what are you here for?\" I asked point blank and with a\nbitterness she disregarded.  She even answered my question quite readily\nwith many words out of which I could make very little.  I only learned\nthat for at least five mixed reasons, none of which impressed me\nprofoundly, Dona Rita had started at a moment's notice from Paris with\nnothing but a dressing-bag, and permitting Rose to go and visit her aged\nparents for two days, and then follow her mistress.  That girl of late\nhad looked so perturbed and worried that the sensitive Rita, fearing that\nshe was tired of her place, proposed to settle a sum of money on her\nwhich would have enabled her to devote herself entirely to her aged\nparents.  And did I know what that extraordinary girl said?  She had\nsaid: \"Don't let Madame think that I would be too proud to accept\nanything whatever from her; but I can't even dream of leaving Madame.  I\nbelieve Madame has no friends.  Not one.\"  So instead of a large sum of\nmoney Dona Rita gave the girl a kiss and as she had been worried by\nseveral people who wanted her to go to Tolosa she bolted down this way\njust to get clear of all those busybodies.  \"Hide from them,\" she went on\nwith ardour.  \"Yes, I came here to hide,\" she repeated twice as if\ndelighted at last to have hit on that reason among so many others.  \"How\ncould I tell that you would be here?\"  Then with sudden fire which only\nadded to the delight with which I had been watching the play of her\nphysiognomy she added: \"Why did you come into this room?\"\n\nShe enchanted me.  The ardent modulations of the sound, the slight play\nof the beautiful lips, the still, deep sapphire gleam in those long eyes\ninherited from the dawn of ages and that seemed always to watch\nunimaginable things, that underlying faint ripple of gaiety that played\nunder all her moods as though it had been a gift from the high gods moved\nto pity for this lonely mortal, all this within the four walls and\ndisplayed for me alone gave me the sense of almost intolerable joy.  The\nwords didn't matter.  They had to be answered, of course.\n\n\"I came in for several reasons.  One of them is that I didn't know you\nwere here.\"\n\n\"Therese didn't tell you?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Never talked to you about me?\"\n\nI hesitated only for a moment.  \"Never,\" I said.  Then I asked in my\nturn, \"Did she tell you I was here?\"\n\n\"No,\" she said.\n\n\"It's very clear she did not mean us to come together again.\"\n\n\"Neither did I, my dear.\"\n\n\"What do you mean by speaking like this, in this tone, in these words?\nYou seem to use them as if they were a sort of formula.  Am I a dear to\nyou?  Or is anybody? . . . or everybody? . . .\"\n\nShe had been for some time raised on her elbow, but then as if something\nhad happened to her vitality she sank down till her head rested again on\nthe sofa cushion.\n\n\"Why do you try to hurt my feelings?\" she asked.\n\n\"For the same reason for which you call me dear at the end of a sentence\nlike that: for want of something more amusing to do.  You don't pretend\nto make me believe that you do it for any sort of reason that a decent\nperson would confess to.\"\n\nThe colour had gone from her face; but a fit of wickedness was on me and\nI pursued, \"What are the motives of your speeches?  What prompts your\nactions?  On your own showing your life seems to be a continuous running\naway.  You have just run away from Paris.  Where will you run to-morrow?\nWhat are you everlastingly running from--or is it that you are running\nafter something?  What is it?  A man, a phantom--or some sensation that\nyou don't like to own to?\"\n\nTruth to say, I was abashed by the silence which was her only answer to\nthis sally.  I said to myself that I would not let my natural anger, my\njust fury be disarmed by any assumption of pathos or dignity.  I suppose\nI was really out of my mind and what in the middle ages would have been\ncalled \"possessed\" by an evil spirit.  I went on enjoying my own\nvillainy.\n\n\"Why aren't you in Tolosa?  You ought to be in Tolosa.  Isn't Tolosa the\nproper field for your abilities, for your sympathies, for your\nprofusions, for your generosities--the king without a crown, the man\nwithout a fortune!  But here there is nothing worthy of your talents.\nNo, there is no longer anything worth any sort of trouble here.  There\nisn't even that ridiculous Monsieur George.  I understand that the talk\nof the coast from here to Cette is that Monsieur George is drowned.  Upon\nmy word I believe he is.  And serve him right, too.  There's Therese, but\nI don't suppose that your love for your sister . . .\"\n\n\"For goodness' sake don't let her come in and find you here.\"\n\nThose words recalled me to myself, exorcised the evil spirit by the mere\nenchanting power of the voice.  They were also impressive by their\nsuggestion of something practical, utilitarian, and remote from\nsentiment.  The evil spirit left me and I remained taken aback slightly.\n\n\"Well,\" I said, \"if you mean that you want me to leave the room I will\nconfess to you that I can't very well do it yet.  But I could lock both\ndoors if you don't mind that.\"\n\n\"Do what you like as long as you keep her out.  You two together would be\ntoo much for me to-night.  Why don't you go and lock those doors?  I have\na feeling she is on the prowl.\"\n\nI got up at once saying, \"I imagine she has gone to bed by this time.\"  I\nfelt absolutely calm and responsible.  I turned the keys one after\nanother so gently that I couldn't hear the click of the locks myself.\nThis done I recrossed the room with measured steps, with downcast eyes,\nand approaching the couch without raising them from the carpet I sank\ndown on my knees and leaned my forehead on its edge.  That penitential\nattitude had but little remorse in it.  I detected no movement and heard\nno sound from her.  In one place a bit of the fur coat touched my cheek\nsoftly, but no forgiving hand came to rest on my bowed head.  I only\nbreathed deeply the faint scent of violets, her own particular fragrance\nenveloping my body, penetrating my very heart with an inconceivable\nintimacy, bringing me closer to her than the closest embrace, and yet so\nsubtle that I sensed her existence in me only as a great, glowing,\nindeterminate tenderness, something like the evening light disclosing\nafter the white passion of the day infinite depths in the colours of the\nsky and an unsuspected soul of peace in the protean forms of life.  I had\nnot known such quietness for months; and I detected in myself an immense\nfatigue, a longing to remain where I was without changing my position to\nthe end of time.  Indeed to remain seemed to me a complete solution for\nall the problems that life presents--even as to the very death itself.\n\nOnly the unwelcome reflection that this was impossible made me get up at\nlast with a sigh of deep grief at the end of the dream.  But I got up\nwithout despair.  She didn't murmur, she didn't stir.  There was\nsomething august in the stillness of the room.  It was a strange peace\nwhich she shared with me in this unexpected shelter full of disorder in\nits neglected splendour.  What troubled me was the sudden, as it were\nmaterial, consciousness of time passing as water flows.  It seemed to me\nthat it was only the tenacity of my sentiment that held that woman's\nbody, extended and tranquil above the flood.  But when I ventured at last\nto look at her face I saw her flushed, her teeth clenched--it was\nvisible--her nostrils dilated, and in her narrow, level-glancing eyes a\nlook of inward and frightened ecstasy.  The edges of the fur coat had\nfallen open and I was moved to turn away.  I had the same impression as\non the evening we parted that something had happened which I did not\nunderstand; only this time I had not touched her at all.  I really didn't\nunderstand.  At the slightest whisper I would now have gone out without a\nmurmur, as though that emotion had given her the right to be obeyed.  But\nthere was no whisper; and for a long time I stood leaning on my arm,\nlooking into the fire and feeling distinctly between the four walls of\nthat locked room the unchecked time flow past our two stranded\npersonalities.\n\nAnd suddenly she spoke.  She spoke in that voice that was so profoundly\nmoving without ever being sad, a little wistful perhaps and always the\nsupreme expression of her grace.  She asked as if nothing had happened:\n\n\"What are you thinking of, _amigo_?\"\n\nI turned about.  She was lying on her side, tranquil above the smooth\nflow of time, again closely wrapped up in her fur, her head resting on\nthe old-gold sofa cushion bearing like everything else in that room the\ndecoratively enlaced letters of her monogram; her face a little pale now,\nwith the crimson lobe of her ear under the tawny mist of her loose hair,\nthe lips a little parted, and her glance of melted sapphire level and\nmotionless, darkened by fatigue.\n\n\"Can I think of anything but you?\" I murmured, taking a seat near the\nfoot of the couch.  \"Or rather it isn't thinking, it is more like the\nconsciousness of you always being present in me, complete to the last\nhair, to the faintest shade of expression, and that not only when we are\napart but when we are together, alone, as close as this.  I see you now\nlying on this couch but that is only the insensible phantom of the real\nyou that is in me.  And it is the easier for me to feel this because that\nimage which others see and call by your name--how am I to know that it is\nanything else but an enchanting mist?  You have always eluded me except\nin one or two moments which seem still more dream-like than the rest.\nSince I came into this room you have done nothing to destroy my\nconviction of your unreality apart from myself.  You haven't offered me\nyour hand to touch.  Is it because you suspect that apart from me you are\nbut a mere phantom, and that you fear to put it to the test?\"\n\nOne of her hands was under the fur and the other under her cheek.  She\nmade no sound.  She didn't offer to stir.  She didn't move her eyes, not\neven after I had added after waiting for a while,\n\n\"Just what I expected.  You are a cold illusion.\"\n\nShe smiled mysteriously, right away from me, straight at the fire, and\nthat was all.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\n\nI had a momentary suspicion that I had said something stupid.  Her smile\namongst many other things seemed to have meant that, too.  And I answered\nit with a certain resignation:\n\n\"Well, I don't know that you are so much mist.  I remember once hanging\non to you like a drowning man . . . But perhaps I had better not speak of\nthis.  It wasn't so very long ago, and you may . . . \"\n\n\"I don't mind.  Well . . .\"\n\n\"Well, I have kept an impression of great solidity.  I'll admit that.  A\nwoman of granite.\"\n\n\"A doctor once told me that I was made to last for ever,\" she said.\n\n\"But essentially it's the same thing,\" I went on.  \"Granite, too, is\ninsensible.\"\n\nI watched her profile against the pillow and there came on her face an\nexpression I knew well when with an indignation full of suppressed\nlaughter she used to throw at me the word \"Imbecile.\"  I expected it to\ncome, but it didn't come.  I must say, though, that I was swimmy in my\nhead and now and then had a noise as of the sea in my ears, so I might\nnot have heard it.  The woman of granite, built to last for ever,\ncontinued to look at the glowing logs which made a sort of fiery ruin on\nthe white pile of ashes.  \"I will tell you how it is,\" I said.  \"When I\nhave you before my eyes there is such a projection of my whole being\ntowards you that I fail to see you distinctly.  It was like that from the\nbeginning.  I may say that I never saw you distinctly till after we had\nparted and I thought you had gone from my sight for ever.  It was then\nthat you took body in my imagination and that my mind seized on a\ndefinite form of you for all its adorations--for its profanations, too.\nDon't imagine me grovelling in spiritual abasement before a mere image.\nI got a grip on you that nothing can shake now.\"\n\n\"Don't speak like this,\" she said.  \"It's too much for me.  And there is\na whole long night before us.\"\n\n\"You don't think that I dealt with you sentimentally enough perhaps?  But\nthe sentiment was there; as clear a flame as ever burned on earth from\nthe most remote ages before that eternal thing which is in you, which is\nyour heirloom.  And is it my fault that what I had to give was real\nflame, and not a mystic's incense?  It is neither your fault nor mine.\nAnd now whatever we say to each other at night or in daylight, that\nsentiment must be taken for granted.  It will be there on the day I\ndie--when you won't be there.\"\n\nShe continued to look fixedly at the red embers; and from her lips that\nhardly moved came the quietest possible whisper: \"Nothing would be easier\nthan to die for you.\"\n\n\"Really,\" I cried.  \"And you expect me perhaps after this to kiss your\nfeet in a transport of gratitude while I hug the pride of your words to\nmy breast.  But as it happens there is nothing in me but contempt for\nthis sublime declaration.  How dare you offer me this charlatanism of\npassion?  What has it got to do between you and me who are the only two\nbeings in the world that may safely say that we have no need of shams\nbetween ourselves?  Is it possible that you are a charlatan at heart?\nNot from egoism, I admit, but from some sort of fear.  Yet, should you be\nsincere, then--listen well to me--I would never forgive you.  I would\nvisit your grave every day to curse you for an evil thing.\"\n\n\"Evil thing,\" she echoed softly.\n\n\"Would you prefer to be a sham--that one could forget?\"\n\n\"You will never forget me,\" she said in the same tone at the glowing\nembers.  \"Evil or good.  But, my dear, I feel neither an evil nor a sham.\nI have got to be what I am, and that, _amigo_, is not so easy; because I\nmay be simple, but like all those on whom there is no peace I am not One.\nNo, I am not One!\"\n\n\"You are all the women in the world,\" I whispered bending over her.  She\ndidn't seem to be aware of anything and only spoke--always to the glow.\n\n\"If I were that I would say: God help them then.  But that would be more\nappropriate for Therese.  For me, I can only give them my infinite\ncompassion.  I have too much reverence in me to invoke the name of a God\nof whom clever men have robbed me a long time ago.  How could I help it?\nFor the talk was clever and--and I had a mind.  And I am also, as Therese\nsays, naturally sinful.  Yes, my dear, I may be naturally wicked but I am\nnot evil and I could die for you.\"\n\n\"You!\" I said.  \"You are afraid to die.\"\n\n\"Yes.  But not for you.\"\n\nThe whole structure of glowing logs fell down, raising a small turmoil of\nwhite ashes and sparks.  The tiny crash seemed to wake her up thoroughly.\nShe turned her head upon the cushion to look at me.\n\n\"It's a very extraordinary thing, we two coming together like this,\" she\nsaid with conviction.  \"You coming in without knowing I was here and then\ntelling me that you can't very well go out of the room.  That sounds\nfunny.  I wouldn't have been angry if you had said that you wouldn't.  It\nwould have hurt me.  But nobody ever paid much attention to my feelings.\nWhy do you smile like this?\"\n\n\"At a thought.  Without any charlatanism of passion I am able to tell you\nof something to match your devotion.  I was not afraid for your sake to\ncome within a hair's breadth of what to all the world would have been a\nsqualid crime.  Note that you and I are persons of honour.  And there\nmight have been a criminal trial at the end of it for me.  Perhaps the\nscaffold.\"\n\n\"Do you say these horrors to make me tremble?\"\n\n\"Oh, you needn't tremble.  There shall be no crime.  I need not risk the\nscaffold, since now you are safe.  But I entered this room meditating\nresolutely on the ways of murder, calculating possibilities and chances\nwithout the slightest compunction.  It's all over now.  It was all over\ndirectly I saw you here, but it had been so near that I shudder yet.\"\n\nShe must have been very startled because for a time she couldn't speak.\nThen in a faint voice:\n\n\"For me!  For me!\" she faltered out twice.\n\n\"For you--or for myself?  Yet it couldn't have been selfish.  What would\nit have been to me that you remained in the world?  I never expected to\nsee you again.  I even composed a most beautiful letter of farewell.\nSuch a letter as no woman had ever received.\"\n\nInstantly she shot out a hand towards me.  The edges of the fur cloak\nfell apart.  A wave of the faintest possible scent floated into my\nnostrils.\n\n\"Let me have it,\" she said imperiously.\n\n\"You can't have it.  It's all in my head.  No woman will read it.  I\nsuspect it was something that could never have been written.  But what a\nfarewell!  And now I suppose we shall say good-bye without even a\nhandshake.  But you are safe!  Only I must ask you not to come out of\nthis room till I tell you you may.\"\n\nI was extremely anxious that Senor Ortega should never even catch a\nglimpse of Dona Rita, never guess how near he had been to her.  I was\nextremely anxious the fellow should depart for Tolosa and get shot in a\nravine; or go to the Devil in his own way, as long as he lost the track\nof Dona Rita completely.  He then, probably, would get mad and get shut\nup, or else get cured, forget all about it, and devote himself to his\nvocation, whatever it was--keep a shop and grow fat.  All this flashed\nthrough my mind in an instant and while I was still dazzled by those\ncomforting images, the voice of Dona Rita pulled me up with a jerk.\n\n\"You mean not out of the house?\"\n\n\"No, I mean not out of this room,\" I said with some embarrassment.\n\n\"What do you mean?  Is there something in the house then?  This is most\nextraordinary!  Stay in this room?  And you, too, it seems?  Are you also\nafraid for yourself?\"\n\n\"I can't even give you an idea how afraid I was.  I am not so much now.\nBut you know very well, Dona Rita, that I never carry any sort of weapon\nin my pocket.\"\n\n\"Why don't you, then?\" she asked in a flash of scorn which bewitched me\nso completely for an instant that I couldn't even smile at it.\n\n\"Because if I am unconventionalized I am an old European,\" I murmured\ngently.  \"No, _Excellentissima_, I shall go through life without as much\nas a switch in my hand.  It's no use you being angry.  Adapting to this\ngreat moment some words you've heard before: I am like that.  Such is my\ncharacter!\"\n\nDona Rita frankly stared at me--a most unusual expression for her to\nhave.  Suddenly she sat up.\n\n\"Don George,\" she said with lovely animation, \"I insist upon knowing who\nis in my house.\"\n\n\"You insist! . . . But Therese says it is _her_ house.\"\n\nHad there been anything handy, such as a cigarette box, for instance, it\nwould have gone sailing through the air spouting cigarettes as it went.\nRosy all over, cheeks, neck, shoulders, she seemed lighted up softly from\ninside like a beautiful transparency.  But she didn't raise her voice.\n\n\"You and Therese have sworn my ruin.  If you don't tell me what you mean\nI will go outside and shout up the stairs to make her come down.  I know\nthere is no one but the three of us in the house.\"\n\n\"Yes, three; but not counting my Jacobin.  There is a Jacobin in the\nhouse.\"\n\n\"A Jac . . .!  Oh, George, is this the time to jest?\" she began in\npersuasive tones when a faint but peculiar noise stilled her lips as\nthough they had been suddenly frozen.  She became quiet all over\ninstantly.  I, on the contrary, made an involuntary movement before I,\ntoo, became as still as death.  We strained our ears; but that peculiar\nmetallic rattle had been so slight and the silence now was so perfect\nthat it was very difficult to believe one's senses.  Dona Rita looked\ninquisitively at me.  I gave her a slight nod.  We remained looking into\neach other's eyes while we listened and listened till the silence became\nunbearable.  Dona Rita whispered composedly: \"Did you hear?\"\n\n\"I am asking myself . . . I almost think I didn't.\"\n\n\"Don't shuffle with me.  It was a scraping noise.\"\n\n\"Something fell.\"\n\n\"Something!  What thing?  What are the things that fall by themselves?\nWho is that man of whom you spoke?  Is there a man?\"\n\n\"No doubt about it whatever.  I brought him here myself.\"\n\n\"What for?\"\n\n\"Why shouldn't I have a Jacobin of my own?  Haven't you one, too?  But\nmine is a different problem from that white-haired humbug of yours.  He\nis a genuine article.  There must be plenty like him about.  He has\nscores to settle with half a dozen people, he says, and he clamours for\nrevolutions to give him a chance.\"\n\n\"But why did you bring him here?\"\n\n\"I don't know--from sudden affection . . . \"\n\nAll this passed in such low tones that we seemed to make out the words\nmore by watching each other's lips than through our sense of hearing.\nMan is a strange animal.  I didn't care what I said.  All I wanted was to\nkeep her in her pose, excited and still, sitting up with her hair loose,\nsoftly glowing, the dark brown fur making a wonderful contrast with the\nwhite lace on her breast.  All I was thinking of was that she was\nadorable and too lovely for words!  I cared for nothing but that\nsublimely aesthetic impression.  It summed up all life, all joy, all\npoetry!  It had a divine strain.  I am certain that I was not in my right\nmind.  I suppose I was not quite sane.  I am convinced that at that\nmoment of the four people in the house it was Dona Rita who upon the\nwhole was the most sane.  She observed my face and I am sure she read\nthere something of my inward exaltation.  She knew what to do.  In the\nsoftest possible tone and hardly above her breath she commanded: \"George,\ncome to yourself.\"\n\nHer gentleness had the effect of evening light.  I was soothed.  Her\nconfidence in her own power touched me profoundly.  I suppose my love was\ntoo great for madness to get hold of me.  I can't say that I passed to a\ncomplete calm, but I became slightly ashamed of myself.  I whispered:\n\n\"No, it was not from affection, it was for the love of you that I brought\nhim here.  That imbecile H. was going to send him to Tolosa.\"\n\n\"That Jacobin!\" Dona Rita was immensely surprised, as she might well have\nbeen.  Then resigned to the incomprehensible: \"Yes,\" she breathed out,\n\"what did you do with him?\"\n\n\"I put him to bed in the studio.\"\n\nHow lovely she was with the effort of close attention depicted in the\nturn of her head and in her whole face honestly trying to approve.  \"And\nthen?\" she inquired.\n\n\"Then I came in here to face calmly the necessity of doing away with a\nhuman life.  I didn't shirk it for a moment.  That's what a short\ntwelvemonth has brought me to.  Don't think I am reproaching you, O blind\nforce!  You are justified because you _are_.  Whatever had to happen you\nwould not even have heard of it.\"\n\nHorror darkened her marvellous radiance.  Then her face became utterly\nblank with the tremendous effort to understand.  Absolute silence reigned\nin the house.  It seemed to me that everything had been said now that\nmattered in the world; and that the world itself had reached its ultimate\nstage, had reached its appointed end of an eternal, phantom-like silence.\nSuddenly Dona Rita raised a warning finger.  I had heard nothing and\nshook my head; but she nodded hers and murmured excitedly,\n\n\"Yes, yes, in the fencing-room, as before.\"\n\nIn the same way I answered her: \"Impossible!  The door is locked and\nTherese has the key.\"  She asked then in the most cautious manner,\n\n\"Have you seen Therese to-night?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I confessed without misgiving.  \"I left her making up the fellow's\nbed when I came in here.\"\n\n\"The bed of the Jacobin?\" she said in a peculiar tone as if she were\nhumouring a lunatic.\n\n\"I think I had better tell you he is a Spaniard--that he seems to know\nyou from early days. . . .\"  I glanced at her face, it was extremely\ntense, apprehensive.  For myself I had no longer any doubt as to the man\nand I hoped she would reach the correct conclusion herself.  But I\nbelieve she was too distracted and worried to think consecutively.  She\nonly seemed to feel some terror in the air.  In very pity I bent down and\nwhispered carefully near her ear, \"His name is Ortega.\"\n\nI expected some effect from that name but I never expected what happened.\nWith the sudden, free, spontaneous agility of a young animal she leaped\noff the sofa, leaving her slippers behind, and in one bound reached\nalmost the middle of the room.  The vigour, the instinctive precision of\nthat spring, were something amazing.  I just escaped being knocked over.\nShe landed lightly on her bare feet with a perfect balance, without the\nslightest suspicion of swaying in her instant immobility.  It lasted less\nthan a second, then she spun round distractedly and darted at the first\ndoor she could see.  My own agility was just enough to enable me to grip\nthe back of the fur coat and then catch her round the body before she\ncould wriggle herself out of the sleeves.  She was muttering all the\ntime, \"No, no, no.\"  She abandoned herself to me just for an instant\nduring which I got her back to the middle of the room.  There she\nattempted to free herself and I let her go at once.  With her face very\nclose to mine, but apparently not knowing what she was looking at she\nrepeated again twice, \"No--No,\" with an intonation which might well have\nbrought dampness to my eyes but which only made me regret that I didn't\nkill the honest Ortega at sight.  Suddenly Dona Rita swung round and\nseizing her loose hair with both hands started twisting it up before one\nof the sumptuous mirrors.  The wide fur sleeves slipped down her white\narms.  