"And is THIS the word of the Venetian riddle?" asked Mills, fixing

her with his keen eyes.
"If it pleases you to think so, Senor," she said indifferently.

The movement of her eyes, their veiled gleam became mischievous
when she asked, "And Don Juan Blunt, have you seen him over there?"

"I fancy he avoided me. Moreover, he is always with his regiment
at the outposts. He is a most valorous captain. I heard some

people describe him as foolhardy."
"Oh, he needn't seek death," she said in an indefinable tone. "I

mean as a 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 very well ride out alone. A solitaryamazon swallowing the
dust and the salt spray of the Corniche promenade would attract too

much attention. And then 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?

Why shouldn't I be afraid? Is it because there is no one in the
world to care what would happen to me?"

There was a deep-down vibration in her tone for the first time. We
had not 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

there but there's nothing ugly to fear."
She gave me a startled glance quite unusual with her, more than

wonderful to me; and suddenly as though she had seen me for the
first time she exclaimed in a tone of compunction:

"Oh! And there is this one, too! Why! Oh, why should he run his
head into danger for those things that will all crumble into dust

before long?"
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

with a sort of whimsical enviousness:
"The sea! The violet sea - and he is longing to rejoin it! . . .

At night! Under the stars! . . . A lovers' meeting," she went on,
thrilling me from head to foot with those two words, accompanied by

a wistful smile pointed 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. "My adventure 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 magic power, too. Tell me, Monsieur Mills, have you found

amongst them in some black-letter volume the power of foretelling a
poor mortal's destiny, the power to look into the future?

Anybody's future . . ." Mills shook his head. . . "What, not even
mine?" she coaxed as if she really believed in a magic power to be

found in books.
Mills shook his head again. "No, I have not the power," he said.

"I am no more a great magician, than you are a poor mortal. You
have your ancient spells. You are as old as the world. Of us two

it's you that are more fit to foretell the future of the poor
mortals on whom you happen to cast your eyes."

At these words she cast her eyes down and in the moment of deep
silence I watched the slight rising and falling of her breast.

Then Mills pronounceddistinctly: "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
Rita returned my distant how with a slight, charmingly ceremonious

inclination of her body.
"Bon voyage and a happy return," she said formally.

I was following Mills through the door when I heard her voice
behind us raised in recall:

"Oh, a moment . . . I forgot . . ."
I turned round. The call was for me, and I walked slowly back

wondering what she could have forgotten. She waited in the middle
of the room with lowered head, with a mute gleam in her deep blue

eyes. When I was near enough she extended to me without a word her
bare white arm and suddenly pressed the back of her hand against my

lips. I was too startled to seize it with rapture. It detached
itself from my lips and fell slowly by her side. We had made it up

and there was nothing to say. She turned away to the window and I
hurried out of the room.

PART THREE
CHAPTER I

It was on our return from that first trip that I took Dominic up to
the Villa to be presented to Dona Rita. If she wanted to look on

the embodiment of fidelity, resource, and courage, she could behold
it all in that man. Apparently she was not disappointed. Neither

was Dominic disappointed. During the half-hour's interview they
got into touch with each other in a wonderful way as if they had

some common and secret standpoint in life. Maybe it was their
common lawlessness, and their knowledge of things as old as the

world. Her seduction, his recklessness, were both simple,
masterful and, in a sense, worthy of each other.

Dominic was, I won't say awed by this interview. No woman could
awe Dominic. But he was, as it were, rendered thoughtful by it,

like a man who had not so much an experience as a sort of
revelation vouchsafed to him. Later, at sea, he used to refer to

La Senora in a particular tone and I knew that henceforth his
devotion was not for me alone. And I understood the inevitability

of it extremely well. As to Dona Rita she, after Dominic left the
room, had turned to me with animation and said: "But he is

perfect, this man." Afterwards she often asked after him and used
to refer to him in conversation. More than once she said to me:

"One would like to put the care of one's personal safety into the
hands of that man. He looks as if he simply couldn't fail one." I

admitted that this was very true, especially at sea. Dominic
couldn't fail. But at the same time I rather chaffed Rita on her

preoccupation as to personal safety that so often cropped up in her
talk.

"One would think you were a crowned head in a revolutionary world,"
I used to tell her.

"That would be different. One would be standing then for
something, either worth or not worth dying for. One could even run

away then and be done with it. But I can't run away unless I got
out of my skin and left that behind. Don't you understand? You

are very stupid . . ." But she had the grace to add, "On purpose."
I don't know about the on purpose. I am not certain about the

stupidity. Her words bewildered one often and bewilderment is a
sort of stupidity. I remedied it by simply disregarding the sense

of what she said. The sound was there and also her poignant heart-
gripping presence giving occupation enough to one's faculties. In

the power of those things over one there was mystery enough. It
was more absorbing than the mere obscurity of her speeches. But I

daresay she couldn't understand that.
Hence, at times, the amusing outbreaks of temper in word and

gesture that only strengthened the natural, the invincible force of
the spell. Sometimes the brass bowl would get upset or the

cigarette box would fly up, dropping a shower of cigarettes on the
floor. We would pick them up, re-establish everything, and fall

into a long silence, so close that the sound of the first word