"Well, I have kept an impression of great solidity. I'll admit
that. A woman of granite."

"A doctor once told me that I was made to last for ever," she said.
"But essentially it's the same thing," I went on. "Granite, too,

is insensible."
I watched her profile against the pillow and there came on her face

an expression I knew well when with an indignation full of
suppressed laughter she used to throw at me the word "Imbecile." I

expected it to come, but it didn't come. I must say, though, that
I was swimmy in my head and now and then had a noise as of the sea

in my ears, so I might not have heard it. The woman of granite,
built to last for ever, continued to look at the glowing logs which

made a sort of fiery ruin on the white pile of ashes. "I will tell
you how it is," I said. "When I have you before my eyes there is

such a projection of my whole being towards you that I fail to see
you distinctly. It was like that from the beginning. I may say

that I never saw you distinctly till after we had parted and I
thought you had gone from my sight for ever. It was then that you

took body in my imagination and that my mind seized on a definite
form of you for all its adorations - for its profanations, too.

Don't imagine me grovelling in spiritual abasement before a mere
image. I got a grip on you that nothing can shake now."

"Don't speak like this," she said. "It's too much for me. And
there is a whole long night before us."

"You don't think that I dealt with you sentimentally enough
perhaps? But the sentiment was there; as clear a flame as ever

burned on earth from the most remote ages before that eternal thing
which is in you, which is your heirloom. And is it my fault that

what I had to give was real flame, and not a mystic's incense? It
is neither your fault nor mine. And now whatever we say to each

other at night or in daylight, that sentiment must be taken for
granted. It will be there on the day I die - when you won't be

there."
She continued to look fixedly at the red embers; and from her lips

that hardly moved came the quietest possible whisper: "Nothing
would be easier than to die for you."

"Really," I cried. "And you expect me perhaps after this to kiss
your feet in a transport of gratitude while I hug the pride of your

words to my breast. But as it happens there is nothing in me but
contempt for this sublimedeclaration. How dare you offer me this

charlatanism of passion? What has it got to do between you and me
who are the only two beings in the world that may safely say that

we have no need of shams between ourselves? Is it possible that
you are a charlatan at heart? Not from egoism, I admit, but from

some sort of fear. Yet, should you be sincere, then - listen well
to me - I would never forgive you. I would visit your grave every

day to curse you for an evil thing."
"Evil thing," she echoed softly.

"Would you prefer to be a sham - that one could forget?"
"You will never forget me," she said in the same tone at the

glowing embers. "Evil or good. But, my dear, I feel neither an
evil nor a sham. I have got to be what I am, and that, amigo, is

not so easy; because I may be simple, but like all those on whom
there is no peace I am not One. No, I am not One!"

"You are all the women in the world," I whispered bending over her.
She didn't seem to be aware of anything and only spoke - always to

the glow.
"If I were that I would say: God help them then. But that would

be more appropriate for Therese. For me, I can only give them my
infinite compassion. I have too much reverence in me to invoke the

name of a God of whom clever men have robbed me a long time ago.
How could I help it? For the talk was clever and - and I had a

mind. And I am also, as Therese says, naturally sinful. Yes, my
dear, I may be naturally wicked but I am not evil and I could die

for you."
"You!" I said. "You are afraid to die."

"Yes. But not for you."
The whole structure of glowing logs fell down, raising a small

turmoil of white ashes and sparks. The tiny crash seemed to wake
her up thoroughly. She turned her head upon the cushion to look at

me.
"It's a very extraordinary thing, we two coming together like

this," she said with conviction. "You coming in without knowing I
was here and then telling me that you can't very well go out of the

room. That sounds funny. I wouldn't have been angry if you had
said that you wouldn't. It would have hurt me. But nobody ever

paid much attention to my feelings. Why do you smile like this?"
"At a thought. Without any charlatanism of passion I am able to

tell you of something to match your devotion. I was not afraid for
your sake to come within a hair's breadth of what to all the world

would have been a squalid crime. Note that you and I are persons
of honour. And there might have been a criminal trial at the end

of it for me. Perhaps the scaffold."
"Do you say these horrors to make me tremble?"

"Oh, you needn't tremble. There shall be no crime. I need not
risk the scaffold, since now you are safe. But I entered this room

meditating resolutely on the ways of murder, calculating
possibilities and chances without the slightest compunction. It's

all over now. It was all over directly I saw you here, but it had
been so near that I shudder yet."

She must have been very startled because for a time she couldn't
speak. Then in a faint voice:

"For me! For me!" she faltered out twice.
"For you - or for myself? Yet it couldn't have been selfish. What

would it have been to me that you remained in the world? I never
expected to see you again. I even composed a most beautiful letter

of farewell. Such a letter as no woman had ever received."
Instantly she shot out a hand towards me. The edges of the fur

cloak fell apart. A wave of the faintest possible scent floated
into my nostrils.

"Let me have it," she said imperiously.
"You can't have it. It's all in my head. No woman will read it.

I suspect it was something that could never have been written. But
what a farewell! And now I suppose we shall say good-bye without

even a handshake. But you are safe! Only I must ask you not to
come out of this room till I tell you you may."

I was extremelyanxious that Senor Ortega should never even catch a
glimpse of Dona Rita, never guess how near he had been to her. I

was extremelyanxious the fellow should depart for Tolosa and get
shot in a ravine; or go to the Devil in his own way, as long as he

lost the track of Dona Rita completely. He then, probably, would
get mad and get shut up, or else get cured, forget all about it,

and devote himself to his vocation, whatever it was - keep a shop
and grow fat. All this flashed through my mind in an instant and

while I was still dazzled by those comforting images, the voice of
Dona Rita pulled me up with a jerk.

"You mean not out of the house?"
"No, I mean not out of this room," I said with some embarrassment.

"What do you mean? Is there something in the house then? This is
most extraordinary! Stay in this room? And you, too, it seems?

Are you also afraid for yourself?"
"I can't even give you an idea how afraid I was. I am not so much

now. But you know very well, Dona Rita, that I never carry any
sort of weapon in my pocket."

"Why don't you, then?" she asked in a flash of scorn which
bewitched me so completely for an instant that I couldn't even

smile at it.
"Because if I am unconventionalized I am an old European," I