CHAPTER IV
It was past four o'clock before I left the house, together with Mills.Mr. Blunt, still in his riding costume, escorted us to the very door. Heasked us to send him the first fiacre we met on our way to town. "It'simpossible to walk in this get-up through the streets," he remarked, withhis brilliant smile.
At this point I propose to transcribe some notes I made at the time inlittle black books which I have hunted up in the litter of the past; verycheap, common little note-books that by the lapse of years have acquireda touching dimness of aspect, the frayed, worn-out dignity of documents.
Expression on paper has never been my forte. My life had been a thing ofoutward manifestations. I never had been secret or even systematicallytaciturn about my simple occupations which might have been foolish buthad never required either caution or mystery. But in those four hourssince midday a complete change had come over me. For good or evil I leftthat house committed to an enterprise that could not be talked about;which would have appeared to many senseless and perhaps ridiculous, butwas certainly full of risks, and, apart from that, commanded discretionon the ground of simple loyalty. It would not only close my lips but itwould to a certain extent cut me off from my usual haunts and from thesociety of my friends; especially of the light-hearted, young,harum-scarum kind. This was unavoidable. It was because I felt myselfthrown back upon my own thoughts and forbidden to seek relief amongstother lives--it was perhaps only for that reason at first I started anirregular, fragmentary record of my days.
I made these notes not so much to preserve the memory (one cared not forany to-morrow then) but to help me to keep a better hold of theactuality. I scribbled them on shore and I scribbled them on the sea;and in both cases they are concerned not only with the nature of thefacts but with the intensity of my sensations. It may be, too, that Ilearned to love the sea for itself only at that time. Woman and the searevealed themselves to me together, as it were: two mistresses of life'svalues. The illimitable greatness of the one, the unfathomable seductionof the other working their immemorial spells from generation togeneration fell upon my heart at last: a common fortune, an unforgettablememory of the sea's formless might and of the sovereign charm in thatwoman's form wherein there seemed to beat the pulse of divinity ratherthan blood.
I begin here with the notes written at the end of that very day.
--Parted with Mills on the quay. We had walked side by side in absolutesilence. The fact is he is too old for me to talk to him freely. Forall his sympathy and seriousness I don't know what note to strike and Iam not at all certain what he thinks of all this. As we shook hands atparting, I asked him how much longer he expected to stay. And heanswered me that it depended on R. She was making arrangements for himto cross the frontier. He wanted to see the very ground on which thePrinciple of Legitimacy was actually asserting itself arms in hand. Itsounded to my positive mind the most fantastic thing in the world, thiselimination of personalities from what seemed but the merest political,dynastic adventure. So it wasn't Dona Rita, it wasn't Blunt, it wasn'tthe Pretender with his big infectious laugh, it wasn't all that lot ofpoliticians, archbishops, and generals, of monks, guerrilleros, andsmugglers by sea and land, of dubious agents and shady speculators andundoubted swindlers, who were pushing their fortunes at the risk of theirprecious skins. No. It was the Legitimist Principle asserting itself!Well, I would accept the view but with one reservation. All the othersmight have been merged into the idea, but I, the latest recruit, I wouldnot be merged in the Legitimist Principle. Mine was an act ofindependent assertion. Never before had I felt so intensely aware of mypersonality. But I said nothing of that to Mills. I only told him Ithought we had better not be seen very often together in the streets. Heagreed. Hearty handshake. Looked affectionately after his broad back.It never occurred to him to turn his head. What was I in comparison withthe Principle of Legitimacy?
