diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 4 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/69628-0.txt | 10641 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/69628-0.zip | bin | 233819 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/69628-h.zip | bin | 381086 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/69628-h/69628-h.htm | 16842 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/69628-h/images/cover.png | bin | 137927 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/69628-h/images/logo.png | bin | 5827 -> 0 bytes |
9 files changed, 17 insertions, 27483 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2c8a57c --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #69628 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69628) diff --git a/old/69628-0.txt b/old/69628-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 787d8fc..0000000 --- a/old/69628-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,10641 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Princess Casamassima (Volume 1 of -2), 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 (Volume 1 of 2) - -Author: Henry James - -Release Date: December 24, 2022 [eBook #69628] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Melissa McDaniel and the Online Distributed Proofreading - Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from - images generously made available by The Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRINCESS CASAMASSIMA -(VOLUME 1 OF 2) *** - - -Transcriber’s Note: - - Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have - been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - - Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. - - “accordeon” should possibly be “accordion”. - - - - -THE PRINCESS CASAMASSIMA - - - - - MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED - LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA · MADRAS - MELBOURNE - - THE MACMILLAN COMPANY - NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO - DALLAS · SAN FRANCISCO - - THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. - TORONTO - - - - - THE PRINCESS - CASAMASSIMA - - BY - - HENRY JAMES - - IN TWO VOLUMES - - VOL. I - - MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED - ST. MARTIN’S STREET LONDON - 1921 - - - - - COPYRIGHT - - First published in 1886 - - - - -PREFACE - - -The simplest account of the origin of _The Princess Casamassima_ is, -I think, that this fiction proceeded quite directly, during the first -year of a long residence in London, from the habit and the interest of -walking the streets. I walked a great deal—for exercise, for amusement, -for acquisition, and above all I always walked home at the evening’s -end, when the evening had been spent elsewhere, as happened more often -than not; and as to do this was to receive many impressions, so the -impressions worked and sought an issue, so the book after a time was -born. It is a fact that, as I look back, the attentive exploration -of London, the assault directly made by the great city upon an -imagination quick to react, fully explains a large part of it. There -is a minor element that refers itself to another source, of which I -shall presently speak; but the prime idea was unmistakably the ripe -round fruit of perambulation. One walked of course with one’s eyes -greatly open, and I hasten to declare that such a practice, carried on -for a long time and over a considerable space, positively provokes, -all round, a mystic solicitation, the urgent appeal, on the part of -everything, to be interpreted and, so far as may be, reproduced. -“Subjects” and situations, character and history, the tragedy and -comedy of life, are things of which the common air, in such conditions, -seems pungently to taste; and to a mind curious, before the human -scene, of meanings and revelations the great grey Babylon easily -becomes, on its face, a garden bristling with an immense illustrative -flora. Possible stories, presentable figures, rise from the thick -jungle as the observer moves, fluttering up like startled game, and -before he knows it indeed he has fairly to guard himself against the -brush of importunate wings. He goes on as with his head in a cloud of -humming presences—especially during the younger, the initiatory time, -the fresh, the sharply-apprehensive months or years, more or less -numerous. We use our material up, we use up even the thick tribute -of the London streets—if perception and attention but sufficiently -light our steps. But I think of them as lasting, for myself, quite -sufficiently long; I think of them as even still—dreadfully changed -for the worse in respect to any romantic idea as I find them—breaking -out on occasion into eloquence, throwing out deep notes from their vast -vague murmur. - -There was a moment at any rate when they offered me no image more vivid -than that of some individual sensitive nature or fine mind, some small -obscure intelligent creature whose education should have been almost -wholly derived from them, capable of profiting by all the civilisation, -all the accumulations to which they testify, yet condemned to see -these things only from outside—in mere quickened consideration, mere -wistfulness and envy and despair. It seemed to me I had only to imagine -such a spirit intent enough and troubled enough, and to place it in -presence of the comings and goings, the great gregarious company, of -the more fortunate than himself—all on the scale on which London could -show them—to get possession of an interesting theme. I arrived so at -the history of little Hyacinth Robinson—he sprang up for me out of the -London pavement. To find his possible adventure interesting I had only -to conceive his watching the same public show, the same innumerable -appearances, I had watched myself, and of his watching very much as -I had watched; save indeed for one little difference. This difference -would be that so far as all the swarming facts should speak of freedom -and ease, knowledge and power, money, opportunity and satiety, he -should be able to revolve round them but at the most respectful of -distances and with every door of approach shut in his face. For one’s -self, all conveniently, there had been doors that opened—opened into -light and warmth and cheer, into good and charming relations; and if -the place as a whole lay heavy on one’s consciousness there was yet -always for relief this implication of one’s own lucky share of the -freedom and ease, lucky acquaintance with the number of lurking springs -at light pressure of which particular vistas would begin to recede, -great lighted, furnished, peopled galleries, sending forth gusts of -agreeable sound. - -That main happy sense of the picture was always there and that retreat -from the general grimness never forbidden; whereby one’s own relation -to the mere formidable mass and weight of things was eased off and -adjusted. One learned from an early period what it might be to know -London in such a way as that—an immense and interesting discipline, an -education on terms mostly convenient and delightful. But what would -be the effect of the other way, of having so many precious things -perpetually in one’s eyes, yet of missing them all for any closer -knowledge, and of the confinement of closer knowledge entirely to -matters with which a connexion, however intimate, couldn’t possibly -pass for a privilege? Truly, of course, there are London mysteries -(dense categories of dark arcana) for every spectator, and it’s in a -degree an exclusion and a state of weakness to be without experience -of the meaner conditions, the lower manners and types, the general -sordid struggle, the weight of the burden of labour, the ignorance, the -misery and the vice. With such matters as those my tormented young man -would have had contact—they would have formed, fundamentally, from the -first, his natural and immediate London. But the reward of a romantic -curiosity would be the question of what the total assault, that of -the world of his work-a-day life and the world of his divination and -his envy together, would have made of him, and what in especial he -would have made of them. As tormented, I say, I thought of him, and -that would be the point—if one could only see him feel enough to be -interesting without his feeling so much as not to be natural. - -This in fact I have ever found rather terribly the point—that the -figures in any picture, the agents in any drama, are interesting -only in proportion as they feel their respective situations; since -the consciousness, on their part, of the complication exhibited -forms for us their link of connexion with it. But there are degrees -of feeling—the muffled, the faint, the just sufficient, the barely -intelligent, as we may say; and the acute, the intense, the complete, -in a word—the power to be finely aware and richly responsible. It is -those moved in this latter fashion who “get most” out of all that -happens to them and who in so doing enable us, as readers of their -record, as participators by a fond attention, also to get most. Their -being finely aware—as Hamlet and Lear, say, are finely aware—_makes_ -absolutely the intensity of their adventure, gives the maximum of sense -to what befalls them. We care, our curiosity and our sympathy care, -comparatively little for what happens to the stupid, the coarse and the -blind; care for it, and for the effects of it, at the most as helping -to precipitate what happens to the more deeply wondering, to the really -sentient. Hamlet and Lear are surrounded, amid their complications, by -the stupid and the blind, who minister in all sorts of ways to their -recorded fate. Persons of markedly limited sense would, on such a -principle as that, play a part in the career of my tormented youth; but -he wouldn’t be of markedly limited sense himself—he would note as many -things and vibrate to as many occasions as I might venture to make him. - -There wouldn’t, moreover, simply be the question of his suffering—of -which we might soon get enough; there would be the question of what, -all beset and all perceptive, he should thus adventurously do, thus -dream and hazard and attempt. The interest of the attitude and the act -would be the actor’s imagination and vision of them, together with the -nature and degree of their felt return upon him. So the intelligent -creature would be required and so some picture of his intelligence -involved. The picture of an intelligence appears for the most part, -it is true, a dead weight for the reader of the English novel to -carry, this reader having so often the wondrous property of caring -for the displayed tangle of human relations without caring for its -intelligibility. The teller of a story is primarily, none the less, -the listener to it, the reader of it, too; and, having needed thus to -make it out, distinctly, on the crabbed page of life, to disengage it -from the rude human character and the more or less gothic text in which -it has been packed away, the very essence of his affair has been the -_imputing_ of intelligence. The basis of his attention has been that -such and such an imbroglio has got started—on the page of life—because -of something that some one has felt and more or less understood. - -I recognise at the same time, and in planning _The Princess -Casamassima_ felt it highly important to recognise, the danger of -filling too full any supposed and above all any obviously limited -vessel of consciousness. If persons either tragically or comically -embroiled with life allow us the comic or tragic value of their -embroilment in proportion as their struggle is a measured and directed -one, it is strangely true, none the less, that beyond a certain point -they are spoiled for us by this carrying of a due light. They may carry -too much of it for our credence, for our compassion, for our derision. -They may be shown as knowing too much and feeling too much—not -certainly for their remaining remarkable, but for their remaining -“natural” and typical, for their having the needful communities with -our own precious liability to fall into traps and be bewildered. It -seems probable that if we were never bewildered there would never be -a story to tell about us; we should partake of the superior nature -of the all-knowing immortals whose annals are dreadfully dull so -long as flurried humans are not, for the positive relief of bored -Olympians, mixed up with them. Therefore it is that the wary reader -for the most part warns the novelist against making his characters -too _interpretative_ of the muddle of fate, or in other words too -divinely, too priggishly clever. “Give us plenty of bewilderment,” -this monitor seems to say, “so long as there is plenty of slashing -out in the bewilderment too. But don’t, we beseech you, give us too -much intelligence; for intelligence—well, _endangers_; endangers not -perhaps the slasher himself, but the very slashing, the subject-matter -of any self-respecting story. It opens up too many considerations, -possibilities, issues; it _may_ lead the slasher into dreary realms -where slashing somehow fails and falls to the ground.” - -That is well reasoned on the part of the reader, who can in spite of -it never have an idea—or his earnest discriminations would come to him -less easily—of the extreme difficulty, for the painter of the human -mixture, of reproducing that mixture aright. “Give us in the persons -represented, the subjects of the bewilderment (that bewilderment -without which there would be no question of an issue or of the fact -of suspense, prime implications in any story), as much experience as -possible, but keep down the terms in which you report that experience, -because we only understand the very simplest”: such in effect are -the words in which the novelist constantly hears himself addressed, -such the plea made him by the would-be victims of his spell on behalf -of that sovereign principle the economy of interest, a principle as -to which their instinct is justly strong. He listens anxiously to -the charge—nothing can exceed his own solicitude for an economy of -interest; but feels himself all in presence of an abyss of ambiguities, -the mutual accommodations in which the reader wholly leaves to him. -Experience, as I see it, is our apprehension and our measure of what -happens to us as social creatures—any intelligent report of which -has to be based on that apprehension. The picture of the exposed and -entangled state is what is required, and there are certainly always -plenty of grounds for keeping down the complexities of a picture. -A picture it still has to be, however, and by that condition has to -deal effectually with its subject, so that the simple device of more -and more keeping down may well not see us quite to our end or even -quite to our middle. One suggested way of keeping down, for instance, -is not to attribute feeling, or feelings, to persons who wouldn’t in -all probability have had any to speak of. The less space, within the -frame of the picture, their feelings take up the more space is left for -their doings—a fact that may at first seem to make for a refinement of -economy. - -All of which is charming—yet would be infinitely more so if here at -once ambiguity didn’t yawn; the unreality of the sharp distinction, -where the interest of observation is at stake, between doing and -feeling. In the immediate field of life, for action, for application, -for getting through a job, nothing may so much matter perhaps as the -descent of a suspended weight on this, that or the other spot, with -all its subjective concomitants quite secondary and irrelevant. But -the affair of the painter is not the immediate, it is the reflected -field of life, the realm not of application, but of _appreciation_—a -truth that makes our measure of effect altogether different. My report -of people’s experience—my report as a “story-teller”—is essentially my -appreciation of it, and there is no “interest” for me in what my hero, -my heroine or any one else does save through that admirable process. -As soon as I begin to appreciate simplification is imperilled: the -sharply distinguished parts of any adventure, any case of endurance -and performance, melt together as an appeal. I then see their “doing,” -that of the persons just mentioned, as, immensely, their feeling, their -feeling as their doing; since I can have none of the conveyed sense -and taste of their situation without becoming intimate with them. I -can’t be intimate without that sense and taste, and I can’t appreciate -save by intimacy, any more than I can report save by a projected -light. Intimacy with a man’s specific behaviour, with his given case, -is desperately certain to make us see it as a whole—in which event -arbitrary limitations of our vision lose whatever beauty they may on -occasion have pretended to. What a man thinks and what he feels are the -history and the character of what he does; on all of which things the -logic of intensity rests. Without intensity where is vividness, and -without vividness where is presentability? If I have called the most -general state of one’s most exposed and assaulted figures the state -of bewilderment—the condition for instance on which Thackeray so much -insists in the interest of _his_ exhibited careers, the condition of -a humble heart, a bowed head, a patient wonder, a suspended judgement, -before the “awful will” and the mysterious decrees of Providence—so it -is rather witless to talk of merely getting rid of that displayed mode -of reaction, one of the oft-encountered, one of the highly recommended, -categories of feeling. - -The whole thing comes to depend thus on the _quality_ of bewilderment -characteristic of one’s creature, the quality involved in the -given case or supplied by one’s data. There are doubtless many such -qualities, ranging from vague and crepuscular to sharpest and most -critical; and we have but to imagine one of these latter to see how -easily—from the moment it gets its head at all—it may insist on playing -a part. There we have then at once a case of feeling, of ever so -many possible feelings, stretched across the scene like an attached -thread on which the pearls of interest are strung. There are threads -shorter and less tense, and I am far from implying that the minor, -the coarser and less fruitful forms and degrees of moral reaction, as -we may conveniently call it, may not yield lively results. They have -their subordinate, comparative, illustrative human value—that appeal -of the witless which is often so penetrating. Verily even, I think, no -“story” is possible without its fools—as most of the fine painters of -life, Shakespeare, Cervantes and Balzac, Fielding, Scott, Thackeray, -Dickens, George Meredith, George Eliot, Jane Austen, have abundantly -felt. At the same time I confess I never see the _leading_ interest of -any human hazard but in a consciousness (on the part of the moved and -moving creature) subject to fine intensification and wide enlargement. -It is as mirrored in that consciousness that the gross fools, the -headlong fools, the fatal fools play their part for us—they have much -less to show us in themselves. The troubled life mostly at the centre -of our subject—whatever our subject, for the artistic hour, happens -to be—embraces them and deals with them for its amusement and its -anguish: they are apt largely indeed, on a near view, to be all the -cause of its trouble. This means, exactly, that the person capable of -feeling in the given case more than another of what is to be felt for -it, and so serving in the highest degree to _record_ it dramatically -and objectively, is the only sort of person on whom we can count not -to betray, to cheapen or, as we say, give away, the value and beauty of -the thing. By so much as the affair matters _for_ some such individual, -by so much do we get the best there is of it, and by so much as it -falls within the scope of a denser and duller, a more vulgar and more -shallow capacity, do we get a picture dim and meagre. - -The great chroniclers have clearly always been aware of this; they have -at least always either placed a mind of some sort—in the sense of a -reflecting and colouring medium—in possession of the general adventure -(when the latter has not been purely epic, as with Scott, say, as with -old Dumas and with Zola); or else paid signally, as to the interest -created, for their failure to do so. We may note, moreover, in passing -that this failure is in almost no case intentional or part of a plan, -but has sprung from their limited curiosity, their short conception -of the particular sensibility projected. Edgar of Ravenswood for -instance, visited by the tragic tempest of _The Bride of Lammermoor_, -has a black cloak and hat and feathers more than he has a mind; just -as Hamlet, while equally sabled and draped and plumed, while at least -equally romantic, has yet a mind still more than he has a costume. The -situation represented is that Ravenswood loves Lucy Ashton through -dire difficulty and danger, and that she in the same way loves him; -but the relation so created between them is by this neglect of the -“feeling” question never shown us as primarily taking place. It is -shown only in its secondary, its confused and disfigured aspects—where, -however, luckily, it is presented with great romantic good faith. -The thing has nevertheless paid for its deviation, as I say, by a -sacrifice of intensity; the centre of the subject is empty and the -development pushed off, all round, toward the frame—which is, so to -speak, beautifully rich and curious. But I mention that relation to -each other of the appearances in a particular work only as a striking -negative case; there are in the connexion I have glanced at plenty -of striking positive ones. It is very true that Fielding’s hero in -_Tom Jones_ is but as “finely,” that is but as intimately, bewildered -as a young man of great health and spirits may be when he hasn’t a -grain of imagination: the point to be made is, at all events, that his -sense of bewilderment obtains altogether on the comic, never on the -tragic plane. He has so much “life” that it amounts, for the effect of -comedy and application of satire, almost to his having a mind, that is -to his having reactions and a full consciousness; besides which his -author—_he_ handsomely possessed of a mind—has such an amplitude of -reflexion for him and round him that we see him through the mellow air -of Fielding’s fine old moralism, fine old humour and fine old style, -which somehow really enlarge, make every one and every thing important. - -All of which furthers my remarking how much I have been interested, on -reading _The Princess Casamassima_ over, to recognise my sense, sharp -from far back, that clearness and concreteness constantly depend, for -any pictorial whole, on some _concentrated_ individual notation of -them. That notation goes forward here in the mind of little Hyacinth, -immensely quickened by the fact of its so mattering to his very life -what he does make of things: which passion of intelligence is, as I -have already hinted, precisely his highest value for our curiosity and -our sympathy. Yet if his highest it is not at all his only one, since -the truth for “a young man in a book” by no means entirely resides -in his being either exquisitely sensitive or shiningly clever. It -resides in some such measure of these things as may consort with the -fine measure of other things too—with that of the other faces of his -situation and character. If he’s too sensitive and too clever for -_them_, if he knows more than is likely or natural—for _him_—it’s as -if he weren’t at all, as if he were false and impossible. Extreme and -attaching always the difficulty of fixing at a hundred points the place -where one’s impelled _bonhomme_ may feel enough and “know” enough—or be -in the way of learning enough—for his maximum dramatic value without -feeling and knowing too much for his minimum verisimilitude, his -proper fusion with the fable. This is the charming, the tormenting, the -eternal little matter _to be made right_, in all the weaving of silver -threads and tapping on golden nails; and I should take perhaps too -fantastic a comfort—I mean were not the comforts of the artist just of -the raw essence of fantasy—in any glimpse of such achieved rightnesses, -whether in my own work or that of others. In no work whatever, -doubtless, are they the felicities the most frequent; but they have so -inherent a price that even the traceable attempt at them, wherever met, -sheds, I think, a fine influence about. - -I have, for example, a weakness of sympathy with that constant effort -of George Eliot’s which plays through Adam Bede and Felix Holt and Tito -Melema, through Daniel Deronda and through Lydgate in _Middlemarch_, -through Maggie Tulliver, through Romola, through Dorothea Brooke -and Gwendolen Harleth; the effort to show their adventures and -their history—the author’s subject-matter all—as determined by their -feelings and the nature of their minds. Their emotions, their stirred -intelligence, their moral consciousness, become thus, by sufficiently -charmed perusal, our own very adventure. The creator of Deronda and of -Romola is charged, I know, with having on occasion—as in dealing with -those very celebrities themselves—left the figure, the concrete man -and woman, too abstract by reason of the quantity of soul employed; -but such mischances, where imagination and humour still keep them -company, often have an interest that is wanting to agitations of the -mere surface or to those that may be only taken for granted. I should -even like to give myself the pleasure of retracing from one of my own -productions to another the play of a like instinctive disposition, -of catching in the fact, at one point after another, from _Roderick -Hudson_ to _The Golden Bowl_, that provision for interest which -consists in placing advantageously, placing right in the middle of the -light, the most polished of possible mirrors of the subject. Rowland -Mallet, in _Roderick Hudson_, is exactly such a mirror, not a bit -autobiographic or formally “first person” though he be, and I might -exemplify the case through a long list, through the nature of such -a “mind” even as the all-objective Newman in _The American_, through -the thickly-peopled imagination of Isabel Archer in _The Portrait of a -Lady_ (her imagination positively the deepest depth of her imbroglio) -down to such unmistakable examples as that of Merton Densher in _The -Wings of the Dove_, that of Lambert Strether in _The Ambassadors_ -(_he_ a mirror verily of miraculous silver and quite pre-eminent, I -think, for the connexion), and that of the Prince in the first half -and that of the Princess in the second half of _The Golden Bowl_. I -should note the extent to which these persons are, so far as their -other passions permit, intense _perceivers_, all, of their respective -predicaments, and I should go on from them to fifty other examples; -even to the divided Vanderbank of _The Awkward Age_, the extreme pinch -of whose romance is the vivacity in him, to his positive sorrow and -loss, of the state of being aware; even to scanted Fleda Vetch in _The -Spoils of Poynton_, through whose own delicate vision of everything -so little of the human value of her situation is wasted for us; even -to the small recording governess confronted with the horrors of _The -Turn of the Screw_, and to the innocent child patching together all -ineffectually those of _What Maisie Knew_; even in short, since I may -name so few cases, to the disaffected guardian of an overgrown legend -in _The Birthplace_, to the luckless fine artist of _The Next Time_, -trying to despoil himself, for a “hit” and bread and butter, of his -fatal fineness, to blunt the tips of his intellectual fingers, and to -the hapless butler Brooksmith, ruined by good talk, disqualified for -common domestic service by the beautiful growth of his habit of quiet -attention, his faculty of appreciation. But though this demonstration -of a rooted vice—since a vice it would appear mainly accounted—might -yield amusement, the examples referred to must await their turn. - -I had had for a long time well before me, at any rate, my small obscure -but ardent observer of the “London world,” saw him roam and wonder -and yearn, saw all the unanswered questions and baffled passions -that might ferment in him—once he should be made both sufficiently -thoughtful and sufficiently “disinherited”; but this image, however -interesting, was of course not by itself a progression, an action, -didn’t by itself make a drama. I got my action, however—failing which -one has nothing—under the prompt sense that the state of feeling I was -concerned with might develop and beget another state, might return at -a given moment, and with the greatest vivacity, on itself. To see this -was really to feel one’s subject swim into one’s ken, especially after -a certain other ingenious connexion had been made for it. I find myself -again recalling, and with the possible “fun” of it reviving too, how -I recognised, as revealed and prescribed, the particular complexion, -profession and other conditions of my little presumptuous adventurer, -with his combination of intrinsic fineness and fortuitous adversity, -his small cluster of “dingy” London associations and the swelling -spirit in him which was to be the field of his strange experience. -Accessible through his imagination, as I have hinted, to a thousand -provocations and intimations, he would become most acquainted with -destiny in the form of a lively inward revolution. His being jealous of -all the ease of life of which he tastes so little, and, bitten, under -this exasperation, with an aggressive, vindictive, destructive social -faith, his turning to “treasons, stratagems and spoils” might be as -vivid a picture as one chose, but would move to pity and terror only by -the aid of some deeper complication, some imposed and formidable issue. - -The complication most interesting then would be that he should fall -in love with the beauty of the world, actual order and all, at the -moment of his most feeling and most hating the famous “iniquity of -its social arrangements”; so that his position as an irreconcilable -pledged enemy to it, thus rendered false by something more personal -than his opinions and his vows, becomes the sharpest of his torments. -To make it a torment that really matters, however, he must have got -practically involved, specifically committed to the stand he has, -under the pressure of more knowledge, found impossible; out of which -has come for him the deep dilemma of the disillusioned and repentant -conspirator. He has thrown himself into the more than “shady” -underworld of militant socialism, he has undertaken to play a part—a -part that with the drop of his exasperation and the growth, simply -expressed, of his taste, is out of all tune with his passion, at any -cost, for life itself, the life, whatever it be, that surrounds him. -Dabbling deeply in revolutionary politics of a hole-and-corner sort, -he would be “in” up to his neck, and with that precarious part of him -particularly involved, so that his tergiversation is the climax of -his adventure. What was essential with this was that he should have a -social—not less than a socialist—connexion, find a door somehow open -to him into the appeased and civilised state, into that warmer glow of -things he is precisely to help to undermine. To look for this necessary -connexion was for me to meet it suddenly in the form of that extremely -_disponible_ figure of Christina Light whom I had ten years before -found left on my hands at the conclusion of _Roderick Hudson_. She had -for so long, in the vague limbo of those ghosts we have conjured but -not exorcised, been looking for a situation, awaiting a niche and a -function. - -I shall not pretend to trace the steps and stages by which the -imputability of a future to that young woman—which was like the act of -clothing her chilled and patient nakedness—had for its prime effect -to plant her in my little bookbinder’s path. Nothing would doubtless -beckon us on further, with a large leisure, than such a chance to study -the obscure law under which certain of a novelist’s characters, more or -less honourably buried, revive for him by a force or a whim of their -own and “walk” round his house of art like haunting ghosts, feeling -for the old doors they knew, fumbling at stiff latches and pressing -their pale faces, in the outer dark, to lighted windows. I mistrust -them, I confess, in general; my sense of a really expressed character -is that it shall have originally so tasted of the ordeal of service -as to feel no disposition to yield again to the strain. Why should -the Princess of the climax of _Roderick Hudson_ still have made her -desire felt, unless in fact to testify that she had not been—for what -she was—completely recorded? To continue in evidence, that had struck -me from far back as her natural passion; in evidence at any price, not -consenting to be laid away with folded hands in the pasteboard tomb, -the doll’s box, to which we usually relegate the spent puppet after the -fashion of a recumbent worthy on the slab of a sepulchral monument. I -was to see this, after all, in the event, as the fruit of a restless -vanity: Christina had felt herself, known herself, striking, in the -earlier connexion, and couldn’t resign herself not to strike again. -Her pressure then was not to be resisted—sharply as the question might -come up of why she should pretend to strike just _there_. I shall not -attempt to answer it with reasons (one can never tell everything); it -was enough that I could recognise her claim to have travelled far—far -from where I had last left her: that, one felt, was in character—that -was what she naturally _would_ have done. Her prime note had been -an aversion to the _banal_, and nothing could be of an effect less -_banal_, I judged, than her intervention in the life of a dingy little -London bookbinder whose sensibility, whose flow of opinions on “public -questions” in especial, should have been poisoned at the source. - -She would be world-weary—that was another of her notes; and the -extravagance of her attitude in these new relations would have its root -and its apparent logic in her need to feel freshly about something or -other—it might scarce matter what. She can, or she believes she can, -feel freshly about the “people” and their wrongs and their sorrows -and their perpetual smothered ferment; for these things are furthest -removed from those others among which she has hitherto tried to make -her life. That was to a certainty where I was to have looked for -her—quite _off_ and away (once granted the wisdom of listening to her -anew at all): therefore Hyacinth’s encounter with her could pass for -natural, and it was fortunately to be noted that she was to serve for -his experience in quite another and a more “leading” sense than any -in which he was to serve for hers. I confess I was not averse—such are -the possible weaknesses of the artist in face of high difficulties—to -feeling that if his appearance of consistency were obtained I might -at least try to remain comparatively at my ease about hers. I may add, -moreover, that the resuscitation of Christina (and, on the minor scale, -of the Prince and of Madame Grandoni) put in a strong light for me the -whole question, for the romancer, of “going on with a character”: as -Balzac first of all systematically went on, as Thackeray, as Trollope, -as Zola all more or less ingeniously went on. I was to find no small -savour in the reflexions so precipitated; though I may treat myself -here only to this remark about them—that the revivalist impulse on the -fond writer’s part strikes me as one thing, a charmingly conceivable -thing, but the effect of a free indulgence in it (effect, that is, -on the nerves of the reader) as, for twenty rather ineffable reasons, -quite another. - -I remember at any rate feeling myself all in possession of little -Hyacinth’s consistency, as I have called it, down at Dover during -certain weeks that were none too remotely precedent to the autumn -of 1885 and the appearance, in the _Atlantic Monthly_ again, of -the first chapters of the story. There were certain sunny, breezy, -balconied rooms at the quieter end of the Esplanade of that cheerful -castle-crested little town—now infinitely perturbed by gigantic -“harbour works,” but then only faded and over-soldiered and all -pleasantly and humbly submissive to the law that snubs in due course -the presumption of flourishing resorts—to which I had already more -than once had recourse in hours of quickened industry and which, though -much else has been swept away, still archaically exist. To have lately -noted this again from the old benched and asphalted walk by the sea, -the twinkling Channel beyond which on occasion the opposite coast of -France used to gleam as an incident of the charming tendency of the -whole prospect (immediate picture and fond design alike) amusingly -to _shine_, was somehow to taste afresh, and with a certain surprise, -the odd quality of that original confidence that the parts of my plan -_would_ somehow hang together. I may wonder at my confidence now—given -the extreme, the very particular truth and “authority” required at -so many points; but to wonder is to live back gratefully into the -finer reasons of things, with all the detail of harsh application and -friction (that there must have been) quite happily blurred and dim. The -finest of reasons—I mean for the sublime confidence I speak of—was that -I felt in full _personal_ possession of my matter; this really seemed -the fruit of direct experience. My scheme called for the suggested -nearness (to all our apparently ordered life) of some sinister anarchic -underworld, heaving in its pain, its power and its hate; a presentation -not of sharp particulars, but of loose appearances, vague motions and -sounds and symptoms, just perceptible presences and general looming -possibilities. To have adopted the scheme was to have had to meet the -question of one’s “notes,” over the whole ground, the question of what, -in such directions, one had “gone into” and how far one had gone; and -to have answered that question—to one’s own satisfaction at least—was -truly to see one’s way. - -My notes then, on the much-mixed world of my hero’s both overt and -covert consciousness, were exactly my gathered impressions and stirred -perceptions, the deposit in my working imagination of all my visual -and all my constructive sense of London. The very plan of my book -had in fact directly confronted me with the rich principle of the -Note, and was to do much to clear up, once for all, my practical -view of it. If one was to undertake to tell tales and to report with -truth on the human scene, it could be but because “notes” had been -from the cradle the ineluctable consequence of one’s greatest inward -energy: to take them was as natural as to look, to think, to feel, -to recognise, to remember, as to perform any act of understanding. -The