They had stopped near the gate, on the edge of Park Lane, and a couple of predatory hansoms dashed at them from opposite quarters. “I thought that was coming, and at bottom it is he that has occupied you most!” Madame Grandoni exclaimed, with a sigh. “But in reality he is the last one you need trouble about; he doesn’t count.”
“Why doesn’t he count?”
“I can’t tell you—except that some people don’t, you know. He doesn’t even think he does.”
“Why not, when she receives him always—lets him go wherever she goes?”
“Perhaps that is just the reason. When people give her a chance to get tired of them she takes it rather easily. At any rate, you needn’t be any more jealous of him than you are of me. He’s a convenience, a factotum, but he works without wages.”
“Isn’t he, then, in love with her?”
“Naturally. He has, however, no hope.”
“Ah, poor gentleman!” said the Prince, lugubriously.
“He accepts the situation better than you. He occupies himself—as she has strongly recommended him, in my hearing, to do—with other women.”
“Oh, the brute!” the Prince exclaimed. “At all events, he sees her.”