第18章

..Of course, if she were a toothless old woman...But, you see, she isn't.The ushers in all the ministries bow down to the ground therefore, and voices from the innermost sanctums take on an eager tone when they say, 'Faites entrer.' My mother knows something about it.She has followed her career with the greatest attention.And Rita herself is not even surprised.She accomplishes most extraordinary things, as naturally as buying a pair of gloves.People in the shops are very polite and people in the world are like people in the shops.What did she know of the world? She had seen it only from the saddle.Oh, she will get your cargo released for you all right.How will she do it?..

Well, when it's done - you follow me, Mills? - when it's done she will hardly know herself.""It's hardly possible that she shouldn't be aware," Mills pronounced calmly.

"No, she isn't an idiot," admitted Mr.Blunt, in the same matter-of-fact voice."But she confessed to myself only the other day that she suffered from a sense of unreality.I told her that at any rate she had her own feelings surely.And she said to me:

Yes, there was one of them at least about which she had no doubt;and you will never guess what it was.Don't try.I happen to know, because we are pretty good friends."At that moment we all changed our attitude slightly.Mills'

staring eyes moved for a glance towards Blunt, I, who was occupying the divan, raised myself on the cushions a little and Mr.Blunt, with half a turn, put his elbow on the table.

"I asked her what it was.I don't see," went on Mr.Blunt, with a perfectly horrible gentleness, "why I should have shown particular consideration to the heiress of Mr.Allegre.I don't mean to that particular mood of hers.It was the mood of weariness.And so she told me.It's fear.I will say it once again: Fear...."He added after a pause, "There can be not the slightest doubt of her courage.But she distinctly uttered the word fear."There was under the table the noise of Mills stretching his legs.

"A person of imagination," he began, "a young, virgin intelligence, steeped for nearly five years in the talk of Allegre's studio, where every hard truth had been cracked and every belief had been worried into shreds.They were like a lot of intellectual dogs, you know...""Yes, yes, of course," Blunt interrupted hastily, "the intellectual personality altogether adrift, a soul without a home...but I, who am neither very fine nor very deep, I am convinced that the fear is material.""Because she confessed to it being that?" insinuated Mills.

"No, because she didn't," contradicted Blunt, with an angry frown and in an extremely suave voice."In fact, she bit her tongue.

And considering what good friends we are (under fire together and all that) I conclude that there is nothing there to boast of.

Neither is my friendship, as a matter of fact."Mills' face was the very perfection of indifference.But I who was looking at him, in my innocence, to discover what it all might mean, I had a notion that it was perhaps a shade too perfect.

"My leave is a farce," Captain Blunt burst out, with a most unexpected exasperation."As an officer of Don Carlos, I have no more standing than a bandit.I ought to have been interned in those filthy old barracks in Avignon a long time ago...Why am Inot? Because Dona Rita exists and for no other reason on earth.

Of course it's known that I am about.She has only to whisper over the wires to the Minister of the Interior, 'Put that bird in a cage for me,' and the thing would be done without any more formalities than that...Sad world this," he commented in a changed tone.

"Nowadays a gentleman who lives by his sword is exposed to that sort of thing."It was then for the first time I heard Mr.Mills laugh.It was a deep, pleasant, kindly note, not very loud and altogether free from that quality of derision that spoils so many laughs and gives away the secret hardness of hearts.But neither was it a very joyous laugh.