play of the energy had been continuous and couldn’t change; what -changed was only the objects and situations pressing the spring of -it. Notes had been, in other words, the things one couldn’t _not_ -take, and the prime result of all fresh experience was to remind one -of that. I have endeavoured to characterise the peremptory fashion -in which my fresh experience of London—the London of the habitual -observer, the preoccupied painter, the pedestrian prowler—reminded me; -an admonition that represented, I think, the sum of my investigations. -I recall pulling no wires, knocking at no closed doors, applying for -no “authentic” information; but I recall also on the other hand the -practice of never missing an opportunity to add a drop, however small, -to the bucket of my impressions or to renew my sense of being able to -dip into it. To haunt the great city and by this habit to penetrate it, -imaginatively, in as many places as possible—_that_ was to be informed, -_that_ was to pull wires, _that_ was to open doors, _that_ positively -was to groan at times under the weight of one’s accumulations. - -Face to face with the idea of Hyacinth’s subterraneous politics and -occult affiliations, I recollect perfectly feeling, in short, that I -might well be ashamed if, with my advantages—and there wasn’t a street, -a corner, an hour, of London that was not an advantage—I shouldn’t be -able to piece together a proper semblance of those things, as indeed -a proper semblance of all the odd parts of his life. There was always -of course the chance that the propriety might be challenged—challenged -by readers of a knowledge greater than mine. Yet knowledge, after all, -of what? My vision of the aspects I more or less fortunately rendered -_was_, exactly, my knowledge. If I made my appearances live, what was -this but the utmost one could do with them? Let me at the same time not -deny that, in answer to probable ironic reflexions on the full licence -for sketchiness and vagueness and dimness taken indeed by my picture, -I had to bethink myself in advance of a defence of my “artistic -position.” Shouldn’t I find it in the happy contention that the value -I wished most to render and the effect I wished most to produce were -precisely those of our not knowing, of society’s not knowing, but -only guessing and suspecting and trying to ignore, what “goes on” -irreconcilably, subversively, beneath the vast smug surface? I couldn’t -deal with that positive quantity for itself—my subject had another too -exacting side; but I might perhaps show the social ear as on occasion -applied to the ground, or catch some gust of the hot breath that I had -at many an hour seemed to see escape and hover. What it all came back -to was, no doubt, something like _this_ wisdom—that if you haven’t, for -fiction, the root of the matter in you, haven’t the sense of life and -the penetrating imagination, you are a fool in the very presence of the -revealed and assured; but that if you _are_ so armed you are not really -helpless, not without your resource, even before mysteries abysmal. - -HENRY JAMES. - - - - -BOOK FIRST - - - - -I - - -“Oh yes, I daresay I can find the child, if you would like to see -him,” Miss Pynsent said; she had a fluttered 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 large, grave 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 refreshment 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 “cheffoneer,” as -Amanda was always careful to call it, yielded up a small bottle which, -formerly containing eau-de-cologne, now exhibited half a pint of a -rich gold-coloured liquid. Miss Pynsent was very delicate; she lived -on tea and watercress and kept the little bottle in the cheffoneer -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 and spell out the first page of the romances in the _Family -Herald_ and the _London Journal_, where he particularly admired 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; for 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 ’Enning, 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 whose -extraordinary luxuriance of dark brown hair was surmounted by a torn -straw hat. - -The child looked up from her dandling and patting and, after a stare -of which the blankness was visibly overdone, 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 find him and tell him -there’s a lady come here 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 hateful. It was in this action and epithet he had indulged half an -hour ago; but she had reflected rapidly (while she made play with Miss -Pynsent) that it 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, who was very slow, considered her so long before -replying that she felt herself to be, to 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’re more frightened of me,” she declared -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 shouldn’t -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 real 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 real 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 and with a tight clasp of her -hands 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 tall fond fantastic structure that 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 of the sort 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 had herself as few -belongings as the desolate baby, and it had seemed to her 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 own isolation went out to -his, and in the course of time their associated solitude 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 a proud and ancient 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 mere words she couldn’t answer—of course she couldn’t -answer them—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 she prayed she might -not be questioned 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 applied 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 innocent child know it?” - -“Know about Lord Frederick?” Miss Pynsent palpitated. - -“Bother Lord Frederick! Know about his mother.” - -“Oh, I can’t say that. I’ve 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’ve 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 -judgement. 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 intensity. - -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’d tell him?” Miss Pynsent plaintively gasped. - -“Tell him! He won’t need to be told, once she gets hold of him and -gives him—what she mentioned to me.” - -“What she mentioned—?” Miss Pynsent repeated, open-eyed. - -“The kiss her lips have been famished for all these years.” - -“Ah, poor desolate woman!” the little dressmaker murmured while her -pity gushed 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 that fluent French?” she inquired as from a full mind. -“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 idea. -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 breadth of view. - -“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 outlook -appeared to abound in cheerless contingencies. “You must remember that -it’s 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’re very sure she _is_ dying.” - -“Do you mean she’s shamming? We’ve 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 and 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 an -intricate argument, and then answered quite in the spirit of her -official pessimism. “There’s one thing you may be sure of: whatever you -decide to do, as soon as ever he grows up he’ll make you wish you had -done the opposite.” Mrs. Bowerbank called it oppos_ite_. - -“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’re very sorry to have kept her waiting.” - -The child hesitated while he repaid with interest Mrs. Bowerbank’s -inspection, and then he said with a cool, conscious indifference which -Miss Pynsent instantly recognised 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 ironic; but the subject of his -allusion, who was not nimble withal, appeared not to interpret it; so -that she met it only by remarking over his head to Miss Pynsent: “It’s -the very face of her again—only for the complexion!” - -“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 ’Enning’s a very bad little girl; she’ll come to no good,” -said Miss Pynsent with familiar decision and also, considering 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’s bad; I like her awfully.” 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 this -betrayal. He dimly felt that nothing but that particular accusation -could have pushed him to it, for he hated people with too few fair -interspaces, too many smutches and streaks. Millicent Henning generally -had two or three of these at least, 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 so sickly as to excite remark, it -seemed written in his attenuated little person that he would never -be either tall or positively hard. 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 -formed and distributed; his head was set on a slim, straight neck; -his expression, grave and clear, showed a quick perception as well as -a great credulity; and he was altogether, in his tender fineness, an -interesting, an appealing little person. - -“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 dress: 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 satiric force. - -“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 know you from one, and not one of -them ‘performing’ ones either.” - -“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 done for she couldn’t but feel the other side was to be considered. -In her effort to be discreet by reason 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, yet that 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 the person who had stepped into her place for -not producing him. “Certainly, in her position, 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 she was leaving her dreadfully ploughed up and without any really -fertilising seed sown. The little dressmaker packed the child upstairs -to tidy himself for his tea, and as she accompanied her visitor to the -door pleaded that if the latter would have a little more patience she -would think a day or two longer what was best and write when she should -have decided. Mrs. Bowerbank continued to move in a realm superior to -poor Miss Pynsent’s vacillations and timidities, and her detachment -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 ever so much worse!” - - - - -II - - -Miss Pynsent, when she found herself alone, felt she was really -quite upside down; for this lurid crisis had never entered into her -calculations: the very nature of the case had seemed to preclude -it. All she had known or had wished to know was that in one of the -dreadful establishments 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 had been no question of _that_ concession’s -being stretched any further, poor Florentine had 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 had no idea to what prison she was committed on -removal from Newgate (she had wished to keep her mind a blank about -the matter in the interest of the child), and it couldn’t occur to -her that out of such silence and darkness a second voice would reach -her, especially a voice 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 -on, poor and precarious though her own subsistence, 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 had -gone to see her at Newgate (that terrible episode, nine years before, -still overshadowed all Miss Pynsent’s other memories): had gone 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 to run 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 reflexion, 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 struck 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 -indeed 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 no end of good. Miss Pynsent knew it was 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 on a great occasion, within the year, obtained -for the pair an order for two seats at a pantomime, and to 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 these 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 and 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 and sensibilities of a gentleman, yet whose -fate had condemned him for the last ten years to play a fiddle at a -second-rate establishment 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, so that 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 occupied 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, -unless in more wicked words as well as more grand ones, 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 aspects -of his character—his blasphemous republican, radical views and the -licentious manner in which he expressed himself about the nobility. -On that ground he worried her extremely, though he never seemed to -her so probably well-connected, like Hyacinth himself, as when he -horrified her most. These dreadful theories (expressed so brilliantly -that really they might have been dangerous if Miss Pynsent had not been -so grounded in the Christian faith and known thereby 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 position. 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 buttonhole, -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 an at all bold 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 absurdity, 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 -there 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 pin-cushions, 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 cheffoneer. 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 “connexion” was confined -to small shopkeepers, but she didn’t wish others to know it and would -have liked them to believe it important 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 treacherous untrimmed truth, about -everything in a moment. She was sure he would do so now in regard to -this solemn question that had come up for Hyacinth; he would see that, -though 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 it was too late. 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 on 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 that she had no startling revelation -to make. He was not in the least agitated to hear of Florentine’s -approaching end in prison and of her having 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, to save you a 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 -if 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 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 had a -half-holiday, and she also rejoiced in a sister living 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 an informal, natural 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’ve 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 a while, blowing silently at his pipe, 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’ve done a good deal -for him. You’re 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’ve done what I could, and I don’t put myself forward above others. -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 who would tell you it would -do him good. If he didn’t like the place as a child he’d 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 returned 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 extra good? No one -else thinks it necessary.” - -“I didn’t want to be extra good. That is I do want to, of course, in a -general way: but that wasn’t the reason then. You see 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 a shame an unspotted 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 bad trick on him, if it was -only to send him to the workhouse. Besides, I always was fond of tiny -creatures and I’ve 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’ll 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’re there I shall never stop. What is it you want me to -advise you? to take the child, or to leave the mother to wail herself -away?” - -“I want you to tell me if he’ll curse me when he grows older.” - -“That depends on what you do. However, he’ll probably curse you in -either case.” - -“You don’t believe that, because you like him, you love him,” said -Amanda with acuteness. - -“Precisely; and he’ll curse me too. He’ll curse every one. Much good -will our love do us! 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 at all. He brings you up.” - -“That’s what you’ve 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’d say anything you like if what I say would help the matter. He’s a -thin-skinned, morbid, mooning, introspective little beggar, with a good -deal of imagination and not much perseverance, who’ll expect a good -deal more of life than he’ll 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 “introspective” 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 returned after -a series of puffs. “The youngster’s interesting; one sees he has a -mind and even a soul, and in that respect he’s—I won’t say unique, but -peculiar. I shall watch with curiosity to see what he grows into. But I -shall always be glad that I’m a selfish brute of a decent bachelor—that -I never invested in that class of goods.” - -“Well, you _are_ comforting. You’d 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’s one thing I’ve -always added—that the truth never _is_ found out.” - -“You’re 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’s 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’re very particular.” - -“Please then what am I to go by?” the dressmaker asked bewildered. - -“You’re 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’s any harm in that: a fine blooming, odoriferous conceit is -a natural appendage of youth and intelligence. I don’t say there’s any -great harm in it, but if you want a guide as to how you’re to treat the -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 _leetle_ -swig—thanks. 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 rank fools’ -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 that had had elements -of distinction Miss Pynsent observed a respectful, a tasteful silence -and that is why she didn’t challenge him now, though she wanted very -much to say that Hyacinth was no more “presumptious” (that was the -term she would have used) than he had reason to be, with his genteel -appearance, and his acknowledged powers; 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 any good family, 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, for all 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 perfect lady of his -acquaintance. I don’t mean he’ll disown you and pretend he never knew -you: I don’t think he’ll ever be such an odious little cad as that; he -probably won’t be a sneak, and he strikes me as having some affection -and possibly even some gratitude in him. But his imagination (which -will always give him his cue about everything) shall subject you to -some extraordinary metamorphosis. He’ll dress you up.” - -“He’ll dress me up?” Amanda ejaculated, quite ceasing to follow -the train of Mr. Vetch’s demonstration. “Do you mean he’ll have the -property—that his relations will take him up?” - -“My dear, delightful, idiotic Pinnie, I’m speaking in a figurative -manner. I don’t pretend to say what his precise position will be when -we’re relegated; but I’m sure relegation will be our fate. Therefore -don’t stuff him with any more false notions and fine illusions than are -necessary to keep him alive; he’ll be sure to pick up enough on the -way. On the contrary, give him a good stiff dose of the truth at the -start.” - -“Deary 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’s the illegitimate child of a French impropriety -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 _can_ talk!” cried Miss Pynsent with her -ever-fresh faculty of vain protest. “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, take -him straight.” - -“And if later, when he’s twenty, he says to me that if I hadn’t meddled -in it he need never have known, need never have had that shame, pray -what am I to say to him then? That’s what I can’t get out of my head.” - -“You can say to him that a young man who’s sorry for having gone to his -mother when, in her last hours, she lay crying 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’m sure it’s natural he should feel badly,” said Miss Pynsent, -folding up her work with the same desperate quickness that had animated -her through 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 reflexion, 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, for all his figure, to kiss her hand with the flourish -of a troubadour and as he had seen people do on the stage. “My dear -friend, we’ve 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’ll never understand that. I want him to know everything, -and especially the worst—the very worst, as I’ve 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 -reflexions; she had given up the attempt to enter into his whims. She -remembered what she had noticed 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 immoral. “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 with 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 prostrate 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, once she had 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 committed many -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 fierce light of his -questions on Miss Pynsent’s incarcerated friend. She had to admit that -she had been her friend (since 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 severe!—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 cruel want. The woman had had a -wicked husband who maltreated and deserted her; she had been very poor, -almost starving, dreadfully pressed. Hyacinth listened to her history -with absorbed attention and then said: - -“And hadn’t she any children—hadn’t she a little boy?” - -This inquiry seemed to Miss Pynsent an omen of future embarrassments, -but she met it as bravely as she could, replying that she believed the -wretched victim of the law had had (once upon a time) a very small -baby, but 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 of his size. Miss Pynsent -fortified herself with the memory of her other pilgrimage, the visit -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 faltered -and feared, but on that of the tender sensibility over which 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-towered -building 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 air if it was erected in the interest -of justice and order—a builded protest, precisely, against vice and -villainy. This particular penitentiary struck her as about as bad and -wrong as those who were in it; it threw a blight on the face of day, -making the river seem foul and poisonous and the opposite bank, with a -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 barred and blind and deaf 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 away his hand 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’ll 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 Miss Pynsent could feel that they had already entered into relation -with her. They were near her and she was aware; 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 our pilgrim 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, were she to lead the boy away. She -looked into his pale face, perfectly conscious 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’ve come is only to be kind. If we’re kind we shan’t -mind its being disagreeable.” - -“Why should we be so kind if she’s a bad woman?” Hyacinth demanded. -“She must be very low; I don’t want to know her.” - -“Hush, hush,” groaned poor Amanda, edging toward him with clasped -hands. “She’s 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 to catch him to her bosom. - -“It’s when you’ve suffered terribly—suffered so much that it has made -you good again.” - -“Has _she_ suffered very much?” - -“For years and years. And now she’s dying. It proves she’s 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’re compassionate, if we make an effort,” said -the dressmaker, seeming to look up at him rather than down. - -“But if she’s dying? I don’t want to see any one die.” - -Miss Pynsent was bewildered, but her desperation helped. “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 and stronger than herself—to her face; -and then he put to her: “Why should I save such a creature 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—ever.” - -“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, looked from his -companion back to the immense dreary jail. A great deal, to her sense, -depended on the 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 has never seen 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 she replied, 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 rummy reason,” the boy murmured, still staring across at the -Battersea shore. - -A moment later they found themselves in a vast interior dimness, -while a grinding of keys and bolts went on behind them. Hereupon Miss -Pynsent gave herself up to an overruling providence, and she remembered -afterwards no circumstance of what happened to her till the great -person of Mrs. Bowerbank loomed up in the narrowness of a strange, dark -corridor. She had only had meanwhile 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 -grey, 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 trusted not to have struck 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 scene -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 to, 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 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 subsequently 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 couldn’t 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 reflexion -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 she had been hovering, and -it was into certain dismal chambers dedicated to sick criminals she -presently ushered her guests. 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, whereby your case was simple. Such -simplification, nevertheless, 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 businesslike pat to her pillow, signed 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 she was approaching a perfect stranger, so completely had nine -years of prison transformed Florentine. She felt it immediately to -have been a mercy she hadn’t told Hyacinth she was pretty (as she used -to be) since there was no beauty left in the hollow bloodless mask -that presented itself without a movement. She _had_ told him the poor -woman was good, but she didn’t look so, nor evidently was he struck -with it as he returned her gaze across the interval he declined to -traverse, though kept at the same time from retreating by this appeal -of her strange, fixed eyes, the only part of all her wasted person in -which 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 degree 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, which would be quite another matter. 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, 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 on the boy; he was too intensely -absorbed in watching the prisoner. A chair had been placed near her -pillow, 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 on 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 donc 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 her odd English—and so very -amusing,” Miss Pynsent ventured to mention 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 gruesome 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, yet felt, more than this, how she had but the thinnest pulse -of energy left and how 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 substituted guardian, 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 the confession -of a broken 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’re very glad you should have cared—that they look after you so -well,” said Miss Pynsent confusedly and 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. These 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 she know 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’d think themselves 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 taking on -so over him,” Mrs. Bowerbank remarked with some sternness. She plainly -felt the occasion threaten 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 spoke up 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 -crosspiece 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 who begin like that!” laughed Mrs. Bowerbank, 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 broke out again, 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 -protesting 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, and laid a large red -hand on 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 on the one for contrition -and 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 the unfortunate’s hand again, protested with an almost -equal passion (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’s 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 for putting her in such a state, so we’ll just pass out -again.” - -“I’m very sorry I made you cry. And you must pardon 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 -on the latter an effect even more powerful than his misguided speech -of a moment before; for she found strength partly to raise herself in -her bed again and to hold out her arms to him with the same thrilling -sobs. She was talking still, but had become quite inarticulate, and -Miss Pynsent had but a glimpse of her white ravaged face and 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 well, 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 sad charge 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 his -protectress 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 and with closed eyes, to her -pillow and given Hyacinth a businesslike little push which sent him on -in advance. Miss Pynsent went home in a cab—she was so shaken; though -she reflected very nervously, 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 looking out of -the window in silence 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 grey, -had not been renewed for years and came back to her out of the past. As -Miss Pynsent closed the door, seeing her visitor so resolute, the light -filtered in from the street through the narrow dusty glass above, and -then the very smell and sense of the place returned to Millicent: the -impression of a musty dimness with a small steep staircase at the end, -covered with the very strip of oilcloth she could recognise and made -a little less dark by a window in the turn (you could see it from the -hall) where you might almost bump your head against the house behind. -Nothing was changed but Miss Pynsent and of course the girl herself. -She had noticed outside how 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 this artist -was looking at her hat, a wonderful composition of flowers and ribbons; -her eyes had travelled up and down Millicent’s whole person, but they -rested in fascination on that grandest 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 it 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 -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. 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’s 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, a piece of furniture covered with a tight shrunken -shroud of 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, against 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, 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 stuck all over the front of -her dress—they might almost have figured the stiff sparse fur of a -sick animal; but there were no rustling fabrics tossed in heaps over -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 old friend’s business had not increased, and felt -some safe 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 capital. - -“Now tell me, how’s old Hyacinth? I should like so much to see him,” -she remarked while she extended a pair of large protrusive feet and -supported herself on the sofa by her hands. - -“Old Hyacinth?” Miss Pynsent repeated with majestic blankness and as if -she had never heard of such a person. She felt the girl to be cruelly, -scathingly well dressed and couldn’t imagine who she was nor with what -design she might 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 just see if I don’t!” - -“Bless my soul, you must be the awful little ’Enning!” Miss Pynsent -exclaimed, planted before her and going now into every detail. - -“Well, I’m glad you’ve made up your mind. I thought you’d know me -directly and I daresay I _was_ awful. But I ain’t so bad now, hey?” -the young woman went on with confidence. “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 as I couldn’t have believed,” -Miss Pynsent returned 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 daresay it doesn’t matter to you now, does it?” said the dressmaker, -seating herself but quite unable to take up her work, blank as she was -before the greatness of her visitor. - -“Oh, I’m all right now,” Miss Henning declared with the air of one who -had nothing to fear from human judgements. - -“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 at least twenty-two.” 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 -certainly handsome, with a shining, bold, good-natured eye, a fine, -free, physiognomic oval, an abundance of brown hair and a smile that -fairly flaunted the whiteness of her teeth. Her head was set on a fair -strong neck and her robust 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 reflexion that she was -common, despite 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 bustling 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 -clustered 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 herself made on Millicent, and how the whole place -seemed to that prosperous young lady to smell of poverty and failure. -Her childish image of its mistress had shown her as neat, fine, -superior, with round loops of hair fastened on the temples by combs -and associations of brilliancy arising from the constant manipulation -of precious stuffs—tissues at least that 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 didn’t disguise the -way everything had gone. Miss Henning thanked her stars, as she had -often done before, that she hadn’t 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 on her good fortune in -being attached to a more exciting, a more dramatic department of the -great drapery interest, 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 that lady’s eyes suspicious it must be confessed that -her hostess felt much on her guard in 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, -the vicissitudes of which she was able to follow, as she sat near her -window at work, by simply inclining an ear to the thin partition behind -her—these scenes, rendering the crash of crockery and the imprecations -of the wounded frequently and peculiarly audible, had long been the -scandal of a humble but harmonious neighbourhood. Mr. Henning was -supposed to fill 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 -off 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 race 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 double -the cape, that is 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 judgement that none of them -would come to any good whatever, and Millicent least of all. - -When therefore this young lady reappeared with all the signs of -accomplished survival she couldn’t fail to ask herself whether, under -a specious seeming, the phenomenon didn’t 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 shock and her curiosity she -passed an uncomfortable half-hour. She felt the familiar mysterious -creature to be playing with her; revenging herself for former -animadversions, for having been snubbed and miscalled by a prying -little spinster who could now 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 get hold of him and somehow mislead and tempt 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 her -vigorous legs had no occasion to deprecate; but it must be confessed -that with her shrewd guess of this estimate of her as a ravening wolf -and of her early playmate as an unspotted lamb she laughed out, in -Miss Pynsent’s anxious face, irrelevantly and good-humouredly and -without deigning to explain. But what indeed had she come for if she -hadn’t come for 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—had said to herself she might dedicate -an afternoon to the pleasures of memory, might 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 -scarce-dissimulated slum had never learned what their banished fellows -were to go through she herself had at least retained a deep impression -of those horrible intermediate years. The family, as a family, had gone -downhill, 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 achieve miracles 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 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, an immense -one in Oxford Street, and was just thinking if 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 she had been obliged to wear -of late years, seemed still not to know what to make of her. On the -subject of her parents, 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—stood very firm. Her staying so long, her -remaining over the half-hour, proved she had come for Hyacinth, since -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 in a house -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 too lovely, quite 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’ll -say there’s more than there is here,” she went on, finding at last an -effect of irritation, or reprehension, an implication of aggressive -respectability, in the image of the patient dressmaker’s 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 -she herself was strong, yet she was not strong enough for that. - -This allusion to her shrunken industry seemed to Miss Pynsent very -cruel; but she reflected 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 matching of colours she was not -absolutely 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 of a “tasty” -turn who would brighten up the business and give her new ideas. “I -can see you’ve got the same old ones, always: I can tell that by the -way you’ve stuck the braid on that dress”; and she directed a poke of -her neat little umbrella at 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 had been a public performer of some kind, a ballad-singer or a -conjurer, and went so far as to ask herself whether the creature 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 exponent of the latest thing 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, goodness 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 this 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 -judgement he had passed on 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 blunder, so blinded and weakened herself with weeping -that she might for a while have believed she should never be able to -touch a needle again. She lost all interest in her work, and that play -of invention 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 that only made the wrong she -had done him seem sharper, and that determined in Mr. Vetch, so soon as -she was able to hold up her head a little, the impulse to come and sit -with her through the dull hours of convalescence. She re-established to -a certain extent, after a time, her connexion, so far as the letting of -her rooms was concerned (from the other department of her activity the -tide had ebbed apparently for ever); 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 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 as Millicent at last -got up and stood there, 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’ve 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 childhood’s -sweetheart. He may know I call him that!” Millicent continued with -her showroom laugh, as Miss Pynsent judged it to be; conferring these -permissions, successively, as if they were great indulgences. “Do -give him my best 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 mirth at the sight of her hostess’s -half-hungry, 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 an agitated 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’ve 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 usually let me ’ave it then, you know!” - -“Ah well,” said Miss Pynsent, nettled at this reminder of an acerbity -which the girl’s present development caused to appear absurdly -ineffectual, “you’re 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’ve -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’ who used to be such a puzzle to the whole -Plice? 