“Don Leon Roch?” said Facunda with a good-humoured smile after a pause of astonishment. “He is up there.” And she pointed to a door through which a staircase was visible.
María hurried up, but about half way she was forced to stop for breath. At the top she went into a large light room; there was no one there.
She saw books, articles of furniture that she recognised, all in confusion as packed for removal, but no one ... no one.
Suddenly, like a bird that hops out of a hedge at the sound of a voice, a little girl appeared from behind a table. She held a broken doll and was eating a piece of bread. She was warmly wrapped up, and on her head she wore a little white hood, very much like a nun’s. Her face was that of a cherub, if a cherub can be supposed to have a little wet nose from a cold sharp morning. Monina fixed her eyes on the dazzling vision that had suddenly appeared in the doorway and stared at it speechless and motionless. This was not a lady; it was a doll, a very large doll dressed like a lady, and the child’s astonishment soon changed to alarm. She saw the figure come slowly towards her without taking her eyes off her ... and such eyes! Monina turned white and would have cried out but she was too frightened. This enormous doll came slowly up to her without seeming to walk, and when it had reached her it stooped down ... the poor little thing was too much terrified to scream; those eyes had turned her to stone. It put out a hand and laid it on Monina’s shoulder. Then, clutching the little arm, it squeezed it tighter—tighter—like an iron vice, while in a voice which Monina did not recognise as human, but rather as the strange croak which dwells in a doll’s body and utters “papa” and “mamma,” it asked her:
“Who are you? What is your name?”
The instinct of self preservation conquered her terrors, and at last poor Ramona found her voice. She gave a shrill cry and pulled away her arm. Leon Roch came to the door of the adjoining room where he too stood still, like a statue in a niche. Unlike St. Thomas, he saw but he could not believe. For a minute or two he could not shake off his dismay and astonishment, seeing clearly the dilemma in which he was placed. Her appearance there was extraordinary no doubt, but anything rather than absurd; what was absurd, was her coming fashionably bedizened with such extravagant elegance at this hour of the morning. It was a phenomenon which had formed no factor in his calculations and which was, so far, perfectly inexplicable. Having presently mastered his feelings and determined to face the scene that was evidently inevitable, Leon, before saying a word to his wife, took Monina’s hand, went to the top of the stairs and called some one to whom he entrusted the child; then, turning back into the room, he shut the door resolutely, like a lion-tamer who locks himself in with the savage favourites, who, to him, are, after all, only part of his family.
María had seated herself; in fact she could hardly stand.
“You did not expect me?” she said tremulously.