'They are better than some other things--than _rouge et noir_, for instance; but I did not perhaps do right in advising a mere man of pleasure to use the nation as his larger gaming-table.'
'You are beyond my comprehension! Your wire drawing is too fine for my dull eyesight. One thing is certainly quite clear to me, dull as I am; you live alone until you grow dissatisfied with everything. There is no possibility of pleasing a woman who disapproves of the whole living world!'
'The world sees few unmixed motives,' said Wanda, to which the Princess replied by an impatient movement.
'The post has brought fifty letters for you. I have been looking over the journals,' she answered. 'There is something you may also perhaps deign to read.'
She held out a French newspaper and pointed to a column in it.
Wanda took it and read it, standing. It was a report of a debate in the French Chamber.
She read in silence and attentively, leaning against the great carved chimney-piece. 'I was not aware he was so good an orator,' she said simply, when she had finished reading.
'You grant that it is a very fine speech, a very noble speech?' said Madame Otillie, eagerly and with impatience. 'You perceive the sensation it caused; it is evidently the first time he has spoken. You will see in another portion of the print how they praise him.'
'He has acquired his convictions with rapidity. He was a Socialist when here.'
'The idea! A man of his descent has always the instincts of his order: he may pretend to resist them, but they are always stronger than he. You might at least commend him, Wanda, since your words turned him towards public life.'
'He is no doubt eloquent,' she answered, with 'some reluctance. 'That we could see here. If he be equally sincere he will be a great gain to the nobility of France.'
'I really cannot understand you. You censured his waste of ability and accession; you seem equally disposed to cavil at his exertions and use of his talent. Your prejudices are most cruelly tenacious.'
'How can I applaud your friend's action until I am sure of his motive?'
'His motive is to please you,' thought the Princess, but she was too wary to say so.
'No motive is ever altogether unmixed, as you cruelly observed; but I should say that his must be on the whole sufficiently pure. He wishes to relieve the inaction and triviality of a useless life.'