"No, you were always your own self, unwise and reckless and with

something in it kindred to mine, if I may say so without offence."
"You may say anything without offence. But has it never occurred

to your sagacity that I just, simply, loved you?"
"Just - simply," she repeated in a wistful tone.

"You didn't want to trouble your head about it, is that it?"
"My poor head. From your tone one might think you yearned to cut

it off. No, my dear, I have made up my mind not to lose my head."
"You would be astonished to know how little I care for your mind."

"Would I? Come and sit on the couch all the same," she said after
a moment of hesitation. Then, as I did not move at once, she added

with indifference: "You may sit as far away as you like, it's big
enough, goodness knows."

The light was ebbing slowly out of the rotunda and to my bodily
eyes she was beginning to grow shadowy. I sat down on the couch

and for a long time no word passed between us. We made no
movement. We did not even turn towards each other. All I was

conscious of was the softness of the seat which seemed somehow to
cause a relaxation of my stern mood, I won't say against my will

but without any will on my part. Another thing I was conscious of,
strangely enough, was the enormous brass bowl for cigarette ends.

Quietly, with the least possible action, Dona Rita moved it to the
other side of her motionless person. Slowly, the fantastic women

with butterflies' wings and the slender-limbed youths with the
gorgeous pinions on their shoulders were vanishing into their black

backgrounds with an effect of silent discretion, leaving us to
ourselves.

I felt suddenly extremely exhausted, absolutelyovercome with
fatigue since I had moved; as if to sit on that Pompeiian chair had

been a task almost beyond human strength, a sort of labour that
must end in collapse. I fought against it for a moment and then my

resistance gave way. Not all at once but as if yielding to an
irresistible pressure (for I was not conscious of any irresistible

attraction) I found myself with my head resting, with a weight I
felt must be crushing, on Dona Rita's shoulder which yet did not

give way, did not flinch at all. A faint scent of violets filled
the tragic emptiness of my head and it seemed impossible to me that

I should not cry from sheer weakness. But I remained dry-eyed. I
only felt myself slipping lower and lower and I caught her round

the waist clinging to her not from any intention but purely by
instinct. All that time she hadn't stirred. There was only the

slight movement of her breathing that showed her to be alive; and
with closed eyes I imagined her to be lost in thought, removed by

an incrediblemeditation while I clung to her, to an immense
distance from the earth. The distance must have been immense

because the silence was so perfect, the feeling as if of eternal
stillness. I had a distinctimpression of being in contact with an

infinity that had the slightest possible rise and fall, was
pervaded by a warm, delicate scent of violets and through which

came a hand from somewhere to rest lightly on my head. Presently
my ear caught the faint and regular pulsation of her heart, firm

and quick, infinitely" target="_blank" title="ad.无限地；无穷地">infinitelytouching in its persistent mystery,
disclosing itself into my very ear - and my felicity became

complete.
It was a dreamlike state combined with a dreamlike sense of

insecurity. Then in that warm and scented infinity, or eternity,
in which I rested lost in bliss but ready for any catastrophe, I

heard the distant, hardly audible, and fit to strike terror into
the heart, ringing of a bell. At this sound the greatness of

spaces departed. I felt the world close about me; the world of
darkened walls, of very deep grey dusk against the panes, and I

asked in a pained voice:
"Why did you ring, Rita?"

There was a bell rope within reach of her hand. I had not felt her
move, but she said very low:

"I rang for the lights."
"You didn't want the lights."

"It was time," she whispered secretly.
Somewhere within the house a door slammed. I got away from her

feeling small and weak as if the best part of me had been torn away
and irretrievably lost. Rose must have been somewhere near the

door.
"It's abominable," I murmured to the still, idol-like shadow on the

couch.
The answer was a hurried, nervouswhisper: "I tell you it was

time. I rang because I had no strength to push you away."
I suffered a moment of giddiness before the door opened, light

streamed in, and Rose entered, preceding a man in a green baize
apron whom I had never seen, carrying on an enormous tray three

Argand lamps fitted into vases of Pompeiian form. Rose distributed
them over the room. In the flood of soft light the winged youths

and the butterfly women reappeared on the panels, affected,
gorgeous, callously unconscious of anything having happened during

their absence. Rose attended to the lamp on the nearest
mantelpiece, then turned about and asked in a confident undertone.

"Monsieur dine?"
I had lost myself with my elbows on my knees and my head in my

hands, but I heard the words distinctly. I heard also the silence
which ensued. I sat up and took the responsibility of the answer

on myself.
"Impossible. I am going to sea this evening."

This was perfectly true only I had totally forgotten it till then.
For the last two days my being was no longer composed of memories

but exclusively of sensations of the most absorbing, disturbing,
exhausting nature. I was like a man who has been buffeted by the

sea or by a mob till he loses all hold on the world in the misery
of his helplessness. But now I was recovering. And naturally the

first thing I remembered was the fact that I was going to sea.
"You have heard, Rose," Dona Rita said at last with some

impatience.
The girl waited a moment longer before she said:

"Oh, yes! There is a man waiting for Monsieur in the hall. A
seaman."

It could be no one but Dominic. It dawned upon me that since the
evening of our return I had not been near him or the ship, which

was completely unusual, unheard of, and well calculated to startle
Dominic.

"I have seen him before," continued Rose, "and as he told me he has
been pursuing Monsieur all the afternoon and didn't like to go away

without seeing Monsieur for a moment, I proposed to him to wait in
the hall till Monsieur was at liberty."

I said: "Very well," and with a sudden resumption of her extremely
busy, not-a-moment-to-lose manner Rose departed from the room. I

lingered in an imaginary world full of tender light, of unheard-of
colours, with a mad riot of flowers and an inconceivable happiness

under the sky arched above its yawning precipices, while a feeling
of awe enveloped me like its own proper atmosphere. But everything

vanished at the sound of Dona Rita's loud whisper full of boundless
dismay, such as to make one's hair stir on one's head.

"Mon Dieu! And what is going to happen now?"
She got down from the couch and walked to a window. When the

lights had been brought into the room all the panes had turned inky
black; for the night had come and the garden was full of tall

bushes and trees screening off the gas lamps of the main alley of
the Prado. Whatever the question meant she was not likely to see

an answer to it outside. But her whisper had offended me, had hurt
something infinitely" target="_blank" title="ad.无限地；无穷地">infinitely deep, infinitely" target="_blank" title="ad.无限地；无穷地">infinitely subtle and infinitely" target="_blank" title="ad.无限地；无穷地">infinitely clear-

eyed in my nature. I said after her from the couch on which I had
remained, "Don't lose your composure. You will always have some

sort of bell at hand."
I saw her shrug her uncovered shoulders impatiently. Her forehead

was against the very blackness of the panes; pulled upward from the
beautiful, strong nape of her neck, the twisted mass of her tawny

hair was held high upon her head by the arrow of gold.
"You set up for being unforgiving," she said without anger.