Late that night I went in search of Dominic. That Mediterranean sailorwas just the man I wanted. He had a great experience of all unlawfulthings that can be done on the seas and he brought to the practice ofthem much wisdom and audacity. That I didn't know where he lived wasnothing since I knew where he loved. The proprietor of a small, quietcafe on the quay, a certain Madame Leonore, a woman of thirty-five withan open Roman face and intelligent black eyes, had captivated his heartyears ago. In that cafe with our heads close together over a marbletable, Dominic and I held an earnest and endless confabulation whileMadame Leonore, rustling a black silk skirt, with gold earrings, with herraven hair elaborately dressed and something nonchalant in her movements,would take occasion, in passing to and fro, to rest her hand for a momenton Dominic's shoulder. Later when the little cafe had emptied itself ofits habitual customers, mostly people connected with the work of shipsand cargoes, she came quietly to sit at our table and looking at me veryhard with her black, sparkling eyes asked Dominic familiarly what hadhappened to his Signorino. It was her name for me. I was Dominic'sSignorino. She knew me by no other; and our connection has always beensomewhat of a riddle to her. She said that I was somehow changed sinceshe saw me last. In her rich voice she urged Dominic only to look at myeyes. I must have had some piece of luck come to me either in love or atcards, she bantered. But Dominic answered half in scorn that I was notof the sort that runs after that kind of luck. He stated generally thatthere were some young gentlemen very clever in inventing new ways ofgetting rid of their time and their money. However, if they needed asensible man to help them he had no objection himself to lend a hand.Dominic's general scorn for the beliefs, and activities, and abilities ofupper-class people covered the Principle of Legitimacy amply; but hecould not resist the opportunity to exercise his special faculties in afield he knew of old. He had been a desperate smuggler in his youngerdays. We settled the purchase of a fast sailing craft. Agreed that itmust be a balancelle and something altogether out of the common. He knewof one suitable but she was in Corsica. Offered to start for Bastia bymail-boat in the morning. All the time the handsome and mature MadameLeonore sat by, smiling faintly, amused at her great man joining likethis in a frolic of boys. She said the last words of that evening: "Youmen never grow up," touching lightly the grey hair above his temple.
A fortnight later.
. . . In the afternoon to the Prado. Beautiful day. At the moment ofringing at the door a strong emotion of an anxious kind. Why? Down thelength of the dining-room in the rotunda part full of afternoon lightDona R., sitting cross-legged on the divan in the attitude of a very oldidol or a very young child and surrounded by many cushions, waves herhand from afar pleasantly surprised, exclaiming: "What! Back already!"I give her all the details and we talk for two hours across a large brassbowl containing a little water placed between us, lighting cigarettes anddropping them, innumerable, puffed at, yet untasted in the overwhelminginterest of the conversation. Found her very quick in taking the pointsand very intelligent in her suggestions. All formality soon vanishedbetween us and before very long I discovered myself sitting cross-legged,too, while I held forth on the qualities of different Mediterraneansailing craft and on the romantic qualifications of Dominic for the task.I believe I gave her the whole history of the man, mentioning even theexistence of Madame Leonore, since the little cafe would have to be theheadquarters of the marine part of the plot.
She murmured, "_Ah_! _Une belle Romaine_," thoughtfully. She told methat she liked to hear people of that sort spoken of in terms of ourcommon humanity. She observed also that she wished to see Dominic someday; to set her eyes for once on a man who could be absolutely dependedon. She wanted to know whether he had engaged himself in this adventuresolely for my sake.
I said that no doubt it was partly that. We had been very closeassociates in the West Indies from where we had returned together, and hehad a notion that I could be depended on, too. But mainly, I suppose, itwas from taste. And there was in him also a fine carelessness as to whathe did and a love of venturesome enterprise.
"And you," she said. "Is it carelessness, too?"
"In a measure," I said. "Within limits."
"And very soon you will get tired."
"When I do I will tell you. But I may also get frightened. I supposeyou know there are risks, I mean apart from the risk of life."
"As for instance," she said.
"For instance, being captured, tried, and sentenced to what they call'the galleys,' in Ceuta."
"And all this from that love for . . ."
