第91章

"Madame has no friends.Not one!" and I saw Dona Rita's complete loneliness beset by all sorts of insincerities, surrounded by pitfalls; her greatest dangers within herself, in her generosity, in her fears, in her courage, too.What I had to do first of all was to stop that wretch at all costs.I became aware of a great mistrust of Therese.I didn't want her to find me in the hall, but I was reluctant to go upstairs to my rooms from an unreasonable feeling that there I would be too much out of the way; not sufficiently on the spot.There was the alternative of a live-long night of watching outside, before the dark front of the house.It was a most distasteful prospect.And then it occurred to me that Blunt's former room would be an extremely good place to keep a watch from.I knew that room.When Henry Allegre gave the house to Rita in the early days (long before he made his will) he had planned a complete renovation and this room had been meant for the drawing-room.Furniture had been made for it specially, upholstered in beautiful ribbed stuff, made to order, of dull gold colour with a pale blue tracery of arabesques and oval medallions enclosing Rita's monogram, repeated on the backs of chairs and sofas, and on the heavy curtains reaching from ceiling to floor.

To the same time belonged the ebony and bronze doors, the silver statuette at the foot of the stairs, the forged iron balustrade reproducing right up the marble staircase Rita's decorative monogram in its complicated design.Afterwards the work was stopped and the house had fallen into disrepair.When Rita devoted it to the Carlist cause a bed was put into that drawing-room, just simply the bed.The room next to that yellow salon had been in Allegre's young days fitted as a fencing-room containing also a bath, and a complicated system of all sorts of shower and jet arrangements, then quite up to date.That room was very large, lighted from the top, and one wall of it was covered by trophies of arms of all sorts, a choice collection of cold steel disposed on a background of Indian mats and rugs Blunt used it as a dressing-room.It communicated by a small door with the studio.

I had only to extend my hand and make one step to reach the magnificent bronze handle of the ebony door, and if I didn't want to be caught by Therese there was no time to lose.I made the step and extended the hand, thinking that it would be just like my luck to find the door locked.But the door came open to my push.In contrast to the dark hall the room was most unexpectedly dazzling to my eyes, as if illuminated a giorno for a reception.No voice came from it, but nothing could have stopped me now.As I turned round to shut the door behind me noiselessly I caught sight of a woman's dress on a chair, of other articles of apparel scattered about.The mahogany bed with a piece of light silk which Therese found somewhere and used for a counterpane was a magnificent combination of white and crimson between the gleaming surfaces of dark wood; and the whole room had an air of splendour with marble consoles, gilt carvings, long mirrors and a sumptuous Venetian lustre depending from the ceiling: a darkling mass of icy pendants catching a spark here and there from the candles of an eight-branched candelabra standing on a little table near the head of a sofa which had been dragged round to face the fireplace.The faintest possible whiff of a familiar perfume made my head swim with its suggestion.

I grabbed the back of the nearest piece of furniture and the splendour of marbles and mirrors, of cut crystals and carvings, swung before my eyes in the golden mist of walls and draperies round an extremely conspicuous pair of black stockings thrown over a music stool which remained motionless.The silence was profound.

It was like being in an enchanted place.Suddenly a voice began to speak, clear, detached, infinitely touching in its calm weariness.

"Haven't you tormented me enough to-day?" it said....My head was steady now but my heart began to beat violently.I listened to the end without moving, "Can't you make up your mind to leave me alone for to-night?" It pleaded with an accent of charitable scorn.

The penetrating quality of these tones which I had not heard for so many, many days made my eyes run full of tears.I guessed easily that the appeal was addressed to the atrocious Therese.The speaker was concealed from me by the high back of the sofa, but her apprehension was perfectly justified.For was it not I who had turned back Therese the pious, the insatiable, coming downstairs in her nightgown to torment her sister some more? Mere surprise at Dona Rita's presence in the house was enough to paralyze me; but Iwas also overcome by an enormous sense of relief, by the assurance of security for her and for myself.I didn't even ask myself how she came there.It was enough for me that she was not in Tolosa.

I could have smiled at the thought that all I had to do now was to hasten the departure of that abominable lunatic - for Tolosa: an easy task, almost no task at all.Yes, I would have smiled, had not I felt outraged by the presence of Senor Ortega under the same roof with Dona Rita.The mere fact was repugnant to me, morally revolting; so that I should have liked to rush at him and throw him out into the street.But that was not to be done for various reasons.One of them was pity.I was suddenly at peace with all mankind, with all nature.I felt as if I couldn't hurt a fly.The intensity of my emotion sealed my lips.With a fearful joy tugging at my heart I moved round the head of the couch without a word.