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diff --git a/old/64599-0.txt b/old/64599-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 8749a73..0000000 --- a/old/64599-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,21769 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Princess Casamassima, by Henry James - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The Princess Casamassima - A Novel - -Author: Henry James - -Release Date: February 20, 2021 [eBook #64599] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRINCESS CASAMASSIMA *** -The Princess Casamassima - -A Novel - -by Henry James - -1886 - - -Contents - - BOOK FIRST - I - II - III - IV - V - VI - VII - VIII - IX - X - XI - - BOOK SECOND - XII - XIII - XIV - XV - XVI - XVII - XVIII - XIX - XX - XXI - - BOOK THIRD - XXII - XXIII - XXIV - XXV - XXVI - XXVII - XXVIII - - BOOK FOURTH - XXIX - XXX - XXXI - XXXII - XXXIII - XXXIV - XXXV - XXXVI - XXXVII - - BOOK FIFTH - XXXVIII - XXXIX - XL - XLI - XLII - - BOOK SIXTH - XLIII - XLIV - XLV - XLVI - XLVII - - - - -BOOK FIRST - - - - -I - - -“Oh yes, I dare say I can find the child, if you would like to see -him,” Miss Pynsent said; she had a fluttering wish to assent to every -suggestion made by her visitor, whom she regarded as a high and rather -terrible personage. To look for the little boy she came out of her -small parlour, which she had been ashamed to exhibit in so untidy a -state, with paper ‘patterns’ lying about on the furniture and snippings -of stuff scattered over the carpet—she came out of this somewhat stuffy -sanctuary, dedicated at once to social intercourse and to the ingenious -art to which her life had been devoted, and, opening the house-door, -turned her eyes up and down the little street. It would presently be -tea-time, and she knew that at that solemn hour Hyacinth narrowed the -circle of his wanderings. She was anxious and impatient, and in a fever -of excitement and complacency, not wanting to keep Mrs Bowerbank -waiting, though she sat there, heavily and consideringly, as if she -meant to stay; and wondering not a little whether the object of her -quest would have a dirty face. Mrs Bowerbank had intimated so -definitely that she thought it remarkable on Miss Pynsent’s part to -have taken care of him gratuitously for so many years, that the humble -dressmaker, whose imagination took flights about every one but herself, -and who had never been conscious of an exemplary benevolence, suddenly -aspired to appear, throughout, as devoted to the child as she had -struck her solemn, substantial guest as being, and felt how much she -should like him to come in fresh and frank, and looking as pretty as he -sometimes did. Miss Pynsent, who blinked confusedly as she surveyed the -outer prospect, was very much flushed, partly with the agitation of -what Mrs Bowerbank had told her, and partly because, when she offered -that lady a drop of something refreshing, at the end of so long an -expedition, she had said she couldn’t think of touching anything unless -Miss Pynsent would keep her company. The cheffonier (as Amanda was -always careful to call it), beside the fireplace, yielded up a small -bottle which had formerly contained eau-de-cologne and which now -exhibited half a pint of a rich gold-coloured liquid. Miss Pynsent was -very delicate; she lived on tea and watercress, and she kept the little -bottle in the cheffonier only for great emergencies. She didn’t like -hot brandy and water, with a lump or two of sugar, but she partook of -half a tumbler on the present occasion, which was of a highly -exceptional kind. At this time of day the boy was often planted in -front of the little sweet-shop on the other side of the street, an -establishment where periodical literature, as well as tough toffy and -hard lollipops, was dispensed, and where song-books and pictorial -sheets were attractively exhibited in the small-paned, dirty window. He -used to stand there for half an hour at a time, spelling out the first -page of the romances in the _Family Herald_ and the _London Journal_, -and admiring the obligatory illustration in which the noble characters -(they were always of the highest birth) were presented to the carnal -eye. When he had a penny he spent only a fraction of it on stale -sugar-candy; with the remaining halfpenny he always bought a ballad, -with a vivid woodcut at the top. Now, however, he was not at his post -of contemplation; nor was he visible anywhere to Miss Pynsent’s -impatient glance. - -“Millicent Henning, tell me quickly, have you seen my child?” These -words were addressed by Miss Pynsent to a little girl who sat on the -doorstep of the adjacent house, nursing a dingy doll, and who had an -extraordinary luxuriance of dark brown hair, surmounted by a torn straw -hat. Miss Pynsent pronounced her name Enning. - -The child looked up from her dandling and patting, and after a stare of -which the blankness was somewhat exaggerated, replied: “Law no, Miss -Pynsent, I never see him.” - -“Aren’t you always messing about with him, you naughty little girl?” -the dressmaker returned, with sharpness. “Isn’t he round the corner, -playing marbles, or—or some jumping game?” Miss Pynsent went on, trying -to be suggestive. - -“I assure _you_, he never plays nothing,” said Millicent Henning, with -a mature manner which she bore out by adding, “And I don’t know why I -should be called naughty, neither.” - -“Well, if you want to be called good, please go and find him and tell -him there’s a lady here come on purpose to see him, this very instant.” -Miss Pynsent waited a moment, to see if her injunction would be obeyed, -but she got no satisfaction beyond another gaze of deliberation, which -made her feel that the child’s perversity was as great as the beauty, -somewhat soiled and dimmed, of her insolent little face. She turned -back into the house, with an exclamation of despair, and as soon as she -had disappeared Millicent Henning sprang erect and began to race down -the street in the direction of another, which crossed it. I take no -unfair advantage of the innocence of childhood in saying that the -motive of this young lady’s flight was not a desire to be agreeable to -Miss Pynsent, but an extreme curiosity on the subject of the visitor -who wanted to see Hyacinth Robinson. She wished to participate, if only -in imagination, in the interview that might take place, and she was -moved also by a quick revival of friendly feeling for the boy, from -whom she had parted only half an hour before with considerable -asperity. She was not a very clinging little creature, and there was no -one in her own domestic circle to whom she was much attached; but she -liked to kiss Hyacinth when he didn’t push her away and tell her she -was tiresome. It was in this action and epithet he had indulged half an -hour ago; but she had reflected rapidly (while she stared at Miss -Pynsent) that this was the worst he had ever done. Millicent Henning -was only eight years of age, but she knew there was worse in the world -than that. - -Mrs Bowerbank, in a leisurely, roundabout way, wandered off to her -sister, Mrs Chipperfield, whom she had come into that part of the world -to see, and the whole history of the dropsical tendencies of whose -husband, an undertaker with a business that had been a blessing because -you could always count on it, she unfolded to Miss Pynsent between the -sips of a second glass. She was a high-shouldered, towering woman, and -suggested squareness as well as a pervasion of the upper air, so that -Amanda reflected that she must be very difficult to fit, and had a -sinking at the idea of the number of pins she would take. Her sister -had nine children and she herself had seven, the eldest of whom she -left in charge of the others when she went to her service. She was on -duty at the prison only during the day; she had to be there at seven in -the morning, but she got her evenings at home, quite regular and -comfortable. Miss Pynsent thought it wonderful she could talk of -comfort in such a life as that, but could easily imagine she should be -glad to get away at night, for at that time the place must be much more -terrible. - -“And aren’t you frightened of them—ever?” she inquired, looking up at -her visitor with her little heated face. - -Mrs Bowerbank was very slow, and considered her so long before -replying, that she felt herself to be, in an alarming degree, in the -eye of the law; for who could be more closely connected with the -administration of justice than a female turnkey, especially so big and -majestic a one? “I expect they are more frightened of me,” she replied -at last; and it was an idea into which Miss Pynsent could easily enter. - -“And at night I suppose they rave, quite awful,” the little dressmaker -suggested, feeling vaguely that prisons and madhouses came very much to -the same. - -“Well, if they do, we hush ’em up,” Mrs Bowerbank remarked, rather -portentously; while Miss Pynsent fidgeted to the door again, without -results, to see if the child had become visible. She observed to her -guest that she couldn’t call it anything but contrary that he should -not turn up, when he knew so well, most days in the week, when his tea -was ready. To which Mrs Bowerbank rejoined, fixing her companion again -with the steady orb of justice, “And do he have his tea, that way, by -himself, like a little gentleman?” - -“Well, I try to give it to him tidy-like, at a suitable hour,” said -Miss Pynsent, guiltily. “And there might be some who would say that, -for the matter of that, he _is_ a little gentleman,” she added, with an -effort at mitigation which, as she immediately became conscious, only -involved her more deeply. - -“There are people silly enough to say anything. If it’s your parents -that settle your station, the child hasn’t much to be thankful for,” -Mrs Bowerbank went on, in the manner of a woman accustomed to looking -facts in the face. - -Miss Pynsent was very timid, but she adored the aristocracy, and there -were elements in the boy’s life which she was not prepared to sacrifice -even to a person who represented such a possibility of grating bolts -and clanking chains. “I suppose we oughtn’t to forget that his father -was very high,” she suggested, appealingly, with her hands clasped -tightly in her lap. - -“His father? Who knows who _he_ was? He doesn’t set up for having a -father, does he?” - -“But, surely, wasn’t it proved that Lord Frederick—?” - -“My dear woman, nothing was proved except that she stabbed his lordship -in the back with a very long knife, that he died of the blow, and that -she got the full sentence. What does such a piece as that know about -fathers? The less said about the poor child’s ancestors the better!” - -This view of the case caused Miss Pynsent fairly to gasp, for it pushed -over with a touch a certain tall imaginative structure which she had -been piling up for years. Even as she heard it crash around her she -couldn’t forbear the attempt to save at least some of the material. -“Really—really,” she panted, “she never had to do with any one but the -nobility!” - -Mrs Bowerbank surveyed her hostess with an expressionless eye. “My dear -young lady, what does a respectable little body like you, that sits all -day with her needle and scissors, know about the doings of a wicked low -foreigner that carries a knife? I was there when she came in, and I -know to what she had sunk. Her conversation was choice, I assure you.” - -“Oh, it’s very dreadful, and of course I know nothing in particular,” -Miss Pynsent quavered. “But she wasn’t low when I worked at the same -place with her, and she often told me she would do nothing for any one -that wasn’t at the very top.” - -“She might have talked to you of something that would have done you -both more good,” Mrs Bowerbank remarked, while the dressmaker felt -rebuked in the past as well as in the present. “At the very top, poor -thing! Well, she’s at the very bottom now. If she wasn’t low when she -worked, it’s a pity she didn’t stick to her work; and as for pride of -birth, that’s an article I recommend your young friend to leave to -others. You had better believe what I say, because I’m a woman of the -world.” - -Indeed she was, as Miss Pynsent felt, to whom all this was very -terrible, letting in the cold light of the penal system on a dear, dim -little theory. She had cared for the child because maternity was in her -nature, and this was the only manner in which fortune had put it in her -path to become a mother. She had as few belongings as the baby, and it -had seemed to her that he would add to her importance in the little -world of Lomax Place (if she kept it a secret how she came by him), -quite in the proportion in which she should contribute to his -maintenance. Her weakness and loneliness went out to his, and in the -course of time this united desolation was peopled by the dressmaker’s -romantic mind with a hundred consoling evocations. The boy proved -neither a dunce nor a reprobate; but what endeared him to her most was -her conviction that he belonged, ‘by the left hand’, as she had read in -a novel, to an ancient and exalted race, the list of whose -representatives and the record of whose alliances she had once (when -she took home some work and was made to wait, alone, in a lady’s -boudoir) had the opportunity of reading in a fat red book, eagerly and -tremblingly consulted. She bent her head before Mrs Bowerbank’s -overwhelming logic, but she felt in her heart that she shouldn’t give -the child up for all that, that she believed in him still, and that she -recognised, as distinctly as she revered, the quality of her betters. -To believe in Hyacinth, for Miss Pynsent, was to believe that he _was_ -the son of the extremely immoral Lord Frederick. She had, from his -earliest age, made him feel that there was a grandeur in his past, and -as Mrs Bowerbank would be sure not to approve of such aberrations Miss -Pynsent prayed she might not question her on that part of the business. -It was not that, when it was necessary, the little dressmaker had any -scruple about using the arts of prevarication; she was a kind and -innocent creature, but she told fibs as freely as she invented -trimmings. She had, however, not yet been questioned by an emissary of -the law, and her heart beat faster when Mrs Bowerbank said to her, in -deep tones, with an effect of abruptness, “And pray, Miss Pynsent, does -the child know it?” - -“Know about Lord Frederick?” Miss Pynsent palpitated. - -“Bother Lord Frederick! Know about his mother.” - -“Oh, I can’t say that. I have never told him.” - -“But has any one else told him?” - -To this inquiry Miss Pynsent’s answer was more prompt and more proud; -it was with an agreeable sense of having conducted herself with -extraordinary wisdom and propriety that she replied, “How could any one -know? I have never breathed it to a creature!” - -Mrs Bowerbank gave utterance to no commendation; she only put down her -empty glass and wiped her large mouth with much thoroughness and -deliberation. Then she said, as if it were as cheerful an idea as, in -the premises, she was capable of expressing, “Ah, well, there’ll be -plenty, later on, to give him all information!” - -“I pray God he may live and die without knowing it!” Miss Pynsent -cried, with eagerness. - -Her companion gazed at her with a kind of professional patience. “You -don’t keep your ideas together. How can he go to her, then, if he’s -never to know?” - -“Oh, did you mean she would tell him?” Miss Pynsent responded, -plaintively. - -“Tell him! He won’t need to be told, once she gets hold of him and -gives him—what she told me.” - -“What she told you?” Miss Pynsent repeated, open-eyed. - -“The kiss her lips have been famished for, for years.” - -“Ah, poor desolate woman!” the little dressmaker murmured, with her -pity gushing up again. “Of course he’ll see she’s fond of him,” she -pursued, simply. Then she added, with an inspiration more brilliant, -“We might tell him she’s his aunt!” - -“You may tell him she’s his grandmother, if you like. But it’s all in -the family.” - -“Yes, on that side,” said Miss Pynsent, musingly and irrepressibly. -“And will she speak French?” she inquired. “In that case he won’t -understand.” - -“Oh, a child will understand its own mother, whatever she speaks,” Mrs -Bowerbank returned, declining to administer a superficial comfort. But -she subjoined, opening the door for escape from a prospect which -bristled with dangers, “Of course, it’s just according to your own -conscience. You needn’t bring the child at all, unless you like. -There’s many a one that wouldn’t. There’s no compulsion.” - -“And would nothing be done to me, if I didn’t?” poor Miss Pynsent -asked, unable to rid herself of the impression that it was somehow the -arm of the law that was stretched out to touch her. - -“The only thing that could happen to you would be that _he_ might throw -it up against you later,” the lady from the prison observed, with a -gloomy impartiality. - -“Yes, indeed, if he were to know that I had kept him back.” - -“Oh, he’d be sure to know, one of these days. We see a great deal of -that—the way things come out,” said Mrs Bowerbank, whose view of life -seemed to abound in cheerless contingencies. “You must remember that it -is her dying wish, and that you may have it on your conscience.” - -“That’s a thing I _never_ could abide!” the little dressmaker -exclaimed, with great emphasis and a visible shiver; after which she -picked up various scattered remnants of muslin and cut paper and began -to roll them together with a desperate and mechanical haste. “It’s -quite awful, to know what to do—if you are very sure she _is_ dying.” - -“Do you mean she’s shamming? we have plenty of that—but we know how to -treat ’em.” - -“Lord, I suppose so,” murmured Miss Pynsent; while her visitor went on -to say that the unfortunate person on whose behalf she had undertaken -this solemn pilgrimage might live a week and might live a fortnight, -but if she lived a month, would violate (as Mrs Bowerbank might express -herself) every established law of nature, being reduced to skin and -bone, with nothing left of her but the main desire to see her child. - -“If you’re afraid of her talking, it isn’t much she’d be able to say. -And we shouldn’t allow you more than about eight minutes,” Mrs -Bowerbank pursued, in a tone that seemed to refer itself to an iron -discipline. - -“I’m sure I shouldn’t want more; that would be enough to last me many a -year,” said Miss Pynsent, accommodatingly. And then she added, with -another illumination, “Don’t you think he might throw it up against me -that I _did_ take him? People might tell him about her in later years; -but if he hadn’t seen her he wouldn’t be obliged to believe them.” - -Mrs Bowerbank considered this a moment, as if it were rather a -super-subtle argument, and then answered, quite in the spirit of her -official pessimism, “There is one thing you may be sure of: whatever -you decide to do, as soon as ever he grows up he will make you wish you -had done the opposite.” Mrs Bowerbank called it oppo_site_. - -“Oh, dear, then, I’m glad it will be a long time.” - -“It will be ever so long, if once he gets it into his head! At any -rate, you must do as you think best. Only, if you come, you mustn’t -come when it’s all over.” - -“It’s too impossible to decide.” - -“It is, indeed,” said Mrs Bowerbank, with superior consistency. And she -seemed more placidly grim than ever when she remarked, gathering up her -loosened shawl, that she was much obliged to Miss Pynsent for her -civility, and had been quite freshened up: her visit had so completely -deprived her hostess of that sort of calm. Miss Pynsent gave the -fullest expression to her perplexity in the supreme exclamation— - -“If you could only wait and see the child, I’m sure it would help you -to judge!” - -“My dear woman, I don’t want to judge—it’s none of our business!” Mrs -Bowerbank exclaimed; and she had no sooner uttered the words than the -door of the room creaked open and a small boy stood there gazing at -her. Her eyes rested on him a moment, and then, most unexpectedly, she -gave an inconsequent cry. “Is that the child? Oh, Lord o’ mercy, don’t -take _him!_” - -“Now _ain’t_ he shrinking and sensitive?” demanded Miss Pynsent, who -had pounced upon him, and, holding him an instant at arm’s length, -appealed eagerly to her visitor. “Ain’t he delicate and high-bred, and -wouldn’t he be thrown into a state?” Delicate as he might be the little -dressmaker shook him smartly for his naughtiness in being out of the -way when he was wanted, and brought him to the big, square-faced, -deep-voiced lady who took up, as it were, all that side of the room. -But Mrs Bowerbank laid no hand upon him; she only dropped her gaze from -a tremendous height, and her forbearance seemed a tribute to that -fragility of constitution on which Miss Pynsent desired to insist, just -as her continued gravity was an implication that this scrupulous woman -might well not know what to do. - -“Speak to the lady nicely, and tell her you are very sorry to have kept -her waiting.” - -The child hesitated a moment, while he reciprocated Mrs Bowerbank’s -inspection, and then he said, with a strange, cool, conscious -indifference (Miss Pynsent instantly recognised it as his aristocratic -manner), “I don’t think she can have been in a very great hurry.” - -There was irony in the words, for it is a remarkable fact that even at -the age of ten Hyacinth Robinson was ironical; but the subject of his -allusion, who was not nimble withal, appeared not to interpret it; so -that she rejoined only by remarking, over his head, to Miss Pynsent, -“It’s the very face of her over again!” - -“Of _her?_ But what do you say to Lord Frederick?” - -“I _have_ seen lords that wasn’t so dainty!” - -Miss Pynsent had seen very few lords, but she entered, with a -passionate thrill, into this generalisation; controlling herself, -however, for she remembered the child was tremendously sharp, -sufficiently to declare, in an edifying tone, that he would look more -like what he ought to if his face were a little cleaner. - -“It was probably Millicent Henning dirtied my face, when she kissed -me,” the boy announced, with slow gravity, looking all the while at Mrs -Bowerbank. He exhibited not a symptom of shyness. - -“Millicent Henning is a very bad little girl; she’ll come to no good,” -said Miss Pynsent, with familiar decision, and also, considering that -the young lady in question had been her effective messenger, with -marked ingratitude. - -Against this qualification the child instantly protested. “Why is she -bad? I don’t think she is bad; I like her very much.” It came over him -that he had too hastily shifted to her shoulders the responsibility of -his unseemly appearance, and he wished to make up to her for that -betrayal. He dimly felt that nothing but that particular accusation -could have pushed him to it, for he hated people who were not fresh, -who had smutches and streaks. Millicent Henning generally had two or -three, which she borrowed from her doll, into whom she was always -rubbing her nose and whose dinginess was contagious. It was quite -inevitable she should have left her mark under his own nose when she -claimed her reward for coming to tell him about the lady who wanted -him. - -Miss Pynsent held the boy against her knee, trying to present him so -that Mrs Bowerbank should agree with her about his having the air of -race. He was exceedingly diminutive, even for his years, and though his -appearance was not positively sickly it seemed written in his -attenuated little person that he would never be either tall or strong. -His dark blue eyes were separated by a wide interval, which increased -the fairness and sweetness of his face, and his abundant curly hair, -which grew thick and long, had the golden brownness predestined to -elicit exclamations of delight from ladies when they take the inventory -of a child. His features were smooth and pretty; his head was set upon -a slim little neck; his expression, grave and clear, showed a quick -perception as well as a great credulity; and he was altogether, in his -innocent smallness, a refined and interesting figure. - -“Yes, he’s one that would be sure to remember,” said Mrs Bowerbank, -mentally contrasting him with the undeveloped members of her own brood, -who had never been retentive of anything but the halfpence which they -occasionally contrived to filch from her. Her eyes descended to the -details of his toilet: the careful mending of his short breeches and -his long, coloured stockings, which she was in a position to -appreciate, as well as the knot of bright ribbon which the dressmaker -had passed into his collar, slightly crumpled by Miss Henning’s -embrace. Of course Miss Pynsent had only one to look after, but her -visitor was obliged to recognise that she had the highest standard in -respect to buttons. “And you _do_ turn him out so it’s a pleasure,” she -went on, noting the ingenious patches in the child’s shoes, which, to -her mind, were repaired for all the world like those of a little -nobleman. - -“I’m sure you’re very civil,” said Miss Pynsent, in a state of severe -exaltation. “There’s never a needle but mine has come near him. That’s -exactly what I think: the impression would go so deep.” - -“Do you want to see me only to look at me?” Hyacinth inquired, with a -candour which, though unstudied, had again much of the force of satire. - -“I’m sure it’s very kind of the lady to notice you at all!” cried his -protectress, giving him an ineffectual jerk. “You’re no bigger than a -flea; there are many that wouldn’t spy you out.” - -“You’ll find he’s big enough, I expect, when he begins to go,” Mrs -Bowerbank remarked, tranquilly; and she added that now she saw how he -was turned out she couldn’t but feel that the other side was to be -considered. In her effort to be discreet, on account of his being -present (and so precociously attentive), she became slightly -enigmatical; but Miss Pynsent gathered her meaning, which was that it -was very true the child would take everything in and keep it: but at -the same time it was precisely his being so attractive that made it a -kind of sin not to gratify the poor woman, who, if she knew what he -looked like to-day, wouldn’t forgive his adoptive mamma for not -producing him. “Certainly, in her place, I should go off easier if I -had seen them curls,” Mrs Bowerbank declared, with a flight of maternal -imagination which brought her to her feet, while Miss Pynsent felt that -she was leaving her dreadfully ploughed up, and without any really -fertilising seed having been sown. The little dressmaker packed the -child upstairs to tidy himself for his tea, and while she accompanied -her visitor to the door told her that if she would have a little more -patience with her she would think a day or two longer what was best and -write to her when she should have decided. Mrs Bowerbank continued to -move in a realm superior to poor Miss Pynsent’s vacillations and -timidities, and her impartiality gave her hostess a high idea of her -respectability; but the way was a little smoothed when, after Amanda -had moaned once more, on the threshold, helplessly and irrelevantly, -“Ain’t it a pity she’s so bad?” the ponderous lady from the prison -rejoined, in those tones which seemed meant to resound through -corridors of stone, “I assure you there’s a many that’s much worse!” - - - - -II - - -Miss Pynsent, when she found herself alone, felt that she was really -quite upside down; for the event that had just occurred had never -entered into her calculations: the very nature of the case had seemed -to preclude it. All she knew, and all she wished to know, was that in -one of the dreadful institutions constructed for such purposes her -quondam comrade was serving out the sentence that had been substituted -for the other (the unspeakable horror) almost when the halter was -already round her neck. As there was no question of _that_ concession -being stretched any further, poor Florentine seemed only a little more -dead than other people, having no decent tombstone to mark the place -where she lay. Miss Pynsent had therefore never thought of her dying -again; she had no idea to what prison she had been committed on being -removed from Newgate (she wished to keep her mind a blank about the -matter, in the interest of the child), and it could not occur to her -that out of such silence and darkness a second voice would reach her, -especially a voice that she should really have to listen to. Miss -Pynsent would have said, before Mrs Bowerbank’s visit, that she had no -account to render to any one; that she had taken up the child (who -might have starved in the gutter) out of charity, and had brought him -up, poor and precarious as her own subsistence had been, without a -penny’s help from another source; that the mother had forfeited every -right and title; and that this had been understood between them—if -anything, in so dreadful an hour, could have been said to be -understood—when she went to see her at Newgate (that terrible episode, -nine years before, overshadowed all Miss Pynsent’s other memories): -went to see her because Florentine had sent for her (a name, face and -address coming up out of the still recent but sharply separated past of -their working-girl years) as the one friend to whom she could appeal -with some chance of a pitying answer. The effect of violent emotion, -with Miss Pynsent, was not to make her sit with idle hands or fidget -about to no purpose; under its influence, on the contrary, she threw -herself into little jobs, as a fugitive takes to by-paths, and clipped -and cut, and stitched and basted, as if she were running a race with -hysterics. And while her hands, her scissors, her needle flew, an -infinite succession of fantastic possibilities trotted through her -confused little head; she had a furious imagination, and the act of -reflection, in her mind, was always a panorama of figures and scenes. -She had had her picture of the future, painted in rather rosy hues, -hung up before her now for a good many years; but it seemed to her that -Mrs Bowerbank’s heavy hand had suddenly punched a hole in the canvas. -It must be added, however, that if Amanda’s thoughts were apt to be -bewildering visions they sometimes led her to make up her mind, and on -this particular September evening she arrived at a momentous decision. -What she made up her mind to was to take advice, and in pursuance of -this view she rushed downstairs, and, jerking Hyacinth away from his -simple but unfinished repast, packed him across the street to tell Mr -Vetch (if he had not yet started for the theatre) that she begged he -would come in to see her when he came home that night, as she had -something very particular she wished to say to him. It didn’t matter if -he should be very late, he could come in at any hour—he would see her -light in the window—and he would do her a real mercy. Miss Pynsent knew -it would be of no use for her to go to bed; she felt as if she should -never close her eyes again. Mr Vetch was her most distinguished friend; -she had an immense appreciation of his cleverness and knowledge of the -world, as well as of the purity of his taste in matters of conduct and -opinion; and she had already consulted him about Hyacinth’s education. -The boy needed no urging to go on such an errand, for he, too, had his -ideas about the little fiddler, the second violin in the orchestra of -the Bloomsbury Theatre. Mr Vetch had once obtained for the pair an -order for two seats at a pantomime, and for Hyacinth the impression of -that ecstatic evening had consecrated him, placed him for ever in the -golden glow of the footlights. There were things in life of which, even -at the age of ten, it was a conviction of the boy’s that it would be -his fate never to see enough, and one of them was the wonder-world -illuminated by those playhouse lamps. But there would be chances, -perhaps, if one didn’t lose sight of Mr Vetch; he might open the door -again; he was a privileged, magical mortal, who went to the play every -night. - -He came in to see Miss Pynsent about midnight; as soon as she heard the -lame tinkle of the bell she went to the door to let him in. He was an -original, in the fullest sense of the word: a lonely, disappointed, -embittered, cynical little man, whose musical organisation had been -sterile, who had the nerves, the sensibilities, of a gentleman, and -whose fate had condemned him, for the last ten years, to play a fiddle -at a second-rate theatre for a few shillings a week. He had ideas of -his own about everything, and they were not always very improving. For -Amanda Pynsent he represented art, literature (the literature of the -play-bill) and philosophy, and she always felt about him as if he -belonged to a higher social sphere, though his earnings were hardly -greater than her own and he lived in a single back-room, in a house -where she had never seen a window washed. He had, for her, the glamour -of reduced gentility and fallen fortunes; she was conscious that he -spoke a different language (though she couldn’t have said in what the -difference consisted) from the other members of her humble, almost -suburban circle; and the shape of his hands was distinctly -aristocratic. (Miss Pynsent, as I have intimated, was immensely -preoccupied with that element in life.) Mr Vetch displeased her only by -one of the facets of his character—his blasphemous republican, radical -views, and the contemptuous manner in which he expressed himself about -the nobility. On that ground he worried her extremely, though he never -seemed to her so clever as when he horrified her most. These dreadful -theories (expressed so brilliantly that, really, they might have been -dangerous if Miss Pynsent had not known her own place so well) -constituted no presumption against his refined origin; they were -explained, rather, to a certain extent, by a just resentment at finding -himself excluded from his proper place. Mr Vetch was short, fat and -bald, though he was not much older than Miss Pynsent, who was not much -older than some people who called themselves forty-five; he always went -to the theatre in evening-dress, with a flower in his button-hole, and -wore a glass in one eye. He looked placid and genial, and as if he -would fidget at the most about the ‘get up’ of his linen; you would -have thought him finical but superficial, and never have suspected that -he was a revolutionist, or even a critic of life. Sometimes, when he -could get away from the theatre early enough, he went with a pianist, a -friend of his, to play dance-music at small parties; and after such -expeditions he was particularly cynical and startling; he indulged in -diatribes against the British middle-class, its Philistinism, its -snobbery. He seldom had much conversation with Miss Pynsent without -telling her that she had the intellectual outlook of a caterpillar; but -this was his privilege after a friendship now of seven years’ standing, -which had begun (the year after he came to live in Lomax Place) with -her going over to nurse him, on learning from the milk-woman that he -was alone at Number 17—laid up with an attack of gastritis. He always -compared her to an insect or a bird, and she didn’t mind, because she -knew he liked her, and she herself liked all winged creatures. How -indeed could she complain, after hearing him call the Queen a -superannuated form and the Archbishop of Canterbury a grotesque -superstition? - -He laid his violin-case on the table, which was covered with a -confusion of fashion-plates and pincushions, and glanced toward the -fire, where a kettle was gently hissing. Miss Pynsent, who had put it -on half an hour before, read his glance, and reflected with complacency -that Mrs Bowerbank had not absolutely drained the little bottle in the -_cheffonier_. She placed it on the table again, this time with a single -glass, and told her visitor that, as a great exception, he might light -his pipe. In fact, she always made the exception, and he always replied -to the gracious speech by inquiring whether she supposed the -greengrocers’ wives, the butchers’ daughters, for whom she worked, had -fine enough noses to smell, in the garments she sent home, the fumes of -his tobacco. He knew her ‘connection’ was confined to small -shopkeepers, but she didn’t wish others to know it, and would have -liked them to believe it was important that the poor little stuffs she -made up (into very queer fashions, I am afraid) should not surprise the -feminine nostril. But it had always been impossible to impose on Mr -Vetch; he guessed the truth, the untrimmed truth, about everything in a -moment. She was sure he would do so now, in regard to this solemn -question which had come up about Hyacinth; he would see that though she -was agreeably flurried at finding herself whirled in the last eddies of -a case that had been so celebrated in its day, her secret wish was to -shirk her duty (if it _was_ a duty): to keep the child from ever -knowing his mother’s unmentionable history, the shame that attached to -his origin, the opportunity she had had of letting him see the wretched -woman before she died. She knew Mr Vetch would read her troubled -thoughts, but she hoped he would say they were natural and just; she -reflected that as he took an interest in Hyacinth he wouldn’t desire -him to be subjected to a mortification that might rankle for ever and -perhaps even crush him to the earth. She related Mrs Bowerbank’s visit, -while he sat upon the sofa in the very place where that majestic woman -had reposed, and puffed his smoke-wreaths into the dusky little room. -He knew the story of the child’s birth, had known it years before, so -she had no startling revelation to make. He was not in the least -agitated at learning that Florentine was dying in prison and had -managed to get a message conveyed to Amanda; he thought this so much in -the usual course that he said to Miss Pynsent, “Did you expect her to -live on there for ever, working out her terrible sentence, just to -spare you the annoyance of a dilemma, or any reminder of her miserable -existence, which you have preferred to forget?” That was just the sort -of question Mr Vetch was sure to ask, and he inquired, further, of his -dismayed hostess, whether she were sure her friend’s message (he called -the unhappy creature her friend) had come to her in the regular way. -The warders, surely, had no authority to introduce visitors to their -captives; and was it a question of her going off to the prison on the -sole authority of Mrs Bowerbank? The little dressmaker explained that -this lady had merely come to sound her, Florentine had begged so hard. -She had been in Mrs Bowerbank’s ward before her removal to the -infirmary, where she now lay ebbing away, and she had communicated her -desire to the Catholic chaplain, who had undertaken that some -satisfaction—of inquiry, at least—should be given her. He had thought -it best to ascertain first whether the person in charge of the child -would be willing to bring him, such a course being perfectly optional, -and he had some talk with Mrs Bowerbank on the subject, in which it was -agreed between them that if she would approach Miss Pynsent and explain -to her the situation, leaving her to do what she thought best, he would -answer for it that the consent of the governor of the prison should be -given to the interview. Miss Pynsent had lived for fourteen years in -Lomax Place, and Florentine had never forgotten that this was her -address at the time she came to her at Newgate (before her dreadful -sentence had been commuted), and promised, in an outgush of pity for -one whom she had known in the days of her honesty and brightness, that -she would save the child, rescue it from the workhouse and the streets, -keep it from the fate that had swallowed up the mother. Mrs Bowerbank -had a half-holiday, and a sister living also in the north of London, to -whom she had been for some time intending a visit; so that after her -domestic duty had been performed it had been possible for her to drop -in on Miss Pynsent in a natural, casual way and put the case before -her. It would be just as she might be disposed to view it. She was to -think it over a day or two, but not long, because the woman was so ill, -and then write to Mrs Bowerbank, at the prison. If she should consent, -Mrs Bowerbank would tell the chaplain, and the chaplain would obtain -the order from the governor and send it to Lomax Place; after which -Amanda would immediately set out with her unconscious victim. But -should she—_must_ she—consent? That was the terrible, the heart-shaking -question, with which Miss Pynsent’s unaided wisdom had been unable to -grapple. - -“After all, he isn’t hers any more—he’s mine, mine only, and mine -always. I should like to know if all I have done for him doesn’t make -him so!” It was in this manner that Amanda Pynsent delivered herself, -while she plied her needle, faster than ever, in a piece of stuff that -was pinned to her knee. - -Mr Vetch watched her awhile, blowing silently at his pipe, with his -head thrown back on the high, stiff, old-fashioned sofa, and his little -legs crossed under him like a Turk’s. “It’s true you have done a good -deal for him. You are a good little woman, my dear Pinnie, after all.” -He said ‘after all’, because that was a part of his tone. In reality he -had never had a moment’s doubt that she was the best little woman in -the north of London. - -“I have done what I could, and I don’t want no fuss made about it. Only -it does make a difference when you come to look at it—about taking him -off to see another woman. And _such_ another woman—and in such a place! -I think it’s hardly right to take an innocent child.” - -“I don’t know about that; there are people that would tell you it would -do him good. If he didn’t like the place as a child, he would take more -care to keep out of it later.” - -“Lord, Mr Vetch, how can you think? And him such a perfect little -gentleman!” Miss Pynsent cried. - -“Is it you that have made him one?” the fiddler asked. “It doesn’t run -in the family, you’d say.” - -“Family? what do you know about that?” she replied, quickly, catching -at her dearest, her only hobby. - -“Yes, indeed, what does any one know? what did she know herself?” And -then Miss Pynsent’s visitor added, irrelevantly, “Why should you have -taken him on your back? Why did you want to be so good? No one else -thinks it necessary.” - -“I didn’t want to be good. That is, I do want to, of course, in a -general way: but that wasn’t the reason then. But I had nothing of my -own—I had nothing in the world but my thimble.” - -“That would have seemed to most people a reason for not adopting a -prostitute’s bastard.” - -“Well, I went to see him at the place where he was (just where she had -left him, with the woman of the house), and I saw what kind of a shop -_that_ was, and felt it was a shame an innocent child should grow up in -such a place.” Miss Pynsent defended herself as earnestly as if her -inconsistency had been of a criminal cast. “And he wouldn’t have grown -up, neither. _They_ wouldn’t have troubled themselves long with a -helpless baby. _They’d_ have played some trick on him, if it was only -to send him to the workhouse. Besides, I always was fond of tiny -creatures, and I have been fond of this one,” she went on, speaking as -if with a consciousness, on her own part, of almost heroic proportions. -“He was in my way the first two or three years, and it was a good deal -of a pull to look after the business and him together. But now he’s -like the business—he seems to go of himself.” - -“Oh, if he flourishes as the business flourishes, you can just enjoy -your peace of mind,” said the fiddler, still with his manner of making -a small dry joke of everything. - -“That’s all very well, but it doesn’t close my eyes to that poor woman -lying there and moaning just for the touch of his little ’and before -she passes away. Mrs Bowerbank says she believes I will bring him.” - -“Who believes? Mrs Bowerbank?” - -“I wonder if there’s anything in life holy enough for you to take it -seriously,” Miss Pynsent rejoined, snapping off a thread, with temper. -“The day you stop laughing I should like to be there.” - -“So long as you are there, I shall never stop. What is it you want me -to advise you? to take the child, or to leave the mother to groan -herself out?” - -“I want you to tell me whether he’ll curse me when he grows older.” - -“That depends upon what you do. However, he will probably do it in -either case.” - -“You don’t believe that, because you like him,” said Amanda, with -acuteness. - -“Precisely; and he’ll curse me too. He’ll curse every one. He won’t be -happy.” - -“I don’t know how you think I bring him up,” the little dressmaker -remarked, with dignity. - -“You don’t bring him up; he brings you up.” - -“That’s what you have always said; but you don’t know. If you mean that -he does as he likes, then he ought to be happy. It ain’t kind of you to -say he won’t be,” Miss Pynsent added, reproachfully. - -“I would say anything you like, if what I say would help the matter. -He’s a thin-skinned, morbid, mooning little beggar, with a good deal of -imagination and not much perseverance, who will expect a good deal more -of life than he will find in it. That’s why he won’t be happy.” - -Miss Pynsent listened to this description of her _protégé_ with an -appearance of criticising it mentally; but in reality she didn’t know -what ‘morbid’ meant, and didn’t like to ask. “He’s the cleverest person -I know, except yourself,” she said in a moment, for Mr Vetch’s words -had been in the key of what she thought most remarkable in him. What -that was she would have been unable to say. - -“Thank you very much for putting me first,” the fiddler rejoined, after -a series of puffs. “The youngster is interesting, one sees that he has -a mind, and in that respect he is—I won’t say unique, but peculiar. I -shall watch him with curiosity, to see what he grows into. But I shall -always be glad that I’m a selfish brute of a bachelor; that I never -invested in that class of goods.” - -“Well, you _are_ comforting. You would spoil him more than I do,” said -Amanda. - -“Possibly, but it would be in a different way. I wouldn’t tell him -every three minutes that his father was a duke.” - -“A duke I never mentioned!” the little dressmaker cried, with -eagerness. “I never specified any rank, nor said a word about any one -in particular. I never so much as insinuated the name of his lordship. -But I may have said that if the truth was to be found out, he might be -proved to be connected—in the way of cousinship, or something of the -kind—with the highest in the land. I should have thought myself wanting -if I hadn’t given him a glimpse of that. But there is one thing I have -always added—that the truth never _is_ found out.” - -“You are still more comforting than I!” Mr Vetch exclaimed. He -continued to watch her, with his charitable, round-faced smile, and -then he said, “You won’t do what I say; so what is the use of my -telling you?” - -“I assure you I will, if you say you believe it’s the only right.” - -“Do I often say anything so asinine? Right—right? what have you to do -with that? If you want the only right, you are very particular.” - -“Please, then, what am I to go by?” the dressmaker asked, bewildered. - -“You are to go by this, by what will take the youngster down.” - -“Take him down, my poor little pet?” - -“Your poor little pet thinks himself the flower of creation. I don’t -say there is any harm in that: a fine, blooming, odoriferous conceit is -a natural appendage of youth and cleverness. I don’t say there is any -great harm in it, but if you want a guide as to how you are to treat a -boy, that’s as good a guide as any other.” - -“You want me to arrange the interview, then?” - -“I don’t want you to do anything but give me another sip of brandy. I -just say this: that I think it’s a great gain, early in life, to know -the worst; then we don’t live in a fool’s paradise. I did that till I -was nearly forty; then I woke up and found I was in Lomax Place.” -Whenever Mr Vetch said anything that could be construed as a reference -to a former position which had had elements of distinction, Miss -Pynsent observed a respectful, a tasteful, silence, and that is why she -did not challenge him now, though she wanted very much to say that -Hyacinth was no more ‘presumptuous’ (that was the term she should have -used) than he had reason to be, with his genteel figure and his -wonderful intelligence; and that as for thinking himself a ‘flower’ of -any kind, he knew but too well that he lived in a small black-faced -house, miles away from the West End, rented by a poor little woman who -took lodgers, and who, as they were of such a class that they were not -always to be depended upon to settle her weekly account, had a strain -to make two ends meet, in spite of the sign between her windows— - -MISS AMANDA PYNSENT. -_Modes et Robes_. -DRESSMAKING IN ALL ITS BRANCHES. COURT-DRESSES, -MANTLES AND FASHIONABLE BONNETS. - - -Singularly enough, her companion, before she had permitted herself to -interpose, took up her own thought (in one of its parts) and remarked -that perhaps she would say of the child that he was, so far as his -actual circumstances were concerned, low enough down in the world, -without one’s wanting him to be any lower. “But by the time he’s -twenty, he’ll persuade himself that Lomax Place was a bad dream, that -your lodgers and your dressmaking were as imaginary as they are vulgar, -and that when an old friend came to see you late at night it was not -your amiable practice to make him a glass of brandy and water. He’ll -teach himself to forget all this: he’ll have a way.” - -“Do you mean he’ll forget _me_, he’ll deny me?” cried Miss Pynsent, -stopping the movement of her needle, short off, for the first time. - -“As the person designated in that attractive blazonry on the outside of -your house, decidedly he will; and me, equally, as a bald-headed, -pot-bellied fiddler, who regarded you as the most graceful and refined -of his acquaintance. I don’t mean he’ll disown you and pretend he never -knew you: I don’t think he will ever be such an odious little cad as -that; he probably won’t be a sneak, and he strikes me as having some -love, and possibly even some gratitude, in him. But he will, in his -imagination (and that will always persuade him), subject you to some -extraordinary metamorphosis; he will dress you up.” - -“He’ll dress me up!” Amanda ejaculated, quite ceasing to follow the -train of Mr Vetch’s demonstration. “Do you mean that he’ll have the -property—that his relations will take him up?” - -“My dear, delightful, idiotic Pinnie, I am speaking in a figurative -manner. I don’t pretend to say what his precise position will be when -we are relegated; but I affirm that relegation will be our fate. -Therefore don’t stuff him with any more illusions than are necessary to -keep him alive; he will be sure to pick up enough on the way. On the -contrary, give him a good stiff dose of the truth at the start.” - -“Dear me, dear me, of course you see much further into it than I could -ever do,” Pinnie murmured, as she threaded a needle. - -Mr Vetch paused a minute, but apparently not out of deference to this -amiable interruption. He went on suddenly, with a ring of feeling in -his voice. “Let him know, because it will be useful to him later, the -state of the account between society and himself; he can then conduct -himself accordingly. If he is the illegitimate child of a French -good-for-naught who murdered one of her numerous lovers, don’t shuffle -out of sight so important a fact. I regard that as a most valuable -origin.” - -“Lord, Mr Vetch, how you talk!” cried Miss Pynsent, staring. “I don’t -know what one would think, to hear you.” - -“Surely, my dear lady, and for this reason: that those are the people -with whom society has to count. It hasn’t with you and me.” Miss -Pynsent gave a sigh which might have meant either that she was well -aware of that, or that Mr Vetch had a terrible way of enlarging a -subject, especially when it was already too big for her; and her -philosophic visitor went on: “Poor little devil, let him see her, let -him see her.” - -“And if later, when he’s twenty, he says to me that if I hadn’t meddled -in it he need never have known, he need never have had that shame, pray -what am I to say to him then? That’s what I can’t get out my head.” - -“You can say to him that a young man who is sorry for having gone to -his mother when, in her last hours, she lay groaning for him on a -pallet in a penitentiary, deserves more than the sharpest pang he can -possibly feel.” And the little fiddler, getting up, went over to the -fireplace and shook out the ashes of his pipe. - -“Well, I am sure it’s natural he should feel badly,” said Miss Pynsent, -folding up her work with the same desperate quickness that had animated -her throughout the evening. - -“I haven’t the least objection to his feeling badly; that’s not the -worst thing in the world! If a few more people felt badly, in this -sodden, stolid, stupid race of ours, the world would wake up to an idea -or two, and we should see the beginning of the dance. It’s the dull -acceptance, the absence of reflection, the impenetrable density.” Here -Mr Vetch stopped short; his hostess stood before him with eyes of -entreaty, with clasped hands. - -“Now, Anastasius Vetch, don’t go off into them dreadful wild theories!” -she cried, always ungrammatical when she was strongly moved. “You -always fly away over the house-tops. I thought you liked him better—the -dear little unfortunate.” - -Anastasius Vetch had pocketed his pipe; he put on his hat with the -freedom of old acquaintance and of Lomax Place, and took up his small -coffin-like fiddle-case. “My good Pinnie, I don’t think you understand -a word I say. It’s no use talking—do as you like!” - -“Well, I must say I don’t think it was worth your coming in at midnight -only to tell me that. I don’t like anything—I hate the whole dreadful -business!” - -He bent over, in his short plumpness, to kiss her hand, as he had seen -people do on the stage. “My dear friend, we have different ideas, and I -never shall succeed in driving mine into your head. It’s because I _am_ -fond of him, poor little devil; but you will never understand that. I -want him to know everything, and especially the worst—the worst, as I -have said. If I were in his position, I shouldn’t thank you for trying -to make a fool of me!” - -“A fool of you? as if I thought of anything but his ’appiness!” Amanda -Pynsent exclaimed. She stood looking at him, but following her own -reflections; she had given up the attempt to enter into his whims. She -remembered, what she had noticed before, in other occurrences, that his -reasons were always more extraordinary than his behaviour itself; if -you only considered his life you wouldn’t have thought him so fanciful. -“Very likely I think too much of that,” she added. “She wants him and -cries for him: that’s what keeps coming back to me.” She took up her -lamp to light Mr Vetch to the door (for the dim luminary in the passage -had long since been extinguished), and before he left the house he -turned, suddenly, stopping short, and said, his composed face taking a -strange expression from the quizzical glimmer of his little round eyes— - -“What does it matter after all, and why do you worry? What difference -can it make what happens—on either side—to such low people?” - - - - -III - - -Mrs Bowerbank had let her know she would meet her, almost at the -threshold of the dreadful place; and this thought had sustained Miss -Pynsent in her long and devious journey, performed partly on foot, -partly in a succession of omnibuses. She had had ideas about a cab, but -she decided to reserve the cab for the return, as then, very likely, -she should be so shaken with emotion, so overpoweringly affected, that -it would be a comfort to escape from observation. She had no confidence -that if once she passed the door of the prison she should ever be -restored to liberty and her customers; it seemed to her an adventure as -dangerous as it was dismal, and she was immensely touched by the -clear-faced eagerness of the child at her side, who strained forward as -brightly as he had done on another occasion, still celebrated in Miss -Pynsent’s industrious annals, a certain sultry Saturday in August, when -she had taken him to the Tower. It had been a terrible question with -her, when once she made up her mind, what she should tell him about the -nature of their errand. She determined to tell him as little as -possible, to say only that she was going to see a poor woman who was in -prison on account of a crime she had committed years before, and who -had sent for her, and caused her to be told at the same time that if -there was any child she could see—as children (if they were good) were -bright and cheering—it would make her very happy that such a little -visitor should come as well. It was very difficult, with Hyacinth, to -make reservations or mysteries; he wanted to know everything about -everything, and he projected the light of a hundred questions upon Miss -Pynsent’s incarcerated friend. She had to admit that she had been her -friend (for where else was the obligation to go to see her?); but she -spoke of the acquaintance as if it were of the slightest (it had -survived in the memory of the prisoner only because every one else—the -world was so very hard!—had turned away from her), and she -congratulated herself on a happy inspiration when she represented the -crime for which such a penalty had been exacted as the theft of a gold -watch, in a moment of irresistible temptation. The woman had had a -wicked husband, who maltreated and deserted her, and she was very poor, -almost starving, dreadfully pressed. Hyacinth listened to her history -with absorbed attention, and then he said— - -“And hadn’t she any children—hadn’t she a little boy?” - -This inquiry seemed to Miss Pynsent a portent of future embarrassments, -but she met it as bravely as she could, and replied that she believed -the wretched victim of the law had had (once upon a time) a very small -baby, but she was afraid she had completely lost sight of it. He must -know they didn’t allow babies in prisons. To this Hyacinth rejoined -that of course they would allow him, because he was—really—big. Miss -Pynsent fortified herself with the memory of her other pilgrimage, to -Newgate, upwards of ten years before; she had escaped from that ordeal, -and had even had the comfort of knowing that in its fruits the -interview had been beneficent. The responsibility, however, was much -greater now, and, after all, it was not on her own account she was in a -nervous tremor, but on that of the urchin over whom the shadow of the -house of shame might cast itself. - -They made the last part of their approach on foot, having got -themselves deposited as near as possible to the river and keeping -beside it (according to advice elicited by Miss Pynsent, on the way, in -a dozen confidential interviews with policemen, conductors of -omnibuses, and small shopkeepers), till they came to a big, dark -building with towers, which they would know as soon as they looked at -it. They knew it, in fact, soon enough, when they saw it lift its dusky -mass from the bank of the Thames, lying there and sprawling over the -whole neighbourhood, with brown, bare, windowless walls, ugly, -truncated pinnacles, and a character unspeakably sad and stern. It -looked very sinister and wicked, to Miss Pynsent’s eyes, and she -wondered why a prison should have such an evil face if it was erected -in the interest of justice and order—an expression of the righteous -forces of society. This particular penitentiary struck her as about as -bad and wrong as those who were in it; it threw a blight over the whole -place and made the river look foul and poisonous, and the opposite -bank, with its protrusion of long-necked chimneys, unsightly gasometers -and deposits of rubbish, wear the aspect of a region at whose expense -the jail had been populated. She looked up at the dull, closed gates, -tightening her grasp of Hyacinth’s small hand; and if it was hard to -believe anything so blind and deaf and closely fastened would relax -itself to let her in, there was a dreadful premonitory sinking of the -heart attached to the idea of its taking the same trouble to let her -out. As she hung back, murmuring vague ejaculations, at the very goal -of her journey, an incident occurred which fanned all her scruples and -reluctances into life again. The child suddenly jerked his hand out of -her own, and placing it behind him, in the clutch of the other, said to -her respectfully but resolutely, while he planted himself at a -considerable distance— - -“I don’t like this place.” - -“Neither do I like it, my darling,” cried the dressmaker, pitifully. -“Oh, if you knew how little!” - -“Then we will go away. I won’t go in.” - -She would have embraced this proposition with alacrity if it had not -become very vivid to her while she stood there, in the midst of her -shrinking, that behind those sullen walls the mother who bore him was -even then counting the minutes. She was alive, in that huge, dark tomb, -and it seemed to Miss Pynsent that they had already entered into -relation with her. They were near her, and she knew it; in a few -minutes she would taste the cup of the only mercy (except the reprieve -from hanging!) she had known since her fall. A few, a very few minutes -would do it, and it seemed to Miss Pynsent that if she should fail of -her charity now the watches of the night, in Lomax Place, would be -haunted with remorse—perhaps even with something worse. There was -something inside that waited and listened, something that would burst, -with an awful sound, a shriek, or a curse, if she were to lead the boy -away. She looked into his pale face for a moment, perfectly conscious -that it would be vain for her to take the tone of command; besides, -that would have seemed to her shocking. She had another inspiration, -and she said to him in a manner in which she had had occasion to speak -before— - -“The reason why we have come is only to be kind. If we are kind we -shan’t mind its being disagreeable.” - -“Why should we be kind, if she’s a bad woman?” Hyacinth inquired. “She -must be very low; I don’t want to know her.” - -“Hush, hush,” groaned poor Amanda, edging toward him with clasped -hands. “She is not bad now; it has all been washed away—it has been -expiated.” - -“What’s expiated?” asked the child, while she almost kneeled down in -the dust, catching him to her bosom. - -“It’s when you have suffered terribly—suffered so much that it has made -you good again.” - -“Has _she_ suffered very much?” - -“For years and years. And now she is dying. It proves she is very good -now, that she should want to see us.” - -“Do you mean because _we_ are good?” Hyacinth went on, probing the -matter in a way that made his companion quiver, and gazing away from -her, very seriously, across the river, at the dreary waste of -Battersea. - -“We shall be good if we are pitiful, if we make an effort,” said the -dressmaker, seeming to look up at him rather than down. - -“But if she is dying? I don’t want to see any one die.” - -Miss Pynsent was bewildered, but she rejoined, desperately, “If we go -to her, perhaps she won’t. Maybe we shall save her.” - -He transferred his remarkable little eyes—eyes which always appeared to -her to belong to a person older than herself, to her face; and then he -inquired, “Why should I save her, if I don’t like her?” - -“If she likes you, that will be enough.” - -At this Miss Pynsent began to see that he was moved. “Will she like me -very much?” - -“More, much more than any one.” - -“More than you, now?” - -“Oh,” said Amanda quickly, “I mean more than she likes any one.” - -Hyacinth had slipped his hands into the pockets of his scanty -knickerbockers, and, with his legs slightly apart, he looked from his -companion back to the immense dreary jail. A great deal, to Miss -Pynsent’s sense, depended on that moment. “Oh, well,” he said, at last, -“I’ll just step in.” - -“Deary, deary!” the dressmaker murmured to herself, as they crossed the -bare semicircle which separated the gateway from the unfrequented -street. She exerted herself to pull the bell, which seemed to her -terribly big and stiff, and while she waited, again, for the -consequences of this effort, the boy broke out, abruptly— - -“How can she like me so much if she doesn’t know me?” - -Miss Pynsent wished the gate would open before an answer to this -question should become imperative, but the people within were a long -time arriving, and their delay gave Hyacinth an opportunity to repeat -it. So the dressmaker rejoined, seizing the first pretext that came -into her head, “It’s because the little baby she had, of old, was also -named Hyacinth.” - -“That’s a queer reason,” the boy murmured, staring across again at the -Battersea shore. - -A moment afterwards they found themselves in a vast interior dimness, -with a grinding of keys and bolts going on behind them. Hereupon Miss -Pynsent gave herself up to an overruling providence, and she -remembered, later, no circumstance of what happened to her until the -great person of Mrs Bowerbank loomed before her in the narrowness of a -strange, dark corridor. She only had a confused impression of being -surrounded with high black walls, whose inner face was more dreadful -than the other, the one that overlooked the river; of passing through -gray, stony courts, in some of which dreadful figures, scarcely female, -in hideous brown, misfitting uniforms and perfect frights of hoods, -were marching round in a circle; of squeezing up steep, unlighted -staircases at the heels of a woman who had taken possession of her at -the first stage, and who made incomprehensible remarks to other women, -of lumpish aspect, as she saw them erect themselves, suddenly and -spectrally, with dowdy untied bonnets, in uncanny corners and recesses -of the draughty labyrinth. If the place had seemed cruel to the poor -little dressmaker outside, it may be believed that it did not strike -her as an abode of mercy while she pursued her tortuous way into the -circular shafts of cells, where she had an opportunity of looking at -captives through grated peepholes and of edging past others who had -temporarily been turned into the corridors—silent women, with fixed -eyes, who flattened themselves against the stone walls at the brush of -the visitor’s dress and whom Miss Pynsent was afraid to glance at. She -never had felt so immured, so made sure of; there were walls within -walls and galleries on top of galleries; even the daylight lost its -colour, and you couldn’t imagine what o’clock it was. Mrs Bowerbank -appeared to have failed her, and that made her feel worse; a panic -seized her, as she went, in regard to the child. On him, too, the -horror of the place would have fallen, and she had a sickening -prevision that he would have convulsions after they got home. It was a -most improper place to have brought him, no matter who had sent for him -and no matter who was dying. The stillness would terrify him, she was -sure—the penitential dumbness of the clustered or isolated women. She -clasped his hand more tightly, and she felt him keep close to her, -without speaking a word. At last, in an open doorway, darkened by her -ample person, Mrs Bowerbank revealed herself, and Miss Pynsent thought -it (afterwards) a sign of her place and power that she should not -condescend to apologise for not having appeared till that moment, or to -explain why she had not met the bewildered pilgrims near the principal -entrance, according to her promise. Miss Pynsent could not embrace the -state of mind of people who didn’t apologise, though she vaguely envied -and admired it, she herself spending much of her time in making excuses -for obnoxious acts she had not committed. Mrs Bowerbank, however, was -not arrogant, she was only massive and muscular; and after she had -taken her timorous friends in tow the dressmaker was able to comfort -herself with the reflection that even so masterful a woman couldn’t -inflict anything gratuitously disagreeable on a person who had made her -visit in Lomax Place pass off so pleasantly. - -It was on the outskirts of the infirmary that she had been hovering, -and it was into certain dismal chambers dedicated to sick criminals, -that she presently ushered her companions. These chambers were naked -and grated, like all the rest of the place, and caused Miss Pynsent to -say to herself that it must be a blessing to be ill in such a hole, -because you couldn’t possibly pick up again, and then your case was -simple. Such simplification, however, had for the moment been offered -to very few of Florentine’s fellow-sufferers, for only three of the -small, stiff beds were occupied—occupied by white-faced women in tight, -sordid caps, on whom, in the stale, ugly room, the sallow light itself -seemed to rest without pity. Mrs Bowerbank discreetly paid no attention -whatever to Hyacinth; she only said to Miss Pynsent, with her hoarse -distinctness, “You’ll find her very low; she wouldn’t have waited -another day.” And she guided them, through a still further door, to the -smallest room of all, where there were but three beds, placed in a row. -Miss Pynsent’s frightened eyes rather faltered than inquired, but she -became aware that a woman was lying on the middle bed, and that her -face was turned toward the door. Mrs Bowerbank led the way straight up -to her, and, giving a business-like pat to her pillow, looked -invitation and encouragement to the visitors, who clung together not -far within the threshold. Their conductress reminded them that very few -minutes were allowed them, and that they had better not dawdle them -away; whereupon, as the boy still hung back, the little dressmaker -advanced alone, looking at the sick woman with what courage she could -muster. It seemed to her that she was approaching a perfect stranger, -so completely had nine years of prison transformed Florentine. She -felt, immediately, that it was a mercy she hadn’t told Hyacinth she was -pretty (as she used to be), for there was no beauty left in the hollow, -bloodless mask that presented itself without a movement. She _had_ told -him that the poor woman was good, but she didn’t look so, nor, -evidently, was he struck with it as he stared back at her across the -interval he declined to traverse, kept (at the same time) from -retreating by her strange, fixed eyes, the only portion of all her -wasted person in which there was still any appearance of life. She -looked unnatural to Amanda Pynsent, and terribly old; a speechless, -motionless creature, dazed and stupid, whereas Florentine Vivier, in -the obliterated past, had been her idea of personal, as distinguished -from social, brilliancy. Above all she seemed disfigured and ugly, -cruelly misrepresented by her coarse cap and short, rough hair. Amanda, -as she stood beside her, thought with a sort of scared elation that -Hyacinth would never guess that a person in whom there was so little -trace of smartness—or of cleverness of any kind—was his mother. At the -very most it might occur to him, as Mrs Bowerbank had suggested, that -she was his grandmother. Mrs Bowerbank seated herself on the further -bed, with folded hands, like a monumental timekeeper, and remarked, in -the manner of one speaking from a sense of duty, that the poor thing -wouldn’t get much good of the child unless he showed more confidence. -This observation was evidently lost upon the boy; he was too intensely -absorbed in watching the prisoner. A chair had been placed at the head -of her bed, and Miss Pynsent sat down without her appearing to notice -it. In a moment, however, she lifted her hand a little, pushing it out -from under the coverlet, and the dressmaker laid her own hand softly -upon it. This gesture elicited no response, but after a little, still -gazing at the boy, Florentine murmured, in words no one present was in -a position to understand— - -“_Dieu de Dieu, qu’il est beau!_” - -“She won’t speak nothing but French since she has been so bad—you can’t -get a natural word out of her,” Mrs Bowerbank said. - -“It used to be so pretty when she spoke English—and so very amusing,” -Miss Pynsent ventured to announce, with a feeble attempt to brighten up -the scene. “I suppose she has forgotten it all.” - -“She may well have forgotten it—she never gave her tongue much -exercise. There was little enough trouble to keep _her_ from -chattering,” Mrs Bowerbank rejoined, giving a twitch to the prisoner’s -counterpane. Miss Pynsent settled it a little on the other side and -considered, in the same train, that this separation of language was -indeed a mercy; for how could it ever come into her small companion’s -head that he was the offspring of a person who couldn’t so much as say -good morning to him? She felt, at the same time, that the scene might -have been somewhat less painful if they had been able to communicate -with the object of their compassion. As it was, they had too much the -air of having been brought together simply to look at each other, and -there was a grewsome awkwardness in that, considering the delicacy of -Florentine’s position. Not, indeed, that she looked much at her old -comrade; it was as if she were conscious of Miss Pynsent’s being there, -and would have been glad to thank her for it—glad even to examine her -for her own sake, and see what change, for her, too, the horrible years -had brought, but felt, more than this, that she had but the thinnest -pulse of energy left and that not a moment that could still be of use -to her was too much to take in her child. She took him in with all the -glazed entreaty of her eyes, quite giving up his poor little -protectress, who evidently would have to take her gratitude for -granted. Hyacinth, on his side, after some moments of embarrassing -silence—there was nothing audible but Mrs Bowerbank’s breathing—had -satisfied himself, and he turned about to look for a place of patience -while Miss Pynsent should finish her business, which as yet made so -little show. He appeared to wish not to leave the room altogether, as -that would be a confession of a vanquished spirit, but to take some -attitude that should express his complete disapproval of the unpleasant -situation. He was not in sympathy, and he could not have made it more -clear than by the way he presently went and placed himself on a low -stool, in a corner, near the door by which they had entered. - -“_Est-il possible, mon Dieu, qu’il soit gentil comme ça?_” his mother -moaned, just above her breath. - -“We are very glad you should have cared—that they look after you so -well,” said Miss Pynsent, confusedly, at random; feeling, first, that -Hyacinth’s coldness was perhaps excessive and his scepticism too -marked, and then that allusions to the way the poor woman was looked -after were not exactly happy. They didn’t matter, however, for she -evidently heard nothing, giving no sign of interest even when Mrs -Bowerbank, in a tone between a desire to make the interview more lively -and an idea of showing that she knew how to treat the young, referred -herself to the little boy. - -“Is there nothing the little gentleman would like to say, now, to the -unfortunate? Hasn’t he any pleasant remark to make to her about his -coming so far to see her when she’s so sunk? It isn’t often that -children are shown over the place (as the little man has been), and -there’s many that would think they were lucky if they could see what he -has seen.” - -“_Mon pauvre joujou, mon pauvre chéri_,” the prisoner went on, in her -tender, tragic whisper. - -“He only wants to be very good; he always sits that way at home,” said -Miss Pynsent, alarmed at Mrs Bowerbank’s address and hoping there -wouldn’t be a scene. - -“He might have stayed at home then—with this wretched person moaning -after him,” Mrs Bowerbank remarked, with some sternness. She plainly -felt that the occasion threatened to be wanting in brilliancy, and -wished to intimate that though she was to be trusted for discipline, -she thought they were all getting off too easily. - -“I came because Pinnie brought me,” Hyacinth declared, from his low -perch. “I thought at first it would be pleasant. But it ain’t -pleasant—I don’t like prisons.” And he placed his little feet on the -cross-piece of the stool, as if to touch the institution at as few -points as possible. - -The woman in bed continued her strange, almost whining plaint. “_Il ne -veut pas s’approcher, il a honte de moi_.” - -“There’s a many that begin like that!” laughed Mrs Bowerbank, who was -irritated by the boy’s contempt for one of her Majesty’s finest -establishments. - -Hyacinth’s little white face exhibited no confusion; he only turned it -to the prisoner again, and Miss Pynsent felt that some extraordinary -dumb exchange of meanings was taking place between them. “She used to -be so elegant; she _was_ a fine woman,” she observed, gently and -helplessly. - -“_Il a honte de moi—il a honte, Dieu le pardonne!_” Florentine Vivier -went on, never moving her eyes. - -“She’s asking for something, in her language. I used to know a few -words,” said Miss Pynsent, stroking down the bed, very nervously. - -“Who is that woman? what does she want?” Hyacinth asked, his small, -clear voice ringing over the dreary room. - -“She wants you to come near her, she wants to kiss you, sir,” said Mrs -Bowerbank, as if it were more than he deserved. - -“I won’t kiss her; Pinnie says she stole a watch!” the child answered -with resolution. - -“Oh, you dreadful—how could you ever?” cried Pinnie, blushing all over -and starting out of her chair. - -It was partly Amanda’s agitation, perhaps, which, by the jolt it -administered, gave an impulse to the sick woman, and partly the -penetrating and expressive tone in which Hyacinth announced his -repugnance: at any rate, Florentine, in the most unexpected and violent -manner, jerked herself up from her pillow, and, with dilated eyes and -waving hands, shrieked out, “_Ah, quelle infamie!_ I never stole a -watch, I never stole anything—anything! _Ah, par exemple!_” Then she -fell back, sobbing with the passion that had given her a moment’s -strength. - -“I’m sure you needn’t put more on her than she has by rights,” said Mrs -Bowerbank, with dignity, to the dressmaker, laying a large red hand -upon the patient, to keep her in her place. - -“Mercy, more? I thought it so much less!” cried Miss Pynsent, convulsed -with confusion and jerking herself, in a wild tremor, from the mother -to the child, as if she wished to fling herself upon one for contrition -and upon the other for revenge. - -“_Il a honte de moi—il a honte de moi!_” Florentine repeated, in the -misery of her sobs, “_Dieu de bonté, quelle horreur!_” - -Miss Pynsent dropped on her knees beside the bed and, trying to possess -herself of Florentine’s hand again, protested with a passion almost -equal to that of the prisoner (she felt that her nerves had been -screwed up to the snapping-point, and now they were all in shreds) that -she hadn’t meant what she had told the child, that he hadn’t -understood, that Florentine herself hadn’t understood, that she had -only said she had been accused and meant that no one had ever believed -it. The Frenchwoman paid no attention to her whatever, and Amanda -buried her face and her embarrassment in the side of the hard little -prison-bed, while, above the sound of their common lamentation, she -heard the judicial tones of Mrs Bowerbank. - -“The child is delicate, you might well say! I’m disappointed in the -effect—I was in hopes you’d hearten her up. The doctor’ll be down on -_me_, of course; so we’ll just pass out again.” - -“I’m very sorry I made you cry. And you must excuse Pinnie—I asked her -so many questions.” - -These words came from close beside the prostrate dressmaker, who, -lifting herself quickly, found the little boy had advanced to her elbow -and was taking a nearer view of the mysterious captive. They produced -upon the latter an effect even more powerful than his unfortunate -speech of a moment before; for she found strength to raise herself, -partly, in her bed again, and to hold out her arms to him, with the -same thrilling sobs. She was talking still, but she had become quite -inarticulate, and Miss Pynsent had but a glimpse of her white, ravaged -face, with the hollows of its eyes and the rude crop of her hair. -Amanda caught the child with an eagerness almost as great as -Florentine’s, and drawing him to the head of the bed, pushed him into -his mother’s arms. “Kiss her—kiss her, and we’ll go home!” she -whispered desperately, while they closed about him, and the poor -dishonoured head pressed itself against his young cheek. It was a -terrible, irresistible embrace, to which Hyacinth submitted with -instant patience. Mrs Bowerbank had tried at first to keep her -_protégée_ from rising, evidently wishing to abbreviate the scene; -then, as the child was enfolded, she accepted the situation and gave -judicious support from behind, with an eye to clearing the room as soon -as this effort should have spent itself. She propped up her patient -with a vigorous arm; Miss Pynsent rose from her knees and turned away, -and there was a minute’s stillness, during which the boy accommodated -himself as he might to his strange ordeal. What thoughts were begotten -at that moment in his wondering little mind Miss Pynsent was destined -to learn at another time. Before she had faced round to the bed again -she was swept out of the room by Mrs Bowerbank, who had lowered the -prisoner, exhausted, with closed eyes, to her pillow, and given -Hyacinth a business-like little push, which sent him on in advance. -Miss Pynsent went home in a cab—she was so shaken; though she -reflected, very nervously, on getting into it, on the opportunities it -would give Hyacinth for the exercise of inquisitorial rights. To her -surprise, however, he completely neglected them; he sat in silence, -looking out of the window, till they re-entered Lomax Place. - - - - -IV - - -“Well, you’ll have to guess my name before I’ll tell you,” the girl -said, with a free laugh, pushing her way into the narrow hall and -leaning against the tattered wall-paper, which, representing blocks of -marble with bevelled edges, in streaks and speckles of black and gray, -had not been renewed for years and came back to her out of the past. As -Miss Pynsent closed the door, seeing her visitor was so resolute, the -light filtered in from the street, through the narrow, dusty glass -above it, and then the very smell and sense of the place returned to -Millicent; a kind of musty dimness, with the vision of a small, steep -staircase at the end, covered with a strip of oilcloth which she -recognised, and made a little less dark by a window in the bend (you -could see it from the hall), from which you could almost bump your head -against the house behind. Nothing was changed except Miss Pynsent, and -of course the girl herself. She had noticed, outside, that the sign -between the windows had not even been touched up; there was still the -same preposterous announcement of ‘fashionable bonnets’—as if the poor -little dressmaker had the slightest acquaintance with that style of -head-dress, of which Miss Henning’s own knowledge was now so complete. -She could see Miss Pynsent was looking at her hat, which was a -wonderful composition of flowers and ribbons; her eyes had travelled up -and down Millicent’s whole person, but they rested in fascination upon -this ornament. The girl had forgotten how small the dressmaker was; she -barely came up to her shoulder. She had lost her hair, and wore a cap, -which Millicent noticed in return, wondering if that were a specimen of -what she thought the fashion. Miss Pynsent stared up at her as if she -had been six feet high; but she was used to that sort of surprised -admiration, being perfectly conscious that she was a magnificent young -woman. - -“Won’t you take me into your shop?” she asked. “I don’t want to order -anything; I only want to inquire after your ’ealth; and isn’t this -rather an awkward place to talk?” She made her way further in, without -waiting for permission, seeing that her startled hostess had not yet -guessed. - -“The show-room is on the right hand,” said Miss Pynsent, with her -professional manner, which was intended, evidently, to mark a -difference. She spoke as if on the other side, where the horizon was -bounded by the partition of the next house, there were labyrinths of -apartments. Passing in after her guest she found the young lady already -spread out upon the sofa, the everlasting sofa, in the right-hand -corner as you faced the window, covered with a light, shrunken shroud -of a strange yellow stuff, the tinge of which revealed years of -washing, and surmounted by a coloured print of Rebekah at the Well, -balancing, in the opposite quarter, with a portrait of the Empress of -the French, taken from an illustrated newspaper and framed and glazed -in the manner of 1853. Millicent looked about her, asking herself what -Miss Pynsent had to show and acting perfectly the part of the most -brilliant figure the place had ever contained. The old implements were -there on the table: the pincushions and needle-books; the pink -measuring-tape with which, as children, she and Hyacinth used to take -each other’s height; and the same collection of fashion-plates (she -could see in a minute), crumpled, sallow and fly-blown. The little -dressmaker bristled, as she used to do, with needles and pins (they -were stuck all over the front of her dress), but there were no rustling -fabrics tossed in heaps about the room—nothing but the skirt of a -shabby dress (it might have been her own), which she was evidently -repairing and had flung upon the table when she came to the door. Miss -Henning speedily arrived at the conclusion that her hostess’s business -had not increased, and felt a kind of good-humoured, luxurious scorn of -a person who knew so little what was to be got out of London. It was -Millicent’s belief that she herself was already perfectly acquainted -with the resources of the metropolis. - -“Now tell me, how is Hyacinth? I should like so much to see him,” she -remarked, extending a pair of large protrusive feet and supporting -herself on the sofa by her hands. - -“Hyacinth?” Miss Pynsent repeated, with majestic blankness, as if she -had never heard of such a person. She felt that the girl was cruelly, -scathingly, well dressed; she couldn’t imagine who she was, nor with -what design she could have presented herself. - -“Perhaps you call him Mr Robinson, to-day—you always wanted him to hold -himself so high. But to his face, at any rate, I’ll call him as I used -to: you see if I don’t!” - -“Bless my soul, you must be the little ’Enning!” Miss Pynsent -exclaimed, planted before her and going now into every detail. - -“Well, I’m glad you have made up your mind. I thought you’d know me -directly. I had a call to make in this part, and it came into my ’ead -to look you up. I don’t like to lose sight of old friends.” - -“I never knew you—you’ve improved so,” Miss Pynsent rejoined, with a -candour justified by her age and her consciousness of respectability. - -“Well, _you_ haven’t changed; you were always calling me something -horrid.” - -“I dare say it doesn’t matter to you now, does it?” said the -dressmaker, seating herself, but quite unable to take up her work, -absorbed as she was in the examination of her visitor. - -“Oh, I’m all right now,” Miss Henning replied, with the air of one who -had nothing to fear from human judgments. - -“You were a pretty child—I never said the contrary to that; but I had -no idea you’d turn out like this. You’re too tall for a woman,” Miss -Pynsent added, much divided between an old prejudice and a new -appreciation. - -“Well, I enjoy beautiful ’ealth,” said the young lady; “every one -thinks I’m twenty.” She spoke with a certain artless pride in her -bigness and her bloom, and as if, to show her development, she would -have taken off her jacket or let you feel her upper arm. She was very -handsome, with a shining, bold, good-natured eye, a fine, free, facial -oval, an abundance of brown hair, and a smile which showed the -whiteness of her teeth. Her head was set upon a fair, strong neck, and -her tall young figure was rich in feminine curves. Her gloves, covering -her wrists insufficiently, showed the redness of those parts, in the -interstices of the numerous silver bracelets that encircled them, and -Miss Pynsent made the observation that her hands were not more delicate -than her feet. She was not graceful, and even the little dressmaker, -whose preference for distinguished forms never deserted her, indulged -in the mental reflection that she was common, for all her magnificence; -but there was something about her indescribably fresh, successful and -satisfying. She was, to her blunt, expanded finger-tips, a daughter of -London, of the crowded streets and hustling traffic of the great city; -she had drawn her health and strength from its dingy courts and foggy -thoroughfares, and peopled its parks and squares and crescents with her -ambitions; it had entered into her blood and her bone, the sound of her -voice and the carriage of her head; she understood it by instinct and -loved it with passion; she represented its immense vulgarities and -curiosities, its brutality and its knowingness, its good-nature and its -impudence, and might have figured, in an allegorical procession, as a -kind of glorified townswoman, a nymph of the wilderness of Middlesex, a -flower of the accumulated parishes, the genius of urban civilisation, -the muse of cockneyism. The restrictions under which Miss Pynsent -regarded her would have cost the dressmaker some fewer scruples if she -had guessed the impression she made upon Millicent, and how the whole -place seemed to that prosperous young lady to smell of poverty and -failure. Her childish image of Miss Pynsent had represented her as -delicate and dainty, with round loops of hair fastened on her temples -by combs, and associations of brilliancy arising from the constant -manipulation of precious stuffs—tissues at least which Millicent -regarded with envy. But the little woman before her was bald and white -and pinched; she looked shrunken and sickly and insufficiently -nourished; her small eyes were sharp and suspicious, and her hideous -cap did not disguise her meagreness. Miss Henning thanked her stars, as -she had often done before, that she had not been obliged to get _her_ -living by drudging over needlework year after year in that -undiscoverable street, in a dismal little room where nothing had been -changed for ages; the absence of change had such an exasperating effect -upon her vigorous young nature. She reflected with complacency upon her -good fortune in being attached to a more exciting, a more dramatic, -department of the dressmaking business, and noticed that though it was -already November there was no fire in the neatly-kept grate beneath the -chimney-piece, on which a design, partly architectural, partly -botanical, executed in the hair of Miss Pynsent’s parents, was flanked -by a pair of vases, under glass, containing muslin flowers. - -If she thought Miss Pynsent’s eyes suspicious it must be confessed that -this lady felt very much upon her guard in the presence of so -unexpected and undesired a reminder of one of the least honourable -episodes in the annals of Lomax Place. Miss Pynsent esteemed people in -proportion to their success in constituting a family circle—in cases, -that is, when the materials were under their hand. This success, among -the various members of the house of Henning, had been of the scantiest, -and the domestic broils in the establishment adjacent to her own, whose -vicissitudes she was able to follow, as she sat at her window at work, -by simply inclining an ear to the thin partition behind her—these -scenes, amid which the crash of crockery and the imprecations of the -wounded were frequently audible, had long been the scandal of a humble -but harmonious neighbourhood. Mr Henning was supposed to occupy a place -of confidence in a brush-factory, while his wife, at home, occupied -herself with the washing and mending of a considerable brood, mainly of -sons. But economy and sobriety, and indeed a virtue more important -still, had never presided at their councils. The freedom and frequency -of Mrs Henning’s relations with a stove-polisher in the Euston Road -were at least not a secret to a person who lived next door and looked -up from her work so often that it was a wonder it was always finished -so quickly. The little Hennings, unwashed and unchidden, spent most of -their time either in pushing each other into the gutter or in running -to the public-house at the corner for a pennyworth of gin, and the -borrowing propensities of their elders were a theme for exclamation. -There was no object of personal or domestic use which Mrs Henning had -not at one time or another endeavoured to elicit from the dressmaker; -beginning with a mattress, on an occasion when she was about to take to -her bed for a considerable period, and ending with a flannel petticoat -and a pewter teapot. Lomax Place had, eventually, from its over-peeping -windows and doorways, been present at the seizure, by a long-suffering -landlord, of the chattels of this interesting family and at the -ejectment of the whole insolvent group, who departed in a straggling, -jeering, unabashed, cynical manner, carrying with them but little of -the sympathy of the street. Millicent, whose childish intimacy with -Hyacinth Robinson Miss Pynsent had always viewed with vague anxiety—she -thought the girl a ‘nasty little thing’, and was afraid she would teach -the innocent orphan low ways—Millicent, with her luxuriant tresses, her -precocious beauty, her staring, mocking manner on the doorstep, was at -this time twelve years of age. She vanished with her vanishing -companions; Lomax Place saw them turn the corner, and returned to its -occupations with a conviction that they would make shipwreck on the -outer reefs. But neither spar nor splinter floated back to their former -haunts, and they were engulfed altogether in the fathomless deeps of -the town. Miss Pynsent drew a long breath; it was her conviction that -none of them would come to any good, and Millicent least of all. - -When, therefore, this young lady reappeared, with all the signs of -accomplished survival, she could not fail to ask herself whether, under -a specious seeming, the phenomenon did not simply represent the triumph -of vice. She was alarmed, but she would have given her silver thimble -to know the girl’s history, and between her alarm and her curiosity she -passed an uncomfortable half-hour. She felt that the familiar, -mysterious creature was playing with her; revenging herself for former -animadversions, for having been snubbed and miscalled by a peering -little spinster who now could make no figure beside her. If it was not -the triumph of vice it was at least the triumph of impertinence, as -well as of youth, health, and a greater acquaintance with the art of -dress than Miss Pynsent could boast, for all her ridiculous signboards. -She perceived, or she believed she perceived, that Millicent wanted to -scare her, to make her think she had come after Hyacinth; that she -wished to inveigle, to corrupt him. I should be sorry to impute to Miss -Henning any motive more complicated than the desire to amuse herself, -of a Saturday afternoon, by a ramble which her vigorous legs had no -occasion to deprecate; but it must be confessed that when it occurred -to her that Miss Pynsent regarded her as a ravening wolf and her early -playmate as an unspotted lamb, she laughed out, in her hostess’s -anxious face, irrelevantly and good-humouredly, without deigning to -explain. But what, indeed, had she come for, if she had not come after -Hyacinth? It was not for the love of the dressmaker’s pretty ways. She -remembered the boy and some of their tender passages, and in the -wantonness of her full-blown freedom—her attachment, also, to any -tolerable pretext for wandering through the streets of London and -gazing into shop-windows—she had said to herself that she would -dedicate an afternoon to the pleasures of memory, would revisit the -scenes of her childhood. She considered that her childhood had ended -with the departure of her family from Lomax Place. If the tenants of -that obscure locality never learned what their banished fellows went -through, Millicent retained a deep impression of those horrible -intermediate years. The family, as a family, had gone down-hill, to the -very bottom; and in her humbler moments Millicent sometimes wondered -what lucky star had checked her own descent, and indeed enabled her to -mount the slope again. In her humbler moments, I say, for as a general -thing she was provided with an explanation of any good fortune that -might befall her. What was more natural than that a girl should do well -when she was at once so handsome and so clever? Millicent thought with -compassion of the young persons whom a niggardly fate had endowed with -only one of these advantages. She was good-natured, but she had no idea -of gratifying Miss Pynsent’s curiosity; it seemed to her quite a -sufficient kindness to stimulate it. - -She told the dressmaker that she had a high position at a great -haberdasher’s in the neighbourhood of Buckingham Palace; she was in the -department for jackets and mantles; she put on all these articles to -show them off to the customers, and on her person they appeared to such -advantage that nothing she took up ever failed to go off. Miss Pynsent -could imagine, from this, how highly her services were prized. She had -had a splendid offer from another establishment, in Oxford Street, and -she was just thinking whether she should accept it. “We have to be -beautifully dressed, but I don’t care, because I like to look nice,” -she remarked to her hostess, who at the end of half an hour, very -grave, behind the clumsy glasses which she had been obliged to wear of -late years, seemed still not to know what to make of her. On the -subject of her family, of her history during the interval that was to -be accounted for, the girl was large and vague, and Miss Pynsent saw -that the domestic circle had not even a shadow of sanctity for her. She -stood on her own feet, and she stood very firm. Her staying so long, -her remaining over the half-hour, proved to the dressmaker that she had -come for Hyacinth; for poor Amanda gave her as little information as -was decent, told her nothing that would encourage or attract. She -simply mentioned that Mr Robinson (she was careful to speak of him in -that manner) had given his attention to bookbinding, and had served an -apprenticeship at an establishment where they turned out the best work -of that kind that was to be found in London. - -“A bookbindery? Laws!” said Miss Henning. “Do you mean they get them up -for the shops? Well, I always thought he would have something to do -with books.” Then she added, “But I didn’t think he would ever follow a -trade.” - -“A trade?” cried Miss Pynsent. “You should hear Mr Robinson speak of -it. He considers it one of the fine arts.” - -Millicent smiled, as if she knew how people often considered things, -and remarked that very likely it was tidy, comfortable work, but she -couldn’t believe there was much to be seen in it. “Perhaps you will say -there is more than there is here,” she went on, finding at last an -effect of irritation, of reprehension, an implication of aggressive -respectability, in the image of the patient dressmaker, sitting for so -many years in her close, brown little den, with the foggy familiarities -of Lomax Place on the other side of the pane. Millicent liked to think -that she herself was strong, and she was not strong enough for that. - -This allusion to her shrunken industry seemed to Miss Pynsent very -cruel; but she reflected that it was natural one should be insulted if -one talked to a vulgar girl. She judged this young lady in the manner -of a person who was not vulgar herself, and if there was a difference -between them she was right in feeling it to be in her favour. Miss -Pynsent’s ‘cut’, as I have intimated, was not truly fashionable, and in -the application of gimp and the distribution of ornament she was not to -be trusted; but, morally, she had the best taste in the world. “I -haven’t so much work as I used to have, if that’s what you mean. My -eyes are not so good, and my health has failed with advancing years.” - -I know not to what extent Millicent was touched by the dignity of this -admission, but she replied, without embarrassment, that what Miss -Pynsent wanted was a smart young assistant, some nice girl with a -pretty taste, who would brighten up the business and give her new -ideas. “I can see you have got the same old ones, always: I can tell -that by the way you have stuck the braid on that dress;” and she -directed a poke of her neat little umbrella to the drapery in the -dressmaker’s lap. She continued to patronise and exasperate her, and to -offer her consolation and encouragement with the heaviest hand that had -ever been applied to Miss Pynsent’s sensitive surface. Poor Amanda -ended by gazing at her as if she were a public performer of some kind, -a ballad-singer or a conjurer, and went so far as to ask herself -whether the hussy could be (in her own mind) the ‘nice girl’ who was to -regild the tarnished sign. Miss Pynsent had had assistants, in the -past—she had even, once, for a few months, had a ‘forewoman’; and some -of these damsels had been precious specimens, whose misdemeanours lived -vividly in her memory. Never, all the same, in her worst hour of -delusion, had she trusted her interests to such an extravagant baggage -as this. She was quickly reassured as to Millicent’s own views, -perceiving more and more that she was a tremendous highflyer, who -required a much larger field of action than the musty bower she now -honoured, heaven only knew why, with her presence. Miss Pynsent held -her tongue, as she always did, when the sorrow of her life had been -touched, the thought of the slow, inexorable decline on which she had -entered that day, nearly ten years before, when her hesitations and -scruples resolved themselves into a hideous mistake. The deep -conviction of error, on that unspeakably important occasion, had ached -and throbbed within her ever since like an incurable disease. She had -sown in her boy’s mind the seeds of shame and rancour; she had made him -conscious of his stigma, of his exquisitely vulnerable spot, and -condemned him to know that for him the sun would never shine as it -shone for most others. By the time he was sixteen years old she had -learned—or believed she had learned—the judgment he passed upon her, -and at that period she had lived through a series of horrible months, -an ordeal in which every element of her old prosperity perished. She -cried her eyes out, on coming to a sense of her aberration, blinded and -weakened herself with weeping, so that for a moment it seemed as if she -should never be able to touch a needle again. She lost all interest in -her work, and that artistic imagination which had always been her pride -deserted her, together with the reputation of keeping the tidiest -lodgings in Lomax Place. A couple of commercial gentlemen and a Welsh -plumber, of religious tendencies, who for several years had made her -establishment their home, withdrew their patronage on the ground that -the airing of her beds was not what it used to be, and disseminated -cruelly this injurious legend. She ceased to notice or to care how -sleeves were worn, and on the question of flounces and gores her mind -was a blank. She fell into a grievous debility, and then into a long, -low, languid fever, during which Hyacinth tended her with a devotion -which only made the wrong she had done him seem more bitter, and in -which, so soon as she was able to hold up her head a little, Mr Vetch -came and sat with her through the dull hours of convalescence. She -re-established to a certain extent, after a while, her connection, so -far as the letting of her rooms was concerned (from the other -department of her activity the tide had ebbed apparently forever); but -nothing was the same again, and she knew it was the beginning of the -end. So it had gone on, and she watched the end approach; she felt it -was very near indeed when a child she had seen playing in the gutters -came to flaunt it over her in silk and lace. She gave a low, inaudible -sigh of relief when at last Millicent got up and stood before her, -smoothing the glossy cylinder of her umbrella. - -“Mind you give my love to Hyacinth,” the girl said, with an assurance -which showed all her insensibility to tacit protests. “I don’t care if -you do guess that if I have stopped so long it was in the hope he would -be dropping in to his tea. You can tell him I sat an hour, on purpose, -if you like; there’s no shame in my wanting to see my little friend. He -may know I call him that!” Millicent continued, with her show-room -laugh, as Miss Pynsent judged it to be; conferring these permissions, -successively, as if they were great indulgences. “Do give him my love, -and tell him I hope he’ll come and see me. I see you won’t tell him -anything. I don’t know what you’re afraid of; but I’ll leave my card -for him, all the same.” She drew forth a little bright-coloured -pocket-book, and it was with amazement that Miss Pynsent saw her -extract from it a morsel of engraved pasteboard—so monstrous did it -seem that one of the squalid little Hennings should have lived to -display this emblem of social consideration. Millicent enjoyed the -effect she produced as she laid the card on the table, and gave another -ringing peal of merriment at the sight of her hostess’s half-angry, -half-astonished look. “What _do_ you think I want to do with him? I -could swallow him at a single bite!” she cried. - -Poor Amanda gave no second glance at the document on the table, though -she had perceived it contained, in the corner, her visitor’s address, -which Millicent had amused herself, ingeniously, with not mentioning: -she only got up, laying down her work with a trembling hand, so that -she should be able to see Miss Henning well out of the house. “You -needn’t think I shall put myself out to keep him in the dark. I shall -certainly tell him you have been here, and exactly how you strike me.” - -“Of course you’ll say something nasty—like you used to when I was a -child. You let me ’ave it then, you know!” - -“Ah, well,” said Miss Pynsent, nettled at being reminded of an acerbity -which the girl’s present development caused to appear ridiculously -ineffectual, “you are very different now, when I think what you’ve come -from.” - -“What I’ve come from?” Millicent threw back her head, and opened her -eyes very wide, while all her feathers and ribbons nodded. “Did you -want me to stick fast in this low place for the rest of my days? You -have had to stay in it yourself, so you might speak civilly of it.” She -coloured, and raised her voice, and looked magnificent in her scorn. -“And pray what have you come from yourself, and what has _he_ come -from—the mysterious ‘Mr Robinson’, that used to be such a puzzle to the -whole Place? I thought perhaps I might clear it up, but you haven’t -told me that yet!” - -Miss Pynsent turned straight away, covering her ears with her hands. “I -have nothing to tell you! Leave my room—leave my house!” she cried, -with a trembling voice. - - - - -V - - -It was in this way that the dressmaker failed either to see or to hear -the opening of the door of the room, which obeyed a slow, apparently -cautious impulse given it from the hall, and revealed the figure of a -young man standing there with a short pipe in his teeth. There was -something in his face which immediately told Millicent Henning that he -had heard, outside, her last resounding tones. He entered as if, young -as he was, he knew that when women were squabbling men were not called -upon to be headlong, and evidently wondered who the dressmaker’s -brilliant adversary might be. She recognised on the instant her old -playmate, and without reflection, confusion or diplomacy, in the -fullness of her vulgarity and sociability, she exclaimed, in no lower -pitch, “Gracious, Hyacinth Robinson, is _that_ your form?” - -Miss Pynsent turned round, in a flash, but kept silent; then, very -white and trembling, took up her work again and seated herself in her -window. - -Hyacinth Robinson stood staring; then he blushed all over. He knew who -she was, but he didn’t say so; he only asked, in a voice which struck -the girl as quite different from the old one—the one in which he used -to tell her she was beastly tiresome—“Is it of me you were speaking -just now?” - -“When I asked where you had come from? That was because we ’eard you in -the ’all,” said Millicent, smiling. “I suppose you have come from your -work.” - -“You used to live in the Place—you always wanted to kiss me,” the young -man remarked, with an effort not to show all the surprise and agitation -that he felt. “Didn’t she live in the Place, Pinnie!” - -Pinnie, for all answer, fixed a pair of strange, pleading eyes upon -him, and Millicent broke out, with her recurrent laugh, in which the -dressmaker had been right in discovering the note of affectation, “Do -you want to know what you look like? You look for all the world like a -little Frenchman! Don’t he look like a little Frenchman, Miss Pynsent?” -she went on, as if she were on the best possible terms with the -mistress of the establishment. - -Hyacinth exchanged a look with that afflicted woman; he saw something -in her face which he knew very well by this time, and the sight of -which always gave him an odd, perverse, unholy satisfaction. It seemed -to say that she prostrated herself, that she did penance in the dust, -that she was his to trample upon, to spit upon. He did neither of these -things, but she was constantly offering herself, and her permanent -humility, her perpetual abjection, was a sort of counter-irritant to -the soreness lodged in his own heart for ever, which had often made him -cry with rage at night, in his little room under the roof. Pinnie meant -that, to-day, as a matter of course, and she could only especially mean -it in the presence of Miss Henning’s remark about his looking like a -Frenchman. He knew he looked like a Frenchman, he had often been told -so before, and a large part of the time he felt like one—like one of -those he had read about in Michelet and Carlyle. He had picked up the -French tongue with the most extraordinary facility, with the aid of one -of his mates, a refugee from Paris, in the workroom, and of a -second-hand dog’s-eared dictionary, bought for a shilling in the -Brompton Road, in one of his interminable, restless, melancholy, moody, -yet all-observant strolls through London. He spoke it (as he believed) -as if by instinct, caught the accent, the gesture, the movement of -eyebrow and shoulder; so that if it should become necessary in certain -contingencies that he should pass for a foreigner he had an idea that -he might do so triumphantly, once he could borrow a blouse. He had -never seen a blouse in his life, but he knew exactly the form and -colour of such a garment, and how it was worn. What these contingencies -might be which should compel him to assume the disguise of a person of -a social station lower still than his own, Hyacinth would not for the -world have mentioned to you; but as they were very present to the mind -of our imaginative, ingenious youth we shall catch a glimpse of them in -the course of a further acquaintance with him. At the present moment, -when there was no question of masquerading, it made him blush again -that such a note should be struck by a loud, laughing, handsome girl, -who came back out of his past. There was more in Pinnie’s weak eyes, -now, than her usual profession; there was a dumb intimation, almost as -pathetic as the other, that if he cared to let her off easily he would -not detain their terrible visitor very long. He had no wish to do that; -he kept the door open, on purpose; he didn’t enjoy talking to girls -under Pinnie’s eyes, and he could see that this one had every -disposition to talk. So without responding to her observation about his -appearance he said, not knowing exactly what to say, “Have you come -back to live in the Place?” - -“Heaven forbid I should ever do that!” cried Miss Henning, with genuine -emotion. “I have to live near the establishment in which I’m employed.” - -“And what establishment is that, now?” the young man asked, gaining -confidence and perceiving, in detail, how handsome she was. He hadn’t -roamed about London for nothing, and he knew that when a girl was so -handsome as that, a jocular tone of address, a pleasing freedom, was -_de rigueur;_ so he added, “Is it the Bull and Gate, or the Elephant -and Castle?” - -“A public house! Well, you haven’t got the politeness of a Frenchman, -at all events!” Her good-nature had come back to her perfectly, and her -resentment of his imputation of her looking like a bar-maid—a blowzy -beauty who handled pewter—was tempered by her more and more curious -consideration of Hyacinth’s form. He was exceedingly ‘rum’, but this -quality took her fancy, and since he remembered so well that she had -been fond of kissing him, in their early days she would have liked to -say to him that she stood prepared to repeat this form of attention. -But she reminded herself, in time, that her line should be, -religiously, the ladylike, and she was content to exclaim, simply, “I -don’t care what a man looks like so long as he’s clever. That’s the -form _I_ like!” - -Miss Pynsent had promised herself the satisfaction of taking no further -notice of her brilliant invader; but the temptation was great to expose -her to Hyacinth, as a mitigation of her brilliancy, by remarking -sarcastically, according to opportunity, “Miss ’Enning wouldn’t live in -Lomax Place for the world. She thinks it too abominably low.” - -“So it is; it’s a beastly hole,” said the young man. - -The poor dressmaker’s little dart fell to the ground, and Millicent -exclaimed, jovially, “Right you are!” while she directed to the object -of her childhood’s admiration a smile that put him more and more at his -ease. - -“Don’t you suppose I’m clever?” he asked, planted before her with his -little legs slightly apart, while, with his hands behind him, he made -the open door waver to and fro. - -“You? Oh, I don’t care whether you are or not!” said Millicent Henning; -and Hyacinth was at any rate quick-witted enough to see what she meant -by that. If she meant he was so good-looking that he might pass on this -score alone her judgment was conceivable, though many women would -strongly have dissented from it. He was as small as he had -threatened—he had never got his growth—and she could easily see that he -was not what she, at least, would call strong. His bones were small, -his chest was narrow, his complexion pale, his whole figure almost -childishly slight; and Millicent perceived afterward that he had a very -delicate hand—the hand, as she said to herself, of a gentleman. What -she liked was his face, and something jaunty and entertaining, almost -theatrical in his whole little person. Miss Henning was not acquainted -with any member of the dramatic profession, but she supposed, vaguely, -that that was the way an actor would look in private life. Hyacinth’s -features were perfect; his eyes, large and much divided, had as their -usual expression a kind of witty candour, and a small, soft, fair -moustache disposed itself upon his upper lip in a way that made him -look as if he were smiling even when his heart was heavy. The waves of -his dense, fine hair clustered round a forehead which was high enough -to suggest remarkable things, and Miss Henning had observed that when -he first appeared he wore his little soft circular hat in a way that -left these frontal locks very visible. He was dressed in an old brown -velveteen jacket, and wore exactly the bright-coloured necktie which -Miss Pynsent’s quick fingers used of old to shape out of hoarded -remnants of silk and muslin. He was shabby and work-stained, but the -observant eye would have noted an idea in his dress (his appearance was -plainly not a matter of indifference to himself), and a painter (not of -the heroic) would have liked to make a sketch of him. There was -something exotic about him, and yet, with his sharp young face, -destitute of bloom, but not of sweetness, and a certain conscious -cockneyism which pervaded him, he was as strikingly as Millicent, in -her own degree, a product of the London streets and the London air. He -looked both ingenuous and slightly wasted, amused, amusing, and -indefinably sad. Women had always found him touching; yet he made -them—so they had repeatedly assured him—die of laughing. - -“I think you had better shut the door,” said Miss Pynsent, meaning that -he had better shut their departing visitor out. - -“Did you come here on purpose to see us?” Hyacinth asked, not heeding -this injunction, of which he divined the spirit, and wishing the girl -would take her leave, so that he might go out again with her. He should -like talking with her much better away from Pinnie, who evidently was -ready to stick a bodkin into her, for reasons he perfectly understood. -He had seen plenty of them before, Pinnie’s reasons, even where girls -were concerned who were not nearly so good-looking as this one. She was -always in a fearful ‘funk’ about some woman getting hold of him, and -persuading him to make a marriage beneath his station. His -station!—poor Hyacinth had often asked himself, and Miss Pynsent, what -it could possibly be. He had thought of it bitterly enough, and -wondered how in the world he could marry ‘beneath’ it. He would never -marry at all—to that his mind was absolutely made up; he would never -hand on to another the burden which had made his own young spirit so -intolerably sore, the inheritance which had darkened the whole -threshold of his manhood. All the more reason why he should have his -compensation; why, if the soft society of women was to be enjoyed on -other terms, he should cultivate it with a bold, free mind. - -“I thought I would just give a look at the old shop; I had an -engagement not far off,” Millicent said. “But I wouldn’t have believed -any one who had told me I should find you just where I left you.” - -“We needed you to look after us!” Miss Pynsent exclaimed, -irrepressibly. - -“Oh, you’re such a swell yourself!” Hyacinth observed, without heeding -the dressmaker. - -“None of your impudence! I’m as good a girl as there is in London!” And -to corroborate this, Miss Henning went on: “If you were to offer to see -me a part of the way home, I should tell you I don’t knock about that -way with gentlemen.” - -“I’ll go with you as far as you like,” Hyacinth replied, simply, as if -he knew how to treat that sort of speech. - -“Well, it’s only because I knew you as a baby!” And they went out -together, Hyacinth careful not to look at poor Pinnie at all (he felt -her glaring whitely and tearfully at him out of her dim corner—it had -by this time grown too dusky to work without a lamp), and his companion -giving her an outrageously friendly nod of farewell over her shoulder. - -It was a long walk from Lomax Place to the quarter of the town in which -(to be near the haberdasher’s in the Buckingham Palace Road) Miss -Henning occupied a modest back-room; but the influences of the hour -were such as to make the excursion very agreeable to our young man, who -liked the streets at all times, but especially at nightfall, in the -autumn, of a Saturday, when, in the vulgar districts, the smaller shops -and open-air industries were doubly active, and big, clumsy torches -flared and smoked over hand-carts and costermongers’ barrows, drawn up -in the gutters. Hyacinth had roamed through the great city since he was -an urchin, but his imagination had never ceased to be stirred by the -preparations for Sunday that went on in the evening among the toilers -and spinners, his brothers and sisters, and he lost himself in all the -quickened crowding and pushing and staring at lighted windows and -chaffering at the stalls of fishmongers and hucksters. He liked the -people who looked as if they had got their week’s wage and were -prepared to lay it out discreetly; and even those whose use of it would -plainly be extravagant and intemperate; and, best of all, those who -evidently hadn’t received it at all and who wandered about, -disinterestedly, vaguely, with their hands in empty pockets, watching -others make their bargains and fill their satchels, or staring at the -striated sides of bacon, at the golden cubes and triangles of cheese, -at the graceful festoons of sausage, in the most brilliant of the -windows. He liked the reflection of the lamps on the wet pavements, the -feeling and smell of the carboniferous London damp; the way the winter -fog blurred and suffused the whole place, made it seem bigger and more -crowded, produced halos and dim radiations, trickles and evaporations, -on the plates of glass. He moved in the midst of these impressions this -evening, but he enjoyed them in silence, with an attention taken up -mainly by his companion, and pleased to be already so intimate with a -young lady whom people turned round to look at. She herself affected to -speak of the rush and crush of the week’s end with disgust: she said -she liked the streets, but she liked the respectable ones; she couldn’t -abide the smell of fish, and the whole place seemed full of it, so that -she hoped they would soon get into the Edgware Road, towards which they -tended and which was a proper street for a lady. To Hyacinth she -appeared to have no connection with the long-haired little girl who, in -Lomax Place, years before, was always hugging a smutty doll and -courting his society; she was like a stranger, a new acquaintance, and -he observed her curiously, wondering by what transitions she had -reached her present pitch. - -She enlightened him but little on this point, though she talked a great -deal on a variety of subjects, and mentioned to him her habits, her -aspirations, her likes and dislikes. The latter were very numerous. She -was tremendously particular, difficult to please, he could see that; -and she assured him that she never put up with anything a moment after -it had ceased to be agreeable to her. Especially was she particular -about gentlemen’s society, and she made it plain that a young fellow -who wanted to have anything to say to her must be in receipt of wages -amounting at the least to fifty shillings a week. Hyacinth told her -that he didn’t earn that, as yet; and she remarked again that she made -an exception for him, because she knew all about him (or if not all, at -least a great deal), and he could see that her good-nature was equal to -her beauty. She made such an exception that when, after they were -moving down the Edgware Road (which had still the brightness of late -closing, but with more nobleness), he proposed that she should enter a -coffee-house with him and ‘take something’ (he could hardly tell -himself, afterwards, what brought him to this point), she acceded -without a demur—without a demur even on the ground of his slender -earnings. Slender as they were, Hyacinth had them in his pocket (they -had been destined in some degree for Pinnie), and he felt equal to the -occasion. Millicent partook profusely of tea and bread and butter, with -a relish of raspberry jam, and thought the place most comfortable, -though he himself, after finding himself ensconced, was visited by -doubts as to its respectability, suggested, among other things, by -photographs, on the walls, of young ladies in tights. Hyacinth himself -was hungry, he had not yet had his tea, but he was too excited, too -preoccupied, to eat; the situation made him restless and gave him -palpitations; it seemed to be the beginning of something new. He had -never yet ‘stood’ even a glass of beer to a girl of Millicent’s stamp—a -girl who rustled and glittered and smelt of musk—and if she should turn -out as jolly a specimen of the sex as she seemed it might make a great -difference in his leisure hours, in his evenings, which were often very -dull. That it would also make a difference in his savings (he was under -a pledge to Pinnie and to Mr Vetch to put by something every week) it -didn’t concern him, for the moment, to reflect; and indeed, though he -thought it odious and insufferable to be poor, the ways and means of -becoming rich had hitherto not greatly occupied him. He knew what -Millicent’s age must be, but felt, nevertheless, as if she were older, -much older, than himself—she appeared to know so much about London and -about life; and this made it still more of a sensation to be -entertaining her like a young swell. He thought of it, too, in -connection with the question of the respectability of the -establishment; if this element was deficient she would perceive it as -soon as he, and very likely it would be a part of the general -initiation she had given him an impression of that she shouldn’t mind -it so long as the tea was strong and the bread and butter thick. She -described to him what had passed between Miss Pynsent and herself (she -didn’t call her Pinnie, and he was glad, for he wouldn’t have liked it) -before he came in, and let him know that she should never dare to come -to the place again, as his mother would tear her eyes out. Then she -checked herself. “Of course she ain’t your mother! How stupid I am! I -keep forgetting.” - -Hyacinth had long since convinced himself that he had acquired a manner -with which he could meet allusions of this kind: he had had, first and -last, so many opportunities to practise it. Therefore he looked at his -companion very steadily while he said, “My mother died many years ago; -she was a great invalid. But Pinnie has been awfully good to me.” - -“My mother’s dead, too,” Miss Henning remarked. “She died very -suddenly. I dare say you remember her in the Place.” Then, while -Hyacinth disengaged from the past the wavering figure of Mrs Henning, -of whom he mainly remembered that she used to strike him as dirty, the -girl added, smiling, but with more sentiment, “But I have had no -Pinnie.” - -“You look as if you could take care of yourself.” - -“Well, I’m very confiding,” said Millicent Henning. Then she asked what -had become of Mr Vetch. “We used to say that if Miss Pynsent was your -mamma, he was your papa. In our family we used to call him Miss -Pynsent’s young man.” - -“He’s her young man still,” Hyacinth said. “He’s our best friend—or -supposed to be. He got me the place I’m in now. He lives by his fiddle, -as he used to do.” - -Millicent looked a little at her companion, after which she remarked, -“I should have thought he would have got you a place at his theatre.” - -“At his theatre? That would have been no use. I don’t play any -instrument.” - -“I don’t mean in the orchestra, you gaby! You would look very nice in a -fancy costume.” She had her elbows on the table, and her shoulders -lifted, in an attitude of extreme familiarity. He was on the point of -replying that he didn’t care for fancy costumes, he wished to go -through life in his own character; but he checked himself, with the -reflection that this was exactly what, apparently, he was destined not -to do. His own character? He was to cover that up as carefully as -possible; he was to go through life in a mask, in a borrowed mantle; he -was to be, every day and every hour, an actor. Suddenly, with the -utmost irrelevance, Miss Henning inquired, “Is Miss Pynsent some -relation? What gave her any right over you?” - -Hyacinth had an answer ready for this question; he had determined to -say, as he had several times said before, “Miss Pynsent is an old -friend of my family. My mother was very fond of her, and she was very -fond of my mother.” He repeated the formula now, looking at Millicent -with the same inscrutable calmness (as he fancied), though what he -would have liked to say to her would have been that his mother was none -of her business. But she was too handsome to talk that way to, and she -presented her large fair face to him, across the table, with an air of -solicitation to be cosy and comfortable. There were things in his heart -and a torment and a hidden passion in his life which he should be glad -enough to lay open to some woman. He believed that perhaps this would -be the cure ultimately; that in return for something he might drop, -syllable by syllable, into a listening feminine ear, certain other -words would be spoken to him which would make his pain for ever less -sharp. But what woman could he trust, what ear would be safe? The -answer was not in this loud, fresh laughing creature, whose sympathy -couldn’t have the fineness he was looking for, since her curiosity was -vulgar. Hyacinth objected to the vulgar as much as Miss Pynsent -herself; in this respect she had long since discovered that he was -after her own heart. He had not taken up the subject of Mrs Henning’s -death; he felt himself incapable of inquiring about that lady, and had -no desire for knowledge of Millicent’s relationships. Moreover he -always suffered, to sickness, when people began to hover about the -question of his origin, the reasons why Pinnie had had the care of him -from a baby. Mrs Henning had been untidy, but at least her daughter -could speak of her. “Mr Vetch has changed his lodgings: he moved out of -No. 17, three years ago,” he said, to vary the topic. “He couldn’t -stand the other people in the house; there was a man that played the -accordeon.” - -Millicent, however, was but moderately interested in this anecdote, and -she wanted to know why people should like Mr Vetch’s fiddle any better. -Then she added, “And I think that while he was about it he might have -put you into something better than a bookbinder’s.” - -“He wasn’t obliged to put me into anything. It’s a very good place.” - -“All the same, it isn’t where I should have looked to find you,” -Millicent declared, not so much in the tone of wishing to pay him a -compliment as of resentment at having miscalculated. - -“Where should you have looked to find me? In the House of Commons? It’s -a pity you couldn’t have told me in advance what you would have liked -me to be.” - -She looked at him, over her cup, while she drank, in several sips. “Do -you know what they used to say in the Place? That your father was a -lord.” - -“Very likely. That’s the kind of rot they talk in that precious hole,” -the young man said, without blenching. - -“Well, perhaps he was,” Millicent ventured. - -“He may have been a prince, for all the good it has done me.” - -“Fancy your talking as if you didn’t know!” said Millicent. - -“Finish your tea—don’t mind how I talk.” - -“Well, you _’ave_ got a temper!” the girl exclaimed, archly. “I should -have thought you’d be a clerk at a banker’s.” - -“Do they select them for their tempers?” - -“You know what I mean. You used to be too clever to follow a trade.” - -“Well, I’m not clever enough to live on air.” - -“You might be, really, for all the tea you drink! Why didn’t you go in -for some high profession?” - -“How was I to go in? Who the devil was to help me?” Hyacinth inquired, -with a certain vibration. - -“Haven’t you got any relations?” said Millicent, after a moment. - -“What are you doing? Are you trying to make me swagger?” - -When he spoke sharply she only laughed, not in the least ruffled, and -by the way she looked at him seemed to like it. “Well, I’m sorry you’re -only a journeyman,” she went on, pushing away her cup. - -“So am I,” Hyacinth rejoined; but he called for the bill as if he had -been an employer of labour. Then, while it was being brought, he -remarked to his companion that he didn’t believe she had an idea of -what his work was and how charming it could be. “Yes, I get up books -for the shops,” he said, when she had retorted that she perfectly -understood. “But the art of the binder is an exquisite art.” - -“So Miss Pynsent told me. She said you had some samples at home. I -should like to see them.” - -“You wouldn’t know how good they are,” said Hyacinth, smiling. - -He expected that she would exclaim, in answer, that he was an impudent -wretch, and for a moment she seemed to be on the point of doing so. But -the words changed on her lips, and she replied, almost tenderly, -“That’s just the way you used to speak to me, years ago in the Plice.” - -“I don’t care about that. I hate all that time.” - -“Oh, so do I, if you come to that,” said Millicent, as if she could -rise to any breadth of view. And then she returned to her idea that he -had not done himself justice. “You used always to be reading: I never -thought you would work with your ’ands.” - -This seemed to irritate him, and, having paid the bill and given -threepence, ostentatiously, to the young woman with a languid manner -and hair of an unnatural yellow, who had waited on them, he said, “You -may depend upon it I shan’t do it an hour longer than I can help.” - -“What will you do then?” - -“Oh, you’ll see, some day.” In the street, after they had begun to walk -again, he went on, “You speak as if I could have my pick. What was an -obscure little beggar to do, buried in a squalid corner of London, -under a million of idiots? I had no help, no influence, no acquaintance -of any kind with professional people, and no means of getting at them. -I had to do something; I couldn’t go on living on Pinnie. Thank God, I -help her now, a little. I took what I could get.” He spoke as if he had -been touched by the imputation of having derogated. - -Millicent seemed to imply that he defended himself successfully when -she said, “You express yourself like a gentleman”—a speech to which he -made no response. But he began to talk again afterwards, and, the -evening having definitely set in, his companion took his arm for the -rest of the way home. By the time he reached her door he had confided -to her that, in secret, he wrote: he had a dream of literary -distinction. This appeared to impress her, and she branched off to -remark, with an irrelevance that characterised her, that she didn’t -care anything about a man’s family if she liked the man himself; she -thought families were played out. Hyacinth wished she would leave his -alone; and while they lingered in front of her house, before she went -in, he said— - -“I have no doubt you’re a jolly girl, and I am very happy to have seen -you again. But you have awfully little tact.” - -“_I_ have little tact? You should see me work off an old jacket!” - -He was silent a moment, standing before her with his hands in his -pockets. “It’s a good job you’re so handsome.” - -Millicent didn’t blush at this compliment, and probably didn’t -understand all it conveyed, but she looked into his eyes a while, with -a smile that showed her teeth, and then said, more inconsequently than -ever, “Come now, who are you?” - -“Who am I? I’m a wretched little bookbinder.” - -“I didn’t think I ever could fancy any one in that line!” Miss Henning -exclaimed. Then she let him know that she couldn’t ask him in, as she -made it a point not to receive gentlemen, but she didn’t mind if she -took another walk with him and she didn’t care if she met him -somewhere—if it were handy. As she lived so far from Lomax Place she -didn’t care if she met him half-way. So, in the dusky by-street in -Pimlico, before separating, they took a casual tryst; the most -interesting, the young man felt, that had yet been—he could scarcely -call it granted him. - - - - -VI - - -One day, shortly after this, at the bindery, his friend Poupin was -absent, and sent no explanation, as was customary in case of illness or -domestic accident. There were two or three men employed in the place -whose non-appearance, usually following close upon pay-day, was better -unexplained, and was an implication of moral feebleness; but as a -general thing Mr Crookenden’s establishment was a haunt of punctuality -and sobriety. Least of all had Eustache Poupin been in the habit of -asking for a margin. Hyacinth knew how little indulgence he had ever -craved, and this was part of his admiration for the extraordinary -Frenchman, an ardent stoic, a cold conspirator and an exquisite artist, -who was by far the most interesting person in the ranks of his -acquaintance and whose conversation, in the workshop, helped him -sometimes to forget the smell of leather and glue. His conversation! -Hyacinth had had plenty of that, and had endeared himself to the -passionate refugee—Poupin had come to England after the Commune of -1871, to escape the reprisals of the government of M. Thiers, and had -remained there in spite of amnesties and rehabilitations—by the -solemnity and candour of his attention. He was a Republican of the -old-fashioned sort, of the note of 1848, humanitary and idealistic, -infinitely addicted to fraternity and equality, and inexhaustibly -surprised and exasperated at finding so little enthusiasm for them in -the land of his exile. Poupin had a high claim upon Hyacinth’s esteem -and gratitude, for he had been his godfather, his protector at the -bindery. When Anastasius Vetch found something for Miss Pynsent’s -_protégé_ to do, it was through the Frenchman, with whom he had -accidentally formed an acquaintance, that he found it. - -When the boy was about fifteen years of age Mr Vetch made him a present -of the essays of Lord Bacon, and the purchase of this volume had -important consequences for Hyacinth. Anastasius Vetch was a poor man, -and the luxury of giving was for the most part denied him; but when -once in a way he tasted it he liked the sensation to be pure. No man -knew better the difference between the common and the rare, or was more -capable of appreciating a book which opened well—of which the margin -was not hideously chopped and of which the lettering on the back was -sharp. It was only such a book that he could bring himself to offer -even to a poor little devil whom a fifth-rate dressmaker (he knew -Pinnie was fifth-rate) had rescued from the workhouse. So when it -became a question of fitting the great Elizabethan with a new coat—a -coat of full morocco, discreetly, delicately gilt—he went with his -little cloth-bound volume, a Pickering, straight to Mr Crookenden, whom -every one that knew anything about the matter knew to be a prince of -binders, though they also knew that his work, limited in quantity, was -mainly done for a particular bookseller and only through the latter’s -agency. Anastasius Vetch had no idea of paying the bookseller’s -commission, and though he could be lavish (for him) when he made a -present, he was capable of taking an immense deal of trouble to save -sixpence. He made his way into Mr Crookenden’s workshop, which was -situated in a small superannuated square in Soho, and where the -proposal of so slender a job was received at first with coldness. Mr -Vetch, however, insisted, and explained with irresistible frankness the -motive of his errand: the desire to obtain the best possible binding -for the least possible money. He made his conception of the best -possible binding so vivid, so exemplary, that the master of the shop at -last confessed to that disinterested sympathy which, under favouring -circumstances, establishes itself between the artist and the -connoisseur. Mr Vetch’s little book was put in hand as a particular -service to an eccentric gentleman whose visit had been a smile-stirring -interlude (for the circle of listening workmen) in a merely mechanical -day; and when he went back, three weeks later, to see whether it were -done, he had the pleasure of finding that his injunctions, punctually -complied with, had even been bettered. The work had been accomplished -with a perfection of skill which made him ask whom he was to thank for -it (he had been told that one man should do the whole of it), and in -this manner he made the acquaintance of the most brilliant craftsman in -the establishment, the incorruptible, the imaginative, the unerring -Eustache Poupin. - -In response to an appreciation which he felt not to be _banal_ M. -Poupin remarked that he had at home a small collection of experiments -in morocco, Russia, parchment, of fanciful specimens with which, for -the love of the art, he had amused his leisure hours and which he -should be happy to show his interlocutor if the latter would do him the -honour to call upon him at his lodgings in Lisson Grove. Mr Vetch made -a note of the address and, for the love of the art, went one Sunday -afternoon to see the binder’s esoteric studies. On this occasion he -made the acquaintance of Madame Poupin, a small, fat lady with a -bristling moustache, the white cap of an _ouvrière_, a knowledge of her -husband’s craft that was equal to his own, and not a syllable of -English save the words, “What you think, what you think?” which she -introduced with startling frequency. He also discovered that his new -acquaintance had been a political proscript and that he regarded the -iniquitous fabric of Church and State with an eye scarcely more -reverent than the fiddler’s own. M. Poupin was a socialist, which -Anastasius Vetch was not, and a constructive democrat (instead of being -a mere scoffer at effete things) and a theorist and an optimist and a -visionary; he believed that the day was to come when all the nations of -the earth would abolish their frontiers and armies and custom-houses, -and embrace on both cheeks, and cover the globe with boulevards, -radiating from Paris, where the human family would sit, in groups, at -little tables, according to affinities, drinking coffee (not tea, _par -exemple!