"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
worst case. I stayed on in that house from which I nearly ran away
in my nightgown. I stayed on because I didn't know what to do
next. He vanished as he had come on the track of something else, I
suppose. You know he really has got to get his living some way or
other. But don't think I was deserted. On the contrary. People
were coming and going, all sorts of people that Henry Allegre used
to know--or had refused to know. I had a sensation of plotting and
intriguing around me, all the time. I was feeling morally bruised,
sore all over, when, one day, Don Rafael 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 that hasn't been
talked about in the Pavilion before me. Of him I had only heard
that he was a very austere and pious person, always at Mass, and
that sort of thing. I saw a frail little man with a long, yellow
face and sunken fanatical eyes, an Inquisitor, an unfrocked monk.
One missed a rosary from his thin fingers. He gazed at me terribly
and I couldn't imagine what he might want. I waited for him to
pull out a crucifix and sentence me to the stake there and then.
But no; he dropped his eyes and in a cold, righteous sort of voice
informed me that he had called on behalf of the prince--he called
him His Majesty. I was amazed by the change. I wondered now why
he didn't slip his hands into the sleeves of his coat, you know, as
begging Friars do when they come for a subscription. He explained
that the Prince asked for permission to call and offer me his
condolences in person. We had seen a lot of him our last two
months in Paris that year. Henry Allegre had taken a fancy to
paint his portrait. He used to ride with us nearly every morning.
Almost without thinking I said I should be pleased. Don Rafael was
shocked at my want of formality, but bowed to me in silence, very
much as a monk bows, from the waist. If he had only crossed his
hands flat on his chest it would have been perfect. Then, I don't
know why, something moved me to make him a deep curtsy as he backed
out of the room, leaving me suddenly impressed, not only with him
but with myself too. I had my door closed to everybody else that
afternoon and the Prince came with a very proper sorrowful face,
but five minutes after he got into the room he was laughing as
usual, made the whole little house ring with it. You know his big,
irresistible laugh. . . ."
|