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open low to a point in front. Because of the absence of all trimming round
the neck and from the deep view of her bare arms in the wide sleeve this
garment seemed to be put directly on her skin and gave one the impression of
one's nearness to her body which would have been troubling but for the
perfect unconsciousness of her manner. That day she carried no barbarous
arrow in her hair. It was parted on one side, brushed back severely, and
tied with a black ribbon, without any bronze mist about her forehead or
temple. This smoothness added to the many varieties of her expression also
that of childlike innocence.
Great progress in our intimacy brought about unconsciously by our
enthusiastic interest in the matter of our discourse and, in the moments of
silence, by the sympathetic current of our thoughts. And this rapidly
growing. familiarity (truly, she had a terrible gift for it) had all the
varieties of earnestness: serious, excited, ardent, and even gay. She laughed
in contralto; but her laugh was never very long; and when it had ceased, the
silence of the room with the light dying in all its many windows seemed to
he about me warmed by its vibration.
As I was preparing to take my leave after a longish pause into which we had
fallen as into a vague dream, she came out of it with a start and a quiet
sigh. She said, ``I had forgotten myself.'' I took her hand and was raising
it naturally, without premeditation, when I felt suddenly the arm to which
it belonged become insensible, passive, like a stuffed limb, and the whole
woman go inanimate all over! Brusquely I dropped the hand before it reached
my lips; and it was so lifeless that it fell heavily on to the divan.
I remained standing before her. She raised to me not her eyes but her whole
face, inquisitivelyperhaps in appeal.
``No! this isn't good enough for me,'' I said.
The last of the light gleamed in her long enigmatic eyes as if they were
precious enamel in that shadowy head which in its immobility suggested a
creation of a distant past: immortal art, not transient life. Her voice had
a profound quietness. She excused herself.
``It's only habitor instinctor what you like. I have had to practise that in
selfdefence lest I should be tempted sometimes to cut the arm off.''
The Arrow of Gold
III
30
I remembered the way she had abandoned this very arm and hand to the
whitehaired ruffian. It rendered me gloomy and idiotically obstinate.
``Very ingenious. But this sort of thing is of no use to me,'' I declared.
``Make it up,'' suggested her mysterious voice, while her shadowy figure
remained unmoved, indifferent amongst the cushions.
I didn't stir either. I refused in the same low tone.
``No. Not before you give it to me yourself, some day.''
``Yessome day,'' she repeated in a breath in which there was no irony but
rather hesitation, reluctance what did I know?
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I walked away from the house in a curious state of gloomy satisfaction with
myself. *
And this is the last extract. A month afterwards.
This afternoon going up to the Villa I was for the first time accompanied in
my way by some misgivings.
Tomorrow I sail.
First trip and therefore in the nature of a trial trip and I can't overcome
a certain gnawing emotion, for it is a trip that _mustn't_ fail. In that
sort of enterprise there is no room for mistakes. Of all the individuals
engaged in it will every one be intelligent enough, faithful enough, bold
enough? Looking upon them as a whole it seems impossible; but as each has got
only a limited part to play they may be found sufficient each for his
particular trust. And will they be all punctual, I wonder? An enterprise
that hangs on the punctuality of many people, no matter how well disposed
and even heroic, hangs on a thread. This I have perceived to be also the
greatest of Dominic's concerns. He, too, wonders. And when he breathes his
doubts the smile lurking under the dark curl of his moustaches is not
reassuring.
But there is also something exciting in such speculations and the road to
the Villa seemed to me shorter than ever before.
Let in by the silent, everactive, dark lady's maid, who is always on the
spot and always on the way somewhere else, opening the door with one hand,
while she passes on, turning on one for a moment her quick, black eyes, which
just miss being lustrous, as if some one had breathed on them lightly.
On entering the long room I perceive Mills established in an armchair which
he had dragged in front of the divan. I do the same to another and there we
sit side by side facing R., tenderly amiable yet somehow distant among her
cushions, with an immemorial seriousness in her long, shaded eyes and her
fugitive smile hovering about but never settling on her lips. Mills, who is
just back from over the frontier, must have been asking R. whether she had
been worried again by her devoted friend with the white hair. At least I
concluded so because I found them talking of the heartbroken Azzolati. And
after having answered their greetings I sit and listen to Rita addressing
Mills earnestly.
``No, I assure you Azzolati had done nothing to me. I knew him. He was a
frequent visitor at the Pavilion, though I, personally, never talked with him
very much in Henry Allegre's lifetime. Other men were more interesting, and
he himself was rather reserved in his manner to me. He was an international
politician and financier a nobody. He, like many others, was admitted only
to feed and amuse Henry Allegre's scorn of
The Arrow of Gold
III
31
the world, which was insatiableI tell you.''
``Yes,'' said Mills. ``I can imagine.''
``But I know. Often when we were alone Henry Allegre used to pour it into my
ears. If ever anybody saw mankind stripped of its clothes as the child sees
the king in the German fairy tale, it's I! Into my ears! A
child's! Too young to die of fright. Certainly not old enough to understand
or even to believe. But then his arm was about me. I used to laugh,
sometimes. Laugh! At this destruction at these ruins!''
``Yes,'' said Mills, very steady before her fire. ``But you have at your
service the everlasting charm of life;
you are a part of the indestructible.''
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