He had become a very philosophic young man since his marriage.
The quiet common sense of the words fell like mild rain on the raging fires of her fierce indignation. Perhaps he was right and it did not matter. Perhaps he was more right than he knew and it was even advantageous.
If Katherine Massarene had not talked before of what she had found in her father’s papers she certainly would not talk now. Shameful as Ronnie’s conduct was, he would not allow his wife to expose his sister. It was a frightful mésalliance, but it had its serviceable side. A padlock was on the lips of “Billy’s daughter.”
“I will never speak to her if I meet her at Osborne or Windsor,” she repeated suddenly.
Prince Woffram looked round from the telescope and the tea-roses.
“My angel,” he said very gently, “that would be to argue yourself unused to royal circles, and it would bring down on you many—many—oh! many questions.”
“You would have me make advances to this beggared wretch—this scum of the earth!”
“No, no,” said Prince Woffram soothingly. “I would not suggest to you to make advances. To make advances is to put oneself in the wrong. I would suggest to you to await events; and, in the not very probable coincidence which you imagine, I would beg you to remember that a great sovereign’s invitation confers a credential which none can dispute.”
Since he had trampled on his conscience, as he had put away his sword, Wuffie had substituted for them much practical common sense, and in very bland sentences said things which smote edgeways. His wife at times wondered how much he guessed, how far he was blinded, and now and then felt a spasm of fear that this cherub-faced boy, with his artless, meaningless smile, might, in some things, prove her master.
It is dangerous to teach a man, and a very young man, to sell his soul. Nature will substitute something else for it, something which you will not like when you learn to know it well.