CHAPTER III
On our return from that expedition we came gliding into the old harbourso late that Dominic and I, making for the cafe kept by Madame Leonore,found it empty of customers, except for two rather sinister fellowsplaying cards together at a corner table near the door. The first thingdone by Madame Leonore was to put her hands on Dominic's shoulders andlook at arm's length into the eyes of that man of audacious deeds andwild stratagems who smiled straight at her from under his heavy and, atthat time, uncurled moustaches.
Indeed we didn't present a neat appearance, our faces unshaven, with thetraces of dried salt sprays on our smarting skins and the sleeplessnessof full forty hours filming our eyes. At least it was so with me who sawas through a mist Madame Leonore moving with her mature nonchalant grace,setting before us wine and glasses with a faint swish of her ample blackskirt. Under the elaborate structure of black hair her jet-black eyessparkled like good-humoured stars and even I could see that she wastremendously excited at having this lawless wanderer Dominic within herreach and as it were in her power. Presently she sat down by us, touchedlightly Dominic's curly head silvered on the temples (she couldn't reallyhelp it), gazed at me for a while with a quizzical smile, observed that Ilooked very tired, and asked Dominic whether for all that I was likely tosleep soundly to-night.
"I don't know," said Dominic, "He's young. And there is always thechance of dreams."
"What do you men dream of in those little barques of yours tossing formonths on the water?"
"Mostly of nothing," said Dominic. "But it has happened to me to dreamof furious fights."
"And of furious loves, too, no doubt," she caught him up in a mockingvoice.
"No, that's for the waking hours," Dominic drawled, basking sleepily withhis head between his hands in her ardent gaze. "The waking hours arelonger."
"They must be, at sea," she said, never taking her eyes off him. "But Isuppose you do talk of your loves sometimes."
"You may be sure, Madame Leonore," I interjected, noticing the hoarsenessof my voice, "that you at any rate are talked about a lot at sea."
"I am not so sure of that now. There is that strange lady from the Pradothat you took him to see, Signorino. She went to his head like a glassof wine into a tender youngster's. He is such a child, and I supposethat I am another. Shame to confess it, the other morning I got a friendto look after the cafe for a couple of hours, wrapped up my head, andwalked out there to the other end of the town. . . . Look at these twositting up! And I thought they were so sleepy and tired, the poorfellows!"
She kept our curiosity in suspense for a moment.
"Well, I have seen your marvel, Dominic," she continued in a calm voice."She came flying out of the gate on horseback and it would have been allI would have seen of her if--and this is for you, Signorino--if shehadn't pulled up in the main alley to wait for a very good-lookingcavalier. He had his moustaches so, and his teeth were very white whenhe smiled at her. But his eyes are too deep in his head for my taste. Ididn't like it. It reminded me of a certain very severe priest who usedto come to our village when I was young; younger even than your marvel,Dominic."
"It was no priest in disguise, Madame Leonore," I said, amused by herexpression of disgust. "That's an American."
"Ah! _Un Americano_! Well, never mind him. It was her that I went tosee."
"What! Walked to the other end of the town to see Dona Rita!" Dominicaddressed her in a low bantering tone. "Why, you were always telling meyou couldn't walk further than the end of the quay to save your life--oreven mine, you said."
"Well, I did; and I walked back again and between the two walks I had agood look. And you may be sure--that will surprise you both--that on theway back--oh, Santa Madre, wasn't it a long way, too--I wasn't thinkingof any man at sea or on shore in that connection."
"No. And you were not thinking of yourself, either, I suppose," I said.Speaking was a matter of great effort for me, whether I was too tired ortoo sleepy, I can't tell. "No, you were not thinking of yourself. Youwere thinking of a woman, though."
"_Si_. As much a woman as any of us that ever breathed in the world.Yes, of her! Of that very one! You see, we women are not like you men,indifferent to each other unless by some exception. Men say we arealways against one another but that's only men's conceit. What can shebe to me? I am not afraid of the big child here," and she tappedDominic's forearm on which he rested his head with a fascinated stare."With us two it is for life and death, and I am rather pleased that thereis something yet in him that can catch fire on occasion. I would havethought less of him if he hadn't been able to get out of hand a little,for something really fine. As for you, Signorino," she turned on me withan unexpected and sarcastic sally, "I am not in love with you yet." Shechanged her tone from sarcasm to a soft and even dreamy note. "A headlike a gem," went on that woman born in some by-street of Rome, and aplaything for years of God knows what obscure fates. "Yes, Dominic!_Antica_. I haven't been haunted by a face since--since I was sixteenyears old. It was the face of a young cavalier in the street. He was onhorseback, too. He never looked at me, I never saw him again, and Iloved him for--for days and days and days. That was the sort of face hehad. And her face is of the same sort. She had a man's hat, too, on herhead. So high!"
