tight clothes, too. But presently the same lady informed me
further: "He has come here amongst us un naufrage."

I became then really interested. I had never seen a shipwrecked
person before. All the boyishness in me was aroused. I considered

a shipwreck as an unavoidable event sooner or later in my future.
Meantime the man thus distinguished in my eyes glanced quietly

about and never spoke unless addressed directly by one of the
ladies present. There were more than a dozen people in that

drawing-room, mostly women eating fine pastry and talking
passionately. It might have been a Carlist committee meeting of a

particularly fatuous character. Even my youth and inexperience
were aware of that. And I was by a long way the youngest person in

the room. That quiet Monsieur Mills intimidated me a little by his
age (I suppose he was thirty-five), his massivetranquillity, his

clear, watchful eyes. But the temptation was too great - and I
addressed him impulsively on the subject of that shipwreck.

He turned his big fair face towards me with surprise in his keen
glance, which (as though he had seen through me in an instant and

found nothing objectionable) changed subtly into friendliness. On
the matter of the shipwreck he did not say much. He only told me

that it had not occurred in the Mediterranean, but on the other
side of Southern France - in the Bay of Biscay. "But this is

hardly the place to enter on a story of that kind," he observed,
looking round at the room with a faint smile as attractive as the

rest of his rustic but well-bred personality.
I expressed my regret. I should have liked to hear all about it.

To this he said that it was not a secret and that perhaps next time
we met. . .

"But where can we meet?" I cried. "I don't come often to this
house, you know."

"Where? Why on the Cannebiere to be sure. Everybody meets
everybody else at least once a day on the pavement opposite the

Bourse."
This was absolutely true. But though I looked for him on each

succeeding day he was nowhere to be seen at the usual times. The
companions of my idle hours (and all my hours were idle just then)

noticed my preoccupation and chaffed me about it in a rather
obvious way. They wanted to know whether she, whom I expected to

see, was dark or fair; whether that fascination which kept me on
tenterhooks of expectation was one of my aristocrats or one of my

marine beauties: for they knew I had a footing in both these -
shall we say circles? As to themselves they were the bohemian

circle, not very wide - half a dozen of us led by a sculptor whom
we called Prax for short. My own nick-name was "Young Ulysses."

I liked it.
But chaff or no chaff they would have been surprised to see me

leave them for the burly and sympathetic Mills. I was ready to
drop any easy company of equals to approach that interesting man

with every mental deference. It was not precisely because of that
shipwreck. He attracted and interested me the more because he was

not to be seen. The fear that he might have departed suddenly for
England - (or for Spain) - caused me a sort of ridiculous

depression as though I had missed a unique opportunity. And it was
a joyfulreaction which emboldened me to signal to him with a

raised arm across that cafe.
I was abashed immediately afterwards, when I saw him advance

towards my table with his friend. The latter was eminently
elegant. He was exactly like one of those figures one can see of a

fine May evening in the neighbourhood of the Opera-house in Paris.
Very Parisian indeed. And yet he struck me as not so perfectly

French as he ought to have been, as if one's nationality were an
accomplishment with varying degrees of excellence. As to Mills, he

was perfectly insular. There could be no doubt about him. They
were both smiling faintly at me. The burly Mills attended to the

introduction: "Captain Blunt."
We shook hands. The name didn't tell me much. What surprised me

was that Mills should have remembered mine so well. I don't want
to boast of my modesty but it seemed to me that two or three days

was more than enough for a man like Mills to forget my very
existence. As to the Captain, I was struck on closer view by the

perfect correctness of his personality. Clothes, slight figure,
clear-cut, thin, sun-tanned face, pose, all this was so good that

it was saved from the danger of banality only by the mobile black
eyes of a keenness that one doesn't meet every day in the south of

France and still less in Italy. Another thing was that, viewed as
an officer in mufti, he did not look sufficientlyprofessional.

That imperfection was interesting, too.
You may think that I am subtilizing my impressions on purpose, but

you may take it from a man who has lived a rough, a very rough
life, that it is the subtleties of personalities, and contacts, and

events, that count for interest and memory - and pretty well
nothing else. This - you see - is the last evening of that part of

my life in which I did not know that woman. These are like the
last hours of a previousexistence. It isn't my fault that they

are associated with nothing better at the decisive moment than the
banal splendours of a gilded cafe and the bedlamite yells of

carnival in the street.
We three, however (almost complete strangers to each other), had

assumed attitudes of serious amiability round our table. A waiter
approached for orders and it was then, in relation to my order for

coffee, that the absolutely first thing I learned of Captain Blunt
was the fact that he was a sufferer from insomnia. In his

immovable way Mills began charging his pipe. I felt extremely
embarrassed all at once, but became positively annoyed when I saw

our Prax enter the cafe in a sort of mediaeval costume very much
like what Faust wears in the third act. I have no doubt it was

meant for a purely operatic Faust. A light mantle floated from his
shoulders. He strode theatrically up to our table and addressing

me as "Young Ulysses" proposed I should go outside on the fields of
asphalt and help him gather a few marguerites to decorate a truly

infernal supper which was being organized across the road at the
Maison Doree - upstairs. With expostulatory shakes of the head and

indignant glances I called his attention to the fact that I was not
alone. He stepped back a pace as if astonished by the discovery,

took off his plumed velvet toque with a low obeisance so that the
feathers swept the floor, and swaggered off the stage with his left

hand resting on the hilt of the property dagger at his belt.
Meantime the well-connected but rustic Mills had been busy lighting

his briar and the distinguished Captain sat smiling to himself. I
was horribly vexed and apologized for that intrusion, saying that

the fellow was a future great sculptor and perfectlyharmless; but
he had been swallowing lots of night air which had got into his

head apparently.
Mills peered at me with his friendly but awfully searching blue

eyes through the cloud of smoke he had wreathed about his big head.
The slim, dark Captain's smile took on an amiable expression.

Might he know why I was addressed as "Young Ulysses" by my friend?
and immediately he added the remark with urbane playfulness that

Ulysses was an astute person. Mills did not give me time for a
reply. He struck in: "That old Greek was famed as a wanderer -

the first historicalseaman." He waved his pipe vaguely at me.
"Ah! Vraiment!" The polite Captain seemed incredulous and as if

weary. "Are you a seaman? In what sense, pray?" We were talking
French and he used the term homme de mer.

Again Mills interfered quietly. "In the same sense in which you
are a military man." (Homme de guerre.)

It was then that I heard Captain Blunt produce one of his striking
declarations. He had two of them, and this was the first.

"I live by my sword."
It was said in an extraordinary dandified manner which in

conjunction with the matter made me forget my tongue in my head. I
could only stare at him. He added more naturally: "2nd Reg.

Castille, Cavalry." Then with marked stress in Spanish, "En las
filas legitimas."