to it, the nobility and consolations there are in
aesthetics, of the privileges they confer on individuals and (this was
the first connected statement I caught) that Mills agreed with her in the
general point of view as to the inner worth of individualities and in the
particular instance of it on which she had opened to him her innermost
heart. Mills had a universal mind. His sympathy was universal, too. He
had that large comprehension--oh, not cynical, not at all cynical, in
fact rather tender--which was found in its perfection only in some rare,
very rare Englishmen. The dear creature was romantic, too. Of course he
was reserved in his speech but she understood Mills perfectly. Mills
apparently liked me very much.

It was time for me to say something. There was a challenge in the
reposeful black eyes resting upon my face. I murmured that I was very
glad to hear it. She waited a little, then uttered meaningly, "Mr. Mills
is a little bit uneasy about you."

"It's very good of him," I said. And indeed I thought that it was very
good of him, though I did ask myself vaguely in my dulled brain why he
should be uneasy.

Somehow it didn't occur to me to ask Mrs. Blunt. Whether she had
expected me to do so or not I don't know but after a while she changed
the pose she had kept so long and folded her wonderfully preserved white
arms. She looked a perfect picture in silver and grey, with touches of
black here and there. Still I said nothing more in my dull misery. She
waited a little longer, then she woke me up with a crash. It was as if
the house had fallen, and yet she had only asked me:

"I believe you are received on very friendly terms by Madame de Lastaola
on account of your common exertions for the cause. Very good friends,
are you not?"

"You mean Rita," I said stupidly, but I felt stupid, like a man who wakes
up only to be hit on the head.

"Oh, Rita," she repeated with unexpected acidity, which somehow made me
feel guilty of an incredible breach of good manners. "H'm, Rita. . . .
Oh, well, let it be Rita--for the present. Though why she should be
deprived of her name in conversation about her, really I don't
understand. Unless a very special intimacy . . ."

She was distinctly annoyed. I said sulkily, "It isn't her name."

"It is her choice, I understand, which seems almost a better title to
recognition on the part of the world. It didn't strike you so before?
Well, it seems to me that ch