“Really,” I cried. “And you expect me perhaps after this to kiss your feet in a transport of gratitude while I hug the pride of your words to my breast. But as it happens there is nothing in me but contempt for this sublime declaration. How dare you offer me this charlatanism of passion? What has it got to do between you and me who are the only two beings in the world that may safely say that we have no need of shams between ourselves? Is it possible that you are a charlatan at heart? Not from egoism, I admit, but from some sort of fear. Yet, should you be sincere, then—listen well to me—I would never forgive you. I would visit your grave every day to curse you for an evil thing.”
“Evil thing,” she echoed softly.
“Would you prefer to be a sham—that one could forget?”
“You will never forget me,” she said in the same tone at the glowing embers. “Evil or good. But, my dear, I feel neither an evil nor a sham. I have got to be what I am, and that, amigo, is not so easy; because I may be simple, but like all those on whom there is no peace I am not One. No, I am not One!”
“You are all the women in the world,” I whispered bending over her. She didn’t seem to be aware of anything and only spoke—always to the glow.
“If I were that I would say: God help them then. But that would be more appropriate for Therese. For me, I can only give them my infinite compassion. I have too much reverence in me to invoke the name of a God of whom clever men have robbed me a long time ago. How could I help it? For the talk was clever and—and I had a mind. And I am also, as Therese says, naturally sinful. Yes, my dear, I may be naturally wicked but I am not evil and I could die for you.”
“You!” I said. “You are afraid to die.”
“Yes. But not for you.”
The whole structure of glowing logs fell down, raising a small turmoil of white ashes and sparks. The tiny crash seemed to wake her up thoroughly. She turned her head upon the cushion to look at me.
“It’s a very extraordinary thing, we two coming together like this,” she said with conviction. “You coming in without knowing I was here and then telling me that you can’t very well go out of the room. That sounds funny. I wouldn’t have been angry if you had said that you wouldn’t. It would have hurt me. But nobody ever paid much attention to my feelings. Why do you smile like this?”
“At a thought. Without any charlatanism of passion I am able to tell you of something to match your devotion. I was not afraid for your sake to come within a hair’s breadth of what to all the world would have been a squalid crime. Note that you and I are persons of honour. And there might have been a criminal trial at the end of it for me. Perhaps the scaffold.”
“Do you say these horrors to make me tremble?”
“Oh, you needn’t tremble. There shall be no crime. I need not risk the scaffold, since now you are safe. But I entered this room meditating resolutely on the ways of murder, calculating possibilities and chances without the slightest compunction. It’s all over now. It was all over directly I saw you here, but it had been so near that I shudder yet.”
She must have been very startled because for a time she couldn’t speak. Then in a faint voice:
“For me! For me!” she faltered out twice.
“For you—or for myself? Yet it couldn’t have been selfish. What would it have been to me that you remained in the world? I never expected to see you again. I even composed a most beautiful letter of farewell. Such a letter as no woman had ever received.”
Instantly she shot out a hand towards me. The edges of the fur cloak fell apart. A wave of the faintest possible scent floated into my nostrils.
“Let me have it,” she said imperiously.
“You can’t have it. It’s all in my head. No woman will read it. I suspect it was something that could never have been written. But what a farewell! And now I suppose we shall say good-bye without even a handshake. But you are safe! Only I must ask you not to come out of this room till I tell you you may.”
I was extremely anxious that Señor Ortega should never even catch a glimpse of Doña Rita, never guess how near he had been to her. I was extremely anxious the fellow should depart for Tolosa and get shot in a ravine; or go to the Devil in his own way, as long as he lost the track of Doña Rita completely. He then, probably, would get mad and get shut up, or else get cured, forget all about it, and devote himself to his vocation, whatever it was—keep a shop and grow fat. All this flashed through my mind in an instant and while I was still dazzled by those comforting images, the voice of Doña Rita pulled me up with a jerk.
“You mean not out of the house?”
“No, I mean not out of this room,” I said with some embarrassment.
“What do you mean? Is there something in the house then? This is most extraordinary! Stay in this room? And you, too, it seems? Are you also afraid for yourself?”
“I can’t even give you an idea how afraid I was. I am not so much now. But you know very well, Doña Rita, that I never carry any sort of weapon in my pocket.”
“Why don’t you, then?” she asked in a flash of scorn which bewitched me so completely for an instant that I couldn’t even smile at it.
“Because if I am unconventionalized I am an old European,” I murmured gently. “No, Excellentissima, I shall go through life without as much as a switch in my hand. It’s no use you being angry. Adapting to this great moment some words you’ve heard before: I am like that. Such is my character!”
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.”