In a brusque movement like a downward stab she transfixed the\nwhole mass of tawny glints and sparks with the arrow of gold which she\nperceived lying there, before her, on the marble console.  Then she\nsprang away from the glass muttering feverishly, \"Out--out--out of this\nhouse,\" and trying with an awful, senseless stare to dodge past me who\nhad put myself in her way with open arms.  At last I managed to seize her\nby the shoulders and in the extremity of my distress I shook her roughly.\nIf she hadn't quieted down then I believe my heart would have broken.  I\nspluttered right into her face: \"I won't let you.  Here you stay.\"  She\nseemed to recognize me at last, and suddenly still, perfectly firm on her\nwhite feet, she let her arms fall and, from an abyss of desolation,\nwhispered, \"O! George!  No!  No!  Not Ortega.\"\n\nThere was a passion of mature grief in this tone of appeal.  And yet she\nremained as touching and helpless as a distressed child.  It had all the\nsimplicity and depth of a child's emotion.  It tugged at one's\nheart-strings in the same direct way.  But what could one do?  How could\none soothe her?  It was impossible to pat her on the head, take her on\nthe knee, give her a chocolate or show her a picture-book.  I found\nmyself absolutely without resource.  Completely at a loss.\n\n\"Yes, Ortega.  Well, what of it?\" I whispered with immense assurance.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\n\nMy brain was in a whirl.  I am safe to say that at this precise moment\nthere was nobody completely sane in the house.  Setting apart Therese and\nOrtega, both in the grip of unspeakable passions, all the moral economy\nof Dona Rita had gone to pieces.  Everything was gone except her strong\nsense of life with all its implied menaces.  The woman was a mere chaos\nof sensations and vitality.  I, too, suffered most from inability to get\nhold of some fundamental thought.  The one on which I could best build\nsome hopes was the thought that, of course, Ortega did not know anything.\nI whispered this into the ear of Dona Rita, into her precious, her\nbeautifully shaped ear.\n\nBut she shook her head, very much like an inconsolable child and very\nmuch with a child's complete pessimism she murmured, \"Therese has told\nhim.\"\n\nThe words, \"Oh, nonsense,\" never passed my lips, because I could not\ncheat myself into denying that there had been a noise; and that the noise\nwas in the fencing-room.  I knew that room.  There was nothing there that\nby the wildest stretch of imagination could be conceived as falling with\nthat particular sound.  There was a table with a tall strip of\nlooking-glass above it at one end; but since Blunt took away his\ncampaigning kit there was no small object of any sort on the console or\nanywhere else that could have been jarred off in some mysterious manner.\nAlong one of the walls there was the whole complicated apparatus of solid\nbrass pipes, and quite close to it an enormous bath sunk into the floor.\nThe greatest part of the room along its whole length was covered with\nmatting and had nothing else but a long, narrow leather-upholstered bench\nfixed to the wall.  And that was all.  And the door leading to the studio\nwas locked.  And Therese had the key.  And it flashed on my mind,\nindependently of Dona Rita's pessimism, by the force of personal\nconviction, that, of course, Therese would tell him.  I beheld the whole\nsuccession of events perfectly connected and tending to that particular\nconclusion.  Therese would tell him!  I could see the contrasted heads of\nthose two formidable lunatics close together in a dark mist of whispers\ncompounded of greed, piety, and jealousy, plotting in a sense of perfect\nsecurity as if under the very wing of Providence.  So at least Therese\nwould think.  She could not be but under the impression that\n(providentially) I had been called out for the rest of the night.\n\nAnd now there was one sane person in the house, for I had regained\ncomplete command of my thoughts.  Working in a logical succession of\nimages they showed me at last as clearly as a picture on a wall, Therese\npressing with fervour the key into the fevered palm of the rich,\nprestigious, virtuous cousin, so that he should go and urge his\nself-sacrificing offer to Rita, and gain merit before Him whose Eye sees\nall the actions of men.  And this image of those two with the key in the\nstudio seemed to me a most monstrous conception of fanaticism, of a\nperfectly horrible aberration.  For who could mistake the state that made\nJose Ortega the figure he was, inspiring both pity and fear?  I could not\ndeny that I understood, not the full extent but the exact nature of his\nsuffering.  Young as I was I had solved for myself that grotesque and\nsombre personality.  His contact with me, the personal contact with (as\nhe thought) one of the actual lovers of that woman who brought to him as\na boy the curse of the gods, had tipped over the trembling scales.  No\ndoubt I was very near death in the \"grand salon\" of the Maison Doree,\nonly that his torture had gone too far.  It seemed to me that I ought to\nhave heard his very soul scream while we were seated at supper.  But in a\nmoment he had ceased to care for me.  I was nothing.  To the crazy\nexaggeration of his jealousy I was but one amongst a hundred thousand.\nWhat was my death?  Nothing.  All mankind had possessed that woman.  I\nknew what his wooing of her would be: Mine--or Dead.\n\nAll this ought to have had the clearness of noon-day, even to the veriest\nidiot that ever lived; and Therese was, properly speaking, exactly that.\nAn idiot.  A one-ideaed creature.  Only the idea was complex; therefore\nit was impossible really to say what she wasn't capable of.  This was\nwhat made her obscure processes so awful.  She had at times the most\namazing perceptions.  Who could tell where her simplicity ended and her\ncunning began?  She had also the faculty of never forgetting any fact\nbearing upon her one idea; and I remembered now that the conversation\nwith me about the will had produced on her an indelible impression of the\nLaw's surprising justice.  Recalling her naive admiration of the \"just\"\nlaw that required no \"paper\" from a sister, I saw her casting loose the\nraging fate with a sanctimonious air.  And Therese would naturally give\nthe key of the fencing-room to her dear, virtuous, grateful,\ndisinterested cousin, to that damned soul with delicate whiskers, because\nshe would think it just possible that Rita might have locked the door\nleading front her room into the hall; whereas there was no earthly\nreason, not the slightest likelihood, that she would bother about the\nother.  Righteousness demanded that the erring sister should be taken\nunawares.\n\nAll the above is the analysis of one short moment.  Images are to words\nlike light to sound--incomparably swifter.  And all this was really one\nflash of light through my mind.  A comforting thought succeeded it: that\nboth doors were locked and that really there was no danger.\n\nHowever, there had been that noise--the why and the how of it?  Of course\nin the dark he might have fallen into the bath, but that wouldn't have\nbeen a faint noise.  It wouldn't have been a rattle.  There was\nabsolutely nothing he could knock over.  He might have dropped a\ncandle-stick if Therese had left him her own.  That was possible, but\nthen those thick mats--and then, anyway, why should he drop it? and, hang\nit all, why shouldn't he have gone straight on and tried the door?  I had\nsuddenly a sickening vision of the fellow crouching at the key-hole,\nlistening, listening, listening, for some movement or sigh of the sleeper\nhe was ready to tear away from the world, alive or dead.  I had a\nconviction that he was still listening.  Why?  Goodness knows!  He may\nhave been only gloating over the assurance that the night was long and\nthat he had all these hours to himself.\n\nI was pretty certain that he could have heard nothing of our whispers,\nthe room was too big for that and the door too solid.  I hadn't the same\nconfidence in the efficiency of the lock.  Still I . . . Guarding my lips\nwith my hand I urged Dona Rita to go back to the sofa.  She wouldn't\nanswer me and when I got hold of her arm I discovered that she wouldn't\nmove.  She had taken root in that thick-pile Aubusson carpet; and she was\nso rigidly still all over that the brilliant stones in the shaft of the\narrow of gold, with the six candles at the head of the sofa blazing full\non them, emitted no sparkle.\n\nI was extremely anxious that she shouldn't betray herself.  I reasoned,\nsave the mark, as a psychologist.  I had no doubt that the man knew of\nher being there; but he only knew it by hearsay.  And that was bad\nenough.  I could not help feeling that if he obtained some evidence for\nhis senses by any sort of noise, voice, or movement, his madness would\ngain strength enough to burst the lock.  I was rather ridiculously\nworried about the locks.  A horrid mistrust of the whole house possessed\nme.  I saw it in the light of a deadly trap.  I had no weapon, I couldn't\nsay whether he had one or not.  I wasn't afraid of a struggle as far as\nI, myself, was concerned, but I was afraid of it for Dona Rita.  To be\nrolling at her feet, locked in a literally tooth-and-nail struggle with\nOrtega would have been odious.  I wanted to spare her feelings, just as I\nwould have been anxious to save from any contact with mud the feet of\nthat goatherd of the mountains with a symbolic face.  I looked at her\nface.  For immobility it might have been a carving.  I wished I knew how\nto deal with that embodied mystery, to influence it, to manage it.  Oh,\nhow I longed for the gift of authority!  In addition, since I had become\ncompletely sane, all my scruples against laying hold of her had returned.\nI felt shy and embarrassed.  My eyes were fixed on the bronze handle of\nthe fencing-room door as if it were something alive.  I braced myself up\nagainst the moment when it would move.  This was what was going to happen\nnext.  It would move very gently.  My heart began to thump.  But I was\nprepared to keep myself as still as death and I hoped Dona Rita would\nhave sense enough to do the same.  I stole another glance at her face and\nat that moment I heard the word: \"Beloved!\" form itself in the still air\nof the room, weak, distinct, piteous, like the last request of the dying.\n\nWith great presence of mind I whispered into Dona Rita's ear: \"Perfect\nsilence!\" and was overjoyed to discover that she had heard me, understood\nme; that she even had command over her rigid lips.  She answered me in a\nbreath (our cheeks were nearly touching): \"Take me out of this house.\"\n\nI glanced at all her clothing scattered about the room and hissed\nforcibly the warning \"Perfect immobility\"; noticing with relief that she\ndidn't offer to move, though animation was returning to her and her lips\nhad remained parted in an awful, unintended effect of a smile.  And I\ndon't know whether I was pleased when she, who was not to be touched,\ngripped my wrist suddenly.  It had the air of being done on purpose\nbecause almost instantly another: \"Beloved!\" louder, more agonized if\npossible, got into the room and, yes, went home to my heart.  It was\nfollowed without any transition, preparation, or warning, by a positively\nbellowed: \"Speak, perjured beast!\" which I felt pass in a thrill right\nthrough Dona Rita like an electric shock, leaving her as motionless as\nbefore.\n\nTill he shook the door handle, which he did immediately afterwards, I\nwasn't certain through which door he had spoken.  The two doors (in\ndifferent walls) were rather near each other.  It was as I expected.  He\nwas in the fencing-room, thoroughly aroused, his senses on the alert to\ncatch the slightest sound.  A situation not to be trifled with.  Leaving\nthe room was for us out of the question.  It was quite possible for him\nto dash round into the hall before we could get clear of the front door.\nAs to making a bolt of it upstairs there was the same objection; and to\nallow ourselves to be chased all over the empty house by this maniac\nwould have been mere folly.  There was no advantage in locking ourselves\nup anywhere upstairs where the original doors and locks were much\nlighter.  No, true safety was in absolute stillness and silence, so that\neven his rage should be brought to doubt at last and die expended, or\nchoke him before it died; I didn't care which.\n\nFor me to go out and meet him would have been stupid.  Now I was certain\nthat he was armed.  I had remembered the wall in the fencing-room\ndecorated with trophies of cold steel in all the civilized and savage\nforms; sheaves of assegais, in the guise of columns and grouped between\nthem stars and suns of choppers, swords, knives; from Italy, from\nDamascus, from Abyssinia, from the ends of the world.  Ortega had only to\nmake his barbarous choice.  I suppose he had got up on the bench, and\nfumbling about amongst them must have brought one down, which, falling,\nhad produced that rattling noise.  