“My dear Monsieur George, I have lived in the great world all my life.  It’s the best that there is, but that’s only because there is nothing merely decent anywhere.  It will accept anything, forgive anything, forget anything in a few days.  And after all who will he be marrying?  A charming, clever, rich and altogether uncommon woman.  What did the world hear of her?  Nothing.  The little it saw of her was in the Bois for a few hours every year, riding by the side of a man of unique distinction and of exclusive tastes, devoted to the cult of aesthetic impressions; a man of whom, as far as aspect, manner, and behaviour goes, she might have been the daughter.  I have seen her myself.  I went on purpose.  I was immensely struck.  I was even moved.  Yes.  She might have been—­except for that something radiant in her that marked her apart from all the other daughters of men.  The few remarkable personalities that count in society and who were admitted into Henry Allegre’s Pavilion treated her with punctilious reserve.  I know that, I have made enquiries.  I know she sat there amongst them like a marvellous child, and for the rest what can they say about her?  That when abandoned to herself by the death of Allegre she has made a mistake?  I think that any woman ought to be allowed one mistake in her life.  The worst they can say of her is that she discovered it, that she had sent away a man in love directly she found out that his love was not worth having; that she had told him to go and look for his crown, and 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 naive 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.”