"A man's hat on her head," remarked with profound displeasure Dominic, towhom this wonder, at least, of all the wonders of the earth, wasapparently unknown.
"_Si_. And her face has haunted me. Not so long as that other but moretouchingly because I am no longer sixteen and this is a woman. Yes, Idid think of her, I myself was once that age and I, too, had a face of myown to show to the world, though not so superb. And I, too, didn't knowwhy I had come into the world any more than she does."
"And now you know," Dominic growled softly, with his head still betweenhis hands.
She looked at him for a long time, opened her lips but in the end onlysighed lightly.
"And what do you know of her, you who have seen her so well as to behaunted by her face?" I asked.
I wouldn't have been surprised if she had answered me with another sigh.For she seemed only to be thinking of herself and looked not in mydirection. But suddenly she roused up.
"Of her?" she repeated in a louder voice. "Why should I talk of anotherwoman? And then she is a great lady."
At this I could not repress a smile which she detected at once.
"Isn't she? Well, no, perhaps she isn't; but you may be sure of onething, that she is both flesh and shadow more than any one that I haveseen. Keep that well in your mind: She is for no man! She would bevanishing out of their hands like water that cannot be held."
I caught my breath. "Inconstant," I whispered.
"I don't say that. Maybe too proud, too wilful, too full of pity.Signorino, you don't know much about women. And you may learn somethingyet or you may not; but what you learn from her you will never forget."
"Not to be held," I murmured; and she whom the quayside called MadameLeonore closed her outstretched hand before my face and opened it at onceto show its emptiness in illustration of her expressed opinion. Dominicnever moved.
I wished good-night to these two and left the cafe for the fresh air andthe dark spaciousness of the quays augmented by all the width of the oldPort where between the trails of light the shadows of heavy hullsappeared very black, merging their outlines in a great confusion. I leftbehind me the end of the Cannebiere, a wide vista of tall houses andmuch-lighted pavements losing itself in the distance with an extinctionof both shapes and lights. I slunk past it with only a side glance andsought the dimness of quiet streets away from the centre of the usualnight gaieties of the town. The dress I wore was just that of a sailorcome ashore from some coaster, a thick blue woollen shirt or rather asort of jumper with a knitted cap like a tam-o'-shanter worn very much onone side and with a red tuft of wool in the centre. This was even thereason why I had lingered so long in the cafe. I didn't want to berecognized i
n the streets in that costume and still less to be seenentering the house in the street of the Consuls. At that hour when theperformances were over and all the sensible citizens in their beds Ididn't hesitate to cross the Place of the Opera. It was dark, theaudience had already dispersed. The rare passers-by I met hurrying ontheir last affairs of the day paid no attention to me at all. The streetof the Consuls I expected to find empty, as usual at that time of thenight. But as I turned a corner into it I overtook three people who musthave belonged to the locality. To me, somehow, they appeared strange.Two girls in dark cloaks walked ahead of a tall man in a top hat. Islowed down, not wishing to pass them by, the more so that the door ofthe house was only a few yards distant. But to my intense surprise thosepeople stopped at it and the man in the top hat, producing a latchkey,let his two companions through, followed them, and with a heavy slam cuthimself off from my astonished self and the rest of mankind.
In the stupid way people have I stood and meditated on the sight, beforeit occurred to me that this was the most useless thing to do. Afterwaiting a little longer to let the others get away from the hall Ientered in my turn. The small gas-jet seemed not to have been touchedever since that distant night when Mills and I trod the black-and-whitemarble hall for the first time on the heels of Captain Blunt--who livedby his sword. And in the dimness and solitude which kept no more traceof the three strangers than if they had been the merest ghosts I seemedto hear the ghostly murmur, "_Americain_, _Catholique et gentilhomme_._Amer. . . _" Unseen by human eye I ran up the flight of steps swiftlyand on the first floor stepped into my sitting-room of which the door wasopen . . . "_et gentilhomme_." I tugged at the bell pull and somewheredown below a bell rang as unexpected for Therese as a call from a ghost.
