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.This, she had said, was an instance of dislike from mere instinct.That dummy had been made to measure years before.It had to wear for days and days the Imperial Byzantine robes in which Doña Rita sat only once or twice herself; but of course the folds and bends of the stuff had to be preserved as in the first sketch.Doña Rita described amusingly how she had to stand in the middle of her room while Rose walked around her with a tape measure noting the figures down on a small piece of paper which was then sent to the maker, who presently returned it with an angry letter stating that those proportions were altogether impossible in any woman.Apparently Rose had muddled them all up; and it was a long time before the figure was finished and sent to the Pavilion in a long basket to take on itself the robes and the hieratic pose of the Empress.Later, it wore with the same patience the marvellous hat of the ›Girl in the Hat.‹ But Doña Rita couldn't understand how the poor thing ever found its way to Marseilles minus its turnip head.Probably it came down with the robes and a quantity of precious brocades which she herself had sent down from Paris.The knowledge of its origin, the contempt of Captain Blunt's references to it, with Therese's shocked dislike of the dummy, invested that summary reproduction with a sort of charm, gave me a faint and miserable illusion of the original, less artificial than a photograph, less precise, too.But it can't be explained.I felt positively friendly to it as if it had been Rita's trusted personal attendant.I even went so far as to discover that it had a sort of grace of its own.But I never went so far as to address set speeches to it where it lurked shyly in its corner, or drag it out from there for contemplation.I left it in peace.I wasn't mad.I was only convinced that I soon would be.IINotwithstanding my misanthropy I had to see a few people on account of all these Royalist affairs which I couldn't very well drop, and in truth did not wish to drop.They were my excuse for remaining in Europe, which somehow I had not the strength of mind to leave for the West Indies, or elsewhere.On the other hand, my adventurous pursuit kept me in contact with the sea where I found occupation, protection, consolation, the mental relief of grappling with concrete problems, the sanity one acquires from close contact with simple mankind, a little self-confidence born from the dealings with the elemental powers of nature.I couldn't give all that up.And besides all this was related to Doña Rita.I had, as it were, received it from her own hand, from that hand the clasp of which was as frank as a man's and yet conveyed a unique sensation.The very memory of it would go through me like a wave of heat.It was over that hand that we first got into the habit of quarrelling, with the irritability of sufferers from some obscure pain and yet half unconscious of their disease.Rita's own spirit hovered over the troubled waters of Legitimity.But as to the sound of the four magic letters of her name I was not very likely to hear it fall sweetly on my ear.For instance, the distinguished personality in the world of finance with whom I had to confer several times, alluded to the irresistible seduction of the power which reigned over my heart and my mind; which had a mysterious and unforgettable face, the brilliance of sunshine together with the unfathomable splendour of the night as – Madame de Lastaola.That's how that steel-grey man called the greatest mystery of the universe.When uttering that assumed name he would make for himself a guardedly solemn and reserved face as though he were afraid lest I should presume to smile, lest he himself should venture to smile, and the sacred formality of our relations should be outraged beyond mending.He would refer in a studiously grave tone to Madame de Lastaola's wishes, plans, activities, instructions, movements; or picking up a letter from the usual litter of paper found on such men's desks, glance at it to refresh his memory; and, while the very sight of the handwriting would make my lips go dry, would ask me in a bloodless voice whether perchance I had ›a direct communication from – er – Paris lately.‹ And there would be other maddening circumstances connected with those visits
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