“Oh?” questioned Ruth, wondering.
“Ah,” said Pontycroft, “you prick up your pretty ears. Yes, a Serene and Semi-Royal Highness. Has it ever struck you how chuckle-headed—saving their respect—our ancestors were? I suppose they drank the wrong sort of tea. Anyhow, they were mistaken about nearly everything, and most of their mistakes they elevated to the dignity of maxims. Now, for example, they had a maxim about Silence being golden, and another about Curiosity being a vice. It's pitiful to think of the enormous number of more or less tedious anecdotes they laboriously imagined to illustrate and enforce those two profound untruths. Silence golden? My dear, silence is simply piggish. Your silent man is simply a monstrous Egotist, who, in what should be the reciprocal game of conversation, takes without giving—allows himself to be entertained, perhaps enriched, at his interlocuter's expense, and is too soddenly self-complacent to feel that he owes anything in return. Oh, I know, you'll plead shyness for him—you'll tell me he doesn't speak because he's shy. In a certain number of cases, I grant, that is the fact. But what then? Why, shyness is Egotism multiplied by itself. Your shy person is a person so sublimely (or infernally) conscious of his own existence and his own importance, so penetrated by the conviction that he is the centre of the Universe and that all eyes are fixed upon him, and therewith so concerned about the effect he may produce, the figure he may cut, that he dare not move lest he shouldn't produce an heroic effect or cut an Olympian figure. And then, curiosity! A vice? Look here. You are born, with eyes, ears, and a brain, into a world that God created. You have eyes, ears, and a brain, and all round you is a world that God created—and yet you are not curious about it. A world that God created, and that man, your duplicate man, lives in; a world in which everything counts, small things as well as big things—the farthest planet and the trifling-est affair of your next-door neighbour, the course of Empire and the price of figs. But no—God's world, man's life—they leave you cold, they fail to interest you; you glance indifferently at them, they hardly seem worth your serious attention, you shrug and turn away. 'Tis a world that God created, and you treat it as if it were a child's mud-pie! Good heavens! And the worst of it is that the people who do that are mightily proud of themselves in their smug fashion. Curiosity is a vice and a weakness; they are above it. My sweet child, no single good thing has ever happened to mankind, no single forward step has ever been taken in what they call human progress, but it has been primarily due to some one's 'curiosity.'” He brought the word out with a flourish, making it big. Then he lay back, and puffed hard at his cigarette.
“Go on,” urged Ruth demurely. “Please don't stop. I like half-truths, and as for quarter-truths, I perfectly adore them.”
“Bertram,” said Pontycroft, “is a fellow who can talk, and a fellow who's curious about things.”
“I see,” said Ruth. “And yet,” she reflected, as one trying to fit together incompatible ideas, “I think you let fall something about his being a Serene and Semi-Royal Highness.”
“My dear,” Pontycroft instructed her, “there are intelligent individuals in all walks of life. There are intelligent princes, there are even intelligent scientific persons. The Bertrandoni are the legitimate grand-dukes of Altronde, the old original dynasty. They were 'hurled from the throne,' I don't know how many years ago, in a revolution, and the actual reigning family, the Ceresini, have been in possession ever since. But Bertram's father is the Pretender. He calls himself the Duke of Oltramare, and lives in Paris—lives there, I grieve to state, in the full Parisian sense—is a professed viveur. I met him once, a handsome old boy, military-looking, red-faced, with a white moustache and imperial, and a genially wicked eye. Anyhow, there's one thing to his credit—he had Bertram educated at Harrow and Cambridge, instead of at one of these soul-destroying Continental universities. He and his Duchess never meet. She and Bertram are supposed to live in Venice, at the palace of the family, Cà Bertrandoni, though as a matter of fact you'll rarely find either of them at home. She spends most of her time in Austria, where she was born—a Wohenhoffen, if you please; there's no better blood. And Bertram is generally at the other end of the earth—familiarizing himself with the domestic manners of the Annamites, or the religious practices of the Patagonians. However, I believe lately he's dropped that sort of thing—given up travelling and settled down.”
“This is palpitatingly interesting,” said Ruth. “Is it all apropos of boots?”
Pontycroft put on his hat, and stood up.
“It's apropos,” he answered, “of your immortal welfare. I had a note from Bertram this morning to say he was in Florence, no farther away than that. I'm going down now to call on him, and I'll probably bring him back to luncheon. So tell Lucilla to have a plate laid for him. Also put on your best bib and tucker, and try to behave as nicely as you can. For if you should impress him favourably.... Ah me, I wish I could marry you off.”
“Ah me, I wish you could—to the man I care for,” responded Ruth, with dreamy eyes, and wistfulness real or feigned.