The Arrow of Gold: A Story Between Two Notes

though I had been a second Ortega. Not even an echo answered me; but all of a sudden a small flame flickered descending from the upper darkness and Therese appeared on the first flo

at the darkness of the passage leading to the studio. She passed within a foot of me, her pale eyes staring straight ahead, her face still with disappointment and fury. Yet it is only my surmis

and inanimate. I picked up the candelabra, groped for a candle all over the carpet, found one, and lighted it. All that time Do?a Rita didn't stir. When I turned towards her she seemed to be slowly awakening from a trance. She was deathly pale and by contrast the melted, sapphire-blue of her eyes looked b

been lost on an Arctic plain. I had to put her arms into the sleeves, myself, one after another. They were cold, lifeless, but flexible. Then I moved in front of her and buttoned the thing close round her throat. To do that I had actually to raise her chin with my finger, and it sank slowly down again. I buttoned all the

nant, and fantastic soul, seemed to drowse like an exhausted traveller surrendering himself to the sleep of death. But when I asked her again to lie down she managed to answer me, "Not in this room." The dumb spell was

e said. "Not after all this! I couldn't close my eyes in this place. It's full of corruption and ugliness all round, in me, too, everywhere except

you here. There is my room upst

e whispered. The beginning of a

y in this room; and, surely

er now. He has kille

blue slippers and had put them on her feet. She was very tra

epeated in a sigh. "The l

ll," I said. She put back like a frightened child

ere but she only repeated, "I can't get thr

k then you shall be carried," and I lifted her from the ground so abruptly that she could not

nce and let her fall on it. Then as if I had in sober truth rescued her from an Alpine height or an Arctic floe, I busied myself with nothing but lighting the gas and starting the fire. I didn't even pause to lock my door. All the time I was aware of her presence behind me, nay, of something deeper and more my own-of her existence itself-of a small blue flame, blue like her eyes, flickering and clear within her frozen body. When I turned to her she was sitting very stiff and upright, with her feet posed hieratically on the carpet and her head emerging out of the ample fur collar, such as a gem-like flower above the rim of a

or philistin

e youthful, was in her tone; and we both, as if touched with

haunted me-mostly at night. I dreamed of you sometimes as a huntress nymph gleaming white through the foliage and throwing this arrow like a dart st

il. And she was no nymph, but only a goat

he sofa. "Upon my soul, goatherd, you are not responsible," I said. "You are not! Lay down that uneasy head," I con

gue over-power me so that I wanted to stagger out, walk straight before me, stagger on and on till

eyes. Impossible. I have a horror of myself

any way. It was I who settled her after taking up a position which I thought I should be able to keep for hours-for ages. After a time I grew composed enough to become aware of the ticking of the clock, even to take pleasure in it. The beat recorded the moments of her rest, while I sat, keeping as still as if my life depended upon it w

ita had opened her eyes, found herself in my arms, and instantly had flung herself out of them with one sudden effort. I saw her already standing in t

not with you. Before we set eyes on each other all that past was like nothing. I had crushed it all i

enture of venturesome children in a nursery-book. A grown man's bitter

gain?" I said with contempt. "All right. I won't

esture of her arm as if to keep me off, for I

ay, or some distinguished carcass to feed your vanity on? I know how cold you can be-and yet live. What have I done

fore my eyes as she had ever been-goatherd child leaping on the rocks of her native hills which

ied, "you would never forgive y

ing in the diffused light from the ground-glass skylight there appeared, rigid, like an implacable and obscure fate, the awful Therese-waiting for her sister

rst. There was no austerity in her tone. Her voice was as usual, pertinacio

ght I would die a hundred times for shame. So that's how you are spending your time? You are worse than shamel

ard wistfully, "my soul or thi

oor young gentleman who like all the others can have nothing but contempt and disgust for you in his heart. Come and hide your head where

herese's face. "You abominable girl!" she cried fiercely. Then she turned about and walked towards me who had not moved. I felt hardly alive but for the cru

go, I wanted nothing so much as to give it

the woman," I

ver myself up to Therese. No. Not even for your sak

sed it to my breast; but as I opened my lips she who knew what

a hundred miles of this house, where they came clinging to me all profaned from the mouth of that

out imploringly, I said

ng words of love to you? They

l your lips with the thing itse

OND

ings to a precarious bliss has nothing very astonishing in itself; and its portrayal, as he attempts it, lacks dramatic interest. The sentimental interest could only have a fascination for readers themselves actually in love. The response of a reader depends on the mood of the moment, so much so that a book may seem extremely interesting when read late at night,

at she was as new to love as he was. During their retreat in the region of the Maritime Alps, in a small house built of dry stones and embowered with roses, they appear all through to be less like released lovers than as companions who had found out each other's fitness in a specially intense way. Upon the whole, I think that there must be some truth in his insistence of there having always been something childlike in their relation. In the unreserved and instant sharing of all thoughts, all impressions, all sensations, we see the na?veness of a children's foolhardy adventure. This unreserved expressed for him the whole truth of the situation. Wi

, even terrestrial, mystery there is as it were a sacred core. A sustained commentary on love is not fit for every eye.

