m for a
heathen idol. It lay there prostrate, handless, without its head,
pathetic, like the mangled victim of a crime.

"John is fastidious, too," began Mrs. Blunt again. "Of course you
wouldn't suppose anything vulgar in his resistances to a very real
sentiment. One has got to understand his psychology. He can't leave
himself in peace. He is exquisitely absurd."

I recognized the phrase. Mother and son talked of each other in
identical terms. But perhaps "exquisitely absurd" was the Blunt family
saying? There are such sayings in families and generally there is some
truth in them. Perhaps this old woman was simply absurd. She continued:

"We had a most painful discussion all this morning. He is angry with me
for suggesting the very thing his whole being desires. I don't feel
guilty. It's he who is tormenting himself with his infinite
scrupulosity."

"Ah," I said, looking at the mangled dummy like the model of some
atrocious murder. "Ah, the fortune. But that can be left alone."

"What nonsense! How is it possible? It isn't contained in a bag, you
can't throw it into the sea. And moreover, it isn't her fault. I am
astonished that you should have thought of that vulgar hypocrisy. No, it
isn't her fortune that cheeks my son; it's something much more subtle.
Not so much her history as her position. He is absurd. It isn't what
has happened in her life. It's her very freedom that makes him torment
himself and her, too--as far as I can understand."

I suppressed a groan and said to myself that I must really get away from
there.

Mrs. Blunt was fairly launched now.

"For all his superiority he is a man of the world and shares to a certain
extent its current opinions. He has no power over her. She intimidates
him. He wishes he had never set eyes on her. Once or twice this morning
he looked at me as if he could find it in his heart to hate his old
mother. There is no doubt about it--he loves her, Monsieur George. He
loves her, this poor, luckless, perfect _homme du monde_."

The silence lasted for some time and then I heard a murmur: "It's a
matter of the utmost delicacy between two beings so sensitive, so proud.
It has to be managed."

I found myself suddenly on my feet and saying with the utmost politeness
that I had to beg her permission to leave her alone as I had an
engagement; but she motioned me simply to sit down--and I sat down again.

"I told you I had a request to make," she s