An hour after her companion had left the house with Paul Muniment
Madame Grandoni came down to supper, a meal for which she made use, in
gloomy solitude, of 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 discreet suspense. 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, dear,
distinguished friend and bade him come and give her his arm. He obeyed
with solemn alacrity, conducting her to the front room and the fire. He
helped her to arrange herself in her chair and gather her shawl about
her; then he seated himself at hand and remained with his dismal eyes
bent on her. After a moment she said: “Tell me something about Rome.
The grass in 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 shouldn’t live here,” he added.
“Ah my dear friend, for all she’s your wife——!” the old woman exclaimed.
The Prince sprang up in sudden, sharp agitation, and then she saw that
the stiff propriety 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’s true—it’s true! She _has_ lovers—she _has_
lovers!” he broke out. “I’ve seen it with my eyes and I’ve come here to
know!”
“I don’t know what you’ve seen, but your coming here to know won’t have
helped you much. Besides, if you’ve seen you know for yourself. At any
rate I’ve ceased to be able to tell you.”
“You’re afraid—you’re afraid!” cried the visitor with a wild,
accusatory gesture.
The old woman looked up at him with slow speculation. “Sit down and be
quiet, very quiet. I’ve 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 with eyes of anguish. “Dear lady, is that kind to me
when I’ve counted on you?”
“Oh I’m not kind any more; it’s not a question of that. I’m angry—as
angry almost as you.”
“Then why don’t you watch her, eh?”
“It’s not with her I’m angry. It’s with myself,” said Madame Grandoni,
all in thought.
“For becoming so indifferent, do you mean?”
“On the contrary, for staying in the house.”
“Thank God you’re 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 too expensive!”
she cried.
He cast about him. “Whatever she does is wrong. Is it because it’s so
bad that you must go?” he went on.
“It’s foolish—foolish—foolish,” said his friend, slowly and
impressively.
“Foolish, _che, che_! 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, and she with him.”
“And where were you meanwhile?”
Again the Prince faltered. “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’ll go back, but only if you’ll tell me who this one is!
How can you be ignorant, dear friend, when he comes freely in and out
of the place?—where I have to watch at the door for a moment I can
snatch. He wasn’t the same as the other.”
“As the other?”
“Doubtless there are fifty! I mean the little one I met in the 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
returned.
“Better for whom?”
“I mean that if you didn’t withdraw yourself you could at least answer
my questions.”
“Ah but I haven’t the slightest desire to answer them,” Madame Grandoni
replied. “You must remember that I’m 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 shouldn’t 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 there, like a groom
waiting for his master to come back from a ride. I wanted a personal
impression. It was so I saw him come in. He’s not a gentleman—not even
one of the strange ones of this country.”
“I think he’s Scotch or Welsh,” Madame Grandoni explained.
“Ah then you _have_ seen him?”
“No, but I’ve heard him. He speaks straight out (the floors of this
house are not built as we build in Italy) and his voice is the same
I’ve noticed in the people of the wild parts, where they ‘shoot.’
Besides, she has told me—some few things. He’s 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——!” the old woman wailed.
“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’m free,” she
pleaded.
“How do you mean, free?”
“I must choose. I must either go away—and then I can tell you what I’ve
seen—or if I stay here I must hold my tongue.”
“But if you go away you’ll have seen nothing,” the Prince objected.
“Ah plenty as it is—more than I ever expected to!”
He clasped his hands as in strenuous suppliance but at the same time
smiled as to conciliate, to corrupt. “Dearest friend, you torment my
curiosity. If you’ll tell me this I’ll 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 to
sit intent, her chin in her bulging kerchief. Her visitor presently
continued with his pressure of pain and his beautiful Italian
distinctness, as if his lips cut and carved the sound, while his fine
fingers quivered into quick, emphasising gestures: “The street’s
small and black, but it’s like all the dreadful streets. It has no
importance; it’s at the end of a long imbroglio. They drove for twenty
minutes, then 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 didn’t 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 opened to them I couldn’t tell. I waited nearly half an hour, to
see how long they might 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, both smoking, who looked like _artisti_—I saw them badly—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 pleasantry on this
point, “she never tolerated smoking—never mine at least. The street’s
very quiet—very few people pass. Now what’s the house? Is it where that
man lives?” he almost panted.
