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Updated: May 25, 2025
"You do not understand? But naturally. Let me explain. No: there is no reason why Sybil Mrs. Waring should not hear. She is a dear friend of long years, she understands." With a quiet murmur "Oh, quite!" Mrs. Waring ran an affectionate arm round Sofia's shoulders and gently held the girl to her.
And just as well they might have been, for escape into or through the dense mass of spectators about them was utterly impossible. Whatever horror came they must await, helpless. But at the bull's very start for the barrier, El Tigre, realized Sofia's peril and instantly sprang empty-handed in pursuit; for it was early in this the last corrida and he did not have his sword,
He snapped his whip-lash lightly on old Sofia's back, who looked up surprised, and, seeming to comprehend matters, began to reach out broad, flat, thin legs in a pace which the proud colt respected. She came of illustrious line, did Sofia, scant-haired and ungracious as she now was. "Don't run over me," called the doctor, ironically, and with Sofia still leading they swung into the yard.
A maid, a comely creature, trim and smart in black and white, with that vividly coloured prettiness which is too often the omen of premature decline into the fat and florid thirties, fetched a wrap and settled it upon Sofia's shoulders. Long and dark, it disguised her figure as completely as it covered her toilette.
And unmistakably there was something nearly resembling insolence in the eyes that boldly sought hers: a look equivocal at best and, intentionally or no, wholly offensive in essence; as if the fellow were asserting their partnership in some secret understanding; or as if he knew something by no means to Sofia's credit....
To do this they had to pass the caisse and through the green baize door. Mama Thérèse marched ahead with forbidding frown and quivering chins, with the militant carriage of misprized and affronted rectitude. To her, it was obvious, Sofia for the time being did not exist. At her heels Papa Dupont shambled uneasily, hanging the head of deep thoughtfulness, avoiding Sofia's gaze.
He offered a slip of paper, and after another moment of dumb staring, the girl took it and read aloud the message which Victor had dictated following Sofia's flight to him from the Café des Exiles. "'To Michael Lanyard, Intelligence Division, the War Office, Whitehall " "That is to say," Lanyard interpreted, "of the British Secret Service." "You!" He bowed in light irony.
If it wasn't the palace Sofia had unconsciously been looking forward to, it owned a solid, dull-faced dignity that suited well the town-house of a person of quality, it measured up quite acceptably to Sofia's notion of what was becoming to the condition of a prince in exile who naturally would live quietly, in view of the recent revolution in Russia.
For he was not only a personable person in those days, with a suggestion of devil-may-care in his air that measurably lifted the curse of his superficial foppishness, but he was putting a spoke in Prince Victor's wheel. And whosoever did that, by chance, out of sheer voluptuousness, or with malice prepense, won immediate title to Sofia's favourable regard.
And as the rippling current of the Quadaira crimsoned and then reddened and darkened till it seemed to him like a great ruddy tress of Sofia's waving hair, Mauro sprang to his feet and fiercely whispered: "Mil demonios! but she shall at least know, and then I'll kiss the old padre, and his musty office good-bye and go try my hand at some man's task!"
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