That night I didn't get on board till just before midnight and Dominic could not conceal his relief at having me safely there.
Why he should have been so uneasy it was impossible to say but at the time I had a sort of impression that my inner destruction (it was nothing less) had affected my appearance, that my doom was as it were written on my face.I was a mere receptacle for dust and ashes, a living testimony to the vanity of all things.My very thoughts were like a ghostly rustle of dead leaves.But we had an extremely successful trip, and for most of the time Dominic displayed an unwonted jocularity of a dry and biting kind with which, he maintained, he had been infected by no other person than myself.As, with all his force of character, he was very responsive to the moods of those he liked I have no doubt he spoke the truth.But I know nothing about it.The observer, more or less alert, whom each of us carries in his own consciousness, failed me altogether, had turned away his face in sheer horror, or else had fainted from the strain.And thus I had to live alone, unobserved even by myself.
But the trip had been successful.We re-entered the harbour very quietly as usual and when our craft had been moored unostentatiously amongst the plebeian stone-carriers, Dominic, whose grim joviality had subsided in the last twenty-four hours of our homeward run, abandoned me to myself as though indeed I had been a doomed man.He only stuck his head for a moment into our little cuddy where I was changing my clothes and being told in answer to his question that I had no special orders to give went ashore without waiting for me.
Generally we used to step on the quay together and I never failed to enter for a moment Madame Leonore's cafe.But this time when Igot on the quay Dominic was nowhere to be seen.What was it?
Abandonment - discretion - or had he quarrelled with his Leonore before leaving on the trip?
My way led me past the cafe and through the glass panes I saw that he was already there.On the other side of the little marble table Madame Leonore, leaning with mature grace on her elbow, was listening to him absorbed.Then I passed on and - what would you have! - I ended by making my way into the street of the Consuls.Ihad nowhere else to go.There were my things in the apartment on the first floor.I couldn't bear the thought of meeting anybody Iknew.
The feeble gas flame in the hall was still there, on duty, as though it had never been turned off since I last crossed the hall at half-past eleven in the evening to go to the harbour.The small flame had watched me letting myself out; and now, exactly of the same size, the poor little tongue of light (there was something wrong with that burner) watched me letting myself in, as indeed it had done many times before.Generally the impression was that of entering an untenanted house, but this time before I could reach the foot of the stairs Therese glided out of the passage leading into the studio.After the usual exclamations she assured me that everything was ready for me upstairs, had been for days, and offered to get me something to eat at once.I accepted and said Iwould be down in the studio in half an hour.I found her there by the side of the laid table ready for conversation.She began by telling me - the dear, poor young Monsieur - in a sort of plaintive chant, that there were no letters for me, no letters of any kind, no letters from anybody.Glances of absolutely terrifying tenderness mingled with flashes of cunning swept over me from head to foot while I tried to eat.
"Are you giving me Captain Blunt's wine to drink?" I asked, noting the straw-coloured liquid in my glass.
She screwed up her mouth as if she had a twinge of toothache and assured me that the wine belonged to the house.I would have to pay her for it.As far as personal feelings go, Blunt, who addressed her always with polite seriousness, was not a favourite with her.The "charming, brave Monsieur" was now fighting for the King and religion against the impious Liberals.He went away the very morning after I had left and, oh! she remembered, he had asked her before going away whether I was still in the house.Wanted probably to say good-bye to me, shake my hand, the dear, polite Monsieur.
I let her run on in dread expectation of what she would say next but she stuck to the subject of Blunt for some time longer.He had written to her once about some of his things which he wanted her to send to Paris to his mother's address; but she was going to do nothing of the kind.She announced this with a pious smile; and in answer to my questions I discovered that it was a stratagem to make Captain Blunt return to the house.
"You will get yourself into trouble with the police, Mademoiselle Therese, if you go on like that," I said.But she was as obstinate as a mule and assured me with the utmost confidence that many people would be ready to defend a poor honest girl.There was something behind this attitude which I could not fathom.Suddenly she fetched a deep sigh.
"Our Rita, too, will end by coming to her sister."The name for which I had been waiting deprived me of speech for the moment.The poor mad sinner had rushed off to some of her wickednesses in Paris.Did I know? No? How could she tell whether I did know or not? Well! I had hardly left the house, so to speak, when Rita was down with her maid behaving as if the house did really still belong to her...
"What time was it?" I managed to ask.And with the words my life itself was being forced out through my lips.But Therese, not noticing anything strange about me, said it was something like half-past seven in the morning.The "poor sinner" was all in black as if she were going to church (except for her expression, which was enough to shock any honest person), and after ordering her with frightful menaces not to let anybody know she was in the house she rushed upstairs and locked herself up in my bedroom, while "that French creature" (whom she seemed to love more than her own sister)went into my salon and hid herself behind the window curtain.