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 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’s called; but I couldn’t make him
understand. They’ve 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 think they’re conspiring. Ecco!” said Madame Grandoni.
“You mean they’ve joined a secret society, a band of revolutionists and
murderers? _Capisco bene_—that’s not new to me. But perhaps they only
pretend it’s for that,” added the Prince.
“Only pretend? Why should they pretend? That’s not Christina’s way.”
“There are other possibilities,” he portentously observed.
“Oh of course when your wife goes off with strange, low men in the
dark, goes off to _des maisons louches_, you can think anything
you like and I’ve nothing to say to your thoughts. I’ve my own, but
they’re my affair, and I shall not undertake to defend Christina, who’s
indefensible. When she commits these follies she provokes, she invites,
the worst construction; there let it rest save for this one remark
which I will content myself with making. That is that if she were a
real wretch, capable of _all_, she wouldn’t behave as she does now,
she wouldn’t expose herself to _the_ supposition; the appearance of
everything would be good and proper. I simply tell you what I believe.
If I believed that what she’s doing concerned you alone I should say
nothing about it—at least sitting here. But it concerns others, it
concerns every one, so I 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 ever before! She’s very much entangled. She has relations
with people who are watched by the police. She hasn’t told me, but I’ve
grown sure of it by simply living with her.”
The poor Prince stared. “And is _she_ watched by the police?”
“I can’t tell you; it’s very possible—except that the police here isn’t
like that of other countries.”
“It’s more stupid.” He gazed at his cold comforter with a flush of
shame on his face. “Will she bring us to _that_ scandal? It would be
the worst of all.”
“There’s one chance—the chance she’ll get tired of it,” the old lady
remarked. “Only the scandal may come before that.”
“Dear friend, she’s the Devil in person,” said the Prince woefully.
“No, she’s not the Devil, because she wishes to do good.”
“What good did she ever wish to do to me?” he asked with glowing eyes.
She shook her head with a gloom that matched his own. “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?” He got up in his
violence and, after a fashion that caused his companion to burst into
a short, incongruous laugh as soon as she heard the words, pronounced:
“She shall _not_ break up society!”
“No, she’ll bore herself to death before the _coup_ is ripe. Make up
your mind to that.”
“That’s what I expected to find—that the caprice was over. She has
passed through so many madnesses.”
“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?” the old woman
asked. “The only thing she says to me is: ‘Don’t be afraid; I promise
you by all that’s sacred you personally shan’t suffer.’ She speaks
as if she had it all in her hands. That’s very well. No doubt I’m a
selfish old pig, 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’s certain she’ll take it whether I give it or
no. 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 round her.”
“They’re not all scoundrels any more than she’s all one. That’s the
tiresome part of it!” she wearily sighed.
“But this fellow, the chemist—to-night—what do you call _him_?”
“She has spoken to me of him as a fine young man.”
“But she thinks it fine 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’s fearful.”
“_Che vuole?_ There’s misery everywhere,” our personage opined. “It’s
the will of God. _Ci vuol pazienza!_ And in this country does no one
give alms?”
“Every one, I believe. But it appears that that’s not enough.”
He 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 that hasn’t the true faith?”
“Ah the true faith’s a great thing, but there’s suffering even in
countries that have it.”
“_Evidentemente._ But it helps suffering to be borne and, later, makes
it up; whereas here——!” said the visitor with a sad if inconclusive
smile. “If I may speak of myself it’s to me, in my circumstances, a
support.”
“That’s good,” she returned a little curtly.
