"Vous plaisantez," said Mills, but without any marked show of
incredulity.
"I joke very seldom," Blunt protested earnestly. "That's why I
haven't mentioned His Majesty--whom God preserve. That would have
been an exaggeration. . . However, the end is not yet. We were
talking about the beginning. I have heard that some dealers in
fine objects, quite mercenary people of course (my mother has an
experience in that world), show sometimes an astonishing reluctance
to part with some specimens, even at a good price. It must be very
funny. It's just possible that the uncle and the aunt have been
rolling in tears on the floor, amongst their oranges, or beating
their heads against the walls from rage and despair. But I doubt
it. And in any case Allegre is not the sort of person that gets
into any vulgar trouble. And it's just possible that those people
stood open-mouthed at all that magnificence. They weren't poor,
you know; therefore it wasn't incumbent on them to be honest. They
are still there in the old respectable warehouse, I understand.
They have kept their position in their quartier, I believe. But
they didn't keep their niece. It might have been an act of
sacrifice! For I seem to remember hearing that after attending for
a while some school round the corner the child had been set to keep
the books of that orange business. However it might have been, the
first fact in Rita's and Allegre's common history is a journey to
Italy, and then to Corsica. You know Allegre had a house in
Corsica somewhere. She has it now as she has everything he ever
had; and that Corsican palace is the portion that will stick the
longest to Dona Rita, I imagine. Who would want to buy a place
like that? I suppose nobody would take it for a gift. The fellow
was having houses built all over the place. This very house where
we are sitting belonged to him. Dona Rita has given it to her
sister, I understand. Or at any rate the sister runs it. She is
my landlady . . ."
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