CHAPTER III
Mills got up and approached the figure at the window. To my extremesurprise, Mr. Blunt, after a moment of obviously painful hesitation,hastened out after the man with the white hair.
In consequence of these movements I was left to myself and I began to beuncomfortably conscious of it when Dona Rita, near the window, addressedme in a raised voice.
"We have no confidences to exchange, Mr. Mills and I."
I took this for an encouragement to join them. They were both looking atme. Dona Rita added, "Mr. Mills and I are friends from old times, youknow."
Bathed in the softened reflection of the sunshine, which did not falldirectly into the room, standing very straight with her arms down, beforeMills, and with a faint smile directed to me, she looked extremely young,and yet mature. There was even, for a moment, a slight dimple in hercheek.
"How old, I wonder?" I said, with an answering smile.
"Oh, for ages, for ages," she exclaimed hastily, frowning a little, thenshe went on addressing herself to Mills, apparently in continuation ofwhat she was saying before.
. . . "This man's is an extreme case, and yet perhaps it isn't theworst. But that's the sort of thing. I have no account to render toanybody, but I don't want to be dragged along all the gutters where thatman picks up his living."
She had thrown her head back a little but there was no scorn, no angryflash under the dark-lashed eyelids. The words did not ring. I wasstruck for the first time by the even, mysterious quality of her voice.
"Will you let me suggest," said Mills, with a grave, kindly face, "thatbeing what you are, you have nothing to fear?"
"And perhaps nothing to lose," she went on without bitterness. "No. Itisn't fear. It's a sort of dread. You must remember that no nun couldhave had a more protected life. Henry Allegre had his greatness. Whenhe faced the world he also masked it. He was big enough for that. Hefilled the whole field of vision for me."
"You found that enough?" asked Mills.
"Why ask now?" she remonstrated. "The truth--the truth is that I neverasked myself. Enough or not there was no room for anything else. He wasthe shadow and the light and the form and the voice. He would have itso. The morning he died they came to call me at four o'clock. I raninto his room bare-footed. He recognized me and whispered, 'You areflawless.' I was very frightened. He seemed to think, and then saidvery plainly, 'Such is my character. I am like that.' These were thelast words he spoke. I hardly noticed them then. I was thinking that hewas lying in a very uncomfortable position and I asked him if I shouldlift him up a little higher on the pillows. You know I am very strong.I could have done it. I had done it before. He raised his hand off theblanket just enough to make a sign that he didn't want to be touched. Itwas the last gesture he made. I hung over him and then--and then Inearly ran out of the house just as I was, in my night-gown. I think ifI had been dressed I would have run out of the garden, into thestreet--run away altogether. I had never seen death. I may say I hadnever heard of it. I wanted to run from it."
She paused for a long, quiet breath. The harmonized sweetness and daringof her face was made pathetic by her downcast eyes.
"_Fuir la mort_," she repeated, meditatively, in her mysterious voice.
Mills' big head had a little movement, nothing more. Her glance glidedfor a moment towards me like a friendly recognition of my right to bethere, before she began again.
"My life might have been described as looking at mankind from afourth-floor window for years. When the end came it was like falling outof a balcony into the street. It was as sudden as that. Once I remembersomebody was telling us in the Pavilion a tale about a girl who jumpeddown from a fourth-floor window. . . For love, I believe," sheinterjected very quickly, "and came to no harm. Her guardian angel musthave slipped his wings under her just in time. He must have. But as tome, all I know is that I didn't break anything--not even my heart. Don'tbe shocked, Mr. Mills. It's very likely that you don't understand."
"Very likely," Mills assented, unmoved. "But don't be too sure of that."
