The fortune of the house included a pair of gray-blue watchful eyes that
would see to that. But I felt, somehow, as grimy as a Costaguana lepero
after a day's fighting in the streets, rumpled all over and dishevelled
down to my very heels. And I am afraid I blinked stupidly. All this was
bad for the honour of letters and the dignity of their service. Seen
indistinctly through the dust of my collapsed universe, the good lady
glanced about the room with a slightly amused serenity. And she was
smiling. What on earth was she smiling at? She remarked casually:
"I am afraid I interrupted you."
"Not at all."
She accepted the denial in perfect good faith. And it was strictly true.
Interrupted--indeed! She had robbed me of at least twenty lives, each
infinitely more poignant and real than her own, because informed with
passion, possessed of convictions, involved in great affairs created out
of my own substance for an anxiously meditated end.
She remained silent for a while, then said, with a last glance all round
at the litter of the fray:
"And you sit like this here writing your--your . . ."
"I--what? Oh, yes! I sit here all day."
"It must be perfectly delightful.
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