se thinly, putting himself and his house at my
disposition.

The formality of movements, of voices, governed and checked the
unbounded emotions of my wonder. The two ladies sank, with a rustle of
starch and stiff silks, in answer to my profound bow. I had just enough
control over myself to accomplish that, but mentally I was out of
breath; and when I felt the slight, trembling touch of Don Balthasar's
hand resting on my inclined head, it was as if I had suddenly become
aware for a moment of the earth's motion. The hand was gone; his face
was averted, and a corpulent priest, all straight and black below his
rosy round face, had stepped forward to say a Latin grace in solemn
tones that wheezed a little. As soon as he had done he withdrew with a
circular bow to the ladies, to Don Balthasar, who inclined his silvery
head. His lifeless voice propounded:

"Our excellent Father Antonio, in his devotion, dines by the bedside
of our beloved Carlos." He sighed. The heavy carvings of his chair
rose upright at his back; he sat with his head leaning forward over his
silver plate. A heavy silence fell. Death hovered over that table--and
also, as it were, the breath of past ages. The multitude of lights, the
polished floor of costly wood, the bare whiteness of walls wainscotted
with marble, the vastness of the room, the imposing forms of furniture,
carved heavily in ebony, impressed me with a sense of secular and
austere magnificence. For centuries there had always been a Riego living
in this fortress-like palace, ruling this portion of the New World with
the whole majesty of his race. And I thought of the long, loop-holed,
buttressed walls that this abode of noble adventurers presented
foursquare to the night outside, standing there by the seashore like a
tomb of warlike glories. They built their houses thus, centuries ago,
when the bands of buccaneers, indomitable and atrocious, had haunted
their conquest with a reminder of mortality and weakness.

It was a tremendous thing for me, this dinner. The portly duenna on my
left had a round eye and an irritated, parrot-like profile, crowned by
a high comb, a head shaded by black lace. I dared hardly lift my eyes
to the dark and radiant presence facing me across a table furniture that
was like a display of treasure.

But I did look. She was the girl of the lizard, the girl of the dagger,
and, in the solemnity of the silence, she was like a fabulous apparition
from a half-forgotten tale