The Arrow of Gold

Allegre’s studio, where every hard truth had been cracked and every belief had been worried into shreds.  They were like a lot of intellectual dogs, you know . . .”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Blunt interrupted hastily, “the intellectual personality altogether adrift, a soul without a home . . . but I, who am neither very fine nor very deep, I am convinced that the fear is material.”

“Because she confessed to it being that?” insinuated Mills.

“No, because she didn’t,” contradicted Blunt, with an angry frown and in an extremely suave voice.  “In fact, she bit her tongue.  And considering what good friends we are (under fire together and all that) I conclude that there is nothing there to boast of.  Neither is my friendship, as a matter of fact.”

Mills’ face was the very perfection of indifference.  But I who was looking at him, in my innocence, to discover what it all might mean, I had a notion that it was perhaps a shade too perfect.

“My leave is a farce,” Captain Blunt burst out, with a most unexpected exasperation.  “As an officer of Don Carlos, I have no more standing than a bandit.  I ought to have been interned in those filthy old barracks in Avignon a long time ago. . . Why am I not?  Because Dona Rita exists and for no other reason on earth.  Of course it’s known that I am about.  She has only to whisper over the wires to the Minister of the Interior, ‘Put that bird in a cage for me,’ and the thing would be done without any more formalities than that. . . Sad world this,” he commented in a changed tone.  “Nowadays a gentleman who lives by his sword is exposed to that sort of thing.”

It was then for the first time I heard Mr. Mills laugh.  It was a deep, pleasant, kindly note, not very loud and altogether free from that quality of derision that spoils so many laughs and gives away the secret hardness of hearts.  But neither was it a very joyous laugh.

“But the truth of the matter is that I am ‘en mission,’” continued Captain Blunt.  “I have been instructed to settle some things, to set other things going, and, by my instructions, Dona Rita is to be the intermediary for all those objects.  And why?  Because every bald head in this Republican Government gets pink at the top whenever her dress rustles outside the door.  They bow with immense deference when the door opens, but the bow conceals a smirk because of those Venetian days.  That confounded Versoy shoved his nose into that business; he says accidentally.  He saw them together on the Lido and (those writing fellows are horrible) he wrote what he calls a vignette (I suppose accidentally, too) under that very title.  There was in it a Prince and a lady and a big dog.  He described how the Prince on landing from the gondola emptied his purse into the hands of a picturesque old beggar, while the lady, a little way off, stood gazing back at Venice with the dog romantically stretched at her feet.  One of Versoy’s beautiful prose vignettes in a great daily that has a literary column.  But some other papers that didn’t care a cent for literature rehashed the mere fact.  And that’s the sort of fact that impresses your political man, especially if the lady is, well, such as she is . . .”

He paused.  His dark eyes flashed fatally, away from us, in the direction of the shy dummy; and then he went on with cultivated cynicism.

“So she rushes down here.  Overdone, weary, rest for her nerves.  Nonsense.  I assure you she has no more nerves than I have.”

I don’t know how he meant it, but at that moment, slim and elegant, he seemed a mere bundle of nerves himself, with the flitting expressions on his thin, well-bred face, with the restlessness of his meagre brown hands amongst the objects on the table.  With some pipe ash amongst a little spilt wine his forefinger traced a capital R.  Then he looked into an empty glass profoundly.  I have a notion that I sat there staring and listening like a yokel at a play.  Mills’ pipe was lying quite a foot away in front of him, empty, cold.  Perhaps he had no more tobacco.  Mr. Blunt assumed his dandified air—nervously.

“Of course her movements are commented on in the most exclusive drawing-rooms and also in other places, also exclusive, but where the gossip takes on another tone.  There they are probably saying that she has got a ‘coup de coeur’ for some one.  Whereas I think she is utterly incapable of that sort of thing.  That Venetian affair, the beginning of it and the end of it, was nothing but a coup de tete, and all those activities in which I am involved, as you see (by order of Headquarters, ha, ha, ha!), are nothing but that, all this connection, all this intimacy into which I have dropped . . . Not to speak of my mother, who is delightful, but as irresponsible as one of those crazy princesses that shock their Royal families. . . ”

He seemed to bite his tongue and I observed that Mills’ eyes seemed to have grown wider than I had ever seen them before.  In that tranquil face it was a great play of feature.  “An intimacy,” began Mr. Blunt, with an extremely refined grimness of tone, “an intimacy with the heiress of Mr. Allegre on the part of . . . on my part, well, it isn’t exactly . . . it’s open . . . well, I leave it to you, what does it look like?”

“Is there anybody looking on?” Mills let fall, gently, through his kindly lips.

“Not actually, perhaps, at this moment.  But I don’t need to tell a man of the world, like you, that such things cannot remain unseen.  And that they are, well, compromising, because of the mere fact of the fortune.”

Mills got on his feet, looked for his jacket and after getting into it made himself heard while he looked for his hat.

“Whereas the woman herself is, so to speak, priceless.”

Mr. Blunt muttered the word “Obviously.”

By then we were all on our feet.  The iron stove glowed no longer and the lamp, surrounded by empty bottles and empty glasses, had grown dimmer.

I know that I had a great shiver on getting away from the cushions of the divan.

“We will meet again in a few hours,” said Mr. Blunt.

“Don’t forget to come,” he said, addressing me.  “Oh, yes, do.  Have no scruples.  I am authorized to make invitations.”

He must have noticed my shyness, my surprise, my embarrassment.  And indeed I didn’t know what to say.

“I assure you there isn’t anything incorrect in your coming,” he insisted, with the greatest civility.  “You will be introduced by two good friends, Mills and myself.  Surely you are not afraid of a very charming woman. . . .”

I was not afraid, but my head swam a little and I only looked at him mutely.

“Lunch precisely at midday.  Mills will bring you along.  I am sorry you two are going.  I shall throw myself on the bed for an hour or two, but I am sure I won’t sleep.”