"Then what was it? Your niece carried you off in a whirl-wind. She was come and gone, taking you with her, in half a minute."
"She had disturbed me when I was thinking of something," said the Duke.
"Things shouldn't be thought of,—not so deeply as that." Madame Goesler was playing with a bunch of his grapes now, eating one or two from a small china plate which had stood upon the table, and he thought that he had never seen a woman so graceful and yet so natural. "Will you not eat your own grapes with me? They are delicious;—flavoured with the poor queen's sorrows." He shook his head, knowing that it did not suit his gastric juices to have to deal with fruit eaten at odd times. "Never think, Duke. I am convinced that it does no good. It simply means doubting, and doubt always leads to error. The safest way in the world is to do nothing."
"I believe so," said the Duke.
"Much the safest. But if you have not sufficient command over yourself to enable you to sit in repose, always quiet, never committing yourself to the chance of any danger,—then take a leap in the dark; or rather many leaps. A stumbling horse regains his footing by persevering in his onward course. As for moving cautiously, that I detest."
"And yet one must think;—for instance, whether one will succeed or not."
"Take that for granted always. Remember, I do not recommend motion at all. Repose is my idea of life;—repose and grapes."
The Duke sat for a while silent, taking his repose as far as the outer man was concerned, looking at his top brick of the chimney, as from time to time she ate one of his grapes. Probably she did not eat above half-a-dozen of them altogether, but he thought that the grapes must have been made for the woman, she was so pretty in the eating of them. But it was necessary that he should speak at last. "Have you been thinking of coming to Como?" he said.
"I told you that I never think."
"But I want an answer to my proposition."