like the idea of him going about alone. Then, to-morrow night, we

would send him on to Tolosa by the west coast route, with the news;
and then he can also call on Dona Rita who will no doubt be already

there. . . ." He became again distracted all in a moment and
actually went so far as to wring his fat hands. "Oh, yes, she will

be there!" he exclaimed in most pathetic accents.
I was not in the humour to smile at anything, and he must have been

satisfied with the gravity with which I beheld his extraordinary
antics. My mind was very far away. I thought: Why not? Why

shouldn't I also write a letter to Dona Rita, telling her that now
nothing stood in the way of my leaving Europe, because, really, the

enterprise couldn't be begun again; that things that come to an end
can never be begun again. The idea - never again - had complete

possession of my mind. I could think of nothing else. Yes, I
would write. The worthy Commissary General of the Carlist forces

was under the impression that I was looking at him; but what I had
in my eye was a jumble of butterfly women and winged youths and the

soft sheen of Argand lamps gleaming on an arrow of gold in the hair
of a head that seemed to evade my outstretched hand.

"Oh, yes," I said, "I have nothing to do and even nothing to think
of just now, I will meet your man as he gets off the train at ten

o'clock to-night. What's he like?"
"Oh, he has a black moustache and whiskers, and his chin is

shaved," said the newly-fledged baron cordially. "A very honest
fellow. I always found him very useful. His name is Jose Ortega."

He was perfectly self-possessed now, and walking soft-footed
accompanied me to the door of the room. He shook hands with a

melancholy smile. "This is a very frightful situation. My poor
wife will be quite distracted. She is such a patriot. Many

thanks, Don George. You relieve me greatly. The fellow is rather
stupid and rather bad-tempered. Queer creature, but very honest!

Oh, very honest!"
CHAPTER IV

It was the last evening of Carnival. The same masks, the same
yells, the same mad rushes, the same bedlam of disguised humanity

blowing about the streets in the great gusts of mistral that seemed
to make them dance like dead leaves on an earth where all joy is

watched by death.
It was exactly twelve months since that other carnival evening when

I had felt a little weary and a little lonely but at peace with all
mankind. It must have been - to a day or two. But on this evening

it wasn't merely loneliness that I felt. I felt bereaved with a
sense of a complete and universal loss in which there was perhaps

more resentment than mourning; as if the world had not been taken
away from me by an augustdecree but filched from my innocence by

an underhand fate at the very moment when it had disclosed to my
passion its warm and generous beauty. This consciousness of

universal loss had this advantage that it induced something
resembling a state of philosophic indifference. I walked up to the

railway station caring as little for the cold blasts of wind as
though I had been going to the scaffold. The delay of the train

did not irritate me in the least. I had finally made up my mind to
write a letter to Dona Rita; and this "honest fellow" for whom I

was waiting would take it to her. He would have no difficulty in
Tolosa in finding Madame de Lastaola. The General Headquarters,

which was also a Court, would be buzzing with comments on her
presence. Most likely that "honest fellow" was already known to

Dona Rita. For all I knew he might have been her discovery just as
I was. Probably I, too, was regarded as an "honest fellow" enough;

but stupid - since it was clear that my luck was not inexhaustible.
I hoped that while carrying my letter the man would not let himself

be caught by some Alphonsist guerilla who would, of course, shoot
him. But why should he? I, for instance, had escaped with my life

from a much more dangerous enterprise than merely passing through
the frontier line in charge of some trustworthy guide. I pictured

the fellow to myself trudging over the stony slopes and scrambling
down wild ravines with my letter to Dona Rita in his pocket. It

would be such a letter of farewell as no lover had ever written, no
woman in the world had ever read, since the beginning of love on

earth. It would be worthy of the woman. No experience, no
memories, no dead traditions of passion or language would inspire

it. She herself would be its sole inspiration. She would see her
own image in it as in a mirror; and perhaps then she would

understand what it was I was sayingfarewell to on the very
threshold of my life. A breath of vanity passed through my brain.

A letter as moving as her mere existence was moving would be
something unique. I regretted I was not a poet.

I woke up to a great noise of feet, a sudden influx of people
through the doors of the platform. I made out my man's whiskers at

once - not that they were enormous, but because I had been warned
beforehand of their existence by the excellent Commissary General.

At first I saw nothing of him but his whiskers: they were black
and cut somewhat in the shape of a shark's fin and so very fine

that the least breath of air animated them into a sort of playful
restlessness. The man's shoulders were hunched up and when he had

made his way clear of the throng of passengers I perceived him as
an unhappy and shivery being. Obviously he didn't expect to be

met, because when I murmured an enquiring, "Senor Ortega?" into his
ear he swerved away from me and nearly dropped a little handbag he

was carrying. His complexion was uniformly pale, his mouth was
red, but not engaging. His social status was not very definite.

He was wearing a dark blue overcoat of no particular cut, his
aspect had no relief; yet those restless side-whiskers flanking his

red mouth and the suspicious expression of his black eyes made him
noticeable. This I regretted the more because I caught sight of

two skulking fellows, looking very much like policemen in plain
clothes, watching us from a corner of the great hall. I hurried my

man into a fiacre. He had been travelling from early morning on
cross-country lines and after we got on terms a little confessed to

being very hungry and cold. His red lips trembled and I noted an
underhand, cynicalcuriosity when he had occasion to raise his eyes

to my face. I was in some doubt how to dispose of him but as we
rolled on at a jog trot I came to the conclusion that the best

thing to do would be to organize for him a shake-down in the
studio. Obscure lodging houses are precisely the places most

looked after by the police, and even the best hotels are bound to
keep a register of arrivals. I was very anxious that nothing

should stop his projected mission of courier to headquarters. As
we passed various street corners where the mistral blast struck at

us fiercely I could feel him shivering by my side. However,
Therese would have lighted the iron stove in the studio before

retiring for the night, and, anyway, I would have to turn her out
to make up a bed on the couch. Service of the King! I must say

that she was amiable and didn't seem to mind anything one asked her
to do. Thus while the fellow slumbered on the divan I would sit

upstairs in my room setting down on paper those great words of
passion and sorrow that seethed in my brain and even must have

forced themselves in murmurs on to my lips, because the man by my
side suddenly asked me: "What did you say?" - "Nothing," I

answered, very much surprised. In the shifting light of the street
lamps he looked the picture of bodilymisery with his chattering

teeth and his whiskers blown back flat over his ears. But somehow
he didn't arouse my compassion. He was swearing to himself, in

French and Spanish, and I tried to soothe him by the assurance that
we had not much farther to go. "I am starving," he remarked

acidly, and I felt a little compunction. Clearly, the first thing
to do was to feed him. We were then entering the Cannebiere and as

I didn't care to show myself with him in the fashionablerestaurant
where a new face (and such a face, too) would be remarked, I pulled

up the fiacre at the door of the Maison Doree. That was more of a
place of general resort where, in the multitude of casual patrons,

he would pass unnoticed.
For this last night of carnival the big house had decorated all its

balconies with rows of coloured paper lanterns right up to the
roof. I led the way to the grand salon, for as to private rooms

they had been all retained days before. There was a great crowd of
people in costume, but by a piece of good luck we managed to secure

a little table in a corner. The revellers, intent on their
pleasure, paid no attention to us. Senor Ortega trod on my heels