The Arrow of Gold | Page 4

friend of the King." Meaning Don
Carlos of course.
I looked at the proche parent; not on account of the parentage but
marvelling at his air of ease in that cumbrous body and in such tight
clothes, too. But presently the same lady informed me further: "He has
come here amongst us un naufrage."
I became then really interested. I had never seen a shipwrecked person
before. All the boyishness in me was aroused. I considered a shipwreck
as an unavoidable event sooner or later in my future.
Meantime the man thus distinguished in my eyes glanced quietly about
and never spoke unless addressed directly by one of the ladies present.
There were more than a dozen people in that drawing-room, mostly
women eating fine pastry and talking passionately. It might have been a
Carlist committee meeting of a particularly fatuous character. Even my
youth and inexperience were aware of that. And I was by a long way
the youngest person in the room. That quiet Monsieur Mills intimidated
me a little by his age (I suppose he was thirty-five), his massive
tranquillity, his clear, watchful eyes. But the temptation was too
great--and I addressed him impulsively on the subject of that
shipwreck.
He turned his big fair face towards me with surprise in his keen glance,
which (as though he had seen through me in an instant and found
nothing objectionable) changed subtly into friendliness. On the matter
of the shipwreck he did not say much. He only told me that it had not
occurred in the Mediterranean, but on the other side of Southern
France--in the Bay of Biscay. "But this is hardly the place to enter on a
story of that kind," he observed, looking round at the room with a faint
smile as attractive as the rest of his rustic but well-bred personality.
I expressed my regret. I should have liked to hear all about it. To this
he said that it was not a secret and that perhaps next time we met. . .
"But where can we meet?" I cried. "I don't come often to this house,
you know."

"Where? Why on the Cannebiere to be sure. Everybody meets
everybody else at least once a day on the pavement opposite the
Bourse."
This was absolutely true. But though I looked for him on each
succeeding day he was nowhere to be seen at the usual times. The
companions of my idle hours (and all my hours were idle just then)
noticed my preoccupation and chaffed me about it in a rather obvious
way. They wanted to know whether she, whom I expected to see, was
dark or fair; whether that fascination which kept me on tenterhooks of
expectation was one of my aristocrats or one of my marine beauties: for
they knew I had a footing in both these-- shall we say circles? As to
themselves they were the bohemian circle, not very wide--half a dozen
of us led by a sculptor whom we called Prax for short. My own
nick-name was "Young Ulysses."
I liked it.
But chaff or no chaff they would have been surprised to see me leave
them for the burly and sympathetic Mills. I was ready to drop any easy
company of equals to approach that interesting man with every mental
deference. It was not precisely because of that shipwreck. He attracted
and interested me the more because he was not to be seen. The fear that
he might have departed suddenly for England--(or for Spain)--caused
me a sort of ridiculous depression as though I had missed a unique
opportunity. And it was a joyful reaction which emboldened me to
signal to him with a raised arm across that cafe.
I was abashed immediately afterwards, when I saw him advance
towards my table with his friend. The latter was eminently elegant. He
was exactly like one of those figures one can see of a fine May evening
in the neighbourhood of the Opera-house in Paris. Very Parisian indeed.
And yet he struck me as not so perfectly French as he ought to have
been, as if one's nationality were an accomplishment with varying
degrees of excellence. As to Mills, he was perfectly insular. There
could be no doubt about him. They were both smiling faintly at me.
The burly Mills attended to the introduction: "Captain Blunt."

We shook hands. The name didn't tell me much. What surprised me
was that Mills should have remembered mine so well. I don't want to
boast of my modesty but it seemed to me that two or three days was
more than enough for a man like Mills to forget my very existence. As
to the Captain, I was struck on closer view by the perfect correctness of
his personality. Clothes, slight figure, clear-cut, thin,