‘Nadine is never long pleased,’ said her husband.
‘What does Matthew Arnold say?’ answered the Princess, ‘that the poet is never happy, because in nature he wants the world, and in the world he longs for nature. Now, I am not a poet, but still I am a little like that. What you are pleased to call my discontent is a certain restless sensation that our life—which we think the only life—is a very ridiculous one; and yet I am quite incapable of leading any other—for more than a week. I remember, Geraldine, that you remarked once that it was this fool of a world which makes fools of us all. There was a profound truth in the not very elegant speech.’
‘I don’t remember saying it; but it is certainly true. We grow up in the world as a Chinese child grows up in the jar which is to make a dwarf of him. The jar checks our development malgré nous. We cannot be giants, if we would.’
‘I am sure it would not suit you to be a giant, Ralph,’ said his sister. ‘You would never like to release distressed damsels and slay disagreeable dragons. The uttermost you would ever do to the very biggest dragon would be to turn an epigram on his odd appearance. Giants are always very busy people, and you are so lazy——’
‘That is the fault of the jar,’ said Geraldine.
‘Some people break the jar and get out of it,’ said his sister.
‘No, nobody does,’ said the Princess Napraxine. ‘You mistake there, Wilkes. The world is with us always, and we cannot get rid of it.’
The frank eyes of Geraldine conveyed to her eloquently his conviction that the discontent she spoke of was solely due to her determined banishment of one sentiment out of her life. She gave him an enigmatical little smile of comprehension and disbelief combined, and continued to unroll her philosophies—or what did duty as such.
‘Do you not know the kind of feeling I mean? When we are among the orchids in the conservatories we want to go and gather damp primroses. Do you not remember that queen who, when she heard the gipsies singing under her windows, all in a moment longed to go with them? There is something of the gipsy in everybody—in everybody who has a soul. The time comes when one is tired of the trumpery and folly of it all—the wicked expenditure, the dense selfishness and indifference, the people that call themselves leaders of good taste, and yet like foie gras and the Concours hippique and Kümmel and Londrès, and the atmosphere of Paris theatres.’
‘Interesting, but discursive,’ murmured Lady Brancepeth. ‘Primroses—gipsies—a soul—I do not see the connection.’