“They seemed to think that things were not perfectly settled,” Hi said.
“And what do you yourself think, now that you have seen them?”
“They don’t seem quite happy somehow,” Hi said.
“How can they be happy,” she said, “with Antichrist upon the throne? I am a woman and meddle little with politics, but very much with religion, which is a force that your Mr. Weycocks do not admit to exist. He and his friends, Highworth, are rousing up in this country something which they cannot understand, the very depths of the soul of this people. But come, Highworth, take this flower. Give me your arm. Open that door for me. This is the chapel of the Piranhas; this tomb is where my husband lies. He loved your father, who was more than a friend to us in a time of calamity. Lay the flower upon his tomb. He will be glad to know that your father’s son is in this house in this time of calamity.”
“Surely Señora,” he said, “the calamity is not so great.”
She looked at him and could not answer.
“Leave me here a little, Highworth,” she said. “There is a Greco over the altar. But you will not care for these things. You will find Rosa in the garden room.”
It was dim in the chapel. It was built of white Otorin marble in barrel vaulting, with one piercing in the sanctuary. Hi saw a blackness with bronze gleams where he laid his flower. He knew that Donna Emilia was crying.
“O Señora,” he said. He felt that he could not stay there: he went quickly back to the light.
Pablo led the way to a room full of sunlight: it opened upon the garden, but was itself more full of flowers than the garden, from a bank of white cuencas near the French windows. The light poured upon these, so that every white trumpet of the cuencas seemed to quiver with life. Little yellow butterflies poised above the flowers. A crested humming bird with a dazzling throat hovered in the light near the door.