lv wallets He paused

He paused. His dark eyes flashed fatally, away from us, in the direction of the shy dummy; and then he went on with cultivated cynicism.
“So she rushes down here. Overdone, weary, rest for her nerves. Nonsense. I assure you she has no more nerves than I have.”
I don’t know how he meant it, but at that moment, slim and elegant, he seemed a mere bundle of nerves himself, with the flitting expressions on his thin, well-bred face, with the restlessness of his meagre brown hands amongst the objects on the table. With some pipe ash amongst a little spilt wine his forefinger traced a capital R. Then he looked into an empty glass profoundly. I have a notion that I sat there staring and listening like a yokel at a play. Mills’ pipe was lying quite a foot away in front of him, empty, cold. Perhaps he had no more tobacco. Mr. Blunt assumed his dandified air — nervously.
“Of course her movements are commented on in the most exclusive drawing-rooms and also in other places, also exclusive, but where the gossip takes on another tone. There they are probably saying that she has got a ‘coup de coeur’ for some one. Whereas I think she is utterly incapable of that sort of thing. That Venetian affair, the beginning of it and the end of it, was nothing but a coup de tete, and all those activities in which I am involved, as you see (by order of Headquarters, ha, ha, ha!), are nothing but that, all this connection, all this intimacy into which I have dropped . . . Not to speak of my mother, who is delightful, but as irresponsible as one of those crazy princesses that shock their Royal families. . . ”
He seemed to bite his tongue and I observed that Mills’ eyes seemed to have grown wider than I had ever seen them before. In that tranquil face it was a great play of feature. “An intimacy,” began Mr. Blunt, with an extremely refined grimness of tone, “an intimacy with the heiress of Mr. Allegre on the part of . . . on my part, well, it isn’t exactly . . . it’s open . . . well, I leave it to you, what does it look like?”
“Is there anybody looking on?” Mills let fall, gently, through his kindly lips.
“Not actually, perhaps, at this moment. But I don’t need to tell a man of the world, like you, that such things cannot remain unseen. And that they are, well, compromising, because of the mere fact of the fortune.”
Mills got on his feet, looked for his jacket and after getting into it made himself heard while he looked for his hat.
“Whereas the woman herself is, so to speak, priceless.”
Mr. Blunt muttered the word “Obviously.”
By then we were all on our feet. The iron stove glowed no longer and the lamp, surrounded by empty bottles and empty glasses, had grown dimmer.
I know that I had a great shiver on getting away from the cushions of the divan.
“We will meet again in a few hours,” said Mr. Blunt.
“Don’t forget to come,” he said, addressing me. “Oh, yes, do. Have no scruples. I am authorized to make invitations.”
He must have noticed my shyness, my surprise, my embarrassment. And indeed I didn’t know what to say.
“I assure you there isn’t anything incorrect in your coming,” he insisted, with the greatest civility. “You will be introduced by two good friends, Mills and myself. Surely you are not afraid of a very charming woman. . . .”