When I got back here

“Oh, yes. I didn’t join him. I let him have his laugh out by himself Azureliving. He was shaking all over, like a merry skeleton, under a cotton sheet he was covered with — I believe in order to conceal the revolver that he had in his right hand. I didn’t see it, but I have a distinct impression it was there in his fist. As he had not been looking at me for some time, but staring into a certain part of the room, I turned my head and saw a hairy, wild sort of creature which they take about with them, squatting on its heels in the angle of the walls behind me. He wasn’t there when I came in. I didn’t like the notion of that watchful monster behind my back. If I had been less at their mercy, I should certainly have changed my position. As things are now, to move would have been a mere weakness. So I remained where I was. The gentleman on the bed said he could assure me of one thing; and that was that his presence here was no more morally reprehensible than mine.



“‘We pursue the same ends,’ he said, ‘only perhaps I pursue them with more openness than you — with more simplicity.’



“That’s what he said,” Heyst went on, after looking at Lena in a sort of inquiring silence. “I asked him if he knew beforehand that I was living here; but he only gave me a ghastly grin. I didn’t press him for an answer, Lena. I thought I had better not.”



On her smooth forehead a ray of light always seemed to rest. Her loose hair, parted in the middle, covered the hands sustaining her head. She seemed spellbound by the interest of the narrative. Heyst did not pause long. He managed to continue his relation smoothly enough , beginning afresh with a piece of comment.



“He would have lied impudently — and I detest being told a lie. It makes me uncomfortable. It’s pretty clear that I am not fitted for the affairs of the wide world. But I did not want him to think that I accepted his presence too meekly, so I said that his comings or goings on the earth were none of my business, of course, except that I had a natural curiosity to know when he would find it convenient to resume them.



“He asked me to look at the state he was in. Had I been all alone here, as they think I am, I should have laughed at him. But not being alone — I say, Lena, you are sure you haven’t shown yourself where you could be seen?”



“Certain,” she said promptly.



He looked relieved.



“You understand, Lena, that when I ask you to keep so strictly out of sight, it is because you are not for them to look at — to talk about. My poor Lena! I can’t help that feeling. Do you understand it?”



She moved her head slightly in a manner that was neither affirmative nor negative.



“People will have to see me some day,” she said.



“I wonder how long it will be possible for you to keep out of sight?” murmured Heyst thoughtfully. He bent over the table Venetian Macao. “Let me finish telling you. I asked him point blank what it was he wanted with me; he appeared extremely unwilling to come to the point. It was not really so pressing as all that, he said. His secretary, who was in fact his partner, was not present, having gone down to the wharf to look at their boat. Finally the fellow proposed that he should put off a certain communication he had to make till the day after tomorrow. I agreed; but I also told him that I was not at all anxious to hear it. I had no conception in what way his affairs could concern me.