paid no attention
to our side of the table for the reason that the Princess and myself
hoped to succeed him, and so were alike distasteful in his sight.

"You cannot think how I hated it all!" I said to Dimitrieff the same
evening, in a desire to make a parade of disliking the notion of being
an heir (somehow I thought it the thing to do). "You cannot think how
I loathed the whole two hours that I spent there!--Yet he is a
fine-looking old fellow, and was very kind to me," I added--wishing,
among other things, to disabuse my friend of any possible idea that my
loathing had arisen out of the fact that I had felt so small. "It is
only the idea that people may be classing me with the Princess who lives
with him, and who licks the dust off his boots. He is a wonderful old
man, and good and considerate to everybody, but it is awful to see how
he treats the Princess. Money is a detestable thing, and ruins all human
relations.

"Do you know, I think it would be far the best thing for me to have
an open explanation with the Prince," I went on; "to tell him that I
respect him as a man, but think nothing of being his heir, and that
I desire him to leave me nothing, since that is the only condition on
which I can, in future, visit his house."

Instead of bursting out laughing when I said this, Dimitri pondered
awhile in silence, and then answered:

"You are wrong. Either you ought to refrain from supposing that people
may be classing you with this Princess of whom you speak, or, if you
DO suppose such a thing, you ought to suppose further that people are
thinking what you yourself know quite well--namely, that such thoughts
are so utterly foreign to your nature that you despise them and would
never make them a basis for action. Suppose, however, that people DO
suppose you to suppose such a thing--Well, to sum up," he added, feeling
that he was getting a little mixed in his pronouncements, "you had much
better not suppose anything of the kind."

My friend was perfectly right, though it was not until long, long
afterwards that experience of life taught me the evil that comes of
thinking--still worse, of saying--much that seems very fine; taught me
that there are certain thoughts which should always be kept to oneself,
since brave words seldom go with brave deeds. I learnt then that
the mere fact of giving utterance to a good intention often makes it
difficult, nay, impossible, to carry that good intention into
effect. Yet how