d but a necessity. There are times when I must, it
seems, give way to my hatred of those perfumed captains. I sit beside
Santacilla, with his hand on my knee, and, hidden by my skirt, my
fingers are wedded to the knife in my stocking. A turn, a sweep of
the arm ... there is a tearing cut I learned in the mountains."

The prayers, the Latin invocations, grew louder with the symbolized
miracle of transubstantiation, the turning back of the bread and wine
into the humility and forbearance of Christ.

Charles Abbott was still, pale and remote; and the heat of La Clavel's
words died before the vision of an eternal empire of souls irrevocably
judged. She sank forward again, the knotted fringe of her manton
spread out beyond the rug, upon the stone. After a little he told her
that her courage, her daring and patience, were magnificent. But she
replied that they were cold virtues. "All virtues are cold," Charles
assured her seriously. If that were so, La Clavel whispered, her cheek
close to his, she was lost to virtue. Anyhow, she didn't believe him,
he could not, at his age, know so much. Yet not, God comprehended,
that he wasn't both virtuous and cold; any other man in the world, not
a heathen, would have flung himself at her. Charles said wearily:

"We have been over this before, and you know that I do not care for
women. What I was a few years ago--"

"A baby," she informed him.

"What I was a few years ago," he repeated with dignity, "is no
longer true of me. I belong body and spirit to the cause of which
you are aware. And if I didn't it would be, in many respects, no
different--science and the liberation of a people are all one,
selfless."

"I left the knife out of my present toilet," she sighed. "It would be
a charity to free you from the shape you hate so dearly."

"I must go back to the San Felipe and write what you told me,"
he proceeded. "I understand that Santacilla has gone out on a
slaughtering party, and I'll have to take you around in the
evening. There are zarzuelas in the Tacon Theatre this evening,
and afterwards, I suppose, dulces upstairs at the Tuileries.
It's no good, though, expecting me for Retreta--I've got to have
some time to recover and sleep: four o'clock last night, with a
pack of imbeciles, and three the night before. The smell of
Jamaica rum and limes makes me sick."

The mass was over, the people scattering, and, once more cheerful, she
laughed at him. "You might wear a hair shirt,"