"They all please me, even the least beautiful and the least young. Those who please me most are the ones I can't possess," concluded Galatà, with a slightly irritable accent.
"And do you never fall in love?" asked Lucio icily.
"In love? Not at all. I should be silly to let myself fall in love. Sometimes they believe I am in love; and sometimes love matters nothing at all to them," murmured the Prince cynically.
"Therefore you are going to the Grand Hotel," said Lucio, with a sneer.
"Naturally! What is one to do in a small hotel, with such few people as we are, all acquainted with each other? Everything is noted and observed, everything is heard. Hurrah for the large hotels, Sabini! For every reason there is nothing like them for what I want. Plenty of unknown or little known women; I unknown to them or little known; immense salons, immense halls, vast terraces—the earthly paradise, my friend, the paradise of adventures of a day, of three days, of a week, especially when they are on the point of leaving ... when they are unlikely to be seen again, you understand, they dare more easily."
The Prince of Campobello laughed, with his red, carnal, sensual mouth beneath his black moustaches; and his black beard shook a little, and his eyes shone with a desire that was ever satisfied and ever unsatisfied.
"But these women whom you meet on your travels, dear Galatà, are they easy to conquer?" asked Lucio, with cynical curiosity.
"Ah, not all certainly, my friend; but I try with all."
"With all?"
"No one excluded. It is my method. I assure you it is the best way."