But in any case to go to meet him\nwould have been folly, because, after all, I might have been overpowered\n(even with bare hands) and then Dona Rita would have been left utterly\ndefenceless.\n\n\"He will speak,\" came to me the ghostly, terrified murmur of her voice.\n\"Take me out of the house before he begins to speak.\"\n\n\"Keep still,\" I whispered.  \"He will soon get tired of this.\"\n\n\"You don't know him.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, I do.  Been with him two hours.\"\n\nAt this she let go my wrist and covered her face with her hands\npassionately.  When she dropped them she had the look of one morally\ncrushed.\n\n\"What did he say to you?\"\n\n\"He raved.\"\n\n\"Listen to me.  It was all true!\"\n\n\"I daresay, but what of that?\"\n\nThese ghostly words passed between us hardly louder than thoughts; but\nafter my last answer she ceased and gave me a searching stare, then drew\nin a long breath.  The voice on the other side of the door burst out with\nan impassioned request for a little pity, just a little, and went on\nbegging for a few words, for two words, for one word--one poor little\nword.  Then it gave up, then repeated once more, \"Say you are there,\nRita, Say one word, just one word.  Say 'yes.'  Come!  Just one little\nyes.\"\n\n\"You see,\" I said.  She only lowered her eyelids over the anxious glance\nshe had turned on me.\n\nFor a minute we could have had the illusion that he had stolen away,\nunheard, on the thick mats.  But I don't think that either of us was\ndeceived.  The voice returned, stammering words without connection,\npausing and faltering, till suddenly steadied it soared into impassioned\nentreaty, sank to low, harsh tones, voluble, lofty sometimes and\nsometimes abject.  When it paused it left us looking profoundly at each\nother.\n\n\"It's almost comic,\" I whispered.\n\n\"Yes.  One could laugh,\" she assented, with a sort of sinister\nconviction.  Never had I seen her look exactly like that, for an instant\nanother, an incredible Rita!  \"Haven't I laughed at him innumerable\ntimes?\" she added in a sombre whisper.\n\nHe was muttering to himself out there, and unexpectedly shouted: \"What?\"\nas though he had fancied he had heard something.  He waited a while\nbefore he started up again with a loud: \"Speak up, Queen of the goats,\nwith your goat tricks. . .\"  All was still for a time, then came a most\nawful bang on the door.  He must have stepped back a pace to hurl himself\nbodily against the panels.  The whole house seemed to shake.  He repeated\nthat performance once more, and then varied it by a prolonged drumming\nwith his fists.  It _was_ comic.  But I felt myself struggling mentally\nwith an invading gloom as though I were no longer sure of myself.\n\n\"Take me out,\" whispered Dona Rita feverishly, \"take me out of this house\nbefore it is too late.\"\n\n\"You will have to stand it,\" I answered.\n\n\"So be it; but then you must go away yourself.  Go now, before it is too\nlate.\"\n\nI didn't condescend to answer this.  The drumming on the panels stopped\nand the absurd thunder of it died out in the house.  I don't know why\nprecisely then I had the acute vision of the red mouth of Jose Ortega\nwriggling with rage between his funny whiskers.  He began afresh but in a\ntired tone:\n\n\"Do you expect a fellow to forget your tricks, you wicked little devil?\nHaven't you ever seen me dodging about to get a sight of you amongst\nthose pretty gentlemen, on horseback, like a princess, with pure cheeks\nlike a carved saint?  I wonder I didn't throw stones at you, I wonder I\ndidn't run after you shouting the tale--curse my timidity!  But I daresay\nthey knew as much as I did.  More.  All the new tricks--if that were\npossible.\"\n\nWhile he was making this uproar, Dona Rita put her fingers in her ears\nand then suddenly changed her mind and clapped her hands over my ears.\nInstinctively I disengaged my head but she persisted.  We had a short\ntussle without moving from the spot, and suddenly I had my head free, and\nthere was complete silence.  He had screamed himself out of breath, but\nDona Rita muttering: \"Too late, too late,\" got her hands away from my\ngrip and slipping altogether out of her fur coat seized some garment\nlying on a chair near by (I think it was her skirt), with the intention\nof dressing herself, I imagine, and rushing out of the house.  Determined\nto prevent this, but indeed without thinking very much what I was doing,\nI got hold of her arm.  That struggle was silent, too; but I used the\nleast force possible and she managed to give me an unexpected push.\nStepping back to save myself from falling I overturned the little table,\nbearing the six-branched candlestick.  It hit the floor, rebounded with a\ndull ring on the carpet, and by the time it came to a rest every single\ncandle was out.  He on the other side of the door naturally heard the\nnoise and greeted it with a triumphant screech: \"Aha!  I've managed to\nwake you up,\" the very savagery of which had a laughable effect.  I felt\nthe weight of Dona Rita grow on my arm and thought it best to let her\nsink on the floor, wishing to be free in my movements and really afraid\nthat now he had actually heard a noise he would infallibly burst the\ndoor.  But he didn't even thump it.  He seemed to have exhausted himself\nin that scream.  There was no other light in the room but the darkened\nglow of the embers and I could hardly make out amongst the shadows of\nfurniture Dona Rita sunk on her knees in a penitential and despairing\nattitude.  Before this collapse I, who had been wrestling desperately\nwith her a moment before, felt that I dare not touch her.  This emotion,\ntoo, I could not understand; this abandonment of herself, this\nconscience-stricken humility.  A humbly imploring request to open the\ndoor came from the other side.  Ortega kept on repeating: \"Open the door,\nopen the door,\" in such an amazing variety of intonations, imperative,\nwhining, persuasive, insinuating, and even unexpectedly jocose, that I\nreally stood there smiling to myself, yet with a gloomy and uneasy heart.\nThen he remarked, parenthetically as it were, \"Oh, you know how to\ntorment a man, you brown-skinned, lean, grinning, dishevelled imp, you.\nAnd mark,\" he expounded further, in a curiously doctoral tone--\"you are\nin all your limbs hateful: your eyes are hateful and your mouth is\nhateful, and your hair is hateful, and your body is cold and vicious like\na snake--and altogether you are perdition.\"\n\nThis statement was astonishingly deliberate.  He drew a moaning breath\nafter it and uttered in a heart-rending tone, \"You know, Rita, that I\ncannot live without you.  I haven't lived.  I am not living now.  This\nisn't life.  Come, Rita, you can't take a boy's soul away and then let\nhim grow up and go about the world, poor devil, while you go amongst the\nrich from one pair of arms to another, showing all your best tricks.  But\nI will forgive you if you only open the door,\" he ended in an inflated\ntone: \"You remember how you swore time after time to be my wife.  You are\nmore fit to be Satan's wife but I don't mind.  You shall be my wife!\"\n\nA sound near the floor made me bend down hastily with a stern: \"Don't\nlaugh,\" for in his grotesque, almost burlesque discourses there seemed to\nme to be truth, passion, and horror enough to move a mountain.\n\nSuddenly suspicion seized him out there.  With perfectly farcical\nunexpectedness he yelled shrilly: \"Oh, you deceitful wretch!  You won't\nescape me!  I will have you. . . .\"\n\nAnd in a manner of speaking he vanished.  Of course I couldn't see him\nbut somehow that was the impression.  I had hardly time to receive it\nwhen crash! . . . he was already at the other door.  I suppose he thought\nthat his prey was escaping him.  His swiftness was amazing, almost\ninconceivable, more like the effect of a trick or of a mechanism.  The\nthump on the door was awful as if he had not been able to stop himself in\ntime.  The shock seemed enough to stun an elephant.  It was really funny.\nAnd after the crash there was a moment of silence as if he were\nrecovering himself.  The next thing was a low grunt, and at once he\npicked up the thread of his fixed idea.\n\n\"You will have to be my wife.  I have no shame.  You swore you would be\nand so you will have to be.\"  Stifled low sounds made me bend down again\nto the kneeling form, white in the flush of the dark red glow.  \"For\ngoodness' sake don't,\" I whispered down.  She was struggling with an\nappalling fit of merriment, repeating to herself, \"Yes, every day, for\ntwo months.  Sixty times at least, sixty times at least.\"  Her voice was\nrising high.  She was struggling against laughter, but when I tried to\nput my hand over her lips I felt her face wet with tears.  She turned it\nthis way and that, eluding my hand with repressed low, little moans.  I\nlost my caution and said, \"Be quiet,\" so sharply as to startle myself\n(and her, too) into expectant stillness.\n\nOrtega's voice in the hall asked distinctly: \"Eh?  What's this?\" and then\nhe kept still on his side listening, but he must have thought that his\nears had deceived him.  He was getting tired, too.  He was keeping quiet\nout there--resting.  Presently he sighed deeply; then in a harsh\nmelancholy tone he started again.\n\n\"My love, my soul, my life, do speak to me.  What am I that you should\ntake so much trouble to pretend that you aren't there?  Do speak to me,\"\nhe repeated tremulously, following this mechanical appeal with a string\nof extravagantly endearing names, some of them quite childish, which all\nof a sudden stopped dead; and then after a pause there came a distinct,\nunutterably weary: \"What shall I do now?\" as though he were speaking to\nhimself.\n\nI shuddered to hear rising from the floor, by my side, a vibrating,\nscornful: \"Do!  Why, slink off home looking over your shoulder as you\nused to years ago when I had done with you--all but the laughter.\"\n\n\"Rita,\" I murmured, appalled.  He must have been struck dumb for a\nmoment.  Then, goodness only knows why, in his dismay or rage he was\nmoved to speak in French with a most ridiculous accent.\n\n\"So you have found your tongue at last--_Catin_!  You were that from the\ncradle.  Don't you remember how . . .\"\n\nDona Rita sprang to her feet at my side with a loud cry, \"No, George,\nno,\" which bewildered me completely.  The suddenness, the loudness of it\nmade the ensuing silence on both sides of the door perfectly awful.  It\nseemed to me that if I didn't resist with all my might something in me\nwould die on the instant.  In the straight, falling folds of the\nnight-dress she looked cold like a block of marble; while I, too, was\nturned into stone by the terrific clamour in the hall.\n\n\"Therese, Therese,\" yelled Ortega.  \"She has got a man in there.\"  He ran\nto the foot of the stairs and screamed again, \"Therese, Therese!  There\nis a man with her.  A man!  Come down, you miserable, starved peasant,\ncome down and see.\"\n\nI don't know where Therese was but I am sure that this voice reached her,\nterrible, as if clamouring to heaven, and with a shrill over-note which\nmade me certain that if she was in bed the only thing she would think of\ndoing would be to put her head under the bed-clothes.  With a final yell:\n\"Come down and see,\" he flew back at the door of the room and started\nshaking it violently.\n\nIt was a double door, very tall, and there must have been a lot of things\nloose about its fittings, bolts, latches, and all those brass\napplications with broken screws, because it rattled, it clattered, it\njingled; and produced also the sound as of thunder rolling in the big,\nempty hall.  It was deafening, distressing, and vaguely alarming as if it\ncould bring the house down.  At the same time the futility of it had, it\ncannot be denied, a comic effect.  The very magnitude of the racket he\nraised was funny.  But he couldn't keep up that violent exertion\ncontinuously, and when he stopped to rest we could hear him shouting to\nhimself in vengeful tones.  He saw it all!  He had been decoyed there!\n(Rattle, rattle, rattle.)  He had been decoyed into that town, he\nscreamed, getting more and more excited by the noise he made himself, in\norder to be exposed to this!  (Rattle, rattle.)  By this shameless\n\"_Catin_! _Catin_! _Catin_!\"\n\nHe started at the door again with superhuman vigour.  Behind me I heard\nDona Rita laughing softly, statuesque, turned all dark in the fading\nglow.  I called out to her quite openly, \"Do keep your self-control.\"\nAnd she called back to me in a clear voice: \"Oh, my dear, will you ever\nconsent to speak to me after all this?  But don't ask for the impossible.\nHe was born to be laughed at.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I cried.  \"But don't let yourself go.\"\n\nI don't know whether Ortega heard us.  He was exerting then his utmost\nstrength of lung against the infamous plot to expose him to the derision\nof the fiendish associates of that obscene woman! . . . Then he began\nanother interlude upon the door, so sustained and strong that I had the\nthought that this was growing absurdly impossible, that either the\nplaster would begin to fall off the ceiling or he would drop dead next\nmoment, out there.