“What does he know? What business has he to address you so?”
“I suppose, as I tell you, that he knows from Madame Grandoni. She has told him I’ve great influence with you.”
“Ah she was welcome to tell him that!” the Princess tossed off.
“His reasoning, therefore, has been that when I find you’ve nothing more to give to the cause I’ll let you go.”
“Nothing more? And does he count me myself, and every pulse of my being, every capacity of my nature, as nothing?” the Princess cried with shining eyes.
“Apparently he thinks I do.”
“Oh as for that, after all, I’ve known you care far more for my money than for me. But it has made no difference to me,” she finely said.
“Then you see that by your own calculation the Prince is right.”
“My dear sir,” Muniment’s hostess replied, “my interest in you never depended on your interest in me. It depended wholly on a sense of your great destinies. I suppose that what you began to tell me,” she went on, “is that he stops my allowance.”
“From the first of next month. He has taken legal advice. It’s now clear—so he tells me—that you forfeit your settlements.”