denyingly on her right hand, with that impenetrable air of
guardianship. Don't touch! He didn't like his treasures to be
touched unless he actually put some unique object into your hands
with a sort of triumphant murmur, 'Look close at that.' Of course
I only have heard all this. I am much too small a person, you
understand, to even . . ."

He flashed his white teeth at us most agreeably, but the upper part
of his face, the shadowed setting of his eyes, and the slight
drawing in of his eyebrows gave a fatal suggestion. I thought
suddenly of the definition he applied to himself: "Americain,
catholique et gentil-homme" completed by that startling "I live by
my sword" uttered in a light drawing-room tone tinged by a flavour
of mockery lighter even than air.

He insisted to us that the first and only time he had seen Allegre
a little close was that morning in the Bois with his mother. His
Majesty (whom God preserve), then not even an active Pretender,
flanked the girl, still a girl, on the other side, the usual
companion for a month past or so. Allegre had suddenly taken it
into his head to paint his portrait. A sort of intimacy had sprung
up. Mrs. Blunt's remark was that of the two striking horsemen
Allegre looked the more kingly.

"The son of a confounded millionaire soap-boiler," commented Mr.
Blunt through his clenched teeth. "A man absolutely without
parentage. Without a single relation in the world. Just a freak."

"That explains why he could leave all his fortune to her," said
Mills.