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’ve nothing to tell you! Leave my room—leave my house!” she cried -with a trembling voice. - - - - -V - - -It was in this way she 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 he had heard her -last tones resound into the passage. He entered as if, young as he was, -he knew that when women were squabbling men were not called upon to -be headlong, and now evidently wondered who the dressmaker’s evident -“match” might be. She recognised on the instant her old playmate, -and without reflexion, confusion or diplomacy, in the fulness of her -vulgarity and sociability, exclaimed at no lower pitch: “Gracious, -Hyacinth Robinson, is _that_ your form?” - -Miss Pynsent turned round in a flash, but kept silent; then, very white -and shaken, took up her work again and seated herself in her window. -Hyacinth on his side stood staring—he blushed all over. He knew who she -was but 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’ve 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 -satisfaction 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 plastered-up Frenchman! Don’t he look like a funny little -Frenchman, Miss Pynsent?” she went on as if she were on the best -possible terms with the mistress of the establishment. - -Hyacinth caught a light from that afflicted woman; he saw something -in her face that he knew very well by this time and in the sight of -which he always found an odd, perverse, unholy relish. 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 vague counter-irritant to -the soreness lodged in his own heart for ever and which had often at -night made him cry with rage in his little room under the roof. Pinnie -meant this to-day as a matter of course, and 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, often quite grandly, he felt -like one—like one of those he had read about in Michelet and Carlyle. -He had picked up their language with the most extraordinary facility, -by 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 during one of his interminable, restless, melancholy, -moody, yet all-observant strolls through London. He spoke it, he -believed, by a natural impulse, caught the accent, the gesture, the -movement of eyebrow and shoulder; so that on any occasion of his having -to pass for a foreigner—there was no telling what might happen—he -should certainly be able to do so to admiration, especially if 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 the complications might be which should compel him to assume the -disguise of a person of a social station lower still than his own he -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. -Actually, 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 rueful profession; there was a dumb intimation, -almost as pathetic as the other, that if he cared to let her off easily -he wouldn’t 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 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 must 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 had such -looks 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 barmaid—a blowsy -beauty who handled pewter—was tempered by her more and more curious -consideration of Hyacinth’s form. He was exceedingly “rum,” but he had -a stamp as sharp for her as that of a new coin and which also agreeably -suggested value. Since he remembered so well that she had been fond of -kissing him in their early days she would have liked to show herself -prepared to repeat this graceful 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 knows a lot. 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, in mitigation of her brilliancy, by remarking -sarcastically, according to opportunity, “Miss ’Enning wouldn’t live in -Lomax Plice for the world. She thinks it too dreadfully 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 an expression of face that put him more -and more at his ease. - -“Don’t you suppose I know something?” he asked, planted before her with -his little legs slightly apart and, with his hands behind him, making -the open door waver to and fro. - -“You? Oh, I don’t care a straw what you know!” she said; and he had -at any rate a mind sufficiently enriched to see what she meant by -that. If she meant he was so good-looking that he might pass on this -score alone her judgement was conceivable, though many women would -strongly have dissented from it. He was as small as he had announced -from the first—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 noted afterwards 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 romantic, 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, almost an impertinent, candour, and -a small, soft, fair moustache disposed itself upon his upper lip in a -way that made him appear to smile 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 an observant eye would have caught the hint of an “arrangement” in -his dress (his appearance being plainly not a matter of indifference -to himself), while a painter (not of the heroic) would have liked to -make a sketch of him. There was something exotic in him, and yet, with -his sharp young face, destitute of bloom but not of sweetness, and a -certain conscious cockneyism that 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, but -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?” he went on, 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 their getting hold -of him and persuading him to make a marriage beneath his station. -His station!—poor Hyacinth had often asked himself and inquired of -Miss Pynsent what it could possibly be. He had thought of it bitterly -enough, wondering 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 that had made his own young -spirit so intolerably sore, the inheritance that 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’d 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 irrepressibly exclaimed. - -“Oh, you’re such a rattling swell yourself!” Hyacinth observed without -heeding the dressmaker. - -“None of _your_ ‘rattling’ 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’d 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 a cruelly familiar 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 haberdashers of 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 and vaguely, 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 reflexion 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 liked the respectable ones; she couldn’t -abide the smell of fish, which the whole place seemed full of, so that -she hoped they would soon get into the Edgeware Road, toward which -they tended and which was a proper street for a lady. To Hyacinth she -appeared to have no connexion with the long-haired little girl who, -in Lomax Place, years before, was always hugging a smutty doll and -courting his society; she was a stranger, a new acquaintance, and he -observed her in suspense, 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—which last were as emphatic -as the giggles of a person tickled. She was tremendously particular, -difficult to please, he could see that; and she assured him she never -put up with anything a moment after she had ceased to care for it. -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 assured her 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 Edgeware Road (which had still -the brightness of late closing, but with more nobleness), he proposed -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 he had them in his pocket -(they had been destined in some degree for Pinnie) and therefore 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 of its propriety, suggested, among several things, -by photographs, on the walls, of young ladies in tights. He 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 -thrills; it seemed the beginning of something new and rare. 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, in which he had often -felt a likeness to great square blackboards uninscribed with a stroke -of chalk. 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 ceasing to be so had hitherto left his fancy unstirred. He -knew what Millicent’s age must be, but felt her nevertheless older, -much older, than himself—she seemed 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 connexion -with the question of the character of the establishment; if this -character was what it easily might be 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 wouldn’t mind 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. “But of course she ain’t your mother! How stupid I am! I keep -forgetting.” - -Hyacinth had, as he supposed, from far back cultivated 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 was prompt, as if “capping” it. -“She died very suddenly. I daresay you remember her in the Plice.” -Then, while Hyacinth disengaged from the past the obscure figure of -Mrs. Henning, of whom he mainly remembered that she used to strike him -as cross and dirty, the girl added, smiling, but with more sentiment, -“But I’ve 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 returned. “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 observed, -“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’d look very nice in -a fancy costume.” She had her elbows on the table and her shoulders -lifted, 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 -reflexion that this was exactly what he was apparently 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 and 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’s 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 the girl with the -same inscrutable calmness, as he fancied; though a remark more to his -taste would have been that his mother was none of her business. But -she was too handsome for such risks, 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 some -listening ear that would be attached to some kissable cheek, 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 both safe -and happily enough attached? How much didn’t he already ask? 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 at any rate now taken up the subject of Mrs. -Henning’s death; he felt himself incapable of researches into 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 repulsive, but at least her daughter -could speak of her. “Mr. Vetch has changed his lodgings: he moved -out of 17 three years ago,” he said, to vary the topic. “He couldn’t -stand the other people in the house; there was a man who played the -accordeon.” - -Millicent, however, was but moderately interested in this anecdote, -though wanting 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,” the -girl declared, not so much in the tone of wishing to offer him tribute -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 faced him over her cup while she drank in ladylike sips. “Do you -know what they used to say in the Plice? 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 prime-minister 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!” she archly retorted. “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 asked 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 the effect. “Well, I’m -sorry you’re only a journeyman,” she went on as she pushed away her -cup. - -“So am I,” Hyacinth answered; but he called for the bill as if he had -been an employer of labour. Then while they waited 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 asserted that she perfectly understood. “But the art -of the binder’s 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,” he finely smiled. - -He expected she would exclaim in answer that he was an impudent wretch, -and for a moment she seemed 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. With which she returned to her idea that -he had not done himself justice. “You used always to have your nose in -something or other. I never thought you’d 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 reg’lar 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—quite as for publication; he -was haunted with the dream of literary distinction. This appeared -to impress her, and she branched off to remark, with the agreeable -incoherence that characterised her, that she didn’t care anything for -a man’s family if she liked the man himself; she thought families and -that sort of rot were about played out. Hyacinth wished she would leave -his origin alone; and while they lingered in front of her house before -she went in he broke out: - -“I’ve no doubt you’re a jolly girl, and I’m very happy to have seen you -again. But you’ve awfully little tact.” - -“_I_ have little tact? You should see me work off an old jacket!” - -He was silent a little, standing before her with his hands in his -pockets. “It’s a good job you’re so lovely.” - -Millicent didn’t blush at this compliment, and probably didn’t -understand all it conveyed, but she looked into his eyes a while, -with all the smile that showed her teeth, and then came back more -inconsequently than ever. “Come now, who are you?” - -“Who am I? I’m a wretched little ‘forwarder’ in the shop.” - -“I didn’t think I ever could fancy any one in that line!” she -competently cried. Then she let him know 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 enough. 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, absent, -had failed to send the explanation 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, was in fact 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 by the solemnity and candour of his attention. -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. 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. He had a marked claim upon Hyacinth’s esteem and -gratitude, for he had been his _parrain_, his protector at the bindery. -When Anastasius Vetch found something for Miss Pynsent’s young charge -to do, it was through the Frenchman, with whom he had accidentally made -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 who 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 chilling -calm. Mr. Vetch, however, insisted; he 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, in -favouring conditions, 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 if the job 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 thing itself, 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 thing itself, 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 indefatigable 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 an aggressive 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 collectivist and a perfectionist and a visionary; he believed 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 -beatitude; 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 gives wings -to our heavy-footed 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 hanging on the agitated -fiddlestick of their friend in the orchestra. But this adventure failed -to 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 camisole in -some hideous print, her uncorseted overflow 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 remarks exchanged 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 merchant prince, 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 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 had been 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 extravagance, while -the absence of any direct contact with a library represented for him -mainly the hard shock of the real; the shock, that is, he could most -easily complain of. Mr. Vetch believed him subtly intelligent, and -therefore thought it a woeful pity that he couldn’t have furtherance in -some liberal walk; but he would have thought it a greater pity still -that a youth with that expression in his eyes should be condemned to -measure tape or cut slices of cheese. He himself had no influence he -could bring into play, no connexion 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 her stars, 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 didn’t begin by carrying parcels he -couldn’t hope to be promoted, through the more refined nimbleness -of tying them up, to a position as accountant or manager; 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 fervid -Frenchman if there were 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 elegant 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 deficiency; 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 the inexhaustible 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 Hyacinth Robinson. In a day or two M. Poupin -replied to the fiddler that he had now been several years in _le vieux_ -“Crook’s” employ; that during that time he had done work for him which -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 dryly 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, to cosmic, as well as to -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 fostered and drew out -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 constituting -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 stood 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_. On the windows were curtains of white muslin much -fluted and frilled and tied with pink ribbon. - - - - -VII - - -“I’m 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 declamatory, -reclamatory, proclamatory, the same universally inaugurative -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 a force that will -shake the globe.” - -“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 returned. -“But what do I say, my children? I do see it,” he pursued. “It’s -before my eyes in its radiant 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 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 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, affectional sense. There were -hypocritical concessions and debasing superstitions of which this -exalted pair had 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 his French friends, and so was Pinnie, and so were -most of the inhabitants of Lomax Place and the workmen in old Crook’s -shop. But was old Crook himself, who wore an apron rather dirtier -than the rest of them and was a master-hand at “forwarding,” yet who, -on the other side, was the occupant of a villa all but detached, at -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, at 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 he had something to make up to him for and -had ever treated him with marked benevolence. 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 look at -him with the kindest eyes. It would make a difference therefore if he -were of the people or not, inasmuch as on 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 governmental agent, 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 governmental agent -in extraordinary disguises, the wondrous _mouchard_ of M. Poupin’s -view, 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’s 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 force that will shake the globe?” 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 took in 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. _La-la_, 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 returned. He saw 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 didn’t 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, could see 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 reflexions 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 in wonder. - -“Oh, if you did you would!” the young man exclaimed and laughed again. -Such a rejoinder from any one else would have irritated our sensitive -hero, but it only made him 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 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’s very young,” said Eustache Poupin. - -“He’s the person we have seen in this country whom we like best,” his -wife added. - -“Perhaps you’re 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. He found it a difficult -pass, 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 if he were -French or were 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 and among a people she -must have execrated—all this made him French; yet he was conscious at -the same time of qualities that didn’t mix with it. He had spun to the -last fineness, 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 spirit and his senses, when the effort to think it out didn’t -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 of 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 he was ridiculous. “Oh, I daresay -I ain’t anything,” he replied in a moment. - -“_En v’là des bêtises!_” cried Madame Poupin. “Do you mean to say -you’re 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 on 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—if 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 steady eyes, light-coloured -and set very deep; for despite a want of fineness in some of its -parts his face had a marked expression of intelligence and resolution, -spoke somehow, as if it had showed you his soul drawing deep and even -breaths, of a state of moral health. He was dressed as 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 -feeling sure he was the reverse of stupid, that he probably indeed -had a large easy brain quite as some people had big strong fists. -Our little hero had a great desire to know superior persons, and he -interested himself on the spot in this quiet stranger whose gravity, by -any fine balance, showed, like that of a precious metal, in the small -piece as well as in the big. He had the complexion of a ploughboy and -the glance of a commander-in-chief, and might have been 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 their friend 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 worthy invalid -replied. “M. Hyacinthe knows I count on him, whether or no I make him -an _interne_ to-day or only wait a little 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’re very sympathetic, but I’m afraid -you’re too young.” - -“One is never too young to contribute one’s _obole_,” said Madame -Poupin. - -“Can you keep a secret?” asked the other guest, but not as if he -thought it probable. - -“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 group of workers to which he and I and a good many others -belong. There’s no harm in telling him that,” the young man went on. - -“I advise you not to tell it to Mademoiselle; she’s 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’ve 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 viewed him a little as if he were a pleasing object -and then said to the strange young man: “He’s a little jealous of you. -But there’s no harm in that; it’s of his age. You must know him, you -must like him. We’ll tell you his history some other day; it will make -you feel that he belongs to us of necessity. It’s 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’ve my little sister at home to take care of when I -ain’t at the works,” 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,” smiled M. Paul. - -“Do you like them to thrust themselves into your apartment like -that because you’ve 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’re not a cripple; you’ve 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’re patient, you other English.” - -“We shall never do anything without that,” said M. Paul with -undisturbed good-humour. - -“You’re 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 rather a 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 volunteered -presently, giving a little nod in the direction of the bed, “He says we -ought to know each other. I’m sure I’ve nothing against it. I like to -know folk if they’re likely to be 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 taking of a stand on two or three -points.” - -“_Ah bien, voilà du propre_; between us we’ve 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. -Her patient 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; their friend must be perfectly -quiet. They accordingly withdrew with apologies and promises to return -for further news on the morrow, and two minutes later Hyacinth found -himself standing face to face with his companion 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 as he looked 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 friend 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 -for a firm of wholesale chemists 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’m going to toddle.” - -“And may I toddle with you?” - -Mr. Muniment considered him further and then 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 daresay I shall like your company.” - -There was something in his face, taken in connexion with the idea -that he was concerned in the taking of a stand—it offered our quick -youth the image of a rank of bristling bayonets—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, exchanging 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 the “points” of his reference or Hyacinth, -on his side, had detailed the circumstances involved in his being, -according to M. Poupin, one of the disinherited. Hyacinth didn’t -wish to press, wouldn’t for the world have appeared indiscreet, and -moreover, though he had taken so great a fancy to Muniment, was not -quite prepared as yet to be pressed himself. Therefore it failed to -become very clear how his companion had made Poupin’s acquaintance and -how long he had enjoyed it. Paul Muniment nevertheless was to a certain -extent communicative, especially on the question of his living 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 bob 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 Saint 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 penetrate 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’s Rosy.” He spoke as if this would be a great privilege and -added, for the joke, 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 the room on -the threshold of which they stood to be unlighted. - -“Oh dear, no; we’re sitting in the dark,” a small bright voice -instantly replied. “Lady Aurora’s so kind; she’s here still.” - -The voice came out of a corner so pervaded by gloom that the speaker -was indistinguishable. “Well now, that’s beautiful!” Paul Muniment -rejoined. “You’ll have a party then, for I’ve brought some one else. -We’re poor, you know, but honest, and not afraid of showing up, and I -daresay 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 and -a flowing umbrageous 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.” Both the tone and the purport of the words announced to -Hyacinth that they proceeded from 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 object stretched -upon it—an object 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 presented moreover, 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 wonderful people. Lady Aurora hovered before him with an odd -drooping, swaying erectness, and she laughed a good deal, vaguely and -shyly, as for the awkwardness of her being found still on the premises. -“Rosy, girl, I’ve brought you a visitor,” Hyacinth’s guide soon said. -“This young man has walked all the way from Lisson Grove to make your -acquaintance.” Rosy continued to look at the visitor 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 slippery trout’s 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 put this question in a light, gay tone, with a dart of shining -eyes at her companion, who replied at once with still greater hilarity -and in a voice which struck Hyacinth as strange and affected: “Oh -mercy, no; it seems quite the natural place!” Then she added: “And it’s -such a lovely 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_ as a _w_. - -“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’ve 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,” the young man returned loudly and with a kind -of inconsequent cheerfulness. - -“Yes, I’ve thought a great deal about that. But there wouldn’t be room -for more, you know,” said Lady Aurora, this time with all gravity. - -“There’s not much room for a family of that sort anywhere—thirteen -people of all ages and sizes,” her host observed. “The world’s pretty -big, but there doesn’t seem room.” - -“We’re also thirteen at home,” Lady Aurora hastened to mention. “We’re -also rather crowded.” - -“Surely you don’t mean at Inglefield?” Rosy demanded from her dusky -nook. - -“I don’t know about Inglefield. I’m 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’re not all _your_ size!” Paul Muniment -declared 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 the life of a capital; and later still he -wished to know 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 almost -rock 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’s -standing up that she’s so, you gawk? _We’re_ not thirteen, at any rate, -and we’ve got all the furniture we want, so 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’m 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 small 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 accomplishment—he judged it impossible to tell her -age. Lady Aurora pleaded that she ought to have gone, long since; but -she seated herself nevertheless on the chair that Paul pushed toward -her. - -“Here’s a go!” this young man exclaimed to the other guest. “You told -me your name, but I’ve clean forgotten it.” Then when Hyacinth had -pronounced 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 all right; 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 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?” Rose Muniment addressed this question to Hyacinth -while Lady Aurora gazed at her shyly and mutely and as if admiring -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 she should be called -the dawn when she brings light where she goes? The Puppins are the -charming foreigners I’ve 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’re 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 -gift of tongues it would bring me on.” - -“I’m sure I should be very happy to help you with your French. I -feel the advantage of knowing it,” Hyacinth remarked finely, becoming -conscious that his declaration drew the attention of Lady Aurora toward -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 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 that had -resulted from fortunate touch after touch. She was not a common woman; -she was one of the caprices of an aristocracy. Hyacinth didn’t define -her in this manner to himself, but he received from her the impression -that if she was a simple creature (which he learned later she was -not) aristocracies were yet complicated things. Lady Aurora remarked -that there were many delightful books in French, and he proclaimed -it a torment to know that (as he did very well) when you saw no 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 method surreptitiously during his first weeks at old Crook’s -and come very near being sacked in consequence) while he wondered how -such a system 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 lucky 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 the 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’s worse than me,” Hyacinth returned 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 -learning 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 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 the master of -the scene, who had been sitting silent and sidewise in a chair that -was too narrow for him, his big arm hugging the back. “Have we been -entertaining an angel unawares?” - -Hyacinth made out he was chaffing him, but he knew the way to face that -sort of thing was to exaggerate one’s 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 any one.” - -“I thought the principal thing about you was that you knew French,” -Paul Muniment said with an air of derision which showed him he wouldn’t -put that ridicule upon him unless he liked him, at the same time that -it revealed to him how he had come within an ace of posturing. - -“Well, I don’t know it for nothing. I’ll say something that will take -your head off if you don’t look out—just the sort of thing they say so -well in French.” - -“Oh, do say something of that kind; we should enjoy it so much!” cried -Rosy in perfect good faith and clasping her hands for 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 he was far -from being ready with an impressive formula. He replied, however, with -a candour in which he tried as far as possible to sink 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’re 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 a spark of the sacred fire. The principal -conclusion 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’s one of the best,” said Lady Aurora as if she were pleading for -him. - -“Very likely, but he’s a landlord, and he has an hereditary seat and -a park of five thousand acres all to himself, while we’re bundled -together into this sort of kennel.” Hyacinth admired the young man’s -consistency till he saw he was amusing himself; after which he still -admired the way he could mix that up with the tremendous opinions -it must have been certain he entertained. In his own imagination he -associated bitterness with the revolutionary passion; but the young -chemical expert, 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’ve 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 universal participation. “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’re much better than I, and I know very few people so good -as you,” Lady Aurora brought out, 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 who’ve 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 scoundrels!” 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’d all go abroad.” - -“Go abroad?” - -“I mean like the French nobles who emigrated so much. They’d stay at -home and resist; they’d make more of a fight. I think they’d fight very -hard.” - -“I’m delighted to hear it, and I’m sure they’d win!” cried Rosy. - -“They wouldn’t collapse, don’t you know,” Lady Aurora continued. -“They’d struggle till they were beaten.” - -“And you think they’d be beaten in the end?” Hyacinth asked. - -“Oh dear, yes,” she replied with a familiar confidence 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’ll 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 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’s 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’d 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’re going to trample over their betters it isn’t -on account of her having seemed to give up everything to us here that -they’ll let _her_ off. They’ll trample on her just the same as on the -others, and they’ll say 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 the powers above have 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 on 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 -pleading gasps, while Paul Muniment, with his humorous density, which -was deliberate, and acute too, not seeing, or at any rate not heeding, -that she had been sufficiently snubbed by his sister, inflicted a fresh -humiliation in 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. Eat your pudding while you -have it; you mayn’t have it 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 she -had taken offence and he would have liked to show her he thought she -had been rather roughly used. But she gave him no chance, not glancing -at him for a moment. Then he saw 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’re 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, but Paul, without protesting in return, only -took up his hat and smiled at her as if he knew his duty. On this 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 told Hyacinth to wait for him a little. She -neglected to take leave of 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 cards 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 Saint -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) if 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 on it all with a kind of terror—a -sort of shivering sinking state 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 connexion. The little woman, the little girl, -as she lay there (Hyacinth scarce 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 precipitate a 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 a 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 a real one by the way he listened) to know what was thought of -him by them that had an experience of intellect. 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, sharp, crippled, chattering -sister, who gave him an impression of education and native wit (she -expressed herself far better than Pinnie or than Milly 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 truly high spirit. 