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 choice has got more right to be respected than heredity or law.  Moreover, Mme. de Lastaola,” she continued in an insinuating voice, “that most rare and fascinating young woman is, as a friend like you cannot deny, outside legality altogether.  Even in that she is an exceptional creature.  For she is exceptional—­you agree?”

I had gone dumb, I could only stare at her.

“Oh, I see, you agree.  No friend of hers could deny.”

“Madame,” I burst out, “I don’t know where a question of friendship comes in here with a person whom you yourself call so exceptional.  I really don’t know how she looks upon me.  Our intercourse is of course very close and confidential.  Is that also talked about in Paris?”

“Not at all, not in the least,” said Mrs. Blunt, easy, equable, but with her calm, sparkling eyes holding me in angry subjection.  “Nothing of the sort is being talked about.  The references to Mme. de Lastaola are in a very different tone, I can assure you, thanks to her discretion in remaining here.  And, I must say, thanks to the discreet efforts of her friends.  I am also a friend of Mme. de Lastaola, you must know.  Oh, no,