Pretender with his big infectious laugh, it wasn't all that lot of

politicians, archbishops, and generals, of monks, guerrilleros, and
smugglers by sea and land, of dubious agents and shady speculators

and undoubted swindlers, who were pushing their fortunes at the
risk of their precious skins. No. It was the Legitimist Principle

asserting itself! Well, I would accept the view but with one
reservation. All the others might have been merged into the idea,

but I, the latest recruit, I would not be merged in the Legitimist
Principle. Mine was an act of independent assertion. Never before

had I felt so intensely aware of my personality. But I said
nothing of that to Mills. I only told him I thought we had better

not be seen very often together in the streets. He agreed. Hearty
handshake. Looked affectionately after his broad back. It never

occurred to him to turn his head. What was I in comparison with
the Principle of Legitimacy?

Late that night I went in search of Dominic. That Mediterranean
sailor was just the man I wanted. He had a great experience of all

unlawful things that can be done on the seas and he brought to the
practice of them much wisdom and audacity. That I didn't know

where he lived was nothing since I knew where he loved. The
proprietor of a small, quiet cafe on the quay, a certain Madame

Leonore, a woman of thirty-five with an open Roman face and
intelligent black eyes, had captivated his heart years ago. In

that cafe with our heads close together over a marble table,
Dominic and I held an earnest and endless confabulation while

Madame Leonore, rustling a black silk skirt, with gold earrings,
with her raven hair elaborately dressed and something nonchalant in

her movements, would take occasion, in passing to and fro, to rest
her hand for a moment on Dominic's shoulder. Later when the little

cafe had emptied itself of its habitual customers, mostly people
connected with the work of ships and cargoes, she came quietly to

sit at our table and looking at me very hard with her black,
sparkling eyes asked Dominic familiarly what had happened to his

Signorino. It was her name for me. I was Dominic's Signorino.
She knew me by no other; and our connection has always been

somewhat of a riddle to her. She said that I was somehow changed
since she saw me last. In her rich voice she urged Dominic only to

look at my eyes. I must have had some piece of luck come to me
either in love or at cards, she bantered. But Dominic answered

half in scorn that I was not of the sort that runs after that kind
of luck. He stated generally that there were some young gentlemen

very clever in inventing new ways of getting rid of their time and
their money. However, if they needed a sensible man to help them

he had no objection himself to lend a hand. Dominic's general
scorn for the beliefs, and activities, and abilities of upper-class

people covered the Principle of Legitimacy amply; but he could not
resist the opportunity to exercise his special faculties in a field

he knew of old. He had been a desperate smuggler in his younger
days. We settled the purchase of a fast sailing craft. Agreed

that it must be a balancelle and something altogether out of the
common. He knew of one suitable but she was in Corsica. Offered

to start for Bastia by mail-boat in the morning. All the time the
handsome and mature Madame Leonore sat by, smiling faintly, amused

at her great man joining like this in a frolic of boys. She said
the last words of that evening: "You men never grow up," touching

lightly the grey hair above his temple.
A fortnight later.

. . . In the afternoon to the Prado. Beautiful day. At the moment
of ringing at the door a strong emotion of an anxious kind. Why?

Down the length of the dining-room in the rotunda part full of
afternoon light Dona R., sitting cross-legged on the divan in the

attitude of a very old idol or a very young child and surrounded by
many cushions, waves her hand from afar pleasantly surprised,

exclaiming: "What! Back already!" I give her all the details and
we talk for two hours across a large brass bowl containing a little

water placed between us, lighting cigarettes and dropping them,
innumerable, puffed at, yet untasted in the overwhelming interest

of the conversation. Found her very quick in taking the points and
very intelligent in her suggestions. All formality soon vanished

between us and before very long I discovered myself sitting cross-
legged, too, while I held forth on the qualities of different

Mediterranean sailing craft and on the romantic qualifications of
Dominic for the task. I believe I gave her the whole history of

the man, mentioning even the existence of Madame Leonore, since the
little cafe would have to be the headquarters of the marine part of

the plot.
She murmured, "Ah! Une belle Romaine," thoughtfully. She told me

that she liked to hear people of that sort spoken of in terms of
our common humanity. She observed also that she wished to see

Dominic some day; to set her eyes for once on a man who could be
absolutely depended on. She wanted to know whether he had engaged

himself in this adventure solely for my sake.
I said that no doubt it was partly that. We had been very close

associates in the West Indies from where we had returned together,
and he had a notion that I could be depended on, too. But mainly,

I suppose, it was from taste. And there was in him also a fine
carelessness as to what he did and a love of venturesome

enterprise.
"And you," she said. "Is it carelessness, too?"

"In a measure," I said. "Within limits."
"And very soon you will get tired."

"When I do I will tell you. But I may also get frightened. I
suppose you know there are risks, I mean apart from the risk of

life."
"As for instance," she said.

"For instance, being captured, tried, and sentenced to what they
call 'the galleys,' in Ceuta."

"And all this from that love for . . ."
"Not for Legitimacy," I interrupted the inquirylightly. "But

what's the use asking such questions? It's like asking the veiled
figure of fate. It doesn't know its own mind nor its own heart.

It has no heart. But what if I were to start asking you - who have
a heart and are not veiled to my sight?" She dropped her charming

adolescent head, so firm in modelling, so gentle in expression.
Her uncovered neck was round like the shaft of a column. She wore

the same wrapper of thick blue silk. At that time she seemed to
live either in her riding habit or in that wrapper folded tightly

round her and open low to a point in front. Because of the absence
of all trimming round the neck and from the deep view of her bare

arms in the wide sleeve this garment seemed to be put directly on
her skin and gave one the impression of one's nearness to her body

which would have been troubling but for the perfect unconsciousness
of her manner. That day she carried no barbarous arrow in her

hair. It was parted on one side, brushed back severely, and tied
with a black ribbon, without any bronze mist about her forehead or

temple. This smoothness added to the many varieties of her
expression also that of child-like innocence.

Great progress in our intimacy brought about unconsciously by our
enthusiastic interest in the matter of our discourse and, in the

moments of silence, by the sympathetic current of our thoughts.
And this rapidly growing familiarity (truly, she had a terrible

gift for it) had all the varieties of earnestness: serious,
excited, ardent, and even gay. She laughed in contralto; but her

laugh was never very long; and when it had ceased, the silence of
the room with the light dying in all its many windows seemed to lie

about me warmed by its vibration.
As I was preparing to take my leave after a longish pause into

which we had fallen as into a vague dream, she came out of it with
a start and a quiet sigh. She said, "I had forgotten myself." I

took her hand and was raising it naturally, without premeditation,
when I felt suddenly the arm to which it belonged become

insensible, passive, like a stuffed limb, and the whole woman go
inanimate all over! Brusquely I dropped the hand before it reached

my lips; and it was so lifeless that it fell heavily on to the
divan.

I remained standing before her. She raised to me not her eyes but
her whole face, inquisitively - perhaps in appeal.