_) and listening to the music of the spheres. Mr Vetch neither -prefigured nor desired this organised felicity; he was fond of his cup -of tea, and only wanted to see the British constitution a good deal -simplified; he thought it a much overrated system, but his heresies -rubbed shoulders, sociably, with those of the little bookbinder, and -his friend in Lisson Grove became for him the type of the intelligent -foreigner whose conversation completes our culture. Poupin’s humanitary -zeal was as unlimited as his English vocabulary was the reverse, and -the new friends agreed with each other enough, and not too much, to -discuss, which was much better than an unspeakable harmony. On several -other Sunday afternoons the fiddler went back to Lisson Grove, and -having, at his theatre, as a veteran, a faithful servant, an occasional -privilege, he was able to carry thither, one day in the autumn, an -order for two seats in the second balcony. Madame Poupin and her -husband passed a lugubrious evening at the English comedy, where they -didn’t understand a word that was spoken, and consoled themselves by -gazing at their friend in the orchestra. But this adventure did not -arrest the development of a friendship into which, eventually, Amanda -Pynsent was drawn. Madame Poupin, among the cold insularies, lacked -female society, and Mr Vetch proposed to his amiable friend in Lomax -Place to call upon her. The little dressmaker, who in the course of her -life had known no Frenchwoman but the unhappy Florentine (so favourable -a specimen till she began to go wrong), adopted his suggestion, in the -hope that she should get a few ideas from a lady whose appearance would -doubtless exemplify (as Florentine’s originally had done) the fine -taste of her nation; but she found the bookbinder and his wife a -bewildering mixture of the brilliant and the relaxed, and was haunted, -long afterwards, by the memory of the lady’s calico jacket, her -uncorseted form and her carpet slippers. - -The acquaintance, none the less, was sealed three months later by a -supper, one Sunday night, in Lisson Grove, to which Mr Vetch brought -his fiddle, at which Amanda presented to her hosts her adoptive son, -and which also revealed to her that Madame Poupin could dress a -Michaelmas goose, if she couldn’t dress a fat Frenchwoman. This lady -confided to the fiddler that she thought Miss Pynsent exceedingly -_comme il faut—dans le genre anglais;_ and neither Amanda nor Hyacinth -had ever passed an evening of such splendour. It took its place, in the -boy’s recollection, beside the visit, years before, to Mr Vetch’s -theatre. He drank in the conversation which passed between that -gentleman and M. Poupin. M. Poupin showed him his bindings, the most -precious trophies of his skill, and it seemed to Hyacinth that on the -spot he was initiated into a fascinating mystery. He handled the books -for half an hour; Anastasius Vetch watched him, without giving any -particular sign. When, therefore, presently, Miss Pynsent consulted her -friend for the twentieth time on the subject of Hyacinth’s ‘career’—she -spoke as if she were hesitating between the diplomatic service, the -army and the church—the fiddler replied with promptitude, “Make him, if -you can, what the Frenchman is.” At the mention of a handicraft poor -Pinnie always looked very solemn, yet when Mr Vetch asked her if she -were prepared to send the boy to one of the universities, or to pay the -premium required for his being articled to a solicitor, or to make -favour, on his behalf, with a bank-director or a mighty merchant, or, -yet again, to provide him with a comfortable home while he should woo -the muse and await the laurels of literature—when, I say, he put the -case before her with this cynical, ironical lucidity, she only sighed -and said that all the money she had ever saved was ninety pounds, -which, as he knew perfectly well, it would cost her his acquaintance -for evermore to take out of the bank. The fiddler had, in fact, -declared to her in a manner not to be mistaken that if she should -divest herself, on the boy’s account, of this sole nest-egg of her old -age, he would wash his hands of her and her affairs. Her standard of -success for Hyacinth was vague, save on one point, as regards which she -was passionately, fiercely firm; she was perfectly determined he should -never go into a small shop. She would rather see him a bricklayer or a -costermonger than dedicated to a retail business, tying up candles at a -grocer’s, or giving change for a shilling across a counter. She would -rather, she declared on one occasion, see him articled to a shoemaker -or a tailor. - -A stationer in a neighbouring street had affixed to his window a -written notice that he was in want of a smart errand-boy, and Pinnie, -on hearing of it, had presented Hyacinth to his consideration. The -stationer was a dreadful bullying man, with a patch over his eye, who -seemed to think the boy would be richly remunerated with three -shillings a week; a contemptible measure, as it seemed to the -dressmaker, of his rare abilities and acquirements. His schooling had -been desultory, precarious, and had had a certain continuity mainly in -his early years, while he was under the care of an old lady who -combined with the functions of pew-opener at a neighbouring church the -manipulation, in the Place itself, where she resided with her sister, a -monthly nurse, of such pupils as could be spared (in their families) -from the more urgent exercise of holding the baby and fetching the -beer. Later, for a twelvemonth, Pinnie had paid five shillings a week -for him at an ‘Academy’ in a genteel part of Islington, where there was -an ‘instructor in the foreign languages’, a platform for oratory, and a -high social standard, but where Hyacinth suffered from the fact that -almost all his mates were the sons of dealers in edible -articles—pastry-cooks, grocers and fishmongers—and in this capacity -subjected him to pangs and ignominious contrasts by bringing to school, -for their exclusive consumption, or for exchange and barter, various -buns, oranges, spices, and marine animals, which the boy, with his -hands in his empty pockets and the sense of a savourless home in his -heart, was obliged to see devoured without his participation. Miss -Pynsent would not have pretended that he was highly educated, in the -technical sense of the word, but she believed that at fifteen he had -read almost every book in the world. The limits of his reading were, in -fact, only the limits of his opportunity. Mr Vetch, who talked with him -more and more as he grew older, knew this, and lent him every volume he -possessed or could pick up for the purpose. Reading was his happiness, -and the absence of any direct contact with a library his principal -source of discontent; that is, of that part of his discontent which he -could speak out. Mr Vetch knew that he was really clever, and therefore -thought it a woful pity that he could not have furtherance in some -liberal walk; but he would have thought it a greater pity still that so -bright a lad should be condemned to measure tape or cut slices of -cheese. He himself had no influence which he could bring into play, no -connection with the great world of capital or the market of labour. -That is, he touched these mighty institutions at but one very small -point—a point which, such as it was, he kept well in mind. - -When Pinnie replied to the stationer round the corner, after he had -mentioned the ‘terms’ on which he was prepared to receive applications -from errand-boys, that, thank heaven, she hadn’t sunk so low as that—so -low as to sell her darling into slavery for three shillings a week—he -felt that she only gave more florid expression to his own sentiment. Of -course, if Hyacinth did not begin by carrying parcels he could not hope -to be promoted, through the more refined nimbleness of tying them up, -to a position as accountant or bookkeeper; but both the fiddler and his -friend—Miss Pynsent, indeed, only in the last resort—resigned -themselves to the forfeiture of this prospect. Mr Vetch saw clearly -that a charming handicraft was a finer thing than a vulgar ‘business’, -and one day, after his acquaintance with Eustache Poupin had gone a -considerable length, he inquired of the Frenchman whether there would -be a chance of the lad’s obtaining a footing, under his own wing, in Mr -Crookenden’s workshop. There could be no better place for him to -acquire a knowledge of the most delightful of the mechanical arts; and -to be received into such an establishment, and at the instance of such -an artist, would be a real start in life. M. Poupin meditated, and that -evening confided his meditations to the companion who reduplicated all -his thoughts and understood him better even than he understood himself. -The pair had no children, and had felt the defect; moreover, they had -heard from Mr Vetch the dolorous tale of the boy’s entrance into life. -He was one of the disinherited, one of the expropriated, one of the -exceptionally interesting; and, moreover he was one of themselves, a -child, as it were, of France, an offshoot of the sacred race. It is not -the most authenticated point in this veracious history, but there is -strong reason to believe that tears were shed that night, in Lisson -Grove, over poor little Hyacinth Robinson. In a day or two M. Poupin -replied to the fiddler that he had now been several years in Mr -Crookenden’s employ; that during that time he had done work for him -that he would have had _bien du mal_ to get done by another, and had -never asked for an indulgence, an allowance, a remission, an -augmentation. It was time, if only for the dignity of the thing, he -should ask for something, and he would make their little friend the -subject of his demand. “_La société lui doit bien cela_,” he remarked -afterwards, when, Mr Crookenden proving drily hospitable and the -arrangement being formally complete, Mr Vetch thanked him, in his -kindly, casual, bashful English way. He was paternal when Hyacinth -began to occupy a place in the malodorous chambers in Soho; he took him -in hand, made him a disciple, the recipient of a precious tradition, -discovered in him a susceptibility to philosophic as well as technic -truth. He taught him French and socialism, encouraged him to spend his -evenings in Lisson Grove, invited him to regard Madame Poupin as a -second, or rather as a third, mother, and in short made a very -considerable mark on the boy’s mind. He elicited the latent Gallicism -of his nature, and by the time he was twenty Hyacinth, who had -completely assimilated his influence, regarded him with a mixture of -veneration and amusement. M. Poupin was the person who consoled him -most when he was miserable; and he was very often miserable. - -His staying away from his work was so rare that, in the afternoon, -before he went home, Hyacinth walked to Lisson Grove to see what ailed -him. He found his friend in bed, with a plaster on his chest, and -Madame Poupin making _tisane_ over the fire. The Frenchman took his -indisposition solemnly but resignedly, like a man who believed that all -illness was owing to the imperfect organisation of society, and lay -covered up to his chin, with a red cotton handkerchief bound round his -head. Near his bed sat a visitor, a young man unknown to Hyacinth. -Hyacinth, naturally, had never been to Paris, but he always supposed -that the _intérieur_ of his friends in Lisson Grove gave rather a vivid -idea of that city. The two small rooms which constituted their -establishment contained a great many mirrors, as well as little -portraits (old-fashioned prints) of revolutionary heroes. The -chimney-piece, in the bedroom, was muffled in some red drapery, which -appeared to Hyacinth extraordinarily magnificent; the principal -ornament of the salon was a group of small and highly-decorated cups, -on a tray, accompanied by gilt bottles and glasses, the latter still -more diminutive—the whole intended for black coffee and liqueurs. There -was no carpet on the floor, but rugs and mats, of various shapes and -sizes, disposed themselves at the feet of the chairs and sofas; and in -the sitting-room, where there was a wonderful gilt clock, of the -Empire, surmounted with a ‘subject’ representing Virtue receiving a -crown of laurel from the hands of Faith, Madame Poupin, with the aid of -a tiny stove, a handful of charcoal, and two or three saucepans, -carried on a triumphant _cuisine_. In the windows were curtains of -white muslin, much fluted and frilled, and tied with pink ribbon. - - - - -VII - - -“I am suffering extremely, but we must all suffer, so long as the -social question is so abominably, so iniquitously neglected,” Poupin -remarked, speaking French and rolling toward Hyacinth his salient, -excited-looking eyes, which always had the same proclaiming, -challenging expression, whatever his occupation or his topic. Hyacinth -had seated himself near his friend’s pillow, opposite the strange young -man, who had been accommodated with a chair at the foot of the bed. - -“Ah, yes; with their filthy politics the situation of the _pauvre -monde_ is the last thing they ever think of!” his wife exclaimed, from -the fire. “There are times when I ask myself how long it will go on.” - -“It will go on till the measure of their imbecility, their infamy, is -full. It will go on till the day of justice, till the reintegration of -the despoiled and disinherited, is ushered in with an irresistible -force.” - -“Oh, we always see things go on; we never see them change,” said Madame -Poupin, making a very cheerful clatter with a big spoon in a saucepan. - -“We may not see it, but _they’ll_ see it,” her husband rejoined. “But -what do I say, my children? I do see it,” he pursued. “It’s before my -eyes, in its luminous reality, especially as I lie here—the -revendication, the rehabilitation, the rectification.” - -Hyacinth ceased to pay attention, not because he had a differing -opinion about what M. Poupin called the _avènement_ of the -disinherited, but, on the contrary, precisely on account of his -familiarity with that prospect. It was the constant theme of his French -friends, whom he had long since perceived to be in a state of chronic -spiritual inflammation. For them the social question was always in -order, the political question always abhorrent, the disinherited always -present. He wondered at their zeal, their continuity, their vivacity, -their incorruptibility; at the abundant supply of conviction and -prophecy which they always had on hand. He believed that at bottom he -was sorer than they, yet he had deviations and lapses, moments when the -social question bored him and he forgot not only his own wrongs, which -would have been pardonable, but those of the people at large, of his -brothers and sisters in misery. They, however, were perpetually in the -breach, and perpetually consistent with themselves and, what is more, -with each other. Hyacinth had heard that the institution of marriage in -France was rather lightly considered, but he was struck with the -closeness and intimacy of the union in Lisson Grove, the passionate -identity of interest: especially on the day when M. Poupin informed -him, in a moment of extreme but not indiscreet expansion, that the lady -was his wife only in a spiritual, transcendental sense. There were -hypocritical concessions and debasing superstitions of which this -exalted pair wholly disapproved. Hyacinth knew their vocabulary by -heart, and could have said everything, in the same words, that on any -given occasion M. Poupin was likely to say. He knew that ‘they’, in -their phraseology, was a comprehensive allusion to every one in the -world but the people—though who, exactly, in their length and breadth, -the people were was less definitely established. He himself was of this -sacred body, for which the future was to have such compensations; and -so, of course, were the Frenchman and his consort, and so was Pinnie, -and so were most of the inhabitants of Lomax Place and the workmen in -old Crookenden’s shop. But was old Crookenden himself, who wore an -apron rather dirtier than the rest of them and was a master-hand at -‘forwarding’, but who, on the other side, was the occupant of a villa -almost detached, in Putney, with a wife known to have secret -aspirations toward a page in buttons? Above all, was Mr Vetch, who -earned a weekly wage, and not a large one, with his fiddle, but who had -mysterious affinities of another sort, reminiscences of a phase in -which he smoked cigars, had a hat-box and used cabs—besides visiting -Boulogne? Anastasius Vetch had interfered in his life, atrociously, in -a terrible crisis; but Hyacinth, who strove to cultivate justice in his -own conduct, believed he had acted conscientiously and tried to esteem -him, the more so as the fiddler evidently felt that he had something to -make up to him and had treated him with marked benevolence for years. -He believed, in short, that Mr Vetch took a sincere interest in him, -and if he should meddle again would meddle in a different way: he used -to see him sometimes looking at him with the kindest eyes. It would -make a difference, therefore, whether he were of the people or not, -inasmuch as in the day of the great revenge it would only be the people -who should be saved. It was for the people the world was made: whoever -was not of them was against them; and all others were cumberers, -usurpers, exploiters, _accapareurs_, as M. Poupin used to say. Hyacinth -had once put the question directly to Mr Vetch, who looked at him a -while through the fumes of his eternal pipe and then said, “Do you -think I’m an aristocrat?” - -“I didn’t know but you were a _bourgeois_,” the young man answered. - -“No, I’m neither. I’m a Bohemian.” - -“With your evening dress, every night?” - -“My dear boy,” said the fiddler, “those are the most confirmed.” - -Hyacinth was only half satisfied with this, for it was by no means -definite to him that Bohemians were also to be saved; if he could be -sure, perhaps he would become one himself. Yet he never suspected Mr -Vetch of being a ‘spy’, though Eustache Poupin had told him that there -were a great many who looked a good deal like that: not, of course, -with any purpose of incriminating the fiddler, whom he had trusted from -the first and continued to trust. The middle-class spy became a very -familiar type to Hyacinth, and though he had never caught one of the -infamous brotherhood in the act, there were plenty of persons to whom, -on the very face of the matter, he had no hesitation in attributing the -character. There was nothing of the Bohemian, at any rate, about the -Poupins, whom Hyacinth had now known long enough not to be surprised at -the way they combined the socialistic passion, a red-hot impatience for -the general rectification, with an extraordinary decency of life and a -worship of proper work. The Frenchman spoke, habitually, as if the -great swindle practised upon the people were too impudent to be endured -a moment longer, and yet he found patience for the most exquisite -‘tooling’, and took a book in hand with the deliberation of one who -should believe that everything was immutably constituted. Hyacinth knew -what he thought of priests and theologies, but he had the religion of -conscientious craftsmanship, and he reduced the boy, on his side, to a -kind of prostration before his delicate, wonder-working fingers. “What -will you have? _J’ai la main parisienne_,” M. Poupin would reply -modestly, when Hyacinth’s admiration broke out; and he was good enough, -after he had seen a few specimens of what our hero could do, to inform -him that _he_ had the same happy conformation. “There is no reason why -you shouldn’t be a good workman, _il n’y a que ça;_” and his own life -was practically governed by this conviction. He delighted in the use of -his hands and his tools and the exercise of his taste, which was -faultless, and Hyacinth could easily imagine how it must torment him to -spend a day on his back. He ended by perceiving, however, that -consolation was, on this occasion, in some degree conveyed by the -presence of the young man who sat at the foot of the bed, and with whom -M. Poupin exhibited such signs of acquaintance as to make our hero -wonder why he had not seen him before, nor even heard of him. - -“What do you mean by an irresistible force?” the young man inquired, -leaning back in his chair, with raised arms and his interlocked hands -behind him, supporting his head. M. Poupin had spoken French, which he -always preferred to do, the insular tongue being an immense tribulation -to him; but his visitor spoke English, and Hyacinth immediately -perceived that there was nothing French about _him_—M. Poupin could -never tell him he had _la main parisienne_. - -“I mean a force that will make the bourgeois go down into their cellars -and hide, pale with fear, behind their barrels of wine and their heaps -of gold!” cried M. Poupin, rolling terrible eyes. - -“And in this country, I hope in their coal-bins. _Là-là_, we shall find -them even there,” his wife remarked. - -“’89 was an irresistible force,” said M. Poupin. “I believe you would -have thought so if you had been there.” - -“And so was the entrance of the Versaillais, which sent you over here, -ten years ago,” the young man rejoined. He saw that Hyacinth was -watching him, and he met his eyes, smiling a little, in a way that -added to our hero’s interest. - -“_Pardon, pardon_, I resist!” cried Eustache Poupin, glaring, in his -improvised nightcap, out of his sheets; and Madame repeated that they -resisted—she believed well that they resisted! The young man burst out -laughing; whereupon his host declared, with a dignity which even his -recumbent position did not abate, that it was really frivolous of him -to ask such questions as that, knowing as he did—what he did know. - -“Yes, I know—I know,” said the young man, good-naturedly, lowering his -arms and thrusting his hands into his pockets, while he stretched his -long legs a little. “But everything is yet to be tried.” - -“Oh, the trial will be on a great scale—_soyez tranquille!_ It will be -one of those experiments that constitute a proof.” - -Hyacinth wondered what they were talking about, and perceived that it -must be something important, for the stranger was not a man who would -take an interest in anything else. Hyacinth was immensely struck with -him—he could see that he was remarkable—and felt slightly aggrieved -that he should be a stranger: that is, that he should be, apparently, a -familiar of Lisson Grove and yet that M. Poupin should not have thought -his young friend from Lomax Place worthy, up to this time, to be made -acquainted with him. I know not to what degree the visitor in the other -chair discovered these reflections in Hyacinth’s face, but after a -moment, looking across at him, he said in a friendly yet just slightly -diffident way, a way our hero liked, “And do you know, too?” - -“Do I know what?” asked Hyacinth, wondering. - -“Oh, if you did, you would!” the young man exclaimed, laughing again. -Such a rejoinder, from any one else, would have irritated our sensitive -hero, but it only made Hyacinth more curious about his interlocutor, -whose laugh was loud and extraordinarily gay. - -“_Mon ami_, you ought to present _ces messieurs_,” Madame Poupin -remarked. - -“_Ah ça_, is that the way you trifle with state secrets?” her husband -cried out, without heeding her. Then he went on, in a different tone: “ -M. Hyacinthe is a gifted child, _un enfant très-doué_, in whom I take a -tender interest—a child who has an account to settle. Oh, a thumping -big one! Isn’t it so, _mon petit?_” - -This was very well meant, but it made Hyacinth blush, and, without -knowing exactly what to say, he murmured shyly, “Oh, I only want them -to let me alone!” - -“He is very young,” said Eustache Poupin. - -“He is the person we have seen in this country whom we like the best,” -his wife added. - -“Perhaps you are French,” suggested the strange young man. - -The trio seemed to Hyacinth to be waiting for his answer to this; it -was as if a listening stillness had fallen upon them. He found it a -difficult moment, partly because there was something exciting and -embarrassing in the attention of the other visitor, and partly because -he had never yet had to decide that important question. He didn’t -really know whether he were French or English, or which of the two he -should prefer to be. His mother’s blood, her suffering in an alien -land, the unspeakable, irremediable misery that consumed her, in a -place, among a people, she must have execrated—all this made him -French; yet he was conscious at the same time of qualities that did not -mix with it. He had evolved, long ago, a legend about his mother, built -it up slowly, adding piece to piece, in passionate musings and -broodings, when his cheeks burned and his eyes filled; but there were -times when it wavered and faded, when it ceased to console him and he -ceased to trust it. He had had a father too, and his father had -suffered as well, and had fallen under a blow, and had paid with his -life; and him also he felt in his mind and his body, when the effort to -think it out did not simply end in darkness and confusion, challenging -still even while they baffled, and inevitable freezing horror. At any -rate, he seemed rooted in the place where his wretched parents had -expiated, and he knew nothing about any other. Moreover, when old -Poupin said, ‘M. Hyacinthe’, as he had often done before, he didn’t -altogether enjoy it; he thought it made his name, which he liked well -enough in English, sound like the name of a hairdresser. Our young -friend was under a cloud and a stigma, but he was not yet prepared to -admit that he was ridiculous. “Oh, I dare say I ain’t anything,” he -replied in a moment. - -“_En v’là des bêtises!_” cried Madame Poupin. “Do you mean to say you -are not as good as any one in the world? I should like to see!” - -“We all have an account to settle, don’t you know?” said the strange -young man. - -He evidently meant this to be encouraging to Hyacinth, whose quick -desire to avert M. Poupin’s allusions had not been lost upon him; but -our hero could see that he himself would be sure to be one of the first -to be paid. He would make society bankrupt, but he would be paid. He -was tall and fair and good-natured looking, but you couldn’t tell—or at -least Hyacinth couldn’t—whether he were handsome or ugly, with his -large head and square forehead, his thick, straight hair, his heavy -mouth and rather vulgar nose, his admirably clear, bright eye, -light-coloured and set very deep; for though there was a want of -fineness in some of its parts, his face had a marked expression of -intelligence and resolution, and denoted a kind of joyous moral health. -He was dressed like a workman in his Sunday toggery, having evidently -put on his best to call in Lisson Grove, where he was to meet a lady, -and wearing in particular a necktie which was both cheap and -pretentious, and of which Hyacinth, who noticed everything of that -kind, observed the crude, false blue. He had very big shoes—the shoes, -almost, of a country labourer—and spoke with a provincial accent, which -Hyacinth believed to be that of Lancashire. This didn’t suggest -cleverness, but it didn’t prevent Hyacinth from perceiving that he was -the reverse of stupid; that he probably, indeed, had a tremendous head. -Our little hero had a great desire to know superior people, and he -interested himself on the spot in this strong, humorous fellow, who had -the complexion of a ploughboy and the glance of a commander-in-chief -and who might have been (Hyacinth thought) a distinguished young -_savant_ in the disguise of an artisan. The disguise would have been -very complete, for he had several brown stains on his fingers. -Hyacinth’s curiosity, on this occasion, was both excited and gratified; -for after two or three allusions, which he didn’t understand, had been -made to a certain place where Poupin and the stranger had met and -expected to meet again, Madame Poupin exclaimed that it was a shame not -to take in M. Hyacinthe, who, she would answer for it, had in him the -making of one of the pure. - -“All in good time, in good time, _ma bonne_,” the invalid replied. “M. -Hyacinthe knows that I count upon him, whether or no I make him an -_interne_ to-day or wait a while longer.” - -“What do you mean by an _interne?_” Hyacinth asked. - -“_Mon Dieu_, what shall I say!” and Eustache Poupin stared at him -solemnly, from his pillow. “You are very sympathetic, but I am afraid -you are too young.” - -“One is never too young to contribute one’s _obole_,” said Madame -Poupin. - -“Can you keep a secret?” asked the other visitor, smilingly. - -“Is it a plot—a conspiracy?” Hyacinth broke out. - -“He asks that as if he were asking if it’s a plum-pudding,” said M. -Poupin. “It isn’t good to eat, and we don’t do it for our amusement. -It’s terribly serious, my child.” - -“It’s a kind of society, to which he and I and a good many others -belong. There is no harm in telling him that,” the young man went on. - -“I advise you not to tell it to Mademoiselle; she is quite in the old -ideas,” Madame Poupin suggested to Hyacinth, tasting her _tisane_. - -Hyacinth sat baffled and wondering, looking from his fellow-labourer in -Soho to his new acquaintance opposite. “If you have some plan, -something to which one can give one’s self, I think you might have told -me,” he remarked, in a moment, to Poupin. - -The latter merely gazed at him a while; then he said to the strange -young man, “He is a little jealous of you. But there is no harm in -that; it’s of his age. You must know him, you must like him. We will -tell you his history some other day; it will make you feel that he -belongs to us in fact. It is an accident that he hasn’t met you here -before.” - -“How could _ces messieurs_ have met, when M. Paul never comes? He -doesn’t spoil us!” Madame Poupin cried. - -“Well, you see I have my little sister at home to take care of, when I -ain’t at the shop,” M. Paul explained. “This afternoon it was just a -chance; there was a lady we know came in to sit with her.” - -“A lady—a real lady?” - -“Oh yes, every inch,” said M. Paul, laughing. - -“Do you like them to thrust themselves into your apartment like that, -because you have the _désagrément_ of being poor? It seems to be the -custom in this country, but it wouldn’t suit me at all,” Madame Poupin -continued. “I should like to see one of _ces dames_—the real -ones—coming in to sit with me!” - -“Oh, you are not a cripple; you have got the use of your legs!” - -“Yes, and of my arms!” cried the Frenchwoman. - -“This lady looks after several others in our court, and she reads to my -sister.” - -“Oh, well, you are patient, you English.” - -“We shall never do anything without that,” said M. Paul, with -undisturbed good-humour. - -“You are perfectly right; you can’t say that too often. It will be a -tremendous job, and only the strong will prevail,” his host murmured, a -little wearily, turning his eyes to Madame Poupin, who approached -slowly, holding the _tisane_ in a rather full bowl, and tasting it -again and yet again as she came. - -Hyacinth had been watching his fellow-visitor with deepening interest; -a fact of which M. Paul apparently became aware, for he said, -presently, giving a little nod in the direction of the bed, “He says we -ought to know each other. I’m sure I have nothing against it. I like to -know folk, when they’re worth it!” - -Hyacinth was too pleased with this even to take it up; it seemed to -him, for a moment, that he couldn’t touch it gracefully enough. But he -said, with sufficient eagerness, “Will you tell me all about your -plot?” - -“Oh, it’s no plot. I don’t think I care much for plots.” And with his -mild, steady, light-blue English eye, M. Paul certainly had not much -the appearance of a conspirator. - -“Isn’t it a new era?” asked Hyacinth, rather disappointed. - -“Well, I don’t know; it’s just a little movement.” - -“_Ah bien, voilà du propre;_ between us we have thrown him into a -fever!” cried Madame Poupin, who had put down her bowl on a table near -her husband’s bed and was bending over him, with her hand on his -forehead. Eustache was flushed, he had closed his eyes, and it was -evident there had been more than enough conversation. Madame Poupin -announced as much, with the addition that if the young men wished to -make acquaintance they must do it outside; the invalid must be -perfectly quiet. They accordingly withdrew, with apologies and promises -to return for further news on the morrow, and two minutes afterward -Hyacinth found himself standing face to face with his new friend on the -pavement in front of M. Poupin’s residence, under a street-lamp which -struggled ineffectually with the brown winter dusk. - -“Is that your name—M. Paul?” he asked, looking up at him. - -“Oh, bless you, no; that’s only her Frenchified way of putting it. My -name _is_ Paul, though—Paul Muniment.” - -“And what’s your trade?” Hyacinth demanded, with a jump into -familiarity; for his companion seemed to have told him a great deal -more than was usually conveyed in that item of information. - -Paul Muniment looked down at him from above broad shoulders. “I work at -a wholesale chemist’s, at Lambeth.” - -“And where do you live?” - -“I live over the water, too; in the far south of London.” - -“And are you going home now?” - -“Oh yes, I am going to toddle.” - -“And may I toddle with you?” - -Mr Muniment considered him further; then he gave a laugh. “I’ll carry -you, if you like.” - -“Thank you; I expect I can walk as far as you,” said Hyacinth. - -“Well, I admire your spirit, and I dare say I shall like your company.” - -There was something in his face, taken in connection with the idea that -he was concerned in a little movement, which made Hyacinth feel the -desire to go with him till he dropped; and in a moment they started -away together and took the direction Muniment had mentioned. They -discoursed as they went, and exchanged a great many opinions and -anecdotes; but they reached the south-westerly court in which the young -chemist lived with his infirm sister before he had told Hyacinth -anything definite about his little movement, or Hyacinth, on his side, -had related to him the circumstances connected with his being, -according to M. Poupin, one of the disinherited. Hyacinth didn’t wish -to press him; he would not for the world have appeared to him -indiscreet; and, moreover, though he had taken so great a fancy to -Muniment, he was not quite prepared, as yet, to be pressed. Therefore -it did not become very clear to him how his companion had made Poupin’s -acquaintance and how long he had enjoyed it. Paul Muniment nevertheless -was to a certain extent communicative about himself, and forewarned -Hyacinth that he lived in a very poor little corner. He had his sister -to keep—she could do nothing for herself; and he paid a low rent -because she had to have doctors, and doses, and all sorts of little -comforts. He spent a shilling a week for her on flowers. It was better, -too, when you got upstairs, and from the back windows you could see the -dome of St Paul’s. Audley Court, with its pretty name, which reminded -Hyacinth of Tennyson, proved to be a still dingier nook than Lomax -Place; and it had the further drawback that you had to pass through a -narrow alley, a passage between high, black walls, to enter it. At the -door of one of the houses the young men paused, lingering a little, and -then Muniment said, “I say, why shouldn’t you come up? I like you well -enough for that, and you can see my sister; her name is Rosy.” He spoke -as if this would be a great privilege, and added, humorously, that Rosy -enjoyed a call from a gentleman, of all things. Hyacinth needed no -urging, and he groped his way, at his companion’s heels, up a dark -staircase, which appeared to him—for they stopped only when they could -go no further—the longest and steepest he had ever ascended. At the top -Paul Muniment pushed open a door, but exclaimed, “Hullo, have you gone -to roost?” on perceiving that the room on the threshold of which they -stood was unlighted. - -“Oh, dear, no; we are sitting in the dark,” a small, bright voice -instantly replied. “Lady Aurora is so kind; she’s here still.” - -The voice came out of a corner so pervaded by gloom that the speaker -was indistinguishable. “Dear me, that’s beautiful!” Paul Muniment -rejoined. “You’ll have a party, then, for I have brought some one else. -We are poor, you know, but I dare say we can manage a candle.” - -At this, in the dim firelight, Hyacinth saw a tall figure erect -itself—a figure angular and slim, crowned with a large, vague hat, -surmounted, apparently, with a flowing veil. This unknown person gave a -singular laugh, and said, “Oh, I brought some candles; we could have -had a light if we had wished it.” Both the tone and the purport of the -words announced to Hyacinth that they proceeded from the lips of Lady -Aurora. - - - - -VIII - - -Paul Muniment took a match out of his pocket and lighted it on the sole -of his shoe; after which he applied it to a tallow candle which stood -in a tin receptacle on the low mantel-shelf. This enabled Hyacinth to -perceive a narrow bed in a corner, and a small figure stretched upon -it—a figure revealed to him mainly by the bright fixedness of a pair of -large eyes, of which the whites were sharply contrasted with the dark -pupil, and which gazed at him across a counterpane of gaudy patchwork. -The brown room seemed crowded with heterogeneous objects, and had, -moreover, for Hyacinth, thanks to a multitude of small prints, both -plain and coloured, fastened all over the walls, a highly-decorated -appearance. The little person in the corner had the air of having gone -to bed in a picture-gallery, and as soon as Hyacinth became aware of -this his impression deepened that Paul Muniment and his sister were -very remarkable people. Lady Aurora hovered before him with a kind of -drooping erectness, laughing a good deal, vaguely and shyly, as if -there were something rather awkward in her being found still on the -premises. “Rosy, girl, I’ve brought you a visitor,” Paul Muniment said. -“This young man has walked all the way from Lisson Grove to make your -acquaintance.” Rosy continued to look at Hyacinth from over her -counterpane, and he felt slightly embarrassed, for he had never yet -been presented to a young lady in her position. “You mustn’t mind her -being in bed—she’s always in bed,” her brother went on. “She’s in bed -just the same as a little trout is in the water.” - -“Dear me, if I didn’t receive company because I was in bed, there -wouldn’t be much use, would there, Lady Aurora?” - -Rosy made this inquiry in a light, gay tone, darting her brilliant eyes -at her companion, who replied instantly, with still greater hilarity, -and in a voice which struck Hyacinth as strange and affected, “Oh, -dear, no, it seems quite the natural place!” Then she added, “And it’s -such a pretty bed, such a comfortable bed!” - -“Indeed it is, when your ladyship makes it up,” said Rosy; while -Hyacinth wondered at this strange phenomenon of a peer’s daughter (for -he knew she must be that) performing the functions of a housemaid. - -“I say, now, you haven’t been doing that again to-day?” Muniment asked, -punching the mattress of the invalid with a vigorous hand. - -“Pray, who would, if I didn’t?” Lady Aurora inquired. “It only takes a -minute, if one knows how.” Her manner was jocosely apologetic, and she -seemed to plead guilty to having been absurd; in the dim light Hyacinth -thought he saw her blush, as if she were much embarrassed. In spite of -her blushing, her appearance and manner suggested to him a personage in -a comedy. She sounded the letter _r_ peculiarly. - -“I can do it, beautifully. I often do it, when Mrs Major doesn’t come -up,” Paul Muniment said, continuing to thump his sister’s couch in an -appreciative but somewhat subversive manner. - -“Oh, I have no doubt whatever!” Lady Aurora exclaimed, quickly. “Mrs -Major must have so very much to do.” - -“Not in the making-up of beds, I’m afraid; there are only two or three, -down there, for so many,” Paul Muniment remarked loudly, and with a -kind of incongruous cheerfulness. - -“Yes, I have thought a great deal about that. But there wouldn’t be -room for more, you know,” said Lady Aurora, this time in a very serious -tone. - -“There’s not much room for a family of that sort anywhere—thirteen -people of all ages and sizes,” the young man rejoined. “The world’s -pretty big, but there doesn’t seem room.” - -“We are also thirteen at home;” said Lady Aurora, laughing again. “We -are also rather crowded.” - -“Surely you don’t mean at Inglefield?” Rosy inquired eagerly, in her -dusky nook. - -“I don’t know about Inglefield. I am so much in town.” Hyacinth could -see that Inglefield was a subject she wished to turn off, and to do so -she added, “We too are of all ages and sizes.” - -“Well, it’s fortunate you are not all _your_ size!” Paul Muniment -exclaimed, with a freedom at which Hyacinth was rather shocked, and -which led him to suspect that, though his new friend was a very fine -fellow, a delicate tact was not his main characteristic. Later he -explained this by the fact that he was rural and provincial, and had -not had, like himself, the benefit of metropolitan culture; and later -still he asked himself what, after all, such a character as that had to -do with tact or with compliments, and why its work in the world was not -most properly performed by the simple exercise of a rude, manly -strength. - -At this familiar allusion to her stature Lady Aurora turned hither and -thither, a little confusedly; Hyacinth saw her high, lean figure sway -to and fro in the dim little room. Her commotion carried her to the -door, and with ejaculations of which it was difficult to guess the -meaning she was about to depart, when Rosy detained her, having -evidently much more social art than Paul. “Don’t you see it’s only -because her ladyship is standing up that she’s so, you gawk? We are not -thirteen, at any rate, and we have got all the furniture we want, so -that there’s a chair for every one. Do be seated again, Lady Aurora, -and help me to entertain this gentleman. I don’t know your name, sir; -perhaps my brother will mention it when he has collected his wits. I am -very glad to see you, though I don’t see you very well. Why shouldn’t -we light one of her ladyship’s candles? It’s very different to that -common thing.” - -Hyacinth thought Miss Muniment very charming: he had begun to make her -out better by this time, and he watched her little wan, pointed face, -framed, on the pillow, by thick black hair. She was a diminutive dark -person, pale and wasted with a lifelong infirmity; Hyacinth thought her -manner denoted high cleverness—he judged it impossible to tell her age. -Lady Aurora said she ought to have gone, long since; but she seated -herself, nevertheless, on the chair that Paul pushed towards her. - -“Here’s a go!” this young man exclaimed. “You told me your name, but -I’ve clean forgotten it.” Then, when Paul had announced it again, he -said to his sister, “That won’t tell you much; there are bushels of -Robinsons in the north. But you’ll like him; he’s a very smart little -fellow; I met him at the Poupins.” ‘Puppin’ would represent the sound -by which he designated the French bookbinder, and that was the name by -which Hyacinth always heard him called at Mr Crookenden’s. Hyacinth -knew how much nearer to the right thing he himself came. - -“Your name, like mine, represents a flower,” said the little woman in -the bed. “Mine is Rose Muniment, and her ladyship’s is Aurora Langrish. -That means the morning, or the dawn; it’s the most beautiful of all, -don’t you think so?” Rose Muniment addressed this inquiry to Hyacinth, -while Lady Aurora gazed at her shyly and mutely, as if she admired her -manner, her self-possession and flow of conversation. Her brother -lighted one of the visitor’s candles, and the girl went on, without -waiting for Hyacinth’s response: “Isn’t it right that she should be -called the dawn, when she brings light where she goes? The Puppins are -the charming foreigners I have told you about,” she explained to her -friend. - -“Oh, it’s so pleasant knowing a few foreigners!” Lady Aurora exclaimed, -with a spasm of expression. “They are often so very fresh.” - -“Mr Robinson’s a sort of foreigner, and he’s very fresh,” said Paul -Muniment. “He meets Mr Puppin quite on his own ground. If I had his -command of the lingo it would give me a lift.” - -“I’m sure I should be very happy to help you with your French. I feel -the advantage of knowing it,” Hyacinth remarked, finely, and became -conscious that his declaration drew the attention of Lady Aurora -towards him; so that he wondered what he could go on to say, to keep at -that level. This was the first time he had encountered, socially, a -member of that aristocracy to which he had now for a good while known -it was Miss Pynsent’s theory that he belonged; and the occasion was -interesting, in spite of the lady’s appearing to have so few of the -qualities of her caste. She was about thirty years of age; her nose was -large and, in spite of the sudden retreat of her chin, her face was -long and lean. She had the manner of extreme near-sightedness; her -front teeth projected from her upper gums, which she revealed when she -smiled, and her fair hair, in tangled, silky skeins (Rose Muniment -thought it too lovely), drooped over her pink cheeks. Her clothes -looked as if she had worn them a good deal in the rain, and the note of -a certain disrepair in her apparel was given by a hole in one of her -black gloves, through which a white finger gleamed. She was plain and -diffident, and she might have been poor; but in the fine grain and -sloping, shrinking slimness of her whole person, the delicacy of her -curious features, and a kind of cultivated quality in her sweet, vague, -civil expression, there was a suggestion of race, of long transmission, -of an organism highly evolved. She was not a common woman; she was one -of the caprices of an aristocracy. Hyacinth did not define her in this -manner to himself, but he received from her the impression that, though -she was a simple creature (which he learned later she was not), -aristocracies were complicated things. Lady Aurora remarked that there -were many delightful books in French, and Hyacinth rejoined that it was -a torment to know that (as he did, very well) when you didn’t see your -way to getting hold of them. This led Lady Aurora to say, after a -moment’s hesitation, that she had a good lot of her own and that if he -liked she should be most happy to lend them to him. Hyacinth thanked -her—thanked her even too much, and felt both the kindness and the -brilliant promise of the offer (he knew the exasperation of having -volumes in his hands, for external treatment, which he couldn’t take -home at night, having tried that system, surreptitiously, during his -first weeks at Mr Crookenden’s and come very near losing his place in -consequence), while he wondered how it could be put into -practice—whether she would expect him to call at her house and wait in -the hall till the books were sent out to him. Rose Muniment exclaimed -that that was her ladyship all over—always wanting to make up to people -for being less fortunate than herself: she would take the shoes off her -feet for any one that might take a fancy to them. At this the visitor -declared that she would stop coming to see her, if the girl caught her -up, that way, for everything; and Rosy, without heeding this -remonstrance, explained to Hyacinth that she thought it the least she -could do to give what she had. She was so ashamed of being rich that -she wondered the lower classes didn’t break into Inglefield and take -possession of all the treasures in the Italian room. She was a -tremendous socialist; she was worse than any one—she was worse, even, -than Paul. - -“I wonder if she is worse than me,” Hyacinth said, at a venture, not -understanding the allusions to Inglefield and the Italian room, which -Miss Muniment made as if she knew all about these places. After -Hyacinth knew more of the world he remembered this tone of Muniment’s -sister (he was to have plenty of observation of it on other occasions) -as that of a person who was in the habit of visiting the nobility at -their country-seats; she talked about Inglefield as if she had stayed -there. - -“Hullo, I didn’t know you were so advanced!” exclaimed Paul Muniment, -who had been sitting silent, sidewise, in a chair that was too narrow -for him, with his big arm hugging the back. “Have we been entertaining -an angel unawares?” - -Hyacinth seemed to see that he was laughing at him, but he knew the way -to face that sort of thing was to exaggerate his meaning. “You didn’t -know I was advanced? Why, I thought that was the principal thing about -me. I think I go about as far as it is possible to go.” - -“I thought the principal thing about you was that you knew French,” -Paul Muniment said, with an air of derision which showed Hyacinth that -he wouldn’t put that ridicule upon him unless he liked him, at the same -time that it revealed to him that he himself had just been posturing a -little. - -“Well, I don’t know it for nothing. I’ll say something very neat and -sharp to you, if you don’t look out—just the sort of thing they say so -much in French.” - -“Oh, do say something of that kind; we should enjoy it so much!” cried -Rosy, in perfect good faith, clasping her hands in expectation. - -The appeal was embarrassing, but Hyacinth was saved from the -consequences of it by a remark from Lady Aurora, who quavered out the -words after two or three false starts, appearing to address him, now -that she spoke to him directly, with a sort of overdone consideration. -“I should like so very much to know—it would be so interesting—if you -don’t mind—how far exactly you do go.” She threw back her head very -far, and thrust her shoulders forward, and if her chin had been more -adapted to such a purpose would have appeared to point it at him. - -This challenge was hardly less alarming than the other, for Hyacinth -was far from having ascertained the extent of his advance. He replied, -however, with an earnestness with which he tried to make up as far as -possible for his vagueness: “Well, I’m very strong indeed. I think I -see my way to conclusions, from which even Monsieur and Madame Poupin -would shrink. Poupin, at any rate; I’m not so sure about his wife.” - -“I should like so much to know Madame,” Lady Aurora murmured, as if -politeness demanded that she should content herself with this answer. - -“Oh, Puppin isn’t strong,” said Muniment; “you can easily look over his -head! He has a sweet assortment of phrases—they are really pretty -things to hear, some of them; but he hasn’t had a new idea these thirty -years. It’s the old stock that has been withering in the window. All -the same, he warms one up; he has got a spark of the sacred fire. The -principal conclusion that Mr Robinson sees his way to,” he added to -Lady Aurora, “is that your father ought to have his head chopped off -and carried on a pike.” - -“Ah, yes, the French Revolution.” - -“Lord, I don’t know anything about your father, my lady!” Hyacinth -interposed. - -“Didn’t you ever hear of the Earl of Inglefield?” cried Rose Muniment. - -“He is one of the best,” said Lady Aurora, as if she were pleading for -him. - -“Very likely, but he is a landlord, and he has an hereditary seat and a -park of five thousand acres all to himself, while we are bundled -together into this sort of kennel.” Hyacinth admired the young man’s -consistency until he saw that he was chaffing; after which he still -admired the way he mixed up merriment with the tremendous opinions our -hero was sure he entertained. In his own imagination Hyacinth -associated bitterness with the revolutionary passion; but the young -chemist, at the same time that he was planning far ahead, seemed -capable of turning revolutionists themselves into ridicule, even for -the entertainment of the revolutionised. - -“Well, I have told you often enough that I don’t go with you at all,” -said Rose Muniment, whose recumbency appeared not in the least to -interfere with her sense of responsibility. “You’ll make a tremendous -mistake if you try to turn everything round. There ought to be -differences, and high and low, and there always will be, true as ever I -lie here. I think it’s against everything, pulling down them that’s -above.” - -“Everything points to great changes in this country, but if once our -Rosy’s against them, how can you be sure? That’s the only thing that -makes me doubt,” her brother went on, looking at her with a placidity -which showed the habit of indulgence. - -“Well, I may be ill, but I ain’t buried, and if I’m content with my -position—such a position as it is—surely other folk might be with -theirs. Her ladyship may think I’m as good as her, if she takes that -notion; but she’ll have a deal to do to make _me_ believe it.” - -“I think you are much better than I, and I know very few people so good -as you,” Lady Aurora remarked, blushing, not for her opinions, but for -her timidity. It was easy to see that, though she was original, she -would have liked to be even more original than she was. She was -conscious, however, that such a declaration might appear rather gross -to persons who didn’t see exactly how she meant it; so she added, as -quickly as her hesitating manner permitted, to cover it up, “You know -there’s one thing you ought to remember, _à propos_ of revolutions and -changes and all that sort of thing; I just mention it because we were -talking of some of the dreadful things that were done in France. If -there were to be a great disturbance in this country—and of course one -hopes there won’t—it would be my impression that the people would -behave in a different way altogether.” - -“What people do you mean?” Hyacinth allowed himself to inquire. - -“Oh, the upper class, the people that have got all the things.” - -“We don’t call them the people,” observed Hyacinth, reflecting the next -instant that his remark was a little primitive. - -“I suppose you call them the wretches, the villains!” Rose Muniment -suggested, laughing merrily. - -“All the things, but not all the brains,” her brother said. - -“No, indeed, aren’t they stupid?” exclaimed her ladyship. “All the -same, I don’t think they would go abroad.” - -“Go abroad?” - -“I mean like the French nobles, who emigrated so much. They would stay -at home and resist; they would make more of a fight. I think they would -fight very hard.” - -“I’m delighted to hear it, and I’m sure they would win!” cried Rosy. - -“They wouldn’t collapse, don’t you know,” Lady Aurora continued. “They -would struggle till they were beaten.” - -“And you think they would be beaten in the end?” Hyacinth asked. - -“Oh dear, yes,” she replied, with a familiar brevity at which he was -greatly surprised. “But of course one hopes it won’t happen.” - -“I infer from what you say that they talk it over a good deal among -themselves, to settle the line they will take,” said Paul Muniment. - -But Rosy intruded before Lady Aurora could answer. “I think it’s wicked -to talk it over, and I’m sure we haven’t any business to talk it over -here! When her ladyship says that the aristocracy will make a fine -stand, I like to hear her say it, and I think she speaks in a manner -that becomes her own position. But there is something else in her tone -which, if I may be allowed to say so, I think a great mistake. If her -ladyship expects, in case of the lower classes coming up in that odious -manner, to be let off easily, for the sake of the concessions she may -have made in advance, I would just advise her to save herself the -disappointment and the trouble. They won’t be a bit the wiser, and they -won’t either know or care. If they are going to trample over their -betters, it isn’t on account of her having seemed to give up everything -to us here that they will let _her_ off. They will trample on her just -the same as on the others, and they’ll say that she has got to pay for -her title and her grand relations and her fine appearance. Therefore I -advise her not to waste her good nature in trying to let herself down. -When you’re up so high as that you’ve got to stay there; and if -Providence has made you a lady, the best thing you can do is to hold up -your head. I can promise your ladyship _I_ would!” - -The close logic of this speech and the quaint self-possession with -which the little bedridden speaker delivered it struck Hyacinth as -amazing, and confirmed his idea that the brother and sister were a most -extraordinary pair. It had a terrible effect upon poor Lady Aurora, by -whom so stern a lesson from so humble a quarter had evidently not been -expected, and who sought refuge from her confusion in a series of -bewildered laughs, while Paul Muniment, with his humorous density, -which was deliberate, and clever too, not seeing, or at any rate not -heeding, that she had been sufficiently snubbed by his sister, -inflicted a fresh humiliation by saying, “Rosy’s right, my lady. It’s -no use trying to buy yourself off. You can’t do enough; your sacrifices -don’t count. You spoil your fun now, and you don’t get it made up to -you later. To all you people nothing will ever be made up. Enjoy your -privileges while they last; it may not be for long.” - -Lady Aurora listened to him with her eyes on his face; and as they -rested there Hyacinth scarcely knew what to make of her expression. -Afterwards he thought he could attach a meaning to it. She got up -quickly when Muniment had ceased speaking; the movement suggested that -she had taken offence, and he would have liked to show her that he -thought she had been rather roughly used. But she gave him no chance, -not glancing at him for a moment. Then he saw that he was mistaken and -that, if she had flushed considerably, it was only with the excitement -of pleasure, the enjoyment of such original talk and of seeing her -friends at last as free and familiar as she wished them to be. “You are -the most delightful people—I wish every one could know you!” she broke -out. “But I must really be going.” She went to the bed, and bent over -Rosy and kissed her. - -“Paul will see you as far as you like on your way home,” this young -woman remarked. - -Lady Aurora protested against this, but Paul, without protesting in -return, only took up his hat and looked at her, smiling, as if he knew -his duty; upon which her ladyship said, “Well, you may see me -downstairs; I forgot it was so dark.” - -“You must take her ladyship’s own candle, and you must call a cab,” -Rosy directed. - -“Oh, I don’t go in cabs. I walk.” - -“Well, you may go on the top of a ’bus, if you like; you can’t help -being superb,” Miss Muniment declared, watching her sympathetically. - -“Superb? Oh, mercy!” cried the poor devoted, grotesque lady, leaving -the room with Paul, who asked Hyacinth to wait for him a little. She -neglected to bid good-night to our young man, and he asked himself what -was to be hoped from that sort of people, when even the best of -them—those that wished to be agreeable to the _demos_—reverted -inevitably to the supercilious. She had said no more about lending him -her books. - - - - -IX - - -“She lives in Belgrave Square; she has ever so many brothers and -sisters; one of her sisters is married to Lord Warmington,” Rose -Muniment instantly began, not apparently in the least discomposed at -being left alone with a strange young man in a room which was now half -dark again, thanks to her brother’s having carried off the second and -more brilliant candle. She was so interested, for the time, in telling -Hyacinth the history of Lady Aurora, that she appeared not to remember -how little she knew about himself. Her ladyship had dedicated her life -and her pocket-money to the poor and sick; she cared nothing for -parties, and races, and dances, and picnics, and life in great houses, -the usual amusements of the aristocracy; she was like one of the saints -of old come to life again out of a legend. She had made their -acquaintance, Paul’s and hers, about a year before, through a friend of -theirs, such a fine, brave, young woman, who was in St Thomas’s -Hospital for a surgical operation. She had been laid up there for -weeks, during which Lady Aurora, always looking out for those who -couldn’t help themselves, used to come and talk to her and read to her, -till the end of her time in the ward, when the poor girl, parting with -her kind friend, told her how she knew of another unfortunate creature -(for whom there was no place there, because she was incurable) who -would be mighty thankful for any little attention of that sort. She had -given Lady Aurora the address in Audley Court, and the very next day -her ladyship had knocked at their door. It wasn’t because she was -poor—though in all conscience they were pinched enough—but because she -had so little satisfaction in her limbs. Lady Aurora came very often, -for several months, without meeting Paul, because he was always at his -work; but one day he came home early, on purpose to find her, to thank -her for her goodness, and also to see (Miss Muniment rather shyly -intimated) whether she were really so good as his extravagant little -sister made her out. Rosy had a triumph after that: Paul had to admit -that her ladyship was beyond anything that any one in his waking senses -would believe. She seemed to want to give up everything to those who -were below her, and never to expect any thanks at all. And she wasn’t -always preaching and showing you your duty; she wanted to talk to you -sociable-like, as if you were just her own sister. And _her_ own -sisters were the highest in the land, and you might see her name in the -newspapers the day they were presented to the Queen. Lady Aurora had -been presented too, with feathers in her head and a long tail to her -gown; but she had turned her back upon it all with a kind of terror—a -sort of shivering, sinking feeling, which she had often described to -Miss Muniment. The day she had first seen Paul was the day they became -so intimate (the three of them together), if she might apply such a -word as that to such a peculiar connection. The little woman, the -little girl, as she lay there (Hyacinth scarcely knew how to -characterise her), told our young man a very great secret, in which he -found himself too much interested to think of criticising so headlong a -burst of confidence. The secret was that, of all the people she had -ever seen in the world, her ladyship thought Rosy’s Paul the very -cleverest. And she had seen the greatest, the most famous, the -brightest of every kind, for they all came to stay at Inglefield, -thirty and forty of them at once. She had talked with them all and -heard them say their best (and you could fancy how they would try to -give it out at such a place as that, where there was nearly a mile of -conservatories and a hundred wax candles were lighted at time), and at -the end of it all she had made the remark to herself—and she had made -it to Rosy too—that there was none of them had such a head on his -shoulders as the young man in Audley Court. Rosy wouldn’t spread such a -rumour as that in the court itself, but she wanted every friend of her -brother’s (and she could see Hyacinth was that, by the way he listened) -to know what was thought of him by them that had an experience of -talent. She didn’t wish to give it out that her ladyship had lowered -herself in any manner to a person that earned his bread in a dirty shop -(clever as he _might_ be), but it was easy to see she minded what he -said as if he had been a bishop—or more, indeed, for she didn’t think -much of bishops, any more than Paul himself, and that was an idea she -had got from him. Oh, she took it none so ill if he came back from his -work before she had gone; and to-night Hyacinth could see for himself -how she had lingered. This evening, she was sure, her ladyship would -let him walk home with her half the way. This announcement gave -Hyacinth the prospect of a considerable session with his communicative -hostess; but he was very glad to wait, for he was vaguely, strangely -excited by her talk, fascinated by the little queer-smelling, -high-perched interior, encumbered with relics, treasured and polished, -of a poor north-country home, bedecked with penny ornaments and related -in so unexpected a manner to Belgrave Square and the great landed -estates. He spent half an hour with Paul Muniment’s small, odd, -crippled, chattering, clever, trenchant sister, who gave him an -impression of education and native wit (she expressed herself far -better than Pinnie, or than Millicent Henning), and who startled, -puzzled, and at the same time rather distressed, him by the manner in -which she referred herself to the most abject class—the class that -prostrated itself, that was in a fever and flutter in the presence of -its betters. That was Pinnie’s attitude, of course; but Hyacinth had -long ago perceived that his adoptive mother had generations of plebeian -patience in her blood, and that though she had a tender soul she had -not a great one. He was more entertained than afflicted, however, by -Miss Muniment’s tone, and he was thrilled by the frequency and -familiarity of her allusions to a kind of life he had often wondered -about; this was the first time he had heard it described with that -degree of authority. By the nature of his mind he was perpetually, -almost morbidly, conscious that the circle in which he lived was an -infinitesimally small, shallow eddy in the roaring vortex of London, -and his imagination plunged again and again into the waves that whirled -past it and round it, in the hope of being carried to some brighter, -happier vision—the vision of societies in which, in splendid rooms, -with smiles and soft voices, distinguished men, with women who were -both proud and gentle, talked about art, literature and history. When -Rosy had delivered herself to her complete satisfaction on the subject -of Lady Aurora, she became more quiet, asking, as yet, however, no -questions about Hyacinth, whom she seemed to take very much for -granted. He presently remarked that she must let him come very soon -again, and he added, to explain this wish, “You know you seem to me -very curious people.” - -Miss Muniment did not in the least repudiate the imputation. “Oh yes, I -dare say we seem very curious. I think we are generally thought so; -especially me, being so miserable and yet so lively.” And she laughed -till her bed creaked again. - -“Perhaps it’s lucky you are ill; perhaps if you had your health you -would be all over the place,” Hyacinth suggested. And he went on, -candidly, “I can’t make it out, your being so up in everything.” - -“I don’t see why you need make it out! But you would, perhaps, if you -had known my father and mother.” - -“Were they such a rare lot?” - -“I think you would say so if you had ever been in the mines. Yes, in -the mines, where the filthy coal is dug out. That’s where my father -came from—he was working in the pit when he was a child of ten. He -never had a day’s schooling in his life; but he climbed up out of his -black hole into daylight and air, and he invented a machine, and he -married my mother, who came out of Durham, and (by her people) out of -the pits and misery too. My father had no great figure, but _she_ was -magnificent—the finest woman in the country, and the bravest, and the -best. She’s in her grave now, and I couldn’t go to look at it even if -it were in the nearest churchyard. My father was as black as the coal -he worked in: I know I’m just his pattern, barring that _he_ did have -his legs, when the liquor hadn’t got into them. But between him and my -mother, for grand, high intelligence there wasn’t much to choose. But -what’s the use of brains if you haven’t got a backbone? My poor father -had even less of that than I, for with me it’s only the body that can’t -stand up, and with him it was the spirit. He discovered a kind of -wheel, and he sold it, at Bradford, for fifteen pounds: I mean the -whole right of it, and every hope and pride of his family. He was -always straying, and my mother was always bringing him back. She had -plenty to do, with me a puny, ailing brat from the moment I opened my -eyes. Well, one night he strayed so far that he never came back; or -only came back a loose, bloody bundle of clothes. He had fallen into a -gravel-pit; he didn’t know where he was going. That’s the reason my -brother will never touch so much as you could wet your finger with, and -that I only have a drop once a week or so, in the way of a -strengthener. I take what her ladyship brings me, but I take no more. -If she could have come to us before my mother went, that would have -been a saving! I was only nine when my father died, and I’m three years -older than Paul. My mother did for us with all her might, and she kept -us decent—if such a useless little mess as me can be said to be decent. -At any rate, she kept me alive, and that’s a proof she was handy. She -went to the wash-tub, and she might have been a queen, as she stood -there with her bare arms in the foul linen and her long hair braided on -her head. She was terrible handsome, but he would have been a bold man -that would have taken upon himself to tell her so. And it was from her -we got our education—she was determined we should rise above the -common. You might have thought, in her position, that she couldn’t go -into such things; but she was a rare one for keeping you at your book. -She could hold to her idea when my poor father couldn’t; and her idea, -for us, was that Paul should get learning and should look after me. You -can see for yourself that that’s what has come about. How he got it is -more than I can say, as we never had a penny to pay for it; and of -course my mother’s cleverness wouldn’t have been of much use if he -hadn’t been clever himself. Well, it was all in the family. Paul was a -boy that would learn more from a yellow placard pasted on a wall, or a -time-table at a railway station, than many a young fellow from a year -at college. That was his only college, poor lad—picking up what he -could. Mother was taken when she was still needed, nearly five years -ago. There was an epidemic of typhoid, and of course it must pass me -over, the goose of a thing—only that I’d have made a poor feast—and -just lay that gallant creature on her back. Well, she never again made -it ache over her soapsuds, straight and broad as it was. Not having -seen her, you wouldn’t believe,” said Rose Muniment, in conclusion; -“but I just wanted you to understand that our parents had intellect, at -least, to give us.” - -Hyacinth listened to this recital with the deepest interest, and -without being in the least moved to allow for filial exaggeration; -inasmuch as his impression of the brother and sister was such as it -would have taken a much more marvellous tale to account for. The very -way Rose Muniment sounded the word ‘intellect’ made him feel this; she -pronounced it as if she were distributing prizes for a high degree of -it. No doubt the tipsy inventor and the regal laundress had been fine -specimens, but that didn’t diminish the merit of their highly original -offspring. The girl’s insistence upon her mother’s virtues (even now -that her age had become more definite to him he thought of her as a -girl) touched in his heart a chord that was always ready to throb—the -chord of melancholy, bitter, aimless wonder as to the difference it -would have made in _his_ spirit if there had been some pure, honourable -figure like that to shed her influence over it. - -“Are you very fond of your brother?” he inquired, after a little. - -The eyes of his hostess glittered at him for a moment. “If you ever -quarrel with him, you’ll see whose side I’ll take.” - -“Ah, before that I shall make you like _me_.” - -“That’s very possible, and you’ll see how I’ll fling you over!” - -“Why, then, do you object so to his views—his ideas about the way the -people will come up?” - -“Because I think he’ll get over them.” - -“Never—never!” cried Hyacinth. “I have only known him an hour or two, -but I deny that, with all my strength.” - -“Is that the way you are going to make me like you—contradicting me -so?” Miss Muniment inquired, with familiar archness. - -“What’s the use, when you tell me I shall be sacrificed? One might as -well perish for a lamb as for a sheep.” - -“I don’t believe you’re a lamb at all. Certainly you are not, if you -want all the great people pulled down, and the most dreadful scenes -enacted.” - -“Don’t you believe in human equality? Don’t you want anything done for -the groaning, toiling millions—those who have been cheated and crushed -and bamboozled from the beginning of time?” - -Hyacinth asked this question with considerable heat, but the effect of -it was to send his companion off into a new fit of laughter. “You say -that just like a man that my brother described to me three days ago; a -little man at some club, whose hair stood up—Paul imitated the way he -glowered and screamed. I don’t mean that you scream, you know; but you -use almost the same words that he did.” Hyacinth scarcely knew what to -make of this allusion, or of the picture offered to him of Paul -Muniment casting ridicule upon those who spoke in the name of the -down-trodden. But Rosy went on, before he had time to do more than -reflect that there would evidently be a great deal more to learn about -her brother: “I haven’t the least objection to seeing the people -improved, but I don’t want to see the aristocracy lowered an inch. I -like so much to look at it up there.” - -“You ought to know my aunt Pinnie—she’s just such another benighted -idolater!” Hyacinth exclaimed. - -“Oh, you are making me like you very fast! And pray, who is your aunt -Pinnie?” - -“She’s a dressmaker, and a charming little woman. I should like her to -come and see you.” - -“I’m afraid I’m not in her line—I never had on a dress in my life. But, -as a charming woman, I should be delighted to see her.” - -“I will bring her some day,” said Hyacinth. And then he added, rather -incongruously, for he was irritated by the girl’s optimism, thinking it -a shame that her sharpness should be enlisted on the wrong side, “Don’t -you want, for yourself, a better place to live in?” - -She jerked herself up, and for a moment he thought she would jump out -of her bed at him. “A better place than this? Pray, how could there be -a better place? Every one thinks it’s lovely; you should see our view -by daylight—you should see everything I’ve got. Perhaps you are used to -something very fine, but Lady Aurora says that in all Belgrave Square -there isn’t such a cosy little room. If you think I’m not perfectly -content, you are very much mistaken!” - -Such a sentiment as that could only exasperate Hyacinth, and his -exasperation made him indifferent to the fact that he had appeared to -cast discredit on Miss Muniment’s apartment. Pinnie herself, submissive -as she was, had spared him that sort of displeasure; she groaned over -the dinginess of Lomax Place sufficiently to remind him that she had -not been absolutely stultified by misery. “Don’t you sometimes make -your brother very angry?” he asked, smiling, of Rose Muniment. - -“Angry? I don’t know what you take us for! I never saw him lose his -temper in his life.” - -“He must be a rum customer! Doesn’t he really care for—for what we were -talking about?” - -For a moment Rosy was silent; then she replied, “What my brother really -cares for—well, one of these days, when you know, you’ll tell me.” - -Hyacinth stared. “But isn’t he tremendously deep in—” He hesitated. - -“Deep in what?” - -“Well, in what’s going on, beneath the surface. Doesn’t he belong to -things?” - -“I’m sure I don’t know what he belongs to—you may ask him!” cried Rosy, -laughing gaily again, as the opening door readmitted the subject of -their conversation. “You must have crossed the water with her -ladyship,” she went on. “I wonder who enjoyed their walk most.” - -“She’s a handy old girl, and she has a goodish stride,” said the young -man. - -“I think she’s in love with you, simply, Mr Muniment.” - -“Really, my dear, for an admirer of the aristocracy you allow yourself -a license,” Paul murmured, smiling at Hyacinth. - -Hyacinth got up, feeling that really he had paid a long visit; his -curiosity was far from satisfied, but there was a limit to the time one -should spend in a young lady’s sleeping apartment. “Perhaps she is; why -not?” he remarked. - -“Perhaps she is, then; she’s daft enough for anything.” - -“There have been fine folks before who have patted the people on the -back and pretended to enter into their life,” Hyacinth said. “Is she -only playing with that idea, or is she in earnest?” - -“In earnest—in terrible earnest, my dear fellow. I think she must be -rather crowded out at home.” - -“Crowded out of Inglefield? Why, there’s room for three hundred!” Rosy -broke in. - -“Well, if that’s the kind of mob that’s in possession, no wonder she -prefers Camberwell. We must be kind to the poor lady,” Paul added, in a -tone which Hyacinth noticed. He attributed a remarkable meaning to it; -it seemed to say that people such as he were now so sure of their game -that they could afford to be magnanimous; or else it expressed a -prevision of the doom which hung over her ladyship’s head. Muniment -asked if Hyacinth and Rosy had made friends, and the girl replied that -Mr Robinson had made himself very agreeable. “Then you must tell me all -about him after he goes, for you know I don’t know him much myself,” -said her brother. - -“Oh yes, I’ll tell you everything; you know how I like describing.” - -Hyacinth was laughing to himself at the young lady’s account of his -efforts to please her, the fact being that he had only listened to her -own eager discourse, without opening his mouth; but Paul, whether or no -he guessed the truth, said to him very pertinently, “It’s very -wonderful: she can describe things she has never seen. And they are -just like the reality.” - -“There’s nothing I’ve never seen,” Rosy rejoined. “That’s the advantage -of my lying here in such a manner. I see everything in the world.” - -“You don’t seem to see your brother’s meetings—his secret societies and -clubs. You put that aside when I asked you.” - -“Oh, you mustn’t ask her that sort of thing,” said Paul, lowering at -Hyacinth with a fierce frown—an expression which he perceived in a -moment to be humorously assumed. - -“What am I to do, then, since you won’t tell me anything definite -yourself?” - -“It will be definite enough when you get hanged for it!” Rosy -exclaimed, mockingly. - -“Why do you want to poke your head into black holes?” Muniment asked, -laying his hand on Hyacinth’s shoulder, and shaking it gently. - -“Don’t you belong to the party of action?” said Hyacinth, solemnly. - -“Look at the way he has picked up all the silly bits of catchwords!” -Paul cried, laughing, to his sister. “You must have got that precious -phrase out of the newspapers, out of some drivelling leader. Is that -the party you want to belong to?” he went on, with his clear eyes -ranging over his diminutive friend. - -“If you’ll show me the thing itself I shall have no more occasion to -mind the newspapers,” Hyacinth pleaded. It was his view of himself, and -it was not an unfair one, that his was a character that would never beg -for a favour; but now he felt that in any relation he might have with -Paul Muniment such a law would be suspended. This man he could entreat, -pray to, go on his knees to, without a sense of humiliation. - -“What thing do you mean, infatuated, deluded youth?” Paul went on, -refusing to be serious. - -“Well, you know you do go to places you had far better keep out of, and -that often when I lie here and listen to steps on the stairs I’m sure -they are coming in to make a search for your papers,” Miss Muniment -lucidly interposed. - -“The day they find my papers, my dear, will be the day you’ll get up -and dance.” - -“What did you ask me to come home with you for?” Hyacinth demanded, -twirling his hat. It was an effort for him, for a moment, to keep the -tears out of his eyes; he found himself forced to put such a different -construction on his new friend’s hospitality. He had had a happy -impression that Muniment perceived in him a possible associate, of a -high type, in a subterranean crusade against the existing order of -things, and now it came over him that the real use he had been put to -was to beguile an hour for a pert invalid. That was all very well, and -he would sit by Miss Rosy’s bedside, were it a part of his service, -every day in the week; only in such a case it should be his reward to -enjoy the confidence of her brother. This young man, at the present -juncture, justified the high estimate that Lady Aurora Langrish had -formed of his intelligence: whatever his natural reply to Hyacinth’s -question would have been, he invented, at the moment, a better one, and -said, at random, smiling, and not knowing exactly what his visitor had -meant— - -“What did I ask you to come with me for? To see if you would be -afraid.” - -What there was to be afraid of was to Hyacinth a quantity equally -vague; but he rejoined, quickly enough, “I think you have only to try -me to see.” - -“I’m sure if you introduce him to some of your low, wicked friends, -he’ll be quite satisfied after he has looked round a bit,” Miss -Muniment remarked, irrepressibly. - -“Those are just the kind of people I want to know,” said Hyacinth, -ingenuously. - -His ingenuousness appeared to touch Paul Muniment. “Well, I see you’re -a good ’un. Just meet me some night.” - -“Where, where?” asked Hyacinth, eagerly. - -“Oh, I’ll tell you where when we get away from _her_,” said his friend, -laughing, but leading him out of the room again. - - - - -X - - -Several months after Hyacinth had made the acquaintance of Paul -Muniment, Millicent Henning remarked to him that it was high time he -should take her to some place of amusement. He proposed the Canterbury -Music Hall; whereupon she tossed her head and affirmed that when a -young lady had done for a young man what she had done for him, the -least he could do was to take her to some theatre in the Strand. -Hyacinth would have been a good deal at a loss to say exactly what she -had done for him, but it was familiar to him by this time that she -regarded him as under great obligations. From the day she came to look -him up in Lomax Place she had taken a position, largely, in his life, -and he had seen poor Pinnie’s wan countenance grow several degrees more -blank. Amanda Pynsent’s forebodings had been answered to the letter; -that bold-faced apparition had become a permanent influence. She never -spoke to him about Millicent but once, several weeks after her -interview with the girl; and this was not in a tone of rebuke, for she -had divested herself for ever of any maternal prerogative. Tearful, -tremulous, deferential inquiry was now her only weapon, and nothing -could be more humble and circumspect than the manner in which she made -use of it. He was never at home of an evening, at present, and he had -mysterious ways of spending his Sundays, with which church-going had -nothing to do. The time had been when, often, after tea, he sat near -the lamp with the dressmaker, and, while her fingers flew, read out to -her the works of Dickens and of Scott; happy hours when he appeared to -have forgotten the wrong she had done him and she almost forgot it -herself. But now he gulped down his tea so fast that he hardly took off -his hat while he sat there, and Pinnie, with her quick eye for all -matters of costume, noticed that he wore it still more gracefully askew -than usual, with a little victorious, exalted air. He hummed to -himself; he fingered his moustache; he looked out of the window when -there was nothing to look at; he seemed pre-occupied, absorbed in -intellectual excursions, half anxious and half delighted. During the -whole winter Miss Pynsent explained everything by three words murmured -beneath her breath: “That forward jade!” On the single occasion, -however, on which she sought relief from her agitation in an appeal to -Hyacinth, she did not trust herself to designate the girl by any -epithet or title. - -“There is only one thing I want to know,” she said to him, in a manner -which might have seemed casual if in her silence, knowing her as well -as he did, he had not already perceived the implication of her thought. -“Does she expect you to marry her, dearest?” - -“Does who expect me? I should like to see the woman who does!” - -“Of course you know who I mean. The one that came after you—and picked -you right up—from the other end of London.” And at the remembrance of -that insufferable scene poor Pinnie flamed up for a moment. “Isn’t -there plenty of young fellows down in that low part where she lives, -without her ravaging over here? Why can’t she stick to her own beat, I -should like to know?” Hyacinth had flushed at this inquiry, and she saw -something in his face which made her change her tone. “Just promise me -this, my precious child: that if you get into any sort of mess with -that piece you’ll immediately confide it to your poor old Pinnie.” - -“My poor old Pinnie sometimes makes me quite sick,” Hyacinth remarked, -for answer. “What sort of a mess do you suppose I’ll get into?” - -“Well, suppose she does come it over you that you promised to marry -her?” - -“You don’t know what you’re talking about. She doesn’t want to marry -any one to-day.” - -“Then what does she want to do?” - -“Do you imagine I would tell a lady’s secrets?” the young man inquired. - -“Dear me, if she was a lady, I shouldn’t be afraid!” said Pinnie. - -“Every woman’s a lady when she has placed herself under one’s -protection,” Hyacinth rejoined, with his little manner of a man of the -world. - -“Under your protection? Laws!” cried Pinnie, staring. “And pray, who’s -to protect _you?_” - -As soon as she had said this she repented, because it seemed just the -sort of exclamation that would have made Hyacinth bite her head off. -One of the things she loved him for, however, was that he gave you -touching surprises in this line, had sudden inconsistencies of temper -that were all for your advantage. He was by no means always mild when -he ought to have been, but he was sometimes so when there was no -obligation. At such moments Pinnie wanted to kiss him, and she had -often tried to make Mr Vetch understand what a fascinating trait of -character this was on the part of their young friend. It was rather -difficult to describe, and Mr Vetch never would admit that he -understood, or that he had observed anything that seemed to correspond -to the dressmaker’s somewhat confused psychological sketch. It was a -comfort to her in these days, and almost the only one she had, that she -was sure Anastasius Vetch understood a good deal more than he felt -bound to acknowledge. He was always up to his old game of being a great -deal cleverer than cleverness itself required; and it consoled her -present weak, pinched feeling to know that, although he still talked of -the boy as if it would be a pity to take him too seriously, that wasn’t -the way he thought of him. He also took him seriously, and he had even -a certain sense of duty in regard to him. Miss Pynsent went so far as -to say to herself that the fiddler probably had savings, and that no -one had ever known of any one else belonging to him. She wouldn’t have -mentioned it to Hyacinth for the world, for fear of leading up to a -disappointment; but she had visions of a foolscap sheet, folded away in -some queer little bachelor’s box (she couldn’t fancy what men kept in -such places), on which Hyacinth’s name would have been written down, in -very big letters, before a solicitor. - -“Oh, I’m unprotected, in the nature of things,” he replied, smiling at -his too scrupulous companion. Then he added, “At any rate, it isn’t -from that girl any danger will come to me.” - -“I can’t think why you like her,” Pinnie remarked, as if she had spent -on the subject treasures of impartiality. - -“It’s jolly to hear one woman on the subject of another,” Hyacinth -said. “You’re kind and good, and yet you’re ready—” He gave a -philosophic sigh. - -“Well, what am I ready to do? I’m not ready to see you gobbled up -before my eyes!” - -“You needn’t be afraid; she won’t drag me to the altar.” - -“And pray, doesn’t she think you good enough—for one of the beautiful -Hennings?” - -“You don’t understand, my poor Pinnie,” said Hyacinth, wearily. “I -sometimes think there isn’t a single thing in life that you understand. -One of these days she’ll marry an alderman.” - -“An alderman—that creature?” - -“An alderman, or a banker, or a bishop, or some one of that kind. She -doesn’t want to end her career to-day; she wants to begin it.” - -“Well, I wish she would take you later!” the dressmaker exclaimed. - -Hyacinth said nothing for a moment; then he broke out: “What are you -afraid of? Look here, we had better clear this up, once for all. Are -you afraid of my marrying a girl out of a shop?” - -“Oh, you wouldn’t, would you?” cried Pinnie, with a kind of -conciliatory eagerness. “That’s the way I like to hear you talk!” - -“Do you think I would marry any one who would marry me?” Hyacinth went -on. “The kind of girl who would look at me is the kind of girl I -wouldn’t look at.” He struck Pinnie as having thought it all out; which -did not surprise her, as she had been familiar, from his youth, with -his way of following things up. But she was always delighted when he -made a remark which showed he was conscious of being of fine -clay—flashed out an allusion to his not being what he seemed. He was -not what he seemed, but even with Pinnie’s valuable assistance he had -not succeeded in representing to himself, very definitely, what he was. -She had placed at his disposal, for this purpose, a passionate idealism -which, employed in some case where it could have consequences, might -have been termed profligate, and which never cost her a scruple or a -compunction. - -“I’m sure a princess might look at you and be none the worse!” she -declared, in her delight at this assurance, more positive than any she -had yet received, that he was safe from the worst danger. This the -dressmaker considered to be the chance of his marrying some person like -herself. Still it came over her that his taste might be lowered, and -before the subject was dropped, on this occasion, she said to him that -of course he must be quite aware of all that was wanting to such a girl -as Millicent Henning—she pronounced her name at last. - -“Oh, I don’t bother about what’s wanting to her; I’m content with what -she has.” - -“Content, dearest—how do you mean?” the little dressmaker quavered. -“Content to make an intimate friend of her?” - -“It is impossible I should discuss these matters with you,” Hyacinth -replied, grandly. - -“Of course I see that. But I should think she would bore you -sometimes,” Miss Pynsent murmured, cunningly. - -“She does, I assure you, to extinction!” - -“Then why do you spend every evening with her?” - -“Where should you like me to spend my evenings? At some beastly -public-house—or at the Italian opera?” His association with Miss -Henning was not so close as that, but nevertheless he wouldn’t take the -trouble to prove to poor Pinnie that he enjoyed her society only two or -three times a week; that on other evenings he simply strolled about the -streets (this boyish habit clung to him), and that he had even -occasionally the resource of going to the Poupins’, or of gossiping and -smoking a pipe at some open house-door, when the night was not cold, -with a fellow-mechanic. Later in the winter, after he had made Paul -Muniment’s acquaintance, the aspect of his life changed considerably, -though Millicent continued to be exceedingly mixed up with it. He hated -the taste of liquor and still more the taste of the places where it was -sold; besides which the types of misery and vice that one was liable to -see collected in them frightened and harrowed him, made him ask himself -questions that pierced the deeper because they were met by no answer. -It was both a blessing and a drawback to him that the delicate, -charming character of the work he did at Mr Crookenden’s, under -Eustache Poupin’s influence, was a kind of education of the taste, -trained him in the finest discriminations, in the perception of beauty -and the hatred of ugliness. This made the brutal, garish, stodgy -decoration of public-houses, with their deluge of gaslight, their -glittering brass and pewter, their lumpish woodwork and false colours, -detestable to him; he was still very young when the ‘gin-palace’ ceased -to convey to him an idea of the palatial. - -For this unfortunate but remarkably organised youth, every displeasure -or gratification of the visual sense coloured his whole mind, and -though he lived in Pentonville and worked in Soho, though he was poor -and obscure and cramped and full of unattainable desires, it may be -said of him that what was most important in life for him was simply his -impressions. They came from everything he touched, they kept him -thrilling and throbbing during a considerable part of his waking -consciousness, and they constituted, as yet, the principal events and -stages of his career. Fortunately, they were sometimes very delightful. -Everything in the field of observation suggested this or that; -everything struck him, penetrated, stirred; he had, in a word, more -impressions than he knew what to do with—felt sometimes as if they -would consume or asphyxiate him. He liked to talk about them, but it -was only a few, here and there, that he could discuss with Millicent -Henning. He let Miss Pynsent imagine that his hours of leisure were -almost exclusively dedicated to this young lady, because, as he said to -himself, if he were to account to her for every evening in the week it -would make no difference—she would stick to her suspicion; and he -referred this perversity to the general weight of misconception under -which (at this crude period of his growth) he held it was his lot to -languish. It didn’t matter to one whether one were a little more or a -little less misunderstood. He might have remembered that it mattered to -Pinnie, who, after her first relief at hearing him express himself so -properly on the subject of a matrimonial connection with Miss Henning, -allowed her faded, kind, weak face, little by little, to lengthen out -to its old solemnity. This came as the days went on, for it wasn’t much -comfort that he didn’t want to marry the young woman in Pimlico, when -he allowed himself to be held as tight as if he did. For the present, -indeed, she simply said, “Oh, well, if you see her as she is, I don’t -care what you do”—a sentiment implying a certain moral recklessness on -the part of the good little dressmaker. She was irreproachable herself, -but she had lived for more than fifty years in a world of wickedness; -like an immense number of London women of her class and kind, she had -acquired a certain innocent cynicism, and she judged it quite a minor -evil that Millicent should be left lamenting, if only Hyacinth might -get out of the scrape. Between a forsaken maiden and a premature, -lowering marriage for her beloved little boy, she very well knew which -she preferred. It should be added that her impression of Millicent’s -power to take care of herself was such as to make it absurd to pity her -in advance. Pinnie thought Hyacinth the cleverest young man in the -world, but her state of mind implied somehow that the young lady in -Pimlico was cleverer. Her ability, at any rate, was of a kind that -precluded the idea of suffering, whereas Hyacinth’s was rather -associated with it. - -By the time he had enjoyed for three months the acquaintance of the -brother and sister in Audley Court the whole complexion of his life -seemed changed; it was pervaded by an interest, an excitement, which -overshadowed, though it by no means supplanted, the brilliant figure of -Miss Henning. It was pitched in a higher key, altogether, and appeared -to command a view of horizons equally fresh and vast. Millicent, -therefore, shared her dominion, without knowing exactly what it was -that drew her old play-fellow off, and without indeed demanding of him -an account which, on her own side, she was not prepared to give. -Hyacinth was, in the language of the circle in which she moved, her -fancy, and she was content to occupy, as regards himself, the same -graceful and somewhat irresponsible position. She had an idea that she -was a most beneficent friend: fond of him and careful of him as an -elder sister might be; warning him as no one else could do against the -dangers of the town; putting that stiff common sense, of which she was -convinced that she possessed an extraordinary supply, at the service of -his incurable verdancy; and looking after him, generally, as no one, -poor child, had ever done. Millicent made light of the little -dressmaker, in this view of Hyacinth’s past (she thought Pinnie no -better than a starved cat), and enjoyed herself immensely in the -character of guide and philosopher, while she pushed the young man with -a robust elbow or said to him, “Well, you _are_ a sharp one, you are!” -Her theory of herself, as we know, was that she was the sweetest girl -in the world, as well as the cleverest and handsomest, and there could -be no better proof of her kindness of heart than her disinterested -affection for a snippet of a bookbinder. Her sociability was certainly -great, and so were her vanity, her grossness, her presumption, her -appetite for beer, for buns, for entertainment of every kind. She -represented, for Hyacinth, during this period, the eternal feminine, -and his taste, considering that he was fastidious, will be wondered at; -it will be judged that she did not represent it very favourably. - -It may easily be believed that he scrutinised his infatuation even -while he gave himself up to it, and that he often wondered he should -care for a girl in whom he found so much to object to. She was vulgar, -clumsy and grotesquely ignorant; her conceit was proportionate, and she -had not a grain of tact or of quick perception. And yet there was -something so fine about her, to his imagination, and she carried with -such an air the advantages she did possess, that her figure constantly -mingled itself even with those bright visions that hovered before him -after Paul Muniment had opened a mysterious window. She was bold, and -free, and generous, and if she was coarse she was neither false nor -cruel. She laughed with the laugh of the people, and if you hit her -hard enough she would cry with its tears. When Hyacinth was not letting -his imagination wander among the haunts of the aristocracy, and -fancying himself stretched in the shadow of an ancestral beech, reading -the last number of the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, he was occupied with -contemplations of a very different kind; he was absorbed in the -struggles and sufferings of the millions whose life flowed in the same -current as his, and who, though they constantly excited his disgust, -and made him shrink and turn away, had the power to chain his sympathy, -to make it glow to a kind of ecstasy, to convince him, for the time at -least, that real success in the world would be to do something with -them and for them. All this, strange to say, was never so vivid to him -as when he was in Millicent’s company; which is a proof of his -fantastic, erratic way of seeing things. She had no such ideas about -herself; they were almost the only ideas she didn’t have. She had no -theories about redeeming or uplifting the people; she simply loathed -them, because they were so dirty, with the outspoken violence of one -who had known poverty, and the strange bedfellows it makes, in a very -different degree from Hyacinth, brought up, comparatively, with Pinnie -to put sugar in his tea, and keep him supplied with neckties, like a -little swell. - -Millicent, to hear her talk, only wanted to keep her skirts clear and -marry some respectable tea-merchant. But for our hero she was -magnificently plebeian, in the sense that implied a kind of loud -recklessness of danger and the qualities that shine forth in a row. She -summed up the sociable, humorous, ignorant chatter of the masses, their -capacity for offensive and defensive passion, their instinctive -perception of their strength on the day they should really exercise it; -and as much as any of this, their ideal of something smug and -prosperous, where washed hands, and plates in rows on dressers, and -stuffed birds under glass, and family photographs, would symbolise -success. She was none the less plucky for being at bottom a shameless -Philistine, ambitious of a front-garden with rockwork; and she -presented the plebeian character in none the less plastic a form. -Having the history of the French Revolution at his fingers’ ends, -Hyacinth could easily see her (if there should ever be barricades in -the streets of London) with a red cap of liberty on her head and her -white throat bared so that she should be able to shout the louder the -Marseillaise of that hour, whatever it might be. If the festival of the -Goddess of Reason should ever be enacted in the British metropolis (and -Hyacinth could consider such possibilities without a smile, so much was -it a part of the little religion he had to remember, always, that there -was no knowing what might happen)—if this solemnity, I say, should be -revived in Hyde Park, who was better designated than Miss Henning to -figure in a grand statuesque manner, as the heroine of the occasion? It -was plain that she had laid her inconsequent admirer under a peculiar -spell, since he could associate her with such scenes as that while she -consumed beer and buns at his expense. If she had a weakness, it was -for prawns; and she had, all winter, a plan for his taking her down to -Gravesend, where this luxury was cheap and abundant, when the fine long -days should arrive. She was never so frank and facetious as when she -dwelt on the details of a project of this kind; and then Hyacinth was -reminded afresh that it was an immense good fortune for her that she -was handsome. If she had been ugly he couldn’t have listened to her; -but her beauty glorified even her accent, interfused her cockney genius -with prismatic hues, gave her a large and constant impunity. - - - - -XI - - -She desired at last to raise their common experience to a loftier -level, to enjoy what she called a high-class treat. Their conversation -was condemned, for the most part, to go forward in the streets, the -wintry, dusky, foggy streets, which looked bigger and more numerous in -their perpetual obscurity, and in which everything was covered with -damp, gritty smut, an odour extremely agreeable to Miss Henning. -Happily she shared Hyacinth’s relish of vague perambulation, and was -still more addicted than he to looking into the windows of shops, -before which, in long, contemplative halts, she picked out freely the -articles she shouldn’t mind calling her own. Hyacinth always pronounced -the objects of her selection hideous, and made no scruple to tell her -that she had the worst taste of any girl in the place. Nothing that he -could say to her affronted her so much, as her pretensions in the way -of a cultivated judgment were boundless. Had not, indeed, her natural -aptitude been fortified, in the neighbourhood of Buckingham Palace -(there was scarcely anything they didn’t sell in the great shop of -which she was an ornament), by daily contact with the freshest products -of modern industry? Hyacinth laughed this establishment to scorn, and -told her there was nothing in it, from top to bottom, that a real -artist would look at. She inquired, with answering derision, if this -were a description of his own few inches; but in reality she was -fascinated, as much as she was provoked, by his air of being difficult -to please, of seeing indescribable differences among things. She had -given herself out, originally, as very knowing, but he could make her -feel stupid. When once in a while he pointed out a commodity that he -condescended to like (this didn’t happen often, because the only shops -in which there was a chance of his making such a discovery were closed -at nightfall) she stared, bruised him more or less with her elbow, and -declared that if any one should give her such a piece of rubbish she -would sell it for fourpence. Once or twice she asked him to be so good -as to explain to her in what its superiority consisted—she could not -rid herself of a suspicion that there might be something in his -opinion, and she was angry at not finding herself as positive as any -one. But Hyacinth replied that it was no use attempting to tell her; -she wouldn’t understand, and she had better continue to admire the -insipid productions of an age which had lost the sense of quality—a -phrase which she remembered, proposing to herself even to make use of -it, on some future occasion, but was quite unable to interpret. - -When her companion demeaned himself in this manner it was not with a -view of strengthening the tie which united him to his childhood’s -friend; but the effect followed, on Millicent’s side, and the girl was -proud to think that she was in possession of a young man whose -knowledge was of so high an order that it was inexpressible. In spite -of her vanity she was not so convinced of her perfection as not to be -full of ungratified aspirations; she had an idea that it might be to -her advantage some day to exhibit a sample of that learning; and at the -same time, when, in consideration, for instance, of a jeweller’s -gas-lighted display in Great Portland Street, Hyacinth lingered for -five minutes in perfect silence, while she delivered herself according -to her wont at such junctures, she was a thousand miles from guessing -the feelings which made it impossible for him to speak. She could long -for things she was not likely to have; envy other people for possessing -them, and say it was a regular shame (she called it a _shime_); draw -brilliant pictures of what she should do with them if she did have -them; and pass immediately, with a mind unencumbered by superfluous -inductions, to some other topic, equally intimate and personal. The -sense of privation, with her, was often extremely acute; but she could -always put her finger on the remedy. With the imaginative, -irresponsible little bookbinder the case was very different; the -remedy, with him, was terribly vague and impracticable. He was liable -to moods in which the sense of exclusion from all that he would have -liked most to enjoy in life settled upon him like a pall. They had a -bitterness, but they were not invidious—they were not moods of -vengeance, of imaginary spoliation: they were simply states of -paralysing melancholy, of infinite sad reflection, in which he felt -that in this world of effort and suffering life was endurable, the -spirit able to expand, only in the best conditions, and that a sordid -struggle, in which one should go down to the grave without having -tasted them, was not worth the misery it would cost, the dull -demoralisation it would entail. - -In such hours the great, roaring, indifferent world of London seemed to -him a huge organisation for mocking at his poverty, at his inanition; -and then its vulgarest ornaments, the windows of third-rate jewellers, -the young man in a white tie and a crush-hat who dandled by, on his way -to a dinner-party, in a hansom that nearly ran over one—these familiar -phenomena became symbolic, insolent, defiant, took upon themselves to -make him smart with the sense that _he_ was out of it. He felt, -moreover, that there was no consolation or refutation in saying to -himself that the immense majority of mankind were out of it with him, -and appeared to put up well enough with the annoyance. That was their -own affair; he knew nothing of their reasons or their resignation, and -if they chose neither to rebel nor to compare, he, at least, among the -disinherited, would keep up the standard. When these fits were upon the -young man, his brothers of the people fared, collectively, badly at his -hands; their function then was to represent in massive shape precisely -the grovelling interests which attracted one’s contempt, and the only -acknowledgment one owed them was for the completeness of the -illustration. Everything which, in a great city, could touch the -sentient faculty of a youth on whom nothing was lost ministered to his -conviction that there was no possible good fortune in life of too -‘quiet’ an order for him to appreciate—no privilege, no opportunity, no -luxury, to which he should not do justice. It was not so much that he -wished to enjoy as that he wished to know; his desire was not to be -pampered, but to be initiated. Sometimes, of a Saturday, in the long -evenings of June and July, he made his way into Hyde Park at the hour -when the throng of carriages, of riders, of brilliant pedestrians, was -thickest; and though lately, on two or three of these occasions, he had -been accompanied by Miss Henning, whose criticism of the scene was rich -and distinct, a tremendous little drama had taken place, privately, in -his soul. He wanted to drive in every carriage, to mount on every -horse, to feel on his arm the hand of every pretty woman in the place. -In the midst of this his sense was vivid that he belonged to the class -whom the upper ten thousand, as they passed, didn’t so much as rest -their eyes upon for a quarter of a second. They looked at Millicent, -who was safe to be looked at anywhere, and was one of the handsomest -girls in any company, but they only reminded him of the high human -walls, the deep gulfs of tradition, the steep embankments of privilege -and dense layers of stupidity, which fenced him off from social -recognition. - -And this was not the fruit of a morbid vanity on his part, or of a -jealousy that could not be intelligent; his personal discomfort was the -result of an exquisite admiration for what he had missed. There were -individuals whom he followed with his eyes, with his thoughts, -sometimes even with his steps; they seemed to tell him what it was to -be the flower of a high civilisation. At moments he was aghast when he -reflected that the cause he had secretly espoused, the cause from which -M. Poupin and Paul Muniment (especially the latter) had within the last -few months drawn aside the curtain, proposed to itself to bring about a -state of things in which that particular scene would be impossible. It -made him even rather faint to think that he must choose; that he -couldn’t (with any respect for his own consistency) work, underground, -for the enthronement of the democracy, and continue to enjoy, in -however platonic a manner, a spectacle which rested on a hideous social -inequality. He must either suffer with the people, as he had suffered -before, or he must apologise to others, as he sometimes came so near -doing to himself, for the rich; inasmuch as the day was certainly near -when these two mighty forces would come to a death-grapple. Hyacinth -thought himself obliged, at present, to have reasons for his feelings; -his intimacy with Paul Muniment, which had now grown very great, laid a -good deal of that sort of responsibility upon him. Muniment laughed at -his reasons, whenever he produced them, but he appeared to expect him, -nevertheless, to have them ready, on demand, and Hyacinth had an -immense desire to do what he expected. There were times when he said to -himself that it might very well be his fate to be divided, to the point -of torture, to be split open by sympathies that pulled him in different -ways; for hadn’t he an extraordinarily mingled current in his blood, -and from the time he could remember was there not one half of him that -seemed to be always playing tricks on the other, or getting snubs and -pinches from it? - -That dim, dreadful, confused legend of his mother’s history, as regards -which what Pinnie had been able to tell him when he first began to -question her was at once too much and too little—this stupefying -explanation had supplied him, first and last, with a hundred different -theories of his identity. What he knew, what he guessed, sickened him, -and what he didn’t know tormented him; but in his illuminated ignorance -he had fashioned forth an article of faith. This had gradually emerged -from the depths of darkness in which he found himself plunged as a -consequence of the challenge he had addressed to Pinnie—while he was -still only a child—on the memorable day which transformed the whole -face of his future. It was one January afternoon. He had come in from a -walk; she was seated at her lamp, as usual with her work, and she began -to tell him of a letter that one of the lodgers had got, describing the -manner in which his brother-in-law’s shop, at Nottingham, had been -rifled by burglars. He listened to her story, standing in front of her, -and then, by way of response, he said to her, “Who was that woman you -took me to see ever so long ago?” The expression of her white face, as -she looked up at him, her fear of such an attack all dormant, after so -many years—her strange, scared, sick glance was a thing he could never -forget, any more than the tone, with her breath failing her, in which -she had repeated, “That woman?” - -“That woman, in the prison, years ago—how old was I?—who was dying, and -who kissed me so—as I have never been kissed, as I never shall be -again! Who _was_ she, who WAS she?” Poor Pinnie, to do her justice, had -made, after she recovered her breath, a gallant fight: it lasted a -week; it was to leave her spent and sore for evermore, and before it -was over Anastasius Vetch had been called in. At his instance she -retracted the falsehoods with which she had tried to put him off, and -she made, at last, a confession, a report, which he had reason to -believe was as complete as her knowledge. Hyacinth could never have -told you why the crisis occurred on such a day, why his question broke -out at that particular moment. The strangeness of the matter to himself -was that the germ of his curiosity should have developed so slowly; -that the haunting wonder, which now, as he looked back, appeared to -fill his whole childhood, should only after so long an interval have -crept up to the air. It was only, of course, little by little that he -had recovered his bearings in his new and more poignant consciousness; -little by little that he reconstructed his antecedents, took the -measure, so far as was possible, of his heredity. His having the -courage to disinter, in the _Times_, in the reading-room of the British -Museum, a report of his mother’s trial for the murder of Lord Frederick -Purvis, which was very copious, the affair having been quite a _cause -célèbre;_ his resolution in sitting under that splendid dome, and, with -his head bent to hide his hot eyes, going through every syllable of the -ghastly record, had been an achievement of comparatively recent years. -There were certain things that Pinnie knew which appalled him; and -there were others, as to which he would have given his hand to have -some light, that it made his heart ache supremely to find she was -honestly ignorant of. He scarcely knew what sort of favour Mr Vetch -wished to make with him (as a compensation for the precious part he had -played in the business years before), when the fiddler permitted -himself to pass judgment on the family of the wretched young nobleman -for not having provided in some manner for the infant child of his -assassin. Why should they have provided, when it was evident that they -refused absolutely to recognise his lordship’s responsibility? Pinnie -had to admit this, under Hyacinth’s terrible cross-questioning; she -could not pretend, with any show of evidence, that Lord Whiteroy and -the other brothers (there had been no less than seven, most of them -still living) had, at the time of the trial, given any symptom of -believing Florentine Vivier’s asseverations. That was their affair; he -had long since made up his mind that his own was very different. One -couldn’t believe at will, and fortunately, in the case, he had no -effort to make; for from the moment he began to consider the -established facts (few as they were, and poor and hideous) he regarded -himself, irresistibly, as the son of the recreant, sacrificial Lord -Frederick. - -He had no need to reason about it; all his nerves and pulses pleaded -and testified. His mother had been a daughter of the wild French people -(all that Pinnie could tell him of her parentage was that Florentine -had once mentioned that in her extreme childhood her father had fallen, -in the blood-stained streets of Paris, on a barricade, with his gun in -his hand); but on the other side it took an English aristocrat—though a -poor specimen, apparently, had to suffice—to account for him. This, -with its further implications, became Hyacinth’s article of faith; the -reflection that he was a bastard involved in a remarkable manner the -reflection that he was a gentleman. He was conscious that he didn’t -hate the image of his father, as he might have been expected to do; and -he supposed this was because Lord Frederick had paid so tremendous a -penalty. It was in the exaction of that penalty that the moral proof, -for Hyacinth, resided; his mother would not have armed herself on -account of any injury less cruel than the episode of which her -miserable baby was the living sign. She had avenged herself because she -had been thrown over, and the bitterness of that wrong had been in the -fact that he, Hyacinth, lay there in her lap. _He_ was the one to have -been killed: that remark our young man often made to himself. That his -attitude on this whole subject was of a tolerably exalted, transcendent -character, and took little account of any refutation that might be -based on a vulgar glance at three or four obtrusive items, is proved by -the importance that he attached, for instance, to the name by which his -mother had told poor Pinnie (when this excellent creature consented to -take him) that she wished him to be called. Hyacinth had been the name -of her father, a republican clockmaker, the martyr of his opinions, -whose memory she professed to worship; and when Lord Frederick -insinuated himself into her confidence he had reasons for preferring to -be known as plain Mr Robinson—reasons, however, which, in spite of the -light thrown upon them at the trial, it was difficult, after so many -years, to enter into. - -Hyacinth never knew that Mr Vetch had said more than once to Pinnie, -“If her contention as regards that dissolute young swell was true, why -didn’t she make the child bear his real name, instead of his false -one?”—an inquiry which the dressmaker answered with some ingenuity, by -remarking that she couldn’t call him after a man she had murdered, and -that she supposed the unhappy girl didn’t wish to publish to every one -the boy’s connection with a crime that had been so much talked about. -If Hyacinth had assisted at this little discussion it is needless to -say that he would have sided with Miss Pynsent; though that his -judgment was independently formed is proved by the fact that Pinnie’s -fearfully indiscreet attempts at condolence should not have made him -throw up his version in disgust. It was after the complete revelation -that he understood the romantic innuendoes with which his childhood had -been surrounded, and of which he had never caught the meaning; they -having seemed but part and parcel of the habitual and promiscuous -divagations of his too constructive companion. When it came over him -that, for years, she had made a fool of him, to himself and to others, -he could have beaten her, for grief and shame; and yet, before he -administered this rebuke he had to remember that she only chattered -(though she professed to have been extraordinarily dumb) about a matter -which he spent nine-tenths of his time in brooding over. When she tried -to console him for the horror of his mother’s history by descanting on -the glory of the Purvises, and reminding him that he was related, -through them, to half the aristocracy of England, he felt that she was -turning the tragedy of his life into a monstrous farce; and yet he none -the less continued to cherish the belief that he was a gentleman born. -He allowed her to tell him nothing about the family in question, and -his stoicism on this subject was one of the reasons of the deep -dejection of her later years. If he had only let her idealise him a -little to himself she would have felt that she was making up, by so -much, for her grand mistake. He sometimes saw the name of his father’s -relations in the newspaper, but he always turned away his eyes from it. -He had nothing to ask of them, and he wished to prove to himself that -he could ignore them (who had been willing to let him die like a rat) -as completely as they ignored him. Decidedly, he cried to himself at -times, he was with the people, and every possible vengeance of the -people, as against such shameless egoism as that; but all the same he -was happy to feel that he had blood in his veins which would account -for the finest sensibilities. - -He had no money to pay for places at a theatre in the Strand; Millicent -Henning having made it clear to him that on this occasion she expected -something better than the pit. “Should you like the royal box, or a -couple of stalls at ten shillings apiece?” he asked of her, with a -frankness of irony which, with this young lady, fortunately, it was -perfectly possible to practise. She had answered that she would content -herself with a seat in the second balcony, in the very front; and as -such a position involved an expenditure which he was still unable to -meet, he waited one night upon Mr Vetch, to whom he had already, more -than once, had recourse in moments of pecuniary embarrassment. His -relations with the caustic fiddler were peculiar; they were much better -in fact than they were in theory. Mr Vetch had let him know—long before -this, and with the purpose of covering Pinnie to the utmost—the part he -had played when the question of the child’s being taken to Mrs -Bowerbank’s institution was so distressingly presented; and Hyacinth, -in the face of this information, had inquired, with some sublimity, -what the devil the fiddler had to do with his private affairs. -Anastasius Vetch had replied that it was not as an affair of his, but -as an affair of Pinnie’s, that he had considered the matter; and -Hyacinth afterwards had let the question drop, though he had never been -formally reconciled to his officious neighbour. Of course his feeling -about him had been immensely modified by the trouble Mr Vetch had taken -to get him a place with old Crookenden; and at the period of which I -write it had long been familiar to him that the fiddler didn’t care a -straw what he thought of his advice at the famous crisis, and -entertained himself with watching the career of a youth put together of -such queer pieces. It was impossible to Hyacinth not to perceive that -the old man’s interest was kindly; and to-day, at any rate, our hero -would have declared that nothing could have made up to him for not -knowing the truth, horrible as the truth might be. His miserable -mother’s embrace seemed to furnish him with an inexhaustible fund of -motive, and under the circumstances that was a benefit. What he chiefly -objected to in Mr Vetch was a certain air of still regarding him as -extremely juvenile; he would have got on with him much better if the -fiddler had consented to recognise the degree in which he was already a -man of the world. Vetch knew an immense deal about society, and he -seemed to know the more because he never swaggered—it was only little -by little you discovered it; but that was no reason for his looking as -if his chief entertainment resided in a private, diverting commentary -on the conversation of his young friend. Hyacinth felt that he himself -gave considerable evidence of liking his fellow-resident in Lomax Place -when he asked him to lend him half-a-crown. Somehow, circumstances, of -old, had tied them together, and though this partly vexed the little -bookbinder it also touched him; he had more than once solved the -problem of deciding how to behave (when the fiddler exasperated him) by -simply asking him some service. The old man had never refused. It was -satisfactory to Hyacinth to remember this, as he knocked at his door, -very late, after he had allowed him time to come home from the theatre. -He knew his habits: Mr Vetch never went straight to bed, but sat by his -fire an hour, smoking his pipe, mixing a grog, and reading some old -book. Hyacinth knew when to go up by the light in his window, which he -could see from a court behind. - -“Oh, I know I haven’t been to see you for a long time,” he said, in -response to the remark with which the fiddler greeted him; “and I may -as well tell you immediately what has brought me at present—in addition -to the desire to ask after your health. I want to take a young lady to -the theatre.” - -Mr Vetch was habited in a tattered dressing-gown; his apartment smelt -strongly of the liquor he was consuming. Divested of his evening-gear -he looked to our hero so plucked and blighted that on the spot Hyacinth -ceased to hesitate as to his claims in the event of a social -liquidation; he, too, was unmistakably a creditor. “I’m afraid you find -your young lady rather expensive.” - -“I find everything expensive,” said Hyacinth, as if to finish that -subject. - -“Especially, I suppose, your secret societies.” - -“What do you mean by that?” the young man asked, staring. - -“Why, you told me, in the autumn, that you were just about to join a -few.” - -“A few? How many do you suppose?” And Hyacinth checked himself. “Do you -suppose if I had been serious I would tell?” - -“Oh dear, oh dear,” Mr Vetch murmured, with a sigh. Then he went on: -“You want to take her to my shop, eh?” - -“I’m sorry to say she won’t go there. She wants something in the -Strand: that’s a great point. She wants very much to see the _Pearl of -Paraguay_. I don’t wish to pay anything, if possible; I am sorry to say -I haven’t a penny. But as you know people at the other theatres, and I -have heard you say that you do each other little favours, from place to -place—_à charge de revanche_, as the French say—it occurred to me that -you might be able to get me an order. The piece has been running a long -time, and most people (except poor devils like me) must have seen it: -therefore there probably isn’t a rush.” - -Mr Vetch listened in silence, and presently he said, “Do you want a -box?” - -“Oh no; something more modest.” - -“Why not a box?” asked the fiddler, in a tone which Hyacinth knew. - -“Because I haven’t got the clothes that people wear in that sort of -place, if you must have such a definite reason.” - -“And your young lady—has she got the clothes?” - -“Oh, I dare say; she seems to have everything.” - -“Where does she get them?” - -“Oh, I don’t know. She belongs to a big shop; she has to be fine.” - -“Won’t you have a pipe?” Mr Vetch asked, pushing an old tobacco-pouch -across the table to his visitor; and while the young man helped himself -he puffed a while in silence. “What will she do with you?” he inquired -at last. - -“What will who do with me?” - -“Your big beauty—Miss Henning. I know all about her from Pinnie.” - -“Then you know what she’ll do with me!” Hyacinth returned, with rather -a scornful laugh. - -“Yes, but, after all, it doesn’t very much matter.” - -“I don’t know what you are talking about,” said Hyacinth. - -“Well, now the other matter—the International—are you very deep in -that?” the fiddler went on, as if he had not heard him. - -“Did Pinnie tell you all about that?” his visitor asked. - -“No, our friend Eustace has told me a good deal. He knows you have put -your head into something. Besides, I see it,” said Mr Vetch. - -“How do you see it, pray?” - -“You have got such a speaking eye. Any one can tell, to look at you, -that you have become a nihilist, that you’re a member of a secret -society. You seem to say to every one, ‘Slow torture won’t induce me to -tell where it meets!’” - -“You won’t get me an order, then?” Hyacinth said, in a moment. - -“My dear boy, I offer you a box. I take the greatest interest in you.” - -They smoked together a while, and at last Hyacinth remarked, “It has -nothing to do with the International.” - -“Is it more terrible—more deadly secret?” his companion inquired, -looking at him with extreme seriousness. - -“I thought you pretended to be a radical,” answered Hyacinth. - -“Well, so I am—of the old-fashioned, constitutional, milk-and-water, -jog-trot sort. I’m not an exterminator.” - -“We don’t know what we may be when the time comes,” Hyacinth rejoined, -more sententiously than he intended. - -“Is the time coming, then, my dear boy?” - -“I don’t think I have a right to give you any more of a warning than -that,” said our hero, smiling. - -“It’s very kind of you to do so much, I’m sure, and to rush in here at -the small hours for the purpose. Meanwhile, in the few weeks, or -months, or years, or whatever they are, that are left, you wish to put -in as much enjoyment as you can squeeze, with the young ladies: that’s -a very natural inclination.” Then, irrelevantly, Mr Vetch inquired, “Do -you see many foreigners?” - -“Yes, I see a good many.” - -“And what do you think of them?” - -“Oh, all sorts of things. I rather like Englishmen better.” - -“Mr Muniment, for example?” - -“I say, what do you know about him?” Hyacinth asked. - -“I’ve seen him at Eustace’s. I know that you and he are as thick as -thieves.” - -“He will distinguish himself some day, very much,” said Hyacinth, who -was perfectly willing, and indeed very proud, to be thought a close -ally of the chemist’s assistant. - -“Very likely—very likely. And what will _he_ do with you?” the fiddler -inquired. - -Hyacinth got up; the two men looked at each other for an instant. “Do -get me two good places in the second balcony,” said Hyacinth. - -Mr Vetch replied that he would do what he could, and three days -afterwards he gave the coveted order to his young friend. As he placed -it in his hands he said, “You had better put in all the fun you can, -you know!” - - - - -BOOK SECOND - - - - -XII - - -Hyacinth and his companion took their seats with extreme promptitude -before the curtain rose upon the _Pearl of Paraguay_. Thanks to -Millicent’s eagerness not to be late they encountered the discomfort -which had constituted her main objection to going into the pit: they -waited for twenty minutes at the door of the theatre, in a tight, -stolid crowd, before the official hour of opening. Millicent, -bareheaded and very tightly laced, presented a most splendid appearance -and, on Hyacinth’s part, gratified a certain youthful, ingenuous pride -of possession in every respect save a tendency, while ingress was -denied them, to make her neighbours feel her elbows and to comment, -loudly and sarcastically, on the situation. It was more clear to him -even than it had been before that she was a young lady who in public -places might easily need a champion or an apologist. Hyacinth knew -there was only one way to apologise for a ‘female’, when the female was -attached very closely and heavily to one’s arm, and was reminded afresh -how little constitutional aversion Miss Henning had to a row. He had an -idea she might think his own taste ran even too little in that -direction, and had visions of violent, confused scenes, in which he -should in some way distinguish himself: he scarcely knew in what way, -and imagined himself more easily routing some hulking adversary by an -exquisite application of the retort courteous than by flying at him -with a pair of very small fists. - -By the time they had reached their places in the balcony Millicent was -rather flushed and a good deal ruffled; but she had composed herself in -season for the rising of the curtain upon the farce which preceded the -melodrama and which the pair had had no intention of losing. At this -stage a more genial agitation took possession of her, and she -surrendered her sympathies to the horse-play of the traditional -prelude. Hyacinth found it less amusing, but the theatre, in any -conditions, was full of sweet deception for him. His imagination -projected itself lovingly across the footlights, gilded and coloured -the shabby canvas and battered accessories, and lost itself so -effectually in the fictive world that the end of the piece, however -long, or however short, brought with it a kind of alarm, like a -stoppage of his personal life. It was impossible to be more friendly to -the dramatic illusion. Millicent, as the audience thickened, rejoiced -more largely and loudly, held herself as a lady, surveyed the place as -if she knew all about it, leaned back and leaned forward, fanned -herself with majesty, gave her opinion upon the appearance and coiffure -of every woman within sight, abounded in question and conjecture, and -produced, from her pocket, a little paper of peppermint-drops, of -which, under cruel threats, she compelled Hyacinth to partake. She -followed with attention, though not always with success, the -complicated adventures of the Pearl of Paraguay, through scenes -luxuriantly tropical, in which the male characters wore sombreros and -stilettos, and the ladies either danced the cachucha or fled from -licentious pursuit; but her eyes wandered, during considerable periods, -to the occupants of the boxes and stalls, concerning several of whom -she had theories which she imparted to Hyacinth while the play went on, -greatly to his discomfiture, he being unable to conceive of such -levity. She had the pretension of knowing who every one was; not -individually and by name, but as regards their exact social station, -the quarter of London in which they lived, and the amount of money they -were prepared to spend in the neighbourhood of Buckingham Palace. She -had seen the whole town pass through her establishment there, and -though Hyacinth, from his infancy, had been watching it from his own -point of view, his companion made him feel that he had missed a -thousand characteristic points, so different were most of her -interpretations from his, and so very bold and irreverent. Miss -Henning’s observation of human society had not been of a nature to -impress her with its high moral tone, and she had a free off-hand -cynicism which imposed itself. She thought most ladies were hypocrites, -and had, in all ways, a low opinion of her own sex, which, more then -once, before this, she had justified to Hyacinth by narrating -observations of the most surprising kind, gathered during her career as -a shop-girl. There was a pleasing inconsequence, therefore, in her -being moved to tears in the third act of the play, when the Pearl of -Paraguay, dishevelled and distracted, dragging herself on her knees, -implored the stern hidalgo her father, to believe in her innocence in -spite of the circumstances which seemed to condemn her—a midnight -meeting with the wicked hero in the grove of cocoanuts. It was at this -crisis, none the less, that she asked Hyacinth who his friends were in -the principal box on the left of the stage, and let him know that a -gentleman seated there had been watching him, at intervals, for the -past half-hour. - -“Watching _me!_ I like that!” said the young man. “When I want to be -watched I take you with me.” - -“Of course he has looked at me,” Millicent answered, as if she had no -interest in denying that. “But you’re the one he wants to get hold of.” - -“To get hold of!” - -“Yes, you ninny: don’t hang back. He may make your fortune.” - -“Well, if you would like him to come and sit by you I’ll go and take a -walk in the Strand,” said Hyacinth, entering into the humour of the -occasion but not seeing, from where he was placed, any gentleman in the -box. Millicent explained that the mysterious observer had just altered -his position; he had gone into the back of the box, which had -considerable depth. There were other persons in it, out of sight; she -and Hyacinth were too much on the same side. One of them was a lady, -concealed by the curtain; her arm, bare save for its bracelets, was -visible at moments on the cushioned ledge. Hyacinth saw it, in effect, -reappear there, and even while the play went on contemplated it with a -certain interest; but until the curtain fell at the end of the act -there was no further symptom that a gentleman wished to get hold of -him. - -“Now do you say it’s me he’s after?” Millicent asked abruptly, giving -him a sidelong dig, as the fiddlers in the orchestra began to scrape -their instruments for the interlude. - -“Of course; I am only the pretext,” Hyacinth replied, after he had -looked a moment, in a manner which he flattered himself was a proof of -quick self-possession. The gentleman designated by his companion was -once more at the front, leaning forward, with his arms on the edge. -Hyacinth saw that he was looking straight at him, and our young man -returned his gaze—an effort not rendered the more easy by the fact -that, after an instant, he recognised him. - -“Well, if he knows us he might give some sign, and if he doesn’t he -might leave us alone,” Millicent declared, abandoning the distinction -she had made between herself and her companion. She had no sooner -spoken than the gentleman complied with the first mentioned of these -conditions; he smiled at Hyacinth across the house—he nodded to him -with unmistakable friendliness. Millicent, perceiving this, glanced at -the young man from Lomax Place and saw that the demonstration had -brought a deep colour to his cheek. He was blushing, flushing; whether -with pleasure or embarrassment was not immediately apparent to her. “I -say, I say—is it one of your grand relations?” she promptly exclaimed. -“Well, I can stare as well as him;” and she told Hyacinth it was a -‘shime’ to bring a young lady to the play when you hadn’t so much as an -opera-glass for her to look at the company. “Is he one of those lords -your aunt was always talking about in the Plice? Is he your uncle, or -your grandfather, or your first or second cousin? No, he’s too young -for your grandfather. What a pity I can’t see if he looks like you!” - -At any other time Hyacinth would have thought these inquiries in the -worst possible taste, but now he was too much given up to other -reflections. It pleased him that the gentleman in the box should -recognise and notice him, because even so small a fact as this was an -extension of his social existence; but it also surprised and puzzled -him, and it produced, generally, in his easily-excited organism, an -agitation of which, in spite of his attempted self-control, the -appearance he presented to Millicent was the sign. They had met three -times, he and his fellow-spectator; but they had met under -circumstances which, to Hyacinth’s mind, would have made a furtive -wink, a mere tremor of the eyelid, a more judicious reference to the -fact than so public a salutation. Hyacinth would never have permitted -himself to greet him first; and this was not because the gentleman in -the box belonged—conspicuously as he did so—to a different walk of -society. He was apparently a man of forty, tall and lean and -loose-jointed; he fell into lounging, dawdling attitudes, and even at a -distance he looked lazy. He had a long, smooth, amused, contented face, -unadorned with moustache or whisker, and his brown hair parted itself -evenly over his forehead, and came forward on either temple in a rich, -well-brushed lock which gave his countenance a certain analogy to -portraits of English gentlemen about the year 1820. Millicent Henning -had a glance of such range and keenness that she was able to make out -the details of his evening-dress, of which she appreciated the ‘form’; -to observe the character of his large hands; and to note that he -appeared to be perpetually smiling, that his eyes were extraordinarily -light in colour, and that in spite of the dark, well-marked brows -arching over them, his fine skin never had produced, and never would -produce, a beard. Our young lady pronounced him mentally a ‘swell’ of -the first magnitude, and wondered more than ever where he had picked up -Hyacinth. Her companion seemed to echo her thought when he exclaimed, -with a little surprised sigh, almost an exhalation of awe, “Well, I had -no idea he was one of that lot!” - -“You might at least tell me his name, so that I shall know what to call -him when he comes round to speak to us,” the girl said, provoked at her -companion’s incommunicativeness. - -“Comes round to speak to us—a chap like that!” Hyacinth exclaimed. - -“Well, I’m sure if he had been your own brother he couldn’t have -grinned at you more! He may want to make my acquaintance after all; he -won’t be the first.” - -The gentleman had once more retreated from sight, and there was as much -evidence as that of the intention Millicent attributed to him. “I don’t -think I’m at all clear that I have a right to tell his name,” he -remarked, with sincerity, but with a considerable disposition at the -same time to magnify an incident which deepened the brilliancy of the -entertainment he had been able to offer Miss Henning. “I met him in a -place where he may not like to have it known that he goes.” - -“Do you go to places that people are ashamed of? Is it one of your -political clubs, as you call them, where that dirty young man from -Camberwell, Mr Monument (what do you call him?), fills your head with -ideas that’ll bring you to no good? I’m sure your friend over there -doesn’t look as if he’d be on _your_ side.” - -Hyacinth had indulged in this reflection himself; but the only answer -he made to Millicent was, “Well, then, perhaps he’ll be on yours!” - -“Laws, I hope _she_ ain’t one of the aristocracy!” Millicent exclaimed, -with apparent irrelevance; and following the direction of her eyes -Hyacinth saw that the chair his mysterious acquaintance had quitted in -the stage-box was now occupied by a lady hitherto invisible—not the one -who had given them a glimpse of her shoulder and bare arm. This was an -ancient personage, muffled in a voluminous, crumpled white shawl—a -stout, odd, foreign-looking woman, whose head apparently was surmounted -with a light-coloured wig. She had a placid, patient air and a round, -wrinkled face, in which, however, a small, bright eye moved quickly -enough. Her rather soiled white gloves were too large for her, and -round her head, horizontally arranged, as if to keep her wig in its -place, she wore a narrow band of tinsel, decorated, in the middle of -the forehead, by a jewel which the rest of her appearance would lead -the spectator to suppose false. “Is the old woman his mother? Where did -she dig up her clothes? They look as if she had hired them for the -evening. Does _she_ come to your wonderful club, too? I dare say she -cuts it fine, don’t she?” Millicent went on; and when Hyacinth -suggested, sportively, that the old lady might be, not the gentleman’s -mother, but his wife or his ‘fancy’, she declared that in that case, if -he should come to see them, she wasn’t afraid. No wonder he wanted to -get out of _that_ box! The woman in the wig was sitting there on -purpose to look at them, but she couldn’t say she was particularly -honoured by the notice of such an old guy. Hyacinth pretended that he -liked her appearance and thought her very handsome; he offered to bet -another paper of peppermints that if they could find out she would be -some tremendous old dowager, some one with a handle to her name. To -this Millicent replied, with an air of experience, that she had never -thought the greatest beauty was in the upper class; and her companion -could see that she was covertly looking over her shoulder to watch for -his political friend and that she would be disappointed if he did not -come. This idea did not make Hyacinth jealous, for his mind was -occupied with another side of the business; and if he offered sportive -suggestions it was because he was really excited, dazzled, by an -incident of which the reader will have failed as yet to perceive the -larger relations. What moved him was not the pleasure of being -patronised by a rich man; it was simply the prospect of new -experience—a sensation for which he was always ready to exchange any -present boon; and he was convinced that if the gentleman with whom he -had conversed in a small occult back-room in Bloomsbury as Captain -Godfrey Sholto—the Captain had given him his card—had more positively -than in Millicent’s imagination come out of the stage-box to see him, -he would bring with him rare influences. This nervous presentiment, -lighting on our young man, was so keen that it constituted almost a -preparation; therefore, when at the end of a few minutes he became -aware that Millicent, with her head turned (her face was in his -direction), was taking the measure of some one who had come in behind -them, he felt that fate was doing for him, by way of a change, as much -as could be expected. He got up in his place, but not too soon to see -that Captain Sholto had been standing there a moment in contemplation -of Millicent, and that this young lady had performed with deliberation -the ceremony of taking his measure. The Captain had his hands in his -pockets, and wore a crush-hat, pushed a good deal backward. He laughed -at the young couple in the balcony in the friendliest way, as if he had -known them both for years, and Millicent could see, on a nearer view, -that he was a fine, distinguished, easy, genial gentleman, at least six -feet high, in spite of a habit, or an affectation, of carrying himself -in a casual, relaxed, familiar manner. Hyacinth felt a little, after -the first moment, as if he were treating them rather too much as a pair -of children whom he had stolen upon, to startle; but this impression -was speedily removed by the air with which he said, laying his hand on -our hero’s shoulder as he stood in the little passage at the end of the -bench where the holders of Mr Vetch’s order occupied the first seats, -“My dear fellow, I really thought I must come round and speak to you. -My spirits are all gone with this brute of a play. And those boxes are -fearfully stuffy, you know,” he added, as if Hyacinth had had at least -an equal experience of that part of the theatre. - -“It’s hot here, too,” Millicent’s companion murmured. He had suddenly -become much more conscious of the high temperature, of his proximity to -the fierce chandelier, and he added that the plot of the play certainly -was unnatural, though he thought the piece rather well acted. - -“Oh, it’s the good old stodgy British tradition. This is the only place -where you find it still, and even here it can’t last much longer; it -can’t survive old Baskerville and Mrs Ruffler. ’Gad, how old they are! -I remember her, long past her prime, when I used to be taken to the -play, as a boy, in the Christmas holidays. Between them, they must be -something like a hundred and eighty, eh? I believe one is supposed to -cry a good deal about the middle,” Captain Sholto continued, in the -same friendly, familiar, encouraging way, addressing himself to -Millicent, upon whom, indeed, his eyes had rested almost -uninterruptedly from the first. She sustained his glance with -composure, but with just enough of an expression of reserve to intimate -(what was perfectly true) that she was not in the habit of conversing -with gentlemen with whom she was not acquainted. She turned away her -face at this (she had already given the visitor the benefit of a good -deal of it) and left him, as in the little passage he leaned against -the parapet of the balcony with his back to the stage, confronted with -Hyacinth, who was now wondering, with rather more vivid a sense of the -relations of things, what he had come for. He wanted to do him honour, -in return for his civility, but he did not know what one could talk -about, at such short notice, to a person whom he immediately perceived -to be, in a most extensive, a really transcendent sense of the term, a -man of the world. He instantly saw Captain Sholto did not take the play -seriously, so that he felt himself warned off that topic, on which, -otherwise, he might have had much to say. On the other hand he could -not, in the presence of a third person, allude to the matters they had -discussed at the ‘Sun and Moon’; nor could he suppose his visitor would -expect this, though indeed he impressed him as a man of humours and -whims, who was amusing himself with everything, including esoteric -socialism and a little bookbinder who had so much more of the gentleman -about him than one would expect. Captain Sholto may have been a little -embarrassed, now that he was completely launched in his attempt at -fraternisation, especially after failing to elicit a smile from -Millicent’s respectability; but he left to Hyacinth the burden of no -initiative, and went on to say that it was just this prospect of the -dying-out of the old British tradition that had brought him to-night. -He was with a friend, a lady who had lived much abroad, who had never -seen anything of the kind, and who liked everything that was -characteristic. “You know the foreign school of acting is a very -different affair,” he said, again to Millicent, who this time replied, -“Oh yes, of course,” and considering afresh the old lady in the box, -reflected that she looked as if there were nothing in the world that -she, at least, hadn’t seen. - -“We have never been abroad,” said Hyacinth, candidly, looking into his -friend’s curious light-coloured eyes, the palest in tint he had ever -encountered. - -“Oh, well, there’s a lot of nonsense talked about that!” Captain Sholto -replied; while Hyacinth remained uncertain as to exactly what he -referred to, and Millicent decided to volunteer a remark. - -“They are making a tremendous row on the stage. I should think it would -be very bad in those boxes.” There was a banging and thumping behind -the curtain, the sound of heavy scenery pushed about. - -“Oh yes; it’s much better here, every way. I think you have the best -seats in the house,” said Captain Sholto. “I should like very much to -finish my evening beside you. The trouble is I have ladies—a pair of -them,” he went on, as if he were seriously considering this -possibility. Then, laying his hand again on Hyacinth’s shoulder, he -smiled at him a moment and indulged in a still greater burst of -frankness: “My dear fellow, that is just what, as a partial reason, has -brought me up here to see you. One of my ladies has a great desire to -make your acquaintance!” - -“To make my acquaintance?” Hyacinth felt himself turning pale; the -first impulse he could have, in connection with such an announcement as -that—and it lay far down, in the depths of the unspeakable—was a -conjecture that it had something to do with his parentage on his -father’s side. Captain Sholto’s smooth, bright face, irradiating such -unexpected advances, seemed for an instant to swim before him. The -Captain went on to say that he had told the lady of the talks they had -had, that she was immensely interested in such matters—“You know what I -mean, she really is”—and that as a consequence of what he had said she -had begged him to come and ask his—a—his young friend (Hyacinth saw in -a moment that the Captain had forgotten his name) to descend into her -box for a little while. - -“She has a tremendous desire to talk with some one who looks at the -whole business from your standpoint, don’t you see? And in her position -she scarcely ever has a chance, she doesn’t come across them—to her -great annoyance. So when I spotted you to-night she immediately said -that I must introduce you at any cost. I hope you don’t mind, for a -quarter of an hour. I ought perhaps to tell you that she is a person -who is used to having nothing refused her. ‘Go up and bring him down,’ -you know, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. She is really -very much in earnest: I don’t mean about wishing to see you—that goes -without saying—but about the whole matter that you and I care for. Then -I should add—it doesn’t spoil anything—that she is the most charming -woman in the world, simply! Honestly, my dear boy, she is perhaps the -most remarkable woman in Europe.” - -So Captain Sholto delivered himself, with the highest naturalness and -plausibility, and Hyacinth, listening, felt that he himself ought -perhaps to resent the idea of being served up for the entertainment of -imperious triflers, but that somehow he didn’t, and that it was more -worthy of the part he aspired to play in life to meet such occasions -calmly and urbanely than to take the trouble of dodging and going -roundabout. Of course the lady in the box couldn’t be sincere; she -might think she was, though even that was questionable; but you -couldn’t really care for the cause that was exemplified in the little -back-room in Bloomsbury if you came to the theatre in that style. It -was Captain Sholto’s style as well, but it had been by no means clear -to Hyacinth hitherto that _he_ really cared. All the same, this was no -time for going into the question of the lady’s sincerity, and at the -end of sixty seconds our young man had made up his mind that he could -afford to humour her. None the less, I must add, the whole proposal -continued to make things dance, to appear fictive, delusive; so that it -sounded, in comparison, like a note of reality when Millicent, who had -been looking from one of the men to the other, exclaimed— - -“That’s all very well, but who is to look after me?” Her assumption of -the majestic had broken down, and this was the cry of nature. - -Nothing could have been pleasanter and more indulgent of her alarm than -the manner in which Captain Sholto reassured her: “My dear young lady, -can you suppose I have been unmindful of that? I have been hoping that -after I have taken down our friend and introduced him you would allow -me to come back and, in his absence, occupy his seat.” - -Hyacinth was preoccupied with the idea of meeting the most remarkable -woman in Europe; but at this juncture he looked at Millicent Henning -with some curiosity. She rose to the situation, and replied, “I am much -obliged to you, but I don’t know who you are.” - -“Oh, I’ll tell you all about that!” the Captain exclaimed, -benevolently. - -“Of course I should introduce you,” said Hyacinth, and he mentioned to -Miss Henning the name of his distinguished acquaintance. - -“In the army?” the young lady inquired, as if she must have every -guarantee of social position. - -“Yes—not in the navy! I have left the army, but it always sticks to -one.” - -“Mr Robinson, is it your intention to leave me?” Millicent asked, in a -tone of the highest propriety. - -Hyacinth’s imagination had taken such a flight that the idea of what he -owed to the beautiful girl who had placed herself under his care for -the evening had somehow effaced itself. Her words put it before him in -a manner that threw him quickly and consciously back upon his honour; -yet there was something in the way she uttered them that made him look -at her harder still before he replied, “Oh dear, no, of course it would -never do. I must defer to some other occasion the honour of making the -acquaintance of your friend,” he added, to Captain Sholto. - -“Ah, my dear fellow, we might manage it so easily now,” this gentleman -murmured, with evident disappointment. “It is not as if -Miss—a—Miss—a—were to be alone.” - -It flashed upon Hyacinth that the root of the project might be a desire -of Captain Sholto to insinuate himself into Millicent’s graces; then he -asked himself why the most remarkable woman in Europe should lend -herself to that design, consenting even to receive a visit from a -little bookbinder for the sake of furthering it. Perhaps, after all, -she was not the most remarkable; still, even at a lower estimate, of -what advantage could such a complication be to her? To Hyacinth’s -surprise, Millicent’s eye made acknowledgment of his implied -renunciation; and she said to Captain Sholto, as if she were -considering the matter very impartially, “Might one know the name of -the lady who sent you?” - -“The Princess Casamassima.” - -“Laws!” cried Millicent Henning. And then, quickly, as if to cover up -the crudity of this ejaculation, “And might one also know what it is, -as you say, that she wants to talk to him about?” - -“About the lower orders, the rising democracy, the spread of nihilism, -and all that.” - -“The lower orders? Does she think we belong to them?” the girl -demanded, with a strange, provoking laugh. - -Captain Sholto was certainly the readiest of men. “If she could see -you, she would think you one of the first ladies in the land.” - -“She’ll never see me!” Millicent replied, in a manner which made it -plain that she, at least, was not to be whistled for. - -Being whistled for by a princess presented itself to Hyacinth as an -indignity endured gracefully enough by the heroes of several French -novels in which he had found a thrilling interest; nevertheless, he -said, incorruptibly, to the Captain, who hovered there like a -Mephistopheles converted to disinterested charity, “Having been in the -army, you will know that one can’t desert one’s post.” - -The Captain, for the third time, laid his hand on his young friend’s -shoulder, and for a minute his smile rested, in silence, on Millicent -Henning. “If I tell you simply I want to talk with this young lady, -that certainly won’t help me, particularly, and there is no reason why -it should. Therefore I’ll tell you the whole truth: I want to talk with -her about _you!