"Not for Legitimacy," I interrupted the inquiry lightly. "But what's theuse asking such questions? It's like asking the veiled figure of fate.It doesn't know its own mind nor its own heart. It has no heart. Butwhat if I were to start asking you--who have a heart and are not veiledto my sight?" She dropped her charming adolescent head, so firm inmodelling, so gentle in expression. Her uncovered neck was round likethe shaft of a column. She wore the same wrapper of thick blue silk. Atthat time she seemed to live either in her riding habit or in thatwrapper folded tightly round her and open low to a point in front.Because of the absence of all trimming round the neck and from the deepview of her bare arms in the wide sleeve this garment seemed to be putdirectly on her skin and gave one the impression of one's nearness to herbody which would have been troubling but for the perfect unconsciousnessof her manner. That day she carried no barbarous arrow in her hair. Itwas parted on one side, brushed back severely, and tied with a blackribbon, without any bronze mist about her forehead or temple. Thissmoothness added to the many varieties of her expression also that ofchild-like innocence.
Great progress in our intimacy brought about unconsciously by ourenthusiastic interest in the matter of our discourse and, in the momentsof silence, by the sympathetic current of our thoughts. And this rapidlygrowing familiarity (truly, she had a terrible gift for it) had all thevarieties of earnestness: serious, excited, ardent, and even gay. Shelaughed in contralto; but her laugh was never very long; and when it hadceased, the silence of the room with the light dying in all its manywindows seemed to lie about me warmed by its vibration.
As I was preparing to take my leave after a longish pause into which wehad fallen as into a vague dream, she came out of it with a start and aquiet sigh. She said, "I had forgotten myself." I took her hand and wasraising it naturally, without premeditation, when I felt suddenly the armto which it belonged become insensible, passive, like a stuffed limb, andthe whole woman go inanimate all over! Brusquely I dropped the handbefore it reached my lips; and it was so lifeless that it fell heavily onto the divan.
I remained standing before her. She raised to me not her eyes but herwhole face, inquisitively--perhaps in appeal.
"No! This isn't good enough for me," I said.
The last of the light gleamed in her long enigmatic eyes as if they wereprecious enamel in that shadowy head which in its immobility suggested acreation of a distant past: immortal art, not transient life. Her voicehad a profound quietness. She excused herself.
"It's only habit--or instinct--or what you like. I have had to practisethat in self-defence lest I should be tempted sometimes to cut the armoff."
I remembered the way she had abandoned this very arm and hand to thewhite-haired ruffian. It rendered me gloomy and idiotically obstinate.
"Very ingenious. But this sort of thing is of no use to me," I declared.
"Make it up," suggested her mysterious voice, while her shadowy figureremained unmoved, indifferent amongst the cushions.
I didn't stir either. I refused in the same low tone.
"No. Not before you give it to me yourself some day."
"Yes--some day," she repeated in a breath in which there was no irony butrather hesitation, reluctance what did I know?
I walked away from the house in a curious state of gloomy satisfactionwith myself.
* * * * *
And this is the last extract. A month afterwards.
--This afternoon going up to the Villa I was for the first timeaccompanied in my way by some misgivings. To-morrow I sail.
First trip and therefore in the nature of a trial trip; and I can'tovercome a certain gnawing emotion, for it is a trip that _mustn't_ fail.In that sort of enterprise there is no room for mistakes. Of all theindividuals engaged in it will every one be intelligent enough, faithfulenough, bold enough? Looking upon them as a whole it seems impossible;but as each has got only a limited part to play they may be foundsufficient each for his particular trust. And will they be all punctual,I wonder? An enterprise that hangs on the punctuality of many people, nomatter how well disposed and even heroic, hangs on a thread. This I haveperceived to be also the greatest of Dominic's concerns. He, too,wonders. And when he breathes his doubts the smile lurking under thedark curl of his moustaches is not reassuring.
But there is also something exciting in such speculations and the road tothe Villa seemed to me shorter than ever before.
