The Arrow of Gold | Page 8

street lamp it looked a little as though it had gone
down in the world. The greater then was my surprise to enter a hall
paved in black and white marble and in its dimness appearing of
palatial proportions. Mr. Blunt did not turn up the small solitary gas-jet,
but led the way across the black and white pavement past the end of the
staircase, past a door of gleaming dark wood with a heavy bronze

handle. It gave access to his rooms he said; but he took us straight on to
the studio at the end of the passage.
It was rather a small place tacked on in the manner of a lean-to to the
garden side of the house. A large lamp was burning brightly there. The
floor was of mere flag-stones but the few rugs scattered about though
extremely worn were very costly. There was also there a beautiful sofa
upholstered in pink figured silk, an enormous divan with many
cushions, some splendid arm-chairs of various shapes (but all very
shabby), a round table, and in the midst of these fine things a small
common iron stove. Somebody must have been attending it lately, for
the fire roared and the warmth of the place was very grateful after the
bone-searching cold blasts of mistral outside.
Mills without a word flung himself on the divan and, propped on his
arm, gazed thoughtfully at a distant corner where in the shadow of a
monumental carved wardrobe an articulated dummy without head or
hands but with beautifully shaped limbs composed in a shrinking
attitude, seemed to be embarrassed by his stare.
As we sat enjoying the bivouac hospitality (the dish was really
excellent and our host in a shabby grey jacket still looked the
accomplished man-about-town) my eyes kept on straying towards that
corner. Blunt noticed this and remarked that I seemed to be attracted by
the Empress.
"It's disagreeable," I said. "It seems to lurk there like a shy skeleton at
the feast. But why do you give the name of Empress to that dummy?"
"Because it sat for days and days in the robes of a Byzantine Empress
to a painter. . . I wonder where he discovered these priceless stuffs. . .
You knew him, I believe?"
Mills lowered his head slowly, then tossed down his throat some wine
out of a Venetian goblet.
"This house is full of costly objects. So are all his other houses, so is
his place in Paris--that mysterious Pavilion hidden away in Passy

somewhere."
Mills knew the Pavilion. The wine had, I suppose, loosened his tongue.
Blunt, too, lost something of his reserve. From their talk I gathered the
notion of an eccentric personality, a man of great wealth, not so much
solitary as difficult of access, a collector of fine things, a painter known
only to very few people and not at all to the public market. But as
meantime I had been emptying my Venetian goblet with a certain
regularity (the amount of heat given out by that iron stove was amazing;
it parched one's throat, and the straw-coloured wine didn't seem much
stronger than so much pleasantly flavoured water) the voices and the
impressions they conveyed acquired something fantastic to my mind.
Suddenly I perceived that Mills was sitting in his shirt-sleeves. I had
not noticed him taking off his coat. Blunt had unbuttoned his shabby
jacket, exposing a lot of starched shirt-front with the white tie under his
dark shaved chin. He had a strange air of insolence--or so it seemed to
me. I addressed him much louder than I intended really.
"Did you know that extraordinary man?"
"To know him personally one had to be either very distinguished or
very lucky. Mr. Mills here . . ."
"Yes, I have been lucky," Mills struck in. "It was my cousin who was
distinguished. That's how I managed to enter his house in Paris--it was
called the Pavilion--twice."
"And saw Dona Rita twice, too?" asked Blunt with an indefinite smile
and a marked emphasis. Mills was also emphatic in his reply but with a
serious face.
"I am not an easy enthusiast where women are concerned, but she was
without doubt the most admirable find of his amongst all the priceless
items he had accumulated in that house--the most admirable. . . "
"Ah! But, you see, of all the objects there she was the only one that was
alive," pointed out Blunt with the slightest possible flavour of sarcasm.

"Immensely so," affirmed Mills. "Not because she was restless, indeed
she hardly ever moved from that couch between the windows-- you
know."
"No. I don't know. I've never been in there," announced Blunt with that
flash of white teeth so strangely without any character of its own that it
was merely