_” And he patted Hyacinth in a way which conveyed at -once that this idea must surely commend him to the young man’s -companion and that he himself liked him infinitely. - -Hyacinth was conscious of the endearment, but he remarked to Millicent -that he would do just as she liked; he was determined not to let a -member of the bloated upper class suppose that he held any daughter of -the people cheap. - -“Oh, I don’t care if you go,” said Miss Henning. “You had better -hurry—the curtain’s going to rise.” - -“That’s charming of you! I’ll rejoin you in three minutes!” Captain -Sholto exclaimed. - -He passed his hand into Hyacinth’s arm, and as our hero lingered still, -a little uneasy and questioning Millicent always with his eyes, the -girl went on, with her bright boldness, “That kind of princess—I should -like to hear all about her.” - -“Oh, I’ll tell you that, too,” the Captain rejoined, with his -imperturbable pleasantness, as he led his young friend away. It must be -confessed that Hyacinth also rather wondered what kind of princess she -was, and his suspense on this point made his heart beat fast when, -after traversing steep staircases and winding corridors, they reached -the small door of the stage-box. - - - - -XIII - - -Hyacinth’s first consciousness, after his companion had opened it, was -of his nearness to the stage, on which the curtain had now risen again. -The play was in progress, the actors’ voices came straight into the -box, and it was impossible to speak without disturbing them. This at -least was his inference from the noiseless way his conductor drew him -in, and, without announcing or introducing him, simply pointed to a -chair and whispered, “Just drop into that; you’ll see and hear -beautifully.” He heard the door close behind him, and became aware that -Captain Sholto had already retreated. Millicent, at any rate, would not -be left to languish in solitude very long. Two ladies were seated in -the front of the box, which was so large that there was a considerable -space between them; and as he stood there, where Captain Sholto had -planted him—they appeared not to have noticed the opening of the -door—they turned their heads and looked at him. The one on whom his -eyes first rested was the old lady whom he had already contemplated at -a distance; she looked queerer still on a closer view, and gave him a -little friendly, jolly nod. Her companion was partly overshadowed by -the curtain of the box, which she had drawn forward with the intention -of shielding herself from the observation of the house; she had still -the air of youth, and the simplest way to express the instant effect -upon Hyacinth of her fair face of welcome is to say that she was -dazzling. He remained as Sholto had left him, staring rather confusedly -and not moving an inch; whereupon the younger lady put out her hand—it -was her left, the other rested on the ledge of the box—with the -expectation, as he perceived, to his extreme mortification, too late, -that he would give her his own. She converted the gesture into a sign -of invitation, and beckoned him, silently but graciously, to move his -chair forward. He did so, and seated himself between the two ladies; -then, for ten minutes, stared straight before him, at the stage, not -turning his eyes sufficiently even to glance up at Millicent in the -balcony. He looked at the play, but he was far from seeing it; he had -no sense of anything but the woman who sat there, close to him, on his -right, with a fragrance in her garments and a light about her which he -seemed to see even while his head was averted. The vision had been only -of a moment, but it hung before him, threw a vague white mist over the -proceedings on the stage. He was embarrassed, overturned, bewildered, -and he knew it; he made a great effort to collect himself, to consider -the situation lucidly. He wondered whether he ought to speak, to look -at her again, to behave differently, in some way; whether she would -take him for a clown, for an idiot; whether she were really as -beautiful as she had seemed or if it were only a superficial glamour, -which a renewed inspection would dissipate. While he asked himself -these questions the minutes went on, and neither of his hostesses -spoke; they watched the play in perfect stillness, so that Hyacinth -divined that this was the proper thing and that he himself must remain -dumb until a word should be bestowed upon him. Little by little he -recovered himself, took possession of his predicament, and at last -transferred his eyes to the Princess. She immediately perceived this, -and returned his glance, with a soft smile. She might well be a -princess—it was impossible to conform more to the finest evocations of -that romantic word. She was fair, brilliant, slender, with a kind of -effortless majesty. Her beauty had an air of perfection; it astonished -and lifted one up, the sight of it seemed a privilege, a reward. If the -first impression it had given Hyacinth was to make him feel strangely -transported, he need not have been too much agitated, for this was the -effect the Princess Casamassima produced upon persons of a wider -experience and greater pretensions. Her dark eyes, blue or gray, -something that was not brown, were as sweet as they were splendid, and -there was an extraordinary light nobleness in the way she held her -head. That head, where two or three diamond stars glittered in the -thick, delicate hair which defined its shape, suggested to Hyacinth -something antique and celebrated, which he had admired of old—the -memory was vague—in a statue, in a picture, in a museum. Purity of line -and form, of cheek and chin and lip and brow, a colour that seemed to -live and glow, a radiance of grace and eminence and success—these -things were seated in triumph in the face of the Princess, and -Hyacinth, as he held himself in his chair, trembling with the -revelation, wondered whether she were not altogether of some different -substance from the humanity he had hitherto known. She might be divine, -but he could see that she understood human needs—that she wished him to -be at his ease and happy; there was something familiar in her smile, as -if she had seen him many times before. Her dress was dark and rich; she -had pearls round her neck, and an old rococo fan in her hand. Hyacinth -took in all these things, and finally said to himself that if she -wanted nothing more of him than that, he was content, he would like it -to go on; so pleasant was it to sit with fine ladies, in a dusky, -spacious receptacle which framed the bright picture of the stage and -made one’s own situation seem a play within the play. The act was a -long one, and the repose in which his companions left him might have -been a calculated indulgence, to enable him to get used to them, to see -how harmless they were. He looked at Millicent, in the course of time, -and saw that Captain Sholto, seated beside her, had not the same -standard of propriety, inasmuch as he made a remark to her every few -minutes. Like himself, the young lady in the balcony was losing the -play, thanks to her eyes being fixed on her friend from Lomax Place, -whose position she thus endeavoured to gauge. Hyacinth had quite given -up the Paraguayan complications; by the end of the half-hour his -attention might have come back to them, had he not then been engaged in -wondering what the Princess would say to him after the descent of the -curtain—or whether she would say anything. The consideration of this -problem, as the moment of the solution drew nearer, made his heart -again beat faster. He watched the old lady on his left, and supposed it -was natural that a princess should have an attendant—he took for -granted she was an attendant—as different as possible from herself. -This ancient dame was without majesty or grace; huddled together, with -her hands folded on her stomach and her lips protruding, she solemnly -followed the performance. Several times, however, she turned her head -to Hyacinth, and then her expression changed; she repeated the jovial, -encouraging, almost motherly nod with which she had greeted him when he -made his bow, and by which she appeared to wish to intimate that, -better than the serene beauty on the other side, she could enter into -the oddity, the discomfort, of his situation. She seemed to say to him -that he must keep his head, and that if the worst should come to the -worst she was there to look after him. Even when, at last, the curtain -descended, it was some moments before the Princess spoke, though she -rested her smile upon Hyacinth as if she were considering what he would -best like her to say. He might at that instant have guessed what he -discovered later—that among this lady’s faults (he was destined to -learn that they were numerous) not the least eminent was an exaggerated -fear of the commonplace. He expected she would make some remark about -the play, but what she said was, very gently and kindly, “I like to -know all sorts of people.” - -“I shouldn’t think you would find the least difficulty in that,” -Hyacinth replied. - -“Oh, if one wants anything very much, it’s sure to be difficult. Every -one isn’t as obliging as you.” - -Hyacinth could think, immediately, of no proper rejoinder to this; but -the old lady saved him the trouble by declaring, with a foreign accent, -“I think you were most extraordinarily good-natured. I had no idea you -would come—to two strange women.” - -“Yes, we are strange women,” said the Princess, musingly. - -“It’s not true that she finds things difficult; she makes every one do -everything,” her companion went on. - -The Princess glanced at her; then remarked to Hyacinth, “Her name is -Madame Grandoni.” Her tone was not familiar, but there was a friendly -softness in it, as if he had really taken so much trouble for them that -it was only just he should be entertained a little at their expense. It -seemed to imply, also, that Madame Grandoni’s fitness for supplying -such entertainment was obvious. - -“But I am not Italian—ah no!” the old lady cried. “In spite of my name, -I am an honest, ugly, unfortunate German. But it doesn’t matter. She -also, with such a name, isn’t Italian, either. It’s an accident; the -world is full of accidents. But she isn’t German, poor lady, any more.” -Madame Grandoni appeared to have entered into the Princess’s view, and -Hyacinth thought her exceedingly amusing. In a moment she added, “That -was a very charming person you were with.” - -“Yes, she is very charming,” Hyacinth replied, not sorry to have a -chance to say it. - -The Princess made no remark on this subject, and Hyacinth perceived not -only that from her position in the box she could have had no glimpse of -Millicent, but that she would never take up such an allusion as that. -It was as if she had not heard it that she asked, “Do you consider the -play very interesting?” - -Hyacinth hesitated a moment, and then told the simple truth. “I must -confess that I have lost the whole of this last act.” - -“Ah, poor bothered young man!” cried Madame Grandoni. “You see—you -see!” - -“What do I see?” the Princess inquired. “If you are annoyed at being -here now, you will like us later; probably, at least. We take a great -interest in the things you care for. We take a great interest in the -people,” the Princess went on. - -“Oh, allow me, allow me, and speak only for yourself!” the elder lady -interposed. “I take no interest in the people; I don’t understand them, -and I know nothing about them. An honourable nature, of any class, I -always respect it; but I will not pretend to a passion for the ignorant -masses, because I have it not. Moreover, that doesn’t touch the -gentleman.” - -The Princess Casamassima had, evidently, a faculty of completely -ignoring things of which she wished to take no account; it was not in -the least the air of contempt, but a kind of thoughtful, tranquil -absence, after which she came back to the point where she wished to be. -She made no protest against her companion’s speech, but said to -Hyacinth, as if she were only vaguely conscious that the old lady had -been committing herself in some absurd way, “She lives with me; she is -everything to me; she is the best woman in the world.” - -“Yes, fortunately, with many superficial defects, I am very good,” -Madame Grandoni remarked. - -Hyacinth, by this time, was less embarrassed than when he presented -himself to the Princess Casamassima, but he was not less mystified; he -wondered afresh whether he were not being practised upon for some -inconceivable end; so strange did it seem to him that two such fine -ladies should, of their own movement, take the trouble to explain each -other to a miserable little bookbinder. This idea made him flush; it -was as if it had come over him that he had fallen into a trap. He was -conscious that he looked frightened, and he was conscious the moment -afterwards that the Princess noticed it. This was, apparently, what -made her say, “If you have lost so much of the play I ought to tell you -what has happened.” - -“Do you think he would follow that any more?” Madame Grandoni -exclaimed. - -“If you would tell me—if you would tell me—” And then Hyacinth stopped. -He had been going to say, ‘If you would tell me what all this means and -what you want of me, it would be more to the point!’ but the words died -on his lips, and he sat staring, for the woman at his right was simply -too beautiful. She was too beautiful to question, to judge by common -logic; and how could he know, moreover, what was natural to a person in -that exaltation of grace and splendour? Perhaps it was her habit to -send out every evening for some _naïf_ stranger, to amuse her; perhaps -that was the way the foreign aristocracy lived. There was no sharpness -in her face, at the present moment at least; there was nothing but -luminous sweetness, yet she looked as if she knew what was going on in -his mind. She made no eager attempt to reassure him, but there was a -world of delicate consideration in the tone in which she said, “Do you -know, I am afraid I have already forgotten what they have been doing in -the play? It’s terribly complicated; some one or other was hurled over -a precipice.” - -“Ah, you’re a brilliant pair,” Madame Grandoni remarked, with a laugh -of long experience. “I could describe everything. The person who was -hurled over the precipice was the virtuous hero, and you will see, in -the next act, that he was only slightly bruised.” - -“Don’t describe anything; I have so much to ask.” Hyacinth had looked -away, in tacit deprecation, at hearing himself ‘paired’ with the -Princess, and he felt that she was watching him. “What do you think of -Captain Sholto?” she went on, suddenly, to his surprise, if anything, -in his position, could excite that sentiment more than anything else; -and as he hesitated, not knowing what to say, she added, “Isn’t he a -very curious type?” - -“I know him very little,” Hyacinth replied; and he had no sooner -uttered the words than it struck him they were far from brilliant—they -were poor and flat, and very little calculated to satisfy the Princess. -Indeed, he reflected that he had said nothing at all that could place -him in a favourable light; so he continued, at a venture: “I mean, I -have never seen him at home.” That sounded still more silly. - -“At home? Oh, he is never at home; he is all over the world. To-night -he was as likely to have been in Paraguay, for instance, as here. He is -what they call a cosmopolite. I don’t know whether you know that -species; very modern, more and more frequent, and exceedingly tiresome. -I prefer the Chinese! He had told me he had had a great deal of -interesting talk with you. That was what made me say to him, ‘Oh, do -ask him to come in and see me. A little interesting talk, that would be -a change!’” - -“She is very complimentary to me!” said Madame Grandoni. - -“Ah, my dear, you and I, you know, we never talk: we understand each -other without that!” Then the Princess pursued, addressing herself to -Hyacinth, “Do you never admit women?” - -“Admit women?” - -“Into those _séances_—what do you call them?—those little meetings that -Captain Sholto described to me. I should like so much to be present. -Why not?” - -“I haven’t seen any ladies,” Hyacinth said. “I don’t know whether it’s -a rule, but I have seen nothing but men;” and he added, smiling, though -he thought the dereliction rather serious, and couldn’t understand the -part Captain Sholto was playing, nor, considering the grand company he -kept, how he had originally secured admittance into the subversive -little circle in Bloomsbury, “You know I’m not sure Captain Sholto -ought to go about reporting our proceedings.” - -“I see. Perhaps you think he’s a spy, or something of that sort.” - -“No,” said Hyacinth, after a moment. “I think a spy would be more -careful—would disguise himself more. Besides, after all, he has heard -very little.” And Hyacinth smiled again. - -“You mean he hasn’t really been behind the scenes?” the Princess asked, -bending forward a little, and now covering the young man steadily with -her deep, soft eyes, as if by this time he must have got used to her -and wouldn’t flinch from such attention. “Of course he hasn’t, and he -never will be; he knows that, and that it’s quite out of his power to -tell any real secrets. What he repeated to me was interesting, but of -course I could see that there was nothing the authorities, anywhere, -could put their hand on. It was mainly the talk he had had with you -which struck him so very much, and which struck me, as you see. Perhaps -you didn’t know how he was drawing you out.” - -“I am afraid that’s rather easy,” said Hyacinth, with perfect candour, -as it came over him that he _had_ chattered, with a vengeance, in -Bloomsbury, and had thought it natural enough then that his sociable -fellow-visitor should offer him cigars and attach importance to the -views of a clever and original young artisan. - -“I am not sure that I find it so! However, I ought to tell you that you -needn’t have the least fear of Captain Sholto. He’s a perfectly honest -man, so far as he goes; and even if you had trusted him much more than -you appear to have done, he would be incapable of betraying you. -However, don’t trust him: not because he’s not safe, but because—No -matter, you will see for yourself. He has gone into that sort of thing -simply to please me. I should tell you, merely to make you understand, -that he would do anything for that. That’s his own affair. I wanted to -know something, to learn something, to ascertain what really is going -on; and for a woman everything of that sort is so difficult, especially -for a woman in my position, who is known, and to whom every sort of bad -faith is sure to be imputed. So Sholto said he would look into the -subject for me; poor man, he has had to look into so many subjects! -What I particularly wanted was that he should make friends with some of -the leading spirits, really characteristic types.” The Princess’s voice -was low and rather deep, and her tone very quick; her manner of -speaking was altogether new to her listener, for whom the pronunciation -of her words and the very punctuation of her sentences were a kind of -revelation of ‘society’. - -“Surely Captain Sholto doesn’t suppose that _I_ am a leading spirit!” -Hyacinth exclaimed, with the determination not to be laughed at any -more than he could help. - -The Princess hesitated a moment; then she said, “He told me you were -very original.” - -“He doesn’t know, and—if you will allow me to say so—I don’t think you -know. How should you? I am one of many thousands of young men of my -class—you know, I suppose, what that is—in whose brains certain ideas -are fermenting. There is nothing original about me at all. I am very -young and very ignorant; it’s only a few months since I began to talk -of the possibility of a social revolution with men who have considered -the whole ground much more than I have done. I’m a mere particle in the -immensity of the people. All I pretend to is my good faith, and a great -desire that justice shall be done.” - -The Princess listened to him intently, and her attitude made him feel -how little _he_, in comparison, expressed himself like a person who had -the habit of conversation; he seemed to himself to stammer and emit -common sounds. For a moment she said nothing, only looking at him with -her pure smile. “I do draw you out!” she exclaimed, at last. “You are -much more interesting to me than if you were an exception.” At these -last words Hyacinth flinched a hair’s breadth; the movement was shown -by his dropping his eyes. We know to what extent he really regarded -himself as of the stuff of the common herd. The Princess doubtless -guessed it as well, for she quickly added, “At the same time, I can see -that you are remarkable enough.” - -“What do you think I am remarkable for?” - -“Well, you have general ideas.” - -“Every one has them to-day. They have them in Bloomsbury to a terrible -degree. I have a friend (who understands the matter much better than I) -who has no patience with them: he declares they are our danger and our -bane. A few very special ideas—if they are the right ones—are what we -want.” - -“Who is your friend?” the Princess asked, abruptly. - -“Ah, Christina, Christina,” Madame Grandoni murmured from the other -side of the box. - -Christina took no notice of her, and Hyacinth, not understanding the -warning, and only remembering how personal women always are, replied, -“A young man who lives in Camberwell, an assistant at a wholesale -chemist’s.” - -If he had expected that this description of his friend was a bigger -dose than his hostess would be able to digest, he was greatly mistaken. -She seemed to look tenderly at the picture suggested by his words, and -she immediately inquired whether the young man were also clever, and -whether she might not hope to know him. Hadn’t Captain Sholto seen him; -and if so, why hadn’t he spoken of him, too? When Hyacinth had replied -that Captain Sholto had probably seen him, but that he believed he had -had no particular conversation with him, the Princess inquired, with -startling frankness, whether her visitor wouldn’t bring his friend, -some day, to see her. - -Hyacinth glanced at Madame Grandoni, but that worthy woman was engaged -in a survey of the house, through an old-fashioned eye-glass with a -long gilt handle. He had perceived, long before this, that the Princess -Casamassima had no desire for vain phrases, and he had the good taste -to feel that, from himself to such a personage, compliments, even if he -had wished to pay them, would have had no suitability. “I don’t know -whether he would be willing to come. He’s the sort of man that, in such -a case, you can’t answer for.” - -“That makes me want to know him all the more. But you’ll come yourself, -at all events, eh?” - -Poor Hyacinth murmured something about the unexpected honour; for, -after all, he had a French heredity, and it was not so easy for him to -make unadorned speeches. But Madame Grandoni, laying down her -eye-glass, almost took the words out of his mouth, with the cheerful -exhortation, “Go and see her—go and see her once or twice. She will -treat you like an angel.” - -“You must think me very peculiar,” the Princess remarked, sadly. - -“I don’t know what I think. It will take a good while.” - -“I wish I could make you trust me—inspire you with confidence,” she -went on. “I don’t mean only you, personally, but others who think as -you do. You would find I would go with you—pretty far. I was answering -just now for Captain Sholto; but who in the world is to answer for me?” -And her sadness merged itself in a smile which appeared to Hyacinth -extraordinarily magnanimous and touching. - -“Not I, my dear, I promise you!” her ancient companion ejaculated, with -a laugh which made the people in the stalls look up at the box. - -Her mirth was contagious; it gave Hyacinth the audacity to say to her, -“I would trust _you_, if you did!” though he felt, the next minute, -that this was even a more familiar speech than if he had said he -wouldn’t trust her. - -“It comes, then, to the same thing,” the Princess went on. “She would -not show herself with me in public if I were not respectable. If you -knew more about me you would understand what has led me to turn my -attention to the great social question. It is a long story, and the -details wouldn’t interest you; but perhaps some day, if we have more -talk, you will put yourself a little in my place. I am very serious, -you know; I am not amusing myself with peeping and running away. I am -convinced that we are living in a fool’s paradise, that the ground is -heaving under our feet.” - -“It’s not the ground, my dear; it’s you that are turning somersaults,” -Madame Grandoni interposed. - -“Ah, you, my friend, you have the happy faculty of believing what you -like to believe. I have to believe what I see.” - -“She wishes to throw herself into the revolution, to guide it, to -enlighten it,” Madame Grandoni said to Hyacinth, speaking now with -imperturbable gravity. - -“I am sure she could direct it in any sense she would wish!” the young -man responded, in a glow. The pure, high dignity with which the -Princess had just spoken, and which appeared to cover a suppressed -tremor of passion, set Hyacinth’s pulses throbbing, and though he -scarcely saw what she meant—her aspirations seeming so vague—her tone, -her voice, her wonderful face, showed that she had a generous soul. - -She answered his eager declaration with a serious smile and a -melancholy head-shake. “I have no such pretensions, and my good old -friend is laughing at me. Of course that is very easy; for what, in -fact, can be more absurd, on the face of it, than for a woman with a -title, with diamonds, with a carriage, with servants, with a position, -as they call it, to sympathise with the upward struggles of those who -are below? ‘Give all that up, and we’ll believe you,’ you have a right -to say. I am ready to give them up the moment it will help the cause; I -assure you that’s the least difficulty. I don’t want to teach, I want -to learn; and, above all, I want to know _à quoi m’en tenir_. Are we on -the eve of great changes, or are we not? Is everything that is -gathering force, underground, in the dark, in the night, in little -hidden rooms, out of sight of governments and policemen and idiotic -‘statesmen’—heaven save them!—is all this going to burst forth some -fine morning and set the world on fire? Or is it to sputter out and -spend itself in vain conspiracies, be dissipated in sterile heroisms -and abortive isolated movements? I want to know _à quoi m’en tenir_,” -she repeated, fixing her visitor with more brilliant eyes, as if he -could tell her on the spot. Then, suddenly, she added in a totally -different tone, “Excuse me, I have an idea you speak French. Didn’t -Captain Sholto tell me so?” - -“I have some little acquaintance with it,” Hyacinth murmured. “I have -French blood in my veins.” - -She considered him as if he had proposed to her some kind of problem. -“Yes, I can see that you are not _le premier venu_. Now, your friend, -of whom you were speaking, is a chemist; and you, yourself—what is your -occupation?” - -“I’m just a bookbinder.” - -“That must be delightful. I wonder if you would bind some books for -me.” - -“You would have to bring them to our shop, and I can do there only the -work that’s given out to me. I might manage it by myself, at home,” -Hyacinth added, smiling. - -“I should like that better. And what do you call home?” - -“The place I live in, in the north of London: a little street you -certainly never heard of.” - -“What is it called?” - -“Lomax Place, at your service,” said Hyacinth, laughing. - -She laughed back at him, and he didn’t know whether her brightness or -her gravity were the more charming. “No, I don’t think I have heard of -it. I don’t know London very well; I haven’t lived here long. I have -spent most of my life abroad. My husband is a foreigner, an Italian. We -don’t live together much. I haven’t the manners of this country—not of -any class; have I, eh? Oh, this country—there is a great deal to be -said about it; and a great deal to be done, as you, of course, -understand better than any one. But I want to know London; it interests -me more than I can say—the huge, swarming, smoky, human city. I mean -real London, the people and all their sufferings and passions; not Park -Lane and Bond Street. Perhaps you can help me—it would be a great -kindness: that’s what I want to know men like you for. You see it isn’t -idle, my having given you so much trouble to-night.” - -“I shall be very glad to show you all I know. But it isn’t much, and -above all it isn’t pretty,” said Hyacinth. - -“Whom do you live with, in Lomax Place?” the Princess asked, by way of -rejoinder to this. - -“Captain Sholto is leaving the young lady—he is coming back here,” -Madame Grandoni announced, inspecting the balcony with her instrument. -The orchestra had been for some time playing the overture to the -following act. - -Hyacinth hesitated a moment. “I live with a dressmaker.” - -“With a dressmaker? Do you mean—do you mean—?” And the Princess paused. - -“Do you mean she’s your wife?” asked Madame Grandoni, humorously. - -“Perhaps she gives you rooms,” remarked the Princess. - -“How many do you think I have? She gives me everything, or she has done -so in the past. She brought me up; she is the best little woman in the -world.” - -“You had better command a dress!” exclaimed Madame Grandoni. - -“And your family, where are they?” the Princess continued. - -“I have no family.” - -“None at all?” - -“None at all. I never had.” - -“But the French blood that you speak of, and which I see perfectly in -your face—you haven’t the English expression, or want of -expression—that must have come to you through some one.” - -“Yes, through my mother.” - -“And she is dead?” - -“Long ago.” - -“That’s a great loss, because French mothers are usually so much to -their sons.” The Princess looked at her painted fan a moment, as she -opened and closed it; after which she said, “Well, then, you’ll come -some day. We’ll arrange it.” - -Hyacinth felt that the answer to this could be only a silent -inclination of his little person; and to make it he rose from his -chair. As he stood there, conscious that he had stayed long enough and -yet not knowing exactly how to withdraw, the Princess, with her fan -closed, resting upright on her knee, and her hands clasped on the end -of it, turned up her strange, lovely eyes at him, and said— - -“Do you think anything will occur soon?” - -“Will occur?” - -“That there will be a crisis—that you’ll make yourselves felt?” - -In this beautiful woman’s face there was to Hyacinth’s bewildered -perception something at once inspiring, tempting and mocking; and the -effect of her expression was to make him say, rather clumsily, “I’ll -try and ascertain;” as if she had asked him whether her carriage were -at the door. - -“I don’t quite know what you are talking about; but please don’t have -it for another hour or two. I want to see what becomes of the Pearl!” -Madame Grandoni interposed. - -“Remember what I told you: I would give up everything—everything!” the -Princess went on, looking up at the young man in the same way. Then she -held out her hand, and this time he knew sufficiently what he was about -to take it. - -When he bade good-night to Madame Grandoni the old lady exclaimed to -him, with a comical sigh, “Well, she _is_ respectable!” and out in the -lobby, when he had closed the door of the box behind him, he found -himself echoing these words and repeating mechanically, “She _is_ -respectable!” They were on his lips as he stood, suddenly, face to face -with Captain Sholto, who laid his hand on his shoulder once more and -shook him a little, in that free yet insinuating manner for which this -officer appeared to be remarkable. - -“My dear fellow, you were born under a lucky star.” - -“I never supposed it,” said Hyacinth, changing colour. - -“Why, what in the world would you have? You have the faculty, the -precious faculty, of inspiring women with an interest—but an interest!” - -“Yes, ask them in the box there! I behaved like a cretin,” Hyacinth -declared, overwhelmed now with a sense of opportunities missed. - -“They won’t tell me that. And the lady upstairs?” - -“Well,” said Hyacinth gravely, “what about her?” - -The Captain considered him a moment. “She wouldn’t talk to me of -anything but you. You may imagine how I liked it!” - -“I don’t like it, either. But I must go up.” - -“Oh yes, she counts the minutes. Such a charming person!” Captain -Sholto added, with more propriety of tone. As Hyacinth left him he -called after him, “Don’t be afraid—you’ll go far.” - -When the young man took his place in the balcony beside Millicent this -damsel gave him no greeting, nor asked any question about his -adventures in the more aristocratic part of the house. She only turned -her fine complexion upon him for some minutes, and as he himself was -not in the mood to begin to chatter, the silence continued—continued -till after the curtain had risen on the last act of the play. -Millicent’s attention was now, evidently, not at her disposal for the -stage, and in the midst of a violent scene, which included pistol-shots -and shrieks, she said at last to her companion, “She’s a tidy lot, your -Princess, by what I learn.” - -“Pray, what do you know about her?” - -“I know what that fellow told me.” - -“And pray, what was that?” - -“Well, she’s a bad ’un, as ever was. Her own husband has had to turn -her out of the house.” - -Hyacinth remembered the allusion the lady herself had made to her -matrimonial situation; nevertheless, what he would have liked to reply -to Miss Henning was that he didn’t believe a word of it. He withheld -the doubt, and after a moment remarked quietly, “I don’t care.” - -“You don’t care? Well, I do, then!” Millicent cried. And as it was -impossible, in view of the performance and the jealous attention of -their neighbours, to continue the conversation in this pitch, she -contented herself with ejaculating, in a somewhat lower key, at the end -of five minutes, during which she had been watching the stage, -“Gracious, what dreadful common stuff!” - - - - -XIV - - -Hyacinth did not mention to Pinnie or Mr Vetch that he had been taken -up by a great lady; but he mentioned it to Paul Muniment, to whom he -now confided a great many things. He had, at first, been in -considerable fear of his straight, loud, north-country friend, who -showed signs of cultivating logic and criticism to a degree that was -hostile to free conversation; but he discovered later that he was a man -to whom one could say anything in the world, if one didn’t think it of -more importance to be sympathised with than to be understood. For a -revolutionist, he was strangely good-natured. The sight of all the -things he wanted to change had seemingly no power to irritate him, and -if he joked about questions that lay very near his heart his pleasantry -was not bitter nor invidious; the fault that Hyacinth sometimes found -with it, rather, was that it was innocent to puerility. Our hero envied -his power of combining a care for the wide misery of mankind with the -apparent state of mind of the cheerful and virtuous young workman who, -on Sunday morning, has put on a clean shirt, and, not having taken the -gilt off his wages the night before, weighs against each other, for a -happy day, the respective attractions of Epping Forest and Gravesend. -He was never sarcastic about his personal lot and his daily life; it -had not seemed to occur to him, for instance, that ‘society’ was really -responsible for the condition of his sister’s spinal column, though -Eustache Poupin and his wife (who practically, however, were as patient -as he) did everything they could to make him say so, believing, -evidently, that it would relieve him. Apparently he cared nothing for -women, talked of them rarely, and always decently, and had never a sign -of a sweetheart, unless Lady Aurora Langrish might pass for one. He -never drank a drop of beer nor touched a pipe; he always had a clear -tone, a fresh cheek and a smiling eye, and once excited on Hyacinth’s -part a kind of elder-brotherly indulgence by the open-mouthed glee and -credulity with which, when the pair were present, in the sixpenny -gallery, at Astley’s, at an equestrian pantomime, he followed the -tawdry spectacle. He once told the young bookbinder that he was a -suggestive little beggar, and Hyacinth’s opinion of him, by this time, -was so exalted that the remark had almost the value of a patent of -nobility. Our hero treated himself to an unlimited belief in him; he -had always dreamed of having some grand friendship, and this was the -best opening he had ever encountered. No one could entertain a -sentiment of that sort better than Hyacinth, or cultivate a greater -luxury of confidence. It disappointed him, sometimes, that it was not -more richly repaid; that on certain important points of the socialistic -programme Muniment would never commit himself; and that he had not yet -shown the _fond du sac_, as Eustache Poupin called it, to so ardent an -admirer. He answered particular questions freely enough, and answered -them occasionally in a manner that made Hyacinth jump, as when, in -reply to an inquiry in regard to his view of capital punishment, he -said that, so far from wishing it abolished, he should go in for -extending it much further—he should impose it on those who habitually -lied or got drunk; but his friend had always a feeling that he kept -back his best card and that even in the listening circle in Bloomsbury, -when only the right men were present, there were unspoken conclusions -in his mind which he didn’t as yet think any one good enough to be -favoured with. So far, therefore, from suspecting him of -half-heartedness, Hyacinth was sure that he had extraordinary things in -his head; that he was thinking them out to the logical end, wherever it -might land him; and that the night he should produce them, with the -door of the club-room guarded and the company bound by a tremendous -oath, the others would look at each other and turn pale. - -“She wants to see you; she asked me to bring you; she was very -serious,” Hyacinth said, relating his interview with the ladies in the -box at the play; which, however, now that he looked back upon it, -seemed as queer as a dream, and not much more likely than that sort of -experience to have a continuation in one’s waking hours. - -“To bring me—to bring me where?” asked Muniment. “You talk as if I were -a sample out of your shop, or a little dog you had for sale. Has she -ever seen me? Does she think I’m smaller than you? What does she know -about me?” - -“Well, principally, that you’re a friend of mine—that’s enough for -her.” - -“Do you mean that it ought to be enough for me that she’s a friend of -yours? I have a notion you’ll have some queer ones before you’re done; -a good many more than I have time to talk to. And how can I go to see a -delicate female, with those paws?” Muniment inquired, exhibiting ten -work-stained fingers. - -“Buy a pair of gloves,” said Hyacinth, who recognised the serious -character of this obstacle. But after a moment he added, “No, you -oughtn’t to do that; she wants to see dirty hands.” - -“That’s easy enough; she needn’t send for me for the purpose. But isn’t -she making game of you?” - -“It’s very possible, but I don’t see what good it can do her.” - -“You are not obliged to find excuses for the pampered classes. Their -bloated luxury begets evil, impudent desires; they are capable of doing -harm for the sake of harm. Besides, is she genuine?” - -“If she isn’t, what becomes of your explanation?” asked Hyacinth. - -“Oh, it doesn’t matter; at night all cats are gray. Whatever she is, -she’s an idle, bedizened jade.” - -“If you had seen her, you wouldn’t talk of her that way.” - -“God forbid I should see her, then, if she’s going to corrupt me!” - -“Do you suppose she’ll corrupt _me?_” Hyacinth demanded, with an -expression of face and a tone of voice which produced, on his friend’s -part, an explosion of mirth. - -“How can she, after all, when you are already such a little mass of -corruption?” - -“You don’t think that,” said Hyacinth, looking very grave. - -“Do you mean that if I did I wouldn’t say it? Haven’t you noticed that -I say what I think?” - -“No, you don’t, not half of it: you’re as close as a fish.” - -Paul Muniment looked at his companion a moment, as if he were rather -struck with the penetration of that remark; then he said, “Well, then, -if I should give you the other half of my opinion of you, do you think -you’d fancy it?” - -“I’ll save you the trouble. I’m a very clever, conscientious, promising -young chap, and any one would be proud to claim me as a friend.” - -“Is that what your Princess told you? She must be a precious piece of -goods!” Paul Muniment exclaimed. “Did she pick your pocket meanwhile?” - -“Oh yes; a few minutes later I missed a silver cigar-case, engraved -with the arms of the Robinsons. Seriously,” Hyacinth continued, “don’t -you consider it possible that a woman of that class should want to know -what is going on among the like of us?” - -“It depends upon what class you mean.” - -“Well, a woman with a lot of jewels and the manners of an angel. It’s -queer of course, but it’s conceivable; why not? There may be unselfish -natures; there may be disinterested feelings.” - -“And there may be fine ladies in an awful funk about their jewels, and -even about their manners. Seriously, as you say, it’s perfectly -conceivable. I am not in the least surprised at the aristocracy being -curious to know what we are up to, and wanting very much to look into -it; in their place I should be very uneasy, and if I were a woman with -angelic manners very likely I too should be glad to get hold of a soft, -susceptible little bookbinder, and pump him dry, bless his heart!” - -“Are you afraid I’ll tell her secrets?” cried Hyacinth, flushing with -virtuous indignation. - -“Secrets? What secrets could you tell her, my pretty lad?” - -Hyacinth stared a moment. “You don’t trust me—you never have.” - -“We will, some day—don’t be afraid,” said Muniment, who, evidently, had -no intention of unkindness, a thing that appeared to be impossible to -him. “And when we do, you’ll cry with disappointment.” - -“Well, _you_ won’t,” Hyacinth declared. And then he asked whether his -friend thought the Princess Casamassima a spy; and why, if she were in -that line, Mr Sholto was not—inasmuch as it must be supposed he was -not, since they had seen fit to let him walk in and out, at that rate, -in the place in Bloomsbury. Muniment did not even know whom he meant, -not having had any relations with the gentleman; but he summoned a -sufficient image when his companion had described the Captain’s -appearance. He then remarked, with his usual geniality, that he didn’t -take him for a spy—he took him for an ass; but even if he had edged -himself into the place with every intention to betray them, what handle -could he possibly get—what use, against them, could he make of anything -he had seen or heard? If he had a fancy to dip into working-men’s clubs -(Muniment remembered, now, the first night he came; he had been brought -by that German cabinet-maker, who had a stiff neck and smoked a pipe -with a bowl as big as a stove); if it amused him to put on a bad hat, -and inhale foul tobacco, and call his ‘inferiors’ ‘my dear fellow’; if -he thought that in doing so he was getting an insight into the people -and going half-way to meet them and preparing for what was coming—all -this was his own affair, and he was very welcome, though a man must be -a flat who would spend his evening in a hole like that when he might -enjoy his comfort in one of those flaming big shops, full of arm-chairs -and flunkies, in Pall Mall. And what did he see, after all, in -Bloomsbury? Nothing but a ‘social gathering’, where there were clay -pipes, and a sanded floor, and not half enough gas, and the principal -newspapers; and where the men, as any one would know, were advanced -radicals, and mostly advanced idiots. He could pat as many of them on -the back as he liked, and say the House of Lords wouldn’t last till -midsummer; but what discoveries would he make? He was simply on the -same lay as Hyacinth’s Princess; he was nervous and scared, and he -thought he would see for himself. - -“Oh, he isn’t the same sort as the Princess. I’m sure he’s in a very -different line!” Hyacinth exclaimed. - -“Different, of course: she’s a handsome woman, I suppose, and he’s an -ugly man; but I don’t think that either of them will save us or spoil -us. Their curiosity is natural, but I have got other things to do than -to show them over; therefore you can tell her serene highness that I’m -much obliged.” - -Hyacinth reflected a moment, and then he said, “You show Lady Aurora -over; you seem to wish to give her the information she desires; and -what’s the difference? If it’s right for her to take an interest, why -isn’t it right for my Princess?” - -“If she’s already yours, what more can she want?” Muniment asked. “All -I know of Lady Aurora, and all I look at, is that she comes and sits -with Rosy, and brings her tea, and waits upon her. If the Princess will -do as much I’ll tell her she’s a woman of genius; but apart from that I -shall never take a grain of interest in her interest in the masses—or -in this particular mass!” And Paul Muniment, with his discoloured -thumb, designated his own substantial person. His tone was -disappointing to Hyacinth, who was surprised at his not appearing to -think the episode at the theatre more remarkable and romantic. Muniment -seemed to regard his explanation of such a proceeding as -all-sufficient; but when, a moment later, he made use, in referring to -the mysterious lady, of the expression that she was ‘quaking’, Hyacinth -broke out—“Never in the world; she’s not afraid of anything!” - -“Ah, my lad, not afraid of you, evidently!” - -Hyacinth paid no attention to this coarse sally, but asked in a moment, -with a candour that was proof against further ridicule, “Do you think -she can do me a hurt of any kind, if we follow up our acquaintance?” - -“Yes, very likely, but you must hit her back! That’s your line, you -know: to go in for what’s going, to live your life, to gratify the -women. I’m an ugly, grimy brute; I’ve got to watch the fires and mind -the shop; but you are one of those taking little beggars who ought to -run about and see the world; you ought to be an ornament to society, -like a young man in an illustrated story-book. Only,” Muniment added in -a moment, “you know, if she should hurt you very much, _then_ I would -go and see her!” - -Hyacinth had been intending for some time to take Pinnie to call on the -prostrate damsel in Audley Court, to whom he had promised that his -benefactress (he had told Rose Muniment that she was ‘a kind of aunt’) -should pay this civility; but the affair had been delayed by wan -hesitations on the part of the dressmaker, for the poor woman had hard -work to imagine, to-day, that there were people in London so forlorn -that her countenance could be of value to them. Her social curiosities -had become very nearly extinct, and she knew that she no longer made -the same figure in public as when her command of the fashions enabled -her to illustrate them in her own little person, by the aid of a good -deal of whalebone. Moreover she felt that Hyacinth had strange friends -and still stranger opinions; she suspected that he took an unnatural -interest in politics and was somehow not on the right side, little as -she knew about parties or causes; and she had a vague conviction that -this kind of perversity only multiplied the troubles of the poor, who, -according to theories which Pinnie had never reasoned out, but which, -in her bosom, were as deep as religion, ought always to be of the same -way of thinking as the rich. They were unlike them enough in their -poverty, without trying to add other differences. When at last she -accompanied Hyacinth to Camberwell, one Saturday evening at midsummer, -it was in a sighing, sceptical, second-best manner; but if he had told -her he wished it she would have gone with him to a _soirée_ at a -scavenger’s. There was no more danger of Rose Muniment’s being out than -of one of the bronze couchant lions in Trafalgar Square having walked -down Whitehall; but he had let her know in advance, and he perceived, -as he opened her door in obedience to a quick, shrill summons, that she -had had the happy thought of inviting Lady Aurora to help her to -entertain Miss Pynsent. Such, at least, was the inference he drew from -seeing her ladyship’s memorable figure rise before him for the first -time since his own visit. He presented his companion to their reclining -hostess, and Rosy immediately repeated her name to the representative -of Belgrave Square. Pinnie curtsied down to the ground, as Lady Aurora -put out her hand to her, and slipped noiselessly into a chair beside -the bed. Lady Aurora laughed and fidgeted, in a friendly, cheerful, yet -at the same time rather pointless manner, and Hyacinth gathered that -she had no recollection of having met him before. His attention, -however, was mainly given to Pinnie: he watched her jealously, to see -whether, on this important occasion, she would not put forth a certain -stiff, quaint, polished politeness, of which she possessed the secret -and which made her resemble a pair of old-fashioned sugar-tongs. Not -only for Pinnie’s sake, but for his own as well, he wished her to pass -for a superior little woman, and he hoped she wouldn’t lose her head if -Rosy should begin to talk about Inglefield. She was, evidently, much -impressed by Rosy, and kept repeating, “Dear, dear!” under her breath, -as the small, strange person in the bed rapidly explained to her that -there was nothing in the world she would have liked so much as to -follow _her_ delightful profession, but that she couldn’t sit up to it, -and had never had a needle in her hand but once, when at the end of -three minutes it had dropped into the sheets and got into the mattress, -so that she had always been afraid it would work out again and stick -into her; but it hadn’t done so yet, and perhaps it never would—she lay -so quiet, she didn’t push it about much. “Perhaps you would think it’s -me that trimmed the little handkerchief I wear round my neck,” Miss -Muniment said; “perhaps you would think I couldn’t do less, lying here -all day long, with complete command of my time. Not a stitch of it. I’m -the finest lady in London; I never lift my finger for myself. It’s a -present from her ladyship—it’s her ladyship’s own beautiful needlework. -What do you think of that? Have you ever met any one so favoured -before? And the work—just look at the work, and tell me what you think -of that!” The girl pulled off the bit of muslin from her neck and -thrust it at Pinnie, who looked at it confusedly and exclaimed, “Dear, -dear, dear!” partly in sympathy, partly as if, in spite of the -consideration she owed every one, those were very strange proceedings. - -“It’s very badly done; surely you see that,” said Lady Aurora. “It was -only a joke.” - -“Oh yes, everything’s a joke!” cried the irrepressible -invalid—“everything except my state of health; that’s admitted to be -serious. When her ladyship sends me five shillings’ worth of coals it’s -only a joke; and when she brings me a bottle of the finest port, that’s -another; and when she climbs up seventy-seven stairs (there are -seventy-seven, I know perfectly, though I never go up or down), at the -height of the London season, to spend the evening with me, that’s the -best of all. I know all about the London season, though I never go out, -and I appreciate what her ladyship gives up. She is very jocular -indeed, but, fortunately, I know how to take it. You can see that it -wouldn’t do for me to be touchy, can’t you, Miss Pynsent?” - -“Dear, dear, I should be so glad to make you anything myself; it would -be better—it would be better—” Pinnie murmured, hesitating. - -“It would be better than my poor work. I don’t know how to do that sort -of thing, in the least,” said Lady Aurora. - -“I’m sure I didn’t mean that, my lady—I only meant it would be more -convenient. Anything in the world she might fancy,” the dressmaker went -on, as if it were a question of the invalid’s appetite. - -“Ah, you see I don’t wear things—only a flannel jacket, to be a bit -tidy,” Miss Muniment rejoined. “I go in only for smart counterpanes, as -you can see for yourself;” and she spread her white hands complacently -over her coverlet of brilliant patchwork. “Now doesn’t that look to -you, Miss Pynsent, as if it might be one of her ladyship’s jokes?” - -“Oh, my good friend, how can you? I never went so far as that!” Lady -Aurora interposed, with visible anxiety. - -“Well, you’ve given me almost everything; I sometimes forget. This only -cost me sixpence; so it comes to the same thing as if it had been a -present. Yes, only sixpence, in a raffle in a bazaar at Hackney, for -the benefit of the Wesleyan Chapel, three years ago. A young man who -works with my brother, and lives in that part, offered him a couple of -tickets; and he took one, and I took one. When I say ‘I’, of course I -mean that he took the two; for how should I find (by which I mean, of -course, how should _he_ find) a sixpence in that little cup on the -chimney-piece unless he had put it there first? Of course my ticket -took a prize, and of course, as my bed is my dwelling-place, the prize -was a beautiful counterpane, of every colour of the rainbow. Oh, there -never was such luck as mine!” Rosy exclaimed, flashing her gay, strange -eyes at Hyacinth, as if on purpose to irritate him with her -contradictious optimism. - -“It’s very lovely; but if you would like another, for a change, I’ve -got a great many pieces,” Pinnie remarked, with a generosity which made -the young man feel that she was acquitting herself finely. - -Rose Muniment laid her little hand on the dressmaker’s arm, and -responded, quickly, “No, not a change, not a change. How can there be a -change when there’s already everything? There’s everything here—every -colour that was ever seen, or composed, or dreamed of, since the world -began.” And with her other hand she stroked, affectionately, her -variegated quilt. “You have a great many pieces, but you haven’t as -many as there are here; and the more you should patch them together the -more the whole thing would resemble this dear, dazzling old friend. I -have another idea, very, very charming, and perhaps her ladyship can -guess what it is.” Rosy kept her fingers on Pinnie’s arm, and, smiling, -turned her brilliant eyes from one of her female companions to the -other, as if she wished to associate them as much as possible in their -interest in her. “In connection with what we were talking about a few -minutes ago—couldn’t your ladyship just go a little further, in the -same line?” Then, as Lady Aurora looked troubled and embarrassed, -blushing at being called upon to answer a conundrum, as it were, so -publicly, her infirm friend came to her assistance. “It will surprise -you at first, but it won’t when I have explained it: my idea is just -simply a pink dressing-gown!” - -“A pink dressing-gown!” Lady Aurora repeated. - -“With a neat black trimming! Don’t you see the connection with what we -were talking of before our good visitors came in?” - -“That would be very pretty,” said Pinnie. “I have made them like that, -in my time. Or blue, trimmed with white.” - -“No, pink and black, pink and black—to suit my complexion. Perhaps you -didn’t know I have a complexion; but there are very few things I -haven’t got! Anything at all I should fancy, you were so good as to -say. Well now, I fancy that! Your ladyship does see the connection by -this time, doesn’t she?” - -Lady Aurora looked distressed, as if she felt that she certainly ought -to see it but was not sure that even yet it didn’t escape her, and as -if, at the same time, she were struck with the fact that this sudden -evocation might result in a strain on the little dressmaker’s -resources. “A pink dressing-gown would certainly be very becoming, and -Miss Pynsent would be very kind,” she said; while Hyacinth made the -mental comment that it was a largeish order, as Pinnie would have, -obviously, to furnish the materials as well as the labour. The amiable -coolness with which the invalid laid her under contribution was, -however, to his sense, quite in character, and he reflected that, after -all, when you were stretched on your back like that you had the right -to reach out your hands (it wasn’t far you could reach at best) and -seize what you could get. Pinnie declared that she knew just the -article Miss Muniment wanted, and that she would undertake to make a -sweet thing of it; and Rosy went on to say that she must explain of -what use such an article would be, but for this purpose there must be -another guess. She would give it to Miss Pynsent and Hyacinth—as many -times as they liked: What _had_ she and Lady Aurora been talking about -before they came in? She clasped her hands, and her eyes glittered with -her eagerness, while she continued to turn them from Lady Aurora to the -dressmaker. What would they imagine? What would they think natural, -delightful, magnificent—if one could only end, at last, by making out -the right place to put it? Hyacinth suggested, successively, a cage of -Java sparrows, a music-box and a shower-bath—or perhaps even a -full-length portrait of her ladyship; and Pinnie looked at him askance, -in a frightened way, as if perchance he were joking too broadly. Rosy -at last relieved their suspense and announced, “A sofa, just a sofa, -now! What do you say to that? Do you suppose that’s an idea that could -have come from any one but her ladyship? She must have all the credit -of it; she came out with it in the course of conversation. I believe we -were talking of the peculiar feeling that comes just under the -shoulder-blades if one never has a change. She mentioned it as she -might have mentioned a plaster, or another spoonful of that American -stuff. We are thinking it over, and one of these days, if we give -plenty of time to the question, we shall find the place, the very -nicest and snuggest of all, and no other. I hope _you_ see the -connection with the pink dressing-gown,” she remarked to Pinnie, “and I -hope you see the importance of the question, Shall anything go? I -should like you to look round a bit, and tell me what you would answer -if I were to say to you, _Can_ anything go?” - - - - -XV - - -“I’m sure there’s nothing _I_ should like to part with,” Pinnie -returned; and while she surveyed the scene Lady Aurora, with delicacy, -to lighten Amanda’s responsibility, got up and turned to the window, -which was open to the summer-evening and admitted still the last rays -of the long day. Hyacinth, after a moment, placed himself beside her, -looking out with her at the dusky multitude of chimney-pots and the -small black houses, roofed with grimy tiles. The thick, warm air of a -London July floated beneath them, suffused with the everlasting uproar -of the town, which appeared to have sunk into quietness but again -became a mighty voice as soon as one listened for it; here and there, -in poor windows, glimmered a turbid light, and high above, in a -clearer, smokeless zone, a sky still fair and luminous, a faint silver -star looked down. The sky was the same that, far away in the country, -bent over golden fields and purple hills and gardens where nightingales -sang; but from this point of view everything that covered the earth was -ugly and sordid, and seemed to express, or to represent, the weariness -of toil. In an instant, to Hyacinth’s surprise, Lady Aurora said to -him, “You never came, after all, to get the books.” - -“Those you kindly offered to lend me? I didn’t know it was an -understanding.” - -Lady Aurora gave an uneasy laugh. “I have picked them out; they are -quite ready.” - -“It’s very kind of you,” the young man rejoined. “I will come and get -them some day, with pleasure.” He was not very sure that he would; but -it was the least he could say. - -“She’ll tell you where I live, you know,” Lady Aurora went on, with a -movement of her head in the direction of the bed, as if she were too -shy to mention it herself. - -“Oh, I have no doubt she knows the way—she could tell me every street -and every turn!” Hyacinth exclaimed. - -“She has made me describe to her, very often, how I come and go. I -think that few people know more about London than she. She never -forgets anything.” - -“She’s a wonderful little witch—she terrifies me!” said Hyacinth. - -Lady Aurora turned her modest eyes upon him. “Oh, she’s so good, she’s -so patient!” - -“Yes, and so wise, and so self-possessed.” - -“Oh, she’s immensely clever,” said her ladyship. “Which do you think -the cleverest?” - -“The cleverest?” - -“I mean of the girl and her brother.” - -“Oh, I think he, some day, will be prime minister of England.” - -“Do you really? I’m so glad!” cried Lady Aurora, with a flush of colour -in her face. “I’m so glad you think that will be possible. You know it -ought to be, if things were right.” - -Hyacinth had not professed this high faith for the purpose of playing -upon her ladyship’s feelings, but when he perceived her eager -responsiveness he felt almost as if he had been making sport of her. -Still, he said no more than he believed when he remarked, in a moment, -that he had the greatest expectations of Paul Muniment’s future: he was -sure that the world would hear of him, that England would feel him, -that the public, some day, would acclaim him. It was impossible to -associate with him without feeling that he was very strong, that he -must play an important part. - -“Yes, people wouldn’t believe—they wouldn’t believe,” Lady Aurora -murmured softly, appreciatively. She was evidently very much pleased -with what Hyacinth was saying. It was moreover a pleasure to himself to -place on record his opinion of his friend; it seemed to make that -opinion more clear, to give it the force of an invocation, a prophecy. -This was especially the case when he asked why on earth nature had -endowed Paul Muniment with such extraordinary powers of mind, and -powers of body too—because he was as strong as a horse—if it had not -been intended that he should do something great for his fellow-men. -Hyacinth confided to her ladyship that he thought the people in his own -class generally very stupid—what he should call third-rate minds. He -wished it were not so, for heaven knew that he felt kindly to them and -only asked to cast his lot with theirs; but he was obliged to confess -that centuries of poverty, of ill-paid toil, of bad, insufficient food -and wretched homes, had not a favourable effect upon the higher -faculties. All the more reason that when there was a splendid -exception, like Paul Muniment, it should count for a tremendous -force—it had so much to make up for, to act for. And then Hyacinth -repeated that in his own low walk of life people had really not the -faculty of thought; their minds had been simplified—reduced to two or -three elements. He saw that this declaration made his interlocutress -very uncomfortable; she turned and twisted herself, vaguely, as if she -wished to protest, but she was far too considerate to interrupt him. He -had no desire to distress her, but there were times in which it was -impossible for him to withstand the perverse satisfaction he took in -insisting on his lowliness of station, in turning the knife about in -the wound inflicted by such explicit reference, and in letting it be -seen that if his place in the world was immeasurably small he at least -had no illusions about either himself or his fellows. Lady Aurora -replied, as quickly as possible, that she knew a great deal about the -poor—not the poor like Rose Muniment, but the terribly, hopelessly -poor, with whom she was more familiar than Hyacinth would perhaps -believe—and that she was often struck with their great talents, with -their quick wit, with their conversation being really much more -entertaining, to her at least, than what one usually heard in -drawing-rooms. She often found them immensely clever. - -Hyacinth smiled at her, and said, “Ah, when you get to the lowest -depths of poverty, they may become very brilliant again. But I’m afraid -I haven’t gone so far down. In spite of my opportunities, I don’t know -many absolute paupers.” - -“I know a great many.” Lady Aurora hesitated, as if she didn’t like to -boast, and then she added, “I dare say I know more than any one.” There -was something touching, beautiful, to Hyacinth, in this simple, -diffident admission; it confirmed his impression that Lady Aurora was -in some mysterious, incongruous, and even slightly ludicrous manner a -heroine, a creature of a noble ideal. She perhaps guessed that he was -indulging in reflections that might be favourable to her, for she said, -precipitately, the next minute, as if there were nothing she dreaded so -much as the danger of a compliment, “I think your aunt’s so very -attractive—and I’m sure Rose Muniment thinks so.” No sooner had she -spoken than she blushed again; it appeared to have occurred to her that -he might suppose she wished to contradict him by presenting this case -of his aunt as a proof that the baser sort, even in a prosaic upper -layer, were not without redeeming points. There was no reason why she -should not have had this intention; so without sparing her, Hyacinth -replied— - -“You mean that she’s an exception to what I was saying?” - -Lady Aurora stammered a little; then, at last, as if, since he wouldn’t -spare her, she wouldn’t spare him, either, “Yes, and you’re an -exception, too; you’ll not make me believe you’re wanting in -intelligence. The Muniments don’t think so,” she added. - -“No more do I myself; but that doesn’t prove that exceptions are not -frequent. I have blood in my veins that is not the blood of the -people.” - -“Oh, I see,” said Lady Aurora, sympathetically. And with a smile she -went on: “Then you’re all the more of an exception—in the upper class!” - -Her smile was the kindest in the world, but it did not blind Hyacinth -to the fact that from his own point of view he had been extraordinarily -indiscreet. He believed a moment before that he would have been proof -against the strongest temptation to refer to the mysteries of his -lineage, inasmuch as, if made in a boastful spirit (and he had no -desire as yet to make it an exercise in humility), any such reference -would inevitably contain an element of the grotesque. He had never -opened his lips to any one about his birth (since the dreadful days -when the question was discussed, with Mr Vetch’s assistance, in Lomax -Place); never even to Paul Muniment, never to Millicent Henning nor to -Eustache Poupin. He had an impression that people had ideas about him, -and with some of Miss Henning’s he had been made acquainted: they were -of such a nature that he sometimes wondered whether the tie which -united him to her were not, on her own side, a secret determination to -satisfy her utmost curiosity before she had done with him. But he -flattered himself that he was impenetrable, and none the less he had -begun to swagger, idiotically, the first time a temptation (to call a -temptation) presented itself. He turned crimson as soon as he had -spoken, partly at the sudden image of what he had to swagger about, and -partly at the absurdity of a challenge having appeared to proceed from -the bashful gentlewoman before him. He hoped she didn’t particularly -regard what he had said (and indeed she gave no sign whatever of being -startled by his claim to a pedigree—she had too much quick delicacy for -that; she appeared to notice only the symptoms of confusion that -followed it), but as soon as possible he gave himself a lesson in -humility by remarking, “I gather that you spend most of your time among -the poor, and I am sure you carry blessings with you. But I frankly -confess that I don’t understand a lady giving herself up to people like -us when there is no obligation. Wretched company we must be, when there -is so much better to be had.” - -“I like it very much—you don’t understand.” - -“Precisely—that is what I say. Our little friend on the bed is -perpetually talking about your house, your family, your splendours, -your gardens and green-houses; they must be magnificent, of course—” - -“Oh, I wish she wouldn’t; really, I wish she wouldn’t. It makes one -feel dreadfully!” Lady Aurora interposed, with vehemence. - -“Ah, you had better give her her way; it’s such a pleasure to her.” - -“Yes, more than to any of us!” sighed her ladyship, helplessly. - -“Well, how can you leave all those beautiful things, to come and -breathe this beastly air, surround yourself with hideous images, and -associate with people whose smallest fault is that they are ignorant, -brutal and dirty? I don’t speak of the ladies here present,” Hyacinth -added, with the manner which most made Millicent Henning (who at once -admired and hated it) wonder where on earth he had got it. - -“Oh, I wish I could make you understand!” cried Lady Aurora, looking at -him with troubled, appealing eyes, as if he were unexpectedly -discouraging. - -“After all, I do understand! Charity exists in your nature as a kind of -passion.” - -“Yes, yes, it’s a kind of passion!” her ladyship repeated, eagerly, -very thankful for the word. “I don’t know whether it’s charity—I don’t -mean that. But whatever it is, it’s a passion—it’s my life—it’s all I -care for.” She hesitated a moment, as if there might be something -indecent in the confession, or dangerous in the recipient; and then, -evidently, she was mastered by the comfort of being able to justify -herself for an eccentricity that had excited notice, as well as by the -luxury of discharging her soul of a long accumulation of timid, sacred -sentiment. “Already, when I was fifteen years old, I wanted to sell all -I had and give to the poor. And ever since, I have wanted to do -something; it has seemed as if my heart would break if I shouldn’t be -able!” - -Hyacinth was struck with a great respect, which, however, did not -prevent him (the words sounded patronising, even to himself) from -saying in a moment, “I suppose you are very religious.” - -Lady Aurora looked away, into the thickening dusk, at the smutty -housetops, the blurred emanation, above the streets, of lamp-light. “I -don’t know—one has one’s ideas—some of them may be strange. I think a -great many clergymen do good, but there are others I don’t like at all. -I dare say we had too many, always, at home; my father likes them so -much. I think I have known too many bishops; I have had the church too -much on my back. I dare say they wouldn’t think at home, you know, that -one was quite what one ought to be; but of course they consider me very -odd, in every way, as there’s no doubt I am. I should tell you that I -don’t tell them everything; for what’s the use, when people don’t -understand? We are twelve at home, and eight of us are girls; and if -you think it’s so very splendid, and _she_ thinks so, I should like you -both to try it for a little! My father isn’t rich, and there is only -one of us married, and we are not at all handsome, and—oh, there are -all kinds of things,” the young woman went on, looking round at him an -instant, shyly but excitedly. “I don’t like society; and neither would -you if you were to see the kind there is in London—at least in some -parts,” Lady Aurora added, considerately. “I dare say you wouldn’t -believe all the humbuggery and the tiresomeness that one has to go -through. But I’ve got out of it; I do as I like, though it has been -rather a struggle. I have my liberty, and that is the greatest blessing -in life, except the reputation of being queer, and even a little mad, -which is a greater advantage still. I’m a little mad, you know; you -needn’t be surprised if you hear it. That’s because I stop in town when -they go into the country; all the autumn, all the winter, when there’s -no one here (except three or four millions), and the rain drips, drips, -drips, from the trees in the big, dull park, where my people live. I -dare say I oughtn’t to say such things to you, but, as I tell you, I’m -a little mad, and I might as well keep up my character. When one is one -of eight daughters, and there’s very little money (for any of us, at -least), and there’s nothing to do but to go out with three or four -others in a mackintosh, one can easily go off one’s head. Of course -there’s the village, and it’s not at all a nice one, and there are the -people to look after, and heaven knows they’re in want of it; but one -must work with the vicarage, and at the vicarage there are four more -daughters, all old maids, and it’s dreary, and it’s dreadful, and one -has too much of it, and they don’t understand what one thinks or feels, -or a single word one says to them! Besides they _are_ stupid, I -admit—the country poor; they are very, very dense. I like Camberwell -better,” said Lady Aurora, smiling and taking breath, at the end of her -nervous, hurried, almost incoherent speech, of which she had delivered -herself pantingly, with strange intonations and grotesque movements of -her neck, as if she were afraid from one moment to the other that she -would repent, not of her confidence, but of her egotism. - -It placed her, for Hyacinth, in an unexpected light, and made him feel -that her awkward, aristocratic spinsterhood was the cover of tumultuous -passions. No one could have less the appearance of being animated by a -vengeful irony; but he saw that this delicate, shy, generous, and -evidently most tender creature was not a person to spare, wherever she -could prick them, the institutions among which she had been brought up -and against which she had violently reacted. Hyacinth had always -supposed that a reactionary meant a backslider from the liberal faith, -but Rosy’s devotee gave a new value to the term; she appeared to have -been driven to her present excesses by the squire and the parson and -the conservative influences of that upper-class British home which our -young man had always supposed to be the highest fruit of civilisation. -It was clear that her ladyship was an original, and an original with -force; but it gave Hyacinth a real pang to hear her make light of -Inglefield (especially the park), and of the opportunities that must -have abounded in Belgrave Square. It had been his belief that in a -world of suffering and injustice these things were, if not the most -righteous, at least the most fascinating. If they didn’t give one the -finest sensations, where were such sensations to be had? He looked at -Lady Aurora with a face which was a tribute to her sudden vividness, -and said, “I can easily understand your wanting to do some good in the -world, because you’re a kind of saint.” - -“A very curious kind!” laughed her ladyship. - -“But I don’t understand your not liking what your position gives you.” - -“I don’t know anything about my position. I want to live!” - -“And do you call _this_ life?” - -“I’ll tell you what my position is, if you want to know: it’s the -deadness of the grave!” - -Hyacinth was startled by her tone, but he nevertheless laughed back at -her, “Ah, as I say, you’re a kind of saint!” She made no reply, for at -that moment the door opened, and Paul Muniment’s tall figure emerged -from the blackness of the staircase into the twilight, now very faint, -of the room. Lady Aurora’s eyes, as they rested upon him, seemed to -declare that such a vision as that, at least, was life. Another person, -as tall as himself, appeared behind him, and Hyacinth recognised with -astonishment their insinuating friend Captain Sholto. Muniment had -brought him up for Rosy’s entertainment, being ready, and more than -ready, always, to usher in any one in the world, from the prime -minister to the common hangman, who might give that young lady a -sensation. They must have met at the ‘Sun and Moon’, and if the -Captain, some accident smoothing the way, had made him half as many -advances as he had made some other people Hyacinth could see that it -wouldn’t take long for Paul to lay him under contribution. But what the -mischief was the Captain up to? It cannot be said that our young man -arrived, this evening, at an answer to that question. The occasion -proved highly festal, and the hostess rose to it without lifting her -head from the pillow. Her brother introduced Captain Sholto as a -gentleman who had a great desire to know extraordinary people, and she -made him take possession of the chair at her bedside, out of which Miss -Pynsent quickly edged herself, and asked him who he was, and where he -came from, and how Paul had made his acquaintance, and whether he had -many friends in Camberwell. Sholto had not the same grand air that -hovered about him at the theatre; he was shabbily dressed, very much -like Hyacinth himself; but his appearance gave our young man an -opportunity to wonder what made him so unmistakably a gentleman in -spite of his seedy coat and trousers—in spite too, of his rather -overdoing the manner of being appreciative even to rapture and thinking -everything and every one most charming and curious. He stood out, in -poor Rosy’s tawdry little room, among her hideous attempts at -decoration, and looked to Hyacinth a being from another sphere, playing -over the place and company a smile (one couldn’t call it false or -unpleasant, yet it was distinctly not natural), of which he had got the -habit in camps and courts. It became brilliant when it rested on -Hyacinth, and the Captain greeted him as he might have done a dear -young friend from whom he had been long and painfully separated. He was -easy, he was familiar, he was exquisitely benevolent and bland, and -altogether incomprehensible. - -Rosy was a match for him, however. He evidently didn’t puzzle her in -the least; she thought his visit the most natural thing in the world. -She expressed all the gratitude that decency required, but appeared to -assume that people who climbed her stairs would always find themselves -repaid. She remarked that her brother must have met him for the first -time that day, for the way that he sealed a new acquaintance was -usually by bringing the person immediately to call upon her. And when -the Captain said that if she didn’t like them he supposed the poor -wretches were dropped on the spot, she admitted that this would be true -if it ever happened that she disapproved; as yet, however, she had not -been obliged to draw the line. This was perhaps partly because he had -not brought up any of his political friends—people that he knew only -for political reasons. Of these people, in general, she had a very -small opinion, and she would not conceal from Captain Sholto that she -hoped he was not one of them. Rosy spoke as if her brother represented -the Camberwell district in the House of Commons and she had discovered -that a parliamentary career lowered the moral tone. The Captain, -however, entered quite into her views, and told her that it was as -common friends of Mr Hyacinth Robinson that Mr Muniment and he had come -together; they were both so fond of him that this had immediately -constituted a kind of tie. On hearing himself commemorated in such a -brilliant way Mr Hyacinth Robinson averted himself; he saw that Captain -Sholto might be trusted to make as great an effort for Rosy’s -entertainment as he gathered that he had made for that of Millicent -Henning, that evening at the theatre. There were not chairs enough to -go round, and Paul fetched a three-legged stool from his own apartment, -after which he undertook to make tea for the company, with the aid of a -tin kettle and a spirit-lamp; these implements having been set out, -flanked by half a dozen cups, in honour, presumably, of the little -dressmaker, who was to come such a distance. The little dressmaker, -Hyacinth observed with pleasure, fell into earnest conversation with -Lady Aurora, who bent over her, flushed, smiling, stammering, and -apparently so nervous that Pinnie, in comparison, was majestic and -serene. They communicated presently to Hyacinth a plan they had -unanimously evolved, to the effect that Miss Pynsent should go home to -Belgrave Square with her ladyship, to settle certain preliminaries in -regard to the pink dressing-gown, toward which, if Miss Pynsent -assented, her ladyship hoped to be able to contribute sundry morsels of -stuff which had proved their quality in honourable service and might be -dyed to the proper tint. Pinnie, Hyacinth could see, was in a state of -religious exaltation; the visit to Belgrave Square and the idea of -co-operating in such a manner with the nobility were privileges she -could not take solemnly enough. The latter luxury, indeed, she began to -enjoy without delay; Lady Aurora suggesting that Mr Muniment might be -rather awkward about making tea, and that they should take the business -off his hands. Paul gave it up to them, with a pretence of compassion -for their conceit, remarking that at any rate it took two women to -supplant one man; and Hyacinth drew him to the window, to ask where he -had encountered Sholto and how he liked him. - -They had met in Bloomsbury, as Hyacinth supposed, and Sholto had made -up to him very much as a country curate might make up to an archbishop. -He wanted to know what he thought of this and that: of the state of the -labour market at the East End, of the terrible case of the old woman -who had starved to death at Walham Green, of the practicability of more -systematic out-of-door agitation, and the prospects of their getting -one of their own men—one of the Bloomsbury lot—into Parliament. “He was -mighty civil,” Muniment said, “and I don’t find that he has picked my -pocket. He looked as if he would like me to suggest that _he_ should -stand as one of our own men, one of the Bloomsbury lot. He asks too -many questions, but he makes up for it by not paying any attention to -the answers. He told me he would give the world to see a working-man’s -‘interior’. I didn’t know what he meant at first: he wanted a -favourable specimen, one of the best; he had seen one or two that he -didn’t believe to be up to the average. I suppose he meant Schinkel, -the cabinet-maker, and he wanted to compare. I told him I didn’t know -what sort of a specimen my place would be, but that he was welcome to -look round, and that it contained at any rate one or two original -features. I expect he has found that’s the case—with Rosy and the noble -lady. I wanted to show him off to Rosy; he’s good for that, if he isn’t -good for anything else. I told him we expected a little company this -evening, so it might be a good time; and he assured me that to mingle -in such an occasion as that was the dream of his existence. He seemed -in a rare hurry, as if I were going to show him a hidden treasure, and -insisted on driving me over in a hansom. Perhaps his idea is to -introduce the use of cabs among the working-classes; certainly, I’ll -vote for him for Parliament, if that’s his line. On our way over he -talked to me about you; told me you were an intimate friend of his.” - -“What did he say about me?” Hyacinth inquired, with promptness. - -“Vain little beggar!” - -“Did he call me that?” said Hyacinth, ingenuously. - -“He said you were simply astonishing.” - -“Simply astonishing?” Hyacinth repeated. - -“For a person of your low extraction.” - -“Well, I may be queer, but he is certainly queerer. Don’t you think so, -now you know him?” - -Paul Muniment looked at his young friend a moment. “Do you want to know -what he is? He’s a tout.” - -“A tout? What do you mean?” - -“Well, a cat’s-paw, if you like better.” - -Hyacinth stared. “For whom, pray?” - -“Or a fisherman, if you like better still. I give you your choice of -comparisons. I made them up as we came along in the hansom. He throws -his nets and hauls in the little fishes—the pretty little shining, -wriggling fishes. They are all for her; she swallows ’em down.” - -“For her? Do you mean the Princess?” - -“Who else should I mean? Take care, my tadpole!” - -“Why should I take care? The other day you told me not to.” - -“Yes, I remember. But now I see more.” - -“Did he speak of her? What did he say?” asked Hyacinth, eagerly. - -“I can’t tell you now what he said, but I’ll tell you what I guessed.” - -“And what’s that?” - -They had been talking, of course, in a very low tone, and their voices -were covered by Rosy’s chatter in the corner, by the liberal laughter -with which Captain Sholto accompanied it, and by the much more -discreet, though earnest, intermingled accents of Lady Aurora and Miss -Pynsent. But Paul Muniment spoke more softly still—Hyacinth felt a kind -of suspense—as he replied in a moment, “Why, she’s a monster!” - -“A monster?” repeated our young man, from whom, this evening, Paul -Muniment seemed destined to elicit ejaculations and echoes. - -Muniment glanced toward the Captain, who was apparently more and more -fascinated by Rosy. “In him I think there’s no great harm. He’s only a -conscientious fisherman!” - -It must be admitted that Captain Sholto justified to a certain extent -this definition by the manner in which he baited his hook for such -little facts as might help him to a more intimate knowledge of his host -and hostess. When the tea was made, Rose Muniment asked Miss Pynsent to -be so good as to hand it about. They must let her poor ladyship rest a -little, must they not?—and Hyacinth could see that in her innocent but -inveterate self-complacency she wished to reward and encourage the -dressmaker, draw her out and present her still more, by offering her -this graceful exercise. Sholto sprang up at this, and begged Pinnie to -let him relieve her, taking a cup from her hand; and poor Pinnie, who -perceived in a moment that he was some kind of masquerading gentleman, -who was bewildered by the strange mixture of elements that surrounded -her and unused to being treated like a duchess (for the Captain’s -manner was a triumph of respectful gallantry), collapsed, on the -instant, into a chair, appealing to Lady Aurora with a frightened smile -and conscious that, deeply versed as she might be in the theory of -decorum, she had no precedent that could meet such an occasion. “Now, -how many families would there be in such a house as this, and what -should you say about the sanitary arrangements? Would there be others -on this floor—what is it, the third, the fourth?—beside yourselves, you -know, and should you call it a fair specimen of a tenement of its -class?” It was with such inquiries as this that Captain Sholto beguiled -their tea-drinking, while Hyacinth made the reflection that, though he -evidently meant them very well, they were characterised by a want of -fine tact, by too patronising a curiosity. The Captain requested -information as to the position in life, the avocations and habits, of -the other lodgers, the rent they paid, their relations with each other, -both in and out of the family. “Now, would there be a good deal of -close packing, do you suppose, and any perceptible want of—a—sobriety?” - -Paul Muniment, who had swallowed his cup of tea at a single gulp—there -was no offer of a second—gazed out of the window into the dark, which -had now come on, with his hands in his pockets, whistling, impolitely, -no doubt, but with brilliant animation. He had the manner of having -made over their visitor altogether to Rosy and of thinking that -whatever he said or did it was all so much grist to her indefatigable -little mill. Lady Aurora looked distressed and embarrassed, and it is a -proof of the degree to which our little hero had the instincts of a man -of the world that he guessed exactly how vulgar she thought this new -acquaintance. She was doubtless rather vexed, also—Hyacinth had learned -this evening that Lady Aurora could be vexed—at the alacrity of Rosy’s -responses; the little person in the bed gave the Captain every -satisfaction, considered his questions as a proper tribute to humble -respectability, and supplied him, as regards the population of Audley -Court, with statistics and anecdotes which she had picked up by -mysterious processes of her own. At last Lady Aurora, upon whom Paul -Muniment had not been at pains to bestow much conversation, took leave -of her, and signified to Hyacinth that for the rest of the evening she -would assume the care of Miss Pynsent. Pinnie looked very tense and -solemn, now that she was really about to be transported to Belgrave -Square, but Hyacinth was sure she would acquit herself only the more -honourably; and when he offered to call for her there, later, she -reminded him, under her breath, with a little sad smile, of the many -years during which, after nightfall, she had carried her work, pinned -up in a cloth, about London. - -Paul Muniment, according to his habit, lighted Lady Aurora downstairs, -and Captain Sholto and Hyacinth were alone for some minutes with Rosy; -which gave the former, taking up his hat and stick, an opportunity to -say to his young friend, “Which way are you going? Not my way, by -chance?” Hyacinth saw that he hoped for his company, and he became -conscious that, strangely as Muniment had indulged him and too -promiscuously investigating as he had just shown himself, this -ingratiating personage was not more easy to resist than he had been the -other night at the theatre. The Captain bent over Rosy’s bed as if she -had been a fine lady on a satin sofa, promising to come back very soon -and very often, and the two men went downstairs. On their way they met -Paul Muniment coming up, and Hyacinth felt rather ashamed, he could -scarcely tell why, that his friend should see him marching off with the -‘tout’. After all, if Muniment had brought him to see his sister, might -not he at least walk with him? “I’m coming again, you know, very often. -I dare say you’ll find me a great bore!” the Captain announced, as he -bade good-night to his host. “Your sister is a most interesting -creature, one of the most interesting creatures I have ever seen, and -the whole thing, you know, exactly the sort of thing I wanted to get -at, only much more—really, much more—original and curious. It has been -a great success, a grand success!” - -And the Captain felt his way down the dusky shaft, while Paul Muniment, -above, gave him the benefit of rather a wavering candlestick, and -answered his civil speech with an “Oh, well, you take us as you find -us, you know!” and an outburst of frank but not unfriendly laughter. - -Half an hour later Hyacinth found himself in Captain Sholto’s chambers, -seated on a big divan covered with Persian rugs and cushions and -smoking the most delectable cigar that had ever touched his lips. As -they left Audley Court the Captain had taken his arm, and they had -walked along together in a desultory, colloquial manner, till on -Westminster Bridge (they had followed the embankment, beneath St -Thomas’s Hospital) Sholto said, “By the way, why shouldn’t you come -home with me and see my little place? I’ve got a few things that might -amuse you—some pictures, some odds and ends I’ve picked up, and a few -bindings; you might tell me what you think of them.” Hyacinth assented, -without hesitation; he had still in his ear the reverberation of the -Captain’s inquiries in Rose Muniment’s room, and he saw no reason why -he, on his side, should not embrace an occasion of ascertaining how, as -his companion would have said, a man of fashion would live now. - -This particular specimen lived in a large, old-fashioned house in Queen -Anne Street, of which he occupied the upper floors, and whose high, -wainscoted rooms he had filled with the spoils of travel and the -ingenuities of modern taste. There was not a country in the world he -did not appear to have ransacked, and to Hyacinth his trophies -represented a wonderfully long purse. The whole establishment, from the -low-voiced, inexpressive valet who, after he had poured brandy into -tall tumblers, gave dignity to the popping of soda-water corks, to the -quaint little silver receptacle in which he was invited to deposit the -ashes of his cigar, was such a revelation for our appreciative hero -that he felt himself hushed and made sad, so poignant was the thought -that it took thousands of things which he, then, should never possess -nor know to make an accomplished man. He had often, in evening-walks, -wondered what was behind the walls of certain spacious, bright-windowed -houses in the West End, and now he got an idea. The first effect of the -idea was to overwhelm him. - -“Well, now, tell me what you thought of our friend the Princess,” the -Captain said, thrusting out the loose yellow slippers which his servant -had helped to exchange for his shoes. He spoke as if he had been -waiting impatiently for the proper moment to ask that question, so much -might depend on the answer. - -“She’s beautiful—beautiful,” Hyacinth answered, almost dreamily, with -his eyes wandering all over the room. - -“She was so interested in all you said to her; she would like so much -to see you again. She means to write to you—I suppose she can address -to the ‘Sun and Moon’?—and I hope you’ll go to her house, if she -proposes a day.” - -“I don’t know—I don’t know. It seems so strange.” - -“What seems strange, my dear fellow?” - -“Everything! My sitting here with you; my introduction to that lady; -the idea of her wanting, as you say, to see me again, and of her -writing to me; and this whole place of yours, with all these dim, rich -curiosities hanging on the walls and glinting in the light of that -rose-coloured lamp. You yourself, too—you are strangest of all.” - -The Captain looked at him, in silence, so fixedly for a while, through -the fumes of their tobacco, after he had made this last charge, that -Hyacinth thought he was perhaps offended; but this impression was -presently dissipated by further manifestations of sociability and -hospitality, and Sholto took occasion, later, to let him know how -important it was, in the days they were living in, not to have too -small a measure of the usual, destined as they certainly were—“in the -whole matter of the relations of class with class, and all that sort of -thing, you know”—to witness some very startling developments. The -Captain spoke as if, for his part, he were a child of his age (so that -he only wanted to see all it could show him), down to the point of his -yellow slippers. Hyacinth felt that he himself had not been very -satisfactory about the Princess; but as his nerves began to tremble a -little more into tune with the situation he repeated to his host what -Millicent Henning had said about her at the theatre—asked if this young -lady had correctly understood him in believing that she had been turned -out of the house by her husband. - -“Yes, he literally pushed her into the street—or into the garden; I -believe the scene took place in the country. But perhaps Miss Henning -didn’t mention, or perhaps I didn’t mention, that the Prince would at -the present hour give everything he owns in the world to get her back. -Fancy such a scene!” said the Captain, laughing in a manner that struck -Hyacinth as rather profane. - -He stared, with dilated eyes, at this picture, which seemed to evoke a -comparison with the only incident of the sort that had come within his -experience—the forcible ejection of intoxicated females from public -houses. “That magnificent being—what had she done?” - -“Oh, she had made him feel he was an ass!” the Captain answered, -promptly. He turned the conversation to Miss Henning; said he was so -glad Hyacinth gave him an opportunity to speak of her. He got on with -her famously; perhaps she had told him. They became immense friends—_en -tout bien tout honneur, s’entend_. Now, _there_ was another London -type, plebeian but brilliant; and how little justice one usually did -it, how magnificent it was! But she, of course, was a wonderful -specimen. “My dear fellow, I have seen many women, and the women of -many countries,” the Captain went on, “and I have seen them intimately, -and I know what I am talking about; and when I tell you that that -one—that one—” Then he suddenly paused, laughing in his democratic way. -“But perhaps I am going too far: you must always pull me up, you know, -when I do. At any rate, I congratulate you; I do, heartily. Have -another cigar. Now what sort of—a—salary would she receive at her big -shop, you know? I know where it is; I mean to there and buy some -pocket-handkerchiefs.” - -Hyacinth knew neither how far Captain Sholto had been going, nor -exactly on what he congratulated him; and he pretended, at least, an -equal ignorance on the subject of Millicent’s salary. He didn’t want to -talk about her, moreover, nor about his own life; he wanted to talk -about the Captain’s, and to elicit information that would be in harmony -with his romantic chambers, which reminded our hero somehow of Bulwer’s -novels. His host gratified this desire most liberally, and told him -twenty stories of things that had happened to him in Albania, in -Madagascar, and even in Paris. Hyacinth induced him easily to talk -about Paris (from a different point of view from M. Poupin’s), and sat -there drinking in enchantments. The only thing that fell below the high -level of his entertainment was the bindings of the Captain’s books, -which he told him frankly, with the conscience of an artist, were not -very good. After he left Queen Anne Street he was quite too excited to -go straight home; he walked about with his mind full of images and -strange speculations, till the gray London streets began to grow clear -with the summer dawn. - - - - -XVI - - -The aspect of South Street, Mayfair, on a Sunday afternoon in August, -is not enlivening, yet the Prince had stood for ten minutes gazing out -of the window at the genteel vacancy of the scene; at the closed blinds -of the opposite houses, the lonely policeman on the corner, covering a -yawn with a white cotton hand, the low-pitched light itself, which -seemed conscious of an obligation to observe the decency of the British -Sabbath. The Prince, however, had a talent for that kind of attitude; -it was one of the things by which he had exasperated his wife; he could -remain motionless, with the aid of some casual support for his high, -lean person, considering serenely and inexpressively any object that -might lie before him and presenting his aristocratic head at a -favourable angle, for periods of extraordinary length. On first coming -into the room he had given some attention to its furniture and -decorations, perceiving at a glance that they were rich and varied; -some of the things he recognised as old friends, odds and ends the -Princess was fond of, which had accompanied her in her remarkable -wanderings, while others were unfamiliar, and suggested vividly that -she had not ceased to ‘collect’. The Prince made two reflections: one -was that she was living as expensively as ever; the other that, however -this might be, no one had such a feeling as she for the _mise-en-scène_ -of life, such a talent for arranging a room. She had still the most -charming salon in Europe. - -It was his impression that she had taken the house in South Street but -for three months; yet, gracious heaven, what had she not put into it? -The Prince asked himself this question without violence, for that was -not to be his line to-day. He could be angry to a point at which he -himself was often frightened, but he honestly believed that this was -only when he had been baited beyond endurance and that as a usual thing -he was really as mild and accommodating as the extreme urbanity of his -manner appeared to announce. There was indeed nothing to suggest to the -world in general that he was an impracticable or vindictive nobleman: -his features were not regular, and his complexion had a bilious tone; -but his dark brown eye, which was at once salient and dull, expressed -benevolence and melancholy; his head drooped from his long neck in a -considerate, attentive style; and his close-cropped black hair, -combined with a short, fine, pointed beard, completed his resemblance -to some old portrait of a personage of distinction under the Spanish -dominion at Naples. To-day, at any rate, he had come in conciliation, -almost in humility, and that is why he did not permit himself even to -murmur at the long delay to which he was subjected. He knew very well -that if his wife should consent to take him back it would be only after -a probation to which this little wait in her drawing-room was a trifle. -It was a quarter of an hour before the door opened, and even then it -was not the Princess who appeared, but only Madame Grandoni. - -Their greeting was a very silent one. She came to him with both hands -outstretched, and took his own and held them awhile, looking up at him -in a kindly, motherly manner. She had elongated her florid, humorous -face to a degree that was almost comical, and the pair might have -passed, in their speechless solemnity, for acquaintances meeting in a -house in which a funeral was about to take place. It was indeed a house -on which death had descended, as he very soon learned from Madame -Grandoni’s expression; something had perished there for ever, and he -might proceed to bury it as soon as he liked. His wife’s ancient German -friend, however, was not a person to keep up a manner of that sort very -long, and when, after she had made him sit down on the sofa beside her, -she shook her head, slowly and definitely, several times, it was with a -face in which a more genial appreciation of the circumstances had -already begun to appear. - -“Never—never—never?” said the Prince, in a deep, hoarse voice, which -was at variance with his aristocratic slimness. He had much of the -aspect which, in late-coming members of long-descended races, we -qualify to-day as effete; but his speech might have been the speech of -some deep-chested fighting ancestor. - -“Surely you know your wife as well as I,” she replied, in Italian, -which she evidently spoke with facility, though with a strong guttural -accent. “I have been talking with her: that is what has made me keep -you. I have urged her to see you. I have told her that this could do no -harm and would pledge her to nothing. But you know your wife,” Madame -Grandoni repeated, with a smile which was now distinctly facetious. - -Prince Casamassima looked down at his boots. “How can one ever know a -person like that? I hoped she would see me for five minutes.” - -“For what purpose? Have you anything to propose?” - -“For what purpose? To rest my eyes on her beautiful face.” - -“Did you come to England for that?” - -“For what else should I have come?” the Prince inquired, turning his -blighted gaze to the opposite side of South Street. - -“In London, such a day as this, _già_,” said the old lady, -sympathetically. “I am very sorry for you; but if I had known you were -coming I would have written to you that you might spare yourself the -pain.” - -The Prince gave a low, interminable sigh. “You ask me what I wish to -propose. What I wish to propose is that my wife does not kill me inch -by inch.” - -“She would be much more likely to do that if you lived with her!” -Madame Grandoni cried. - -“_Cara signora_, she doesn’t appear to have killed you,” the melancholy -nobleman rejoined. - -“Oh, me? I am past killing. I am as hard as a stone. I went through my -miseries long ago; I suffered what you have not had to suffer; I wished -for death many times, and I survived it all. Our troubles don’t kill -us, Prince; it is we who must try to kill them. I have buried not a -few. Besides Christina is fond of me, God knows why!” Madame Grandoni -added. - -“And you are so good to her,” said the Prince, laying his hand on her -fat, wrinkled fist. - -“_Che vuole?_ I have known her so long. And she has some such great -qualities.” - -“Ah, to whom do you say it?” And Prince Casamassima gazed at his boots -again, for some moments, in silence. Suddenly he inquired, “How does -she look to-day?” - -“She always looks the same: like an angel who came down from heaven -yesterday and has been rather disappointed in her first day on earth!” - -The Prince was evidently a man of a simple nature, and Madame -Grandoni’s rather violent metaphor took his fancy. His face lighted up -for a moment, and he replied with eagerness, “Ah, she is the only woman -I have ever seen whose beauty never for a moment falls below itself. -She has no bad days. She is so handsome when she is angry!” - -“She is very handsome to-day, but she is not angry,” said the old lady. - -“Not when my name was announced?” - -“I was not with her then; but when she sent for me and asked me to see -you, it was quite without passion. And even when I argued with her, and -tried to persuade her (and she doesn’t like that, you know), she was -still perfectly quiet.” - -“She hates me, she despises me too much, eh?” - -“How can I tell, dear Prince, when she never mentions you?” - -“Never, never?” - -“That’s much better than if she railed at you and abused you.” - -“You mean it should give me more hope for the future?” the young man -asked, quickly. - -Madame Grandoni hesitated a moment. “I mean it’s better for me,” she -answered, with a laugh of which the friendly ring covered as much as -possible her equivocation. - -“Ah, you like me enough to care,” he murmured, turning on her his sad, -grateful eyes. - -“I am very sorry for you. _Ma che vuole?_” - -The Prince had, apparently, nothing to suggest, and he only exhaled, in -reply, another gloomy groan. Then he inquired whether his wife pleased -herself in that country, and whether she intended to pass the summer in -London. Would she remain long in England, and—might he take the liberty -to ask?—what were her plans? Madame Grandoni explained that the -Princess had found the British metropolis much more to her taste than -one might have expected, and that as for plans, she had as many, or as -few, as she had always had. Had he ever known her to carry out any -arrangement, or to do anything, of any kind, she had selected or -determined upon? She always, at the last moment, did the other thing, -the one that had been out of the question; and it was for this that -Madame Grandoni herself privately made her preparations. Christina, now -that everything was over, would leave London from one day to the other; -but they should not know where they were going until they arrived. The -old lady concluded by asking the Prince if he himself liked England. He -thrust forward his thick lips. “How can I like anything? Besides, I -have been here before: I have friends,” he said. - -His companion perceived that he had more to say to her, to extract from -her, but that he was hesitating nervously, because he feared to incur -some warning, some rebuff, with which his dignity—which, in spite of -his position of discomfiture, was really very great—might find it -difficult to square itself. He looked vaguely round the room, and -presently he remarked, “I wanted to see for myself how she is living.” - -“Yes, that is very natural.” - -“I have heard—I have heard—” and Prince Casamassima stopped. - -“You have heard great rubbish, I have no doubt.” Madame Grandoni -watched him, as if she foresaw what was coming. - -“She spends a terrible deal of money,” said the young man. - -“Indeed she does.” The old lady knew that, careful as he was of his -very considerable property, which at one time had required much -nursing, his wife’s prodigality was not what lay heaviest on his mind. -She also knew that expensive and luxurious as Christina might be she -had never yet exceeded the income settled upon her by the Prince at the -time of their separation—an income determined wholly by himself and his -estimate of what was required to maintain the social consequence of his -name, for which he had a boundless reverence. “She thinks she is a -model of thrift—that she counts every shilling,” Madame Grandoni -continued. “If there is a virtue she prides herself upon, it’s her -economy. Indeed, it’s the only thing for which she takes any credit.” - -“I wonder if she knows that I”—the Prince hesitated a moment, then he -went on—“that I spend really nothing. But I would rather live on dry -bread than that, in a country like this, in this English society, she -should not make a proper appearance.” - -“Her appearance is all you could wish. How can it help being proper, -with me to set her off?” - -“You are the best thing she has, dear lady. So long as you are with her -I feel a certain degree of security; and one of the things I came for -was to extract from you a promise that you won’t leave her.” - -“Ah, let us not tangle ourselves up with promises!” Madame Grandoni -exclaimed. “You know the value of any engagement one may take with -regard to the Princess; it’s like promising you I will stay in the bath -when the hot water is turned on. When I begin to be scalded, I have to -jump out! I will stay while I can; but I shouldn’t stay if she were to -do certain things.” Madame Grandoni uttered these last words very -gravely, and for a minute she and her companion looked deep into each -other’s eyes. - -“What things do you mean?” - -“I can’t say what things. It is utterly impossible to predict, on any -occasion, what Christina will do. She is capable of giving us great -surprises. The things I mean are things I should recognise as soon as I -saw them, and they would make me leave the house on the instant.” - -“So that if you have not left it yet—?” the Prince asked, in a low -tone, with extreme eagerness. - -“It is because I have thought I may do some good by staying.” - -The young man seemed only half satisfied with this answer; nevertheless -he said in a moment—“To me it makes all the difference. And if anything -of the kind you speak of should happen, that would be only the greater -reason for your staying—that you might interpose, that you might -arrest—” He stopped short; Madame Grandoni was laughing, with her -Teutonic homeliness, in his face. - -“You must have been in Rome, more than once, when the Tiber had -overflowed, _è vero?_ What would you have thought then if you had heard -people telling the poor wretches in the Ghetto, on the Ripetta, up to -their knees in liquid mud, that they ought to interpose, to arrest?” - -“_Capisco bene_,” said the Prince, dropping his eyes. He appeared to -have closed them, for some moments, as if a slow spasm of pain were -passing through him. “I can’t tell you what torments me most,” he -presently went on, “the thought that sometimes makes my heart rise into -my mouth. It’s a haunting fear.” And his pale face and disturbed -respiration might indeed have been those of a man before whom some -horrible spectre had risen. - -“You needn’t tell me. I know what you mean, my poor friend.” - -“Do you think, then, there _is_ a danger—that she will drag my name, do -what no one has ever dared to do? That I would never forgive,” said the -young man, almost under his breath; and the hoarseness of his whisper -lent a great effect to the announcement. - -Madame Grandoni wondered for a moment whether she had not better tell -him (as it would prepare him for the worst) that his wife cared about -as much for his name as for any old label on her luggage; but after an -instant’s reflection she reserved this information for another hour. -Besides, as she said to herself, the Prince ought already to know -perfectly to what extent Christina attached the idea of an obligation -or an interdict to her ill-starred connection with an ignorant and -superstitious Italian race whom she despised for their provinciality, -their parsimony and their tiresomeness (she thought their talk the -climax of puerility), and whose fatuous conception of their importance -in the great modern world she had on various public occasions -sufficiently covered with her derision. The old lady finally contented -herself with remarking, “Dear Prince, your wife is a very proud woman.” - -“Ah, how could my wife be anything else? But her pride is not my pride. -And she has such ideas, such opinions! Some of them are monstrous.” - -Madame Grandoni smiled. “She doesn’t think it so necessary to have them -when you are not there.” - -“Why then do you say that you enter into my fears—that you recognise -the stories I have heard?” - -I know not whether the good lady lost patience with his persistence; at -all events, she broke out, with a certain sharpness, “Understand -this—understand this: Christina will never consider you—your name, your -illustrious traditions—in any case in which she doesn’t consider, much -more, herself!” - -The Prince appeared to study, for a moment, this somewhat ambiguous yet -portentous phrase; then he slowly got up, with his hat in his hand, and -walked about the room, softly, solemnly, as he were suffering from his -long thin feet. He stopped before one of the windows, and took another -survey of South Street; then, turning, he suddenly inquired, in a voice -into which he had evidently endeavoured to infuse a colder curiosity, -“Is she admired in this place? Does she see many people?” - -“She is thought very strange, of course. But she sees whom she likes. -And they mostly bore her to death!” Madame Grandoni added, with a -laugh. - -“Why then do you tell me this country pleases her?” - -Madame Grandoni left her place. She had promised Christina, who -detested the sense of being under the same roof with her husband, that -the Prince’s visit should be kept within narrow limits; and this -movement was intended to signify as kindly as possible that it had -better terminate. “It is the common people that please her,” she -replied, with her hands folded on her crumpled satin stomach and her -humorous eyes raised to his face. “It is the lower orders, the _basso -popolo_.” - -“The _basso popolo?_” The Prince stared, at this fantastic -announcement. - -“The _povera gente_,” pursued the old lady, laughing at his amazement. - -“The London mob—the most horrible, the most brutal—?” - -“Oh, she wishes to raise them.” - -“After all, something like that is no more than I had heard,” said the -Prince gravely. - -“_Che vuole?_ Don’t trouble yourself; it won’t be for long!” - -Madame Grandoni saw that this comforting assurance was lost upon him; -his face was turned to the door of the room, which had been thrown -open, and all his attention was given to the person who crossed the -threshold. Madame Grandoni transferred her own to the same quarter, and -recognised the little artisan whom Christina had, in a manner so -extraordinary and so profoundly characteristic, drawn into her box that -night at the theatre, and whom she had since told her old friend she -had sent for to come and see her. - -“Mr Robinson!” the butler, who had had a lesson, announced in a loud, -colourless tone. - -“It won’t be for long,” Madame Grandoni repeated, for the Prince’s -benefit; but it was to Mr Robinson the words had the air of being -addressed. - -He stood there while Madame Grandoni signalled to the servant to leave -the door open and wait, looking from the queer old lady, who was as -queer as before, to the tall foreign gentleman (he recognised his -foreignness at a glance), whose eyes seemed to challenge him, to devour -him; wondering whether he had made some mistake, and needing to remind -himself that he had the Princess’s note in his pocket, with the day and -hour as clear as her magnificent handwriting could make them. - -“Good-morning, good-morning. I hope you are well,” said Madame -Grandoni, with quick friendliness, but turning her back upon him at the -same time, to ask of the Prince, in Italian, as she extended her hand, -“And do you not leave London soon—in a day or two?” - -The Prince made no answer; he still scrutinised the little bookbinder -from head to foot, as if he were wondering who the deuce he could be. -His eyes seemed to Hyacinth to search for the small neat bundle he -ought to have had under his arm, and without which he was incomplete. -To the reader, however, it may be confided that, dressed more carefully -than he had ever been in his life before, stamped with that -extraordinary transformation which the British Sunday often operates in -the person of the wage-earning cockney, with his handsome head -uncovered and suppressed excitement in his brilliant little face, the -young man from Lomax Place might have passed for anything rather than a -carrier of parcels. “The Princess wrote to me, madam, to come and see -her,” he remarked, as a precaution, in case he should have incurred the -reproach of bad taste, or at least of precipitation. - -“Oh yes, I dare say.” And Madame Grandoni guided the Prince to the -door, with an expression of the hope that he would have a comfortable -journey back to Italy. - -A faint flush had come into his face; he appeared to have satisfied -himself on the subject of Mr Robinson. “I must see you once more—I -must—it’s impossible!” - -“Ah, well, not in this house, you know.” - -“Will you do me the honour to meet me, then?” And as the old lady -hesitated, he added, with sudden passion, “Dearest friend, I entreat -you on my knees!” After she had agreed that if he would write to her, -proposing a day and place, she would see him, he raised her ancient -knuckles to his lips and, without further notice of Hyacinth, turned -away. Madame Grandoni requested the servant to announce the other -visitor to the Princess, and then approached Mr Robinson, rubbing her -hands and smiling, with her head on one side. He smiled back at her, -vaguely; he didn’t know what she might be going to say. What she said -was, to his surprise— - -“My poor young man, may I take the liberty of asking your age?” - -“Certainly, madam; I am twenty-four.” - -“And I hope you are industrious, and sober, and—what do you call it in -English?—steady.” - -“I don’t think I am very wild,” said Hyacinth, smiling still. He -thought the old woman patronising, but he forgave her. - -“I don’t know how one speaks, in this country, to young men like you. -Perhaps one is considered meddling, impertinent.” - -“I like the way you speak,” Hyacinth interposed. - -She stared, and then with a comical affectation of dignity, replied, -“You are very good. I am glad it amuses you. You are evidently -intelligent and clever,” she went on, “and if you are disappointed it -will be a pity.” - -“How do you mean, if I am disappointed?” Hyacinth looked more grave. - -“Well, I dare say you expect great things, when you come into a house -like this. You must tell me if I wound you. I am very old-fashioned, -and I am not of this country. I speak as one speaks to young men, like -you, in other places.” - -“I am not so easily wounded!” Hyacinth exclaimed, with a flight of -imagination. “To expect anything, one must know something, one must -understand: isn’t it so? And I am here without knowing, without -understanding. I have come only because a lady who seems to me very -beautiful and very kind has done me the honour to send for me.” - -Madame Grandoni examined him a moment, as if she were struck by his -good looks, by something delicate that was stamped upon him everywhere. -“I can see you are very clever, very intelligent; no, you are not like -the young men I mean. All the more reason—” And she paused, giving a -little sigh. “I want to warn you a little, and I don’t know how. If you -were a young Roman, it would be different.” - -“A young Roman?” - -“That’s where I live, properly, in Rome. If I hurt you, you can explain -it that way. No, you are not like them.” - -“You don’t hurt me—please believe that; you interest me very much,” -said Hyacinth, to whom it did not occur that he himself might appear -patronising. “Of what do you want to warn me?” - -“Well—only to advise you a little. Do not give up anything.” - -“What can I give up?” - -“Do not give up _yourself_. I say that to you in your interest. I think -you have some little trade—I forget what; but whatever it may be, -remember that to do it well is the best thing—it is better than paying -visits, better even than a Princess!” - -“Ah yes, I see what you mean!” Hyacinth exclaimed, exaggerating a -little. “I am very fond of my trade, I assure you.” - -“I am delighted to hear it. Hold fast to it, then, and be quiet; be -diligent, and honest, and good. I gathered the other night that you are -one of the young men who want everything changed—I believe there are a -great many in Italy, and also in my own dear old Deutschland—and even -think it’s useful to throw bombs into innocent crowds, and shoot -pistols at their rulers, or at any one. I won’t go into that. I might -seem to be speaking for myself, and the fact is that for myself I don’t -care; I am so old that I may hope to spend the few days that are left -me without receiving a bullet. But before you go any further please -think a little whether you are right.” - -“It isn’t just that you should impute to me ideas which I may not -have,” said Hyacinth, turning very red, but taking more and more of a -fancy, all the same, to Madame Grandoni. “You talk at your ease about -our ways and means, but if we were only to make use of those that you -would like to see—” And while he blushed, smiling, the young man shook -his head two or three times, with great significance. - -“I shouldn’t like to see any!” the old lady cried. “I like people to -bear their troubles as one has done one’s self. And as for injustice, -you see how kind I am to you when I say to you again, don’t, don’t give -anything up. I will tell them to send you some tea,” she added, as she -took her way out of the room, presenting to him her round, low, aged -back, and dragging over the carpet a scanty and lustreless train. - - - - -XVII - - -Hyacinth had been warned by Mr Vetch as to what brilliant women might -do with him (it was only a word on the old fiddler’s lips, but the word -had had a point), he had been warned by Paul Muniment, and now he was -admonished by a person supremely well placed for knowing—a fact that -could not fail to deepen the emotion which, any time these three days, -had made him draw his breath more quickly. That emotion, however, was -now not of a kind to make him fear remote consequences; as he looked -over the Princess Casamassima’s drawing-room and inhaled an air that -seemed to him inexpressibly delicate and sweet, he hoped that his -adventure would throw him upon his mettle only half as much as the old -lady had wished to intimate. He considered, one after the other, the -different chairs, couches and ottomans the room contained—he wished to -treat himself to the most sumptuous—and then, for reasons he knew best, -sank into a seat covered with rose-coloured brocade, of which the legs -and frame appeared to be of pure gold. Here he sat perfectly still, -with only his heart beating very sensibly and his eyes coursing again -and again from one object to another. The splendours and suggestions of -Captain Sholto’s apartment were thrown completely into the shade by the -scene before him, and as the Princess did not scruple to keep him -waiting for twenty minutes (during which the butler came in and set -out, on a small table, a glittering tea-service), Hyacinth had time to -count over the innumerable _bibelots_ (most of which he had never -dreamed of) involved in the personality of a woman of high fashion, and -to feel that their beauty and oddity revealed not only whole provinces -of art, but refinements of choice, on the part of their owner, -complications of mind, and—almost—terrible depths of character. - -When at last the door opened and the servant, reappearing, threw it far -back, as if to make a wide passage for a person of the importance of -his mistress, Hyacinth’s suspense became very acute; it was much the -same feeling with which, at the theatre, he had sometimes awaited the -entrance of a celebrated actress. In this case the actress was to -perform for him alone. There was still a moment before she came on, and -when she did so she was so simply dressed—besides his seeing her now on -her feet—that she looked like a different person. She approached him -rapidly, and a little stiffly and shyly, but in the manner in which she -shook hands with him there was an evident desire to be frank, and even -fraternal. She looked like a different person, but that person had a -beauty even more radiant; the fairness of her face shone forth at our -young man as if to dissipate any doubts that might have crept over him -as to the reality of the vision bequeathed to him by his former -interview. And in this brightness and richness of her presence he could -not have told you whether she struck him as more proud or more kind. - -“I have kept you a long time, but it’s supposed not, usually, to be a -bad place, my salon; there are various things to look at, and perhaps -you have noticed them. Over on that side, for instance, there is rather -a curious collection of miniatures.” She spoke abruptly, quickly, as if -she were conscious that their communion might be awkward and she were -trying to strike, instantly (to conjure that element away), the sort of -note that would make them both most comfortable. Quickly, too, she sat -down before her tea-tray and poured him out a cup, which she handed him -without asking whether he would have it. He accepted it with a -trembling hand, though he had no desire for it; he was too nervous to -swallow the tea, but it would not have occurred to him that it was -possible to decline. When he had murmured that he had indeed looked at -all her things but that it would take hours to do justice to such -treasures, she asked if he were fond of works of art; adding, however, -immediately, that she was afraid he had not many opportunities of -seeing them, though of course there were the public collections, open -to all. Hyacinth said, with perfect veracity, that some of the happiest -moments of his life had been spent at the British Museum and the -National Gallery, and this reply appeared to interest her greatly, so -that she immediately begged him to tell her what he thought of certain -pictures and antiques. In this way it was that in an incredibly short -space of time, as it appeared to him, he found himself discussing the -Bacchus and Ariadne and the Elgin marbles with one of the most -remarkable woman in Europe. It is true that she herself talked most, -passing precipitately from one point to another, asking him questions -and not waiting for answers; describing and qualifying things, -expressing feelings, by the aid of phrases that he had never heard -before but which seemed to him illuminating and happy—as when, for -instance, she asked what art was, after all, but a synthesis made in -the interest of pleasure, or said that she didn’t like England at all, -but loved it. It did not occur to him to think these discriminations -pedantic. Suddenly she remarked, “Madame Grandoni told me you saw my -husband.” - -“Ah, was the gentleman your husband?” - -“Unfortunately! What do you think of him?” - -“Oh, I can’t think—” Hyacinth murmured. - -“I wish I couldn’t, either! I haven’t seen him for nearly three years. -He wanted to see me to-day, but I refused.” - -“Ah!” said Hyacinth, staring and not knowing how he ought to receive so -unexpected a confidence. Then, as the suggestions of inexperience are -sometimes the happiest of all, he spoke simply what was in his mind and -said, gently, “It has made you very nervous.” Afterwards, when he had -left the house, he wondered how, at that stage, he could have ventured -on such a familiar remark. - -The Princess took it with a quick, surprised laugh. “How do you know -that?” But before he had time to tell how, she added, “Your saying -that—that way—shows me how right I was to ask you to come to see me. -You know, I hesitated. It shows me you have perceptions; I guessed as -much the other night at the theatre. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have asked -you. I may be wrong, but I like people who understand what one says to -them, and also what one doesn’t say.” - -“Don’t think I understand too much. You might easily exaggerate that,” -Hyacinth declared, conscientiously. - -“You confirm, completely, my first impression,” the Princess returned, -smiling in a way that showed him he really amused her. “We shall -discover the limits of your comprehension! I _am_ atrociously nervous. -But it will pass. How is your friend the dressmaker?” she inquired, -abruptly. And when Hyacinth had briefly given some account of poor -Pinnie—told her that she was tolerably well for her, but old and tired -and sad, and not very successful—she exclaimed, impatiently, “Ah, well, -she’s not the only one!” and came back, with irrelevance, to the former -question. “It’s not only my husband’s visit—absolutely unexpected!—that -has made me fidgety, but the idea that now you have been so kind as to -come here you may wonder why, after all, I made such a point of it, and -even think any explanation I might be able to give you entirely -insufficient.” - -“I don’t want any explanation,” said Hyacinth. - -“It’s very nice of you to say that, and I shall take you at your word. -Explanations usually make things worse. All the same, I don’t want you -to think (as you might have done so easily the other evening) that I -wish only to treat you as a curious animal.” - -“I don’t care how you treat me!” said Hyacinth, smiling. - -There was a considerable silence, after which the Princess remarked, -“All I ask of my husband is to let me alone. But he won’t. He won’t -reciprocate my indifference.” - -Hyacinth asked himself what reply he ought to make to such an -announcement as that, and it seemed to him that the least civility -demanded was that he should say—as he could with such conviction—“It -can’t be easy to be indifferent to you.” - -“Why not, if I am odious? I can be—oh, there is no doubt of that! -However, I can honestly say that with the Prince I have been -exceedingly reasonable, and that most of the wrongs—the big ones, those -that settled the question—have been on his side. You may tell me of -course that that’s the pretension of every woman who has made a mess of -her marriage. But ask Madame Grandoni.” - -“She will tell me it’s none of my business.” - -“Very true—she might!” the Princess admitted, laughing. “And I don’t -know, either, why I should talk to you about my domestic affairs; -except that I have been wondering what I could do to show confidence in -you, in return for your showing so much in me. As this matter of my -separation from my husband happens to have been turned uppermost by his -sudden descent upon me, I just mention it, though the subject is -tiresome enough. Moreover I ought to let you know that I have very -little respect for distinctions of class—the sort of thing they make so -much of in this country. They are doubtless convenient in some ways, -but when one has a reason—a reason of feeling—for overstepping them, -and one allows one’s self to be deterred by some dreary superstition -about one’s place, or some one else’s place, then I think it’s ignoble. -It always belongs to one’s place not to be a poor creature. I take it -that if you are a socialist you think about this as I do; but lest, by -chance, as the sense of those differences is the English religion, it -may have rubbed off even on you, though I am more and more impressed -with the fact that you are scarcely more British than I am; lest you -should, in spite of your theoretic democracy, be shocked at some of the -applications that I, who cherish the creed, am capable of making of it, -let me assure you without delay that in that case we shouldn’t get on -together at all, and had better part company before we go further.” She -paused, long enough for Hyacinth to declare, with a great deal of -emphasis, that he was not easily shocked; and then, restlessly, -eagerly, as if it relieved her to talk, and made their queer interview -less abnormal that she should talk most, she arrived at the point that -she wanted to know the _people_, and know them intimately—the toilers -and strugglers and sufferers—because she was convinced they were the -most interesting portion of society, and at the inquiry, “What could -possibly be in worse taste than for me to carry into such an -undertaking a pretension of greater delicacy and finer manners? If I -must do that,” she continued, “it’s simpler to leave them alone. But I -can’t leave them alone; they press upon me, they haunt me, they -fascinate me. There it is (after all, it’s very simple): I want to know -them, and I want you to help me!” - -“I will help you with pleasure, to the best of my humble ability. But -you will be awfully disappointed,” Hyacinth said. Very strange it -seemed to him that within so few days two ladies of rank should have -found occasion to express to him the same mysterious longing. A breeze -from a thoroughly unexpected quarter was indeed blowing over the -aristocracy. Nevertheless, though there was much of the accent of -passion in the Princess Casamassima’s communication that there had been -in Lady Aurora’s, and though he felt bound to discourage his present -interlocutress as he had done the other, the force that pushed her -struck him as a very different mixture from the shy, conscientious, -anxious heresies of Rose Muniment’s friend. The temper varied in the -two women as much as the face and the manner, and that perhaps made -their curiosity the more significant. - -“I haven’t the least doubt of it: there is nothing in life in which I -have not been awfully disappointed. But disappointment for -disappointment I shall like it better than some others. You’ll not -persuade me, either, that among the people I speak of, characters and -passions and motives are not more natural, more complete, more _naïf_. -The upper classes are so insipid! My husband traces his descent from -the fifth century, and he’s the greatest bore on earth. That is the -kind of people I was condemned to live with after my marriage. Oh, if -you knew what I have been through, you would allow that intelligent -mechanics (of course I don’t want to know idiots) would be a pleasant -change. I must begin with some one—mustn’t I?—so I began, the other -night, with you!” As soon as she had uttered these words the Princess -added a correction, with the consciousness of her mistake in her face. -It made that face, to Hyacinth, more nobly, tenderly pure. “The only -objection to you, individually, is that you have nothing of the people -about you—to-day not even the dress.” Her eyes wandered over him from -head to foot, and their friendly beauty made him ashamed. “I wish you -had come in the clothes you wear at your work!” - -“You see you do regard me as a curious animal,” he answered. - -It was perhaps to contradict this that, after a moment, she began to -tell him more about her domestic affairs. He ought to know who she was, -unless Captain Sholto had told him; and she related her -parentage—American on the mother’s side, Italian on the father’s—and -how she had led, in her younger years, a wandering, Bohemian life, in a -thousand different places (always in Europe; she had never been in -America and knew very little about it, though she wanted greatly to -cross the Atlantic), and largely, at one period, in Rome. She had been -married by her people, in a mercenary way, for the sake of a fortune -and a title, and it had turned out as badly as her worst enemy could -wish. Her parents were dead, luckily for them, and she had no one near -her of her own except Madame Grandoni, who belonged to her only in the -sense that she had known her as a girl; was an association of her—what -should she call them?—her innocent years. Not that she had ever been -very innocent; she had had a horrible education. However, she had known -a few good people—people she respected, then; but Madame Grandoni was -the only one who had stuck to her. She, too, was liable to leave her -any day; the Princess appeared to intimate that her destiny might -require her to take some step which would test severely the old lady’s -adhesive property. It would detain her too long to make him understand -the stages by which she had arrived at her present state of mind: her -disgust with a thousand social arrangements, her rebellion against the -selfishness, the corruption, the iniquity, the cruelty, the imbecility, -of the people who, all over Europe, had the upper hand. If he could -have seen her life, the _milieu_ in which, for several years, she had -been condemned to move, the evolution of her opinions (Hyacinth was -delighted to hear her use that term) would strike him as perfectly -logical. She had been humiliated, outraged, tortured; she considered -that she too was one of the numerous class who could be put on a -tolerable footing only by a revolution. At any rate, she had some -self-respect left, and there was still more that she wanted to recover; -the only way to arrive at that was to throw herself into some effort -which would make her forget her own affairs and comprehend the troubles -and efforts of others. Hyacinth listened to her with a wonderment -which, as she went on, was transformed into fascinated submission; she -seemed so natural, so vivid, so exquisitely generous and sincere. By -the time he had been with her for half an hour she had made the -situation itself appear natural and usual, and a third person who -should have joined them at this moment would have observed nothing to -make him suppose that friendly social intercourse between little -bookbinders and Neapolitan princesses was not, in London, a matter of -daily occurrence. - -Hyacinth had seen plenty of women who chattered about themselves and -their affairs—a vulgar garrulity of confidence was indeed a leading -characteristic of the sex as he had hitherto learned to know it—but he -was quick to perceive that the great lady who now took the trouble to -open herself to him was not of a gossiping habit; that she must be, on -the contrary, as a general thing, proudly, ironically, reserved, even -to the point of passing, with many people, for a model of the -unsatisfactory. It was very possible she was capricious; yet the fact -that her present sympathies and curiosities might be a caprice wore, in -Hyacinth’s eyes, no sinister aspect. Why was it not a noble and -interesting whim, and why might he not stand, for the hour at any rate, -in the silvery moonshine it threw upon his path? It must be added that -he was far from understanding everything she said, and some of her -allusions and implications were so difficult to seize that they mainly -served to reveal to him the limits of his own acquaintance with life. -Her words evoked all sorts of shadowy suggestions of things he was -condemned not to know, touching him most when he had not the key to -them. This was especially the case with her reference to her career in -Italy, on her husband’s estates, and her relations with his family; who -considered that they had done her a great honour in receiving her into -their august circle (putting the best face on a bad business), after -they had moved heaven and earth to keep her out of it. The position -made for her among these people, and what she had had to suffer from -their family tone, their opinions and customs (though what these might -be remained vague to her listener), had evidently planted in her soul a -lasting resentment and contempt; and Hyacinth gathered that the force -of reaction and revenge might carry her far, make her modern and -democratic and heretical _à outrance_—lead her to swear by Darwin and -Spencer as well as by the revolutionary spirit. He surely need not have -been so sensible of the weak spots in his comprehension of the -Princess, when he could already surmise that personal passion had -counted for so much in the formation of her views. This induction, -however, which had no harshness, did not make her appear to him any the -less a creature compounded of the finest elements; brilliant, delicate, -complicated, but complicated with something divine. It was not until -after he had left her that he became conscious she had forced him to -talk, as well as talked herself. He drew a long breath as he reflected -that he had not made quite such an ass of himself as might very well -have happened; he had been saved by his enjoyment and admiration, which -had not gone to his head and prompted him to show that he too, in his -improbable little way, was remarkable, but had kept him in a state of -anxious, delicious tension, as if the occasion had been a great -solemnity. He had said, indeed, much more than he had warrant for, when -she questioned him about his socialistic affiliations; he had spoken as -if the movement were vast and mature, whereas, in fact, so far, at -least, as he was as yet concerned with it, and could answer for it from -personal knowledge, it was circumscribed by the hideously papered walls -of the little club-room at the ‘Sun and Moon’. He reproached himself -with this laxity, but it had not been engendered by vanity. He was only -afraid of disappointing his hostess too much; of making her say, ‘Why -in the world, then, did you come to see me, if you have nothing more -remarkable to relate?’