y unexpected that I would have burst into a
laugh if I hadn't been lost in astonishment of the simplest kind.

"No--really!" There was a flash of interest from the quiet Mills.

"Yes, really," Blunt nodded and knitted his brows very devilishly
indeed. "She may yet be left without a single pair of stockings."

"The world's a thief," declared Mills, with the utmost composure. "It
wouldn't mind robbing a lonely traveller."

"He is so subtle." Blunt remembered my existence for the purpose of that
remark and as usual it made me very uncomfortable. "Perfectly true. A
lonely traveller. They are all in the scramble from the lowest to the
highest. Heavens! What a gang! There was even an Archbishop in it."

"_Vous plaisantez_," said Mills, but without any marked show of
incredulity.

"I joke very seldom," Blunt protested earnestly. "That's why I haven't
mentioned His Majesty--whom God preserve. That would have been an
exaggeration. . . However, the end is not yet. We were talking about the
beginning. I have heard that some dealers in fine objects, quite
mercenary people of course (my mother has an experience in that world),
show sometimes an astonishing reluctance to part with some specimens,
even at a good price. It must be very funny. It's just possible that
the uncle and the aunt have been rolling in tears on the floor, amongst
their oranges, or beating their heads against the walls from rage and
despair. But I doubt it. And in any case Allegre is not the sort of
person that gets into any vulgar trouble. And it's just possible that
those people stood open-mouthed at all that magnificence. They weren't
poor, you know; therefore it wasn't incumbent on them to be honest. They
are still there in the old respectable warehouse, I understand. They
have kept their position in their _quartier_, I believe. But they didn't
keep their niece. It might have been an act of sacrifice! For I seem to
remember hearing that after attending for a while some school round the
corner the child had been set to keep the books of that orange business.
However it might have been, the first fact in Rita's and Allegre's common
history is a journey to Italy, and then to Corsica. You know Allegre had
a house in Corsica somewhere. She has it now as she has everything he
ever had; and that Corsican palace is the portion that will stick the
longest to Dona Rita, I imagine. Who would want to buy a place like
that? I suppose nob