Page:Arrow of Gold.djvu/366

 Yes, every day, for two months. Sixty times at least, sixty times at least." Her voice was rising high.  She was struggling against laughter, but when I tried to put my hand over her lips I felt her face wet with tears.  She turned it this way and that, eluding my hand with repressed low, little moans.  I lost my caution and said, "Be quiet," so sharply as to startle myself (and her, too) into expectant stillness.

Ortega's voice in the hall asked distinctly: "Eh?  What's this?" and then he kept still on his side listening, but he must have thought that his ears had deceived him. He was getting tired, too. He was keeping quiet out there--resting. Presently he sighed deeply; then in a harsh melancholy tone he started again.

"My love, my soul, my life, do speak to me. What am I that you should take so much trouble to pretend that you aren't there?  Do speak to me," he repeated tremulously, following this mechanical appeal with a string of extravagantly endearing names, some of them quite childish, which all of a sudden stopped dead; and then after a pause there came a distinct, unutterably weary: "What shall I do now?" as though he were speaking to himself.

I shuddered to hear rising from the floor, by my side, a vibrating, scornful: "Do!  Why, slink off home looking over your shoulder as you used to years ago when I had done with you--all but the laughter."

"Rita," I murmured, appalled. He must have been struck dumb for a moment. Then, goodness only knows why, in his dismay or rage he was moved to speak in French with a most ridiculous accent.

"So you have found your tongue at last--Catin!