\n\nHe stopped, uttered a few curses at the door, and seemed calmer from\nsheer exhaustion.\n\n\"This story will be all over the world,\" we heard him begin.  \"Deceived,\ndecoyed, inveighed, in order to be made a laughing-stock before the most\ndebased of all mankind, that woman and her associates.\"  This was really\na meditation.  And then he screamed: \"I will kill you all.\"  Once more he\nstarted worrying the door but it was a startlingly feeble effort which he\nabandoned almost at once.  He must have been at the end of his strength.\nDona Rita from the middle of the room asked me recklessly loud: \"Tell me!\nWasn't he born to be laughed at?\"  I didn't answer her.  I was so near\nthe door that I thought I ought to hear him panting there.  He was\nterrifying, but he was not serious.  He was at the end of his strength,\nof his breath, of every kind of endurance, but I did not know it.  He was\ndone up, finished; but perhaps he did not know it himself.  How still he\nwas!  Just as I began to wonder at it, I heard him distinctly give a slap\nto his forehead.  \"I see it all!\" he cried.  \"That miserable, canting\npeasant-woman upstairs has arranged it all.  No doubt she consulted her\npriests.  I must regain my self-respect.  Let her die first.\"  I heard\nhim make a dash for the foot of the stairs.  I was appalled; yet to think\nof Therese being hoisted with her own petard was like a turn of affairs\nin a farce.  A very ferocious farce.  Instinctively I unlocked the door.\nDona Rita's contralto laugh rang out loud, bitter, and contemptuous; and\nI heard Ortega's distracted screaming as if under torture.  \"It hurts!\nIt hurts!  It hurts!\"  I hesitated just an instant, half a second, no\nmore, but before I could open the door wide there was in the hall a short\ngroan and the sound of a heavy fall.\n\nThe sight of Ortega lying on his back at the foot of the stairs arrested\nme in the doorway.  One of his legs was drawn up, the other extended\nfully, his foot very near the pedestal of the silver statuette holding\nthe feeble and tenacious gleam which made the shadows so heavy in that\nhall.  One of his arms lay across his breast.  The other arm was extended\nfull length on the white-and-black pavement with the hand palm upwards\nand the fingers rigidly spread out.  The shadow of the lowest step\nslanted across his face but one whisker and part of his chin could be\nmade out.  He appeared strangely flattened.  He didn't move at all.  He\nwas in his shirt-sleeves.  I felt an extreme distaste for that sight.\nThe characteristic sound of a key worrying in the lock stole into my\nears.  I couldn't locate it but I didn't attend much to that at first.  I\nwas engaged in watching Senor Ortega.  But for his raised leg he clung so\nflat to the floor and had taken on himself such a distorted shape that he\nmight have been the mere shadow of Senor Ortega.  It was rather\nfascinating to see him so quiet at the end of all that fury, clamour,\npassion, and uproar.  Surely there was never anything so still in the\nworld as this Ortega.  I had a bizarre notion that he was not to be\ndisturbed.\n\nA noise like the rattling of chain links, a small grind and click\nexploded in the stillness of the hall and a voice began to swear in\nItalian.  These surprising sounds were quite welcome, they recalled me to\nmyself, and I perceived they came from the front door which seemed pushed\na little ajar.  Was somebody trying to get in?  I had no objection, I\nwent to the door and said: \"Wait a moment, it's on the chain.\"  The deep\nvoice on the other side said: \"What an extraordinary thing,\" and I\nassented mentally.  It was extraordinary.  The chain was never put up,\nbut Therese was a thorough sort of person, and on this night she had put\nit up to keep no one out except myself.  It was the old Italian and his\ndaughters returning from the ball who were trying to get in.\n\nSuddenly I became intensely alive to the whole situation.  I bounded\nback, closed the door of Blunt's room, and the next moment was speaking\nto the Italian.  \"A little patience.\"  My hands trembled but I managed to\ntake down the chain and as I allowed the door to swing open a little more\nI put myself in his way.  He was burly, venerable, a little indignant,\nand full of thanks.  Behind him his two girls, in short-skirted costumes,\nwhite stockings, and low shoes, their heads powdered and earrings\nsparkling in their ears, huddled together behind their father, wrapped up\nin their light mantles.  One had kept her little black mask on her face,\nthe other held hers in her hand.\n\nThe Italian was surprised at my blocking the way and remarked pleasantly,\n\"It's cold outside, Signor.\"  I said, \"Yes,\" and added in a hurried\nwhisper: \"There is a dead man in the hall.\"  He didn't say a single word\nbut put me aside a little, projected his body in for one searching\nglance.  \"Your daughters,\" I murmured.  He said kindly, \"_Va bene_, _va\nbene_.\"  And then to them, \"Come in, girls.\"\n\nThere is nothing like dealing with a man who has had a long past of\nout-of-the-way experiences.  The skill with which he rounded up and drove\nthe girls across the hall, paternal and irresistible, venerable and\nreassuring, was a sight to see.  They had no time for more than one\nscared look over the shoulder.  He hustled them in and locked them up\nsafely in their part of the house, then crossed the hall with a quick,\npractical stride.  When near Senor Ortega he trod short just in time and\nsaid: \"In truth, blood\"; then selecting the place, knelt down by the body\nin his tall hat and respectable overcoat, his white beard giving him\nimmense authority somehow.  \"But--this man is not dead,\" he exclaimed,\nlooking up at me.  With profound sagacity, inherent as it were in his\ngreat beard, he never took the trouble to put any questions to me and\nseemed certain that I had nothing to do with the ghastly sight.  \"He\nmanaged to give himself an enormous gash in his side,\" was his calm\nremark.  \"And what a weapon!\" he exclaimed, getting it out from under the\nbody.  It was an Abyssinian or Nubian production of a bizarre shape; the\nclumsiest thing imaginable, partaking of a sickle and a chopper with a\nsharp edge and a pointed end.  A mere cruel-looking curio of\ninconceivable clumsiness to European eyes.\n\nThe old man let it drop with amused disdain.  \"You had better take hold\nof his legs,\" he decided without appeal.  I certainly had no inclination\nto argue.  When we lifted him up the head of Senor Ortega fell back\ndesolately, making an awful, defenceless display of his large, white\nthroat.\n\nWe found the lamp burning in the studio and the bed made up on the couch\non which we deposited our burden.  My venerable friend jerked the upper\nsheet away at once and started tearing it into strips.\n\n\"You may leave him to me,\" said that efficient sage, \"but the doctor is\nyour affair.  If you don't want this business to make a noise you will\nhave to find a discreet man.\"\n\nHe was most benevolently interested in all the proceedings.  He remarked\nwith a patriarchal smile as he tore the sheet noisily: \"You had better\nnot lose any time.\"  I didn't lose any time.  I crammed into the next\nhour an astonishing amount of bodily activity.  Without more words I flew\nout bare-headed into the last night of Carnival.  Luckily I was certain\nof the right sort of doctor.  He was an iron-grey man of forty and of a\nstout habit of body but who was able to put on a spurt.  In the cold,\ndark, and deserted by-streets, he ran with earnest, and ponderous\nfootsteps, which echoed loudly in the cold night air, while I skimmed\nalong the ground a pace or two in front of him.  It was only on arriving\nat the house that I perceived that I had left the front door wide open.\nAll the town, every evil in the world could have entered the\nblack-and-white hall.  But I had no time to meditate upon my imprudence.\nThe doctor and I worked in silence for nearly an hour and it was only\nthen while he was washing his hands in the fencing-room that he asked:\n\n\"What was he up to, that imbecile?\"\n\n\"Oh, he was examining this curiosity,\" I said.\n\n\"Oh, yes, and it accidentally went off,\" said the doctor, looking\ncontemptuously at the Nubian knife I had thrown on the table.  Then while\nwiping his hands: \"I would bet there is a woman somewhere under this; but\nthat of course does not affect the nature of the wound.  I hope this\nblood-letting will do him good.\"\n\n\"Nothing will do him any good,\" I said.\n\n\"Curious house this,\" went on the doctor, \"It belongs to a curious sort\nof woman, too.  I happened to see her once or twice.  I shouldn't wonder\nif she were to raise considerable trouble in the track of her pretty feet\nas she goes along.  I believe you know her well.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Curious people in the house, too.  There was a Carlist officer here, a\nlean, tall, dark man, who couldn't sleep.  He consulted me once.  Do you\nknow what became of him?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nThe doctor had finished wiping his hands and flung the towel far away.\n\n\"Considerable nervous over-strain.  Seemed to have a restless brain.  Not\na good thing, that.  For the rest a perfect gentleman.  And this Spaniard\nhere, do you know him?\"\n\n\"Enough not to care what happens to him,\" I said, \"except for the trouble\nhe might cause to the Carlist sympathizers here, should the police get\nhold of this affair.\"\n\n\"Well, then, he must take his chance in the seclusion of that\nconservatory sort of place where you have put him.  I'll try to find\nsomebody we can trust to look after him.  Meantime, I will leave the case\nto you.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\n\nDirectly I had shut the door after the doctor I started shouting for\nTherese.  \"Come down at once, you wretched hypocrite,\" I yelled at the\nfoot of the stairs in a sort of frenzy as though I had been a second\nOrtega.  Not even an echo answered me; but all of a sudden a small flame\nflickered descending from the upper darkness and Therese appeared on the\nfirst floor landing carrying a lighted candle in front of a livid, hard\nface, closed against remorse, compassion, or mercy by the meanness of her\nrighteousness and of her rapacious instincts.  She was fully dressed in\nthat abominable brown stuff with motionless folds, and as I watched her\ncoming down step by step she might have been made of wood.  I stepped\nback and pointed my finger at the darkness of the passage leading to the\nstudio.  She passed within a foot of me, her pale eyes staring straight\nahead, her face still with disappointment and fury.  Yet it is only my\nsurmise.  She might have been made thus inhuman by the force of an\ninvisible purpose.  I waited a moment, then, stealthily, with extreme\ncaution, I opened the door of the so-called Captain Blunt's room.\n\nThe glow of embers was all but out.  It was cold and dark in there; but\nbefore I closed the door behind me the dim light from the hall showed me\nDona Rita standing on the very same spot where I had left her, statuesque\nin her night-dress.  Even after I shut the door she loomed up enormous,\nindistinctly rigid and inanimate.  I picked up the candelabra, groped for\na candle all over the carpet, found one, and lighted it.  All that time\nDona Rita didn't stir.  When I turned towards her she seemed to be slowly\nawakening from a trance.  She was deathly pale and by contrast the\nmelted, sapphire-blue of her eyes looked black as coal.  They moved a\nlittle in my direction, incurious, recognizing me slowly.  But when they\nhad recognized me completely she raised her hands and hid her face in\nthem.  A whole minute or more passed.  Then I said in a low tone: \"Look\nat me,\" and she let them fall slowly as if accepting the inevitable.\n\n\"Shall I make up the fire?\" . . . I waited.  \"Do you hear me?\"  She made\nno sound and with the tip of my finger I touched her bare shoulder.  But\nfor its elasticity it might have been frozen.  At once I looked round for\nthe fur coat; it seemed to me that there was not a moment to lose if she\nwas to be saved, as though we had been lost on an Arctic plain.  I had to\nput her arms into the sleeves, myself, one after another.  They were\ncold, lifeless, but flexible.  Then I moved in front of her and buttoned\nthe thing close round her throat.  To do that I had actually to raise her\nchin with my finger, and it sank slowly down again.  I buttoned all the\nother buttons right down to the ground.  It was a very long and splendid\nfur.  Before rising from my kneeling position I felt her feet.  Mere ice.\nThe intimacy of this sort of attendance helped the growth of my\nauthority.  \"Lie down,\" I murmured, \"I shall pile on you every blanket I\ncan find here,\" but she only shook her head.