encouraging report."

"These flights are well known," muttered Mr. Blunt. "You shall see
her all right."

"Yes. They told me that you . . . "
I broke in: "You mean to say that you expect a woman to arrange

that sort of thing for you?"
"A trifle, for her," Mr. Blunt remarked indifferently" target="_blank" title="ad.不关心地；冷淡地">indifferently. "At that

sort of thing women are best. They have less scruples."
"More audacity," interjected Mr. Mills almost in a whisper.

Mr. Blunt kept quiet for a moment, then: "You see," he addressed
me in a most refined tone, "a mere man may suddenly find himself

being kicked down the stairs."
I don't know why I should have felt shocked by that statement. It

could not be because it was untrue. The other did not give me time
to offer any remark. He inquired with extremepoliteness what did

I know of South American republics? I confessed that I knew very
little of them. Wandering about the Gulf of Mexico I had a look-in

here and there; and amongst others I had a few days in Haiti which
was of course unique, being a negro republic. On this Captain

Blunt began to talk of negroes at large. He talked of them with
knowledge, intelligence, and a sort of contemptuousaffection. He

generalized, he particularized about the blacks; he told anecdotes.
I was interested, a little incredulous, and considerably surprised.

What could this man with such a boulevardier exterior that he
looked positively like, an exile in a provincial town, and with his

drawing-room manner - what could he know of negroes?
Mills, sitting silent with his air of watchfulintelligence, seemed

to read my thoughts, waved his pipe slightly and explained: "The
Captain is from South Carolina."

"Oh," I murmured, and then after the slightest of pauses I heard
the second of Mr. J. K. Blunt's declarations.

"Yes," he said. "Je suis Americain, catholique et gentil-homme,"
in a tone contrasting so strongly with the smile, which, as it

were, underlined the uttered words, that I was at a loss whether to
return the smile in kind or acknowledge the words with a grave

little bow. Of course I did neither and there fell on us an odd,
equivocal silence. It marked our final abandonment of the French

language. I was the one to speak first, proposing that my
companions should sup with me, not across the way, which would be

riotous with more than one "infernal" supper, but in another much
more select establishment in a side street away from the

Cannebiere. It flattered my vanity a little to be able to say that
I had a corner table always reserved in the Salon des Palmiers,

otherwise Salon Blanc, where the atmosphere was legitimist and
extremely decorous besides - even in Carnival time. "Nine tenths

of the people there," I said, "would be of your political opinions,
if that's an inducement. Come along. Let's be festive," I

encouraged them.
I didn't feel particularly festive. What I wanted was to remain in

my company and break an inexplicable feeling of constraint of which
I was aware. Mills looked at me steadily with a faint, kind smile.

"No," said Blunt. "Why should we go there? They will be only
turning us out in the small hours, to go home and face insomnia.

Can you imagine anything more disgusting?"
He was smiling all the time, but his deep-set eyes did not lend

themselves to the expression of whimsical politeness which he tried
to achieve. He had another suggestion to offer. Why shouldn't we

adjourn to his rooms? He had there materials for a dish of his own
invention for which he was famous all along the line of the Royal

Cavalry outposts, and he would cook it for us. There were also a
few bottles of some white wine, quite possible, which we could

drink out of Venetian cut-glass goblets. A bivouac feast, in fact.
And he wouldn't turn us out in the small hours. Not he. He

couldn't sleep.
Need I say I was fascinated by the idea? Well, yes. But somehow I

hesitated and looked towards Mills, so much my senior. He got up
without a word. This was decisive; for no obscure premonition, and

of something indefinite at that, could stand against the example of
his tranquilpersonality.

CHAPTER II
The street in which Mr. Blunt lived presented itself to our eyes,

narrow, silent, empty, and dark, but with enough gas-lamps in it to
disclose its most striking feature: a quantity of flag-poles

sticking out above many of its closed portals. It was the street
of Consuls and I remarked to Mr. Blunt that coming out in the

morning he could survey the flags of all nations almost - except
his own. (The U. S. consulate was on the other side of the town.)

He mumbled through his teeth that he took good care to keep clear
of his own consulate.

"Are you afraid of the consul's dog?" I asked jocularly. The
consul's dog weighed about a pound and a half and was known to the

whole town as exhibited on the consular fore-arm in all places, at
all hours, but mainly at the hour of the fashionablepromenade on

the Prado.
But I felt my jest misplaced when Mills growled low in my ear:

"They are all Yankees there."
I murmured a confused "Of course."

Books are nothing. I discovered that I had never been aware before
that the Civil War in America was not printed matter but a fact

only about ten years old. Of course. He was a South Carolinian
gentleman. I was a little ashamed of my want of tact. Meantime,

looking like the conventionalconception of a fashionable reveller,
with his opera-hat pushed off his forehead, Captain Blunt was

having some slight difficulty with his latch-key; for the house
before which we had stopped was not one of those many-storied

houses that made up the greater part of the street. It had only
one row of windows above the ground floor. Dead walls abutting on

to it indicated that it had a garden. Its dark front presented no
marked architecturalcharacter, and in the flickering light of a

street lamp it looked a little as though it had gone down in the
world. The greater then was my surprise to enter a hall paved in

black and white marble and in its dimness appearing of palatial
proportions. Mr. Blunt did not turn up the small solitary gas-jet,

but led the way across the black and white pavement past the end of
the staircase, past a door of gleaming dark wood with a heavy

bronze handle. It gave access to his rooms he said; but he took us
straight on to the studio at the end of the passage.

It was rather a small place tacked on in the manner of a lean-to to
the garden side of the house. A large lamp was burning brightly

there. The floor was of mere flag-stones but the few rugs
scattered about though extremely worn were very costly. There was

also there a beautiful sofa upholstered in pink figured silk, an
enormous divan with many cushions, some splendid arm-chairs of

various shapes (but all very shabby), a round table, and in the
midst of these fine things a small common iron stove. Somebody

must have been attending it lately, for the fire roared and the
warmth of the place was very grateful after the bone-searching cold

blasts of mistral outside.
Mills without a word flung himself on the divan and, propped on his

arm, gazed thoughtfully at a distant corner where in the shadow of
a monumental carved wardrobe an articulated dummy without head or

hands but with beautifully shaped limbs composed in a shrinking
attitude, seemed to be embarrassed by his stare.

As we sat enjoying the bivouac hospitality (the dish was really
excellent and our host in a shabby grey jacket still looked the

accomplished man-about-town) my eyes kept on straying towards that
corner. Blunt noticed this and remarked that I seemed to be

attracted by the Empress.
"It's disagreeable," I said. "It seems to lurk there like a shy

skeleton at the feast. But why do you give the name of Empress to
that dummy?"

"Because it sat for days and days in the robes of a Byzantine
Empress to a painter. . . I wonder where he discovered these

priceless stuffs. . . You knew him, I believe?"
Mills lowered his head slowly, then tossed down his throat some

wine out of a Venetian goblet.