had my back to the
door, my face to her.

"And so you have come," she said, maliciously it seemed to me.

It was impossible to speak in _such_ a position; in such a place;
impossible to hold a discussion on family affairs when a diminutive
Irishwoman with too mobile eyebrows, and a couple of gigantic,
raw-boned, lugubrious Spaniards, were in a position to hear anything
that one uttered above a whisper. One might want to raise one's voice.
Besides, she was so--so terrible; there was no knowing what she might
not say. She so obviously did not care what the Irish or the Spaniards
or the Jesuits heard or thought, that I was forced to the mortifying
conclusion that I did.

"Oh, I've come," I answered. I felt as outrageously out of it as one
does at a suburban hop where one does not know one animal of the
menagerie. I did not know what to do or what to say, or what to do with
my hands. I was pervaded by the unpleasant idea that all those furtive
eyes were upon me; gauging me because I was the brother of a
personality. I was concerned about the fit of my coat and my boots, and
all the while I was in a furious temper; my errand was important.

She stood looking at me, a sinuous, brilliant thing, with a light in the
eyes half challenging, half openly victorious.

"You have come," she said, "and ..."

I became singularly afraid of her; and wanted to stop her mouth. She
might be going to say anything. She overpowered me so that I actually
dwindled--into the gawkiness of extreme youth. I became a goggle-eyed,
splay-footed boy again and made a boy's desperate effort after a
recovery at one stroke of an ideal standard of dignity.

"I must have a word with you," I said, remembering. She made a little
gesture with her hands, signifying "I am here." "But in private," I
added.

"Oh, everything's in private here," she said. I was silent.

"I must," I added after a time.

"I can't retire with you," she said; "'it would look odd,' you'd say,
wouldn't you?" I shrugged my shoulders in intense irritation. I didn't
want to be burlesqued. A flood of fresh people came into the room. I
heard a throaty "ahem" behind me. The Duc de Mersch was introducing
himself to notice. It was as I had thought--the man was an habitue, with
his well-cut clothes, his air of protestation, and his tremendous golden
poll. He was the only sunlight that the gloomy place rejoiced in. He
bowed low over my oppressor's hand, smiled upon me, and began to utter
p