\n\nNot even in the days when she ran \"shrill as a cicada and thin as a\nmatch\" through the chill mists of her native mountains could she ever\nhave felt so cold, so wretched, and so desolate.  Her very soul, her\ngrave, indignant, and fantastic soul, seemed to drowse like an exhausted\ntraveller surrendering himself to the sleep of death.  But when I asked\nher again to lie down she managed to answer me, \"Not in this room.\"  The\ndumb spell was broken.  She turned her head from side to side, but oh!\nhow cold she was!  It seemed to come out of her, numbing me, too; and the\nvery diamonds on the arrow of gold sparkled like hoar frost in the light\nof the one candle.\n\n\"Not in this room; not here,\" she protested, with that peculiar suavity\nof tone which made her voice unforgettable, irresistible, no matter what\nshe said.  \"Not after all this!  I couldn't close my eyes in this place.\nIt's full of corruption and ugliness all round, in me, too, everywhere\nexcept in your heart, which has nothing to do where I breathe.  And here\nyou may leave me.  But wherever you go remember that I am not evil, I am\nnot evil.\"\n\nI said: \"I don't intend to leave you here.  There is my room upstairs.\nYou have been in it before.\"\n\n\"Oh, you have heard of that,\" she whispered.  The beginning of a wan\nsmile vanished from her lips.\n\n\"I also think you can't stay in this room; and, surely, you needn't\nhesitate . . .\"\n\n\"No.  It doesn't matter now.  He has killed me.  Rita is dead.\"\n\nWhile we exchanged these words I had retrieved the quilted, blue slippers\nand had put them on her feet.  She was very tractable.  Then taking her\nby the arm I led her towards the door.\n\n\"He has killed me,\" she repeated in a sigh.  \"The little joy that was in\nme.\"\n\n\"He has tried to kill himself out there in the hall,\" I said.  She put\nback like a frightened child but she couldn't be dragged on as a child\ncan be.\n\nI assured her that the man was no longer there but she only repeated, \"I\ncan't get through the hall.  I can't walk.  I can't . . .\"\n\n\"Well,\" I said, flinging the door open and seizing her suddenly in my\narms, \"if you can't walk then you shall be carried,\" and I lifted her\nfrom the ground so abruptly that she could not help catching me round the\nneck as any child almost will do instinctively when you pick it up.\n\nI ought really to have put those blue slippers in my pocket.  One dropped\noff at the bottom of the stairs as I was stepping over an\nunpleasant-looking mess on the marble pavement, and the other was lost a\nlittle way up the flight when, for some reason (perhaps from a sense of\ninsecurity), she began to struggle.  Though I had an odd sense of being\nengaged in a sort of nursery adventure she was no child to carry.  I\ncould just do it.  But not if she chose to struggle.  I set her down\nhastily and only supported her round the waist for the rest of the way.\nMy room, of course, was perfectly dark but I led her straight to the sofa\nat once and let her fall on it.  Then as if I had in sober truth rescued\nher from an Alpine height or an Arctic floe, I busied myself with nothing\nbut lighting the gas and starting the fire.  I didn't even pause to lock\nmy door.  All the time I was aware of her presence behind me, nay, of\nsomething deeper and more my own--of her existence itself--of a small\nblue flame, blue like her eyes, flickering and clear within her frozen\nbody.  When I turned to her she was sitting very stiff and upright, with\nher feet posed hieratically on the carpet and her head emerging out of\nthe ample fur collar, such as a gem-like flower above the rim of a dark\nvase.  I tore the blankets and the pillows off my bed and piled them up\nin readiness in a great heap on the floor near the couch.  My reason for\nthis was that the room was large, too large for the fireplace, and the\ncouch was nearest to the fire.  She gave no sign but one of her wistful\nattempts at a smile.  In a most business-like way I took the arrow out of\nher hair and laid it on the centre table.  The tawny mass fell loose at\nonce about her shoulders and made her look even more desolate than\nbefore.  But there was an invincible need of gaiety in her heart.  She\nsaid funnily, looking at the arrow sparkling in the gas light:\n\n\"Ah!  That poor philistinish ornament!\"\n\nAn echo of our early days, not more innocent but so much more youthful,\nwas in her tone; and we both, as if touched with poignant regret, looked\nat each other with enlightened eyes.\n\n\"Yes,\" I said, \"how far away all this is.  And you wouldn't leave even\nthat object behind when you came last in here.  Perhaps it is for that\nreason it haunted me--mostly at night.  I dreamed of you sometimes as a\nhuntress nymph gleaming white through the foliage and throwing this arrow\nlike a dart straight at my heart.  But it never reached it.  It always\nfell at my feet as I woke up.  The huntress never meant to strike down\nthat particular quarry.\"\n\n\"The huntress was wild but she was not evil.  And she was no nymph, but\nonly a goatherd girl.  Dream of her no more, my dear.\"\n\nI had the strength of mind to make a sign of assent and busied myself\narranging a couple of pillows at one end of the sofa.  \"Upon my soul,\ngoatherd, you are not responsible,\" I said.  \"You are not!  Lay down that\nuneasy head,\" I continued, forcing a half-playful note into my immense\nsadness, \"that has even dreamed of a crown--but not for itself.\"\n\nShe lay down quietly.  I covered her up, looked once into her eyes and\nfelt the restlessness of fatigue over-power me so that I wanted to\nstagger out, walk straight before me, stagger on and on till I dropped.\nIn the end I lost myself in thought.  I woke with a start to her voice\nsaying positively:\n\n\"No.  Not even in this room.  I can't close my eyes.  Impossible.  I have\na horror of myself.  That voice in my ears.  All true.  All true.\"\n\nShe was sitting up, two masses of tawny hair fell on each side of her\ntense face.  I threw away the pillows from which she had risen and sat\ndown behind her on the couch.  \"Perhaps like this,\" I suggested, drawing\nher head gently on my breast.  She didn't resist, she didn't even sigh,\nshe didn't look at me or attempt to settle herself in any way.  It was I\nwho settled her after taking up a position which I thought I should be\nable to keep for hours--for ages.  After a time I grew composed enough to\nbecome aware of the ticking of the clock, even to take pleasure in it.\nThe beat recorded the moments of her rest, while I sat, keeping as still\nas if my life depended upon it with my eyes fixed idly on the arrow of\ngold gleaming and glittering dimly on the table under the lowered\ngas-jet.  And presently my breathing fell into the quiet rhythm of the\nsleep which descended on her at last.  My thought was that now nothing\nmattered in the world because I had the world safe resting in my arms--or\nwas it in my heart?\n\nSuddenly my heart seemed torn in two within my breast and half of my\nbreath knocked out of me.  It was a tumultuous awakening.  The day had\ncome.  Dona Rita had opened her eyes, found herself in my arms, and\ninstantly had flung herself out of them with one sudden effort.  I saw\nher already standing in the filtered sunshine of the closed shutters,\nwith all the childlike horror and shame of that night vibrating afresh in\nthe awakened body of the woman.\n\n\"Daylight,\" she whispered in an appalled voice.  \"Don't look at me,\nGeorge.  I can't face daylight.  No--not with you.  Before we set eyes on\neach other all that past was like nothing.  I had crushed it all in my\nnew pride.  Nothing could touch the Rita whose hand was kissed by you.\nBut now!  Never in daylight.\"\n\nI sat there stupid with surprise and grief.  This was no longer the\nadventure of venturesome children in a nursery-book.  A grown man's\nbitterness, informed, suspicious, resembling hatred, welled out of my\nheart.\n\n\"All this means that you are going to desert me again?\" I said with\ncontempt.  \"All right.  I won't throw stones after you . . . Are you\ngoing, then?\"\n\nShe lowered her head slowly with a backward gesture of her arm as if to\nkeep me off, for I had sprung to my feet all at once as if mad.\n\n\"Then go quickly,\" I said.  \"You are afraid of living flesh and blood.\nWhat are you running after?  Honesty, as you say, or some distinguished\ncarcass to feed your vanity on?  I know how cold you can be--and yet\nlive.  What have I done to you?  You go to sleep in my arms, wake up and\ngo away.  Is it to impress me?  Charlatanism of character, my dear.\"\n\nShe stepped forward on her bare feet as firm on that floor which seemed\nto heave up and down before my eyes as she had ever been--goatherd child\nleaping on the rocks of her native hills which she was never to see\nagain.  I snatched the arrow of gold from the table and threw it after\nher.\n\n\"Don't forget this thing,\" I cried, \"you would never forgive yourself for\nleaving it behind.\"\n\nIt struck the back of the fur coat and fell on the floor behind her.  She\nnever looked round.  She walked to the door, opened it without haste, and\non the landing in the diffused light from the ground-glass skylight there\nappeared, rigid, like an implacable and obscure fate, the awful\nTherese--waiting for her sister.  The heavy ends of a big black shawl\nthrown over her head hung massively in biblical folds.  With a faint cry\nof dismay Dona Rita stopped just within my room.\n\nThe two women faced each other for a few moments silently.  Therese spoke\nfirst.  There was no austerity in her tone.  Her voice was as usual,\npertinacious, unfeeling, with a slight plaint in it; terrible in its\nunchanged purpose.\n\n\"I have been standing here before this door all night,\" she said.  \"I\ndon't know how I lived through it.  I thought I would die a hundred times\nfor shame.  So that's how you are spending your time?  You are worse than\nshameless.  But God may still forgive you.  You have a soul.  You are my\nsister.  I will never abandon you--till you die.\"\n\n\"What is it?\" Dona Rita was heard wistfully, \"my soul or this house that\nyou won't abandon.\"\n\n\"Come out and bow your head in humiliation.  I am your sister and I shall\nhelp you to pray to God and all the Saints.  Come away from that poor\nyoung gentleman who like all the others can have nothing but contempt and\ndisgust for you in his heart.  Come and hide your head where no one will\nreproach you--but I, your sister.  Come out and beat your breast: come,\npoor Sinner, and let me kiss you, for you are my sister!\"\n\nWhile Therese was speaking Dona Rita stepped back a pace and as the other\nmoved forward still extending the hand of sisterly love, she slammed the\ndoor in Therese's face.  \"You abominable girl!\" she cried fiercely.  Then\nshe turned about and walked towards me who had not moved.  I felt hardly\nalive but for the cruel pain that possessed my whole being.  On the way\nshe stooped to pick up the arrow of gold and then moved on quicker,\nholding it out to me in her open palm.\n\n\"You thought I wouldn't give it to you.  _Amigo_, I wanted nothing so\nmuch as to give it to you.  And now, perhaps--you will take it.\"\n\n\"Not without the woman,\" I said sombrely.\n\n\"Take it,\" she said.  \"I haven't the courage to deliver myself up to\nTherese.  No.  Not even for your sake.  Don't you think I have been\nmiserable enough yet?\"\n\nI snatched the arrow out of her hand then and ridiculously pressed it to\nmy breast; but as I opened my lips she who knew what was struggling for\nutterance in my heart cried in a ringing tone:\n\n\"Speak no words of love, George!  Not yet.  Not in this house of ill-luck\nand falsehood.  Not within a hundred miles of this house, where they came\nclinging to me all profaned from the mouth of that man.  Haven't you\nheard them--the horrible things?  And what can words have to do between\nyou and me?\"\n\nHer hands were stretched out imploringly, I said, childishly\ndisconcerted:\n\n\"But, Rita, how can I help using words of love to you?  They come of\nthemselves on my lips!\"\n\n\"They come!  Ah!  But I shall seal your lips with the thing itself,\" she\nsaid.  \"Like this. . . \"\n\n\n\n\nSECOND NOTE\n\n\nThe narrative of our man goes on for some six months more, from this, the\nlast night of the Carnival season up to and beyond the season of roses.\nThe tone of it is much less of exultation than might have been expected.\nLove as is well known having nothing to do with reason, being insensible\nto forebodings and even blind to evidence, the surrender of those two\nbeings to a precarious bliss has nothing very astonishing in itself; and\nits portrayal, as he attempts it, lacks dramatic interest.  The\nsentimental interest could only have a fascination for readers themselves\nactually in love.  The response of a reader depends on the mood of the\nmoment, so much so that a book may seem extremely interesting when read\nlate at night, but might appear merely a lot of vapid verbiage in the\nmorning.  