—an inquiry to which, of course, he would have -had an answer ready, if it had not been impossible to him to say that -he had never asked to come: his coming was her own affair. He wanted -too much to come a second time to have the courage to make that speech. -Nevertheless, when she exclaimed, changing the subject abruptly, as she -always did, from something else they had been talking about, “I wonder -whether I shall ever see you again!”, he replied, with perfect -sincerity, that it was very difficult for him to believe anything so -delightful could be repeated. There were some kinds of happiness that -to many people never came at all, and to others could come only once. -He added, “It is very true I had just that feeling after I left you the -other night at the theatre. And yet here I am!” - -“Yes, there you are,” said the Princess thoughtfully, as if this might -be a still graver and more embarrassing fact than she had yet supposed -it. “I take it there is nothing essentially impossible in my seeing you -again; but it may very well be that you will never again find it so -pleasant. Perhaps that’s the happiness that comes but once. At any -rate, you know, I am going away.” - -“Oh yes, of course; every one leaves town,” Hyacinth commented, -sagaciously. - -“Do you, Mr Robinson?” asked the Princess. - -“Well, I don’t as a general thing. Nevertheless, it is possible that, -this year, I may get two or three days at the seaside. I should like to -take my old lady. I have done it before.” - -“And except for that you shall be always at work?” - -“Yes; but you must understand that I like my work. You must understand -that it’s a great blessing for a young fellow like me to have it.” - -“And if you didn’t have it, what would you do? Should you starve?” - -“Oh, I don’t think I should starve,” the young man replied, judicially. - -The Princess looked a little chagrined, but after a moment she -remarked, “I wonder whether you would come to see me, in the country, -somewhere.” - -“Oh, dear!” Hyacinth exclaimed, catching his breath. “You are so kind, -I don’t know what to do.” - -“Don’t be _banal_, please. That’s what other people are. What’s the use -of my looking for something fresh in other walks of life, if you are -going to be _banal_ too? I ask you, would you come?” - -Hyacinth hesitated a moment. “Yes, I think I would come. I don’t know, -at all, how I should do it—there would be several obstacles; but -wherever you should call for me, I would come.” - -“You mean you can’t leave your work, like that; you might lose it, if -you did, and be in want of money and much embarrassed?” - -“Yes, there would be little difficulties of that kind. You see that -immediately, in practice, great obstacles come up, when it’s a question -of a person like you making friends with a person like me.” - -“That’s the way I like you to talk,” said the Princess, with a pitying -gentleness that seemed to her visitor quite sacred. “After all, I don’t -know where I shall be. I have got to pay stupid visits, myself, where -the only comfort will be that I shall make the people jump. Every one -here thinks me exceedingly odd—as there is no doubt I am! I might be -ever so much more so if you would only help me a little. Why shouldn’t -I have my bookbinder, after all? In attendance, you know, it would be -awfully _chic_. We might have immense fun, don’t you think so? No doubt -it will come. At any rate, I shall return to London when I have got -through that _corvée;_ I shall be here next year. In the meantime, -don’t forget me,” she went on, rising to her feet. “Remember, on the -contrary, that I expect you to take me into the slums—into very bad -places.” Why the idea of these scenes of misery should have lighted up -her face is more than may be explained; but she smiled down at -Hyacinth—who, even as he stood up, was of slightly smaller stature—with -all her strange, radiant sweetness. Then, in a manner almost equally -incongruous, she added a reference to what she had said a moment -before: “I recognise perfectly the obstacles, in practice, as you call -them; but though I am not, by nature, persevering, and am really very -easily put off, I don’t consider that they will prove insurmountable. -They exist on my side as well, and if you will help me to overcome mine -I will do the same for you, with yours.” - -These words, repeating themselves again and again in Hyacinth’s -consciousness, appeared to give him wings, to help him to float and -soar, as he turned that afternoon out of South Street. He had at home a -copy of Tennyson’s poems—a single, comprehensive volume, with a double -column on the page, in a tolerably neat condition, though he had -handled it much. He took it to pieces that same evening, and during the -following week, in his hours of leisure, at home in his little room, -with the tools he kept there for private use, and a morsel of delicate, -blue-tinted Russia leather, of which he obtained possession at the -place in Soho, he devoted himself to the task of binding the book as -perfectly as he knew how. He worked with passion, with religion, and -produced a masterpiece of firmness and finish, of which his own -appreciation was as high as that of M. Poupin, when, at the end of the -week, he exhibited the fruit of his toil, and much more freely -expressed than that of old Crookenden, who grunted approbation, but was -always too long-headed to create precedents. Hyacinth carried the -volume to South Street, as an offering to the Princess; hoping she -would not yet have left London, in which case he would ask the servant -to deliver it to her, along with a little note he had sat up all night -to compose. But the majestic butler, in charge of the house, opening -the door yet looking down at him as if from a second-storey window, -took the life out of his vision and erected himself as an impenetrable -medium. The Princess had been absent for some days; the butler was so -good as to inform the young man with the parcel that she was on a visit -to a ‘juke’, in a distant part of the country. He offered however to -receive, and even to forward, anything Hyacinth might wish to leave; -but our hero felt a sudden indisposition to launch his humble tribute -into the vast, the possibly cold, unknown of a ducal circle. He decided -to retain his little package for the present; he would give it to her -when he should see her again, and he turned away without parting with -it. Later, it seemed to create a sort of material link between the -Princess and himself, and at the end of three months it almost appeared -to him, not that the exquisite book was an intended present from his -own hand, but that it had been placed in that hand by the most -remarkable woman in Europe. Rare sensations and impressions, moments of -acute happiness, almost always, with Hyacinth, in retrospect, became -rather mythic and legendary; and the superior piece of work he had done -after seeing her last, in the immediate heat of his emotion, turned -into a kind of proof and gage, as if a ghost, in vanishing from sight, -had left a palpable relic. - - - - -XVIII - - -The matter concerned him only indirectly, but it may concern the reader -more closely to know that before the visit to the duke took place -Madame Grandoni granted to Prince Casamassima the private interview she -had promised him on that sad Sunday afternoon. She crept out of South -Street after breakfast—a repast which under the Princess’s roof was -served at twelve o’clock, in the foreign fashion—crossed the sultry -solitude into which, at such a season, that precinct resolves itself, -and entered the Park, where the grass was already brown and a warm, -smoky haze prevailed, a sort of summer edition of what was most -characteristic in the London air. The Prince met her, by appointment, -at the gate, and they went and sat down together under the trees beside -the drive, amid a wilderness of empty chairs and with nothing to -distract their attention from an equestrian or two, left over from the -cavalcades of a fortnight before, and whose vain agitation in the -saddle the desolate scene seemed to throw into high relief. They -remained there for nearly an hour, though Madame Grandoni, in spite of -her leaning to friendly interpretations, could not have told herself -what comfort it was to the depressed, embarrassed young man at her -side. She had nothing to say to him which could better his case, as he -bent his mournful gaze on a prospect which was not, after all, -perceptibly improved by its not being Sunday, and could only feel that, -with her, he must seem to himself to be nearer his wife—to be touching -something she had touched. The old lady wished he would resign himself -more, but she was willing to minister to that thin illusion, little as -she approved of the manner in which he had conducted himself at the -time of the last sharp crisis in the remarkable history of his -relations with Christina. He had behaved like a spoiled child, with a -bad little nature, in a rage; he had been fatally wanting in dignity -and wisdom, and had given the Princess an advantage which she took on -the spot and would keep for ever. He had acted without manly judgment, -had put his uncles upon her (as if she cared for his uncles! though one -of them was a powerful prelate), had been suspicious and jealous on -exactly the wrong occasions—occasions on which such ideas were a -gratuitous injury. He had not been clever enough or strong enough to -make good his valid rights, and had transferred the whole quarrel to a -ground where his wife was far too accomplished a woman not to obtain -the appearance of victory. - -There was another reflection that Madame Grandoni made, as her -interview with her dejected friend prolonged itself. She could make it -the more freely as, besides being naturally quick and appreciative, she -had always, during her Roman career, in the dear old days (mingled with -bitterness as they had been for her), lived with artists, -archæologists, ingenious strangers, people who abounded in good talk, -threw out ideas and played with them. It came over her that, really, -even if things had not come to that particular crisis, Christina’s -active, various, ironical mind, with all its audacities and -impatiences, could not have tolerated for long the simple dullness of -the Prince’s company. The old lady had said to him, on meeting him, “Of -course, what you want to know immediately is whether she has sent you a -message. No, my poor friend, I must tell you the truth. I asked her for -one, but she told me that she had nothing whatever, of any kind, to say -to you. She knew I was coming out to see you. I haven’t done so _en -cachette_. She doesn’t like it, but she accepts the necessity for this -once, since you have made the mistake, as she considers it, of -approaching her again. We talked about you, last night, after your note -came to me—for five minutes; that is, I talked, and Christina was good -enough to listen. At the end she said this (what I shall tell you) with -perfect calmness, and the appearance of being the most reasonable woman -in the world. She didn’t ask me to repeat it to you, but I do so -because it is the only substitute I can offer you for a message. ‘I try -to occupy my life, my mind, to create interests, in the odious position -in which I find myself; I endeavour to get out of myself, my small -personal disappointments and troubles, by the aid of such poor -faculties as I possess. There are things in the world more interesting, -after all, and I hope to succeed in giving my attention to them. It -appears to me not too much to ask that the Prince, on his side, should -make the same conscientious effort—and leave me alone!’ Those were your -wife’s remarkable words; they are all I have to give you.” - -After she had given them Madame Grandoni felt a pang of regret; the -Prince turned upon her a face so white, bewildered and wounded. It had -seemed to her that they might form a wholesome admonition, but it was -now impressed upon her that, as coming from his wife, they were cruel, -and she herself felt almost cruel for having repeated them. What they -amounted to was an exquisite taunt of his mediocrity—a mediocrity which -was, after all, not a crime. How could the Prince occupy himself, what -interests could he create, and what faculties, gracious heaven, did he -possess? He was as ignorant as a fish, and as narrow as his hat-band. -His expression became pitiful; it was as if he dimly measured the -insult, felt it more than saw it—felt that he could not plead -incapacity without putting the Princess largely in the right. He gazed -at Madame Grandoni, his face worked, and for a moment she thought he -was going to burst into tears. But he said nothing—perhaps because he -was afraid of that—so that suffering silence, during which she gently -laid her hand upon his own, remained his only answer. He might -doubtless do so much he didn’t, that when Christina touched upon this -she was unanswerable. The old lady changed the subject: told him what a -curious country England was, in so many ways; offered information as to -their possible movements during the summer and autumn, which, within a -day or two, had become slightly clearer. But at last, abruptly, as if -he had not heard her, he inquired, appealingly, who the young man was -who had come in the day he called, just as he was going. - -Madame Grandoni hesitated a moment. “He was the Princess’s bookbinder.” - -“Her bookbinder? Do you mean her lover?” - -“Prince, how can you dream she will ever live with you again?” the old -lady asked, in reply to this. - -“Why, then, does she have him in her drawing-room—announced like an -ambassador, carrying a hat in his hand like mine? Where were his books, -his bindings? I shouldn’t say this to her,” the Prince added, as if the -declaration justified him. - -“I told you the other day that she is making studies of the people—the -lower orders. The young man you saw is a study.” Madame Grandoni could -not help laughing out as she gave her explanation this turn; but her -mirth elicited no echo from her interlocutor. - -“I have thought that over—over and over; but the more I think the less -I understand. Would it be your idea that she is quite crazy? I must -tell you I don’t care if she is!” - -“We are all quite crazy, I think,” said Madame Grandoni; “but the -Princess no more than the rest of us. No, she must try everything; at -present she is trying democracy and socialism.” - -“_Santo Dio!_” murmured the young man. “And what do they say here when -they see her bookbinder?” - -“They haven’t seen him, and perhaps they won’t. But if they do, it -won’t matter, because here everything is forgiven. That a person should -be singular is all they want. A bookbinder will do as well as anything -else.” - -The Prince mused a while, and then he said, “How can she bear the dirt, -the bad smell?” - -“I don’t know what you are talking about. If you mean the young man you -saw at the house (I may tell you, by the way, that it was only the -first time he had been there, and that the Princess had only seen him -once)—if you mean the little bookbinder, he isn’t dirty, especially -what we should call. The people of that kind, here, are not like our -dear Romans. Every one has a sponge, as big as your head; you can see -them in the shops.” - -“They are full of gin; their faces are purple,” said the Prince; after -which he immediately asked, “If she had only seen him once, how could -he have come into her drawing-room that way?” - -The old lady looked at him with a certain severity. “Believe, at least, -what _I_ say, my poor friend! Never forget that this was how you -spoiled your affairs most of all—by treating a person (and such a -person!) as if, as a matter of course, she lied. Christina has many -faults, but she hasn’t that one; that’s why I can live with her. She -will speak the truth always.” - -It was plainly not agreeable to the Prince to be reminded so sharply of -his greatest mistake, and he flushed a little as Madame Grandoni spoke. -But he did not admit his error, and she doubted whether he even -perceived it. At any rate he remarked rather grandly, like a man who -has still a good deal to say for himself, “There are things it is -better to conceal.” - -“It all depends on whether you are afraid. Christina never is. Oh, I -admit that she is very strange, and when the entertainment of watching -her, to see how she will carry out some of her inspirations, is not -stronger than anything else, I lose all patience with her. When she -doesn’t fascinate she can only exasperate. But, as regards yourself, -since you are here, and as I may not see you again for a long time, or -perhaps ever (at my age—I’m a hundred and twenty!), I may as well give -you the key of certain parts of your wife’s conduct. It may make it -seem to you a little less fantastic. At the bottom, then, of much that -she does is the fact that she is ashamed of having married you.” - -“Less fantastic?” the young man repeated, staring. - -“You may say that there can be nothing more eccentric than that. But -you know—or, if not, it isn’t for want of her having told you—that the -Princess considers that in the darkest hour of her life she sold -herself for a title and a fortune. She regards her doing so as such a -horrible piece of frivolity that she can never, for the rest of her -days, be serious enough to make up for it.” - -“Yes, I know that she pretends to have been forced. And does she think -she’s so serious now?” - -“The young man you saw the other day thinks so,” said the old woman, -smiling. “Sometimes she calls it by another name: she says she has -thrown herself with passion into being ‘modern’. That sums up the -greatest number of things that you and your family are not.” - -“Yes, we are not, thank God! _Dio mio, Dio mio!_” groaned the Prince. -He seemed so exhausted by his reflections that he remained sitting in -his chair after his companion, lifting her crumpled corpulence out of -her own, had proposed that they should walk about a little. She had no -ill-nature, but she had already noticed that whenever she was with -Christina’s husband the current of conversation made her, as she -phrased it, bump against him. After administering these small shocks -she always steered away, and now, the Prince having at last got up and -offered her his arm, she tried again to talk with him of things he -could consider without bitterness. She asked him about the health and -habits of his uncles, and he replied, for the moment, with the -minuteness which he had been taught that in such a case courtesy -demanded; but by the time that, at her request, they had returned to -the gate nearest to South Street (she wished him to come no farther) he -had prepared a question to which she had not opened the way. - -“And who and what, then, is this English captain? About him there is a -great deal said.” - -“This English captain?” - -“Godfrey Gerald Cholto—you see I know a good deal about him,” said the -Prince, articulating the English names with difficulty. - -They had stopped near the gate, on the edge of Park Lane, and a couple -of predatory hansoms dashed at them from opposite quarters. “I thought -that was coming, and at bottom it is he that has occupied you most!” -Madame Grandoni exclaimed, with a sigh. “But in reality he is the last -one you need trouble about; he doesn’t count.” - -“Why doesn’t he count?” - -“I can’t tell you—except that some people don’t, you know. He doesn’t -even think he does.” - -“Why not, when she receives him always—lets him go wherever she goes?” - -“Perhaps that is just the reason. When people give her a chance to get -tired of them she takes it rather easily. At any rate, you needn’t be -any more jealous of him than you are of me. He’s a convenience, a -_factotum_, but he works without wages.” - -“Isn’t he, then, in love with her?” - -“Naturally. He has, however, no hope.” - -“Ah, poor gentleman!” said the Prince, lugubriously. - -“He accepts the situation better than you. He occupies himself—as she -has strongly recommended him, in my hearing, to do—with other women.” - -“Oh, the brute!” the Prince exclaimed. “At all events, he sees her.” - -“Yes, but she doesn’t see him!” laughed Madame Grandoni, as she turned -away. - - - - -XIX - - -The pink dressing-gown which Pinnie had engaged to make for Rose -Muniment became, in Lomax Place, a conspicuous object, supplying poor -Amanda with a constant theme for reference to one of the great -occasions of her life—her visit to Belgrave Square with Lady Aurora, -after their meeting at Rosy’s bedside. She described this episode -vividly to her companion, repeating a thousand times that her -ladyship’s affability was beyond anything she could have expected. The -grandeur of the house in Belgrave Square figured in her recital as -something oppressive and fabulous, tempered though it had been by -shrouds of brown holland and the nudity of staircases and saloons of -which the trappings had been put away. “If it’s so noble when they’re -out of town, what can it be when they are all there together and -everything is out?” she inquired suggestively; and she permitted -herself to be restrictive only on two points, one of which was the -state of Lady Aurora’s gloves and bonnet-strings. If she had not been -afraid to appear to notice the disrepair of these objects, she would -have been so happy to offer to do any little mending. “If she would -only come to me every week or two, I would keep up her rank for her,” -said Pinnie, with visions of a needle that positively flashed in the -disinterested service of the aristocracy. She added that her ladyship -got all dragged out with her long expeditions to Camberwell; she might -be in tatters, for all they could do to help her at the top of those -dreadful stairs, with that strange sick creature (she was too -unnatural) thinking only of her own finery and talking about her -complexion. If she wanted pink, she should have pink; but to Pinnie -there was something almost unholy in it, like decking out a corpse, or -the next thing to it. This was the other element that left Miss Pynsent -cold; it could not be other than difficult for her to enter into the -importance her ladyship appeared to attach to those pushing people. The -girl was unfortunate, certainly, stuck up there like a kitten on a -shelf, but in her ladyship’s place she would have found some topic more -in keeping, while they walked about under those tremendous gilded -ceilings. Lady Aurora, seeing how she was struck, showed her all over -the house, carrying the lamp herself and telling an old woman who was -there—a kind of housekeeper, with ribbons in her cap, who would have -pushed Pinnie out if you could push with your eyes—that they would do -very well without her. If the pink dressing-gown, in its successive -stages of development, filled up the little brown parlour (it was -terribly long on the stocks), making such a pervasive rose-coloured -presence as had not been seen there for many a day, this was evidently -because it was associated with Lady Aurora, not because it was -dedicated to her humble friend. - -One day, when Hyacinth came home from his work, Pinnie announced to him -as soon as he entered the room that her ladyship had been there to look -at it—to pass judgment before the last touches were conferred. The -dressmaker intimated that in such a case as that her judgment was -rather wild, and she had made an embarrassing suggestion about pockets. -Whatever could poor Miss Muniment want of pockets, and what had she to -put in them? But Lady Aurora had evidently found the garment far beyond -anything she expected, and she had been more affable than ever, and had -wanted to know about every one in the Place; not in a meddling, prying -way, either, like some of those upper-class visitors, but quite as if -the poor people were the high ones and she was afraid her curiosity -might be ‘presumptious’. It was in the same discreet spirit that she -had invited Amanda to relate her whole history, and had expressed an -interest in the career of her young friend. - -“She said you had charming manners,” Miss Pynsent hastened to remark; -“but, before heaven, Hyacinth Robinson, I never mentioned a scrap that -it could give you pain that any one should talk about.” There was an -heroic explicitness in this, on Pinnie’s part, for she knew in advance -just how Hyacinth would look at her—fixedly, silently, hopelessly, as -if she were still capable of tattling horribly (with the idea that her -revelations would increase her importance), and putting forward this -hollow theory of her supreme discretion to cover it up. His eyes seemed -to say, ‘How can I believe you, and yet how can I prove you are lying? -I am very helpless, for I can’t prove that without applying to the -person to whom your incorrigible folly has probably led you to brag, to -throw out mysterious and tantalising hints. You know, of course, that I -would never condescend to that.’ Pinnie suffered, acutely, from this -imputation; yet she exposed herself to it often, because she could -never deny herself the pleasure, keener still than her pain, of letting -Hyacinth know that he was appreciated, admired and, for those ‘charming -manners’ commended by Lady Aurora, even wondered at; and this kind of -interest always appeared to imply a suspicion of his secret—something -which, when he expressed to himself the sense of it, he called, -resenting it at once and yet finding a certain softness in it, ‘a -beastly _attendrissement_’. When Pinnie went on to say to him that Lady -Aurora appeared to feel a certain surprise at his never yet having come -to Belgrave Square for the famous books, he reflected that he must -really wait upon her without more delay, if he wished to keep up his -reputation for charming manners; and meanwhile he considered much the -extreme oddity of this new phase of his life (it had opened so -suddenly, from one day to the other); a phase in which his society -should have become indispensable to ladies of high rank and the -obscurity of his condition only an attraction the more. They were -taking him up then, one after the other, and they were even taking up -poor Pinnie, as a means of getting at him; so that he wondered, with -humorous bitterness, whether it meant that his destiny was really -seeking him out—that the aristocracy, recognising a mysterious affinity -(with that fineness of _flair_ for which they were remarkable), were -coming to him to save him the trouble of coming to them. - -It was late in the day (the beginning of an October evening), and Lady -Aurora was at home. Hyacinth had made a mental calculation of the time -at which she would have risen from dinner; the operation of ‘rising -from dinner’ having always been, in his imagination, for some reason or -other, highly characteristic of the nobility. He was ignorant of the -fact that Lady Aurora’s principal meal consisted of a scrap of fish and -a cup of tea, served on a little stand in the dismantled -breakfast-parlour. The door was opened for Hyacinth by the invidious -old lady whom Pinnie had described, and who listened to his inquiry, -conducted him through the house, and ushered him into her ladyship’s -presence, without the smallest relaxation of a pair of tightly-closed -lips. Hyacinth’s hostess was seated in the little breakfast-parlour, by -the light of a couple of candles, immersed apparently in a collection -of tolerably crumpled papers and account-books. She was ciphering, -consulting memoranda, taking notes; she had had her head in her hands, -and the silky entanglement of her tresses resisted the rapid effort she -made to smooth herself down as she saw the little bookbinder come in. -The impression of her fingers remained in little rosy streaks on her -pink skin. She exclaimed, instantly, “Oh, you have come about the -books—it’s so very kind of you;” and she hurried him off to another -room, to which, as she explained, she had had them brought down for him -to choose from. The effect of this precipitation was to make him -suppose at first that she might wish him to execute his errand as -quickly as possible and take himself off; but he presently perceived -that her nervousness, her shyness, were of an order that would always -give false ideas. She wanted him to stay, she wanted to talk with him, -and she had rushed with him at the books in order to gain time and -composure for exercising some subtler art. Hyacinth stayed half an -hour, and became more and more convinced that her ladyship was, as he -had ventured to pronounce her on the occasion of their last meeting, a -regular saint. He was privately a little disappointed in the books, -though he selected three or four, as many as he could carry, and -promised to come back for others: they denoted, on Lady Aurora’s part, -a limited acquaintance with French literature and even a certain -puerility of taste. There were several volumes of Lamartine and a set -of the spurious memoirs of the Marquise de Créqui; but for the rest the -little library consisted mainly of Marmontel and Madame de Genlis, the -_Récit d’une Sœur_ and the tales of M. J. T. de Saint-Germain. There -were certain members of an intensely modern school, advanced and -scientific realists, of whom Hyacinth had heard and on whom he had long -desired to put his hand; but, evidently, none of them had ever stumbled -into Lady Aurora’s candid collection, though she did possess a couple -of Balzac’s novels, which, by ill-luck, happened to be just those that -Hyacinth had read more than once. - -There was, nevertheless, something very agreeable to him in the moments -he passed in the big, dim, cool, empty house, where, at intervals, -monumental pieces of furniture—not crowded and miscellaneous, as he had -seen the appurtenances of the Princess—loomed and gleamed, and Lady -Aurora’s fantastic intonations awakened echoes which gave him a sense -of privilege, of rioting, decently, in the absence of jealous -influences. She talked again about the poor people in the south of -London, and about the Muniments in particular; evidently, the only -fault she had to find with these latter was that they were not poor -enough—not sufficiently exposed to dangers and privations against which -she could step in. Hyacinth liked her for this, even though he wished -she would talk of something else—he hardly knew what, unless it was -that, like Rose Muniment, he wanted to hear more about Inglefield. He -didn’t mind, with the poor, going into questions of poverty—it even -gave him at times a strange, savage satisfaction—but he saw that in -discussing them with the rich the interest must inevitably be less; -they could never treat them _à fond_. Their mistakes and illusions, -their thinking they had got hold of the sensations of the destitute -when they hadn’t at all, would always be more or less irritating. It -came over Hyacinth that if he found this want of perspective in Lady -Aurora’s deep conscientiousness, it would be a queer enough business -when he should come to go into the detail of such matters with the -Princess Casamassima. - -His present hostess said not a word to him about Pinnie, and he guessed -that she had an instinctive desire to place him on the footing on which -people do not express approbation or surprise at the decency or -good-breeding of each other’s relatives. He saw that she would always -treat him as a gentleman, and that even if he should be basely -ungrateful she would never call his attention to the fact that she had -done so. He should not have occasion to say to her, as he had said to -the Princess, that she regarded him as a curious animal; and it gave -him immediately that sense, always so delightful to him, of learning -more about life, to perceive there were such different ways (which -implied still a good many more) of being a lady of rank. The manner in -which Lady Aurora appeared to wish to confer with him on the great -problems of pauperism might have implied that he was a benevolent -nobleman (of the type of Lord Shaftesbury), who had endowed many -charities and was noted, in philanthropic schemes, for his practical -sense. It was not less present to him that Pinnie might have tattled, -put forward his claims to high consanguinity, than it had been when the -dressmaker herself descanted on her ladyship’s condescensions; but he -remembered now that he too had only just escaped being asinine, when, -the other day, he flashed out an allusion to his accursed origin. At -all events, he was much touched by the delicacy with which the earl’s -daughter comported herself, simply assuming that he was ‘one of -themselves’; and he reflected that if she did know his history (he was -sure he might pass twenty years in her society without discovering -whether she did or not), this shade of courtesy, this natural tact, -coexisting even with extreme awkwardness, illustrated that ‘best -breeding’ which he had seen alluded to in novels portraying the -aristocracy. The only remark on Lady Aurora’s part that savoured in the -least of looking down at him from a height was when she said, -cheerfully, encouragingly, “I suppose that one of these days you will -be setting up in business for yourself;” and this was not so cruelly -patronising that he could not reply, with a smile equally free from any -sort of impertinence, “Oh dear, no, I shall never do that. I should -make a great mess of any attempt to carry on a business. I haven’t a -particle of that kind of aptitude.” - -Lady Aurora looked a little surprised; then she said, “Oh, I see; you -don’t like—you don’t like—” She hesitated: he saw she was going to say -that he didn’t like the idea of going in, to that extent, for a trade; -but he stopped her in time from attributing to him a sentiment so -foolish, and declared that what he meant was simply that the only -faculty he possessed was the faculty of doing his little piece of work, -whatever it was, of liking to do it skillfully and prettily, and of -liking still better to get his money for it when it was done. His -conception of ‘business’, or of rising in the world, didn’t go beyond -that. “Oh yes, I can fancy!” her ladyship exclaimed; but she looked at -him a moment with eyes which showed that he puzzled her, that she -didn’t quite understand his tone. Before he went away she inquired of -him, abruptly (nothing had led up to it), what he thought of Captain -Sholto, whom she had seen that other evening in Audley Court. Didn’t -Hyacinth think he was very odd? Hyacinth confessed to this impression; -whereupon Lady Aurora went on anxiously, eagerly: “Don’t you consider -that—that—he is decidedly vulgar?” - -“How can I know?” - -“You can know perfectly—as well as any one!” Then she added, “I think -it’s a pity they should—a—form relations with any one of that kind.” - -‘They’, of course, meant Paul Muniment and his sister. “With a person -that may be vulgar?” Hyacinth asked, regarding this solicitude as -exquisite. “But think of the people they know—think of those they are -surrounded with—think of all Audley Court!” - -“The poor, the unhappy, the labouring classes? Oh, I don’t call _them_ -vulgar!” cried her ladyship, with radiant eyes. The young man, lying -awake a good deal that night, laughed to himself, on his pillow, not -unkindly, at her fear that he and his friends would be contaminated by -the familiar of a princess. He even wondered whether she would not find -the Princess herself rather vulgar. - - - - -XX - - -It must not be supposed that Hyacinth’s relations with Millicent -Henning had remained unaffected by the remarkable incident she had -witnessed at the theatre. It had made a great impression on the young -lady from Pimlico; he never saw her, for several weeks afterwards, that -she had not an immense deal to say about it; and though it suited her -to take the line of being shocked at the crudity of such proceedings, -and of denouncing the Princess for a bold-faced foreigner, of a kind to -which any one who knew anything of what could go on in London would -give a wide berth, it was easy to see that she was pleased at being -brought even into roundabout contact with a person so splendid and at -finding her own discriminating approval of Hyacinth confirmed in such -high quarters. She professed to derive her warrant for her low opinion -of the lady in the box from information given her by Captain Sholto as -he sat beside her—information of which at different moments she gave a -different version; her anecdotes having nothing in common, at least, -save that they were alike unflattering to the Princess. Hyacinth had -many doubts of the Captain’s pouring such confidences into Miss -Henning’s ear; under the circumstances it would be such a very -unnatural thing for him to do. He _was_ unnatural—that was true—and he -might have told Millicent, who was capable of having plied him with -questions, that his distinguished friend was separated from her -husband; but, for the rest, it was more probable that the girl had -given the rein to a certain inventive faculty which she had already -showed him she possessed, when it was a question of exercising her -primitive, half-childish, half-plebeian impulse of destruction, the -instinct of pulling down what was above her, the reckless energy that -would, precisely, make her so effective in revolutionary scenes. -Hyacinth (it has been mentioned) did not consider that Millicent was -false, and it struck him as a proof of positive candour that she should -make up absurd, abusive stories about a person concerning whom she knew -nothing at all, save that she disliked her, and could not hope for -esteem, or, indeed, for recognition of any kind, in return. When people -were really false you didn’t know where you stood with them, and on -such a point as this Miss Henning could never be accused of leaving you -in obscurity. She said little else about the Captain, and did not -pretend to repeat the remainder of his conversation; taking it with an -air of grand indifference when Hyacinth amused himself with repaying -her strictures on his new acquaintance by drawing a sufficiently -derisive portrait of hers. - -He took the ground that Sholto’s admiration for the high-coloured -beauty in the second balcony had been at the bottom of the whole -episode: he had persuaded the Princess to pretend she was a socialist -and should like therefore to confer with Hyacinth, in order that he -might slip into the seat of this too easily deluded youth. At the same -time, it never occurred to our young man to conceal the fact that the -lady in the box had followed him up; he contented himself with saying -that this had been no part of the original plot, but a simple -result—not unnatural, after all—of his turning out so much more -fascinating than one might have supposed. He narrated, with sportive -variations, his visit in South Street, and felt that he would never -feel the need, with his childhood’s friend, of glossing over that sort -of experience. She might make him a scene of jealousy and welcome—there -were things that would have much more terror for him than that; her -jealousy, with its violence, its energy, even a certain inconsequent, -dare-devil humour that played through it, entertained him, illustrated -the frankness, the passion and pluck, that he admired her for. He -should never be on the footing of sparing Miss Henning’s -susceptibilities; how fond she might really be of him he could not take -upon himself to say, but her affection would never take the form of -that sort of delicacy, and their intercourse was plainly foredoomed to -be an exchange of thumps and concussions, of sarcastic shouts and -mutual _défis_. He liked her, at bottom, strangely, absurdly; but after -all it was only well enough to torment her—she could bear so much—not -well enough to spare her. Of there being any justification of her -jealousy of the Princess he never thought; it could not occur to him to -weigh against each other the sentiments he might excite in such opposed -bosoms or those that the spectacle of either emotion might have kindled -in his own. He had, no doubt, his share of fatuity, but he found -himself unable to associate, mentally, a great lady and a shop-girl in -a contest for a prize which should present analogies with his own -personality. How could they have anything in common—even so small a -thing as a desire to possess themselves of Hyacinth Robinson? A fact -that he did not impart to Millicent, and that he could have no wish to -impart to her, was the matter of his pilgrimage to Belgrave Square. He -might be in love with the Princess (how could he qualify, as yet, the -bewildered emotion she had produced in him?), and he certainly never -would conceive a passion for poor Lady Aurora; yet it would have given -him pain much greater than any he felt in the other case, to hear the -girl make free with the ministering angel of Audley Court. The -difference was, perhaps, somehow in that she appeared really not to -touch or arrive at the Princess at all, whereas Lady Aurora was within -her range and compass. - -After paying him that visit at his rooms Hyacinth lost sight of Captain -Sholto, who had not again reappeared at the ‘Sun and Moon’, the little -tavern which presented so common and casual a face to the world and -yet, in its unsuspected rear, offered a security as yet unimpugned to -machinations going down to the very bottom of things. Nothing was more -natural than that the Captain should be engaged at this season in the -recreations of his class; and our young man took for granted that if he -were not hanging about the Princess, on that queer footing as to which -he himself had a secret hope that he should some day have more light, -he was probably ploughing through northern seas on a yacht or creeping -after stags in the Highlands; our hero’s acquaintance with the light -literature of his country being such as to assure him that in one or -other of these occupations people of leisure, during the autumn, were -necessarily immersed. If the Captain were giving his attention to -neither, he must have started for Albania, or at least for Paris. Happy -Captain, Hyacinth reflected, while his imagination followed him through -all kinds of vivid exotic episodes and his restless young feet -continued to tread, through the stale, flat weeks of September and -October, the familiar pavements of Soho, Islington and Pentonville, and -the shabby sinuous ways which unite these laborious districts. He had -told the Princess that he sometimes had a holiday at this period and -that there was a chance of his escorting his respectable companion to -the seaside; but as it turned out, at present, the spare cash for such -an excursion was wanting. Hyacinth had indeed, for the moment, an -exceptionally keen sense of the absence of this article, and was -forcibly reminded that it took a good deal of money to cultivate the -society of agreeable women. He not only had not a penny, but he was -much in debt, and the explanation of his pinched feeling was in a -vague, half-remorseful, half-resigned reference to the numerous -occasions when he had had to put his hand in his pocket under penalty -of disappointing a young lady whose needs were positive, and especially -to a certain high crisis (as it might prove to be) in his destiny, when -it came over him that one couldn’t call on a princess just as one was. -So, this year, he did not ask old Crookenden for the week which some of -the other men took (Eustache Poupin, who had never quitted London since -his arrival, launched himself, precisely that summer, supported by his -brave wife, into the British unknown, on the strength of a return -ticket to Worthing); simply because he shouldn’t know what to do with -it. The best way not to spend money, though it was no doubt not the -best in the world to make it, was still to take one’s daily course to -the old familiar, shabby shop, where, as the days shortened and -November thickened the air to a livid yellow, the uncovered flame of -the gas, burning often from the morning on, lighted up the ugliness -amid which the hand of practice endeavoured to disengage a little -beauty—the ugliness of a dingy, belittered interior, of battered, -dispapered walls, of work-tables stained and hacked, of windows opening -into a foul, drizzling street, of the bared arms, the sordid -waistcoat-backs, the smeared aprons, the personal odour, the patient, -obstinate, irritating shoulders and vulgar, narrow, inevitable faces, -of his fellow-labourers. Hyacinth’s relations with his comrades would -form a chapter by itself, but all that may be said of the matter here -is that the clever little operator from Lomax Place had a kind of -double identity, and that much as he lived in Mr Crookenden’s -establishment he lived out of it still more. In this busy, pasty, -sticky, leathery little world, where wages and beer were the main -objects of consideration, he played his part in a manner which caused -him to be regarded as a queer lot, but capable of queerness in the line -of good-nature too. He had not made good his place there without -discovering that the British workman, when animated by the spirit of -mirth, has rather a heavy hand, and he tasted of the practical joke in -every degree of violence. During his first year he dreamed, with secret -passion and suppressed tears, of a day of bliss when at last they would -let him alone—a day which arrived in time, for it is always an -advantage to be clever, if only one is clever enough. Hyacinth was -sufficiently so to have invented a _modus vivendi_ in respect to which -M. Poupin said to him, “_Enfin vous voilà ferme!_” (the Frenchman -himself, terribly _éprouvé_ at the beginning, had always bristled with -firmness and opposed to insular grossness a refined dignity), and under -the influence of which the scenery of Soho figured as a daily, dusky -phantasmagoria, relegated to the mechanical, passive part of experience -and giving no hostages to reality, or at least to ambition, save an -insufficient number of shillings on Saturday night and spasmodic -reminiscences of delicate work that might have been more delicate -still, as well as of certain applications of the tool which he -flattered himself were unsurpassed, unless by the supreme Eustache. - -One evening in November, after discharging himself of a considerable -indebtedness to Pinnie, he had still a sovereign in his pocket—a -sovereign which seemed to spin there at the opposed solicitation of a -dozen exemplary uses. He had come out for a walk, with a vague -intention of pushing as far as Audley Court; and lurking within this -nebulous design, on which the damp breath of the streets, making -objects seem that night particularly dim and places particularly far, -had blown a certain chill, was a sense that it would be rather nice to -take something to Rose Muniment, who delighted in a sixpenny present -and to whom, for some time, he had not rendered any such homage. At -last, after he had wandered a while, hesitating between the pilgrimage -to Camberwell and the possibility of still associating his evening in -some way or other with that of Miss Henning, he reflected that if a -sovereign was to be pulled to pieces it was a simplification to get it -changed. He had been traversing the region of Mayfair, partly with the -preoccupation of a short cut and partly from an instinct of -self-defence; if one was in danger of spending one’s money -precipitately it was so much gained to plunge into a quarter in which, -at that hour especially, there were no shops for little bookbinders. -Hyacinth’s victory, however, was imperfect when it occurred to him to -turn into a public-house in order to convert his gold into convenient -silver. When it was a question of entering these establishments he -selected in preference the most decent; he never knew what unpleasant -people he might find on the other side of the swinging door. Those -which glitter, at intervals, amid the residential gloom of Mayfair -partake of the general gentility of the neighbourhood, so that Hyacinth -was not surprised (he had passed into the compartment marked ‘private -bar’) to see but a single drinker leaning against the counter on which, -with his request very civilly enunciated, he put down his sovereign. He -was surprised, on the other hand, when, glancing up again, he became -aware that this solitary drinker was Captain Godfrey Sholto. - -“Why, my dear boy, what a remarkable coincidence!” the Captain -exclaimed. “For once in five years that I come into a place like this!” - -“I don’t come in often myself. I thought you were in Madagascar,” said -Hyacinth. - -“Ah, because I have not been at the ‘Sun and Moon’? Well, I have been -constantly out of town, you know. And then—don’t you see what I mean?—I -want to be tremendously careful. That’s the way to get on, isn’t it? -But I dare say you don’t believe in my discretion!” Sholto laughed. -“What shall I do to make you understand? I say, have a brandy and -soda,” he continued, as if this might assist Hyacinth’s comprehension. -He seemed a trifle flurried, and, if it were possible to imagine such a -thing of so independent and whimsical a personage, the least bit -abashed or uneasy at having been found in such a low place. It was not -any lower, after all, than the ‘Sun and Moon’. He was dressed on this -occasion according to his station, without the pot-hat and the shabby -jacket, and Hyacinth looked at him with a sense that a good tailor must -really add a charm to life. Our hero was struck more than ever before -with his being the type of man whom, as he strolled about, observing -people, he had so often regarded with wonder and envy—the sort of man -of whom one said to one’s self that he was the ‘finest white’, feeling -that he had the world in his pocket. Sholto requested the bar-maid to -please not dawdle in preparing the brandy and soda which Hyacinth had -thought to ease off the situation by accepting: this, indeed, was -perhaps what the finest white would naturally do. And when the young -man had taken the glass from the counter Sholto appeared to encourage -him not to linger as he drank it, and smiled down at him very kindly -and amusedly, as if the combination of a very small bookbinder and a -big tumbler were sufficiently droll. The Captain took time, however, to -ask Hyacinth how he had spent his autumn and what was the news in -Bloomsbury; he further inquired about those delightful people over the -river. “I can’t tell you what an impression they made upon me—that -evening, you know.” After this he remarked to Hyacinth, suddenly, -irrelevantly, “And so you are just going to stay on for the winter, -quietly?” Our young man stared: he wondered what other project any one -could attribute to him; he could not reflect, immediately, that this -was the sort of thing the finest whites said to each other when they -met, after their fashionable dispersals, and that his friend had only -been guilty of a momentary inadvertence. In point of fact the Captain -recovered himself: “Oh, of course you have got your work, and that sort -of thing;” and, as Hyacinth did not succeed in swallowing at a gulp the -contents of his big tumbler, he asked him presently whether he had -heard anything from the Princess. Hyacinth replied that he could have -no news except what the Captain might be good enough to give him; but -he added that he did go to see her just before she left town. - -“Ah, you did go to see her? That’s quite right—quite right.” - -“I went because she very kindly wrote to me to come.” - -“Ah, she wrote to you to come?” The Captain fixed Hyacinth for a moment -with his curious colourless eyes. “Do you know you are a devilish -privileged mortal?” - -“Certainly, I know that.” Hyacinth blushed and felt foolish; the -bar-maid, who had heard this odd couple talking about a princess, was -staring at him too, with her elbows on the counter. - -“Do you know there are people who would give their heads that she -should write to them to come?” - -“I have no doubt of it whatever!” Hyacinth exclaimed, taking refuge in -a laugh which did not sound as natural as he would have liked, and -wondering whether his interlocutor were not precisely one of these -people. In this case the bar-maid might well stare; for deeply -convinced as our young man might be that he was the son of Lord -Frederick Purvis, there was really no end to the oddity of his being -preferred—and by a princess—to Captain Sholto. If anything could have -reinforced, at that moment, his sense of this anomaly, it would have -been the indescribably gentlemanly way, implying all sorts of common -initiations, in which his companion went on— - -“Ah, well, I see you know how to take it! And if you are in -correspondence with her why do you say that you can hear from her only -through me? My dear fellow, I am not in correspondence with her. You -might think I would naturally be, but I am not.” He subjoined, as -Hyacinth had laughed again, in a manner that might have passed for -ambiguous, “So much the worse for me—is that what you mean?” Hyacinth -replied that he himself had had the honour of hearing from the Princess -only once, and he mentioned that she had told him that her -letter-writing came only in fits, when it was sometimes very profuse: -there were months together that she didn’t touch a pen. “Oh, I can -imagine what she told you!” the Captain exclaimed. “Look out for the -next fit! She is visiting about. It’s a great thing to be in the same -house with her—an immense comedy.” He remarked that he had heard, now -he remembered, that she either had taken, or was thinking of taking, a -house in the country for a few months, and he added that if Hyacinth -didn’t propose to finish his brandy and soda they might as well turn -out. Hyacinth’s thirst had been very superficial, and as they turned -out the Captain observed, by way of explanation of his having been -found in a public-house (it was the only attempt of this kind he made), -that any friend of his would always know him by his love of curious -out-of-the-way nooks. “You must have noticed that,” he said—“my taste -for exploration. If I hadn’t explored I never should have known you, -should I? That was rather a nice little girl in there; did you twig her -figure? It’s a pity they always have such beastly hands.” Hyacinth, -instinctively, had made a motion to go southward, but Sholto, passing a -hand into his arm, led him the other way. The house they had quitted -was near a corner, which they rounded, the Captain pushing forward as -if there were some reason for haste. His haste was checked, however, by -an immediate collision with a young woman who, coming in the opposite -direction, turned the angle as briskly as themselves. At this moment -the Captain gave Hyacinth a great jerk, but not before he had caught a -glimpse of the young woman’s face—it seemed to flash upon him out of -the dusk—and given quick voice to his surprise. - -“Hallo, Millicent!” This was the simple cry that escaped from his lips, -while the Captain, still going on, inquired, “What’s the matter? Who’s -your pretty friend?” Hyacinth declined to go on, and repeated Miss -Henning’s baptismal name so loudly that the young woman, who had passed -them without looking back, was obliged to stop. Then Hyacinth saw that -he was not mistaken, though Millicent gave no audible response. She -stood looking at him, with her head very high, and he approached her, -disengaging himself from Sholto, who however hung back only an instant -before joining them. Hyacinth’s heart had suddenly begun to beat very -fast; there was a sharp shock in the girl’s turning up just in that -place at that moment. Yet when she began to laugh, abruptly, with -violence, and to ask him why he was looking at her as if she were a -kicking horse, he recognised that there was nothing so very -extraordinary, after all, in a casual meeting between persons who were -such frequenters of the London streets. Millicent had never concealed -the fact that she ‘trotted about’, on various errands, at night; and -once, when he had said to her that the less a respectable young woman -took the evening air alone the better for her respectability, she had -asked how respectable he thought she pretended to be, and had remarked -that if he would make her a present of a brougham, or even call for her -three or four times a week in a cab, she would doubtless preserve more -of her social purity. She could turn the tables quickly enough, and she -exclaimed, now, professing, on her own side, great astonishment— - -“What are you prowling about here for? You’re after no good, I’ll be -bound!” - -“Good evening, Miss Henning; what a jolly meeting!” said the Captain, -removing his hat with a humorous flourish. - -“Oh, how d’ye do?” Millicent returned, as if she did not immediately -place him. - -“Where were you going so fast? What are you doing?” asked Hyacinth, who -had looked from one to the other. - -“Well, I never did see such a manner—from one that knocks about like -_you!_” cried Miss Henning. “I’m going to see a friend of mine—a -lady’s-maid in Curzon Street. Have you anything to say to that?” - -“Don’t tell us—don’t tell us!” Sholto interposed, after she had spoken -(she had not hesitated an instant). “I, at least, disavow the -indiscretion. Where may not a charming woman be going when she trips -with a light foot through the gathering dusk?” - -“I say, what are you talking about?” the girl inquired, with dignity, -of Hyacinth’s companion. She spoke as if with a resentful suspicion -that her foot had not really been perceived to be light. - -“On what errand of mercy, of secret tenderness?” the Captain went on, -laughing. - -“Secret yourself!” cried Millicent. “Do you two always hunt in -couples?” - -“All right, we’ll turn round and go with you as far as your friend’s,” -Hyacinth said. - -“All right,” Millicent replied. - -“All right,” the Captain added; and the three took their way together -in the direction of Curzon Street. They walked for a few moments in -silence, though the Captain whistled, and then Millicent suddenly -turned to Hyacinth— - -“You haven’t told me where _you_ were going, yet.” - -“We met in that public-house,” the Captain said, “and we were each so -ashamed of being found in such a place by the other that we tumbled out -together, without much thinking what we should do with ourselves.” - -“When he’s out with me he pretends he can’t abide them houses,” Miss -Henning declared. “I wish I had looked in that one, to see who was -there.” - -“Well, she’s rather nice,” the Captain went on. “She told me her name -was Georgiana.” - -“I went to get a piece of money changed,” Hyacinth said, with a sense -that there was a certain dishonesty in the air; glad that he, at least, -could afford to speak the truth. - -“To get your grandmother’s nightcap changed! I recommend you to keep -your money together—you’ve none too much of it!” Millicent exclaimed. - -“Is that the reason you are playing me false?” Hyacinth flashed out. He -had been thinking, with still intentness, as they walked; at once -nursing and wrestling with a kindled suspicion. He was pale with the -idea that he was being bamboozled; yet he was able to say to himself -that one must allow, in life, for the element of coincidence, and that -he might easily put himself immensely in the wrong by making a -groundless charge. It was only later that he pieced his impressions -together, and saw them—as it appeared—justify each other; at present, -as soon as he had uttered it, he was almost ashamed of his quick retort -to Millicent’s taunt. He ought at least to have waited to see what -Curzon Street would bring forth. - -The girl broke out upon him immediately, repeating “False, false?” with -high derision, and wanting to know whether that was the way to knock a -lady about in public. She had stopped short on the edge of a crossing, -and she went on, with a voice so uplifted that he was glad they were in -a street that was rather empty at such an hour: “You’re a pretty one to -talk about falsity, when a woman has only to leer at you out of an -opera-box!” - -“Don’t say anything about _her_,” the young man interposed, trembling. - -“And pray why not about ‘her’, I should like to know? You don’t pretend -she’s a decent woman, I suppose?” Millicent’s laughter rang through the -quiet neighbourhood. - -“My dear fellow, you know you _have_ been to her,” Captain Sholto -remarked, smiling. - -Hyacinth turned upon him, staring, at once challenged and baffled by -his ambiguous part in an incident it was doubtless possible to magnify -but it was not possible to treat as perfectly simple. “Certainly, I -have been to the Princess Casamassima, thanks to you. When you came and -begged me, when you dragged me, do you make it a reproach? Who the -devil are you, any way, and what do you want of me?” our hero cried—his -mind flooded in a moment with everything in the Captain that had -puzzled him and eluded him. This swelling tide obliterated on the spot -everything that had entertained and gratified him. - -“My dear fellow, whatever I am, I am not an ass,” this gentleman -replied, with imperturbable good-humour. “I don’t reproach you with -anything. I only wanted to put in a word as a peacemaker. My good -friends—my good friends,” and he laid a hand, in his practised way, on -Hyacinth’s shoulder, while, with the other pressed to his heart, he -bent on the girl a face of gallantry which had something paternal in -it, “I am determined this absurd misunderstanding shall end as lovers’ -quarrels ought always to end.” - -Hyacinth withdrew himself from the Captain’s touch and said to -Millicent, “You are not really jealous of—of any one. You pretend that, -only to throw dust in my eyes.” - -To this sally Miss Henning returned him an answer which promised to be -lively, but the Captain swept it away in the profusion of his protests. -He pronounced them a dear delightful, abominable young couple; he -declared it was most interesting to see how, in people of their sort, -the passions lay near the surface; he almost pushed them into each -other’s arms; and he wound up by proposing that they should all -terminate their little differences by proceeding together to the -Pavilion music-hall, the nearest place of entertainment in that -neighbourhood, leaving the lady’s-maid in Curzon Street to dress her -mistress’s wig in peace. He has been presented to the reader as an -accomplished man, and it will doubtless be felt that the picture is -justified when I relate that he placed this idea in so attractive a -light that his companions finally entered a hansom with him and rattled -toward the haunt of pleasure, Hyacinth sandwiched, on the edge of the -seat, between the others. Two or three times his ears burned; he felt -that if there was an understanding between them they had now, behind -him, a rare opportunity for carrying it out. If it was at his expense, -the whole evening constituted for them, indeed, an opportunity, and -this thought rendered his diversion but scantily absorbing, though at -the Pavilion the Captain engaged a private box and ordered ices to be -brought in. Hyacinth cared so little for his little pink pyramid that -he suffered Millicent to consume it after she had disposed of her own. -It was present to him, however, that if he should make a fool of -himself the folly would be of a very gross kind, and this is why he -withheld a question which rose to his lips repeatedly—a disposition to -inquire of his entertainer why the mischief he had hurried him so out -of the public-house, if he had not been waiting there, preconcertedly, -for Millicent. We know that in Hyacinth’s eyes one of this young lady’s -compensatory merits had been that she was not deceitful, and he asked -himself if a girl could change, that way, from one month to the other. -This was optimistic, but, all the same, he reflected, before leaving -the Pavilion, that he could see quite well what Lady Aurora meant by -thinking Captain Sholto vulgar. - - - - -XXI - - -Paul Muniment had fits of silence, while the others were talking; but -on this occasion he had not opened his lips for half an hour. When he -talked Hyacinth listened, almost holding his breath; and when he said -nothing Hyacinth watched him fixedly, listening to the others only -through the medium of his candid countenance. At the ‘Sun and Moon’ -Muniment paid very little attention to his young friend, doing nothing -that should cause it to be perceived they were particular pals; and -Hyacinth even thought, at moments, that he was bored or irritated by -the serious manner in which the little bookbinder could not conceal -from the world that he regarded him. He wondered whether this were a -system, a calculated prudence, on Muniment’s part, or only a -manifestation of that superior brutality, latent in his composition, -which never had an intention of unkindness but was naturally intolerant -of palaver. There was plenty of palaver at the ‘Sun and Moon’; there -were nights when a blast of imbecility seemed to blow over the place, -and one felt ashamed to be associated with so much insistent ignorance -and flat-faced vanity. Then every one, with two or three exceptions, -made an ass of himself, thumping the table and repeating over some -inane phrase which appeared for the hour to constitute the whole -furniture of his mind. There were men who kept saying, “Them was my -words in the month of February last, and what I say I stick to—what I -say I stick to;” and others who perpetually inquired of the company, -“And what the plague am I to do with seventeen shillings—with seventeen -shillings? What am I to do with them—will ye tell me that?” an -interrogation which, in truth, usually ended by eliciting a ribald -reply. There were still others who remarked, to satiety, that if it was -not done to-day it would have to be done to-morrow, and several who -constantly proclaimed their opinion that the only way was to pull up -the Park rails again—just to pluck them straight up. A little -shoemaker, with red eyes and a grayish face, whose appearance Hyacinth -deplored, scarcely ever expressed himself but in the same form of -words: “Well, are we in earnest, or ain’t we in earnest?—that’s the -thing _I_ want to know.” He was terribly in earnest himself, but this -was almost the only way he had of showing it; and he had much in common -(though they were always squabbling) with a large red-faced man, of -uncertain attributes and stertorous breathing, who was understood to -know a good deal about dogs, had fat hands, and wore on his forefinger -a big silver ring, containing some one’s hair—Hyacinth believed it to -be that of a terrier, snappish in life. He had always the same refrain: -“Well, now, are we just starving, or ain’t we just starving? I should -like the ’vice of the company on that question.” - -When the tone fell as low as this Paul Muniment held his peace, except -that he whistled a little, leaning back, with his hands in his pockets -and his eyes on the table. Hyacinth often supposed him to be on the -point of breaking out and letting the company know what he thought of -them—he had a perfectly clear vision of what he must think; but -Muniment never compromised his popularity to that degree: he judged -it—this he once told Hyacinth—too valuable an instrument, and -cultivated the faculty of patience, which had the advantage of showing -one more and more that one must do one’s thinking for one’s self. His -popularity, indeed, struck Hyacinth as rather an uncertain quantity, -and the only mistake he had seen a symptom of on his friend’s part was -a tendency to overestimate it. Muniment thought many of their -colleagues asinine, but it was Hyacinth’s belief that he himself knew -still better how asinine they were; and this inadequate conception -supported, in some degree, on Paul’s part, his theory of his -influence—an influence that would be stronger than any other on the day -he should choose to exert it. Hyacinth only wished that day would come; -it would not be till then, he was sure, that they would all know where -they were, and that the good they were striving for, blindly, -obstructedly, in a kind of eternal dirty intellectual fog, would pass -from the stage of crude discussion and mere sharp, tantalising -desirableness into that of irresistible reality. Muniment was listened -to unanimously, when he spoke, and was much talked about, usually with -a knowing, implicit allusiveness, when he was absent; it was generally -admitted that he could see further than most. But it was suspected that -he wanted to see further than was necessary; as one of the most -inveterate frequenters of the club remarked one evening, if a man could -see as far as he could chuck a brick, that was far enough. There was an -idea that he had nothing particular to complain of, personally, or that -if he had he didn’t complain of it—an attitude which perhaps contained -the germs of a latent disaffection. Hyacinth could easily see that he -himself was exposed to the same imputation, but he couldn’t help it; it -would have been impossible to him to keep up his character for -sincerity by revealing, at the ‘Sun and Moon’, the condition of his -wardrobe, or announcing that he had not had a pennyworth of bacon for -six months. There were members of the club who were apparently always -in the enjoyment of involuntary leisure—narrating the vainest -peregrinations in search of a job, the cruelest rebuffs, the most vivid -anecdotes of the insolence of office. They made Hyacinth uncomfortably -conscious, at times, that if _he_ should be out of work it would be -wholly by his own fault; that he had in his hand a bread-winning tool -on which he might absolutely count. He was also aware, however, that -his position in this little band of malcontents (it was little only if -measured by the numbers that were gathered together on any one -occasion; he liked to think it was large in its latent possibilities, -its mysterious ramifications and affiliations) was peculiar and -distinguished; it would be favourable if he had the kind of energy and -assurance that would help him to make use of it. He had an intimate -conviction—the proof of it was in the air, in the sensible facility of -his footing at the ‘Sun and Moon’—that Eustache Poupin had taken upon -himself to disseminate the anecdote of his origin, of his mother’s -disaster; in consequence of which, as the victim of social infamy, of -heinous laws, it was conceded to him that he had a larger account to -settle even than most. He was _ab ovo_ a revolutionist, and that -balanced against his smart neckties, a certain suspicious security that -was perceived in him as to the _h_ (he had had from his earliest years -a natural command of it), and the fact that he possessed the sort of -hand on which there is always a premium—an accident somehow to be -guarded against in a thorough-going system of equality. He never -challenged Poupin on the subject, for he owed the Frenchman too much to -reproach him with any officious step that was meant in kindness; and -moreover his fellow-labourer at old Crookenden’s had said to him, as if -to anticipate such an impugnment of his discretion, “Remember, my -child, that I am incapable of drawing aside any veil that you may have -preferred to drop over your lacerated personality. Your moral dignity -will always be safe with me. But remember at the same time that among -the disinherited there is a mystic language which dispenses with -proofs—a freemasonry, a reciprocal divination; they understand each -other with half a word.” It was with half a word, then, in Bloomsbury, -that Hyacinth had been understood; but there was a certain delicacy -within him that forbade him to push his advantage, to treat -implications of sympathy, none the less definite for being roundabout, -as steps in the ladder of success. He had no wish to be a leader -because his mother had murdered her lover and died in penal servitude: -these circumstances recommended intentness but they also suggested -modesty. When the gathering at the ‘Sun and Moon’ was at its best, and -its temper seemed really an earnest of what was the basis of all its -calculations—that the people was only a sleeping lion, already -breathing shorter and beginning to stretch its limbs—at these hours, -some of them thrilling enough, Hyacinth waited for the voice that -should allot to him the particular part he was to play. His ambition -was to play it with brilliancy, to offer an example—an example, even, -that might survive him—of pure youthful, almost juvenile, consecration. -He was conscious of no commission to give the promises, to assume the -responsibilities, of a redeemer, and he had no envy of the man on whom -this burden should rest. Muniment, indeed, might carry it, and it was -the first article of his faith that to help him to carry it the better -he himself was ready for any sacrifice. Then it was—on these nights of -intenser vibration—that Hyacinth waited for a sign. - -They came oftener, this second winter, for the season was terribly -hard; and as in that lower world one walked with one’s ear nearer the -ground, the deep perpetual groan of London misery seemed to swell and -swell and form the whole undertone of life. The filthy air came into -the place in the damp coats of silent men, and hung there till it was -brewed to a nauseous warmth, and ugly, serious faces squared themselves -through it, and strong-smelling pipes contributed their element in a -fierce, dogged manner which appeared to say that it now had to stand -for everything—for bread and meat and beer, for shoes and blankets and -the poor things at the pawnbroker’s and the smokeless chimney at home. -Hyacinth’s colleagues seemed to him wiser then, and more permeated with -intentions boding ill to the satisfied classes; and though the note of -popularity was still most effectively struck by the man who could -demand oftenest, unpractically, “What the plague am I to do with -seventeen shillings?” it was brought home to our hero on more than one -occasion that revolution was ripe at last. This was especially the case -on the evening I began by referring to, when Eustache Poupin squeezed -in and announced, as if it were a great piece of news, that in the east -of London, that night, there were forty thousand men out of work. He -looked round the circle with his dilated foreign eye, as he took his -place; he seemed to address the company individually as well as -collectively, and to make each man responsible for hearing him. He owed -his position at the ‘Sun and Moon’ to the brilliancy with which he -represented the political exile, the magnanimous immaculate citizen -wrenched out of bed at dead of night, torn from his hearthstone, his -loved ones and his profession, and hurried across the frontier with -only the coat on his back. Poupin had performed in this character now -for many years, but he had never lost the bloom of the outraged -proscript, and the passionate pictures he had often drawn of the -bitterness of exile were moving even to those who knew with what -success he had set up his household gods in Lisson Grove. He was -recognised as suffering everything for his opinions; and his hearers in -Bloomsbury—who, after all, even in their most concentrated hours, were -very good-natured—appeared never to have made the subtle reflection, -though they made many others, that there was a want of tact in his -calling upon them to sympathise with him for being one of themselves. -He imposed himself by the eloquence of his assumption that if one were -not in the beautiful France one was nowhere worth speaking of, and -ended by producing an impression that that country had an almost -supernatural charm. Muniment had once said to Hyacinth that he was sure -Poupin would be very sorry if he should be enabled to go home again (as -he might, from one week to the other, the Republic being so indulgent -and the amnesty to the Communards constantly extended), for over there -he couldn’t be a refugee; and however this might be he certainly -flourished a good deal in London on the basis of this very fact that he -was miserable there. - -“Why do you tell us that, as if it was so very striking? Don’t we know -it, and haven’t we known it always? But you are right; we behave as if -we knew nothing at all,” said Mr Schinkel, the German cabinet-maker, -who had originally introduced Captain Sholto to the ‘Sun and Moon’. He -had a long, unhealthy, benevolent face and greasy hair, and constantly -wore a kind of untidy bandage round his neck, as if for a local -ailment. “You remind us—that is very well; but we shall forget it in -half an hour. We are not serious.” - -“_Pardon, pardon;_ for myself, I do not admit that!” Poupin replied, -striking the table with his finger-tips several times, very fast. “If I -am not serious, I am nothing.” - -“Oh no, you are something,” said the German, smoking his monumental -pipe with a contemplative air. “We are all something; but I am not sure -it is anything very useful.” - -“Well, things would be worse without us. I’d rather be in here, in -_this_ kind of muck, than outside,” remarked the fat man who understood -dogs. - -“Certainly, it is very pleasant, especially if you have your beer; but -not so pleasant in the east, where fifty thousand people starve. It is -a very unpleasant night,” the cabinet-maker went on. - -“How can it be worse?” Eustache Poupin inquired, looking defiantly at -the German, as if to make him responsible for the fat man’s reflection. -“It is so bad that the imagination recoils, refuses.” - -“Oh, we don’t care for the imagination!” the fat man declared. “We want -a compact body, in marching order.” - -“What do you call a compact body?” the little gray-faced shoemaker -demanded. “I dare say you don’t mean your kind of body.” - -“Well, I know what I mean,” said the fat man, severely. - -“That’s a grand thing. Perhaps one of these days you’ll tell us.” - -“You’ll see it for yourself, perhaps, before that day comes,” the -gentleman with the silver ring rejoined. “Perhaps when you do, you’ll -remember.” - -“Well, you know, Schinkel says we don’t,” said the shoemaker, nodding -at the cloud-compelling German. - -“I don’t care what no man says!” the dog-fancier exclaimed, gazing -straight before him. - -“They say it’s a bad year—the blockheads in the newspapers,” Mr -Schinkel went on, addressing himself to the company at large. “They say -that on purpose—to convey the impression that there are such things as -good years. I ask the company, has any gentleman present ever happened -to notice that article? The good year is yet to come: it might begin -to-night, if we like; it all depends on our being able to be serious -for a few hours. But that is too much to expect. Mr Muniment is very -serious; he looks as if he were waiting for the signal; but he doesn’t -speak—he never speaks, if I want particularly to hear him. He only -considers, very deeply, I am sure. But it is almost as bad to think -without speaking as to speak without thinking.” - -Hyacinth always admired the cool, easy way in which Muniment comported -himself when the attention of the public was directed towards him. -These manifestations of curiosity, or of hostility, would have put him -out immensely, himself. When a lot of people, especially the kind of -people who were collected at the ‘Sun and Moon’, looked at him, or -listened to him, at once, he always blushed and stammered, feeling that -if he couldn’t have a million of spectators (which would have been -inspiring) he should prefer to have but two or three; there was -something very embarrassing in twenty. - -Muniment smiled, for an instant, good-humouredly; then, after a -moment’s hesitation, looking across at the German, and the German only, -as if his remark were worth noticing, but it didn’t matter if the -others didn’t understand the reply, he said simply, “Hoffendahl’s in -London.” - -“Hoffendahl? _Gott in Himmel!_” the cabinet-maker exclaimed, taking the -pipe out of his mouth. And the two men exchanged a longish glance. Then -Mr Schinkel remarked, “That surprises me, _sehr_. Are you very sure?” - -Muniment continued, for a moment, to look at him. “If I keep quiet for -half an hour, with so many valuable suggestions flying all round me, -you think I say too little. Then if I open my head to give out three -words, you appear to think I say too much.” - -“Ah, no; on the contrary, I want you to say three more. If you tell me -you have seen him I shall be perfectly satisfied.” - -“Upon my word, I should hope so! Do you think he’s the kind of party a -fellow says he has seen?” - -“Yes, when he hasn’t!” said Eustache Poupin, who had been listening. -Every one was listening now. - -“It depends on the fellow he says it to. Not even here?” the German -asked. - -“Oh, here!” Paul Muniment exclaimed, in a peculiar tone, and resumed -his muffled whistle again. - -“Take care—take care; you will make me think you haven’t!” cried -Poupin, with his excited expression. - -“That’s just what I want,” said Muniment. - -“_Nun_, I understand,” the cabinet-maker remarked, restoring his pipe -to his lips after an interval almost as momentous as the stoppage of a -steamer in mid-ocean. - -“_’Ere_, ’ere!” repeated the small shoemaker, indignantly. “I dare say -it is as good as the place he came from. He might look in and see what -he thinks of it.” - -“That’s a place you might tell us a little about, now,” the fat man -suggested, as if he had been waiting for his chance. - -Before the shoemaker had time to notice this challenge some one -inquired, with a hoarse petulance, who the blazes they were talking -about; and Mr Schinkel took upon himself to reply that they were -talking about a man who hadn’t done what he had done by simply -exchanging abstract ideas, however valuable, with his friends in a -respectable pot-house. - -“What the devil has he done, then?” some one else demanded; and -Muniment replied, quietly, that he had spent twelve years in a Prussian -prison, and was consequently still an object of a good deal of interest -to the police. - -“Well, if you call that very useful, I must say I prefer a pot-house!” -cried the shoemaker, appealing to all the company and looking, as it -appeared to Hyacinth, particularly hideous. - -“_Doch, doch_, it is useful,” the German remarked, philosophically, -among his yellow clouds. - -“Do you mean to say you are not prepared for that, yourself?” Muniment -inquired of the shoemaker. - -“Prepared for that? I thought we were going to smash that sort of shop -altogether; I thought that was the main part of the job.” - -“They will smash best, those who have been inside,” the German -declared; “unless, perhaps, they are broken, enervated. But Hoffendahl -is not enervated.” - -“Ah, no; no smashing, no smashing,” Muniment went on. “We want to keep -them standing, and even to build a few more; but the difference will be -that we shall put the correct sort in.” - -“I take your idea—that Griffin is one of the correct sort,” the fat man -remarked, indicating the shoemaker. - -“I thought we was going to ’ave their ’eads—all that bloomin’ lot!” Mr -Griffin declared, protesting; while Eustache Poupin began to enlighten -the company as to the great Hoffendahl, one of the purest martyrs of -their cause, a man who had been through everything—who had been scarred -and branded, tortured, almost flayed, and had never given them the -names they wanted to have. Was it possible they didn’t remember that -great combined attempt, early in the sixties, which took place in four -Continental cities at once and which, in spite of every effort to -smother it up—there had been editors and journalists transported even -for hinting at it—had done more for the social question than anything -before or since? “Through him being served in the manner you describe?” -some one asked, with plainness; to which Poupin replied that it was one -of those failures that are more glorious than any success. Muniment -said that the affair had been only a flash in the pan, but that the -great value of it was this—that whereas some forty persons (and of both -sexes) had been engaged in it, only one had been seized and had -suffered. It had been Hoffendahl himself who was collared. Certainly he -had suffered much, he had suffered for every one; but from that point -of view—that of the economy of material—the thing had been a rare -success. - -“Do you know what I call the others? I call ’em bloody sneaks!” the fat -man cried; and Eustache Poupin, turning to Muniment, expressed the hope -that he didn’t really approve of such a solution—didn’t consider that -an economy of heroism was an advantage to any cause. He himself -esteemed Hoffendahl’s attempt because it had shaken, more than -anything—except, of course, the Commune—had shaken it since the French -Revolution, the rotten fabric of the actual social order, and because -that very fact of the impunity, the invisibility, of the persons -concerned in it had given the predatory classes, had given all Europe, -a shudder that had not yet subsided; but for his part, he must regret -that some of the associates of the devoted victim had not come forward -and insisted on sharing with him his tortures and his captivity. - -“_C’aurait été d’un bel exemple!_” said the Frenchman, with an -impressive moderation of statement which made even those who could not -understand him see that he was saying something fine; while the -cabinet-maker remarked that in Hoffendahl’s place any of them would -have stood out just the same. He didn’t care if they set it down to -self-love (Mr Schinkel called it ‘loaf’), but he might say that he -himself would have done so if he had been trusted and had been bagged. - -“I want to have it all drawn up clear first; then I’ll go in,” said the -fat man, who seemed to think it was expected of him to be reassuring. - -“Well, who the dickens is to draw it up, eh? That’s what we happen to -be talking about,” returned his antagonist the shoemaker. - -“A fine example, old man? Is that your idea of a fine example?” -Muniment, with his amused face, asked of Poupin. “A fine example of -asininity! Are there capable people, in such plenty, about the place?” - -“Capable of greatness of soul, I grant you not.” - -“Your greatness of soul is usually greatness of blundering. A man’s -foremost duty is not to get collared. If you want to show you’re -capable, that’s the way.” - -At this Hyacinth suddenly felt himself moved to speak. “But some one -must be caught, always, must he not? Hasn’t some one always been?” - -“Oh, I dare say you’ll be, if you like it!” Muniment replied, without -looking at him. “If they succeed in potting you, do as Hoffendahl did, -and do it as a matter of course; but if they don’t, make it your -supreme duty, make it your religion, to lie close and keep yourself for -another go. The world is full of unclean beasts whom I shall be glad to -see shovelled away by the thousand; but when it’s a question of honest -men and men of courage, I protest against the idea that two should be -sacrificed where one will serve.” - -“_Trop d’arithmétique—trop d’arithmétique!_ That is fearfully English!” -Poupin cried. - -“No doubt, no doubt; what else should it be? You shall never share my -fate, if I have a fate and I can prevent it!” said Muniment, laughing. - -Eustache Poupin stared at him and his merriment, as if he thought the -English frivolous as well as calculating; then he rejoined, “If I -suffer, I trust it may be for suffering humanity, but I trust it may -also be for France.” - -“Oh, I hope you ain’t going to suffer any more for France,” said Mr -Griffin. “Hasn’t it done that insatiable old country of yours some -good, by this time, all you’ve had to put up with?” - -“Well, I want to know what Hoffendahl has come over for; it’s very kind -of him, I’m sure. What is he going to do for _us?_—that’s what _I_ want -to know,” remarked in a loud, argumentative tone a personage at the end -of the table most distant from Muniment’s place. His name was Delancey, -and he gave himself out as holding a position in a manufactory of -soda-water; but Hyacinth had a secret belief that he was really a -hairdresser—a belief connected with a high, lustrous curl, or crest, -which he wore on the summit of his large head, and the manner in which -he thrust over his ear, as if it were a barber’s comb, the pencil with -which he was careful to take notes of the discussions carried on at the -‘Sun and Moon’. His opinions were distinct and frequently expressed; he -had a watery (Muniment had once called it a soda-watery) eye, and a -personal aversion to a lord. He desired to change everything except -religion, of which he approved. - -Muniment answered that he was unable to say, as yet, what the German -revolutionist had come to England for, but that he hoped to be able to -give some information on the matter the next time they should meet. It -was very certain Hoffendahl hadn’t come for nothing, and he would -undertake to declare that they would all feel, within a short time, -that he had given a lift to the cause they were interested in. He had -had a great experience, and they might very well find it useful to -consult. If there was a way for them, then and there, he was sure to -know the way. “I quite agree with the majority of you—as I take it to -be,” Muniment went on, with his fresh, cheerful, reasonable manner—“I -quite agree with you that the time has come to settle upon it and to -follow it. I quite agree with you that the actual state of things -is”—he paused a moment, and then went on in the same pleasant tone—“is -hellish.” - -These remarks were received with a differing demonstration: some of the -company declaring that if the Dutchman cared to come round and smoke a -pipe they would be glad to see him—perhaps he’d show where the -thumb-screws had been put on; others being strongly of the opinion that -they didn’t want any more advice—they had already had advice enough to -turn a donkey’s stomach. What they wanted was to put forth their might -without any more palaver; to do something, or for some one; to go out -somewhere and smash something, on the spot—why not?—that very night. -While they sat there and talked, there were about half a million of -people in London that didn’t know where the h—— the morrow’s meal was -to come from; what they wanted to do, unless they were just a -collection of pettifogging old women, was to show them where to get it, -to take it to them with heaped-up hands. Hyacinth listened, with a -divided attention, to interlaced iterations, while the talk blew hot -and cold; there was a genuine emotion, to-night, in the rear of the -‘Sun and Moon’, and he felt the contagion of excited purpose. But he -was following a train of his own; he was wondering what Muniment had in -reserve (for he was sure he was only playing with the company), and his -imagination, quickened by the sense of impending relations with the -heroic Hoffendahl and the discussion as to the alternative duty of -escaping or of facing one’s fate, had launched itself into possible -perils—into the idea of how he might, in a given case, settle for -himself that question of paying for the lot. The loud, contradictory, -vain, unpractical babble went on about him, but he was definitely -conscious only that the project of breaking into the bakers’ shops was -well before the assembly and was receiving a vigorous treatment, and -that there was likewise a good deal of reference to the butchers and -grocers, and even to the fishmongers. He was in a state of inward -exaltation; he was seized by an intense desire to stand face to face -with the sublime Hoffendahl, to hear his voice, to touch his mutilated -hand. He was ready for anything: he knew that he himself was safe to -breakfast and dine, poorly but sufficiently, and that his colleagues -were perhaps even more crude and clumsy than usual; but a breath of -popular passion had passed over him, and he seemed to see, immensely -magnified, the monstrosity of the great ulcers and sores of London—the -sick, eternal misery crying, in the darkness, in vain, confronted with -granaries and treasure-houses and places of delight, where shameless -satiety kept guard. In such a mood as this Hyacinth felt that there was -no need to consider, to reason: the facts themselves were as imperative -as the cry of the drowning; for while pedantry gained time didn’t -starvation gain it too? He knew that Muniment disapproved of delay, -that he held the day had come for a forcible rectification of horrible -inequalities. In the last conversation they had had together his -chemical friend had given him a more definite warrant than he had ever -done before for numbering him in the party of immediate action, though -indeed he remarked on this occasion, once more, that that particular -formula which the little bookbinder appeared to have taken such a fancy -to was mere gibberish. He hated that sort of pretentious label; it was -fit only for politicians and amateurs. None the less he had been as -plain as possible on the point that their game must be now to frighten -society, and frighten it effectually; to make it believe that the -swindled classes were at last fairly in league—had really grasped the -idea that, closely combined, they would be irresistible. They were not -in league, and they hadn’t in their totality grasped any idea at -all—Muniment was not slow to make that equally plain. All the same, -society was scareable, and every great scare was a gain for the people. -If Hyacinth had needed warrant to-night for a faith that transcended -logic, he would have found it in his recollection of this quiet -profession; but his friend’s words came back to him mainly to make him -wonder what that friend had in his head just now. He took no part in -the violence of the talk; he had called Schinkel to come round and sit -beside him, and the two appeared to confer together in comfortable -absorption, while the brown atmosphere grew denser, the passing to and -fro of fire-brands more lively, and the flush of faces more portentous. -What Hyacinth would have liked to know most of all was why Muniment had -not mentioned to him, first, that Hoffendahl was in London, and that he -had seen him; for he _had_ seen him, though he had dodged Schinkel’s -question—of that Hyacinth instantly felt sure. He would ask for more -information later; and meanwhile he wished, without resentment, but -with a certain helpless, patient longing, that Muniment would treat him -with a little more confidence. If there were a secret in regard to -Hoffendahl (and there evidently was: Muniment, quite rightly, though he -had dropped the announcement of his arrival, for a certain effect, had -no notion of sharing the rest of what he knew with that raw roomful), -if there was something to be silent and devoted about, Hyacinth -ardently hoped that to him a chance would be given to show how he could -practise this superiority. He felt hot and nervous; he got up suddenly, -and, through the dark, tortuous, greasy passage which communicated with -the outer world, he went forth into the street. The air was foul and -sleety, but it refreshed him, and he stood in front of the public-house -and smoked another pipe. Bedraggled figures passed in and out, and a -damp, tattered, wretched man, with a spongy, purple face, who had been -thrust suddenly across the threshold, stood and whimpered in the brutal -blaze of the row of lamps. The puddles glittered roundabout, and the -silent vista of the street, bordered with low black houses, stretched -away, in the wintry drizzle, to right and left, losing itself in the -huge tragic city, where unmeasured misery lurked beneath the dirty -night, ominously, monstrously, still, only howling, in its pain, in the -heated human cockpit behind him. Ah, what could he do? What opportunity -would rise? The blundering, divided counsels he had been listening to -only made the helplessness of every one concerned more abject. If he -had a definite wish while he stood there it was that that exalted, -deluded company should pour itself forth, with Muniment at its head, -and surge through the sleeping city, gathering the myriad miserable out -of their slums and burrows, and roll into the selfish squares, and lift -a tremendous hungry voice, and awaken the gorged indifferent to a -terror that would bring them down. Hyacinth lingered a quarter of an -hour, but this grand spectacle gave no sign of coming off, and he -finally returned to the noisy club-room, in a state of tormented wonder -as to what better idea than this very bad one (which seemed to our -young man to have at the least the merit that it _was_ an idea) -Muniment could be revolving in that too-comprehensive brain of his. - -As he re-entered the place he saw that the meeting was breaking up in -disorder, or at all events in confusion, and that, certainly, no -organised attempt at the rescue of the proletariat would take place -that night. All the men were on their feet and were turning away, amid -a shuffling of benches and chairs, a hunching of shaggy shoulders, a -frugal lowering of superfluous gas, and a varied vivacity of disgust -and resignation. The moment after Hyacinth came in, Mr Delancey, the -supposititious hairdresser, jumped upon a chair at the far end of the -room, and shrieked out an accusation which made every one stop and -stare at him— - -“Well, I want you all to know what strikes me, before we part company. -There isn’t a man in the blessed lot that isn’t afraid of his bloody -skin—afraid, afraid, afraid! I’ll go anywhere with any one, but there -isn’t another, by G—— by what I can make out! There isn’t a mother’s -son of you that’ll risk his precious bones!” - -This little oration affected Hyacinth like a quick blow in the face; it -seemed to leap at him personally, as if a three-legged stool, or some -hideous hob-nailed boot, had been shied at him. The room surged round, -heaving up and down, while he was conscious of a loud explosion of -laughter and scorn; of cries of “Order, order!” of some clear word of -Muniment’s, “I say, Delancey, just step down;” of Eustache Poupin -shouting out, “_Vous insultez le peuple—vous insultez le peuple!_” of -other retorts, not remarkable for refinement. The next moment Hyacinth -found that he had sprung up on a chair, opposite to the barber, and -that at the sight of so rare a phenomenon the commotion had suddenly -checked itself. It was the first time he had asked the ear of the -company, and it was given on the spot. He was sure he looked very -white, and it was even possible they could see him tremble. He could -only hope that this didn’t make him ridiculous when he said, “I don’t -think it’s right of him to say that. There are others, besides him. At -all events, I want to speak for myself: it may do some good; I can’t -help it. I’m not afraid; I’m very sure I’m not. I’m ready to do -anything that will do any good; anything, anything—I don’t care a rap. -In such a cause I should like the idea of danger. I don’t consider my -bones precious in the least, compared with some other things. If one is -sure one isn’t afraid, and one is accused, why shouldn’t one say so?” - -It appeared to Hyacinth that he was talking a long time, and when it -was over he scarcely knew what happened. He felt himself, in a moment, -down almost under the feet of the other men; stamped upon with -intentions of applause, of familiarity; laughed over and jeered over, -hustled and poked in the ribs. He felt himself also pressed to the -bosom of Eustache Poupin, who apparently was sobbing, while he heard -some say, “Did ye hear the little beggar, as bold as a lion?” A trial -of personal prowess between him and Mr Delancey was proposed, but -somehow it didn’t take place, and at the end of five minutes the -club-room emptied itself, not, evidently, to be reconstituted, outside, -in a revolutionary procession. Paul Muniment had taken hold of -Hyacinth, and said, “I’ll trouble you to stay, you little desperado. -I’ll be blowed if I ever expected to see _you_ on the stump!” Muniment -remained, and M. Poupin and Mr Schinkel lingered in their overcoats, -beneath a dim, surviving gasburner, in the unventilated medium in -which, at each renewed gathering, the Bloomsbury club seemed to -recognise itself. - -“Upon my word, I believe you’re game,” said Muniment, looking down at -him with a serious face. - -“Of course you think it’s swagger, ‘self-loaf’, as Schinkel says. But -it isn’t.” Then Hyacinth asked, “In God’s name, why don’t we do -something?” - -“Ah, my child, to whom do you say it?” Eustache Poupin exclaimed, -folding his arms, despairingly. - -“Whom do you mean by ‘we’?” said Muniment. - -“All the lot of us. There are plenty of them ready.” - -“Ready for what? There is nothing to be done here.” - -Hyacinth stared. “Then why the deuce do you come?” - -“I dare say I shan’t come much more. This is a place you have always -overestimated.” - -“I wonder if I have overestimated you,” Hyacinth murmured, gazing at -his friend. - -“Don’t say that—he’s going to introduce us to Hoffendahl!” Schinkel -exclaimed, putting away his pipe in a receptacle almost as large as a -fiddle-case. - -“Should you like to see the genuine article, Robinson?” Muniment asked, -with the same unusual absence of jocosity in his tone. - -“The genuine article?” Hyacinth looked from one of his companions to -the other. - -“You have never seen it yet—though you think you have.” - -“And why haven’t you shown it to me before?” - -“Because I had never seen you on the stump.” This time Muniment smiled. - -“Bother the stump! I was trusting you.” - -“Exactly so. That gave me time.” - -“Don’t come unless your mind is made up, _mon petit_,” said Poupin. - -“Are you going now—to see Hoffendahl?” Hyacinth cried. - -“Don’t shout it all over the place. He wants a genteel little customer -like you,” Muniment went on. - -“Is it true? Are we all going?” Hyacinth demanded eagerly. - -“Yes, these two are in it; they are not very artful, but they are -safe,” said Muniment, looking at Poupin and Schinkel. - -“Are _you_ the genuine article, Muniment?” asked Hyacinth, catching -this look. - -Muniment dropped his eyes on him; then he said, “Yes, you’re the boy he -wants. It’s at the other end of London; we must have a growler.” - -“Be calm, my child; _me voici!_” And Eustache Poupin led Hyacinth out. - -They all walked away from the ‘Sun and Moon’, and it was not for some -five minutes that they encountered the four-wheeled cab which deepened -so the solemnity of their expedition. After they were seated in it, -Hyacinth learned that Hoffendahl was in London but for three days, was -liable to hurry away on the morrow, and was accustomed to receive -visits at all kinds of queer hours. It was getting to be midnight; the -drive seemed interminable, to Hyacinth’s impatience and curiosity. He -sat next to Muniment, who passed his arm round him, as if by way of -tacit expression of indebtedness. They all ended by sitting silent, as -the cab jogged along murky miles, and by the time it stopped Hyacinth -had wholly lost, in the drizzling gloom, a sense of their whereabouts. - - - - -BOOK THIRD - - - - -XXII - - -Hyacinth got up early—an operation attended with very little effort, as -he had scarcely closed his eyes all night. What he saw from his window -made him dress as rapidly as a young man could do who desired more than -ever that his appearance should not give strange ideas about him: an -old garden, with parterres in curious figures, and little intervals of -lawn which appeared to our hero’s cockney vision fantastically green. -At one end of the garden was a parapet of mossy brick, which looked -down on the other side into a canal, or moat, or quaint old pond; and -from the same standpoint there was also a view of a considerable part -of the main body of the house (Hyacinth’s room appeared to be in a wing -commanding the extensive, irregular back), which was richly gray -wherever it was not green with ivy and other dense creepers, and -everywhere infinitely like a picture, with a high-piled, ancient, -russet roof, broken by huge chimneys and queer peep-holes and all -manner of odd gables and windows on different lines and antique patches -and protrusions, and a particularly fascinating architectural -excrescence in which a wonderful clock-face was lodged—a clock-face -covered with gilding and blazonry but showing many traces of the years -and the weather. Hyacinth had never in his life been in the country—the -real country, as he called it, the country which was not the mere -ravelled fringe of London—and there entered through his open casement -the breath of a world enchantingly new and, after his recent feverish -hours, inexpressibly refreshing to him; a sense of sweet, sunny air and -mingled odours, all strangely pure and agreeable, and a kind of musical -silence, the greater part of which seemed to consist of the voices of -birds. There were tall, quiet trees near by, and afar off, and -everywhere; and the group of objects which greeted Hyacinth’s eyes -evidently formed only a corner of larger spaces and a more complicated -scene. There was a world to be revealed to him: it lay waiting, with -the dew upon it, under his windows, and he must go down and take his -first steps in it. - -The night before, at ten o’clock, when he arrived, he had only got the -impression of a mile-long stretch of park, after turning in at a gate; -of the cracking of gravel under the wheels of the fly; and of the glow -of several windows, suggesting in-door cheer, in a façade that lifted a -variety of vague pinnacles into the starlight. It was much of a relief -to him then to be informed that the Princess, in consideration of the -lateness of the hour, begged to be excused till the morrow; the delay -would give him time to recover his balance and look about him. This -latter opportunity was offered him first as he sat at supper in a vast -dining-room, with the butler, whose acquaintance he had made in South -Street, behind his chair. He had not exactly wondered how he should be -treated: there was too much vagueness in his conception of the way in -which, at a country-house, insidious distinctions might be made and -shades of importance illustrated; but it was plain that the best had -been ordered for him. He was, at all events, abundantly content with -his reception and more and more excited by it. The repast was delicate -(though his other senses were so awake that hunger dropped out and he -ate, as it were, without eating), and the grave mechanical servant -filled his glass with a liquor that reminded him of some lines in -Keats—in the _Ode to a Nightingale_. He wondered whether he should hear -a nightingale at Medley (he knew nothing about the seasons of this -vocalist), and also whether the butler would attempt to talk to him, -had ideas about him, knew or suspected who he was and what; which, -after all, there was no reason for his doing, unless it might be the -poverty of the luggage that had been transported from Lomax Place. Mr -Withers, however (it was in this manner that Hyacinth heard him -addressed by the cabman who conveyed the visitor from the station), -gave no further symptom of sociability than to ask him at what time he -would be called in the morning; to which our young man replied that he -preferred not to be called at all—he would get up by himself. The -butler rejoined, “Very good, sir,” while Hyacinth thought it probable -that he puzzled him a good deal, and even considered the question of -giving him a glimpse of his identity, lest it should be revealed, -later, in a manner less graceful. The object of this anticipatory step, -in Hyacinth’s mind, was that he should not be oppressed and embarrassed -with attentions to which he was unused; but the idea came to nothing, -for the simple reason that before he spoke he found that he already -_was_ inured to being waited upon. His impulse to deprecate attentions -departed, and he became conscious that there were none he should care -to miss, or was not quite prepared for. He knew he probably thanked Mr -Withers too much, but he couldn’t help this—it was an irrepressible -tendency and an error he should doubtless always commit. - -He lay in a bed constituted in a manner so perfect to insure rest that -it was probably responsible in some degree for his restlessness, and in -a large, high room, where long dressing-glasses emitted ghostly glances -even after the light was extinguished. Suspended on the walls were many -prints, mezzotints and old engravings, which Hyacinth supposed, -possibly without reason, to be fine and rare. He got up several times -in the night, lighted his candle and walked about looking at them. He -looked at himself in one of the long glasses, and in a place where -everything was on such a scale it seemed to him more than ever that -Mademoiselle Vivier’s son was a tiny particle. As he came downstairs he -encountered housemaids, with dusters and brooms, or perceived them, -through open doors, on their knees before fireplaces; and it was his -belief that they regarded him more boldly than if he had been a guest -of the usual kind. Such a reflection as that, however, ceased to -trouble him after he had passed out of doors and begun to roam through -the park, into which he let himself loose at first, and then, in -narrowing circles, through the nearer grounds. He rambled for an hour, -in a state of breathless ecstasy; brushing the dew from the deep fern -and bracken and the rich borders of the garden, tasting the fragrant -air, and stopping everywhere, in murmuring rapture, at the touch of -some exquisite impression. His whole walk was peopled with -recognitions; he had been dreaming all his life of just such a place -and such objects, such a morning and such a chance. It was the last of -April, and everything was fresh and vivid; the great trees, in the -early air, were a blur of tender shoots. Round the admirable house he -revolved repeatedly; catching every point and tone, feasting on its -expression, and wondering whether the Princess would observe his -proceedings from the window, and whether, if she did, they would be -offensive to her. The house was not hers, but only hired for three -months, and it could flatter no princely pride that he should be struck -with it. There was something in the way the gray walls rose from the -green lawn that brought tears to his eyes; the spectacle of long -duration unassociated with some sordid infirmity or poverty was new to -him; he had lived with people among whom old age meant, for the most -part, a grudged and degraded survival. In the majestic preservation of -Medley there was a kind of serenity of success, an accumulation of -dignity and honour. - -A footman sought him out, in the garden, to tell him that breakfast was -ready. He had never thought of breakfast, and as he walked back to the -house, attended by the inscrutable flunkey, this offer appeared a free, -extravagant gift, unexpected and romantic. He found he was to breakfast -alone, and he asked no questions; but when he had finished the butler -came in and informed him that the Princess would see him after -luncheon, but that in the meanwhile she wished him to understand that -the library was entirely at his service. ‘After luncheon’—that threw -the hour he had come for very far into the future, and it caused him -some confusion of mind that the Princess should think it worth while to -invite him to stay at her house from Saturday evening to Monday morning -if it had been her purpose that so much of his visit should elapse -without their meeting. But he felt neither slighted nor impatient; the -impressions that had already crowded upon him were in themselves a -sufficient reward, and what could one do better, precisely, in such a -house as that, than wait for a princess? The butler showed him the way -to the library, and left him planted in the middle of it, staring at -the treasures that he instantly perceived it contained. It was an old -brown room, of great extent—even the ceiling was brown, though there -were figures in it dimly gilt—where row upon row of finely-lettered -backs returned his discriminating professional gaze. A fire of logs -crackled in a great chimney, and there were alcoves with deep -window-seats, and arm-chairs such as he had never seen, luxurious, -leather-covered, with an adjustment for holding one’s volume; and a -vast writing-table, before one of the windows, furnished with a perfect -magazine of paper and pens, inkstands and blotters, seals, stamps, -candlesticks, reels of twine, paper-weights, book-knives. Hyacinth had -never imagined so many aids to correspondence, and before he turned -away he had written a note to Millicent, in a hand even more beautiful -than usual—his penmanship was very minute, but at the same time -wonderfully free and fair—largely for the pleasure of seeing ‘Medley -Hall’ stamped in crimson, heraldic-looking characters at the top of his -paper. In the course of an hour he had ravaged the collection, taken -down almost every book, wishing he could keep it a week, and put it -back quickly, as his eye caught the next, which appeared even more -desirable. He discovered many rare bindings, and gathered several ideas -from an inspection of them—ideas which he felt himself perfectly -capable of reproducing. Altogether, his vision of true happiness, at -that moment, was that, for a month or two, he should be locked into the -library at Medley. He forgot the outer world, and the morning waned—the -beautiful vernal Sunday—while he lingered there. - -He was on the top of a ladder when he heard a voice remark, “I am -afraid they are very dusty; in this house, you know, it is the dust of -centuries;” and, looking down, he saw Madame Grandoni stationed in the -middle of the room. He instantly prepared to descend, to make her his -salutation, when she exclaimed, “Stay, stay, if you are not giddy; we -can talk from here! I only came in to show you we _are_ in the house, -and to tell you to keep up your patience. The Princess will probably -see you in a few hours.” - -“I really hope so,” said Hyacinth, from his perch, rather dismayed at -the ‘probably’. - -“_Natürlich_,” the old lady rejoined; “but people have come, sometimes, -and gone away without seeing her. It all depends upon her mood.” - -“Do you mean even when she has sent for them?” - -“Oh, who can tell whether she has sent for them or not?” - -“But she sent for me, you know,” Hyacinth declared, staring down—struck -with the odd effect of Madame Grandoni’s wig in that bird’s-eye view. - -“Oh yes, she sent for you, poor young man!” The old lady looked up at -him with a smile, and they remained a moment exchanging a silent -scrutiny. Then she added, “Captain Sholto has come, like that, more -than once; and he has gone away no better off.” - -“Captain Sholto?” Hyacinth repeated. - -“Very true, if we talk at this distance I must shut the door.” She took -her way back to it (she had left it open) and pushed it to; then -advanced into the room again, with her superannuated, shuffling step, -walking as if her shoes were too big for her. Hyacinth meanwhile -descended the ladder. “_Ecco!_ She’s a _capricciosa_,” said the old -lady. - -“I don’t understand how you speak of her,” Hyacinth remarked, gravely. -“You seem to be her friend, yet you say things that are not favourable -to her.” - -“Dear young man, I say much worse to her about herself than I should -ever say to you. I am rude, oh yes—even to you, to whom, no doubt, I -ought to be particularly kind. But I am not false. It is not our German -nature. You will hear me some day. I _am_ the friend of the Princess; -it would be well enough if she never had a worse one! But I should like -to be yours, too—what will you have? Perhaps it is of no use. At any -rate, here you are.” - -“Yes, here I am, decidedly!” Hyacinth laughed, uneasily. - -“And how long shall you stay? Excuse me if I ask that; it is part of my -rudeness.” - -“I shall stay till to-morrow morning. I must be at my work by noon.” - -“That will do very well. Don’t you remember, the other time, how I told -you to remain faithful?” - -“That was very good advice. But I think you exaggerate my danger.” - -“So much the better,” said Madame Grandoni; “though now that I look at -you well I doubt it a little. I see you are one of those types that -ladies like. I can be sure of that, because I like you myself. At my -age—a hundred and twenty—can I not say that? If the Princess were to do -so, it would be different; remember that—that any flattery she may ever -offer you will be on her lips much less discreet. But perhaps she will -never have the chance; you may never come again. There are people who -have come only once. _Vedremo bene_. I must tell you that I am not in -the least against a young man taking a holiday, a little quiet -recreation, once in a while,” Madame Grandoni continued, in her -disconnected, discursive, confidential way. “In Rome they take it every -five days; that is, no doubt, too often. In Germany, less often. In -this country, I cannot understand whether it is an increase of effort: -the English Sunday is so difficult! This one will, however, in any -case, have been beautiful for you. Be happy, make yourself comfortable; -but go home to-morrow!” And with this injunction Madame Grandoni took -her way again to the door, while Hyacinth went to open it for her. “I -can say that, because it is not my house. I am only here like you. And -sometimes I think I also shall go to-morrow!” - -“I imagine you have not, like me, your living to get, every day. That -is reason enough for me,” said Hyacinth. - -She paused in the doorway, with her expressive, ugly, kindly little -eyes on his face. “I believe I am nearly as poor as you. And I have -not, like you, the appearance of nobility. Yet I am noble,” said the -old lady, shaking her wig. - -“And I am not!” Hyacinth rejoined, smiling. - -“It is better not to be lifted up high, like our friend. It does not -give happiness.” - -“Not to one’s self, possibly; but to others!” From where they stood, -Hyacinth looked out into the great panelled and decorated hall, lighted -from above and roofed with a far-away dim fresco, and the reflection of -this grandeur came into his appreciative eyes. - -“Do you admire everything here very much—do you receive great -pleasure?” asked Madame Grandoni. - -“Oh, so much—so much!” - -She considered him a moment longer. “_Poverino!_” she murmured, as she -turned away. - -A couple of hours later the Princess sent for Hyacinth, and he was -conducted upstairs, through corridors carpeted with crimson and hung -with pictures, and ushered into a kind of bright drawing-room, which he -afterwards learned that his hostess regarded as her boudoir. The sound -of music had come to him outside the door, so that he was prepared to -find her seated at the piano, if not to see her continue to play after -he appeared. Her face was turned in the direction from which he -entered, and she smiled at him while the servant, as if he had just -arrived, formally pronounced his name, without lifting her hands from -the keys. The room, placed in an angle of the house and lighted from -two sides, was large and sunny, upholstered in fresh, gay chintz, -furnished with all sorts of sofas and low, familiar seats and -convenient little tables, most of them holding great bowls of early -flowers, littered over with books, newspapers, magazines, photographs -of celebrities, with their signatures, and full of the marks of -luxurious and rather indolent habitation. Hyacinth stood there, not -advancing very far, and the Princess, still playing and smiling, nodded -toward a seat near the piano. “Put yourself there and listen to me.” -Hyacinth obeyed, and she played a long time without glancing at him. -This left him the more free to rest his eyes on her own face and -person, while she looked about the room, vaguely, absently, but with an -expression of quiet happiness, as if she were lost in her music, -soothed and pacified by it. A window near her was half open, and the -soft clearness of the day and all the odour of the spring diffused -themselves, and made the place cheerful and pure. The Princess struck -him as extraordinarily young and fair, and she seemed so slim and -simple, and friendly too, in spite of having neither abandoned her -occupation nor offered him her hand, that he sank back in his seat at -last, with the sense that all his uneasiness, his nervous tension, was -leaving him, and that he was safe in her kindness, in the free, -original way with which she evidently would always treat him. This -peculiar manner—half consideration, half fellowship—seemed to him -already to have the sweetness of familiarity. She played ever so -movingly, with different pieces succeeding each other; he had never -listened to music, nor to a talent, of that order. Two or three times -she turned her eyes upon him, and then they shone with the wonderful -expression which was the essence of her beauty; that profuse, mingled -light which seemed to belong to some everlasting summer, and yet to -suggest seasons that were past and gone, some experience that was only -an exquisite memory. She asked him if he cared for music, and then -added, laughing, that she ought to have made sure of this before; while -he answered—he had already told her so in South Street; she appeared to -have forgotten—that he was awfully fond of it. - -The sense of the beauty of women had been given to our young man in a -high degree; it was a faculty that made him conscious, to adoration, of -every element of loveliness, every delicacy of feature, every shade and -tone, that contributed to charm. Even, therefore, if he had appreciated -less the deep harmonies the Princess drew from the piano, there would -have been no lack of interest in his situation, in such an opportunity -to watch her admirable outline and movement, the noble form of her head -and face, the gathered-up glories of her hair, the living, flower-like -freshness which had no need to turn from the light. She was dressed in -fair colours, as simply as a young girl. Before she ceased playing she -asked Hyacinth what he would like to do in the afternoon: would he have -any objection to taking a drive with her? It was very possible he might -enjoy the country. She seemed not to attend to his answer, which was -covered by the sound of the piano; but if she had done so it would have -left her very little doubt as to the reality of his inclination. She -remained gazing at the cornice of the room, while her hands wandered to -and fro; then suddenly she stopped, got up and came toward her -companion. “It is probable that is the most I shall ever bore you; you -know the worst. Would you very kindly close the piano?” He complied -with her request, and she went to another part of the room and sank -into an arm-chair. When he approached her again she said, “Is it really -true that you have never seen a park, nor a garden, nor any of the -beauties of nature, and that sort of thing?” She was alluding to -something he had said in his letter, when he answered the note by which -she proposed to him to run down to Medley; and after he assured her -that it was perfectly true she exclaimed, “I’m so glad—I’m so glad! I -have never been able to show any one anything new, and I have always -thought I should like it so—especially to a sensitive nature. Then you -_will_ come and drive with me?” She asked this as if it would be a -great favour. - -That was the beginning of the communion—so singular, considering their -respective positions—which he had come to Medley to enjoy; and it -passed into some very remarkable phases. The Princess had the most -extraordinary way of taking things for granted, of ignoring -difficulties, of assuming that her preferences might be translated into -fact. After Hyacinth had remained with her ten minutes longer—a period -mainly occupied with her exclamations of delight at his having seen so -little of the sort of thing of which Medley consisted (Where should he -have seen it, gracious heaven? he asked himself); after she had rested, -thus briefly, from her exertions at the piano, she proposed that they -should go out-of-doors together. She was an immense walker—she wanted -her walk. She left him for a short time, giving him the last number of -the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ to entertain himself withal, and calling -his attention, in particular, to a story of M. Octave Feuillet (she -should be so curious to know what he thought of it); and reappeared -with her hat and parasol, drawing on her long gloves, and presenting -herself to our young man, at that moment, as a sudden incarnation of -the heroine of M. Feuillet’s novel, in which he had instantly become -immersed. On their way downstairs it occurred to her that he had not -yet seen the house and that it would be amusing for her to show it to -him; so she turned aside and took him through it, up and down and -everywhere, even into the vast, old-fashioned kitchen, where there was -a small, red-faced man in a white jacket and apron and a white cap (he -removed the latter ornament to salute the little bookbinder), with whom -his companion spoke Italian, which Hyacinth understood sufficiently to -perceive that she addressed her cook in the second person singular, as -if he had been a feudal retainer. He remembered that was the way the -three Musketeers spoke to their lackeys. The Princess explained that -the gentleman in the white cap was a delightful creature (she couldn’t -endure English servants, though she was obliged to have two or three), -who would make her plenty of risottos and polentas—she had quite the -palate of a contadina. She showed Hyacinth everything: the queer -transmogrified corner that had once been a chapel; the secret stairway -which had served in the persecutions of the Catholics (the owners of -Medley were, like the Princess herself, of the old persuasion); the -musicians’ gallery, over the hall; the tapestried room, which people -came from a distance to see; and the haunted chamber (the two were -sometimes confounded, but they were quite distinct), where a dreadful -individual at certain times made his appearance—a dwarfish ghost, with -an enormous head, a dispossessed brother, of long ago (the eldest), who -had passed for an idiot, which he wasn’t, and had somehow been made -away with. The Princess offered her visitor the privilege of sleeping -in this apartment, declaring, however, that nothing would induce _her_ -even to enter it alone, she being a benighted creature, consumed with -abject superstitions. “I don’t know whether I am religious, and -whether, if I were, my religion would be superstitious, but my -superstitions are certainly religious.” She made her young friend pass -through the drawing-room very cursorily, remarking that they should see -it again: it was rather stupid—drawing-rooms in English country-houses -were always stupid; indeed, if it would amuse him, they would sit there -after dinner. Madame Grandoni and she usually sat upstairs, but they -would do anything that he should find more comfortable. - -At last they went out of the house together, and as they did so she -explained, as if she wished to justify herself against the imputation -of extravagance, that, though the place doubtless struck him as -absurdly large for a couple of quiet women, and the whole thing was not -in the least what she would have preferred, yet it was all far cheaper -than he probably imagined; she would never have looked at it if it -hadn’t been cheap. It must appear to him so preposterous for a woman to -associate herself with the great uprising of the poor and yet live in -palatial halls—a place with forty or fifty rooms. This was one of only -two allusions she made that day to her democratic sympathies; but it -fell very happily, for Hyacinth had been reflecting precisely upon the -anomaly she mentioned. It had been present to him all day; it added -much to the way life practised on his sense of the tragic-comical to -think of the Princess’s having retired to that magnificent residence in -order to concentrate her mind upon the London slums. He listened, -therefore, with great attention while she related that she had taken -the house for only three months, in any case, because she wanted to -rest, after a winter of visiting and living in public (as the English -spent their lives, with all their celebrated worship of the ‘home’), -and yet didn’t wish as yet to return to town—though she was obliged to -confess that she had still the place in South Street on her hands, -thanks to her deciding unexpectedly to go on with it rather than move -out her things. But one had to keep one’s things somewhere, and why -wasn’t that as good a receptacle as another? Medley was not what she -would have chosen if she had been left to herself; but she had not been -left to herself—she never was; she had been bullied into taking it by -the owners, whom she had met somewhere and who had made up to her -immensely, persuading her that she might really have it for nothing—for -no more than she would give for the little honeysuckle cottage, the old -parsonage embowered in clematis, which were really what she had been -looking for. Besides it was one of those old musty mansions, ever so -far from town, which it was always difficult to let, or to get a price -for; and then it was a wretched house for living in. Hyacinth, for whom -his three hours in the train had been a series of happy throbs, had not -been struck with its geographical remoteness, and he asked the Princess -what she meant, in such a connection, by using the word ‘wretched’. To -this she replied that the place was tumbling to pieces, inconvenient in -every respect, full of ghosts and bad smells. “That is the only reason -I come to have it. I don’t want you to think me more luxurious than I -am, or that I throw away money. Never, never!” Hyacinth had no standard -by which he could measure the importance his opinion would have for -her, and he perceived that though she judged him as a creature still -open to every initiation, whose _naïveté_ would entertain her, it was -also her fancy to treat him as an old friend, a person to whom she -might have had the habit of referring her difficulties. Her performance -of the part she had undertaken to play was certainly complete, and -everything lay before him but the reason she had for playing it. - -One of the gardens at Medley took the young man’s heart beyond the -others; it had high brick walls, on the sunny sides of which was a -great training of apricots and plums, and straight walks, bordered with -old-fashioned homely flowers, inclosing immense squares where other -fruit-trees stood upright and mint and lavender floated in the air. In -the southern quarter it overhung a small, disused canal, and here a -high embankment had been raised, which was also long and broad and -covered with fine turf; so that the top of it, looking down at the -canal, made a magnificent grassy terrace, than which, on a summer’s -day, there could be no more delightful place for strolling up and down -with a companion—all the more that, at either end, was a curious -pavilion, in the manner of a tea-house, which completed the scene in an -old-world sense and offered rest and privacy, a refuge from sun or -shower. One of these pavilions was an asylum for gardeners’ tools and -superfluous flower-pots; the other was covered, inside, with a queer -Chinese paper, representing ever so many times over a group of people -with faces like blind kittens, having tea while they sat on the floor. -It also contained a big, clumsy inlaid cabinet, in which cups and -saucers showed themselves through doors of greenish glass, together -with a carved cocoanut and a pair of outlandish idols. On a shelf, over -a sofa, not very comfortable though it had cushions of faded tapestry, -which looked like samplers, was a row of novels, out of date and out of -print—novels that one couldn’t have found any more and that were only -there. On the chimney-piece was a bowl of dried rose-leaves, mixed with -some aromatic spice, and the whole place suggested a certain dampness. - -On the terrace Hyacinth paced to and fro with the Princess until she -suddenly remembered that he had not had his luncheon. He protested that -this was the last thing he wished to think of, but she declared that -she had not asked him down to Medley to starve him and that he must go -back and be fed. They went back, but by a very roundabout way, through -the park, so that they really had half an hour’s more talk. She -explained to him that she herself breakfasted at twelve o’clock, in the -foreign fashion, and had tea in the afternoon; as he too was so foreign -he might like that better, and in this case, on the morrow, they would -breakfast together. He could have coffee, and anything else he wanted, -brought to his room when he woke up. When Hyacinth had sufficiently -composed himself, in the presence of this latter image—he thought he -saw a footman arranging a silver service at his bedside—he mentioned -that really, as regarded the morrow, he should have to be back in -London. There was a train at nine o’clock; he hoped she didn’t mind his -taking it. She looked at him a moment, gravely and kindly, as if she -were considering an abstract idea, and then she said, “Oh yes, I mind -it very much. Not to-morrow—some other day.” He made no rejoinder, and -the Princess spoke of something else; that is, his rejoinder was -private, and consisted of the reflection that he _would_ leave Medley -in the morning, whatever she might say. He simply couldn’t afford to -stay; he couldn’t be out of work. And then Madame Grandoni thought it -so important; for though the old lady was obscure she was decidedly -impressive. The Princess’s protest, however, was to be reckoned with; -he felt that it might take a form less cursory than the words she had -just uttered, which would make it embarrassing. She was less solemn, -less explicit, than Madame Grandoni had been, but there was something -in her slight seriousness and the delicate way in which she signified a -sort of command that seemed to tell him his liberty was going—the -liberty he had managed to keep (till the other day, when he gave -Hoffendahl a mortgage on it), and the possession of which had in some -degree consoled him for other forms of penury. This made him uneasy; -what would become of him if he should add another servitude to the one -he had undertaken, at the end of that long, anxious cab-drive in the -rain, in that dim back-bedroom of a house as to whose whereabouts he -was even now not clear, while Muniment and Poupin and Schinkel, all -visibly pale, listened and accepted the vow? Muniment and Poupin and -Schinkel—how disconnected, all the same, he felt from them at the -present hour; how little he was the young man who had made the -pilgrimage in the cab; and how the two latter, at least, if they could -have a glimpse of him now, would wonder what he was up to! - -As to this, Hyacinth wondered sufficiently himself, while the Princess -touched upon the people and places she had seen, the impressions and -conclusions she had gathered, since their former meeting. It was to -such matters as these that she directed the conversation; she appeared -to wish to keep it off his own concerns, and he was surprised at her -continued avoidance of the slums and the question of her intended -sacrifices. She mentioned none of her friends by name, but she talked -of their character, their houses, their manners, taking for granted, as -before, that Hyacinth would always follow. So far as he followed he was -edified, but he had to admit to himself that half the time he didn’t -know what she was talking about. At all events, if _he_ had been with -the dukes (she didn’t call her associates dukes, but Hyacinth was sure -they were of that order), he would have got more satisfaction from -them. She appeared, on the whole, to judge the English world severely; -to think poorly of its wit, and even worse of its morals. “You know -people oughtn’t to be both corrupt and dull,” she said; and Hyacinth -turned this over, feeling that he certainly had not yet caught the -point of view of a person for whom the aristocracy was a collection of -bores. He had sometimes taken great pleasure in hearing that it was -fabulously profligate, but he was rather disappointed in the bad -account the Princess gave of it. She remarked that she herself was very -corrupt—she ought to have mentioned that before—but she had never been -accused of being stupid. Perhaps he would discover it, but most of the -people she had had to do with thought her only too lively. The second -allusion that she made to their ulterior designs (Hyacinth’s and hers) -was when she said, “I determined to see it”—she was speaking still of -English society—“to learn for myself what it really is, before we blow -it up. I have been here now a year and a half, and, as I tell you, I -feel that I have seen. It is the old régime again, the rottenness and -extravagance, bristling with every iniquity and every abuse, over which -the French Revolution passed like a whirlwind; or perhaps even more a -reproduction of Roman society in its decadence, gouty, apoplectic, -depraved, gorged and clogged with wealth and spoils, selfishness and -scepticism, and waiting for the onset of the barbarians. You and I are -the barbarians, you know.” The Princess was pretty general, after all, -in her animadversions, and regaled him with no anecdotes (he rather -missed them) that would have betrayed the hospitality she had enjoyed. -She couldn’t treat him absolutely as if he had been an ambassador. By -way of defending the aristocracy he said to her that it couldn’t be -true they were all a bad lot (he used that expression because she had -let him know that she liked him to speak in the manner of the people), -inasmuch as he had an acquaintance among them—a noble lady—who was one -of the purest, kindest, most conscientious human beings it was possible -to imagine. At this she stopped short and looked at him; then she -asked, “Whom do you mean—a noble lady?” - -“I suppose there is no harm saying. Lady Aurora Langrish.” - -“I don’t know her. Is she nice?” - -“I like her ever so much.” - -“Is she pretty, clever?” - -“She isn’t pretty, but she is very uncommon,” said Hyacinth. - -“How did you make her acquaintance?” As he hesitated, she went on, “Did -you bind some books for her?” - -“No. I met her in a place called Audley Court.” - -“Where is that?” - -“In Camberwell.” - -“And who lives there?” - -“A young woman I was calling on, who is bedridden.” - -“And the lady you speak of—what do you call her, Lydia Languish?—goes -to see her?” - -“Yes, very often.” - -The Princess was silent a moment, looking at him. “Will you take me -there?” - -“With great pleasure. The young woman I speak of is the sister of the -chemist’s assistant you will perhaps remember that I mentioned to you.” - -“Yes, I remember. It must be one of the first places we go to. I am -sorry,” the Princess added, walking on. Hyacinth inquired what she -might be sorry for, but she took no notice of his question, and -presently remarked, “Perhaps she goes to see him.” - -“Goes to see whom?” - -“The chemist’s assistant—the brother.” She said this very seriously. - -“Perhaps she does,” Hyacinth rejoined, laughing. “But she is a fine -sort of woman.” - -The Princess repeated that she was sorry, and he again asked her for -what—for Lady Aurora’s being of that sort? To which she replied, “No; I -mean for my not being the first—what is it you call them?