Dona Rita looked at us all in turn, with surprise and, as it were,
with suspicion. "How did he know I was here?" she whispered after
looking at the card which was brought to her. She passed it to
Blunt, who passed it to Mills, who made a faint grimace, dropped it
on the table-cloth, and only whispered to me, "A journalist from
Paris."

"He has run me to earth," said Dona Rita. "One would bargain for
peace against hard cash if these fellows weren't always ready to
snatch at one's very soul with the other hand. It frightens me."

Her voice floated mysterious and penetrating from her lips, which
moved very little. Mills was watching her with sympathetic
curiosity. Mr. Blunt muttered: "Better not make the brute angry."
For a moment Dona Rita's face, with its narrow eyes, its wide brow,
and high cheek bones, became very still; then her colour was a
little heightened. "Oh," she said softly, "let him come in. He
would be really dangerous if he had a mind--you know," she said to
Mills.

The person who had provoked all those remarks and as much
hesitation as though he had been some sort of wild beast astonished
me on being admitted, first by the beauty of his white head of hair
and then by his paternal aspect and the innocent simplicity of his
manner. They laid a cover for him between Mills and Dona Rita, who
quite openly removed the envelopes she had brought with her, to the
other side of her plate. As openly the man's round china-blue eyes
followed them in an attempt to make out the handwriting of the
addresses.