‘Why do people ever ask one why one does things?’ she interrupted, irritably. ‘One imagines one will like a thing; one gets it; and directly, of course, one does not like it. That is a kind of general law. Monsignore Melville will tell us, I suppose, that it is to prevent us attaching ourselves to the pleasures of this world; but as it also operates in preventing one’s attaching oneself to anybody, as well as anything, I do not know that the result is as admirable as he would imagine.’
‘I never said——’ began Melville.
‘Oh, no, but you would say if you were in the pulpit,’ she replied, before he could finish his sentence. ‘You would say that even ennui and satiety and depression have their uses if they lead the soul to heaven; but that is just what they do not do; they only lead to morphia, chloral, dyspepsia, and Karlsbad. It is quite impossible—it must be quite impossible, even for you, Monsignore—to consider Karlsbad as an antechamber to heaven!’
Melville tried to look shocked, but did not succeed well, as he was a little Rabelaisian and Montaignist at heart, and not intended by nature for a Churchman.
‘What are we going to do?’ said the Prince, as he stretched himself in his chair, and lighted another cigarette.
‘Stay where we are,’ suggested Geraldine, who desired nothing better, as a tête-à-tête was a favour never accorded to him twice in twenty-four hours.
‘Oh, not I, indeed!’ cried Napraxine, with as much alacrity as was possible beneath his heavy ‘envelope of flesh.’ ‘I shall go to Monte Carlo. I have told them to harness. If you like to come——’
At that moment a servant brought him a card. He read what was written in pencilled lines upon it; then raised his head with a pleased exclamation.
‘Je vous le donne en mille!’ he cried. ‘Nadine, who do you think is here?’
‘A goose with a diseased liver, or a hundred green oysters?’ said his wife, contemptuously. ‘I can imagine no lesser source for so much radiance.’