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 flood -that whirled past it and round it, in the hope of being carried to some -brighter, happier vision—the vision of societies where, in splendid -rooms, with smiles and soft voices, distinguished men, with women who -were both proud and gentle, talked of 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 straight questions of her guest, 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 didn’t in the least repudiate the imputation. “Oh yes, -I daresay we seem very curious. I think we’re 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’re ill; perhaps if you had your health you’d -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’d say so if you had ever been in the mines. Yes, in the -mines, where the filthy coal’s 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 the awfulness 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. Yet 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 very nature. He invented, for use -in machine-shops, a mechanical improvement—a new kind of beam-fixing, -whatever that is—and he sold it at Bradford for fifteen pounds: I mean -the whole right and profit of it and every hope and comfort 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 -home, or only came 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 won’t ever touch so much as you could wet your finger with, and -that I’ve only 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 but -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’d have been a bold man that had taken on -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 of it. How he got it’s more than I can say, as we never -had a penny to pay for it; and of course my mother’s head wouldn’t have -been of much use if he hadn’t had a head himself. Well, it was all in -the family. Paul was a boy that would learn more from a yellow poster -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 really grand character 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 -jolly good brains at least to give us.” - -Hyacinth listened to this eloquence—the clearest statement of anything -he had ever heard made by a woman—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 talked of brains made him feel this; she pronounced -the word as if she were distributing prizes for intellectual eminence -from off a platform. No doubt the weak inventor and the strong worker -had been fine specimens, but that didn’t diminish the merit of their -highly original offspring. The girl’s insistence on 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 aimless wonder as to the -difference it would have made for his life to have had some rich warm -presence like that in it. - -“Are you very fond of your brother?” he inquired after a little. - -The eyes of his hostess glittered at him. “If you ever quarrel with him -you’ll see whose side I shall take.” - -“Ah, before that I shall make you like _me_.” - -“That’s very possible, and you’ll see how I shall fling you over!” - -“Why then do you object so to his views—his ideas about the way the -people are to come up?” - -“Because I think he’ll get over them.” - -“Never—never!” cried Hyacinth. “I’ve only known him an hour or two, but -I deny that with all my strength.” - -“Is that the way you’re going to make me like you—contradicting me so?” -Miss Muniment asked 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’re 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 ring of laughter. “You -say that just like a man my brother described to me three days ago, -a little man at some club whose hair stood up—Paul imitated the way -he raved and stamped. I don’t mean that you do either, but you use -almost the same words as him.” Hyacinth scarce knew what to make of -this allusion or of the picture offered him of Paul Muniment casting -ridicule on 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 great things 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 returned. - -“Oh, you’re making me like you very fast! And pray who’s 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,” Miss Muniment -hastened to add. - -“I’ll bring her some day,” he said; and then he went on rather -incongruously, for he was irritated by the girl’s optimism, thinking it -a shame 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’re 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’re very much mistaken!” - -Such an attitude could only exasperate him, and his exasperation made -him indifferent to the mistake of his having appeared to sniff at Miss -Muniment’s quarters. 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 -cross?” he asked, smiling, of his present entertainer. - -“Cross? 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 space 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—” What should he -call the mystery? - -“Deep in what?” - -“Well, in what’s going on beneath the surface. Doesn’t he belong to -important things?” - -“I’m sure I don’t know what he belongs to—you may ask him!” cried Rosy, -who laughed gaily again as the opening door re-admitted the subject -of their conversation. “You must have crossed the water with her -ladyship,” she pursued. “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 licence,” Paul scoffed, 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 struck out. - -“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 deadly 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 that 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 that hung over her ladyship’s head. Muniment -asked if Hyacinth and Rosy had got on together, and the girl replied -that Mr. Robinson had made himself most 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 found himself amused 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 guessing the truth, said to him all pertinently: “It’s very -wonderful—she can describe things she has never seen. And they’re just -like the reality.” - -“There’s nothing I’ve never seen,” Rosy declared. “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 -his revolutionary 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 he perceived in a moment to -be facetiously 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 ugly black holes?” Muniment -asked, laying his hand on Hyacinth’s shoulder and shaking it gently. - -“Don’t you belong to the party of action?” our young man gravely -demanded. - -“Look at the way he has picked up all the silly bits of catchwords!” -Paul cried in not unkindly derision 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 candidly pleaded, rejoicing all the -while to feel himself in such a relation. It was his view of himself, -and not an unfair one, that his was a character that would never sue -for a favour; but now he felt that in any connexion with Paul Muniment -such a law would be suspended. This rare man he could go on his knees -to without a sense of humiliation. - -“What thing do you mean, infatuated, deluded youth?” Paul pursued, -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 -as he twirled his hat. It was an effort for a moment to keep the -tears from his eyes; he saw himself forced to put such a different -construction on his new friend’s hospitality. He had had a happy -impression that Muniment had divined in him a possible associate of -a high type in a subterranean crusade against the existing order of -things, whereas it now 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 justified at the -present juncture the high estimate Lady Aurora Langrish had formed of -his intelligence: whatever his natural reply to Hyacinth’s question -would have been he invented straight off 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’d be afraid.” - -What there was to be afraid of was to Hyacinth a quantity equally -vague; but he answered quickly enough: “I think you’ve only to try me -to see.” - -“I’m sure that 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,” Hyacinth rang out. - -His sincerity appeared to touch his friend. “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_.” And Muniment led -him good-humouredly out. - - - - -X - - -Several months after Hyacinth had made his acquaintance, Millicent -Henning remarked that it was high time our hero should take her to some -first-class place of amusement. He proposed hereupon the Canterbury -Music Hall; at which 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 give her an evening at 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 had come -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; the flaring cometary creature had become a fixed star. She -had never spoken to him of Millicent but once, several weeks after her -interview with the girl; and this had not been 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 of vain semblance -that he had forgotten the wrong she had done him, so that she could -almost forget 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, cocking it with a victorious exalted -air. He hummed to himself; he fingered his moustache; he looked out -of window when there was nothing to look at; he seemed preoccupied, -launched in intellectual excursions, half anxious and half in spirits. -During the whole winter Miss Pynsent explained everything by four words -murmured beneath her breath: “That beastly forward jade!” On the single -occasion, however, on which she had sought relief from her agitation in -an appeal to Hyacinth she didn’t trust herself to designate the girl by -epithet or title. - -“There’s 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 for a moment. “Aren’t -there plenty of vulgar fellows 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 the question, and she had seen -something in his face to make 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,” he remarked for -answer. “What sort of a mess do you suppose I shall 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—the way she sees it.” - -“Then how the dickens does she see it?” - -“Do you imagine I’d tell a lady’s secrets?” the young man returned. - -“Oh laws, 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 declared with his little manner of a man of the -great world. - -“Under your protection? Oh I say!” 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 heavenly when he needn’t -have been at all. At such moments Pinnie wanted to kiss him and had -often tried to make Mr. Vetch understand what fascinating traits of -character she was always noting in their young friend. This particular -one 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, though 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 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 the youth’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 question 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 sigh as -for long experience. - -“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 -’Ennings?” - -“You don’t understand, my poor Pinnie,” he wearily pleaded. “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 of that bloated kind. She -doesn’t want to end her career to-day—she wants to begin it.” - -“Well, I wish she’d take you later!” the dressmaker returned. - -Hyacinth said nothing for a little, but then 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 conciliatory -eagerness. “That’s the way I like to hear you talk!” - -“Do you think I’d marry any one who would marry me?” Hyacinth went -on. “The kind of girl who’d look at me is the kind of girl I’d never -look at.” He struck Pinnie as having thought it all out; which didn’t -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 that 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 yet 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 worse danger. This the -dressmaker considered to be the chance of his marrying some person -of her own base order. Still it came over her that his taste might be -lowered, and before the subject was dropped, on the present occasion, -she said that of course he must be quite aware of all that was wanting -to such a girl as Millicent ’Enning—who visibly wasn’t worth any -struggle for her aspirate. - -“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’s impossible I should discuss these matters with you,” Hyacinth -grandly enough replied. - -“Of course I see that. But I should think she’d bore you sometimes,” -Miss Pynsent threw off 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 old Crook’s, under Eustache -Poupin’s influence, was a kind of education of the taste, trained him -in the finest discriminations, in the recognition of the rare and the -hatred of the cheap. 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 had been 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, nothing in -life had such an interest or such a price for him as his impressions -and reflexions. They came from everything he touched, they made him -vibrate, kept him thrilled and throbbing, for most of his waking -consciousness, and they constituted as yet the principal events -and stages of his career. Fortunately they were often an immense -amusement. Everything in the field of observation suggested this or -that; everything struck him, penetrated, stirred; he had in a word -more news of life, as he might have called it, than he knew what to -do with—felt sometimes as he could have imagined an overwhelmed man of -business to whom the post brought too many letters. The man of business -indeed could keep a secretary, but what secretary could have cleared -up for Hyacinth some of the strange communications of life? He liked -to talk about these things, but it was only a few here and there he -could discuss with Milly. He allowed Miss Pynsent to 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 he at this crude period of his growth held -it was his lot to languish. It didn’t matter if one was a little more -or a little less misunderstood. He might indeed have remembered it -mattered to Pinnie, who, after her first relief at hearing him express -himself so properly on the subject of a matrimonial connexion with -Miss Henning, allowed her faded, kind, weak face little by little to -lengthen out to its old solemnity. This came back 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, however, 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 more than fifty years in a -world of wickedness; like so many London women of her class and kind -she had little sentimental softness for her own sex, whose general -“paying” seemed the simplest and most natural arrangement; 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 young person -who had taken a gross risk and a premature, lowering marriage for her -beloved little boy she very well knew which she preferred. It should be -added that her view of Millicent’s power to look after herself was such -as to make it absurd to pity her in advance. Pinnie thought Hyacinth -the cleverest young man in the, or at least in their, world, but her -state of mind implied that the young lady in Pimlico was cleverer. Her -ability, at any rate, was of a kind that precluded the knowledge of -suffering, whereas Hyacinth’s was somehow fairly founded on 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 element of romance which -overshadowed, though by no means eclipsing, 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 playfellow off and without indeed demanding of him an -account she was not on her own side prepared to give. Hyacinth was, -in the language of the circle in which she moved, her personal fancy, -and she was content to fill as regards himself the same eminent and -somewhat irresponsible position. She had the assurance that she was a -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; looking after him generally as no one, poor child, -had ever done. Millicent made light of the dingy dressmaker in this -view of her friend’s meagre little past (she thought Pinnie no better -than a starved cat) and enjoyed herself immensely in the character of -guide and philosopher. She felt that character never so high as when -she pushed the young man with a robust elbow or said to him, “Well, -you _are_ a sharp ’un, you are!” Her theory of herself, as we know, -was that she was the “best sort” in the world, as well as one of the -greatest beauties and quickest wits, 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 immense, 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 -he was fastidious, will be wondered at; the judgement will be that she -didn’t represent it very favourably. - -It may easily be believed that he criticised his inclination even while -he gave himself up to it, and that he often wondered he should find so -much to attract in a girl in whom he found so much to condemn. She was -vulgar, clumsy and grotesquely ignorant; her conceit was proportionate -and she hadn’t a grain of tact or of quick perception. And yet there -was something so elementally free in her, by his loose measure, -she carried with such an air the advantages she did possess, that -her figure constantly mingled itself even with those bright visions -hovering before him after Paul Muniment had opened a queerly-placed -but far-reaching window. She was bold and generous and incalculable, -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 would cry with -their tears. When he himself was not letting his imagination wander -among the haunts of the aristocracy and stretching it in the shadow -of an ancestral beech to read 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 raise it to passion, 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 as -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, for being 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 (with Pinnie to put sugar in his tea and let him never want for -neckties) like a regular little swell. - -Millicent, to hear her talk, only asked to keep her skirts clear -and marry some respectable tea-merchant. But for our hero she was -magnificently plebeian, in the sense that implied 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 oiled hair and plates in rows on dressers and stuffed birds -under glass and family photographs of a quite similar effect 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 Capital—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 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 him she was so -handsome. If she had been ugly he couldn’t have listened to her; but -the rare bloom and grand style of her person 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 commerce had -been 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 having put up for her. He invariably -pronounced the objects of her selection hideous and made no scruple to -assure her she had the worst taste of any girl in the place. Nothing he -could say to her affronted her so much, for her pretensions in the way -of a cultivated judgement 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 -made the point that 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 attitude of being -difficult to please, of seeing indescribable differences among the -smartest things. She had given herself out originally as very knowing, -but he could make her gape with doubts. 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 and bruised him with -her elbow, declaring 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 -couldn’t rid herself of a suspicion that there might be something in -his judgement and was angry at not finding herself as positive as any -one. Then he would reply that it was no use attempting to tell her; -she wouldn’t understand and had better continue to admire the insipid -productions of an age that had lost the sense of fineness—a phrase 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 that united him to his childhood’s -friend; but the effect followed on Millicent’s side and the girl was -proud to think herself 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 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 and she delivered herself according to her wont at -such junctures, she was a thousand miles from guessing the perverse -sentiments that 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 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 her fellow-sufferer the case was very different; the -remedy for him was terribly vague and inaccessible. He was liable to -moods in which the sense of exclusion from all he would have liked most -to enjoy in life settled on 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 reflexion, in which he felt how in this world of effort -and suffering life was endurable, the spirit able to expand, only in -the best conditions, and how 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 involve. - -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 on themselves to -make him smart with the sense that _he_ was above all out of it. He -felt, moreover, that there was neither consolation nor 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 on our young man his brothers of the people fared, -collectively, very ill 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 mightn’t do full -justice. It was not so much that he wanted to enjoy as that he -wanted to know; his desire wasn’t 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 on the stage of his -inner consciousness. 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 “bloated” as they passed didn’t so much as rest -their eyes on 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 fencing the “likes” of him off from social -recognition. - -And this was not the fruit of a morbid vanity on his part, or of a -jealousy that couldn’t be intelligent; his personal discomfort was -the result of an intense 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 yet 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 appeared to expect him -nevertheless to have them ready on demand, and Hyacinth had ever a -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 wasn’t there one half of him always -either 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 had sickened -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 that had transformed the whole -face of his future. It was one January afternoon when he had come in -from a walk. She was seated at her lamp, as usual, with her work, and -had begun to tell him of a letter 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 had listened to her story, standing in front -of her, and then by way of response had suddenly said to her: “Who was -that awful 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—this 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 awful woman?” - -“That woman in the prison years ago—how old was I?—who was dying and -who kissed me so, as I’ve 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 had lasted a week; -it was to leave her spent and sore for ever after, and before it was -over Anastasius Vetch had been called in. At his instance she had -retracted the falsehoods with which she had previously tried to put -the boy off, and had made at last a confession and a report which he -was satisfied to believe as complete as her knowledge. Hyacinth could -never have told you why the crisis had occurred on such a day, why his -question had broken 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 had reconstructed -his antecedents, taken the measure, so far as was possible, of his -heredity. His having the courage to disinter from 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 -Pinnie knew that 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 scarce -understood 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 judgement -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 they had refused absolutely to -recognise his lordship’s responsibility? Pinnie had to admit this -under Hyacinth’s terrible cross-questioning; she couldn’t 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 immutably as the son of the recreant -and sacrificed 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 Pinnie could tell him of her parentage was that Florentine -had once mentioned that in her extreme childhood her father, his gun -in his hand, had fallen in the blood-stained streets of Paris on a -barricade; but on the other side it took an English aristocrat to -account for him, though a poor specimen apparently had to suffice. -This, with its further implications, became Hyacinth’s article of -faith; the reflexion that he was a bastard involved in a remarkable -manner the reflexion that he was a gentleman. He was conscious 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 him resided; his mother wouldn’t have armed herself -on account of any injury less cruel than the passage 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, hopeless brat, lay there in her lap. _He_ was the one -properly to have been sacrificed: that remark our young man often made -to himself. That his judgement of the whole question was passionate and -personal and took little account of any disturbing conflict of evidence -is proved by the importance 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 had insinuated himself into her confidence he had had reasons -for preferring to be known as plain Mr. Robinson—reasons, however, -into which, in spite of the light thrown upon them at the trial, it was -difficult after so many years to enter. - -Hyacinth had never known of Mr. Vetch’s saying 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 had answered, with some -ingenuity, by remarking that she couldn’t call him after a man she -had murdered, as one must suppose her unwilling to publish to every -one his connexion 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 -judgement 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 a feature of the general fact of the poor -woman’s professional life—so much cutting and trimming and shaping and -embroidering, so much turning and altering and doing-up. When it came -over him that she had for years 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 over which he spent nine-tenths of his own time in all gloomily -brooding. 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 her to be 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 impracticability 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 she was making -up by so much for her grand mistake. He sometimes saw the name of his -father’s kin in the newspaper, but he then always cast the sheet away. -He had nothing to ask of them and 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. A thousand times yes, 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 he had -blood in his veins that 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 bob apiece?” he asked of her on a note of that -too uniform irony which formed the basis of almost all their talk. -She had replied that she would content herself with a seat in the -second balcony, in the very front; and as such a position involved -an expenditure still beyond his compass he waited one night on Mr. -Vetch, to whom he had already more than once had recourse in moments of -pecuniary embarrassment. His relations with the caustic fiddler were -of the oddest and much easier when put to the proof than 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 at the crisis of -that question of her captive’s being taken to call on Mrs. Bowerbank; -and Hyacinth, in the face of this information, had asked with some -sublimity what the devil the fiddler had had to do with his private -affairs. Their neighbour had replied that it was not as an affair of -his but as an affair of Pinnie’s he had considered the matter; and our -hero had afterwards let it drop, though he had never been formally -reconciled to so officious a critic. Of course his feeling on this -head had been immensely modified by the trouble Mr. Vetch had taken to -get him a place with old Crook; and at the period of which I write it -had long been familiar to him that the author of that benefit didn’t -care a straw what he thought of his advice at the dark hour and in -fact took a perverse pleasure in “following” the career of a youth put -together of such queer pieces. It was impossible to Hyacinth not to be -conscious that this projected attention was kindly; and to-day, at any -rate, he would have declared that nothing could have made up to him for -not knowing the truth, horrible as it might be. His miserable mother’s -embrace seemed to furnish him with an inexhaustible fund of motive, and -in the conditions that was a support. What he chiefly objected to in -Mr. Vetch was the betrayed habit of still regarding him as extremely -juvenile; he would have got on much better with a better recognition -of his being already a man of the world. The obscure virtuoso knew an -immense deal about society and 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 boon in life was a private -diverting commentary on the conversation of his young friend. Hyacinth -felt that he gave considerable evidence of patience with this when -he occasionally asked his fellow-resident in Lomax Place to lend him -half-a-crown. Somehow circumstances had of old 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 of him some substantial -service. Mr. Vetch had never once refused. It was satisfactory to -Hyacinth to remember as much when knocking at his door late, after -allowing him time to come home from the theatre. He knew his habits: -he never went straight to bed, but sat by his fire an hour, smoking his -pipe, mixing a grog and reading some old book. Hyacinth could tell 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 his neighbour 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 as on the spot to -settle 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 with a fine stare. - -“Why, you told me in the autumn that you were just about to join a few.” - -“A few? How many do you suppose?” But our friend checked himself. “Do -you suppose if I had been serious I’d tell?” - -“Oh dear, oh dear!” sighed Mr. Vetch. 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’m sorry to say -I haven’t a penny. But as you know people at the other theatres and -I’ve heard you say that you do each other little favours from place -to place, _à charge de revanche_, it occurred to me 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 said: “Do you want a box?” - -“Oh no; something more modest.” - -“Why not a box?” asked the fiddler in a tone the youth knew. - -“Because I haven’t the clothes people wear in that sort of place,—if -you must have such a definite reason.” - -“And your young lady—has _she_ the clothes?” - -“Oh, I daresay; she seems to have everything.” - -“Where does she get ’em?” - -“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; and while the young man helped himself he puffed a -while in silence. “What will she do with you?” he finally asked. - -“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’re talking about,” said Hyacinth. - -“Well, now the other thing—what do they call it? the Subterranean?—are -you very deep in that?” the fiddler went on as if he had not heard him. - -“Did Pinnie tell you also about that?” - -“No, our friend Puppin has told me a good deal. He knows you’ve put -your head into something. Besides, I see it,” said Mr. Vetch. - -“How do you see it, pray?” - -“You’ve got such a speaking eye. Any one can tell, to look at you, -that you’ve taken some oath on bloody bones, that you belong to some -terrible gang. 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 Subterranean.” - -“Is it more terrible, more deadly secret?” his companion asked with -extreme seriousness. - -“I thought you pretended to be a radical,” Hyacinth returned. - -“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 observed -more sententiously than he intended. - -“Is the time coming then, my dear young friend?” - -“I don’t think I’ve a right to give you any more of a warning than -that,” smiled our hero. - -“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 crowd in -all possible enjoyment with the young ladies: that’s a very natural -inclination.” To which Mr. Vetch irrelevantly added: “Do you see many -foreigners?” - -“Yes, a good many.” - -“And what do you think of them?” - -“Oh, all sorts of things. I rather like Englishmen best.” - -“Mr. Muniment for example?” - -“I say, what do you know about _him_?” Hyacinth asked. - -“I’ve seen him at the Puppins’. I know you and he are as thick as -thieves.” - -“He’ll distinguish himself some day very much,” said Hyacinth, who was -perfectly willing and indeed very proud to be thought a close ally of -a highly original man. - -“Very likely—very likely. And what will _he_ do with you?” the fiddler -inquired. - -Hyacinth got up; they looked at each other hard. “Do get me two good -places in the second balcony.” - -Mr. Vetch replied that he would do what he could, and three days -afterwards he handed his young friend the coveted order. He accompanied -it with the injunction, “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 on _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 powerfully laced, presented a splendid appearance -and, on Hyacinth’s part, gratified a 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 of 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 -entertained 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 she was rather -flushed and a good deal ruffled; but she had composed herself in season -for the rising of the curtain on the farce preceding 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, losing itself so effectually in the fictive world that -the end of the piece, however long or however short, brought with -it something of the alarm of 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 intermittently -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 at his -own point of view, his companion made him feel all the characteristic -points he had missed. Her interpretations differed from his largely -in being so very bold and irreverent. Miss Henning’s observation of -the London world 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 hypocrites and had in all ways a low opinion -of her own sex, which more than once before this she had justified to -Hyacinth by narrating observations of a 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 circumstances appearing 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! 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’d 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 to the back, which must have had considerable -depth. There were other persons there, 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 piece proceeded regarded it with a certain interest; -but till 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 while the fiddlers in the orchestra began to scrape -their instruments for the interlude. - -“Of course; I’m 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 friend was -once more at the front and leaning forward with his arms on the edge. -Hyacinth saw 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 didn’t immediately appear. “I say, I -say—is it one of your grand relations?” she promptly asked. “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 -reflexions. 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 no less surprised and -puzzled him, producing altogether, in his easily-excited organism, an -agitation of which, in spite of his attempted self-control, the air -he had for Millicent was the sign. They had met three times, he and -his fellow-spectator; but they had met in quarters that, 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. -Our friend 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, lean and loose-jointed; he fell into lounging, -dawdling attitudes and even at a distance looked lazy. He had a long, -amused, contented face, unadorned with moustache or whisker, and his -brown hair, parted at the side, came forward on either temple in a -rich, well-brushed lock, after the fashion of the portraits of 1820. -Millicent 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 continually smiled at something, 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 of any strength. 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 reserve. - -“Comes round to speak to us—a chap like that!” Hyacinth echoed. - -“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 that -amount of evidence of the intention she imputed to him. “I don’t think -I’m at all clear that I’ve a right to tell his name.” Hyacinth spoke -responsibly, yet with all disposition 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 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 reflexion 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 and crumpled white shawl—a -stout, odd, foreign-looking woman with a fair, nodding, wiggy head. She -had a placid, patient air and a round wrinkled face in which, however, -a pair of small bright eyes 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 daresay 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 of the -moment she declared that in that case, were he to come to see them, she -shouldn’t fear for herself. No wonder he wanted to get out of _that_ -box! The party in the wig—and what a 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 he quite liked her -appearance and admired in her a charm of her own; 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 she was covertly looking over her shoulder to watch for his -strange clubmate and that she would be disappointed if he didn’t come. -This idea didn’t 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, was 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 in more positive fashion than by Millicent’s -supposing it come out of the stage-box to see him, he would bring with -him rare influences. His view of this possibility made suspense akin to -preparation; therefore when at the end of a few minutes he became aware -that his young woman, with her head turned, was taking the measure -of some one who had come in behind them, he felt fate to be 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 she on her side -had performed with deliberation the ceremony of appraising him. The -Captain had his hands in his pockets and wore his crush-hat pushed a -good deal back. He laughed to 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, as if he were treating them rather too much -as a pair of children on whom he had stolen to startle them; 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—quite as -if Hyacinth had had at least an equal experience of that part of the -theatre. - -“It’s hot enough here too,” Millicent’s companion returned. He had -suddenly become much more conscious of the high temperature, of his -proximity to the fierce chandelier, and he mentioned 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’s 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 -start. She sustained his glance with composure, but with just enough -of emphasised reserve to intimate (what was perfectly true) that she -was not in the habit of conversing with gentlemen with whom she was -unacquainted. 