should have been.
And Mr. Blunt was talking on.

"There are treasures behind these locked doors, brocades, old jewels,
unframed pictures, bronzes, chinoiseries, Japoneries."

He growled as much as a man of his accomplished manner and voice could
growl. "I don't suppose she gave away all that to her sister, but I
shouldn't be surprised if that timid rustic didn't lay a claim to the lot
for the love of God and the good of the Church. . .

"And held on with her teeth, too," he added graphically.

Mills' face remained grave. Very grave. I was amused at those little
venomous outbreaks of the fatal Mr. Blunt. Again I knew myself utterly
forgotten. But I didn't feel dull and I didn't even feel sleepy. That
last strikes me as strange at this distance of time, in regard of my
tender years and of the depressing hour which precedes the dawn. We had
been drinking that straw-coloured wine, too, I won't say like water
(nobody would have drunk water like that) but, well . . . and the haze of
tobacco smoke was like the blue mist of great distances seen in dreams.

Yes, that old sculptor was the first who joined them in the sight of all
Paris. It was that old glory that opened the series of companions of
those morning rides; a series which extended through three successive
Parisian spring-times and comprised a famous physiologist, a fellow who
seemed to hint that mankind could be made immortal or at least
everlastingly old; a fashionable philosopher and psychologist who used to
lecture to enormous audiences of women with his tongue in his cheek (but
never permitted himself anything of the kind when talking to Rita); that
surly dandy Cabanel (but he only once, from mere vanity), and everybody
else at all distinguished including also a celebrated person who turned
out later to be a swindler. But he was really a genius. . . All this
according to Mr. Blunt, who gave us all those details with a sort of
languid zest covering a secret irritation.

"Apart from that, you know," went on Mr. Blunt, "all she knew of the
world of men and women (I mean till Allegre's death) was what she had
seen of it from the saddle two hours every morning during four months of
the year or so. Absolutely all, with Allegre self-denyingly on her right
hand, with that impenetrable air of guardianship. Don't touch! He
didn't like his treasures to be touched unless he actually put some
unique object into your hands with a sort of triumphant murmur, 'Look