‘But how can one judge, however just, rightfully judge a nation of millions unless he have the eyes and ears of Vishnou? I think you really are a despot by nature, but you are so very disputatious that you are always ready to repudiate your most cherished opinions for sheer sake of argument. You should have been a sophist.’
‘Every question is polygonal. Look at that gleam of light on that sail and all the rest of the vessel lost in fog—how charming!—it is like a picture of Aïvanoffsky’s. That is what I like in life; nothing said out, nothing broadly and rudely done, everything à demi mot, everything suggestion, not assertion; that is the only way to exhaust nothing, not to be wearied.’
‘You like impressions, not pictures; that is the new school. Everyone is not satisfied with it. That there are people to whom these vague wavy lines, those dim washes of colour, tell little——’
‘Oh, the people to whom one must explain! Let them all go where the sheep of Panurge went.’
‘I wish you would condescend for once to explain something,’ said Lady Brancepeth, and paused: Princess Nadine heard with a look of infinite ennui.
‘You mean to revenge yourself for having been awakened out of that dose. I never explain—enfin!——tell me what you want.’
Under this slight encouragement Lady Brancepeth gained courage to plunge straightway into a question which she had long meditated.
‘Will you tell me, my dear Nadine, what you mean to do with my brother?’
Madame Napraxine turned a little round in her ermine and gold brocade, and looked solemnly in her companion’s face.