ch I need not enlarge, the girl could not have been very reassured by what she saw. It seems to me that her devotion could never be appeased; for the conviction must have been growing on her that, no matter what h

ertain is that the late Henry Allègre's man of affairs found himself comparatively idle. The holiday must have done much good to his harassed brain. He had received a note from Do?a Rita saying that she had gone into retreat and that she did not mean to send him her address, not being in the humour to be worried with letters on any subject whatever. "It's enough for you"-she wrote-"to know that I am alive." La

t man. But Dominic was not the sort of person for whom one can do much. Monsieur George did not even see him. It looked uncommonly as if Dominic's heart were broken. Monsieur George remained concealed for twenty-four hours in the very house in which Madame Léonore had her café. He spent most of that time in conversing with Madame Léonore about Dominic. She was dist

ely for a time from the eyes of mankind it was necessary that he should show himself and sign some papers. That business was transacted in the office of the banker mentioned in the story. Monsieur George wished to avoid seeing the man himself but in this he did not succeed. The interview was short. The banker naturally asked no questions, made no allusions to persons and events, and didn't even mention the great Legitimist Principle which presented to him now no interest whatever. But for the moment all the world was talking o

theless," the banker concluded with a wooden

as a caretaker by the man of affairs. She made some difficulties to admit that she had been in charge for the last four months; ever since the person who was there before had eloped with some Spaniard who had been lying in the house ill with fever for more than six weeks. No, she never saw the person. Neither had she seen the Spaniard. She had only he

already. His acquaintances were not the sort of people likely to happen casually into a restaurant of that kind and moreover he took the precaution to seat himself at a small table so as to face the wall. Yet before long he felt

the course of the first phrases exchanged with him he learned that this

here have been many changes amongst our friends and amongst people one used to hear of so much. There is Madame de Lastaola for

marked grumpily th

rope and talked in clubs-astonishing how such fellows get into the best clubs-oh! Azzolati was his name. But perhaps what a fellow like that said did not matter. The funniest thing was that there was no man of an

unamiably than before that he

people more or less connected with the Carlist affair you are t

ied Monsie

discretion. Only the other day Jane, you know my married sister, and I were talking about you. She was extremely distressed. I as

o know what it was all about; and

at you had been seen at the bank to-day and I made a special effort to lay hold of you before you vanished again; for, after all,

er of a good club, he was very Parisian in a way, and all this, he continued, made all the worse that of which he was under the painful necessity of warning Monsieur George. This Blunt on three distinct occasions when the name of Madame de Lastao

order to fix the exact personality he always takes care to add that you are that young f

ur George couldn't imagine. But there it was. He kept silent in his indignation

y wire that I am waiting for him. This will be enough to fetch him down here, I can assure you. You may ask him also t

n Monsieur George caught his train promising to be back on the fourth day and leaving all further arrangements to his friend. He prided himself on his impenetrability before Do?a Rita; on the happiness without a shadow of those four days. However, Do?a Rita must have had the intuit

lt in the very air lifted the business above the common run of affairs of honour. One bit of byplay unnoticed by the seconds, very busy for the moment with th

nst me. In that case you will recognize publicly that you were wr

and as Monsieur George was being conveyed there at a walking pace a little brougham coming from the opposite direction pulled up at the side of the road. A thickly veiled woman's head looked out of the window, took in the state of affairs at a glance, and called out in a firm voice: "Follow my carriage." The brougham turning round took the lead. Long before this convoy reached the town another carriage containing four gentlemen (of whom one was leaning back languidly with his arm in a sling) whisked past and vanished ahead in a cloud of white, Proven?al dust. And this is the last appearance of Captain Blunt in Monsieur George's narrative. Of course he was only told of it later. At the time he was not in a condition to notice things. Its interest in his surroundings remained of a hazy and nightmarish kind for many days together. From time to time he had the impression that he was in a room strangely familiar to him, that he had unsatisfactory visions of Do?a Rita, to whom he tried to speak as if nothing had

or go mad. But now he felt perfectly clear-headed and the full sensation of being alive came all over him, languidly delicious. The greatest beauty of it was that there was no need to move. This gave him a sort of moral satisfaction. Then the first though

ctly it was connected with that woman. She will go on like this leaving a track behind h

"one can't blame the woman very much. I as

n? That she didn

asked me despairingly, could she go through life veiled from head to foot or go ou

hat's

y of contradictory impulses than other women. But that's

nsieur George heard distinctly the door open and shut. Then he spoke for the first time, discovering, with a

is

the day of the duel and the man of books, leaving his retreat, had come as fast as boats and trains could carry him South. For, as he said later to Monsieur George, he had

it since I

months," answered

the door? She stood th

t. She is hundreds

, ask Rita

affectionate gentleness. He hesitated a moment.

hy?" asked Mo

have told you that she is gone because, strange as it may seem, I beli

hat, too, Mills had foreseen. For days he attended the bedside patiently letting the man in the bed talk to him of Do?a Rita but saying little himself; till one day he was asked pointedly whether she had ever talked to him openly. And then he said t

away from the revelation," sa

o who have nothing to do with the world as it is. No, a world of lovers would be impossible. It would be a mere ruin of lives which seem to be meant

were again talking o

n her hair to hand over to you as a keepsake and also to prevent you

an find it some day when I am alone. But when you write to her you may tell her that now at last-surer than Mr

ow where she is,

knows. . . . Tell me, Mill

ething in life. She may! It won't be love. She has sacrificed that chance to the integrity of your life-heroically. Do you remember telling her once that you meant to live your life

nded man, speaking of her as if she were

mes and shadows of that life there will always lie the ray of her perfect honesty. I don't know about your honesty,

," cried the enthusia

his discovery he was fit to face anything. He tells his correspondent that if he had been more romantic he would never have looked at any other woman. But on the contrary.

ot know. Then, years later, he was deprived even of the arrow. It was lost to him in a stormy catastrophe; and he confesses that next day he stood on a rocky, wind-assaulted shore, looking at the seas raging over the very spot of his loss and thought that it was well. It was not a thing