In contrast with the white glaring room the dimly lit corredor had a restful mysteriousness of a forest glade, suggested by the stems and the leaves of the plants ranged along the balustrade of the open side. In the streaks of light falling through the open doors of the reception-rooms, the blossoms, white and red and pale lilac, came out vivid with the brilliance of flowers in a stream of sunshine; and Mrs. Gould, passing on, had the vividness of a figure seen in the clear patches of sun that chequer the gloom of open glades in the woods. The stones in the rings upon her hand pressed to her forehead glittered in the lamplight abreast of the door of the sala.
“Who’s there?” she asked, in a startled voice. “Is that you, Basilio?” She looked in, and saw Martin Decoud walking about, with an air of having lost something, amongst the chairs and tables.
“Antonia has forgotten her fan in here,” said Decoud, with a strange air of distraction; “so I entered to see.”
But, even as he said this, he had obviously given up his search, and walked straight towards Mrs. Gould, who looked at him with doubtful surprise.
“Senora,” he began, in a low voice.
“What is it, Don Martin?” asked Mrs. Gould. And then she added, with a slight laugh, “I am so nervous to-day,” as if to explain the eagerness of the question.
“Nothing immediately dangerous,” said Decoud, who now could not conceal his agitation. “Pray don’t distress yourself. No, really, you must not distress yourself.”
Mrs. Gould, with her candid eyes very wide open, her lips composed into a smile, was steadying herself with a little bejewelled hand against the side of the door.
“Perhaps you don’t know how alarming you are, appearing like this unexpectedly—”
“I! Alarming!” he protested, sincerely vexed and surprised. “I assure you that I am not in the least alarmed myself. A fan is lost; well, it will be found again. But I don’t think it is here. It is a fan I am looking for. I cannot understand how Antonia could—Well! Have you found it, amigo?”