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. I 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’ve turned him out then that’s very well. Now if only some one
could turn _them_ out!”
“_Aspetta, aspetta!_” said the old woman.
“That’s 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 still proposed to our admiration, or has he paid the penalty of
his crimes?”
“He has paid the penalty, but I don’t know of what. I’ve nothing bad to
tell you of him except that I think his star’s on the wane.”
“_Poverino!_” the Prince exclaimed.
“That’s 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 it would happen
somehow. It has happened through his changing his opinions. He has now
the same idea as you—_ci vuol pazienza_.”
Her friend 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, though it would be my impression
that he doesn’t go to any place visited by Christina and the other one,
by the Scotchman, together. But these are delicate matters,” the old
woman pursued.
They seemed much to impress her interlocutor. “Do you mean that the
Scotchman is—what shall I call it?—his successor?”
For a time she made no reply. “I imagine this case different. But I
don’t understand; it was the other, the little one, who helped her to
know the Scotchman.”
“And now they’ve quarrelled—about my wife? It’s all tremendously
edifying!” the Prince wailed.
“I can’t tell you, and shouldn’t have attempted it, only that Assunta
talks to me.”
“I wish she would talk to me,” he said 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’ve given her up.
It’s finished.”
“I’m 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 shamelessly
thrown herself into criminal undertakings, since she lifts her hand
with a determined purpose, as you tell me, against the most sacred
institutions—it’s too much; ah yes, it’s too much! She may go her
way; she’s 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’re right. And yet I’m sorry!” sighed his
hostess, 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 uneasily
quavered.
“Not in the least; for whatever’s said and whatever you do there’s
nothing for me in decency at present but to pack my trunk. Judge by the
way I’ve tattled.”
“If you’ll stay on she shall have everything.” He spoke in a very low
tone, with a manner that betrayed the shame he felt for 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 guest would have
given her if at that moment the door of the room hadn’t been pushed
open to permit the entrance of Hyacinth Robinson. He stopped short on
finding a stranger in the field, but before he had time to say anything
the old lady addressed him rather shortly. “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’ve
done before,” our young man replied. Then he added as to accommodate:
“I beg many pardons. I was not told you were not alone.”
“My visitor’s going, but I’m going too,” said Madame Grandoni. “I must
take myself to my room—I’m 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 their companion
in a rapid Italian aside: “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 Mr. Robinson 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 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
appealed to his fellow-visitor, after which he remarked to Madame
Grandoni: “I’ll talk with him a little. It’s perhaps not necessary we
should incommode you if you don’t wish to stay.”
She had for an instant, as she tossed off a small satirical laugh, a
return of her ancient drollery. “Remember that if you talk long she may
come back! Yes, yes, I’ll 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
their friend as a sign that he was at the service of the greater
personage. At this moment the latter raised 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’ll 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,
could bring a deep and painful blush. It is forbidden us to try 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 bland. He invited his new, his grand 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 permit I’ll take the same direction.”
On Hyacinth’s answering that it was indifferent to him he said, turning
to the right: “Well then here, but _adagio_, if that pleases you, and
only a little way.” His English was far from perfect, but his errors
were like artificial flowers of accent: Hyacinth was struck with his
effort to express himself very distinctly, so that in intercourse
with a small untutored Briton his foreignness should not put him
at a disadvantage. Quick to perceive and appreciate, our hero noted
how the quality of breeding in him just enabled him to compass that
coolness, and he mentally applauded the success of 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 requiring an immensity
of explanation, and it was a sign of training to explain adequately,
in a strange 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. Our young
man 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’s 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’ve
changed—you’ve 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’ve changed you can confess,” his friend declared in an
encouraging tone. “It’s very good for some people to be rich. It
wouldn’t be right for all to be poor.”
“It would be pleasant if all could be rich,” Hyacinth more mildly
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 greatly hoping Hyacinth would
allow this valuable conviction to be attributed to him. “That’s also my
view.”
