And so that is how Henry Allegre saw her first? And what happened next?''

The Arrow of Gold

II

12

``What happened next?'' repeated Mr. Blunt, with an affected surprise in his tone. `Ìs it necessary to ask that question ? If you had asked _how_ the next happened. . . . But as you may imagine she hasn't told me anything about that. She didn't,'' he continued with polite sarcasm,

`ènlarge upon the facts. That confounded

Allegre, with his impudent assumption of princely airs, must have (I shouldn't wonder) made the fact of his notice appear as a sort of favour dropped from Olympus. I really can't tell how the minds and the imaginations of such aunts and uncles are affected by such rare visitations.

Mythology may give us a hint.

There is the story of Danae, for instance.''

``There is,'' remarked Mills calmly, ``but I don't remember any aunt or uncle in that connection.''

`Ànd there are also certain stories of the discovery and acquisition of some unique objects of art. The sly approaches, the astute negotiations, the lying and the circumventing . . . for the love of beauty, you know.''

With his dark face and with the perpetual smiles playing about his grimness, Mr. Blunt appeared to me positively satanic. Mills' hand was toying absently with an empty glass. Again they had forgotten my existence altogether.

`Ì don't know how an object of art would feel,'' went on Blunt, in an unexpectedly grating voice, which, however, recovered its tone immediately. `Ì don't know. But I do know that Rita herself was not a Danae, never, not at any time of her life. She didn't mind the holes in her stockings. She wouldn't mind holes in her stockings now. . . . That is if she manages to keep any stockings at all,'' he added, with a sort of suppressed fury so funnily unexpected that I would have burst into a laugh if I hadn't been lost in astonishment of the simplest kind.

``Noreally!'' There was a flash of interest from the quiet Mills.

``Yes, really,'' Blunt nodded and knitted his brows very devilishly indeed.