“What wonder indeed? But if he said that he was in one of his bad days,” the Princess replied. “He changes constantly and his impressions change. The misery of the people is by no means always on his heart. You tell me what he has told you; well, he has told me that the people may perish over and over rather than the conquests of civilisation shall be sacrificed to them. He declares at such moments that they’ll be sacrificed—sacrificed utterly—if the ignorant masses get the upper hand.” “He needn’t be afraid. That will never happen.” “I don’t know. We can at least try,” she said. “Try what you like, madam, but for God’s sake get the boy out of his muddle!” The Princess had suddenly grown excited in speaking of the cause she believed in, and she gave for the moment no heed to this appeal, which broke from Mr. Vetch’s lips with a sudden passion of anxiety. Her beautiful head raised itself higher and the constant light of her fine eyes became an extraordinary radiance. “Do you know what I say to Mr. Robinson when he makes such remarks as that to me? I ask him what he means by civilisation. Let civilisation come a little, first, and then we’ll talk about it. For the present, face to face with those horrors, I scorn it, I deny it!” And she laughed ineffable things, she might have been some splendid siren of the Revolution. “The world’s very sad and very hideous, and I’m happy to say that I soon shall have done with it. But before I go I want to save Hyacinth,” Mr. Vetch insisted. “If he’s a bloated little aristocrat, as you say, there’s so much the less fitness in his being ground in your mill. If he doesn’t even believe in what he pretends to do, that’s a pretty situation! What’s he in for, madam? What devilish folly has he undertaken?” “He’s a strange mixture of contradictory impulses,” said the Princess musingly. Then as if calling herself back to the old man’s question she pursued: “How can I enter into his affairs with you? How can I tell you his secrets? In the first place I don’t know them, and if I did—well, fancy me!”