The Four Corners of the World. A. E. W. Mason

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СКАЧАТЬ for a fool as once more I enthroned her. Her face had grown smaller, her eyes bigger. There was a look of spirituality which I had not seen before. I had noticed the signs, and I had misread them. Her lassitude this evening, her vain struggle with the police, her apathy under their treatment of her, were all explained. Not her courage, but her body had failed her. She was starving.

      A tray was brought in and placed before her. She dried her eyes and with a sigh she drew her chair in to the table and ate, indifferent to the presence of Ballester, of the officer who remained at the door, and of myself. Ballester stood and watched her. "Good Heavens!" he said again softly, and going to her side he filled her glass with champagne.

      She nodded her thanks and raised it to her lips almost before he had finished pouring. A little colour came into her cheeks and she turned again to her supper. She was a healthy girl. There never had been anything of the drooping lily about Olivia. She had always taken an interest in her meals, however dainty she might look. The knowledge of that made her starvation doubly cruel--not only to her. Juan sat down opposite to her. There was no doubt now about the remorse in his face. He never took his eyes from her as she ate. Once she looked up and saw him watching her.

      "But you knew," she said. "I was alone in the house. How much money did you leave there for me when you took my father away? A few dollars which your men had not discovered."

      "But you yourself----" he stammered.

      "I was at a ball," said Olivia scornfully. "How much money does a girl take with her to a ball? Where would she put it?"

      There was no answer to that question.

      "The next day I went to the bank," she continued. "My father's money was impounded. You had seen to that. All the unpaid bills came in in a stream. I couldn't pay them. I could get no credit. You had seen to that. My friends left me alone. Of course I starved; you knew that I should. You meant me to," and, with the air of one who has been wasting time, she turned again to her supper.

      "I never thought that you would hold out," stammered Ballester. I had never seen him in an apologetic mood before, and he looked miserable. "I hadn't seen that you were starving."

      Olivia looked up at him. It was not so much that her face relented, as that it showed an interest in something beyond her supper.

      "Yes," she said, nodding at him. "I think that's true. You hadn't seen with your own eyes that I was starving. So my starving wasn't very real to you."

      Ballester changed her plate and filled her glass again.

      "Ah!" said Olivia with satisfaction, hitching up her chair still closer. She was really having a good square meal.

      "But why didn't you tell me?" I asked.

      "I told no one," said Olivia, shaking her head. "I thought that I could manage till to-night. Once or twice I called on the Gimenos at luncheon-time, and I had one or two dollars. No; I would tell no one."

      "Yes," said Juan, "I understand that. It's the reason why I wanted you." And at this sign of his comprehension of her, Olivia again looked at him, and again the interest in her eyes was evident.

      At last she pushed back her chair. The tray was removed. Ballester offered her a cigarette. She smiled faintly as she took it. Certainly her supper had done her a world of good. She lit her cigarette and leaned her elbows on the table.

      "And now," she said, "what do you mean to do with me?"

      Ballester went to his bureau, wrote on a sheet of paper and brought the paper to Olivia.

      "You can show this at the railway-station to-morrow," he said, and he laid the permit on the table and turned away.

      Women are not reasonable people. For the second time that night Olivia forced me to contemplate that trite reflection. For now that she had got what she had suffered hunger and indignities to get, she merely played with it with the tips of her fingers, looking now upon the table, now at Juan Ballester's back, and now upon the table again.

      "And you?" she said gently. "What will become of you?"

      I suppose Ballester was the only one in the room who did not notice the softness of her voice. To me it was extraordinary. He had tortured her with hunger, exposed her to the gentle methods of his police, yet the fact that he did these things because he wanted her seemed to make him suddenly valuable to her now that she was free of him.

      Ballester turned round and leaned against the wall with his hands in his pockets.

      "I?" he said. "I shall just stay on alone here until some day someone gets stronger than I am, perhaps, and puts me up against the wall outside----"

      "Oh, no!" cried Olivia, interrupting him.

      "Well, one never knows," said his Excellency, shrugging his shoulders. He turned to the window and drew aside the curtains. The morning had come. It was broad daylight outside.

      "Unless, Olivia," he added, turning again towards her, "you will reconsider your refusal to marry me. Together we could do great things."

      It was the most splendid performance of the grand gentleman which Ballester ever gave. And he knew it. You could see him preening himself as he spoke. His gesture was as noble as his words. From head to foot he was the perfect cavalier, and consciousness of the perfection of his chivalry shone out from him like a nimbus. I looked quickly towards Olivia--in some alarm for Harry Vandeleur. She had lowered her head, so that it was impossible to see how she had taken Ballester's honourable amendment. But when she raised her head again a smile of satisfaction was just disappearing from her face; and the smile betrayed her. She had been playing for this revenge from the moment when she had finished her supper.

      "I am honoured, Señor Juan," she said sedately, "but I am already promised."

      Ballester turned abruptly away. Whether he had seen the smile, whether, if he had seen it, he understood it, I never knew.

      "You had better get the Señorita a carriage," he said to the officer at the door. As the man went out, the music from the ballroom floated in. Juan Ballester hesitated, and no shock which Olivia had given to me came near the shock which his next words produced.

      "Don Santiago shall have his money. You can draw on it, Señorita, to-morrow, before you go."

      "Thank you," she said.

      The messenger reappeared. A carriage was waiting. Olivia rose and looked at Juan timidly. He walked ceremoniously to the door and held it open.

      "Good night," she said.

      He bowed and smiled in a friendly fashion enough, but he did not answer. It seemed that he had spoken his last word to her. She hesitated and went out. At once the President took a quick step towards me.

      "Do you know what is said to-night?" he said violently.

      I drew back. I could not think what he meant. To tell the truth, I found him rather alarming.

      "No," I answered.

      "Why, that I have given this party as a farewell; that I am still going to bolt from Maldivia. Do you see? I have spent all this money for nothing."

      I drew a breath of relief. His violence was not СКАЧАТЬ