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, facing toward 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 didn’t -know what one could talk of at such short notice to a person whom -he immediately perceived to be, and the more finely that it was all -unaggressively, a man of the world. He instantly saw Captain Sholto -didn’t 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 couldn’t in the presence of a third person allude to the -matters they had discussed at the “Sun and Moon”; nor might he suppose -his visitor would expect this, though indeed he impressed him as a -man of humours and whims, disposed to amuse 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 slightly embarrassed, now that he was completely launched -in his attempt at fraternisation, especially after failing to elicit -a smile from Millicent’s rare 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’s a very -different affair,” he said again to Millicent, who this time replied -“Oh yes, of course,” and, considering afresh the old woman in the box, -reflected that she looked as if there were nothing in the world that -she at least hadn’t seen. - -“We’ve never been abroad,” Hyacinth candidly said while he looked 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; on which Hyacinth remained uncertain of his reference and -Millicent decided to volunteer a remark. - -“They’re 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’ve the best seats -in the house,” said their visitor. “I should like very much to finish -my evening beside you. The trouble is I’ve ladies—a pair of them,” -he pursued 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’s 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 turn pale; the -first impulse he could have in connexion 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—a—his young friend (Hyacinth saw in -a moment that the Captain had forgotten his name) to look in at her if -he didn’t mind. - -“She has a tremendous desire to meet 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 declared -I must introduce you at any cost. I hope you don’t mind just for a -quarter of an hour. I ought perhaps to tell you that she’s a person -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’s really -very much in earnest: I don’t mean about wishing to see you—that goes -without saying—but about our whole job, yours and mine. Then I should -add—it doesn’t spoil anything—that she’s the most charming woman in the -world, simply! Honestly, my dear boy, she’s 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 capricious not to say presumptuous 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 avoidance. Of course the lady in the box couldn’t be -sincere; she might think she was, though even that was questionable; -but you didn’t really care for the cause exemplified in the guarded -back room in Bloomsbury when 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 indulge her. None the less, I must add, the whole proposal -continued to make things dance, to appear fictive and phantasmagoric; -so that it sounded in comparison like a note of reality when Millicent, -who had been turning from one of the men to the other, exclaimed— - -“That’s all very well, but who’s 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 charitable to her alarm -than the manner in which Captain Sholto reassured her. “My dear young -lady, can you suppose I’ve been unmindful of that? I’ve been hoping -that after I’ve taken down our friend and introduced him you might -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 grandly to the occasion. “I’m much -obliged to you, but I don’t know who you are.” - -“Oh, I’ll tell you all about that!” the Captain benevolently cried. - -“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’ve 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 on 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 put off to some other opportunity the honour of making -the acquaintance of your friend,” he added to their visitor. - -“Ah, my dear fellow, we might manage it so easily now,” this -gentleman murmured with evident disappointment. “It’s 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 good graces; -then he wondered 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 face 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 -this crudity: “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 ideas 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’d 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 inscrutable good: “Having been in the army you’ll 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’s 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 put before Millicent -that he would do just as she liked; he was determined not to let a -member of a justly-doomed patriciate suppose 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 spoke 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 returned with his perfect -ease 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 - - -His first consciousness after his companion had opened it was of his -proximity to the stage, on which the curtain had now again risen. 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 would at any rate not be left long -to languish in solitude. 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 -odd party he had already viewed at a distance; she looked queerer still -on a closer view and gave him a little friendly gratified nod. The -other was partly overshadowed by the curtain of the box, drawn forward -with the intention of shielding her 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 dazzled him. 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; then -for ten minutes he 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 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 consciously embarrassed, overturned -and bewildered; he made a great effort to collect himself, to consider -the situation lucidly. He wondered if he ought to speak, to look at -her again, to behave differently in some way; if she would take him -for a clown, for an idiot; if she were really as beautiful as she had -seemed or it were only a superficial glamour which a renewed inspection -would dissipate. While he so pondered the minutes lapsed and neither -of his hostesses spoke; they watched the play in perfect stillness, so -that he divined this to be the proper thing and that he himself must -remain dumb until a word should be addressed 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 bright benevolence. She might well be a -princess—it was impossible to conform more to the finest evocations of -that romantic word. She was fair, shining, slender, with an 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 still not have set that down to his simplicity, -for this was the effect the Princess Casamassima produced on persons -of a wider experience and greater pretensions. Her dark eyes, blue or -grey, something that was not brown, were as kind 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, something 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 her -visitor, as he held himself in his chair trembling with the revelation, -questioned if she were really of the same substance with the humanity -he had hitherto known. She might be divine, but he could see she -understood human needs—that she wished him to be at his ease and happy; -there was something familiar in her benignity, 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. He took in all these -things and finally said to himself that if she wanted nothing more of -him he was content, he would like it to go on; so pleasant was it to -be enthroned 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 charity, -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 so keeping her eyes -on her friend from Lomax Place, whose position she thus endeavoured -to gauge. He 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 if she would say anything. The -consideration of this problem as the moment of the solution drew nearer -made his heart again beat fast. He watched the old lady on his left -and supposed it was natural 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 on -his making 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 full anomaly of his situation. She seemed to argue 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 on her guest 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 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’d 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 so obliging as you.” - -Hyacinth could think immediately of no proper answer 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’d -come—to two strange women.” - -“Yes, we’re strange women,” said the Princess musingly. - -“It’s not true she finds things difficult; she makes every one do -everything,” her companion went on. - -The Princess glanced at her and then remarked to Hyacinth: “Her name -is Madame Grandoni.” The tone was not familiar, but there was a happy -shade in it, as if he had really taken so much trouble for them that -it was but 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’m not Italian—ah no!” the old lady cried. “In spite of my -name I’m an honest, ugly, unfortunate German. But _cela n’a pas -d’importance_. She also, with such a name, isn’t Italian either. It’s -an accident; the world’s 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 droll. In a -moment she added: “That was a very charming person you were with.” - -“Yes, she’s very charming,” Hyacinth replied, not sorry to have a -chance to say it. - -The Princess made no remark on this subject, and Hyacinth saw 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 find the play -very interesting?” - -He hesitated, then told the simple truth. “I must confess I’ve 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’re annoyed at being -here now you’ll 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 whatever in the people; I don’t -understand them and I know nothing about them. An honourable nature, of -any class, I always respect; but I won’t pretend to a passion for the -ignorant masses, because I have it not. Moreover that doesn’t touch the -gentleman.” - -The Princess Casamassima had a clear faculty of completely ignoring -things of which she wished to take no account; it was not in the least -the air of contempt, but thoughtful, tranquil, convenient 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 -vaguely conscious she had been committing herself in some absurd way: -“She lives with me; she’s everything to me; she’s the best woman in the -world.” - -“Yes, fortunately, with many superficial defects I’m as good as good -bread,” Madame Grandoni conceded. - -Hyacinth was by this time less embarrassed than when he had presented -himself, but he was not less mystified; he wondered afresh if he were -not being practised on for some inconceivable end: so strangely did -it strike him that two such products of another world than his own -should of their own movement take the trouble to explain each other -to a dire little bookbinder. This idea made him flush; it might have -come over him that he had fallen into a trap. He was conscious he -looked frightened, and he was conscious the moment afterwards that the -Princess noticed it. This was apparently what made her say: “If you’ve -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 asked. - -“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 -hand 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 witless stranger -to amuse her; perhaps that was the way the foreign aristocracy lived. -There was no sharpness in her face—for the present hour at least: there -was nothing but luminous charity, 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 almost of direct tenderness in the tone in which -she said: “Do you know I’m afraid I’ve already forgotten what they have -been doing—? It’s terribly complicated; some one or other was hurled -over a precipice.” - -“Ah, you’re a brilliant pair,” Madame Grandoni declared with a laugh -of long experience. “I could describe everything. The person who was -hurled over the precipice was the virtuous hero, and you’ll see him in -the next act all the better for it.” - -“Don’t describe anything; I’ve so much to ask.” Hyacinth had looked -away in tacit deprecation at hearing himself “paired” with the -Princess, and he felt 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 surprise 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.” But he had no sooner uttered the words than -it struck him they were far from brilliant, were poor and flat and very -little calculated to satisfy the Princess. Indeed he had said nothing -at all that could place him in a favourable light; so he continued at a -venture: “I mean I’ve never seen him at home.” That sounded still more -silly. - -“At home? Oh, he’s never at home; he’s all over the world. To-night -he was as likely to have been in Paraguay for instance—though what a -place to be!” she smiled—“as here. He is what they call a cosmopolite. -I don’t know if 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 lot of very interesting talk with you. That was what made -me say: ‘Oh, do ask him to come in and see me. A little interesting -talk, that would be a change!’” - -“She’s 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 describes to me. I should like so much to be present. -Why not?” - -“I haven’t seen any ladies,” Hyacinth said. “I don’t know if it’s a -rule, but I’ve seen nothing but men”; and he subjoined, 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 he ought to go -about reporting our proceedings.” - -“I see. Perhaps you think he’s a spy, an _agent provocateur_ 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.” He spoke as with mild amusement. - -“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 beautiful deep 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,” -she said of herself, however, “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 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 I tell you. Perhaps you didn’t know how he was drawing -you out.” - -“I’m afraid that’s rather easy,” said Hyacinth with perfect candour; -for it came over him that he _had_ chattered with a vengeance in -Bloomsbury and had thought it natural enough there that his sociable -fellow-visitor should offer him cigars and attach importance to the -views of a clever and original young artisan. - -“I’m 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’d be incapable of betraying you. However, -don’t trust him: not because he’s not safe, but because—!” She took -herself up. “No matter, you’ll 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’s so -difficult, especially for a woman in my position, who’s tiresomely -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, -but her tone perfectly natural and easy, with a charming assumption—for -you could call it nothing else—of more wonderful things than he -could count. Her manner of speaking was in fact altogether new to -her listener, for whom the pronunciation of her words and the very -punctuation of her sentences were the revelation of what he supposed -to be society—the very Society to the destruction of which he was -dedicated. - -“Surely Captain Sholto doesn’t suppose _I’m_ a leading spirit!” he -exclaimed with the resolve not to be laughed at any more than he could -help. - -“He told me you were very original.” - -“He doesn’t know, and—if you’ll allow me to say so—I don’t think _you_ -know. How should you? I’m 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’s nothing original about me at all. I’m 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 could possibly do. I’m a mere -particle,” Hyacinth wound up, “in the grey 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 betray ridiculous -effort, to stammer and emit vulgar sounds. For a moment she said -nothing, only looking at him with her exquisite smile. “I do draw you -out!” she exclaimed at last. “You’re 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 you’re remarkable enough.” - -“What do you think I’m remarkable for?” - -“Well, you’ve general ideas.” - -“Every one has them to-day. They have them in Bloomsbury to a terrible -degree. I’ve a friend (who understands the matter much better than -I) who has no patience with them: he declares they’re our folly, our -danger and our bane. A few very special ideas—if they’re the right -ones—are what we want.” - -“Who’s 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 and who’s in the employ of a big -wholesale chemist.” - -If he had designed in this description of his friend a stronger dose -than his hostess would be able to digest he was greatly mistaken. -She seemed to gaze tenderly at the picture suggested by his words, -and she immediately inquired if the young man were also clever and -if she mightn’t 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, as he believed, had had no -particular conversation with him, the Princess asked with startling -frankness if her visitor wouldn’t bring the person so vividly described -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 eyeglass with a -long gilt handle. He had perceived much 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 great lady compliments, even had -he 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; after all -he had a French heredity and it wasn’t so easy for him to say things -as ill as his other idiom mainly required. But Madame Grandoni, laying -down her eyeglass, almost took the words out of his mouth with the -cheerful exhortation: “Go and see her—go and see her once or twice. -She’ll 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’d find I’d go with you—pretty far. I was answering just -now for Captain Sholto; but who in the world’s to answer for _me_?” -And her sadness merged itself in a smile that affected Hyacinth as -indescribably 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 spirit was contagious; it gave Hyacinth the audacity to say to -her, “I’d trust _you_, if you did!” though he felt the next minute that -this was even a more familiar speech than if he had expressed a want of -confidence. - -“It comes then to the same thing,” said the Princess. “She wouldn’t -show herself with me in public if I weren’t respectable. If you knew -more about me you’d understand what has led me to turn my attention to -the great social question. It’s a long story and the details wouldn’t -interest you; but perhaps some day, if we have more talk, you’ll put -yourself a little in my place. I’m very serious, you know; I’m not -amusing myself with peeping and running away. I’m convinced that we’re -living in a fool’s paradise, that the ground’s heaving under our feet.” - -“It’s not the ground, my dear; it’s you who are turning somersaults,” -Madame Grandoni interposed. - -“Ah you, my friend, you’ve 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’m sure she could direct it in any sense she would wish!” the young -man responded in his glow. The pure, high dignity with which the -Princess had just spoken and which appeared to cover a suppressed -tremor of passion set his pulses throbbing, and though he scarcely saw -what she meant—her aspirations appearing as yet so vague—her tone, her -voice, her wonderful face showed she had a generous soul. - -She answered his eager declaration with a serious smile and a -melancholy head-shake. “I’ve no such pretensions and my good old -friend’s laughing at me. Of course that’s 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’ve a right -to say. I’m 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’s -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 and almost -as if he could tell her on the spot. Then suddenly she added in quite -a different tone: “Pardon me, I’ve an idea you know French. Didn’t -Captain Sholto tell me so?” - -“I’ve some little acquaintance with it,” Hyacinth replied. “I’ve French -blood in my veins.” - -She considered him as if he had proposed to her some attaching problem. -“Yes, I can see you’re not _le premier venu_. Now your friend, of -whom you were speaking, is a chemist; and you yourself—what’s your -occupation?” - -“I’m just a bookbinder.” - -“That must be delightful. I wonder if you’d bind me some books.” - -“You’d 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 -freely professed. - -“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,” he laughed. - -She seemed to reflect his innocent gaiety; she wasn’t a bit afraid -to let him see she liked him. “No, I don’t think I’ve heard of it. -I don’t know London very well; I haven’t lived here long. I’ve spent -most of my life abroad. My husband’s a foreigner, a South Italian. We -don’t live always together. I haven’t the manners of this country—not -of any class, have I, eh? Oh this country—there’s 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?” she asked, a little oddly, by -way of allowance for this. - -“Captain Sholto’s leaving the young lady—he’s 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 had just hesitated. “I live with a dressmaker.” - -“With a dressmaker? Do you mean—do you mean—?” But the Princess paused. - -“Do you mean she’s your wife?” asked Madame Grandoni more bravely. - -“Perhaps she gives you rooms,” the Princess suggested. - -“How many do you think I have? She gives me everything, or has done -so in the past. She brought me up; she’s the best little woman in the -world.” - -“You had better command a dress of her,” Madame Grandoni threw off. - -“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 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’s 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 as she opened and -closed it; after which she said: “Well then, you’ll come some day. -We’ll arrange it.” Hyacinth felt the answer to this could be only a -silent inclination of his utmost stature, and to make it he rose from -his chair. As he stood there, conscious 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’ll be a crisis—that you’ll make yourselves felt?” - -In this beautiful woman’s face there was to his 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’re 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’d give up everything—everything!” And the -Princess kept looking up at him. 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 sounded at 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 grasped his shoulder once more and shook him in that free -yet insinuating manner for which this officer appeared 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’ve the faculty, the precious -faculty, of inspiring women with an interest—but an interest!” - -“Yes, ask them in the box there! I behaved like an awful muff,” -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?” - -“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 out: “Don’t be afraid—you’ll go far.” - -When the young man took his place in the balcony beside Millicent she -gave him no greeting nor asked any question about his adventures in the -more privileged 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 what may that have been?” - -“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; in spite of which he would have liked to be -able to reply to Miss Henning that he didn’t believe a word of it. He -withheld the doubt and after a moment simply remarked: “Well, 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 at 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!” Hyacinth then wondered if -Captain Sholto had given her this formula. - - - - -XIV - - -He didn’t 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 in a degree that was hostile to fine -loose talk; but he discovered in him later 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 unexasperated, was indulgent even to contempt. 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 humour had no ferocity—the fault 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 -of a 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 never dragged in with the least snarl 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 save in so far as 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 merely, an imperturbably intelligent -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 -pronounced the young bookbinder a suggestive little beggar, and -Hyacinth’s opinion of him was by this time so exalted that the remark -had almost the value of a patent of nobility. Our hero treated himself -to a high unlimited faith in him; he had always dreamed of some grand -friendship and this was the best opening he had yet encountered. No one -could entertain a sentiment of that sort more nobly, more ingeniously -than Hyacinth, or cultivate with more art the intimate personal -relation. It disappointed him sometimes that his confidence was not -more unreservedly repaid; that on certain important points of the -socialistic programme Muniment would never commit himself and had not -yet shown the _fond du sac_, as Eustache Poupin called it, to so ardent -an admirer. He answered particular appeals freely enough, and answered -them occasionally in a manner that made Hyacinth jump, as when in reply -to a question about his attitude on 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 any real poverty of programme Hyacinth -was sure 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, gasp and turn pale. - -“She wants to see you; she asked me to bring you; she was very -serious,” our young man meanwhile said, reporting 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 it ought to be enough for me that she’s a friend of -yours? I’ve a notion you’ll have some queer ones before you’ve 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 said as he exhibited ten -work-stained fingers. - -“Buy a pair of gloves—” Hyacinth 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, good Lord! 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’re not obliged to find excuses for the pampered classes. Their -bloated luxury begets evil, impudent desires; they’re capable of doing -harm for the sake of harm. Besides, is she genuine?” - -“If she isn’t, what becomes of your explanation?” Hyacinth asked. - -“Oh, it doesn’t matter; at night all cats are grey. Whatever she -is, she’s an idle, bedizened trifler; perhaps even a real profligate -female.” - -“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’re already such a little mass of -corruption?” - -“You don’t think that—?” and Hyacinth looked 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 dark as a fish.” - -Paul Muniment glanced at his friend as if 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 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’s going on among the like of us?” - -“It depends on what class you mean.” - -“Well, a woman with a lot of wonderful jewels and wonderful scents -and the manners of an angel. I wonder if even the young ladies in the -perfumery shops have such manners—they can’t have such pearls. It’s -queer of course, that sort of interest, 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’m not in the least surprised at the aristocracy being -curious to know what we’re 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 tender -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 turned away. “You don’t trust me—you never have.” - -“We will, some day—don’t be afraid,” said Muniment, who evidently had -no intention of harshness, at least in respect to Hyacinth, a thing -that appeared impossible to him. “And when we do you’ll cry with -disappointment.” - -“Well, _you_ won’t,” Hyacinth returned. And then he asked if his friend -thought the Princess Casamassima a spy of spies—the devil she’d have -to be!—and why, if she were in that line, Sholto was not, since it -must be supposed he was not when they had seen fit to let him walk in -and out, at any rate, at the place in Bloomsbury. Muniment didn’t even -know whom he meant, not having had any relations with the gentleman; -but he summoned a sufficient image after his companion had described -the Captain’s appearance. He then remarked with his usual geniality -that he didn’t take him for anything worse than a jackass; 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 -workingmen’s clubs (Paul remembered now the first night he came; he -had been brought by that German cabinet-maker who always had a bandaged -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 halfway 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 armchairs and flunkies, in Pall Mall. And what did -he see after all in Bloomsbury? Nothing but a remarkably stupid “social -gathering” where there were clay pipes and a sanded floor and not half -enough gas and the principal papers; 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 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 objected. - -“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’s natural, but I’ve 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 said: “You show Lady Aurora over; -you seem to wish to give her the information she desires; therefore -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 on her. If the Princess will do -as much I’ll see what _I_ can do; 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, 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 incident at the -theatre more remarkable and romantic. He seemed to regard his mate’s -explanation of the passage as all-sufficient; but when a moment later -he made use, in referring to the mysterious lady, of the expression -that she was “quaking” that critic 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 resumed 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 and give it to her badly. -That’s your line, you know—to go in for what’s going, to live your -life, to gratify the ‘sex.’ I’m an ugly, grimy brute, I’ve got to watch -the fires and mind the shop; but you’re one of those taking little -beggars who _must_ run about and see the world. You ought to be an -ornament to society, like a young man in an illustrated storybook. Only -you know,” Muniment added in a moment, “if she should hurt you very -much I _would_ have a go at 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 she was his godmother—it -sounded so right) should pay this civility; but the affair had been -delayed by wan hesitations on the part of the dressmaker, the poor -woman having hard work to imagine to-day that there were people in -London forlorn enough for her countenance to be of value to them. -Her social curiosity had quite died out and she knew 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 him of taking an -unnatural interest in politics and of being 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 breast 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 soiree -at a scavenger’s. There was no more danger of Rose Muniment’s being -out than that one of the bronze couchant lions in Trafalgar Square -should have 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 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 their meeting there. He presented his companion to -their reclining hostess, and Rosy immediately repeated her name to the -representative of Belgrave Square. Pinnie curtseyed down to the ground -as Lady Aurora put out her hand to her, and then 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 seen him. -His attention, however, was mainly given to Pinnie: he watched her -jealously, to see if on this important occasion she wouldn’t put forth -a certain stiff, quaint, polished politeness of which she possessed -the secret and which made him liken her extraction of the sense of -things to the nip of a pair of old-fashioned silver sugar-tongs. Not -only for Pinnie’s sake but for his own as well he wished her to figure -as a superior little woman; so 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 -while 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: which it hadn’t done yet and perhaps never would—she lay so -quiet, pushing it about so little. “Perhaps you’d think it’s me that -trimmed the little handkerchief I wear round my neck,” Miss Muniment -said; “perhaps you’d 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 how it strikes you.” The girl -pulled off the bit of muslin from her neck and thrust it at Pinnie, -who looked at it confusedly and gasped “Dear, dear, dear!” partly in -sympathy, partly as if, in spite of the consideration she owed every -one, those were very odd 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) to spend -the evening with me at the height of the London season, 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’s very jocular indeed, but -fortunately I know how to take it. You can see 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—!” poor Pinnie floundered. - -“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 returned. “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 he -took the two; for how should I find (by which I naturally mean 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’s my dwelling-place, the prize was a beautiful -counterpane of every colour of the rainbow. Oh there never was such -luck as mine!” Rosy chattered, flashing her gay demented eyes at -Hyacinth as if to irritate him with her contradictious optimism. - -“It’s very lovely, but if you’d like another for a change I’ve got a -great many pieces,” Pinnie remarked with a generosity which made the -young man feel she was acquitting herself finely. - -Rose Muniment laid her little hand on the dressmaker’s arm and -responded straight: “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 invented or dreamed of since -the world began.” And with her other hand she stroked affectionately -her variegated quilt. “You’ve 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’ve -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 -to associate and blend them as closely as possible in their interest -in her. “In connexion 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’ve explained it: my idea is just simply a sweet pink -dressing-gown!” - -“A sweet pink dressing-gown!” Lady Aurora repeated. - -“With a neat black trimming! Don’t you see the connexion with what we -were talking of before our good visitors came in?” - -“That would be very pretty,” said Pinnie. “I’ve made them like that in -my time. Or a carefully-selected 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 -lack! Anything at all I should fancy, you were so good as to say. Well -now, I fancy that! Your ladyship does see the connexion by this time, -doesn’t she?” - -Lady Aurora looked distressed, as if she felt 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 small 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, since 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 flat on your back like that you had the right to reach out your -hands (it wasn’t far you could reach at best) and grab what you could -get. Pinnie declared she knew just the article Miss Muniment wanted and -that she would undertake to make a perfect duck 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 shone 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 idea -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 just the right sort of rub—there _are_ such wrong -sorts!—or another spoonful of that American stuff. We’re 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 connexion with the pink dressing-gown,” she -pursued 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 -discretion, 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 bent far away -in the country 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. Presently, to Hyacinth’s astonishment, Lady Aurora -said to him: “You never came after to get the books.” - -“Those you kindly offered to lend me? I didn’t know it was an -understanding.” - -She gave an uneasy laugh. “I’ve picked them out; they’re quite ready.” - -“It’s awfully kind of you,” the young man hastened to say. “I’ll come -and get them some day with pleasure.” He wasn’t very sure he would, but -it was the least he could profess. - -“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’ve no doubt she knows the way—she could tell me every street and -every turn!” Hyacinth laughed. - -“She has made me describe to her very often how I come and go,” his -companion concurred. “I think few people know more about London than -she. She never forgets anything.” - -“She’s a wonderful little witch—she terrifies me!” he acknowledged. - -Lady Aurora turned her modest eyes on him. “Oh, she’s so good, she’s so -patient!” - -“Yes, and so preternaturally wise and so awfully all there.” - -“Ah, she’s immensely clever,” said her ladyship. “Which do you think -the cleverer?” - -“The cleverer?” - -“Of the girl or her brother.” - -“Oh, I think he’ll be some day prime minister of England.” - -“Do you really? I’m so glad!” she cried with a flush of colour. “I do -rejoice if 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 -on her ladyship’s feelings, but when he felt her intense agreement -it was as if he had been making sport of her. Still he said no more -than he believed when he observed in a moment that he had the greatest -expectations of Paul Muniment’s future: he was sure the world would -hear of him, that England would need him, that the public some day -would acclaim him. It was impossible to know him without feeling he was -very strong and must play some important part. - -“Yes, people wouldn’t believe—they wouldn’t believe.” She abounded in -his sense and he could measure the good he did her. 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 or 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 hadn’t been intended he should do something supreme for -his fellow-men. Hyacinth confided to her ladyship that he thought the -people in his own class generally very stupid—distinctly what he should -call third-rate minds. He wished it hadn’t been so, for heaven knew 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 housing hadn’t a favourable effect -on the higher faculties. All the more reason that when there was a -splendid exception like their friend it should count for a tremendous -force—it had so much to make up for, so many 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 such judgements made his -fellow-guest very uncomfortable; she turned about, she twisted herself -vaguely as if she wished to protest, but she was far too considerate -to interrupt him. He had no wish to worry her, but there were times -when he couldn’t withstand the perverse satisfaction of insisting on -his lowliness of station, of turning the knife in the wound inflicted -by such explicit reference, and of 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 species. Lady Aurora replied as quickly as -possible that she knew a great deal about the poor—not the poor after -the fashion of Rosy, 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 and their quick wit, with -their command of conversation really of much more interest to her than -most of 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 rich and rare 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 swagger, but she brought it out. “I daresay I know more than any -one.” There was something touching and beautiful to Hyacinth in this -simple and diffident claim: it confirmed his impression that she was -in some mysterious, incongruous and even slightly ludicrous manner a -true heroine, a creature of a noble ideal. She perhaps guessed he was -indulging in reflexions 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 dear Rosy 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 he replied: - -“You mean she’s an exception to what I was saying?” - -She 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’ve blood in my veins that’s 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 way of taking it was the kindest in the world, but it didn’t -blind Hyacinth to the fact that from his own point of view he had been -extraordinarily indiscreet. He had 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 treat it as 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 his impression that people had ideas -about him, and with some of Miss Henning’s he had been made acquainted: -these were of such a nature that he sometimes wondered if the tie -uniting 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 he was impenetrable, and none the less he had -begun to swagger idiotically the first time a temptation (really 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 from the model of -civility 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. But -as soon as possible he gave himself a lesson in humility by remarking: -“I gather you spend most of your time among the poor and I’m sure you -carry blessings with you. But I frankly confess I don’t understand a -lady’s giving herself up to people like us when there’s no obligation. -Wretched company we must be when there’s so much better to be had.” - -“I like it very much—you don’t understand.” - -“Precisely—that’s what I say. Our little friend on the bed is -perpetually talking about your house, your family, your splendours, -your gardens and greenhouses. 