Let in by the silent, ever-active, dark lady's maid, who is always on thespot and always on the way somewhere else, opening the door with onehand, while she passes on, turning on one for a moment her quick, blackeyes, which just miss being lustrous, as if some one had breathed on themlightly.
On entering the long room I perceive Mills established in an armchairwhich he had dragged in front of the divan. I do the same to another andthere we sit side by side facing R., tenderly amiable yet somehow distantamong her cushions, with an immemorial seriousness in her long, shadedeyes and her fugitive smile hovering about but never settling on herlips. Mills, who is just back from over the frontier, must have beenasking R. whether she had been worried again by her devoted friend withthe white hair. At least I concluded so because I found them talking ofthe heart-broken Azzolati. And after having answered their greetings Isit and listen to Rita addressing Mills earnestly.
"No, I assure you Azzolati had done nothing to me. I knew him. He was afrequent visitor at the Pavilion, though I, personally, never talked withhim very much in Henry Allegre's lifetime. Other men were moreinteresting, and he himself was rather reserved in his manner to me. Hewas an international politician and financier--a nobody. He, like manyothers, was admitted only to feed and amuse Henry Allegre's scorn of theworld, which was insatiable--I tell you."
"Yes," said Mills. "I can imagine."
"But I know. Often when we were alone Henry Allegre used to pour it intomy ears. If ever anybody saw mankind stripped of its clothes as thechild sees the king in the German fairy tale, it's I! Into my ears! Achild's! Too young to die of fright. Certainly not old enough tounderstand--or even to believe. But then his arm was about me. I usedto laugh, sometimes. Laugh! At this destruction--at these ruins!"
"Yes," said Mills, very steady before her fire. "But you have at yourservice the everlasting charm of life; you are a part of theindestructible."
"Am I? . . . But there is no arm about me now. The laugh! Where is mylaugh? Give me back my laugh. . . ."
And she laughed a little on a low note. I don't know about Mills, butthe subdued shadowy vibration of it echoed in my breast which felt emptyfor a moment and like a large space that makes one giddy.
"The laugh is gone out of my heart, which at any rate used to feelprotected. That feeling's gone, too. And I myself will have to die someday."
"Certainly," said Mills in an unaltered voice. "As to this body you . . ."
"Oh, yes! Thanks. It's a very poor jest. Change from body to body astravellers used to change horses at post houses. I've heard of thisbefore. . . ."
"I've no doubt you have," Mills put on a submissive air. "But are we tohear any more about Azzolati?"
"You shall. Listen. I had heard that he was invited to shoot atRambouillet--a quiet party, not one of these great shoots. I hear a lotof things. I wanted to have a certain information, also certain hintsconveyed to a diplomatic personage who was to be there, too. A personagethat would never let me get in touch with him though I had tried manyti
mes."
"Incredible!" mocked Mills solemnly.
"The personage mistrusts his own susceptibility. Born cautious,"explained Dona Rita crisply with the slightest possible quiver of herlips. "Suddenly I had the inspiration to make use of Azzolati, who hadbeen reminding me by a constant stream of messages that he was an oldfriend. I never took any notice of those pathetic appeals before. Butin this emergency I sat down and wrote a note asking him to come and dinewith me in my hotel. I suppose you know I don't live in the Pavilion. Ican't bear the Pavilion now. When I have to go there I begin to feelafter an hour or so that it is haunted. I seem to catch sight ofsomebody I know behind columns, passing through doorways, vanishing hereand there. I hear light footsteps behind closed doors. . . My own!"
Her eyes, her half-parted lips, remained fixed till Mills suggestedsoftly, "Yes, but Azzolati."