"Henry Allegre had the highest opinion of your intelligence," she saidunexpectedly and with evident seriousness. "But all this is only to tellyou that when he was gone I found myself down there unhurt, but dazed,bewildered, not sufficiently stunned. It so happened that that creaturewas somewhere in the neighbourhood. How he found out. . . But it's hisbusiness to find out things. And he knows, too, how to worm his way inanywhere. Indeed, in the first days he was useful and somehow he made itlook as if Heaven itself had sent him. In my distress I thought I couldnever sufficiently repay. . . Well, I have been paying ever since."
"What do you mean?" asked Mills softly. "In hard cash?"
"Oh, it's really so little," she said. "I told you it wasn't the worstcase. I stayed on in that house from which I nearly ran away in mynightgown. I stayed on because I didn't know what to do next. Hevanished as he had come on the track of something else, I suppose. Youknow he really has got to get his living some way or other. But don'tthink I was deserted. On the contrary. People were coming and going,all sorts of people that Henry Allegre used to know--or had refused toknow. I had a sensation of plotting and intriguing around me, all thetime. I was feeling morally bruised, sore all over, when, one day, DonRafael de Villarel sent in his card. A grandee. I didn't know him, but,as you are aware, there was hardly a personality of mark or position thathasn't been talked about in the Pavilion before me. Of him I had onlyheard that he was a very austere and pious person, always at Mass, andthat sort of thing. I saw a frail little man with a long, yellow faceand sunken fanatical eyes, an Inquisitor, an unfrocked monk. One misseda rosary from his thin fingers. He gazed at me terribly and I couldn'timagine what he might want. I waited for him to pull out a crucifix andsentence me to the stake there and then. But no; he dropped his eyes andin a cold, righteous sort of voice informed me that he had called onbehalf of the prince--he called him His Majesty. I was amazed by thechange. I wondered now why he didn't slip his hands into the sleeves ofhis coat, you know, as begging Friars do when they come for asubscription. He explained that the Prince asked for permission to calland offer me his condolences in person. We had seen a lot of him ourlast two months in Paris that year. Henry Allegre had taken a fancy topaint his portrait. He used to ride with us nearly every morning.Almost without thinking I said I should be pleased. Don Rafael wasshocked at my want of formality, but bowed to me in silence, very much asa monk bows, from the waist. If he had only crossed his hands flat onhis chest it would have been perfect. Then, I don't know why, somethingmoved me to make him a deep curtsy as he backed out of the room, leavingme suddenly impressed, not only with him but with myself too. I had mydoor closed to everybody else that afternoon and the Prince came with avery proper sorrowful face, but five minutes after he got into the roomhe was laughing as usual, made the whole little house ring with it. Youknow his big, irresistible laugh. . . ."
"No," said Mills, a little abruptly, "I have never seen him."
"No," she said, surprised, "and yet you . . . "
"I understand," interrupted Mills. "All this is purely accidental. Youmust know that I am a solitary man of books but with a secret taste foradventure which somehow came out; surprising even me."
She listened with that enigmatic, still, under the eyelids glance, and afriendly turn of the head.
"I know you for a frank and loyal gentleman. . . Adventure--and books?Ah, the books! Haven't I turned stacks of them over! Haven't I? . . ."
"Yes," murmured Mills. "That's what one does."
She put out her hand and laid it lightly on Mills' sleeve.
"Listen, I don't need to justify myself, but if I had known a singlewoman in the world, if I had only had the opportunity to observe a singleone of them, I would have been perhaps on my guard. But you know Ihadn't. The only woman I had anything to do with was myself, and theysay that one can't know oneself. It never entered my he
ad to be on myguard against his warmth and his terrible obviousness. You and he werethe only two, infinitely different, people, who didn't approach me as ifI had been a precious object in a collection, an ivory carving or a pieceof Chinese porcelain. That's why I have kept you in my memory so well.Oh! you were not obvious! As to him--I soon learned to regret I was notsome object, some beautiful, carved object of bone or bronze; a rarepiece of porcelain, _pate dure_, not _pate tendre_. A pretty specimen."
