“Can’t I take legal advice too?” she demanded. “I can fight that to the last inch of ground. I can forfeit my settlements only by an act of my own. The act that led to our separation was his act; he turned me out of his house by physical violence.”
“Certainly,” said her visitor, displaying even in this simple discussion his easy aptitude for argument; “but since then there have been acts of your own——!” He stopped a moment, smiling; then went on: “Your whole connexion with a league working for as great ends as you like, but for ends and by courses necessarily averse to the eye of day and the observation of the police—this constitutes an act; and so does your exercise of the pleasure, which you appreciate so highly, of feeding it with money extorted from an old Catholic and princely family. You know how little it’s to be desired that these matters should come to light.”
“Why in the world need they come to light? Allegations in plenty of course he’d have, but not a particle of proof. Even if Madame Grandoni were to testify against me, which is inconceivable, she wouldn’t be able to produce a definite fact.”
“She’d be able to produce the fact that you had a little bookbinder staying for a month in your house.”
“What has that to do with it?” she promptly asked. “If you mean that that’s a circumstance which would put me in the wrong as against the Prince, is there not on the other side this marked detail that while our young friend was staying with me Madame Grandoni herself, a person of the highest and most conspicuous respectability, never saw fit to withdraw from me her countenance and protection? Besides, why shouldn’t I have my bookbinder just as I might have—and the Prince should surely appreciate my consideration in not having—my physician and my chaplain?”
“Am I not your chaplain?” Muniment again amusedly inquired. “And does the bookbinder usually dine at the Princess’s table?”
“Why not—when he’s an artist? In the old times, I know, artists dined with the servants; but not to-day.”
“That would be for the court to appreciate,” he said. And in a moment he added: “Allow me to call your attention to the fact that Madame Grandoni has left you—has withdrawn her countenance and protection.”
“Ah but not for Hyacinth!” the Princess returned in a tone which would have made the fortune of an actress if an actress could have caught it.
“For the bookbinder or for the chaplain, it doesn’t matter. But that’s only a detail. In any case,” he noted, “I shouldn’t in the least care for your going to law.”