“Much, dear lady? It depends on what you call so. It’s enough to make all these scoundrels flock round her.”
“They’re not all scoundrels any more than she’s all one. That’s the tiresome part of it!” she wearily sighed.
“But this fellow, the chemist—to-night—what do you call him?”
“She has spoken to me of him as a fine young man.”
“But she thinks it fine to blow us all up,” the Prince returned. “Doesn’t he take her money?”
“I don’t know what he takes. But there are some things—heaven forbid one should forget them! The misery of London’s fearful.”
“Che vuole? There’s misery everywhere,” our personage opined. “It’s the will of God. Ci vuol pazienza! And in this country does no one give alms?”
“Every one, I believe. But it appears that that’s not enough.”
He said nothing for a moment; this statement of Madame Grandoni’s seemed to present difficulties. The solution, however, soon suggested itself; it was expressed in the inquiry: “What will you have in a country that hasn’t the true faith?”
“Ah the true faith’s a great thing, but there’s suffering even in countries that have it.”