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’re 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 returned.
“There’s something to be said against everything if you give yourself
trouble enough.”
“I should be very sorry if ever anything was said against my big
brother.”
“The man’s a sneak who’s only and always praised,” Paul lucidly
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 of it—if people do heave bricks at me.”
“I won’t hear of it? Pray don’t I hear of 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 I wouldn’t hear of for the
world—that no amount of persuasion would induce me, not if you were
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 special points on which
you’ll just be so good as to enlighten me. When the Princess asked you
to come and see her you refused and wanted to know what good it would
do. I hoped you’d go then; I should have liked you to go, because I
wanted to know how she lived and whether she really 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’ve heard everything from Lady
Aurora and 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’ve been, and more than once, and I’ve had nothing
to do with it; of which I’m very glad now, for reasons 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 daresay 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 at him a straight, attenuated forefinger. 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’re impatient, but you _must_ hear me. I’ve no doubt
she’ll wait for you—you won’t lose your turn. But what would you do,
please, if any one was to break down altogether?”
“My bonnie lassie,” the young man returned, “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’ve 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’s sharper than a man on his two
legs. And you such a wonderful one too!”
“You’re all too sharp 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’s 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’ve something in
your head, some wicked game or other, that you think she can hatch for
you.”
At this he turned round and looked at her 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’ve seen these
four years. For four years she has come, and it’s all for you—as well
it might be; yet with your 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
hearthrug!”
“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.”
“How the devil am I to rub her?” Muniment quaintly asked. “You know a
good deal, Rosy, but you don’t know everything,” he pursued with a face
that gave no sign of seeing a reason in what she said. “Your mind’s
too poetical—as full of sounding strings and silver chords as some old,
elegant harp. There’s nothing in the world I should care for that her
ladyship would be willing to do for me.”
“She’d marry you at a day’s notice—she’d do that for you.”
“I shouldn’t care a hang for that. Besides, if I was to lay it before
her she’d 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 with high cheer.
“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 a hundred a year of her own?
Don’t I know every penny of her affairs?”
Paul gave no sign of any inward judgement passed on Rosy’s conception
of the delicate course or of a superior policy; perhaps indeed, for
it is perfectly possible, her question didn’t strike him as having a
mixture of motives. He only said with a small, 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’d be much more of it,” he quietly returned.
“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’ve 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’s 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,” he answered as lucidly 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.”
“Well, they think her so mad already that they can’t think her any
madder,” Rosy continued. “They’ve 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.
She flinched a moment, then 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’ve more imagination than logic—which
of course for a woman is quite right. That’s what makes you say that
her ladyship’s in affliction because I go to a place 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—and in a sense to interfere against
her. To be nice to her and conciliate her, so she mayn’t take you.”
“Has she told you any such rigmarole as that?” Paul inquired, this time
staring a little.
“Do I need to be told things to know them? I’m not a fine, strong,
superior male; therefore I can discover them for myself,” Rosy answered
with a dauntless little laugh and a light in her eyes which might
indeed have made it appear she was capable of wizardry.
“You make her out at once too passionate and too calculating,” the
young man returned. “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’m not helpless so long as you’re 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 of a sudden, 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’re 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 all
there happens to be 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 you bring on, for I know I
shall be looked after.”
“Nothing’s going to happen—nothing’s going to happen,” Paul remarked
simply.
Her rejoinder to this was to say in a moment: “You’ve a different tone
since you’ve taken up the Princess.”
She spoke with a certain severity, but he broke out as if he hadn’t
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
his sister inexorably. “They won’t quarrel; that’s not the way they
do it. Yes, you’re taking a different tone for some purpose I can’t
discover just yet.”
“What do you mean by that? When did I ever take a tone?” Paul demanded.
“Why then do you speak as if you weren’t 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?” he asked as with amusement.
“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!” the young man promptly laughed.
“Well then if I admit it for you that’s all that’s required.”
The pair considered themselves 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!”
“For all that 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 such a muff, talking
about the women who ‘suffer’ for him.”
“Well, if they do it I think a man might bear it!” Rosy retorted.
“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,” he patiently
conceded. “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”—and he rubbed 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 re-enforce
his reminder to his sister that it was time she should release him.
“Well, you do look genteel,” she said with high complacency. “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.” Which appeared at
last on his part all seriously spoken.
“Will she help you very much?” Rosy demanded, as at the touch of it,
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, 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 inconsistency. “It’s not bad to have a little person
at home who wants a fellow to succeed.”
“Oh I know they’ll look after me.” And she sank back on 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 met
it with his usual ease. “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 his own she
brought out: “Ah 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.
