"Oh, either more or less," answered Lisa. "Either you should be furious and shake Charlotte until her teeth rattled, and fling my boy into the street, or else you should be wise enough to see it doesn't make the least difference--and be human--and sensible--and--and--" "--and give your son a job," said Haines quietly. The princess was startled. She drew herself up still more. "I have not asked you to give my son a job," she said. He took his cigar out of his mouth, and she noticed that his strange long pale hands were rather handsome. "Look here," he said, "answer this honestly: Didn't you have some such idea in your head when you decided to come here? Look at me." She did look at him, at first rather expecting to look him down, and then so much interested in what she saw--something intense and real and fearless--that she forgot everything else--forgot everything except that she was thirty-nine years old, and had lived a great deal in the world and yet had not met very many real people, and now-- Then she remembered that she must answer him. "Oh, yes," she said; "I had it in mind." "Well," said Haines, "that's what bores me." He began to walk up and down the room, somewhat, Lisa thought, as if he were dictating a letter. "Poor Charlotte! She's always making these wonderful discoveries--and they always turn out the same way--they always want something. You--why she's been talking about you--and writing about you. You were the most noble, the most disinterested, the most aristocratic-- She would hardly speak to me because I asked her why you were making this long journey. For love of her society, she thought. She thinks I'm a perfect bear, but, my God, how can a man sit round and see his wife exploited by everyone she comes in contact with--from the dealer who sells her fake antiques to the grandee who offers her fake friendship?" "I can't let you say that," said the princess, too much interested to be as angry as she felt she ought to be. "I have never offered anyone fake friendship." "I didn't say you had." "Pooh!" said she. "That's beneath you. You should at least be as honest, as you ask other people to be." This speech seemed to please him--to please him as a child might please him. He came and sat down opposite to her, looked at her for a moment and then smiled at her. His smile was sweet and intimate as a caress. "Come," he said, "I believe you're all right." "I am," she answered. "Even a little bit more than that." He sat there smoking and frankly studying her. "And yet," he said after a moment, "they're mostly not--you know--Charlotte's discoveries. They're mostly about as wrong as they can be." "And they kinda bore you?" said the princess, to whom the phrase seemed amusing. He nodded, and she went on: "A good many things do, I imagine."