he had the habit of
frequently closing during a conversation. On one occasion he said to me: »By the
by, the Marquis of Villarel is here for a time. He inquired after you the last
time he called on me. May I let him know that you are in town?«
    I didn't say anything to that. The Marquis of Villarel was the Don Rafael of
Rita's own story. What had I to do with Spanish grandees? And for that matter
what had she, the woman of all time, to do with all the villainous or splendid
disguises human dust takes upon itself? All this was in the past, and I was
acutely aware that for me there was no present, no future, nothing but a hollow
pain, a vain passion of such magnitude that being locked up within my breast it
gave me an illusion of lonely greatness with my miserable head uplifted amongst
the stars. But when I made up my mind (which I did quickly, to be done with it)
to call on the banker's wife, almost the first thing she said to me was that the
Marquis de Villarel was amongst us. She said it joyously. If in her husband's
room at the bank legitimism was a mere unpopulated principle, in her salon
Legitimacy was nothing but persons. »Il m'a causé beaucoup de vous,« she said as
if there had been a joke in it of which I ought to be proud. I slunk away from
her. I couldn't believe that the grandee had talked to her about me. I had never
felt myself part of the great Royalist enterprise. I confess that I was so
indifferent to everything, so profoundly demoralized, that having once got into
that drawing-room I hadn't the strength to get away; though I could see
perfectly well my volatile hostess going from one to another of her
acquaintances in order to tell them with a little gesture, »Look! Over there -
in that corner. That's the notorious Monsieur George.« At last she herself drove
me out by coming to sit by me vivaciously and going into ecstasies over ce cher
Monsieur Mills and that magnificent Lord X; and ultimately, with a perfectly
odious snap in the eyes and drop in the voice, dragging in the name of Madame de
Lastaola and asking me whether I was really so much in the confidence of that
astonishing person. »Vous devez bien regretter son départ pour Paris,« she
cooed, looking with affected bashfulness at her fan. ... How I got out of the