PART TWO
CHAPTER I
Sometimes I wonder yet whether Mills wished me to oversleep myself ornot: that is, whether he really took sufficient interest to care. Hisuniform kindliness of manner made it impossible for me to tell. And Ican hardly remember my own feelings. Did I care? The whole recollectionof that time of my life has such a peculiar quality that the beginningand the end of it are merged in one sensation of profound emotion,continuous and overpowering, containing the extremes of exultation, fullof careless joy and of an invincible sadness--like a day-dream. Thesense of all this having been gone through as if in one great rush ofimagination is all the stronger in the distance of time, because it hadsomething of that quality even then: of fate unprovoked, of events thatdidn't cast any shadow before.
Not that those events were in the least extraordinary. They were, intruth, commonplace. What to my backward glance seems startling and alittle awful is their punctualness and inevitability. Mills waspunctual. Exactly at a quarter to twelve he appeared under the loftyportal of the Hotel de Louvre, with his fresh face, his ill-fitting greysuit, and enveloped in his own sympathetic atmosphere.
How could I have avoided him? To this day I have a shadowy conviction ofhis inherent distinction of mind and heart, far beyond any man I haveever met since. He was unavoidable: and of course I never tried to avoidhim. The first sight on which his eyes fell was a victoria pulled upbefore the hotel door, in which I sat with no sentiment I can remembernow but that of some slight shyness. He got in without a moment'shesitation, his friendly glance took me in from head to foot and (suchwas his peculiar gift) gave me a pleasurable sensation.
After we had gone a little way I couldn't help saying to him with abashful laugh: "You know, it seems very extraordinary that I should bedriving out with you like this."
He turned to look at me and in his kind voice:
"You will find everything extremely simple," he said. "So simple thatyou will be quite able to hold your own. I suppose you know that theworld is selfish, I mean the majority of the people in it, oftenunconsciously I must admit, and especially people with a mission, with afixed idea, with some fantastic object in view, or even with only somefantastic illusion. That doesn't mean that they have no scruples. And Idon't know that at this moment I myself am not one of them."
"That, of course, I can't say," I retorted.
"I haven't seen her for years," he said, "and in comparison with what shewas then she must be very grown up by now. From what we heard from Mr.Blunt she had experiences which would have matured her more than theywould teach her. There are of course people that are not teachable. Idon't know that she is one of them. But as to maturity that's quiteanother thing. Capacity for suffering is developed in every human beingworthy of the name."
"Captain Blunt doesn't seem to be a very happy person," I said. "Heseems to have a grudge against everybody. People make him wince. Thethings they do, the things they say. He must be awfully mature."
Mills gave me a sidelong look. It met mine of the same character and weboth smiled without openly looking at each other. At the end of the Ruede Rome the violent chilly breath of the mistral enveloped the victoriain a great widening of brilliant sunshine without heat. We turned to theright, circling at a stately pace about the rather mean obelisk whichstands at the entrance to the Prado.
"I don't know whether you are mature or not," said Mills humorously."But I think you will do. You . . . "
"Tell me," I interrupted, "what is really Captain Blunt's positionthere?"
And I nodded at the alley of the Prado opening before us between the rowsof the perfectly leafless trees.
"Thoroughly false, I should think. It doesn't accord either with hisillusions or his pretensions, or even with the real position he has inthe world. And so what between his mother and the General Headquartersand the state of his own feelings he. . . "
"He is in love with her," I interrupted again.
"That wouldn't make it any easier. I'm not at all sure of that. But ifso it can't be a very idealistic sentiment. All the warmth of hisidealism is concentrated upon a certain '_Americain_, _Catholique etgentil-homme_. . . '"
The smile which for a moment dwelt on his lips was not unkind.
"At the same time he has a very good grip of the material conditions thatsurround, as it were, the situation."
"What do you mean? That Dona Rita" (the name came strangely familiar tomy tongue) "is rich, that she has a fortune of her own?"
"Yes, a fortune," said Mills. "But it was Allegre's fortune before. . .And then there is Blunt's fortune: he lives by his sword. And there isthe fortune of his mother, I assure you a perfectly charming, clever, andmost aristocratic old lady, with the most distinguished connections. Ireally mean it. She doesn't live by her sword. She . . . she lives byher wits. I have a notion that those two dislike each other heartily attimes. . . Here we are."
