Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 2.djvu/178

 'Certainly, he will have to be sacrificed. But why was I bound to consider him so much? Haven't I been sacrificed myself?'

'Oh, if he bears it like you!' cried the old lady, with a short laugh.

'How do you know how I bear it? One does what one can,' said the Captain, settling his shirt-front. 'At any rate, remember this: she won't tell people who he is, for his own sake; and he won't tell them, for hers. So, as he looks much more like a poet, or a pianist, or a painter, there won't be that sensation you fear.'

'Even so it's bad enough,' said Madame Grandoni. 'And he's capable of bringing it out, suddenly, himself.'

'Ah, if he doesn't mind it, she won't! But that's his affair.'

'It's too terrible, to spoil him for his station,' the old lady went on. 'How can he ever go back?'

'If you want him kept, then, indefinitely, you are inconsistent. Besides, if he pays for it, he deserves to pay. He's an abominable little conspirator against society.'

Madame Grandoni was silent a moment; then she looked at the Captain with a gravity which might have been impressive to him, had not his accomplished jauntiness suggested an insensibility to that sort of influence. 'What, then, does Christina deserve?' she asked, with solemnity.

'Whatever she may get; whatever, in the future, may make her suffer. But it won't be the loss of her reputation. She is too distinguished.'

'You English are strange. Is it because she's a princess?' Madame Grandoni reflected, audibly.