Her rigidity vanished like a flake of snow in the sunshine. "Oh!Azzolati. It was a most solemn affair. It had occurred to me to make avery elaborate toilet. It was most successful. Azzolati lookedpositively scared for a moment as though he had got into the wrong suiteof rooms. He had never before seen me _en toilette_, you understand. Inthe old days once out of my riding habit I would never dress. I drapedmyself, you remember, Monsieur Mills. To go about like that suited myindolence, my longing to feel free in my body, as at that time when Iused to herd goats. . . But never mind. My aim was to impress Azzolati.I wanted to talk to him seriously."
There was something whimsical in the quick beat of her eyelids and in thesubtle quiver of her lips. "And behold! the same notion had occurred toAzzolati. Imagine that for this tete-a-tete dinner the creature had gothimself up as if for a reception at court. He displayed a brochette ofall sorts of decorations on the lapel of his _frac_ and had a broadribbon of some order across his shirt front. An orange ribbon.Bavarian, I should say. Great Roman Catholic, Azzolati. It was alwayshis ambition to be the banker of all the Bourbons in the world. The lastremnants of his hair were dyed jet black and the ends of his moustachewere like knitting needles. He was disposed to be as soft as wax in myhands. Unfortunately I had had some irritating interviews during theday. I was keeping down sudden impulses to smash a glass, throw a plateon the floor, do something violent to relieve my feelings. Hissubmissive attitude made me still more nervous. He was ready to doanything in the world for me providing that I would promise him that hewould never find my door shut against him as long as he lived. Youunderstand the impudence of it, don't you? And his tone was positivelyabject, too. I snapped back at him that I had no door, that I was anomad. He bowed ironically till his nose nearly touched his plate butbegged me to remember that to his personal knowledge I had four houses ofmy own about the world. And you know this made me feel a homelessoutcast more than ever--like a little dog lost in the street--not knowingwhere to go. I was ready to cry and there the creature sat in front ofme with an imbecile smile as much as to say 'here is a poser for you.. . .' I gnashed my teeth at him. Quietly, you know . . . I suppose you twothink that I am stupid."
She paused as if expecting an answer but we made no sound and shecontinued with a remark.
"I have days like that. Often one must listen to false protestations,empty words, strings of lies all day long, so that in the evening one isnot fit for anything, not even for truth if it comes in one's way. Thatidiot treated me to a piece of brazen sincerity which I couldn't stand.First of all he began to take me into his confidence; he boasted of hisgreat affairs, then started groaning about his overstrained life whichleft him no time for the amenities of existence, for beauty, orsentiment, or any sort of ease of heart. His heart! He wanted me tosympathize with his sorrows. Of course I ought to have listened. Onemust pay for service. Only I was nervous and tired. He bored me. Itold him at last that I was surprised that a man of such immense wealthshould still keep on going like this reaching for more and more. Isuppose he must have been sipping a good deal of wine while we talked andall at once he let out an atrocity which was too much for me. He hadbeen moaning and sentimentalizing but then suddenly he showed me hisfangs. 'No,' he cries, 'you can't imagine what a satisfaction it is tofeel all that penniless, beggarly lot of the dear, honest, meritoriouspoor wriggling and slobbering under one's boots.' You may tell me thathe is a contemptible animal anyhow, but you should have heard the tone!I felt my bare arms go cold like ice. A moment before I had been hot andfaint with sheer boredom. I jumped up from the table, rang for Rose, andtold her to bring me my fur cloak. He remained in his chair leering atme curiously. When I had the fur on my shoulders and the girl had goneout of the room I gave him the surprise of his life. 'Take yourself offinstantly,' I said. 'Go trample on the poor if you like but never darespeak to me again.' At this he leaned his head on his arm and sat solong at the table shading his eyes with his hand that I had to ask,calmly--you know--whether he wanted me to have him turned out into thecorridor. He fetched an enormous sigh. 'I have only tried to be honestwith you, Rita.' But by the time he got to the door he had regained someof his impudence. 'You know how to trample on a poor fellow, too,' hesaid. 'But I don't mind being made to wriggle under your pretty shoes,Rita. I forgive you. I thought you were free from all vulgarsentimentalism and that you had a more independent mind. I was mistakenin you, that's all.' With that he pretends to dash a tear from hiseye-crocodile!--and goes out, leaving me in my fur by the blazing fire,my teeth going like castanets. . . Did you ever hear of anything sostupid as this affair?" she concluded in a tone of extreme candour and aprofound unreadable stare that went far beyond us both. And thestillness of her lips was so perfect directly she ceased speaking that Iwondered whether all this had come through them or only had formed itselfin my mind.
