Vendetta in Spain

people with whom she came in frequent contact. For some reason that he did not attempt to fathom she had singled him out from all the others and treated him as a trusted friend. If, then, she now wished to tell him of her private life, and he refused to listen, it would destroy the delightful bond that had been established between them and hurt her grievously. After all her kindness to him he could not possibly do that.

Having swiftly collected his thoughts, he said, 'You mean that Jos6 keeps a mistress?'

She nodded. 'Yes. I found out only by accident. I came upon a letter from her which he had most stupidly left lying among some other papers he gave me to look through. When I charged him with it he did not deny it. I gather that she is an Andalusian dancing girl and quite a star turn with the castanets.'

De Quesnoy was mildly surprised to learn that his staid friend kept a mistress, but it did not even occur to him to doubt Gulia's statement. Although it was no longer considered comme il faut for a noble openly to take pride in being the accepted lover of some leading ballerina or song-bird of the opera, it was still an age in which all over Europe great numbers of rich men, more or less secretly, kept pretty young women in small houses or pleasant apartments; and their wives had been brought up to accept such a situation as nothing to make a great fuss about.

Meanwhile Gulia was going on. 'I feel sure that he conducts his affaire most discreetly, and would not admit to it even among his best friends. But he did not marry until getting on in life, and I suppose having a girl who is outside his own circle with whom he can entirely relax had become a habit with him.'

'How long ago is it since you found out?' the Count inquired.

'Just on fifteen months, but I imagine that it had been going on for a long time before that; or if not with this particular woman, then with others.'

'And how long have you been married to him?'

'A little over three years.'

That was not very long, de Quesnoy reflected. But he knew well enough that a man who for twenty years or so had lived with a succession of pretty women could still tire of one who was exceptionally beautiful in a comparatively short time. Only a mental bond created by true love could hold a couple together for a long period of years, and evidently no such bond had been created between Jos6 and Gulia. It could only be that he had desired her, marriage had been her price, and she had accepted him for the wealth and position she would enjoy as his Condesa. After a moment, de Quesnoy asked:

'Did you not make an effort to persuade Jos6 to break off this

liaison?'

She shook her Titian gold curls which, after taking off her bathing cap, fell like an aureole round her pale face. 'No, I fear I was too proud for that. I told him that I would not share his embraces with any woman, and drove him from my room. I told him that I would not allow him to return to it until he could give me his word that he had decided for good to give up sleeping with harlots. But he never has.'

While she spoke she was looking away from de Quesnoy, and his glance ran over her as she lounged in the deck-chair. She had a face and figure that might even have tempted Saint Ignatius Loyola to rise from his shrine at not far distant Pamplona. 'What a waste,' he thought. 'What a waste, for this divine creature to be leading the life of a nun.'

At that moment Ricardo came over to tell them that their luncheon, which they were having on a table outside the bathing huts, was now ready; so the conversation proceeded no further.

It was Ricardo who, a few days later when helping the Count to dress, told him that an intruder had been seen the previous night in the garden. The old man who planted and tended it with the assistance of two youths had left his cottage to walk across it to his potting shed for the purpose of sowing some seeds in boxes, because he subscribed to the ancient belief that certain plants thrived better if their seed was inserted in earth by moonlight.

He had come upon the intruder outside the drawing-room, peering into it through a chink between the curtains. On hearing him approach, the man had turned and run off; but the gardener had seen him well enough to be certain that he was no one employed about the place, and described him as a tall, broad-shouldered dark man in his early twenties.

Later in the day de Cordoba discussed the occurrence with de Quesnoy and they speculated on whether the fellow was a local rogue contemplating burglary, or an anarchist who had learned the Count's whereabouts and had come from Barcelona with the object of endeavouring to put him out of the way.

Fearing that the latter might be the case, the Conde was in favour of asking for police protection for his guest, but de Quesnoy said that to have police constantly about the place would be unpleasant for everybody, and declared that he was again quite strong enough to take care of himself. But he willingly accepted the loan of de Cordoba's revolver to keep handy in his bedside cupboard.

On Monday the 27th the Conde again left for Madrid. That day de Quesnoy motored into San Sebastian with de Vend6me to lunch again with the King, but on this occasion Gulia, not having been included in the command, remained at home. This time the Count found the Queen also present. He had known her as Princess Ena, but it was the first time he had seen her since her wedding, just previous to which, on accepting the Catholic faith, she had taken the name of Victoria Eugenie. He thought that in spite of her youth she looked amazingly regal and, with her mass of golden hair piled high above her milk and roses complexion, indisputably beautiful; so it was no wonder that her husband was in love with hef.

She received him very graciously, condoned with him on his accident and congratulated him on his recovery. Don Alfonso also remarked that with his sun-tanned face he now looked the picture of health, and that his limp was hardly noticeable. The King then took him aside and told him that the trial of the Barcelona anarchists had been fixed to open on Monday, October the 11th.

After lunch de Vendome accompanied the King into Biarritz, where they were to play polo that day, but de Quesnoy excused himself from joining their party because had he crossed the frontier into France he would have risked arrest. Instead he spent the afternoon strolling and sitting in the delightful Miramar gardens with other luncheon guests who had not wished to go to Biarritz. Later he went down into the town, did some shopping for himself, bought a huge box of chocolates for Gulia, and returned to the de Cordoba villa in a hired carriage.

Before changing for dinner, when the weather was fine, the family always had drinks out in the garden by the fountain. Gulia and Dona Eulalia were already seated there when he returned. After presenting the chocolates and receiving Gulia's smiling thanks, he helped himself to a glass of Manzanilla, then gave them an account of the luncheon party. A few minutes later Dona Eulalia tactfully remarked that the light was failing and carried her work and the Moscardo she was drinking off to the back porch of the house, in which a lamp had been lit. De Quesnoy continued to tell Gulia about his afternoon, then for a while they talked of various things.

It was just before they were due to go in to change that she inquired casually, 'Do you ever have dreams?'

'Yes,' he replied. 'Not very often, but occasionally.'

With a smile she asked, 'Have you ever dreamed about me?'

'As a matter of fact I have, once,' he admitted. 'It was on the night that I was brought here.'

She arched her eyebrows. 'Really. I hope it was a nice dream?'

'It was . . . very.' He finished his second glass of sherry. 'I was terribly ill, of course. You appeared at my bedside like a ministering angel from Heaven. After you had gone my fever seemed to abate and I felt much better.'

Rising from the stone seat, she picked up the big box of chocolates and said, ⁴Ah well; perhaps sometime I will make another appearance in your dreams.'

That night he woke out of a sound sleep. The house was very still and the room was faintly lit by moonlight coming through the french windows. He heard a soft rustle and, fearing an attack, turned swiftly on his other side. She was standing by his bed again.

11

Bedroom Scene at Midnight

For a moment de Quesnoy remained absolutely still. This, he knew, was no dream, and the full implication of her midnight visit rushed upon him. Yet his words denied it. Sitting up with a jerk, he exclaimed:

'Gulia! What are you doing here?'

She smiled at him. 'Need you ask?'