“I guessed that much,” muttered d'Alcacer to himself. “But that, you know, Mrs. Travers, that isn't good news at all to me. World of dreams, eh? That's very bad, very dangerous. It's almost fatal, Mrs. Travers.”
“Why all this dismay? Why do you object to a world of dreams?”
“Because I dislike the prospect of being made a sacrifice of by those Moors. I am not an optimist like our friend there,” he continued in a low tone nodding toward the dismal figure of Mr. Travers huddled up in the chair. “I don't regard all this as a farce and I have discovered in myself a strong objection to having my throat cut by those gorgeous barbarians after a lot of fatuous talk. Don't ask me why, Mrs. Travers. Put it down to an absurd weakness.”
Mrs. Travers made a slight movement in her chair, raising her hands to her head, and in the dim light of the lanterns d'Alcacer saw the mass of her clear gleaming hair fall down and spread itself over her shoulders. She seized half of it in her hands which looked very white, and with her head inclined a little on one side she began to make a plait.
“You are terrifying,” he said after watching the movement of her fingers for a while.
“Yes . . . ?” she accentuated interrogatively.
“You have the awfulness of the predestined. You, too, are the prey of dreams.”
“Not of the Moors, then,” she uttered, calmly, beginning the other plait. D'Alcacer followed the operation to the end. Close against her, her diaphanous shadow on the muslin reproduced her slightest movements. D'Alcacer turned his eyes away.
“No! No barbarian shall touch you. Because if it comes to that I believe he would be capable of killing you himself.”
A minute elapsed before he stole a glance in her direction. She was leaning back again, her hands had fallen on her lap and her head with a plait of hair on each side of her face, her head incredibly changed in character and suggesting something medieval, ascetic, drooped dreamily on her breast.