My conviction is that the mood in which the continuation of his\nstory would appear sympathetic is very rare.  This consideration has\ninduced me to suppress it--all but the actual facts which round up the\nprevious events and satisfy such curiosity as might have been aroused by\nthe foregoing narrative.\n\nIt is to be remarked that this period is characterized more by a deep and\njoyous tenderness than by sheer passion.  All fierceness of spirit seems\nto have burnt itself out in their preliminary hesitations and struggles\nagainst each other and themselves.  Whether love in its entirety has,\nspeaking generally, the same elementary meaning for women as for men, is\nvery doubtful.  Civilization has been at work there.  But the fact is\nthat those two display, in every phase of discovery and response, an\nexact accord.  Both show themselves amazingly ingenuous in the practice\nof sentiment.  I believe that those who know women won't be surprised to\nhear me say that she was as new to love as he was.  During their retreat\nin the region of the Maritime Alps, in a small house built of dry stones\nand embowered with roses, they appear all through to be less like\nreleased lovers than as companions who had found out each other's fitness\nin a specially intense way.  Upon the whole, I think that there must be\nsome truth in his insistence of there having always been something\nchildlike in their relation.  In the unreserved and instant sharing of\nall thoughts, all impressions, all sensations, we see the naiveness of a\nchildren's foolhardy adventure.  This unreserved expressed for him the\nwhole truth of the situation.  With her it may have been different.  It\nmight have been assumed; yet nobody is altogether a comedian; and even\ncomedians themselves have got to believe in the part they play.  Of the\ntwo she appears much the more assured and confident.  But if in this she\nwas a comedienne then it was but a great achievement of her ineradicable\nhonesty.  Having once renounced her honourable scruples she took good\ncare that he should taste no flavour of misgivings in the cup.  Being\nolder it was she who imparted its character to the situation.  As to the\nman if he had any superiority of his own it was simply the superiority of\nhim who loves with the greater self-surrender.\n\nThis is what appears from the pages I have discreetly suppressed--partly\nout of regard for the pages themselves.  In every, even terrestrial,\nmystery there is as it were a sacred core.  A sustained commentary on\nlove is not fit for every eye.  A universal experience is exactly the\nsort of thing which is most difficult to appraise justly in a particular\ninstance.\n\nHow this particular instance affected Rose, who was the only companion of\nthe two hermits in their rose-embowered hut of stones, I regret not to be\nable to report; but I will venture to say that for reasons on which I\nneed not enlarge, the girl could not have been very reassured by what she\nsaw.  It seems to me that her devotion could never be appeased; for the\nconviction must have been growing on her that, no matter what happened,\nMadame could never have any friends.  It may be that Dona Rita had given\nher a glimpse of the unavoidable end, and that the girl's tarnished eyes\nmasked a certain amount of apprehensive, helpless desolation.\n\nWhat meantime was becoming of the fortune of Henry Allegre is another\ncurious question.  We have been told that it was too big to be tied up in\na sack and thrown into the sea.  That part of it represented by the\nfabulous collections was still being protected by the police.  But for\nthe rest, it may be assumed that its power and significance were lost to\nan interested world for something like six months.  What is certain is\nthat the late Henry Allegre's man of affairs found himself comparatively\nidle.  The holiday must have done much good to his harassed brain.  He\nhad received a note from Dona Rita saying that she had gone into retreat\nand that she did not mean to send him her address, not being in the\nhumour to be worried with letters on any subject whatever.  \"It's enough\nfor you\"--she wrote--\"to know that I am alive.\"  Later, at irregular\nintervals, he received scraps of paper bearing the stamps of various post\noffices and containing the simple statement: \"I am still alive,\" signed\nwith an enormous, flourished exuberant R.  I imagine Rose had to travel\nsome distances by rail to post those messages.  A thick veil of secrecy\nhad been lowered between the world and the lovers; yet even this veil\nturned out not altogether impenetrable.\n\nHe--it would be convenient to call him Monsieur George to the end--shared\nwith Dona Rita her perfect detachment from all mundane affairs; but he\nhad to make two short visits to Marseilles.  The first was prompted by\nhis loyal affection for Dominic.  He wanted to discover what had happened\nor was happening to Dominic and to find out whether he could do something\nfor that man.  But Dominic was not the sort of person for whom one can do\nmuch.  Monsieur George did not even see him.  It looked uncommonly as if\nDominic's heart were broken.  Monsieur George remained concealed for\ntwenty-four hours in the very house in which Madame Leonore had her cafe.\nHe spent most of that time in conversing with Madame Leonore about\nDominic.  She was distressed, but her mind was made up.  That\nbright-eyed, nonchalant, and passionate woman was making arrangements to\ndispose of her cafe before departing to join Dominic.  She would not say\nwhere.  Having ascertained that his assistance was not required Monsieur\nGeorge, in his own words, \"managed to sneak out of the town without being\nseen by a single soul that mattered.\"\n\nThe second occasion was very prosaic and shockingly incongruous with the\nsuper-mundane colouring of these days.  He had neither the fortune of\nHenry Allegre nor a man of affairs of his own.  But some rent had to be\npaid to somebody for the stone hut and Rose could not go marketing in the\ntiny hamlet at the foot of the hill without a little money.  There came a\ntime when Monsieur George had to descend from the heights of his love in\norder, in his own words, \"to get a supply of cash.\"  As he had\ndisappeared very suddenly and completely for a time from the eyes of\nmankind it was necessary that he should show himself and sign some\npapers.  That business was transacted in the office of the banker\nmentioned in the story.  Monsieur George wished to avoid seeing the man\nhimself but in this he did not succeed.  The interview was short.  The\nbanker naturally asked no questions, made no allusions to persons and\nevents, and didn't even mention the great Legitimist Principle which\npresented to him now no interest whatever.  But for the moment all the\nworld was talking of the Carlist enterprise.  It had collapsed utterly,\nleaving behind, as usual, a large crop of recriminations, charges of\nincompetency and treachery, and a certain amount of scandalous gossip.\nThe banker (his wife's salon had been very Carlist indeed) declared that\nhe had never believed in the success of the cause.  \"You are well out of\nit,\" he remarked with a chilly smile to Monsieur George.  The latter\nmerely observed that he had been very little \"in it\" as a matter of fact,\nand that he was quite indifferent to the whole affair.\n\n\"You left a few of your feathers in it, nevertheless,\" the banker\nconcluded with a wooden face and with the curtness of a man who knows.\n\nMonsieur George ought to have taken the very next train out of the town\nbut he yielded to the temptation to discover what had happened to the\nhouse in the street of the Consuls after he and Dona Rita had stolen out\nof it like two scared yet jubilant children.  All he discovered was a\nstrange, fat woman, a sort of virago, who had, apparently, been put in as\na caretaker by the man of affairs.  She made some difficulties to admit\nthat she had been in charge for the last four months; ever since the\nperson who was there before had eloped with some Spaniard who had been\nlying in the house ill with fever for more than six weeks.  No, she never\nsaw the person.  Neither had she seen the Spaniard.  She had only heard\nthe talk of the street.  Of course she didn't know where these people had\ngone.  She manifested some impatience to get rid of Monsieur George and\neven attempted to push him towards the door.  It was, he says, a very\nfunny experience.  He noticed the feeble flame of the gas-jet in the hall\nstill waiting for extinction in the general collapse of the world.\n\nThen he decided to have a bit of dinner at the Restaurant de la Gare\nwhere he felt pretty certain he would not meet any of his friends.  He\ncould not have asked Madame Leonore for hospitality because Madame\nLeonore had gone away already.  His acquaintances were not the sort of\npeople likely to happen casually into a restaurant of that kind and\nmoreover he took the precaution to seat himself at a small table so as to\nface the wall.  Yet before long he felt a hand laid gently on his\nshoulder, and, looking up, saw one of his acquaintances, a member of the\nRoyalist club, a young man of a very cheerful disposition but whose face\nlooked down at him with a grave and anxious expression.\n\nMonsieur George was far from delighted.  His surprise was extreme when in\nthe course of the first phrases exchanged with him he learned that this\nacquaintance had come to the station with the hope of finding him there.\n\n\"You haven't been seen for some time,\" he said.  \"You were perhaps\nsomewhere where the news from the world couldn't reach you?  There have\nbeen many changes amongst our friends and amongst people one used to hear\nof so much.  There is Madame de Lastaola for instance, who seems to have\nvanished from the world which was so much interested in her.  You have no\nidea where she may be now?\"\n\nMonsieur George remarked grumpily that he couldn't say.\n\nThe other tried to appear at ease.  Tongues were wagging about it in\nParis.  There was a sort of international financier, a fellow with an\nItalian name, a shady personality, who had been looking for her all over\nEurope and talked in clubs--astonishing how such fellows get into the\nbest clubs--oh! Azzolati was his name.  But perhaps what a fellow like\nthat said did not matter.  The funniest thing was that there was no man\nof any position in the world who had disappeared at the same time.  A\nfriend in Paris wrote to him that a certain well-known journalist had\nrushed South to investigate the mystery but had returned no wiser than he\nwent.\n\nMonsieur George remarked more unamiably than before that he really could\nnot help all that.\n\n\"No,\" said the other with extreme gentleness, \"only of all the people\nmore or less connected with the Carlist affair you are the only one that\nhad also disappeared before the final collapse.\"\n\n\"What!\" cried Monsieur George.\n\n\"Just so,\" said the other meaningly.  \"You know that all my people like\nyou very much, though they hold various opinions as to your discretion.\nOnly the other day Jane, you know my married sister, and I were talking\nabout you.  She was extremely distressed.  I assured her that you must be\nvery far away or very deeply buried somewhere not to have given a sign of\nlife under this provocation.\"\n\nNaturally Monsieur George wanted to know what it was all about; and the\nother appeared greatly relieved.\n\n\"I was sure you couldn't have heard.  I don't want to be indiscreet, I\ndon't want to ask you where you were.  It came to my ears that you had\nbeen seen at the bank to-day and I made a special effort to lay hold of\nyou before you vanished again; for, after all, we have been always good\nfriends and all our lot here liked you very much.  Listen.  You know a\ncertain Captain Blunt, don't you?\"\n\nMonsieur George owned to knowing Captain Blunt but only very slightly.\nHis friend then informed him that this Captain Blunt was apparently well\nacquainted with Madame de Lastaola, or, at any rate, pretended to be.  He\nwas an honourable man, a member of a good club, he was very Parisian in a\nway, and all this, he continued, made all the worse that of which he was\nunder the painful necessity of warning Monsieur George.  This Blunt on\nthree distinct occasions when the name of Madame de Lastaola came up in\nconversation in a mixed company of men had expressed his regret that she\nshould have become the prey of a young adventurer who was exploiting her\nshamelessly.  He talked like a man certain of his facts and as he\nmentioned names . . .\n\n\"In fact,\" the young man burst out excitedly, \"it is your name that he\nmentions.  And in order to fix the exact personality he always takes care\nto add that you are that young fellow who was known as Monsieur George\nall over the South amongst the initiated Carlists.\"\n\nHow Blunt had got enough information to base that atrocious calumny upon,\nMonsieur George couldn't imagine.  But there it was.  He kept silent in\nhis indignation till his friend murmured, \"I expect you will want him to\nknow that you are here.