talking about her son again. My interest turned into mere
bitterness of contemptuous" target="_blank" title="a.蔑视的；傲慢的">contemptuous attention. For I couldn't withhold it

though I tried to let the stuff go by. Educated in the most
aristocratic college in Paris . . . at eighteen . . . call of duty

. . . with General Lee to the very last cruel minute . . . after
that catastrophe end of the world - return to France - to old

friendships, infinite kindness - but a life hollow, without
occupation. . . Then 1870 - and chivalrousresponse to adopted

country's call and again emptiness, the chafing of a proud spirit
without aim and handicapped not exactly by poverty but by lack of

fortune. And she, the mother, having to look on at this wasting of
a most accomplished man, of a most chivalrous nature that

practically had no future before it.
"You understand me well, Monsieur George. A nature like this! It

is the most refinedcruelty of fate to look at. I don't know
whether I suffered more in times of war or in times of peace. You

understand?"
I bowed my head in silence. What I couldn't understand was why he

delayed so long in joining us again. Unless he had had enough of
his mother? I thought without any great resentment that I was

being victimized; but then it occurred to me that the cause of his
absence was quite simple. I was familiar enough with his habits by

this time to know that he often managed to snatch an hour's sleep
or so during the day. He had gone and thrown himself on his bed.

"I admire him exceedingly," Mrs. Blunt was saying in a tone which
was not at all maternal. "His distinction, his fastidiousness, the

earnest warmth of his heart. I know him well. I assure you that I
would never have dared to suggest," she continued with an

extraordinary haughtiness of attitude and tone that aroused my
attention, "I would never have dared to put before him my views of

the extraordinary merits and the uncertain fate of the exquisite
woman of whom we speak, if I had not been certain that, partly by

my fault, I admit, his attention has been attracted to her and his
- his - his heart engaged."

It was as if some one had poured a bucket of cold water over my
head. I woke up with a great shudder to the acute perception of my

own feelings and of that aristocrat's incredible purpose. How it
could have germinated, grown and matured in that exclusive soil was

inconceivable. She had been inciting her son all the time to
undertake wonderful salvage work by annexing the heiress of Henry

Allegre - the woman and the fortune.
There must have been an amazed incredulity in my eyes, to which her

own responded by an unflinching black brilliance which suddenly
seemed to develop a scorching quality even to the point of making

me feel extremely thirsty all of a sudden. For a time my tongue
literally clove to the roof of my mouth. I don't know whether it

was an illusion but it seemed to me that Mrs. Blunt had nodded at
me twice as if to say: "You are right, that's so." I made an

effort to speak but it was very poor. If she did hear me it was
because she must have been on the watch for the faintest sound.

"His heart engaged. Like two hundred others, or two thousand, all
around," I mumbled.

"Altogether different. And it's no disparagement to a woman
surely. Of course her great fortune protects her in a certain

measure."
"Does it?" I faltered out and that time I really doubt whether she

heard me. Her aspect in my eyes had changed. Her purpose being
disclosed, her well-bred ease appeared sinister, her aristocratic

repose a treacherousdevice, her venerable graciousness a mask of
unbounded contempt for all human beings whatever. She was a

terrible old woman with those straight, white wolfish eye-brows.
How blind I had been! Those eyebrows alone ought to have been

enough to give her away. Yet they were as beautifully smooth as
her voice when she admitted: "That protection naturally is only

partial. There is the danger of her own self, poor girl. She
requires guidance."

I marvelled at the villainy of my tone as I spoke, but it was only
assumed.

"I don't think she has done badly for herself, so far," I forced
myself to say. "I suppose you know that she began life by herding

the village goats."
In the course of that phrase I noticed her wince just the least

bit. Oh, yes, she winced; but at the end of it she smiled easily.
"No, I didn't know. So she told you her story! Oh, well, I

suppose you are very good friends. A goatherd - really? In the
fairy tale I believe the girl that marries the prince is - what is

it? - a gardeuse d'oies. And what a thing to drag out against a
woman. One might just as soon reproach any of them for coming

unclothed into the world. They all do, you know. And then they
become - what you will discover when you have lived longer,

Monsieur George - for the most part futile creatures, without any
sense of truth and beauty, drudges of all sorts, or else dolls to

dress. In a word - ordinary."
The implication of scorn in her tranquil manner was immense. It

seemed to condemn all those that were not born in the Blunt
connection. It was the perfect pride of Republican aristocracy,

which has no gradations and knows no limit, and, as if created by
the grace of God, thinks it ennobles everything it touches:

people, ideas, even passing tastes!
"How many of them," pursued Mrs. Blunt, "have had the good fortune,

the leisure to develop their intelligence and their beauty in
aesthetic conditions as this charming woman had? Not one in a

million. Perhaps not one in an age."
"The heiress of Henry Allegre," I murmured.

"Precisely. But John wouldn't be marrying the heiress of Henry
Allegre."

It was the first time that the frank word, the clear idea, came
into the conversation and it made me feel ill with a sort of

enraged faintness.
"No," I said. "It would be Mme. de Lastaola then."

"Mme. la Comtesse de Lastaola as soon as she likes after the
success of this war."

"And you believe in its success?"
"Do you?"

"Not for a moment," I declared, and was surprised to see her look
pleased.

She was an aristocrat to the tips of her fingers; she really didn't
care for anybody. She had passed through the Empire, she had lived

through a siege, had rubbed shoulders with the Commune, had seen
everything, no doubt, of what men are capable in the pursuit of

their desires or in the extremity of their distress, for love, for
money, and even for honour; and in her precariousconnection with

the very highest spheres she had kept her own honourability
unscathed while she had lost all her prejudices. She was above all

that. Perhaps "the world" was the only thing that could have the
slightest checking influence; but when I ventured to say something

about the view it might take of such an alliance she looked at me
for a moment with visible surprise.

"My dear Monsieur George, I have lived in the great world all my
life. It's the best that there is, but that's only because there

is nothing merely decentanywhere. It will accept anything,
forgive anything, forget anything in a few days. And after all who

will he be marrying? A charming, clever, rich and altogether
uncommon woman. What did the world hear of her? Nothing. The

little it saw of her was in the Bois for a few hours every year,
riding by the side of a man of uniquedistinction and of exclusive

tastes, devoted to the cult of aesthetic impressions; a man of
whom, as far as aspect, manner, and behaviour goes, she might have

been the daughter. I have seen her myself. I went on purpose. I
was immensely struck. I was even moved. Yes. She might have been

- except for that something radiant in her that marked her apart
from all the other daughters of men. The few remarkable

personalities that count in society and who were admitted into
Henry Allegre's Pavilion treated her with punctilious reserve. I

know that, I have made enquiries. I know she sat there amongst