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’re 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 and as if he were unexpectedly -discouraging. - -“But when all’s said I think 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, all -thankful for the word. “I don’t know if 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 faltered as if there might be something indecent in the confession -or uncertain in the recipient; and then evidently 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 intense things. “Already when I was fifteen years -old I wanted to sell all I had and give to the poor. And ever since -I’ve 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 didn’t prevent -his presently saying, though in words that sounded patronising even to -himself: “I suppose you’re very religious.” - -She looked away into the thickening dusk, at the smutty housetops, -the blurred emanation of lamp-light above the streets. “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 daresay -we had too many always at home; my father likes them so particularly. -I think I’ve known too many bishops, I’ve had the church too much on -my back. I daresay 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’re twelve at home and eight of us 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’s only one of us, Eva, -married, and we’re not at all handsome, and—oh there are all kinds -of things,” the young woman went on, looking round at him an instant -through her sense of being launched. “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 daresay 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’s 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 daresay I oughtn’t to say such things to you, but, as I tell you, -I’m quite a proper lunatic and I might as well keep up the character. -When one’s one of eight daughters and there’s very little money (for -any of _us_ at least) and nothing to do but to go out with three or -four others in mackintoshes, 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 goodness knows they’re in want of -it; but one must work with the vicarage, and at the vicarage are four -more daughters, all old maids, and it’s dreary and dreadful and one has -too much of it, for 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’re 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 contortions, as if afraid that -from one moment to the other she would repent, not of her confidence -but of her egotism. - -It placed her for Hyacinth in an unexpected light, making 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 this timorous, scrupulous, though clearly -all generous, creature to be evidently most a person not to spare, -wherever she could prick them, the institutions among which she had -been brought up and against which she had violently reacted. He had -always supposed a reactionary to mean 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 held 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 -that was a tribute to her sudden vividness while he 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 regular 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 on 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. Paul had brought -him up for Rosy’s entertainment, being ready, and more than ready, -always to introduce 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 can’t 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 dressed with ingenious cheapness, to an effect coinciding, -however different the cause, with poor Hyacinth’s own; but his disguise -prompted our young man to wonder what made him so unmistakably a -gentleman in spite of it—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 intense when it rested on our hero, whom -he greeted 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—he was altogether a problem. - -Rosy was a match for him, however; he evidently didn’t puzzle her -in the least and she thought his visit the most natural thing in -the world. She expressed all the gratitude 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, since the way he sealed a new -acquaintance was usually by bringing the person immediately to call -on 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 she disapproved: as yet, -however, she had not been obliged to draw the line. This was perhaps -partly because he hadn’t brought up any of his awful firebrands, the -people he knew for unmentionable reasons. Of such in general she had -a very small opinion, and she wouldn’t conceal from Captain Sholto -that she hoped he wasn’t 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 nevertheless entered quite into her views and told her -that it was as common friends of Mr. Hyacinth Robinson 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 his head; he -saw Captain Sholto might be trusted to make as great an effort for -Rosy’s entertainment as he gathered he had made for Milly Henning’s -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 had 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 arrived at as by a quick -freemasonry, the idea that Miss Pynsent should go home to Belgrave -Square with her ladyship and 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 brown “breadths” that -had proved their quality in honourable service and might be dyed to -the proper hue. 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 couldn’t 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 -and the observation 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 of the prospect of their -getting one of their own men—one of the Bloomsbury lot—into the House. -“He was mighty civil,” Muniment said, “and I don’t find that he has yet -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 makes up for it by not paying any attention to -the answers. He told me he’d give the world to see a really superior -workingman’s ‘interior.’ I didn’t know at first just where he proposed -to cut me open: 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’s, the cabinetmaker’s, neat home, 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 in 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 work to return him if that’s to be his -platform. 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 asked 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 rum, but he is certainly rummer. Don’t you think so now -you know him?” - -Paul eyed his young friend. “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 deep-sea 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?” Hyacinth eagerly asked. - -“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 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, his -friend was destined to draw ejaculations and echoes. - -Paul glanced toward the Captain, who was apparently more and more -engaged by Rosy. “In him I think there’s no great harm. He’s only a -patient angler.” - -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 Rosy asked Miss Pynsent to be -so good as to hand it about. They must let her poor ladyship rest a -little, mustn’t they?—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, however, and begged Pinnie -to let him relieve her, taking a cup from her hand; and poor Pinnie, -who noted in a moment that he was some kind of uncanny masquerader, 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 example of a tenement of its class?” It was with such -inquiries as this that the good gentleman beguiled their tea-drinking, -while Hyacinth made the reflexion that, though he evidently meant -them very well, they were characterised by a want of fine tact, by -too patronising a curiosity. The Captain invited 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 extreme animation. He had the manner of having made -over their visitor altogether to Rosy and of thinking that whatever -that personage said or did was all so much grist to her indefatigable -little mill. Lady Aurora writhed in her pain, and it is a proof of the -degree to which our slight 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 picked up by mysterious processes of her own. -At last her ladyship, on whom Paul Muniment had not been at pains to -bestow much conversation, took leave of her, signifying to Hyacinth -that for the rest of the evening she would assume the care of Miss -Pynsent. Pinnie might have been consciously laid bare for monstrous -rites 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 on she -reminded him under her breath and with a small sad smile of the many -years during which, after nightfall, she 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 Paul had indulged him and -too promiscuously investigating as he had just shown himself, this -ingratiating character 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 their host coming up, and Hyacinth felt rather ashamed, he could -scarce tell why, that his friend should see him marching off with the -“tout.” After all, if Paul had brought him to see his sister might not -Paul’s pupil and devotee at least walk with him? “I’m coming again, you -know, very often. I daresay you’ll find me a great bore!” the Captain -announced as he bade good-night to Muniment. “Your sister’s a most -interesting creature, one of the most interesting creatures I’ve ever -seen, and the whole thing, you know, exactly the type of place I wanted -to get at, only much more—really much more—original and curious. It has -been a jolly glimpse—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 expensive 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 Saint -Thomas’s Hospital) Sholto brought out: “By the way, why shouldn’t -you come home with me and see my little place? I’ve 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 demur; he had still in his ear the reverberation of -the Captain’s inquiries in Rosy’s room, and he saw no reason why he -on his side shouldn’t 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, where he had filled -the high wainscoted rooms with the spoils of travel and the ingenuities -of modern taste. There was not a country in the world he appeared -not 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, -solemnised the very 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 youth that he felt -himself hushed and depressed, so poignant was the thought that it took -thousands of things he then should never possess nor know to make a -civilised being. He had often in evening walks wondered what was behind -the walls of certain ample bright-windowed houses in the West End, and -now he got an idea. The first effect of the idea was to lay him rather -flat. - -“Well now, tell me what you thought of our friend the Princess,” the -Captain said, thrusting out the loose yellow slippers 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 while -his eyes wandered all over the room. - -“She was so interested in all you said to her; she’d 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 chap?” - -“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 its dim rich curiosities -hanging on the walls and glinting in the light of that rose-coloured -lamp. You yourself too—you’re strangest of all.” - -The Captain looked at him so silently and so fixedly, 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 signs 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 points 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 Milly had said about her at -the theatre—asked if this young lady had correctly understood him in -believing 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, that the Prince would at the -present hour give everything he owns in the world to get her back. -Fancy such an absurd 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 demand -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’ve seen many women, and the women of many -countries,” the Captain went on, “and I’ve seen them as intimately -as you like, and I know what I’m talking about; and when I tell you -that that one—that one—!” Then he suddenly paused, laughing in his -democratic way. “But perhaps I’m going too far: you must always pull -me up, you know, when I do. At any rate I congratulate you; I do right -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 go -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 pecuniary gains. 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 one somehow -of certain of Bulwer’s novels. His host gratified this pretension most -liberally and told him twenty stories of things of interest, often -of amazement, 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 his friend’s books, which he told -him frankly, with the conscience of an artist, were not up to the -mark. 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 grey London streets began to 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. Our personage, 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.” He made two reflexions: 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 always, wherever she was, -the most charming room 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 this to be -only when he had been baited past endurance, so 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 didn’t permit himself even -to murmur at the long delay he had to accept. 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 at first all a renouncement of words. She came to -him with both hands outstretched, and took his own and held them a -while, looking up at him with full benignity. She had elongated her -florid, humorous face to a degree that was almost comical, and the -pair might have passed, in their silent solemnity, for acquaintances -meeting in a house in which last obsequies were 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 sustain that -note 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 brow on which a more genial appreciation of the facts had -already begun to appear. - -“Never—never—never?” said the Prince in a deep hoarse voice, a voice -at variance with his attenuated capacity. He had much of the complexion -which in late-coming members of long-descended races we qualify to-day -as effete; but his tone might have served for the battle-cry 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’ve been talking with her: that’s what has made me keep you. -I’ve urged her to see you. I’ve told her that this could do no harm and -would pledge her to nothing. But you know your wife,” Madame Grandoni -repeated with an intensity now much relaxed. - -Prince Casamassima looked down at his boots. “How can one ever know a -person like that? I hoped she’d see me five little 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 asked as he turned his -blighted gaze to the opposite side of South Street. - -“In London, such a day as this, _già_,” said the old lady -sympathetically. “I’m very sorry for you; but if I had known you were -coming I’d have written to you that you might spare yourself the pain.” - -He gave a deep interminable sigh. “You ask me what I wish to propose. -What I wish to propose is that my wife shouldn’t kill me inch by inch.” - -“She’d be much more likely to do that if you lived with her!” Madame -Grandoni cried. - -“_Cara amica_, she doesn’t appear to have killed you,” the melancholy -nobleman returned. - -“Oh, me? I’m past killing. I’m as hard as a stone. I went through my -miseries long ago; I suffered what you’ve not had to suffer; I wished -for death many times and I survived it all. Our troubles don’t kill -us, _Principe mio_; it’s we who must try to kill them. I’ve buried not -a few. Besides, Christina’s fond of me, the devil knows why!” Madame -Grandoni added. - -“And you’re so good to her,” said the Prince, who laid his hand on her -fat wrinkled fist. - -“_Che vuole?_ I’ve known her so long. And she has some such great -qualities.” - -“Ah, to whom do you say it?” And he gazed at his boots again, for some -moments, in silence. Suddenly he resumed: “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 -a little and he replied with eagerness: “Ah, she’s the only woman I’ve -ever seen whose beauty never for a moment falls below itself. She has -no bad days. She’s so handsome when she’s angry!” - -“She’s very handsome to-day, but she’s 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. - -His old friend had a pause. “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 as he turned on her his -sad grateful eyes. - -“I’m very sorry for you. _Ma che vuole?_” - -The Prince had apparently nothing to suggest and only exhaled in reply -another gloomy groan. Then he inquired if his wife pleased herself in -that country and if 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 English capital 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 prepared or promised? She always at -the last moment did the other thing, the one that had been out of the -question; and it was for this Madame Grandoni herself privately made -her preparations. Christina, now that everything was over, would leave -London from one day to the other; but they shouldn’t know where they -were going till they arrived. The old lady concluded by asking if the -Prince himself liked England. He thrust forward his full lips. “How can -I like anything? Besides, I’ve been here before; I’ve many friends.” - -His companion saw 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—in spite of his position -of discomfiture, really very great—might find it difficult to square -itself. He looked vaguely round the room and presently remarked: “I -wanted to see for myself how she’s living.” - -“Yes, that’s very natural.” - -“I’ve heard—I’ve heard—” And Prince Casamassima stopped. - -“You’ve heard great rubbish, I’ve 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’s a model -of thrift—that she counts every shilling,” Madame Grandoni continued. -“If there’s 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”—he just hesitated, then went on—“spend -almost nothing at all. But I’d rather live on dry bread than that in a -country like this, in this great English society, she shouldn’t make a -proper appearance.” - -“Her appearance is all you could wish. How can it help being proper -with me to set her off?” - -“You’re the best thing she has, dear friend. So long as you’re 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’ll stay in the -bath when the hot water’s on. When I begin to be scalded I’ve to jump -out—naked as I may naturally be. I’ll stay while I can, but I shouldn’t -stay if she were to do certain things.” Madame Grandoni uttered -these last words with a clear emphasis, 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’s utterly impossible to predict on any -occasion what Christina will do. She’s 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 spot.” - -“So that if you’ve not left it yet—?” he asked with extreme eagerness. - -“It’s because I’ve thought I may do some good by staying.” - -He seemed but half content 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.—You might interpose, you might arrest—” He stopped short -before her large Germanic grimace. - -“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 under a slow spasm of pain. -“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’ll drag my name, do -what no one has ever dared to do? That I’d never forgive,” he declared -almost under his breath; and the hoarseness of his whisper lent it a -great effect. - -Madame Grandoni hastily wondered if 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 -reflexion 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 connexion with an ignorant and superstitious Italian -race whom she despised for their provinciality, their parsimony and -their futility (she thought their talk the climax of childishness) -and whose fatuous conception of their importance in the great modern -world she had on various public occasions sufficiently riddled with her -derision. She finally contented herself with remarking: “Dear Prince, -your wife’s a very proud woman.” - -“Ah, how could my wife be anything else? But her pride’s 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’re not there.” - -“Why then do you say that you enter into my fears—that you recognise -the stories I’ve heard?” - -I know not whether the good lady lost patience with his pressure; -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 -herself much more!” - -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 if suffering from his long -thin feet. He stopped before one of the windows and took another survey -of South Street; then turning he suddenly asked 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’s thought very strange of course. But she sees whom she likes. And -they mostly bore her to death!” Madame Grandoni conscientiously added. - -“Why then do you tell me this country pleases her?” - -The old woman left her place. She had promised Christina, who detested -the sense of being under the same roof with her husband, that the -latter’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’s the common people who please her,” she returned with -her hands folded on her crumpled satin stomach and her ancient eyes, -still keen for all comedy, raised to his face. “It’s the lower orders, -the _basso popolo_.” - -“The _basso popolo_?” The Prince stared at this fantastic announcement. - -“The _povera gente_,” pursued his friend, amused at his dismay. - -“The London mob—the most horrible, the most brutal—?” - -“Oh, she wishes to raise them.” - -“After all, something like that’s 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 this comforting assurance lost upon him; his -face was turned to the door of the room, which had been thrown open, -and all his attention given to the person who crossed the threshold. -She 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—afterwards informing her old friend that she had sent for him -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. - -Hyacinth stood, while she 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 -if 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 script could make them. - -“Good-morning, good-morning. I hope you’re well,” said Madame Grandoni -with quick friendliness, but turning her back upon him at the same time -in order to ask of their companion, in the other idiom, as she extended -her hand: “And don’t you leave London soon—in a day or two?” - -The Prince made no answer; he still scanned the little bookbinder -from head to foot, as if 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 -the heat of wonder in his fine 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 said as a prompt -precaution; in case he should have incurred the reproach of undue -precipitation. - -“Oh yes, I daresay.” And Madame Grandoni guided the Prince to the door -with an expression of the desire he might have a comfortable journey -back to Italy. - -But he stood stiff there; he appeared to have jumped to a dark -conclusion about 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 intensity: “Dearest friend, I beg you on -my knees!” After she had agreed that if he would write to her proposing -a day and place she would see him were it possible, he raised her -ancient knuckles to his lips and, without further notice of Hyacinth, -turned away. She bade the servant announce the other visitor to the -Princess, and then approached Mr. Robinson, rubbing her hands and -smiling, her head very much to 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’m twenty-four.” - -“And I hope you’re industrious, and temperate in all ways and—what do -you call it in English?—steady.” - -“I don’t think I’m very wild,” said Hyacinth without offence. 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’s considered meddling or impertinent.” - -“I like the way you speak,” Hyacinth hastened to profess. - -She stared, and then with a comical affectation of dignity: “You’re -very good. I’m glad it amuses you. You’re evidently intelligent and -clever,” she went on, “and if you’re disappointed it will be a pity.” - -“How do you mean if I’m disappointed?” - -“Well, I daresay you expect great things when you come into a house -like this. You must tell me if I upset you. I’m very old-fashioned and -I’m not of this country. I speak as one speaks to young men like you in -other places.” - -“I’m not so easily upset!” Hyacinth assured her with a flight of -imagination. “To expect anything one must know something, one must -understand: isn’t it so? And I’m here without knowing, without -understanding. I’ve 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 struck by his good looks, -by something delicate stamped on him everywhere. “I can see you’re very -clever, very intelligent; no, you’re not like the young men I mean. All -the more reason—!” And she paused, giving a short sigh. Her case might -have been all too difficult. “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 the Eternal City. If I hurt you, you -can explain it that way. No, you’re not like them.” - -“You don’t hurt me—please believe that; you interest me very much,” -said Hyacinth, to whom it didn’t occur that he himself might seem -patronising. “Of what do you want to warn me?” - -“Well—only to advise you a little. Don’t give up anything.” - -“What can I give up?” - -“Don’t give up _yourself_. I say that to you in your interest. I think -you’ve some honest little trade—I forget what. But whatever it may -be remember that to do it well is the best thing; better than paying -extraordinary visits, better even than being liked by Princesses!” - -“Ah yes, I see what you mean!” Hyacinth returned, exaggerating a -little. “I’m very fond of my trade indeed, I assure you.” - -“I’m delighted to hear it. Hold fast to it then and be quiet; be -diligent and good and get on. I gathered the other night that you’re -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 who -even think it 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’m 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’re 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’ll 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 - - -He 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 -couldn’t fail to deepen the emotion which, any time these three days, -had made him draw his breath more quickly. That emotion, nevertheless, -didn’t actually 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 his adventure -would throw him on 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 and of which the legs -and frame appeared of pure gold. Here he sat perfectly still, only -with 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 didn’t scruple to keep him -waiting 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 character 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 temperament. - -When at last the door opened and the servant, reappearing, threw it -far back as 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 arrived she was so simply dressed—besides his seeing her now -on her feet—that she looked quite a different figure. She approached -him rapidly and a little stiffly and shyly, but in the prompt manner -in which she shook hands was an evident desire to be very direct and -perfectly easy. She might have been another 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 assailing and bewildering -him as to the reality of the vision bequeathed to him by his former -interview. And in this peculiar high grace of her presence he couldn’t -have told you if she struck him as more proud or more kind. - -“I’ve 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’ve noticed some of them. Over on that side for instance is rather -a curious collection of miniatures.” She spoke abruptly, quickly, as -if 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 if 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 wouldn’t have appeared to him 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; immediately adding, however, that she was -afraid he had not many opportunities of seeing them, though of course -there were the public collections, open to all. He replied 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 fact appeared -to interest her greatly, so that she straightway begged him to tell her -what he thought of certain pictures and antiques. In this way it was -that in an incredibly short time, as appeared to him, he found himself -discussing the Bacchus and Ariadne and the Elgin Marbles with one -of the most remarkable women in Europe. It was true that she herself -talked most, passing precipitately from one point to another, putting -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 in -the least, but absurdly loved it. It didn’t occur to him to think these -discriminations pedantic. Suddenly she threw off, “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 decently pleaded. - -“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!”—and the young man stared, 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—naturally—nervous.” Later on, when he had -left the house, he wondered how at that stage he could have ventured on -such a familiar remark. - -But she had taken it with a quick, surprised laugh. “How do you know -that?” Before he had time to tell 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’ve 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’s your cousin the dressmaker?” she inquired -abruptly. And when Hyacinth had briefly given some account of poor -Pinnie—described her as 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’ve 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 with a sense of great -presence of mind. - -“It’s charming 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!” he smiled. - -There was a considerable silence, after which she pursued: “All I ask -of my husband is to let me alone. But he won’t. He won’t return my -indifference.” - -Hyacinth wondered what reply he ought to make to such an announcement -as that, and it seemed to him 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’m odious? I _can_ be—oh there’s no doubt of that! -However, I can honestly say that with the Prince I’ve 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’ll tell me it’s none of my business.” - -“Very true—she might!” the Princess inconsequently laughed. “And I -don’t know either why I should bore you with my domestic affairs; -except that I’ve been wondering what I could do to show you confidence -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 on me I just mention it, though the subject’s tiresome -enough. Moreover, I ought to let you know that I’ve very little respect -for distinctions of class—the sort of thing they make so much of in -this country. They’re 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’re -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’m more and more impressed with the fact that -you’re 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 -wasn’t easily shocked; and then restlessly, eagerly, as if it relieved -her to talk and made their queer conjunction 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 question, “What could really 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 on 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’ll help you with pleasure to the best of my humble ability. But -you’ll 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 through the -aristocracy. Nevertheless, though there was much of the same 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 drove -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 aspect and the address, and that perhaps made -their curiosity the more significant. - -“I haven’t the least doubt of it,” this investigator answered; “there’s -nothing in life in which I’ve 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 _naïfs_. The upper classes are so deadly _banals_. -My husband traces his descent from the fifth century, and he’s the -greatest bore in Europe. That’s the kind of people I was condemned to -by my marriage. Oh, if you knew what I’ve been through you’d 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 -beautiful. “The only objection to you individually is that you’ve -nothing of the people about you—to-day not even the dress.” Her eyes -wandered over him from head to foot, and their recognitions 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 returned. - -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 mentioned her -parentage—American on the mother’s side, Italian on the father’s—and -how she had led from her youngest 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 great name, and it had turned out as badly as her worst enemy -could have wished. 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 uneasy but 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 woman’s attachment. 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 she had for -several years 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 which was to throw herself into some effort -that 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 willing submission; she -seemed so natural, so vivid, so exquisitely generous and sincere. By -the time he had been with her half an hour she had made the situation -itself easy and usual, and a third person who should have joined them -at this moment would have noticed nothing to suggest 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 her visitor’s eyes no sinister aspect. Why was it not a noble and -interesting whim, and why mightn’t he stand for the hour at any rate -in the silvery moonshine it cast on his path? It must be added that he -was far from taking in everything she said, some of her allusions and -implications being 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 such 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 and all the scientific iconoclasts as well as by the -revolutionary spirit. He surely needn’t 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, didn’t -make her affect him any the less as a creature compounded of the -finest elements; brilliant, delicate, complicated, but complicated with -something divine. - -It was not till after he had left her that he became conscious she -had forced him to talk in spite of talking so much herself. He drew -a long breath as he reflected that he hadn’t made quite such an ass -of himself as might very well have happened; he had been saved by -the thrill of his interest 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, conscious -tension, as if the occasion had been a great appointed solemnity, -some initiation more formal than any he believed practised even in the -grimmest subterranean circles. He had said indeed much more than he had -warrant for when she questioned him on his “radical” 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 pride. 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’ve nothing -more remarkable to put before me?”—a question to which of course he -would have had an answer ready but for its being so impossible to say -he had never asked to come and that 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 if I shall ever see you again!” he replied with perfect -sincerity that it was scarce possible 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’s 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’s nothing essentially inconceivable in my seeing -you again; but it may very well be that you’ll never again find it -so pleasant. Perhaps that’s the happiness that comes but once. At any -rate, you know, I’m going away.” - -“Oh yes, of course; every one leaves town—!” Hyacinth rose to that -occasion. - -“Do _you_, Mr. Robinson?” the Princess asked. - -“Well, I don’t as a general thing. Nevertheless it’s possible that this -year I may get three or four days at the seaside. I should like to take -my old lady. I’ve done it before.” - -“And except for that shall you be always at work?” - -“Yes; but you must understand that I love 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,” our friend replied judicially. - -She looked a little chagrined, but after a moment pursued: “I wonder -whether you’d come to see me in the country somewhere.” - -“Oh cracky!” Hyacinth exclaimed, catching his breath. “You’re 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’re -going to be _banal_ too? I ask if you’d come.” - -He couldn’t have said at this moment whether he were plunging or -soaring. “Yes, I think I’d 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’d come.” - -“You mean you can’t leave your work like that? You might lose it if you -did, and then 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 and complications 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 struck her visitor as quite sacred. “After all I don’t -know where I shall be. I’ve got to pay stupid visits myself, visits -where the only comfort will be that I shall make the people jump. -Every one here thinks me exceedingly odd—as there’s no doubt I am! -I might be ever so much more so if you’d 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’ve -got through that _corvée_; I shall be here next year. In the meantime -don’t forget me,” she went on as she rose 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 high radiance. Then in a manner almost equally -quaint 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’m not by nature persevering, and am really very easily put -off, I don’t consider they’ll prove insurmountable. They exist on my -side as well, and if you’ll help me to overcome mine I’ll do the same -for you with yours.” - -These words, repeating themselves again and again in his 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 despite much handling. 