“Come, _amigo_ George, let us leave poor Rose alone. You had better tell me what you heard from the lips of the charming old lady. Perfection, isn’t she? I have never seen her in my life, though she says she has seen me several times. But she has written to me on three separate occasions and every time I answered her as if I were writing to a queen. _Amigo_ George, how does one write to a queen? How should a goatherd that could have been mistress of a king, how should she write to an old queen from very far away; from over the sea?” “I will ask you as I have asked the old queen: why do you tell me all this, Doña Rita?” “To discover what’s in your mind,” she said, a little impatiently. “If you don’t know that yet!” I exclaimed under my breath. “No, not in your mind. Can any one ever tell what is in a man’s mind? But I see you won’t tell.” “What’s the good? You have written to her before, I understand. Do you think of continuing the correspondence?” “Who knows?” she said in a profound tone. “She is the only woman that ever wrote to me. I returned her three letters to her with my last answer, explaining humbly that I preferred her to burn them herself. And I thought that would be the end of it. But an occasion may still arise.” “Oh, if an occasion arises,” I said, trying to control my rage, “you may be able to begin your letter by the words ‘_Chère Maman_.’” The cigarette box, which she had taken up without removing her eyes from me, flew out of her hand and opening in mid-air scattered cigarettes for quite a surprising distance all over the room. I got up at once and wandered off picking them up industriously. Doña Rita’s voice behind me said indifferently: “Don’t trouble, I will ring for Rose.” “No need,” I growled, without turning my head, “I can find my hat in the hall by myself, after I’ve finished picking up . . . ” “Bear!” I returned with the box and placed it on the divan near her. She sat cross-legged, leaning back on her arms, in the blue shimmer of her embroidered robe and with the tawny halo of her unruly hair about her face which she raised to mine with an air of resignation. “George, my friend,” she said, “we have no manners.” “You would never have made a career at court, Doña Rita,” I observed. “You are too impulsive.” “This is not bad manners, that’s sheer insolence. This has happened to you before. If it happens again, as I can’t be expected to wrestle with a savage and desperate smuggler single-handed, I will go upstairs and lock myself in my room till you leave the house. Why did you say this to me?” “Oh, just for nothing, out of a full heart.”