For what I could not have said, inasmuch as it was not in my mind that I might commit a theft.Even if it had been I was confronted with the evident fact that Miss Bordereau did not leave her secretary, her cupboard, and the drawers of her tables gaping.I had no keys, no tools, and no ambition to smash her furniture.Nonetheless it came to me that I was now, perhaps alone, unmolested, at the hour of temptation and secrecy, nearer to the tormenting treasure than I had ever been.
I held up my lamp, let the light play on the different objects as if it could tell me something.Still there came no movement from the other room.
If Miss Tita was sleeping she was sleeping sound.Was she doing so--generous creature--on purpose to leave me the field? Did she know I was there and was she just keeping quiet to see what I would do--what I COULD do? But what could I do, when it came to that?
She herself knew even better than I how little.
I stopped in front of the secretary, looking at it very idiotically; for what had it to say to me after all?
In the first place it was locked, and in the second it almost surely contained nothing in which I was interested.
Ten to one the papers had been destroyed; and even if they had not been destroyed the old woman would not have put them in such a place as that after removing them from the green trunk--would not have transferred them, if she had the idea of their safety on her brain, from the better hiding place to the worse.
The secretary was more conspicuous, more accessible in a room in which she could no longer mount guard.
It opened with a key, but there was a little brass handle, like a button, as well; I saw this as I played my lamp over it.
I did something more than this at that moment:
I caught a glimpse of the possibility that Miss Tita wished me really to understand.If she did not wish me to understand, if she wished me to keep away, why had she not locked the door of communication between the sitting room and the sala? That would have been a definite sign that I was to leave them alone.
If I did not leave them alone she meant me to come for a purpose--a purpose now indicated by the quick, fantastic idea that to oblige me she had unlocked the secretary.She had not left the key, but the lid would probably move if I touched the button.
This theory fascinated me, and I bent over very close to judge.
I did not propose to do anything, not even--not in the least--to let down the lid; I only wanted to test my theory, to see if the cover WOULD move.I touched the button with my hand--a mere touch would tell me; and as I did so (it is embarrassing for me to relate it), I looked over my shoulder.
It was a chance, an instinct, for I had not heard anything.
I almost let my luminary drop and certainly I stepped back, straightening myself up at what I saw.Miss Bordereau stood there in her nightdress, in the doorway of her room, watching me;her hands were raised, she had lifted the everlasting curtain that covered half her face, and for the first, the last, the only time I beheld her extraordinary eyes.
They glared at me, they made me horribly ashamed.
I never shall forget her strange little bent white tottering figure, with its lifted head, her attitude, her expression;neither shall I forget the tone in which as I turned, looking at her, she hissed out passionately, furiously:
"Ah, you publishing scoundrel!"
I know not what I stammered, to excuse myself, to explain;but I went toward her, to tell her I meant no harm.
She waved me off with her old hands, retreating before me in horror;and the next thing I knew she had fallen back with a quick spasm, as if death had descended on her, into Miss Tita's arms.