“I can’t call them very plain, because the letter’s in French and I naturally have had a certain difficulty in making it out, in spite of my persevering study of the tongue and the fine example set me by poor Robinson. But that appears to be the gist of the matter.” “And you can repeat such an insult to me without the smallest apparent discomposure? You’re indeed the most extraordinary of men!” the Princess broke out. “Why is it an insult? It’s the simple truth. I do take your money,” Muniment said. “You take it for a sacred cause. You don’t take it for yourself.” “The Prince isn’t obliged to look at that,” he answered amusedly. His companion had a pause. “I didn’t know you were on his side.” “Oh you know on what side I am!” “What does _he_ know? What business has he to address you so?” “I suppose, as I tell you, that he knows from Madame Grandoni. She has told him I’ve great influence with you.” “Ah she was welcome to tell him that!” the Princess tossed off. “His reasoning, therefore, has been that when I find you’ve nothing more to give to the cause I’ll let you go.” “Nothing more? And does he count _me_ myself, and every pulse of my being, every capacity of my nature, as nothing?” the Princess cried with shining eyes. “Apparently he thinks _I_ do.” “Oh as for that, after all, I’ve known you care far more for my money than for me. But it has made no difference to me,” she finely said. “Then you see that by your own calculation the Prince is right.” “My dear sir,” Muniment’s hostess replied, “my interest in you never depended on your interest in me. It depended wholly on a sense of your great destinies. I suppose that what you began to tell me,” she went on, “is that he stops my allowance.” “From the first of next month. He has taken legal advice. It’s now clear—so he tells me—that you forfeit your settlements.” “Can’t I take legal advice too?” she demanded. “I can fight that to the last inch of ground. I can forfeit my settlements only by an act of my own. The act that led to our separation was _his_ act; he turned me out of his house by physical violence.” “Certainly,” said her visitor, displaying even in this simple discussion his easy aptitude for argument; “but since then there _have_ been acts of your own——!” He stopped a moment, smiling; then went on: “Your whole connexion with a league working for as great ends as you like, but for ends and by courses necessarily averse to the eye of day and the observation of the police—this constitutes an act; and so does your exercise of the pleasure, which you appreciate so highly, of feeding it with money extorted from an old Catholic and princely family. You know how little it’s to be desired that these matters should come to light.” “Why in the world need they come to light? Allegations in plenty of course he’d have, but not a particle of proof. Even if Madame Grandoni were to testify against me, which is inconceivable, she wouldn’t be able to produce a definite fact.”