He stopped a moment with his hand on the latch of the door and said
gravely, almost sententiously: “She’s not only handsome, handsome as a
picture, but she’s uncommon sharp and has taking ways beyond anything
ever 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 he 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’re 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 she gave him no help to choose;
she only watched him in silence from her own place, 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 things on
the chance, but I didn’t expect you.”
“Well, here I am—that’s the great thing,” he said good-humouredly.
“Yes, no doubt it’s a very great thing. But it will be a still greater
thing when you’re there.”
“I’m 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 act
she rose quickly, as to save the document, but the expression of his
face while 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.”
Paul’s face showed he had been annoyed, but he answered quietly enough:
“No writing—no writing.”
“You’re terribly careful,” said the Princess.
“Careful of you—yes.”
She sank upon her sofa again, asking her companion to ring for tea;
they would do much better to have it before going out. When the order
had been given she went on: “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 any sort 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’s in keeping very cool,” Muniment said.
“So is mine. But it depends on how you understand it. I like quietness
in the midst of a tumult.”
“You’ve rare ideas about tumults. They’re not good in themselves.”
The Princess considered this a moment. “I wonder if you’re too prudent.
I shouldn’t like that. If it’s made an accusation against you that
you’ve been—where we’re going—shall you deny it?”
“With that prospect it would be simpler not to go at all, wouldn’t it?”
he lucidly asked.
“Which prospect do you mean? That of being found out or that of having
to lie?”
“I suppose that if you lie well enough you’re not found out.” And he
spoke again as for amusement.
“You won’t take me seriously,” said the Princess—and without
irritation, without resentment, with accepted, intelligent sadness.
Yet there was a 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.”
Paul turned his steady eyes over the room, looking from one article
of furniture to another: this was a way he had when engaged in a
discussion, and it suggested not so much his reflecting on what
his interlocutor said as that his thoughts were pursuing a bravely
independent course. Presently he took up her remark. “I don’t know that
I quite understand what you mean by that question of taking a woman
seriously.”
“Ah you’re very perfect!” she lightly wailed. “Don’t you consider that
the changes you look for will be also for our benefit?”
“I don’t think they’ll alter your position.”
“If I didn’t hope for that I wouldn’t do anything,” said the Princess.
“Oh I’ve 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,” he laughed.
The maid-servant brought in the tea, and while his hostess made a place
for it on a table beside her she returned: “Well, I don’t care, for I
think I have you in my power.”
“You’ve every one in your power,” Paul declared.
“Every one’s no one,” she answered rather dryly; and a moment later she
said to him: “That extraordinary little sister of yours—surely you take
_her_ seriously?”
“I’m particularly 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’ll
never recover her health,” the Princess said, “I’m very sorry to hear
it.”
“Oh her health will do. I mean that she’ll continue to be, like all the
most amiable women, just a kind of ornament to life.”
She had already noted 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’s a prodigious person”—the Princess dismissed her. But while he
drank his tea she remarked that for a revolutionist he was certainly
prodigious as well; and he wanted to know in answer if it weren’t
rather in keeping for revolutionists to be revolutionary. He drank
three cups, declaring his hostess’s decoction rare; 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.”
The light in her face flashed on the instant into pure passion. “Do you
consider that I’m 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 he 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’d come and
take you away.”
“Please don’t speak of my husband,” she returned gravely. “You’ve no
qualification for doing so. You know nothing whatever about him.”
“I know what Hyacinth has told me.”
“Oh Hyacinth!” she sighed 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 and coarse.”
“Certainly you’ve not such a nice address as Hyacinth”—the Princess
had no wish, on her side, to evade the topic. “But that’s given to very
few,” she added; “and I don’t know that pretty manners are exactly what
we’re working for.”
“Ay, it won’t be very endearing when we cut down a few allowances,” her
visitor concurred. “But I want to please you; I want to be as much as
possible like Hyacinth,” he went on.
“That’s not the way to please me. I don’t forgive him—he’s very
foolish.”
“Ah don’t say that; he’s a fine little flute!” Paul protested.
“He’s a delightful nature, with extraordinary qualities. But he’s
deplorably conventional.”
“Yes, if you talk about taking things seriously—_he_ takes them so,”
Muniment again agreed.
“Has he ever told you his life?” the Princess asked.
“He hasn’t required to tell me. I’ve seen a good bit of it.”
“Yes, but I mean before you knew him.”
Paul thought. “His birth and his poor mother? I think it was Rosy told
me all that.”
“And pray how did _she_ know?”
