‘I have always liked Othmar since one day, of which I will tell you when we have more time,’ answered Napraxine.
‘Please tell us now,’ said his wife. ‘I have always been curious to know the affinity between you and Othmar. It is a walrus gambling with a stag.’
‘Am I the walrus? It is an awkward animal,’ said her husband good-humouredly. ‘No, the tale can wait; he will be here in a moment.’
‘If he were an Admirable Crichton he would be detestable, if only because he is so hideously rich,’ interrupted Geraldine, with sullenness, ‘and the Princess has already spoken of another defect, the greatest a man can have, to my thinking; he is poseur.’
‘Pshaw!’ said the Prince. ‘How? What do you mean? Othmar, I should say, never thinks of himself.’
‘Oh, he is poseur, certainly,’ said Geraldine, with an undisguised cruel exultation in the cruel epithet. ‘He is a Crœsus, and he poses for simplicity; he is a financier, and he poses as a grand-seigneur; he is gorged with gold, and he poses as a Spartan on black broth. The whole life of the man is affectation. His humility is as detestable as his pride; his liberalities are as offensive as his possessions.’
‘Tiens, tiens!’ murmured Napraxine, taking his cigar out of his mouth. ‘My dear friend, you are under my roof, or at least on my terrace, so I cannot quarrel with you. I can only ask you kindly to remember what I said a little while ago, and to spare me again recalling to you that Othmar also is my friend. You will understand.’
Geraldine coloured slightly, conscious of having been ill-bred, and muttered sullenly, ‘I beg your pardon.’ A more tart and stinging retort was on his lips to the effect that the new comer was the last man on earth whom his host should welcome, but his awe of the Princess Napraxine repressed it. She herself gave her husband a glance of more appreciation than she had ever cast on him, and said to herself, ‘The walrus is the clumsiest and the stupidest of all living creatures, but it is so honest——’ and said aloud:
‘Verify your quotations, was the advice given by a dying don to an Oxford student. Geraldine quoted from me, but he did not stay to verify what he quoted. I spoke in haste. Othmar is a tiny trifle of a poseur, but it is quite unconsciously; it is the consequence of an anomalous position. All his instincts refuse to be the Samuel Bernard of his generation, and he is equally horrified at the idea of appearing as a Sidonia. If he had only ten thousand francs a year to-morrow he would be happy and charming. As it is, with his ten millions or his ten hundred millions, there is always the sense of that wall of ingots filling up the background, and keeping, as he thinks, the sunshine out of his life. Occasionally it makes him see everything yellow, like the jaundice, and to everybody else it makes him seem a colossus, which is distressing to him, as he is of ordinary stature.’
‘He is even taller than I am,’ said her husband.