 that, after dismissing him, she had remained
generously faithful to his cause, in her person and fortune. And this, you will
allow, is rather uncommon upon the whole.«
    »You make her out very magnificent,« I murmured, looking down upon the
floor.
    »Isn't she?« exclaimed the aristocratic Mrs. Blunt, with an almost youthful
ingenuousness, and in those black eyes which looked at me so calmly there was a
flash of the Southern beauty, still naïve and romantic, as if altogether
untouched by experience. »I don't think there is a single grain of vulgarity in
all her enchanting person. Neither is there in my son. I suppose you won't deny
that he is uncommon.« She paused.
    »Absolutely,« I said in a perfectly conventional tone. I was now on my
mettle that she should not discover what there was humanly common in my nature.
She took my answer at her own valuation and was satisfied.
    »They can't fail to understand each other on the very highest level of
idealistic perceptions. Can you imagine my John thrown away on some enamoured
white goose out of a stuffy old salon. Why, she couldn't even begin to
understand what he feels or what he needs.«
    »Yes,« I said impenetrably, »he is not easy to understand.«
    »I have reason to think,« she said with a suppressed smile, »that he has a
certain power over women. Of course I don't know anything about his intimate
life but a whisper or two have reached me, like that, floating in the air, and I
could hardly suppose that he would find an exceptional resistance in that
quarter of all others. But I should like to know the exact degree.«
    I disregarded an annoying tendency to feel dizzy that came over me and was
very careful in managing my voice.
    »May I ask, Madame, why you are telling me all this?«
    »For two reasons,« she condescended graciously.
    »First of all because Mr. Mills told me that you were much more mature than
one would expect. In fact you look much younger than I was prepared for.«
    »Madame,« I interrupted her, »I may have a certain capacity for action and
for responsibility, but as to the regions into which this very unexpected
conversation has taken me I am a great novice. They are outside my interest. I
have had no experience.«
    »Don't make yourself out so hopeless,« she said in a