“Ah when you come to the way Rosy knows——!” He gave that up. “She
doesn’t like people in such a box at all. She thinks we ought all to be
grandly born.”
“Then they agree, for so does poor Hyacinth.” The Princess had a pause,
after which, as with a deep 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?” And Paul looked out in placid perplexity.
“He’s in great distress about Hyacinth—about the danger he runs. You
know what I mean.”
“Yes, I know what you mean,” Muniment answered slowly. “But where does
_he_ come in? I thought it was supposed to be a grand secret.”
“So it is. He doesn’t know anything; he only suspects.”
“How do _you_ know then?”
She had another wait. “Oh I’m like Rosy—I find out. Mr. Vetch, as I
suppose you’re aware, has been near Hyacinth all his life; he takes
a most affectionate interest in him. He believes there’s something
hanging over him and wants it to be made impossible.” She paused
afresh, 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 suppose your power in such a matter would be very great. But as I
tell you, I requested him—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 you not worried.”
He appeared struck with the curious inadequacy of this explanation,
considering what was at stake; so that he confessed to almost rude
amusement. “That was considerate of you beyond everything.”
“It was not meant as consideration for you; it was a piece of
calculation.” Having made this statement the Princess gathered up
her gloves and turned away, walking to the chimney-piece, where she
stood arranging her bonnet-ribbons in the mirror with which it was
decorated. Paul watched her with clear curiosity; in spite both of his
inaccessibility to nervous agitation and of the general scepticism
he had cultivated about her he was not proof against her faculty of
creating a feeling of suspense, a tension of interest, on the part of
those involved with her. He followed her movements, but plainly didn’t
follow her calculations, so that he could only listen more attentively
when she brought out 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’m talking now.”
“That was a fine idea!” Paul candidly cried.
“I’ve an exceeding, a quite inexpressible regard for him. I’ve no
patience with some of his opinions, and that’s why I permitted myself
to say just now that he’s silly. But after all the opinions of our
friends are not what we love them for—so I don’t see why they should
be a ground of aversion. Robinson’s nature is singularly generous and
his intelligence very fine, though there _are_ things he muddles up.
You just now expressed strongly your own interest in 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 feeling he must consider a little before
assenting to these successive propositions; it being a limitation of
his intellect that he couldn’t respond without understanding. After a
moment he answered, referring to his hostess’s last remark, in which
the others appeared to culminate, and at the same time shaking his head
with a rise of his strong eyebrows: “His scrape isn’t important.”
“You thought it was when you got him into it.”
“I thought it would give him pleasure.”
“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 him.”
“Persuade them then, dear madam.”
“How can I persuade them?” she cried. “If I could do that I wouldn’t
have approached you. I’ve no influence, and even if I had it my motives
would be suspected. You’re the one to come in.”
“Shall I tell them he funks it?” Muniment asked.
“He doesn’t—he doesn’t!” she declared.
“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,” Paul 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’re very fond of Robinson; it couldn’t be otherwise,”
the young man argued. “But you ought to remember that in the line
you’ve 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 how quickly she had been affected by this unwonted
adjuration. He spoke now as if he were taking her seriously. “All those
things are as nothing, they must never weigh a feather, beside our
service.”
She 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 equanimity. “I expect
to be instructed.”
“Have you taken an oath like Hyacinth?”
“Ah madam, the oaths _I_ take I don’t tell,” he gravely returned.
“Oh _you_——!” she breathed with a deep 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, her visitor showed impatience. “You had
better leave my dear friend to me.”
The Princess, her eyes still fixed on him, gave a long, soft sigh.
“Well then, shall we go?”
He took up his hat again, but 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’ve 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!” she frankly returned; 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 a little
to look 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 on a more populous way, where they found
lighted shops and omnibuses and the evident chance of a hansom. Here
they stayed afresh 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. On their
appearing he had retreated a little, still, however, keeping them
in sight. When they moved away he had moved in the same direction,
watching them but maintaining his distance. He had drawn nearer,
seemingly because he couldn’t control his eagerness, as they passed
into Westbourne Grove, and during the minute they stood there had
been exposed to recognition by the Princess should she have happened
to turn her head. In the event of her having felt such an impulse she
would have discovered, in the lamplight, that her noble husband was
hovering in her rear. But she was otherwise occupied; she failed to
see that at one moment he came so close as to suggest an intention of
breaking out on her from behind. The reader scarce need be informed,
nevertheless, that his design was but 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 reflexion
which caused him to give half his attention to the business of hailing
any second cab that 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,
regarded by the Prince as 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!”