. . .  In the afternoon to the Prado.  Beautiful day.  At the moment of ringing at the door a strong emotion of an anxious kind.  Why?  Down the length of the dining-room in the rotunda part full of afternoon light Dona R., sitting cross-legged on the divan in the attitude of a very old idol or a very young child and surrounded by many cushions, waves her hand from afar pleasantly surprised, exclaiming:  “What!  Back already!” I give her all the details and we talk for two hours across a large brass bowl containing a little water placed between us, lighting cigarettes and dropping them, innumerable, puffed at, yet untasted in the overwhelming interest of the conversation.  Found her very quick in taking the points and very intelligent in her suggestions.  All formality soon vanished between us and before very long I discovered myself sitting cross-legged, too, while I held forth on the qualities of different Mediterranean sailing craft and on the romantic qualifications of Dominic for the task.  I believe I gave her the whole history of the man, mentioning even the existence of Madame Leonore, since the little cafe would have to be the headquarters of the marine part of the plot.

She murmured, “Ah!  Une belle Romaine,” thoughtfully.  She told me that she liked to hear people of that sort spoken of in terms of our common humanity.  She observed also that she wished to see Dominic some day; to set her eyes for once on a man who could be absolutely depended on.  She wanted to know whether he had engaged himself in this adventure solely for my sake.

I said that no doubt it was partly that.  We had been very close associates in the West Indies from where we had returned together, and he had a notion that I could be depended on, too.  But mainly, I suppose, it was from taste.  And there was in him also a fine carelessness as to what he did and a love of venturesome enterprise.

“And you,” she said.  “Is it carelessness, too?”

“In a measure,” I said.  “Within limits.”

“And very soon you will get tired.”

“When I do I will tell you.  But I may also get frightened.  I suppose you know there are risks, I mean apart from the risk of life.”

“As for instance,” she said.

“For instance, being captured, tried, and sentenced to what they call ‘the galleys,’ in Ceuta.”

“And all this from that love for . . .”

“Not for Legitimacy,” I interrupted the inquiry lightly.  “But what’s the use asking such questions?  It’s like asking the veiled figure of fate.  It doesn’t know its own mind nor its own heart.  It has no heart.  But what if I were to start asking you—­who have a heart and are not veiled to my sight?” She dropped her charming adolescent head, so firm in modelling, so gentle in expression.  Her uncovered neck was round like the shaft of a column.  She wore the same wrapper of thick blue silk.  At that time she seemed to live either in her riding