The Princess appeared to be on the point of pronouncing a name; but she checked herself, and asked suddenly, smiling, “Don’t they also want, by chance, an obliging young woman?”
“I happen to know he doesn’t think much of women, my first-rate man. He doesn’t trust them.”
“Is that why you call him first-rate? You have very nearly betrayed him to me.”
“Do you imagine there is only one of that opinion?” Hyacinth inquired.
“Only one who, having it, still remains a superior man. That’s a very difficult opinion to reconcile with others that it is important to have.”
“Schopenhauer did so, successfully,” said Hyacinth.
“How delightful that you should know Schopenhauer!” the Princess exclaimed. “The gentleman I have in my eye is also German.” Hyacinth let this pass, not challenging her, because he wished not to be challenged in return, and the Princess went on: “Of course such an engagement as you speak of must make a tremendous difference, in everything.”
“It has made this difference, that I have now a far other sense from any I had before of the reality, the solidity, of what is being prepared. I was hanging about outside, on the steps of the temple, among the loafers and the gossips, but now I have been in the innermost sanctuary—I have seen the holy of holies.”
“And it’s very dazzling?”
“Ah, Princess!” sighed the young man.