had apparently never heard of Blunt. But he seemed very much

interested in his surroundings, looked all round the hall, noted
the costly wood of the door panels, paid some attention to the

silver statuette holding up the defective gas burner at the foot of
the stairs, and, finally, asked whether this was in very truth the

house of the most excellent Senora Dona Rita de Lastaola. The
question staggered Therese, but with great presence of mind she

answered the young gentleman that she didn't know what excellence
there was about it, but that the house was her property, having

been given to her by her own sister. At this the young gentleman
looked both puzzled and angry, turned on his heel, and got back

into his fiacre. Why should people be angry with a poor girl who
had never done a single reprehensible thing in her whole life?

"I suppose our Rita does tell people awful lies about her poor
sister." She sighed deeply (she had several kinds of sighs and

this was the hopeless kind) and added reflectively, "Sin on sin,
wickedness on wickedness! And the longer she lives the worse it

will be. It would be better for our Rita to be dead."
I told "Mademoiselle Therese" that it was really impossible to tell

whether she was more stupid or atrocious; but I wasn't really very
much shocked. These outbursts did not signify anything in Therese.

One got used to them. They were merely the expression of her
rapacity and her righteousness; so that our conversation ended by

my asking her whether she had any dinner ready for me that evening.
"What's the good of getting you anything to eat, my dear young

Monsieur," she quizzed me tenderly. "You just only peck like a
little bird. Much better let me save the money for you." It will

show the super-terrestrial nature of my misery when I say that I
was quite surprised at Therese's view of my appetite. Perhaps she

was right. I certainly did not know. I stared hard at her and in
the end she admitted that the dinner was in fact ready that very

moment.
The new young gentleman within Therese's horizon didn't surprise me

very much. Villarel would travel with some sort of suite, a couple
of secretaries at least. I had heard enough of Carlist

headquarters to know that the man had been (very likely was still)
Captain General of the Royal Bodyguard and was a person of great

political (and domestic) influence at Court. The card was, under
its social form, a mere command to present myself before the

grandee. No Royalist devoted by conviction, as I must have
appeared to him, could have mistaken the meaning. I put the card

in my pocket and after dining or not dining - I really don't
remember - spent the evening smoking in the studio, pursuing

thoughts of tenderness and grief, visions exalting and cruel. From
time to time I looked at the dummy. I even got up once from the

couch on which I had been writhing like a worm and walked towards
it as if to touch it, but refrained, not from sudden shame but from

sheer despair. By and by Therese drifted in. It was then late
and, I imagine, she was on her way to bed. She looked the picture

of cheerful, rusticinnocence and started propounding to me a
conundrum which began with the words:

"If our Rita were to die before long . . ."
She didn't get any further because I had jumped up and frightened

her by shouting: "Is she ill? What has happened? Have you had a
letter?"

She had had a letter. I didn't ask her to show it to me, though I
daresay she would have done so. I had an idea that there was no

meaning in anything, at least no meaning that mattered. But the
interruption had made Therese apparently forget her sinister

conundrum. She observed me with her shrewd, unintelligent eyes for
a bit, and then with the fatuous remark about the Law being just

she left me to the horrors of the studio. I believe I went to
sleep there from sheer exhaustion. Some time during the night I

woke up chilled to the bone and in the dark. These were horrors
and no mistake. I dragged myself upstairs to bed past the

indefatigable statuette holding up the ever-miserable light. The
black-and-white hall was like an ice-house.

The main consideration which induced me to call on the Marquis of
Villarel was the fact that after all I was a discovery of Dona

Rita's, her own recruit. My fidelity and steadfastness had been
guaranteed by her and no one else. I couldn't bear the idea of her

being criticized by every empty-headed chatterer belonging to the
Cause. And as, apart from that, nothing mattered much, why, then -

I would get this over.
But it appeared that I had not reflected sufficiently on all the

consequences of that step. First of all the sight of the Villa
looking shabbily cheerful in the sunshine (but not containing her

any longer) was so perturbing that I very nearly went away from the
gate. Then when I got in after much hesitation - being admitted by

the man in the green baize apron who recognized me - the thought of
entering that room, out of which she was gone as completely as if

she had been dead, gave me such an emotion that I had to steady
myself against the table till the faintness was past. Yet I was

irritated as at a treason when the man in the baize apron instead
of letting me into the Pompeiian dining-room crossed the hall to

another door not at all in the Pompeiian style (more Louis XV
rather - that Villa was like a Salade Russe of styles) and

introduced me into a big, light room full of very modern furniture.
The portrait en pied of an officer in a sky-blue uniform hung on

the end wall. The officer had a small head, a black beard cut
square, a robust body, and leaned with gauntleted hands on the

simple hilt of a straight sword. That striking picture dominated a
massive mahogany desk, and, in front of this desk, a very roomy,

tall-backed armchair of dark green velvet. I thought I had been
announced into an empty room till glancing along the extremely loud

carpet I detected a pair of feet under the armchair.
I advanced towards it and discovered a little man, who had made no

sound or movement till I came into his view, sunk deep in the green
velvet. He altered his position slowly and rested his hollow,

black, quietly burning eyes on my face in prolonged scrutiny. I
detected something comminatory in his yellow, emaciated

countenance, but I believe now he was simply startled by my youth.
I bowed profoundly. He extended a meagre little hand.

"Take a chair, Don Jorge."
He was very small, frail, and thin, but his voice was not languid,

though he spoke hardly above his breath. Such was the envelope and
the voice of the fanatical soul belonging to the Grand-master of

Ceremonies and Captain General of the Bodyguard at the Headquarters
of the Legitimist Court, now detached on a special mission. He was

all fidelity, inflexibility, and sombre conviction, but like some
great saints he had very little body to keep all these merits in.

"You are very young," he remarked, to begin with. "The matters on
which I desired to converse with you are very grave."

"I was under the impression that your Excellency wished to see me
at once. But if your Excellency prefers it I will return in, say,

seven years' time when I may perhaps be old enough to talk about
grave matters."

He didn't stir hand or foot and not even the quiver of an eyelid
proved that he had heard my shockingly unbecoming retort.

"You have been recommended to us by a noble and loyal lady, in whom
His Majesty - whom God preserve - reposes an entire confidence.

God will reward her as she deserves and you, too, Senor, according
to the disposition you bring to this great work which has the

blessing (here he crossed himself) of our Holy Mother the Church."
"I suppose your Excellency understands that in all this I am not

looking for reward of any kind."
At this he made a faint, almost ethereal grimace.

"I was speaking of the spiritualblessing which rewards the service
of religion and will be of benefit to your soul," he explained with

a slight touch of acidity. "The other is perfectly understood and
your fidelity is taken for granted. His Majesty - whom God

preserve - has been already pleased to signify his satisfaction
with your services to the most noble and loyal Dona Rita by a

letter in his own hand."
Perhaps he expected me to acknowledge this announcement in some