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 old Crook’s, 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 to him the fruit of his -toil, and much more freely expressed than that of old Crook himself, -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 major-domo -in charge of the house, opening the door yet looking down at him as -if from a second-story window, took the life out of his vision and -erected instead of it, by a touch, a high blank wall. The Princess had -been absent for some days; her representative 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 “jucal” circle. He decided to retain -his little package for the present; he would offer it to her when he -should see her again, and he retreated without giving it up. Later on -it seemed to create a manner of material link between the Princess and -himself, and at the end of three months it had almost come to appear -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 our young man, 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 to a virtual -proof and gage—as if a ghost in vanishing from sight had left a -palpable relic. - - - - -XVIII - - -The matter touched him but indirectly, yet 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 in the foreign fashion at twelve o’clock—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 tepid and tasteless _réchauffé_, as it -struck our old friend, of the typical London fog. 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 threw into high relief. They remained -there nearly an hour, though Madame Grandoni, in spite of her leaning -to friendly interpretations, couldn’t have told herself what comfort -it was to her afflicted companion. She had nothing to say to him that -could better his case as he bent his mournful gaze on a prospect 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. She 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 conducted himself after the fashion of -a spoiled child, a 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 judgement, had put his uncles upon her (as if she -cared for his uncles, powerful prelate as one of them might be!), had -been suspicious and jealous on exactly the wrong occasions—occasions as -to which her resentment of it had been just and in particular had been -showy. He had not been clever enough or strong enough to make good his -valid rights, and had transferred the whole quarrel to ground where his -wife was far too accomplished a combatant not to obtain the appearance -of victory. - -There was another reflexion for Madame Grandoni to make 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 (mixed 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 reached that particular crisis, Christina’s active, various, -ironical mind, with all its audacities and impatiences, could not have -tolerated long the simple deadly dulness of the Prince’s company. The -old lady had begun on meeting him: “Of course what you want to know at -once 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 assures me she has -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’ve made the mistake, -as she considers it, of approaching her again. We talked of you last -night after your note came to me—for five minutes; that is, I talked in -my independent way and Christina was good enough to listen. At the end -she spoke briefly, 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’s 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 contentedly -alone!’ Those were your wife’s remarkable words; they’re 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 they might form a wholesome admonition, but she now -saw 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 after all neither -a crime nor a design nor a preference. How could the Prince occupy -himself, what interests could he create and what faculties, gracious -heaven, did he possess? He was as ignorant as one of the dingy London -sheep browsing before them, and as contracted as his hat-band. His -expression became pitiful; it was as if he dimly measured the insult, -felt it more than saw it—felt he couldn’t plead incapacity without -putting his wife largely in the right. He gazed at Madame Grandoni, his -face worked, and for a moment she thought he was going to cry right -out. But he said nothing—perhaps because he was afraid of that—so -that suffering silence, during which she gently laid her hand on his -own, remained his sole answer. He might doubtless do so much he didn’t -that when Christina touched on 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 taken more form. -But at last, as if he had not heard her, he broke out on the identity -of the young man who had come in the day he called, just as he was -going. - -Madame Grandoni risked the truth. “He was the Princess’s bookbinder.” - -“Her bookbinder? Do you mean one of her lovers?” - -“Prince, how can you dream she’ll 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_,” he added as if the -declaration justified him. - -“I told you the other day that she’s making studies of the people—the -lower orders. The young man you saw is a study.” She couldn’t help -laughing out as she gave her explanation this turn; but her mirth -elicited no echo. - -“I’ve thought that over—over and over; but the more I think the less I -understand. Would it be your idea that she’s quite crazy? I must tell -you I don’t care if she is!” - -“We’re 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’s trying democracy, she’s going all lengths in radicalism.” - -“_Santo Dio!_” murmured the young man. “And what do they say here when -they see the bookbinder?” - -“They haven’t seen him and perhaps they won’t. But if they do it won’t -matter, because here everything’s forgiven. That a person should be -extraordinary in some way of his own—and a woman as much as a man—is -all they want. A bookbinder will do as well as anything else.” - -The Prince mused a while. “How can she bear the dirt, the bad smell?” - -“I don’t know what you’re 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’re full of gin; their faces are awful, 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?” - -His friend looked at him a little sternly. “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’ll 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 didn’t admit his error and she doubted if he even saw 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’s better to conceal.” - -“It all depends on whether you’re afraid. Christina never is. Oh, I -grant you she’s very perverse, and when the entertainment of watching -her, to see how she’ll carry out some of her inspirations, is not -stronger than anything else I lose all patience with her. When she -doesn’t charm she can only exasperate. But, as regards yourself, since -you’re here and I mayn’t 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 her seem to you a -little less fantastic. At the bottom then of much that she does is the -fact that she’s ashamed of having married you.” - -“Less fantastic?” the young man repeated, staring. - -“You may say that there can be nothing more extravagant—as even more -insane—than that. But you know—or if not it isn’t for want of her -having told you—how 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’t for the -rest of her days be serious enough to make up for it.” - -“Yes, I know 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,” the old woman smiled. -“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’re not anything of that low sort, thank God! _Dio mio, Dio -mio!_” groaned the Prince. He seemed so exhausted by his reflexions -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 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 South Street (she wished him to come no further) 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’s 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’s he who has occupied you most!” -Madame Grandoni exclaimed with a sigh. “But in reality he’s the last -one you need trouble about. He doesn’t count the least little bit.” - -“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’s 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 that 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 detailed this episode -minutely 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’re all there together and -everything’s 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 hadn’t been afraid to -appear to notice the disrepair of these objects she should have been -so happy to offer to do any little mending. “If she’d only come to -me every week or two I’d keep up her rank for her,” said Pinnie, who -had 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 dressing up the cat. This -was the second perversity that left Miss Pynsent cold; it couldn’t 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 puppy 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 “confidential” -housekeeper, a person 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 Pinnie at once announced to him that -her ladyship had been there to look at it—to pass judgement before the -last touches were conferred. The dressmaker intimated that in such -a case as that her judgement was rather wild and she seemed to have -embarrassing ideas 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 “Plice”: not in a meddling, prying way, either, like some of -those condescending swells, 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 on my life, 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 it all: “How can I believe you, and yet how can I prove you’re -lying? I’m 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’d never condescend to that.” Pinnie suffered acutely from this -imputation, yet exposed herself to it often, because she could never -deny herself the pleasure, keener still than her pain, of letting -Hyacinth know he was appreciated, admired and, for those “charming -manners” commended by Lady Aurora, even all but wondered at in so many -words; 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 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 as a man of the world; and meanwhile he considered much -the extreme oddity of this new phase of his life which 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 were even taking up poor Pinnie as a means of -getting at him; so that he wondered with gaiety and irony if 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 appeal, -conducted him through the house and ushered him into her ladyship’s -presence without the smallest relaxation of a pair of tightly-closed -lips. His good hostess was seated in the little breakfast-parlour -by the light of a couple of candles and apparently immersed in a -collection of 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 hair 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’ve 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 noted that -her nervousness and 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, staying half an -hour, 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, -_Le 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 -consistent 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 our -young man 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 prohibitory -presences. She spoke again of the poor people in the south of London -and of 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 their state—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: the rich -couldn’t consider poverty in the light of experience. Their mistakes -and illusions, their thinking they had got hold of the sensations of -want and dirt when they hadn’t at all, would always be more or less -irritating. It came over Hyacinth that if he found this deficient -perspective in Lady Aurora’s deep conscientiousness it would be a -queer enough business when he should come to pretending to hold the -candlestick for the Princess Casamassima. - -His present hostess said no word to him about Pinnie, and he guessed -she must have wished to place him on the footing on which people don’t -express approbation or surprise at the decency or good-breeding of -each other’s relatives. He saw how 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 shouldn’t -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 at once the sense -of learning more about life, a sense always delightful to him, 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 -and reform might have implied he was a benevolent nobleman (of the type -of Lord Shaftesbury) who had endowed many charities and was noted, -in philanthropic schemes, for the breadth of his views. 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 if she did) 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 and encouragingly: “I suppose one -of these days you’ll be setting up in business for yourself.” This was -not so cruelly patronising that he couldn’t 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’ve no turn at all for that sort of thing.” - -Lady Aurora looked a little surprised. “Oh, I see; you don’t like—you -don’t like—!” She hesitated: he saw she was going to say he didn’t like -the idea of going in to that extent for a trade; but he stopped her in -time from imputing to him a sentiment so foolish and declared what he -meant to be simply that his one faculty was the faculty of doing his -little piece of work, whatever it was, of liking to do it skilfully -and prettily, and of liking still better to get his money for it when -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 left her she asked 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 he think -him a very odd sort of person? Hyacinth confessed to this impression; -whereupon Lady Aurora went on anxiously, eagerly: “Don’t you consider -him 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 form relations with any one of that kind.” - -“They” of course meant Paul Muniment and his sister. “With a person -who may be vulgar?”—Hyacinth regarded this solicitude as exquisite. -“But think of the people they know—think of those they’re 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 if she wouldn’t find the -Princess herself a bit vulgar. - - - - -XX - - -It must not be supposed that his relations with Millicent had remained -unaffected by the remarkable incident that had brushed her with its -wing at the theatre. The whole occurrence had made a great impression -on the young lady from Pimlico; he never saw her, for weeks afterwards, -that she had not an immense deal to say about it; and though it -suited her to cultivate the shocked state at the crudity of such -proceedings and to denounce 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 she enjoyed having -rubbed shoulders across the house with a person so splendid and having -found her own critical estimate of her friend confirmed in such high -quarters. She professed to draw 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 notes of it having nothing in common save that -they were alike unflattering to the Princess. Hyacinth had many doubts -of the Captain’s having talked indiscreetly; it would be in such a case -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 fine faculty of free invention of which he had -had frequent glimpses, under pressure of 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) -didn’t 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 as to whom she only knew that she disliked her and -could hope for no esteem, and indeed for no recognition of any kind, -in return. When people were fully 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 didn’t pretend to repeat the remainder of his conversation, -taking on her air of grand indifference when Hyacinth amused himself -with repaying her criticism of his new acquaintance by drawing a -sufficiently derisive portrait of hers. - -His line was 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 revolutionist and -should like therefore to confer with the little firebrand above 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 showing so much -more charm than might have been expected. He described with sportive -variations his visit in South Street, conscious 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, emphasised -the frankness, the passion and pluck 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 couldn’t take upon himself to say, -but her affection would never assume 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 any actual ground for the girl’s jealousy of the Princess -he never thought; it couldn’t 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 bouncing shop-girl in a contest -for a prize which should have anything of _his_ figure. How could they -show the least common mark—even so small a one as a desire to possess -themselves of Hyacinth Robinson? A fact he didn’t impart to Millicent -and could have no wish to impart to her was the different 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 Milly make free with the ministering angel -of Audley Court. The distinction was perhaps somehow in her appearing -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, but offered in its unsuspected rear a security still 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 one had a secret hope one should some day command more light, -he was probably buffeting breezy 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 mused, while his imagination followed him through -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 that unite these regions of labour. He had told the Princess 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 -lack of this convenience and was forcibly reminded that the society -of agreeable women was a direct and constant appeal to the pocket. -He not only hadn’t a penny, but was much in debt, owed pence and -shillings, as he would have largely put it, all over the place, and -the explanation of his pinched feeling was in a vague half-remorseful, -half-resigned reference to the numerous occasions when he had had not -to fail of funds 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 had come over him that one -couldn’t call on a princess just as one was. So this year he didn’t -ask old Crook 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 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 in 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. Our young friend’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 in a manner a 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 way that marked -him as a queer lot, but capable of queerness in the line of equanimity -too. He hadn’t 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 one be only 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 a daily dusky exhibition of -projected shadows, confined to the passive part of life and giving -no hostages to reality, or at least to ambition, save an insufficient -number of shillings on Saturday night and stray spasmodic reminiscences -of delicate work that might have been more delicate still, as well as -of such applications of the tool as he flattered himself unsurpassed -unless by the supreme Eustache. - -One evening in November he had after discharging himself of a -considerable indebtedness to Pinnie still a sovereign in his pocket—a -sovereign that seemed to spin there under the equal breath of a -dozen different lively 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 of how nice it would be to take -something to Rose Muniment, who delighted in a sixpenny present and -to whom he hadn’t for some time rendered any such homage. At last, -after he had wandered a while, hesitating between the pilgrimage to -Lambeth and the possibility of still associating the two or three hours -with those perhaps in some lucky way or other at Millicent Henning’s -disposal, he reflected that if a sovereign was to be pulled to pieces -it was a simplification to get it changed. He had struck through -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 with a rush it was so much gained to plunge into -a quarter where, 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 -the large district abutting on Grosvenor Square partake of the general -gentility of the neighbourhood, so that our friend 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 -lonely reveller 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,” -Hyacinth said. - -“Ah, because I’ve not been at the ‘Sun and Moon’? Well, I’ve 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 daresay 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, were it 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. Yet it was -not any lower 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 the pang of the felt charm that a good -tailor would add 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 and his like had the world in their pocket. Sholto -requested the barmaid to please not dawdle in preparing the brandy -and soda 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 didn’t he -appear to encourage him not to linger as he drank it and to smile down -at him very kindly and amusedly, as if the combination of so small a -bookbinder and so big a tumbler were sufficiently droll? The Captain -took time, however, to ask how he had spent his autumn and what was the -news in Bloomsbury; he further inquired about those jolly people across -the river. “I can’t tell you what an impression they made on me—that -evening you know.” After this he went on suddenly and irrelevantly: -“And so you’re just going to stay on for the winter quietly?” Our hero -stared: he wondered what other high course could be imputed to him; -he couldn’t 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’ve got your work, and that sort of thing”; and as Hyacinth -didn’t succeed in swallowing at a gulp the contents of his big tumbler -he asked him presently if he had heard anything from the Princess. Our -youth replied that he could have no news except what the Captain might -be good enough to give him; but he added that he had been to see her -just before she left town. - -“Ah, you did go? That was quite right—jolly right.” - -“I went because she very kindly wrote me to come.” - -“Ah, she wrote to you to come?” The Captain fixed him a moment with -his curious colourless eyes. “Do you know you’re a devilish privileged -mortal?” - -“Certainly I know it.” Hyacinth blushed and felt foolish; the barmaid, -who had heard this odd couple talking of a princess, was staring at him -too with her elbows on the counter. - -“Do you know there are people who’d give their heads that she should -write them to come?” - -“I’ve no doubt of it whatever!”—and he took refuge in a laugh that -sounded less natural than he would have liked, and wondered if his -interlocutor weren’t precisely one of these people. In this case the -barmaid 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 re-enforced 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’re in -correspondence with her why do you say you can hear from her only -through me? My dear fellow, I’m not in correspondence with her. You -might think I’d naturally be, but I’m 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 but -once, and mentioned her having told him how her letter-writing came -on 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 knowingly returned. “Look out for the next fit! She’s -visiting about, you know—at a lot of great houses. It’s a great thing -to be somewhere 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 place 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 rum -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 -good bust? It’s a pity they always have such beastly hands.” Hyacinth -had instinctively 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 a prompt encounter with a young woman who, coming in the opposite -direction, turned the angle as briskly as themselves. At this moment -he gave his friend a great jerk, but not before Hyacinth 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. - -“Hullo, Millicent!” This was the simple cry that escaped from his lips -while the Captain, still going on, but threw off, “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 he saw 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, and with violence, and -to ask him why he should look 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: - -“Whatever 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 not at once placing 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—and she had not, however slightly, hesitated. “I at least -disavow the indiscretion. Where may not a charming woman be going when -she trips with a light foot through the deepening dusk?” - -“I say, what are you talking about?” the girl demanded with dignity of -Hyacinth’s companion. She spoke as if with a resentful suspicion that -her foot had not really been felt to be light. - -“On what errand of mercy, on what secret ministration?” the Captain -laughed. - -“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, you know.” - -“We met in that public-house,” the Captain said, “and 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 the sense -of a certain dishonesty in the air and glad 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’re playing me false?” Hyacinth flashed out. -He had been thinking with still intentness as they walked; at once -nursing and strangling a kindled suspicion. He was pale with the idea -that he had been bamboozled, yet was able to say to himself that one -must allow in life, thank goodness, 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 on 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 apt to be 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 -wonderfully smiled. - -Hyacinth turned on him staring and at once provoked and baffled by -his ambiguous part in an incident it was doubtless possible to magnify -but not possible to treat as perfectly simple. “Certainly I’ve been to -the Princess Casamassima, thanks to you. When you came and pressed me -to go, when you dragged me, do you make it a reproach? Who the devil -are you, anyway, and what do you want of me?” our hero cried—his mind -flooded in a moment with everything in the Captain that had puzzled -and worried and escaped him. This swelling tide obliterated on the spot -everything that had beguiled. - -“My dear fellow, whatever I am I’m 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’m 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’re 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 declared them a dear delightful abominable pair; he pronounced -it rarely interesting to see how in people of their sort the prime -passions lay near the surface; he almost pushed them into each other’s -arms and then wound up with 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 by his -having eventually placed this idea in so attractive a light that his -companions 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 our young man’s 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 this understanding -flourished at his expense the whole evening constituted for them indeed -an opportunity, and that thought rendered his diversion but scantly -absorbing, though at the Pavilion the Captain engaged a big private box -and ordered ices 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 repeatedly on his lips—the impulse -to demand 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, before leaving the Pavilion he -decided with one of his highest flights of intelligence that he could -quite well see what Lady Aurora had meant by calling 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 to the retention of breath, and when he -said nothing 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 divined him at moments bored or irritated by the serious manner -in which his small worrying bookbinder couldn’t conceal from the world -that he regarded him. He wondered if this were a system, a calculated -prudence, on Muniment’s part, or only a manifestation of the superior -brutality latent in his composition and which, without an intention of -direct harshness, was naturally impatient 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 crude fatuity 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 -bob—with seventeen bloody bob? What am I to do with them—will ye tell -me that?” an interrogation which in truth usually ended by producing -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 haul ’em straight up. A -little shoemaker with red eyes and a greyish 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 v’ice of the company on that question.” - -When the tone fell as low as this Paul Muniment held his peace save for -whistling a little and 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 his young comrade—too valuable a weapon, so that he 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 amount, 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 wouldn’t 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 sore, sharp, tantalising desirableness into that -of solid, seated reality. Muniment was listened to unanimously when -he spoke and much talked about, usually with a knowing, implicit -allusiveness, when he was absent; it was generally admitted he could -see further than most. But it was suspected 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 -’eave a brick this was far enough. There was an idea he had nothing -particular to complain of personally, or perhaps that if he had he -didn’t complain of it—an attitude which could only contain the germs -of a latent disaffection. Hyacinth was aware of being himself 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 by announcing -that he hadn’t had a penn’orth 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 cruellest 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 held in his hand a fine bread-winning tool on which he might -absolutely count. He was also not unadvised, however, that his position -in this little band of malcontents (it was small only if measured -by the numbers gathered on any one occasion; he liked to think it -large in its latent possibilities, its mysterious ramifications and -affiliations) was peculiar and distinguished: it would be favourable -if he should develop 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 on 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 -Crook’s had said to him, as if to anticipate such an impugnment of -his discretion: “Remember, my child, that I’m 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’s a mystic -language which dispenses with proofs—a freemasonry, a reciprocal -divination: they understand each other at half a word.” It was at half -a word then in Bloomsbury that Hyacinth had been understood; but there -was a certain delicacy in him that forbade him to push his advantage, -to treat implications of sympathy, none the less definite for being -awkward and obscure, 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 imposed 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 -and stiffen its claws—at these hours, some of them thrilling enough, -Hyacinth waited for the voice that should allot 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 he -waited for the sacred 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 reached -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 affected him as wiser then, as more richly -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 hell am I -to do with half a quid?” 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 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 even -in their most infuriated hours felt as Britons, appeared never to have -made the subtle reflexion, though they made many others, that there -was a want of tact in his calling on 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 supreme France one was -nowhere worth speaking of, and ended by producing an impression that -that country had a quite supernatural charm. Muniment had once said -to Hyacinth that he was sure Poupin would be very sorry to be enabled -to go home again (as he really 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 so suffered from it. - -“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’re 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 an untidy bandage round his neck, as if for a local ailment. “You -remind us—that’s very well; but we shall forget it in half an hour. -We’re not serious.” - -“_Pardon, pardon_; for myself I don’t admit that!” Poupin replied, -striking the table with his finger-tips several times, very fast. “If -I’m not serious I’m nothing.” - -“Oh no, you’re something,” said the German, smoking his monumental pipe -with a contemplative air. “We’re all something, but I’m not sure it’s -anything very useful.” - -“Well, things would be worse without us. I’d jolly rather be in -here, in _this_ kind of muck, than outside,” remarked the fat man who -understood dogs. - -“Certainly, it’s very pleasant, especially if you’ve your beer; but -not so pleasant over there at the Docks, where fifty thousand people -starve. It’s a very unpleasant night,” the cabinet-maker went on. - -“How can it be worse?” Eustache Poupin asked while he looked at the -German as to make him responsible for the fat man’s reflexion. “It’s 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 grey-faced shoemaker -demanded. “I daresay 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 a bloody rap 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’s 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’s too much to expect. Mr. Muniment’s very -serious; he looks as if he was waiting for the signal, but he doesn’t -speak—he never speaks if I want particularly to hear him. He only -deliberates very deeply—oh I’m sure. But it’s 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 at 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 -collected at the “Sun and Moon,” looked at him or listened to him all -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 rather -awful in twenty. - -Muniment smiled 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 little to look at him. “If I keep quiet 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’ve seen him I shall be perfectly satisfied.” - -“Upon my word I should hope so! Do you think he’s the kind of bloke 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 while he resumed -his muffled whistle again. - -“Take care—take care; you’ll 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 daresay -it’s 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 bloody 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’s useful,” the German remarked philosophically among -his yellow clouds. - -“Do you mean to say you’re not prepared for that yourself?” Muniment -asked 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’ll smash best who’ve been inside,” the German said; “unless -they’ve only gone bad, like fish too long caught. But Hoffendahl’s all -there yet.” - -“Ah no; no smashing, no smashing of any valuable property,” Muniment -went on. “There are no wrong places—there are only wrong uses for them. -We want to keep them standing and even to put up a few more; but the -difference will be that we shall put the correct sort into them.” - -“I take your idea—that Griffin’s 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 protested; 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 his would-be -butchers the names they wanted. Was it possible they didn’t remember -that great combined assault, 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 ’im 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. - -“_Ç’aurait été d’un bel exemple!_” said the Frenchman with an -impressive moderation of statement which made even those who -couldn’t understand him see he was saying something fine; while the -cabinet-maker observed 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 daresay 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’s 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’s 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!” Muniment laughed. - -Poupin stared at him and his coarse mirth, 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’s he going to do for _us_?—that’s what _I_ -want to know,” brought out 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, as well as with the manner in -which he thrust over his ear, as if it were a barber’s comb, the pencil -addressed to his careful note-taking on the discussions conducted -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 had at heart. He had had a great -experience, which they might very well find it useful to appeal to. -If there was a way for them then and there he would be sure to know -the way. “I quite agree with the majority of you—as I take it to be,” -Muniment went on in 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 infamous -and 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’d be glad to see him—perhaps he’d show where the -thumbscrews 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 for something or for some one; -to go out somewhere and smash something on the spot—why not?