—noble lady -that you have encountered.” - -“I don’t see what difference that makes. You needn’t be afraid you -don’t make an impression on me.” - -“I was not thinking of that. I was thinking that you might be less -fresh than I thought.” - -“Of course I don’t know what you thought,” said Hyacinth, smiling. - -“No; how should you?” - - - - -XXIII - - -He was in the library, after luncheon, when word was brought to him -that the carriage was at the door, for their drive; and when he went -into the hall he found Madame Grandoni, bonneted and cloaked, awaiting -the descent of the Princess. “You see I go with you. I am always -there,” she remarked, jovially. “The Princess has me with her to take -care of her, and this is how I do it. Besides, I never miss my drive.” - -“You are different from me; this will be the first I have ever had in -my life.” He could establish that distinction without bitterness, -because he was too pleased with his prospect to believe the old lady’s -presence could spoil it. He had nothing to say to the Princess that she -might not hear. He didn’t dislike her for coming, even after she had -said to him, in answer to his own announcement, speaking rather more -sententiously than was her wont, “It doesn’t surprise me that you have -not spent your life in carriages. They have nothing to do with your -trade.” - -“Fortunately not,” he answered. “I should have made a ridiculous -coachman.” - -The Princess appeared, and they mounted into a great square barouche, -an old-fashioned, high-hung vehicle, with a green body, a faded -hammer-cloth and a rumble where the footman sat (the Princess mentioned -that it had been let with the house), which rolled ponderously and -smoothly along the winding avenue and through the gilded gates (they -were surmounted with an immense escutcheon) of the park. The progress -of this oddly composed trio had a high respectability, and that is one -of the reasons why Hyacinth felt the occasion to be tremendously -memorable. There might still be greater joys in store for him—he was by -this time quite at sea, and could recognise no shores—but he would -never again in his life be so respectable. The drive was long and -comprehensive, but very little was said while it lasted. “I shall show -you the whole country: it is exquisitely beautiful; it speaks to the -heart.” Of so much as this his hostess had informed him at the start; -and she added, in French, with a light, allusive nod at the rich, -humanised landscape, “_Voilà ce que j’aime en Angleterre_.” For the -rest, she sat there opposite to him, in quiet fairness, under her -softly-swaying, lace-fringed parasol: moving her eyes to where she -noticed that his eyes rested; allowing them, when the carriage passed -anything particularly charming, to meet his own; smiling as if she -enjoyed the whole affair very nearly as much as he; and now and then -calling his attention to some prospect, some picturesque detail, by -three words of which the cadence was sociable. Madame Grandoni dozed -most of the time, with her chin resting on rather a mangy ermine -tippet, in which she had enveloped herself; expanding into -consciousness at moments, however, to greet the scenery with -comfortable polyglot ejaculations. If Hyacinth was exalted, during -these delightful hours, he at least measured his exaltation, and it -kept him almost solemnly still, as if with the fear that a wrong -movement of any sort would break the charm, cause the curtain to fall -upon the play. This was especially the case when his senses oscillated -back from the objects that sprang up by the way, every one of which was -a rich image of something he had longed for, to the most beautiful -woman in England, who sat there, close to him, as completely for his -benefit as if he had been a painter engaged to make her portrait. More -than once he saw everything through a mist; his eyes were full of -tears. - -That evening they sat in the drawing-room after dinner, as the Princess -had promised, or, as he was inclined to consider it, threatened him. -The force of the threat was in his prevision that the ladies would make -themselves fine, and that in contrast with the setting and company he -should feel dingier than ever; having already on his back the only -tolerably decent coat he possessed, and being unable to exchange it for -a garment of the pattern that civilised people (so much he knew, if he -couldn’t emulate them) put on about eight o’clock. The ladies, when -they came to dinner, looked festal indeed; but Hyacinth was able to -make the reflection that he was more pleased to be dressed as he was -dressed, meanly and unsuitably as it was, than he should have been to -present such a figure as Madame Grandoni, in whose toggery there was -something comical. He was coming more and more round to the sense that -if the Princess didn’t mind his poorness, in every way, he had no call -to mind it himself. His present circumstances were not of his -seeking—they had been forced upon him; they were not the fruit of a -disposition to push. How little the Princess minded—how much, indeed, -she enjoyed the consciousness that in having him about her in that -manner she was playing a trick upon society, the false and conventional -society she had measured and despised—was manifest from the way she had -introduced him to the people they found awaiting them in the hall on -the return from their drive: four ladies, a mother and three daughters, -who had come over to call, from Broome, a place some five miles off. -Broome was also a great house, as he gathered, and Lady Marchant, the -mother, was the wife of a county magnate. She explained that they had -come in on the persuasion of the butler, who had represented the return -of the Princess as imminent, and who then had administered tea without -waiting for this event. The evening had drawn in chill; there was a -fire in the hall, and they all sat near it, round the tea-table, under -the great roof which rose to the top of the house. Hyacinth conversed -mainly with one of the daughters, a very fine girl with a straight back -and long arms, whose neck was encircled so tightly with a fur boa that, -to look a little to one side, she was obliged to move her whole body. -She had a handsome, inanimate face, over which the firelight played -without making it more lively, a beautiful voice, and the occasional -command of a few short words. She asked Hyacinth with what pack he -hunted, and whether he went in much for tennis, and she ate three -muffins. - -Our young man perceived that Lady Marchant and her daughters had -already been at Medley, and even guessed that their reception by the -Princess, who probably thought them of a tiresome type, had not been -enthusiastic; and his imagination projected itself, further still, into -the motives which, in spite of this tepidity, must have led them, in -consideration of the rarity of princesses in that country, to come a -second time. The talk, in the firelight, while Hyacinth laboured, -rather recklessly (for the spirit of the occasion, on his hostess’s -part, was passing into his own blood), with his muffin-eating -beauty—the conversation, accompanied with the light click of delicate -tea-cups, was as well-bred as could be consistent with an odd, evident -_parti-pris_ of the Princess’s to make poor Lady Marchant explain -everything. With great urbanity of manner, she professed complete -inability to understand the sense in which her visitor meant her thin -remarks; and Hyacinth was scarcely able to follow her here, he wondered -so what interest she could have in trying to appear dense. It was only -afterwards he learned that the Marchant family produced a very -peculiar, and at moments almost maddening, effect upon her nerves. He -asked himself what would happen to that member of it with whom he was -engaged if it should be revealed to her that she was conversing (how -little soever) with a beggarly London artisan; and though he was rather -pleased at her not having discovered his station (for he didn’t -attribute her brevity to this idea), he entertained a little the -question of its being perhaps his duty not to keep it hidden from her, -not to flourish in a cowardly disguise. What did she take him for—or, -rather, what didn’t she take him for—when she asked him if he hunted? -Perhaps that was because it was rather dark; if there had been more -light in the great vague hall she would have seen he was not one of -themselves. Hyacinth felt that by this time he had associated a good -deal with swells, but they had always known what he was and had been -able to elect how to treat him. This was the first occasion on which a -young gentlewoman had not been warned, and, as a consequence, he -appeared to pass muster. He determined not to unmask himself, on the -simple ground that he should by the same stroke betray the Princess. It -was quite open to her to lean over and say to Miss Marchant, “You know -he’s a wretched little bookbinder, earning a few shillings a week in a -horrid street in Soho. There are all kinds of low things—and I suspect -even something very horrible—connected with his birth. It seems to me I -ought to mention it.” He almost wished she would mention it, for the -sake of the strange, violent sensation of the thing, a curiosity -quivering within him to know what Miss Marchant would do at such a -pinch, and what chorus of ejaculations—or, what appalled, irremediable -silence—would rise to the painted roof. The responsibility, however, -was not his; he had entered a phase of his destiny where -responsibilities were suspended. Madame Grandoni’s tea had waked her -up; she came, at every crisis, to the rescue of the conversation, and -talked to the visitors about Rome, where they had once spent a winter, -describing with much drollery the manner in which the English families -she had seen there for nearly half a century (and had met, of an -evening, in the Roman world) inspected the ruins and monuments and -squeezed into the great ceremonies of the church. Clearly, the four -ladies didn’t know what to make of the Princess; but, though they -perhaps wondered if she were a paid companion, they were on firm ground -in the fact that the queer, familiar, fat person had been acquainted -with the Millingtons, the Bunburys and the Tripps. - -After dinner (during which the Princess allowed herself a considerable -license of pleasantry on the subject of her recent visitors, declaring -that Hyacinth must positively go with her to return their call, and -must see their interior, their manner at home), Madame Grandoni sat -down to the piano, at Christina’s request, and played to her companions -for an hour. The spaces were large in the big drawing-room, and our -friends had placed themselves at a distance from each other. The old -lady’s music trickled forth discreetly into the pleasant dimness of the -candlelight; she knew dozens of Italian local airs, which sounded like -the forgotten tunes of a people, and she followed them by a series of -tender, plaintive German _Lieder_, awaking, without violence, the -echoes of the high, pompous apartment. It was the music of an old -woman, and seemed to quaver a little, as her singing might have done. -The Princess, buried in a deep chair, listened, behind her fan. -Hyacinth at least supposed she listened; at any rate, she never moved. -At last Madame Grandoni left the piano and came toward the young man. -She had taken up, on the way, a French book, in a pink cover, which she -nursed in the hollow of her arm, and she stood looking at Hyacinth. - -“My poor little friend, I must bid you good-night. I shall not see you -again for the present, as, to take your early train, you will have left -the house before I put on my wig—and I never show myself to gentlemen -without it. I have looked after the Princess pretty well, all day, to -keep her from harm, and now I give her up to you, for a little. Take -the same care, I beg you. I must put myself into my dressing-gown; at -my age, at this hour, it is the only thing. What will you have? I hate -to be tight,” pursued Madame Grandoni, who appeared even in her -ceremonial garment to have evaded this discomfort successfully enough. -“Do not sit up late,” she added; “and do not keep him, Christina. -Remember that for an active young man like Mr Robinson, going every day -to his work, there is nothing more exhausting than such an unoccupied -life as ours. For what do we do, after all? His eyes are very heavy. -_Basta!_” - -During this little address the Princess, who made no rejoinder to that -part of it which concerned herself, remained hidden behind her fan; but -after Madame Grandoni had wandered away she lowered this emblazoned -shield and rested her eyes for a while on Hyacinth. At last she said, -“Don’t sit half a mile off. Come nearer to me. I want to say something -to you that I can’t shout across the room.” Hyacinth instantly got up, -but at the same moment she also rose; so that, approaching each other, -they met half-way, before the great marble chimney-piece. She stood a -little, opening and closing her fan; then she remarked, “You must be -surprised at my not having yet spoken to you about our great interest.” - -“No, indeed, I am not surprised at anything.” - -“When you take that tone I feel as if we should never, after all, -become friends,” said the Princess. - -“I hoped we were, already. Certainly, after the kindness you have shown -me, there is no service of friendship that you might ask of me—” - -“That you wouldn’t gladly perform? I know what you are going to say, -and have no doubt you speak truly. But what good would your service do -me if, all the while, you think of me as a hollow-headed, -hollow-hearted trifler, behaving in the worst possible taste and -oppressing you with her attentions? Perhaps you can think of me as—what -shall I call it?—as a kind of coquette.” - -Hyacinth demurred. “That would be very conceited.” - -“Surely, you have the right to be as conceited as you please, after the -advances I have made you! Pray, who has a better one? But you persist -in remaining humble, and that is very provoking.” - -“It is not I that am provoking; it is life, and society, and all the -difficulties that surround us.” - -“I am precisely of that opinion—that they are exasperating; that when I -appeal to you, frankly, candidly, disinterestedly—simply because I like -you, for no other reason in the world—to help me to disregard and -surmount these obstructions, to treat them with the contempt they -deserve, you drop your eyes, you even blush a little, and make yourself -small, and try to edge out of the situation by pleading general -devotion and insignificance. Please remember this: you cease to be -insignificant from the moment I have anything to do with you. My dear -fellow,” the Princess went on, in her free, audacious, fraternising -way, to which her beauty and simplicity gave nobleness, “there are -people who would be very glad to enjoy, in your place, that form of -obscurity.” - -“What do you wish me to do?” Hyacinth asked, as quietly as he could. - -If he had had an idea that this question, to which, as coming from his -lips, and even as being uttered with perceptible impatience, a certain -unexpectedness might attach, would cause her a momentary embarrassment, -he was completely out in his calculation. She answered on the instant: -“I want you to give me time! That’s all I ask of my friends, in -general—all I ever asked of the best I have had. But none of them ever -did it; none of them, that is, save the excellent creature who has just -left us. She understood me long ago.” - -“That’s all I, on my side, ask of you,” said Hyacinth, smiling. “Give -me time, give me time,” he murmured, looking up at her splendour. - -“Dear Mr Hyacinth, I have given you mouths!—months since our first -meeting. And at present, haven’t I given you the whole day? It has been -intentional, my not speaking to you of our plans. Yes, our plans; I -know what I am saying. Don’t try to look stupid; you will never -succeed. I wished to leave you free to amuse yourself.” - -“Oh, I have amused myself,” said Hyacinth. - -“You would have been very fastidious if you hadn’t! However, that is -precisely, in the first place, what I wished you to come here for. To -observe the impression made by such a place as this on such a nature as -yours, introduced to it for the first time, has been, I assure you, -quite worth my while. I have already given you a hint of how -extraordinary I think it that you should be what you are without having -seen—what shall I call them?—beautiful, delightful old things. I have -been watching you; I am frank enough to tell you that. I want you to -see more—more—more!” the Princess exclaimed, with a sudden flicker of -passion. “And I want to talk with you about this matter, as well as -others. That will be for to-morrow.” - -“To-morrow?” - -“I noticed Madame Grandoni took for granted just now that you are -going. But that has nothing to do with the business. She has so little -imagination!” - -Hyacinth shook his head, smiling. “I can’t stay!” He had an idea his -mind was made up. - -She returned his smile, but there was something strangely touching—it -was so sad, yet, as a rebuke, so gentle—in the tone in which she -replied, “You oughtn’t to force me to beg. It isn’t nice.” - -He had reckoned without that tone; all his reasons suddenly seemed to -fall from under him, to liquefy. He remained a moment, looking on the -ground; then he said, “Princess, you have no idea—how should you -have?—into the midst of what abject, pitiful preoccupations you thrust -yourself. I have no money—I have no clothes.” - -“What do you want of money? This isn’t an hotel.” - -“Every day I stay here I lose a day’s wages; and I live on my wages -from day to day.” - -“Let me, then, give you wages. You will work for me.” - -“What do you mean—work for you?” - -“You will bind all my books. I have ever so many foreign ones, in -paper.” - -“You speak as if I had brought my tools!” - -“No, I don’t imagine that. I will give you the wages now, and you can -do the work, at your leisure and convenience, afterwards. Then, if you -want anything, you can go over to Bonchester and buy it. There are very -good shops; I have used them.” Hyacinth thought of a great many things -at this juncture; the Princess had that quickening effect upon him. -Among others, he thought of these two: first, that it was indelicate -(though such an opinion was not very strongly held either in -Pentonville or in Soho) to accept money from a woman; and second, that -it was still more indelicate to make such a woman as that go down on -her knees to him. But it took more than a minute for one of these -convictions to prevail over the other, and before that he had heard the -Princess continue, in the tone of mild, disinterested argument: “If we -believe in the coming democracy, if it seems to us right and just, and -we hold that in sweeping over the world the great wave will wash away a -myriad iniquities and cruelties, why not make some attempt, with our -own poor means—for one must begin somewhere—to carry out the spirit of -it in our lives and our manners? I want to do that. I try to do it—in -my relations with you, for instance. But you hang back; you are not -democratic!” - -The Princess accusing him of a patrician offishness was a very fine -stroke; nevertheless it left him lucidity enough (though he still -hesitated an instant, wondering whether the words would not offend her) -to say, with a smile, “I have been strongly warned against you.” - -The offence seemed not to touch her. “I can easily understand that. Of -course my proceedings—though, after all, I have done little enough as -yet—must appear most unnatural. _Che vuole?_ as Madame Grandoni says.” - -A certain knot of light blue ribbon, which formed part of the trimming -of her dress, hung down, at her side, in the folds of it. On these -glossy loops Hyacinth’s eyes happened for a moment to have rested, and -he now took one of them up and carried it to his lips. “I will do all -the work for you that you will give me. If you give it on purpose, by -way of munificence, that is your own affair. I myself will estimate the -price. What decides me is that I shall do it so well; at least it shall -be better than any one else can do—so that if you employ me there will -have been that reason. I have brought you a book—so you can see. I did -it for you last year, and went to South Street to give it to you, but -you had already gone.” - -“Give it to me to-morrow.” These words appeared to express so -exclusively the calmness of relief at finding that he could be -reasonable, as well as that of a friendly desire to see the proof of -his talent, that he was surprised when she said, in the next breath, -irrelevantly, “Who was it warned you against me?” - -He feared she might suppose he meant Madame Grandoni, so he made the -plainest answer, having no desire to betray the old lady, and -reflecting that, as the likelihood was small that his friend in -Camberwell would ever consent to meet the Princess (in spite of her -plan of going there), no one would be hurt by it. “A friend of mine in -London—Paul Muniment.” - -“Paul Muniment?” - -“I think I mentioned him to you the first time we met.” - -“The person who said something good? I forget what it was.” - -“It was sure to be something good if he said it; he is very wise.” - -“That makes his warning very flattering to me! What does he know about -me?” - -“Oh, nothing, of course, except the little that I could tell him. He -only spoke on general grounds.” - -“I like his name—Paul Muniment,” the Princess said. “If he resembles -it, I think I should like him.” - -“You would like him much better than me.” - -“How do you know how much—or how little—I like you? I am determined to -keep hold of you, simply for what you can show me.” She paused a -moment, with her beautiful, intelligent eyes smiling into his own, and -then she continued, “On general grounds, _bien entendu_, your friend -was quite right to warn you. Now those general grounds are just what I -have undertaken to make as small as possible. It is to reduce them to -nothing that I talk to you, that I conduct myself with regard to you as -I have done. What in the world is it I am trying to do but, by every -device that my ingenuity suggests, fill up the inconvenient gulf that -yawns between my position and yours? You know what I think of -‘positions’; I told you in London. For Heaven’s sake, let me feel that -I have—a little—succeeded!” Hyacinth satisfied her sufficiently to -enable her, five minutes later, apparently to entertain no further -doubt on the question of his staying over. On the contrary, she burst -into a sudden ebullition of laughter, exchanging her bright, lucid -insistence for one of her singular sallies. “You must absolutely go -with me to call on the Marchants; it will be too delightful to see you -there!” - -As he walked up and down the empty drawing-room it occurred to him to -ask himself whether that was mainly what she was keeping him for—so -that he might help her to play one of her tricks on the good people at -Broome. He paced there, in the still candlelight, for a longer time -than he measured; until the butler came and stood in the doorway, -looking at him silently and fixedly, as if to let him know that he -interfered with the custom of the house. He had told the Princess that -what determined him was the thought of the manner in which he might -exercise his craft in her service; but this was only half the influence -that pressed him into forgetfulness of what he had most said to himself -when, in Lomax Place, in an hour of unprecedented introspection, he -wrote the letter by which he accepted the invitation to Medley. He -would go there (so he said) because a man must be gallant, especially -if he be a little bookbinder; but after he should be there he would -insist at every step upon knowing what he was in for. The change that -had taken place in him now, from one moment to another, was that he had -simply ceased to care what he was in for. All warnings, reflections, -considerations of verisimilitude, of the delicate, the natural and the -possible, of the value of his independence, had become as nothing to -him. The cup of an exquisite experience—a week in that enchanted -palace, a week of such immunity from Lomax Place and old Crookenden as -he had never dreamed of—was at his lips; it was purple with the wine of -novelty, of civilisation, and he couldn’t push it aside without -drinking. He might go home ashamed, but he would have for evermore in -his mouth the taste of nectar. He went upstairs, under the eye of the -butler, and on his way to his room, at the turning of a corridor, found -himself face to face with Madame Grandoni. She had apparently just -issued from her own apartment, the door of which stood open, near her; -she might have been hovering there in expectation of his footstep. She -had donned her dressing-gown, which appeared to give her every facility -for respiration, but she had not yet parted with her wig. She still had -her pink French book under her arm; and her fat little hands, tightly -locked together in front of her, formed the clasp of her generous -girdle. - -“Do tell me it is positive, Mr Robinson!” she said, stopping short. - -“What is positive, Madame Grandoni?” - -“That you take the train in the morning.” - -“I can’t tell you that, because it wouldn’t be true. On the contrary, -it has been settled that I shall stay over. I am very sorry if it -distresses you—but _che vuole?_” Hyacinth added, smiling. - -Madame Grandoni was a humorous woman, but she gave him no smile in -return; she only looked at him a moment, and then, shrugging her -shoulders silently but expressively, shuffled back to her room. - - - - -XXIV - - -“I can give you your friend’s name—in a single guess. He is Diedrich -Hoffendahl!” They had been strolling more and more slowly, the next -morning, and as she made this announcement the Princess stopped -altogether, standing there under a great beech with her eyes upon -Hyacinth’s and her hands full of primroses. He had breakfasted at noon, -with his hostess and Madame Grandoni, but the old lady had fortunately -not joined them when the Princess afterwards proposed that he should -accompany her on her walk in the park. She told him that her venerable -friend had let her know, while the day was still very young, that she -thought it in the worst possible taste of the Princess not to have -allowed Mr Robinson to depart; to which Christina had replied that -concerning tastes there was no disputing and that they had disagreed on -such matters before without any one being the worse. Hyacinth expressed -the hope that they wouldn’t dispute about _him_—of all thankless -subjects in the world; and the Princess assured him that she never -disputed about anything. She held that there were other ways than that -of arranging one’s relations with people; and Hyacinth guessed that she -meant that when a difference became sharp she broke off altogether. On -her side, then, there was as little possibility as on his that they -should ever quarrel; their acquaintance would be a solid friendship or -it would be nothing at all. The Princess gave it from hour to hour more -of this quality, and it may be imagined how safe Hyacinth felt by the -time he began to tell her that something had happened to him, in -London, three months before, one night (or rather in the small hours of -the morning), that had altered his life altogether—had, indeed, as he -might say, changed the terms on which he held it. He was aware that he -didn’t know exactly what he meant by this last phrase; but it expressed -sufficiently well the new feeling that had come over him since that -interminable, tantalising cab-drive in the rain. - -The Princess had led to this, almost as soon as they left the house; -making up for her avoidance of such topics the day before by saying, -suddenly, “Now tell me what is going on among your friends. I don’t -mean your worldly acquaintances, but your colleagues, your brothers. -_Où en êtes-vous_, at the present time? Is there anything new, is -anything going to be done; I am afraid you are always simply dawdling -and muddling.” Hyacinth felt as if, of late, he had by no means either -dawdled or muddled; but before he had committed himself so far as to -refute the imputation the Princess exclaimed, in another tone, “How -annoying it is that I can’t ask you anything without giving you the -right to say to yourself, ‘After all, what do I know? May she not be in -the pay of the police?’” - -“Oh, that doesn’t occur to me,” said Hyacinth, with a smile. - -“It might, at all events; by which I mean it may, at any moment. -Indeed, I think it ought.” - -“If you were in the pay of the police you wouldn’t trouble your head -about me.” - -“I should make you think that, certainly! That would be my first care. -However, if you have no tiresome suspicions so much the better,” said -the Princess; and she pressed him again for some news from behind the -scenes. - -In spite of his absence of doubt on the subject of her honesty—he felt -that he should never again entertain any such trumpery idea as that she -might be an agent on the wrong side—he did not open himself -immediately; but at the end of half an hour he let her know that the -most important event of his life had taken place, scarcely more than -the other day, in the most unexpected manner. And to explain in what it -had consisted, he said, “I pledged myself, by everything that is -sacred.” - -“To what did you pledge yourself?” - -“I took a vow—a tremendous, terrible vow—in the presence of four -witnesses,” Hyacinth went on. - -“And what was it about, your vow?” - -“I gave my life away,” said Hyacinth, smiling. - -She looked at him askance, as if to see how he would make such an -announcement as that; but she wore no smile—her face was politely -grave. They moved together a moment, exchanging a glance, in silence, -and then she said, “Ah, well, then, I’m all the more glad you stayed!” - -“That was one of the reasons.” - -“I wish you had waited—till after you had been here,” the Princess -remarked. - -“Why till after I had been here?” - -“Perhaps then you wouldn’t have given away your life. You might have -seen reasons for keeping it.” And now, at last, she treated the matter -gaily, as Hyacinth had done. He replied that he had not the least doubt -that, on the whole, her influence was relaxing; but without heeding -this remark she went on: “Be so good as to tell me what you are talking -about.” - -“I’m not afraid of you, but I’ll give you no names,” said Hyacinth; and -he related what had happened in the back-room in Bloomsbury, in the -course of that evening of which I have given some account. The Princess -listened, intently, while they strolled under the budding trees with a -more interrupted step. Never had the old oaks and beeches, renewing -themselves in the sunshine as they did to-day, or naked in some gray -November, witnessed such an extraordinary series of confidences, since -the first pair that sought isolation wandered over the grassy slopes -and ferny dells beneath them. Among other things Hyacinth mentioned to -his companion that he didn’t go to the ‘Sun and Moon’ any more; he now -perceived, what he ought to have perceived long before, that this -particular temple of their faith, and everything that pretended to get -hatched there, was a hopeless sham. He had been a rare muff, from the -first, to take it seriously. He had done so mainly because a friend of -his, in whom he had confidence, appeared to set him the example; but -now it turned out that this friend (it was Paul Muniment again, by the -way) had always thought the men who went there a pack of duffers and -was only trying them because he tried everything. There was nobody you -could begin to call a first-rate man there, putting aside another -friend of his, a Frenchman named Poupin—and Poupin was magnificent, but -he wasn’t first-rate. Hyacinth had a standard, now that he had seen a -man who was the very incarnation of his programme. You felt that _he_ -was a big chap the very moment you came into his presence. - -“Into whose presence, Mr Robinson?” the Princess inquired. - -“I don’t know that I ought to tell you, much as I believe in you! I am -speaking of the very remarkable individual with whom I entered into -that engagement.” - -“To give away your life?” - -“To do something which in a certain contingency he will require of me. -He will require my poor little carcass.” - -“Those plans have a way of failing—unfortunately,” the Princess -murmured, adding the last word more quickly. - -“Is that a consolation, or a lament?” Hyacinth asked. “This one shall -not fail, so far as it depends on me. They wanted an obliging young -man—the place was vacant—I stepped in.” - -“I have no doubt you are right. We must pay for what we do.” The -Princess made that remark calmly and coldly; then she said, “I think I -know the person in whose power you have placed yourself.” - -“Possibly, but I doubt it.” - -“You can’t believe I have already gone so far? Why not? I have given -you a certain amount of proof that I don’t hang back.” - -“Well, if you know my friend, you have gone very far indeed.” - -The Princess appeared to be on the point of pronouncing a name; but she -checked herself, and asked suddenly, smiling, “Don’t they also want, by -chance, an obliging young woman?” - -“I happen to know he doesn’t think much of women, my first-rate man. He -doesn’t trust them.” - -“Is that why you call him first-rate? You have very nearly betrayed him -to me.” - -“Do you imagine there is only one of that opinion?” Hyacinth inquired. - -“Only one who, having it, still remains a superior man. That’s a very -difficult opinion to reconcile with others that it is important to -have.” - -“Schopenhauer did so, successfully,” said Hyacinth. - -“How delightful that you should know Schopenhauer!” the Princess -exclaimed. “The gentleman I have in my eye is also German.” Hyacinth -let this pass, not challenging her, because he wished not to be -challenged in return, and the Princess went on: “Of course such an -engagement as you speak of must make a tremendous difference, in -everything.” - -“It has made this difference, that I have now a far other sense from -any I had before of the reality, the solidity, of what is being -prepared. I was hanging about outside, on the steps of the temple, -among the loafers and the gossips, but now I have been in the innermost -sanctuary—I have seen the holy of holies.” - -“And it’s very dazzling?” - -“Ah, Princess!” sighed the young man. - -“Then it _is_ real, it _is_ solid?” she pursued. “That’s exactly what I -have been trying to make up my mind about, for so long.” - -“It is more strange than I can say. Nothing of it appears above the -surface; but there is an immense underworld, peopled with a thousand -forms of revolutionary passion and devotion. The manner in which it is -organised is what astonished me; I knew that, or thought I knew it, in -a general way, but the reality was a revelation. And on top of it all, -society lives! People go and come, and buy and sell, and drink and -dance, and make money and make love, and seem to know nothing and -suspect nothing and think of nothing; and iniquities flourish, and the -misery of half the world is prated about as a ‘necessary evil’, and -generations rot away and starve, in the midst of it, and day follows -day, and everything is for the best in the best of possible worlds. All -that is one-half of it; the other half is that everything is doomed! In -silence, in darkness, but under the feet of each one of us, the -revolution lives and works. It is a wonderful, immeasurable trap, on -the lid of which society performs its antics. When once the machinery -is complete, there will be a great rehearsal. That rehearsal is what -they want me for. The invisible, impalpable wires are everywhere, -passing through everything, attaching themselves to objects in which -one would never think of looking for them. What could be more strange -and incredible, for instance, than that they should exist just here?” - -“You make me believe it,” said the Princess, thoughtfully. - -“It matters little whether one believes it or not!” - -“You have had a vision,” the Princess continued. - -“_Parbleu_, I have had a vision! So would you, if you had been there.” - -“I wish I had!” she declared, in a tone charged with such ambiguous -implications that Hyacinth, catching them a moment after she had -spoken, rejoined, with a quick, incongruous laugh— - -“No, you would have spoiled everything. He made me see, he made me -feel, he made me do, everything he wanted.” - -“And why should he have wanted you, in particular?” - -“Simply because I struck him as the right person. That’s his affair: I -can’t tell you. When he meets the right person he chalks him. I sat on -the bed. (There were only two chairs in the dirty little room, and by -way of a curtain his overcoat was hung up before the window.) He didn’t -sit, himself; he leaned against the wall, straight in front of me, with -his hands behind him. He told me certain things, and his manner was -extraordinarily quiet. So was mine, I think I may say; and indeed it -was only poor Poupin who made a row. It was for my sake, somehow: he -didn’t think we were all conscious enough; he wanted to call attention -to my sublimity. There was no sublimity about it—I simply couldn’t help -myself. He and the other German had the two chairs, and Muniment sat on -a queer old battered, hair-covered trunk, a most foreign-looking -article.” Hyacinth had taken no notice of the little ejaculation with -which his companion greeted, in this last sentence, the word ‘other’. - -“And what did Mr Muniment say?” she presently inquired. - -“Oh, he said it was all right. Of course he thought that, from the -moment he determined to bring me. He knew what the other fellow was -looking for.” - -“I see.” Then the Princess remarked, “We have a curious way of being -fond of you.” - -“Whom do you mean by ‘we’?” - -“Your friends. Mr Muniment and I, for instance.” - -“I like it as well as any other. But you don’t feel alike. I have an -idea you are sorry.” - -“Sorry for what?” - -“That I have put my head in a noose.” - -“Ah, you’re severe—I thought I concealed it so well!” the Princess -exclaimed. He admitted that he had been severe, and begged her pardon, -for he was by no means sure that there was not a hint of tears in her -voice. She looked away from him for a minute, and it was after this -that, stopping short, she remarked, as I have related, “He is Diedrich -Hoffendahl.” - -Hyacinth stared for a moment, with parted lips. “Well, you _are_ in it, -more than I supposed!” - -“You know he doesn’t trust women,” his companion smiled. - -“Why in the world should you have cared for any light _I_ can throw, if -you have ever been in relation with him?” - -She hesitated a little. “Oh, you are very different. I like you -better,” she added. - -“Ah, if it’s for that!” murmured Hyacinth. - -The Princess coloured, as he had seen her colour before, and in this -accident, on her part, there was an unexpectedness, something touching. -“Don’t try to fix my inconsistencies on me,” she said, with an humility -which matched her blush. “Of course there are plenty of them, but it -will always be kinder of you to let them pass. Besides, in this case -they are not so serious as they seem. As a product of the ‘people’, and -of that strange, fermenting underworld (what you say of it is so -true!), you interest me more, and have more to say to me, even than -Hoffendahl—wonderful creature as he assuredly is.” - -“Would you object to telling me how and where you came to know him?” - -“Through a couple of friends of mine in Vienna, two of the affiliated, -both passionate revolutionists and clever men. They are Neapolitans, -originally _poveretti_, like yourself, who emigrated, years ago, to -seek their fortune. One of them is a teacher of singing, the wisest, -most accomplished person in his line I have ever known. The other, if -you please, is a confectioner! He makes the most delicious _pâtisserie -fine_. It would take long to tell you how I made _their_ acquaintance, -and how they put me into relation with the Maestro, as they called him, -of whom they spoke with bated breath. It is not from yesterday—though -you don’t seem able to believe it—that I have had a care for all this -business. I wrote to Hoffendahl, and had several letters from him; the -singing-master and the pastry-cook went bail for my sincerity. The next -year I had an interview with him at Wiesbaden; but I can’t tell you the -circumstances of our meeting, in that place, without implicating -another person, to whom, at present at least, I have no right to give -you a clue. Of course Hoffendahl made an immense impression on me; he -seemed to me the Master indeed, the very genius of a new social order, -and I fully understand the manner in which you were affected by him. -When he was in London, three months ago, I knew it, and I knew where to -write to him. I did so, and asked him if he wouldn’t see me somewhere. -I said I would meet him in any hole he should designate. He answered by -a charming letter, which I will show you—there is nothing in the least -compromising in it—but he declined my offer, pleading his short stay -and a press of engagements. He will write to me, but he won’t trust me. -However, he shall some day!” - -Hyacinth was thrown quite off his balance by this representation of the -ground the Princess had already traversed, and the explanation was -still but half restorative when, on his asking her why she hadn’t -exhibited her titles before, she replied, “Well, I thought my being -quiet was the better way to draw you out.” There was but little -difficulty in drawing him out now, and before their walk was over he -had told her more definitely what Hoffendahl demanded. This was simply -that he should hold himself ready, for the next five years, to do, at a -given moment, an act which would in all probability cost him his life. -The act was as yet indefinite, but one might get an idea of it from the -penalty involved, which would certainly be capital. The only thing -settled was that it was to be done instantly and absolutely, without a -question, a hesitation or a scruple, in the manner that should be -prescribed, at the moment, from headquarters. Very likely it would be -to kill some one—some humbug in a high place; but whether the -individual should deserve it or should not deserve it was not -Hyacinth’s affair. If he recognised generally Hoffendahl’s wisdom—and -the other night it had seemed to shine like a northern aurora—it was -not in order that he might challenge it in the particular case. He had -taken a vow of blind obedience, as the Jesuit fathers did to the head -of their order. It was because they had carried out their vows (having, -in the first place, great administrators) that their organisation had -been mighty, and that sort of mightiness was what people who felt as -Hyacinth and the Princess felt should go in for. It was not certain -that he should be collared, any more than it was certain that he should -bring down his man; but it was much to be looked for, and it was what -he counted on and indeed preferred. He should probably take little -trouble to escape, and he should never enjoy the idea of hiding (after -the fact) or running away. If it were a question of putting a bullet -into some one, he himself should naturally deserve what would come to -him. If one did that sort of thing there was an indelicacy in not being -ready to pay for it; and he, at least, was perfectly willing. He -shouldn’t judge; he should simply execute. He didn’t pretend to say -what good his little job might do, or what _portée_ it might have; he -hadn’t the data for appreciating it, and simply took upon himself to -believe that at headquarters they knew what they were about. The thing -was to be a feature in a very large plan, of which he couldn’t measure -the scope—something that was to be done simultaneously in a dozen -different countries. The effect was to be very much in this immense -coincidence. It was to be hoped it wouldn’t be spoiled. At any rate, -_he_ wouldn’t hang fire, whatever the other fellows might do. He didn’t -say it because Hoffendahl had done him the honour of giving him the -business to do, but he believed the Master knew how to pick out his -men. To be sure, Hoffendahl had known nothing about him in advance; he -had only been suggested by those who were looking out, from one day to -the other. The fact remained however that when Hyacinth stood before -him he recognised him as the sort of little chap that he had in his eye -(one who could pass through a small orifice). Humanity, in his scheme, -was classified and subdivided with a truly German thoroughness, and -altogether of course from the point of view of the revolution, as it -might forward or obstruct it. Hyacinth’s little job was a very small -part of what Hoffendahl had come to England for; he had in his hand -innumerable other threads. Hyacinth knew nothing of these, and didn’t -much want to know, except that it was marvellous, the way Hoffendahl -kept them apart. He had exactly the same mastery of them that a great -musician—that the Princess herself—had of the keyboard of the piano; he -treated all things, persons, institutions, ideas, as so many notes in -his great symphonic revolt. The day would come when Hyacinth, far down -in the treble, would feel himself touched by the little finger of the -composer, would become audible (with a small, sharp crack) for a -second. - -It was impossible that our young man should not feel, at the end of ten -minutes, that he had charmed the Princess into the deepest, most -genuine attention; she was listening to him as she had never listened -before. He enjoyed having that effect upon her, and his sense of the -tenuity of the thread by which his future hung, renewed by his hearing -himself talk about it, made him reflect that at present anything in the -line of enjoyment was so much gained. The reader may judge whether he -had passed through a phase of excitement after finding himself on his -new footing of utility in the world; but that had finally spent itself, -through a hundred forms of restlessness, of vain conjecture—through an -exaltation which alternated with despair and which, equally with the -despair, he concealed more successfully than he supposed. He would have -detested the idea that his companion might have heard his voice tremble -while he told his story; but though to-day he had really grown used to -his danger and resigned, as it were, to his consecration, and though it -could not fail to be agreeable to him to perceive that he was -thrilling, he could still not guess how very remarkable, in such a -connection, the Princess thought his composure, his lucidity and -good-humour. It is true she tried to hide her wonder, for she owed it -to her self-respect to let it still appear that even she was prepared -for a personal sacrifice as complete. She had the air—or she -endeavoured to have it—of accepting for him everything that he accepted -for himself; nevertheless, there was something rather forced in the -smile (lovely as it was) with which she covered him, while she said, -after a little, “It’s very serious—it’s very serious indeed, isn’t it?” -He replied that the serious part was to come—there was no particular -grimness for him (comparatively) in strolling in that sweet park and -gossiping with her about the matter; and it occurred to her presently -to suggest to him that perhaps Hoffendahl would never give him any sign -at all, and he would wait all the while, _sur les dents_, in a false -suspense. He admitted that this would be a sell, but declared that -either way he would be sold, though differently; and that at any rate -he would have conformed to the great religious rule—to live each hour -as if it were to be one’s last. - -“In holiness, you mean—in great _recueillement?_” the Princess asked. - -“Oh dear, no; simply in extreme thankfulness for every minute that’s -added.” - -“Ah, well, there will probably be a great many,” she rejoined. - -“The more the better—if they are like this.” - -“That won’t be the case with many of them, in Lomax Place.” - -“I assure you that since that night Lomax Place has improved.” Hyacinth -stood there, smiling, with his hands in his pockets and his hat pushed -back a little. - -The Princess appeared to consider this fact with an extreme -intellectual curiosity. “If, after all, then, you are not called, you -will have been positively happy.” - -“I shall have had some fine moments. Perhaps Hoffendahl’s plot is -simply for that; Muniment may have put him up to it!” - -“Who knows? However, with me you must go on as if nothing were -changed.” - -“Changed from what?” - -“From the time of our first meeting at the theatre.” - -“I’ll go on in any way you like,” said Hyacinth; “only the real -difference will be there.” - -“The real difference?” - -“That I shall have ceased to care for what you care about.” - -“I don’t understand,” said the Princess. - -“Isn’t it enough, now, to give my life to the beastly cause,” the young -man broke out, “without giving my sympathy?” - -“The beastly cause?” the Princess murmured, opening her deep eyes. - -“Of course it is really just as holy as ever; only the people I find -myself pitying now are the rich, the happy.” - -“I see. You are very curious. Perhaps you pity my husband,” the -Princess added in a moment. - -“Do you call him one of the happy?” Hyacinth inquired, as they walked -on again. - -In answer to this she only repeated, “You are very curious!” - -I have related the whole of this conversation, because it supplies a -highly important chapter of Hyacinth’s history, but it will not be -possible to trace all the stages through which the friendship of the -Princess Casamassima with the young man she had constituted her -bookbinder was confirmed. By the end of a week the standard of fitness -she had set up in the place of exploded proprieties appeared the model -of justice and convenience; and during this period many other things -happened. One of them was that Hyacinth drove over to Broome with his -hostess, and called on Lady Marchant and her daughters; an episode from -which the Princess appeared to derive an exquisite gratification. When -they came away he asked her why she hadn’t told the ladies who he was. -Otherwise, where was the point? And she replied, “Simply because they -wouldn’t have believed me. That’s your fault!” This was the same note -she had struck when, the third day of his stay (the weather had changed -for the worse, and a rainy afternoon kept them in-doors), she remarked -to him, irrelevantly and abruptly, “It _is_ most extraordinary, your -knowing about Schopenhauer!” He answered that she really seemed quite -unable to accustom herself to his little talents; and this led to a -long talk, longer than the one I have already narrated, in which he -took her still further into his confidence. Never had the pleasure of -conversation (the greatest he knew) been so largely opened to him. The -Princess admitted, frankly, that he would, to her sense, take a great -deal of accounting for; she observed that he was, no doubt, pretty well -used to himself, but he must give other people time. “I have watched -you, constantly, since you have been here, in every detail of your -behaviour, and I am more and more _intriguée_. You haven’t a vulgar -intonation, you haven’t a common gesture, you never make a mistake, you -do and say everything exactly in the right way. You come out of the -hole you have described to me, and yet you might have stayed in -country-houses all your life. You are much better than if you had! -_Jugez donc_, from the way I talk to you! I have to make no allowances. -I have seen Italians with that sort of natural tact and taste, but I -didn’t know one ever found it in any Anglo-Saxon in whom it hadn’t been -cultivated at a vast expense; unless, indeed, in certain little -American women.” - -“Do you mean I’m a gentleman?” asked Hyacinth, in a peculiar tone, -looking out into the wet garden. - -She hesitated, and then she said, “It’s I who make the mistakes!” Five -minutes later she broke into an exclamation which touched him almost -more than anything she had ever done, giving him the highest opinion of -her delicacy and sympathy and putting him before himself as vividly as -if the words were a little portrait: “Fancy the strange, the bitter -fate: to be constituted as you are constituted, to feel the capacity -that you must feel, and yet to look at the good things of life only -through the glass of the pastry-cook’s window!” - -“Every class has its pleasures,” Hyacinth rejoined, with perverse -sententiousness, in spite of his emotion; but the remark didn’t darken -their mutual intelligence, and before they separated that evening he -told her the things that had never yet passed his lips—the things to -which he had awaked when he made Pinnie explain to him the visit to the -prison. He told her, in a word, what he was. - - - - -XXV - - -Hyacinth took several long walks by himself, beyond the gates of the -park and through the neighbouring country—walks during which, committed -as he was to reflection on the general ‘rumness’ of his destiny, he had -still a delighted attention to spare for the green dimness of leafy -lanes; the attraction of meadow-paths that led from stile to stile and -seemed a clue to some pastoral happiness, some secret of the fields; -the hedges thick with flowers, bewilderingly common, for which he knew -no names; the picture-making quality of thatched cottages, the mystery -and sweetness of blue distances, the bloom of rural complexions, the -quaintness of little girls bobbing curtsies by waysides (a sort of -homage he had never prefigured); the soft sense of the turf under feet -that had never ached but from paving-stones. One morning, as he had his -face turned homeward, after a long stroll, he heard behind him the -sound of a horse’s hoofs, and, looking back, perceived a gentleman, who -would presently pass him, advancing up the road which led to the -lodge-gates of Medley. He went his way, and, as the horse overtook him, -noticed that the rider slackened pace. Then he turned again, and -recognised in this personage his brilliant occasional friend Captain -Sholto. The Captain pulled up alongside of him, saluting him with a -smile and a movement of the whip-handle. Hyacinth stared with surprise, -not having heard from the Princess that she was expecting him. He -gathered, however, in a moment, that she was not; and meanwhile he -received an impression, on Sholto’s part, of riding-gear that was -‘knowing’—of gaiters and spurs and a curious waistcoat; perceiving that -this was a phase of the Captain’s varied nature which he had not yet -had an opportunity to observe. He struck him as very high in the air, -perched on his big, lean chestnut, and Hyacinth noticed that if the -horse was heated the rider was cool. - -“Good-morning, my dear fellow. I thought I should find you here!” the -Captain exclaimed. “It’s a good job I’ve met you this way, without -having to go to the house.” - -“Who gave you reason to think I was here?” Hyacinth asked; partly -occupied with the appositeness of this inquiry and partly thinking, as -his eyes wandered over his handsome friend, bestriding so handsome a -beast, what a jolly thing it would be to know how to ride. He had -already, during the few days he had been at Medley, had time to observe -that the knowledge of luxury and the extension of one’s sensations -beget a taste for still newer pleasures. - -“Why, I knew the Princess was capable of asking you,” Sholto said; “and -I learned at the ‘Sun and Moon’ that you had not been there for a long -time. I knew furthermore that as a general thing you go there a good -deal, don’t you? So I put this and that together, and judged you were -out of town.” - -This was very luminous and straightforward, and might have satisfied -Hyacinth, were it not for that irritating reference to the Princess’s -being ‘capable of asking him’. He knew as well as the Captain that it -had been tremendously eccentric in her to do so, but somehow a -transformation had lately taken place in him which made it disagreeable -for him to receive that view from another, and particularly from a -gentleman of whom, on a certain occasion, several months before, he had -had strong grounds for thinking unfavourably. He had not seen Sholto -since the evening when a queer combination of circumstances caused him, -more queerly still, to sit and listen to comic songs in the company of -Millicent Henning and this admirer. The Captain did not conceal his -admiration; Hyacinth had his own ideas about his taking that line in -order to look more innocent. That evening, when he accompanied -Millicent to her lodgings (they parted with Sholto on coming out of the -Pavilion), the situation was tense between the young lady and her -childhood’s friend. She let him have it, as she said; she gave him a -dressing which she evidently intended should be memorable, for having -suspected her, for having insulted her before a military gentleman. The -tone she took, and the magnificent audacity with which she took it, -reduced him to a kind of gratified helplessness; he watched her at last -with something of the excitement with which he would have watched a -clever but uncultivated actress, while she worked herself into a -passion which he believed to be fictitious. He gave more credence to -his jealousy and to the whole air of the case than to her vehement -repudiations, enlivened though these were by tremendous head-tossings -and skirt-shakings. But he felt baffled and outfaced, and took refuge -in sarcasms which after all proved as little as her high gibes; seeking -a final solution in one of those beastly little French shrugs, as -Millicent called them, with which she had already reproached him with -interlarding his conversation. - -The air was never cleared, though the subject of their dispute was -afterwards dropped, Hyacinth promising himself to watch his playmate as -he had never done before. She let him know, as may well be supposed, -that she had her eye on _him_, and it must be confessed that as regards -the exercise of a right of supervision he had felt himself at a -disadvantage ever since the night at the theatre. It mattered little -that she had pushed him into the Princess’s box (for she herself had -not been jealous beforehand; she had wanted too much to know what such -a person could be ‘up to’, desiring, perhaps, to borrow a hint), and it -mattered little, also, that his relations with the great lady were all -for the sake of suffering humanity; the atmosphere, none the less, was -full of thunder for many weeks, and it scarcely signified from which -quarter the flash and the explosion proceeded. Hyacinth was a good deal -surprised to find that he should care whether Millicent deceived him or -not, and even tried to persuade himself that he didn’t; but there was a -grain of conviction in his heart that some kind of personal affinity -existed between them and that it would torment him more never to see -her at all than to see her go into tantrums in order to cover her -tracks. An inner sense told him that her mingled beauty and grossness, -her vulgar vitality, the spirit of contradiction yet at the same time -of attachment that was in her, had ended by making her indispensable to -him. She bored him as much as she irritated him; but if she was full of -execrable taste she was also full of life, and her rustlings and -chatterings, her wonderful stories, her bad grammar and good health, -her insatiable thirst, her shrewd perceptions and grotesque opinions, -her mistakes and her felicities, were now all part of the familiar -human sound of his little world. He could say to himself that she came -after him much more than he went after her, and this helped him, a -little, to believe, though the logic was but lame, that she was not -making a fool of him. If she were really taking up with a swell he -didn’t see why she wished to retain a bookbinder. Of late, it must be -added, he had ceased to devote much consideration to Millicent’s -ambiguities; for although he was lingering on at Medley for the sake of -suffering humanity he was quite aware that to say so (if she should ask -him for a reason) would have almost as absurd a sound as some of the -girl’s own speeches. As regards Sholto, he was in the awkward position -of having let him off, as it were, by accepting his hospitality, his -bounty; so that he couldn’t quarrel with him except on a fresh pretext. -This pretext the Captain had apparently been careful not to give, and -Millicent had told him, after the triple encounter in the street, that -he had driven him out of England, the poor gentleman whom he insulted -by his low insinuations even more (why ‘even more’ Hyacinth hardly -could think) than he outraged herself. When he asked her what she knew -about the Captain’s movements she made no scruple to announce to him -that the latter had come to her great shop to make a little purchase -(it was a pair of silk braces, if she remembered rightly, and she -admitted, perfectly, the transparency of the pretext), and had asked -her with much concern whether his gifted young friend (that’s what he -called him—Hyacinth could see he meant well) was still in a huff. -Millicent had answered that she was afraid he was—the more shame to -him; and then the Captain had said that it didn’t matter, for he -himself was on the point of leaving England for several weeks -(Hyacinth—he called him Hyacinth this time—couldn’t have ideas about a -man in a foreign country, could he?), and he hoped that by the time he -returned the little cloud would have blown over. Sholto had added that -she had better tell him frankly—recommending her at the same time to be -gentle with their morbid friend—about his visit to the shop. Their -candour, their humane precautions, were all very well; but after this, -two or three evenings, Hyacinth passed and repassed the Captain’s -chambers in Queen Anne Street, to see if, at the window, there were -signs of his being in London. Darkness, however, prevailed, and he was -forced to comfort himself a little when, at last making up his mind to -ring at the door and inquire, by way of a test, for the occupant, he -was informed, by the superior valet whose acquaintance he had already -made, and whose air of wearing a jacket left behind by his master -confirmed the statement, that the gentleman in question was at Monte -Carlo. - -“Have you still got your back up a little?” the Captain demanded, -without rancour; and in a moment he had swung a long leg over the -saddle and dismounted, walking beside his young friend and leading his -horse by the bridle. Hyacinth pretended not to know what he meant, for -it came over him that after all, even if he had not condoned, at the -time, the Captain’s suspected treachery, he was in no position, sitting -at the feet of the Princess, to sound the note of jealousy in relation -to another woman. He reflected that the Princess had originally been, -in a manner, Sholto’s property, and if he did _en fin de compte_ wish -to quarrel with him about Millicent he would have to cease to appear to -poach on the Captain’s preserves. It now occurred to him, for the first -time, that the latter had intended a kind of exchange; though it must -be added that the Princess, who on a couple of occasions had alluded -slightingly to her military friend, had given him no sign of -recognising this gentleman’s claim. Sholto let him know, at present, -that he was staying at Bonchester, seven miles off; he had come down -from London and put up at the inn. That morning he had ridden over on a -hired horse (Hyacinth had supposed this steed was a very fine animal, -but Sholto spoke of it as an infernal screw); he had been taken by the -sudden fancy of seeing how his young friend was coming on. - -“I’m coming on very well, thank you,” said Hyacinth, with some -shortness, not knowing exactly what business it was of the Captain’s. - -“Of course you understand my interest in you, don’t you? I’m -responsible for you—I put you forward.” - -“There are a great many things in the world that I don’t understand, -but I think the thing I understand least is your interest in me. Why -the devil—” And Hyacinth paused, breathless with the force of his -inquiry. Then he went on, “If I were you, I shouldn’t care a filbert -for the sort of person that I happen to be.” - -“That proves how different my nature is from yours! But I don’t believe -it, my boy; you are too generous for that.” Sholto’s imperturbability -always appeared to grow with the irritation it produced, and it was -proof even against the just resentment excited by his want of tact. -That want of tact was sufficiently marked when he went on to say, “I -wanted to see you here, with my own eyes. I wanted to see how it -looked; it _is_ a rum sight! Of course you know what I mean, though you -are always trying to make a fellow explain. I don’t explain well, in -any sense, and that’s why I go in only for clever people, who can do -without it. It’s very grand, her having brought you down.” - -“Grand, no doubt, but hardly surprising, considering that, as you say, -I was put forward by you.” - -“Oh, that’s a great thing for me, but it doesn’t make any difference to -her!” Sholto exclaimed. “She may care for certain things for -themselves, but it will never signify a jot to her what I may have -thought about them. One good turn deserves another. I wish you would -put _me_ forward!” - -“I don’t understand you, and I don’t think I want to,” said Hyacinth, -as his companion strolled beside him. - -The latter put a hand on his arm, stopping him, and they stood face to -face a moment. “I say, my dear Robinson, you’re not spoiled already, at -the end of a week—how long is it? It isn’t possible you’re jealous!” - -“Jealous of whom?” asked Hyacinth, whose failure to comprehend was -perfectly genuine. - -Sholto looked at him a moment; then, with a laugh, “I don’t mean Miss -Henning.” Hyacinth turned away, and the Captain resumed his walk, now -taking the young man’s arm and passing his own through the bridle of -the horse. “The courage of it, the insolence, the _crânerie!_ There -isn’t another woman in Europe who could carry it off.” - -Hyacinth was silent a little; after which he remarked, “This is -nothing, here. You should have seen me the other day over at Broome, at -Lady Marchant’s.” - -“Gad, did she take you there? I’d have given ten pounds to see it. -There’s no one like her!” cried the Captain, gaily, enthusiastically. - -“There’s no one like me, I think—for going.” - -“Why, didn’t you enjoy it?” - -“Too much—too much. Such excesses are dangerous.” - -“Oh, I’ll back you,” said the Captain; then, checking their pace, he -inquired, “Is there any chance of our meeting her? I won’t go into the -park.” - -“You won’t go to the house?” Hyacinth demanded, staring. - -“Oh dear, no, not while you’re there.” - -“Well, I shall ask the Princess about you, and have done with it, once -for all.” - -“Lucky little beggar, with your fireside talks!” the Captain exclaimed. -“Where does she sit now, in the evening? She won’t tell you anything -except that I’m a nuisance; but even if she were willing to take the -trouble to throw some light upon me it wouldn’t be of much use, because -she doesn’t understand me herself.” - -“You are the only thing in the world then of which that can be said,” -Hyacinth returned. - -“I dare say I am, and I am rather proud of it. So far as the head is -concerned, the Princess is all there. I told you, when I presented you, -that she was the cleverest woman in Europe, and that is still my -opinion. But there are some mysteries you can’t see into unless you -happen to have a little heart. The Princess hasn’t, though doubtless -just now you think that’s her strong point. One of these days you’ll -see. I don’t care a straw, myself, whether she has or not. She has hurt -me already so much she can’t hurt me any more, and my interest in her -is quite independent of that. To watch her, to adore her, to see her -lead her life and act out her extraordinary nature, all the while she -treats me like a brute, is the only thing I care for to-day. It doesn’t -do me a scrap of good, but, all the same, it’s my principal occupation. -You may believe me or not—it doesn’t in the least matter; but I’m the -most disinterested human being alive. She’ll tell you I’m a tremendous -ass, and so one is. But that isn’t all.” - -It was Hyacinth who stopped this time, arrested by something new and -natural in the tone of his companion, a simplicity of emotion which he -had not hitherto associated with him. He stood there a moment looking -up at him, and thinking again what improbable confidences it decidedly -appeared to be his lot to receive from gentlefolks. To what quality in -himself were they a tribute? The honour was one he could easily -dispense with; though as he scrutinised Sholto he found something in -his curious light eyes—an expression of cheerfulness not disconnected -from veracity—which put him into a less fantastic relation with this -jaunty, factitious personage. “Please go on,” he said, in a moment. - -“Well, what I mentioned just now is my real and only motive, in -anything. The rest is mere gammon and rubbish, to cover it up—or to -give myself the change, as the French say.” - -“What do you mean by the rest?” asked Hyacinth, thinking of Millicent -Henning. - -“Oh, all the straw one chews, to cheat one’s appetite; all the rot one -dabbles in, because it may lead to something which it never does lead -to; all the beastly buncombe (you know) that you and I have heard -together in Bloomsbury and that I myself have poured out, damme, with -an eloquence worthy of a better cause. Don’t you remember what I have -said to you—all as my own opinion—about the impending change of the -relations of class with class? Impending fiddlesticks! I believe those -that are on top the heap are better than those that are under it, that -they mean to stay there, and that if they are not a pack of poltroons -they will.” - -“You don’t care for the social question, then?” Hyacinth inquired, with -an aspect of which he was conscious of the blankness. - -“I only took it up because she did. It hasn’t helped me,” Sholto -remarked, smiling. “My dear Robinson,” he went on, “there is only one -thing I care for in life: to have a look at that woman when I can, and -when I can’t, to approach her in the sort of way I’m doing now.” - -“It’s a very curious sort of way.” - -“Indeed it is; but if it is good enough for me it ought to be good -enough for you. What I want you to do is this—to induce her to ask me -over to dine.” - -“To induce her—?” Hyacinth murmured. - -“Tell her I’m staying at Bonchester and it would be an act of common -humanity.” - -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.” - -“Muniment read you exactly, then. And what did you find to your purpose -in Audley Court?” - -“Well, I think the little woman with the popping eyes—she reminded me -of a bedridden grasshopper—will do. And I made a note of the other one, -the old virgin with the high nose, the aristocratic sister of mercy. -I’m keeping them in reserve for my next propitiatory offering.” - -Hyacinth was silent a moment. “And Muniment himself—can’t you do -anything with him?” - -“Oh, my dear fellow, after you he’s poor!” - -“That’s the first stupid thing you have said. But it doesn’t matter, -for he dislikes the Princess—what he knows of her—too much ever to -consent to see her.” - -“That’s his line, is it? Then he’ll do!” Sholto cried. - - - - -XXVI - - -“Of course he may come, and stay as long as he likes!” the Princess -exclaimed, when Hyacinth, that afternoon, told her of his encounter, -with the sweet, bright surprise her face always wore when people went -through the form (supererogatory she apparently meant to declare it) of -asking her leave. From the manner in which she granted Sholto’s -petition—with a geniality that made light of it, as if the question -were not worth talking of, one way or the other—it might have been -supposed that the account he had given Hyacinth of their relations was -an elaborate but none the less foolish hoax. She sent a messenger with -a note over to Bonchester, and the Captain arrived just in time to -dress for dinner. The Princess was always late, and Hyacinth’s toilet, -on these occasions, occupied him considerably (he was acutely conscious -of its deficiencies, and yet tried to persuade himself that they were -positively honourable and that the only garb of dignity, for him, was -the costume, as it were, of his profession); therefore, when the fourth -member of the little party descended to the drawing-room Madame -Grandoni was the only person he found there. - -“_Santissima Vergine!_ I’m glad to see you! What good wind has sent -you?” she exclaimed, as soon as Sholto came into the room. - -“Didn’t you know I was coming?” he asked. “Has the idea of my arrival -produced so little agitation?” - -“I know nothing of the affairs of this house. I have given them up at -last, and it was time. I remain in my room.” There was nothing at -present in the old lady’s countenance of her usual spirit of cheer; it -expressed anxiety, and even a certain sternness, and the excellent -woman had perhaps at this moment more than she had ever had in her life -of the air of a duenna who took her duties seriously. She looked almost -august. “From the moment you come it’s a little better. But it is very -bad.” - -“Very bad, dear madam?” - -“Perhaps you will be able to tell me where Christina _veut en venir_. I -have always been faithful to her—I have always been loyal. But to-day I -have lost patience. It has no sense.” - -“I am not sure I know what you are talking about,” Sholto said; “but if -I understand you I must tell you I think it’s magnificent.” - -“Yes, I know your tone; you are worse than she, because you are -cynical. It passes all bounds. It is very serious. I have been thinking -what I should do.” - -“Precisely; I know what you would do.” - -“Oh, this time I shouldn’t come back!” the old lady declared. “The -scandal is too great; it is intolerable. My only fear is to make it -worse.” - -“Dear Madame Grandoni, you can’t make it worse, and you can’t make it -better,” Sholto rejoined, seating himself on the sofa beside her. “In -point of fact, no idea of scandal can possibly attach itself to our -friend. She is above and outside of all such considerations, such -dangers. She carries everything off; she heeds so little, she cares so -little. Besides, she has one great strength—she does no wrong.” - -“Pray, what do you call it when a lady sends for a bookbinder to come -and live with her?” - -“Why not for a bookbinder as well as for a bishop? It all depends upon -who the lady is, and what she is.” - -“She had better take care of one thing first,” cried Madame -Grandoni—“that she shall not have been separated from her husband!” - -“The Princess can carry off even that. It’s unusual, it’s eccentric, -it’s fantastic, if you will, but it isn’t necessarily wicked. From her -own point of view our friend goes straight. Besides, she has her -opinions.” - -“Her opinions are perversity itself.” - -“What does it matter,” asked Sholto, “if they keep her quiet?” - -“Quiet! Do you call this quiet?” - -“Surely, if you’ll only be so yourself. Putting the case at the worst, -moreover, who is to know he’s her bookbinder? It’s the last thing you’d -take him for.” - -“Yes, for that she chose him carefully,” the old lady murmured, still -with a discontented eyebrow. - -“_She_ chose him? It was I who chose him, dear lady!” the Captain -exclaimed, with a laugh which showed how little he shared her -solicitude. - -“Yes, I had forgotten; at the theatre,” said Madame Grandoni, gazing at -him as if her ideas were confused but a certain repulsion from her -interlocutor nevertheless disengaged itself. “It was a fine turn you -did him there, poor young man!” - -“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. - -“Oh, dear, no, her princedom is nothing here. We can easily beat that. -But we can’t beat—” And Sholto paused a moment. - -“What then?” his companion asked. - -“Well, the perfection of her indifference to public opinion and the -unaffectedness of her originality; the sort of thing by which she has -bedeviled me.” - -“Oh, _you!_” murmured Madame Grandoni. - -“If you think so poorly of me why did you say just now that you were -glad to see me?” Sholto demanded, in a moment. - -“Because you make another person in the house, and that is more -regular; the situation is by so much less—what did you call -it?—eccentric. _Nun_,” the old lady went on, in a moment, “so long as -you are here I won’t go off.” - -“Depend upon it that I shall be here until I’m turned out.” - -She rested her small, troubled eyes upon him, but they betrayed no -particular enthusiasm at this announcement, “I don’t understand how, -for yourself, on such an occasion, you should like it.” - -“Dear Madame Grandoni, the heart of man, without being such a hopeless -labyrinth as the heart of woman, is still sufficiently complicated. -Don’t I know what will become of the little beggar?” - -“You are very horrible,” said the ancient woman. Then she added, in a -different tone, “He is much too good for his fate.” - -“And pray wasn’t I, for mine?” the Captain asked. - -“By no manner of means!” Madame Grandoni answered, rising and moving -away from him. - -The Princess had come into the room, accompanied by Hyacinth. As it was -now considerably past the dinner-hour the old lady judged that this -couple, on their side, had met in the hall and had prolonged their -conversation there. Hyacinth watched with extreme interest the way the -Princess greeted the Captain—observed that it was very simple, easy and -friendly. At dinner she made no stranger of him, including him in -everything, as if he had been a useful familiar, like Madame Grandoni, -only a little less venerable, yet not giving him any attention that -might cause their eyes to meet. She had told Hyacinth that she didn’t -like his eyes, nor indeed, very much, any part of him. Of course any -admiration, from almost any source, could not fail to be in some degree -agreeable to a woman, but of any little impression that one might ever -have produced the mark she had made on Godfrey Sholto was the one that -ministered least to her vanity. He had been useful, undoubtedly, at -times, but at others he had been an intolerable bore. He was so -uninteresting in himself, so shallow, so unoccupied and superfluous, -and really so frivolous, in spite of his pretension (of which she was -unspeakably weary) of being all wrapped up in a single idea. It had -never, by itself, been sufficient to interest her in any man, the fact -that he was in love with her; but indeed she could honestly say that -most of the people who had liked her had had, on their own side, -something—something in their character or circumstances—that one could -care a little about. Not so far as would do any harm, save perhaps in -one or two cases; but still, something. - -Sholto was a curious and not particularly edifying English type (as the -Princess further described him); one of those strange beings produced -by old societies that have run to seed, corrupt, exhausted -civilisations. He was a cumberer of the earth, and purely selfish, in -spite of his devoted, disinterested airs. He was nothing whatever in -himself, and had no character or merit save by tradition, reflection, -imitation, superstition. He had a longish pedigree—he came of some -musty, mouldy ‘county family’, people with a local reputation and an -immense lack of general importance; he had taken the greatest care of -his little fortune. He had travelled all over the globe several times, -‘for the shooting’, in that brutal way of the English. That was a -pursuit which was compatible with the greatest stupidity. He had a -little taste, a little cleverness, a little reading, a little good -furniture, a little French and Italian (he exaggerated these latter -quantities), an immense deal of assurance, and complete leisure. That, -at bottom, was all he represented—idle, trifling, luxurious, yet at the -same time pretentious leisure, the sort of thing that led people to -invent false, humbugging duties, because they had no real ones. -Sholto’s great idea of himself (after his profession of being her -slave) was that he was a cosmopolite—exempt from every prejudice. About -the prejudices the Princess couldn’t say and didn’t care; but she had -seen him in foreign countries, she had seen him in Italy, and she was -bound to say he understood nothing about those people. It was several -years before, shortly after her marriage, that she had first -encountered him. He had not begun immediately to take the adoring line, -but it had come little by little. It was only after she had separated -from her husband that he had begun really to hang about her; since when -she had suffered much from him. She would do him one justice, however: -he had never, so far as she knew, had the impudence to represent -himself as anything but hopeless and helpless. It was on this that he -took his stand; he wished to pass for the great model of unrewarded -constancy. She couldn’t imagine what he was waiting for; perhaps it was -for the death of the Prince. But the Prince would never die, nor had -she the least desire that he should. She had no wish to be harsh, for -of course that sort of thing, from any one, was very flattering; but -really, whatever feeling poor Sholto might have, four-fifths of it were -purely theatrical. He was not in the least a natural human being, but -had a hundred affectations and attitudes, the result of never having -been obliged to put his hand to anything; having no serious tastes and -yet being born to a little ‘position’. The Princess remarked that she -was so glad Hyacinth had no position, and had been forced to do -something in life but amuse himself; that was the way she liked her -friends now. She had said to Sholto again and again, “There are plenty -of others who will be much more pleased; why not go to _them?_ It’s -such a waste of time:” and she was sure he had taken her advice, and -was by no means, as regards herself, the absorbed, annihilated creature -he endeavoured to appear. He had told her once that he tried to take an -interest in other women—though indeed he had added that it was of no -use. Of what use did he expect anything he could possibly do to be? -Hyacinth did not tell the Princess that he had reason to believe the -Captain’s effort in this direction had not been absolutely vain; but he -made that reflection, privately, with increased confidence. He -recognised a further truth even when his companion said, at the end, -that, with all she had touched upon, he was a queer combination. -Trifler as he was, there was something sinister in him too; and she -confessed she had had a vague feeling, at times, that some day he might -do her a hurt. Hyacinth, at this, stopped short, on the threshold of -the drawing-room, and asked in a low voice, “Are you afraid of him?” - -The Princess looked at him a moment; then smiling, “_Dio mio_, how you -say that! Should you like to kill him for me?” - -“I shall have to kill some one, you know. Why not him, while I’m about -it, if he troubles you?” - -“Ah, my friend, if you should begin to kill every one who had troubled -me!” the Princess murmured, as they went into the room. - - - - -XXVII - - -Hyacinth knew there was something out of the way as soon as he saw Lady -Aurora’s face look forth at him, in answer to his tap, while she held -the door ajar. What was she doing in Pinnie’s bedroom?—a very poor -place, into which the dressmaker, with her reverence, would never have -admitted a person of that quality unless things were pretty bad. She -was solemn, too; she didn’t laugh, as usual; she had removed her large -hat, with its limp, old-fashioned veil, and she raised her finger to -her lips. Hyacinth’s first alarm had been immediately after he let -himself into the house, with his latch-key, as he always did, and found -the little room on the right of the passage, in which Pinnie had lived -ever since he remembered, fireless and untenanted. As soon as he had -paid the cabman, who put down his portmanteau for him in the hall (he -was not used to paying cabmen, and was conscious he gave him too much, -but was too impatient, in his sudden anxiety, to care), he hurried up -the vile staircase, which seemed viler, even through his preoccupation, -than ever, and gave the knock, accompanied by a call the least bit -tremulous, immediately answered by Lady Aurora. She drew back into the -room a moment, while he stared, in his dismay; then she emerged again, -closing the door behind her—all with the air of enjoining him to be -terribly quiet. He felt, suddenly, so sick at the idea of having -lingered at Medley while there was distress at the wretched little -house to which he owed so much, that he scarcely found strength for an -articulate question, and obeyed, mechanically, the mute, urgent gesture -by which Lady Aurora appealed to him to go downstairs with her. It was -only when they stood together in the deserted parlour (it was as if he -perceived for the first time what an inelegant odour prevailed there) -that he asked, “Is she dying—is she dead?” That was the least the -strained sadness looking out from the face of the noble visitor -appeared to announce. - -“Dear Mr Robinson, I’m so sorry for you. I wanted to write, but I -promised her I wouldn’t. She is very ill—we are very anxious. It began -ten days ago, and I suppose I _must_ tell you how much she has gone -down.” Lady Aurora spoke with more than all her usual embarrassments -and precautions, eagerly, yet as if it cost her much pain: pausing a -little after everything she said, to see how he would take it; then -going on, with a little propitiatory rush. He learned presently what -was the matter, what doctor she had sent for, and that if he would wait -a little before going into the room it would be so much better; the -invalid having sunk, within half an hour, into a doze of a less -agitated kind than she had had for some time, from which it would be an -immense pity to run the risk of waking her. The doctor gave her the -right things, as it seemed to her ladyship, but he admitted that she -had very little power of resistance. He was of course not a very large -practitioner, Mr Buffery, from round the corner, but he seemed really -clever; and she herself had taken the liberty (as she confessed to this -she threw off one of her odd laughs, and her colour rose) of sending an -elderly, respectable person—a kind of nurse. She was out just then; she -had to go, for an hour, for the air—“only when I come, of course,” said -Lady Aurora. Dear Miss Pynsent had had a cold hanging about her, and -had not taken care of it. Hyacinth would know how plucky she was about -that sort of thing; she took so little interest in herself. “Of course -a cold is a cold, whoever has it; isn’t it?” said Lady Aurora. Ten days -before, she had taken an additional chill through falling asleep in her -chair, in the evening, down there, and letting the fire go out. “It -would have been nothing if she had been like you or me, you know,” her -ladyship went on; “but just as she was then, it made the difference. -The day was horribly damp, and it had struck into the lungs, and -inflammation had set in. Mr Buffery says she was impoverished, just -rather low and languid, you know.” The next morning she had bad pains -and a good deal of fever, yet she had got up. Poor Pinnie’s gracious -ministrant did not make clear to Hyacinth what time had elapsed before -she came to her relief, nor by what means she had been notified, and he -saw that she slurred this over from the admirable motive of wishing him -not to feel that the little dressmaker had suffered by his absence or -called for him in vain. This, apparently, had indeed not been the case, -if Pinnie had opposed, successfully, his being written to. Lady Aurora -only said, “I came in very soon, it was such a delightful chance. Since -then she has had everything; only it’s sad to see a person _need_ so -little. She did want you to stay; she has clung to that idea. I speak -the simple truth, Mr Robinson.” - -“I don’t know what to say to you—you are so extraordinarily good, so -angelic,” Hyacinth replied, bewildered and made weak by a strange, -unexpected shame. The episode he had just traversed, the splendour he -had been living in and drinking so deep of, the unnatural alliance to -which he had given himself up while his wretched little foster-mother -struggled alone with her death-stroke—he could see it was that; the -presentiment of it, the last stiff horror, was in all the place—the -contrast seemed to cut him like a knife, and to make the horrible -accident of his absence a perversity of his own. “I can never blame -you, when you are so kind, but I wish to God I had known!” he broke -out. - -Lady Aurora clasped her hands, begging him to judge her fairly. “Of -course it was a great responsibility for us, but we thought it right to -consider what she urged upon us. She went back to it constantly, that -your visit should _not_ be cut short. When you should come of yourself, -it would be time enough. I don’t know exactly where you have been, but -she said it was such a pleasant house. She kept repeating that it would -do you so much good.” - -Hyacinth felt his eyes filling with tears. “She’s dying—she’s dying! -How can she live when she’s like that?” - -He sank upon the old yellow sofa, the sofa of his lifetime and of so -many years before, and buried his head on the shabby, tattered arm. A -succession of sobs broke from his lips—sobs in which the accumulated -emotion of months and the strange, acute conflict of feeling that had -possessed him for the three weeks just past found relief and a kind of -solution. Lady Aurora sat down beside him and laid her finger-tips -gently on his hand. So, for a minute, while his tears flowed and she -said nothing, he felt her timid, consoling touch. At the end of the -minute he raised his head; it came back to him that she had said ‘we’ -just before, and he asked her whom she meant. - -“Oh, Mr Vetch, don’t you know? I have made his acquaintance; it’s -impossible to be more kind.” Then, while, for an instant, Hyacinth was -silent, wincing, pricked with the thought that Pinnie had been beholden -to the fiddler while _he_ was masquerading in high life, Lady Aurora -added, “He’s a charming musician. She asked him once, at first, to -bring his violin; she thought it would soothe her.” - -“I’m much obliged to him, but now that I’m here we needn’t trouble -him,” said Hyacinth. - -Apparently there was a certain dryness in his tone, which was the cause -of her ladyship’s venturing to reply, after an hesitation, “Do let him -come, Mr Robinson; let him be near you! I wonder whether you know -that—that he has a great affection for you.” - -“The more fool he; I have always treated him like a brute!” Hyacinth -exclaimed, colouring. - -The way Lady Aurora spoke proved to him, later, that she now definitely -did know his secret, or one of them, rather; for at the rate things had -been going for the last few months he was making a regular collection. -She knew the smaller—not, of course, the greater; she had, decidedly, -been illuminated by Pinnie’s divagations. At the moment he made that -reflection, however, he was almost startled to perceive how completely -he had ceased to resent such betrayals and how little it suddenly -seemed to signify that the innocent source of them was about to be -quenched. The sense of his larger secret swallowed up that particular -anxiety, making him ask himself what it mattered, for the time that was -left to him, that people should whisper to each other his little -mystery. The day came quickly when he believed, and yet didn’t care, -that it had been universally imparted. - -After Lady Aurora left him, promising she would call him the first -moment it should seem prudent, he walked up and down the cold, stale -parlour, immersed in his meditations. The shock of the danger of losing -Pinnie had already passed away; he had achieved so much, of late, in -the line of accepting the idea of death that the little dressmaker, in -taking her departure, seemed already to benefit by this curious -discipline. What was most vivid to him, in the deserted scene of -Pinnie’s unsuccessful industry, was the changed vision with which he -had come back to objects familiar for twenty years. The picture was the -same, and all its horrid elements, wearing a kind of greasy gloss in -the impure air of Lomax Place, made, through the mean window-panes, a -dismal _chiaroscuro_—showed, in their polished misery, the friction of -his own little life; but the eyes with which he looked at it had new -terms of comparison. He had known the place was hideous and sordid, but -its aspect to-day was pitiful to the verge of the sickening; he -couldn’t believe that for years together he had accepted and even, a -little, revered it. He was frightened at the sort of service that his -experience of grandeur had rendered him. It was all very well to have -assimilated that element with a rapidity which had surprises even for -himself; but with sensibilities now so improved what fresh arrangement -could one come to with the very humble, which was in its nature -uncompromising? Though the spring was far advanced the day was a dark -drizzle, and the room had the clamminess of a finished use, an ooze of -dampness from the muddy street, where the areas were a narrow slit. No -wonder Pinnie had felt it at last, and her small under-fed organism had -grown numb and ceased to act. At the thought of her limited, stinted -life, the patient, humdrum effort of her needle and scissors, which had -ended only in a show-room where there was nothing to show and a pensive -reference to the cut of sleeves no longer worn, the tears again rose to -his eyes; but he brushed them aside when he heard a cautious tinkle at -the house-door, which was presently opened by the little besmirched -slavey retained for the service of the solitary lodger—a domestic -easily bewildered, who had a squint and distressed Hyacinth by wearing -shoes that didn’t match, though they were of an equal antiquity and -resembled each other in the facility with which they dropped off. -Hyacinth had not heard Mr Vetch’s voice in the hall, apparently because -he spoke in a whisper; but the young man was not surprised when, taking -every precaution not to make the door creak, he came into the parlour. -The fiddler said nothing to him at first; the two men only looked at -each other for a long minute. Hyacinth saw what he most wanted to -know—whether _he_ knew the worst about Pinnie; but what was further in -his eyes (they had an expression considerably different from any he had -hitherto seen in them) defined itself to our hero only little by -little. - -“Don’t you think you might have written me a word?” said Hyacinth, at -last. His anger at having been left in ignorance had quitted him, but -he thought the question fair. None the less, he expected a sarcastic -answer, and was surprised at the mild reasonableness with which Mr -Vetch replied— - -“I assure you, no responsibility, in the course of my life, ever did -more to distress me. There were obvious reasons for calling you back, -and yet I couldn’t help wishing you might finish your visit. I balanced -one thing against the other; it was very difficult.” - -“I can imagine nothing more simple. When people’s nearest and dearest -are dying, they are usually sent for.” - -The fiddler gave a strange, argumentative smile. If Lomax Place and -Miss Pynsent’s select lodging-house wore a new face of vulgarity to -Hyacinth, it may be imagined whether the renunciation of the niceties -of the toilet, the resigned seediness, which marked Mr Vetch’s old age -was unlikely to lend itself to comparison. The glossy butler at Medley -had had a hundred more of the signs of success in life. “My dear boy, -this case was exceptional,” said the old man. “Your visit had a -character of importance.” - -“I don’t know what you know about it. I don’t remember that I told you -anything.” - -“No, certainly, you have never told me much. But if, as is probable, -you have seen that kind lady who is now upstairs, you will have learned -that Pinnie made a tremendous point of your not being disturbed. She -threatened us with her displeasure if we should hurry you back. You -know what Pinnie’s displeasure is!” As, at this, Hyacinth turned away -with a gesture of irritation, Mr Vetch went on, “No doubt she is -absurdly fanciful, poor dear thing; but don’t, now, cast any disrespect -upon it. I assure you, if she had been here alone, suffering, sinking, -without a creature to tend her, and nothing before her but to die in a -corner, like a starved cat, she would still have faced that fate rather -than cut short by a single hour your experience of novel scenes.” - -Hyacinth was silent for a moment. “Of course I know what you mean. But -she spun her delusion—she always did, all of them—out of nothing. I -can’t imagine what she knows about my ‘experience’ of any kind of -scenes. I told her, when I went out of town, very little more than I -told you.” - -“What she guessed, what she gathered, has been, at any rate, enough. -She has made up her mind that you have formed a connection by means of -which you will come, somehow or other, into your own. She has done -nothing but talk about your grand kindred. To her mind, you know, it’s -all one, the aristocracy, and nothing is simpler than that the -person—very exalted, as she believes—with whom you have been to stay -should undertake your business with her friends.” - -“Oh, well,” said Hyacinth, “I’m very glad not to have deprived you of -that entertainment.” - -“I assure you the spectacle was exquisite.” Then the fiddler added, “My -dear fellow, please leave her the idea.” - -“Leave it? I’ll do much more!” Hyacinth exclaimed. “I’ll tell her my -great relations have adopted me and that I have come back in the -character of Lord Robinson.” - -“She will need nothing more to die happy,” Mr Vetch observed. - -Five minutes later, after Hyacinth had obtained from his old friend a -confirmation of Lady Aurora’s account of Miss Pynsent’s condition, Mr -Vetch explaining that he came over, like that, to see how she was, half -a dozen times a day—five minutes later a silence had descended upon the -pair, while Hyacinth waited for some sign from Lady Aurora that he -might come upstairs. The fiddler, who had lighted a pipe, looked out of -the window, studying intently the physiognomy of Lomax Place; and -Hyacinth, making his tread discreet, walked about the room with his -hands in his pockets. At last Mr Vetch observed, without taking his -pipe out of his lips or looking round, “I think you might be a little -more frank with me at this time of day and at such a crisis.” - -Hyacinth stopped in his walk, wondering for a moment, sincerely, what -his companion meant, for he had no consciousness at present of an -effort to conceal anything he could possibly tell (there were some -things, of course, he couldn’t); on the contrary, his life seemed to -him particularly open to the public view and exposed to invidious -comment. It was at this moment he first observed a certain difference; -there was a tone in Mr Vetch’s voice that he had never perceived -before—an absence of that note which had made him say, in other days, -that the impenetrable old man was diverting himself at his expense. It -was as if his attitude had changed, become more explicitly considerate, -in consequence of some alteration or promotion on Hyacinth’s part, his -having grown older, or more important, or even simply more surpassingly -curious. If the first impression made upon him by Pinnie’s old -neighbour, as to whose place in the list of the sacrificial (his being -a gentleman or one of the sovereign people) he formerly was so -perplexed; if the sentiment excited by Mr Vetch in a mind familiar now -for nearly a month with forms of indubitable gentility was not -favourable to the idea of fraternisation, this secret impatience on -Hyacinth’s part was speedily corrected by one of the sudden reactions -or quick conversions of which the young man was so often the victim. In -the light of the fiddler’s appeal, which evidently meant more than it -said, his musty antiquity, his typical look of having had, for years, a -small, definite use and taken all the creases and contractions of it, -his visible expression, even, of ultimate parsimony and of having -ceased to care for the shape of his trousers because he cared more for -something else—these things became so many reasons for turning round, -going over to him, touching signs of an invincible fidelity, the -humble, continuous, single-minded practice of daily duties and an art -after all very charming; pursued, moreover, while persons of the -species our restored prodigal had lately been consorting with fidgeted -from one selfish sensation to another and couldn’t even live in the -same place for three months together. - -“What should you like me to do, to say, to tell you? Do you want to -know what I have been doing in the country? I should have first to -know, myself,” Hyacinth said. - -“Have you enjoyed it very much?” - -“Yes, certainly, very much—not knowing anything about Pinnie. I have -been in a beautiful house, with a beautiful woman.” - -Mr Vetch had turned round; he looked very impartial, through the smoke -of his pipe. - -“Is she really a princess?” - -“I don’t know what you mean by ‘really’. I suppose all titles are great -rot. But every one seems agreed to call her so.” - -“You know I have always liked to enter into your life; and to-day the -wish is stronger than ever,” the old man observed, presently, fixing -his eyes very steadily on Hyacinth’s. - -The latter returned his gaze for a moment; then he asked, “What makes -you say that just now?” - -The fiddler appeared to deliberate, and at last he replied, “Because -you are in danger of losing the best friend you have ever had.” - -“Be sure I feel it. But if I have got you—” Hyacinth added. - -“Oh, me! I’m very old, and very tired of life.” - -“I suppose that that’s what one arrives at. Well, if I can help you in -any way you must lean on me, you must make use of me.” - -“That’s precisely what I was going to say to you,” said Mr Vetch. -“Should you like any money?” - -“Of course I should! But why should you offer it to me?” - -“Because in saving it up, little by little, I have had you in mind.” - -“Dear Mr Vetch,” said Hyacinth, “you have me too much in mind. I’m not -worth it, please believe that; for all sorts of reasons. I should make -money enough for any uses I have for it, or have any right to have, if -I stayed quietly in London and attended to my work. As you know, I can -earn a decent living.” - -“Yes, I can see that. But if you stayed quietly in London what would -become of your princess?” - -“Oh, they can always manage, ladies in that position.” - -“Hanged if I understand her position!” cried Mr Vetch, but without -laughing. “You have been for three weeks without work, and yet you look -uncommonly smart.” - -“You see, my living has cost me nothing. When you stay with great -people you don’t pay your score,” Hyacinth explained, with great -gentleness. “Moreover, the lady whose hospitality I have been enjoying -has made me a very handsome offer of work.” - -“What kind of work?” - -“The only kind I know. She is going to send me a lot of books, to do up -for her.” - -“And to pay you fancy prices?” - -“Oh, no; I am to fix the prices myself.” - -“Are not transactions of that kind rather disagreeable, with a lady -whose hospitality one has been enjoying?” Mr Vetch inquired. - -“Exceedingly! That is exactly why I shall do the books and then take no -money.” - -“Your princess is rather clever!” the fiddler exclaimed, in a moment, -smiling. - -“Well, she can’t force me to take it if I won’t,” said Hyacinth. - -“No; you must only let _me_ do that.” - -“You have curious ideas about me,” the young man declared. - -Mr Vetch turned about to the window again, remarking that he had -curious ideas about everything. Then he added, after an interval— - -“And have you been making love to your great lady?” - -He had expected a flash of impatience in reply to this inquiry, and was -rather surprised at the manner in which Hyacinth answered: “How shall I -explain? It is not a question of that sort.” - -“Has she been making love to you, then?” - -“If you should ever see her you would understand how absurd that -supposition is.” - -“How shall I ever see her?” returned Mr Vetch. “In the absence of that -privilege I think there is something in my idea.” - -“She looks quite over my head,” said Hyacinth, simply. “It’s by no -means impossible you may see her. She wants to know my friends, to know -the people who live in the Place. And she would take a particular -interest in you, on account of your opinions.” - -“Ah, I have no opinions now, none any more!” the old man broke out, -sadly. “I only had them to frighten Pinnie.” - -“She was easily frightened,” said Hyacinth. - -“Yes, and easily reassured. Well, I like to know about your life,” his -neighbour sighed, irrelevantly. “But take care the great lady doesn’t -lead you too far.” - -“How do you mean, too far?” - -“Isn’t she an anarchist—a nihilist? Doesn’t she go in for a general -rectification, as Eustace calls it?” - -Hyacinth was silent a moment. “You should see the place—you should see -what she wears, what she eats and drinks.” - -“Ah, you mean that she is inconsistent with her theories? My dear boy, -she would be a droll woman if she were not. At any rate, I’m glad of -it.” - -“Glad of it?” Hyacinth repeated. - -“For you, I mean, when you stay with her; it’s more luxurious!” Mr -Vetch exclaimed, turning round and smiling. At this moment a little rap -on the floor above, given by Lady Aurora, announced that Hyacinth might -at last come up and see Pinnie. Mr Vetch listened and recognised it, -and it led him to say, with considerable force, “_There’s_ a woman -whose theories and conduct do square!” - -Hyacinth, on the threshold, leaving the room, stopped long enough to -reply, “Well, when the day comes for my friend to give up—you’ll see.” - -“Yes, I have no doubt there are things she will bring herself to -sacrifice,” the old man remarked; but Hyacinth was already out of -hearing. - - - - -XXVIII - - -Mr Vetch waited below till Lady Aurora should come down and give him -the news he was in suspense for. His mind was pretty well made up about -Pinnie. It had seemed to him, the night before, that death was written -in her face, and he judged it on the whole a very good moment for her -to lay down her earthly burden. He had reasons for believing that the -future could not be sweet to her. As regards Hyacinth, his mind was far -from being at ease; for though he was aware in a general way that he -had taken up with strange company, and though he had flattered himself -of old that he should be pleased to see the boy act out his life and -solve the problem of his queer inheritance, he was worried by the -absence of full knowledge. He put out his pipe, in anticipation of Lady -Aurora’s reappearance, and without this consoler he was more accessible -still to certain fears that had come to him in consequence of a recent -talk, or rather an attempt at a talk, with Eustache Poupin. It was -through the Frenchman that he had gathered the little he knew about the -occasion of Hyacinth’s unprecedented excursion. His ideas on the -subject had been very inferential; for Hyacinth had made a mystery of -his absence to Pinnie, merely letting her know that there was a lady in -the case and that the best luggage he could muster and the best way his -shirts could be done up would still not be good enough. Poupin had seen -Godfrey Sholto at the ‘Sun and Moon’, and it had come to him, through -Hyacinth, that there was a remarkable feminine influence in the -Captain’s life, mixed up in some way with his presence in Bloomsbury—an -influence, moreover, by which Hyacinth himself, for good or for evil, -was in peril of being touched. Sholto was the young man’s visible link -with a society for which Lisson Grove could have no importance in the -scheme of the universe but as a short cut (too disagreeable to be -frequently used) out of Bayswater; therefore if Hyacinth left town with -a new hat and a pair of kid gloves it must have been to move in the -direction of that superior circle and in some degree, at least, at the -solicitation of the before-mentioned feminine influence. So much as -this the Frenchman suggested, explicitly enough, as his manner was, to -the old fiddler; but his talk had a flavour of other references which -excited Mr Vetch’s curiosity much more than they satisfied it. They -were obscure; they evidently were painful to the speaker; they were -confused and embarrassed and totally wanting in the luminosity which -usually characterised the lightest allusions of M. Poupin. It was the -fiddler’s fancy that his friend had something on his mind which he was -not at liberty to impart, and that it related to Hyacinth and might, -for those who took an interest in the singular lad, constitute a -considerable anxiety. Mr Vetch, on his own part, nursed this anxiety -into a tolerably definite shape: he persuaded himself that the -Frenchman had been leading the boy too far in the line of social -criticism, had given him a push on some crooked path where a slip would -be a likely accident. When on a subsequent occasion, with Poupin, he -indulged in a hint of this suspicion, the bookbinder flushed a good -deal and declared that his conscience was pure. It was one of his -peculiarities that when his colour rose he looked angry, and Mr Vetch -held that his displeasure was a proof that in spite of his repudiations -he had been unwise; though before they parted Eustache gave this sign -of softness, that he shed tears of emotion, of which the reason was not -clear to the fiddler and which appeared in a general way to be -dedicated to Hyacinth. The interview had taken place in Lisson Grove, -where Madame Poupin, however, had not shown herself. - -Altogether the old man was a prey to suppositions which led him to feel -how much he himself had outlived the democratic glow of his prime. He -had ended by accepting everything (though, indeed, he couldn’t swallow -the idea that a trick should be played upon Hyacinth), and even by -taking an interest in current politics, as to which, of old, he had -held the opinion (the same that the Poupins held to-day) that they had -been invented on purpose to throw dust in the eyes of disinterested -reformers and to circumvent the social solution. He had given up that -problem some time ago; there was no way to clear it up that didn’t seem -to make a bigger mess than the actual muddle of human affairs, which, -by the time one had reached sixty-five, had mostly ceased to -exasperate. Mr Vetch could still feel a certain sharpness on the -subject of the prayer-book and the bishops; and if at moments he was a -little ashamed of having accepted this world he could reflect that at -all events he continued to repudiate every other. The idea of great -changes, however, took its place among the dreams of his youth; for -what was any possible change in the relations of men and women but a -new combination of the same elements? If the elements could be made -different the thing would be worth thinking of; but it was not only -impossible to introduce any new ones—no means had yet been discovered -for getting rid of the old. The figures on the chessboard were still -the passions and jealousies and superstitions and stupidities of man, -and their position with regard to each other, at any given moment, -could be of interest only to the grim, invisible fates who played the -game—who sat, through the ages, bow-backed over the table. This laxity -had come upon the old man with the increase of his measurement round -the waist, of the little heap of half-crowns and half-sovereigns that -had accumulated in a tin box with a very stiff padlock, which he kept -under his bed, and of the interwoven threads of sentiment and custom -that united him to the dressmaker and her foster-son. If he was no -longer pressing about the demands he felt he should have a right to -make of society, as he had been in the days when his conversation -scandalised Pinnie, so he was now not pressing for Hyacinth, either; -reflecting that though, indeed, the constituted powers might have to -‘count’ with him, it would be in better taste for him not to be -importunate about a settlement. What he had come to fear for him was -that he should be precipitated by crude agencies, with results in which -the deplorable might not exclude the ridiculous. It may even be said -that Mr Vetch had a secret project of settling a little on his behalf. - -Lady Aurora peeped into the room, very noiselessly, nearly half an hour -after Hyacinth had left it, and let the fiddler know that she was -called to other duties but that the nurse had come back and the doctor -had promised to look in at five o’clock. She herself would return in -the evening, and meanwhile Hyacinth was with his aunt, who had -recognised him, without a protest; indeed seemed intensely happy that -he should be near her again, and lay there with closed eyes, very weak -and speechless, with his hand in hers. Her restlessness had passed and -her fever abated, but she had no pulse to speak of and Lady Aurora did -not disguise the fact that, in her opinion, she was rapidly sinking. Mr -Vetch had already accepted it, and after her ladyship had quitted him -he lighted another philosophic pipe upon it, lingering on, till the -doctor came, in the dressmaker’s dismal, forsaken bower, where, in past -years, he had indulged in so many sociable droppings-in and hot -tumblers. The echo of all her little simple surprises and pointless -contradictions, her gasping reception of contemplative paradox, seemed -still to float in the air; but the place felt as relinquished and -bereaved as if she were already beneath the sod. Pinnie had always been -a wonderful hand at ‘putting away’; the litter that testified to her -most elaborate efforts was often immense, but the reaction in favour of -an unspeckled carpet was greater still; and on the present occasion, -before taking to her bed, she had found strength to sweep and set in -order as daintily as if she had been sure that the room would never -again know her care. Even to the old fiddler, who had not Hyacinth’s -sensibility to the scenery of life, it had the cold propriety of a -place arranged for an interment. After the doctor had seen Pinnie, that -afternoon, there was no doubt left as to its soon being the stage of -dismal preliminaries. - -Miss Pynsent, however, resisted her malady for nearly a fortnight more, -during which Hyacinth was constantly in her room. He never went back to -Mr Crookenden’s, with whose establishment, through violent causes, his -relations seemed indefinitely suspended; and in fact, for the rest of -the time that Pinnie demanded his care he absented himself but twice -from Lomax Place for more than a few minutes. On one of these occasions -he travelled over to Audley Court and spent an hour there; on the other -he met Millicent Henning, by appointment, and took a walk with her on -the Embankment. He tried to find a moment to go and thank Madame Poupin -for a sympathetic offering, many times repeated, of _tisane_, concocted -after a receipt thought supreme by the couple in Lisson Grove (though -little appreciated in the neighbourhood generally); but he was obliged -to acknowledge her kindness only by a respectful letter, which he -composed with some trouble, though much elation, in the French tongue, -peculiarly favourable, as he believed, to little courtesies of this -kind. Lady Aurora came again and again to the darkened house, where she -diffused her beneficent influence in nightly watches; in the most -modern sanative suggestions, in conversations with Hyacinth, directed -with more ingenuity than her fluttered embarrassments might have led -one to attribute to her, to the purpose of diverting his mind, and in -tea-makings (there was a great deal of this liquid consumed on the -premises during Pinnie’s illness), after a system more enlightened than -the usual fashion of Pentonville. She was the bearer of several -messages and of a good deal of medical advice from Rose Muniment, whose -interest in the dressmaker’s case irritated Hyacinth by its fine -courage, which even at second-hand was still obtrusive; she appeared -very nearly as resigned to the troubles of others as she was to her -own. - -Hyacinth had been seized, the day after his return from Medley, with a -sharp desire to do something enterprising and superior on Pinnie’s -behalf. He felt the pressure of a sort of angry sense that she was -dying of her poor career, of her uneffaced remorse for the trick she -had played him in his boyhood (as if he hadn’t long ago, and indeed at -the time, forgiven it, judging it to have been the highest wisdom!), of -something basely helpless in the attitude of her little circle. He -wanted to do something which should prove to himself that he had got -the best opinion about the invalid that it was possible to have: so he -insisted that Mr Buffery should consult with a West End doctor, if the -West End doctor would consent to meet Mr Buffery. A physician capable -of this condescension was discovered through Lady Aurora’s agency (she -had not brought him of her own movement, because on the one hand she -hesitated to impose on the little household in Lomax Place the expense -of such a visit, and on the other, with all her narrow personal -economies for the sake of her charities, had not the means to meet it -herself); and in prevision of the great man’s fee Hyacinth applied to -Mr Vetch, as he had applied before, for a loan. The great man came, and -was wonderfully civil to Mr Buffery, whose conduct of the case he -pronounced judicious; he remained several minutes in the house, while -he gazed at Hyacinth over his spectacles (he seemed rather more -occupied with him than with the patient), and almost the whole of the -Place turned out to stare at his chariot. After all, he consented to -accept no fee. He put the question aside with a gesture full of -urbanity—a course disappointing and displeasing to Hyacinth, who felt -in a manner cheated of the full effect of the fine thing he had wished -to do for Pinnie; though when he said as much (or something like it) to -Mr Vetch, the caustic fiddler greeted the observation with a face of -amusement which, considering the situation, verged upon the unseemly. - -Hyacinth, at any rate, had done the best he could, and the fashionable -doctor had left directions which foreshadowed relations with an -expensive chemist in Bond Street—a prospect by which our young man was -to some extent consoled. Poor Pinnie’s decline, however, was not -arrested, and one evening, more than a week after his return from -Medley, as he sat with her alone, it seemed to Hyacinth that her spirit -must already have passed away. The nurse had gone down to her supper, -and from the staircase a perceptible odour of fizzling bacon indicated -that a more cheerful state of things prevailed in the lower regions. -Hyacinth could not make out whether Miss Pynsent were asleep or awake; -he believed she had not lost consciousness, yet for more than an hour -she had given no sign of life. At last she put out her hand, as if she -knew he was near her and wished to feel for his, and murmured, “Why did -she come? I didn’t want to see her.” In a moment, as she went on, he -perceived to whom she was alluding: her mind had travelled back, -through all the years, to the dreadful day (she had described every -incident of it to him) when Mrs Bowerbank had invaded her quiet life -and startled her sensitive conscience with a message from the prison. -“She sat there so long—so long. She was very large, and I was -frightened. She moaned, and moaned, and cried—too dreadful. I couldn’t -help it—I couldn’t help it!” Her thought wandered from Mrs Bowerbank in -the discomposed show-room, enthroned on the yellow sofa, to the tragic -creature at Milbank, whose accents again, for the hour, lived in her -ears; and mixed with this mingled vision was still the haunting sense -that she herself might have acted differently. That had been cleared up -in the past, so far as Hyacinth’s intention was concerned; but what was -most alive in Pinnie at the present moment was the passion of -repentance, of still further expiation. It sickened Hyacinth that she -should believe these things were still necessary, and he leaned over -her and talked tenderly, with words of comfort and reassurance. He told -her not to think of that dismal, far-off time, which had ceased long -ago to have any consequences for either of them; to consider only the -future, when she should be quite strong again and he would look after -her and keep her all to himself and take care of her better, far -better, than he had ever done before. He had thought of many things -while he sat with Pinnie, watching the shadows made by the -night-lamp—high, imposing shadows of objects low and mean—and among -them he had followed, with an imagination that went further in that -direction than ever before, the probable consequences of his not having -been adopted in his babyhood by the dressmaker. The workhouse and the -gutter, ignorance and cold, filth and tatters, nights of huddling under -bridges and in doorways, vermin, starvation and blows, possibly even -the vigorous efflorescence of an inherited disposition to crime—these -things, which he saw with unprecedented vividness, suggested themselves -as his natural portion. Intimacies with a princess, visits to fine old -country-houses, intelligent consideration, even, of the best means of -inflicting a scare on the classes of privilege, would in that case not -have been within his compass; and that Pinnie should have rescued him -from such a destiny and put these luxuries within his reach was an -amelioration which really amounted to success, if he could only have -the magnanimity to regard it so. - -Her eyes were open and fixed on him, but the sharp ray the little -dressmaker used to direct into Lomax Place as she plied her needle at -the window had completely left them. “Not there—what should I do -there?” she inquired, very softly. “Not with the great—the great—” and -her voice failed. - -“The great what? What do you mean?” - -“You know—you know,” she went on, making another effort. “Haven’t you -been with them? Haven’t they received you?” - -“Ah, they won’t separate us, Pinnie; they won’t come between us as much -as that,” said Hyacinth, kneeling by her bed. - -“_You_ must be separate—that makes me happier. I knew they would find -you at last.” - -“Poor Pinnie, poor Pinnie,” murmured the young man. - -“It was only for that—now I’m going,” she went on. - -“If you’ll stay with me you needn’t fear,” said Hyacinth, smiling at -her. - -“Oh, what would _they_ think?” asked the dressmaker. - -“I like you best,” said Hyacinth. - -“You have had me always. Now it’s their turn; they have waited.” - -“Yes, indeed, they have waited!” Hyacinth exclaimed. - -“But they will make it up; they will make up everything!” the invalid -panted. Then she added, “I couldn’t—couldn’t help it!”—which was the -last flicker of her strength. She gave no further sign of -consciousness, and four days later she ceased to breathe. Hyacinth was -with her, and Lady Aurora, but neither of them could recognise the -moment. - -Hyacinth and Mr Vetch carried her bier, with the help of Eustache -Poupin and Paul Muniment. Lady Aurora was at the funeral, and Madame -Poupin as well, and twenty neighbours from Lomax Place; but the most -distinguished person (in appearance at least) in the group of mourners -was Millicent Henning, the grave yet brilliant beauty of whose -countenance, the high propriety of whose demeanour, and the fine taste -and general style of whose black ‘costume’ excited no little attention. -Mr Vetch had his idea; he had been nursing it ever since Hyacinth’s -return from Medley, and three days after Pinnie had been consigned to -the earth he broached it to his young friend. The funeral had been on a -Friday, and Hyacinth had mentioned to him that he should return to Mr -Crookenden’s on the Monday morning. This was Sunday night, and Hyacinth -had been out for a walk, neither with Millicent Henning nor with Paul -Muniment, but alone, after the manner of old days. When he came in he -found the fiddler waiting for him, and burning a tallow candle, in the -blighted show-room. He had three or four little papers in his hand, -which exhibited some jottings of his pencil, and Hyacinth guessed, what -was the truth but not all the truth, that he had come to speak to him -about business. Pinnie had left a little will, of which she had -appointed her old friend executor; this fact had already become known -to our hero, who thought such an arrangement highly natural. Mr Vetch -informed him of the purport of this simple and judicious document, and -mentioned that he had been looking into the dressmaker’s ‘affairs’. -They consisted, poor Pinnie’s affairs, of the furniture of the house in -Lomax Place, of the obligation to pay the remainder of a quarter’s -rent, and of a sum of money in the savings-bank. Hyacinth was surprised -to learn that Pinnie’s economies had produced fruit at this late day -(things had gone so ill with her in recent years, and there had been -often such a want of money in the house), until Mr Vetch explained to -him, with eager clearness, that he himself had watched over the little -hoard, accumulated during the period of her comparative prosperity, -with the stiff determination that it should be sacrificed only in case -of desperate necessity. Work had become scarce with Pinnie, but she -could still do it when it came, and the money was to be kept for the -very possible period when she should be helpless. Mercifully enough, -she had not lived to see that day, and the sum in the bank had survived -her, though diminished by more than half. She had left no debts but the -matter of the house and those incurred during her illness. Of course -the fiddler had known—he hastened to give his young friend this -assurance—that Pinnie, had she become infirm, would have been able to -count absolutely upon _him_ for the equivalent, in her old age, of the -protection she had given him in his youth. But what if an accident had -overtaken Hyacinth? What if he had incurred some nasty penalty for his -revolutionary dabblings, which, little dangerous as they might be to -society, were quite capable, in a country where authority, though -good-natured, liked occasionally to make an example, to put him on the -wrong side of a prison-wall? At any rate, for better or worse, by -pinching and scraping, she had saved a little, and of that little, -after everything was paid off, a fraction would still be left. -Everything was bequeathed to Hyacinth—everything but a couple of plated -candlesticks and the old ‘cheffonier’, which had been so handsome in -its day; these Pinnie begged Mr Vetch to accept in recognition of -services beyond all price. The furniture, everything he didn’t want for -his own use, Hyacinth could sell in a lump, and with the proceeds he -could wipe out old scores. The sum of money would remain to him; it -amounted, in its reduced condition, to about thirty-seven pounds. In -mentioning this figure Mr Vetch appeared to imply that Hyacinth would -be master of a very pretty little fortune. Even to the young man -himself, in spite of his recent initiations, it seemed far from -contemptible; it represented sudden possibilities of still not -returning to old Crookenden’s. It represented them, that is, till, -presently, he remembered the various advances made him by the fiddler, -and reflected that by the time these had been repaid there would hardly -be twenty pounds left. That, however, was a far larger sum than he had -ever had in his pocket at once. He thanked the old man for his -information, and remarked—and there was no hypocrisy in the speech—that -he was very sorry Pinnie had not given herself the benefit of the whole -of the little fund in her lifetime. To this her executor replied that -it had yielded her an interest far beyond any other investment; for he -was persuaded she believed she should never live to enjoy it, and this -faith was rich in pictures, visions of the effect such a windfall would -produce in Hyacinth’s career. - -“What effect did she mean—do you mean?” Hyacinth inquired. As soon as -he had spoken he felt that he knew what the old man would say (it would -be a reference to Pinnie’s belief in his reunion with his ‘relations’, -and the facilities that thirty-seven pounds would afford him for -cutting a figure among them); and for a moment Mr Vetch looked at him -as if exactly that response were on his lips. At the end of the moment, -however, he replied, quite differently— - -“She hoped you would go abroad and see the world.” The fiddler watched -his young friend; then he added, “She had a particular wish that you -should go to Paris.” - -Hyacinth had turned pale at this suggestion, and for a moment he said -nothing. “Ah, Paris!” he murmured, at last. - -“She would have liked you even to take a little run down to Italy.” - -“Doubtless that would be pleasant. But there is a limit to what one can -do with twenty pounds.” - -“How do you mean, with twenty pounds?” the old man asked, lifting his -eyebrows, while the wrinkles in his forehead made deep shadows in the -candlelight. - -“That’s about what will remain, after I have settled my account with -you.” - -“How do you mean, your account with me? I shall not take any of your -money.” - -Hyacinth’s eyes wandered over his interlocutor’s suggestive rustiness. -“I don’t want to be ungracious, but suppose _you_ should lose your -powers.” - -“My dear boy, I shall have one of the resources that was open to -Pinnie. I shall look to you to be the support of my old age.” - -“You may do so with perfect safety, except for that danger you just -mentioned, of my being imprisoned or hanged.” - -“It’s precisely because I think it will be less if you go abroad that I -urge you to take this chance. You will see the world, and you will like -it better. You will think society, even as it is, has some good -points,” said Mr Vetch. - -“I have never liked it better than the last few months.” - -“Ah well, wait till you see Paris!” - -“Oh, Paris—Paris,” Hyacinth repeated, vaguely, staring into the turbid -flame of the candle as if he made out the most brilliant scenes there; -an attitude, accent and expression which the fiddler interpreted both -as the vibration of a latent hereditary chord and a symptom of the -acute sense of opportunity. - - - - -BOOK FOURTH - - - - -XXIX - - -The boulevard was all alive, brilliant with illuminations, with the -variety and gaiety of the crowd, the dazzle of shops and cafés seen -through uncovered fronts or immense lucid plates, the flamboyant -porches of theatres and the flashing lamps of carriages, the -far-spreading murmur of talkers and strollers, the uproar of pleasure -and prosperity, the general magnificence of Paris on a perfect evening -in June. Hyacinth had been walking about all day—he had walked from -rising till bed-time every day of the week that had elapsed since his -arrival—and now an extraordinary fatigue, which, however, was not -without its delight (there was a kind of richness, a sweet satiety, in -it), a tremendous lassitude had fallen upon him, and he settled himself -in a chair beside a little table in front of Tortoni’s, not so much to -rest from it as to enjoy it. He had seen so much, felt so much, learned -so much, thrilled and throbbed and laughed and sighed so much, during -the past several days, that he was conscious at last of the danger of -becoming incoherent to himself, of the need of balancing his accounts. - -To-night he came to a full stop; he simply sat at the door of the most -dandified café in Paris and felt his pulse and took stock of his -impressions. He had been intending to visit the Variétés theatre, which -blazed through intermediate lights and through the thin foliage of -trees not favoured by the asphalt, on the other side of the great -avenue. But the impression of Chaumont—he relinquished that, for the -present; it added to the luxury of his situation to reflect that he -should still have plenty of time to see the _succès du jour_. The same -effect proceeded from his determination to order a _marquise_, when the -waiter, whose superior shirt-front and whisker emerged from the long -white cylinder of an apron, came to take his commands. He knew the -decoction was expensive—he had learnt as much at the moment he happened -to overhear, for the first time, a mention of it; which had been the -night before, in his place in a stall, during an _entr’acte_, at the -_Comédie Française_. A gentleman beside him, a young man in -evening-dress, conversing with an acquaintance in the row behind, -recommended the latter to refresh himself with the article in question -after the play: there was nothing like it, the speaker remarked, of a -hot evening, in the open air, when one was thirsty. The waiter brought -Hyacinth a tall glass of champagne, in which a pine-apple ice was in -solution, and our hero felt that he had hoped for a sensation no less -delicate when he looked for an empty table on Tortoni’s terrace. Very -few tables were empty, and it was his belief that the others were -occupied by high celebrities; at any rate they were just the types he -had had a prevision of and had wanted most to meet, when the -extraordinary opportunity to come abroad with his pocket full of money -(it was more extraordinary, even, than his original meeting with the -Princess) became real to him in Lomax Place. He knew about Tortoni’s -from his study of the French novel, and as he sat there he had a vague -sense of fraternising with Balzac and Alfred de Musset; there were -echoes and reminiscences of their works in the air, confounding -themselves with the indefinable exhalations, the strange composite -odour, half agreeable, half impure, of the boulevard. ‘Splendid Paris, -charming Paris’—that refrain, the fragment of an invocation, a -beginning without an end, hummed itself perpetually in Hyacinth’s ears; -the only articulate words that got themselves uttered in the hymn of -praise which his imagination had been offering to the French capital -from the first hour of his stay. He recognised, he greeted, with a -thousand palpitations, the seat of his maternal ancestors—was proud to -be associated with so much of the superb, so many proofs of a -civilisation that had no visible rough spots. He had his perplexities, -and he had even now and then a revulsion for which he had made no -allowance, as when it came over him that the most brilliant city in the -world was also the most blood-stained; but the great sense that he -understood and sympathised was preponderant, and his comprehension gave -him wings—appeared to transport him to still wider fields of knowledge, -still higher sensations. - -In other days, in London, he had thought again and again of his -mother’s father, the revolutionary watch-maker who had known the -ecstasy of the barricade and had paid for it with his life, and his -reveries had not been sensibly chilled by the fact that he knew next to -nothing about him. He figured him in his mind, had a conviction that he -was very short, like himself, and had curly hair, an immense talent for -his work and an extraordinary natural eloquence, together with many of -the most attractive qualities of the French character. But he was -reckless, and a little cracked, and probably immoral; he had -difficulties and debts and irrepressible passions; his life had been an -incurable fever and its tragic termination was a matter of course. None -the less it would have been a charm to hear him talk, to feel the -influence of a gaiety which even political madness could never quench; -for his grandson had a theory that he spoke the French tongue of an -earlier time, delightful and sociable in accent and phrase, exempt from -the commonness of modern slang. This vague yet vivid personage became -Hyacinth’s constant companion, from the day of his arrival; he roamed -about with Florentine’s boy, hand in hand, sat opposite to him at -dinner, at the small table in the restaurant, finished the bottle with -him, made the bill a little longer, and treated him to innumerable -revelations and counsels. He knew the lad’s secret without being told, -and looked at him across the diminutive tablecloth, where the great -tube of bread, pushed aside a little, left room for his elbows (it -puzzled Hyacinth that the people of Paris should ever have had the -fierceness of hunger when the loaves were so big), gazed at him with -eyes of deep, kind, glowing comprehension and with lips which seemed to -murmur that when one was to die to-morrow one was wise to eat and drink -to-day. There was nothing venerable, no constraint of importance or -disapproval, in this edifying and impalpable presence; the young man -considered that Hyacinthe Vivier was of his own time of life and could -enter into his pleasures as well as his pains. Wondering, repeatedly, -where the barricade on which his grandfather fell had been erected, he -at last satisfied himself (but I am unable to trace the process of the -induction) that it had bristled across the Rue Saint-Honoré, very near -to the church of Saint-Roch. The pair had now roamed together through -all the museums and gardens, through the principal churches (the -republican martyr was very good-natured about this), through the -passages and arcades, up and down the great avenues, across all the -bridges, and above all, again and again, along the river, where the -quays were an endless entertainment to Hyacinth, who lingered by the -half-hour beside the boxes of old books on the parapets, stuffing his -pockets with five-penny volumes, while the bright industries of the -Seine flashed and glittered beneath him, and on the other bank the -glorious Louvre stretched either way for a league. Our young man took -almost the same sort of satisfaction in the Louvre as if he had erected -it; he haunted the museum during all the first days, and couldn’t look -enough at certain pictures, nor sufficiently admire the high polish of -the great floors in which the golden, frescoed ceilings repeated -themselves. All Paris struck him as tremendously artistic and -decorative; he felt as if hitherto he had lived in a dusky, frowsy, -Philistine world, in which the taste was the taste of Little Pedlington -and the idea of beautiful arrangement had never had an influence. In -his ancestral city it had been active from the first, and that was why -his quick sensibility responded; and he murmured again his constant -refrain, when the fairness of the great monuments arrested him, in the -pearly, silvery light, or he saw them take gray-blue, delicate tones at -the end of stately vistas. It seemed to him that Paris expressed -herself, and did it in the grand style, while London remained vague and -blurred, inarticulate, blunt and dim. - -Eustache Poupin had given him letters to three or four democratic -friends, ardent votaries of the social question, who had by a miracle -either escaped the cruelty of exile or suffered the outrage of pardon, -and, in spite of republican _mouchards_, no less infamous than the -imperial, and the periodical swoops of despotism which had only changed -its buttons and postage-stamps, kept alive the sacred spark which would -some day become a consuming flame. Hyacinth, however, had not had the -thought of delivering these introductions; he had accepted them because -Poupin had had such a solemn glee in writing them, and also because he -had not the courage to let the couple in Lisson Grove know that since -that terrible night at Hoffendahl’s a change had come over the spirit -of his dream. He had not grown more concentrated, he had grown more -relaxed, and it was inconsistent with relaxation that he should rummage -out Poupin’s friends—one of whom lived in the Batignolles and the -others in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine—and pretend that he cared for what -they cared for in the same way as they cared for it. What was supreme -in his mind to-day was not the idea of how the society that surrounded -him should be destroyed; it was, much more, the sense of the wonderful, -precious things it had produced, of the brilliant, impressive fabric it -had raised. That destruction was waiting for it there was forcible -evidence, known to himself and others, to show; but since this truth -had risen before him, in its magnitude he had become conscious of a -transfer, partial if not complete, of his sympathies; the same -revulsion of which he had given a sign to the Princess in saying that -now he pitied the rich, those who were regarded as happy. While the -evening passed, therefore, as he kept his place at Tortoni’s, the -emotion that was last to visit him was a compunction for not having put -himself in relation with poor Poupin’s friends, for having neglected to -make the acquaintance of earnest people. - -Who in the world, if one should come to that, was as earnest as he -himself, or had given such signal even though secret proofs of it? He -could lay that unction to his soul in spite of his having amused -himself cynically, spent all his time in theatres, galleries, walks of -pleasure. The feeling had not failed him with which he accepted Mr -Vetch’s furtherance—the sense that since he was destined to perish in -his flower he was right to make a dash at the beautiful, horrible -world. That reflection had been natural enough, but what was strange -was the fiddler’s own impulse, his desire to do something pleasant for -him, to beguile him and ship him off. What had been most odd in that -was the way Mr Vetch appeared to overlook the fact that his young -friend had already had, that year, such an episode of dissipation as -was surely rare in the experience of London artisans. This was one of -the many things Hyacinth thought of; he thought of the others in turn -and out of turn; it was almost the first time he had sat still long -enough (except at the theatre) to collect himself. A hundred confused -reverberations of the recent past crowded upon him, and he saw that he -had lived more intensely in the previous six months than in all the -rest of his existence. The succession of events finally straightened -itself, and he tasted some of the rarest, strangest moments over again. -His last week at Medley, in especial, had already become a kind of -fable, the echo of a song; he could read it over like a story, gaze at -it as he would have gazed at some exquisite picture. His visit there -had been perfect to the end, and even the three days that Captain -Sholto’s sojourn lasted had not broken the spell, for the three more -that had elapsed before his own departure (the Princess herself had -given him the signal) were the most important of all. It was then the -Princess had made it clear to him that she was in earnest, was prepared -for the last sacrifice. She was now his standard of comparison, his -authority, his measure, his perpetual reference; and in taking -possession of his mind to this extent she had completely renewed it. -She was altogether a new term, and now that he was in a foreign country -he observed how much her conversation, itself so foreign, had prepared -him to understand it. In Paris he saw, of course, a great many women, -and he noticed almost all of them, especially the actresses; -confronting, mentally, their movement, their speech, their manner of -dressing, with that of his extraordinary friend. He judged that she was -beyond them in every respect, though there were one or two actresses -who had the air of trying to copy her. - -The recollection of the last days he had spent with her affected him -now like the touch of a tear-washed cheek. She had shed tears for him, -and it was his suspicion that her secret idea was to frustrate the -redemption of his vow to Hoffendahl, to the immeasurable body that -Hoffendahl represented. She pretended to have accepted it, and what she -said was simply that when he should have played his part she would -engage to save him—to fling a cloud about him, as the goddess-mother of -the Trojan hero used, in Virgil’s poem, to _escamoter_ Æneas. What she -meant was, in his view, to prevent him from playing his part at all. -She was earnest for herself, not for him. The main result of his -concentrated intimacy with her had been to make him feel that he was -good enough for anything. When he had asked her, the last day, if he -might write to her, she had said, Yes, but not for two or three weeks. -He had written after Pinnie’s death, and again just before coming -abroad, and in doing so had taken account of something else she had -said in regard to their correspondence—that she didn’t wish vague -phrases, protestations or compliments; she wanted the realities of his -life, the smallest, most personal details. Therefore he had treated her -to the whole business of the break-up in Lomax Place, including the -sale of the rickety furniture. He had told her what that transaction -brought—a beggarly sum, but sufficient to help a little to pay debts; -and he had informed her furthermore that one of the ways Mr Vetch had -taken to hurry him off to Paris was to offer him a present of thirty -pounds out of his curious little hoard, to add to the sum already -inherited from Pinnie—which, in a manner that none of Hyacinth’s -friends, of course, could possibly regard as frugal, or even as -respectable, was now consecrated to a mere excursion. He even mentioned -that he had ended by accepting the thirty pounds, adding that he feared -there was something demoralising in his peculiar situation (she would -know what he meant by that): it disposed one to take what one could -get, made one at least very tolerant of whims that happened to be -munificent. - -What he did not mention to the Princess was the manner in which he had -been received by Paul Muniment and by Millicent Henning on his return -from Medley. Millicent’s reception had been the queerest; it had been -quite unexpectedly mild. She made him no scene of violence, and -appeared to have given up the line of throwing a blur of recrimination -over her own nefarious doings. She treated him as if she liked him for -having got in with the swells; she had an appreciation of success which -would lead her to handle him more tenderly now that he was really -successful. She tried to make him describe the style of life that was -led in a house where people were invited to stay like that without -having to pay, and she surprised him almost as much as she gratified -him by not indulging in any of her former digs at the Princess. She was -lavish of ejaculations when he answered certain of her -questions—ejaculations that savoured of Pimlico, “Oh, I say!” and “Oh, -my stars!”