“Well, I shall ask the Princess about you, and have done with it, once for all.”
“Lucky little beggar, with your fireside talks!” the Captain exclaimed. “Where does she sit now, in the evening? She won’t tell you anything except that I’m a nuisance; but even if she were willing to take the trouble to throw some light upon me it wouldn’t be of much use, because she doesn’t understand me herself.”
“You are the only thing in the world then of which that can be said,” Hyacinth returned.
“I dare say I am, and I am rather proud of it. So far as the head is concerned, the Princess is all there. I told you, when I presented you, that she was the cleverest woman in Europe, and that is still my opinion. But there are some mysteries you can’t see into unless you happen to have a little heart. The Princess hasn’t, though doubtless just now you think that’s her strong point. One of these days you’ll see. I don’t care a straw, myself, whether she has or not. She has hurt me already so much she can’t hurt me any more, and my interest in her is quite independent of that. To watch her, to adore her, to see her lead her life and act out her extraordinary nature, all the while she treats me like a brute, is the only thing I care for to-day. It doesn’t do me a scrap of good, but, all the same, it’s my principal occupation. You may believe me or not—it doesn’t in the least matter; but I’m the most disinterested human being alive. She’ll tell you I’m a tremendous ass, and so one is. But that isn’t all.”
It was Hyacinth who stopped this time, arrested by something new and natural in the tone of his companion, a simplicity of emotion which he had not hitherto associated with him. He stood there a moment looking up at him, and thinking again what improbable confidences it decidedly appeared to be his lot to receive from gentlefolks. To what quality in himself were they a tribute? The honour was one he could easily dispense with; though as he scrutinised Sholto he found something in his curious light eyes—an expression of cheerfulness not disconnected from veracity—which put him into a less fantastic relation with this jaunty, factitious personage. “Please go on,” he said, in a moment.
“Well, what I mentioned just now is my real and only motive, in anything. The rest is mere gammon and rubbish, to cover it up—or to give myself the change, as the French say.”
“What do you mean by the rest?” asked Hyacinth, thinking of Millicent Henning.
“Oh, all the straw one chews, to cheat one’s appetite; all the rot one dabbles in, because it may lead to something which it never does lead to; all the beastly buncombe (you know) that you and I have heard together in Bloomsbury and that I myself have poured out, damme, with an eloquence worthy of a better cause. Don’t you remember what I have said to you—all as my own opinion—about the impending change of the relations of class with class? Impending fiddlesticks! I believe those that are on top the heap are better than those that are under it, that they mean to stay there, and that if they are not a pack of poltroons they will.”
“You don’t care for the social question, then?” Hyacinth inquired, with an aspect of which he was conscious of the blankness.
“I only took it up because she did. It hasn’t helped me,” Sholto remarked, smiling. “My dear Robinson,” he went on, “there is only one thing I care for in life: to have a look at that woman when I can, and when I can’t, to approach her in the sort of way I’m doing now.”