out of his sight. She's the only woman who ever sat to him, for he
would never suffer a model inside his house. That's why the 'Girl
in the Hat' and the 'Byzantine Empress' have that family air,
though neither of them is really a likeness of Dona Rita. . . You
know my mother?"

Mills inclined his body slightly and a fugitive smile vanished from
his lips. Blunt's eyes were fastened on the very centre of his
empty plate.

"Then perhaps you know my mother's artistic and literary
associations," Blunt went on in a subtly changed tone. "My mother
has been writing verse since she was a girl of fifteen. She's
still writing verse. She's still fifteen--a spoiled girl of
genius. So she requested one of her poet friends--no less than
Versoy himself--to arrange for a visit to Henry Allegre's house.
At first he thought he hadn't heard aright. You must know that for
my mother a man that doesn't jump out of his skin for any woman's
caprice is not chivalrous. But perhaps you do know? . . ."

Mills shook his head with an amused air. Blunt, who had raised his
eyes from his plate to look at him, started afresh with great
deliberation.

"She gives no peace to herself or her friends. My mother's
exquisitely absurd. You understand that all these painters, poets,
art collectors (and dealers in bric-a-brac, he interjected through
his teeth) of my mother are not in my way; but Versoy lives more
like a man of the world. One day I met him at the fencing school.
He was furious. He asked me to tell my mother that this was the