—and he was more than ever struck with her detestable habit -of saying, “Aye, that’s where it is,” when he had made some remark to -which she wished to give an intelligent and sympathetic assent. But she -didn’t jeer at the Princess’s private character; she stayed her satire, -in a case where there was such an opening for it. Hyacinth reflected -that this was lucky for her: he couldn’t have stood it (nervous and -anxious as he was about Pinnie) if she had had the bad taste, at such a -time as that, to be profane and insulting. In that case he would have -broken with her completely—he would have been too disgusted. She -displeased him enough, as it was, by her vulgar tricks of speech. There -were two or three little recurrent irregularities that aggravated him -to a degree quite out of proportion to their importance, as when she -said ‘full up’ for full, ‘sold out’ for sold, or remarked to him that -she supposed he was now going to chuck up his work at old Crookenden’s. -These phrases had fallen upon his ear many a time before, but now they -seemed almost unpardonable enough to quarrel about. Not that he had any -wish to quarrel, for if the question had been pushed he would have -admitted that to-day his intimacy with the Princess had caused any -rights he might have had upon Millicent to lapse. Millicent did not -push it, however; she only, it was evident, wished to convey to him -that it was better for both parties they should respect each other’s -liberty. A genial understanding on this subject was what Miss Henning -desired, and Hyacinth forbade himself to inquire what use she proposed -to make of her freedom. During the month that elapsed between Pinnie’s -death and his visit to Paris he had seen her several times, for the -respect for each other’s freedom had somehow not implied cessation of -intercourse, and it was only natural she should have been soft to him -in his bereaved condition. Hyacinth’s sentiment about Pinnie was deep, -and Millicent was clever enough to guess it; the consequence of which -was that on these occasions she was very soft indeed. She talked to him -almost as if she had been his mother and he a convalescent child; -called him her dear, and a young rascal, and her old boy; moralised a -good deal, abstained from beer (till she learned he had inherited a -fortune), and when he remarked once (moralising a little, too) that -after the death of a person we have loved we are haunted by the memory -of our failures of kindness, of generosity, rejoined, with a dignity -that made the words almost a contribution to philosophy, “Yes, that’s -where it is!” - -Something in her behaviour at this period had even made Hyacinth wonder -whether there were not some mystical sign in his appearance, some -subtle betrayal in the very expression of his face, of the predicament -in which he had been placed by Diedrich Hoffendahl; he began to suspect -afresh the operation of that ‘beastly _attendrissement_’ he had -detected of old in people who had the benefit of Miss Pynsent’s -innuendoes. The compassion Millicent felt for him had never been one of -the reasons why he liked her; it had fortunately been corrected, -moreover, by his power to make her furious. This evening, on the -boulevard, as he watched the interminable successions, one of the ideas -that came to him was that it was odd he should like her even yet; for -heaven knew he liked the Princess better, and he had hitherto supposed -that when a sentiment of this kind had the energy of a possession it -made a clean sweep of all minor predilections. But it was clear to him -that Millicent still existed for him; that he couldn’t feel he had -quite done with her, or she with him; and that in spite of his having -now so many other things to admire there was still a comfort in the -recollection of her robust beauty and her primitive passions. Hyacinth -thought of her as some clever young barbarian who in ancient days -should have made a pilgrimage to Rome might have thought of a Dacian or -Iberian mistress awaiting his return on the rough provincial shore. If -Millicent considered his visit at a ‘hall’ a proof of the sort of -success that was to attend him (how he reconciled this with the -supposition that she perceived, as a ghostly irradiation, intermingled -with his curly hair, the aureola of martyrdom, he would have had some -difficulty in explaining), if Miss Henning considered, on his return -from Medley, that he had taken his place on the winning side, it was -only consistent of her to borrow a grandeur from his further travels; -and, indeed, by the time he was ready to start she spoke of the plan as -if she had invented it herself and even contributed materially to the -funds required. It had been her theory, from the first, that she only -liked people of spirit; and Hyacinth certainly had never had so much -spirit as when he launched himself into Continental adventures. He -could say to himself, quite without bitterness, that of course she -would profit by his absence to put her relations with Sholto on a -comfortable footing; yet, somehow, at this moment, as her face came -back to him amid the crowd of faces about him, it had not that -gentleman’s romantic shadow across it. It was the brilliancy of Paris, -perhaps, that made him see things rosy; at any rate, he remembered with -kindness something that she had said to him the last time he saw her -and that had touched him exceedingly at the moment. He had happened to -observe to her, in a friendly way, that now Miss Pynsent had gone she -was, with the exception of Mr Vetch, the person in his whole circle who -had known him longest. To this Millicent had replied that Mr Vetch -wouldn’t live for ever, and then she should have the satisfaction of -being his very oldest friend. “Oh, well, I shan’t live for ever, -either,” said Hyacinth; which led her to inquire whether by chance he -had a weakness of the chest. “Not that I know of, but I might get -killed in a row;” and when she broke out into scorn of his silly notion -of turning everything up (as if any one wanted to know what a -costermonger would like, or any of that low sort at the East End!) he -amused himself with asking her if she were satisfied with the condition -of society and thought nothing ought to be done for people who, at the -end of a lifetime of starvation-wages, had only the reward of the -hideous workhouse and a pauper’s grave. - -“I shouldn’t be satisfied with anything, if ever you was to slip up,” -Millicent answered, simply, looking at him with her beautiful boldness. -Then she added, “There’s one thing I can tell _you_, Mr Robinson: that -if ever any one was to do you a turn—” And she paused again, tossing -back the head she carried as if it were surmounted by a tiara, while -Hyacinth inquired what would occur in that contingency. “Well, there’d -be _one_ left behind who would take it up!” she announced; and in the -tone of the declaration there was something brave and genuine. It -struck Hyacinth as a strange fate—though not stranger, after all, than -his native circumstances—that one’s memory should come to be -represented by a shop-girl overladen with bracelets of imitation -silver; but he was reminded that Millicent was a fine specimen of a -woman of a type opposed to the whining, and that in her free -temperament many disparities were reconciled. - - - - -XXX - - -On the other hand the brilliancy of Paris had not much power to -transfigure the impression made upon him by such intercourse with Paul -Muniment as he had enjoyed during the weeks that followed Pinnie’s -death—an impression considerably more severe than any idea of -renunciation or oblivion that could connect itself with Millicent. Why -it should have had the taste of sadness was not altogether clear, for -Muniment’s voice was as distinct as any in the chorus of approbation -excited by the news that Hyacinth was about to cultivate the most -characteristic of the pleasures of gentility—a sympathetic unanimity, -of which the effect was to place his journey to Paris in a light almost -ridiculous. What had got into them all, and did they think he was good -for nothing but to amuse himself? Mr Vetch had been the most zealous, -but the others clapped him on the back in almost exactly the same -manner as he had seen his mates in Soho bring their palms down on one -of their number when it was disclosed to them that his ‘missus’ had -made him yet once again a father. That had been Poupin’s tone, and his -wife’s as well; and even poor Schinkel, with his everlasting bandage, -whom he had met in Lisson Grove, appeared to think it necessary to -remark that a little run across the Rhine, while he was about it, would -open his eyes to a great many wonders. The Poupins shed tears of joy, -and the letters which have already been mentioned, and which lay day -after day on the mantel-shelf of the little room our hero occupied in a -_hôtel garni_, tremendously tall and somewhat lopsided, in the Rue -Jacob (that recommendation proceeded also from Lisson Grove, the -_garni_ being kept by a second cousin of Madame Eustache), these -valuable documents had been prepared by the obliging exile many days -before his young friend was ready to start. It was almost refreshing to -Hyacinth when old Crookenden, the sole outspoken dissentient, told him -he was a blockhead to waste his money on the bloody French. This worthy -employer of labour was evidently disgusted at such an innovation; if he -wanted a little recreation why couldn’t he take it as it had been taken -in Soho from the beginning of time, in the shape of a trip to Hampton -Court or two or three days of alcoholic torpor? Old Crookenden was -right. Hyacinth conceded freely that he was a blockhead, and was only a -little uncomfortable that he couldn’t explain why he didn’t pretend not -to be and had a kind of right to that compensatory luxury. - -Paul guessed why, of course, and smiled approval with a candour which -gave Hyacinth a strange, inexpressible heartache. He already knew that -his friend’s view of him was that he was ornamental and adapted to the -lighter kinds of socialistic utility—constituted to show that the -revolution was not necessarily brutal and illiterate; but in the light -of the cheerful stoicism with which Muniment regarded the sacrifice our -hero was committed to, the latter had found it necessary to remodel a -good deal his original conception of the young chemist’s nature. The -result of this process was not that he admired it less but that he felt -almost awe-stricken in the presence of it. There had been an element of -that sort in his appreciation of Muniment from the first, but it had -been infinitely deepened by the spectacle of his sublime consistency. -Hyacinth felt that he himself could never have risen to that point. He -was competent to make the promise to Hoffendahl, and he was equally -competent to keep it; but he could not have had the same fortitude for -another, could not have detached himself from personal prejudice so -effectually as to put forward, in that way, for the terrible ‘job’, a -little chap he liked. That Muniment liked him it never occurred to -Hyacinth to doubt, and certainly he had all the manner of it to-day: he -had never been more good-humoured, more placidly talkative; he was like -an elder brother who knew that the ‘youngster’ was clever, and was -rather proud of it even when there was no one there to see. That air of -suspending their partnership for the moment, which had usually marked -him at the ‘Sun and Moon’, was never visible in other places; in Audley -Court he only chaffed Hyacinth occasionally for taking him too -seriously. To-day his young friend hardly knew just how to take him; -the episode of which Hoffendahl was the central figure had, as far as -one could see, made so little change in his life. As a conspirator he -was so extraordinarily candid, and bitterness and denunciation so -rarely sat on his lips. It was as if he had been ashamed to complain; -and indeed, for himself, as the months went on, he had nothing -particular to complain of. He had had a rise, at the chemical works, -and a plan of getting a larger room for Rosy was under serious -consideration. On behalf of others he never sounded the pathetic -note—he thought that sort of thing unbusiness-like; and the most that -he did in the way of expatiation on the wrongs of humanity was -occasionally to mention certain statistics, certain ‘returns’, in -regard to the remuneration of industries, applications for employment -and the discharge of hands. In such matters as these he was deeply -versed, and he moved in a dry statistical and scientific air in which -it cost Hyacinth an effort of respiration to accompany him. Simple and -kindly as he was, and thoughtful of the woes of beasts, attentive and -merciful to small insects, and addicted even to kissing dirty babies in -Audley Court, he sometimes emitted a short satiric gleam which showed -that his esteem for the poor was small and that if he had no illusions -about the people who had got everything into their hands he had as few -about those who had egregiously failed to do so. He was tremendously -reasonable, which was largely why Hyacinth admired him, having a desire -to be so himself but finding it terribly difficult. - -Muniment’s absence of passion, his fresh-coloured coolness, his easy, -exact knowledge, the way he kept himself clean (except for the chemical -stains on his hands) in circumstances of foul contact, constituted a -group of qualities that had always appeared to Hyacinth singularly -enviable. Most enviable of all was the force that enabled him to sink -personal sentiment where a great public good was to be attempted and -yet keep up the form of caring for that minor interest. It seemed to -Hyacinth that if _he_ had introduced a young fellow to Hoffendahl for -his purposes, and Hoffendahl had accepted him on such a recommendation, -and everything had been settled, he would have preferred never to look -at the young fellow again. That was his weakness, and Muniment carried -it off far otherwise. It must be added that he had never made an -allusion to their visit to Hoffendahl; so that Hyacinth also, out of -pride, held his tongue on the subject. If his friend didn’t wish to -express any sympathy for him he was not going to beg for it (especially -as he didn’t want it) by restless references. It had originally been a -surprise to him that Muniment should be willing to countenance a -possible assassination; but after all none of his ideas were narrow -(Hyacinth had a sense that they ripened all the while), and if a -pistol-shot would do any good he was not the man to raise pedantic -objections. It is true that, as regards his quiet acceptance of the -predicament in which Hyacinth might be placed by it, our young man had -given him the benefit of a certain amount of doubt; it had occurred to -him that perhaps Muniment had his own reasons for believing that the -summons from Hoffendahl would never really arrive, so that he might -only be treating himself to the entertainment of judging of a little -bookbinder’s nerve. But in this case, why did he take an interest in -the little bookbinder’s going to Paris? That was a thing he would not -have cared for if he had held that in fact there was nothing to fear. -He despised the sight of idleness, and in spite of the indulgence he -had more than once been good enough to express on the subject of -Hyacinth’s epicurean tendencies what he would have been most likely to -say at present was, ‘Go to Paris? Go to the dickens! Haven’t you been -out at grass long enough for one while, didn’t you lark enough in the -country there with the noble lady, and hadn’t you better take up your -tools again before you forget how to handle them?’ Rosy had said -something of that sort, in her free, familiar way (whatever her -intention, she had been, in effect, only a little less sarcastic than -old Crookenden): that Mr Robinson was going in for a life of leisure, a -life of luxury, like herself; she must congratulate him on having the -means and the time. Oh, the time—that was the great thing! She could -speak with knowledge, having always enjoyed these advantages herself. -And she intimated—or was she mistaken?—that his good fortune emulated -hers also in the matter of his having a high-born and beneficent friend -(such a blessing, now he had lost dear Miss Pynsent), who covered him -with little attentions. Rose Muniment, in short, had been more -exasperating than ever. - -The boulevard became even more brilliant as the evening went on, and -Hyacinth wondered whether he had a right to occupy the same table for -so many hours. The theatre on the other side discharged its multitude; -the crowd thickened on the wide asphalt, on the terrace of the café; -gentlemen, accompanied by ladies of whom he knew already how to -characterise the type—_des femmes très-chic_—passed into the portals of -Tortoni. The nightly emanation of Paris seemed to rise more richly, to -float and hang in the air, to mingle with the universal light and the -many-voiced sound, to resolve itself into a thousand solicitations and -opportunities, addressed however mainly to those in whose pockets the -chink of a little loose gold might respond. Hyacinth’s retrospections -had not made him drowsy, but quite the reverse; he grew restless and -excited, and a kind of pleasant terror of the place and hour entered -into his blood. But it was nearly midnight, and he got up to walk home, -taking the line of the boulevard toward the Madeleine. He passed down -the Rue Royale, where comparative stillness reigned; and when he -reached the Place de la Concorde, to cross the bridge which faces the -Corps Législatif, he found himself almost isolated. He had left the -human swarm and the obstructed pavements behind, and the wide spaces of -the splendid square lay quiet under the summer stars. The plash of the -great fountains was audible, and he could almost hear the wind-stirred -murmur of the little wood of the Tuileries on one side, and of the -vague expanse of the Champs Elysées on the other. The place itself—the -Place Louis Quinze, the Place de la Révolution—had given him a sensible -emotion, from the day of his arrival; he had recognised so quickly its -tremendously historic character. He had seen, in a rapid vision, the -guillotine in the middle, on the site of the inscrutable obelisk, and -the tumbrils, with waiting victims, were stationed round the circle now -made majestic by the monuments of the cities of France. The great -legend of the French Revolution, sanguinary and heroic, was more real -to him here than anywhere else; and, strangely, what was most present -was not its turpitude and horror, but its magnificent energy, the -spirit of life that had been in it, not the spirit of death. That -shadow was effaced by the modern fairness of fountain and statue, the -stately perspective and composition; and as he lingered, before -crossing the Seine, a sudden sense overtook him, making his heart sink -with a kind of desolation—a sense of everything that might hold one to -the world, of the sweetness of not dying, the fascination of great -cities, the charm of travel and discovery, the generosity of -admiration. The tears rose to his eyes, as they had done more than once -in the past six months, and a question, low but poignant, broke from -his lips, ending in nothing: “How could he—how _could_ he—?” It may be -explained that ‘he’ was a reference to Paul Muniment; for Hyacinth had -dreamed of the religion of friendship. - -Three weeks after this he found himself in Venice, whence he addressed -to the Princess Casamassima a letter of which I reproduce the principal -passages. - -‘This is probably the last time I shall write to you before I return to -London. Of course you have been in this place, and you will easily -understand why here, especially here, the spirit should move me. Dear -Princess, what an enchanted city, what ineffable impressions, what a -revelation of the exquisite! I have a room in a little _campo_ opposite -to a small old church, which has cracked marble slabs let into the -front; and in the cracks grow little wild delicate flowers, of which I -don’t know the name. Over the door of the church hangs an old battered -leather curtain, polished and tawny, as thick as a mattress, and with -buttons in it, like a sofa; and it flops to and fro, laboriously, as -women and girls, with shawls on their heads and their feet in little -wooden shoes which have nothing but toes, pass in and out. In the -middle of the campo is a fountain, which looks still older than the -church; it has a primitive, barbaric air, and I have an idea it was put -there by the first settlers—those who came to Venice from the mainland, -from Aquileia. Observe how much historical information I have already -absorbed; it won’t surprise you, however, for you never wondered at -anything after you discovered I knew something of Schopenhauer. I -assure you, I don’t think of that musty misogynist in the least to-day, -for I bend a genial eye on the women and girls I just spoke of, as they -glide, with a small clatter and with their old copper water-jars, to -the fountain. The Venetian girl-face is wonderfully sweet and the -effect is charming when its pale, sad oval (they all look under-fed) is -framed in the old faded shawl. They also have very fascinating hair, -which never has done curling, and they slip along together, in couples -or threes, interlinked by the arms and never meeting one’s eye (so that -its geniality doesn’t matter), dressed in thin, cheap cotton gowns, -whose limp folds make the same delightful line that everything else in -Italy makes. The weather is splendid and I roast—but I like it; -apparently, I was made to be spitted and “done”, and I discover that I -have been cold all my life, even when I thought I was warm. I have seen -none of the beautiful patricians who sat for the great painters—the -gorgeous beings whose golden hair was intertwined with pearls; but I am -studying Italian in order to talk with the shuffling, clicking maidens -who work in the bead-factories—I am determined to make one or two of -them look at me. When they have filled their old water-pots at the -fountain it is jolly to see them perch them on their heads and patter -away over the polished Venetian stones. It’s a charm to be in a country -where the women don’t wear the hideous British bonnet. Even in my own -class (excuse the expression—I remember it used to offend you), I have -never known a young female, in London, to put her nose out of the door -without it; and if you had frequented such young females as much as I -have you would have learned of what degradation that dreary necessity -is the source. The floor of my room is composed of little brick tiles, -and to freshen the air, in this temperature, one sprinkles it, as you -no doubt know, with water. Before long, if I keep on sprinkling, I -shall be able to swim about; the green shutters are closed, and the -place makes a very good tank. Through the chinks the hot light of the -campo comes in. I smoke cigarettes, and in the pauses of this -composition recline on a faded magenta divan in the corner. Convenient -to my hand, in that attitude, are the works of Leopardi and a -second-hand dictionary. I am very happy—happier than I have ever been -in my life save at Medley—and I don’t care for anything but the present -hour. It won’t last long, for I am spending all my money. When I have -finished this I shall go forth and wander about in the splendid -Venetian afternoon; and I shall spend the evening in that enchanted -square of St Mark’s, which resembles an immense open-air drawing-room, -listening to music and feeling the sea-breeze blow in between those two -strange old columns, in the piazzetta, which seem to make a portal for -it. I can scarcely believe that it’s of myself that I am telling these -fine things; I say to myself a dozen times a day that Hyacinth Robinson -is not in it—I pinch my leg to see if I’m not dreaming. But a short -time hence, when I have resumed the exercise of my profession, in sweet -Soho, I shall have proof enough that it has been my very self: I shall -know that by the terrible grind I shall feel my work to be. - -‘That will mean, no doubt, that I’m deeply demoralised. It won’t be for -you, however, in this case, to cast the stone at me; for my -demoralisation began from the moment I first approached you. Dear -Princess, I may have done you good, but you haven’t done me much. I -trust you will understand what I mean by that speech, and not think it -flippant or impertinent. I may have helped you to understand and enter -into the misery of the people (though I protest I don’t know much about -it), but you have led my imagination into quite another train. However, -I don’t mean to pretend that it’s all your fault if I have lost sight -of the sacred cause almost altogether in my recent adventures. It is -not that it has not been there to see, for that perhaps is the clearest -result of extending one’s horizon—the sense, increasing as we go, that -want and toil and suffering are the constant lot of the immense -majority of the human race. I have found them everywhere, but I haven’t -minded them. Excuse the cynical confession. What has struck me is the -great achievements of which man has been capable in spite of them—the -splendid accumulations of the happier few, to which, doubtless, the -miserable many have also in their degree contributed. The face of -Europe appears to be covered with them, and they have had much the -greater part of my attention. They seem to me inestimably precious and -beautiful, and I have become conscious, more than ever before, of how -little I understand what, in the great rectification, you and Poupin -propose to do with them. Dear Princess, there are things which I shall -be sorry to see you touch, even you with your hands divine; and—shall I -tell you _le fond de ma pensée_, as you used to say?—I feel myself -capable of fighting for them. You can’t call me a traitor, for you know -the obligation that I recognise. The monuments and treasures of art, -the great palaces and properties, the conquests of learning and taste, -the general fabric of civilisation as we know it, based, if you will, -upon all the despotisms, the cruelties, the exclusions, the monopolies -and the rapacities of the past, but thanks to which, all the same, the -world is less impracticable and life more tolerable—our friend -Hoffendahl seems to me to hold them too cheap and to wish to substitute -for them something in which I can’t somehow believe as I do in things -with which the aspirations and the tears of generations have been -mixed. You know how extraordinary I think our Hoffendahl (to speak only -of him); but if there is one thing that is more clear about him than -another it is that he wouldn’t have the least feeling for this -incomparable, abominable old Venice. He would cut up the ceilings of -the Veronese into strips, so that every one might have a little piece. -I don’t want every one to have a little piece of anything, and I have a -great horror of that kind of invidious jealousy which is at the bottom -of the idea of a redistribution. You will say that I talk of it at my -ease, while, in a delicious capital, I smoke cigarettes on a magenta -divan; and I give you leave to scoff at me if it turns out that, when I -come back to London without a penny in my pocket, I don’t hold the same -language. I don’t know what it comes from, but during the last three -months there has crept over me a deep mistrust of that same grudging -attitude—the intolerance of positions and fortunes that are higher and -brighter than one’s own; a fear, moreover, that I may, in the past, -have been actuated by such motives, and a devout hope that if I am to -pass away while I am yet young it may not be with that odious stain -upon my soul.’ - - - - -XXXI - - -Hyacinth spent three days, after his return to London, in a process -which he supposed to be the quest of a lodging; but in reality he was -pulling himself together for the business of his livelihood—an effort -he found by no means easy or agreeable. As he had told the Princess, he -was demoralised, and the perspective of Mr Crookenden’s dirty staircase -had never seemed so steep. He lingered on the brink, before he plunged -again into Soho; he wished not to go back to the shop till he should be -settled, and he delayed to get settled in order not to go back to the -shop. He saw no one during this interval, not even Mr Vetch; he waited -to call upon the fiddler till he should have the appearance of not -coming as a beggar or a borrower—have recovered his employment and be -able to give an address, as he had heard Captain Sholto say. He went to -South Street—not meaning to go in at once but wishing to look at the -house—and there he had the surprise of perceiving a bill of sale in the -window of the Princess’s late residence. He had not expected to find -her in town (he had heard from her the last time three weeks before, -and then she said nothing about her prospects), but he was puzzled by -this indication that she had moved away altogether. There was something -in this, however, which he felt that at bottom he had looked for; it -appeared a proof of the justice of a certain suspicious, uneasy -sentiment from which one could never be quite free, in one’s -intercourse with the Princess—a vague apprehension that one might -suddenly stretch out one’s hand and miss her altogether from one’s -side. Hyacinth decided to ring at the door and ask for news of her; but -there was no response to his summons: the stillness of an August -afternoon (the year had come round again from his first visit) hung -over the place, the blinds were down and the caretaker appeared to be -absent. Under these circumstances Hyacinth was much at a loss; unless, -indeed, he should address a letter to his wonderful friend at Medley. -It would doubtless be forwarded, though her short lease of the -country-house had terminated, as he knew, several weeks before. Captain -Sholto was of course a possible medium of communication; but nothing -would have induced Hyacinth to ask such a service of him. - -He turned away from South Street with a curious sinking of the heart; -his state of ignorance struck inward, as it were—had the force of a -vague, disquieting portent. He went to old Crookenden’s only when he -had arrived at his last penny. This, however, was very promptly the -case. He had disembarked at London Bridge with only seventeen pence in -his pocket, and he had lived on that sum for three days. The old -fiddler in Lomax Place was having a chop before he went to the theatre, -and he invited Hyacinth to share his repast, sending out at the same -time for another pot of beer. He took the youth with him to the play, -where, as at that season there were very few spectators, he had no -difficulty in finding him a place. He seemed to wish to keep hold of -him, and looked at him strangely, over his spectacles (Mr Vetch wore -the homely double glass in these latter years), when he learned that -Hyacinth had taken a lodging not in their old familiar quarter but in -the unexplored purlieus of Westminster. What had determined our young -man was the fact that from this part of the town the journey was -comparatively a short one to Camberwell; he had suffered so much, -before Pinnie’s death, from being separated by such a distance from his -best friends. There was a pang in his heart connected with the image of -Paul Muniment, but none the less the prospect of an evening hour in -Audley Court, from time to time, appeared one of his most definite -sources of satisfaction in the future. He could have gone straight to -Camberwell to live, but that would carry him too far from the scene of -his profession; and in Westminster he was much nearer to old -Crookenden’s than he had been in Lomax Place. He said to Mr Vetch that -if it would give him pleasure he would abandon his lodging and take -another in Pentonville. But the old man replied, after a moment, that -he should be sorry to put that constraint upon him; if he were to make -such an exaction Hyacinth would think he wanted to watch him. - -“How do you mean, to watch me?” - -Mr Vetch had begun to tune his fiddle, and he scraped it a little -before answering. “I mean it as I have always meant it. Surely you know -that in Lomax Place I had my eyes on you. I watched you as a child on -the edge of a pond watches the little boat he has constructed and set -afloat.” - -“You couldn’t discover much. You saw, after all, very little of me,” -Hyacinth said. - -“I made what I could of that little; it was better than nothing.” - -Hyacinth laid his hand gently on the old man’s arm; he had never felt -so kindly to him, not even when he accepted the thirty pounds, before -going abroad, as at this moment. “Certainly I will come and see you.” - -“I was much obliged to you for your letters,” Mr Vetch remarked, -without heeding these words, and continuing to scrape. He had always, -even into the shabbiness of his old age, kept that mark of English -good-breeding (which is composed of some such odd elements), that there -was a shyness, an aversion to possible phrase-making, in his manner of -expressing gratitude for favours, and that in spite of this cursory -tone his acknowledgment had ever the accent of sincerity. - -Hyacinth took but little interest in the play, which was an inanimate -revival; he had been at the _Théâtre Français_ and the tradition of -that house was still sufficiently present to him to make any other -style of interpretation appear of the clumsiest. He sat in one of the -front stalls, close to the orchestra; and while the piece went -forward—or backward, ever backward, as it seemed to him—his thoughts -wandered far from the shabby scene and the dusty boards, revolving -round a question which had come up immensely during the last few hours. -The Princess was a _capricciosa_—that, at least, was Madame Grandoni’s -account of her; and was that blank, expressionless house in South -Street a sign that an end had come to the particular caprice in which -he had happened to be involved? He had returned to London with an ache -of eagerness to be with her again on the same terms as at Medley, a -throbbing sense that unless she had been abominably dishonest he might -count upon her. This state of mind was by no means complete security, -but it was so sweet that it mattered little whether it were sound. -Circumstances had favoured in an extraordinary degree his visit to her, -and it was by no means clear that they would again be so accommodating -or that what had been possible for a few days should be possible with -continuity, in the midst of the ceremonies and complications of London. -Hyacinth felt poorer than he had ever felt before, inasmuch as he had -had money and spent it, whereas in previous times he had never had it -to spend. He never for an instant regretted his squandered fortune, for -he said to himself that he had made a good bargain and become master of -a precious equivalent. The equivalent was a rich experience—an -experience which would become richer still as he should talk it over, -in a low chair, close to hers, with the all-comprehending, -all-suggesting lady of his life. His poverty would be no obstacle to -their intercourse so long as he should have a pair of legs to carry him -to her door; for she liked him better shabby than when he was furbished -up, and she had given him too many pledges, they had taken together too -many appointments, worked out too many programmes, to be disconcerted -(on either side) by obstacles that were merely a part of the general -conventionality. He was to go with her into the slums, to introduce her -to the worst that London contained (he should have, precisely, to make -acquaintance with it first), to show her the reality of the horrors of -which she dreamed that the world might be purged. He had ceased, -himself, to care for the slums, and had reasons for not wishing to -spend his remnant in the contemplation of foul things; but he would go -through with his part of the engagement. He might be perfunctory, but -any dreariness would have a gilding that should involve an association -with her. What if she should have changed, have ceased to care? What -if, from a kind of royal insolence which he suspected to lurk somewhere -in the side-scenes of her nature, though he had really not once seen it -peep out, she should toss back her perfect head with a movement -signifying that he was too basely literal and that she knew him no -more? Hyacinth’s imagination represented her this evening in places -where a barrier of dazzling light shut her out from access, or even -from any appeal. He saw her with other people, in splendid rooms, where -‘the dukes’ had possession of her, smiling, satisfied, surrounded, -covered with jewels. When this vision grew intense he found a -reassurance in reflecting that after all she would be unlikely to throw -him personally over so long as she should remain mixed up with what was -being planned in the dark, and that it would not be easy for her to -liberate herself from that entanglement. She had of course told him -more, at Medley, of the manner in which she had already committed -herself, and he remembered, with a strange perverse elation, that she -had gone very far indeed. - -In the intervals of the foolish play Mr Vetch, who lingered in his -place in the orchestra while his mates descended into the little hole -under the stage, leaned over the rail and asked his young friend -occasional questions, carrying his eyes at the same time up about the -dingy house, at whose smoky ceiling and tarnished galleries he had been -staring for so many a year. He came back to Hyacinth’s letters, and -said, “Of course you know they were clever; they entertained me -immensely. But as I read them I thought of poor Pinnie: I wished she -could have listened to them; they would have made her so happy.” - -“Yes, poor Pinnie,” Hyacinth murmured, while Mr Vetch went on— - -“I was in Paris in 1840; I stayed at a small hotel in the Rue Mogador. -I judge everything is changed, from your letters. Does the Rue Mogador -still exist? Yes, everything is changed. I dare say it’s all much -finer, but I liked it very much as it was then. At all events, I am -right in supposing—am I not?—that it cheered you up considerably, made -you really happy.” - -“Why should I have wanted any cheering? I was happy enough,” Hyacinth -replied. - -The fiddler turned his old white face upon him; it had the unhealthy -smoothness which denotes a sedentary occupation, thirty years spent in -a close crowd, amid the smoke of lamps and the odour of stage-paint. “I -thought you were sad about Pinnie,” he remarked. - -“When I jumped, with that avidity, at your proposal that I should take -a tour? Poor old Pinnie!” Hyacinth added. - -“Well, I hope you think a little better of the world. We mustn’t make -up our mind too early in life.” - -“Oh, I have made up mine: it’s an awfully jolly place.” - -“Awfully jolly, no; but I like it as I like an old pair of shoes—I like -so much less the idea of putting on the new ones.” - -“Why should I complain?” Hyacinth asked. “What have I known but -kindness? People have done such a lot for me.” - -“Oh, well, of course, they have liked you. But that’s all right,” -murmured Mr Vetch, beginning to scrape again. What remained in -Hyacinth’s mind from this conversation was the fact that the old man, -whom he regarded distinctly as cultivated, had thought his letters -clever. He only wished that he had made them cleverer still; he had no -doubt of his ability to have done so. - -It may be imagined whether the first hours he spent at old -Crookenden’s, after he took up work again, were altogether to his -taste, and what was the nature of the reception given him by his former -comrades, whom he found exactly in the same attitudes and the same -clothes (he knew and hated every article they wore), and with the same -primitive pleasantries on their lips. Our young man’s feelings were -mingled; the place and the people appeared to him loathsome, but there -was something delightful in handling his tools. He gave a little -private groan of relief when he discovered that he still liked his work -and that the pleasant swarm of his ideas (in the matter of sides and -backs) returned to him. They came in still brighter, more suggestive -form, and he had the satisfaction of feeling that his taste had -improved, that it had been purified by experience, and that the covers -of a book might be made to express an astonishing number of high -conceptions. Strange enough it was, and a proof surely, of our little -hero’s being a genuine artist, that the impressions he had accumulated -during the last few months appeared to mingle and confound themselves -with the very sources of his craft and to be susceptible of technical -representation. He had quite determined, by this time, to carry on his -life as if nothing were hanging over him, and he had no intention of -remaining a little bookbinder to the end of his days; for that medium, -after all, would translate only some of his conceptions. Yet his trade -was a resource, an undiminished resource, for the present, and he had a -particular as well as a general motive in attempting new flights—the -prevision of the exquisite work which he was to do during the coming -year for the Princess and which it was very definite to him he owed -her. When that debt should have been paid and his other arrears made up -he proposed to himself to write something. He was far from having -decided as yet what it should be; the only point settled was that it -should be very remarkable and should not, at least on the face of it, -have anything to do with a fresh deal of the social pack. That was to -be his transition—into literature; to bind the book, charming as the -process might be, was after all much less fundamental than to write it. -It had occurred to Hyacinth more than once that it would be a fine -thing to produce a brilliant death-song. - -It is not surprising that among such reveries as this he should have -been conscious of a narrow range in the tone of his old workfellows. -They had only one idea: that he had come into a thousand pounds and had -gone to spend them in France with a regular high one. He was aware, in -advance, of the diffusion of this legend, and did his best to allow for -it, taking the simplest course, which was not to contradict it but to -catch the ball as it came and toss it still further, enlarging and -embroidering humorously until Grugan and Roker and Hotchkin and all the -rest, who struck him as not having washed since he left them, seemed -really to begin to understand how it was he could have spent such a -rare sum in so short a time. The impressiveness of this achievement -helped him greatly to slip into his place; he could see that, though -the treatment it received was superficially irreverent, the sense that -he was very sharp and that the springs of his sharpness were somehow -secret gained a good deal of strength from it. Hyacinth was not -incapable of being rather pleased that it _should_ be supposed, even by -Grugan, Roker and Hotchkin, that he could get rid of a thousand pounds -in less than five months, especially as to his own conscience the fact -had altogether yet to be proved. He got off, on the whole, easily -enough to feel a little ashamed, and he reflected that the men at -Crookenden’s, at any rate, showed no symptoms of the social jealousy -lying at the bottom of the desire for a fresh deal. This was doubtless -an accident, and not inherent in the fact that they were highly skilled -workmen (old Crookenden had no others), and therefore sure of constant -employment; for it was impossible to be more skilled, in one’s own -line, than Paul Muniment was, and yet he (though not out of jealousy, -of course) went in for the great restitution. What struck him most, -after he had got used again to the sense of his apron and bent his back -a while over his battered table, was the simple, synthetic patience of -the others, who had bent _their_ backs and felt the rub of that dirty -drapery all the while he was lounging in the halls of Medley, dawdling -through boulevards and museums, and admiring the purity of the Venetian -girl-face. With Poupin, to be sure, his relations were special; but the -explanations that he owed the sensitive Frenchman were not such as -could make him very unhappy, once he had determined to resist as much -as possible the friction of his remaining days. There was moreover more -sorrow than anger in Poupin’s face when he learned that his young -friend and pupil had failed to cultivate, in Paris, the rich -opportunities he had offered him. “You are cooling off, my child; there -is something about you! Have you the weakness to flatter yourself that -anything has been done, or that humanity suffers a particle less? -_Enfin_, it’s between you and your conscience.” - -“Do you think I want to get out of it?” Hyacinth asked, smiling; -Eustache Poupin’s phrases about humanity, which used to thrill him so, -having grown of late strangely hollow and _rococo_. - -“You owe me no explanations; the conscience of the individual is -absolute, except, of course, in those classes in which, from the very -nature of the infamies on which they are founded, no conscience can -exist. Speak to me, however, of my Paris; _she_ is always divine,” -Poupin went on; but he showed signs of irritation when Hyacinth began -to praise to him the magnificent creations of the arch-fiend of -December. In the presence of this picture he was in a terrible dilemma: -he was gratified as a Parisian and a patriot but he was disconcerted as -a lover of liberty; it cost him a pang to admit that anything in the -sacred city was defective, yet he saw still less his way to concede -that it could owe any charm to the perjured monster of the second -Empire, or even to the hypocritical, mendacious republicanism of the -régime before which the sacred Commune had gone down in blood and fire. -“Ah, yes, it’s very fine, no doubt,” he remarked at last, “but it will -be finer still when it’s ours!”—a speech which caused Hyacinth to turn -back to his work with a slight feeling of sickness. Everywhere, -everywhere, he saw the ulcer of envy—the passion of a party which hung -together for the purpose of despoiling another to its advantage. In old -Eustache, one of the ‘pure’, this was particularly sad. - - - - -XXXII - - -The landing at the top of the stairs in Audley Court was always dark; -but it seemed darker than ever to Hyacinth while he fumbled for the -door-latch, after he had heard Rose Muniment’s penetrating voice bid -him come in. During that instant his ear caught the sound—if it could -trust itself—of another voice, which prepared him, a little, for the -spectacle that offered itself as soon as the door (his attempt to reach -the handle, in his sudden agitation, proving fruitless) was opened to -him by Paul. His friend stood there, tall and hospitable, saying -something loud and jovial, which he didn’t distinguish. His eyes had -crossed the threshold in a flash, but his step faltered a moment, only -to obey, however, the vigour of Muniment’s outstretched hand. -Hyacinth’s glance had gone straight, and though with four persons in it -Rosy’s little apartment looked crowded, he saw no one but the object of -his quick preconception—no one but the Princess Casamassima, seated -beside the low sofa (the grand feature introduced during his absence -from London) on which, arrayed in the famous pink dressing-gown, Miss -Muniment now received her visitors. He wondered afterwards why he -should have been so startled; for he had said, often enough, both to -himself and to the Princess, that so far as she was concerned he was -proof against astonishment; it was so evident that, in her behaviour, -the unexpected was the only thing to be looked for. In fact, now that -he perceived she had made her way to Camberwell without his assistance, -the feeling that took possession of him was a kind of embarrassment; he -blushed a little as he entered the circle, the fourth member of which -was inevitably Lady Aurora Langrish. Was it that his intimacy with the -Princess gave him a certain sense of responsibility for her conduct in -respect to people who knew her as yet but a little, and that there was -something that required explanation in the confidence with which she -had practised a descent upon them? It is true that it came over our -young man that by this time, perhaps, they knew her a good deal; and -moreover a woman’s conduct spoke for itself when she could sit looking, -in that fashion, like a radiant angel dressed in a simple bonnet and -mantle and immensely interested in an appealing corner of the earth. It -took Hyacinth but an instant to perceive that her character was in a -different phase from any that had yet been exhibited to him. There had -been a brilliant mildness about her the night he made her acquaintance, -and she had never ceased, at any moment since, to strike him as an -exquisitely human, sentient, pitying organisation; unless it might be, -indeed, in relation to her husband, against whom—for reasons, after -all, doubtless, very sufficient—her heart appeared absolutely steeled. -But now her face looked at him through a sort of glorious charity. She -had put off her splendour, but her beauty was unquenchably bright; she -had made herself humble for her pious excursion; she had, beside Rosy -(who, in the pink dressing-gown, looked much the more luxurious of the -two), almost the attitude of a hospital nurse; and it was easy to see, -from the meagre line of her garments, that she was tremendously in -earnest. If Hyacinth was flurried her own countenance expressed no -confusion; for her, evidently, this queer little chamber of poverty and -pain was a place in which it was perfectly natural that _he_ should -turn up. The sweet, still greeting her eyes offered him might almost -have conveyed to him that she had been waiting for him, that she knew -he would come and that there had been a tacit appointment for that very -moment. They said other things beside, in their beautiful friendliness: -they said, ‘Don’t notice me too much, or make any kind of scene. I have -an immense deal to say to you, but remember that I have the rest of our -life before me to say it in. Consider only what will be easiest and -kindest to these people, these delightful people, whom I find -enchanting (why didn’t you ever tell me more—I mean really more—about -them?). It won’t be particularly complimentary to them if you have the -air of seeing a miracle in my presence here. I am very glad of your -return. The quavering, fidgety “ladyship” is as fascinating as the -others.’ - -Hyacinth’s reception at the hands of his old friends was cordial enough -quite to obliterate the element of irony that had lurked, three months -before, in their godspeed; their welcome was not boisterous, but it -seemed to express the idea that the occasion was already so rare and -agreeable that his arrival was all that was needed to make it perfect. -By the time he had been three minutes in the room he was able to -measure the impression produced by the Princess, who, it was clear, had -thrown a spell of adoration over the little company. This was in the -air, in the face of each, in their excited, smiling eyes and heightened -colour; even Rosy’s wan grimace, which was at all times screwed up to -ecstasy, emitted a supererogatory ray. Lady Aurora looked more than -ever dishevelled with interest and wonder; the long strands of her -silky hair floated like gossamer, as, in her extraordinary, religious -attention (her hands were raised and clasped to her bosom, as if she -were praying), her respiration rose and fell. She had never seen any -one like the Princess; but Hyacinth’s apprehension, of some months -before, had been groundless—she evidently didn’t think her vulgar. She -thought her divine, and a revelation of beauty and benignity; and the -illuminated, amplified room could contain no dissentient opinion. It -was her beauty, primarily, that ‘fetched’ them, Hyacinth could easily -see, and it was not hidden from him that the sensation was as active in -Paul Muniment as in his companions. It was not in Paul’s nature to be -jerkily demonstrative, and he had not lost his head on the present -occasion; but he had already appreciated the difference between one’s -preconception of a meretricious, factitious fine lady and the actual -influence of such a personage. She was gentler, fairer, wiser, than a -chemist’s assistant could have guessed in advance. In short, she held -the trio in her hand (she had reduced Lady Aurora to exactly the same -simplicity as the others), and she performed, admirably, artistically, -for their benefit. Almost before Hyacinth had had time to wonder how -she had found the Muniments out (he had no recollection of giving her -specific directions), she mentioned that Captain Sholto had been so -good as to introduce her; doing so as if she owed him that explanation -and were a woman who would be scrupulous in such a case. It was rather -a blow to him to hear that she had been accepting the Captain’s -mediation, and this was not softened by her saying that she was too -impatient to wait for his own return; he was apparently so happy on the -Continent that one couldn’t be sure it would ever take place. The -Princess might at least have been sure that to see her again very soon -was still more necessary to his happiness than anything the Continent -could offer. - -It came out in the conversation he had with her, to which the others -listened with respectful curiosity, that Captain Sholto had brought her -a week before, but then she had seen only Miss Muniment. “I took the -liberty of coming again, by myself, to-day, because I wanted to see the -whole family,” the Princess remarked, looking from Paul to Lady Aurora, -with a friendly gaiety in her face which purified the observation (as -regarded her ladyship) of impertinence. The Princess added, frankly, -that she had now been careful to arrive at an hour when she thought Mr -Muniment might be at home. “When I come to see gentlemen, I like at -least to find them,” she continued, and she was so great a lady that -there was no small diffidence in her attitude; it was a simple matter -for her to call on a chemist’s assistant, if she had a reason. Hyacinth -could see that the reason had already been brought forward—her immense -interest in problems that Mr Muniment had completely mastered, and in -particular their common acquaintance with the extraordinary man whose -mission it was to solve them. Hyacinth learned later that she had -pronounced the name of Hoffendahl. A part of the lustre in Rosy’s eye -came no doubt from the explanation she had inevitably been moved to -make in respect to any sympathy with wicked theories that might be -imputed to _her;_ and of course the effect of this intensely individual -little protest (such was always its effect), emanating from the sofa -and the pink dressing-gown, was to render the Muniment interior still -more quaint and original. In that spot Paul always gave the go-by, -humorously, to any attempt to draw out his views, and you would have -thought, to hear him, that he allowed himself the reputation of having -them only in order to get a ‘rise’ out of his sister and let their -visitors see with what wit and spirit she could repudiate them. This, -however, would only be a reason the more for the Princess’s following -up her scent. She would doubtless not expect to get at the bottom of -his ideas in Audley Court; the opportunity would occur, rather, in case -of his having the civility (on which surely she might count) to come -and talk them over with her in her own house. - -Hyacinth mentioned to her the disappointment he had had in South -Street, and she replied, “Oh, I have given up that house, and taken -quite a different one.” But she didn’t say where it was, and in spite -of her having given him so much the right to expect she would -communicate to him a matter so nearly touching them both as a change of -address, he felt a great shyness about asking. - -Their companions watched them as if they considered that something -rather brilliant, now, would be likely to come off between them; but -Hyacinth was too full of regard to the Princess’s tacit notification to -him that they must not appear too thick, which was after all more -flattering than the most pressing inquiries or the most liberal -announcements about herself could have been. She never asked him when -he had come back; and indeed it was not long before Rose Muniment took -that business upon herself. Hyacinth, however, ventured to assure -himself whether Madame Grandoni were still with the Princess, and even -to remark (when she had replied, “Oh yes, still, still. The great -refusal, as Dante calls it, has not yet come off”), “You ought to bring -her to see Miss Rosy. She is a person Miss Rosy would particularly -appreciate.” - -“I am sure I should be most happy to receive any friend of the Princess -Casamassima,” said this young lady, from the sofa; and when the -Princess answered that she certainly would not fail to produce Madame -Grandoni some day, Hyacinth (though he doubted whether the presentation -would really take place) guessed how much she wished her old friend -might have heard the strange bedizened little invalid make that speech. - -There were only three other seats, for the introduction of the sofa (a -question so profoundly studied in advance) had rendered necessary the -elimination of certain articles; so that Muniment, on his feet, hovered -round the little circle, with his hands in his pockets, laughing freely -and sociably but not looking at the Princess; though, as Hyacinth was -sure, he was none the less agitated by her presence. - -“You ought to tell us about foreign parts and the grand things you have -seen; except that, doubtless, our distinguished visitor knows all about -them,” Muniment said to Hyacinth. Then he added, “Surely, at any rate, -you have seen nothing more worthy of your respect than Camberwell.” - -“Is this the worst part?” the Princess asked, looking up with her -noble, interested face. - -“The worst, madam? What grand ideas you must have! We admire Camberwell -immensely.” - -“It’s my brother’s ideas that are grand!” cried Rose Muniment, -betraying him conscientiously. “He does want everything changed, no -less than you, Princess; though he is more cunning than you, and won’t -give one a handle where one can take him up. He thinks all this part -most objectionable—as if dirty people won’t always make everything -dirty where they live! I dare say he thinks there ought to be no dirty -people, and it may be so; only if every one was clean, where would be -the merit? You would get no credit for keeping yourself tidy. At any -rate, if it’s a question of soap and water, every one can begin by -himself. My brother thinks the whole place ought to be as handsome as -Brompton.” - -“Ah, yes, that’s where the artists and literary people live, isn’t it?” -asked the Princess, attentively. - -“I have never seen it, but it’s very well laid out,” Rosy rejoined, -with her competent air. - -“Oh, I like Camberwell better than that,” said Muniment, hilariously. - -The Princess turned to Lady Aurora, and with the air of appealing to -her for her opinion gave her a glance which travelled in a flash from -the topmost bow of her large, misfitting hat to the crumpled points of -her substantial shoes. “I must get _you_ to tell me the truth,” she -murmured. “I want so much to know London—the real London. It seems so -difficult!” - -Lady Aurora looked a little frightened, but at the same time gratified, -and after a moment she responded, “I believe a great many artists live -in St John’s Wood.” - -“I don’t care about the artists!” the Princess exclaimed, shaking her -head, slowly, with the sad smile which sometimes made her beauty so -inexpressibly touching. - -“Not when they have painted you such beautiful pictures?” Rosy -demanded. “We know about your pictures—we have admired them so much. Mr -Hyacinth has described to us your precious possessions.” - -The Princess transferred her smile to Rosy, and rested it on that young -lady’s shrunken countenance with the same ineffable head-shake. “You do -me too much honour. I have no possessions.” - -“Gracious, was it all a make-believe?” Rosy cried, flashing at Hyacinth -an eye that was never so eloquent as when it demanded an explanation. - -“I have nothing in the world—nothing but the clothes on my back!” the -Princess repeated, very gravely, without looking at the young man. - -The words struck him as an admonition, so that, though he was much -puzzled, he made no attempt, for the moment, to reconcile the -contradiction. He only replied, “I meant the things in the house. Of -course I didn’t know whom they belonged to.” - -“There are no things in my house now,” the Princess went on; and there -was a touch of pure, high resignation in the words. - -“Laws, I shouldn’t like that!” Rose Muniment declared, glancing, with -complacency, over her own decorated walls. “Everything here belongs to -me.” - -“I shall bring Madame Grandoni to see you,” said the Princess, -irrelevantly but kindly. - -“Do you think it’s not right to have a lot of things about?” Lady -Aurora, with sudden courage, queried of her distinguished companion, -pointing her chin at her but looking into the upper angle of the room. - -“I suppose one must always settle that for one’s self. I don’t like to -be surrounded with objects I don’t care for; and I can care only for -one thing—that is, for one class of things—at a time. Dear lady,” the -Princess went on, “I fear I must confess to you that my heart is not in -_bibelots_. When thousands and tens of thousands haven’t bread to put -in their mouths, I can dispense with tapestry and old china.” And her -fair face, bent charmingly, conciliatingly, on Lady Aurora, appeared to -argue that if she was narrow at least she was candid. - -Hyacinth wondered, rather vulgarly, what strange turn she had taken, -and whether this singular picture of her denuded personality were not -one of her famous caprices, a whimsical joke, a nervous perversity. -Meanwhile, he heard Lady Aurora urge, anxiously, “But don’t you think -we ought to make the world more beautiful?” - -“Doesn’t the Princess make it so by the mere fact of her existence?” -Hyacinth demanded; his perplexity escaping, in a harmless manner, -through this graceful hyperbole. He had observed that, though the lady -in question could dispense with old china and tapestry, she could not -dispense with a pair of immaculate gloves, which fitted her like a -charm. - -“My people have a mass of things, you know, but I have really nothing -myself,” said Lady Aurora, as if she owed this assurance to such a -representative of suffering humanity. - -“The world will be beautiful enough when it becomes good enough,” the -Princess resumed. “Is there anything so ugly as unjust distinctions, as -the privileges of the few contrasted with the degradation of the many? -When we want to beautify, we must begin at the right end.” - -“Surely there are none of us but what have our privileges!” Rose -Muniment exclaimed, with eagerness. “What do you say to mine, lying -here between two members of the aristocracy, and with Mr Hyacinth -thrown in?” - -“You are certainly lucky—with Lady Aurora Langrish. I wish she would -come and see _me_,” the Princess murmured, getting up. - -“Do go, my lady, and tell me if it’s so poor!” Rosy went on, gaily. - -“I think there can’t be too many pictures and statues and works of -art,” Hyacinth broke out. “The more the better, whether people are -hungry or not. In the way of ameliorating influences, are not those the -most definite?” - -“A piece of bread and butter is more to the purpose, if your stomach’s -empty,” the Princess declared. - -“Robinson has been corrupted by foreign influences,” Paul Muniment -suggested. “He doesn’t care for bread and butter now; he likes French -cookery.” - -“Yes, but I don’t get it. And have you sent away the little man, the -Italian, with the white cap and apron?” Hyacinth asked of the Princess. - -She hesitated a moment, and then she replied, laughing, and not in the -least offended at his question, though it was an attempt to put her in -the wrong from which Hyacinth had not been able to refrain, in his -astonishment at these ascetic pretensions, “I have sent him away many -times!” - -Lady Aurora had also got up: she stood there gazing at her beautiful -fellow-visitor with a timidity which made her wonder only more -apparent. “Your servants must be awfully fond of you,” she said. - -“Oh, my servants!” murmured the Princess, as if it were only by a -stretch of the meaning of the word that she could be said to enjoy the -ministrations of menials. Her manner seemed to imply that she had a -charwoman for an hour a day. Hyacinth caught the tone, and determined -that since she was going, as it appeared, he would break off his own -visit and accompany her. He had flattered himself, at the end of three -weeks of Medley, that he knew her in every phase, but here was a field -of freshness. She turned to Paul Muniment and put out her hand to him, -and while he took it in his own his face was visited by the most -beautiful eyes that had ever rested there. “Will you come and see me, -one of these days?” she asked, with a voice as sweet and clear as her -glance. - -Hyacinth waited for Paul’s answer with an emotion that could only be -accounted for by his affectionate sympathy, the manner in which he had -spoken of him to the Princess and which he wished him to justify, the -interest he had in his appearing, completely, the fine fellow he -believed him. Muniment neither stammered nor blushed; he held himself -straight, and looked back at his interlocutress with an eye almost as -crystalline as her own. Then, by way of answer, he inquired, “Well, -madam, pray what good will it do me?” And the tone of the words was so -humorous and kindly, and so instinct with a plain manly sense, that -though they were not gallant Hyacinth was not ashamed for him. At the -same moment he observed that Lady Aurora was watching their friend as -if she had at least an equal stake in what he might say. - -“Ah, none; only me, perhaps, a little.” With this rejoinder, and with a -wonderful sweet, indulgent dignity, in which there was none of the -stiffness of pride or resentment, the Princess quitted him and -approached Lady Aurora. She asked her if _she_ wouldn’t do her the -kindness to come. She should like so much to know her, and she had an -idea there was a great deal they might talk about. Lady Aurora said she -should be delighted, and the Princess took one of her cards out of her -pocket and gave it to the noble spinster. After she had done so she -stood a moment holding her hand, and remarked, “It has really been such -a happiness to me to meet you. Please don’t think it’s very clumsy if I -say I _do_ like you so!” Lady Aurora was evidently exceedingly moved -and impressed; but Rosy, when the Princess took farewell of her, and -the irrepressible invalid had assured her of the pleasure with which -she should receive her again, admonished her that in spite of this she -could never conscientiously enter into such theories. - -“If every one was equal,” she asked, “where would be the gratification -I feel in getting a visit from a grandee? That’s what I have often said -to her ladyship, and I consider that I’ve kept her in her place a -little. No, no; no equality while _I_’m about the place!” - -The company appeared to comprehend that there was a natural fitness in -Hyacinth’s seeing the great lady on her way, and accordingly no effort -was made to detain him. He guided her, with the help of an attendant -illumination from Muniment, down the dusky staircase, and at the door -of the house there was a renewed brief leave-taking with the young -chemist, who, however, showed no signs of relenting or recanting in -respect to the Princess’s invitation. The warm evening had by this time -grown thick, and the population of Audley Court appeared to be passing -it, for the most part, in the open air. As Hyacinth assisted his -companion to thread her way through groups of sprawling, chattering -children, gossiping women with bare heads and babies at the breast, and -heavily-planted men smoking very bad pipes, it seemed to him that their -project of exploring the slums was already in the way of execution. He -said nothing till they had gained the outer street, and then, pausing a -moment, he inquired how she would be conveyed. Had she a carriage -somewhere, or should he try and get a cab? - -“A carriage, my dear fellow? For what do you take me? I won’t trouble -you about a cab: I walk everywhere now.” - -“But if I had not been here?” - -“I should have gone alone,” said the Princess, smiling at him through -the turbid twilight of Camberwell. - -“And where, please, gracious heaven? I may at least have the honour of -accompanying you.” - -“Certainly, if you can walk so far.” - -“So far as what, dear Princess?” - -“As Madeira Crescent, Paddington.” - -“Madeira Crescent, Paddington?” Hyacinth stared. - -“That’s what I call it when I’m with people with whom I wish to be -fine, like you. I have taken a small house there.” - -“Then it’s really true that you have given up your beautiful things?” - -“I have sold them all, to give to the poor.” - -“Ah, Princess!” the young man almost moaned; for the memory of some of -her treasures was vivid within him. - -She became very grave, even stern, and with an accent of reproach that -seemed to show she had been wounded where she was most sensitive, she -demanded, “When I said I was willing to make the last sacrifice, did -you then believe I was lying?” - -“Haven’t you kept _anything?_” Hyacinth went on, without heeding this -challenge. - -She looked at him a moment. “I have kept _you!_” Then she took his arm, -and they moved forward. He saw what she had done; she was living in a -little ugly, bare, middle-class house and wearing simple gowns; and the -energy and good faith of her behaviour, with the abruptness of the -transformation, took away his breath. “I thought I should please you so -much,” she added, after they had gone a few steps. And before he had -time to reply, as they came to a part of the street where there were -small shops, those of butchers, greengrocers and pork-pie men, with -open fronts, flaring lamps and humble purchasers, she broke out, -joyously, “Ah, this is the way I like to see London!” - - - - -XXXIII - - -The house in Madeira Crescent was a low, stucco-fronted edifice, in a -shabby, shallow semicircle, and Hyacinth could see, as they approached -it, that the window-place in the parlour (which was on a level with the -street-door) was ornamented by a glass case containing stuffed birds -and surmounted by an alabaster Cupid. He was sufficiently versed in his -London to know that the descent in the scale of the gentility was -almost immeasurable for a person who should have moved into that -quarter from the neighbourhood of Park Lane. The street was not -squalid, and it was strictly residential; but it was mean and meagre -and fourth-rate, and had in the highest degree that paltry, parochial -air, that absence of style and elevation, which is the stamp of whole -districts of London and which Hyacinth had already more than once -mentally compared with the high-piled, important look of the Parisian -perspective. It possessed in combination every quality which should -have made it detestable to the Princess; it was almost as bad as Lomax -Place. As they stopped before the narrow, ill-painted door, on which -the number of the house was marked with a piece of common porcelain, -cut in a fanciful shape, it appeared to Hyacinth that he had felt, in -their long walk, the touch of the passion which led his companion to -divest herself of her superfluities, but that it would take the -romantic out of one’s heroism to settle one’s self in such a _mesquin_, -Philistine row. However, if the Princess had wished to mortify the -flesh she had chosen an effective means of doing so, and of mortifying -the spirit as well. The long light of the gray summer evening was still -in the air, and Madeira Crescent wore a soiled, dusty expression. A -hand-organ droned in front of a neighbouring house, and the cart of the -local washerwoman, to which a donkey was harnessed, was drawn up -opposite. The local children, as well, were dancing on the pavement, to -the music of the organ, and the scene was surveyed, from one of the -windows, by a gentleman in a dirty dressing-gown, smoking a pipe, who -made Hyacinth think of Mr Micawber. The young man gave the Princess a -deep look, before they went into the house, and she smiled, as if she -understood everything that was passing in his mind. - -The long, circuitous walk with her, from the far-away south of London, -had been strange and delightful; it reminded Hyacinth, more queerly -than he could have expressed, of some of the rambles he had taken on -summer evenings with Millicent Henning. It was impossible to resemble -this young lady less than the Princess resembled her, but in her -enjoyment of her unwonted situation (she had never before, on a -summer’s evening—to the best of Hyacinth’s belief, at least—lost -herself in the unfashionable districts on the arm of a seedy artisan) -the distinguished personage exhibited certain coincidences with the -shop-girl. She stopped, as Millicent had done, to look into the windows -of vulgar establishments, and amused herself with picking out -abominable objects that she should like to possess; selecting them from -a new point of view, that of a reduced fortune and the domestic -arrangements of the ‘lower middle class’, deriving extreme diversion -from the idea that she now belonged to that aggrieved body. She was in -a state of light, fresh, sociable exhilaration which Hyacinth had -hitherto, in the same degree, not seen in her, and before they reached -Madeira Crescent it had become clear to him that her present phase was -little more than a brilliant _tour de force_, which he could not -imagine her keeping up long, for the simple reason that after the -novelty and strangeness of the affair had passed away she would not be -able to endure the contact of so much that was common and ugly. For the -moment her discoveries in this line diverted her, as all discoveries -did, and she pretended to be sounding, in a scientific spirit—that of -the social philosopher, the student and critic of manners—the depths of -British Philistia. Hyacinth was struck, more than ever, with the fund -of life that was in her, the energy of feeling, the high, free, -reckless spirit. These things expressed themselves, as the couple -proceeded, in a hundred sallies and droll proposals, kindling the young -man’s pulses and making him conscious of the joy with which, in any -extravagance, he would bear her company to the death. She appeared to -him, at this moment, to be playing with life so audaciously and -defiantly that the end of it all would inevitably be some violent -catastrophe. - -She desired exceedingly that Hyacinth should take her to a music-hall -or a coffee-tavern; she even professed a curiosity to see the inside of -a public-house. As she still had self-possession enough to remember -that if she stayed out beyond a certain hour Madame Grandoni would -begin to worry about her, they were obliged to content themselves with -the minor ‘lark’, as the Princess was careful to designate their peep -into an establishment, glittering with polished pewter and brass, which -bore the name of the ‘Happy Land’. Hyacinth had feared that she would -be nervous after the narrow, befingered door had swung behind her, or -that, at all events, she would be disgusted at what she might see and -hear in such a place and would immediately wish to retreat. By good -luck, however, there were only two or three convivial spirits in -occupancy, and the presence of the softer sex was apparently not so -rare as to excite surprise. The softer sex, furthermore, was embodied -in a big, hard, red woman, the publican’s wife, who looked as if she -were in the habit of dealing with all sorts and mainly interested in -seeing whether even the finest put down their money before they were -served. The Princess pretended to ‘have something’, and to admire the -ornamentation of the bar; and when Hyacinth asked her in a low tone -what disposal they should make, when the great changes came, of such an -embarrassing type as that, replied, off-hand, “Oh, drown her in a -barrel of beer!” She professed, when they came out, to have been -immensely interested in the ‘Happy Land’, and was not content until -Hyacinth had fixed an evening on which they might visit a music-hall -together. She talked with him, largely, by fits and starts, about his -adventures abroad and his impressions of France and Italy; breaking -off, suddenly, with some irrelevant but almost extravagantly -appreciative allusion to Rose Muniment and Lady Aurora; then returning -with a question as to what he had seen and done, the answer to which, -however, in many cases, she was not at pains to wait for. Yet it -implied that she had paid considerable attention to what he told her -that she should be able to say, towards the end, with that fraternising -frankness which was always touching because it appeared to place her at -one’s mercy, to show that she counted on one’s having an equal loyalty, -“Well, my dear friend, you have not wasted your time; you know -everything, you have missed nothing; there are lots of things you can -tell me, and we shall have some famous talks in the winter evenings.” -This last reference was apparently to the coming season, and there was -something in the tone of quiet friendship with which it was uttered, -and which seemed to involve so many delightful things, something that, -for Hyacinth, bound them still closer together. To live out of the -world with her that way, lost among the London millions, in a queer -little cockneyfied retreat, was a refinement of intimacy, and better -even than the splendid chance he had enjoyed at Medley. - -They found Madame Grandoni sitting alone in the twilight, very patient -and peaceful, and having, after all, it was clear, accepted the -situation too completely to fidget at such a trifle as her companion’s -not coming home at a ladylike hour. She had placed herself in the back -part of the tawdry little drawing-room, which looked into a small, -smutty garden, and from the front window, which was open, the sound of -the hurdy-gurdy and the voices of the children, who were romping to its -music, came in to her through the summer dusk. The influence of London -was there, in a kind of mitigated, far-away hum, and for some reason or -other, at that moment, the place, to Hyacinth, took on the semblance of -the home of an exile—a spot and an hour to be remembered with a throb -of fondness in some danger or sorrow of after years. The old lady never -moved from her chair as she saw the Princess come in with the little -bookbinder, and her eyes rested on Hyacinth as familiarly as if she had -seen him go out with her in the afternoon. The Princess stood before -Madame Grandoni a moment, smiling. “I have done a great thing. What do -you think I have done?” she asked, as she drew off her gloves. - -“God knows! I have ceased to think!” said the old woman, staring up, -with her fat, empty hands on the arms of her chair. - -“I have come on foot from the far south of London—how many miles? four -or five—and I’m not a particle tired.” - -“_Che forza, che forza!_” murmured Madame Grandoni. “She will knock you -up, completely,” she added, turning to Hyacinth with a kind of -customary compassion. - -“Poor darling, _she_ misses the carriage,” Christina remarked, passing -out of the room. - -Madame Grandoni followed her with her eyes, and Hyacinth thought he -perceived a considerable lassitude, a plaintive bewilderment and -_hébétement_, in the old woman’s face. “Don’t you like to use cabs—I -mean hansoms?” he asked, wishing to say something comforting to her. - -“It is not true that I miss anything; my life is only too full,” she -replied. “I lived worse than this—in my bad days.” In a moment she went -on: “It’s because you are here—she doesn’t like Assunta to come.” - -“Assunta—because I am here?” Hyacinth did not immediately catch her -meaning. - -“You must have seen her Italian maid at Medley. She has kept her, and -she’s ashamed of it. When we are alone Assunta comes for her bonnet. -But she likes you to think she waits on herself.” - -“That’s a weakness—when she’s so strong! And what does Assunta think of -it?” Hyacinth asked, looking at the stuffed birds in the window, the -alabaster Cupid, the wax flowers on the chimney-piece, the florid -antimacassars on the chairs, the sentimental engravings on the walls—in -frames of _papier-mâché_ and ‘composition’, some of them enveloped in -pink tissue-paper—and the prismatic glass pendants which seemed -attached to everything. - -“She says, ‘What on earth will it matter to-morrow?’” - -“Does she mean that to-morrow the Princess will have her luxury back -again? Hasn’t she sold all her beautiful things?” - -Madame Grandoni was silent a moment. “She has kept a few. They are put -away.” - -“_A la bonne heure!_” cried Hyacinth, laughing. He sat down with the -ironical old woman; he spent nearly half an hour in desultory -conversation with her, before candles were brought in, and while -Christina was in Assunta’s hands. He noticed how resolutely the -Princess had withheld herself from any attempt to sweeten the dose she -had taken it into her head to swallow, to mitigate the ugliness of her -vulgar little house. She had respected its horrible idiosyncrasies, and -left, rigidly, in their places the gimcracks which found favour in -Madeira Crescent. She had flung no draperies over the pretentious -furniture and disposed no rugs upon the staring carpet; and it was -plainly her theory that the right way to acquaint one’s self with the -sensations of the wretched was to suffer the anguish of exasperated -taste. Presently a female servant came in—not the sceptical Assunta, -but a stunted young woman of the maid-of-all-work type, the same who -had opened the door to the pair a short time before—and informed -Hyacinth that the Princess wished him to understand that he was -expected to remain to tea. He learned from Madame Grandoni that the -custom of an early dinner, followed in the evening by the frugal repast -of the lower orders, was another of Christina’s mortifications; and -when, shortly afterwards, he saw the table laid in the back parlour, -which was also the dining-room, and observed the nature of the crockery -with which it was decorated, he perceived that whether or no her -earnestness were durable, it was at any rate, for the time, intense. -Madame Grandoni narrated to him, definitely, as the Princess had done -only in scraps, the history of the two ladies since his departure from -Medley, their relinquishment of that fine house and the sudden -arrangements Christina had made to change her mode of life, after they -had been only ten days in South Street. At the climax of the London -season, in a society which only desired to treat her as one of its -brightest ornaments, she had retired to Madeira Crescent, concealing -her address (with only partial success, of course) from every one, and -inviting a celebrated curiosity-monger to come and look at her -_bibelots_ and tell her what he would give her for the lot. In this -manner she had parted with them at a fearful sacrifice. She had wished -to avoid the nine days’ wonder of a public sale; for, to do her -justice, though she liked to be original she didn’t like to be -notorious, an occasion of vulgar chatter. What had precipitated her -determination was a remonstrance received from her husband, just after -she left Medley, on the subject of her excessive expenditure; he had -written to her that it was past a joke (as she had appeared to consider -it), and that she must really pull up. Nothing could gall her more than -an interference on that head (she maintained that she knew the exact -figure of the Prince’s income, and that her allowance was an -insignificant part of it), and she had pulled up with a vengeance, as -Hyacinth perceived. The young man divined on this occasion one of the -Princess’s sharpest anxieties (he had never thought of it before), the -danger of Casamassima’s really putting the screw on—attempting to make -her come back and live with him by withholding supplies altogether. In -this case she would find herself in a very tight place, though she had -a theory that if she should go to law about the matter the courts would -allow her a separate maintenance. This course, however, it would -scarcely be in her character to adopt; she would be more likely to -waive her right and support herself by lessons in music and the foreign -tongues, supplemented by the remnant of property that had come to her -from her mother. That she was capable of returning to the Prince some -day, through not daring to face the loss of luxury, was an idea that -could not occur to Hyacinth, in the midst of her assurances, uttered at -various times, that she positively yearned for a sacrifice; and such an -apprehension was less present to him than ever as he listened to Madame -Grandoni’s account of the manner in which her rupture with the -fashionable world had been effected. It must be added that the old lady -remarked, with a sigh, that she didn’t know how it would all end, as -some of Christina’s economies were very costly; and when Hyacinth -pressed her a little she went on to say that it was not at present the -question of complications arising from the Prince that troubled her -most, but the fear that Christina was seriously compromised by her -reckless, senseless correspondences—letters arriving from foreign -countries, from God knew whom (Christina never told her, nor did she -desire it), all about uprisings and liberations (of so much one could -be sure) and other matters that were no concern of honest folk. -Hyacinth scarcely knew what Madame Grandoni meant by this allusion, -which seemed to show that, during the last few months, the Princess had -considerably extended her revolutionary connection: he only thought of -Hoffendahl, whose name, however, he was careful not to pronounce, and -wondered whether his hostess had been writing to the Master to -intercede for _him_, to beg that he might be let off. His cheeks burned -at the thought, but he contented himself with remarking to Madame -Grandoni that their extraordinary friend enjoyed the sense of danger. -The old lady wished to know how she would enjoy the hangman’s rope -(with which, _du train dont elle allait_, she might easily make -acquaintance); and when he expressed the hope that she didn’t regard -him as a counsellor of imprudence, replied, “You, my poor child? Oh, I -saw into you at Medley. You are a simple _codino!_” - -The Princess came in to tea in a very dull gown, with a bunch of keys -at her girdle; and nothing could have suggested the thrifty housewife -better than the manner in which she superintended the laying of the -cloth and the placing on it of a little austere refreshment—a pile of -bread and butter, flanked by a pot of marmalade and a morsel of bacon. -She filled the teapot out of a little tin canister locked up in a -cupboard, of which the key worked with difficulty, and made the tea -with her own superb hands; taking pains, however, to explain to -Hyacinth that she was far from imposing that régime on Madame Grandoni, -who understood that the grocer had a standing order to supply her, for -her private consumption, with any delicacy she might desire. For -herself, she had never been so well as since she had followed a homely -diet. On Sundays they had muffins, and sometimes, for a change, a -smoked haddock, or even a fried sole. Hyacinth was lost in adoration of -the Princess’s housewifely ways and of the exquisite figure that she -made as a little _bourgeoise;_ judging that if her attempt to combine -plain living with high thinking were all a comedy, at least it was the -most finished entertainment she had yet offered him. She talked to -Madame Grandoni about Lady Aurora; described her with much drollery, -even to the details of her dress; declared that she was a delightful -creature and one of the most interesting persons she had seen for an -age; expressed to Hyacinth the conviction that she should like her -exceedingly, if Lady Aurora would only believe a little in _her_. “But -I shall like her, whether she does or not,” said the Princess. “I -always know when that’s going to happen; it isn’t so common. She will -begin very well with me, and be ‘fascinated’—isn’t that the way people -begin with me?—but she won’t understand me at all, or make out in the -least what kind of a queer fish I am, though I shall try to show her. -When she thinks she does, at last, she will give me up in disgust, and -will never know that she has understood me quite wrong. That has been -the way with most of the people I have liked; they have run away from -me _à toutes jambes_. Oh, I have inspired aversions!” laughed the -Princess, handing Hyacinth his cup of tea. He recognised it by the -aroma as a mixture not inferior to that of which he had partaken at -Medley. “I have never succeeded in knowing any one who would do me -good; for by the time I began to improve, under their influence, they -could put up with me no longer.” - -“You told me you were going to visit the poor. I don’t understand what -your Gräfin was doing there,” said Madame Grandoni. - -“She had come out of charity—in the same way as I. She evidently goes -about immensely over there; I shall entreat her to take me with her.” - -“I thought you had promised to let me be your guide, in those -explorations,” Hyacinth remarked. - -The Princess looked at him a moment. “Dear Mr Robinson, Lady Aurora -knows more than you.” - -“There have been times, surely, when you have complimented me on my -knowledge.” - -“Oh, I mean more about the lower classes!” the Princess exclaimed; and, -oddly enough, there was a sense in which Hyacinth was unable to deny -the allegation. He presently returned to something she had said a -moment before, declaring that it had not been the way with Madame -Grandoni and him to take to their heels, and to this she replied, “Oh, -you’ll run away yet; don’t be afraid!” - -“I think that if I had been capable of quitting you I should have done -it by this time; I have neglected such opportunities,” the old lady -sighed. Hyacinth now perceived that her eye had quite lost its ancient -twinkle; she was troubled about many things. - -“It is true that if you didn’t leave me when I was rich, it wouldn’t -look well for you to leave me at present,” the Princess suggested; and -before Madame Grandoni could reply to this speech she said to Hyacinth, -“I liked the man, your friend Muniment, so much for saying he wouldn’t -come to see me. ‘What good would it do him,’ poor fellow? What good -would it do him, indeed? You were not so difficult: you held off a -little and pleaded obstacles, but one could see you would come down,” -she continued, covering her guest with her mystifying smile. “Besides, -I was smarter then, more splendid; I had on gewgaws and suggested -worldly lures. I must have been more attractive. But I liked him for -refusing,” she repeated; and of the many words she uttered that evening -it was these that made most impression on Hyacinth. He remained for an -hour after tea, for on rising from the table she had gone to the piano -(she had not deprived herself of this resource, and had a humble -instrument, of the so-called ‘cottage’ kind) and begun to play in a -manner that reminded him of her playing the day of his arrival at -Medley. The night had grown close, and as the piano was in the front -room he opened, at her request, the window that looked into Madeira -Crescent. Beneath it assembled the youth of both sexes, the dingy -loiterers who had clustered an hour before around the hurdy-gurdy. But -on this occasion they did not caper about; they remained still, leaning -against the area-rails and listening to the wondrous music. When -Hyacinth told the Princess of the spell she had thrown upon them she -declared that it made her singularly happy; she added that she was -really glad, almost proud, of her day; she felt as if she had begun to -do something for the people. Just before he took leave she encountered -some occasion for saying to him that she was certain the man in Audley -Court wouldn’t come; and Hyacinth forbore contradict her, because he -believed that in fact he wouldn’t. - - - - -XXXIV - - -How right she had been to say that Lady Aurora would probably be -fascinated at first was proved the first time Hyacinth went to Belgrave -Square, a visit he was led to pay very promptly, by a deep sense of the -obligations under which her ladyship had placed him at the time of -Pinnie’s death. The circumstances in which he found her were quite the -same as those of his visit the year before; she was spending the -unfashionable season in her father’s empty house, amid a desert of -brown holland and the dormant echoes of heavy conversation. He had seen -so much of her during Pinnie’s illness that he felt (or had felt then) -that he knew her almost intimately—that they had become real friends, -almost comrades, and might meet henceforth without reserves or -ceremonies; yet she was as fluttered and awkward as she had been on the -other occasion: not distant, but entangled in new coils of shyness and -apparently unmindful of what had happened to draw them closer. -Hyacinth, however, always liked extremely to be with her, for she was -the person in the world who quietly, delicately, and as a matter of -course treated him most like a gentleman. She had never said the -handsome, flattering things to him that had fallen from the lips of the -Princess, and never explained to him her view of him; but her timid, -cursory, receptive manner, which took all sorts of equalities for -granted, was a homage to the idea of his refinement. It was in this -manner that she now conversed with him on the subject of his foreign -travels; he found himself discussing the political indications of Paris -and the Ruskinian theories of Venice, in Belgrave Square, quite like -one of the cosmopolites bred in that region. It took him, however, but -a few minutes to perceive that Lady Aurora’s heart was not in these -considerations; the deferential smile she bent upon him, while she sat -with her head thrust forward and her long hands clasped in her lap, was -slightly mechanical, her attitude perfunctory. When he gave her his -views of some of the _arrière-pensées_ of _M. Gambetta_ (for he had -views not altogether, as he thought, deficient in originality), she did -not interrupt, for she never interrupted; but she took advantage of his -first pause to say, quickly, irrelevantly, “Will the Princess -Casamassima come again to Audley Court?” - -“I have no doubt she will come again, if they would like her to.” - -“I do hope she will. She is very wonderful,” Lady Aurora continued. - -“Oh, yes, she is very wonderful. I think she gave Rosy pleasure,” said -Hyacinth. - -“Rosy can talk of nothing else. It would really do her great good to -see the Princess again. Don’t you think she is different from anybody -that one has ever seen?” But her ladyship added, before waiting for an -answer to this, “I liked her quite extraordinarily.” - -“She liked you just as much. I know it would give her great pleasure if -you should go to see her.” - -“Fancy!” exclaimed Lady Aurora; but she instantly obtained the -Princess’s address from Hyacinth, and made a note of it in a small, -shabby book. She mentioned that the card the Princess had given her in -Camberwell proved to contain no address, and Hyacinth recognised that -vagary—the Princess was so off-hand. Then she said, hesitating a -little, “Does she really care for the poor?” - -“If she doesn’t,” the young man replied, “I can’t imagine what interest -she has in pretending to.” - -“If she does, she’s very remarkable—she deserves great honour.” - -“You really care; why is she more remarkable than you?” Hyacinth -demanded. - -“Oh, it’s very different—she’s so wonderfully attractive!” Lady Aurora -replied, making, recklessly, the only allusion to the oddity of her own -appearance in which Hyacinth was destined to hear her indulge. She -became conscious of it the moment she had spoken, and said, quickly, to -turn it off, “I should like to talk with her, but I’m rather afraid. -She’s tremendously clever.” - -“Ah, what she is you’ll find out when you know her!” Hyacinth sighed, -expressively. - -His hostess looked at him a little, and then, vaguely, exclaimed, “How -very interesting!” The next moment she continued, “She might do so many -other things; she might charm the world.” - -“She does that, whatever she does,” said Hyacinth, smiling. “It’s all -by the way; it needn’t interfere.” - -“That’s what I mean, that most other people would be content—beautiful -as she is. There’s great merit, when you give up something.” - -“She has known a great many bad people, and she wants to know some -good,” Hyacinth rejoined. “Therefore be sure to go to her soon.” - -“She looks as if she had known nothing bad since she was born,” said -Lady Aurora, rapturously. “I can’t imagine her going into all the -dreadful places that she would have to.” - -“You have gone into them, and it hasn’t hurt you,” Hyacinth suggested. - -“How do you know that? My family think it has.” - -“You make me glad that I haven’t a family,” said the young man. - -“And the Princess—has she no one?” - -“Ah, yes, she has a husband. But she doesn’t live with him.” - -“Is he one of the bad persons?” asked Lady Aurora, as earnestly as a -child listening to a tale. - -“Well, I don’t like to abuse him, because he is down.” - -“If I were a man, I should be in love with her,” said Lady Aurora. Then -she pursued, “I wonder whether we might work together.” - -“That’s exactly what she hopes.” - -“I won’t show her the worst places,” said her ladyship, smiling. - -To which Hyacinth replied, “I suspect you will do what every one else -has done, namely, exactly what she wants!” Before he took leave he said -to her, “Do you know whether Paul Muniment liked the Princess?” - -Lady Aurora meditated a moment, apparently with some intensity. “I -think he considered her extraordinarily beautiful—the most beautiful -person he had ever seen.” - -“Does he still believe her to be a humbug?” - -“Still?” asked Lady Aurora, as if she didn’t understand. - -“I mean that that was the impression apparently made upon him last -winter by my description of her.” - -“Oh, I’m sure he thinks her tremendously plucky!” That was all the -satisfaction Hyacinth got just then as to Muniment’s estimate of the -Princess. - -A few days afterward he returned to Madeira Crescent, in the evening, -the only time he was free, the Princess having given him a general -invitation to take tea with her. He felt that he ought to be discreet -in acting upon it, though he was not without reasons that would have -warranted him in going early and often. He had a peculiar dread of her -growing tired of him—boring herself in his society; yet at the same -time he had rather a sharp vision of her boring herself without him, in -the dull summer evenings, when even Paddington was out of town. He -wondered what she did, what visitors dropped in, what pastimes she -cultivated, what saved her from the sudden vagary of throwing up the -whole of her present game. He remembered that there was a complete side -of her life with which he was almost unacquainted (Lady Marchant and -her daughters, at Medley, and three or four other persons who had -called while he was there, being, in his experience, the only -illustrations of it), and knew not to what extent she had, in spite of -her transformation, preserved relations with her old friends; but he -could easily imagine a day when she should discover that what she found -in Madeira Crescent was less striking than what she missed. Going -thither a second time Hyacinth perceived that he had done her great -injustice; she was full of resources, she had never been so happy, she -found time to read, to write, to commune with her piano, and above all -to think—a delightful detachment from the invasive, vulgar, gossiping, -distracting world she had known hitherto. The only interruption to her -felicity was that she received quantities of notes from her former -acquaintance, challenging her to give some account of herself, to say -what had become of her, to come and stay with them in the country; but -with these importunate missives she took a very short way—she simply -burned them, without answering. She told Hyacinth immediately that Lady -Aurora had called on her, two days before, at an hour when she was not -in, and she had straightway addressed her, in return, an invitation to -come to tea, any evening, at eight o’clock. That was the way the people -in Madeira Crescent entertained each other (the Princess knew -everything about them now, and was eager to impart her knowledge); and -the evening, she was sure, would be much more convenient to Lady -Aurora, whose days were filled with good works, peregrinations of -charity. Her ladyship arrived ten minutes after Hyacinth; she told the -Princess that her invitation had been expressed in a manner so -irresistible that she was unwilling to wait more than a day to respond. -She was introduced to Madame Grandoni, and tea was immediately served; -Hyacinth being gratefully conscious the while of the super-subtle way -in which Lady Aurora forbore to appear bewildered at meeting him in -such society. She knew he frequented it, and she had been witness of -his encounter with the Princess in Audley Court; but it might have -startled her to have ocular evidence of the footing on which he stood. -Everything the Princess did or said, at this time, had for effect, -whatever its purpose, to make her seem more rare and fine; and she had -seldom given him greater pleasure than by the exquisite art she put -forward to win Lady Aurora’s confidence, to place herself under the -pure and elevating influence of the noble spinster. She made herself -small and simple; she spoke of her own little aspirations and efforts; -she appealed and persuaded; she laid her white hand on Lady Aurora’s, -gazing at her with an interest which was evidently deeply sincere, but -which, all the same, derived half its effect from the contrast between -the quality of her beauty, the whole air of her person, and the hard, -dreary problems of misery and crime. It was touching, and Lady Aurora -was touched; that was very evident as they sat together on the sofa, -after tea, and the Princess protested that she only wanted to know what -her new friend was doing—what she had done for years—in order that she -might go and do likewise. She asked personal questions with a -directness that was sometimes embarrassing to the subject—Hyacinth had -seen that habit in her from the first—and Lady Aurora, though she was -charmed and excited, was not quite comfortable at being so publicly -probed and sounded. The public was formed of Madame Grandoni and -Hyacinth; but the old lady (whose intercourse with the visitor had -consisted almost wholly of watching her with a quiet, speculative -anxiety) presently shuffled away, and was heard, through the thin -partitions that prevailed in Madeira Crescent, to ascend to her own -apartment. It seemed to Hyacinth that he ought also, in delicacy, to -retire, and this was his intention, from one moment to the other; to -him, certainly (and the second time she met him), Lady Aurora had made -as much of her confession as he had a right to look for. After that one -little flash of egotism he had never again heard her allude to her own -feelings or circumstances. - -“Do you stay in town, like this, at such a season, on purpose to attend -to your work?” the Princess asked; and there was something archly -rueful in the tone in which she made this inquiry, as if it cost her -just a pang to find that in taking such a line she herself had not been -so original as she hoped. “Mr Robinson has told me about your big house -in Belgrave Square—you must let me come and see you there. Nothing -would make me so happy as that you should allow me to help you a -little—how little soever. Do you like to be helped, or do you like to -go alone? Are you very independent, or do you need to look up, to -cling, to lean upon some one? Excuse me if I ask impertinent questions; -we speak that way—rather, you know—in Rome, where I have spent a large -part of my life. That idea of your being there alone in your great dull -house, with all your charities and devotions, makes a kind of picture -in my mind; it’s quaint and touching, like something in some English -novel. Englishwomen are so accomplished, are they not? I am really a -foreigner, you know, and though I have lived here a while it takes one -some time to find those things out _au juste_. Therefore, is your work -for the people only one of your occupations, or is it everything, does -it absorb your whole life? That’s what I should like it to be for me! -Do your family like you to throw yourself into all this, or have you -had to brave a certain amount of ridicule? I dare say you have; that’s -where you English are strong, in braving ridicule. They have to do it -so often, haven’t they? I don’t know whether I could do it. I never -tried; but with you I would brave anything. Are your family clever and -sympathetic? No? the kind of thing that one’s family generally is? Ah, -well, dear lady, we must make a little family together. Are you -encouraged or disgusted? Do you go on doggedly, or have you any faith, -any great idea, that lifts you up? Are you religious, now, _par -exemple?_ Do you do your work in connection with any ecclesiasticism, -any missions, or priests or sisters? I’m a Catholic, you know—but so -little! I shouldn’t mind in the least joining hands with any one who is -really doing anything. I express myself awkwardly, but perhaps you know -what I mean. Possibly you don’t know that I am one of those who believe -that a great social cataclysm is destined to take place, and that it -can’t make things worse than they are already. I believe, in a word, in -the people doing something for themselves (the others will never do -anything for them), and I am quite willing to help them. If that shocks -you I shall be immensely disappointed, because there is something in -the impression you make on me that seems to say that you haven’t the -usual prejudices, and that if certain things were to happen you -wouldn’t be afraid. You are shy, are you not?—but you are not timorous. -I suppose that if you thought the inequalities and oppressions and -miseries which now exist were a necessary part of life, and were going -on for ever, you wouldn’t be interested in those people over the river -(the bedridden girl and her brother, I mean); because Mr Robinson tells -me that they are advanced socialists—or at least the brother is. -Perhaps you’ll say that you don’t care for him; the sister, to your -mind, being the remarkable one. She is, indeed, a perfect little _femme -du monde_—she talks so much better than most of the people in society. -I hope you don’t mind my saying that, because I have an idea that you -are not in society. You can imagine whether I am! Haven’t you judged -it, like me, condemned it, and given it up? Are you not sick of the -egotism, the snobbery, the meanness, the frivolity, the immorality, the -hypocrisy? Isn’t there a great resemblance in our situation? I don’t -mean in our nature, for you are far better than I shall ever be. Aren’t -you quite divinely good? When I see a woman of your sort (not that I -often do!) I try to be a little less bad. You have helped hundreds, -thousands, of people; you must help me!” - -These remarks, which I have strung together, did not, of course, fall -from the Princess’s lips in an uninterrupted stream; they were arrested -and interspersed by frequent inarticulate responses and embarrassed -protests. Lady Aurora shrank from them even while they gratified her, -blinking and fidgeting in the brilliant, direct light of her hostess’s -attentions. I need not repeat her answers, the more so as they none of -them arrived at completion, but passed away into nervous laughter and -averted looks, the latter directed at the ceiling, the floor, the -windows, and appearing to constitute a kind of entreaty to some occult -or supernatural power that the conversation should become more -impersonal. In reply to the Princess’s allusion to the convictions -prevailing in the Muniment family, she said that the brother and sister -thought differently about public questions, but were of the same mind -with regard to persons of the upper class taking an interest in the -working people, attempting to enter into their life: they held it was a -great mistake. At this information the Princess looked much -disappointed; she wished to know if the Muniments thought it was -impossible to do them any good. “Oh, I mean a mistake from _our_ point -of view,” said Lady Aurora. “They wouldn’t do it in our place; they -think we had much better occupy ourselves with our own pleasures.” And -as the Princess stared, not comprehending, she went on: “Rosy thinks we -have a right to our own pleasures under all circumstances, no matter -how badly off the poor may be; and her brother takes the ground that we -will not have them long, and that in view of what may happen we are -great fools not to make the most of them.” - -“I see, I see. That is very strong,” the Princess murmured, in a tone -of high appreciation. - -“I dare say. But all the same, whatever is going to come, one _must_ do -something.” - -“You do think, then, that something is going to come?” said the -Princess. - -“Oh, immense changes, I dare say. But I don’t belong to anything, you -know.” - -The Princess hesitated a moment. “No more do I. But many people do. Mr -Robinson, for instance.” And she gave Hyacinth a familiar smile. - -“Oh, if the changes depend on me!” the young man exclaimed, blushing. - -“They won’t set the Thames on fire—I quite agree to that!” - -Lady Aurora had the manner of not considering that she had a warrant -for going into the question of Hyacinth’s affiliations; so she stared -abstractly at the piano and in a moment remarked to the Princess, “I am -sure you play awfully well; I should like so much to hear you.” - -Hyacinth felt that their hostess thought this _banal_. She had not -asked Lady Aurora to spend the evening with her simply that they should -fall back on the resources of the vulgar. Nevertheless, she replied -with perfect good-nature that she should be delighted to play; only -there was a thing she should like much better, namely, that Lady Aurora -should narrate her life. - -“Oh, don’t talk about mine; yours, yours!” her ladyship cried, -colouring with eagerness and, for the first time since her arrival, -indulging in the free gesture of laying her hand upon that of the -Princess. - -“With so many narratives in the air, I certainly had better take myself -off,” said Hyacinth, and the Princess offered no opposition to his -departure. She and Lady Aurora were evidently on the point of striking -up a tremendous intimacy, and as he turned this idea over, walking -away, it made him sad, for strange, vague reasons, which he could not -have expressed. - - - - -XXXV - - -The Sunday following this occasion Hyacinth spent almost entirely with -the Muniments, with whom, since his return to his work, he had been -able to have no long, fraternising talk, of the kind that had marked -their earlier relations. The present, however, was a happy day; it -refreshed exceedingly the sentiments with which he now regarded the -inscrutable Paul. The warm, bright September weather gilded even the -dinginess of Audley Court, and while, in the morning, Rosy’s brother -and their visitor sat beside her sofa, the trio amused themselves with -discussing a dozen different plans for giving a festive turn to the -day. There had been moments, in the last six months, when Hyacinth had -the sense that he should never again be able to enter into such ideas -as that, and these moments had been connected with the strange -perversion taking place in his mental image of the man whose hardness -(of course he was obliged to be hard) he had never expected to see -turned upon a passionate admirer. But now, for the hour at least, the -darkness had cleared away, and Paul’s company was in itself a -comfortable, inspiring influence. He had never been kinder, jollier, -safer, as it were; it had never appeared more desirable to hold fast to -him and trust him. Less than ever would an observer have guessed there -was a reason why the two young men might have winced as they looked at -each other. Rosy naturally took part in the question debated between -her companions—the question whether they should limit their excursion -to a walk in Hyde Park; should embark at Lambeth pier on the penny -steamer, which would convey them to Greenwich; or should start -presently for Waterloo station and go thence by train to Hampton Court. -Miss Muniment had visited none of these places, but she contributed -largely to the discussion, for which she seemed perfectly qualified; -talked about the crowd on the steamer, and the inconvenience arising -from drunken persons on the return, quite as if she had suffered from -these drawbacks; said that the view from the hill at Greenwich was -terribly smoky, and at that season the fashionable world—half the -attraction, of course—was wholly absent from Hyde Park; and expressed -strong views in favour of Wolsey’s old palace, with whose history she -appeared intimately acquainted. She threw herself into her brother’s -holiday with eagerness and glee, and Hyacinth marvelled again at the -stoicism of the hard, bright creature, polished, as it were, by pain, -whose imagination appeared never to concern itself with her own -privations, so that she could lie in her close little room the whole -golden afternoon, without bursting into sobs as she saw the western -sunbeams slant upon the shabby, ugly, familiar paper of her wall and -thought of the far-off fields and gardens which she should never see. -She talked immensely of the Princess, for whose beauty, grace and -benevolence she could find no sufficient praise; declaring that of all -the fair faces that had ever hung over her couch (and Rosy spoke as -from immense opportunities for comparison) she had far the noblest and -most refreshing. She seemed to make a kind of light in the room and to -leave it behind her after she had gone. Rosy could call up her image as -she could hum a tune she had heard, and she expressed in her quaint, -particular way how, as she lay there in the quiet hours, she repeated -over to herself the beautiful air. The Princess might be anything, she -might be royal or imperial, and Rosy was well aware how little _she_ -should complain of the dullness of her life when such apparitions as -that could pop in any day. She made a difference in the place—it gave -it a kind of finish for her to have come there; if it was good enough -for a princess, it was good enough for _her_, and she hoped she -shouldn’t hear again of Paul’s wishing her to move out of a room with -which she should have henceforth such delightful associations. The -Princess had found her way to Audley Court, and perhaps she wouldn’t -find it to another lodging—they couldn’t expect her to follow them -about London at their pleasure; and at any rate she had evidently been -very much struck with the little room, so that if they were quiet and -patient who could say but the fancy would take her to send them a bit -of carpet, or a picture, or even a mirror with a gilt frame, to make it -a bit more tasteful? Rosy’s transitions from pure enthusiasm to the -imaginative calculation of benefit were performed with a serenity -peculiar to herself. Her chatter had so much spirit and point that it -always commanded attention, but to-day Hyacinth was less tolerant of it -than usual, because so long as it lasted Muniment held his tongue, and -what he had been anxious about was much more Paul’s impression of the -Princess. Rosy made no remark to him on the monopoly he had so long -enjoyed of this wonderful lady; she had always had the manner of a kind -of indulgent incredulity about Hyacinth’s social adventures, and he saw -the day might easily come when she would begin to talk of the Princess -as if she herself had been the first to discover her. She had much to -say, however, about the nature of the acquaintance Lady Aurora had -formed with her, and she was mainly occupied with the glory she had -drawn upon herself by bringing two such exalted persons together. She -fancied them alluding, in the great world, to the occasion on which ‘we -first met, at Miss Muniment’s, you know’; and she related how Lady -Aurora, who had been in Audley Court the day before, had declared that -she owed her a debt she could never repay. The two ladies had liked -each other more, almost, than they liked any one; and wasn’t it a rare -picture to think of them moving hand in hand, like twin roses, through -the bright upper air? Muniment inquired, in rather a coarse, -unsympathetic way, what the mischief she ever wanted of _her;_ which -led Hyacinth to demand in return, “What do you mean? What does who want -of whom?” - -“What does the beauty want of _our_ poor lady? She has a totally -different stamp. I don’t know much about women, but I can see that.” - -“How do you mean—a different stamp? They both have the stamp of their -rank!” cried Rosy. - -“Who can ever tell what women want, at any time?” Hyacinth said, with -the off-handedness of a man of the world. - -“Well, my boy, if you don’t know any more than I, you disappoint me! -Perhaps if we wait long enough she will tell us some day herself.” - -“Tell you what she wants of Lady Aurora?” - -“I don’t mind about Lady Aurora so much; but what in the name of long -journeys does she want with _us?_” - -“Don’t you think you’re worth a long journey?” Rosy asked, gaily. “If -you were not my brother, which is handy for seeing you, and I were not -confined to my sofa, I would go from one end of England to the other to -make your acquaintance! He’s in love with the Princess,” she went on, -to Hyacinth, “and he asks those senseless questions to cover it up. -What does any one want of anything?” - -It was decided, at last, that the two young men should go down to -Greenwich, and after they had partaken of bread and cheese with Rosy -they embarked on a penny steamer. The boat was densely crowded, and -they leaned, rather squeezed together, in the fore part of it, against -the rail of the deck, and watched the big black fringe of the yellow -stream. The river was always fascinating to Hyacinth. The mystified -entertainment which, as a child, he had found in all the aspects of -London came back to him from the murky scenery of its banks and the -sordid agitation of its bosom: the great arches and pillars of the -bridges, where the water rushed, and the funnels tipped, and sounds -made an echo, and there seemed an overhanging of interminable -processions; the miles of ugly wharves and warehouses; the lean -protrusions of chimney, mast, and crane; the painted signs of grimy -industries, staring from shore to shore; the strange, flat, obstructive -barges, straining and bumping on some business as to which everything -was vague but that it was remarkably dirty; the clumsy coasters and -colliers, which thickened as one went down; the small, loafing boats, -whose occupants, somehow, looking up from their oars at the steamer, as -they rocked in the oily undulations of its wake, appeared profane and -sarcastic; in short, all the grinding, puffing, smoking, splashing -activity of the turbid flood. In the good-natured crowd, amid the fumes -of vile tobacco, beneath the shower of sooty particles, and to the -accompaniment of a bagpipe of a dingy Highlander, who sketched -occasionally a smothered reel, Hyacinth forbore to speak to his -companion of what he had most at heart; but later, as they lay on the -brown, crushed grass, on one of the slopes of Greenwich Park, and saw -the river stretch away and shine beyond the pompous colonnades of the -hospital, he asked him whether there was any truth in what Rosy had -said about his being sweet on their friend the Princess. He said ‘their -friend’ on purpose, speaking as if, now that she had been twice to -Audley Court, Muniment might be regarded as knowing her almost as well -as he himself did. He wished to conjure away the idea that he was -jealous of Paul, and if he desired information on the point I have -mentioned this was because it still made him almost as uncomfortable as -it had done at first that his comrade should take the scoffing view. He -didn’t easily see such a fellow as Muniment wheel about from one day to -the other, but he had been present at the most exquisite exhibition he -had ever observed the Princess make of that divine power of -conciliation which was not perhaps in social intercourse the art she -chiefly exercised but was certainly the most wonderful of her secrets, -and it would be remarkable indeed that a sane young man should not have -been affected by it. It was familiar to Hyacinth that Muniment was not -easily touched by women, but this might perfectly have been the case -without detriment to the Princess’s ability to work a miracle. The -companions had wandered through the great halls and courts of the -hospital; had gazed up at the glories of the famous painted chamber and -admired the long and lurid series of the naval victories of -England—Muniment remarking to his friend that he supposed he had seen -the match to all that in foreign parts, offensive little travelled -beggar that he was. They had not ordered a fish-dinner either at the -‘Trafalgar’ or the ‘Ship’ (having a frugal vision of tea and shrimps -with Rosy, on their return), but they had laboured up and down the -steep undulations of the shabby, charming park; made advances to the -tame deer and seen them amble foolishly away; watched the young of both -sexes, hilarious and red in the face, roll in promiscuous entanglement -over the slopes; gazed at the little brick observatory, perched on one -of the knolls, which sets the time of English history and in which -Hyacinth could see that his companion took a kind of technical -interest; wandered out of one of the upper gates and admired the -trimness of the little villas at Blackheath, where Muniment declared -that it was his idea of supreme social success to be able to live. He -pointed out two or three small, semi-detached houses, faced with -stucco, and with ‘Mortimer Lodge’ or ‘The Sycamores’ inscribed upon the -gate-posts, and Hyacinth guessed that these were the sort of place -where he would like to end his days—in high, pure air, with a genteel -window for Rosy’s couch and a cheerful view of suburban excursions. It -was when they came back into the park that, being rather hot and a -little satiated, they stretched themselves under a tree and Hyacinth -yielded to his curiosity. - -“Sweet on her—sweet on her, my boy!” said Muniment. “I might as well be -sweet on the dome of St Paul’s, which I just make out off there.” - -“The dome of St Paul’s doesn’t come to see you, and doesn’t ask you to -return the visit.” - -“Oh, I don’t return visits—I’ve got a lot of jobs of my own to do. If I -don’t put myself out for the Princess, isn’t that a sufficient answer -to your question?” - -“I’m by no means sure,” said Hyacinth. “If you went to see her, simply -and civilly, because she asked you, I shouldn’t regard it as a proof -that you had taken a fancy to her. Your hanging off is more suspicious; -it may mean that you don’t trust yourself—that you are in danger of -falling in love if you go in for a more intimate acquaintance.” - -“It’s a rum job, your wanting me to make up to her. I shouldn’t think -it would suit your book,” Muniment rejoined, staring at the sky, with -his hands clasped under his head. - -“Do you suppose I’m afraid of you?” his companion asked. “Besides,” -Hyacinth added in a moment, “why the devil should I care, now?” - -Muniment, for a little, made no rejoinder; he turned over on his side, -and with his arm resting on the ground leaned his head on his hand. -Hyacinth felt his eyes on his face, but he also felt himself colouring, -and didn’t meet them. He had taken a private vow never to indulge, to -Muniment, in certain inauspicious references, and the words he had just -spoken had slipped out of his mouth too easily. “What do you mean by -that?” Paul demanded, at last; and when Hyacinth looked at him he saw -nothing but his companion’s strong, fresh, irresponsible face. -Muniment, before speaking, had had time to guess what he meant by it. - -Suddenly, an impulse that he had never known before, or rather that he -had always resisted, took possession of him. There was a mystery which -it concerned his happiness to clear up, and he became unconscious of -his scruples, of his pride, of the strength that he had believed to be -in him—the strength for going through his work and passing away without -a look behind. He sat forward on the grass, with his arms round his -knees, and bent upon Muniment a face lighted up by his difficulties. -For a minute the two men’s eyes met with extreme clearness, and then -Hyacinth exclaimed, “What an extraordinary fellow you are!” - -“You’ve hit it there!” said Muniment, smiling. - -“I don’t want to make a scene, or work on your feelings, but how will -you like it when I’m strung up on the gallows?” - -“You mean for Hoffendahl’s job? That’s what you were alluding to just -now?” Muniment lay there, in the same attitude, chewing a long blade of -dry grass, which he held to his lips with his free hand. - -“I didn’t mean to speak of it; but after all, why shouldn’t it come up? -Naturally, I have thought of it a good deal.” - -“What good does that do?” Muniment returned. “I hoped you didn’t, and I -noticed you never spoke of it. You don’t like it; you would rather -throw it up,” he added. - -There was not in his voice the faintest note of irony or contempt, no -sign whatever that he passed judgment on such a tendency. He spoke in a -quiet, human, memorising manner, as if it had originally quite entered -into his thought to allow for weak regrets. Nevertheless the complete -reasonableness of his tone itself cast a chill on his companion’s -spirit; it was like the touch of a hand at once very firm and very -soft, but strangely cold. - -“I don’t want in the least to throw the business up, but did you -suppose I liked it?” Hyacinth asked, with rather a forced laugh. - -“My dear fellow, how could I tell? You like a lot of things I don’t. -You like excitement and emotion and change, you like remarkable -sensations, whereas I go in for a holy calm, for sweet repose.” - -“If you object, for yourself, to change, and are so fond of still -waters, why have you associated yourself with a revolutionary -movement?” Hyacinth demanded, with a little air of making rather a good -point. - -“Just for that reason!” Muniment answered, with a smile. “Isn’t our -revolutionary movement as quiet as the grave? Who knows, who suspects, -anything like the full extent of it?” - -“I see—you take only the quiet parts!” - -In speaking these words Hyacinth had had no derisive intention, but a -moment later he flushed with the sense that they had a sufficiently -petty sound. Muniment, however, appeared to see no offence in them, and -it was in the gentlest, most suggestive way, as if he had been thinking -over what might comfort his comrade, that he replied, “There’s one -thing you ought to remember—that it’s quite on the cards it may never -come off.” - -“I don’t desire that reminder,” Hyacinth said; “and, moreover, you must -let me say that, somehow, I don’t easily fancy _you_ mixed up with -things that don’t come off. Anything you have to do with will come off, -I think.” - -Muniment reflected a moment, as if his little companion were charmingly -ingenious. “Surely, I have nothing to do with this idea of -Hoffendahl’s.” - -“With the execution, perhaps not; but how about the conception? You -seemed to me to have a great deal to do with it the night you took me -to see him.” - -Muniment changed his position, raising himself, and in a moment he was -seated, Turk-fashion, beside his mate. He put his arm over his shoulder -and held him, studying his face; and then, in the kindest manner in the -world, he remarked, “There are three or four definite chances in your -favour.” - -“I don’t want comfort, you know,” said Hyacinth, with his eyes on the -distant atmospheric mixture that represented London. - -“What the devil _do_ you want?” Muniment asked, still holding him, and -with perfect good-humour. - -“Well, to get inside of _you_ a little; to know how a chap feels when -he’s going to part with his best friend.” - -“To part with him?” Muniment repeated. - -“I mean, putting it at the worst.” - -“I should think you would know by yourself, if you’re going to part -with me!” - -At this Hyacinth prostrated himself, tumbled over on the grass, on his -face, which he buried in his arms. He remained in this attitude, saying -nothing, for a long time; and while he lay there he thought, with a -sudden, quick flood of association, of many strange things. Most of -all, he had the sense of the brilliant, charming day; the warm -stillness, touched with cries of amusement; the sweetness of loafing -there, in an interval of work, with a friend who was a tremendously -fine fellow, even if he didn’t understand the inexpressible. Muniment -also kept silent, and Hyacinth perceived that he was unaffectedly -puzzled. He wanted now to relieve him, so that he pulled himself -together again and turned round, saying the first thing he could think -of, in relation to the general subject of their conversation, that -would carry them away from the personal question: “I have asked you -before, and you have told me, but somehow I have never quite grasped it -(so I just touch on the matter again), exactly what good you think it -will do.” - -“This idea of Hoffendahl’s? You must remember that as yet we know only -very vaguely what it is. It is difficult, therefore, to measure closely -the importance it may have, and I don’t think I have ever, in talking -with you, pretended to fix that importance. I don’t suppose it will -matter immensely whether your own engagement is carried out or not; but -if it is it will have been a detail in a scheme of which the general -effect will be decidedly useful. I believe, and you pretend to believe, -though I am not sure you do, in the advent of the democracy. It will -help the democracy to get possession that the classes that keep them -down shall be admonished from time to time that they have a very -definite and very determined intention of doing so. An immense deal -will depend upon that. Hoffendahl is a capital admonisher.” - -Hyacinth listened to this explanation with an expression of interest -that was not feigned; and after a moment he rejoined, “When you say you -believe in the democracy, I take for granted you mean you positively -wish for their coming into power, as I have always supposed. Now what I -really have never understood is this—why you should desire to put -forward a lot of people whom you regard, almost without exception, as -donkeys.” - -“Ah, my dear lad,” laughed Muniment, “when one undertakes to meddle in -human affairs one must deal with human material. The upper classes have -the longest ears.” - -“I have heard you say that you were working for an equality in human -conditions, to abolish the immemorial inequality. What you want, then, -for all mankind is a similar _nuance_ of asininity.” - -“That’s very clever; did you pick it up in France? The low tone of our -fellow-mortals is a result of bad conditions; it is the conditions I -want to alter. When those that have no start to speak of have a good -one, it is but fair to infer that they will go further. I want to try -them, you know.” - -“But why equality?” Hyacinth asked. “Somehow, that word doesn’t say so -much to me as it used to. Inequality—inequality! I don’t know whether -it’s by dint of repeating it over to myself, but _that_ doesn’t shock -me as it used.” - -“They didn’t put you up to that in France, I’m sure!” Muniment -exclaimed. “Your point of view has changed; you have risen in the -world.” - -“Risen? Good God, what have I risen to?” - -“True enough; you were always a bloated little swell!” And Muniment -gave his young friend a sociable slap on the back. There was a -momentary bitterness in its being imputed to such a one as Hyacinth, -even in joke, that he had taken sides with the fortunate ones of the -earth, and he had it on his tongue’s end to ask his friend if he had -never guessed what his proud titles were—the bastard of a murderess, -spawned in a gutter, out of which he had been picked by a sewing-girl. -But his life-long reserve on this point was a habit not easily broken, -and before such an inquiry could flash through it Muniment had gone on: -“If you’ve ceased to believe we can do anything, it will be rather -awkward, you know.” - -“I don’t know what I believe, God help me!” Hyacinth remarked, in a -tone of an effect so lugubrious that Paul gave one of his longest, most -boyish-sounding laughs. And he added, “I don’t want you to think I have -ceased to care for the people. What am I but one of the poorest and -meanest of them?” - -“You, my boy? You’re a duke in disguise, and so I thought the first -time I ever saw you. That night I took you to Hoffendahl you had a -little way with you that made me forget it; I mean that your disguise -happened to be better than usual. As regards caring for the people, -there’s surely no obligation at all,” Muniment continued. “I wouldn’t -if I could help it—I promise you that. It all depends on what you see. -The way _I_’ve used my eyes in this abominable metropolis has led to my -seeing that present arrangements won’t do. They won’t do,” he repeated, -placidly. - -“Yes, I see that, too,” said Hyacinth, with the same dolefulness that -had marked his tone a moment before—a dolefulness begotten of the -rather helpless sense that, whatever he saw, he saw (and this was -always the case) so many other things beside. He saw the immeasurable -misery of the people, and yet he saw all that had been, as it were, -rescued and redeemed from it: the treasures, the felicities, the -splendours, the successes, of the world. All this took the form, -sometimes, to his imagination, of a vast, vague, dazzling presence, an -irradiation of light from objects undefined, mixed with the atmosphere -of Paris and of Venice. He presently added that a hundred things -Muniment had told him about the foul horrors of the worst districts of -London, pictures of incredible shame and suffering that he had put -before him, came back to him now, with the memory of the passion they -had kindled at the time. - -“Oh, I don’t want you to go by what I have told you; I want you to go -by what you have seen yourself. I remember there were things you told -me that weren’t bad in their way.” And at this Paul Muniment sprang to -his feet, as if their conversation had drawn to an end, or they must at -all events be thinking of their homeward way. Hyacinth got up, too, -while his companion stood there. Muniment was looking off toward -London, with a face that expressed all the healthy singleness of his -vision. Suddenly Paul remarked, as if it occurred to him to complete, -or at any rate confirm, the declaration he had made a short time -before, “Yes, I don’t believe in the millennium, but I do believe in -the democracy.” - -The young man, as he spoke these words, struck his comrade as such a -fine embodiment of the spirit of the people; he stood there, in his -powerful, sturdy newness, with such an air of having learnt what he had -learnt and of good-nature that had purposes in it, that our hero felt -the simple inrush of his old, frequent pride at having a person of that -promise, a nature of that capacity, for a friend. He passed his hand -into Muniment’s arm and said, with an imperceptible tremor in his -voice, “It’s no use your saying I’m not to go by what you tell me. I -would go by what you tell me, anywhere. There’s no awkwardness to speak -of. I don’t know that I believe exactly what you believe, but I believe -in you, and doesn’t that come to the same thing?” - -Muniment evidently appreciated the cordiality and candour of this -little tribute, and the way he showed it was by a movement of his arm, -to check his companion, before they started to leave the spot, and by -looking down at him with a certain anxiety of friendliness. “I should -never have taken you to Hoffendahl if I hadn’t thought you would jump -at the job. It was that flaring little oration of yours, at the club, -when you floored Delancey for saying you were afraid, that put me up to -it.” - -“I did jump at it—upon my word I did; and it was just what I was -looking for. That’s all correct!” said Hyacinth, cheerfully, as they -went forward. There was a strain of heroism in these words—of heroism -of which the sense was not conveyed to Muniment by a vibration in their -interlocked arms. Hyacinth did not make the reflection that he was -infernally literal; he dismissed the sentimental problem that had -bothered him; he condoned, excused, admired—he merged himself, resting -happy for the time in the consciousness that Paul was a grand fellow, -that friendship was a purer feeling than love, and that there was an -immense deal of affection between them. He did not even observe at that -moment that it was preponderantly on his own side. - - - - -XXXVI - - -A certain Sunday in November, more than three months after she had gone -to live in Madeira Crescent, was so important an occasion for the -Princess Casamassima that I must give as complete an account of it as -the limits of my space will allow. Early in the afternoon a loud peal -from her door-knocker came to her ear; it had a sound of resolution, -almost of defiance, which made her look up from her book and listen. -She was sitting by the fire, alone, with a volume of a heavy work on -Labour and Capital in her hand. It was not yet four o’clock, but she -had had candles for an hour; a dense brown fog made the daylight -impure, without suggesting an answer to the question whether the scheme -of nature had been to veil or to deepen the sabbatical dreariness. She -was not tired of Madeira Crescent—such an idea she would indignantly -have repudiated; but the prospect of a visitor was rather pleasant to -her—the possibility even of his being an ambassador, or a cabinet -minister, or another of the eminent personages with whom she had -associated before embracing the ascetic life. They had not knocked at -her present door hitherto in any great numbers, for more reasons than -one; they were out of town, and she had taken pains to diffuse the -belief that she had left England. If the impression prevailed, it was -exactly the impression she had desired; she forgot this fact whenever -she felt a certain surprise, even, it may be, a certain irritation, in -perceiving that people were not taking the way to Madeira Crescent. She -was making the discovery, in which she had had many predecessors, that -in London it is only too possible to hide one’s self. It was very much -in that fashion that Godfrey Sholto was in the habit of announcing -himself, when he reappeared after the intervals she explicitly imposed -upon him; there was a kind of artlessness, for so world-worn a -personage, in the point he made of showing that he knocked with -confidence, that he had as good a right as any other. This afternoon -she was ready to accept a visit from him: she was perfectly detached -from the shallow, frivolous world in which he lived, but there was -still a freshness in her renunciation which coveted reminders and -enjoyed comparisons; he would prove to her how right she had been to do -exactly what she was doing. It did not occur to her that Hyacinth -Robinson might be at her door, for it was understood between them that, -except by special appointment, he was to come to see her only in the -evening. She heard in the hail, when the servant arrived, a voice that -she failed to recognise; but in a moment the door of the room was -thrown open and the name of Mr Muniment was pronounced. It may be said -at once that she felt great pleasure in hearing it, for she had both -wished to see more of Hyacinth’s extraordinary friend and had given him -up, so little likely had it begun to appear that he would put himself -out for her. She had been glad he wouldn’t come, as she had told -Hyacinth three months before; but now that he had come she was still -more glad. - -Presently he was sitting opposite to her, on the other side of the -fire, with his big foot crossed over his big knee, his large, gloved -hands fumbling with each other, drawing and smoothing the gloves (of -very red, new-looking dog-skin) in places, as if they hurt him. So far -as the size of his extremities, and even his attitude and movement, -went, he might have belonged to her former circle. With the details of -his dress remaining vague in the lamp-light, which threw into relief -mainly his powerful, important head, he might have been one of the most -considerable men she had ever known. The first thing she said to him -was that she wondered extremely what had brought him at last to come to -see her: the idea, when she proposed it, evidently had so little -attraction for him. She had only seen him once since then—the day she -met him coming into Audley Court as she was leaving it, after a visit -to his sister—and, as he probably remembered, she had not on that -occasion repeated her invitation. - -“It wouldn’t have done any good, at the time, if you had,” Muniment -rejoined, with his natural laugh. - -“Oh, I felt that; my silence wasn’t accidental!” the Princess -exclaimed, joining in his merriment. - -“I have only come now—since you have asked me the reason—because my -sister hammered at me, week after week, dinning it into me that I ought -to. Oh, I’ve been under the lash! If she had left me alone, I wouldn’t -have come.” - -The Princess blushed on hearing these words, but not with shame or with -pain; rather with the happy excitement of being spoken to in a manner -so fresh and original. She had never before had a visitor who practised -so racy a frankness, or who, indeed, had so curious a story to tell. -She had never before so completely failed, and her failure greatly -interested her, especially as it seemed now to be turning a little to -success. She had succeeded promptly with every one, and the sign of it -was that every one had rendered her a monotony of homage. Even poor -little Hyacinth had tried, in the beginning, to say sweet things to -her. This very different type of man appeared to have his thoughts -fixed on anything but sweetness; she felt the liveliest hope that he -would move further and further away from it. “I remember what you asked -me—what good it would do you. I couldn’t tell you then; and though I -now have had a long time to turn it over, I haven’t thought of it yet.” - -“Oh, but I hope it will do me some,” said Paul. “A fellow wants a -reward, when he has made a great effort.” - -“It does me some,” the Princess remarked, gaily. - -“Naturally, the awkward things I say amuse you. But I don’t say them -for that, but just to give you an idea.” - -“You give me a great many ideas. Besides, I know you already a good -deal.” - -“From little Robinson, I suppose,” said Muniment. - -The Princess hesitated. “More particularly from Lady Aurora.” - -“Oh, she doesn’t know much about me!” the young man exclaimed. - -“It’s a pity you say that, because she likes you.” - -“Yes, she likes me,” Muniment replied, serenely. - -Again the Princess hesitated. “And I hope you like her.” - -“Ay, she’s a dear old girl!” - -The Princess reflected that her visitor was not a gentleman, like -Hyacinth; but this made no difference in her present attitude. The -expectation that he would be a gentleman had had nothing to do with her -interest in him; that, in fact, had rested largely on the supposition -that he had a rich plebeian strain. “I don’t know that there is any one -in the world I envy so much,” she remarked; an observation which her -visitor received in silence. “Better than any one I have ever met she -has solved the problem—which, if we are wise, we all try to solve, -don’t we?