be more aristocratic. This was the slave-owning woman who had never
worked, even if she had been reduced to live by her wits. She was a
wonderful old woman. She made me dumb. She held me fascinated by the
well-bred attitude, something sublimely aloof in her air of wisdom.

I just simply let myself go admiring her as though I had been a mere
slave of aesthetics: the perfect grace, the amazing poise of that
venerable head, the assured as if royal--yes, royal even flow of the
voice. . . . But what was it she was talking about now? These were no
longer considerations about fatal women. She was talking about her son
again. My interest turned into mere bitterness of contemptuous
attention. For I couldn't withhold it though I tried to let the stuff go
by. Educated in the most aristocratic college in Paris . . . at eighteen
. . . call of duty . . . with General Lee to the very last cruel minute
. . . after that catastrophe end of the world--return to France--to old
friendships, infinite kindness--but a life hollow, without occupation
. . . Then 1870--and chivalrous response to adopted country's call and again
emptiness, the chafing of a proud spirit without aim and handicapped not
exactly by poverty but by lack of fortune. And she, the mother, having
to look on at this wasting of a most accomplished man, of a most
chivalrous nature that practically had no future before it.

"You understand me well, Monsieur George. A nature like this! It is the
most refined cruelty of fate to look at. I don't know whether I suffered
more in times of war or in times of peace. You understand?"

I bowed my head in silence. What I couldn't understand was why he
delayed so long in joining us again. Unless he had had enough of his
mother? I thought without any great resentment that I was being
victimized; but then it occurred to me that the cause of his absence was
quite simple. I was familiar enough with his habits by this time to know
that he often managed to snatch an hour's sleep or so during the day. He
had gone and thrown himself on his bed.

"I admire him exceedingly," Mrs. Blunt was saying in a tone which was not
at all maternal. "His distinction, his fastidiousness, the earnest
warmth of his heart. I know him well. I assure you that I would never
have dared to suggest," she continued with an extraordinary haughtiness
of attitude and tone that aroused my attention, "I would never have dared
to put before him my views o