Dodo regarded the sudden change in the minds of the "shocked section" with much amusement. "It appears I'm quite proper after all," she thought. "That's a blessing anyhow. The colonial bishop will certainly ask me to share his mitre, now he knows I'm a good girl."
"Jack," she called out to him as he passed, "you said the salon smelled like a church this morning. Well, it's only me. I diffuse an odour of sanctity, I find."
The Princess expressed her opinions on the engagement.
"I'm sorry that you can't marry my brother," she said. "You would have suited him admirably, and it would have been only natural for you to stay with your brother-in-law. What shall I give you for a wedding present? There's the bear-skin prayer-book, if you like. Waldenech is very cross about it. He says you told him he mightn't go away, so he has to stop. Are you going out on the picnic? Waldenech's getting up a picnic. He's ordered champagne. Do you think it will be amusing? They will drink the health of you and Lord Chesterford. If you'll promise to reply in suitable terms I'll come. Why didn't you come and see me this morning? I suppose you were engaged. Of course my brother was proposing to you after breakfast, and then you had to go and talk to your young man. Come to the picnic, Dodo. You shall show me how to throw stones."
They were going to walk up to a sufficiently remote spot in the rising ground to the east of Zermatt, and find their lunch ready for them. The Prince had no sympathy with meat sandwiches and a little sherry out of a flask, and his sister had expressed her antipathy to fresh eggs; so he had told the hotel-keeper that lunch would be wanted, and that there were to be no hard-boiled eggs and no sandwiches, and plenty of deck-chairs.
The Princess firmly refused to walk as far, and ordered what she said "was less unlike a horse than the others"; and asked Dodo to wait for her, as she knew she wouldn't be in time. She was one of those people who find it quite impossible to be punctual at whatever time she had an engagement. She was always twenty minutes late, but, as Dodo remarked, "That's the same thing as being punctual when people know you. I think punctuality is a necessity," she added, "more than a virtue."
"Haven't you got a proverb about making a virtue of necessity?" said the Princess vaguely. "That's what I do on the rare occasions on which I am punctual. All my virtues are the result of necessity, which is another word for inclination."
"Yes, inclination is necessity when it's sufficiently strong," said Dodo; "consequently, even when it's weak, it's still got a touch of necessity about it. That really is a comfortable doctrine. I shall remember that next time I want not to go to church."
"My husband is a very devout Roman Catholic," remarked the Princess. "He's got an admirable plan of managing such things. First of all, he does what his conscience—he's got a very fine conscience—tells him he shouldn't. It must be very amusing to have a conscience. You need never feel lonely. Then he goes and confesses, which makes it all right, and to make himself quite safe he gives a hundred roubles to the poor. He's very rich, you know; it doesn't matter to him a bit. That gets him an indulgence. I fancy he's minus about six weeks' purgatory. He's got a balance. I expect he'll give it me. You have to be very rich to have a balance. He pays for his pleasures down in hard cash, you see; it's much better than running up a bill. He is very anxious about my spiritual welfare sometimes."
"Does he really believe all that?" asked Dodo.