—of getting out of herself. She has got out of herself more -perfectly than any one I have ever known. She has merged herself in the -passion of doing something for others. That’s why I envy her,” said the -Princess, with an explanatory smile, as if perhaps he didn’t understand -her. - -“It’s an amusement, like any other,” said Paul Muniment. - -“Ah, not like any other! It carries light into dark places; it makes a -great many wretched people considerably less wretched.” - -“How many, eh?” asked the young man, not exactly as if he wished to -dispute, but as if it were always in him to enjoy an argument. - -The Princess wondered why he should desire to argue at Lady Aurora’s -expense. “Well, one who is very near to you, to begin with.” - -“Oh, she’s kind, most kind; it’s altogether wonderful. But Rosy makes -_her_ considerably less wretched,” Paul Muniment rejoined. - -“Very likely, of course; and so she does me.” - -“May I inquire what you are wretched about?” Muniment went on. - -“About nothing at all. That’s the worst of it. But I am much happier -now than I have ever been.” - -“Is that also about nothing?” - -“No, about a sort of change that has taken place in my life. I have -been able to do some little things.” - -“For the poor, I suppose you mean. Do you refer to the presents you -have made to Rosy?” the young man inquired. - -“The presents?” The Princess appeared not to remember. “Oh, those are -trifles. It isn’t anything one has been able to give; it’s some talks -one has had, some convictions one has arrived at.” - -“Convictions are a source of very innocent pleasure,” said the young -man, smiling at his interlocutress with his bold, pleasant eyes, which -seemed to project their glance further than any she had seen. - -“Having them is nothing. It’s the acting on them,” the Princess -replied. - -“Yes; that doubtless, too, is good.” He continued to look at her -peacefully, as if he liked to consider that this might be what she had -asked him to come for. He said nothing more, and she went on— - -“It’s far better, of course, when one is a man.” - -“I don’t know. Women do pretty well what they like. My sister and you -have managed, between you, to bring me to this.” - -“It’s more your sister, I suspect, than I. But why, after all, should -you have disliked so much to come?” - -“Well, since you ask me,” said Paul Muniment, “I will tell you frankly, -though I don’t mean it uncivilly, that I don’t know what to make of -you.” - -“Most people don’t,” returned the Princess. “But they usually take the -risk.” - -“Ah, well, I’m the most prudent of men.” - -“I was sure of it; that is one of the reasons why I wanted to know you. -I know what some of your ideas are—Hyacinth Robinson has told me; and -the source of my interest in them is partly the fact that you consider -very carefully what you attempt.” - -“That I do—I do,” said Muniment, simply. - -The tone in which he said this would have been almost ignoble, as -regards a kind of northern canniness which it expressed, had it not -been corrected by the character of his face, his youth and strength, -and his military eye. The Princess recognised both the shrewdness and -the latent audacity as she rejoined, “To do anything with you would be -very safe. It would be sure to succeed.” - -“That’s what poor Hyacinth thinks,” said Paul Muniment. - -The Princess wondered a little that he could allude in that light tone -to the faith their young friend had placed in him, considering the -consequences such a trustfulness might yet have; but this curious -mixture of qualities could only make her visitor, as a tribune of the -people, more interesting to her. She abstained for the moment from -touching on the subject of Hyacinth’s peculiar position, and only said, -“Hasn’t he told you about me? Hasn’t he explained me a little?” - -“Oh, his explanations are grand!” Muniment exclaimed, hilariously. -“He’s fine sport when he talks about you.” - -“Don’t betray him,” said the Princess, gently. - -“There’s nothing to betray. You would be the first to admire it if you -were there. Besides, I don’t betray,” the young man added. - -“I love him very much,” said the Princess; and it would have been -impossible for the most impudent cynic to smile at the manner in which -she made the declaration. - -Paul accepted it respectfully. “He’s a sweet little lad, and, putting -her ladyship aside, quite the light of our home.” - -There was a short pause after this exchange of amenities, which the -Princess terminated by inquiring, “Wouldn’t some one else do his work -quite as well?” - -“His work? Why, I’m told he’s a master-hand.” - -“Oh, I don’t mean his bookbinding.” Then the Princess added, “I don’t -know whether you know it, but I am in correspondence with Hoffendahl. I -am acquainted with many of our most important men.” - -“Yes, I know it. Hyacinth has told me. Do you mention it as a -guarantee, so that I may know you are genuine?” - -“Not exactly; that would be weak, wouldn’t it?” the Princess asked. “My -genuineness must be in myself—a matter for you to appreciate as you -know me better; not in my references and vouchers.” - -“I shall never know you better. What business is it of mine?” - -“I want to help you,” said the Princess, and as she made this earnest -appeal her face became transfigured; it wore an expression of the most -passionate yet the purest longing. “I want to do something for the -cause you represent; for the millions that are rotting under our -feet—the millions whose whole life is passed on the brink of -starvation, so that the smallest accident pushes them over. Try me, -test me; ask me to put my hand to something, to prove that I am as -deeply in earnest as those who have already given proof. I know what I -am talking about—what one must meet and face and count with, the nature -and the immensity of your organisation. I am not playing. No, I am not -playing.” - -Paul Muniment watched her with his steady smile until this sudden -outbreak had spent itself. “I was afraid you would be like this—that -you would turn on the fountains and let off the fireworks.” - -“Permit me to believe you thought nothing about it. There is no reason -my fireworks should disturb you.” - -“I have always had a fear of women.” - -“I see—that’s a part of your prudence,” said the Princess, -reflectively. “But you are the sort of man who ought to know how to use -them.” - -Muniment said nothing, immediately, in answer to this; the way he -appeared to consider the Princess suggested that he was not following -closely what she said, so much as losing himself in certain matters -which were beside that question—her beauty, for instance, her grace, -her fragrance, the spectacle of a manner and quality so new to him. -After a little, however, he remarked, irrelevantly, “I’m afraid I’m -very rude.” - -“Of course you are, but it doesn’t signify. What I mainly object to is -that you don’t answer my questions. Would not some one else do Hyacinth -Robinson’s work quite as well? Is it necessary to take a nature so -delicate, so intellectual? Oughtn’t we to keep him for something -finer?” - -“Finer than what?” - -“Than what Hoffendahl will call upon him to do.” - -“And pray what is that?” the young man demanded. “You know nothing -about it; no more do I,” he added in a moment. “It will require -whatever it will. Besides, if some one else might have done it, no one -else volunteered. It happened that Robinson did.” - -“Yes, and you nipped him up!” the Princess exclaimed. - -At this expression Muniment burst out laughing. “I have no doubt you -can easily keep him, if you want him.” - -“I should like to do it in his place—that’s what I should like,” said -the Princess. - -“As I say, you don’t even know what it is.” - -“It may be nothing,” she went on, with her grave eyes fixed on her -visitor. “I dare say you think that what I wanted to see you for was to -beg you to let him off. But it wasn’t. Of course it’s his own affair, -and you can do nothing. But oughtn’t it to make some difference, when -his opinions have changed?” - -“His opinions? He never had any opinions,” Muniment replied. “He is not -like you and me.” - -“Well, then, his feelings, his attachments. He hasn’t the passion for -democracy he had when I first knew him. He’s much more tepid.” - -“Ah, well, he’s quite right.” - -The Princess stared. “Do you mean that _you_ are giving up—?” - -“A fine stiff conservative is a thing I perfectly understand,” said -Paul Muniment. “If I were on the top, I’d stick there.” - -“I see, you are not narrow,” the Princess murmured, appreciatively. - -“I beg your pardon, I am. I don’t call that wide. One must be narrow to -penetrate.” - -“Whatever you are, you’ll succeed,” said the Princess. “Hyacinth won’t, -but you will.” - -“It depends upon what you call success!” the young man exclaimed. And -in a moment, before she replied, he added, looking about the room, -“You’ve got a very lovely dwelling.” - -“Lovely? My dear sir, it’s hideous. That’s what I like it for,” the -Princess added. - -“Well, I like it; but perhaps I don’t know the reason. I thought you -had given up everything—pitched your goods out of the window, for a -grand scramble.” - -“Well, so I have. You should have seen me before.” - -“I should have liked that,” said Muniment, smiling. “I like to see -solid wealth.” - -“Ah, you’re as bad as Hyacinth. I am the only consistent one!” the -Princess sighed. - -“You have a great deal left, for a person who has given everything -away.” - -“These are not mine—these abominations—or I would give them, too!” -Paul’s hostess rejoined, artlessly. - -Muniment got up from his chair, still looking about the room. “I would -give my nose for such a place as this. At any rate, you are not yet -reduced to poverty.” - -“I have a little left—to help you.” - -“I dare say you’ve a great deal,” said Paul, with his north-country -accent. - -“I could get money—I could get money,” the Princess continued, gravely. -She had also risen, and was standing before him. - -These two remarkable persons faced each other, their eyes met again, -and they exchanged a long, deep glance of mutual scrutiny. Each seemed -to drop a plummet into the other’s mind. Then a strange and, to the -Princess, unexpected expression passed over the countenance of the -young man; his lips compressed themselves, as if he were making a -strong effort, his colour rose, and in a moment he stood there blushing -like a boy. He dropped his eyes and stared at the carpet, while he -observed, “I don’t trust women—I don’t trust women!” - -“I am sorry, but, after all, I can understand it,” said the Princess; -“therefore I won’t insist on the question of your allowing me to work -with you. But this appeal I will make to you: help me a little -yourself—help me!” - -“How do you mean, help you?” Muniment demanded, raising his eyes, which -had a new, conscious look. - -“Advise me; you will know how. I am in trouble—I have gone very far.” - -“I have no doubt of that!” said Paul, laughing. - -“I mean with some of those people abroad. I’m not frightened, but I’m -perplexed; I want to know what to do.” - -“No, you are not frightened,” Muniment rejoined, after a moment. - -“I am, however, in a sad entanglement. I think you can straighten it -out. I will give you the facts, but not now, for we shall be -interrupted; I hear my old lady on the stairs. For this, you must come -to see me again.” - -At this point the door opened, and Madame Grandoni appeared, -cautiously, creepingly, as if she didn’t know what might be going on in -the parlour. “Yes, I will come again,” said Paul Muniment, in a low but -distinct tone; and he walked away, passing Madame Grandoni on the -threshold, without having exchanged the hand-shake of farewell with his -hostess. In the hall he paused an instant, feeling she was behind him; -and he learned that she had not come to exact from him this omitted -observance, but to say once more, dropping her voice, so that her -companion, through the open door, might not hear— - -“I _could_ get money—I could!” - -Muniment passed his hand through his hair, and, as if he had not heard -her, remarked, “I have not given you, after all, half Rosy’s messages.” - -“Oh, that doesn’t matter!” the Princess answered, turning back into the -parlour. - -Madame Grandoni was in the middle of the room, wrapped in an old shawl, -looking vaguely around her, and the two ladies heard the house-door -close. “And pray, who may that be? Isn’t it a new face?” the elder one -inquired. - -“He’s the brother of the little person I took you to see over the -river—the chattering cripple with the wonderful manners.” - -“Ah, she had a brother! That, then, was why you went?” - -It was striking, the good-humour with which the Princess received this -rather coarse thrust, which could have been drawn from Madame Grandoni -only by the petulance and weariness of increasing age, and the -antipathy she now felt to Madeira Crescent and everything it produced. -Christina bent a calm, charitable smile upon her ancient companion, and -replied— - -“There could have been no question of our seeing him. He was, of -course, at his work.” - -“Ah, how do I know, my dear? And is he a successor?” - -“A successor?” - -“To the little bookbinder.” - -“My darling,” said the Princess, “you will see how absurd that question -is when I tell you he’s his greatest friend!” - - - - -XXXVII - - -Half an hour after Paul Muniment’s departure the Princess heard another -rat-tat-tat at her door; but this was a briefer, discreeter peal, and -was accompanied by a faint tintinnabulation. The person who had -produced it was presently ushered in, without, however, causing Madame -Grandoni to look round, or rather to look up, from an arm-chair as low -as a sitz-bath, and of very much the shape of such a receptacle, in -which, near the fire, she had been immersed. She left this care to the -Princess, who rose on hearing the name of the visitor pronounced, -inadequately, by her maid. ‘Mr Fetch’ Assunta called it; but the -Princess recognised without difficulty the little fat, ‘reduced’ -fiddler of whom Hyacinth had talked to her, who, as Pinnie’s most -intimate friend, had been so mixed up with his existence, and whom she -herself had always had a curiosity to see. Hyacinth had not told her he -was coming, and the unexpectedness of the apparition added to its -interest. Much as she liked seeing queer types and exploring -out-of-the-way social corners, she never engaged in a fresh encounter, -nor formed a new relation of this kind, without a fit of nervousness, a -fear that she might be awkward and fail to hit the right tone. She -perceived in a moment, however, that Mr Vetch would take her as she was -and require no special adjustments; he was a gentleman and a man of -experience, and she would only have to leave the tone to him. He stood -there with his large, polished hat in his two hands, a hat of the -fashion of ten years before, with a rusty sheen and an undulating -brim—stood there without a salutation or a speech, but with a little -fixed, acute, tentative smile, which seemed half to inquire and half to -explain. What he explained was that he was clever enough to be trusted, -and that if he had come to see her that way, abruptly, without an -invitation, he had a reason which she would be sure to think good -enough when she should hear it. There was even a certain jauntiness in -this confidence—an insinuation that he knew how to present himself to a -lady; and though it quickly appeared that he really did, that was the -only thing about him that was inferior—it suggested a long experience -of actresses at rehearsal, with whom he had formed habits of advice and -compliment. - -“I know who you are—I know who you are,” said the Princess, though she -could easily see that he knew she did. - -“I wonder whether you also know why I have come to see you,” Mr Vetch -replied, presenting the top of his hat to her as if it were a -looking-glass. - -“No, but it doesn’t matter. I am very glad; you might even have come -before.” Then the Princess added, with her characteristic honesty, -“Don’t you know of the great interest I have taken in your nephew?” - -“In my nephew? Yes, my young friend Robinson. It is in regard to him -that I have ventured to intrude upon you.” - -The Princess had been on the point of pushing a chair toward him, but -she stopped in the act, staring, with a smile. “Ah, I hope you haven’t -come to ask me to give him up!” - -“On the contrary—on the contrary!” the old man rejoined, lifting his -hand expressively, and with his head on one side, as if he were holding -his violin. - -“How do you mean, on the contrary?” the Princess demanded, after he had -seated himself and she had sunk into her former place. As if that might -sound contradictious, she went on: “Surely he hasn’t any fear that I -shall cease to be a good friend to him?” - -“I don’t know what he fears; I don’t know what he hopes,” said Mr -Vetch, looking at her now with a face in which she could see there was -something more tonic than old-fashioned politeness. “It will be -difficult to tell you, but at least I must try. Properly speaking, I -suppose, it’s no business of mine, as I am not a blood-relation to the -boy; but I have known him since he was an urchin, and I can’t help -saying that I thank you for your great kindness to him.” - -“All the same, I don’t think you like it,” the Princess remarked. “To -me it oughtn’t to be difficult to say anything.” - -“He has told me very little about you; he doesn’t know I have taken -this step,” the fiddler said, turning his eyes about the room, and -letting them rest on Madame Grandoni. - -“Why do you call it a ‘step’?” the Princess asked. “That’s what people -say when they have to do something disagreeable.” - -“I call very seldom on ladies. It’s long time since I have been in the -house of a person like the Princess Casamassima. I remember the last -time,” said the old man. “It was to get some money from a lady at whose -party I had been playing—for a dance.” - -“You must bring your fiddle, sometime, and play to us. Of course I -don’t mean for money,” the Princess rejoined. - -“I will do it with pleasure, or anything else that will gratify you. -But my ability is very small. I only know vulgar music—things that are -played at theatres.” - -“I don’t believe that; there must be things you play for yourself, in -your room, alone.” - -For a moment the old man made no reply; then he said, “Now that I see -you, that I hear you, it helps me to understand.” - -“I don’t think you do see me!” cried the Princess, kindly, laughing; -while the fiddler went on to ask whether there were any danger of -Hyacinth’s coming in while he was there. The Princess replied that he -only came, unless by prearrangement, in the evening, and Mr Vetch made -a request that she would not let their young friend know that he -himself had been with her. “It doesn’t matter; he will guess it, he -will know it by instinct, as soon as he comes in. He is terribly -subtle,” said the Princess; and she added that she had never been able -to hide anything from him. Perhaps it served her right, for attempting -to make a mystery of things that were not worth it. - -“How well you know him!” Mr Vetch murmured, with his eyes wandering -again to Madame Grandoni, who paid no attention to him as she sat -staring at the fire. He delayed, visibly, to say what he had come for, -and his hesitation could only be connected with the presence of the old -lady. He said to himself that the Princess might have divined this from -his manner; he had an idea that he could trust himself to convey such -an intimation with clearness and yet with delicacy. But the most she -appeared to apprehend was that he desired to be presented to her -companion. - -“You must know the most delightful of women. She also takes a -particular interest in Mr Robinson: of a different kind from mine—much -more sentimental!” And then she explained to the old lady, who seemed -absorbed in other ideas, that Mr Vetch was a distinguished musician, a -person whom she, who had known so many in her day, and was so fond of -that kind of thing, would like to talk with. The Princess spoke of -‘that kind of thing’ quite as if she herself had given it up, though -Madame Grandoni heard her by the hour together improvising on the piano -revolutionary battle-songs and pæans. - -“I think you are laughing at me,” Mr Vetch said to the Princess, while -Madame Grandoni twisted herself slowly round in her chair and -considered him. She looked at him leisurely, up and down, and then she -observed, with a sigh— - -“Strange people—strange people!” - -“It is indeed a strange world, madam,” the fiddler replied; and he then -inquired of the Princess whether he might have a little conversation -with her in private. - -She looked about her, embarrassed and smiling. “My dear sir, I have -only this one room to receive in. We live in a very small way.” - -“Yes, your excellency _is_ laughing at me. Your ideas are very large, -too. However, I would gladly come at any other time that might suit -you.” - -“You impute to me higher spirits than I possess. Why should I be so -gay?” the Princess asked. “I should be delighted to see you again. I am -extremely curious as to what you may have to say to me. I would even -meet you anywhere—in Kensington Gardens or the British Museum.” - -The fiddler looked at her a moment before replying; then, with his -white old face flushing a little, he exclaimed, “Poor dear little -Hyacinth!” - -Madame Grandoni made an effort to rise from her chair, but she had sunk -so low that at first it was not successful. Mr Vetch gave her his hand, -to help her, and she slowly erected herself, keeping hold of him for a -moment after she stood there. “What did she tell me? That you are a -great musician? Isn’t that enough for any man? You ought to be content, -my dear gentleman. It has sufficed for people whom I don’t believe you -surpass.” - -“I don’t surpass any one,” said poor Mr Vetch. “I don’t know what you -take me for.” - -“You are not a conspirator, then? You are not an assassin? It surprises -me, but so much the better. In this house one can never know. It is not -a good house, and if you are a respectable person it is a pity you -should come here. Yes, she is very gay, and I am very sad. I don’t know -how it will end. After me, I hope. The world is not good, certainly; -but God alone can make it better.” And as the fiddler expressed the -hope that he was not the cause of her leaving the room, she went on, -“_Doch, doch_, you are the cause; but why not you as well as another? I -am always leaving it for some one or for some thing, and I would sooner -do so for an honest man, if you _are_ one—but, as I say, who can -tell?—than for a destroyer. I wander about. I have no rest. I have, -however, a very nice room, the best in the house. Me, at least, she -does not treat ill. It looks to-day like the end of all things. If you -would turn your climate the other side up, the rest would do well -enough. Good-night to you, whoever you are.” - -The old lady shuffled away, in spite of Mr Vetch’s renewed apologies, -and the Princess stood before the fire, watching her companions, while -he opened the door. “She goes away, she comes back; it doesn’t matter. -She thinks it’s a bad house, but she knows it would be worse without -her. I remember now,” the Princess added. “Mr Robinson told me that you -had been a great democrat in old days, but that now you had ceased to -care for the people.” - -“The people—the people? That is a vague term. Whom do you mean?” - -The Princess hesitated. “Those you used to care for, to plead for; -those who are underneath every one, every thing, and have the whole -social mass crushing them.” - -“I see you think I’m a renegade. The way certain classes arrogate to -themselves the title of the people has never pleased me. Why are some -human beings the people, and the people only, and others not? I am of -the people myself, I have worked all my days like a knife-grinder, and -I have really never changed.” - -“You must not let me make you angry,” said the Princess, laughing and -sitting down again. “I am sometimes very provoking, but you must stop -me off. You wouldn’t think it, perhaps, but no one takes a snub better -than I.” - -Mr Vetch dropped his eyes a minute; he appeared to wish to show that he -regarded such a speech as that as one of the Princess’s characteristic -humours, and knew that he should be wanting in respect to her if he -took it seriously or made a personal application of it. “What I want is -this,” he began, after a moment: “that you will—that you will—” But he -stopped before he had got further. She was watching him, listening to -him, and she waited while he paused. It was a long pause, and she said -nothing. “Princess,” the old man broke out at last, “I would give my -own life many times for that boy’s!” - -“I always told him you must have been fond of him!” she cried, with -bright exultation. - -“Fond of him? Pray, who can doubt it? I made him, I invented him!” - -“He knows it, moreover,” said the Princess, smiling. “It is an -exquisite organisation.” And as the old man gazed at her, not knowing, -apparently, what to make of her tone, she continued: “It is a very -interesting opportunity for me to learn certain things. Speak to me of -his early years. How was he as a child? When I like people I want to -know everything about them.” - -“I shouldn’t have supposed there was much left for you to learn about -our young friend. You have taken possession of his life,” the fiddler -added, gravely. - -“Yes, but as I understand you, you don’t complain of it? Sometimes one -does so much more than one has intended. One must use one’s influence -for good,” said the Princess, with the noble, gentle air of -accessibility to reason that sometimes lighted up her face. And then -she went on, irrelevantly: “I know the terrible story of his mother. He -told it me himself, when he was staying with me; and in the course of -my life I think I have never been more affected.” - -“That was my fault, that he ever learned it. I suppose he also told you -that.” - -“Yes, but I think he understood your idea. If you had the question to -determine again, would you judge differently?” - -“I thought it would do him good,” said the old man, simply and rather -wearily. - -“Well, I dare say it has,” the Princess rejoined, with the manner of -wishing to encourage him. - -“I don’t know what was in my head. I wanted him to quarrel with -society. Now I want him to be reconciled to it,” Mr Vetch remarked, -earnestly. He appeared to wish the Princess to understand that he made -a great point of this. - -“Ah, but he is!” she immediately returned. “We often talk about that; -he is not like me, who see all kinds of abominations. He’s a tremendous -aristocrat. What more would you have?” - -“Those are not the opinions that he expresses to me,” said Mr Vetch, -shaking his head sadly. “I am greatly distressed, and I don’t -understand. I have not come here with the presumptuous wish to -cross-examine you, but I should like very much to know if I _am_ wrong -in believing that he has gone about with you in the bad quarters—in St -Giles’s and Whitechapel.” - -“We have certainly inquired and explored together,” the Princess -admitted, “and in the depths of this huge, luxurious, wanton, wasteful -city we have seen sights of unspeakable misery and horror. But we have -been not only in the slums; we have been to a music-hall and a -penny-reading.” - -The fiddler received this information at first in silence, so that his -hostess went on to mention some of the phases of life they had -observed; describing with great vividness, but at the same time with a -kind of argumentative moderation, several scenes which did little -honour to ‘our boasted civilisation’. “What wonder is it, then, that he -should tell me that things cannot go on any longer as they are?” he -asked, when she had finished. “He said only the other day that he -should regard himself as one of the most contemptible of human beings -if he should do nothing to alter them, to better them.” - -“What wonder, indeed? But if he said that, he was in one of his bad -days. He changes constantly, and his impressions change. The misery of -the people is by no means always weighing on his heart. You tell me -what he has told you; well, he has told me that the people may perish -over and over, rather than the conquests of civilisation shall be -sacrificed to them. He declares, at such moments, that they will be -sacrificed—sacrificed utterly—if the ignorant masses get the upper -hand.” - -“He needn’t be afraid! That will never happen.” - -“I don’t know. We can at least try!” - -“Try what you like, madam, but, for God’s sake, get the boy out of his -mess!” - -The Princess had suddenly grown excited, in speaking of the cause she -believed in, and she gave, for the moment, no heed to this appeal, -which broke from Mr Vetch’s lips with a sudden passion of anxiety. Her -beautiful head raised itself higher, and the deep expression that was -always in her eyes became an extraordinary radiance. “Do you know what -I say to Mr Robinson when he makes such remarks as that to me? I ask -him what he means by civilisation. Let civilisation come a little, -first, and then we will talk about it. For the present, face to face -with those horrors, I scorn it, I deny it!” And the Princess laughed -ineffable things, like some splendid syren of the Revolution. - -“The world is very sad and very hideous, and I am happy to say that I -soon shall have done with it. But before I go I want to save Hyacinth. -If he’s a little aristocrat, as you say, there is so much the less -fitness in his being ground in your mill. If he doesn’t even believe in -what he pretends to do, that’s a pretty situation! What is he in for, -madam? What devilish folly has he undertaken?” - -“He is a strange mixture of contradictory impulses,” said the Princess, -musingly. Then, as if calling herself back to the old man’s question, -she continued: “How can I enter into his affairs with you? How can I -tell you his secrets? In the first place, I don’t know them, and if I -did—fancy me!” - -The fiddler gave a long, low sigh, almost a moan, of discouragement and -perplexity. He had told the Princess that now he saw her he understood -how Hyacinth should have become her slave, but he would not have been -able to tell her that he understood her own motives and mysteries, that -he embraced the immense anomaly of her behaviour. It came over him that -she was incongruous and perverse, a more complicated form of the -feminine character than any he had hitherto dealt with, and he felt -helpless and baffled, foredoomed to failure. He had come prepared to -flatter her without scruple, thinking that would be the clever, the -efficacious, method of dealing with her; but he now had a sense that -this primitive device had, though it was strange, no application to -such a nature, while his embarrassment was increased rather than -diminished by the fact that the lady at least made the effort to be -accommodating. He had put down his hat on the floor beside him, and his -two hands were clasped on the knob of an umbrella which had long since -renounced pretensions to compactness; he collapsed a little, and his -chin rested on his folded hands. “Why do you take such a line? Why do -you believe such things?” he asked; and he was conscious that his tone -was weak and his inquiry beside the question. - -“My dear sir, how do you know what I believe? However, I have my -reasons, which it would take too long to tell you, and which, after -all, would not particularly interest you. One must see life as one can; -it comes, no doubt, to each of us in different ways. You think me -affected, of course, and my behaviour a fearful _pose;_ but I am only -trying to be natural. Are you not yourself a little inconsequent?” the -Princess went on, with the bright mildness which had the effect of -making Mr Vetch feel that he should not extract any pledge of -assistance from her. “You don’t want our young friend to pry into the -wretchedness of London, because it excites his sense of justice. It is -a strange thing to wish, for a person of whom one is fond and whom one -esteems, that his sense of justice shall not be excited.” - -“I don’t care a fig for his sense of justice—I don’t care a fig for the -wretchedness of London; and if I were young, and beautiful, and clever, -and brilliant, and of a noble position, like you, I should care still -less. In that case I should have very little to say to a poor -mechanic—a youngster who earns his living with a glue-pot and scraps of -old leather.” - -“Don’t misrepresent him; don’t make him out what you know he’s not!” -the Princess retorted, with her baffling smile. “You know he’s one of -the most civilised people possible.” - -The fiddler sat breathing unhappily. “I only want to keep him—to get -him free.” Then he added, “I don’t understand you very well. If you -like him because he’s one of the lower orders, how can you like him -because he’s a swell?” - -The Princess turned her eyes on the fire a moment, as if this little -problem might be worth considering, and presently she answered, “Dear -Mr Vetch, I am very sure you don’t mean to be impertinent, but some -things you say have that effect. Nothing is more annoying than when -one’s sincerity is doubted. I am not bound to explain myself to you. I -ask of my friends to trust me, and of the others to leave me alone. -Moreover, anything not very nice you may have said to me, out of -awkwardness, is nothing to the insults I am perfectly prepared to see -showered upon me before long. I shall do things which will produce a -fine crop of them—oh, I shall do things, my dear sir! But I am -determined not to mind them. Come, therefore, pull yourself together. -We both take such an interest in young Robinson that I can’t see why in -the world we should quarrel about him.” - -“My dear lady,” the old man pleaded, “I have indeed not the least -intention of failing in respect or courtesy, and you must excuse me if -I don’t look after my manners. How can I when I am so worried, so -haunted? God knows I don’t want to quarrel. As I tell you, I only want -to get Hyacinth free.” - -“Free from what?” the Princess asked. - -“From some abominable brotherhood or international league that he -belongs to, the thought of which keeps me awake at night. He’s just the -sort of youngster to be made a cat’s-paw.” - -“Your fears seem very vague.” - -“I hoped you would give me chapter and verse.” - -“On what do your suspicions rest? What grounds have you?” the Princess -inquired. - -“Well, a great many; none of them very definite, but all contributing -something—his appearance, his manner, the way he strikes me. Dear -madam, one feels those things, one guesses. Do you know that poor, -infatuated phrase-monger, Eustache Poupin, who works at the same place -as Hyacinth? He’s a very old friend of mine, and he’s an honest man, -considering everything. But he is always conspiring, and corresponding, -and pulling strings that make a tinkle which he takes for the -death-knell of society. He has nothing in life to complain of, and he -drives a roaring trade. But he wants folks to be equal, heaven help -him; and when he has made them so I suppose he’s going to start a -society for making the stars in the sky all of the same size. He isn’t -serious, though he thinks that he’s the only human being who never -trifles; and his machinations, which I believe are for the most part -very innocent, are a matter of habit and tradition with him, like his -theory that Christopher Columbus, who discovered America, was a -Frenchman, and his hot foot-bath on Saturday nights. He has _not_ -confessed to me that Hyacinth has taken some secret engagement to do -something for the cause which may have nasty consequences, but the way -he turns off the idea makes me almost as uncomfortable as if he had. He -and his wife are very sweet on Hyacinth, but they can’t make up their -minds to interfere; perhaps for them, indeed, as for me, there is no -way in which interference can be effective. Only _I_ didn’t put him up -to those devil’s tricks—or, rather, I did originally! The finer the -work, I suppose, the higher the privilege of doing it; yet the Poupins -heave socialistic sighs over the boy, and their peace of mind evidently -isn’t all that it ought to be, if they have given him a noble -opportunity. I have appealed to them, in good round terms, and they -have assured me that every hair of his head is as precious to them as -if he were their own child. That doesn’t comfort me much, however, for -the simple reason that I believe the old woman (whose grandmother, in -Paris, in the Revolution, must certainly have carried bloody heads on a -pike) would be quite capable of chopping up her own child, if it would -do any harm to proprietors. Besides, they say, what influence have they -on Hyacinth any more? He is a deplorable little backslider; he worships -false gods. In short, they will give me no information, and I dare say -they themselves are tied up by some unholy vow. They may be afraid of a -vengeance if they tell tales. It’s all sad rubbish, but rubbish may be -a strong motive.” - -The Princess listened attentively, following her visitor with patience. -“Don’t speak to me of the French; I have never liked them.” - -“That’s awkward, if you’re a socialist. You are likely to meet them.” - -“Why do you call me a socialist? I hate labels and tickets,” she -declared. Then she added, “What is it you suppose on Mr Robinson’s -part?—for you must suppose something.” - -“Well, that he may have drawn some accursed lot, to do some idiotic -thing—something in which even he himself doesn’t believe.” - -“I haven’t an idea of what sort of thing you mean. But, if he doesn’t -believe in it he can easily let it alone.” - -“Do you think he’s a customer who will back out of an engagement?” the -fiddler asked. - -The Princess hesitated a moment. “One can never judge of people, in -that way, until they are tested.” The next thing, she inquired, -“Haven’t you even taken the trouble to question him?” - -“What would be the use? He would tell me nothing. It would be like a -man giving notice when he is going to fight a duel.” - -The Princess sat for some moments in thought; she looked up at Mr Vetch -with a pitying, indulgent smile. “I am sure you are worrying about a -mere shadow; but that never prevents, does it? I still don’t see -exactly how I can help you.” - -“Do you want him to commit some atrocity, some infamy?” the old man -murmured. - -“My dear sir, I don’t want him to do anything in all the wide world. I -have not had the smallest connection with any arrangement of any kind, -that he may have entered into. Do me the honour to trust me,” the -Princess went on, with a certain dryness of tone. “I don’t know what I -have done to deprive myself of your confidence. Trust the young man a -little, too. He is a gentleman, and he will behave like a gentleman.” - -The fiddler rose from his chair, smoothing his hat, silently, with the -cuff of his coat. He stood there, whimsical and piteous, as if the -sense that he had still something to urge mingled with that of his -having received his dismissal, and both of them were tinged with the -oddity of another idea. “That’s exactly what I am afraid of!” he -exclaimed. Then he added, continuing to look at her, “But he _must_ be -very fond of life.” - -The Princess took no notice of the insinuation contained in these -words, and indeed it was of a sufficiently impalpable character. “Leave -him to me—leave him to me. I am sorry for your anxiety, but it was very -good of you to come to see me. That has been interesting, because you -have been one of our friend’s influences.” - -“Unfortunately, yes! If it had not been for me, he would not have known -Poupin, and if he hadn’t known Poupin he wouldn’t have known his -chemical friend—what’s his name? Muniment.” - -“And has that done him harm, do you think?” the Princess asked. She had -got up. - -“Surely: that fellow has been the main source of his infection.” - -“I lose patience with you,” said the Princess, turning away. - -And indeed her visitor’s persistence was irritating. He went on, -lingering, with his head thrust forward and his short arms out at his -sides, terminating in his hat and umbrella, which he held grotesquely, -as if they were intended for emphasis or illustration: “I have supposed -for a long time that it was either Muniment or you that had got him -into his scrape. It was you I suspected most—much the most; but if it -isn’t you, it must be he.” - -“You had better go to him, then!” - -“Of course I will go to him. I scarcely know him—I have seen him but -once—but I will speak my mind.” - -The Princess rang for her maid to usher the fiddler out, but at the -moment he laid his hand on the door of the room she checked him with a -quick gesture. “Now that I think of it, don’t go to Mr Muniment. It -will be better to leave him quiet. Leave him to me,” she added, -smiling. - -“Why not, why not?” he pleaded. And as she could not tell him on the -instant why not, he asked, “Doesn’t he know?” - -“No, he doesn’t know; he has nothing to do with it.” She suddenly found -herself desiring to protect Paul Muniment from the imputation that was -in Mr Vetch’s mind—the imputation of an ugly responsibility; and though -she was not a person who took the trouble to tell fibs, this -repudiation, on his behalf, issued from her lips before she could check -it. It was a result of the same desire, though it was also an -inconsequence, that she added, “Don’t do that—you’ll spoil everything!” -She went to him, suddenly eager, and herself opened the door for him. -“Leave him to me—leave him to me,” she continued, persuasively, while -the fiddler, gazing at her, dazzled and submissive, allowed himself to -be wafted away. A thought that excited her had come to her with a -bound, and after she had heard the house-door close behind Mr Vetch she -walked up and down the room half an hour, restlessly, under the -possession of it. - - - - -BOOK FIFTH - - - - -XXXVIII - - -Hyacinth found, this winter, considerable occupation for his odd hours, -his evenings and holidays and scraps of leisure, in putting in hand the -books which he had promised himself, at Medley, to inclose in covers -worthy of the high station and splendour of the lady of his life (these -brilliant attributes had not then been shuffled out of sight), and of -the confidence and generosity she showed him. He had determined she -should receive from him something of value, and took pleasure in -thinking that after he was gone they would be passed from hand to hand -as specimens of rare work, while connoisseurs bent their heads over -them, smiling and murmuring, handling them delicately. His invention -stirred itself, and he had a hundred admirable ideas, many of which he -sat up late at night to execute. He used all his skill, and by this -time his skill was of a very high order. Old Crookenden recognised it -by raising the rates at which he was paid; and though it was not among -the traditions of the proprietor of the establishment in Soho, who to -the end wore the apron with his workmen, to scatter sweet speeches, -Hyacinth learned accidentally that several books that he had given him -to do had been carried off and placed on a shelf of treasures at the -villa, where they were exhibited to the members of the Crookenden -circle who came to tea on Sundays. Hyacinth himself, indeed, was -included in this company on a great occasion—invited to a musical party -where he made the acquaintance of half a dozen Miss Crookendens, an -acquaintance which consisted in his standing in a corner, behind -several broad-backed old ladies, and watching the rotation, at the -piano and the harp, of three or four of his master’s thick-fingered -daughters. “You know it’s a tremendously musical house,” said one of -the old ladies to another (she called it ‘’ouse’); but the principal -impression made upon him by the performance of the Miss Crookendens was -that it was wonderfully different from the Princess’s playing. - -He knew that he was the only young man from the shop who had been -invited, not counting the foreman, who was sixty years old and wore a -wig which constituted in itself a kind of social position, besides -being accompanied by a little frightened, furtive wife, who closed her -eyes, as if in the presence of a blinding splendour, when Mrs -Crookenden spoke to her. The Poupins were not there—which, however, was -not a surprise to Hyacinth, who knew that (even if they had been asked, -which they were not) they had objections of principle to putting their -feet _chez les bourgeois_. They were not asked because, in spite of the -place Eustache had made for himself in the prosperity of the business, -it had come to be known that his wife was somehow not his wife (though -she was certainly no one’s else); and the evidence of this irregularity -was conceived to reside, vaguely, in the fact that she had never been -seen save in a camisole. There had doubtless been an apprehension that -if she had come to the villa she would not have come with the proper -number of hooks and eyes, though Hyacinth, on two or three occasions, -notably the night he took the pair to Mr Vetch’s theatre, had been -witness of the proportions to which she could reduce her figure when -she wished to give the impression of a lawful tie. - -It was not clear to him how the distinction conferred upon him became -known in Soho, where, however, it excited no sharpness of -jealousy—Grugan, Roker, and Hotchkin being hardly more likely to envy a -person condemned to spend a genteel evening than they were to envy a -monkey performing antics on a barrel-organ: both forms of effort -indicated an urbanity painfully acquired. But Roker took his young -comrade’s breath half away with his elbow and remarked that he supposed -he saw the old man had spotted him for one of the darlings at home; -inquiring, furthermore, what would become in that case of the little -thing he took to France, the one to whom he had stood champagne and -lobster. This was the first allusion Hyacinth had heard made to the -idea that he might some day marry his master’s daughter, like the -virtuous apprentice of tradition; but the suggestion, somehow, was not -inspiring, even when he had thought of an incident or two which gave -colour to it. None of the Miss Crookendens spoke to him—they all had -large faces and short legs and a comical resemblance to that elderly -male with wide nostrils, their father, and, unlike the Miss Marchants, -at Medley, they knew who he was—but their mother, who had on her head -the plumage of a cockatoo, mingled with a structure of glass beads, -looked at him with an almost awful fixedness and asked him three -distinct times if he would have a glass of negus. - -He had much difficulty in getting his books from the Princess; for when -he reminded her of the promise she had given him at Medley to make over -to him as many volumes as he should require, she answered that -everything was changed since then, that she was completely -_dépouillée_, that she had now no pretension to have a library, and -that, in fine, he had much better leave the matter alone. He was -welcome to any books that were in the house, but, as he could see for -himself, these were cheap editions, on which it would be foolish to -expend such work as his. He asked Madame Grandoni to help him—to tell -him, at least, whether there were not some good volumes among the -things the Princess had sent to be warehoused; it being known to him, -through casual admissions of her own, that she had allowed her maid to -save certain articles from the wreck and pack them away at the -Pantechnicon. This had all been Assunta’s work, the woman had begged so -hard for a few reservations—a loaf of bread for their old days; but the -Princess herself had washed her hands of the business. “_Chè, chè_, -there are boxes, I am sure, in that place, with a little of -everything,” said the old lady, in answer to his inquiry; and Hyacinth -conferred with Assunta, who took a sympathetic, talkative, Italian -interest in his undertaking and promised to fish out for him whatever -worthy volumes should remain. She came to his lodging, one evening, in -a cab, with an armful of pretty books, and when he asked her where they -had come from waved her forefinger in front of her nose, in a manner -both mysterious and expressive. He brought each volume to the Princess, -as it was finished; but her manner of receiving it was to shake her -head over it with a kind, sad smile. “It’s beautiful, I am sure, but I -have lost my sense for such things. Besides, you must always remember -what you once told me, that a woman, even the most cultivated, is -incapable of feeling the difference between a bad binding and a good. I -remember your once saying that fine ladies had brought shoemaker’s -bindings to your shop, and wished them imitated. Certainly those are -not the differences I most feel. My dear fellow, such things have -ceased to speak to me; they are doubtless charming, but they leave me -cold. What will you have? One can’t serve God and mammon.” Her thoughts -were fixed on far other matters than the delight of dainty covers, and -she evidently considered that in caring so much for them Hyacinth -resembled the mad emperor who fiddled in the flames of Rome. European -society, to her mind, was in flames, and no frivolous occupation could -give the measure of the emotion with which she watched them. It -produced occasionally demonstrations of hilarity, of joy and hope, but -these always took some form connected with the life of the people. It -was the people she had gone to see, when she accompanied Hyacinth to a -music-hall in the Edgware Road; and all her excursions and pastimes, -this winter, were prompted by her interest in the classes on whose -behalf the revolution was to be wrought. - -To ask himself whether she were in earnest was now an old story to him, -and, indeed, the conviction he might arrive at on this head had ceased -to have any practical relevancy. It was just as she was, superficial or -profound, that she held him, and she was, at any rate, sufficiently -animated by a purpose for her doings to have consequences, actual and -possible. Some of these might be serious, even if she herself were not, -and there were times when Hyacinth was much visited by the apprehension -of them. On the Sundays that she had gone with him into the darkest -places, the most fetid holes, in London, she had always taken money -with her, in considerable quantities, and always left it behind. She -said, very naturally, that one couldn’t go and stare at people, for an -impression, without paying them, and she gave alms right and left, -indiscriminately, without inquiry or judgment, as simply as the abbess -of some beggar-haunted convent, or a lady-bountiful of the -superstitious, unscientific ages who should have hoped to be assisted -to heaven by her doles. Hyacinth never said to her, though he sometimes -thought it, that since she was so full of the modern spirit her charity -should be administered according to the modern lights, the principles -of economical science; partly because she was not a woman to be -directed and regulated—she could take other people’s ideas, but she -could never take their way. Besides, what did it matter? To himself, -what did it matter to-day whether he were drawn into right methods or -into wrong ones, his time being too short for regret or for cheer? The -Princess was an embodied passion—she was not a system; and her -behaviour, after all, was more addressed to relieving herself than to -relieving others. And then misery was sown so thick in her path that -wherever her money was dropped it fell into some trembling palm. He -wondered that she should still have so much cash to dispose of, until -she explained to him that she came by it through putting her personal -expenditure on a rigid footing. What she gave away was her savings, the -margin she had succeeded in creating; and now that she had tasted of -the satisfaction of making little hoards for such a purpose she -regarded her other years, with their idleness and waste, their merely -personal motives, as a long, stupid sleep of the conscience. To do -something for others was not only so much more human, but so much more -amusing! - -She made strange acquaintances, under Hyacinth’s conduct; she listened -to extraordinary stories, and formed theories about them, and about the -persons who narrated them to her, which were often still more -extraordinary. She took romantic fancies to vagabonds of either sex, -attempted to establish social relations with them, and was the cause of -infinite agitation to the gentleman who lived near her in the Crescent, -who was always smoking at the window, and who reminded Hyacinth of Mr -Micawber. She received visits that were a scandal to the Crescent, and -Hyacinth neglected his affairs, whatever they were, to see what -tatterdemalion would next turn up at her door. This intercourse, it is -true, took a more fruitful form as her intimacy with Lady Aurora -deepened; her ladyship practised discriminations which she brought the -Princess to recognise, and before the winter was over Hyacinth’s -services in the slums were found unnecessary. He gave way with relief, -with delight, to Lady Aurora, for he had not in the least understood -his behaviour for the previous four months, nor taken himself seriously -as a _cicerone_. He had plunged into a sea of barbarism without having -any civilising energy to put forth. He was conscious that the people -were miserable—more conscious, it often seemed to him, than they -themselves were; so frequently was he struck with their brutal -insensibility, a grossness impervious to the taste of better things or -to any desire for them. He knew it so well that the repetition of -contact could add no vividness to the conviction; it rather smothered -and befogged his impression, peopled it with contradictions and -difficulties, a violence of reaction, a sense of the inevitable and -insurmountable. In these hours the poverty and ignorance of the -multitude seemed so vast and preponderant, and so much the law of life, -that those who had managed to escape from the black gulf were only the -happy few, people of resource as well as children of luck; they -inspired in some degree the interest and sympathy that one should feel -for survivors and victors, those who have come safely out of a -shipwreck or a battle. What was most in Hyacinth’s mind was the idea, -of which every pulsation of the general life of his time was a -syllable, that the flood of democracy was rising over the world; that -it would sweep all the traditions of the past before it; that, whatever -it might fail to bring, it would at least carry in its bosom a -magnificent energy; and that it might be trusted to look after its own. -When democracy should have its way everywhere, it would be its fault -(whose else?) if want and suffering and crime should continue to be -ingredients of the human lot. With his mixed, divided nature, his -conflicting sympathies, his eternal habit of swinging from one view to -another, Hyacinth regarded this prospect, in different moods, with -different kinds of emotion. In spite of the example Eustache Poupin -gave him of the reconcilement of disparities, he was afraid the -democracy wouldn’t care for perfect bindings or for the finest sort of -conversation. The Princess gave up these things in proportion as she -advanced in the direction she had so audaciously chosen; and if the -Princess could give them up it would take very transcendent natures to -stick to them. At the same time there was joy, exultation, in the -thought of surrendering one’s self to the wave of revolt, of floating -in the tremendous tide, of feeling one’s self lifted and tossed, -carried higher on the sun-touched crests of billows than one could ever -be by a dry, lonely effort of one’s own. That vision could deepen to a -kind of ecstasy; make it indifferent whether one’s ultimate fate, in -such a heaving sea, were not almost certainly to be submerged in -bottomless depths or dashed to pieces on resisting cliffs. Hyacinth -felt that, whether his personal sympathy should rest finally with the -victors or the vanquished, the victorious force was colossal and would -require no testimony from the irresolute. - -The reader will doubtless smile at his mental debates and oscillations, -and not understand why a little bastard bookbinder should attach -importance to his conclusions. They were not important for either -cause, but they were important for himself, if only because they would -rescue him from the torment of his present life, the perpetual -laceration of the rebound. There was no peace for him between the two -currents that flowed in his nature, the blood of his passionate, -plebeian mother and that of his long-descended, supercivilised sire. -They continued to toss him from one side to the other; they arrayed him -in intolerable defiances and revenges against himself. He had a high -ambition: he wanted neither more nor less than to get hold of the truth -and wear it in his heart. He believed, with the candour of youth, that -it is brilliant and clear-cut, like a royal diamond; but in whatever -direction he turned in the effort to find it, he seemed to know that -behind him, bent on him in reproach, was a tragic, wounded face. The -thought of his mother had filled him, originally, with the vague, -clumsy fermentation of his first impulses toward social criticism; but -since the problem had become more complex by the fact that many things -in the world as it was constituted grew intensely dear to him, he had -tried more and more to construct some conceivable and human countenance -for his father—some expression of honour, of tenderness and -recognition, of unmerited suffering, or at least of adequate expiation. -To desert one of these presences for the other—that idea had a kind of -shame in it, as an act of treachery would have had; for he could almost -hear the voice of his father ask him if it were the conduct of a -gentleman to take up the opinions and emulate the crudities of fanatics -and cads. He had got over thinking that it would not have become his -father to talk of what was proper to gentlemen, and making the mental -reflection that from him, at least, the biggest cad in London could not -have deserved less consideration. He had worked himself round to -allowances, to interpretations, to such hypotheses as the evidence in -the _Times_, read in the British Museum on that never-to-be-forgotten -afternoon, did not exclude; though they had been frequent enough, and -too frequent, his hours of hot resentment against the man who had -attached to him the stigma he was to carry for ever, he threw himself, -in other conditions, and with a certain success, into the effort to -find condonations, excuses, for him. It was comparatively easy for him -to accept himself as the son of a terribly light Frenchwoman; there -seemed a deeper obloquy even than that in his having for his other -parent a nobleman altogether wanting in nobleness. He was too poor to -afford it. Sometimes, in his imagination, he sacrificed one to the -other, throwing over Lord Frederick much the oftener; sometimes, when -the theory failed that his father would have done great things for him -if he had lived, or the assumption broke down that he had been -Florentine Vivier’s only lover, he cursed and disowned them alike; -sometimes he arrived at conceptions which presented them side by side, -looking at him with eyes infinitely sad but quite unashamed—eyes which -seemed to tell him that they had been hideously unfortunate but had not -been base. Of course his worst moments now, as they had always been the -worst, were those in which his grounds for thinking that Lord Frederick -had really been his father perversely fell away from him. It must be -added that they always passed, for the mixture that he felt himself so -tormentingly, so insolubly, to be could be accounted for in no other -manner. - -I mention these dim broodings not because they belong in an especial -degree to the history of our young man during the winter of the -Princess’s residence in Madeira Crescent, but because they were a -constant element in his moral life and need to be remembered in any -view of him at a given time. There were nights of November and -December, as he trod the greasy pavements that lay between Westminster -and Paddington, groping his way through the baffled lamp-light and -tasting the smoke-seasoned fog, when there was more happiness in his -heart than he had ever known. The influence of his permeating London -had closed over him again; Paris and Milan and Venice had shimmered -away into reminiscence and picture; and as the great city which was -most his own lay round him under her pall, like an immeasurable -breathing monster, he felt, with a vague excitement, as he had felt -before, only now with more knowledge, that it was the richest -expression of the life of man. His horizon had been immensely widened, -but it was filled, again, by the expanse that sent dim night-gleams and -strange blurred reflections and emanations into a sky without stars. He -suspended, as it were, his small sensibility in the midst of it, and it -quivered there with joy and hope and ambition, as well as with the -effort of renunciation. The Princess’s quiet fireside glowed with -deeper assurances, with associations of intimacy, through the dusk and -the immensity; the thought of it was with him always, and his relations -with the mistress of it were more organised than they had been in his -first vision of her. Whether or no it was better for the cause she -cherished that she should have been reduced to her present simplicity, -it was better, at least, for Hyacinth. It made her more near and him -more free; and if there had been a danger of her nature seeming really -to take the tone of the vulgar things about her, he would only have had -to remember her as she was at Medley to restore the perspective. In -truth, her beauty always appeared to have the setting that best became -it; her fairness made the element in which she lived and, among the -meanest accessories, constituted a kind of splendour. Nature had -multiplied the difficulties in the way of her successfully representing -herself as having properties in common with the horrible populace of -London. Hyacinth used to smile at this pretension in his night-walks to -Paddington, or homeward; the populace of London were scattered upon his -path, and he asked himself by what wizardry they could ever be raised -to high participations. There were nights when every one he met -appeared to reek with gin and filth, and he found himself elbowed by -figures as foul as lepers. Some of the women and girls, in particular, -were appalling—saturated with alcohol and vice, brutal, bedraggled, -obscene. ‘What remedy but another deluge, what alchemy but -annihilation?’ he asked himself, as he went his way; and he wondered -what fate there could be, in the great scheme of things, for a planet -overgrown with such vermin, what redemption but to be hurled against a -ball of consuming fire. If it was the fault of the rich, as Paul -Muniment held, the selfish, congested rich, who allowed such -abominations to flourish, that made no difference, and only shifted the -shame; for the terrestrial globe, a visible failure, produced the cause -as well as the effect. - -It did not occur to Hyacinth that the Princess had withdrawn her -confidence from him because, for the work of investigating still -further the condition of the poor, she placed herself in the hands of -Lady Aurora. He could have no jealousy of the noble spinster; he had -too much respect for her philanthropy, the thoroughness of her -knowledge, and her capacity to answer any question it could come into -the Princess’s extemporising head to ask, and too acute a consciousness -of his own desultory and superficial attitude toward the great -question. It was enough for him that the little parlour in Madeira -Crescent was a spot round which his thoughts could revolve, and toward -which his steps could direct themselves, with an unalloyed sense of -security and privilege. The picture of it hung before him half the -time, in colours to which the feeling of the place gave a rarity that -doubtless did not literally characterise the scene. His relations with -the Princess had long since ceased to appear to him to belong to the -world of fable; they were as natural as anything else (everything in -life was queer enough); he had by this time assimilated them, as it -were, and they were an indispensable part of the happiness of each. ‘Of -each’—Hyacinth risked that, for there was no particular vanity now -involved in his perceiving that the most remarkable woman in Europe -was, simply, very fond of him. The quiet, familiar, fraternal welcome -he found on the nasty winter nights was proof enough of that. They sat -together like very old friends, whom long pauses, during which they -simply looked at each other with kind, acquainted eyes, could not make -uncomfortable. Not that the element of silence was the principal part -of their conversation, for it interposed only when they had talked a -great deal. Hyacinth, on the opposite side of the fire, felt at times -almost as if he were married to his hostess, so many things were taken -for granted between them. For intercourse of that sort, intimate, easy, -humorous, circumscribed by drawn curtains and shaded lamp-light, and -interfused with domestic embarrassments and confidences, all turning to -the jocular, the Princess was incomparable. It was her theory of her -present existence that she was picnicking; but all the accidents of the -business were happy accidents. There was a household quietude in her -steps and gestures, in the way she sat, in the way she listened, in the -way she played with the cat, or looked after the fire, or folded Madame -Grandoni’s ubiquitous shawl; above all, in the inveteracy with which -she spent her evenings at home, never dining out nor going to parties, -ignorant of the dissipations of the town. There was something in the -isolation of the room, when the kettle was on the hob and he had given -his wet umbrella to the maid and the Princess made him sit in a certain -place near the fire, the better to dry his shoes—there was something -that evoked the idea of the _vie de province_, as he had read about it -in French works. The French term came to him because it represented -more the especial note of the Princess’s company, the cultivation, the -facility, of talk. She expressed herself often in the French tongue -itself; she could borrow that convenience, for certain shades of -meaning, though she had told Hyacinth that she didn’t like the people -to whom it was native. Certainly, the quality of her conversation was -not provincial; it was singularly free and unrestricted; there was -nothing one mightn’t say to her or that she was not liable to say -herself. She had cast off prejudices and gave no heed to conventional -danger-posts. Hyacinth admired the movement—his eyes seemed to see -it—with which, in any direction, intellectually, she could fling open -her windows. There was an extraordinary charm in this mixture of -liberty and humility—in seeing a creature capable, socially, of -immeasurable flights sit dove-like, with folded wings. - -The young man met Lady Aurora several times in Madeira Crescent (her -days, like his own, were filled with work, and she came in the -evening), and he knew that her friendship with the Princess had arrived -at a rich maturity. The two ladies were a source of almost rapturous -interest to each other, and each rejoiced that the other was not a bit -different. The Princess prophesied freely that her visitor would give -her up—all nice people did, very soon; but to Hyacinth the end of her -ladyship’s almost breathless enthusiasm was not yet in view. She was -bewildered, but she was fascinated; and she thought the Princess not -only the most distinguished, the most startling, the most edifying and -the most original person in the world, but the most amusing and the -most delightful to have tea with. As for the Princess, her sentiment -about Lady Aurora was the same that Hyacinth’s had been: she thought -her a saint, the first she had ever seen, and the purest specimen -conceivable; as good in her way as St Francis of Assisi, as tender and -naïve and transparent, of a spirit of charity as sublime. She held that -when one met a human flower as fresh as that in the dusty ways of the -world one should pluck it and wear it; and she was always inhaling Lady -Aurora’s fragrance, always kissing her and holding her hand. The -spinster was frightened at her generosity, at the way her imagination -embroidered; she wanted to convince her (as the Princess did on her own -side) that such exaggerations destroyed their unfortunate subject. The -Princess delighted in her clothes, in the way she put them on and wore -them, in the economies she practised in order to have money for charity -and the ingenuity with which these slender resources were made to go -far, in the very manner in which she spoke, a kind of startled -simplicity. She wished to emulate her in all these particulars; to -learn how to economise still more cunningly, to get her bonnets at the -same shop, to care as little for the fit of her gloves, to ask, in the -same tone, “Isn’t it a bore Susan Crotty’s husband has got a -ticket-of-leave?” She said Lady Aurora made her feel like a French -milliner, and that if there was anything in the world she loathed it -was a French milliner. Each of these persons was powerfully affected by -the other’s idiosyncrasies, and each wanted the other to remain as she -was while she herself should be transformed into the image of her -friend. - -One evening, going to Madeira Crescent a little later than usual, -Hyacinth met Lady Aurora on the doorstep, leaving the house. She had a -different air from any he had seen in her before; appeared flushed and -even a little agitated, as if she had been learning a piece of bad -news. She said, “Oh, how do you do?” with her customary quick, vague -laugh; but she went her way, without stopping to talk. - -Hyacinth, on going in, mentioned to the Princess that he had -encountered her, and this lady replied, “It’s a pity you didn’t come a -little sooner. You would have assisted at a scene.” - -“At a scene?” Hyacinth repeated, not understanding what violence could -have taken place between mutual adorers. - -“She made me a scene of tears, of earnest remonstrance—perfectly well -meant, I needn’t tell you. She thinks I am going too far.” - -“I imagine you tell her things that you don’t tell me,” said Hyacinth. - -“Oh, you, my dear fellow!” the Princess murmured. She spoke -absent-mindedly, as if she were thinking of what had passed with Lady -Aurora, and as if the futility of telling things to Hyacinth had become -a commonplace. - -There was no annoyance for him in this, his pretension to keep pace -with her ‘views’ being quite extinct. The tone they now, for the most -part, took with each other was one of mutual derision, of shrugging -commiseration for insanity on the one hand and benightedness on the -other. In discussing with her he exaggerated deliberately, went to -fantastic lengths in the way of reaction; and it was their habit and -their entertainment to hurl all manner of denunciation at each other’s -head. They had given up serious discussion altogether, and when they -were not engaged in bandying, in the spirit of burlesque, the amenities -I have mentioned, they talked of matters as to which it could not occur -to them to differ. There were evenings when the Princess did nothing -but relate her life and all that she had seen of humanity, from her -earliest years, in a variety of countries. If the evil side of it -appeared mainly to have been presented to her view, this did not -diminish the interest and vividness of her reminiscences, nor her -power, the greatest Hyacinth had ever encountered, of light pictorial, -dramatic evocation. She was irreverent and invidious, but she made him -hang on her lips; and when she regaled him with anecdotes of foreign -courts (he delighted to know how sovereigns lived and conversed), there -was often, for hours together, nothing to indicate that she would have -liked to get into a conspiracy and he would have liked to get out of -one. Nevertheless, his mind was by no means exempt from wonder as to -what she was really doing in the dark and in what queer consequences -she might find herself landed. When he questioned her she wished to -know by what title, with his sentiments, he pretended to inquire. He -did so but little, not being himself altogether convinced of the -validity of his warrant; but on one occasion, when she challenged him, -he replied, smiling and hesitating, “Well, I must say, it seems to me -that, from what I have told you, it ought to strike you that I have a -title.” - -“You mean your famous engagement, your vow? Oh, that will never come to -anything.” - -“Why won’t it come to anything?” - -“It’s too absurd, it’s too vague. It’s like some silly humbug in a -novel.” - -“_Vous me rendez la vie!_” said Hyacinth, theatrically. - -“You won’t have to do it,” the Princess went on. - -“I think you mean I won’t do it. I have offered, at least; isn’t that a -title?” - -“Well, then, you won’t do it,” said the Princess; and they looked at -each other a couple of minutes in silence. - -“You will, I think, at the pace you are going,” the young man resumed. - -“What do you know about the pace? You are not worthy to know!” - -He did know, however; that is, he knew that she was in communication -with foreign socialists and had, or believed she had, irons on the -fire—that she held in her hand some of the strings that are pulled in -great movements. She received letters that made Madame Grandoni watch -her askance, of which, though she knew nothing of their contents and -had only her general suspicions and her scent for disaster, now become -constant, the old woman had spoken more than once to Hyacinth. Madame -Grandoni had begun to have sombre visions of the interference of the -police: she was haunted with the idea of a search for compromising -papers; of being dragged, herself, as an accomplice in direful plots, -into a court of justice—possibly into a prison. “If she would only -burn—if she would only burn! But she keeps—I know she keeps!” she -groaned to Hyacinth, in her helpless gloom. Hyacinth could only guess -what it might be that she kept; asking himself whether she were -seriously entangled, were being exploited by revolutionary Bohemians, -predatory adventurers who counted on her getting frightened at a given -moment and offering hush-money to be allowed to slip out (out of a -complicity which they, of course, would never have taken seriously); or -were merely coquetting with paper schemes, giving herself cheap -sensations, discussing preliminaries which, for her, could have no -second stage. It would have been easy for Hyacinth to smile at the -Princess’s impression that she was ‘in it’, and to conclude that even -the cleverest women do not know when they are superficial, had not the -vibration remained which had been imparted to his nerves two years -before, of which he had spoken to his hostess at Medley—the sense, -vividly kindled and never quenched, that the forces secretly arrayed -against the present social order were pervasive and universal, in the -air one breathed, in the ground one trod, in the hand of an -acquaintance that one might touch, or the eye of a stranger that might -rest a moment upon one’s own. They were above, below, within, without, -in every contact and combination of life; and it was no disproof of -them to say it was too odd that they should lurk in a particular -improbable form. To lurk in improbable forms was precisely their -strength, and they would doubtless exhibit much stranger incidents than -this of the Princess’s being a genuine participant even when she -flattered herself that she was. - -“You do go too far,” Hyacinth said to her, the evening Lady Aurora had -passed him at the door. - -To which she answered, “Of course I do—that’s exactly what I mean. How -else does one know one has gone far enough? That poor, dear woman! -She’s an angel, but she isn’t in the least in it,” she added, in a -moment. She would give him no further satisfaction on the subject; when -he pressed her she inquired whether he had brought the copy of Browning -that he had promised the last time. If he had, he was to sit down and -read it to her. In such a case as this Hyacinth had no disposition to -insist; he was glad enough not to talk about the everlasting nightmare. -He took _Men and Women_ from his pocket, and read aloud for half an -hour; but on his making some remark on one of the poems, at the end of -this time he perceived the Princess had been paying no attention. When -he charged her with this levity she only replied, looking at him -musingly, “How _can_ one, after all, go too far? That’s a word of -cowards.” - -“Do you mean her ladyship is a coward?” - -“Yes, in not having the courage of her opinions, of her conclusions. -The way the English can go half-way to a thing, and then stick in the -middle!” the Princess exclaimed, impatiently. - -“That’s not your fault, certainly!” said Hyacinth. “But it seems to me -that Lady Aurora, for herself, goes pretty far.” - -“We are all afraid of some things, and brave about others,” the -Princess went on. - -“The thing Lady Aurora is most afraid of is the Princess Casamassima,” -Hyacinth remarked. - -His companion looked at him, but she did not take this up. “There is -one particular in which she would be very brave. She would marry her -friend—your friend—Mr Muniment.” - -“Marry him, do you think?” - -“What else, pray?” the Princess asked. “She adores the ground he walks -on.” - -“And what would Belgrave Square, and Inglefield, and all the rest of -it, say?” - -“What do they say already, and how much does it make her swerve? She -would do it in a moment; and it would be fine to see it, it would be -magnificent,” said the Princess, kindling, as she was apt to kindle, at -the idea of any great freedom of action. - -“That certainly wouldn’t be a case of what you call sticking in the -middle,” Hyacinth rejoined. - -“Ah, it wouldn’t be a matter of logic; it would be a matter of passion. -When it’s a question of that, the English, to do them justice, don’t -stick!” - -This speculation of the Princess’s was by no means new to Hyacinth, and -he had not thought it heroic, after all, that their high-strung friend -should feel herself capable of sacrificing her family, her name, and -the few habits of gentility that survived in her life, of making -herself a scandal, a fable, and a nine days’ wonder, for Muniment’s -sake; the young chemist’s assistant being, to his mind, as we know, -exactly the type of man who produced convulsions, made ruptures and -renunciations easy. But it was less clear to him what ideas Muniment -might have on the subject of a union with a young woman who should have -come out of her class for him. He would marry some day, evidently, -because he would do all the natural, human, productive things; but for -the present he had business on hand which would be likely to pass -first. Besides—Hyacinth had seen him give evidence of this—he didn’t -think people could really come out of their class; he held that the -stamp of one’s origin is ineffaceable and that the best thing one can -do is to wear it and fight for it. Hyacinth could easily imagine how it -would put him out to be mixed up, closely, with a person who, like Lady -Aurora, was fighting on the wrong side. “She can’t marry him unless he -asks her, I suppose—and perhaps he won’t,” he reflected. - -“Yes, perhaps he won’t,” said the Princess, thoughtfully. - - - - -XXXIX - - -On Saturday afternoons Paul Muniment was able to leave his work at four -o’clock, and on one of these occasions, some time after his visit to -Madeira Crescent, he came into Rosy’s room at about five, carefully -dressed and brushed, and ruddy with the freshness of an abundant -washing. He stood at the foot of her sofa, with a conscious smile, -knowing how she chaffed him when his necktie was new; and after a -moment, during which she ceased singing to herself as she twisted the -strands of her long black hair together and let her eyes travel over -his whole person, inspecting every detail, she said to him, “My dear Mr -Muniment, you are going to see the Princess.” - -“Well, have you anything to say against it?” Mr Muniment asked. - -“Not a word; you know I like princesses. But you have.” - -“Well, my girl, I’ll not speak it to you,” the young man rejoined. -“There’s something to be said against everything, if you’ll give -yourself trouble enough.” - -“I should be very sorry if ever anything was said against you.” - -“The man’s a sneak who is only and always praised,” Muniment remarked. -“If you didn’t hope to be finely abused, where would be the -encouragement?” - -“Ay, but not with reason,” said Rosy, who always brightened to an -argument. - -“The better the reason, the greater the incentive to expose one’s self. -However, you won’t hear it, if people do heave bricks at me.” - -“I won’t hear it? Pray, don’t I hear everything? I should like any one -to keep anything from _me!_” And Miss Muniment gave a toss of her -recumbent head. - -“There’s a good deal I keep from you, my dear,” said Paul, rather -dryly. - -“You mean there are things I don’t want, I don’t take any trouble, to -know. Indeed and indeed there are: things that I wouldn’t know for the -world—that no amount of persuasion would induce me, not if you was to -go down on your knees. But if I did—if I did, I promise you that just -as I lie here I should have them all in my pocket. Now there are -others,” the young woman went on—“there are others that you will just -be so good as to tell me. When the Princess asked you to come and see -her you refused, and you wanted to know what good it would do. I hoped -you would go, then; I should have liked you to go, because I wanted to -know how she lived, and whether she had things handsome, or only in the -poor way she said. But I didn’t push you, because I couldn’t have told -you what good it _would_ do you: that was only the good it would have -done me. At present I have heard everything from Lady Aurora, and I -know that it’s all quite decent and tidy (though not really like a -princess a bit), and that she knows how to turn everything about and -put it best end foremost, just as I do, like, though _I_ oughtn’t to -say it, no doubt. Well, you have been, and more than once, and I have -had nothing to do with it; of which I am very glad now, for reasons -that you perfectly know—you’re too honest a man to pretend you don’t. -Therefore, when I see you going again, I just inquire of you, as you -inquired of her, what good _does_ it do you?” - -“I like it—I like it, my dear,” said Paul, with his fresh, -unembarrassed smile. - -“I dare say you do. So should I, in your place. But it’s the first time -I have heard you express the idea that we ought to do everything we -like.” - -“Why not, when it doesn’t hurt any one else?” - -“Oh, Mr Muniment, Mr Muniment!” Rosy exclaimed, with exaggerated -solemnity, holding up a straight, attenuated forefinger at him. Then -she added, “No, she doesn’t do you good, that beautiful, brilliant -woman.” - -“Give her time, my dear—give her time,” said Paul, looking at his -watch. - -“Of course you are impatient, but you _must_ hear me. I have no doubt -she’ll wait for you; you won’t lose your turn. Please, what would you -do if any one was to break down altogether?” - -“My bonny lassie,” the young man rejoined, “if _you_ only keep going, I -don’t care who fails.” - -“Oh, I shall keep going, if it’s only to look after my friends and get -justice for them,” said Miss Muniment—“the delicate, sensitive -creatures who require support and protection. Have you really forgotten -that we have such a one as that?” - -The young man walked to the window, with his hands in his pockets, and -looked out at the fading light. “Why does she go herself, then, if she -doesn’t like her?” - -Rose Muniment hesitated a moment. “Well, I’m glad I’m not a man!” she -broke out. “I think a woman on her back is cleverer than a man on his -two legs. And you such a wonderful one, too!” - -“You are all too clever for me, my dear. If she goes—and twenty times a -week, too—why shouldn’t I go, once in ever so long? Especially as I -like her, and Lady Aurora doesn’t.” - -“Lady Aurora doesn’t? Do you think she’d be guilty of hypocrisy? Lady -Aurora delights in her; she won’t let me say that she herself is fit to -dust the Princess’s shoes. I needn’t tell _you_ how she goes down -before them she likes. And I don’t believe you care a button; you have -got something in your head, some wicked game or other, that you think -she can hatch for you.” - -At this Paul Muniment turned round and looked at his sister a moment, -smiling still and whistling just audibly. “Why shouldn’t I care? Ain’t -I soft, ain’t I susceptible?” - -“I never thought I should hear you ask that, after what I have seen -these four years. For four years she has come, and it’s all for you, as -well it might be, and you never showing any more sense of what she’d be -willing to do for you than if you had been that woollen cat on the -hearth-rug!” - -“What would you like me to do? Would you like me to hang round her neck -and hold her hand, the same as you do?” Muniment asked. - -“Yes, it would do me good, I can tell you. It’s better than what I -see—the poor lady getting spotted and dim, like a mirror that wants -rubbing.” - -“You know a good deal, Rosy, but you don’t know everything,” Muniment -remarked in a moment, with a face that gave no sign of seeing a reason -in what she said. “Your mind is too poetical. There’s nothing that I -should care for that her ladyship would be willing to do for me.” - -“She would marry you at a day’s notice—she’d do that.” - -“I shouldn’t care for that. Besides, if I was to ask her she would -never come into the place again. And I shouldn’t care for that, for -you.” - -“Never mind me; I’ll take the risk!” cried Rosy, gaily. - -“But what’s to be gained, if I can have her, for you, without any -risk?” - -“You won’t have her for me, or for any one, when she’s dead of a broken -heart.” - -“Dead of a broken tea-cup!” said the young man. “And, pray, what should -we live on, when you had got us set up?—the three of us, without -counting the kids.” - -He evidently was arguing from pure good-nature, and not in the least -from curiosity; but his sister replied as eagerly as if he would be -floored by her answer: “Hasn’t she got two hundred a year of her own? -Don’t I know every penny of her affairs?” - -Paul Muniment gave no sign of any mental criticism he may have made on -Rosy’s conception of the delicate course, or of a superior policy; -perhaps, indeed, for it is perfectly possible, her inquiry did not -strike him as having a mixture of motives. He only rejoined, with a -little pleasant, patient sigh, “I don’t want the dear old girl’s -money.” - -His sister, in spite of her eagerness, waited twenty seconds; then she -flashed at him, “Pray, do you like the Princess’s better?” - -“If I did, there would be more of it,” he answered, quietly. - -“How can she marry you? Hasn’t she got a husband?” Rosy cried. - -“Lord, how you give me away!” laughed her brother. “Daughters of earls, -wives of princes—I have only to pick.” - -“I don’t speak of the Princess, so long as there’s a prince. But if you -haven’t seen that Lady Aurora is a beautiful, wonderful exception, and -quite unlike any one else in all the wide world—well, all I can say is -that _I_ have.” - -“I thought it was your opinion,” Paul objected, “that the swells should -remain swells, and the high ones keep their place.” - -“And, pray, would she lose hers if she were to marry you?” - -“Her place at Inglefield, certainly,” said Paul, as patiently as if his -sister could never tire him with any insistence or any minuteness. - -“Hasn’t she lost that already? Does she ever go there?” - -“Surely you appear to think so, from the way you always question her -about it,” replied Paul. - -“Well, they think her so mad already that they can’t think her any -madder,” his sister continued. “They have given her up, and if she were -to marry you—” - -“If she were to marry me, they wouldn’t touch her with a ten-foot -pole,” Paul broke in. - -Rosy flinched a moment; then she said, serenely, “Oh, I don’t care for -that!” - -“You ought to, to be consistent, though, possibly, she shouldn’t, -admitting that she wouldn’t. You have more imagination than logic—which -of course, for a woman, is quite right. That’s what makes you say that -her ladyship is in affliction because I go to a place that she herself -goes to without the least compulsion.” - -“She goes to keep you off,” said Rosy, with decision. - -“To keep me off?” - -“To interpose, with the Princess; to be nice to her and conciliate her, -so that she may not take you.” - -“Did she tell you any such rigmarole as that?” Paul inquired, this time -staring a little. - -“Do I need to be told things, to know them? I am not a fine, strong, -superior male; therefore I can discover them for myself,” answered -Rosy, with a dauntless little laugh and a light in her eyes which might -indeed have made it appear that she was capable of wizardry. - -“You make her out at once too passionate and too calculating,” the -young man rejoined. “She has no personal feelings, she wants nothing -for herself. She only wants one thing in the world—to make the poor a -little less poor.” - -“Precisely; and she regards you, a helpless, blundering bachelor, as -one of them.” - -“She knows I am not helpless so long as you are about the place, and -that my blunders don’t matter so long as you correct them.” - -“She wants to assist me to assist you, then!” the girl exclaimed, with -the levity with which her earnestness was always interfused; it was a -spirit that seemed, at moments, in argument, to mock at her own -contention. “Besides, isn’t that the very thing you want to bring -about?” she went on. “Isn’t that what you are plotting and working and -waiting for? She wants to throw herself into it—to work with you.” - -“My dear girl, she doesn’t understand a pennyworth of what I think. She -couldn’t if she would.” - -“And no more do I, I suppose you mean.” - -“No more do you; but with you it’s different. If you would, you could. -However, it matters little who understands and who doesn’t, for there’s -mighty little of it. I’m not doing much, you know.” - -Rosy lay there looking up at him. “It must be pretty thick, when you -talk that way. However, I don’t care what happens, for I know I shall -be looked after.” - -“Nothing will happen—nothing will happen,” Paul remarked, simply. - -The girl’s rejoinder to this was to say in a moment, “You have a -different tone since you have taken up the Princess.” - -She spoke with a certain severity, but he broke out, as if he had not -heard her, “I like your idea of the female aristocracy quarrelling over -a dirty brute like me.” - -“I don’t know how dirty you are, but I know you smell of soap,” said -Rosy, with serenity. “They won’t quarrel; that’s not the way they do -it. Yes, you are taking a different tone, for some purpose that I can’t -discover just yet.” - -“What do you mean by that? When did I ever take a tone?” her brother -asked. - -“Why then do you speak as if you were not remarkable, immensely -remarkable—more remarkable than anything any one, male or female, good -or bad, of the aristocracy or of the vulgar sort, can ever do for you?” - -“What on earth have I ever done to show it?” Paul demanded. - -“Oh, I don’t know your secrets, and that’s one of them. But we’re out -of the common beyond any one, you and I, and, between ourselves, with -the door fastened, we might as well admit it.” - -“I admit it for you, with all my heart,” said the young man, laughing. - -“Well, then, if I admit it for you, that’s all that’s required.” - -The brother and sister considered each other a while in silence, as if -each were tasting, agreeably, the distinction the other conferred; then -Muniment said, “If I’m such an awfully superior chap, why shouldn’t I -behave in keeping?” - -“Oh, you do, you do!” - -“All the same, you don’t like it.” - -“It isn’t so much what you do; it’s what _she_ does.” - -“How do you mean, what she does?” - -“She makes Lady Aurora suffer.” - -“Oh, I can’t go into that,” said Paul. “A man feels like a muff, -talking about the women that ‘suffer’ for him.” - -“Well, if they do it, I think _you_ might bear it!” Rosy exclaimed. -“That’s what a man is. When it comes to being sorry, oh, that’s too -ridiculous!” - -“There are plenty of things in the world I’m sorry for,” Paul rejoined, -smiling. “One of them is that you should keep me gossiping here when I -want to go out.” - -“Oh, I don’t care if I worry her a little. Does she do it on purpose?” -Rosy continued. - -“You ladies must settle all that together,” Muniment answered, rubbing -his hat with the cuff of his coat. It was a new one, the bravest he had -ever possessed, and in a moment he put it on his head, as if to -reinforce his reminder to his sister that it was time she should -release him. - -“Well, you do look genteel,” she remarked, complacently, gazing up at -him. “No wonder she has lost her head! I mean the Princess,” she -explained. “You never went to any such expense for her ladyship.” - -“My dear, the Princess is worth it—she’s worth it,” said the young man, -speaking seriously now, and reflectively. - -“Will she help you very much?” Rosy demanded, with a strange, sudden -transition to eagerness. - -“Well,” said Paul, “that’s rather what I look for.” - -She threw herself forward on her sofa, with a movement that was rare -with her, and shaking her clasped hands she exclaimed, “Then go off, go -off quickly!” - -He came round and kissed her, as if he were not more struck than usual -with her freakish inconsequence. “It’s not bad to have a little person -at home who wants a fellow to succeed.” - -“Oh, I know they will look after me,” she said, sinking back upon her -pillow with an air of agreeable security. - -He was aware that whenever she said ‘they’, without further -elucidation, she meant the populace surging up in his rear, and he -rejoined, always hilarious, “I don’t think we’ll leave it much to -‘them’.” - -“No, it’s not much you’ll leave to them, I’ll be bound.” - -He gave a louder laugh at this, and said, “You’re the deepest of the -lot, Miss Muniment.” - -Her eyes kindled at his praise, and as she rested them on her brother’s -she murmured, “Well, I pity the poor Princess, too, you know.” - -“Well, now, I’m not conceited, but I don’t,” Paul returned, passing in -front of the little mirror on the mantel-shelf. - -“Yes, you’ll succeed, and so shall I—but _she_ won’t,” Rosy went on. - -Muniment stopped a moment, with his hand on the latch of the door, and -said, gravely, almost sententiously, “She is not only beautiful, as -beautiful as a picture, but she is uncommon sharp, and she has taking -ways, beyond anything that ever was known.” - -“I know her ways,” his sister replied. Then, as he left the room, she -called after him, “But I don’t care for anything, so long as you become -prime minister of England!” - -Three quarters of an hour after this Muniment knocked at the door in -Madeira Crescent, and was immediately ushered into the parlour, where -the Princess, in her bonnet and mantle, sat alone. She made no movement -as he came in; she only looked up at him with a smile. - -“You are braver than I gave you credit for,” she said, in her rich -voice. - -“I shall learn to be brave, if I associate a while longer with you. But -I shall never cease to be shy,” Muniment added, standing there and -looking tall in the middle of the small room. He cast his eyes about -him for a place to sit down, but the Princess gave him no help to -choose; she only watched him, in silence, from her own place, with her -hands quietly folded in her lap. At last, when, without remonstrance -from her, he had selected the most uncomfortable chair in the room, she -replied— - -“That’s only another name for desperate courage. I put on my bonnet, on -the chance, but I didn’t expect you.” - -“Well, here I am—that’s the great thing,” Muniment said, -good-humouredly. - -“Yes, no doubt it’s a very great thing. But it will be a still greater -thing when you are there.” - -“I am afraid you hope too much,” the young man observed. “Where is it? -I don’t think you told me.” - -The Princess drew a small folded letter from her pocket, and, without -saying anything, held it out to him. He got up to take it from her, -opened it, and, as he read it, remained standing in front of her. Then -he went straight to the fire and thrust the paper into it. At this -movement she rose quickly, as if to save the document, but the -expression of his face, as he turned round to her, made her stop. The -smile that came into her own was a little forced. “What are you afraid -of?” she asked. “I take it the house is known. If we go, I suppose we -may admit that we go.” - -Muniment’s face showed that he had been annoyed, but he answered, -quietly enough, “No writing—no writing.” - -“You are terribly careful,” said the Princess. - -“Careful of you—yes.” - -She sank down upon her sofa again, asking her companion to ring for -tea; they would do much better to have some before going out. When the -order had been given, she remarked, “I see I shall have much less keen -emotion than when I acted by myself.” - -“Is that what you go in for—keen emotion?” - -“Surely, Mr Muniment. Don’t you?” - -“God forbid! I hope to have as little of it as possible.” - -“Of course one doesn’t want any vague rodomontade; one wants to do -something. But it would be hard if one couldn’t have a little pleasure -by the way.” - -“My pleasure is in quietness,” said Paul Muniment, smiling. - -“So is mine. But it depends on how you understand it. Quietness, I -mean, in the midst of a tumult.” - -“You have rare ideas about tumults. They are not good in themselves.” - -The Princess considered this a moment; then she remarked, “I wonder if -you are too prudent. I shouldn’t like that. If it is made an accusation -against you that you have been—where we are going—shall you deny it?” - -“With that prospect it would be simpler not to go at all, wouldn’t it?” -Muniment inquired. - -“Which prospect do you mean? That of being found out, or that of having -to lie?” - -“I suppose that if you lie you are not found out,” Muniment replied, -humorously. - -“You won’t take me seriously,” said the Princess. She spoke without -irritation, without resentment, with a kind of resigned sadness. But -there was a certain fineness of reproach in the tone in which she -added, “I don’t believe you want to go at all.” - -“Why else should I have come, especially if I don’t take you -seriously?” - -“That has never been a reason for a man’s not going to see a woman,” -said the Princess. “It’s usually a reason in favour of it.” - -Muniment turned his smiling eyes over the room, looking from one -article of furniture to another: this was a way he had when he was -engaged in a discussion, and it suggested not so much that he was -reflecting on what his interlocutor said as that his thoughts were -pursuing a cheerfully independent course. Presently he observed, “I -don’t know that I quite understand what you mean by that question of -taking a woman seriously.” - -“Ah, you are very perfect,” murmured the Princess. “Don’t you consider -that the changes you look for will be also for our benefit?” - -“I don’t think they will alter your position.” - -“If I didn’t hope for that, I wouldn’t do anything,” said the Princess. - -“Oh, I have no doubt you’ll do a great deal.” - -The young man’s companion was silent for some minutes, during which he -also was content to say nothing. “I wonder you can find it in your -conscience to work with me,” she observed at last. - -“It isn’t in my conscience I find it,” said Muniment, laughing. - -The maid-servant brought in the tea, and while the Princess was making -a place for it on a little table beside her she exclaimed, “Well, I -don’t care, for I think I have you in my power!” - -“You have every one in your power,” returned Muniment. - -“Every one is no one,” the Princess replied, rather dryly; and a moment -later she said to him, “That extraordinary little sister of -yours—surely you take _her_ seriously?” - -“I’m wonderful fond of her, if that’s what you mean. But I don’t think -her position will ever be altered.” - -“Are you alluding to her position in bed? If you consider that she will -never recover her health,” the Princess said, “I am very sorry to hear -it.” - -“Oh, her health will do. I mean that she will continue to be, like all -the most amiable women, just a kind of ornament to life.” - -The Princess had already perceived that he pronounced amiable -‘emiable’; but she had accepted this peculiarity of her visitor in the -spirit of imaginative transfigurement in which she had accepted several -others. “To your life, of course. She can hardly be said to be an -ornament to her own.” - -“Her life and mine are all one.” - -“She is certainly magnificent,” said the Princess. While he was -drinking his tea she remarked to him that for a revolutionist he was -certainly most extraordinary; and he inquired, in answer, whether it -were not rather in keeping for revolutionists to be extraordinary. He -drank three cups, declaring that his hostess’s decoction was fine; it -was better, even, than Lady Aurora’s. This led him to observe, as he -put down his third cup, looking round the room again, lovingly, almost -covetously, “You’ve got everything so handy, I don’t see what interest -you can have.” - -“How do you mean, what interest?” - -“In getting in so uncommon deep.” - -On the instant the Princess’s expression flashed into pure passion. “Do -you consider that I am in—really far?” - -“Up to your neck, ma’am.” - -“And do you think that _il y va_ of my neck—I mean that it’s in -danger?” she translated, eagerly. - -“Oh, I understand your French. Well, I’ll look after you,” Muniment -said. - -“Remember, then, definitely, that I expect not to lie.” - -“Not even for me?” Then Muniment added, in the same familiar tone, -which was not rough nor wanting in respect, but only homely and direct, -suggestive of growing acquaintance, “If I was your husband I would come -and take you away.” - -“Please don’t speak of my husband,” said the Princess, gravely. “You -have no qualification for doing so; you know nothing whatever about -him.” - -“I know what Hyacinth has told me.” - -“Oh, Hyacinth!” the Princess murmured, impatiently. There was another -silence of some minutes, not disconnected, apparently, from this -reference to the little bookbinder; but when Muniment spoke, after the -interval, it was not to carry on the allusion— - -“Of course you think me very plain, very rude.” - -“Certainly, you have not such a nice address as Hyacinth,” the Princess -rejoined, not desiring, on her side, to evade the topic. “But that is -given to very few,” she added; “and I don’t know that pretty manners -are exactly what we are working for.” - -“Ay, it won’t be very endearing when we cut down a few allowances,” -said Muniment. “But I want to please you; I want to be as much as -possible like Hyacinth,” he went on. - -“That is not the way to please me. I don’t forgive him; he’s very -silly.” - -“Ah, don’t say that; he’s a little brick!” Muniment exclaimed. - -“He’s a dear fellow, with extraordinary qualities, but so deplorably -conventional.” - -“Yes, talking about taking things seriously—_he_ takes them seriously,” -remarked Muniment. - -“Has he ever told you his life?” asked the Princess. - -“He hasn’t required to tell me. I’ve seen a good bit of it.” - -“Yes, but I mean before you knew him.” - -Muniment reflected a moment. “His birth, and his poor mother? I think -it was Rosy told me about that.” - -“And, pray, how did _she_ know?” - -“Ah, when you come to the way Rosy knows!” said Muniment, laughing. -“She doesn’t like people in that predicament. She thinks we ought all -to be finely born.” - -“Then they agree, for so does poor Hyacinth.” The Princess hesitated an -instant; then she said, as if with a quick effort, “I want to ask you -something. Have you had a visit from Mr Vetch?” - -“The old gentleman who fiddles? No, he has never done me that honour.” - -“It was because I prevented him, then. I told him to leave it to me.” - -“To leave what, now?” Muniment looked at her in placid perplexity. - -“He is in great distress about Hyacinth—about the danger he runs. You -know what I mean.” - -“Yes, I know what you mean,” Muniment replied, slowly. “But what does -_he_ know about it? I thought it was supposed to be a deadly secret.” - -“So it is. He doesn’t know anything; he only suspects.” - -“How do you know, then?” - -The Princess hesitated again. “Oh, I’m like Rosy—I find out. Mr Vetch, -as I suppose you are aware, has known Hyacinth all his life; he takes a -most affectionate interest in him. He believes there is something -hanging over him, and he wants it to be turned off, to be stopped.” The -Princess paused at this, but her visitor made no response, and she -continued: “He was going to see you, to beg you to do something, to -interfere; he seemed to think that your power, in such a matter, would -be very great; but, as I tell you, I requested him, as a particular -favour to me, to let you alone.” - -“What favour would it be to you?” Muniment asked. - -“It would give me the satisfaction of feeling that you were not -worried.” - -Muniment appeared struck with the curious inadequacy of this -explanation, considering what was at stake; he broke into a laugh and -remarked, “That was considerate of you, beyond everything.” - -“It was not meant as consideration for you; it was a piece of -calculation.” The Princess, having made this announcement, gathered up -her gloves and turned away, walking to the chimney-piece, where she -stood a moment arranging her bonnet-ribbons in the mirror with which it -was decorated. Muniment watched her with evident curiosity; in spite -both of his inaccessibility to nervous agitation and of the sceptical -theories he entertained about her, he was not proof against her general -faculty of creating a feeling of suspense, a tension of interest, on -the part of those who associated with her. He followed her movements, -but plainly he didn’t follow her calculations, so that he could only -listen more attentively when she inquired suddenly, “Do you know why I -asked you to come and see me? Do you know why I went to see your -sister? It was all a plan,” said the Princess. - -“We hoped it was just an ordinary humane, social impulse,” the young -man returned. - -“It was humane, it was even social, but it was not ordinary. I wanted -to save Hyacinth.” - -“To save him?” - -“I wanted to be able to talk with you just as I am talking now.” - -“That was a fine idea!” Muniment exclaimed, ingenuously. - -“I have an exceeding, a quite inexpressible, regard for him. I have no -patience with some of his opinions, and that is why I permitted myself -to say just now that he is silly. But, after all, the opinions of our -friends are not what we love them for, and therefore I don’t see why -they should be what we hate them for. Hyacinth Robinson’s nature is -singularly generous and his intelligence very fine, though there _are_ -some things that he muddles up. You just now expressed strongly your -own regard for him; therefore we ought to be perfectly agreed. Agreed, -I mean, about getting him out of his scrape.” - -Muniment had the air of a man who felt that he must consider a little -before he assented to these successive propositions; it being a -limitation of his intellect that he could not respond without -understanding. After a moment he answered, referring to the Princess’s -last remark, in which the others appeared to culminate, and at the same -time shaking his head a little and smiling, “His scrape isn’t -important.” - -“You thought it was when you got him into it.” - -“I thought it would give him pleasure,” said Muniment. - -“That’s not a reason for letting people do what isn’t good for them.” - -“I wasn’t thinking so much about what would be good for him as about -what would be bad for some others. He can do as he likes.” - -“That’s easy to say. They must be persuaded not to call upon him.” - -“Persuade them, then, dear madam.” - -“How can I persuade them? If I could, I wouldn’t have approached you. I -have no influence, and even if I had my motives would be suspected. You -are the one to interpose.” - -“Shall I tell them he funks it?” Muniment asked. - -“He doesn’t—he doesn’t!” exclaimed the Princess. - -“On what ground, then, shall I put it?” - -“Tell them he has changed his opinions.” - -“Wouldn’t that be rather like denouncing him as a traitor, and doing it -hypocritically?” - -“Tell them then it’s simply my wish.” - -“That won’t do _you_ much good,” Muniment said, with his natural laugh. - -“Will it put me in danger? That’s exactly what I want.” - -“Yes; but as I understand you, you want to suffer _for_ the people, not -by them. You are very fond of Robinson; it couldn’t be otherwise,” the -young man went on. “But you ought to remember that, in the line you -have chosen, our affections, our natural ties, our timidities, our -shrinkings—” His voice had become low and grave, and he paused a -little, while the Princess’s deep and lovely eyes, attaching themselves -to his face, showed that in an instant she was affected by this -unwonted adjuration. He spoke now as if he were taking her seriously. -“All those things are as nothing, and must never weigh a feather beside -our service.” - -The Princess began to draw on her gloves. “You’re a most extraordinary -man.” - -“That’s what Rosy tells me.” - -“Why don’t you do it yourself?” - -“Do Hyacinth’s job? Because it’s better to do my own.” - -“And, pray, what is your own?” - -“I don’t know,” said Paul Muniment, with perfect serenity and -good-nature. “I expect to be instructed.” - -“Have you taken an oath, like Hyacinth?” - -“Ah, madam, the oaths _I_ take I don’t tell,” said the young man, -gravely. - -“Oh, you . . .!” the Princess murmured, with an ambiguous cadence. She -appeared to dismiss the question, but to suggest at the same time that -he was very abnormal. This imputation was further conveyed by the next -words she uttered: “And can you see a dear friend whirled away like -that?” - -At this, for the first time, Paul Muniment exhibited a certain -irritation. “You had better leave my dear friend to me.” - -The Princess, with her eyes still fixed upon him, gave a long, soft -sigh. “Well, then, shall we go?” - -Muniment took up his hat again, but he made no movement toward the -door. “If you did me the honour to seek my acquaintance, to ask me to -come and see you, only in order to say what you have just said about -Hyacinth, perhaps we needn’t carry out the form of going to the place -you proposed. Wasn’t this only your pretext?” - -“I believe you _are_ afraid!” the Princess exclaimed; but in spite of -her exclamation the pair presently went out of the house. They quitted -the door together, after having stood on the step for a moment, looking -up and down, apparently for a cab. So far as the darkness, which was -now complete, permitted the prospect to be scanned, there was no such -vehicle within hail. They turned to the left, and after a walk of -several minutes, during which they were engaged in small, dull -by-streets, emerged upon a more populous way, where there were lighted -shops and omnibuses and the evident chance of a hansom. Here they -paused again, and very soon an empty hansom passed, and, at a sign, -pulled up near them. Meanwhile, it should be recorded, they had been -followed, at an interval, by a cautious figure, a person who, in -Madeira Crescent, when they came out of the house, was stationed on the -other side of the street, at a considerable distance. When they -appeared he retreated a little, still however keeping them in sight. -When they moved away he moved in the same direction, watching them but -maintaining his distance. He drew nearer, seemingly because he could -not control his eagerness, as they turned into Westbourne Grove, and -during the minute they stood there he was exposed to recognition by the -Princess if she had happened to turn her head. In the event of her -having felt such an impulse she would have discovered, in the -lamp-light, that her noble husband was hovering in her rear. But the -Princess was otherwise occupied; she failed to see that at one moment -he came so close as to suggest that he had an intention of addressing -himself to the couple. The reader scarcely needs to be informed that -his real intention was to satisfy himself as to the kind of person his -wife was walking with. The time allowed him for this research was -brief, especially as he had perceived, more rapidly than he sometimes -perceived things, that they were looking for a vehicle and that with -its assistance they would pass out of his range—a reflection which -caused him to give half his attention to the business of hailing any -second cab which should come that way. There are parts of London in -which you may never see a cab at all, but there are none in which you -may see only one; in accordance with which fortunate truth Prince -Casamassima was able to wave his stick to good purpose as soon as the -two objects of his pursuit had rattled away. Behind them now, in the -gloom, he had no fear of being seen. In little more than an instant he -had jumped into another hansom, the driver of which accompanied the -usual exclamation of “All right, sir!” with a small, amused grunt, -which the Prince thought eminently British, after he had hissed at him, -over the hood, expressively, and in a manner by no means indicative of -that nationality, the injunction, “Follow, follow, follow!” - - - - -XL - - -An hour after the Princess had left the house with Paul Muniment, -Madame Grandoni came down to supper, a meal of which she partook, in -gloomy solitude, in the little back parlour. She had pushed away her -plate, and sat motionless, staring at the crumpled cloth, with her -hands folded on the edge of the table, when she became aware that a -gentleman had been ushered into the drawing-room and was standing -before the fire in an attitude of discreet expectancy. At the same -moment the maid-servant approached the old lady, remarking with bated -breath, “The Prince, the Prince, mum! It’s you he ’ave asked for, mum!” -Upon this, Madame Grandoni called out to the visitor from her place, -addressed him as her poor illustrious friend and bade him come and give -her his arm. He obeyed with solemn alacrity, and conducted her into the -front room, near the fire. He helped her to arrange herself in her -arm-chair and to gather her shawl about her; then he seated himself -near her and remained with his dismal eyes bent upon her. After a -moment she said, “Tell me something about Rome. The grass in the Villa -Borghese must already be thick with flowers.” - -“I would have brought you some, if I had thought,” he answered. Then he -turned his gaze about the room. “Yes, you may well ask, in such a black -little hole as this. My wife should not live here,” he added. - -“Ah, my dear friend, for all that she’s your wife!” the old woman -exclaimed. - -The Prince sprang up in sudden, passionate agitation, and then she saw -that the rigid quietness with which he had come into the room and -greeted her was only an effort of his good manners. He was really -trembling with excitement. “It is true—it is true! She _has_ lovers—she -_has_ lovers!” he broke out. “I have seen it with my eyes, and I have -come here to know!” - -“I don’t know what you have seen, but your coming here to know will not -have helped you much. Besides, if you have seen, you know for yourself. -At any rate, I have ceased to be able to tell you.” - -“You are afraid—you are afraid!” cried the visitor, with a wild -accusatory gesture. - -Madame Grandoni looked up at him with slow speculation. “Sit down and -be tranquil, very tranquil. I have ceased to pay attention—I take no -heed.” - -“Well, I do, then,” said the Prince, subsiding a little. “Don’t you -know she has gone out to a house, in a horrible quarter, with a man?” - -“I think it highly probable, dear Prince.” - -“And who is he? That’s what I want to discover.” - -“How can I tell you? I haven’t seen him.” - -He looked at her a moment, with his distended eyes. “Dear lady, is that -kind to me, when I have counted on you?” - -“Oh, I am not kind any more; it’s not a question of that. I am angry—as -angry, almost, as you.” - -“Then why don’t you watch her, eh?” - -“It’s not with her I am angry. It’s with myself,” said Madame Grandoni, -meditatively. - -“For becoming so indifferent, do you mean?” - -“On the contrary, for staying in the house.” - -“Thank God, you are still here, or I couldn’t have come. But what a -lodging for the Princess!” the visitor exclaimed. “She might at least -live in a manner befitting.” - -“Eh, the last time you were in London you thought it was too costly!” -she cried. - -He hesitated a moment. “Whatever she does is wrong. Is it because it’s -so bad that you must go?” he went on. - -“It is foolish—foolish—foolish,” said Madame Grandoni, slowly, -impressively. - -“Foolish, _chè, chè!_ He was in the house nearly an hour, this one.” - -“In the house? In what house?” - -“Here, where you sit. I saw him go in, and when he came out it was -after a long time, with her.” - -“And where were you, meanwhile?” - -Again Prince Casamassima hesitated. “I was on the other side of the -street. When they came out I followed them. It was more than an hour -ago.” - -“Was it for that you came to London?” - -“Ah, what I came for! To put myself in hell!” - -“You had better go back to Rome,” said Madame Grandoni. - -“Of course I will go back, but if you will tell me who this one is! How -can you be ignorant, dear friend, when he comes freely in and out of -the house where I have to watch, at the door, for a moment that I can -snatch? He was not the same as the other.” - -“As the other?” - -“Doubtless there are fifty! I mean the little one whom I met in the -other house, that Sunday afternoon.” - -“I sit in my room almost always now,” said the old woman. “I only come -down to eat.” - -“Dear lady, it would be better if you would sit here,” the Prince -remarked. - -“Better for whom?” - -“I mean that if you did not withdraw yourself you could at least answer -my questions.” - -“Ah, but I have not the slightest desire to answer them,” Madame -Grandoni replied. “You must remember that I am not here as your spy.” - -“No,” said the Prince, in a tone of extreme and simple melancholy. “If -you had given me more information I should not have been obliged to -come here myself. I arrived in London only this morning, and this -evening I spent two hours walking up and down opposite the house, like -a groom waiting for his master to come back from a ride. I wanted a -personal impression. It was so that I saw him come in. He is not a -gentleman—not even like some of the strange ones here.” - -“I think he is Scotch,” remarked Madame Grandoni. - -“Ah, then, you _have_ seen him?” - -“No, but I have heard him. He speaks very loud—the floors of this house -are not built as we build in Italy—and his voice is the same that I -have heard in the people of that country. Besides, she has told me—some -things. He is a chemist’s assistant.” - -“A chemist’s assistant? _Santo Dio!_ And the other one, a year ago—more -than a year ago—was a bookbinder.” - -“Oh, the bookbinder!” murmured Madame Grandoni. - -“And does she associate with no people of good? Has she no other -society?” - -“For me to tell you more, Prince, you must wait till I am free,” said -the old lady. - -“How do you mean, free?” - -“I must choose. I must either go away—and then I can tell you what I -have seen—or if I stay here I must hold my tongue.” - -“But if you go away you will have seen nothing,” the Prince objected. - -“Ah, plenty as it is—more than I ever expected to!” - -The Prince clasped his hands together in tremulous suppliance; but at -the same time he smiled, as if to conciliate, to corrupt. “Dearest -friend, you torment my curiosity. If you will tell me this, I will -never ask you anything more. Where did they go? For the love of God, -what is that house?” - -“I know nothing of their houses,” she returned, with an impatient -shrug. - -“Then there are others—there are many?” She made no answer, but sat -brooding, with her chin in her protrusive kerchief. Her visitor -presently continued, in a soft, earnest tone, with his beautiful -Italian distinctness, as if his lips cut and carved the sound, while -his fine fingers quivered into quick, emphasising gestures, “The street -is small and black, but it is like all the streets. It has no -importance; it is at the end of an endless imbroglio. They drove for -twenty minutes; then they stopped their cab and got out. They went -together on foot some minutes more. There were many turns; they seemed -to know them well. For me it was very difficult—of course I also got -out; I had to stay so far behind—close against the houses. Chiffinch -Street, N.E.—that was the name,” the Prince continued, pronouncing the -word with difficulty; “and the house is number 32—I looked at that -after they went in. It’s a very bad house—worse than this; but it has -no sign of a chemist, and there are no shops in the street. They rang -the bell—only once, though they waited a long time; it seemed to me, at -least, that they did not touch it again. It was several minutes before -the door was opened; and that was a bad time for me, because as they -stood there they looked up and down. Fortunately you know the air of -this place! I saw no light in the house—not even after they went in. -Who let them enter I couldn’t tell. I waited nearly half an hour, to -see how long they would stay and what they would do on coming out; -then, at last, my impatience brought me here, for to know she was -absent made me hope I might see you. While I was there two persons went -in—two men, together, smoking, who looked like _artisti_ (I didn’t see -them near), but no one came out. I could see they took their cigars—and -you can fancy what tobacco!—into the presence of the Princess. -Formerly,” pursued Madame Grandoni’s visitor, with a touching attempt -at a jocular treatment of this point, “she never tolerated -smoking—never mine, at least. The street is very quiet—very few people -pass. Now what is the house? Is it where that man lives?” he asked, -almost in a whisper. - -He had been encouraged by her consenting, in spite of her first -protests, to listen to him—he could see she _was_ listening; and he was -still more encouraged when, after a moment, she answered his question -by a question of her own: “Did you cross the river to go there? I know -that he lives over the water.” - -“Ah, no, it was not in that part. I tried to ask the cabman who brought -me back to explain to me what it is called; but I couldn’t make him -understand. They have heavy minds,” the Prince declared. Then he -pursued, drawing a little closer to his hostess: “But what were they -doing there? Why did she go with him?” - -“They are plotting. There!” said Madame Grandoni. - -“You mean a secret society, a band of revolutionists and murderers? -_Capisco bene_—that is not new to me. But perhaps they only pretend -it’s for that,” added the Prince. - -“Only pretend? Why should they pretend? That is not Christina’s way.” - -“There are other possibilities,” the Prince observed. - -“Oh, of course, when your wife goes away with strange men, in the dark, -to far-away houses, you can think anything you like, and I have nothing -to say to your thoughts. I have my own, but they are my own affair, and -I shall not undertake to defend Christina, for she is indefensible. -When she does the things she does, she provokes, she invites, the worst -construction; there let it rest, save for this one remark, which I will -content myself with making: if she were a licentious woman she would -not behave as she does now, she would not expose herself to -irresistible interpretations; the appearance of everything would be -good and proper. I simply tell you what I believe. If I believed that -what she is doing concerned you alone, I should say nothing about it—at -least sitting here. But it concerns others, it concerns every one, so I -will open my mouth at last. She has gone to that house to break up -society.” - -“To break it up, yes, as she has wanted before?” - -“Oh, more than before! She is very much entangled. She has relations -with people who are watched by the police. She has not told me, but I -have perceived it by simply living with her.” - -Prince Casamassima stared. “And is _she_ watched by the police?” - -“I can’t tell you; it is very possible—except that the police here is -not like that of other countries.” - -“It is more stupid,” said the Prince. He gazed at Madame Grandoni with -a flush of shame on his face. “Will she bring us to _that_ scandal? It -would be the worst of all.” - -“There is one chance—the chance that she will get tired of it,” the old -lady remarked. “Only the scandal may come before that.” - -“Dear friend, she is the devil,” said the Prince, solemnly. - -“No, she is not the devil, because she wishes to do good.” - -“What good did she ever wish to do to me?” the Italian demanded, with -glowing eyes. - -Madame Grandoni shook her head very sadly. “You can do no good, of any -kind, to each other. Each on your own side, you must be quiet.” - -“How can I be quiet when I hear of such infamies?” Prince Casamassima -got up, in his violence, and, in a tone which caused his companion to -burst into a short, incongruous laugh as soon as she heard the words, -exclaimed, “She shall _not_ break up society!” - -“No, she will bore herself before the trick is played. Make up your -mind to that.” - -“That is what I expected to find—that the caprice was over. She has -passed through so many follies.” - -“Give her time—give her time,” replied Madame Grandoni. - -“Time to drag my name into an assize-court? Those people are robbers, -incendiaries, murderers!” - -“You can say nothing to me about them that I haven’t said to her.” - -“And how does she defend herself?” - -“Defend herself? Did you ever hear Christina do that?” Madame Grandoni -asked. “The only thing she says to me is, ‘Don’t be afraid; I promise -you by all that’s sacred that you shan’t suffer.’ She speaks as if she -had it all in her hands. That is very well. No doubt I’m a selfish old -woman, but, after all, one has a heart for others.” - -“And so have I, I think I may pretend,” said the Prince. “You tell me -to give her time, and it is certain that she will take it, whether I -give it or not. But I can at least stop giving her money. By heaven, -it’s my duty, as an honest man.” - -“She tells me that as it is you don’t give her much.” - -“Much, dear lady? It depends on what you call so. It’s enough to make -all these scoundrels flock around her.” - -“They are not all scoundrels, any more than she is. That is the strange -part of it,” said the old woman, with a weary sigh. - -“But this fellow, the chemist—to-night—what do you call him?” - -“She has spoken to me of him as a most estimable young man.” - -“But she thinks it’s estimable to blow us all up,” the Prince returned. -“Doesn’t _he_ take her money?” - -“I don’t know what he takes. But there are some things—heaven forbid -one should forget them! The misery of London is something fearful.” - -“_Che vuole?_ There is misery everywhere,” returned the Prince. “It is -the will of God. _Ci vuol’ pazienza!_ And in this country does no one -give alms?” - -“Every one, I believe. But it appears that it is not enough.” - -The Prince said nothing for a moment; this statement of Madame -Grandoni’s seemed to present difficulties. The solution, however, soon -suggested itself; it was expressed in the inquiry, “What will you have -in a country which has not the true faith?” - -“Ah, the true faith is a great thing; but there is suffering even in -countries that have it.” - -“_Evidentemente_. But it helps suffering to be borne, and, later, it -makes it up; whereas here—!” said the old lady’s visitor, with a -melancholy smile. “If I may speak of myself, it is to me, in my -circumstances, a support.” - -“That is good,” said Madame Grandoni. - -He stood before her, resting his eyes for a moment on the floor. “And -the famous Cholto—Godfrey Gerald—does he come no more?” - -“I haven’t seen him for months, and know nothing about him.” - -“He doesn’t like the chemists and the bookbinders, eh?” asked the -Prince. - -“Ah, it was he who first brought them—to gratify your wife.” - -“If they have turned him out, then, that is very well. Now, if only -some one could turn _them_ out!” - -“_Aspetta, aspetta!_” said the old woman. - -“That is very good advice, but to follow it isn’t amusing.” Then the -Prince added, “You alluded, just now, as to something particular, to -_quel giovane_, the young artisan whom I met in the other house. Is he -also estimable, or has he paid the penalty of his crimes?” - -“He has paid the penalty, but I don’t know of what. I have nothing bad -to tell you of him, except that I think his star is on the wane.” - -“_Poverino!_” the Prince exclaimed. - -“That is exactly the manner in which I addressed him the first time I -saw him. I didn’t know how it would happen, but I felt that it would -happen somehow. It has happened through his changing his opinions. He -has now the same idea as you—that _ci vuol’ pazienza_.” - -The Prince listened with the same expression of wounded eagerness, the -same parted lips and excited eyes, to every added fact that dropped -from Madame Grandoni’s lips. “That, at least, is more honest. Then _he_ -doesn’t go to Chiffinch Street?” - -“I don’t know about Chiffinch Street; but it would be my impression -that he doesn’t go anywhere that Christina and the other one—the -Scotchman—go together. But these are delicate matters,” the old woman -pursued. - -They seemed much to interest her interlocutor. “Do you mean that the -Scotchman is—what shall I call it?—his successor?” - -For a moment Madame Grandoni made no reply. “I think that this case is -different. But I don’t understand; it was the other, the little one, -that helped her to know the Scotchman.” - -“And now they have quarrelled—about my wife? It is all tremendously -edifying!” the Prince exclaimed. - -“I can’t tell you, and shouldn’t have attempted it, only that Assunta -talks to me.” - -“I wish she would talk to me,” said the Prince, wistfully. - -“Ah, my friend, if Christina were to find you getting at her servants!” - -“How could it be worse for me than it is now? However, I don’t know why -I speak as if I cared, for I don’t care any more. I have given her up. -It is finished.” - -“I am glad to hear it,” said Madame Grandoni, gravely. - -“You yourself made the distinction, perfectly. So long as she -endeavoured only to injure _me_, and in my private capacity, I could -condone, I could wait, I could hope. But since she has so recklessly -thrown herself into the most criminal undertakings, since she lifts her -hand with a determined purpose, as you tell me, against the most sacred -institutions—it is too much; ah, yes, it is too much! She may go her -way; she is no wife of mine. Not another penny of mine shall go into -her pocket, and into that of the wretches who prey upon her, who have -corrupted her.” - -“Dear Prince, I think you are right. And yet I am sorry!” sighed the -old woman, extending her hand for assistance to rise from her chair. -“If she becomes really poor, it will be much more difficult for me to -leave her. _This_ is not poverty, and not even a good imitation of it, -as she would like it to be. But what will be said of me if having -remained with her through so much of her splendour, I turn away from -her the moment she begins to want?” - -“Dear lady, do you ask that to make me relent?” the Prince inquired, -after an hesitation. - -“Not in the least; for whatever is said and whatever you do, there is -nothing for me in decency, at present, but to pack my trunk. Judge, by -the way I have tattled.” - -“If you will stay on, she shall have everything.” The Prince spoke in a -very low tone, with a manner that betrayed the shame he felt at his -attempt at bribery. - -Madame Grandoni gave him an astonished glance and moved away from him. -“What does that mean? I thought you didn’t care.” - -I know not what explanation of his inconsequence her companion would -have given her if at that moment the door of the room had not been -pushed open to permit the entrance of Hyacinth Robinson. He stopped -short on perceiving that Madame Grandoni had a visitor, but before he -had time to say anything the old lady addressed him with a certain -curtness: “Ah, you don’t fall well; the Princess isn’t at home.” - -“That was mentioned to me, but I ventured to come in to see you, as I -have done before,” Hyacinth replied. Then he added, as if he were -retreating, “I beg many pardons. I was not told that you were not -alone.” - -“My visitor is going, but I am going too,” said Madame Grandoni. “I -must take myself to my room—I am all falling to pieces. Therefore -kindly excuse me.” - -Hyacinth had had time to recognise the Prince, and this nobleman paid -him the same compliment, as was proved by his asking of Madame -Grandoni, in a rapid aside, in Italian, “Isn’t it the bookbinder?” - -“_Sicuro_,” said the old lady; while Hyacinth, murmuring a regret that -he should find her indisposed, turned back to the door. - -“One moment—one moment, I pray!” the Prince interposed, raising his -hand persuasively and looking at him with an unexpected, exaggerated -smile. “Please introduce me to the gentleman,” he added, in English, to -Madame Grandoni. - -She manifested no surprise at the request—she had none left, -apparently, for anything—but pronounced the name of Prince Casamassima, -and then added, for Hyacinth’s benefit, “He knows who you are.” - -“Will you permit me to keep you a very little minute?” the Prince -continued, addressing the other visitor; after which he remarked to -Madame Grandoni, “I will speak with him a little. It is perhaps not -necessary that we should incommode you, if you do not wish to stay.” - -She had for a moment, as she tossed off a satirical little laugh, a -return of her ancient drollery: “Remember that if you talk long she may -come back! Yes, yes, I will go upstairs. _Felicissima notte, signori!_” -She took her way to the door, which Hyacinth, considerably bewildered, -held open for her. - -The reasons for which Prince Casamassima wished to converse with him -were mysterious; nevertheless, he was about to close the door behind -Madame Grandoni, as a sign that he was at the service of her companion. -At this moment the latter extended again a courteous, remonstrant hand. -“After all, as my visit is finished and as yours comes to nothing, -might we not go out?” - -“Certainly, I will go with you,” said Hyacinth. He spoke with an -instinctive stiffness, in spite of the Prince’s queer affability, and -in spite also of the fact that he felt sorry for the nobleman, to whose -countenance Madame Grandoni’s last injunction, uttered in English, had -brought a deep and painful blush. It is needless to go into the -question of what Hyacinth, face to face with an aggrieved husband, may -have had on his conscience, but he assumed, naturally enough, that the -situation might be grave, though indeed the Prince’s manner was, for -the moment, incongruously conciliatory. Hyacinth invited his new -acquaintance to pass, and in a minute they were in the street together. - -“Do you go here—do you go there?” the Prince inquired, as they stood a -moment before the house. “If you will permit, I will take the same -direction.” On Hyacinth’s answering that it was indifferent to him the -Prince said, turning to the right, “Well, then, here, but slowly, if -that pleases you, and only a little way.” His English was far from -perfect, but his errors were mainly errors of pronunciation, and -Hyacinth was struck with his effort to express himself very distinctly, -so that in intercourse with a little representative of the British -populace his foreignness should not put him at a disadvantage. Quick as -he was to perceive and appreciate, Hyacinth noted how a certain quality -of breeding that was in his companion enabled him to compass that -coolness, and he mentally applauded his success in a difficult feat. -Difficult he judged it because it seemed to him that the purpose for -which the Prince wished to speak to him was one which must require a -deal of explanation, and it was a sign of training to explain -adequately, in a foreign tongue, especially if one were agitated, to a -person in a social position very different from one’s own. Hyacinth -knew what the Prince’s estimate of _his_ importance must be (he could -have no illusions as to the character of the people his wife received); -but while he heard him carefully put one word after the other he was -able to smile to himself at his needless precautions. Hyacinth -reflected that at a pinch he could have encountered him in his own -tongue; during his stay at Venice he had picked up an Italian -vocabulary. “With Madame Grandoni I spoke of you,” the Prince -announced, dispassionately, as they walked along. “She told me a thing -that interested me,” he added; “that is why I walk with you.” Hyacinth -said nothing, deeming that better by silence than in any other fashion -he held himself at the disposal of his interlocutor. “She told me you -have changed—you have no more the same opinions.” - -“The same opinions?” - -“About the arrangement of society. You desire no more the assassination -of the rich.” - -“I never desired any such thing!” said Hyacinth, indignantly. - -“Oh, if you have changed, you can confess,” the Prince rejoined, in an -encouraging tone. “It is very good for some people to be rich. It would -not be right for all to be poor.” - -“It would be pleasant if all could be rich,” Hyacinth suggested. - -“Yes, but not by stealing and shooting.” - -“No, not by stealing and shooting. I never desired that.” - -“Ah, no doubt she was mistaken. But to-day you think we must have -patience,” the Prince went on, as if he hoped very much that Hyacinth -would allow this valuable conviction to be attributed to him. “That is -also my view.” - -“Oh, yes, we must have patience,” said Hyacinth, who was now smiling to -himself in the dark. - -They had by this time reached the end of the little Crescent, where the -Prince paused under the street-lamp. He considered Hyacinth’s -countenance for a moment by its help, and then he pronounced, “If I am -not mistaken, you know very well the Princess.” - -Hyacinth hesitated a moment. “She has been very kind to me.” - -“She is my wife—perhaps you know.” - -Again Hyacinth hesitated, but after a moment he replied, “She has told -me that she is married.” As soon as he had spoken these words he -thought them idiotic. - -“You mean you would not know if she had not told you, I suppose. -Evidently, there is nothing to show it. You can think if that is -agreeable to me.” - -“Oh, I can’t think, I can’t judge,” said Hyacinth. - -“You are right—that is impossible.” The Prince stood before his -companion, and in the pale gaslight the latter saw more of his face. It -had an unnatural expression, a look of wasted anxiety; the eyes seemed -to glitter, and Hyacinth conceived the unfortunate nobleman to be -feverish and ill. He continued in a moment: “Of course you think it -strange—my conversation. I want you to tell me something.” - -“I am afraid you are very unwell,” said Hyacinth. - -“Yes, I am unwell; but I shall be better if you will tell me. It is -because you have come back to good ideas—that is why I ask you.” - -A sense that the situation of the Princess’s husband was really -pitiful, that at any rate he suffered and was helpless, that he was a -gentleman and even a person who would never have done any great harm—a -perception of these appealing truths came into Hyacinth’s heart, and -stirred there a desire to be kind to him, to render him any service -that, in reason, he might ask. It appeared to Hyacinth that he must be -pretty sick to ask any service at all, but that was his own affair. “If -you would like me to see you safely home, I will do that,” our young -man remarked; and even while he spoke he was struck with the oddity of -his being already on such friendly terms with a person whom he had -hitherto supposed to be the worst enemy of the rarest of women. He -found himself unable to consider the Prince with resentment. - -This personage acknowledged the civility of his offer with a slight -inclination of his high slimness. “I am very much obliged to you, but I -will not go home. I will not go home till I know this—to what house she -has gone. Will you tell me that?” - -“To what house?” Hyacinth repeated. - -“She has gone with a person whom you know. Madame Grandoni told me -that. He is a Scotch chemist.” - -“A Scotch chemist?” Hyacinth stared. - -“I saw them myself—two hours, three hours, ago. Listen, listen; I will -be very clear,” said the Prince, laying his forefinger on the other -hand with an explanatory gesture. “He came to that house—this one, -where we have been, I mean—and stayed there a long time. I was here in -the street—I have passed my day in the street! They came out together, -and I watched them, I followed them.” - -Hyacinth had listened with wonder, and even with suspense; the Prince’s -manner gave an air of such importance, such mystery, to what he had to -relate. But at this he broke out: “This is not my business—I can’t hear -it! _I_ don’t watch, _I_ don’t follow.” - -The Prince stared a moment, in surprise; then he rejoined, more quickly -than he had spoken yet, “But they went to a house where they conspire, -where they prepare horrible acts. How can you like that?” - -“How do you know it, sir?” Hyacinth inquired, gravely. - -“It is Madame Grandoni who has told me.” - -“Why, then, do you ask me?” - -“Because I am not sure, I don’t think she knows. I want to know more, -to be sure of what is done in that house. Does she go there only for -the revolution,” the Prince demanded, “or does she go there to be alone -with him?” - -“With _him?_” The Prince’s tone and his excited eyes infused a kind of -vividness into the suggestion. - -“With the tall man—the chemist. They got into a hansom together; the -house is far away, in the lost quarters.” - -Hyacinth drew himself together. “I know nothing about the matter, and I -don’t care. If that is all you wish to ask me, we had better separate.” - -The Prince’s face elongated; it seemed to grow paler. “Then it is not -true that you hate those abominations!” - -Hyacinth hesitated a moment. “How can you know about my opinions? How -can they interest you?” - -The Prince looked at him with sick eyes; he raised his arms a moment, a -certain distance, and then let them drop at his sides. “I hoped you -would help me.” - -“When we are in trouble we can’t help each other much!” our young man -exclaimed. But this austere reflection was lost upon the Prince, who at -the moment Hyacinth spoke had already turned to look in the direction -from which they had proceeded, the other end of the Crescent, his -attention apparently being called thither by the sound of a rapid -hansom. The place was still and empty, and the wheels of this vehicle -reverberated. The Prince peered at it through the darkness, and in an -instant he cried, under his breath, excitedly, “They have come -back—they have come back! Now you can see—yes, the two!” The hansom had -slackened pace and pulled up; the house before which it stopped was -clearly the house the two men had lately quitted. Hyacinth felt his arm -seized by the Prince, who, hastily, by a strong effort, drew him -forward several yards. At this moment a part of the agitation that -possessed the unhappy Italian seemed to pass into his own blood; a wave -of anxiety rushed through him—anxiety as to the relations of the two -persons who had descended from the cab; he had, in short, for several -instants, a very exact revelation of the state of feeling of a jealous -husband. If he had been told, half an hour before, that he was capable -of surreptitious peepings, in the interest of such jealousy, he would -have resented the insult; yet he allowed himself to be checked by his -companion just at the nearest point at which they might safely consider -the proceedings of the couple who alighted. It was in fact the -Princess, accompanied by Paul Muniment. Hyacinth noticed that the -latter paid the cabman, who immediately drove away, from his own -pocket. He stood with the Princess for some minutes at the door of the -house—minutes during which Hyacinth felt his heart beat insanely, -ignobly, he couldn’t tell why. - -“What does he say? what does _she_ say?” hissed the Prince; and when he -demanded, the next moment, “Will he go in again, or will he go away?” -our sensitive youth felt that a voice was given to his own most eager -thought. The pair were talking together, with rapid sequences, and as -the door had not yet been opened it was clear that, to prolong the -conversation on the steps, the Princess delayed to ring. “It will make -three, four, hours he has been with her,” moaned the Prince. - -“He may be with her fifty hours!” Hyacinth answered, with a laugh, -turning away, ashamed of himself. - -“He has gone in—_sangue di Dio!