The Arrow of Gold | Page 5

sun-tanned face,
pose, all this was so good that it was saved from the danger of banality
only by the mobile black eyes of a keenness that one doesn't meet every
day in the south of France and still less in Italy. Another thing was that,
viewed as an officer in mufti, he did not look sufficiently professional.
That imperfection was interesting, too.
You may think that I am subtilizing my impressions on purpose, but
you may take it from a man who has lived a rough, a very rough life,
that it is the subtleties of personalities, and contacts, and events, that
count for interest and memory--and pretty well nothing else. This--you
see--is the last evening of that part of my life in which I did not know
that woman. These are like the last hours of a previous existence. It
isn't my fault that they are associated with nothing better at the decisive
moment than the banal splendours of a gilded cafe and the bedlamite
yells of carnival in the street.
We three, however (almost complete strangers to each other), had
assumed attitudes of serious amiability round our table. A waiter
approached for orders and it was then, in relation to my order for coffee,
that the absolutely first thing I learned of Captain Blunt was the fact
that he was a sufferer from insomnia. In his immovable way Mills
began charging his pipe. I felt extremely embarrassed all at once, but
became positively annoyed when I saw our Prax enter the cafe in a sort
of mediaeval costume very much like what Faust wears in the third act.
I have no doubt it was meant for a purely operatic Faust. A light mantle
floated from his shoulders. He strode theatrically up to our table and
addressing me as "Young Ulysses" proposed I should go outside on the
fields of asphalt and help him gather a few marguerites to decorate a
truly infernal supper which was being organized across the road at the
Maison Doree--upstairs. With expostulatory shakes of the head and
indignant glances I called his attention to the fact that I was not alone.

He stepped back a pace as if astonished by the discovery, took off his
plumed velvet toque with a low obeisance so that the feathers swept the
floor, and swaggered off the stage with his left hand resting on the hilt
of the property dagger at his belt.
Meantime the well-connected but rustic Mills had been busy lighting
his briar and the distinguished Captain sat smiling to himself. I was
horribly vexed and apologized for that intrusion, saying that the fellow
was a future great sculptor and perfectly harmless; but he had been
swallowing lots of night air which had got into his head apparently.
Mills peered at me with his friendly but awfully searching blue eyes
through the cloud of smoke he had wreathed about his big head. The
slim, dark Captain's smile took on an amiable expression. Might he
know why I was addressed as "Young Ulysses" by my friend? and
immediately he added the remark with urbane playfulness that Ulysses
was an astute person. Mills did not give me time for a reply. He struck
in: "That old Greek was famed as a wanderer--the first historical
seaman." He waved his pipe vaguely at me.
"Ah! Vraiment!" The polite Captain seemed incredulous and as if
weary. "Are you a seaman? In what sense, pray?" We were talking
French and he used the term homme de mer.
Again Mills interfered quietly. "In the same sense in which you are a
military man." (Homme de guerre.)
It was then that I heard Captain Blunt produce one of his striking
declarations. He had two of them, and this was the first.
"I live by my sword."
It was said in an extraordinary dandified manner which in conjunction
with the matter made me forget my tongue in my head. I could only
stare at him. He added more naturally: "2nd Reg. Castille, Cavalry."
Then with marked stress in Spanish, "En las filas legitimas."
Mills was heard, unmoved, like Jove in his cloud: "He's on leave here."

"Of course I don't shout that fact on the housetops," the Captain
addressed me pointedly, "any more than our friend his shipwreck
adventure. We must not strain the toleration of the French authorities
too much! It wouldn't be correct--and not very safe either."
I became suddenly extremely delighted with my company. A man who
"lived by his sword," before my eyes, close at my elbow! So such
people did exist in the world yet! I had not been born too late! And
across the table with his air of watchful, unmoved benevolence, enough
in itself to arouse one's interest, there was the man with the story of a
shipwreck that