I don’t mean to say that those thoughts passed through my head consciously. I had only the resultant, settled feeling. I had, however, a thought, too. It came on me suddenly, and I asked myself with rage and astonishment: “Must I then kill that brute?” There didn’t seem to be any alternative. Between him and Doña Rita I couldn’t hesitate. I believe I gave a slight laugh of desperation. The suddenness of this sinister conclusion had in it something comic and unbelievable. It loosened my grip on my mental processes. A Latin tag came into my head about the facile descent into the abyss. I marvelled at its aptness, and also that it should have come to me so pat. But I believe now that it was suggested simply by the actual declivity of the street of the Consuls which lies on a gentle slope. We had just turned the corner. All the houses were dark and in a perspective of complete solitude our two shadows dodged and wheeled about our feet. “Here we are,” I said. He was an extraordinarily chilly devil. When we stopped I could hear his teeth chattering again. I don’t know what came over me, I had a sort of nervous fit, was incapable of finding my pockets, let alone the latchkey. I had the illusion of a narrow streak of light on the wall of the house as if it had been cracked. “I hope we will be able to get in,” I murmured. Señor Ortega stood waiting patiently with his handbag, like a rescued wayfarer. “But you live in this house, don’t you?” he observed. “No,” I said, without hesitation. I didn’t know how that man would behave if he were aware that I was staying under the same roof. He was half mad. He might want to talk all night, try crazily to invade my privacy. How could I tell? Moreover, I wasn’t so sure that I would remain in the house. I had some notion of going out again and walking up and down the street of the Consuls till daylight. “No, an absent friend lets me use . . . I had that latchkey this morning . . . Ah! here it is.”