“Of course he may come, and stay as long as he likes!” the Princess exclaimed, when Hyacinth, that afternoon, told her of his encounter, with the sweet, bright surprise her face always wore when people went through the form (supererogatory she apparently meant to declare it) of asking her leave. From the manner in which she granted Sholto’s petition – with a geniality that made light of it, as if the question were not worth talking of, one way or the other – it might have been supposed that the account he had given Hyacinth of their relations was an elaborate but none the less foolish hoax. She sent a messenger with a note over to Bonchester, and the Captain arrived just in time to dress for dinner. The Princess was always late, and Hyacinth’s toilet, on these occasions, occupied him considerably (he was acutely conscious of its deficiencies, and yet tried to persuade himself that they were positively honourable and that the only garb of dignity, for him, was the costume, as it were, of his profession); therefore, when the fourth member of the little party descended to the drawing-room Madame Grandoni was the only person he found there.

“Santissima Vergine! I’m glad to see you! What good wind has sent you?” she exclaimed, as soon as Sholto came into the room.

“Didn’t you know I was coming?” he asked. “Has the idea of my arrival produced so little agitation?”

“I know nothing of the affairs of this house. I have given them up at last, and it was time. I remain in my room.” There was nothing at present in the old lady’s countenance of her usual spirit of cheer; it expressed anxiety, and even a certain sternness, and the excellent woman had perhaps at this moment more than she had ever had in her life of the air of a duenna who took her duties seriously. She looked almost august. “From the moment you come it’s a little better. But it is very bad.”

“Very bad, dear madam?”

“Perhaps you will be able to tell me where Christina veut en venir. I have always been faithful to her – I have always been loyal. But to-day I have lost patience. It has no sense.”

“I am not sure I know what you are talking about,” Sholto said; “but if I understand you I must tell you I think it’s magnificent.”

“Yes, I know your tone; you are worse than she, because you are cynical. It passes all bounds. It is very serious. I have been thinking what I should do.”

“Precisely; I know what you would do.”

“Oh, this time I shouldn’t come back!” the old lady declared. “The scandal is too great; it is intolerable. My only fear is to make it worse.”

“Dear Madame Grandoni, you can’t make it worse, and you can’t make it better,” Sholto rejoined, seating himself on the sofa beside her. “In point of fact, no idea of scandal can possibly attach itself to our friend. She is above and outside of all such considerations, such dangers. She carries everything off; she heeds so little, she cares so little. Besides, she has one great strength – she does no wrong.”

“Pray, what do you call it when a lady sends for a bookbinder to come and live with her?”

“Why not for a bookbinder as well as for a bishop? It all depends upon who the lady is, and what she is.”

“She had better take care of one thing first,” cried Madame Grandoni – “that she shall not have been separated from her husband!”

“The Princess can carry off even that. It’s unusual, it’s eccentric, it’s fantastic, if you will, but it isn’t necessarily wicked. From her own point of view our friend goes straight. Besides, she has her opinions.”

“Her opinions are perversity itself.”

“What does it matter,” asked Sholto, “if they keep her quiet?”

“Quiet! Do you call this quiet?”

“Surely, if you’ll only be so yourself. Putting the case at the worst, moreover, who is to know he’s her bookbinder? It’s the last thing you’d take him for.”

“Yes, for that she chose him carefully,” the old lady murmured, still with a discontented eyebrow.

“She chose him? It was I who chose him, dear lady!” the Captain exclaimed, with a laugh which showed how little he shared her solicitude.

“Yes, I had forgotten; at the theatre,” said Madame Grandoni, gazing at him as if her ideas were confused but a certain repulsion from her interlocutor nevertheless disengaged itself. “It was a fine turn you did him there, poor young man!”

“Certainly, he will have to be sacrificed. But why was I bound to consider him so much? Haven’t I been sacrificed myself?”

“Oh, if he bears it like you!” cried the old lady, with a short laugh.

“How do you know how I bear it? One does what one can,” said the Captain, settling his shirt-front. “At any rate, remember this: she won’t tell people who he is, for his own sake; and he won’t tell them, for hers. So, as he looks much more like a poet, or a pianist, or a painter, there won’t be that sensation you fear.”

“Even so it’s bad enough,” said Madame Grandoni. “And he’s capable of bringing it out, suddenly, himself.”

“Ah, if he doesn’t mind it, she won’t! But that’s his affair.”

“It’s too terrible, to spoil him for his station,” the old lady went on. “How can he ever go back?”

“If you want him kept, then, indefinitely, you are inconsistent. Besides, if he pays for it, he deserves to pay. He’s an abominable little conspirator against society.”

Madame Grandoni was silent a moment; then she looked at the Captain with a gravity which might have been impressive to him, had not his accomplished jauntiness suggested an insensibility to that sort of influence. “What, then, does Christina deserve?” she asked, with solemnity.

“Whatever she may get; whatever, in the future, may make her suffer. But it won’t be the loss of her reputation. She is too distinguished.”

“You English are strange. Is it because she’s a princess?” Madame Grandoni reflected, audibly.

“Oh, dear, no, her princedom is nothing here. We can easily beat that. But we can’t beat —” And Sholto paused a moment.

“What then?” his companion asked.

“Well, the perfection of her indifference to public opinion and the unaffectedness of her originality; the sort of thing by which she has bedeviled me.”

“Oh, you!” murmured Madame Grandoni.

“If you think so poorly of me why did you say just now that you were ............