Part 30 (2/2)

He towered nearly half a foot above Cartaret. The nostrils of his beaked nose quivered above his bristling beard, but he kept his voice rigorously to the conversational pitch.

Cartaret, however, was in no mood to hear any more exposition of Vascongada manners and customs. He had had enough of them.

”There's no need of that,” he said. ”If I've done anything I shouldn't have done, I'm sorry. But I want you to understand that I'm to blame: _I'm_ to blame--and n.o.body else.”

Eskurola went on as if Cartaret had not spoken:

”It is not our custom to present to our ladies such casual strangers as happen to ask shelter of us; nor is it the custom of our ladies to permit such presentations, still less to seek them. Of that last fact, I say but one word more: the Dona Dolorez has been lately from home, and I fear that her contact with the outer world has temporarily dulled the edge of her native sensitiveness.”

”Look here,” said Cartaret, his hands clenched, ”if you mean to imply----”

”Sir!” The Basque's eyes snapped. ”I speak of my sister.”

”All right then. But you'd better be told a few facts, too. Paris isn't Alava. I met the Dona Dolorez in Paris. We were neighbors. What could be more natural, then, than that, when I came here----”

”Ah-h-h!” Eskurola softly interrupted. In the meshes of his beard, his red lips were smiling unpleasantly. ”So that was it! How stupid of me not to have guessed before, sir. I was sure that there had been in Paris something beside Art.”

Cartaret's impulse was to fly at the man's throat. His reason, determined to protect the woman that cared no more for him, dictated another course.

”I wanted,” he said quietly, ”to make your sister my wife.”

The effect of this statement was twofold. At first a violent anger shook the Basque, and the veins stood out in ridges along his neck and at his temples, below the red cloth bound about his head. Then, as quickly, the anger pa.s.sed and was succeeded by a look reminiscent, almost tender.

”You know that no alien can marry one of our people,” he said. ”You know that now.”

Cartaret thought again of Vitoria's parting word to him.

”I know it _now_,” he said.

”You are my guest,” Eskurola pursued. ”I shall tell you something. You have seen me only as what must seem to you a strange and hard man--perhaps a fierce and cruel man. I am the head of my ancient house; on me there depends not only its honor, but also its continuance. Sir, I exact of my relatives no less than I have already exacted of myself.”

Cartaret looked at him in amazement. Could it be possible that there had ever been in this medieval mind anything but ruthless pride of race?

”Years ago--but not so many years ago as you, sir, might suppose--there came to this house a young lady. She came here as a governess for my sister, but she was a lady, a person of birth. Also, she spoke your language.” He paused, and then went on in a still gentler voice. ”Sir, because of her, your language, barbarous as it is, has always been dear to me, and yet, still because of her, I have ever since wanted not to speak it.”

Cartaret looked at the floor. Even though this confession of a past weakness was voluntary, it seemed somehow unfair to watch, during it, the man whose pride was so strong.

”And you sent her away?” he found himself asking.

”She went when her work was finished. She went without knowing.”

Cartaret raised his eyes. There was no false a.s.sumption in the man upon whom they rested: it was impossible to believe that, seeing him thus, a woman would not love him.

”I'll go,” said Cartaret. Eskurola's words had a.s.sured him of Vitoria's safety. ”I'll go now.”

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