A FURTHER NOTE FROM REY
"I had a long mental work-out this morning in the room before breakfast," she began. "I even thought about what brings you here, and about my long talk with the Glow-worm last night, which I'll get to—if you are a very interested listener. After breakfast, I walked for an hour in the grounds. Have you been over to the Inlet, where Señor Rey's beautiful sailing-yacht lies—the Savonarola?"
"I've seen it from the road," Bedient answered.
"A stairway goes down from the bluff under the road, a hundred steps or more to the water of the cove. In fact, the tall spars of the Savonarola aren't nearly so high as the level of the bluff. I love a sailing-ship, and on the way back I met Señor Rey in his wheel-chair, and told him how the wonderful little harbor and his thorough-bred, lying there, had appealed to me. He inclined his head benignly. His yacht, I said, had the effective lines of her namesake's profile—and that pleased him. Followed, a technical discussion of different sailing-ships that once swept the waters of the world, I furnishing enthusiasm and a text-book inquiry now and then. This brought not only an invitation to sail within a few days, but also an invitation to a private dinner this evening in the Flamingo Room, 'with Señora Rey and a few most cherished guests.' And—I must not forget—the Señor informed me that his wife was very fond of me….
"I observed that the 'Flamingo Room' had a most enticing sound. He hoped I would find it so; said the idea was his own, and that, to him, the tint of a flamingo feather was the fairest of all tints—save one, to be found in the cheeks of an American girl. I answered that it was very clear to me now whose sense of beauty had made The Pleiad and its gardens the rarest delight of my travels."
Miss Mallory regarded Bedient's amusement appreciatively for a moment, and went on swiftly:
"Then I walked beside his wheel-chair through the shadowy, scented paths, and presently I mentioned you and Colonel Rizzio among the interesting people I had met. He declared you were a true gentleman—spoke feelingly—a stranger at The Pleiad, though not to the Island. I explained how you had kept aloof on the ship coming down, how you seemed to be the prey of some devouring grief…. All that I said, he regarded with that terribly bright attention of his. It made me think of a pack of hounds tossing and tearing at a morsel, the way his faculties caught my sentences, hounds playing a hare at the end of a run. Oh, devious and winding are the ways of the Spaniard—and past finding out! But I frankly confessed my interest in you, and that you were absolutely self-contained; indeed, it was because of that I appealed to him. I am sure he found that my sayings balanced in the most sensitive scales of his mind; and decided I was too young to be artistic with the fine tools of untruth.
"Finally, I asked about war, told him the New York papers predicted another war in Equatoria, and that I had never seen one. The Señor declared he was very sorry if my trip to Equatoria proved a disappointment in any way, but he didn't see what there was to fight about; that no one deplored so much as he the recent attempt upon the life of Dictator Jaffier; and as for himself, he was identified with all the interests of Equatoria, which were moving forward exceedingly well…. Altogether it was an absorbing half-hour."
* * * * *
"And now I must tell you about Señora Key," Miss Mallory continued hurriedly, since they could not be seen talking together long…. "She asked me to come to her rooms, and I followed a servant. I couldn't find the place now alone. A small room in orange lamplight! The Glow-worm was lying upon a tiger-rug; very tall and silken she looked, and her great yellow eyes settled upon me. It seemed to me that her emotions had no outlet, but turned back to rend and devour each other. I couldn't help thinking that first moment, that some one must pay a big price for making her suffer. Queer, wasn't it? And pitiful—how she seemed to need me. It is true, she trusted me from the beginning, seemed dying to leap into some one's heart. And she told me her story in whispered fragments—heart-hunger, hatred, and mystery—these fragments. I've really been challenged to build a character out of her, and since I thought about her half the night, I ought to be able to make you see and feel her story. I wonder if I can? It came to me something like this: