"I mean to say, to an old soldier like me," he went on,
wiping his monocle and replacing it, as though he were laying a fresh
dressing on the raw wound underneath, while the Princess instinctively
looked away, "that Empire nobility, well, of course, it's not the same
thing, but, after all, taking it as it is, it's very fine of its kind;
they were people who really did fight like heroes."
"But I have the deepest respect for heroes," the Princess assented, though
with a faint trace of irony. "If I don't go with Basin to see this
Princesse d'Iena, it isn't for that, at all; it's simply because I don't
know them. Basin knows them; he worships them. Oh, no, it's not what you
think; he's not in love with her. I've nothing to set my face against!
Besides, what good has it ever done when I have set my face against them?"
she queried sadly, for the whole world knew that, ever since the day upon
which the Prince des Laumes had married his fascinating cousin, he had
been consistently unfaithful to her. "Anyhow, it isn't that at all.
They're people he has known for ever so long, they do him very well, and
that suits me down to the ground.
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