_” cried the Prince, catching his -companion again by the arm and making him look. All that Hyacinth saw -was the door just closing; the Princess and Muniment were on the other -side of it. “Is _that_ for the revolution?” the trembling nobleman -panted. But Hyacinth made no answer; he only gazed at the closed door -an instant, and then, disengaging himself, walked straight away, -leaving the Italian, in the darkness, to direct a great helpless, -futile shake of his stick at the indifferent house. - - - - -XLI - - -Hyacinth waited a long time, but when at last Millicent came to the -door the splendour of her appearance did much to justify her delay. He -heard an immense rustling on the staircase, accompanied by a creaking -of that inexpensive structure, and then she brushed forward into the -narrow, dusky passage where he had been standing for a quarter of an -hour. She looked flushed; she exhaled a strong, cheap perfume; and she -instantly thrust her muff, a tight, fat, beribboned receptacle, at him, -to be held while she adjusted her gloves to her large vulgar hands. -Hyacinth opened the door—it was so natural an assumption that they -would not be able to talk properly in the passage—and they came out to -the low steps, lingering there in the yellow Sunday sunshine. A loud -ejaculation on the beauty of the day broke from Millicent, though, as -we know, she was not addicted to facile admirations. The winter was not -over, but the spring had begun, and the smoky London air allowed the -baffled citizens, by way of a change, to see through it. The town could -refresh its recollections of the sky, and the sky could ascertain the -geographical position of the town. The essential dimness of the low -perspectives had by no means disappeared, but it had loosened its -folds; it lingered as a blur of mist, interwoven with pretty sun-tints -and faint transparencies. There was warmth and there was light, and a -view of the shutters of shops, and the church bells were ringing. Miss -Henning remarked that it was a ‘shime’ she couldn’t have a place to ask -a gentleman to sit down; but what were you to do when you had such a -grind for your living, and a room, to keep yourself tidy, no bigger -than a pill-box? She couldn’t, herself, abide waiting outside; she knew -something about it when she took things home to ladies to choose (the -time they spent was long enough to choose a husband!) and it always -made her feel quite miserable. It was something cruel. If she could -have what she liked she knew what she would have; and she hinted at a -mystic bower where a visitor could sit and enjoy himself—with the -morning paper, or a nice view out of the window, or even a glass of -sherry—so that, in an adjacent apartment, she could dress without -getting in a fidget, which always made her red in the face. - -“I don’t know how I _’ave_ pitched on my things,” she remarked, -presenting her magnificence to Hyacinth, who became aware that she had -put a small plump book into her muff. He explained that, the day being -so fine, he had come to propose to her to take a walk with him, in the -manner of ancient times. They might spend an hour or two in the Park -and stroll beside the Serpentine, or even paddle about on it, if she -liked, and watch the lambkins, or feed the ducks, if she would put a -crust in her pocket. The prospect of paddling Miss Henning entirely -declined; she had no idea of wetting her flounces, and she left those -rough pleasures, especially of a Sunday, to a lower class of young -woman. But she didn’t mind if she did go for a turn, though he didn’t -deserve any such favour, after the way he hadn’t been near her, if she -had died in her garret. She was not one that was to be dropped and -taken up at any man’s convenience—she didn’t keep one of those offices -for servants out of place. Millicent expressed the belief that if the -day had not been so lovely she would have sent Hyacinth about his -business; it was lucky for him that she was always forgiving such was -her sensitive, generous nature) when the sun was out. Only there was -one thing—she couldn’t abide making no difference for Sunday; it was -her personal habit to go to church, and she should have it on her -conscience if she gave it up for a lark. Hyacinth had already been -impressed, more than once, by the manner in which his blooming friend -stickled for the religious observance: of all the queer disparities of -her nature, her devotional turn struck him as perhaps the queerest. She -held her head erect through the longest and dullest sermon, and came -out of the place of worship with her fine face embellished by the -publicity of her virtue. She was exasperated by the general secularity -of Hyacinth’s behaviour, especially taken in conjunction with his -general straightness, and was only consoled a little by the fact that -if he didn’t drink, or fight, or steal, at least he indulged in -unlimited wickedness of opinion—theories as bad as anything that people -got ten years for. Hyacinth had not yet revealed to her that his -theories had somehow lately come to be held with less tension; an -instinct of kindness had forbidden him to deprive her of a grievance -which ministered so much to sociability. He had not reflected that she -would have been more aggrieved, and consequently more delightful, if -her condemnation of his godlessness had been deprived of confirmatory -indications. - -On the present occasion she let him know that she would go for a walk -with him if he would first accompany her to church; and it was in vain -he represented to her that this proceeding would deprive them of their -morning, inasmuch as after church she would have to dine, and in the -interval there would be no time left. She replied, with a toss of her -head, that she dined when she liked; besides on Sundays she had cold -fare—it was left out for her; an argument to which Hyacinth had to -assent, his ignorance of her domestic economy being complete, thanks to -the maidenly mystery, the vagueness of reference and explanation, in -which, in spite of great freedom of complaint, perpetual announcements -of intended change, impending promotion and high bids for her services -in other quarters, she had always enshrouded her private affairs. -Hyacinth walked by her side to the place of worship she preferred—her -choice was made apparently from a large experience; and as they went he -remarked that it was a good job he wasn’t married to her. Lord, how she -would bully him, how she would ‘squeeze’ him, in such a case! The worst -of it would be that—such was his amiable, peace-loving nature—he would -obey like a showman’s poodle. And pray, whom was a man to obey, asked -Millicent, if he was not to obey his wife? She sat up in her pew with a -majesty that carried out this idea; she seemed to answer, in her proper -person, for creeds and communions and sacraments; she was more than -devotional, she was almost pontifical. Hyacinth had never felt himself -under such distinguished protection; the Princess Casamassima came back -to him, in comparison, as a Bohemian, a shabby adventuress. He had come -to see her to-day not for the sake of her austerity (he had had too -gloomy a week for that), but for that of her genial side; yet now that -she treated him to the severer spectacle it struck him for the moment -as really grand sport—a kind of magnification of her rich vitality. She -had her phases and caprices, like the Princess herself; and if they -were not the same as those of the lady of Madeira Crescent they proved -at least that she was as brave a woman. No one but a capital girl could -give herself such airs; she would have a consciousness of the large -reserve of pliancy required for making up for them. The Princess wished -to destroy society and Millicent wished to uphold it; and as Hyacinth, -by the side of his childhood’s friend, listened to practised intonings, -he was obliged to recognise the liberality of a fate which had -sometimes appeared invidious. He had been provided with the best -opportunities for choosing between the beauty of the original and the -beauty of the conventional. - -Fortunately, on this particular Sunday, there was no sermon -(fortunately, I mean, from the point of view of Hyacinth’s heretical -impatience), so that after the congregation dispersed there was still -plenty of time for a walk in the Park. Our friends traversed that -barely-interrupted expanse of irrepressible herbage which stretches -from the Birdcage Walk to Hyde Park Corner, and took their way to -Kensington Gardens, beside the Serpentine. Once Millicent’s religious -exercises were over for the day (she as rigidly forbore to repeat them -in the afternoon as she made a point of the first service), once she -had lifted her voice in prayer and praise, she changed her _allure;_ -moving to a different measure, uttering her sentiments in a high, free -manner, and not minding that it should be perceived that she had on her -very best gown and was out, if need be, for the day. She was mainly -engaged, for some time, in overhauling Hyacinth for his long absence, -demanding, as usual, some account of what he had been ‘up to’. He -listened to her philosophically, liking and enjoying her chaff, which -seemed to him, oddly enough, wholesome and refreshing, and absolutely -declining to satisfy her. He remarked, as he had had occasion to do -before, that if he asked no explanations of her the least he had a -right to expect in return was that she should let him off as easily; -and even the indignation with which she received this plea did not make -him feel that an _éclaircissement_ between them could be a serious -thing. There was nothing to explain and nothing to forgive; they were a -pair of very fallible individuals, united much more by their weaknesses -than by any consistency or fidelity that they might pretend to practise -toward each other. It was an old acquaintance—the oldest thing, to-day, -except Mr Vetch’s friendship, in Hyacinth’s life; and strange as this -may appear, it inspired our young man with a kind of indulgent piety. -The probability that Millicent ‘kept company’ with other men had quite -ceased to torment his imagination; it was no longer necessary to his -happiness to be certain about it in order that he might dismiss her -from his mind. He could be as happy without it as with it, and he felt -a new modesty in regard to prying into her affairs. He was so little in -a position to be stern with her that her assumption that he recognised -a right on her own part to chide him seemed to him only a part of her -perpetual clumsiness—a clumsiness that was not soothing but was -nevertheless, in its rich spontaneity, one of the things he liked her -for. - -“If you have come to see me only to make jokes at my expense, you had -better have stayed away altogether,” she said, with dignity, as they -came out of the Green Park. “In the first place it’s rude, in the -second place it’s silly, and in the third place I see through you.” - -“My dear Millicent, the motions you go through, the resentment you -profess, are purely perfunctory,” her companion replied. “But it -doesn’t matter; go on—say anything you like. I came to see you for -recreation, for a little entertainment without effort of my own. I -scarcely ventured to hope, however, that you would make me laugh—I have -been so dismal for a long time. In fact, I am dismal still. I wish I -had your disposition! My mirth is feverish.” - -“The first thing I require of any friend is that he should respect me,” -Miss Henning announced. “You lead a bad life. I know what to think -about that,” she continued, irrelevantly. - -“And is it out of respect for you that you wish me to lead a better -one? To-day, then, is so much saved out of my wickedness. Let us get on -the grass,” Hyacinth continued; “it is innocent and pastoral to feel it -under one’s feet. It’s jolly to be with you; you understand -everything.” - -“I don’t understand everything you say, but I understand everything you -hide,” the young woman returned, as the great central expanse of Hyde -Park, looking intensely green and browsable, stretched away before -them. - -“Then I shall soon become a mystery to you, for I mean from this time -forth to cease to seek safety in concealment. You’ll know nothing about -me then, for it will be all under your nose.” - -“Well, there’s nothing so pretty as nature,” Millicent observed, -surveying the smutty sheep who find pasturage in the fields that extend -from Knightsbridge to the Bayswater Road. “What will you do when you’re -so bad you can’t go to the shop?” she added, with a sudden transition. -And when he asked why he should ever be so bad as that, she said she -could see he _was_ in a fever; she hadn’t noticed it at first, because -he never had had any more complexion than a cheese. Was it something he -had caught in some of those back slums, where he went prying about with -his wicked ideas? It served him right for taking as little good into -such places as ever came out of them. Would his fine friends—a precious -lot _they_ were, that put it off on him to do all the nasty part!—would -they find the doctor, and the port wine, and the money, and all the -rest, when he was laid up—perhaps for months—through their putting such -rot into his head and his putting it into others that could carry it -even less? Millicent stopped on the grass, in the watery sunshine, and -bent on her companion an eye in which he perceived, freshly, an -awakened curiosity, a friendly, reckless ray, a pledge of substantial -comradeship. Suddenly she exclaimed, quitting the tone of exaggerated -derision which she had used a moment before, “You little rascal, you’ve -got something on your heart! Has your Princess given you the sack?” - -“My poor girl, your talk is a queer mixture,” Hyacinth murmured. “But -it may well be. It is not queerer than my life.” - -“Well, I’m glad you admit that!” the young woman cried, walking on with -a flutter of her ribbons. - -“Your ideas about my ideas!” Hyacinth continued. “Yes, you should see -me in the back slums. I’m a bigger Philistine than you, Miss Henning.” - -“You’ve got more ridiculous names, if that’s what you mean. I don’t -believe that half the time you know what you do mean, yourself. I don’t -believe you even know, with all your thinking, what you do think. -That’s your disease.” - -“It’s astonishing how you sometimes put your finger on the place,” -Hyacinth rejoined. “I mean to think no more—I mean to give it up. Avoid -it yourself, my dear Millicent—avoid it as you would a baleful vice. It -confers no true happiness. Let us live in the world of irreflective -contemplation—let us live in the present hour.” - -“I don’t care how I live, nor where I live,” said Millicent, “so long -as I can do as I like. It’s them that are over you—it’s them that cut -it fine! But you never were really satisfactory to me—not as one friend -should be to another,” she pursued, reverting irresistibly to the -concrete and turning still upon her companion that fine fairness which -had no cause to shrink from a daylight exhibition. “Do you remember -that day I came back to Lomax Place ever so long ago, and called on -poor dear Miss Pynsent (she couldn’t abide me; she didn’t like my -form), and waited till you came in, and went out for a walk with you, -and had tea at a coffee-shop? Well, I don’t mind telling you that you -weren’t satisfactory to me then, and that I consider myself remarkably -good-natured, ever since, to have kept you so little up to the mark. -You always tried to carry it off as if you were telling one everything, -and you never told one nothing at all.” - -“What is it you want me to tell, my dear child?” Hyacinth inquired, -putting his hand into her arm. “I’ll tell you anything you like.” - -“I dare say you’ll tell me a lot of trash! Certainly, I tried -kindness,” Miss Henning declared. - -“Try it again; don’t give it up,” said her companion, strolling along -with her in close association. - -She stopped short, detaching herself, though not with intention. “Well, -then, has she—_has_ she chucked you over?” - -Hyacinth turned his eyes away; he looked at the green expanse, misty -and sunny, dotted with Sunday-keeping figures which made it seem -larger; at the wooded boundary of the Park, beyond the grassy moat of -Kensington Gardens; at a shining reach of the Serpentine on one side -and the far façades of Bayswater, brightened by the fine weather and -the privilege of their view, on the other. “Well, you know I rather -think so,” he replied, in a moment. - -“Ah, the nasty brute!” cried Millicent, as they resumed their walk. - -Upwards of an hour later they were sitting under the great trees of -Kensington Gardens, those scattered over the slope which rises gently -from the side of the water most distant from the old red palace. They -had taken possession of a couple of the chairs placed there for the -convenience of that part of the public for which a penny is not, as the -French say, an affair, and Millicent, of whom such speculations were -highly characteristic, had devoted considerable conjecture to the -question whether the functionary charged with collecting the said penny -would omit to come and ask for his fee. Miss Henning liked to enjoy her -pleasures _gratis_, as well as to see others do so, and even that of -sitting in a penny chair could touch her more deeply in proportion as -she might feel that nothing would be paid for it. The man came round, -however, and after that her pleasure could only take the form of -sitting as long as possible, to recover her money. This question had -been settled, and two or three others, of a much weightier kind, had -come up. At the moment we again participate in the conversation of the -pair Millicent was leaning forward, earnest and attentive, with her -hands clasped in her lap and her multitudinous silver bracelets tumbled -forward upon her wrists. Her face, with its parted lips and eyes -clouded to gentleness, wore an expression which Hyacinth had never seen -there before and which caused him to say to her, “After all, dear -Milly, you’re a good old fellow!” - -“Why did you never tell me before—years ago?” she asked. - -“It’s always soon enough to commit an imbecility! I don’t know why I -tell you to-day, sitting here in a charming place, in balmy air, amid -pleasing suggestions, without any reason or practical end. The story is -hideous, and I have held my tongue for so long! It would have been an -effort, an impossible effort, at any time, to do otherwise. Somehow, -to-day it hasn’t been an effort; and indeed I have spoken just -_because_ the air is sweet, and the place ornamental, and the day a -holiday, and your company exhilarating. All this has had the effect -that an object has if you plunge it into a cup of water—the water -overflows. Only in my case it’s not water, but a very foul liquid -indeed. Excuse the bad odour!” - -There had been a flush of excitement in Millicent’s face while she -listened to what had gone before; it lingered there, and as a colour -heightened by emotion is never unbecoming to a handsome woman, it -enriched her exceptional expression. “I wouldn’t have been so rough -with you,” she presently remarked. - -“My dear lass, _this_ isn’t rough!” her companion exclaimed. - -“You’re all of a tremble.” She put out her hand and laid it on his own, -as if she had been a nurse feeling his pulse. - -“Very likely. I’m a nervous little beast,” said Hyacinth. - -“Any one would be nervous, to think of anything so awful. And when it’s -yourself!” And the girl’s manner represented the dreadfulness of such a -contingency. “You require sympathy,” she added, in a tone that made -Hyacinth smile; the words sounded like a medical prescription. - -“A tablespoonful every half-hour,” he rejoined, keeping her hand, which -she was about to draw away. - -“You would have been nicer, too,” Millicent went on. - -“How do you mean, I would have been nicer?” - -“Well, I like you now,” said Miss Henning. And this time she drew away -her hand, as if, after such a speech, to recover her dignity. - -“It’s a pity I have always been so terribly under the influence of -women,” Hyacinth murmured, folding his arms. - -He was surprised at the delicacy with which Millicent replied: “You -must remember that they have a great deal to make up to you.” - -“Do you mean for my mother? Ah, _she_ would have made it up, if they -had let her! But the sex in general have been very nice to me,” he -continued. “It’s wonderful the kindness they have shown me, and the -amount of pleasure I have derived from their society.” - -It would perhaps be inquiring too closely to consider whether this -reference to sources of consolation other than those that sprang from -her own bosom had an irritating effect on Millicent; at all events -after a moment’s silence she answered it by asking, “Does _she_ -know—your trumpery Princess?” - -“Yes, but she doesn’t mind it.” - -“That’s most uncommonly kind of her!” cried the girl, with a scornful -laugh. - -“It annoys me very much to hear you apply invidious epithets to her. -You know nothing about her.” - -“How do you know what I know, please?” Millicent asked this question -with the habit of her natural pugnacity, but the next instant she -dropped her voice, as if she remembered that she was in the presence of -a great misfortune. “Hasn’t she treated you most shamefully, and you -such a regular dear?” - -“Not in the least. It is I that, as you may say, have rounded on her. -She made my acquaintance because I was interested in the same things as -she was. Her interest has continued, has increased, but mine, for some -reason or other, has declined. She has been consistent, and I have been -fickle.” - -“Your interest has declined, in the Princess?” Millicent questioned, -following imperfectly this somewhat complicated statement. - -“Oh dear, no. I mean only in some views that I used to have.” - -“Ay, when you thought everything should go to the lowest! That’s a good -job!” Miss Henning exclaimed, with an indulgent laugh, as if, after -all, Hyacinth’s views and the changes in his views were not what was -most important. “And your grand lady still holds for the -costermongers?” - -“She wants to take hold of the great question of material misery; she -wants to do something to make that misery less. I don’t care for her -means, I don’t like her processes. But when I think of what there is to -be done, and of the courage and devotion of those that set themselves -to do it, it seems to me sometimes that with my reserves and scruples -I’m a very poor creature.” - -“You _are_ a poor creature—to sit there and put such accusations on -yourself!” the girl flashed out. “If you haven’t a spirit for yourself, -I promise you I’ve got one for you! If she hasn’t chucked you over why -in the name of common sense did you say just now that she has? And why -is your dear old face as white as my stocking?” - -Hyacinth looked at her awhile without answering, as if he took a placid -pleasure in her violence. “I don’t know—I don’t understand.” - -She put out her hand and took possession of his own; for a minute she -held it, as if she wished to check herself, finding some influence in -his touch that would help her. They sat in silence, looking at the -ornamental water and the landscape-gardening beyond, which was -reflected in it; until Millicent turned her eyes again upon her -companion and remarked, “Well, that’s the way I’d have served him too!” - -It took him a moment to perceive that she was alluding to the vengeance -wrought upon Lord Frederick. “Don’t speak of that; you’ll never again -hear a word about it on my lips. It’s all darkness.” - -“I always knew you were a gentleman,” the girl went on. - -“A queer variety, _cara mia_,” her companion rejoined, not very -candidly, as we know the theories he himself had cultivated on this -point. “Of course you had heard poor Pinnie’s incurable indiscretions. -They used to exasperate me when she was alive, but I forgive her now. -It’s time I should, when I begin to talk myself. I think I’m breaking -up.” - -“Oh, it wasn’t Miss Pynsent; it was just yourself.” - -“Pray, what did I ever say, in those days?” - -“It wasn’t what you said,” Millicent answered, with refinement. “I -guessed the whole business—except, of course, what she got her time -for, and you being taken to that death-bed—that day I came back to the -Place. Couldn’t you see I was turning it over? And did I ever throw it -up at you, whatever high words we might have had? Therefore what I say -now is no more than I thought then; it only makes you nicer.” - -She was crude, she was common, she even had the vice of unskillful -exaggeration, for he himself honestly could not understand how the -situation he had described could make him nicer. But when the faculty -of affection that was in her rose, as it were, to the surface, it -diffused a sense of rest, almost of protection, deepening, at any rate, -the luxury of the balmy holiday, the interlude in the grind of the -week’s work; so that, though neither of them had dined, Hyacinth would -have been delighted to sit with her there the whole afternoon. It -seemed a pause in something bitter that was happening to him, making it -stop awhile or pushing it off to a distance. His thoughts hovered about -that with a pertinacity of which they themselves were weary; but they -regarded it now with a kind of wounded indifference. It would be too -much, no doubt, to say that Millicent’s society appeared a -compensation, but it seemed at least a resource. She too, evidently, -was highly content; she made no proposal to retrace their steps. She -interrogated him about his father’s family, and whether they were going -to let him go on like that always, without ever holding out so much as -a little finger to him; and she declared, in a manner that was meant to -gratify him by the indignation it conveyed, though the awkwardness of -the turn made him smile, that if she were one of them she couldn’t -‘abear’ the thought of a relation of hers being in such a poor way. -Hyacinth already knew what Miss Henning thought of his business at old -Crookenden’s and of the feebleness of a young man of his parts -contenting himself with a career which was after all a mere getting of -one’s living by one’s ’ands. He had to do with books; but so had any -shop-boy who should carry such articles to the residence of purchasers; -and plainly Millicent had never discovered wherein the art he practised -differed from that of a plumber, a glazier. He had not forgotten the -shock he once administered to her by letting her know that he wore an -apron; she looked down on such conditions from the summit of her own -intellectual profession, for _she_ wore mantles and jackets and shawls, -and the long trains of robes exhibited in the window on dummies of wire -and taken down to be transferred to her own undulating person, and had -never a scrap to do with making them up, but just with talking about -them and showing them off, and persuading people of their beauty and -cheapness. It had been a source of endless comfort to her, in her -arduous evolution, that she herself never worked with her ’ands. -Hyacinth answered her inquiries, as she had answered his own of old, by -asking her what those people owed to the son of a person who had -brought murder and mourning into their bright sublimities, and whether -she thought he was very highly recommended to them. His question made -her reflect for a moment; after which she returned, with the finest -spirit, “Well, if your position was so miserable, ain’t that all the -more reason they should give you a lift? Oh, it’s something cruel!” she -cried; and she added that in his place she would have found a way to -bring herself under their notice. _She_ wouldn’t have drudged out her -life in Soho if she had had gentlefolks’ blood in her veins! “If they -had noticed you they would have liked you,” she was so good as to -observe; but she immediately remembered, also, that in that case he -would have been carried away quite over her head. She was not prepared -to say that she would have given him up, little good as she had ever -got of him. In that case he would have been thick with real swells, and -she emphasised the ‘real’ by way of a thrust at the fine lady of -Madeira Crescent—an artifice which was wasted, however, inasmuch as -Hyacinth was sure she had extracted from Sholto a tolerably detailed -history of the personage in question. Millicent was tender and tenderly -sportive, and he was struck with the fact that his base birth really -made little impression upon her; she accounted it an accident much less -grave than he had been in the habit of doing. She was touched and -moved; but what moved her was his story of his mother’s dreadful -revenge, her long imprisonment and his childish visit to the jail, with -the later discovery of his peculiar footing in the world. These things -produced a generous agitation—something the same in kind as the -impressions she had occasionally derived from the perusal of the -_Family Herald_. What affected her most, and what she came back to, was -the whole element of Lord Frederick and the misery of Hyacinth’s having -got so little good out of his affiliation to that nobleman. She -couldn’t get over his friends not having done something, though her -imagination was still vague as to what they might have done. It was the -queerest thing in the world, to Hyacinth, to find her apparently -assuming that if he had not been so inefficient he might have ‘worked’ -the whole dark episode as a source of distinction, of glory. _She_ -wouldn’t have been a nobleman’s daughter for nothing! Oh, the left hand -was as good as the right; her respectability, for the moment, didn’t -care for that! His long silence was what most astonished her; it put -her out of patience, and there was a strange candour in her wonderment -at his not having bragged about his grand relations. They had become -vivid and concrete to her now, in comparison with the timid shadows -that Pinnie had set into spasmodic circulation. Millicent bumped about -in the hushed past of her companion with the oddest mixture of sympathy -and criticism, and with good intentions which had the effect of profane -voices holloaing for echoes. - -“Me only—me and her? Certainly, I ought to be obliged, even though it -is late in the day. The first time you saw her I suppose you told -her—that night you went into her box at the theatre, eh? She’d have -worse to tell you, I’m sure, if she could ever bring herself to speak -the truth. And do you mean to say you never broke it to your big friend -in the chemical line?” - -“No, we have never talked about it.” - -“Men are rare creatures!” Millicent cried. “You never so much as -mentioned it?” - -“It wasn’t necessary. He knew it otherwise—he knew it through his -sister.” - -“How do you know that, if he never spoke?” - -“Oh, because he was jolly good to me,” said Hyacinth. - -“Well, I don’t suppose that ruined him,” Miss Henning rejoined. “And -how did his sister know it?” - -“Oh, I don’t know; she guessed it.” - -Millicent stared. “It was none of her business.” Then she added, “He -_was_ jolly good to you? Ain’t he good to you now?” She asked this -question in her loud, free voice, which rang through the bright -stillness of the place. - -Hyacinth delayed for a minute to answer her, and when at last he did so -it was without looking at her: “I don’t know; I can’t make it out.” - -“Well, I can, then!” And Millicent jerked him round toward her and -inspected him with her big bright eyes. “You silly baby, has _he_ been -serving you?” She pressed her question upon him; she asked if that was -what disagreed with him. His lips gave her no answer, but apparently, -after an instant, she found one in his face. “Has he been making up to -her ladyship—is that his game?” she broke out. “Do you mean to say -she’d look at the likes of him?” - -“The likes of him? He’s as fine a man as stands!” said Hyacinth. “They -have the same views, they are doing the same work.” - -“Oh, he hasn’t changed _his_ opinions, then—not like you?” - -“No, he knows what he wants; he knows what he thinks.” - -“Very much the same work, I’ll be bound!” cried Millicent, in large -derision. “He knows what he wants, and I dare say he’ll get it.” - -Hyacinth got up, turning away from her; but she also rose, and passed -her hand into his arm. “It’s their own business; they can do as they -please.” - -“Oh, don’t try to be a saint; you put me out of patience!” the girl -responded, with characteristic energy. “They’re a precious pair, and it -would do me good to hear you say so.” - -“A man shouldn’t turn against his friends,” Hyacinth went on, with -desperate sententiousness. - -“That’s for them to remember; there’s no danger of _your_ forgetting -it.” They had begun to walk, but she stopped him; she was suddenly -smiling at him, and her face was radiant. She went on, with caressing -inconsequence: “All that you have told me—it _has_ made you nicer.” - -“I don’t see that, but it has certainly made you so. My dear girl, -you’re a comfort,” Hyacinth added, as they strolled on again. - - - - -XLII - - -He had no intention of going in the evening to Madeira Crescent, and -that is why he asked his companion, before they separated, if he might -not see her again, after tea. The evenings were bitter to him now, and -he feared them in advance. The darkness had become a haunted element; -it had visions for him that passed even before his closed eyes—sharp -doubts and fears and suspicions, suggestions of evil, revelations of -suffering. He wanted company, to light up his gloom, and this had -driven him back to Millicent, in a manner not altogether consistent -with the respect which it was still his theory that he owed to his -nobler part. He felt no longer free to drop in at the Crescent, and -tried to persuade himself, in case his mistrust should be overdone, -that his reasons were reasons of magnanimity. If Paul Muniment were -seriously occupied with the Princess, if they had work in hand for -which their most earnest attention was required (and Sunday was very -likely to be the day they would take: they had spent so much of the -previous Sunday together), it would be delicate on his part to stay -away, to leave his friend a clear field. There was something -inexpressibly representative to him in the way that friend had abruptly -decided to re-enter the house, after pausing outside with its mistress, -at the moment he himself stood peering through the fog with the Prince. -The movement repeated itself innumerable times, to his moral -perception, suggesting to him things that he couldn’t bear to learn. -Hyacinth was afraid of being jealous, even after he had become so, and -to prove to himself that he was not he had gone to see the Princess one -evening in the middle of the week. Hadn’t he wanted Paul to know her, -months and months before, and now was he to entertain a vile feeling at -the first manifestation of an intimacy which rested, in each party to -it, upon aspirations that he respected? The Princess had not been at -home, and he had turned away from the door without asking for Madame -Grandoni; he had not forgotten that on the occasion of his previous -visit she had excused herself from remaining in the drawing-room. After -the little maid in the Crescent had told him the Princess was out he -walked away with a quick curiosity—a curiosity which, if he had -listened to it, would have led him to mount upon the first omnibus that -travelled in the direction of Camberwell. Was Paul Muniment, who was -such a rare one, in general, for stopping at home of an evening—was he -also out, and would Rosy, in this case, be in the humour to mention -(for of course she would know) where he had gone? Hyacinth let the -omnibus pass, for he suddenly became aware, with a throb of horror, -that he was in danger of playing the spy. He had not been near Muniment -since, on purpose to leave his curiosity unsatisfied. He allowed -himself however to notice that the Princess had now not written him a -word of consolation, as she had been so kind as to do once or twice -before when he had knocked at her door without finding her. At present -he had missed her twice in succession, and yet she had given no sign of -regret—regret even on his own behalf. This determined him to stay away -awhile longer; it was such a proof that she was absorbingly occupied. -Hyacinth’s glimpse of the Princess in earnest conversation with -Muniment as they returned from the excursion described by the Prince, -his memory of Paul’s relenting figure crossing the threshold once more, -could leave him no doubt as to the degree of that absorption. - -Millicent hesitated when Hyacinth proposed to her that they should -finish the day together. She smiled, and her splendid eyes rested on -his with an air of indulgent interrogation; they seemed to ask whether -it were worth her while, in face of his probable incredulity, to -mention the _real_ reason why she could not have the pleasure of -acceding to his delightful suggestion. Since he would be sure to deride -her explanation, would not some trumped-up excuse do as well, since he -could knock that about without hurting her? I know not exactly in what -sense Miss Henning decided; but she confessed at last that there _was_ -an odious obstacle to their meeting again later—a promise she had made -to go and see a young lady, the forewoman of her department, who was -kept in-doors with a bad face, and nothing in life to help her pass the -time. She was under a pledge to spend the evening with her, and it was -not her way to disappoint an expectation. Hyacinth made no comment on -this speech; he received it in silence, looking at the girl gloomily. - -“I know what’s passing in your mind!” Millicent suddenly broke out. -“Why don’t you say it at once, and give me a chance to contradict it? I -oughtn’t to care, but I do care!” - -“Stop, stop—don’t let us fight!” Hyacinth spoke in a tone of pleading -weariness; she had never heard just that accent before. - -Millicent considered a moment. “I’ve a mind to play her false. She is a -real lady, highly connected, and the best friend I have—I don’t count -men,” the girl interpolated, smiling—“and there isn’t one in the world -I’d do such a thing for but you.” - -“No, keep your promise; don’t play any one false,” said Hyacinth. - -“Well, you _are_ a gentleman!” Miss Henning murmured, with a sweetness -that her voice occasionally took. - -“Especially—” Hyacinth began; but he suddenly stopped. - -“Especially what? Something impudent, I’ll engage! Especially as you -don’t believe me?” - -“Oh, no! Don’t let’s fight!” he repeated. - -“Fight, my darling? I’d fight _for_ you!” Miss Henning declared. - -Hyacinth offered himself, after tea, the choice between a visit to Lady -Aurora and a pilgrimage to Lisson Grove. He was in a little doubt about -the former experiment, having an idea that her ladyship’s family might -have returned to Belgrave Square. He reflected, however, that he could -not recognise that as a reason for not going to see her; his relations -with her were not clandestine, and she had given him the kindest -general invitation. If her august progenitors were at home she was -probably at dinner with them; he would take that risk. He had taken it -before, without disastrous results. He was determined not to spend the -evening alone, and he would keep the Poupins as a more substantial -alternative, in case her ladyship should not be able to receive him. - -As soon as the great portal in Belgrave Square was drawn open before -him, he perceived that the house was occupied and animated—if the -latter term might properly be applied to a place which had hitherto -given Hyacinth the impression of a magnificent mausoleum. It was -pervaded by subdued light and tall domestics; Hyacinth found himself -looking down a kind of colonnade of colossal footmen, an array more -imposing even than the retinue of the Princess at Medley. His inquiry -died away on his lips, and he stood there struggling with dumbness. It -was manifest to him that some high festival was taking place, at which -his presence could only be deeply irrelevant; and when a large -official, out of livery, bending over him for a voice that faltered, -suggested, not unencouragingly, that it might be Lady Aurora he wished -to see, he replied in a low, melancholy accent, “Yes, yes, but it can’t -be possible!” The butler took no pains to controvert this proposition -verbally; he merely turned round, with a majestic air of leading the -way, and as at the same moment two of the footmen closed the wings of -the door behind the visitor, Hyacinth judged that it was his cue to -follow him. In this manner, after traversing a passage where, in the -perfect silence of the servants, he heard the shorter click of his -plebeian shoes upon a marble floor, he found himself ushered into a -small apartment, lighted by a veiled lamp, which, when he had been left -there alone, without further remark on the part of his conductor, he -recognised as the scene—only now more amply decorated—of one of his -former interviews. Lady Aurora kept him waiting a few moments, and then -fluttered in with an anxious, incoherent apology. The same -transformation had taken place in her own appearance as in the aspect -of her parental halls: she had on a light-coloured, crumpled-looking, -faintly-rustling dress; her head was adorned with a kind of languid -plume, terminating in little pink tips; and in her hand she carried a -pair of white gloves. All her repressed eagerness was in her face, and -she smiled as if she wished to anticipate any scruples or -embarrassments on the part of her visitor; frankly recognising the -brilliancy of her attire and the startling implications it might -convey. Hyacinth said to her that, no doubt, on perceiving her family -had returned to town, he ought to have backed out; he knew that must -make a difference in her life. But he had been marched in, in spite of -himself, and now it was clear that he had interrupted her at dinner. -She answered that no one who asked for her at any hour was ever turned -away; she had managed to arrange that, and she was very happy in her -success. She didn’t usually dine—there were so many of them, and it -took so long. Most of her friends couldn’t come at visiting-hours, and -it wouldn’t be right that she shouldn’t ever receive them. On that -occasion she _had_ been dining, but it was all over; she was only -sitting there because she was going to a party. Her parents were dining -out, and she was just in the drawing-room with some of her sisters. -When they were alone it wasn’t so long, though it was rather long -afterwards, when they went up again. It wasn’t time yet: the carriage -wouldn’t come for nearly half an hour. She hadn’t been to an evening -thing for months and months, but—didn’t he know?—one sometimes had to -do it. Lady Aurora expressed the idea that one ought to be fair all -round and that one’s duties were not all of the same species; some of -them would come up from time to time that were quite different from the -others. Of course it wasn’t just, unless one did all, and that was why -she was in for something to-night. It was nothing of consequence; only -the family meeting the family, as they might do of a Sunday, at one of -their houses. It was there that papa and mamma were dining. Since they -had given her that room for any hour she wanted (it was really -tremendously convenient), she had determined to do a party now and -then, like a respectable young woman, because it pleased them—though -why it should, to see _her_ at a place, was more than she could -imagine. She supposed it was because it would perhaps keep some people, -a little, from thinking she was mad and not safe to be at large—which -was of course a sort of thing that people didn’t like to have thought -of their belongings. Lady Aurora explained and expatiated with a kind -of nervous superabundance; she talked more continuously than Hyacinth -had ever heard her do before, and the young man saw that she was not in -her natural equilibrium. He thought it scarcely probable that she was -excited by the simple prospect of again dipping into the great world -she had forsworn, and he presently perceived that he himself had an -agitating effect upon her. His senses were fine enough to make him feel -that he revived certain associations and quickened certain wounds. She -suddenly stopped talking, and the two sat there looking at each other, -in a kind of occult community of suffering. Hyacinth made several -mechanical remarks, explaining, insufficiently, why he had come, and in -the course of a very few moments, quite independently of these -observations, it seemed to him that there was a deeper, a measurelessly -deep, confidence between them. A tacit confession passed and repassed, -and each understood the situation of the other. They wouldn’t speak of -it—it was very definite that they would never do that; for there was -something in their common consciousness that was inconsistent with the -grossness of accusation. Besides, the grievance of each was an -apprehension, an instinct of the soul—not a sharp, definite wrong, -supported by proof. It was in the air and in their restless pulses, and -not in anything that they could exhibit or complain of. Strange enough -it seemed to Hyacinth that the history of each should be the -counterpart of that of the other. What had each done but lose that -which he or she had never had? Things had gone ill with them; but even -if they had gone well, if the Princess had not combined with his friend -in that manner which made his heart sink and produced an effect exactly -corresponding upon that of Lady Aurora—even in this case what would -prosperity, what would success, have amounted to? They would have been -very barren. He was sure the singular creature before him would never -have had a chance to take the unprecedented social step for the sake of -which she was ready to go forth from Belgrave Square for ever; Hyacinth -had judged the smallness of Paul Muniment’s appetite for that -complication sufficiently to have begun really to pity her ladyship -long ago. And now, even when he most felt the sweetness of her -sympathy, he might wonder what she could have imagined for him in the -event of his not having been supplanted—what security, what completer -promotion, what honourable, satisfying sequel. They were unhappy -because they were unhappy, and they were right not to rail about that. - -“Oh, I like to see you—I like to talk with you,” said Lady Aurora, -simply. They talked for a quarter of an hour, and he made her such a -visit as any gentleman might have made to any lady. They exchanged -remarks about the lateness of the spring, about the loan-exhibition at -Burlington House—which Hyacinth had paid his shilling to see—about the -question of opening the museums on Sunday, about the danger of too much -coddling legislation on behalf of the working-classes. He declared that -it gave him great pleasure to see any sign of her amusing herself; it -was unnatural never to do that, and he hoped that now she had taken a -turn she would keep it up. At this she looked down, smiling, at her -frugal finery, and then she replied, “I dare say I shall begin to go to -balls—who knows?” - -“That’s what our friends in Audley Court think, you know—that it’s the -worst mistake you can make, not to drink deep of the cup while you have -it.” - -“Oh, I’ll do it, then—I’ll do it for them!” Lady Aurora exclaimed. “I -dare say that, as regards all that, I haven’t listened to them enough.” -This was the only allusion that passed on the subject of the Muniments. - -Hyacinth got up—he had stayed long enough, as she was going out; and as -he held out his hand to her she seemed to him a heroine. She would try -to cultivate the pleasures of her class if the brother and sister in -Camberwell thought it right—try even to be a woman of fashion in order -to console herself. Paul Muniment didn’t care for her, but she was -capable of considering that it might be her duty to regulate her life -by the very advice that made an abyss between them. Hyacinth didn’t -believe in the success of this attempt; there passed before his -imagination a picture of the poor lady coming home and pulling off her -feathers for ever, after an evening spent in watching the agitation of -a ball-room from the outer edge of the circle, with a white, -irresponsive face. “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,” he -said, laughing. - -“Oh, I don’t mind dying.” - -“I think I do,” Hyacinth declared, as he turned away. There had been no -mention whatever of the Princess. - -It was early enough in the evening for him to risk a visit to Lisson -Grove; he calculated that the Poupins would still be sitting up. When -he reached their house he found this calculation justified; the -brilliancy of the light in the window appeared to announce that Madame -was holding a salon. He ascended to this apartment without delay (it -was free to a visitor to open the house-door himself), and, having -knocked, obeyed the hostess’s invitation to enter. Poupin and his wife -were seated, with a third person, at a table in the middle of the room, -round a staring kerosene lamp adorned with a globe of clear glass, of -which the transparency was mitigated only by a circular pattern of -bunches of grapes. The third person was his friend Schinkel, who had -been a member of the little party that waited upon Hoffendahl. No one -said anything as Hyacinth came in; but in their silence the three -others got up, looking at him, as he thought, rather strangely. - - - - -BOOK SIXTH - - - - -XLIII - - -“My child, you are always welcome,” said Eustache Poupin, taking -Hyacinth’s hand in both his own and holding it for some moments. An -impression had come to our young man, immediately, that they were -talking about him before he appeared and that they would rather have -been left to talk at their ease. He even thought he saw in Poupin’s -face the kind of consciousness that comes from detection, or at least -interruption, in a nefarious act. With Poupin, however, it was -difficult to tell; he always looked so heated and exalted, so like a -conspirator defying the approach of justice. Hyacinth contemplated the -others: they were standing as if they had shuffled something on the -table out of sight, as if they had been engaged in the manufacture of -counterfeit coin. Poupin kept hold of his hand; the Frenchman’s ardent -eyes, fixed, unwinking, always expressive of the greatness of the -occasion, whatever the occasion was, had never seemed to him to -protrude so far from his head. “Ah, my dear friend, _nous causions -justement de vous_,” Eustache remarked, as if this were a very -extraordinary fact. - -“Oh, _nous causions—nous causions!_” his wife exclaimed, as if to -deprecate an indiscreet exaggeration. “One may mention a friend, I -suppose, in the way of conversation, without taking such a liberty.” - -“A cat may look at a king, as your English proverb says,” added -Schinkel, jocosely. He smiled so hard at his own pleasantry that his -eyes closed up and vanished—an effect which Hyacinth, who had observed -it before, thought particularly unbecoming to him, appearing as it did -to administer the last perfection to his ugliness. He would have -consulted his interests by cultivating immobility of feature. - -“Oh, a king, a king!” murmured Poupin, shaking his head up and down. -“That’s what it’s not good to be, _au point où nous en sommes_.” - -“I just came in to wish you good-night,” said Hyacinth. “I’m afraid -it’s rather late for a call, though Schinkel is here.” - -“It’s always too late, my very dear, when you come,” the Frenchman -rejoined. “You know if you have a place at our fireside.” - -“I esteem it too much to disturb it,” said Hyacinth, smiling and -looking round at the three. - -“We can easily sit down again; we are a comfortable party. Put yourself -beside me.” And the Frenchman drew a chair close to the one, at the -table, that he had just quitted. - -“He has had a long walk, he is tired—he will certainly accept a little -glass,” Madame Poupin announced with decision, moving toward the tray -containing the small gilded _liqueur_ service. - -“We will each accept one, _ma bonne;_ it is a very good occasion for a -drop of _fine_,” her husband interposed, while Hyacinth seated himself -in the chair his host had designated. Schinkel resumed his place, which -was opposite; he looked across at Hyacinth without speaking, but his -long face continued to flatten itself into a representation of mirth. -He had on a green coat, which Hyacinth had seen before; it was a -garment of ceremony, such as our young man judged it would have been -impossible to procure in London or in any modern time. It was eminently -German and of high antiquity, and had a tall, stiff, clumsy collar, -which came up to the wearer’s ears and almost concealed his perpetual -bandage. When Hyacinth had sat down Eustache Poupin did not take -possession of his own chair, but stood beside him, resting his hand on -his head. At that touch something came over Hyacinth, and his heart -sprang into his throat. The idea that occurred to him, conveyed in -Poupin’s whole manner as well as in the reassuring intention of that -caress and in his wife’s uneasy, instant offer of refreshment, -explained the embarrassment of the circle and reminded our young man of -the engagement he had taken with himself to exhibit an extraordinary -quietness when a certain crisis in his life should have arrived. It -seemed to him that this crisis was in the air, very near—that he should -touch it if he made another movement; the pressure of the Frenchman’s -hand, which was meant as a solvent, only operated as a warning. As he -looked across at Schinkel he felt dizzy and a little sick; for a -moment, to his senses, the room whirled round. His resolution to be -quiet appeared only too easy to keep; he couldn’t break it even to the -extent of speaking. He knew that his voice would tremble, and that is -why he made no answer to Schinkel’s rather honeyed words, uttered after -an hesitation: “_Also_, my dear Robinson, have you passed your Sunday -well—have you had an ’appy day?” Why was every one so endearing? His -eyes questioned the table, but encountered nothing but its well-wiped -surface, polished for so many years by the gustatory elbows of the -Frenchman and his wife, and the lady’s dirty pack of cards for -‘patience’ (she had apparently been engaged in this exercise when -Schinkel came in), which indeed gave a little the impression of -gamblers surprised, who might have shuffled away the stakes. Madame -Poupin, who had dived into a cupboard, came back with a bottle of green -chartreuse, an apparition which led the German to exclaim, “_Lieber -Gott_, you Vrench, you Vrench, how well you manage! What would you have -more?” - -The hostess distributed the liquor, but Hyacinth was scarcely able to -swallow it, though it was highly appreciated by his companions. His -indifference to this luxury excited much discussion and conjecture, the -others bandying theories and contradictions, and even ineffectual -jokes, about him, over his head, with a volubility which seemed to him -unnatural. Poupin and Schinkel professed the belief that there must be -something very curious the matter with a man who couldn’t smack his -lips over a drop of that tap; he must either be in love or have some -still more insidious complaint. It was true that Hyacinth was always in -love—that was no secret to his friends—and it had never been observed -to stop his thirst. The Frenchwoman poured scorn on this view of the -case, declaring that the effect of the tender passion was to make one -enjoy one’s victual (when everything went straight, _bien entendu;_ and -how could an ear be deaf to the whisperings of such a dear little -_bonhomme_ as Hyacinth?), in proof of which she deposed that she had -never eaten and drunk with such relish as at the time—oh, it was far -away now—when she had a soft spot in her heart for her rascal of a -husband. For Madame Poupin to allude to her husband as a rascal -indicated a high degree of conviviality. Hyacinth sat staring at the -empty table with the feeling that he was, somehow, a detached, -irresponsible witness of the evolution of his fate. Finally he looked -up and said to his friends, collectively, “What on earth’s the matter -with you all?” And he followed this inquiry by an invitation that they -should tell him what it was they had been saying about him, since they -admitted that he had been the subject of their conversation. Madame -Poupin answered for them that they had simply been saying how much they -loved him, but that they wouldn’t love him any more if he became -suspicious and _grincheux_. She had been telling Mr Schinkel’s fortune -on the cards, and she would tell Hyacinth’s if he liked. There was -nothing much for Mr Schinkel, only that he would find something, some -day, that he had lost, but would probably lose it again, and serve him -right if he did! He objected that he had never had anything to lose, -and never expected to have; but that was a vain remark, inasmuch as the -time was fast coming when every one would have something—though indeed -it was to be hoped that he would keep it when he had got it. Eustache -rebuked his wife for her levity, reminded her that their young friend -cared nothing for old women’s tricks, and said he was sure Hyacinth had -come to talk over a very different matter—the question (he was so good -as to take an interest in it, as he had done in everything that related -to them) of the terms which M. Poupin might owe it to himself, to his -dignity, to a just though not exaggerated sentiment of his value, to -make in accepting Mr Crookenden’s offer of the foremanship of the -establishment in Soho; an offer not yet formally enunciated but visibly -in the air and destined—it would seem, at least—to arrive within a day -or two. The old foreman was going to set up for himself. The Frenchman -intimated that before accepting any such proposal he must have the most -substantial guarantees. “_Il me faudrait des conditions -très-particulières_.” It was singular to Hyacinth to hear M. Poupin -talk so comfortably about these high contingencies, the chasm by which -he himself was divided from the future having suddenly doubled its -width. His host and hostess sat down on either side of him, and Poupin -gave a sketch, in somewhat sombre tints, of the situation in Soho, -enumerating certain elements of decomposition which he perceived to be -at work there and which he would not undertake to deal with unless he -should be given a completely free hand. Did Schinkel understand, and -was that what Schinkel was grinning at? Did Schinkel understand that -poor Eustache was the victim of an absurd hallucination and that there -was not the smallest chance of his being invited to assume a -lieutenancy? He had less capacity for tackling the British workman -to-day than when he began to rub shoulders with him, and Mr Crookenden -had never in his life made a mistake, at least in the use of his tools. -Hyacinth’s responses were few and mechanical, and he presently ceased -to try to look as if he were entering into the Frenchman’s ideas. - -“You have some news—you have some news about me,” he remarked, -abruptly, to Schinkel. “You don’t like it, you don’t like to have to -give it to me, and you came to ask our friends here whether they -wouldn’t help you out with it. But I don’t think they will assist you -particularly, poor dears! Why do you mind? You oughtn’t to mind more -than I do. That isn’t the way.” - -“_Qu’est-ce qu’il dit—qu’est-ce qu’il dit, le pauvre chéri?_” Madame -Poupin demanded, eagerly; while Schinkel looked very hard at her -husband, as if to ask for direction. - -“My dear child, _vous vous faites des idées!_” the latter exclaimed, -laying his hand on him remonstrantly. - -But Hyacinth pushed away his chair and got up. “If you have anything to -tell me, it is cruel of you to let me see it, as you have done, and yet -not to satisfy me.” - -“Why should I have anything to tell you?” Schinkel asked. - -“I don’t know that, but I believe you have. I perceive things, I guess -things, quickly. That’s my nature at all times, and I do it much more -now.” - -“You do it indeed; it is very wonderful,” said Schinkel. - -“Mr Schinkel, will you do me the pleasure to go away—I don’t care -where—out of this house?” Madame Poupin broke out, in French. - -“Yes, that will be the best thing, and I will go with you,” said -Hyacinth. - -“If you would retire, my child, I think it would be a service that you -would render us,” Poupin returned, appealing to his young friend. -“Won’t you do us the justice to believe that you may leave your -interests in our hands?” - -Hyacinth hesitated a moment; it was now perfectly clear to him that -Schinkel had some sort of message for him, and his curiosity as to what -it might be had become nearly intolerable. “I am surprised at your -weakness,” he observed, as sternly as he could manage it, to Poupin. - -The Frenchman stared at him an instant, and then fell on his neck. “You -are sublime, my young friend—you are sublime!” - -“Will you be so good as to tell me what you are going to do with that -young man?” demanded Madame Poupin, glaring at Schinkel. - -“It’s none of your business, my poor lady,” Hyacinth replied, -disengaging himself from her husband. “Schinkel, I wish you would walk -away with me.” - -“_Calmons-nous, entendons-nous, expliquons-nous!_ The situation is very -simple,” Poupin went on. - -“I will go with you, if it will give you pleasure,” said Schinkel, very -obligingly, to Hyacinth. - -“Then you will give me that letter first!” Madame Poupin, erecting -herself, declared to the German. - -“My wife, you are an imbecile!” Poupin groaned, lifting his hands and -shoulders and turning away. - -“I may be an imbecile, but I won’t be a party—no, God help me, not to -that!” protested the Frenchwoman, planted before Schinkel as if to -prevent his moving. - -“If you have a letter for me, you ought to give it to me,” said -Hyacinth to Schinkel. “You have no right to give it to any one else.” - -“I will bring it to you in your house, my good friend,” Schinkel -replied, with a little wink that seemed to say that Madame Poupin would -have to be considered. - -“Oh, in his house—I’ll go to his house!” cried the lady. “I regard you, -I have always regarded you, as my child,” she declared to Hyacinth, -“and if this isn’t an occasion for a mother!” - -“It’s you that are making it an occasion. I don’t know what you are -talking about,” said Hyacinth. He had been questioning Schinkel’s eye, -and he thought he saw there a little twinkle of assurance that he might -really depend upon him. “I have disturbed you, and I think I had better -go away.” - -Poupin had turned round again; he seized the young man’s arm eagerly, -as if to prevent his retiring before he had given a certain -satisfaction. “How can you care, when you know everything is changed?” - -“What do you mean—everything is changed?” - -“Your opinions, your sympathies, your whole attitude. I don’t approve -of it—_je le constate_. You have withdrawn your confidence from the -people; you have said things in this spot, where you stand now, that -have given pain to my wife and me.” - -“If we didn’t love you, we should say that you had betrayed us!” cried -Madame Poupin, quickly, taking her husband’s idea. - -“Oh, I shall never betray you,” said Hyacinth, smiling. - -“You will never betray us—of course you think so. But you have no right -to act for the people when you have ceased to believe in the people. -_Il faut être conséquent, nom de Dieu!_” Poupin went on. - -“You will give up all thoughts of acting for me—_je ne permets pas -ça!_” exclaimed his wife. - -“It is probably not of importance—only a little fraternal greeting,” -Schinkel suggested, soothingly. - -“We repudiate you, we deny you, we denounce you!” shouted Poupin, more -and more excited. - -“My poor friends, it is you who have broken down, not I,” said -Hyacinth. “I am much obliged to you for your solicitude, but the -inconsequence is yours. At all events, good-night.” - -He turned away from them, and was leaving the room, when Madame Poupin -threw herself upon him, as her husband had done a moment before, but in -silence and with an extraordinary force of passion and distress. Being -stout and powerful she quickly got the better of him, and pressed him -to her ample bosom in a long, dumb embrace. - -“I don’t know what you want me to do,” said Hyacinth, as soon as he -could speak. “It’s for me to judge of my convictions.” - -“We want you to do nothing, because we _know_ you have changed,” Poupin -replied. “Doesn’t it stick out of you, in every glance of your eye and -every breath of your lips? It’s only for that, because that alters -everything.” - -“Does it alter my engagement? There are some things in which one can’t -change. I didn’t promise to believe; I promised to obey.” - -“We want you to be sincere—that is the great thing,” said Poupin, -edifyingly. “I will go to see them—I will make them understand.” - -“Ah, you should have done that before!” Madame Poupin groaned. - -“I don’t know whom you are talking about, but I will allow no one to -meddle in my affairs.” Hyacinth spoke with sudden vehemence; the scene -was cruel to his nerves, which were not in a condition to bear it. - -“When it is Hoffendahl, it is no good to meddle,” Schinkel remarked, -smiling. - -“And pray, who is Hoffendahl, and what authority has he got?” demanded -Madame Poupin, who had caught his meaning. “Who has put him over us -all, and is there nothing to do but to lie down in the dust before him? -Let him attend to his little affairs himself, and not put them off on -innocent children, no matter whether they are with us or against us.” - -This protest went so far that, evidently, Poupin felt a little ashamed -of his wife. “He has no authority but what we give him; but you know -that we respect him, that he is one of the pure, _ma bonne_. Hyacinth -can do exactly as he likes; he knows that as well as we do. He knows -there is not a feather’s weight of compulsion; he knows that, for my -part, I long since ceased to expect anything from him.” - -“Certainly, there is no compulsion,” said Schinkel. “It’s to take or to -leave. Only _they_ keep the books.” - -Hyacinth stood there before the three, with his eyes on the floor. “Of -course I can do as I like, and what I like is what I _shall_ do. -Besides, what are we talking about, with such sudden passion?” he -asked, looking up. “I have no summons, I have no sign. When the call -reaches me, it will be time to discuss it. Let it come or not come: -it’s not my affair.” - -“Certainly, it is not your affair,” said Schinkel. - -“I can’t think why M. Paul has never done anything, all this time, -knowing that everything is different now!” Madame Poupin exclaimed. - -“Yes, my dear boy, I don’t understand our friend,” her husband -remarked, watching Hyacinth with suspicious, contentious eyes. - -“It’s none of his business, any more than ours; it’s none of any one’s -business!” Schinkel declared. - -“Muniment walks straight; the best thing you can do is to imitate him,” -said Hyacinth, trying to pass Poupin, who had placed himself before the -door. - -“Promise me only this—not to do anything till I have seen you first,” -the Frenchman begged, almost piteously. - -“My poor old friend, you are very weak.” And Hyacinth opened the door, -in spite of him, and passed out. - -“Ah, well, if you _are_ with us, that’s all I want to know!” the young -man heard him say, behind him, at the top of the stairs, in a different -voice, a tone of sudden, exaggerated fortitude. - - - - -XLIV - - -Hyacinth hurried down and got out of the house, but he had not the -least intention of losing sight of Schinkel. The odd behaviour of the -Poupins was a surprise and annoyance, and he had wished to shake -himself free from it. He was candidly astonished at the alarm they were -so good as to feel for him, for he had never perceived that they had -gone round to the hope that the note he had signed (as it were) to -Hoffendahl would not be presented. What had he said, what had he done, -after all, to give them the right to fasten on him the charge of -apostasy? He had always been a free critic of everything, and it was -natural that, on certain occasions, in the little parlour in Lisson -Grove, he should have spoken in accordance with that freedom; but it -was only with the Princess that he had permitted himself really to rail -at the democracy and given the full measure of his scepticism. He would -have thought it indelicate to express contempt for the opinions of his -old foreign friends, to whom associations that made them venerable were -attached; and, moreover, for Hyacinth, a change of heart was, in the -nature of things, much more an occasion for a hush of publicity and a -kind of retrospective reserve; it couldn’t prompt one to aggression or -jubilation. When one had but lately discovered what could be said on -the opposite side one didn’t want to boast of one’s sharpness—not even -when one’s new convictions cast shadows that looked like the ghosts of -the old. - -Hyacinth lingered in the street, a certain distance from the house, -watching for Schinkel’s exit and prepared to remain there if necessary -till the dawn of another day. He had said to his friends, just before, -that the manner in which the communication they looked so askance at -should reach him was none of his business—it might reach him as it -could. This was true enough in theory, but in fact his desire was -overwhelming to know what Madame Poupin had meant by her allusion to a -letter, destined for him, in Schinkel’s possession—an allusion -confirmed by Schinkel’s own virtual acknowledgment. It was indeed this -eagerness that had driven him out of the house, for he had reason to -believe that the German would not fail him, and it galled his suspense -to see the foolish Poupins try to interpose, to divert the missive from -its course. He waited and waited, in the faith that Schinkel was -dealing with them in his slow, categorical Teutonic way, and only -objurgated the cabinet-maker for having in the first place paltered -with his sacred trust. Why hadn’t he come straight to him—whatever the -mysterious document was—instead of talking it over with French -featherheads? Passers were rare, at this hour, in Lisson Grove, and -lights were mainly extinguished; there was nothing to look at but the -vista of the low black houses, the dim, interspaced street-lamps, the -prowling cats who darted occasionally across the road, and the -terrible, mysterious, far-off stars, which appeared to him more than -ever to see everything and to tell nothing. A policeman creaked along -on the opposite side of the way, looking across at him as he passed, -and stood for some minutes on the corner, as if to keep an eye on him. -Hyacinth had leisure to reflect that the day was perhaps not far off -when a policeman might have his eye on him for a very good reason—might -walk up and down, pass and repass, as he mounted guard over him. - -It seemed horribly long before Schinkel came out of the house, but it -was probably only half an hour. In the stillness of the street he heard -Poupin let his visitor out, and at the sound he stepped back into the -recess of a doorway on the same side, so that, in looking out, the -Frenchman should not see him waiting. There was another delay, for the -two stood talking together interminably and in a low tone on the -doorstep. At last, however, Poupin went in again, and then Schinkel -came down the street towards Hyacinth, who had calculated that he would -proceed in that direction, it being, as Hyacinth happened to know, that -of his own lodging. After he had heard Poupin go in he stopped and -looked up and down; it was evidently his idea that Hyacinth would be -waiting for him. Our hero stepped out of the shallow recess in which he -had been flattening himself, and came straight to him, and the two men -stood there face to face, in the dusky, empty, sordid street. - -“You didn’t let them have the letter?” - -“Oh no, I retained it,” said Schinkel, with his eyes more than ever -like invisible points. - -“Then hadn’t you better give it to me?” - -“We will talk of that—we will talk.” Schinkel made no motion to satisfy -his friend; he had his hands in the pockets of his trousers, and his -appearance was characterised by an exasperating assumption that they -had the whole night before them. He was intolerably methodical. - -“Why should we talk? Haven’t you talked enough with those people, all -the evening? What have they to say about it? What right have you to -detain a letter that belongs to me?” - -“_Erlauben Sie_: I will light my pipe,” the German remarked. And he -proceeded to this business, methodically, while Hyacinth’s pale, -excited face showed in the glow of the match that he ignited on the -rusty railing beside them. “It is not yours unless I have given it to -you,” Schinkel went on, as they walked along. “Be patient, and I will -tell you,” he added, passing his hand into his companion’s arm. “Your -way, not so? We will go down toward the Park.” Hyacinth tried to be -patient, and he listened with interest when Schinkel said, “She tried -to take it; she attacked me with her hands. But that was not what I -went for, to give it up.” - -“Is she mad? I don’t recognise them,” Hyacinth murmured. - -“No, but they lofe you.” - -“Why, then, do they try to disgrace me?” - -“They think it is no disgrace, if you have changed.” - -“That’s very well for her; but it’s pitiful for him, and I declare it -surprises me.” - -“Oh, he came round, and he helped me to resist. He pulled his wife off. -It was the first shock,” said Schinkel. - -“You oughtn’t to have shocked them, my dear fellow,” Hyacinth replied. - -“I was shocked myself—I couldn’t help it.” - -“Lord, how shaky you all are!” - -“You take it well. I am very sorry. But it is a fine chance,” Schinkel -went on, smoking away. His pipe, for the moment, seemed to absorb him, -so that after a silence Hyacinth resumed— - -“Be so good as to reflect that all this while I don’t in the least -understand what you are talking about.” - -“Well, it was this morning, early,” said the German. “You know in my -country we don’t lie in bed late, and what they do in my country I try -to do everywhere. I think it is good enough. In winter I get up, of -course, long before the sun, and in summer I get up almost at the same -time. I should see the fine spectacle of the sunrise, if in London you -could see. The first thing I do of a Sunday is to smoke a pipe at my -window, which is at the front, you remember, and looks into a little -dirty street. At that hour there is nothing to see there—you English -are so slow to leave the bed. Not much, however, at any time; it is not -important, my little street. But my first pipe is the one I enjoy most. -I want nothing else when I have that pleasure. I look out at the new, -fresh light—though in London it is not very fresh—and I think it is the -beginning of another day. I wonder what such a day will bring; whether -it will bring anything good to us poor devils. But I have seen a great -many pass, and nothing has come. This morning, however, brought -something—something, at least, to you. On the other side of the way I -saw a young man, who stood just opposite to my house, looking up at my -window. He looked at me straight, without any ceremony, and I smoked my -pipe and looked at him. I wondered what he wanted, but he made no sign -and spoke no word. He was a very nice young man; he had an umbrella, -and he wore spectacles. We remained that way, face to face, perhaps for -a quarter of an hour, and at last he took out his watch—he had a watch, -too—and held it in his hand, just glancing at it every few minutes, as -if to let me know that he would rather not give me the whole day. Then -it came over me that he wanted to speak to me! You would have guessed -that before, but we good Germans are slow. When we understand, however, -we act; so I nodded to him, to let him know I would come down. I put on -my coat and my shoes, for I was only in my shirt and stockings (though -of course I had on my trousers), and I went down into the street. When -he saw me come he walked slowly away, but at the end of a little -distance he waited for me. When I came near him I saw that he was a -very nice young man indeed—very young, with a very pleasant, friendly -face. He was also very neat, and he had gloves, and his umbrella was of -silk. I liked him very much. He said I should come round the corner, so -we went round the corner together. I thought there would be some one -there waiting for us; but there was nothing—only the closed shops and -the early light and a little spring mist which told that the day would -be fine. I didn’t know what he wanted; perhaps it was some of our -business—that’s what I first thought—and perhaps it was only a little -game. So I was very careful; I didn’t ask him to come into the house. -Yet I told him that he must excuse me for not understanding more -quickly that he wished to speak with me; and when I said that, he said -it was not of consequence—he would have waited there, for the chance to -see me all day. I told him I was glad I had spared him that, at least, -and we had some very polite conversation. He _was_ a very nice young -man. But what he wanted was simply to put a letter in my hand; as he -said himself, he was only a kind of private postman. He gave me the -letter—it was not addressed; and when I had taken it I asked him how he -knew, and if he wouldn’t be sorry if it should turn out that I was not -the man for whom the letter was meant. But I didn’t give him a start; -he told me he knew all it was necessary for him to know—he knew exactly -what to do and how to do it. I think he is a valuable member. I asked -him if the letter required an answer, and he told me he had nothing to -do with that; he was only to put it in my hand. He recommended me to -wait till I had gone into the house again to read it. We had a little -more talk—always very polite; and he mentioned that he had come so -early because he thought I might go out, if he delayed, and because, -also, he had a great deal to do and had to take his time when he could. -It is true that he looked as if he had plenty to do—as if he was in -some very good occupation. I should tell you that he spoke to me always -in English, but he is not English; he sounded his words like some kind -of foreigner. I suppose he is not German, or he would have spoken to me -in German. But there are so many, of all countries! I said if he had so -much to do I wouldn’t keep him; I would go to my room and open my -letter. He said it wasn’t important; and then I asked him if he -wouldn’t come into my room, also, and rest. I told him it wasn’t very -handsome, my room—because he looked like a young man who would have, -for himself, a very neat lodging. Then I found he meant it wasn’t -important that we should talk any more, and he went away without even -offering to shake hands. I don’t know if he had other letters to give, -but he went away, as I have said, like a postman on his rounds, without -giving me any more information.” - -It took Schinkel a long time to unfold this story—his calm and -conscientious thoroughness made no allowance for any painful acuteness -of curiosity that Hyacinth might feel. He went from step to step, and -treated his different points with friendly explicitness, as if each -would have exactly the same interest for his companion. The latter made -no attempt to hurry him, and indeed he listened, now, with a kind of -intense patience; for he _was_ interested, and, moreover, it was clear -to him that he was safe with Schinkel; the German would satisfy him in -time—wouldn’t worry him with attaching conditions to their transaction, -in spite of the mistake he had made in going for guidance to Lisson -Grove. Hyacinth learned in due course that on returning to his -apartment and opening the little packet of which he had been put into -possession, Mr Schinkel had found himself confronted with two separate -articles: one a sealed letter superscribed with our young man’s name, -the other a sheet of paper containing in three lines a request that -within two days of receiving it he would hand the letter to the ‘young -Robinson’. The three lines in question were signed D. H., and the -letter was addressed in the same hand. Schinkel professed that he -already knew the writing; it was that of Diedrich Hoffendahl. “Good, -good,” he said, exerting a soothing pressure upon Hyacinth’s arm. “I -will walk with you to your door, and I will give it to you there; -unless you like better that I should keep it till to-morrow morning, so -that you may have a quiet sleep—I mean in case it might contain -anything that will be disagreeable to you. But it is probably nothing; -it is probably only a word to say that you need think no more about -your engagement.” - -“Why should it be that?” Hyacinth asked. - -“Probably he has heard that you repent.” - -“That I repent?” Hyacinth stopped him short; they had just reached the -top of Park Lane. “To whom have I given a right to say that?” - -“Ah well, if you haven’t, so much the better. It may be, then, for some -other reason.” - -“Don’t be an idiot, Schinkel,” Hyacinth returned, as they walked along. -And in a moment he went on, “What the devil did you go and tattle to -the Poupins for?” - -“Because I thought they would like to know. Besides, I felt my -responsibility; I thought I should carry it better if they knew it. And -then, I’m like them—I lofe you.” - -Hyacinth made no answer to this profession; he asked the next instant, -“Why didn’t your young man bring the letter directly to me?” - -“Ah, I didn’t ask him that! The reason was probably not complicated, -but simple—that those who wrote it knew my address and didn’t know -yours. And wasn’t I one of your guarantors?” - -“Yes, but not the principal one. The principal one was Muniment. Why -was the letter not sent to me through him?” - -“My dear Robinson, you want to know too many things. Depend upon it, -there are always good reasons. I should have liked it better if it had -been Muniment. But if they didn’t send to him—” Schinkel interrupted -himself; the remainder of his sentence was lost in a cloud of smoke. - -“Well, if they didn’t send to him,”—Hyacinth persisted. - -“You’re a great friend of his—how can I tell you?” - -At this Hyacinth looked up at his companion askance, and caught an odd -glance, accompanied with a smile, which the mild, circumspect German -directed toward him. “If it’s anything against him, my being his friend -makes me just the man to hear it. I can defend him.” - -“Well, it’s a possibility that they are not satisfied.” - -“How do you mean it—not satisfied?” - -“How shall I say it?—that they don’t trust him.” - -“Don’t trust him? And yet they trust me!” - -“Ah, my boy, depend upon it, there are reasons,” Schinkel replied; and -in a moment he added, “They know everything—everything. Oh, they go -straight!” - -The pair pursued the rest of their course for the most part in silence, -Hyacinth being considerably struck with something that dropped from his -companion in answer to a question he asked as to what Eustache Poupin -had said when Schinkel, that evening, first told him what he had come -to see him about. “_Il vaut du galme—il vaut du galme_:” that was the -German’s version of the Frenchman’s words; and Hyacinth repeated them -over to himself several times, almost with the same accent. They had a -certain soothing effect. In fact the good Schinkel was soothing -altogether, as our hero felt when they stopped at last at the door of -his lodging in Westminster and stood there face to face, while Hyacinth -waited—waited. The sharpness of his impatience had passed away, and he -watched without irritation the loving manner in which the German shook -the ashes out of his big pipe and laid it to rest in its coffin. It was -only after he had gone through this business with his usual attention -to every detail of it that he said, “_Also_, now for the letter,” and, -putting his hand inside of his waistcoat, drew forth the important -document. It passed instantly into Hyacinth’s grasp, and our young man -transferred it to his own pocket without looking at it. He thought he -saw a shade of disappointment in Schinkel’s ugly, kindly face, at this -indication that he should have no present knowledge of its contents; -but he liked that better than his pretending to say again that it was -nothing—that it was only a release. Schinkel had now the good sense, or -the good taste, not to repeat that remark, and as the letter pressed -against his heart Hyacinth felt still more distinctly that it was -something—that it was a command. What Schinkel did say, in a moment, -was: “Now that you have got it, I am very glad. It is more comfortable -for me.” - -“I should think so!” Hyacinth exclaimed. “If you hadn’t done your job -you would have paid for it.” - -Schinkel hesitated a moment while he lingered; then, as Hyacinth turned -away, putting in his door-key, he replied, “And if you don’t do yours, -so will you.” - -“Yes, as you say, _they_ go straight! Good-night.” And our young man -let himself in. - -The passage and staircase were never lighted, and the lodgers either -groped their way bedward with the infallibility of practice or scraped -the wall with a casual match which, in the milder gloom of day, was -visible in a hundred rich streaks. Hyacinth’s room was on the second -floor, behind, and as he approached it he was startled by seeing a -light proceed from the crevice under the door, the imperfect fitting of -which was in this manner vividly illustrated. He stopped and considered -this mysterious brightness, and his first impulse was to connect it -with the incident just ushered in by Schinkel; for what could anything -that touched him now be but a part of the same business? It was natural -that some punctual emissary should be awaiting him. Then it occurred to -him that when he went out to call on Lady Aurora, after tea, he had -simply left a tallow candle burning, and that it showed a cynical -spirit on the part of his landlady, who could be so close-fisted for -herself, not to have gone in and put it out. Lastly, it came over him -that he had had a visitor, in his absence, and that the visitor had -taken possession of his apartment till his return, seeking sources of -comfort, as was perfectly just. When he opened the door he found that -this last prevision was the right one, though his visitor was not one -of the figures that had risen before him. Mr Vetch sat there, beside -the little table at which Hyacinth did his writing, with his head -resting on his hand and his eyes bent on the floor. He looked up when -Hyacinth appeared, and said, “Oh, I didn’t hear you; you are very -quiet.” - -“I come in softly, when I’m late, for the sake of the house—though I am -bound to say I am the only lodger who has that refinement. Besides, you -have been asleep,” Hyacinth said. - -“No, I have not been asleep,” returned the old man. “I don’t sleep much -nowadays.” - -“Then you have been plunged in meditation.” - -“Yes, I have been thinking.” Then Mr Vetch explained that the woman of -the house wouldn’t let him come in, at first, till he had given proper -assurances that his intentions were pure and that he was moreover the -oldest friend Mr Robinson had in the world. He had been there for an -hour; he thought he might find him, coming so late. - -Hyacinth answered that he was very glad he had waited and that he was -delighted to see him, and expressed regret that he hadn’t known in -advance of his visit, so that he might have something to offer him. He -sat down on his bed, vaguely expectant; he wondered what special -purpose had brought the fiddler so far at that unnatural hour. But he -only spoke the truth in saying that he was glad to see him. Hyacinth -had come upstairs in a tremor of desire to be alone with the revelation -that he carried in his pocket, yet the sight of Anastasius Vetch gave -him a sudden relief by postponing solitude. The place where he had put -his letter seemed to throb against his side, yet he was thankful to his -old friend for forcing him still to leave it so. “I have been looking -at your books,” the fiddler said; “you have two or three exquisite -specimens of your own. Oh yes, I recognise your work when I see it; -there are always certain little finer touches. You have a manner, like -a master. With such a talent, such a taste, your future leaves nothing -to be desired. You will make a fortune and become a great celebrity.” - -Mr Vetch sat forward, to sketch this vision; he rested his hands on his -knees and looked very hard at his young friend, as if to challenge him -to dispute his flattering views. The effect of what Hyacinth saw in his -face was to give him immediately the idea that the fiddler knew -something, though it was impossible to guess how he could know it. The -Poupins, for instance, had had no time to communicate with him, even -granting that they were capable of that baseness; an unwarrantable -supposition, in spite of Hyacinth’s having seen them, less than an hour -before, fall so much below their own standard. With this suspicion -there rushed into Hyacinth’s mind an intense determination to dissemble -before his visitor to the last; he might imagine what he liked, but he -should not have a grain of satisfaction—or rather he should have that -of being led to believe, if possible, that his suspicions were -positively vain and idle. Hyacinth rested his eyes on the books that Mr -Vetch had taken down from the shelf, and admitted that they were very -pretty work and that so long as one didn’t become blind or maimed the -ability to produce that sort of thing was a legitimate source of -confidence. Then suddenly, as they continued simply to look at each -other, the pressure of the old man’s curiosity, the expression of his -probing, beseeching eyes, which had become strange and tragic in these -latter times and completely changed their character, grew so -intolerable that to defend himself Hyacinth took the aggressive and -asked him boldly whether it were simply to look at his work, of which -he had half a dozen specimens in Lomax Place, that he had made a -nocturnal pilgrimage. “My dear old friend, you have something on your -mind—some fantastic fear, some extremely erroneous _idée fixe_. Why has -it taken you to-night, in particular? Whatever it is, it has brought -you here, at an unnatural hour, you don’t know why. I ought of course -to be thankful to anything that brings you here; and so I am, in so far -as that it makes me happy. But I can’t like it if it makes _you_ -miserable. You’re like a nervous mother whose baby’s in bed upstairs; -she goes up every five minutes to see if he’s all right—if he isn’t -uncovered or hasn’t tumbled out of bed. Dear Mr Vetch, don’t, don’t -worry; the blanket’s up to my chin, and I haven’t tumbled yet.” - -Hyacinth heard himself say these things as if he were listening to -another person; the impudence of them, under the circumstances, seemed -to him, somehow, so rare. But he believed himself to be on the edge of -an episode in which impudence, evidently, must play a considerable -part, and he might as well try his hand at it without delay. The way -the old man gazed at him might have indicated that he too was able to -take the measure of his perversity—that he knew he was false as he sat -there declaring that there was nothing the matter, while a brand-new -revolutionary commission burned in his pocket. But in a moment Mr Vetch -said, very mildly, as if he had really been reassured, “It’s wonderful -how you read my thoughts. I don’t trust you; I think there are beastly -possibilities. It’s not true, at any rate, that I come to look at you -every five minutes. You don’t know how often I have resisted my -fears—how I have forced myself to let you alone.” - -“You had better let me come and live with you, as I proposed after -Pinnie’s death. Then you will have me always under your eyes,” said -Hyacinth, smiling. - -The old man got up eagerly, and, as Hyacinth did the same, laid his -hands upon his shoulders, holding him close. “Will you now, really, my -boy? Will you come to-night?” - -“To-night, Mr Vetch?” - -“To-night has worried me more than any other, I don’t know why. After -my tea I had my pipe and a glass, but I couldn’t keep quiet; I was -very, very bad. I got to thinking of Pinnie—she seemed to be in the -room. I felt as if I could put out my hand and touch her. If I believed -in ghosts I should believe I had seen her. She wasn’t there for -nothing; she was there to add her fears to mine—to talk to me about -you. I tried to hush her up, but it was no use—she drove me out of the -house. About ten o’clock I took my hat and stick and came down here. -You may judge whether I thought it important, as I took a cab.” - -“Ah, why do you spend your money so foolishly?” asked Hyacinth, in a -tone of the most affectionate remonstrance. - -“Will you come to-night?” said the old man, for all rejoinder, holding -him still. - -“Surely, it would be simpler for you to stay here. I see perfectly that -you are ill and nervous. You can take the bed, and I’ll spend the night -in the chair.” - -The fiddler thought a moment. “No, you’ll hate me if I subject you to -such discomfort as that; and that’s just what I don’t want.” - -“It won’t be a bit different in your room; there, as here, I shall have -to sleep in a chair.” - -“I’ll get another room; we shall be close together,” the fiddler went -on. - -“Do you mean you’ll get another room at this hour of the night, with -your little house stuffed full and your people all in bed? My poor -Anastasius, you are very bad; your reason totters on its throne,” said -Hyacinth, humorously and indulgently. - -“Very good, we’ll get a room to-morrow. I’ll move into another house, -where there are two, side by side.” Hyacinth’s tone was evidently -soothing to him. - -“_Comme vous y allez!_” the young man continued. “Excuse me if I remind -you that in case of my leaving this place I have to give a fortnight’s -notice.” - -“Ah, you’re backing out!” the old man exclaimed, dropping his hands. - -“Pinnie wouldn’t have said that,” Hyacinth returned. “If you are -acting, if you are speaking, at the prompting of her pure spirit, you -had better act and speak exactly as she would have done. She would have -believed me.” - -“Believed you? Believed what? What is there to believe? If you’ll make -me a promise, I will believe that.” - -“I’ll make you any promise you like,” said Hyacinth. - -“Oh, any promise I like—that isn’t what I want! I want just one very -particular little pledge; and that is really what I came here for -to-night. It came over me that I’ve been an ass, all this time, never -to have demanded it of you before. Give it to me now, and I will go -home quietly and leave you in peace.” Hyacinth, assenting in advance, -requested again that he would formulate his demand, and then the old -man said, “Well, promise me that you will never, under any -circumstances whatever, do anything.” - -“Do anything?” - -“Anything that those people expect of you.” - -“Those people?” Hyacinth repeated. - -“Ah, don’t torment me with pretending not to understand!” the old man -begged. “You know the people I mean. I can’t call them by their names, -because I don’t know them. But you do, and they know you.” - -Hyacinth had no desire to torment Mr Vetch, but he was capable of -reflecting that to enter into his thought too easily would be -tantamount to betraying himself. “I suppose I know the people you have -in mind,” he said, in a moment; “but I’m afraid I don’t grasp the idea -of the promise.” - -“Don’t they want to make use of you?” - -“I see what you mean,” said Hyacinth. “You think they want me to touch -off some train for them. Well, if that’s what troubles you, you may -sleep sound. I shall never do any of their work.” - -A radiant light came into the fiddler’s face, and he stared, as if this -assurance were too fair for nature. “Do you take your oath on that? -Never anything, anything, anything?” - -“Never anything at all.” - -“Will you swear it to me by the memory of that good woman of whom we -have been speaking and whom we both loved?” - -“My dear old Pinnie’s memory? Willingly.” - -The old man sank down in his chair and buried his face in his hands; -the next moment his companion heard him sobbing. Ten minutes later he -was content to take his departure, and Hyacinth went out with him to -look for another cab. They found an ancient four-wheeler stationed -languidly at a crossing of the ways, and before Mr Vetch got into it he -asked his young friend to kiss him. That young friend watched the -vehicle get itself into motion and rattle away; he saw it turn a -neighbouring corner. Then he approached the nearest gas-lamp and drew -from his breast-pocket the letter that Schinkel had given him. - - - - -XLV - - -“And Madame Grandoni, then?” asked Hyacinth, reluctant to turn away. He -felt pretty sure that he should never knock at that door again, and the -desire was strong in him to see once more, for the last time, the -ancient, troubled _suivante_ of the Princess, whom he had always liked. -She had seemed to him ever to be in the slightly ridiculous position of -a confidant of tragedy in whom the heroine should have ceased to -confide. - -“_E andata via, caro signorino_,” said Assunta, smiling at him as she -stood there holding the door open. - -“She has gone away? Bless me, when did she go?” - -“It is now five days, dear young sir. She has returned to our country.” - -“Is it possible?” exclaimed Hyacinth, disappointedly. - -“_E possibilissimo!_” said Assunta. Then she added, “There were many -times when she almost went; but this time—_capisce_—” And without -finishing her sentence the Princess’s Roman tirewoman indulged in a -subtle, suggestive, indefinable play of expression, to which her hands -and shoulders contributed, as well as her lips and eyebrows. - -Hyacinth looked at her long enough to catch any meaning that she might -have wished to convey, but gave no sign of apprehending it. He only -remarked, gravely, “In short she is here no more.” - -“And the worst is that she will probably never come back. She didn’t go -for a long time, but when she decided herself it was finished,” Assunta -declared. “_Peccato!_” she added, with a sigh. - -“I should have liked to see her again—I should have liked to bid her -good-bye.” Hyacinth lingered there in strange, melancholy vagueness; -since he had been told the Princess was not at home he had no reason -for remaining, save the possibility that she might return before he -turned away. This possibility, however, was small, for it was only nine -o’clock, the middle of the evening—too early an hour for her to -reappear, if, as Assunta said, she had gone out after tea. He looked up -and down the Crescent, gently swinging his stick, and became conscious -in a moment that Assunta was regarding him with tender interest. - -“You should have come back sooner; then perhaps she wouldn’t have gone, -_povera vecchia_,” she rejoined in a moment. “It is too many days since -you have been here. She liked you—I know that.” - -“She liked me, but she didn’t like me to come,” said Hyacinth. “Wasn’t -that why she went, because we came?” - -“Ah, that other one—with the long legs—yes. But you are better.” - -“The Princess doesn’t think so, and she is the right judge,” Hyacinth -replied, smiling. - -“Eh, who knows what she thinks? It is not for me to say. But you had -better come in and wait. I dare say she won’t be long, and it would -gratify her to find you.” - -Hyacinth hesitated. “I am not sure of that.” Then he asked, “Did she go -out alone?” - -“_Sola, sola_,” said Assunta, smiling. “Oh, don’t be afraid; you were -the first!” And she flung open the door of the little drawing-room, -with an air of irresistible solicitation and sympathy. - -He sat there nearly an hour, in the chair the Princess habitually used, -under her shaded lamp, with a dozen objects around him which seemed as -much a part of herself as if they had been folds of her dress or even -tones of her voice. His thoughts were tremendously active, but his body -was too tired for restlessness; he had not been at work, and had been -walking about all day, to fill the time; so that he simply reclined -there, with his head on one of the Princess’s cushions, his feet on one -of her little stools—one of the ugly ones, that belonged to the -house—and his respiration coming quickly, like that of a man in a state -of acute agitation. Hyacinth was agitated now, but it was not because -he was waiting for the Princess; a deeper source of emotion had been -opened to him, and he had not on the present occasion more sharpness of -impatience than had already visited him at certain moments of the past -twenty hours. He had not closed his eyes the night before, and the day -had not made up for that torment. A fever of reflection had descended -upon him, and the range of his imagination had been wide. It whirled -him through circles of immeasurable compass; and this is the reason -that, thinking of many things while he sat in the Princess’s chair, he -wondered why, after all, he had come to Madeira Crescent, and what -interest he could have in seeing the lady of the house. He had a very -complete sense that everything was over between them; that the link had -snapped which bound them so closely together for a while. And this was -not simply because for a long time now he had received no sign nor -communication from her, no invitation to come back, no inquiry as to -why his visits had stopped. It was not because he had seen her go in -and out with Paul Muniment, nor because it had suited Prince -Casamassima to point the moral of her doing so, nor even because, quite -independently of the Prince, he believed her to be more deeply absorbed -in her acquaintance with that superior young man than she had ever been -in her relations with himself. The reason, so far as he became -conscious of it in his fitful meditations, could only be a strange, -detached curiosity—strange and detached because everything else of his -past had been engulfed in the abyss that opened before him as, after Mr -Vetch had left him, he stood under the lamp in a paltry Westminster -street. That had swallowed up all familiar feelings, and yet out of the -ruin had sprung the impulse which brought him to where he sat. - -The solution of his difficulty—he flattered himself he had arrived at -it—involved a winding-up of his affairs; and though, even if no -solution had been required, he would have felt clearly that he had been -dropped, yet as even in that case it would have been sweet to him to -bid her good-bye, so, at present, the desire for some last vision of -her own hurrying fate could still appeal to him. If things had not gone -well for him he was still capable of wondering whether they looked -better for her. It is a singular fact, but there rose in his mind a -sort of incongruous desire to pity her. All these were odd feelings -enough, and by the time half an hour had elapsed they had throbbed -themselves into weariness and into slumber. While he remembered that he -was waiting now in a very different frame from that in which he waited -for her in South Street the first time he went to see her, he closed -his eyes and lost himself. His unconsciousness lasted, he afterwards -perceived, nearly half an hour; it terminated in his becoming aware -that the lady of the house was standing before him. Assunta was behind -her, and as he opened his eyes she took from her mistress the bonnet -and mantle of which the Princess divested herself. “It’s charming of -you to have waited,” the latter said, smiling down at him with all her -old kindness. “You are very tired—don’t get up; that’s the best chair, -and you must keep it.” She made him remain where he was; she placed -herself near him on a smaller seat; she declared that she was not tired -herself, that she didn’t know what was the matter with her—nothing -tired her now; she exclaimed on the time that had elapsed since he had -last called, as if she were reminded of it simply by seeing him again; -and she insisted that he should have some tea—he looked so much as if -he needed it. She considered him with deeper attention, and wished to -know what was the matter with him—what he had done to use himself up; -adding that she must begin and look after him again, for while she had -the care of him that kind of thing didn’t happen. In response to this -Hyacinth made a great confession: he admitted that he had stayed away -from work and simply amused himself—amused himself by loafing about -London all day. This didn’t pay—he was beginning to discover it as he -grew older; it was doubtless a sign of increasing years when one began -to perceive that wanton pleasures were hollow and that to stick to -one’s tools was not only more profitable but more refreshing. However, -he did stick to them, as a general thing; that was no doubt partly why, -from the absence of the habit of it, a day off turned out to be rather -a grind. When Hyacinth had not seen the Princess for some time he -always, on meeting her again, had a renewed, tremendous sense of her -beauty, and he had it to-night in an extraordinary degree. Splendid as -that beauty had ever been, it seemed clothed at present in transcendent -glory, and (if that which was already supremely fine could be capable -of greater refinement) to have worked itself free of all earthly -grossness and been purified and consecrated by her new life. Her -gentleness, when she was in the mood for it, was quite divine (it had -always the irresistible charm that it was the humility of a high -spirit), and on this occasion she gave herself up to it. Whether it was -because he had the consciousness of resting his eyes upon her for the -last time, or because she wished to be particularly pleasant to him in -order to make up for having, amid other preoccupations, rather dropped -him of late (it was probable the effect was a product of both causes), -at all events the sight of her loveliness seemed none the less a -privilege than it had done the night he went into her box, at the play, -and her presence lifted the weight from his soul. He suffered himself -to be coddled and absently, even if radiantly, smiled at, and his state -of mind was such that it could produce no alteration of his pain to see -that on the Princess’s part these were inexpensive gifts. She had sent -Assunta to bring them tea, and when the tray arrived she gave him cup -after cup, with every restorative demonstration; but he had not sat -with her a quarter of an hour before he perceived that she scarcely -measured a word he said to her or a word that she herself uttered. If -she had the best intention of being nice to him, by way of -compensation, this compensation was for a wrong that was far from -vividly present to her mind. Two points became perfectly clear: one was -that she was thinking of something very different from her present, her -past, or her future relations with Hyacinth Robinson; the other was -that he was superseded indeed. This was so completely the case that it -did not even occur to her, it was evident, that the sense of -supersession might be cruel to the young man. If she was charming to -him it was because she was good-natured and he had been hanging off, -and not because she had done him an injury. Perhaps, after all, she -hadn’t, for he got the impression that it might be no great loss of -comfort not to constitute part of her life to-day. It was manifest from -her eye, from her smile, from every movement and tone, and indeed from -all the irradiation of her beauty, that that life to-day was -tremendously wound up. If he had come to Madeira Crescent because he -was curious to see how she was getting on, it was sufficiently -intimated to him that she was getting on well; that is that she was -living more than ever on high hopes and bold plans and far-reaching -combinations. These things, from his own point of view, ministered less -to happiness, and to be mixed up with them was perhaps not so much -greater a sign that one had not lived for nothing, than the grim -arrangement which, in the interest of peace, he had just arrived at -with himself. She asked him why he had not been to see her for so long, -quite as if this failure were only a vulgar form of social neglect; and -she scarcely seemed to notice whether it were a good or a poor excuse -when he said he had stayed away because he knew her to be extremely -busy. But she did not deny the impeachment; she admitted that she had -been busier than ever in her life before. She looked at him as if he -would know what that meant, and he remarked that he was very sorry for -her. - -“Because you think it’s all a mistake? Yes, I know that. Perhaps it is; -but if it is, it’s a magnificent one. If you were scared about me three -or four months ago, I don’t know what you would think to-day—if you -knew! I have risked everything.” - -“Fortunately I don’t know,” said Hyacinth. - -“No, indeed, how should you?” - -“And to tell the truth,” he went on, “that is really the reason I -haven’t been back here till to-night. I haven’t wanted to know—I have -feared and hated to know.” - -“Then why did you come at last?” - -Hyacinth hesitated a moment. “Out of a kind of inconsistent curiosity.” - -“I suppose then you would like me to tell you where I have been -to-night, eh?” - -“No, my curiosity is satisfied. I have learned something—what I mainly -wanted to know—without your telling me.” - -She stared an instant. “Ah, you mean whether Madame Grandoni was gone? -I suppose Assunta told you.” - -“Yes, Assunta told me, and I was sorry to hear it.” - -The Princess looked grave, as if her old friend’s departure had been -indeed a very serious incident. “You may imagine how I feel it! It -leaves me completely alone; it makes, in the eyes of the world, an -immense difference in my position. However, I don’t consider the eyes -of the world. At any rate, she couldn’t put up with me any more—it -appears that I am more and more shocking; and it was written!” On -Hyacinth’s asking what the old lady would do, she replied, “I suppose -she will go and live with my husband.” Five minutes later she inquired -of him whether the same reason that he had mentioned just before was -the explanation of his absence from Audley Court. Mr Muniment had told -her that he had not been near him and his sister for more than a month. - -“No, it isn’t the fear of learning something that would make me uneasy: -because, somehow, in the first place it isn’t natural to feel uneasy -about Paul, and in the second, if it were, he never lets one see -anything. It is simply the general sense of real divergence of view. -When that divergence becomes sharp, it is better not to pester each -other.” - -“I see what you mean. But you might go and see his sister.” - -“I don’t like her,” said Hyacinth, simply. - -“Ah, neither do I!” the Princess exclaimed; while her visitor remained -conscious of the perfect composure, the absence of false shame, with -which she had referred to their common friend. But she was silent after -this, and he judged that he had stayed long enough and sufficiently -taxed a preoccupied attention. He got up, and was bidding her -good-night, when she checked him by saying, suddenly, “By the way, your -not going to see so good a friend as Mr Muniment, because you -disapprove to-day of his work, suggests to me that you will be in an -awkward fix, with your disapprovals, the day you are called upon to -serve the cause according to your vow.” - -“Oh, of course I have thought of that,” said Hyacinth, smiling. - -“And would it be indiscreet to ask what you have thought?” - -“Ah, so many things, Princess! It would take me a long time to say.” - -“I have never talked to you about this, because it seemed to me -indelicate, and the whole thing too much a secret of your own breast -for even so intimate a friend as I have been to have a right to meddle -with it. But I have wondered much—seeing that you cared less and less -for the people—how you would reconcile your change of heart with the -performance of your engagement. I pity you, my poor friend,” the -Princess went on, with a heavenly sweetness, “for I can imagine nothing -more terrible than to find yourself face to face with such an -engagement, and to feel at the same time that the spirit which prompted -it is dead within you.” - -“Terrible, terrible, most terrible,” said Hyacinth, gravely, looking at -her. - -“But I pray God it may never be your fate!” The Princess hesitated a -moment; then she added, “I see you feel it. Heaven help us all!” She -paused, then went on: “Why shouldn’t I tell you, after all? A short -time ago I had a visit from Mr Vetch.” - -“It was kind of you to see him,” said Hyacinth. - -“He was delightful, I assure you. But do you know what he came for? To -beg me, on his knees, to snatch you away.” - -“To snatch me away?” - -“From the danger that hangs over you. Poor man, he was very pathetic.” - -“Oh yes, he has talked to me about it,” Hyacinth said. “He has picked -up the idea, but he knows nothing whatever about it. And how did he -expect that you would be able to snatch me?” - -“He left that to me; he had only a general conviction of my influence -with you.” - -“And he thought you would exercise it to make me back out? He does you -injustice; you wouldn’t!” Hyacinth exclaimed, with a laugh. “In that -case, taking one false position with another, yours would be no better -than mine.” - -“Oh, speaking seriously, I am perfectly quiet about you and about -myself. I know you won’t be called,” the Princess returned. - -“May I inquire how you know it?” - -After a slight hesitation she replied, “Mr Muniment tells me so.” - -“And how does he know it?” - -“We have information. My dear fellow,” the Princess went on, “you are -so much out of it now that if I were to tell you, you wouldn’t -understand.” - -“Yes, no doubt I am out of it; but I still have a right to say, all the -same, in contradiction to your imputation of a moment ago, that I care -for the people exactly as much as I ever did.” - -“My poor Hyacinth, my dear infatuated little aristocrat, was that ever -very much?” the Princess asked. - -“It was enough, and it is still enough, to make me willing to lay down -my life for anything that will really help them.” - -“Yes, and of course you must decide for yourself what that is; or, -rather, what it’s not.” - -“I didn’t decide when I gave my promise. I agreed to take the decision -of others,” Hyacinth said. - -“Well, you said just now that in relation to this business of yours you -had thought of many things,” the Princess rejoined. “Have you ever, by -chance, thought of anything that _will_ help the people?” - -“You call me fantastic names, but I’m one of them myself.” - -“I know what you are going to say!” the Princess broke in. “You are -going to say that it will help them to do what you do—to do their work -and earn their wages. That’s beautiful so far as it goes. But what do -you propose for the thousands and thousands for whom no work—on the -overcrowded earth, under the pitiless heaven—is to be found? There is -less and less work in the world, and there are more and more people to -do the little that there is. The old ferocious selfishnesses _must_ -come down. They won’t come down gracefully, so they must be smashed!” - -The tone in which the Princess uttered these words made Hyacinth’s -heart beat fast, and there was something so inspiring in her devoted -fairness that the vision of a great heroism flashed up again before -him, in all the splendour it had lost—the idea of a tremendous risk and -an unregarded sacrifice. Such a woman as that, at such a moment, made -every scruple seem a prudence and every compunction a cowardice. “I -wish to God I could see it as you see it!” he exclaimed, after he had -looked at her a minute in silent admiration. - -“I see simply this: that what we are doing is at least worth trying, -and that as none of those who have the power, the place, the means, -will try anything else, on _their_ head be the responsibility, on -_their_ head be the blood!” - -“Princess,” said Hyacinth, clasping his hands and feeling that he -trembled, “dearest Princess, if anything should happen to _you_—” and -his voice fell; the horror of it, a dozen hideous images of her -possible perversity and her possible punishment were again before him, -as he had already seen them in sinister musings; they seemed to him -worse than anything he had imagined for himself. - -She threw back her head, looking at him almost in anger. “To me! And -pray why not to me? What title have I to exemption, to security, more -than any one else? Why am I so sacrosanct and so precious?” - -“Simply because there is no one in the world, and there has never been -any one in the world, like you.” - -“Oh, thank you!” said the Princess, with a kind of dry impatience, -turning away. - -The manner in which she spoke put an end to their conversation. It -expressed an indifference to what it might interest him to think about -her to-day, and even a contempt for it, which brought tears to his -eyes. His tears, however, were concealed by the fact that he bent his -head over her hand, which he had taken to kiss; after which he left the -room without looking at her. - - - - -XLVI - - -“I have received a letter from your husband,” Paul Muniment said to the -Princess, the next evening, as soon as he came into the room. He -announced this fact with a kind of bald promptitude and with a -familiarity of manner which showed that his visit was one of a -closely-connected series. The Princess was evidently not a little -surprised by it, and immediately asked how in the world the Prince -could know his address. “Couldn’t it have been by your old lady?” -Muniment inquired. “He must have met her in Paris. It is from Paris -that he writes.” - -“What an incorrigible cad!” the Princess exclaimed. - -“I don’t see that—for writing to me. I have his letter in my pocket, -and I will show it to you if you like.” - -“Thank you, nothing would induce me to touch anything he has touched,” -the Princess replied. - -“You touch his money, my dear lady,” Muniment remarked, with the quiet -smile of a man who sees things as they are. - -The Princess hesitated a little. “Yes, I make an exception for that, -because it hurts him, it makes him suffer.” - -“I should think, on the contrary, it would gratify him by showing you -in a condition of weakness and dependence.” - -“Not when he knows I don’t use it for myself. What exasperates him is -that it is devoted to ends that he hates almost as much as he hates me -and yet which he can’t call selfish.” - -“He doesn’t hate you,” said Muniment, with that tone of pleasant -reasonableness that he used when he was most imperturbable. “His letter -satisfies me of that.” The Princess stared, at this, and asked him what -he was coming to—whether he was leading up to advising her to go back -and live with her husband. “I don’t know that I would go so far as to -advise,” he replied; “when I have so much benefit from seeing you here, -on your present footing, that wouldn’t sound well. But I’ll just make -bold to prophesy that you will go before very long.” - -“And on what does that extraordinary prediction rest?” - -“On this plain fact—that you will have nothing to live upon. You -decline to read the Prince’s letter, but if you were to look at it it -would give you evidence of what I mean. He informs me that I need count -upon no more supplies from your hands, as you yourself will receive no -more.” - -“He addresses you that way, in plain terms?” - -“I can’t call them very plain, because the letter is written in French, -and I naturally have had a certain difficulty in making it out, in -spite of my persevering study of the tongue and the fine example set me -by poor Robinson. But that appears to be the gist of the matter.” - -“And you can repeat such an insult to me without the smallest apparent -discomposure? You’re the most remarkable man!” the Princess broke out. - -“Why is it an insult? It is the simple truth. I do take your money,” -said Paul Muniment. - -“You take it for a sacred cause; you don’t take it for yourself.” - -“The Prince isn’t obliged to look at that,” Muniment rejoined, -laughing. - -His companion was silent for a moment; then, “I didn’t know you were on -his side,” she replied, gently. - -“Oh, you know on what side I am!” - -“What does he know? What business has he to address you so?” - -“I suppose he knows from Madame Grandoni. She has told him that I have -great influence upon you.” - -“She was welcome to tell him that!” the Princess exclaimed. - -“His reasoning, therefore, has been that when I find you have nothing -more to give to the cause I will let you go.” - -“Nothing more? And does he count _me_, myself, and every pulse of my -being, every capacity of my nature, as nothing?” the Princess cried, -with shining eyes. - -“Apparently he thinks that I do.” - -“Oh, as for that, after all, I have known that you care far more for my -money than for me. But it has made no difference to me,” said the -Princess. - -“Then you see that by your own calculation the Prince is right.” - -“My dear sir,” Muniment’s hostess replied, “my interest in you never -depended on your interest in me. It depended wholly on a sense of your -great destinies. I suppose that what you began to tell me is that he -stops my allowance.” - -“From the first of next month. He has taken legal advice. It is now -clear—so he tells me—that you forfeit your settlements.” - -“Can I not take legal advice, too?” the Princess asked. “Surely I can -contest that. I can forfeit my settlements only by an act of my own. -The act that led to our separation was _his_ act; he turned me out of -his house by physical violence.” - -“Certainly,” said Muniment, displaying even in this simple discussion -his easy aptitude for argument; “but since then there have been acts of -your own—” He stopped a moment, smiling; then he went on: “Your whole -connection with a secret society constitutes an act, and so does your -exercise of the pleasure, which you appreciate so highly, of feeding it -with money extorted from an old Catholic and princely family. You know -how little it is to be desired that these matters should come to -light.” - -“Why in the world need they come to light? Allegations in plenty, of -course, he would have, but not a particle of proof. Even if Madame -Grandoni were to testify against me, which is inconceivable, she would -not be able to produce a definite fact.” - -“She would be able to produce the fact that you had a little bookbinder -staying for a month in your house.” - -“What has that to do with it?” the Princess demanded. “If you mean that -that is a circumstance which would put me in the wrong as against the -Prince, is there not, on the other side, this circumstance, that while -our young friend was staying with me Madame Grandoni herself, a person -of the highest and most conspicuous respectability, never saw fit to -withdraw from me her countenance and protection? Besides, why shouldn’t -I have my bookbinder, just as I might have (and the Prince should -surely appreciate my consideration in not having) my physician and my -chaplain?” - -“Am I not your chaplain?” said Muniment, with a laugh. “And does the -bookbinder usually dine at the Princess’s table?” - -“Why not, if he’s an artist? In the old times, I know, artists dined -with the servants; but not to-day.” - -“That would be for the court to appreciate,” Muniment remarked. And in -a moment he added, “Allow me to call your attention to the fact that -Madame Grandoni _has_ left you—_has_ withdrawn her countenance and -protection.” - -“Ah, but not for Hyacinth!” the Princess returned, in a tone which -would have made the fortune of an actress if an actress could have -caught it. - -“For the bookbinder or for the chaplain, it doesn’t matter. But that’s -only a detail,” said Muniment. “In any case, I shouldn’t in the least -care for your going to law.” - -The Princess rested her eyes upon him for a while in silence, and at -last she replied, “I was speaking just now of your great destinies, but -every now and then you do something, you say something, that makes me -doubt of them. It’s when you seem afraid. That’s terribly against your -being a first-rate man.” - -“Oh, I know you have thought me a coward from the first of your knowing -me. But what does it matter? I haven’t the smallest pretension to being -a first-rate man.” - -“Oh, you are deep, and you are provoking!” murmured the Princess, with -a sombre eye. - -“Don’t you remember,” Muniment continued, without heeding this somewhat -passionate ejaculation—“don’t you remember how, the other day, you -accused me of being not only a coward but a traitor; of playing false; -of wanting, as you said, to back out?” - -“Most distinctly. How can I help its coming over me, at times, that you -have incalculable ulterior views and are only using me—only using us -all? But I don’t care!” - -“No, no; I’m genuine,” said Paul Muniment, simply, yet in a tone which -might have implied that the discussion was idle. And he immediately -went on, with a transition too abrupt for perfect civility: “The best -reason in the world for your not having a lawsuit with your husband is -this: that when you haven’t a penny left you will be obliged to go back -and live with him.” - -“How do you mean, when I haven’t a penny left? Haven’t I my own -property?” the Princess demanded. - -“The Prince tells me that you have drawn upon your own property at such -a rate that the income to be derived from it amounts, to his positive -knowledge, to no more than a thousand francs—forty pounds—a year. -Surely, with your habits and tastes, you can’t live on forty pounds. I -should add that your husband implies that your property, originally, -was but a small affair.” - -“You have the most extraordinary tone,” observed the Princess, gravely. -“What you appear to wish to express is simply this: that from the -moment I have no more money to give you I am of no more value than the -skin of an orange.” - -Muniment looked down at his shoe awhile. His companion’s words had -brought a flush into his cheek; he appeared to admit to himself and to -her that, at the point at which their conversation had arrived, there -was a natural difficulty in his delivering himself. But presently he -raised his head, showing a face still slightly embarrassed but none the -less bright and frank. “I have no intention whatever of saying anything -harsh or offensive to you, but since you challenge me perhaps it is -well that I should let you know that I _do_ consider that in giving -your money—or, rather, your husband’s—to our business you gave the most -valuable thing you had to contribute.” - -“This is the day of plain truths!” the Princess exclaimed, with a laugh -that was not expressive of pleasure. “You don’t count then any -devotion, any intelligence, that I may have placed at your service, -even rating my faculties modestly?” - -“I count your intelligence, but I don’t count your devotion, and one is -nothing without the other. You are not trusted at headquarters.” - -“Not trusted!” the Princess repeated, with her splendid stare. “Why, I -thought I could be hanged to-morrow!” - -“They may let you hang, perfectly, without letting you act. You are -liable to be weary of us,” Paul Muniment went on; “and, indeed, I think -you are weary of us already.” - -“Ah, you _must_ be a first-rate man—you are such a brute!” replied the -Princess, who noticed, as she had noticed before, that he pronounced -‘weary’ _weery_. - -“I didn’t say you were weary of _me_,” said Muniment, blushing again. -“You can never live poor—you don’t begin to know the meaning of it.” - -“Oh, no, I am not tired of you,” the Princess returned, in a strange -tone. “In a moment you will make me cry with passion, and no man has -done that for years. I was very poor when I was a girl,” she added, in -a different manner. “You yourself recognised it just now, in speaking -of the insignificant character of my fortune.” - -“It had to be a fortune, to be insignificant,” said Muniment, smiling. -“You will go back to your husband!” - -To this declaration she made no answer whatever; she only sat looking -at him in a sort of desperate calmness. “I don’t see, after all, why -they trust you more than they trust me,” she remarked. - -“I am not sure that they do,” said Muniment. “I have heard something -this evening which suggests that.” - -“And may one know what it is?” - -“A communication which I should have expected to be made through me has -been made through another person.” - -“A communication?” - -“To Hyacinth Robinson.” - -“To Hyacinth—” The Princess sprang up; she had turned pale in a moment. - -“He has got his ticket; but they didn’t send it through me.” - -“Do you mean his orders? He was here last night,” the Princess said. - -“A fellow named Schinkel, a German—whom you don’t know, I think, but -who was a sort of witness, with me and another, of his undertaking—came -to see me this evening. It was through him the summons came, and he put -Hyacinth up to it on Sunday night.” - -“On Sunday night?” The Princess stared. “Why, he was here yesterday, -and he talked of it, and he told me nothing.” - -“That was quite right of him, bless him!” Muniment exclaimed. - -The Princess closed her eyes a moment, and when she opened them again -Muniment had risen and was standing before her. “What do they want him -to do?” she asked. - -“I am like Hyacinth; I think I had better not tell you—at least till -it’s over.” - -“And when will it be over?” - -“They give him several days and, I believe, minute instructions,” said -Muniment, “with, however, considerable discretion in respect to seizing -his chance. The thing is made remarkably easy for him. All this I know -from Schinkel, who himself knew nothing on Sunday, being a mere medium -of transmission, but who saw Hyacinth yesterday morning.” - -“Schinkel trusts you, then?” the Princess remarked. - -Muniment looked at her steadily a moment. “Yes, but he won’t trust you. -Hyacinth is to receive a card of invitation to a certain big house,” he -went on, “a card with the name left in blank, so that he may fill it -out himself. It is to be good for each of two grand parties which are -to be given at a few days’ interval. That’s why they give him the -job—because at a grand party he’ll look in his place.” - -“He will like that,” said the Princess, musingly—“repaying hospitality -with a pistol-shot.” - -“If he doesn’t like it he needn’t do it.” - -The Princess made no rejoinder to this, but in a moment she said, “I -can easily find out the place you mean—the big house where two parties -are to be given at a few days’ interval and where the master is worth -your powder.” - -“Easily, no doubt. And do you want to warn him?” - -“No, I want to do the business first, so that it won’t be left for -another. If Hyacinth will look in his place at a grand party, should -not I look still more in mine? And as I know the individual I should be -able to approach him without exciting the smallest suspicion.” - -Muniment appeared to consider her suggestion a moment, as if it were -practical and interesting; but presently he answered, placidly, “To -fall by your hand would be too good for him.” - -“However he falls, will it be useful, valuable?” the Princess asked. - -“It’s worth trying. He’s a very bad institution.” - -“And don’t you mean to go near Hyacinth?” - -“No, I wish to leave him free,” Muniment answered. - -“Ah, Paul Muniment,” murmured the Princess, “you _are_ a first-rate -man!” She sank down upon the sofa and sat looking up at him. “In God’s -name, why have you told me this?” she broke out. - -“So that you should not be able to throw it up at me, later, that I had -not.” - -She threw herself over, burying her face in the cushions, and remained -so for some minutes, in silence. Muniment watched her awhile, without -speaking; but at last he remarked, “I don’t want to aggravate you, but -you _will_ go back!” The words failed to cause her even to raise her -head, and after a moment he quietly went out. - - - - -XLVII - - -That the Princess had done with him, done with him for ever, remained -the most vivid impression that Hyacinth had carried away from Madeira -Crescent the night before. He went home, and he flung himself on his -narrow bed, where the consolation of sleep again descended upon him. -But he woke up with the earliest dawn, and the beginning of a new day -was a quick revival of pain. He was over-past, he had become vague, he -was extinct. The things that Sholto had said to him came back to him, -and the compassion of foreknowledge that Madame Grandoni had shown him -from the first. Of Paul Muniment he only thought to wonder whether he -knew. An insurmountable desire to do justice to him, for the very -reason that there might be a temptation to oblique thoughts, forbade -him to challenge his friend even in imagination. He vaguely wondered -whether _he_ would ever be superseded; but this possibility faded away -in a stronger light—a kind of dazzling vision of some great -tribuneship, which swept before him now and again and in which the -figure of the Princess herself seemed merged and extinguished. When -full morning came at last, and he got up, it brought with it, in the -restlessness which made it impossible to him to remain in his room, a -return of that beginning of an answerless question, ‘After all—after -all—?’ which the Princess had planted there the night before when she -spoke so bravely in the name of the Revolution. ‘After all—after all, -since nothing else was tried, or would, apparently, ever be tried—’ He -had a sense of his mind, which had been made up, falling to pieces -again; but that sense in turn lost itself in a shudder which was -already familiar—the horror of the reappearance, on his part, of the -imbrued hands of his mother. This loathing of the idea of a -_repetition_ had not been sharp, strangely enough, till his summons -came; in all his previous meditations the growth of his reluctance to -act for the ‘party of action’ had not been the fear of a personal -stain, but the simple extension of his observation. Yet now the idea of -the personal stain made him horribly sick; it seemed by itself to make -service impossible. It rose before him like a kind of backward -accusation of his mother; to suffer it to start out in the life of her -son was in a manner to place her own forgotten, redeemed pollution -again in the eye of the world. The thought that was most of all with -him was that he had time—he had time; he was grateful for that, and saw -a kind of delicacy in their having given him a margin—not condemned him -to be pressed by the hours. He had another day, he had two days, he -might take three, he might take several. He knew he should be terribly -weary of them before they were over; but for that matter they would be -over whenever he liked. Anyhow, he went forth again into the streets, -into the squares, into the parks, solicited by an aimless desire to -steep himself yet once again in the great indifferent city which he -knew and loved and which had had so many of his smiles and tears and -confidences. The day was gray and damp, though no rain fell, and London -had never appeared to him to wear more proudly and publicly the stamp -of her imperial history. He passed slowly to and fro over Westminster -bridge and watched the black barges drift on the great brown river, and -looked up at the huge fretted palace that rose there as a fortress of -the social order which he, like the young David, had been commissioned -to attack with a sling and a pebble. At last he made his way to St -James’s Park, and he strolled about a long time. He revolved around it, -and he went a considerable distance up the thoroughfare that -communicates with Pimlico. He stopped at a certain point and came back -again, and then he retraced his steps in the former direction. He -looked in the windows of shops, and he looked in particular into the -long, glazed expanse of that establishment in which, at that hour of -the day, Millicent Henning discharged superior functions. Millicent’s -image had descended upon him after he came out, and now it moved before -him as he went, it clung to him, it refused to quit him. He made, in -truth, no effort to drive it away; he held fast to it in return, and it -murmured strange things in his ear. She had been so jolly to him on -Sunday; she was such a strong, obvious, simple nature, with such a -generous breast and such a freedom from the sophistries of -civilisation. All that he had ever liked in her came back to him now -with a finer air, and there was a moment, during which he hung over the -rail of the bridge that spans the lake in St James’s Park and -mechanically followed the movement of the swans, when he asked himself -whether, at bottom, he hadn’t liked her better, almost, than any one. -He tried to think he had, he wanted to think he had, and he seemed to -see the look her eyes would have if he should tell her that he had. -Something of that sort had really passed between them on Sunday; only -the business that had come up since had superseded it. Now the taste of -the vague, primitive comfort that his Sunday had given him came back to -him, and he asked himself whether he mightn’t know it a second time. -After he had thought he couldn’t again wish for anything, he found -himself wishing that he might believe there was something Millicent -could do for him. Mightn’t she help him—mightn’t she even extricate -him? He was looking into a window—not that of her own shop—when a -vision rose before him of a quick flight with her, for an undefined -purpose, to an undefined spot; and he was glad, at that moment, to have -his back turned to the people in the street, because his face suddenly -grew red to the tips of his ears. Again and again, all the same, he -indulged in the reflection that spontaneous, uncultivated minds often -have inventions, inspirations. Moreover, whether Millicent should have -any or not, he might at least feel her arms around him. He didn’t -exactly know what good it would do him or what door it would open; but -he should like it. The sensation was not one he could afford to defer, -but the nearest moment at which he could enjoy it would be that -evening. _He_ had thrown over everything, but she would be busy all -day; nevertheless, it would be a gain, it would be a kind of foretaste, -to see her earlier, to have three words with her. He wrestled with the -temptation to go into her haberdasher’s, because he knew she didn’t -like it (he had tried it once, of old); as the visits of gentlemen, -even when ostensible purchasers (there were people watching about who -could tell who was who), compromised her in the eyes of her employers. -This was not an ordinary case, however; and though he hovered about the -place a long time, undecided, embarrassed, half ashamed, at last he -went in, as by an irresistible necessity. He would just make an -appointment with her, and a glance of the eye and a single word would -suffice. He remembered his way through the labyrinth of the shop; he -knew that her department was on the second floor. He walked through the -place, which was crowded, as if he had as good a right as any one else; -and as he had entertained himself, on rising, with putting on his -holiday garments, in which he made such a distinguished little figure, -he was not suspected of any purpose more nefarious than that of looking -for some nice thing to give a lady. He ascended the stairs, and found -himself in a large room where made-up articles were exhibited and -where, though there were twenty people in it, a glance told him he -shouldn’t find Millicent. She was perhaps in the next one, into which -he passed by a wide opening. Here also were numerous purchasers, most -of them ladies; the men were but three or four, and the disposal of the -wares was in the hands of neat young women attired in black dresses -with long trains. At first it appeared to Hyacinth that the young woman -he sought was even here not within sight, and he was turning away, to -look elsewhere, when suddenly he perceived that a tall gentleman, -standing in the middle of the room, was none other than Captain Sholto. -It next became plain to him that the person standing upright before the -Captain, as still as a lay-figure and with her back turned to Hyacinth, -was the object of his own quest. In spite of her averted face he -instantly recognised Millicent; he knew her shop-attitude, the dressing -of her hair behind, and the long, grand lines of her figure, draped in -the last new thing. She was exhibiting this article to the Captain, and -he was lost in contemplation. He had been beforehand with Hyacinth as a -false purchaser, but he imitated a real one better than our young man, -as, with his eyes travelling up and down the front of Millicent’s -person, he frowned, consideringly, and rubbed his lower lip slowly with -his walking-stick. Millicent stood admirably still, and the back-view -of the garment she displayed was magnificent. Hyacinth, for a minute, -stood as still as she. At the end of that minute he perceived that -Sholto saw him, and for an instant he thought he was going to direct -Millicent’s attention to him. But Sholto only looked at him very hard, -for a few seconds, without telling her he was there; to enjoy that -satisfaction he would wait till the interloper was gone. Hyacinth gazed -back at him for the same length of time—what these two pairs of eyes -said to each other requires perhaps no definite mention—and then turned -away. - -That evening, about nine o’clock, the Princess Casamassima drove in a -hansom to Hyacinth’s lodgings in Westminster. The door of the house was -a little open, and a man stood on the step, smoking his big pipe and -looking up and down. The Princess, seeing him while she was still at -some distance, had hoped he was Hyacinth, but he proved to be a very -different figure indeed from her devoted young friend. He had not a -forbidding countenance, but he looked very hard at her as she descended -from her hansom and approached the door. She was used to being looked -at hard, and she didn’t mind this; she supposed he was one of the -lodgers in the house. He edged away to let her pass, and watched her -while she endeavoured to impart an elasticity of movement to the limp -bell-pull beside the door. It gave no audible response, so that she -said to him, “I wish to ask for Mr Hyacinth Robinson. Perhaps you can -tell me—” - -“Yes, I too,” the man replied, smiling. “I have come also for that.” - -The Princess hesitated a moment. “I think you must be Mr Schinkel. I -have heard of you.” - -“You know me by my bad English,” her interlocutor remarked, with a sort -of benevolent coquetry. - -“Your English is remarkably good—I wish I spoke German as well. Only -just a hint of an accent, and evidently an excellent vocabulary.” - -“I think I have heard, also, of you,” said Schinkel, appreciatively. - -“Yes, we know each other, in our circle, don’t we? We are all brothers -and sisters.” The Princess was anxious, she was in a fever; but she -could still relish the romance of standing in a species of back-slum -and fraternising with a personage looking like a very tame horse whose -collar galled him. “Then he’s at home, I hope; he is coming down to -you?” she went on. - -“That’s what I don’t know. I am waiting.” - -“Have they gone to call him?” - -Schinkel looked at her, while he puffed his pipe. “I have called him -myself, but he will not say.” - -“How do you mean—he will not say?” - -“His door is locked. I have knocked many times.” - -“I suppose he is out,” said the Princess. - -“Yes, he may be out,” Schinkel remarked, judicially. - -He and the Princess stood a moment looking at each other, and then she -asked, “Have you any doubt of it?” - -“Oh, _es kann sein_. Only the woman of the house told me five minutes -ago that he came in.” - -“Well, then, he probably went out again,” the Princess remarked. - -“Yes, but she didn’t hear him.” - -The Princess reflected, and was conscious that she was flushing. She -knew what Schinkel knew about their young friend’s actual situation, -and she wished to be very clear with him, and to induce him to be the -same with her. She was rather baffled, however, by the sense that he -was cautious, and justly cautious. He was polite and inscrutable, quite -like some of the high personages—ambassadors and cabinet-ministers—whom -she used to meet in the great world. “Has the woman been here, in the -house, ever since?” she asked in a moment. - -“No, she went out for ten minutes, half an hour ago.” - -“Surely, then, he may have gone out again in that time!” the Princess -exclaimed. - -“That is what I have thought. It is also why I have waited here,” said -Schinkel. “I have nothing to do,” he added, serenely. - -“Neither have I,” the Princess rejoined. “We can wait together.” - -“It’s a pity you haven’t got some room,” the German suggested. - -“No, indeed; this will do very well. We shall see him the sooner when -he comes back.” - -“Yes, but perhaps it won’t be for long.” - -“I don’t care for that; I will wait. I hope you don’t object to my -company,” she went on, smiling. - -“It is good, it is good,” Schinkel responded, through his smoke. - -“Then I will send away my cab.” She returned to the vehicle and paid -the driver, who said, “Thank you, my lady,” with expression, and drove -off. - -“You gave him too much,” observed Schinkel, when she came back. - -“Oh, he looked like a nice man. I am sure he deserved it.” - -“It is very expensive,” Schinkel went on, sociably. - -“Yes, and I have no money, but it’s done. Was there no one else in the -house while the woman was away?” the Princess asked. - -“No, the people are out; she only has single men. I asked her that. She -has a daughter, but the daughter has gone to see her cousin. The mother -went only a hundred yards, round the corner there, to buy a pennyworth -of milk. She locked this door, and put the key in her pocket; she -stayed at the grocer’s, where she got the milk, to have a little -conversation with a friend she met there. You know ladies always stop -like that—_nicht wahr?_ It was half an hour later that I came. She told -me that he was at home, and I went up to his room. I got no sound, as I -have told you. I came down and spoke to her again, and she told me what -I say.” - -“Then you determined to wait, as I have done,” said the Princess. - -“Oh, yes, I want to see him.” - -“So do I, very much.” The Princess said nothing more, for a minute; -then she added, “I think we want to see him for the same reason.” - -“_Das kann sein—das kann sein_.” - -The two continued to stand there in the brown evening, and they had -some further conversation, of a desultory and irrelevant kind. At the -end of ten minutes the Princess broke out, in a low tone, laying her -hand on her companion’s arm, “Mr Schinkel, this won’t do. I’m -intolerably nervous.” - -“Yes, that is the nature of ladies,” the German replied, imperturbably. - -“I wish to go up to his room,” the Princess pursued. “You will be so -good as to show me where it is.” - -“It will do you no good, if he is not there.” - -The Princess hesitated. “I am not sure he is not there.” - -“Well, if he won’t speak, it shows he likes better not to have -visitors.” - -“Oh, he may like to have me better than he does you!” the Princess -exclaimed. - -“_Das kann sein—das kann sein_.” But Schinkel made no movement to -introduce her into the house. - -“There is nothing to-night—you know what I mean,” the Princess -remarked, after looking at him a moment. - -“Nothing to-night?” - -“At the Duke’s. The first party is on Thursday, the other is next -Tuesday.” - -“_Schön_. I never go to parties,” said Schinkel. - -“Neither do I.” - -“Except that _this_ is a kind of party—you and me,” suggested Schinkel. - -“Yes, and the woman of the house doesn’t approve of it.” The footstep -of the personage in question had been audible in the passage, through -the open door, which was presently closed, from within, with a little -reprehensive bang. Something in this incident appeared to quicken -exceedingly the Princess’s impatience and emotion; the menace of -exclusion from the house made her wish more even than before to enter -it. “For God’s sake, Mr Schinkel, take me up there. If you won’t, I -will go alone,” she pleaded. - -Her face was white now, and it need hardly be added that it was -beautiful. The German considered it a moment in silence; then turned -and reopened the door and went in, followed closely by his companion. - -There was a light in the lower region, which tempered the gloom of the -staircase—as high, that is, as the first floor; the ascent the rest of -the way was so dusky that the pair went slowly and Schinkel led the -Princess by the hand. She gave a suppressed exclamation as she rounded -a sharp turn in the second flight. “Good God, is that his door, with -the light?” - -“Yes, you can see under it. There was a light before,” said Schinkel, -without confusion. - -“And why, in heaven’s name, didn’t you tell me?” - -“Because I thought it would worry you.” - -“And doesn’t it worry _you?_” - -“A little, but I don’t mind,” said Schinkel. “Very likely he may have -left it.” - -“He doesn’t leave candles!” the Princess returned, with vehemence. She -hurried up the few remaining steps to the door, and paused there with -her ear against it. Her hand grasped the handle, and she turned it, but -the door resisted. Then she murmured, pantingly, to her companion, “We -must go in—we must go in!” - -“What will you do, when it’s locked?” he inquired. - -“You must break it down.” - -“It is very expensive,” said Schinkel. - -“Don’t be abject!” cried the Princess. “In a house like this the -fastenings are certainly flimsy; they will easily yield.” - -“And if he is not there—if he comes back and finds what we have done?” - -She looked at him a moment through the darkness, which was mitigated -only by the small glow proceeding from the chink. “He _is_ there! -Before God, he is there!” - -“_Schön, schön_,” said her companion, as if he felt the contagion of -her own dread but was deliberating and meant to remain calm. The -Princess assured him that one or two vigorous thrusts with his shoulder -would burst the bolt—it was sure to be some wretched morsel of tin—and -she made way for him to come close. He did so, he even leaned against -the door, but he gave no violent push, and the Princess waited, with -her hand against her heart. Schinkel apparently was still deliberating. -At last he gave a low sigh. “I know they found him the pistol; it is -only for that,” he murmured; and the next moment Christina saw him sway -sharply to and fro in the gloom. She heard a crack and saw that the -lock had yielded. The door collapsed: they were in the light; they were -in a small room, which looked full of things. The light was that of a -single candle on the mantel; it was so poor that for a moment she made -out nothing definite. Before that moment was over, however, her eyes -had attached themselves to the small bed. There was something on -it—something black, something ambiguous, something outstretched. -Schinkel held her back, but only for an instant; she saw everything, -and with the very act she flung herself beside the bed, upon her knees. -Hyacinth lay there as if he were asleep, but there was a horrible -thing, a mess of blood, on the bed, in his side, in his heart. His arm -hung limp beside him, downwards, off the narrow couch; his face was -white and his eyes were closed. So much Schinkel saw, but only for an -instant; a convulsive movement of the Princess, bending over the body -while a strange low cry came from her lips, covered it up. He looked -about him for the weapon, for the pistol, but the Princess, in her rush -at the bed, had pushed it out of sight with her knees. “It’s a pity -they found it—if he hadn’t had it here!” he exclaimed to her. He had -determined to remain calm, so that, on turning round at the quick -advent of the little woman of the house, who had hurried up, white, -scared, staring, at the sound of the crashing door, he was able to say, -very quietly and gravely, “Mr Robinson has shot himself through the -heart. He must have done it while you were fetching the milk.” The -Princess got up, hearing another person in the room, and then Schinkel -perceived the small revolver lying just under the bed. He picked it up -and carefully placed it on the mantel-shelf, keeping, equally -carefully, to himself the reflection that it would certainly have -served much better for the Duke. - - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRINCESS CASAMASSIMA *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. 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