The Harlequin laughed:
"Where would I be if I incurred your aunt's displeasure, dear friend?"
"Out of the monkey house for good I suppose," admitted Westguard. "Lord, Ricky, what a lot you have had to swallow for the sake of staying put among these people!"
Quarren sat meditating under his mask, cross-legged, twirling his sword, the crash of the floor orchestra dinning in his close-set ears.
"Yes," he said without resentment, "I've endured my share. That's one reason why I don't want to let several years of humiliation go for nothing. I've earned whatever place I have. And I mean to keep it."
Westguard turned on him half angrily, hesitated, then remained silent. What was the use? If Quarren had not been guilty of actually fawning, toadying, currying favour, he had certainly permitted himself to be rudely used. He had learned very thoroughly his art in the school of the courtier—learned how and when to be blind, silent, deaf; how to offer, how to yield, when and how to demand and exact. Which, to Westguard, meant the prostitution of intelligence. And he loathed the game like a man who is free to play it if he cares to. Of those who are denied participation, few really hate it.
But he said nothing more; and the Harlequin, indolently stretching his glittering limbs, dropped a light hand on Westguard's cuirassed shoulder:
"Don't be forever spoiling things for me, Karl. I really do enjoy the game as it lies."
"It does lie—that is the trouble, Rix."
"I can't afford to criticise it.... Listen; I'm a mediocre man; I'd never count among real men. I count in the set which I amuse and which accepts me. Let me enjoy it, can't you?"