"I assure you there isn't anything incorrect in your coming," he

insisted, with the greatest civility. "You will be introduced by
two good friends, Mills and myself. Surely you are not afraid of a

very charming woman. . . ."
I was not afraid, but my head swam a little and I only looked at

him mutely.
"Lunch precisely at midday. Mills will bring you along. I am

sorry you two are going. I shall throw myself on the bed for an
hour or two, but I am sure I won't sleep."

He accompanied us along the passage into the black-and-white hall,
where the low gas flame glimmered forlornly. When he opened the

front door the cold blast of the mistral rushing down the street of
the Consuls made me shiver to the very marrow of my bones.

Mills and I exchanged but a few words as we walked down towards the
centre of the town. In the chill tempestuous dawn he strolled

along musingly, disregarding the discomfort of the cold, the
depressing influence of the hour, the desolation of the empty

streets in which the dry dust rose in whirls in front of us, behind
us, flew upon us from the side streets. The masks had gone home

and our footsteps echoed on the flagstones with unequal sound as of
men without purpose, without hope.

"I suppose you will come," said Mills suddenly.
"I really don't know," I said.

"Don't you? Well, remember I am not trying to persuade you; but I
am staying at the Hotel de Louvre and I shall leave there at a

quarter to twelve for that lunch. At a quarter to twelve, not a
minute later. I suppose you can sleep?"

I laughed.
"Charming age, yours," said Mills, as we came out on the quays.

Already dim figures of the workers moved in the biting dawn and the
masted forms of ships were coming out dimly, as far as the eye

could reach down the old harbour.
"Well," Mills began again, "you may oversleep yourself."

This suggestion was made in a cheerful tone, just as we shook hands
at the lower end of the Cannebiere. He looked very burly as he

walked away from me. I went on towards my lodgings. My head was
very full of confused images, but I was really too tired to think.

PART TWO
CHAPTER I

Sometimes I wonder yet whether Mills wished me to oversleep myself
or not: that is, whether he really took sufficient interest to

care. His uniform kindliness of manner made it impossible for me
to tell. And I can hardly remember my own feelings. Did I care?

The whole recollection of that time of my life has such a peculiar
quality that the beginning and the end of it are merged in one

sensation of profoundemotion, continuous and overpowering,
containing the extremes of exultation, full of careless joy and of

an invincible sadness - like a day-dream. The sense of all this
having been gone through as if in one great rush of imagination is

all the stronger in the distance of time, because it had something
of that quality even then: of fate unprovoked, of events that

didn't cast any shadow before.
Not that those events were in the least extraordinary. They were,

in truth, commonplace. What to my backward glance seems startling
and a little awful is their punctualness and inevitability. Mills

was punctual. Exactly at a quarter to twelve he appeared under the
lofty portal of the Hotel de Louvre, with his fresh face, his ill-

fitting grey suit, and enveloped in his own sympathetic atmosphere.
How could I have avoided him? To this day I have a shadowy

conviction of his inherentdistinction of mind and heart, far
beyond any man I have ever met since. He was unavoidable: and of

course I never tried to avoid him. The first sight on which his
eyes fell was a victoria pulled up before the hotel door, in which

I sat with no sentiment I can remember now but that of some slight
shyness. He got in without a moment's hesitation, his friendly

glance took me in from head to foot and (such was his peculiar
gift) gave me a pleasurable sensation.

After we had gone a little way I couldn't help saying to him with a
bashful laugh: "You know, it seems very extraordinary that I

should be driving out with you like this."
He turned to look at me and in his kind voice:

"You will find everything extremely simple," he said. "So simple
that you will be quite able to hold your own. I suppose you know

that the world is selfish, I mean the majority of the people in it,
often unconsciously I must admit, and especially people with a

mission, with a fixed idea, with some fantastic object in view, or
even with only some fantasticillusion. That doesn't mean that

they have no scruples. And I don't know that at this moment I
myself am not one of them."

"That, of course, I can't say," I retorted.
"I haven't seen her for years," he said, "and in comparison with

what she was then she must be very grown up by now. From what we
heard from Mr. Blunt she had experiences which would have matured

her more than they would teach her. There are of course people
that are not teachable. I don't know that she is one of them. But

as to maturity that's quite another thing. Capacity for suffering
is developed in every human being worthy of the name."

"Captain Blunt doesn't seem to be a very happy person," I said.
"He seems to have a grudge against everybody. People make him

wince. The things they do, the things they say. He must be
awfully mature."

Mills gave me a sidelong look. It met mine of the same character
and we both smiled without openly looking at each other. At the

end of the Rue de Rome the violentchillybreath of the mistral
enveloped the victoria in a great widening of brilliant sunshine

without heat. We turned to the right, circling at a stately pace
about the rather mean obelisk which stands at the entrance to the

Prado.
"I don't know whether you are mature or not," said Mills

humorously. "But I think you will do. You . . . "
"Tell me," I interrupted, "what is really Captain Blunt's position

there?"
And I nodded at the alley of the Prado opening before us between

the rows of the perfectly leafless trees.
"Thoroughly false, I should think. It doesn't accord either with

his illusions or his pretensions, or even with the real position he
has in the world. And so what between his mother and the General

Headquarters and the state of his own feelings he. . . "
"He is in love with her," I interrupted again.

"That wouldn't make it any easier. I'm not at all sure of that.
But if so it can't be a very idealistic sentiment. All the warmth

of his idealism is concentrated upon a certain 'Americain,
Catholique et gentil-homme. . . '"

The smile which for a moment dwelt on his lips was not unkind.
"At the same time he has a very good grip of the material

conditions that surround, as it were, the situation."
"What do you mean? That Dona Rita" (the name came strangely

familiar to my tongue) "is rich, that she has a fortune of her
own?"

"Yes, a fortune," said Mills. "But it was Allegre's fortune
before. . . And then there is Blunt's fortune: he lives by his

sword. And there is the fortune of his mother, I assure you a
perfectlycharming, clever, and most aristocratic old lady, with

the most distinguished connections. I really mean it. She doesn't
live by her sword. She . . . she lives by her wits. I have a

notion that those two dislike each other heartily at times. . .
Here we are."

The victoria stopped in the side alley, bordered by the low walls
of private grounds. We got out before a wrought-iron gateway which

stood half open and walked up a circular drive to the door of a
large villa of a neglected appearance. The mistral howled in the

sunshine, shaking the bare bushes quite furiously. And everything
was bright and hard, the air was hard, the light was hard, the