There was no annoyance for him in this, his pretension to keep pace with her “views” being quite extinct. The tone they now for the most part took with each other was one of mutual derision, of shrugging commiseration for lunacy on the one hand and pusillanimity on the other. In discussing with her he exaggerated deliberately, went fantastic lengths in the way of reaction, a point where it was their habit and their amusement to hurl all manner of denunciation at each other’s head. They had given up serious discussion altogether and when not engaged in bandying, in the spirit of burlesque, the amenities I have mentioned, talked for a compromise of matters as to which it couldn’t occur to them to differ. There were evenings when she did nothing but relate her life and all she had seen of humanity, from her earliest years, in a variety of countries. If evil appearances seemed mainly to have been presented to her view this didn’t diminish the interest and vividness of her reminiscences, nor her power, the greatest Hyacinth had ever encountered, of light mimetic, dramatic evocation. She was irreverent and invidious, but she made him hang on her lips; and when she regaled him with anecdotes of foreign courts—he delighted to know how monarchs lived and conversed—there was often for hours together nothing to indicate that she would have liked to get into a conspiracy and he would have liked to get out of one. Nevertheless his mind was by no means exempt from wonder as to what she was really doing in such holes and in what queer penalties she might find herself landed. When he questioned her she wished to know by what title, with his sentiments, he pretended to inquire. He did so but little, not being himself altogether convinced of the validity of his warrant; but on an occasion when she had challenged him he replied, smiling and hesitating: “Well, I must say it seems to me that from what I’ve told you it ought to strike you I’ve rather a title.” “You mean your famous pledge to ‘act’ on demand? Oh that will never come to anything.” “Why won’t it come to anything?” “It’s too absurd, it’s too vague. It’s like some silly humbug in a novel.” “_Vous me rendez la vie!_” Hyacinth said theatrically. “You won’t have to do it,” she went on. “I think you mean I won’t do it. I’ve offered at least. Isn’t that a title?” “Well then you won’t do it,” said the Princess; after which they looked at each other a couple of minutes in silence. “You will, I think, at the pace you’re going,” the young man resumed. “What do you know about the pace? You’re not worthy to know!”