After that for a long time I heard Mme. Blunt _mère_ talking with extreme fluency and I even caught the individual words, but I could not in the revulsion of my feelings get hold of the sense. She talked apparently of life in general, of its difficulties, moral and physical, of its surprising turns, of its unexpected contacts, of the choice and rare personalities that drift on it as if on the sea; of the distinction that letters and art gave to it, the nobility and consolations there are in aesthetics, of the privileges they confer on individuals and (this was the first connected statement I caught) that Mills agreed with her in the general point of view as to the inner worth of individualities and in the particular instance of it on which she had opened to him her innermost heart. Mills had a universal mind. His sympathy was universal, too. He had that large comprehension—oh, not cynical, not at all cynical, in fact rather tender—which was found in its perfection only in some rare, very rare Englishmen. The dear creature was romantic, too. Of course he was reserved in his speech but she understood Mills perfectly. Mills apparently liked me very much. It was time for me to say something. There was a challenge in the reposeful black eyes resting upon my face. I murmured that I was very glad to hear it. She waited a little, then uttered meaningly, “Mr. Mills is a little bit uneasy about you.” “It’s very good of him,” I said. And indeed I thought that it was very good of him, though I did ask myself vaguely in my dulled brain why he should be uneasy. Somehow it didn’t occur to me to ask Mrs. Blunt. Whether she had expected me to do so or not I don’t know but after a while she changed the pose she had kept so long and folded her wonderfully preserved white arms. She looked a perfect picture in silver and grey, with touches of black here and there. Still I said nothing more in my dull misery. She waited a little longer, then she woke me up with a crash. It was as if the house had fallen, and yet she had only asked me: “I believe you are received on very friendly terms by Madame de Lastaola on account of your common exertions for the cause. Very good friends, are you not?” “You mean Rita,” I said stupidly, but I felt stupid, like a man who wakes up only to be hit on the head. “Oh, Rita,” she repeated with unexpected acidity, which somehow made me feel guilty of an incredible breach of good manners. “H’m, Rita. . . . Oh, well, let it be Rita—for the present. Though why she should be deprived of her name in conversation about her, really I don’t understand. Unless a very special intimacy . . .” She was distinctly annoyed. I said sulkily, “It isn’t her name.”