第75章

She is awful.I said to her, 'Rita, have you sold your soul to the Devil?' and she shouted like a fiend: 'For happiness! Ha, ha, ha!' She threw herself backwards on that couch in your room and laughed and laughed and laughed as if I had been tickling her, and she drummed on the floor with the heels of her shoes.She is possessed.Oh, my dear innocent young Monsieur, you have never seen anything like that.That wicked girl who serves her rushed in with a tiny glass bottle and put it to her nose; but I had a mind to run out and fetch the priest from the church where I go to early mass.Such a nice, stout, severe man.But that false, cheating creature (I am sure she is robbing our Rita from morning to night), she talked to our Rita very low and quieted her down.I am sure Idon't know what she said.She must be leagued with the devil.And then she asked me if I would go down and make a cup of chocolate for her Madame.Madame - that's our Rita.Madame! It seems they were going off directly to Paris and her Madame had had nothing to eat since the morning of the day before.Fancy me being ordered to make chocolate for our Rita! However, the poor thing looked so exhausted and white-faced that I went.Ah! the devil can give you an awful shake up if he likes."Therese fetched another deep sigh and raising her eyes looked at me with great attention.I preserved an inscrutable expression, for Iwanted to hear all she had to tell me of Rita.I watched her with the greatest anxiety composing her face into a cheerful expression.

"So Dona Rita is gone to Paris?" I asked negligently.

"Yes, my dear Monsieur.I believe she went straight to the railway station from here.When she first got up from the couch she could hardly stand.But before, while she was drinking the chocolate which I made for her, I tried to get her to sign a paper giving over the house to me, but she only closed her eyes and begged me to try and be a good sister and leave her alone for half an hour.And she lying there looking as if she wouldn't live a day.But she always hated me."I said bitterly, "You needn't have worried her like this.If she had not lived for another day you would have had this house and everything else besides; a bigger bit than even your wolfish throat can swallow, Mademoiselle Therese."I then said a few more things indicative of my disgust with her rapacity, but they were quite inadequate, as I wasn't able to find words strong enough to express my real mind.But it didn't matter really because I don't think Therese heard me at all.She seemed lost in rapt amazement.

"What do you say, my dear Monsieur? What! All for me without any sort of paper?"She appeared distracted by my curt: "Yes." Therese believed in my truthfulness.She believed me implicitly, except when I was telling her the truth about herself, mincing no words, when she used to stand smilingly bashful as if I were overwhelming her with compliments.I expected her to continue the horrible tale but apparently she had found something to think about which checked the flow.She fetched another sigh and muttered:

"Then the law can be just, if it does not require any paper.After all, I am her sister.""It's very difficult to believe that - at sight," I said roughly.

"Ah, but that I could prove.There are papers for that."After this declaration she began to clear the table, preserving a thoughtful silence.

I was not very surprised at the news of Dona Rita's departure for Paris.It was not necessary to ask myself why she had gone.Ididn't even ask myself whether she had left the leased Villa on the Prado for ever.Later talking again with Therese, I learned that her sister had given it up for the use of the Carlist cause and that some sort of unofficial Consul, a Carlist agent of some sort, either was going to live there or had already taken possession.

This, Rita herself had told her before her departure on that agitated morning spent in the house - in my rooms.A close investigation demonstrated to me that there was nothing missing from them.Even the wretched match-box which I really hoped was gone turned up in a drawer after I had, delightedly, given it up.

It was a great blow.She might have taken that at least! She knew I used to carry it about with me constantly while ashore.She might have taken it! Apparently she meant that there should be no bond left even of that kind; and yet it was a long time before Igave up visiting and revisiting all the corners of all possible receptacles for something that she might have left behind on purpose.It was like the mania of those disordered minds who spend their days hunting for a treasure.I hoped for a forgotten hairpin, for some tiny piece of ribbon.Sometimes at night Ireflected that such hopes were altogether insensate; but I remember once getting up at two in the morning to search for a little cardboard box in the bathroom, into which, I remembered, I had not looked before.Of course it was empty; and, anyway, Rita could not possibly have known of its existence.I got back to bed shivering violently, though the night was warm, and with a distinct impression that this thing would end by making me mad.It was no longer a question of "this sort of thing" killing me.The moral atmosphere of this torture was different.It would make me mad.