Page:Edmund Dulac's picture-book for the French Red cross.djvu/139

BLUE BEARD are eight! And I have a throat as well as they, as sure as iron spikes have points.'

There was only a dim light in the hall, so that Blue Beard could not see her trembling condition; and if, when she greeted him, he felt that her body was quaking, he was fond enough to put it down to joy at his unexpected return. And Fatima, taking cover in this, behaved in an excited manner, like one so delighted to see her husband back again that she did not know what she was doing. She ran hither and thither, ordering this and that to be done, and then countermanding the orders, doing this or that herself, and then immediately undoing it again,—behaving, in short, like one demented with excitement, until Blue Beard smiled and stroked his beard, and thought she was a wonderful little bundle of delight.

And so, through such artfulness long sustained, it transpired that the question of the keys did not arise all that night, nor, indeed, until late the following day, when, as ominous as a thunder-clap, came a summons from Blue Beard that Fatima should attend him immediately on the terrace. With a wildly beating heart she hastened to answer the summons.

'I want my keys,' he said in the usual manner of a man. 'Where are they?'

'The keys?—Oh yes; the keys. I—I will go and fetch them immediately.'

Fatima ran off, and you can imagine her thoughts and feelings as she went. Blue Beard remained—he was always a grim figure — standing as she had left him,—just waiting: his thoughts and feelings were in his beard.

Presently Fatima returned, purposely out of breath in order to hide whatever confusion she might feel, and handed the bunch of keys to her husband. He took them without a word, looked at them carefully, and then slowly turned his eyes upon her.

'The key of the room at the end of the corridor,' he said grimly, 'it is not here: where is it?'

'The key of the—— Oh; you mean the key of the——' 93