"Rare, yes. Even unique," said Mills, looking at her steadily with asmile. "But don't try to depreciate yourself. You were never pretty.You are not pretty. You are worse."
Her narrow eyes had a mischievous gleam. "Do you find such sayings inyour books?" she asked.
"As a matter of fact I have," said Mills, with a little laugh, "foundthis one in a book. It was a woman who said that of herself. A womanfar from common, who died some few years ago. She was an actress. Agreat artist."
"A great! . . . Lucky person! She had that refuge, that garment, while Istand here with nothing to protect me from evil fame; a naked temperamentfor any wind to blow upon. Yes, greatness in art is a protection. Iwonder if there would have been anything in me if I had tried? But HenryAllegre would never let me try. He told me that whatever I could achievewould never be good enough for what I was. The perfection of flattery!Was it that he thought I had not talent of any sort? It's possible. Hewould know. I've had the idea since that he was jealous. He wasn'tjealous of mankind any more than he was afraid of thieves for hiscollection; but he may have been jealous of what he could see in me, ofsome passion that could be aroused. But if so he never repented. Ishall never forget his last words. He saw me standing beside his bed,defenceless, symbolic and forlorn, and all he found to say was, 'Well, Iam like that.'"
I forgot myself in watching her. I had never seen anybody speak withless play of facial muscles. In the fullness of its life her facepreserved a sort of immobility. The words seemed to form themselves,fiery or pathetic, in the air, outside her lips. Their design was hardlydisturbed; a design of sweetness, gravity, and force as if born from theinspiration of some artist; for I had never seen anything to come up toit in nature before or since.
All this was part of the enchantment she cast over me; and I seemed tonotice that Mills had the aspect of a man under a spell. If he too was acaptive then I had no reason to feel ashamed of my surrender.
"And you know," she began again abruptly, "that I have been accustomed toall the forms of respect."
"That's true," murmured Mills, as if involuntarily.
"Well, yes," she reaffirmed. "My instinct may have told me that my onlyprotection was obscurity, but I didn't know how and where to find it.Oh, yes, I had that instinct . . . But there were other instincts and. . . How am I to tell you? I didn't know how to be on guard against myself,either. Not a soul to speak to, or to get a warning from. Some womansoul that would have known, in which perhaps I could have seen my ownreflection. I assure you the only woman that ever addressed me directly,and that was in writing, was . . . "
She glanced aside, saw Mr. Blunt returning from the hall and addedrapidly in a lowered voice,
"His mother."
The bright, mechanical smile of Mr. Blunt gleamed at us right down theroom, but he didn't, as it were, follow it in his body. He swerved tothe nearest of the two big fireplaces and finding some cigarettes on themantelpiece remained leaning on his elbow in the warmth of the brightwood fire. I noticed then a bit of mute play. The heiress of HenryAllegre, who could secure neither obscurity nor any other alleviation tothat invidious position, looked as if she would speak to Blunt from adistance; but in a moment the confident eagerness of her face died out asif killed by a sudden thought. I didn't know then her shrinking from allfalsehood and evasion; her dread of insincerity and disloyalty of everykind. But even then I felt that at the very last moment her being hadrecoiled before some shadow of a suspicion. And it occurred to me, too,to wonder what sort of business Mr. Blunt could have had to transact withour odious visitor, of a nature so urgent as to make him run out afterhim into the hall? Unless to beat him a little with one of the sticksthat were to be found there? White hair so much like an expensive wigcould not be considered a serious protection. But it couldn't have beenthat. The transaction, whatever it was, had been much too quiet. I mustsay that none of us had looked out of the window and that I didn't knowwhen the man did go or if he was gone at all. As a matter of fact he wasalready far away; and I may just as well say here that I never saw himagain in my life. His passage across my field of vision was like that ofother figures of that time: not to be forgotten, a little fantastic,infinitely enlightening for my contempt, darkening for my memory whichstruggles still with the clear lights and the ugly shadows of thoseunforgotten days.
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