I had no notion whether Therese could hear me. I seemed to remember thatshe slept in any bed that happened to be vacant. For all I knew shemight have been asleep in mine. As I had no matches on me I waited for awhile in the dark. The house was perfectly still. Suddenly without theslightest preliminary sound light fell into the room and Therese stood inthe open door with a candlestick in her hand.
She had on her peasant brown skirt. The rest of her was concealed in ablack shawl which covered her head, her shoulders, arms, and elbowscompletely, down to her waist. The hand holding the candle protrudedfrom that envelope which the other invisible hand clasped together underher very chin. And her face looked like a face in a painting. She saidat once:
"You startled me, my young Monsieur."
She addressed me most frequently in that way as though she liked the veryword "young." Her manner was certainly peasant-like with a sort ofplaint in the voice, while the face was that of a serving Sister in somesmall and rustic convent.
"I meant to do it," I said. "I am a very bad person."
"The young are always full of fun," she said as if she were gloating overthe idea. "It is very pleasant."
"But you are very brave," I chaffed her, "for you didn't expect a ring,and after all it might have been the devil who pulled the bell."
"It might have been. But a poor girl like me is not afraid of the devil.I have a pure heart. I have been to confession last evening. No. Butit might have been an assassin that pulled the bell ready to kill a poorharmless woman. This is a very lonely street. What could prevent you tokill me now and then walk out again free as air?"
While she was talking like this she had lighted the gas and with the lastwords she glided through the bedroom door leaving me thunderstruck at theunexpected character of her thoughts.
I couldn't know that there had been during my absence a case of atrociousmurder which had affected the imagination of the whole town; and thoughTherese did not read the papers (which she imagined to be full ofimpieties and immoralities invented by godless men) yet if she spoke atall with her kind, which she must have done at least in shops, she couldnot have helped hearing of it. It seems that for some days people couldtalk of nothing else. She returned gliding from the bedroom hermeticallysealed in her black shawl just as she had gone in, with the protrudinghand holding the lighted candle and relieved my perplexity as to hermorbid turn of mind by telling me something of the murder story in astrange tone of indifference even while referring to its most horriblefeatures. "That's what carnal sin (_peche de chair_) leads to," shecommented severely and passed her tongue over her thin lips. "And thenthe devil furnishes the occasion."
"I can't imagine the devil inciting me to murder you, Therese," I said,"and I didn't like that ready way you took me for an example, as it were.I suppose pretty near every lodger might be a potential murderer, but Iexpected to be made an exception."
With the candle held a little below her face, with that face of one toneand without relief she looked more than ever as though she had come outof an old, cracked, smoky painting, the subject of which was altogetherbeyond human conception. And she only compressed her lips.
"All right," I said, making myself comfortable on a sofa after pullingoff my boots. "I suppose any one is liable to commit murder all of asudden. Well, have you got many murderers in the house?"
"Yes," she said, "it's pretty good. Upstairs and downstairs," shesighed. "God sees to it."
"And by the by, who is that grey-headed murderer in a tall hat whom I sawshepherding two girls into this house?"
She put on a candid air in which one could detect a little of her peasantcunning.
"Oh, yes. They are two dancing girls at the Opera, sisters, as differentfrom each other as I and our poor Rita. But they are both virtuous andthat gentleman, their father, is very severe with them. Very severeindeed, poor motherless things. And it seems to be such a sinfuloccupation."
"I bet you make them pay a big rent, Therese. With an occupation likethat . . ."
She looked at me with eyes of invincible innocence and began to glidetowards the door, so smoothly that the flame of the candle hardly swayed."Good-night," she murmured.
"Good-night, Mademoiselle."
Then in the very doorway she turned right round as a marionette wouldturn.
"Oh, you ought to know, my dear young Monsieur, that Mr. Blunt, the dearhandsome man, has arrived from Navarre three days ago or more. Oh," sheadded with a priceless air of compunction, "he is such a charminggentleman."
And the door shut after her.
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