 what
he called the second act, the disclosure, with, what he called, the
characteristic Allègre impudence - which surpassed the impudence of kings,
millionaries, or tramps, by many degrees - the revelation of Rita's existence to
the world at large. It wasn't a very large world, but then it was most choicely
composed. How is one to describe it shortly? In a sentence it was the world that
rides in the morning in the Bois.
    In something less than a year and a half from the time he found her sitting
on a broken fragment of stone work buried in the grass of his wild garden, full
of thrushes, starlings, and other innocent creatures of the air, he had given
her amongst other accomplishments the art of sitting admirably on a horse, and
directly they returned to Paris he took her out with him for their first morning
ride.
    »I leave you to judge of the sensation,« continued Mr. Blunt, with a faint
grimace, as though the words had an acrid taste in his mouth. »And the
consternation,« he added venomously. »Many of those men on that great morning
had some one of their womenkind with them. But their hats had to go off all the
same, especially the hats of the fellows who were under some sort of obligation
to Allègre. You would be astonished to hear the names of people, of real
personalities in the world, who, not to mince matters, owed money to Allègre.
And I don't mean in the world of art only. In the first rout of the surprise
some story of an adopted daughter was set abroad hastily, I believe. You know
adopted with a peculiar accent on the word - and it was plausible enough. I have
been told that at that time she looked extremely youthful by his side, I mean
extremely youthful in expression, in the eyes, in the smile. She must have been
...«
    Blunt pulled himself up short, but not so short as not to let the confused
murmur of the word adorable reach our attentive ears.
    The heavy Mills made a slight movement in his chair. The effect on me was
more inward, a strange emotion which left me perfectly still; and for the moment
of silence Blunt looked more fatal than ever.
    »I understand it didn't last very long,« he addressed us politely again.
»And no wonder! The sort of talk she would have heard during that first
springtime in Paris would have put an impress on a much less receptive
personality; for of course Allègre didn
