I wanted the man to talk and to talk about her, and I must confess what
I did not at the moment realize that my desire found its source more in
personal resentment against any confidential passages that may have
taken place between those two, than in my plain duty to the cause I was
serving.
There are many kinds of jealousy, and each kind will find its
expression through innumerable channels. If I had been charged with
jealousy at that moment, I would have repudiated the suggestion with
scorn and contempt; and yet I was jealous.
I had thought rather deeply upon this approaching conversation with
Morét, while on my way to interview him, but I was no nearer to a
determination regarding what I should say to him, when I entered the
room he occupied in the prison, than I had been when the idea first
occurred to me. Now when I entered the room where he was imprisoned, I
said: "Why is it, Morét, that you have never taken any further advantage of
my promise that you could write and send letters?"
"There is no one with whom I care to communicate," he replied.
"Not even with the princess?" I asked the question idly, watching him
from between half closed lids.
"With what princess?" he asked calmly, and without a trace of surprise
or resentment in his perfectly trained countenance.
"Zara de Echeveria," I said, coldly.
"I do not know her."
"No! She knows you."
"Indeed? It is an honor to be known by a princess."
"I have it from her own lips that she is responsible for your presence
in the palace."
"Then surely there is no need to interview me on the subject." He was
thoroughly my equal in this play-of-words.
"She was told in my presence that you were dead. Would you not like to
hear what she said in reply?" I asked him.
"If you care to tell me."
"She said that it was better so; that if you lived you would have
betrayed all your friends--including her; that in fact you were more
fool than knave."
"She is not complimentary; but as I do not know her, it makes no
difference." Nothing could have been more composed than Morét's manner
was.
"You will not discuss her?"
"I would if I could, but I do not know her, monsieur."
"Well, Morét, I like your loyalty, even to one who has used you as a
mere tool, and who is now rejoiced to learn that you are dead, and out
of her way, with the dangerous secrets you possess. I am going to her
as soon as I leave you; perhaps she will talk about you again."
Morét stared at me unwinkingly, but with a countenance that was like
marble in its intensity. I knew that he was suffering, and that my
words were the cause of his agony. I knew that I was prodding him
deeply and severely, thrusting the iron into his soul with as little
compunction as a Mexican charo exerts when he "cinches" a heavily
burdened burro. But I was doing it with malice prepense, and I was
doing it for a purpose.