第31章

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

"No! This isn't good enough for me," I said.

The last of the light gleamed in her long enigmatic eyes as if they were precious enamel in that shadowy head which in its immobility suggested a creation of a distant past: immortal art, not transient life.Her voice had a profound quietness.She excused herself.

"It's only habit - or instinct - or what you like.I have had to practise that in self-defence lest I should be tempted sometimes to cut the arm off."I remembered the way she had abandoned this very arm and hand to the white-haired ruffian.It rendered me gloomy and idiotically obstinate.

"Very ingenious.But this sort of thing is of no use to me," Ideclared.

"Make it up," suggested her mysterious voice, while her shadowy figure remained unmoved, indifferent amongst the cushions.

I didn't stir either.I refused in the same low tone.

"No.Not before you give it to me yourself some day.""Yes - some day," she repeated in a breath in which there was no irony but rather hesitation, reluctance what did I know?

I walked away from the house in a curious state of gloomy satisfaction with myself.

And this is the last extract.A month afterwards.

- This afternoon going up to the Villa I was for the first time accompanied in my way by some misgivings.To-morrow I sail.

First trip and therefore in the nature of a trial trip; and I can't overcome a certain gnawing emotion, for it is a trip that MUSTN'Tfail.In that sort of enterprise there is no room for mistakes.

Of all the individuals engaged in it will every one be intelligent enough, faithful enough, bold enough? Looking upon them as a whole it seems impossible; but as each has got only a limited part to play they may be found sufficient each for his particular trust.

And will they be all punctual, I wonder? An enterprise that hangs on the punctuality of many people, no matter how well disposed and even heroic, hangs on a thread.This I have perceived to be also the greatest of Dominic's concerns.He, too, wonders.And when he breathes his doubts the smile lurking under the dark curl of his moustaches is not reassuring.

But there is also something exciting in such speculations and the road to the Villa seemed to me shorter than ever before.

Let in by the silent, ever-active, dark lady's maid, who is always on the spot and always on the way somewhere else, opening the door with one hand, while she passes on, turning on one for a moment her quick, black eyes, which just miss being lustrous, as if some one had breathed on them lightly.

On entering the long room I perceive Mills established in an armchair which he had dragged in front of the divan.I do the same to another and there we sit side by side facing R., tenderly amiable yet somehow distant among her cushions, with an immemorial seriousness in her long, shaded eyes and her fugitive smile hovering about but never settling on her lips.Mills, who is just back from over the frontier, must have been asking R.whether she had been worried again by her devoted friend with the white hair.

At least I concluded so because I found them talking of the heart-broken Azzolati.And after having answered their greetings I sit and listen to Rita addressing Mills earnestly.

"No, I assure you Azzolati had done nothing to me.I knew him.He was a frequent visitor at the Pavilion, though I, personally, never talked with him very much in Henry Allegre's lifetime.Other men were more interesting, and he himself was rather reserved in his manner to me.He was an international politician and financier - a nobody.He, like many others, was admitted only to feed and amuse Henry Allegre's scorn of the world, which was insatiable - I tell you.""Yes," said Mills."I can imagine."

"But I know.Often when we were alone Henry Allegre used to pour it into my ears.If ever anybody saw mankind stripped of its clothes as the child sees the king in the German fairy tale, it's I! Into my ears! A child's! Too young to die of fright.

Certainly not old enough to understand - or even to believe.But then his arm was about me.I used to laugh, sometimes.Laugh! At this destruction - at these ruins!""Yes," said Mills, very steady before her fire."But you have at your service the everlasting charm of life; you are a part of the indestructible.""Am I?...But there is no arm about me now.The laugh! Where is my laugh? Give me back my laugh...."And she laughed a little on a low note.I don't know about Mills, but the subdued shadowy vibration of it echoed in my breast which felt empty for a moment and like a large space that makes one giddy.

"The laugh is gone out of my heart, which at any rate used to feel protected.That feeling's gone, too.And I myself will have to die some day.""Certainly," said Mills in an unaltered voice."As to this body you...""Oh, yes! Thanks.It's a very poor jest.Change from body to body as travellers used to change horses at post houses.I've heard of this before....""I've no doubt you have," Mills put on a submissive air."But are we to hear any more about Azzolati?""You shall.Listen.I had heard that he was invited to shoot at Rambouillet - a quiet party, not one of these great shoots.I hear a lot of things.I wanted to have a certain information, also certain hints conveyed to a diplomatic personage who was to be there, too.A personage that would never let me get in touch with him though I had tried many times.""Incredible!" mocked Mills solemnly.

"The personage mistrusts his own susceptibility.Born cautious,"explained Dona Rita crisply with the slightest possible quiver of her lips."Suddenly I had the inspiration to make use of Azzolati, who had been reminding me by a constant stream of messages that he was an old friend.I never took any notice of those pathetic appeals before.But in this emergency I sat down and wrote a note asking him to come and dine with me in my hotel.I suppose you know I don't live in the Pavilion.I can't bear the Pavilion now.