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Monsieur George, \"and I hope you will consent to act for me\naltogether.  First of all, pray, let him know by wire that I am waiting\nfor him.  This will be enough to fetch him down here, I can assure you.\nYou may ask him also to bring two friends with him.  I don't intend this\nto be an affair for Parisian journalists to write paragraphs about.\"\n\n\"Yes.  That sort of thing must be stopped at once,\" the other admitted.\nHe assented to Monsieur George's request that the meeting should be\narranged for at his elder brother's country place where the family stayed\nvery seldom.  There was a most convenient walled garden there.  And then\nMonsieur George caught his train promising to be back on the fourth day\nand leaving all further arrangements to his friend.  He prided himself on\nhis impenetrability before Dona Rita; on the happiness without a shadow\nof those four days.  However, Dona Rita must have had the intuition of\nthere being something in the wind, because on the evening of the very\nsame day on which he left her again on some pretence or other, she was\nalready ensconced in the house in the street of the Consuls, with the\ntrustworthy Rose scouting all over the town to gain information.\n\nOf the proceedings in the walled garden there is no need to speak in\ndetail.  They were conventionally correct, but an earnestness of purpose\nwhich could be felt in the very air lifted the business above the common\nrun of affairs of honour.  One bit of byplay unnoticed by the seconds,\nvery busy for the moment with their arrangements, must be mentioned.\nDisregarding the severe rules of conduct in such cases Monsieur George\napproached his adversary and addressed him directly.\n\n\"Captain Blunt,\" he said, \"the result of this meeting may go against me.\nIn that case you will recognize publicly that you were wrong.  For you\nare wrong and you know it.  May I trust your honour?\"\n\nIn answer to that appeal Captain Blunt, always correct, didn't open his\nlips but only made a little bow.  For the rest he was perfectly ruthless.\nIf he was utterly incapable of being carried away by love there was\nnothing equivocal about his jealousy.  Such psychology is not very rare\nand really from the point of view of the combat itself one cannot very\nwell blame him.  What happened was this.  Monsieur George fired on the\nword and, whether luck or skill, managed to hit Captain Blunt in the\nupper part of the arm which was holding the pistol.  That gentleman's arm\ndropped powerless by his side.  But he did not drop his weapon.  There\nwas nothing equivocal about his determination.  With the greatest\ndeliberation he reached with his left hand for his pistol and taking\ncareful aim shot Monsieur George through the left side of his breast.\nOne may imagine the consternation of the four seconds and the activity of\nthe two surgeons in the confined, drowsy heat of that walled garden.  It\nwas within an easy drive of the town and as Monsieur George was being\nconveyed there at a walking pace a little brougham coming from the\nopposite direction pulled up at the side of the road.  A thickly veiled\nwoman's head looked out of the window, took in the state of affairs at a\nglance, and called out in a firm voice: \"Follow my carriage.\"  The\nbrougham turning round took the lead.  Long before this convoy reached\nthe town another carriage containing four gentlemen (of whom one was\nleaning back languidly with his arm in a sling) whisked past and vanished\nahead in a cloud of white, Provencal dust.  And this is the last\nappearance of Captain Blunt in Monsieur George's narrative.  Of course he\nwas only told of it later.  At the time he was not in a condition to\nnotice things.  Its interest in his surroundings remained of a hazy and\nnightmarish kind for many days together.  From time to time he had the\nimpression that he was in a room strangely familiar to him, that he had\nunsatisfactory visions of Dona Rita, to whom he tried to speak as if\nnothing had happened, but that she always put her hand on his mouth to\nprevent him and then spoke to him herself in a very strange voice which\nsometimes resembled the voice of Rose.  The face, too, sometimes\nresembled the face of Rose.  There were also one or two men's faces which\nhe seemed to know well enough though he didn't recall their names.  He\ncould have done so with a slight effort, but it would have been too much\ntrouble.  Then came a time when the hallucinations of Dona Rita and the\nfaithful Rose left him altogether.  Next came a period, perhaps a year,\nor perhaps an hour, during which he seemed to dream all through his past\nlife.  He felt no apprehension, he didn't try to speculate as to the\nfuture.  He felt that all possible conclusions were out of his power, and\ntherefore he was indifferent to everything.  He was like that dream's\ndisinterested spectator who doesn't know what is going to happen next.\nSuddenly for the first time in his life he had the soul-satisfying\nconsciousness of floating off into deep slumber.\n\nWhen he woke up after an hour, or a day, or a month, there was dusk in\nthe room; but he recognized it perfectly.  It was his apartment in Dona\nRita's house; those were the familiar surroundings in which he had so\noften told himself that he must either die or go mad.  But now he felt\nperfectly clear-headed and the full sensation of being alive came all\nover him, languidly delicious.  The greatest beauty of it was that there\nwas no need to move.  This gave him a sort of moral satisfaction.  Then\nthe first thought independent of personal sensations came into his head.\nHe wondered when Therese would come in and begin talking.  He saw vaguely\na human figure in the room but that was a man.  He was speaking in a\ndeadened voice which had yet a preternatural distinctness.\n\n\"This is the second case I have had in this house, and I am sure that\ndirectly or indirectly it was connected with that woman.  She will go on\nlike this leaving a track behind her and then some day there will be\nreally a corpse.  This young fellow might have been it.\"\n\n\"In this case, Doctor,\" said another voice, \"one can't blame the woman\nvery much.  I assure you she made a very determined fight.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?  That she didn't want to. . . \"\n\n\"Yes.  A very good fight.  I heard all about it.  It is easy to blame\nher, but, as she asked me despairingly, could she go through life veiled\nfrom head to foot or go out of it altogether into a convent?  No, she\nisn't guilty.  She is simply--what she is.\"\n\n\"And what's that?\"\n\n\"Very much of a woman.  Perhaps a little more at the mercy of\ncontradictory impulses than other women.  But that's not her fault.  I\nreally think she has been very honest.\"\n\nThe voices sank suddenly to a still lower murmur and presently the shape\nof the man went out of the room.  Monsieur George heard distinctly the\ndoor open and shut.  Then he spoke for the first time, discovering, with\na particular pleasure, that it was quite easy to speak.  He was even\nunder the impression that he had shouted:\n\n\"Who is here?\"\n\nFrom the shadow of the room (he recognized at once the characteristic\noutlines of the bulky shape) Mills advanced to the side of the bed.  Dona\nRita had telegraphed to him on the day of the duel and the man of books,\nleaving his retreat, had come as fast as boats and trains could carry him\nSouth.  For, as he said later to Monsieur George, he had become fully\nawake to his part of responsibility.  And he added: \"It was not of you\nalone that I was thinking.\"  But the very first question that Monsieur\nGeorge put to him was:\n\n\"How long is it since I saw you last?\"\n\n\"Something like ten months,\" answered Mills' kindly voice.\n\n\"Ah!  Is Therese outside the door?  She stood there all night, you know.\"\n\n\"Yes, I heard of it.  She is hundreds of miles away now.\"\n\n\"Well, then, ask Rita to come in.\"\n\n\"I can't do that, my dear boy,\" said Mills with affectionate gentleness.\nHe hesitated a moment.  \"Dona Rita went away yesterday,\" he said softly.\n\n\"Went away?  Why?\" asked Monsieur George.\n\n\"Because, I am thankful to say, your life is no longer in danger.  And I\nhave told you that she is gone because, strange as it may seem, I believe\nyou can stand this news better now than later when you get stronger.\"\n\nIt must be believed that Mills was right.  Monsieur George fell asleep\nbefore he could feel any pang at that intelligence.  A sort of confused\nsurprise was in his mind but nothing else, and then his eyes closed.  The\nawakening was another matter.  But that, too, Mills had foreseen.  For\ndays he attended the bedside patiently letting the man in the bed talk to\nhim of Dona Rita but saying little himself; till one day he was asked\npointedly whether she had ever talked to him openly.  And then he said\nthat she had, on more than one occasion.  \"She told me amongst other\nthings,\" Mills said, \"if this is any satisfaction to you to know, that\ntill she met you she knew nothing of love.  That you were to her in more\nsenses than one a complete revelation.\"\n\n\"And then she went away.  Ran away from the revelation,\" said the man in\nthe bed bitterly.\n\n\"What's the good of being angry?\" remonstrated Mills, gently.  \"You know\nthat this world is not a world for lovers, not even for such lovers as\nyou two who have nothing to do with the world as it is.  No, a world of\nlovers would be impossible.  It would be a mere ruin of lives which seem\nto be meant for something else.  What this something is, I don't know;\nand I am certain,\" he said with playful compassion, \"that she and you\nwill never find out.\"\n\nA few days later they were again talking of Dona Rita Mills said:\n\n\"Before she left the house she gave me that arrow she used to wear in her\nhair to hand over to you as a keepsake and also to prevent you, she said,\nfrom dreaming of her.  This message sounds rather cryptic.\"\n\n\"Oh, I understand perfectly,\" said Monsieur George.  \"Don't give me the\nthing now.  Leave it somewhere where I can find it some day when I am\nalone.  But when you write to her you may tell her that now at\nlast--surer than Mr. Blunt's bullet--the arrow has found its mark.  There\nwill be no more dreaming.  Tell her.  She will understand.\"\n\n\"I don't even know where she is,\" murmured Mills.\n\n\"No, but her man of affairs knows. . . . Tell me, Mills, what will become\nof her?\"\n\n\"She will be wasted,\" said Mills sadly.  \"She is a most unfortunate\ncreature.  Not even poverty could save her now.  She cannot go back to\nher goats.  Yet who can tell?  She may find something in life.  She may!\nIt won't be love.  She has sacrificed that chance to the integrity of\nyour life--heroically.  Do you remember telling her once that you meant\nto live your life integrally--oh, you lawless young pedant!  Well, she is\ngone; but you may be sure that whatever she finds now in life it will not\nbe peace.  You understand me?  Not even in a convent.\"\n\n\"She was supremely lovable,\" said the wounded man, speaking of her as if\nshe were lying dead already on his oppressed heart.\n\n\"And elusive,\" struck in Mills in a low voice.  \"Some of them are like\nthat.  She will never change.  Amid all the shames and shadows of that\nlife there will always lie the ray of her perfect honesty.  I don't know\nabout your honesty, but yours will be the easier lot.  You will always\nhave your . . . other love--you pig-headed enthusiast of the sea.\"\n\n\"Then let me go to it,\" cried the enthusiast.  \"Let me go to it.\"\n\nHe went to it as soon as he had strength enough to feel the crushing\nweight of his loss (or his gain) fully, and discovered that he could bear\nit without flinching.  After this discovery he was fit to face anything.\nHe tells his correspondent that if he had been more romantic he would\nnever have looked at any other woman.  But on the contrary.  No face\nworthy of attention escaped him.  He looked at them all; and each\nreminded him of Dona Rita, either by some profound resemblance or by the\nstartling force of contrast.\n\nThe faithful austerity of the sea protected him from the rumours that fly\non the tongues of men.  He never heard of her.  Even the echoes of the\nsale of the great Allegre collection failed to reach him.  And that event\nmust have made noise enough in the world.  But he never heard.  He does\nnot know.  Then, years later, he was deprived even of the arrow.  It was\nlost to him in a stormy catastrophe; and he confesses that next day he\nstood on a rocky, wind-assaulted shore, looking at the seas raging over\nthe very spot of his loss and thought that it was well.  It was not a\nthing that one could leave behind one for strange hands--for the cold\neyes of ignorance.  Like the old King of Thule with the gold goblet of\nhis mistress he would have had to cast it into the sea, before he died.\nHe says he smiled at the romantic notion.  But what else could he have\ndone with it?"