No gentleman, besides, would so
parade his amours with the Princess; still less repay the Prince for
his long-suffering with a studied insolence of demeanour and the
fabrication of insulting nicknames, such as Prince Featherhead,
which run from ear to ear and create a laugh throughout the country.
Gondremark has thus some of the clumsier characters of the self-made
man, combined with an inordinate, almost a besotted, pride of
intellect and birth. Heavy, bilious, selfish, inornate, he sits
upon this court and country like an incubus.
But it is probable that he preserves softer gifts for necessary
purposes. Indeed, it is certain, although he vouchsafed none of it
to me, that this cold and stolid politician possesses to a great
degree the art of ingratiation, and can be all things to all men.
Hence there has probably sprung up the idle legend that in private
life he is a gross romping voluptuary. Nothing, at least, can well
be more surprising than the terms of his connection with the
Princess. Older than her husband, certainly uglier, and, according
to the feeble ideas common among women, in every particular less
pleasing, he has not only seized the complete command of all her
thought and action, but has imposed on her in public a humiliating
part. I do not here refer to the complete sacrifice of every rag of
her reputation; for to many women these extremities are in
themselves attractive.
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