Presently she continued as if speaking for herself only.
"It's like taking the lids off boxes and seeing ugly toads staring atyou. In every one. Every one. That's what it is having to do with menmore than mere--Good-morning--Good evening. And if you try to avoidmeddling with their lids, some of them will take them off themselves.And they don't even know, they don't even suspect what they are showingyou. Certain confidences--they don't see it--are the bitterest kind ofinsult. I suppose Azzolati imagines himself a noble beast of prey. Justas some others imagine themselves to be most delicate, noble, and refinedgentlemen. And as likely as not they would trade on a woman'stroubles--and in the end make nothing of that either. Idiots!"
The utter absence of all anger in this spoken meditation gave it acharacter of touching simplicity. And as if it had been truly only ameditation we conducted ourselves as though we had not heard it. Millsbegan to speak of his experiences during his visit to the army of theLegitimist King. And I discovered in his speeches that this man of bookscould be graphic and picturesque. His admiration for the devotion andbravery of the army was combined with the greatest distaste for what hehad seen of the way its great qualities were misused. In the conduct ofthis great enterprise he had seen a deplorable levity of outlook, a fatallack of decision, an absence of any reasoned plan.
He shook his head.
"I feel that you of all people, Dona Rita, ought to be told the truth. Idon't know exactly what you have at stake."
She was rosy like some impassive statue in a desert in the flush of thedawn.
"Not my heart," she said quietly. "You must believe that."
"I do. Perhaps it would have been better if you. . . "
"No, _Monsieur le Philosophe_. It would not have been better. Don'tmake that serious face at me," she went on with tenderness in a playfulnote, as if tenderness had been her inheritance of all time andplayfulness the very fibre of her being. "I suppose you think that awoman who has acted as I did and has not staked her heart on it is . . .How do you know to what the heart responds as it beats from day to day?"
"I wouldn't judge you. What am I before the knowledge you were born to?You are as old as the world."
She accepted this with a smile. I who was innocently watch
ing them wasamazed to discover how much a fleeting thing like that could hold ofseduction without the help of any other feature and with that unchangingglance.
"With me it is _pun d'onor_. To my first independent friend."
"You were soon parted," ventured Mills, while I sat still under a senseof oppression.
"Don't think for a moment that I have been scared off," she said. "It isthey who were frightened. I suppose you heard a lot of Headquartersgossip?"
"Oh, yes," Mills said meaningly. "The fair and the dark are succeedingeach other like leaves blown in the wind dancing in and out. I supposeyou have noticed that leaves blown in the wind have a look of happiness."
"Yes," she said, "that sort of leaf is dead. Then why shouldn't it lookhappy? And so I suppose there is no uneasiness, no occasion for fearsamongst the 'responsibles.'"
"Upon the whole not. Now and then a leaf seems as if it would stick.There is for instance Madame . . ."
"Oh, I don't want to know, I understand it all, I am as old as theworld."
"Yes," said Mills thoughtfully, "you are not a leaf, you might have beena tornado yourself."
"Upon my word," she said, "there was a time that they thought I couldcarry him off, away from them all--beyond them all. Verily, I am notvery proud of their fears. There was nothing reckless there worthy of agreat passion. There was nothing sad there worthy of a greattenderness."
"And is _this_ the word of the Venetian riddle?" asked Mills, fixing herwith his keen eyes.
