The room was very lofty and coldly dim; there were great bars in front
of the begrimed windows. It was very bare, containing only a long black
table, some packing cases, and half a dozen rocking chairs. Of these,
five were very new and one very old, black and heavy, with a green
leather seat and a coat of arms worked on its back cushions. There
were little heaps of mahogany sawdust here and there on the dirty tiled
floor, and a pile of sacking in one corner. Beneath a window the flap
of an open trap-door half hid a large green damp-stain; a deep recess
in the wall yawned like a cavern, and had two or three tubs in the
right corner; a man with a blond head, slightly bald as if he had been
tonsured, was rocking gently in one of the new chairs.
Opposite him, with his aged face towards us, sat the old Don asleep in
the high chair. His delicate white hands lay along the arms, one of them
holding a gold vinaigrette; his black, silver-headed cane was between
his silk-stockinged legs. The diamond buckles of his shoes shot out
little vivid rays, even in that gloomy place. The young girl was sitting
with her hands to her temples and her elbows on the long table, minutely
examining the motionlessness of a baby lizard, a tiny thing with golden
eyes, whom fear seemed to have turned into stone.
We entered quietly, and after a moment she looked up candidly into my
eyes, and placed her finger on her lips, motioning her head towards her
father. She placed her hand in mine, and whispered very clearly:
“Be welcome, my English cousin,” and then dropped her eyes again to the
lizard.
She knew all about me from Carlos. The man of whom I had seen only the
top of his head, turned his chair suddenly and glinted at me with little
blue eyes. He was rather small and round, with very firm flesh, and very
white, plump hands. He was dressed in the black clothes of a Spanish
judge. On his round face there was always a smile like that which
hangs around the jaws of a pike--only more humorous. He bowed a little
exaggeratedly to me and said:
“Ah, ye are that famous Mr. Kemp.”