g. Of course I laughed at
it, but only '_pour l'honneur_' and to show I understood perfectly. In
reality it left me completely indifferent."

Dona Rita looked very serious for a minute.

"Indifferent to the whole conversation?"

I looked at her angrily.

"To the whole . . . You see I got up rather out of sorts this morning.
Unrefreshed, you know. As if tired of life."

The liquid blue in her eyes remained directed at me without any
expression except that of its usual mysterious immobility, but all her
face took on a sad and thoughtful cast. Then as if she had made up her
mind under the pressure of necessity:

"Listen, _amigo_," she said, "I have suffered domination and it didn't
crush me because I have been strong enough to live with it; I have known
caprice, you may call it folly if you like, and it left me unharmed
because I was great enough not to be captured by anything that wasn't
really worthy of me. My dear, it went down like a house of cards before
my breath. There is something in me that will not be dazzled by any sort
of prestige in this world, worthy or unworthy. I am telling you this
because you are younger than myself."

"If you want me to say that there is nothing petty or mean about you,
Dona Rita, then I do say it."

She nodded at me with an air of accepting the rendered justice and went
on with the utmost simplicity.

"And what is it that is coming to me now with all the airs of virtue?
All the lawful conventions are coming to me, all the glamours of
respectability! And nobody can say that I have made as much as the
slightest little sign to them. Not so much as lifting my little finger.
I suppose you know that?"

"I don't know. I do not doubt your sincerity in anything you say. I am
ready to believe. You are not one of those who have to work."

"Have to work--what do you mean?"

"It's a phrase I have heard. What I meant was that it isn't necessary
for you to make any signs."

She seemed to meditate over this for a while.

"Don't be so sure of that," she said, with a flash of mischief, which
made her voice sound more melancholy than before. "I am not so sure
myself," she continued with a curious, vanishing, intonation of despair.
"I don't know the truth about myself because I never had an opportunity
to compare myself to anything in the world. I have been offered mock
adulation, treated with mock reserve or with mock devotion, I have been
fawned upon with an appalling ear