«
    The sound of that name on his lips was simply odious. I was convinced that
this man of forms and ceremonies and fanatical royalism was perfectly heartless.
Perhaps he reflected on his motives; but it seemed to me that his conscience
could be nothing else but a monstrous thing which very few actions could disturb
appreciably. Yet for the credit of Doña Rita I did not withhold from him my
young sagacity. What he thought of it I don't know. The matters we discussed
were not of course of high policy, though from the point of view of the war in
the south they were important enough. We agreed on certain things to be done,
and finally, always out of regard for Doña Rita's credit, I put myself generally
at his disposition or of any Carlist agent he would appoint in his place; for I
did not suppose that he would remain very long in Marseilles. He got out of the
chair laboriously, like a sick child might have done. The audience was over but
he noticed my eyes wandering to the portrait and he said in his measured,
breathed-out tones:
    »I owe the pleasure of having this admirable work here to the gracious
attention of Madame de Lastaola, who, knowing my attachment to the royal person
of my Master, has sent it down from Paris to greet me in this house which has
been given up for my occupation also through her generosity to the Royal Cause.
Unfortunately she, too, is touched by the infection of this irreverent and
unfaithful age. But she is young yet. She is young.«
    These last words were pronounced in a strange tone of menace as though he
were supernaturally aware of some suspended disasters. With his burning eyes he
was the image of an Inquisitor with an unconquerable soul in that frail body.
But suddenly he dropped his eyelids and the conversation finished as
characteristically as it had begun: with a slow, dismissing inclination of the
head and an »Adios, Señor - may God guard you from sin.«
 

                                      III

I must say that for the next three months I threw myself into my unlawful trade
with a sort of desperation, dogged and hopeless, like a fairly decent fellow who
takes deliberately to drink. The business was getting dangerous. The bands in
the South were not very well organized, worked with no very definite plan, and
now were beginning to be pretty closely hunted. The arrangements for the
transport of supplies were going to pieces; our friends ashore were getting
scared; and it was no joke to find after a day of skilful dodging that there was
no one at the landing