“Oh yes, we must have patience,” said his companion, 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 the small
bookbinder’s countenance for a moment by its help and then pronounced:
“If I’m not mistaken you know very well the Princess.”
Hyacinth hung back: “She has been very kind to me.”
“She’s my wife—perhaps you know.”
Again Mr. Robinson faltered, but after a moment he replied: “She has
told me that she’s married.” As soon as he had spoken these words he
thought them idiotic.
“You mean you wouldn’t know if she hadn’t told you, I suppose.
Evidently there’s nothing to show it. You can think if that’s agreeable
to me.”
“Oh I can’t think, I can’t judge.”
“You’re right—that’s 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 our fond observer conceived the unfortunate nobleman
to be feverish and ill. He pursued in a moment: “Of course you think it
strange—my conversation. I want you to tell me something.”
“I’m afraid you’re very unwell,” said Hyacinth.
“Yes, I’m very unwell; but I shall be better if you’ll tell me. It’s
because you’ve come back to good ideas—that’s 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 struck him he must be pretty sick to
ask any at all, but that was his own affair. “If you’d like me to see
you safely home I’ll do that,” our young friend brought out; 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 the offer with a slight
inclination of his high slimness.
“I’m very much obliged to you, but I don’t go home. I don’t 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’s a Scotch chemist.”
“A Scotch chemist?” Hyacinth stared.
“I saw them myself—an hour, two hours, ago. Listen, listen; I’ll
be very clear,” said the Prince, laying his forefinger on the other
hand with a pleading emphasis. “He came to that house—this one, where
we’ve been, I mean—and stayed there a long time. I was here in the
street—I’ve 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 and such mystery to what he had
to relate. But at this he broke out: “This’s not my business—I can’t
hear it! _I_ don’t watch, _I_ don’t follow.”
His friend stared in surprise, but then rejoined, more quickly than he
had spoken yet: “Do you understand that 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 gravely asked.
“It’s Madame Grandoni who has told me.”
“Why then do you question me?”
“Because I’m not sure, I don’t think she knows. I want to know more, to
be sure of what’s the truth. Does she go to such a place only for the
revolution, or does she go to be alone with him?”
“With _him_?” The Prince’s tone and his excited eyes had somehow made
the suggestion live.
“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’s all you wish to ask me we had better separate.”
The Prince’s high face grew long; it seemed to grow paler. “Then it’s
not true that you hate those abominations!”
Hyacinth frankly wondered. “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 certain
distance and then let them drop at his sides. “I hoped you’d help me.”
“When we’re in trouble we can’t help each other much!” our young man
exclaimed. But this austere reflexion was lost on the Prince, who at
the moment it was uttered had already turned to look in the direction
from which they had moved, the other end of the Crescent, his attention
suddenly jerked round by the sound of a rapid hansom. The place
was still and empty and the wheels of this vehicle reverberated. He
glowered at it through the darkness and in an instant cried, under his
breath, excitedly: “They’ve come back—they’ve 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 his strange confidant,
who hastily, with a strong effort, drew him forward several yards.
At this moment a part of the agitation that possessed the Princess’s
unhappy husband 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 those who love in the
rage of jealousy. If he had been told half an hour before that he was
capable of surreptitious peepings in the interest of that passion 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 Mr. Robinson 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
went on the next moment, “Will he go in again or will he go away?” our
stricken youth felt a voice given to his own sharpest 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 laughed as he turned 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 our friend saw was
the door just closing; Paul and the Princess were on the other side
of it. “Is _that_ for the revolution?” the trembling nobleman panted.
But Mr. Robinson made no answer; he only gazed at the closed door an
instant and then, disengaging himself, walked straight away, leaving
the victim of the wrong he could even then feel as deeper than his
own to shake, in the dark, a helpless, foolish, gold-headed stick at
the indifferent house where Madame Grandoni’s bedroom light glimmered
aloft.