“I shall bring Madame Grandoni to see you,” said the Princess irrelevantly but kindly.
“Do you think it’s not right to have a lot of things about?” Lady Aurora, with sudden courage, inquired of her distinguished companion, pointing a vague chin at her but looking into one of the upper angles of the room.
“I suppose one must always settle that for one’s self. I don’t like to be surrounded with objects I don’t care for, and I can care only for one thing—that is for one class of things—at a time. Dear lady,” the Princess pursued, “I fear I must confess to you that my heart’s not in bibelots. When thousands and tens of thousands haven’t bread to put in their mouths I can dispense with tapestry and old china.” And her fair face, bent charmingly, conciliatingly, on Lady Aurora, appeared to argue that if she was narrow at least she was honest.
Hyacinth wondered, rather vulgarly, what strange turn she had taken and whether this singular picture of her denuded personality were not one of her famous caprices, a whimsical joke, a nervous perversity. Meanwhile he heard Lady Aurora urge anxiously: “But don’t you think we ought to make the world more beautiful?”
“Doesn’t the Princess make it so by the mere fact of her existence?” Hyacinth interposed, his perplexity escaping in a harmless manner through this graceful hyperbole. He had observed that though the lady in question could dispense with old china and tapestry she couldn’t dispense with a pair of immaculate gloves which fitted her to a charm.
“My people have a mass of things, you know, but I’ve really nothing myself,” said Lady Aurora, as if she owed this assurance to such a representative of suffering humanity.
“The world will be beautiful enough when it becomes good enough,” the Princess resumed. “Is there anything so ugly as unjust distinctions, as the privileges of the few contrasted with the degradation of the many? When we want to beautify we must begin at the right end.”
“Surely there are none of us but what have our privileges!” Rose Muniment exclaimed with eagerness. “What do you say to mine, lying here between two members of the aristocracy and with Mr. Hyacinth thrown in?”
“You’re certainly lucky—with Lady Aurora Langrish. I wish she would come and see me,” the Princess genially sighed as she rose.
“Do go, my lady, and tell me if it’s so poor!” Rosy went on gaily.