he _sans-facon_ of a _grande dame_ of the
Second Empire.

I accepted the invitation with a worldly grin and a perfectly just
intonation, because I really didn't care what I did. I only wondered
vaguely why that fellow required all the air in the room for himself.
There did not seem enough left to go down my throat. I didn't say that I
would come with pleasure or that I would be delighted, but I said that I
would come. He seemed to forget his tongue in his head, put his hands in
his pockets and moved about vaguely. "I am a little nervous this
morning," he said in French, stopping short and looking me straight in
the eyes. His own were deep sunk, dark, fatal. I asked with some
malice, that no one could have detected in my intonation, "How's that
sleeplessness?"

He muttered through his teeth, "_Mal_. _Je ne dors plus_." He moved off
to stand at the window with his back to the room. I sat down on a sofa
that was there and put my feet up, and silence took possession of the
room.

"Isn't this street ridiculous?" said Blunt suddenly, and crossing the
room rapidly waved his hand to me, "_A bientot donc_," and was gone. He
had seared himself into my mind. I did not understand him nor his mother
then; which made them more impressive; but I have discovered since that
those two figures required no mystery to make them memorable. Of course
it isn't every day that one meets a mother that lives by her wits and a
son that lives by his sword, but there was a perfect finish about their
ambiguous personalities which is not to be met twice in a life-time. I
shall never forget that grey dress with ample skirts and long corsage yet
with infinite style, the ancient as if ghostly beauty of outlines, the
black lace, the silver hair, the harmonious, restrained movements of
those white, soft hands like the hands of a queen--or an abbess; and in
the general fresh effect of her person the brilliant eyes like two stars
with the calm reposeful way they had of moving on and off one, as if
nothing in the world had the right to veil itself before their once
sovereign beauty. Captain Blunt with smiling formality introduced me by
name, adding with a certain relaxation of the formal tone the comment:
"The Monsieur George! whose fame you tell me has reached even Paris."
Mrs. Blunt's reception of me, glance, tones, even to the attitude of the
admirably corseted figure, was most friendly, approaching the limit of
half-familiarity. I had the