The victoria stopped in the side alley, bordered by the low walls ofprivate grounds. We got out before a wrought-iron gateway which stoodhalf open and walked up a circular drive to the door of a large villa ofa neglected appearance. The mistral howled in the sunshine, shaking thebare bushes quite furiously. And everything was bright and hard, the airwas hard, the light was hard, the ground under our feet was hard.
The door at which Mills rang came open almost at once. The maid whoopened it was short, dark, and slightly pockmarked. For the rest, anobvious "_femme-de-chambre_," and very busy. She said quickly, "Madamehas just returned from her ride," and went up the stairs leaving us toshut the front door ourselves.
The staircase had a crimson carpet. Mr. Blunt appeared from somewhere inthe hall. He was in riding breeches and a black coat with ample squareskirts. This get-up suited him but it also changed him extremely bydoing away with the effect of flexible slimness he produced in hisevening clothes. He looked to me not at all himself but rather like abrother of the man who had been talking to us the night before. Hecarried about him a delicate perfume of scented soap. He gave us a flashof his white teeth and said:
"It's a perfect nuisance. We have just dismounted. I will have to lunchas I am. A lifelong habit of beginning her day on horseback. Shepretends she is unwell unless she does. I daresay, when one thinks therehas been hardly a day for five or six years that she didn't begin with aride. That's the reason she is always rushing away from Paris where shecan't go out in the morning alone. Here, of course, it's different. Andas I, too, am a stranger here I can go out with her. Not that Iparticularly care to do it."
These last words were addressed to Mills specially, with the addition ofa mumbled remark: "It's a confounded position." Then calmly to me with aswift smile: "We have been talking of you this morning. You are expectedwith impatience."
"Thank you very much," I said, "but I can't help asking myself what I amdoing here."
The upward cast in the eyes of Mills who was facing the staircase made usboth, Blunt and I, turn round. The woman of whom I had heard so much, ina sort of way in which I had never heard a woman spoken of before, wascoming down the stairs, and my first sensation was that of profoundastonishment at this evidence that she did really exist. And even thenthe visual impression was more of colour in a picture than of the formsof actual life. She was wearing a wrapper, a sort of dressing-gown ofpale blue silk embroidered with black and gold designs round the neck anddown the front, lapped round her and held together by a broad belt of thesame material. Her slippers were of the same colour, with black bows atthe instep. The white stairs, the deep crimson of the carpet, and thelight blue of the dress made an effective combination of colour to setoff the delicate carnation of that face, which, after the first glancegiven to the whole person, drew irresistibly your gaze to itself by anindefinable quality of charm beyond all analysis and made you think ofremote races, of strange generations, of the faces of women sculptured onimmemorial monuments and of those lying unsung in their tombs. While shemoved downwards from step to
step with slightly lowered eyes thereflashed upon me suddenly the recollection of words heard at night, ofAllegre's words about her, of there being in her "something of the womenof all time."
At the last step she raised her eyelids, treated us to an exhibition ofteeth as dazzling as Mr. Blunt's and looking even stronger; and indeed,as she approached us she brought home to our hearts (but after all I amspeaking only for myself) a vivid sense of her physical perfection inbeauty of limb and balance of nerves, and not so much of grace, probably,as of absolute harmony.
She said to us, "I am sorry I kept you waiting." Her voice was lowpitched, penetrating, and of the most seductive gentleness. She offeredher hand to Mills very frankly as to an old friend. Within theextraordinarily wide sleeve, lined with black silk, I could see the arm,very white, with a pearly gleam in the shadow. But to me she extendedher hand with a slight stiffening, as it were a recoil of her person,combined with an extremely straight glance. It was a finely shaped,capable hand. I bowed over it, and we just touched fingers. I did notlook then at her face.
Next moment she caught sight of some envelopes lying on the roundmarble-topped table in the middle of the hall. She seized one of themwith a wonderfully quick, almost feline, movement and tore it open,saying to us, "Excuse me, I must . . . Do go into the dining-room.Captain Blunt, show the way."
Her widened eyes stared at the paper. Mr. Blunt threw one of the doorsopen, but before we passed through it we heard a petulant exclamationaccompanied by childlike stamping with both feet and ending in a laughwhich had in it a note of contempt.
