They proceeded till they reached the gates, and in a moment Hyacinth said, “You took up the social question, then, because she did; but do you happen to know why she took it up?”
“Ah, my dear fellow, you must find that out for yourself. I found you the place, but I can’t do your work for you!”
“I see—I see. But perhaps you’ll tell me this: if you had free access to the Princess a year ago, taking her to the theatre and that sort of thing, why shouldn’t you have it now?”
This time Sholto’s white pupils looked strange again. “_You_ have it now, my dear fellow, but I’m afraid it doesn’t follow that you’ll have it a year hence. She was tired of me then, and of course she’s still more tired of me now, for the simple reason that I’m more tiresome. She has sent me to Coventry, and I want to come out for a few hours. See how conscientious I am—I won’t pass the gates.”
“I’ll tell her I met you,” said Hyacinth. Then, irrelevantly, he added, “Is that what you mean by her having no heart?”
“Her treating me as she treats me? Oh, dear, no; her treating you!”
This had a portentous sound, but it did not prevent Hyacinth from turning round with his visitor (for it was the greatest part of the oddity of the present meeting that the hope of a little conversation with him, if accident were favourable, had been the motive not only of Sholto’s riding over to Medley but of his coming down to stay, in the neighbourhood, at a musty inn in a dull market-town), it did not prevent him, I say, from bearing the Captain company for a mile on his backward way. Our young man did not pursue this particular topic much further, but he discovered still another reason or two for admiring the light, free action with which his companion had unmasked himself, and the nature of his interest in the revolutionary idea, after he had asked him, abruptly, what he had had in his head when he travelled over that evening, the summer before (he didn’t appear to have come back as often as he promised), to Paul Muniment’s place in Camberwell. What was he looking for, whom was he looking for, there?
“I was looking for anything that would turn up, that might take her fancy. Don’t you understand that I’m always looking? There was a time when I went in immensely for illuminated missals, and another when I collected horrible ghost-stories (she wanted to cultivate a belief in ghosts), all for her. The day I saw she was turning her attention to the rising democracy I began to collect little democrats. That’s how I collected you.”