“_Capisco bene_,” said the Prince, dropping his eyes. He appeared to have closed them, for some moments, as if a slow spasm of pain were passing through him. “I can’t tell you what torments me most,” he presently went on, “the thought that sometimes makes my heart rise into my mouth. It’s a haunting fear.” And his pale face and disturbed respiration might indeed have been those of a man before whom some horrible spectre had risen. “You needn’t tell me. I know what you mean, my poor friend.” “Do you think, then, there _is_ a danger—that she will drag my name, do what no one has ever dared to do? That I would never forgive,” said the young man, almost under his breath; and the hoarseness of his whisper lent a great effect to the announcement. Madame Grandoni wondered for a moment whether she had not better tell him (as it would prepare him for the worst) that his wife cared about as much for his name as for any old label on her luggage; but after an instant’s reflection she reserved this information for another hour. Besides, as she said to herself, the Prince ought already to know perfectly to what extent Christina attached the idea of an obligation or an interdict to her ill-starred connection with an ignorant and superstitious Italian race whom she despised for their provinciality, their parsimony and their tiresomeness (she thought their talk the climax of puerility), and whose fatuous conception of their importance in the great modern world she had on various public occasions sufficiently covered with her derision. The old lady finally contented herself with remarking, “Dear Prince, your wife is a very proud woman.” “Ah, how could my wife be anything else? But her pride is not my pride. And she has such ideas, such opinions! Some of them are monstrous.” Madame Grandoni smiled. “She doesn’t think it so necessary to have them when you are not there.” “Why then do you say that you enter into my fears—that you recognise the stories I have heard?” I know not whether the good lady lost patience with his persistence; at all events, she broke out, with a certain sharpness, “Understand this—understand this: Christina will never consider you—your name, your illustrious traditions—in any case in which she doesn’t consider, much more, herself!” The Prince appeared to study, for a moment, this somewhat ambiguous yet portentous phrase; then he slowly got up, with his hat in his hand, and walked about the room, softly, solemnly, as he were suffering from his long thin feet. He stopped before one of the windows, and took another survey of South Street; then, turning, he suddenly inquired, in a voice into which he had evidently endeavoured to infuse a colder curiosity, “Is she admired in this place? Does she see many people?” “She is thought very strange, of course. But she sees whom she likes. And they mostly bore her to death!” Madame Grandoni added, with a laugh. “Why then do you tell me this country pleases her?”