"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,