Nevertheless I could not sleep on my hard but clean pillows, for wondering
about that look of Monica’s, and its meaning; and whenever I shut my eyes,
hordes of red and yellow figures poured out of white houses upon white
roads, forming irritating, kaleidoscopic patterns on my tired retina.
Each hour that passed was cried by the watchman, far away, and then close
under my window; a fearsome cry like a groan of agony uttered by a madman
in a dying spasm.
I was glad when morning came; and after such a bath as two or three
miniature jugs of water afforded (the deer-eyed boy wondered in the name
of all the saints what I could do with so many), I threw off the
brain-clouds of a sleepless night.
Before long Monica would have my letter. She would know—if she could have
doubted—that if I had loved her at first, I worshipped her now. She would
know why we had not followed more closely yesterday; and why—unless
Carmona chose to accept our help again—we would go on before the grey car
to-day. She would know also that my most earnest hope was to take her
away, out of the reach of harm.
I was dressed, and had had my coffee and hard, fat roll of Spanish bread,
by half-past seven, as I was sure Ropes would be wanting to see me. I
would not have disturbed Dick, who slept in a room across the _patio_, but
I found him in the dining-room, wrestling with a glass of thick chocolate
and a finger-shaped sweet biscuit. “I’m trying to like Spanish customs,”
said he.