The door closed behind us; we had been abandoned by Mr. Blunt. He hadremained on the other side, possibly to soothe. The room in which wefound ourselves was long like a gallery and ended in a rotunda with manywindows. It was long enough for two fireplaces of red polished granite.A table laid out for four occupied very little space. The floor inlaidin two kinds of wood in a bizarre pattern was highly waxed, reflectingobjects like still water.
Before very long Dona Rita and Blunt rejoined us and we sat down aroundthe table; but before we could begin to talk a dramatically sudden ringat the front door stilled our incipient animation. Dona Rita looked atus all in turn, with surprise and, as it were, with suspicion. "How didhe know I was here?" she whispered after looking at the card which wasbrought to her. She passed it to Blunt, who passed it to Mills, whomade a faint grimace, dropped it on the table-cloth, and only whisperedto me, "A journalist from Paris."
"He has run me to earth," said Dona Rita. "One would bargain for peaceagainst hard cash if these fellows weren't always ready to snatch atone's very soul with the other hand. It frightens me."
Her voice floated mysterious and penetrating from her lips, which movedvery little. Mills was watching her with sympathetic curiosity. Mr.Blunt muttered: "Better not make the brute angry." For a moment DonaRita's face, with its narrow eyes, its wide brow, and high cheek bones,became very still; then her colour was a little heightened. "Oh," shesaid softly, "let him come in. He would be really dangerous if he had amind--you know," she said to Mills.
The person who had provoked all those remarks and as much hesitation asthough he had been some sort of wild beast astonished me on beingadmitted, first by the beauty of his white head of hair and then by hispaternal aspect and the innocent simplicity of his manner. They laid acover for him between Mills and Dona Rita, who quite openly removed theenvelopes she had brought with her, to the other side of her plate. Asopenly the man's round china-blue eyes followed them in an attempt tomake out the handwriting of the addresses.
He seemed to know, at least slightly, both Mills and Blunt. To me hegave a stare of stupid surprise. He addressed our hostess.
"Resting? Rest is a very good thing. Upon my word, I thought I wouldfind you alone. But you have too much sense. Neither man nor woman hasbeen created to live alone. . . ." After this opening he had all thetalk to himself. It was left to him pointedly, and I verily believe thatI was the only one who showed an appearance of interest. I couldn't helpit. The others, including Mills, sat like a lot of deaf and dumb people.No. It was even something more detached. They sat rather like a verysuperior lot of waxworks, with the fixed but indetermined facialexpression and with that odd air wax figures have of being aware of theirexistence being but a sham.
I was the exception; and nothing could have marked better my status of astranger, the completest possible stranger in the moral region in whichthose people lived, moved, enjoying or suffering their incomprehensibleemotions. I was as much of a stranger as the most hopeless castawaystumbling in the dark upon a hut of natives and finding them in the gripof some situation appertaining to the mentalities, prejudices, andproblems of an undiscovered country--of a country of which he had noteven had one single clear glimpse before.
It was even worse in a way. It ought to have been more disconcerting.For, pursuing the image of the cast-away blundering upon thecomplications of an unknown scheme of life, it was I, the castaway, whowas the savage, the simple innocent child of nature. Those people wereobviously more civilized than I was. They had more rites, moreceremonies, more complexity in their sensations, more knowledge of evil,more varied meanings to the subtle phrases of their language. Naturally!I was still so young! And yet I assure you, that just then I lost allsense of inferiority. And why? Of course the carelessness and theignorance of youth had something to do with that. But there wassomething else besides. Looking at Dona Rita, her head leaning on herhand, with her dark lashes lowered on the slightly flushed cheek, I feltno longer alone in my youth. That woman of whom I had heard these thingsI have set down with all the exactness of unfailing memory, that womanwas revealed to me young, younger than anybody I had ever seen, as youngas myself (and my sensation of my youth was then very acute); revealedwith something peculiarly intimate in the conviction, as if she wereyoung exactly in the same way in which I felt myself young; and thattherefore no misunderstanding between us was possible and there could benothing more for us to know about each other. Of course this sensationwas momentary, but it was illuminating; it was a light which could notlast, but it left no darkness behind. On the contrary, it seemed to havekindled magically somewhere within me a glow of assurance, ofunaccountable confidence in myself: a warm, steady, and eager sensationof my individual life beginning for good there, on that spot, in thatsense of solidarity, in that seduction.