"If it pleases you to think so, Senor," she said indifferently. Themovement of her eyes, their veiled gleam became mischievous when sheasked, "And Don Juan Blunt, have you seen him over there?"
"I fancy he avoided me. Moreover, he is always with his regiment at theoutposts. He is a most valorous captain. I heard some people describehim as foolhardy."
"Oh, he needn't seek death," she said in an indefinable tone. "I mean asa refuge. There will be nothing in his life great enough for that."
"You are angry. You miss him, I believe, Dona Rita."
"Angry? No! Weary. But of course it's very inconvenient. I can't verywell ride out alone. A solitary amazon swallowing the dust and the saltspray of the Corniche promenade would attract too much attention. Andthen I don't mind you two knowing that I am afraid of going out alone."
"Afraid?" we both exclaimed together.
"You men are extraordinary. Why do you want me to be courageous? Whyshouldn't I be afraid? Is it because there is no one in the world tocare what would happen to me?"
There was a deep-down vibration in her tone for the first time. We hadnot a word to say. And she added after a long silence:
"There is a very good reason. There is a danger."
With wonderful insight Mills affirmed at once:
"Something ugly."
She nodded slightly several times. Then Mills said with conviction:
"Ah! Then it can't be anything in yourself. And if so . . . "
I was moved to extravagant advice.
"You should come out with me to sea then. There may be some danger therebut there's nothing ugly to fear."
She gave me a startled glance quite unusual with her, more than wonderfulto me; and suddenly as though she had seen me for the first time sheexclaimed in a tone of compunction:
"Oh! And there is this one, too! Why! Oh, why should he run his headinto danger for those things that will all crumble into dust beforelong?"
I said: "_You_ won't crumble into dust." And Mills chimed in:
"That young enthusiast will always have his sea."
We were all standing up now. She kept her eyes on me, and repeated witha sort of whimsical enviousness:
"The sea! The violet sea--and he is longing to rejoin it! . . . Atnight! Under the stars! . . . A lovers' meeting," she went on, thrillingme from head to foot with those two words, accompanied by a wistful smilepointed by a suspicion of mockery. She turned away.
"And you, Monsieur Mills?" she asked.
"I am going back to my books," he declared with a very serious face. "Myadventure is over."
"Each one to his love," she bantered us gently. "Didn't I love books,too, at one time! They seemed to contain all wisdom and hold a magicpower, too. Tell me, Monsieur Mills, have you found amongst them in someblack-letter volume the power of foretelling a poor mortal's destiny, thepower to look into the future? Anybody's future . . ." Mills shook hishead. . . "What, not even mine?" she coaxed as if she really believed ina magic power to be found in books.
Mills shook his head again. "No, I have not the power," he said. "I amno more a great magician, than you are a poor mortal. You have yourancient spells. You are as old as the world. Of us two it's you thatare more fit to foretell the future of the poor mortals on whom youhappen to cast your eyes."
At these words she cast her eyes down and in the moment of deep silence Iwatched the slight rising and falling of her breast. Then Millspronounced distinctly: "Good-bye, old Enchantress."
They shook hands cordially. "Good-bye, poor Magician," she said.
Mills made as if to speak but seemed to think better of it. Dona Ritareturned my distant bow with a slight, charmingly ceremonious inclinationof her body.
"_Bon voyage_ and a happy return," she said formally.
I was following Mills through the door when I heard her voice behind usraised in recall:
"Oh, a moment . . . I forgot . . ."
I turned round. The call was for me, and I walked slowly back wonderingwhat she could have forgotten. She waited in the middle of the room withlowered head, with a mute gleam in her deep blue eyes. When I was nearenough she extended to me without a word her bare white arm and suddenlypressed the back of her hand against my lips. I was too startled toseize it with rapture. It detached itself from my lips and fell slowlyby her side. We had made it up and there was nothing to say. She turnedaway to the window and I hurried out of the room.