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He persisted also in deferring to my judgment and sense with an over-emphasis called out by his perpetual surprise at my youth. He himself was born about fifty years old, all complete, with his iron-grey whiskers and his bilious eyes, which he had the habit of frequently closing during a conversation. On one occasion he said to me. “By the by, the Marquis of Villarel is here for a time.
Villarel would travel with some sort of suite, a couple of secretaries at least. The card was, under its social form, a mere command to present myself before the grandee. No Royalist devoted by conviction, as I must have appeared to him, could have mistaken the meaning.
He inquired after you the last time he called on me. May I let him know that you are in town?” I didn’t say anything to that. The Marquis of Villarel was the Don Rafael of Rita’s own story. What had I to do with Spanish grandees? And for that matter what had she, the woman of all time, to do with all the villainous or splendid disguises human dust takes upon itself?
But don’t think I was deserted. On the contrary. People were coming and going, all sorts of people that Henry Allègre used to know—or had refused to know. I had a sensation of plotting and intriguing around me, all the time. I was feeling morally bruised, sore all over, when, one day, Don Rafael de Villarel sent in his card. A grandee.
I had asked the Marquis de Villarel to give me a few words for him, because my uncle has a great influence in his district; and the Marquis penned with his own hand some compliments and an inquiry about the spirit of the population.
Somehow they had sensed that there was something wrong; and whatever impression they might have formed for themselves I had the certitude that it would not be for them a matter of grins at my expense. That day on returning home I found Therese looking out for me, a very unusual occurrence of late. She handed me a card bearing the name of the Marquis de Villarel.
I dragged myself upstairs to bed past the indefatigable statuette holding up the ever-miserable light. The black-and-white hall was like an ice-house. The main consideration which induced me to call on the Marquis of Villarel was the fact that after all I was a discovery of Doña Rita’s, her own recruit. My fidelity and steadfastness had been guaranteed by her and no one else.
It was only proper that I should let the Carlist agent ensconced in the Prado Villa know of the sudden ending of my activities. It would be grave enough news for him, and I did not like to be its bearer for reasons which were mainly personal. I resembled Dominic in so far that I, too, disliked failure. The Marquis of Villarel had of course gone long before.
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