“Depend upon it I shall hang on tight till I’m turned out.”
She rested her small troubled eyes on him, but they betrayed no particular enthusiasm at this announcement. “I don’t understand how for yourself on such an occasion you should like it.”
“Dear Madame Grandoni, the heart of man, without being such a hopeless labyrinth as the heart of woman, is still sufficiently complicated. Don’t I know what will become of the little beggar?”
“You’re very horrible,” said the old woman. Then she added in a different tone: “He’s much too good for his fate.”
“And pray wasn’t I for mine?” the Captain asked.
“By no manner of means!” Madame Grandoni returned as she rose and moved away from him.
The Princess had come into the room accompanied by Hyacinth. As it was now considerably past the dinner-hour the old lady judged that this couple, on their side, had met in the hall and had prolonged their conversation there. Hyacinth watched with extreme interest the way the Princess greeted the Captain—taking it for very simple, easy and friendly. At dinner she made no stranger of him, including him in everything as if he had been a useful familiar like Madame Grandoni, only a little less venerable, yet not giving him any attention that might cause their eyes to meet. She had told Hyacinth she didn’t like his eyes, nor indeed very much any part of him. Of course any admiration from almost any source couldn’t fail to be in some degree grateful to an amiable woman, but of any unintended effect one might ever have produced the impression made on Godfrey Sholto in an evil hour ministered least to her vanity. He had been useful undoubtedly at times, but at others had been as a droning in her ears. He was so uninteresting in himself, so shallow, so unoccupied and futile, and really so frivolous in spite of his pretension (of which she was unspeakably weary) of being all wrapped up in a single idea. It had never by itself been sufficient to interest her in any man, the fact that he was in love with her; but indeed she could honestly say that most of the people who had liked her had had on their own side something, something in their character or conditions, that she could trouble her head about. Not so far as would do any harm save perhaps in one or two cases; but still some personal mark.
Sholto was a curious and not particularly edifying English type, as the Princess further described him; one of those odd figures produced by old societies that have run to seed, corrupt and exhausted civilisations. He was a cumberer of the earth—purely selfish for all his devoted, disinterested airs. He was nothing whatever in himself and had no character or merit save by tradition, reflexion, imitation, superstition. He had a longish pedigree—he came of some musty, mouldy “county family,” people with a local reputation and an immense lack of general importance; he had taken the greatest care of his little fortune. He had travelled all over the globe several times, “for the shooting,” in that murdering, ravaging way of the English, the destruction, the extirpation of creatures more beautiful, more soaring and more nimble than themselves. He had a little taste, a little cleverness, a little reading, a little good furniture, a little French and Italian (he exaggerated these latter quantities), an immense deal of assurance and unmitigated leisure. That, at bottom, was all he represented—idle, trifling, luxurious, yet at the same time pretentious leisure, the sort of thing that led people to invent false, humbugging duties because they had no real ones. Sholto’s great idea of himself, after his profession of being her slave, was that he was a cosmopolite and exempt from every prejudice. About the prejudices the Princess couldn’t say and didn’t care; but she had seen him in foreign countries, she had seen him in Italy, and she was bound to say he understood nothing of those people. It was several years before, shortly after her marriage, that she had first encountered him. He had not begun immediately to go in for adoring her—it had come little by little. It was only after she had separated from her husband that he had taken so to hanging about her—since when she had suffered much from him. She would do him one justice, however: he had never, so far as she knew, had the impudence to represent himself as anything but hopeless and helpless. It was on this he took his stand—he wanted to pass for the great model of unrewarded constancy. She couldn’t imagine what he was waiting for—perhaps it was for the death of the Prince. But the Prince would never die, nor had she the least desire he should. She had no wish to be harsh, for of course that sort of thing was from any one very flattering; but really, whatever feeling poor Sholto might have, four-fifths of it were purely theatrical. He was not in the least a natural, quiet person, and had only a hundred affectations and attitudes, the result of never having been obliged to put his hand to anything, of having no serious tastes and yet being born to a little position. The Princess remarked that she was so glad Hyacinth had no position, had been forced to do something else in life but amuse himself; that was the way she liked her friends now. She had said to Sholto again and again: “There are plenty of others who will be much more pleased with you; why not go to them? It’s such a waste of time.” She was sure indeed he had in some degree taken her advice, was by no means, as regards herself, the absorbed, annihilated creature he endeavoured to pass for. He had told her once he was trying to take an interest in other women—though indeed he had added that it was of no use. Of what use did he expect anything he could possibly do to be? Hyacinth, at this, didn’t tell the Princess he had reason to believe the Captain’s effort in that direction had not been absolutely vain; but he made the reflexion privately and with increased confidence. He recognised a further truth even when his companion said at the end that with all she had touched upon poor Sholto was a queer combination. Trifler as he was there was something sinister in him too; and she confessed she had had a vague feeling at times that some day he might do her a hurt. It was a remark that caused our young man to stop short on the threshold of the drawing-room and ask in a low voice: “Are you afraid of him?”
The Princess smiled as he had not yet seen her. “Dio mio, how you say that! Should you like to kill him for me?”
“I shall have to kill some one, you know. Why not him while I’m about it if he troubles you?”