Doña Rita frankly stared at me—a most unusual expression for her to have. Suddenly she sat up.
“Don George,” she said with lovely animation, “I insist upon knowing who is in my house.”
“You insist! … But Therese says it is her house.”
Had there been anything handy, such as a cigarette box, for instance, it would have gone sailing through the air spouting cigarettes as it went. Rosy all over, cheeks, neck, shoulders, she seemed lighted up softly from inside like a beautiful transparency. But she didn’t raise her voice.
“You and Therese have sworn my ruin. If you don’t tell me what you mean I will go outside and shout up the stairs to make her come down. I know there is no one but the three of us in the house.”
“Yes, three; but not counting my Jacobin. There is a Jacobin in the house.”
“A Jac … ! Oh, George, is this the time to jest?” she began in persuasive tones when a faint but peculiar noise stilled her lips as though they had been suddenly frozen. She became quiet all over instantly. I, on the contrary, made an involuntary movement before I, too, became as still as death. We strained our ears; but that peculiar metallic rattle had been so slight and the silence now was so perfect that it was very difficult to believe one’s senses. Doña Rita looked inquisitively at me. I gave her a slight nod. We remained looking into each other’s eyes while we listened and listened till the silence became unbearable. Doña Rita whispered composedly: “Did you hear?”
“I am asking myself … I almost think I didn’t.”
“Don’t shuffle with me. It was a scraping noise.”
“Something fell.”
“Something! What thing? What are the things that fall by themselves? Who is that man of whom you spoke? Is there a man?”
“No doubt about it whatever. I brought him here myself.”
“What for?”
“Why shouldn’t I have a Jacobin of my own? Haven’t you one, too? But mine is a different problem from that white-haired humbug of yours. He is a genuine article. There must be plenty like him about. He has scores to settle with half a dozen people, he says, and he clamours for revolutions to give him a chance.”
“But why did you bring him here?”
“I don’t know—from sudden affection …”
All this passed in such low tones that we seemed to make out the words more by watching each other’s lips than through our sense of hearing. Man is a strange animal. I didn’t care what I said. All I wanted was to keep her in her pose, excited and still, sitting up with her hair loose, softly glowing, the dark brown fur making a wonderful contrast with the white lace on her breast. All I was thinking of was that she was adorable and too lovely for words! I cared for nothing but that sublimely aesthetic impression. It summed up all life, all joy, all poetry! It had a divine strain. I am certain that I was not in my right mind. I suppose I was not quite sane. I am convinced that at that moment of the four people in the house it was Doña Rita who upon the whole was the most sane. She observed my face and I am sure she read there something of my inward exaltation. She knew what to do. In the softest possible tone and hardly above her breath she commanded: “George, come to yourself.”
Her gentleness had the effect of evening light. I was soothed. Her confidence in her own power touched me profoundly. I suppose my love was too great for madness to get hold of me. I can’t say that I passed to a complete calm, but I became slightly ashamed of myself. I whispered:
“No, it was not from affection, it was for the love of you that I brought him here. That imbecile H. was going to send him to Tolosa.”
“That Jacobin!” Doña Rita was immensely surprised, as she might well have been. Then resigned to the incomprehensible: “Yes,” she breathed out, “what did you do with him?”
“I put him to bed in the studio.”
How lovely she was with the effort of close attention depicted in the turn of her head and in her whole face honestly trying to approve. “And then?” she inquired.
“Then I came in here to face calmly the necessity of doing away with a human life. I didn’t shirk it for a moment. That’s what a short twelvemonth has brought me to. Don’t think I am reproaching you, O blind force! You are justified because you are. Whatever had to happen you would not even have heard of it.”
Horror darkened her marvellous radiance. Then her face became utterly blank with the tremendous effort to understand. Absolute silence reigned in the house. It seemed to me that everything had been said now that mattered in the world; and that the world itself had reached its ultimate stage, had reached its appointed end of an eternal, phantom-like silence. Suddenly Doña Rita raised a warning finger. I had heard nothing and shook my head; but she nodded hers and murmured excitedly,
“Yes, yes, in the fencing-room, as before.”
In the same way I answered her: “Impossible! The door is locked and Therese has the key.” She asked then in the most cautious manner,
“Have you seen Therese tonight?”
“Yes,” I confessed without misgiving. “I left her making up the fellow’s bed when I came in here.”
“The bed of the Jacobin?” she said in a peculiar tone as if she were humouring a lunatic.
“I think I had better tell you he is a Spaniard—that he seems to know you from early days. …” I glanced at her face, it was extremely tense, apprehensive. For myself I had no longer
