“That’s very good advice, but to follow it isn’t amusing.” Then the Prince added: “You alluded, just now, as to something particular, to _quel giovane_, the young artisan whom I met in the other house. Is he also still proposed to our admiration, or has he paid the penalty of his crimes?” “He has paid the penalty, but I don’t know of what. I’ve nothing bad to tell you of him except that I think his star’s on the wane.” “_Poverino!_” the Prince exclaimed. “That’s exactly the manner in which I addressed him the first time I saw him. I didn’t know how it would happen, but I felt it would happen somehow. It has happened through his changing his opinions. He has now the same idea as you—_ci vuol pazienza_.” Her friend listened with the same expression of wounded eagerness, the same parted lips and excited eyes, to every added fact that dropped from Madame Grandoni’s lips. “That at least is more honest. Then _he_ doesn’t go to Chiffinch Street?” “I don’t know about Chiffinch Street, though it would be my impression that he doesn’t go to any place visited by Christina and the other one, by the Scotchman, together. But these are delicate matters,” the old woman pursued. They seemed much to impress her interlocutor. “Do you mean that the Scotchman is—what shall I call it?—his successor?” For a time she made no reply. “I imagine this case different. But I don’t understand; it was the other, the little one, who helped her to know the Scotchman.” “And now they’ve quarrelled—about my wife? It’s all tremendously edifying!” the Prince wailed. “I can’t tell you, and shouldn’t have attempted it, only that Assunta talks to me.” “I wish she would talk to me,” he said wistfully. “Ah my friend, if Christina were to find you getting at her servants——!” “How could it be worse for me than it is now? However, I don’t know why I speak as if I cared, for I don’t care any more. I’ve given her up. It’s finished.” “I’m glad to hear it,” said Madame Grandoni gravely. “You yourself made the distinction perfectly. So long as she endeavoured only to injure _me_, and in my private capacity, I could condone, I could wait, I could hope. But since she has so shamelessly thrown herself into criminal undertakings, since she lifts her hand with a determined purpose, as you tell me, against the most sacred institutions—it’s too much; ah yes, it’s too much! She may go her way; she’s no wife of mine. Not another penny of mine shall go into her pocket and into that of the wretches who prey upon her, who have corrupted her.” “Dear Prince, I think you’re right. And yet I’m sorry!” sighed his hostess, extending her hand for assistance to rise from her chair. “If she becomes really poor it will be much more difficult for me to leave her. _This_ is not poverty, and not even a good imitation of it, as she would like it to be. But what will be said of me if, having remained with her through so much of her splendour, I turn away from her the moment she begins to want?”