“Ah my dear, you and I, you know, we never talk: we understand each other without that!” Then the Princess pursued, addressing herself to Hyacinth: “Do you never admit women?”
“Admit women—?”
“Into those séances—what do you call them?—those little meetings that Captain Sholto describes to me. I should like so much to be present. Why not?”
“I haven’t seen any ladies,” Hyacinth said. “I don’t know if it’s a rule, but I’ve seen nothing but men”; and he subjoined, smiling, though he thought the dereliction rather serious and couldn’t understand the part Captain Sholto was playing, nor, considering the grand company he kept, how he had originally secured admittance into the subversive little circle in Bloomsbury: “You know I’m not sure he ought to go about reporting our proceedings.”
“I see. Perhaps you think he’s a spy, an agent provocateur or something of that sort.”
“No,” said Hyacinth after a moment. “I think a spy would be more careful—would disguise himself more. Besides, after all, he has heard very little.” He spoke as with mild amusement.
“You mean he hasn’t really been behind the scenes?” the Princess asked, bending forward a little and now covering the young man steadily with her beautiful deep eyes, as if by this time he must have got used to her and wouldn’t flinch from such attention. “Of course he hasn’t,” she said of herself, however, “and he never will be. He knows that, and that it’s quite out of his power to tell any real secrets. What he repeated to me was interesting, but of course I could see there was nothing the authorities anywhere could put their hand on. It was mainly the talk he had had with you which struck him so very much, and which struck me, as I tell you. Perhaps you didn’t know how he was drawing you out.”
“I’m afraid that’s rather easy,” said Hyacinth with perfect candour; for it came over him that he had chattered with a vengeance in Bloomsbury and had thought it natural enough there that his sociable fellow-visitor should offer him cigars and attach importance to the views of a clever and original young artisan.
“I’m not sure that I find it so! However, I ought to tell you that you needn’t have the least fear of Captain Sholto. He’s a perfectly honest man, so far as he goes; and even if you had trusted him much more than you appear to have done he’d be incapable of betraying you. However, don’t trust him: not because he’s not safe, but because—!” She took herself up. “No matter, you’ll see for yourself. He has gone into that sort of thing simply to please me. I should tell you, merely to make you understand, that he would do anything for that. That’s his own affair. I wanted to know something, to learn something, to ascertain what really is going on; and for a woman everything of that sort’s so difficult, especially for a woman in my position, who’s tiresomely known and to whom every sort of bad faith is sure to be imputed. So Sholto said he would look into the subject for me. Poor man, he has had to look into so many subjects! What I particularly wanted was that he should make friends with some of the leading spirits, really characteristic types.” The Princess’s voice was low and rather deep, but her tone perfectly natural and easy, with a charming assumption—for you could call it nothing else—of more wonderful things than he could count. Her manner of speaking was in fact altogether new to her listener, for whom the pronunciation of her words and the very punctuation of her sentences were the revelation of what he supposed to be society—the very Society to the destruction of which he was dedicated.
“Surely Captain Sholto doesn’t suppose I’m a leading spirit!” he exclaimed with the resolve not to be laughed at any more than he could help.