‘If I do not go to Paris.’
‘Of course you will go to Paris, but you will go one day and come back another, like everybody else at this season; though, to be sure, I dare say you are longing for the smell of the asphalte after a cycle of Cathay?’
‘No; the asphalte is not necessary to me. It is more monotonous, on the whole, than the desert.’
‘Ah! you were never a Parisien parisiennant; you were always in revolt against something or another, though one never could understand very well what. When you condescended to our amusements, it was with the air of a man who, to please a child, plays with tin soldiers; that sort of air of contemptuous condescension has made you many enemies. There is nothing makes the world so angry as indifference to what it thinks delightful.’
‘You have offended it in that way yourself, Princess.’
‘Often; but not quite with your insolence. A man who prefers his library to the clubs is beyond all pardon; and, besides, I am seen everywhere where it is worth while to be seen; you are—or were—generally conspicuous by your absence.’
‘I imagine the world has grown as indifferent to me as I am to it, and having forgotten has so forgiven me. I have been away eighteen months.’
‘The world never forgets its rich men, my dear Othmar. It may forget its great ones. Will forget them, indeed, unless they have a drum beaten very loudly before them. You might be great, I think, if you liked; you have so many talents, so much power.’
‘I might buy a kingdom the size of Morocco or Montenegro? Very likely: such sovereignty does not attract me.’
‘Of course I do not mean that: you do not want to be a Prince Floristan; you do not love the race of princes well enough. But were I you I should set some great ambition before me.’