"Why think about it at all?" he murmured coldly at last."Astrange bird is hatched sometimes in a nest in an unaccountable way and then the fate of such a bird is bound to be ill-defined, uncertain, questionable.And so that is how Henry Allegre saw her first? And what happened next?""What happened next?" repeated Mr.Blunt, with an affected surprise in his tone."Is it necessary to ask that question? If you had asked HOW the next happened...But as you may imagine she hasn't told me anything about that.She didn't," he continued with polite sarcasm, "enlarge upon the facts.That confounded Allegre, with his impudent assumption of princely airs, must have (I shouldn't wonder) made the fact of his notice appear as a sort of favour dropped from Olympus.I really can't tell how the minds and the imaginations of such aunts and uncles are affected by such rare visitations.Mythology may give us a hint.There is the story of Danae, for instance.""There is," remarked Mills calmly, "but I don't remember any aunt or uncle in that connection.""And there are also certain stories of the discovery and acquisition of some unique objects of art.The sly approaches, the astute negotiations, the lying and the circumventing...for the love of beauty, you know."With his dark face and with the perpetual smiles playing about his grimness, Mr.Blunt appeared to me positively satanic.Mills' hand was toying absently with an empty glass.Again they had forgotten my existence altogether.
"I don't know how an object of art would feel," went on Blunt, in an unexpectedly grating voice, which, however, recovered its tone immediately."I don't know.But I do know that Rita herself was not a Danae, never, not at any time of her life.She didn't mind the holes in her stockings.She wouldn't mind holes in her stockings now...That is if she manages to keep any stockings at all," he added, with a sort of suppressed fury so funnily unexpected that I would have burst into a laugh if I hadn't been lost in astonishment of the simplest kind.
"No - really!" There was a flash of interest from the quiet Mills.
"Yes, really," Blunt nodded and knitted his brows very devilishly indeed."She may yet be left without a single pair of stockings.""The world's a thief," declared Mills, with the utmost composure.
"It wouldn't mind robbing a lonely traveller.""He is so subtle." Blunt remembered my existence for the purpose of that remark and as usual it made me very uncomfortable.
"Perfectly true.A lonely traveller.They are all in the scramble from the lowest to the highest.Heavens! What a gang! There was even an Archbishop in it.""Vous plaisantez," said Mills, but without any marked show of incredulity.
"I joke very seldom," Blunt protested earnestly."That's why Ihaven't mentioned His Majesty - whom God preserve.That would have been an exaggeration...However, the end is not yet.We were talking about the beginning.I have heard that some dealers in fine objects, quite mercenary people of course (my mother has an experience in that world), show sometimes an astonishing reluctance to part with some specimens, even at a good price.It must be very funny.It's just possible that the uncle and the aunt have been rolling in tears on the floor, amongst their oranges, or beating their heads against the walls from rage and despair.But I doubt it.And in any case Allegre is not the sort of person that gets into any vulgar trouble.And it's just possible that those people stood open-mouthed at all that magnificence.They weren't poor, you know; therefore it wasn't incumbent on them to be honest.They are still there in the old respectable warehouse, I understand.
They have kept their position in their quartier, I believe.But they didn't keep their niece.It might have been an act of sacrifice! For I seem to remember hearing that after attending for a while some school round the corner the child had been set to keep the books of that orange business.However it might have been, the first fact in Rita's and Allegre's common history is a journey to Italy, and then to Corsica.You know Allegre had a house in Corsica somewhere.She has it now as she has everything he ever had; and that Corsican palace is the portion that will stick the longest to Dona Rita, I imagine.Who would want to buy a place like that? I suppose nobody would take it for a gift.The fellow was having houses built all over the place.This very house where we are sitting belonged to him.Dona Rita has given it to her sister, I understand.Or at any rate the sister runs it.She is my landlady...""Her sister here!" I exclaimed."Her sister!"Blunt turned to me politely, but only for a long mute gaze.His eyes were in deep shadow and it struck me for the first time then that there was something fatal in that man's aspect as soon as he fell silent.I think the effect was purely physical, but in consequence whatever he said seemed inadequate and as if produced by a commonplace, if uneasy, soul.
