"Ay, 'tis," she answered; "and, I protest, as necessary now as then that I should play it well. And," she went on, "I am going to play one, and you shall see me do it. Now," she continued, "I must leave you, as I am about to go into the garden."
"Then I go too," I said. "Why! suppose one is Csaba—the Prince."
"Well! he would not hurt me. He pretends to love me—does love me."
"He might carry you off."
"Might he! What! with my faithful Adrian looking at him out of the darkness of this room, and ready to spring forth like a great fierce English lion—that great lion that is so dominating and contemptuous over all the other beasts and fowls of Europe. Might he? Not he. Nor will he while I have this," and, in the moonbeams, I saw her draw a little stiletto from out the pocket of her serving-woman's gown. "Now," she said, "you stay here till I come back. Be a good boy, Blue Eyes, and do what I tell you."
"You do love me, don't you, Damaris? That's understood."
"It is understood that you do as I tell you. Now I go."
Whereon she went through the door from the hall and into the great salle, and then down the huge steps leading from the verandah on to the broad walk, on which there stood large tubs, having in them oleanders and orange and lemon trees. And be sure that, creeping after her, I followed as far as I might without exposing myself to the view of any who might be in the garden; and then, from behind the heavy window-hangings, I gazed out, while listening with all my ears.
Now, no sooner had my girl gotten down some yards upon the broad walk—she having, as she went, thrown a common kind of hood, such as Spanish peasant women wear in the streets over her head—than she commenced, gently, but still audibly, to say, "Hst! hst! Isidore. I am here. Isidore, where are you? Have you kept tryst? Isidore, I say!" and then gave a little kind of muffled shriek as a figure, enshrouded in a cloak and wearing a mask (and followed by another attired in a similar manner), stepped out from behind a lemon-tree tub and seized her by the arm.
CHAPTER IV