“Yes,” said Mills, very steady before her fire.  “But you have at your service the everlasting charm of life; you are a part of the indestructible.”

“Am I? . . .  But there is no arm about me now.  The laugh!  Where is my laugh?  Give me back my laugh. . . .”

And she laughed a little on a low note.  I don’t know about Mills, but the subdued shadowy vibration of it echoed in my breast which felt empty for a moment and like a large space that makes one giddy.

“The laugh is gone out of my heart, which at any rate used to feel protected.  That feeling’s gone, too.  And I myself will have to die some day.”

“Certainly,” said Mills in an unaltered voice.  “As to this body you . . .”

“Oh, yes!  Thanks.  It’s a very poor jest.  Change from body to body as travellers used to change horses at post houses.  I’ve heard of this before. . . .”

“I’ve no doubt you have,” Mills put on a submissive air.  “But are we to hear any more about Azzolati?”

“You shall.  Listen.  I had heard that he was invited to shoot at Rambouillet—­a quiet party, not one of these great shoots.  I hear a lot of things.  I wanted to have a certain information, also certain hints conveyed to a diplomatic personage who was to be there, too.  A personage that would never let me get in touch with him though I had tried many times.”

“Incredible!” mocked Mills solemnly.

“The personage mistrusts his own susceptibility.  Born cautious,” explained Dona Rita crisply with the slightest possible quiver of her lips.  “Suddenly I had the inspiration to make use of Azzolati, who had been reminding me by a constant stream of messages that he was an old friend.  I never took any notice of those pathetic appeals before.  But in this emergency I sat down and wrote a note asking him to come and dine with me in my hotel.  I suppose you know I don’t live in the Pavilion.  I can’t bear the Pavilion now.  When I have to go there I begin to feel after an hour or so that it is haunted.  I seem to catch sight of somebody I know behind columns, passing through doorways, vanishing here and there.  I hear light footsteps behind closed doors. . .  My own!”

Her eyes, her half-parted lips, remained fixed till Mills suggested softly, “Yes, but Azzolati.”

Her rigidity vanished like a flake of snow in the sunshine.  “Oh!  Azzolati.  It was a most solemn affair.  It had occurred to me to make a very elaborate toilet.  It was most successful.  Azzolati looked positively scared for a moment as though he had got into the wrong suite of rooms.  He had never before seen me en toilette, you understand.  In the old days once out of my riding habit I would never dress.  I draped myself, you remember, Monsieur Mills.  To go about like that suited my indolence, my longing to feel free in my body, as at that time when I used to herd goats. . .  But never mind.  My aim was to impress Azzolati.  I wanted to talk to him seriously.”