lemental powers of nature. I couldn't
give all that up. And besides all this was related to Dona Rita. I had,
as it were, received it all from her own hand, from that hand the clasp
of which was as frank as a man's and yet conveyed a unique sensation.
The very memory of it would go through me like a wave of heat. It was
over that hand that we first got into the habit of quarrelling, with the
irritability of sufferers from some obscure pain and yet half unconscious
of their disease. Rita's own spirit hovered over the troubled waters of
Legitimity. But as to the sound of the four magic letters of her name I
was not very likely to hear it fall sweetly on my ear. For instance, the
distinguished personality in the world of finance with whom I had to
confer several times, alluded to the irresistible seduction of the power
which reigned over my heart and my mind; which had a mysterious and
unforgettable face, the brilliance of sunshine together with the
unfathomable splendour of the night as--Madame de Lastaola. That's how
that steel-grey man called the greatest mystery of the universe. When
uttering that assumed name he would make for himself a guardedly solemn
and reserved face as though he were afraid lest I should presume to
smile, lest he himself should venture to smile, and the sacred formality
of our relations should be outraged beyond mending.

He would refer in a studiously grave tone to Madame de Lastaola's wishes,
plans, activities, instructions, movements; or picking up a letter from
the usual litter of paper found on such men's desks, glance at it to
refresh his memory; and, while the very sight of the handwriting would
make my lips go dry, would ask me in a bloodless voice whether perchance
I had "a direct communication from--er--Paris lately." And there would
be other maddening circumstances connected with those visits. He would
treat me as a serious person having a clear view of certain
eventualities, while at the very moment my vision could see nothing but
streaming across the wall at his back, abundant and misty, unearthly and
adorable, a mass of tawny hair that seemed to have hot sparks tangled in
it. Another nuisance was the atmosphere of Royalism, of Legitimacy, that
pervaded the room, thin as air, intangible, as though no Legitimist of
flesh and blood had ever existed to the man's mind except perhaps myself.
He, of course, was just simply a banker, a very distinguished, a very
influential, and