'Oh, dear, no, her princedom is nothing here. We can easily beat that. But we can't beat———' And Sholto paused a moment.
'What then?' his companion asked.
'Well, the perfection of her indifference to public opinion and the unaffectedness of her originality; the sort of thing by which she has bedeviled me.'
'Oh, you!' murmured Madame Grandoni.
'If you think so poorly of me why did you say just now that you were glad to see me?' Sholto demanded, in a moment.
'Because you make another person in the house, and that is more regular; the situation is by so much less—what did you call it?—eccentric. Nun,' the old lady went on, in a moment, 'so long as you are here I won't go off.'
'Depend upon it that I shall be here until I'm turned out.'
She rested her small, troubled eyes upon him, but they betrayed no particular enthusiasm at this announcement. 'I don't understand how, for yourself, on such an occasion, you should like it.'
'Dear Madame Grandoni, the heart of man, without being such a hopeless labyrinth as the heart of woman, is still sufficiently complicated. Don't I know what will become of the little beggar?'
'You are very horrible,' said the ancient woman. Then she added, in a different tone, 'He is much too good for his fate.'
'And pray wasn't I, for mine?' the Captain asked.
'By no manner of means!' Madame Grandoni answered, rising and moving away from him.
