There was another reflexion for Madame Grandoni to make as her interview with her dejected friend prolonged itself. She could make it the more freely as, besides being naturally quick and appreciative, she had always, during her Roman career, in the dear old days (mixed with bitterness as they had been for her) lived with artists, archæologists, ingenious strangers, people who abounded in good talk, threw out ideas and played with them. It came over her that really, even if things had not reached that particular crisis, Christina’s active, various, ironical mind, with all its audacities and impatiences, could not have tolerated long the simple deadly dulness of the Prince’s company. The old lady had begun on meeting him: “Of course what you want to know at once is whether she has sent you a message. No, my poor friend, I must tell you the truth. I asked her for one, but she assures me she has nothing whatever, of any kind, to say to you. She knew I was coming out to see you—I haven’t done so _en cachette_. She doesn’t like it, but she accepts the necessity for this once, since you’ve made the mistake, as she considers it, of approaching her again. We talked of you last night after your note came to me—for five minutes; that is, I talked in my independent way and Christina was good enough to listen. At the end she spoke briefly, with perfect calmness and the appearance of being the most reasonable woman in the world. She didn’t ask me to repeat it to you, but I do so because it’s the only substitute I can offer you for a message. ‘I try to occupy my life, my mind, to create interests, in the odious position in which I find myself; I endeavour to get out of myself, my small personal disappointments and troubles, by the aid of such poor faculties as I possess. There are things in the world more interesting after all, and I hope to succeed in giving my attention to them. It appears to me not too much to ask that the Prince on his side should make the same conscientious effort—and leave me contentedly alone!’ Those were your wife’s remarkable words; they’re all I have to give you.”