I thought this was going rather too far, even to the borders of
vulgarity; but Mills remained untroubled and only reached for his
tobacco pouch.

"But that's nothing to my mother's interest. She can never see a
haystack, therefore she is always so surprised and excited. Of
course Dona Rita was not a woman about whom the newspapers insert
little paragraphs. But Allegre was the sort of man. A lot came
out in print about him and a lot was talked in the world about her;
and at once my dear mother perceived a haystack and naturally
became unreasonably absorbed in it. I thought her interest would
wear out. But it didn't. She had received a shock and had
received an impression by means of that girl. My mother has never
been treated with impertinence before, and the aesthetic impression
must have been of extraordinary strength. I must suppose that it
amounted to a sort of moral revolution, I can't account for her
proceedings in any other way. When Rita turned up in Paris a year
and a half after Allegre's death some shabby journalist (smart
creature) hit upon the notion of alluding to her as the heiress of
Mr. Allegre. 'The heiress of Mr. Allegre has taken up her
residence again amongst the treasures of art in that Pavilion so
well known to the elite of the artistic, scientific, and political
world, not to speak of the members of aristocratic and even royal
families. . . ' You know the sort of thing. It appeared first in
the Figaro, I believe. And then at the end a little phrase: 'She
is alone.' She was in a fair way of becoming a celebrity of a
sort. Daily little allusions and that sort of thing. Heaven only
knows who stopped it. There was a rush of 'old friends' into that
garden, enough to scare all the little birds away. I suppose one
or several of them, having influence with the press, did it. But