"I think not," she replied.
He raised his eyebrows slightly. For a moment he glanced down the supper-table with the care of a punctilious host, to see that his guests were properly seated. He addressed a few trivialities to the musical-comedy star who was sitting on his left. Then he leaned once more toward the great dancer.
"You surprise me," he said. "I should have thought that the enterprise would have commended itself to you. You do not doubt the facts?"
"They are obvious enough," she replied. "The young man is all that you say, even more ingenuous than I had believed possible, but I fancy I must be getting old. He tried to tell me that he was in love with another woman, and I felt suddenly powerless. I think I must be getting to that age when one prefers to achieve one's conquests with the lifting of a finger."
The prince sighed.
"I shall never understand your sex!" he declared. "I should have supposed that the slight effort of resistance such a young man might make would have provided just the necessary stimulus to complete his subjection."
She turned her beautiful head and looked at the prince through narrowed eyes.
"After all," she asked, "what should I gain? I am not like a child who robs an insect of life for a few moments' amusement. Even if I have no conscience, it gives me no pleasure to be wanton. Besides, the young man is, in his way, a splendid work of art. Why should I be vandal enough to destroy it? I shall ask you another question."
The prince slowly sipped the wine from the glass that he was holding to his lips. Then he set it down deliberately.
"Why not?"