“You want to preach socialism to me, and hope to convert me to that splendid doctrine of communism we hear so much of. You are a dangerous fellow,--a very dangerous fellow. It was precisely men of your stamp sapped the monarchy in France, and with it all monarchy in Europe.” “If your Highness intends Proserpine to run at Bologna, she ought to be put in training at once,” said Stubber, gravely; “and we might send up some of the weeds at the same time, and sell them off.” “Well thought of, Stubber; and there was something else in my head,--what was it?” “The suppression of the San Lorenzo convent, perhaps; it is all completed, and only waits your Highness to sign the deed.” “What sum does it give us, Stubber, eh?” “About one hundred and eighty thousand scudi, sir, of which some twenty thousand go to the National Mortgage Fund.” “Not one crown of it,--not a single bajocco, as I am a Christian knight and a true gentleman. I need it all, if it were twice as much. If we incur the anger of the Pope and the Sacred College,--if we risk the thunders of the Vatican,--let us have the worldly consolation of a full purse.” “I advised the measure on wiser grounds, sir. It was not fair and just that a set of lazy friars should be leading lives of indolence and abundance in the midst of a hard-worked and ill-fed peasantry.” “Quite true; and on these wise grounds, as you call them, we have rooted them out. We only wish that the game were more plenty, for the sport amuses us vastly.” And he clapped Stubber familiarly on the shoulder, and laughed heartily at his jest. It was in this happy frame of mind that Stubber always liked to leave his master; and so, promising to attend to the different subjects discussed between them, he bowed and withdrew. CHAPTER XLIX. SOCIAL DIPLOMACIES “What an insufferable bore, dear Princess!” sighed Sir Horace, as he opened the square-shaped envelope that contained his Royal Highnesses invitation to dinner. “I mean to be seriously indisposed,” said Madame de Sabloukoff; “one gets nothing but chagrin in intercourse with petty Courts.” “Like provincial journals, they only reproduce what has appeared in the metropolitan papers, and give you old gossip for fresh intelligence.” “Or, worse again, ask you to take an interest in their miserable 'localisms,'--the microscopic contentions of insect life.” “They have given us a sentry at the door, I perceive,” said Sir Horace, with assumed indifference. “A very proper attention!” remarked the lady, in a tone that more than half implied the compliment was one intended for herself. “Have you seen the Chevalier Stubber yet?” asked Upton. “No; he has been twice here, but I was dressing, or writing notes. And you?” “I told him to come about two o'clock,” sighed Sir Horace. “I rather like Stubber.” This was said in a tone of such condescension that it sounded as though the utterer was confessing to an amicable weakness in his nature,--“I rather like Stubber.”