第9章

He was furious.He asked me to tell my mother that this was the last effort of his chivalry.The jobs she gave him to do were too difficult.But I daresay he had been pleased enough to show the influence he had in that quarter.He knew my mother would tell the world's wife all about it.He's a spiteful, gingery little wretch.

The top of his head shines like a billiard ball.I believe he polishes it every morning with a cloth.Of course they didn't get further than the big drawing-room on the first floor, an enormous drawing-room with three pairs of columns in the middle.The double doors on the top of the staircase had been thrown wide open, as if for a visit from royalty.You can picture to yourself my mother, with her white hair done in some 18th century fashion and her sparkling black eyes, penetrating into those splendours attended by a sort of bald-headed, vexed squirrel - and Henry Allegre coming forward to meet them like a severe prince with the face of a tombstone Crusader, big white hands, muffled silken voice, half-shut eyes, as if looking down at them from a balcony.You remember that trick of his, Mills?"Mills emitted an enormous cloud of smoke out of his distended cheeks.

"I daresay he was furious, too," Blunt continued dispassionately.

"But he was extremely civil.He showed her all the 'treasures' in the room, ivories, enamels, miniatures, all sorts of monstrosities from Japan, from India, from Timbuctoo...for all I know...He pushed his condescension so far as to have the 'Girl in the Hat'

brought down into the drawing-room - half length, unframed.They put her on a chair for my mother to look at.The 'Byzantine Empress' was already there, hung on the end wall - full length, gold frame weighing half a ton.My mother first overwhelms the 'Master' with thanks, and then absorbs herself in the adoration of the 'Girl in the Hat.' Then she sighs out: 'It should be called Diaphaneite, if there is such a word.Ah! This is the last expression of modernity!' She puts up suddenly her face-e-main and looks towards the end wall.'And that - Byzantium itself! Who was she, this sullen and beautiful Empress?'

"'The one I had in my mind was Theodosia!' Allegre consented to answer.'Originally a slave girl - from somewhere.'

"My mother can be marvellously indiscreet when the whim takes her.

She finds nothing better to do than to ask the 'Master' why he took his inspiration for those two faces from the same model.No doubt she was proud of her discerning eye.It was really clever of her.

Allegre, however, looked on it as a colossal impertinence; but he answered in his silkiest tones:

"'Perhaps it is because I saw in that woman something of the women of all time.'

"My mother might have guessed that she was on thin ice there.She is extremely intelligent.Moreover, she ought to have known.But women can be miraculously dense sometimes.So she exclaims, 'Then she is a wonder!' And with some notion of being complimentary goes on to say that only the eyes of the discoverer of so many wonders of art could have discovered something so marvellous in life.Isuppose Allegre lost his temper altogether then; or perhaps he only wanted to pay my mother out, for all these 'Masters' she had been throwing at his head for the last two hours.He insinuates with the utmost politeness:

"'As you are honouring my poor collection with a visit you may like to judge for yourself as to the inspiration of these two pictures.

She is upstairs changing her dress after our morning ride.But she wouldn't be very long.She might be a little surprised at first to be called down like this, but with a few words of preparation and purely as a matter of art...'

"There were never two people more taken aback.Versoy himself confesses that he dropped his tall hat with a crash.I am a dutiful son, I hope, but I must say I should have liked to have seen the retreat down the great staircase.Ha! Ha! Ha!"He laughed most undutifully and then his face twitched grimly.

"That implacable brute Allegre followed them down ceremoniously and put my mother into the fiacre at the door with the greatest deference.He didn't open his lips though, and made a great bow as the fiacre drove away.My mother didn't recover from her consternation for three days.I lunch with her almost daily and Icouldn't imagine what was the matter.Then one day..."He glanced round the table, jumped up and with a word of excuse left the studio by a small door in a corner.This startled me into the consciousness that I had been as if I had not existed for these two men.With his elbows propped on the table Mills had his hands in front of his face clasping the pipe from which he extracted now and then a puff of smoke, staring stolidly across the room.

I was moved to ask in a whisper:

"Do you know him well?"

"I don't know what he is driving at," he answered drily."But as to his mother she is not as volatile as all that.I suspect it was business.It may have been a deep plot to get a picture out of Allegre for somebody.My cousin as likely as not.Or simply to discover what he had.The Blunts lost all their property and in Paris there are various ways of making a little money, without actually breaking anything.Not even the law.And Mrs.Blunt really had a position once - in the days of the Second Empire - and so..."I listened open-mouthed to these things into which my West-Indian experiences could not have given me an insight.But Mills checked himself and ended in a changed tone.

"It's not easy to know what she would be at, either, in any given instance.For the rest, spotlessly honourable.A delightful, aristocratic old lady.Only poor."A bump at the door silenced him and immediately Mr.John Blunt, Captain of Cavalry in the Army of Legitimity, first-rate cook (as to one dish at least), and generous host, entered clutching the necks of four more bottles between the fingers of his hand.