“Ah,” I said, looking at the mangled dummy like the model of some atrocious murder. “Ah, the fortune. But that can be left alone.” “What nonsense! How is it possible? It isn’t contained in a bag, you can’t throw it into the sea. And moreover, it isn’t her fault. I am astonished that you should have thought of that vulgar hypocrisy. No, it isn’t her fortune that cheeks my son; it’s something much more subtle. Not so much her history as her position. He is absurd. It isn’t what has happened in her life. It’s her very freedom that makes him torment himself and her, too—as far as I can understand.” I suppressed a groan and said to myself that I must really get away from there. Mrs. Blunt was fairly launched now. “For all his superiority he is a man of the world and shares to a certain extent its current opinions. He has no power over her. She intimidates him. He wishes he had never set eyes on her. Once or twice this morning he looked at me as if he could find it in his heart to hate his old mother. There is no doubt about it—he loves her, Monsieur George. He loves her, this poor, luckless, perfect _homme du monde_.” The silence lasted for some time and then I heard a murmur: “It’s a matter of the utmost delicacy between two beings so sensitive, so proud. It has to be managed.” I found myself suddenly on my feet and saying with the utmost politeness that I had to beg her permission to leave her alone as I had an engagement; but she motioned me simply to sit down—and I sat down again. “I told you I had a request to make,” she said. “I have understood from Mr. Mills that you have been to the West Indies, that you have some interests there.” I was astounded. “Interests! I certainly have been there,” I said, “but . . .” She caught me up. “Then why not go there again? I am speaking to you frankly because . . .” “But, Madame, I am engaged in this affair with Doña Rita, even if I had any interests elsewhere. I won’t tell you about the importance of my work. I didn’t suspect it but you brought the news of it to me, and so I needn’t point it out to you.” And now we were frankly arguing with each other. “But where will it lead you in the end? You have all your life before you, all your plans, prospects, perhaps dreams, at any rate your own tastes and all your life-time before you. And would you sacrifice all this to—the Pretender? A mere figure for the front page of illustrated papers.”’ “I never think of him,” I said curtly, “but I suppose Doña Rita’s feelings, instincts, call it what you like—or only her chivalrous fidelity to her mistakes—”