After she had given them Madame Grandoni felt a pang of regret; the Prince turned upon her a face so white, bewildered and wounded. It had seemed to her that they might form a wholesome admonition, but it was now impressed upon her that, as coming from his wife, they were cruel, and she herself felt almost cruel for having repeated them. What they amounted to was an exquisite taunt of his mediocrity—a mediocrity which was, after all, not a crime. How could the Prince occupy himself, what interests could he create, and what faculties, gracious heaven, did he possess? He was as ignorant as a fish, and as narrow as his hat-band. His expression became pitiful; it was as if he dimly measured the insult, felt it more than saw it—felt that he could not plead incapacity without putting the Princess largely in the right. He gazed at Madame Grandoni, his face worked, and for a moment she thought he was going to burst into tears. But he said nothing—perhaps because he was afraid of that—so that suffering silence, during which she gently laid her hand upon his own, remained his only answer. He might doubtless do so much he didn’t, that when Christina touched upon this she was unanswerable. The old lady changed the subject: told him what a curious country England was, in so many ways; offered information as to their possible movements during the summer and autumn, which, within a day or two, had become slightly clearer. But at last, abruptly, as if he had not heard her, he inquired, appealingly, who the young man was who had come in the day he called, just as he was going. Madame Grandoni hesitated a moment. “He was the Princess’s bookbinder.” “Her bookbinder? Do you mean her lover?” “Prince, how can you dream she will ever live with you again?” the old lady asked, in reply to this. “Why, then, does she have him in her drawing-room—announced like an ambassador, carrying a hat in his hand like mine? Where were his books, his bindings? I shouldn’t say this to her,” the Prince added, as if the declaration justified him. “I told you the other day that she is making studies of the people—the lower orders. The young man you saw is a study.” Madame Grandoni could not help laughing out as she gave her explanation this turn; but her mirth elicited no echo from her interlocutor. “I have thought that over—over and over; but the more I think the less I understand. Would it be your idea that she is quite crazy? I must tell you I don’t care if she is!” “We are all quite crazy, I think,” said Madame Grandoni; “but the Princess no more than the rest of us. No, she must try everything; at present she is trying democracy and socialism.” “_Santo Dio!_” murmured the young man. “And what do they say here when they see her bookbinder?” “They haven’t seen him, and perhaps they won’t. But if they do, it won’t matter, because here everything is forgiven. That a person should be singular is all they want. A bookbinder will do as well as anything else.”