—smash -it that very night. While they sat still and talked there were about -half a million of people in London that didn’t know where the hell 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, a quick pulse of -high fever, 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 certainly Paul but -played 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, possessed by an intense desire to stand -face to face with the sublime Hoffendahl, to hear his voice and touch -his mutilated hand. He was ready for anything: he knew he was himself -safe to breakfast and dine, if poorly still sufficiently, and that his -colleagues were perhaps even more crude and clumsy than usual; but a -breath of popular passion had warmed his cheek and his heart, and he -seemed to see, immensely magnified, the monstrosity of the great ulcers -and sores of London—the sick, eternal misery crying out of 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 he -felt there was no need to consider, to reason: the facts themselves -were as imperative as the cry of the drowning, since while pedantry -gained time didn’t starvation and anguish gain it too? He knew 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 judicious friend had given him a more definite -warrant than ever before for numbering him in the party of immediate -action, though indeed he remarked on this occasion, once more, that -that particular formula the little bookbinder appeared to have taken -such a fancy to was mere gibberish. He hated this 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 -transcending logic he would have found it in his recall 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 -any vociferation; he had called Schinkel to come round and sit beside -him, and the two appeared to confer together in honest ease while the -brown atmosphere grew denser, the passing to and fro of firebrands 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 patient -conscious ache, 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 were -something to be silent and devoted about Hyacinth ardently hoped that -to him in particular would a chance 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 communicating with the -outer world, went forth into the street. The air was foul and sleety -but 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, for 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 but 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 world and gather the myriad miserable out of their slums -and burrows, should roll into the selfish squares and lift a tremendous -hungry voice and awaken the gorged indifferent to a terror that would -bring them down. He lingered a quarter of an hour, but this grand -treat 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 the meeting was breaking up in -disorder, or at all events in confusion, and that certainly no -organised attempt at the rescue of any number of victims would take -place that night. All the men were on their feet and were turning away -amid a shuffle of benches and chairs, a hunch of shabby shoulders, -a frugal abatement of flaring 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 of you 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 he found -he had himself sprung up on a chair opposite the barber and that at -the sight of so prompt a display the commotion had suddenly turned to -almost amused suspense. It was the first time he had asked the ear of -the company, which was given on the spot. He was sure he looked very -white—it was even possible they could see him tremble. He could only -hope 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 damned 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’s sure one isn’t -afraid, and one’s accused, why shouldn’t one say so?” - -It appeared to him 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 one -say, “Did ye hear the little bloody 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 had emptied itself, yet clearly not to be reconstituted -outside in a revolutionary procession. Paul Muniment had taken hold of -him and said, “I’ll trouble you to stay, you small desperado: I’ll be -blowed if I ever expected to see _you_ on the stump!” Muniment remained -and M. Poupin and Mr. Schinkel lingered, donning overcoats, beneath a -dim surviving gas-burner in the unventilated medium in which at each -renewed gathering the Bloomsbury club seemed to recognise itself. - -“Upon my life 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. - -“Who do you mean by ‘we’?” said Muniment. - -“All the lot of us. There are plenty of them ready.” - -“Ready for what? There’s nothing to be done here.” - -Hyacinth stared. “Then why the deuce do you come?” - -“I daresay I shan’t come much more. It’s a place in which you’ve always -seen too much.” - -“I wonder if I’ve seen too much in you,” Hyacinth risked, 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 right man, Robinson, that is the real -thing?” Muniment asked with the same rare grave sound. - -“The real thing?” Hyacinth looked from one of his companions to the -other. - -“You’ve never seen it yet—though you think you have.” - -“And why haven’t you shown it me before?” - -“Because I had never seen you on the stump.” This was more lightly said. - -“Bother the stump! I was trusting you.” - -“Exactly so. That gave me time.” - -“Don’t come unless your mind’s made up, _mon petit_,” said Poupin. - -“Are you going now—and to see Hoffendahl? Is _he_ the right man?” -Hyacinth cried. - -“Don’t shout it all over the place. He wants a perfect little -gentleman, and if you’re not one—!” Muniment went on. - -“Is it true? Are we all going?” Hyacinth eagerly went on. - -“Yes, these two are in it. They’re not very wise, but they’re decent,” -said Muniment, looking at Poupin and Schinkel. - -“Are _you_ the real thing, Muniment?” asked Hyacinth, catching this -look. - -Muniment dropped his eyes on him. “Yes, you’re the lamb of sacrifice he -wants. It’s at the other end of London. We must have a growler.” - -“Be calm, my child; _me voici_!” And Poupin led their young friend 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 -so deepened and dignified their purpose. After they were seated in it -Hyacinth learned that the “right man” 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 Muniment, who passed a strong arm round him, holding him all -the way as if for a tacit sign of indebtedness. This gave Hyacinth -pleasure till he began to wonder if it mightn’t represent also the -instinct to make sure of him as against possible weak afterthoughts. -They all ended by sitting silent as the cab jogged along murky miles, -and by the time it stopped our young man had wholly lost, in the -drizzling gloom, a sense of their whereabouts. - - -END OF VOL. I - - -Printed by R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, Edinburgh. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRINCESS CASAMASSIMA -(VOLUME 1 OF 2) *** - -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. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following -the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use -of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for -copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very -easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation -of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project -Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away--you may -do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected -by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark -license, especially commercial redistribution. - -START: FULL LICENSE - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license. - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the -person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph -1.E.8. - -1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the -Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when -you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country other than the United States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work -on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed: - - 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. - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format -other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm website -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain -Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -provided that: - -* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation." - -* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm - works. - -* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work. - -* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of -the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the Foundation as set -forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at -www.gutenberg.org - -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. - -The Foundation's business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, -Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up -to date contact information can be found at the Foundation's website -and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without -widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular -state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support. - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our website which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This website includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/69628-0.zip b/old/69628-0.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index be5d83a..0000000 --- a/old/69628-0.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/69628-h.zip b/old/69628-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index e5d2156..0000000 --- a/old/69628-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/69628-h/69628-h.htm b/old/69628-h/69628-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 97e775e..0000000 --- a/old/69628-h/69628-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,16842 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta charset="UTF-8"> - <title> - The Princess Casamassima (Volume 1 of 2), by Henry James—A Project Gutenberg eBook - </title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.png" type="image/x-cover"> - <style> /* <![CDATA[ */ - - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - -.x-ebookmaker body {margin: 0;} - -h1,h2,h3 { - text-align: center; - clear: both; -} - - -h2 {margin-top: 4em; -} - - - -.tnbox { - margin-left: 5%; - margin-right: 5%; - margin-bottom: 8em; - margin-top: 4em; - border: 1px solid; - padding: 1em; - color: black; - background-color: #f6f2f2; -} - - -.pagenum { - position: absolute; - left: 92%; - font-size: smaller; - text-align: right; - text-indent: 0em; -} - -/* Small caps */ -.smcap { font-variant: small-caps;} - -/* Paragraph styling */ - -p { - margin-top: .75em; - margin-bottom: .75em; - line-height: 1.3em; - text-align: justify; - text-indent: 1.75em; -} - - - -.center { - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0em;} - - -.flright { float: right;} - -.signature { - padding-right: 2em; - text-align: right; - font-size: .9em; -} -/* spacing before paragraphs */ - -.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} -.p4 {margin-top: 4em;} -.p6 {margin-top: 6em;} - -.tp { - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0em; -} -.sm {font-size: .5em;} -.medsm {font-size: .7em} -.lg {font-size: 2em;} - -img { - padding: 1em 0 .5em 0; - max-width: 100%; - height: auto; - } - -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; - margin-top: 4em; - max-width: 100%; - page-break-inside: avoid; -} - -figcenter.iw004 {max-width: 4em;} - - - /* ]]> */ </style> - </head> -<body> -<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Princess Casamassima (Volume 1 of 2), by Henry James</p> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. 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. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Princess Casamassima (Volume 1 of 2)</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Henry James</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: December 24, 2022 [eBook #69628]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Melissa McDaniel and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRINCESS CASAMASSIMA (VOLUME 1 OF 2) ***</div> - -<div class="tnbox"> -<p class="center"> -<b>Transcriber’s Note:</b> -</p> -<p> - Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have - been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. -</p> - -<p> -“accordeon” should possibly be “accordion”. -</p> - - - - - -</div> - - - -<h1> -THE PRINCESS CASAMASSIMA -</h1> - - - - - -<div class="figcenter p6 iw004"> -<img src="images/logo.png" width="250" height="80" alt="Printer's Logo"> -</div> - -<p class="tp p4"> -MACMILLAN AND CO., <span class="smcap">Limited</span> -</p> -<p class="tp medsm"> -LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA · MADRAS<br> -MELBOURNE -</p> -<p class="tp"> -THE MACMILLAN COMPANY -</p> -<p class="tp medsm"> -NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO<br> -DALLAS · SAN FRANCISCO -</p> -<p class="tp"> -THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, <span class="smcap">Ltd.</span> -</p> -<p class="tp medsm"> -TORONTO -</p> - - - - - -<p class="tp lg p6"> -THE PRINCESS<br> -CASAMASSIMA -</p> -<p class="tp p2"> -<span class="sm">BY</span> -<br> -HENRY JAMES -</p> - -<p class="tp p4 medsm"> -IN TWO VOLUMES<br> -VOL. I -</p> - -<p class="tp p4"> -MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED<br> -ST. MARTIN’S STREET LONDON<br> -1921 -</p> - - - - - -<p class="tp p6 medsm"> -COPYRIGHT -<br> -<i>First published in 1886</i> -</p> -<p> -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_v' href='#Page_v'>v</a></span> -</p> - - - - -<h2> -PREFACE -</h2> - - -<p> -The simplest account of the origin of <i>The Princess -Casamassima</i> is, I think, that this fiction proceeded -quite directly, during the first year of a long residence -in London, from the habit and the interest -of walking the streets. I walked a great deal—for -exercise, for amusement, for acquisition, and above -all I always walked home at the evening’s end, when -the evening had been spent elsewhere, as happened -more often than not; and as to do this was to -receive many impressions, so the impressions worked -and sought an issue, so the book after a time was -born. It is a fact that, as I look back, the attentive -exploration of London, the assault directly made by -the great city upon an imagination quick to react, -fully explains a large part of it. There is a minor -element that refers itself to another source, of which -I shall presently speak; but the prime idea was -unmistakably the ripe round fruit of perambulation. -One walked of course with one’s eyes greatly open, -and I hasten to declare that such a practice, carried -on for a long time and over a considerable space, -positively provokes, all round, a mystic solicitation, -the urgent appeal, on the part of everything, to -be interpreted and, so far as may be, reproduced. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_vi' href='#Page_vi'>vi</a></span> -“Subjects” and situations, character and history, -the tragedy and comedy of life, are things of which -the common air, in such conditions, seems pungently -to taste; and to a mind curious, before the human -scene, of meanings and revelations the great grey -Babylon easily becomes, on its face, a garden bristling -with an immense illustrative flora. Possible stories, -presentable figures, rise from the thick jungle as the -observer moves, fluttering up like startled game, -and before he knows it indeed he has fairly to guard -himself against the brush of importunate wings. -He goes on as with his head in a cloud of humming -presences—especially during the younger, the initiatory -time, the fresh, the sharply-apprehensive months -or years, more or less numerous. We use our -material up, we use up even the thick tribute of -the London streets—if perception and attention but -sufficiently light our steps. But I think of them -as lasting, for myself, quite sufficiently long; I -think of them as even still—dreadfully changed for -the worse in respect to any romantic idea as I find -them—breaking out on occasion into eloquence, -throwing out deep notes from their vast vague -murmur. -</p> - -<p> -There was a moment at any rate when they offered -me no image more vivid than that of some individual -sensitive nature or fine mind, some small obscure -intelligent creature whose education should have been -almost wholly derived from them, capable of profiting -by all the civilisation, all the accumulations to -which they testify, yet condemned to see these things -only from outside—in mere quickened consideration, -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_vii' href='#Page_vii'>vii</a></span> -mere wistfulness and envy and despair. It seemed -to me I had only to imagine such a spirit intent -enough and troubled enough, and to place it in -presence of the comings and goings, the great gregarious -company, of the more fortunate than himself—all -on the scale on which London could show them—to -get possession of an interesting theme. I -arrived so at the history of little Hyacinth Robinson—he -sprang up for me out of the London pavement. -To find his possible adventure interesting I had -only to conceive his watching the same public show, -the same innumerable appearances, I had watched -myself, and of his watching very much as I had -watched; save indeed for one little difference. This -difference would be that so far as all the swarming -facts should speak of freedom and ease, knowledge -and power, money, opportunity and satiety, he -should be able to revolve round them but at the -most respectful of distances and with every door of -approach shut in his face. For one’s self, all conveniently, -there had been doors that opened—opened -into light and warmth and cheer, into good -and charming relations; and if the place as a whole -lay heavy on one’s consciousness there was yet -always for relief this implication of one’s own lucky -share of the freedom and ease, lucky acquaintance -with the number of lurking springs at light pressure -of which particular vistas would begin to recede, -great lighted, furnished, peopled galleries, sending -forth gusts of agreeable sound. -</p> - -<p> -That main happy sense of the picture was always -there and that retreat from the general grimness never -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_viii' href='#Page_viii'>viii</a></span> -forbidden; whereby one’s own relation to the mere -formidable mass and weight of things was eased off -and adjusted. One learned from an early period -what it might be to know London in such a way as -that—an immense and interesting discipline, an -education on terms mostly convenient and delightful. -But what would be the effect of the other way, of -having so many precious things perpetually in one’s -eyes, yet of missing them all for any closer knowledge, -and of the confinement of closer knowledge entirely -to matters with which a connexion, however intimate, -couldn’t possibly pass for a privilege? Truly, of -course, there are London mysteries (dense categories -of dark arcana) for every spectator, and it’s in a -degree an exclusion and a state of weakness to be -without experience of the meaner conditions, the -lower manners and types, the general sordid struggle, -the weight of the burden of labour, the ignorance, -the misery and the vice. With such matters as those -my tormented young man would have had contact—they -would have formed, fundamentally, from the -first, his natural and immediate London. But the -reward of a romantic curiosity would be the question -of what the total assault, that of the world of his -work-a-day life and the world of his divination and -his envy together, would have made of him, and -what in especial he would have made of them. As -tormented, I say, I thought of him, and that would -be the point—if one could only see him feel enough to -be interesting without his feeling so much as not to -be natural. -</p> - -<p> -This in fact I have ever found rather terribly -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_ix' href='#Page_ix'>ix</a></span> -the point—that the figures in any picture, the agents -in any drama, are interesting only in proportion as -they feel their respective situations; since the -consciousness, on their part, of the complication -exhibited forms for us their link of connexion with -it. But there are degrees of feeling—the muffled, -the faint, the just sufficient, the barely intelligent, -as we may say; and the acute, the intense, the complete, -in a word—the power to be finely aware and -richly responsible. It is those moved in this latter -fashion who “get most” out of all that happens to -them and who in so doing enable us, as readers of -their record, as participators by a fond attention, -also to get most. Their being finely aware—as -Hamlet and Lear, say, are finely aware—<i>makes</i> -absolutely the intensity of their adventure, gives -the maximum of sense to what befalls them. We -care, our curiosity and our sympathy care, comparatively -little for what happens to the stupid, the -coarse and the blind; care for it, and for the effects -of it, at the most as helping to precipitate what -happens to the more deeply wondering, to the really -sentient. Hamlet and Lear are surrounded, amid -their complications, by the stupid and the blind, -who minister in all sorts of ways to their recorded -fate. Persons of markedly limited sense would, -on such a principle as that, play a part in the career -of my tormented youth; but he wouldn’t be of -markedly limited sense himself—he would note as -many things and vibrate to as many occasions as I -might venture to make him. -</p> - -<p> -There wouldn’t, moreover, simply be the question -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_x' href='#Page_x'>x</a></span> -of his suffering—of which we might soon get enough; -there would be the question of what, all beset and -all perceptive, he should thus adventurously do, -thus dream and hazard and attempt. The interest -of the attitude and the act would be the actor’s -imagination and vision of them, together with the -nature and degree of their felt return upon him. So -the intelligent creature would be required and so -some picture of his intelligence involved. The -picture of an intelligence appears for the most part, -it is true, a dead weight for the reader of the English -novel to carry, this reader having so often the -wondrous property of caring for the displayed tangle -of human relations without caring for its intelligibility. -The teller of a story is primarily, none the less, the -listener to it, the reader of it, too; and, having -needed thus to make it out, distinctly, on the crabbed -page of life, to disengage it from the rude human -character and the more or less gothic text in which -it has been packed away, the very essence of his -affair has been the <i>imputing</i> of intelligence. The -basis of his attention has been that such and such -an imbroglio has got started—on the page of life—because -of something that some one has felt and -more or less understood. -</p> - -<p> -I recognise at the same time, and in planning -<i>The Princess Casamassima</i> felt it highly important -to recognise, the danger of filling too full any -supposed and above all any obviously limited vessel -of consciousness. If persons either tragically or -comically embroiled with life allow us the comic -or tragic value of their embroilment in proportion -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_xi' href='#Page_xi'>xi</a></span> -as their struggle is a measured and directed one, it is -strangely true, none the less, that beyond a certain -point they are spoiled for us by this carrying of a -due light. They may carry too much of it for our -credence, for our compassion, for our derision. They -may be shown as knowing too much and feeling too -much—not certainly for their remaining remarkable, -but for their remaining “natural” and typical, for -their having the needful communities with our own -precious liability to fall into traps and be bewildered. -It seems probable that if we were never bewildered -there would never be a story to tell about us; we -should partake of the superior nature of the all-knowing -immortals whose annals are dreadfully dull -so long as flurried humans are not, for the positive -relief of bored Olympians, mixed up with them. -Therefore it is that the wary reader for the most -part warns the novelist against making his characters -too <i>interpretative</i> of the muddle of fate, or in other -words too divinely, too priggishly clever. “Give us -plenty of bewilderment,” this monitor seems to say, -“so long as there is plenty of slashing out in the -bewilderment too. But don’t, we beseech you, -give us too much intelligence; for intelligence—well, -<i>endangers</i>; endangers not perhaps the slasher -himself, but the very slashing, the subject-matter -of any self-respecting story. It opens up too many -considerations, possibilities, issues; it <i>may</i> lead the -slasher into dreary realms where slashing somehow -fails and falls to the ground.” -</p> - -<p> -That is well reasoned on the part of the reader, -who can in spite of it never have an idea—or his -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_xii' href='#Page_xii'>xii</a></span> -earnest discriminations would come to him less easily—of -the extreme difficulty, for the painter of the -human mixture, of reproducing that mixture aright. -“Give us in the persons represented, the subjects -of the bewilderment (that bewilderment without -which there would be no question of an issue or of -the fact of suspense, prime implications in any story), -as much experience as possible, but keep down the -terms in which you report that experience, because -we only understand the very simplest”: such in -effect are the words in which the novelist constantly -hears himself addressed, such the plea made him -by the would-be victims of his spell on behalf of that -sovereign principle the economy of interest, a principle -as to which their instinct is justly strong. He listens -anxiously to the charge—nothing can exceed his own -solicitude for an economy of interest; but feels himself -all in presence of an abyss of ambiguities, the -mutual accommodations in which the reader wholly -leaves to him. Experience, as I see it, is our apprehension -and our measure of what happens to us as -social creatures—any intelligent report of which has -to be based on that apprehension. The picture of -the exposed and entangled state is what is required, -and there are certainly always plenty of grounds for -keeping down the complexities of a picture. A -picture it still has to be, however, and by that -condition has to deal effectually with its subject, so -that the simple device of more and more keeping -down may well not see us quite to our end or even -quite to our middle. One suggested way of keeping -down, for instance, is not to attribute feeling, or -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_xiii' href='#Page_xiii'>xiii</a></span> -feelings, to persons who wouldn’t in all probability -have had any to speak of. The less space, within -the frame of the picture, their feelings take up the -more space is left for their doings—a fact that may -at first seem to make for a refinement of economy. -</p> - -<p> -All of which is charming—yet would be infinitely -more so if here at once ambiguity didn’t yawn; the -unreality of the sharp distinction, where the interest -of observation is at stake, between doing and feeling. -In the immediate field of life, for action, for application, -for getting through a job, nothing may so much -matter perhaps as the descent of a suspended weight -on this, that or the other spot, with all its subjective -concomitants quite secondary and irrelevant. But -the affair of the painter is not the immediate, it is -the reflected field of life, the realm not of application, -but of <i>appreciation</i>—a truth that makes our measure -of effect altogether different. My report of people’s -experience—my report as a “story-teller”—is -essentially my appreciation of it, and there is no -“interest” for me in what my hero, my heroine or -any one else does save through that admirable process. -As soon as I begin to appreciate simplification -is imperilled: the sharply distinguished parts of -any adventure, any case of endurance and performance, -melt together as an appeal. I then see their -“doing,” that of the persons just mentioned, as, -immensely, their feeling, their feeling as their doing; -since I can have none of the conveyed sense and -taste of their situation without becoming intimate -with them. I can’t be intimate without that sense -and taste, and I can’t appreciate save by intimacy, -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_xiv' href='#Page_xiv'>xiv</a></span> -any more than I can report save by a projected light. -Intimacy with a man’s specific behaviour, with his -given case, is desperately certain to make us see it as -a whole—in which event arbitrary limitations of our -vision lose whatever beauty they may on occasion -have pretended to. What a man thinks and what -he feels are the history and the character of what he -does; on all of which things the logic of intensity -rests. Without intensity where is vividness, and -without vividness where is presentability? If I -have called the most general state of one’s most -exposed and assaulted figures the state of bewilderment—the -condition for instance on which Thackeray -so much insists in the interest of <i>his</i> exhibited careers, -the condition of a humble heart, a bowed head, a -patient wonder, a suspended judgement, before the -“awful will” and the mysterious decrees of Providence—so -it is rather witless to talk of merely getting -rid of that displayed mode of reaction, one of the -oft-encountered, one of the highly recommended, -categories of feeling. -</p> - -<p> -The whole thing comes to depend thus on the -<i>quality</i> of bewilderment characteristic of one’s -creature, the quality involved in the given case or -supplied by one’s data. There are doubtless many -such qualities, ranging from vague and crepuscular -to sharpest and most critical; and we have but to -imagine one of these latter to see how easily—from -the moment it gets its head at all—it may insist -on playing a part. There we have then at once a -case of feeling, of ever so many possible feelings, -stretched across the scene like an attached thread -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_xv' href='#Page_xv'>xv</a></span> -on which the pearls of interest are strung. There -are threads shorter and less tense, and I am far -from implying that the minor, the coarser and less -fruitful forms and degrees of moral reaction, as we -may conveniently call it, may not yield lively results. -They have their subordinate, comparative, illustrative -human value—that appeal of the witless which is -often so penetrating. Verily even, I think, no -“story” is possible without its fools—as most of -the fine painters of life, Shakespeare, Cervantes and -Balzac, Fielding, Scott, Thackeray, Dickens, George -Meredith, George Eliot, Jane Austen, have abundantly -felt. At the same time I confess I never see the -<i>leading</i> interest of any human hazard but in a consciousness -(on the part of the moved and moving -creature) subject to fine intensification and wide -enlargement. It is as mirrored in that consciousness -that the gross fools, the headlong fools, the fatal -fools play their part for us—they have much less to -show us in themselves. The troubled life mostly at -the centre of our subject—whatever our subject, -for the artistic hour, happens to be—embraces them -and deals with them for its amusement and its -anguish: they are apt largely indeed, on a near -view, to be all the cause of its trouble. This means, -exactly, that the person capable of feeling in the -given case more than another of what is to be felt -for it, and so serving in the highest degree to <i>record</i> -it dramatically and objectively, is the only sort of -person on whom we can count not to betray, to -cheapen or, as we say, give away, the value and -beauty of the thing. By so much as the affair -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_xvi' href='#Page_xvi'>xvi</a></span> -matters <i>for</i> some such individual, by so much do we -get the best there is of it, and by so much as it falls -within the scope of a denser and duller, a more vulgar -and more shallow capacity, do we get a picture dim -and meagre. -</p> - -<p> -The great chroniclers have clearly always been -aware of this; they have at least always either -placed a mind of some sort—in the sense of a reflecting -and colouring medium—in possession of the general -adventure (when the latter has not been purely -epic, as with Scott, say, as with old Dumas and -with Zola); or else paid signally, as to the interest -created, for their failure to do so. We may note, -moreover, in passing that this failure is in almost -no case intentional or part of a plan, but has sprung -from their limited curiosity, their short conception -of the particular sensibility projected. Edgar of -Ravenswood for instance, visited by the tragic -tempest of <i>The Bride of Lammermoor</i>, has a black -cloak and hat and feathers more than he has a -mind; just as Hamlet, while equally sabled and -draped and plumed, while at least equally romantic, -has yet a mind still more than he has a costume. -The situation represented is that Ravenswood loves -Lucy Ashton through dire difficulty and danger, -and that she in the same way loves him; but the -relation so created between them is by this neglect -of the “feeling” question never shown us as primarily -taking place. It is shown only in its secondary, -its confused and disfigured aspects—where, however, -luckily, it is presented with great romantic good -faith. The thing has nevertheless paid for its -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_xvii' href='#Page_xvii'>xvii</a></span> -deviation, as I say, by a sacrifice of intensity; the -centre of the subject is empty and the development -pushed off, all round, toward the frame—which is, -so to speak, beautifully rich and curious. But I -mention that relation to each other of the appearances -in a particular work only as a striking negative -case; there are in the connexion I have glanced -at plenty of striking positive ones. It is very true -that Fielding’s hero in <i>Tom Jones</i> is but as “finely,” -that is but as intimately, bewildered as a young -man of great health and spirits may be when -he hasn’t a grain of imagination: the point to be -made is, at all events, that his sense of bewilderment -obtains altogether on the comic, never on the tragic -plane. He has so much “life” that it amounts, for -the effect of comedy and application of satire, almost -to his having a mind, that is to his having reactions -and a full consciousness; besides which his author—<i>he</i> -handsomely possessed of a mind—has such an -amplitude of reflexion for him and round him that -we see him through the mellow air of Fielding’s -fine old moralism, fine old humour and fine old style, -which somehow really enlarge, make every one and -every thing important. -</p> - -<p> -All of which furthers my remarking how much -I have been interested, on reading <i>The Princess -Casamassima</i> over, to recognise my sense, sharp -from far back, that clearness and concreteness constantly -depend, for any pictorial whole, on some -<i>concentrated</i> individual notation of them. That -notation goes forward here in the mind of little -Hyacinth, immensely quickened by the fact of its -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_xviii' href='#Page_xviii'>xviii</a></span> -so mattering to his very life what he does make of -things: which passion of intelligence is, as I have -already hinted, precisely his highest value for our -curiosity and our sympathy. Yet if his highest -it is not at all his only one, since the truth for “a -young man in a book” by no means entirely resides -in his being either exquisitely sensitive or shiningly -clever. It resides in some such measure of these -things as may consort with the fine measure of -other things too—with that of the other faces of -his situation and character. If he’s too sensitive -and too clever for <i>them</i>, if he knows more than is -likely or natural—for <i>him</i>—it’s as if he weren’t at -all, as if he were false and impossible. Extreme and -attaching always the difficulty of fixing at a hundred -points the place where one’s impelled <i><span class="fr_FR">bonhomme</span></i> -may feel enough and “know” enough—or be in -the way of learning enough—for his maximum -dramatic value without feeling and knowing too -much for his minimum verisimilitude, his proper -fusion with the fable. This is the charming, the -tormenting, the eternal little matter <i>to be made right</i>, -in all the weaving of silver threads and tapping on -golden nails; and I should take perhaps too fantastic -a comfort—I mean were not the comforts of the -artist just of the raw essence of fantasy—in any -glimpse of such achieved rightnesses, whether in my -own work or that of others. In no work whatever, -doubtless, are they the felicities the most frequent; -but they have so inherent a price that even the -traceable attempt at them, wherever met, sheds, -I think, a fine influence about. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_xix' href='#Page_xix'>xix</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -I have, for example, a weakness of sympathy -with that constant effort of George Eliot’s which -plays through Adam Bede and Felix Holt and Tito -Melema, through Daniel Deronda and through Lydgate -in <i>Middlemarch</i>, through Maggie Tulliver, through -Romola, through Dorothea Brooke and Gwendolen -Harleth; the effort to show their adventures and -their history—the author’s subject-matter all—as -determined by their feelings and the nature of their -minds. Their emotions, their stirred intelligence, -their moral consciousness, become thus, by sufficiently -charmed perusal, our own very adventure. The -creator of Deronda and of Romola is charged, I -know, with having on occasion—as in dealing with -those very celebrities themselves—left the figure, -the concrete man and woman, too abstract by reason -of the quantity of soul employed; but such mischances, -where imagination and humour still keep -them company, often have an interest that is wanting -to agitations of the mere surface or to those that may -be only taken for granted. I should even like to -give myself the pleasure of retracing from one of -my own productions to another the play of a like -instinctive disposition, of catching in the fact, at -one point after another, from <i>Roderick Hudson</i> to -<i>The Golden Bowl</i>, that provision for interest which -consists in placing advantageously, placing right -in the middle of the light, the most polished of -possible mirrors of the subject. Rowland Mallet, -in <i>Roderick Hudson</i>, is exactly such a mirror, not a -bit autobiographic or formally “first person” though -he be, and I might exemplify the case through -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_xx' href='#Page_xx'>xx</a></span> -a long list, through the nature of such a “mind” -even as the all-objective Newman in <i>The American</i>, -through the thickly-peopled imagination of Isabel -Archer in <i>The Portrait of a Lady</i> (her imagination -positively the deepest depth of her imbroglio) -down to such unmistakable examples as that of -Merton Densher in <i>The Wings of the Dove</i>, that -of Lambert Strether in <i>The Ambassadors</i> (<i>he</i> a -mirror verily of miraculous silver and quite pre-eminent, -I think, for the connexion), and that of the -Prince in the first half and that of the Princess in the -second half of <i>The Golden Bowl</i>. I should note -the extent to which these persons are, so far as their -other passions permit, intense <i>perceivers</i>, all, of their -respective predicaments, and I should go on from -them to fifty other examples; even to the divided -Vanderbank of <i>The Awkward Age</i>, the extreme pinch -of whose romance is the vivacity in him, to his -positive sorrow and loss, of the state of being aware; -even to scanted Fleda Vetch in <i>The Spoils of Poynton</i>, -through whose own delicate vision of everything -so little of the human value of her situation is -wasted for us; even to the small recording governess -confronted with the horrors of <i>The Turn of the -Screw</i>, and to the innocent child patching together -all ineffectually those of <i>What Maisie Knew</i>; even -in short, since I may name so few cases, to the -disaffected guardian of an overgrown legend in -<i>The Birthplace</i>, to the luckless fine artist of <i>The -Next Time</i>, trying to despoil himself, for a “hit” -and bread and butter, of his fatal fineness, to blunt -the tips of his intellectual fingers, and to the hapless -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_xxi' href='#Page_xxi'>xxi</a></span> -butler Brooksmith, ruined by good talk, disqualified -for common domestic service by the beautiful growth -of his habit of quiet attention, his faculty of appreciation. -But though this demonstration of a rooted -vice—since a vice it would appear mainly accounted—might -yield amusement, the examples referred to -must await their turn. -</p> - -<p> -I had had for a long time well before me, at any -rate, my small obscure but ardent observer of the -“London world,” saw him roam and wonder and -yearn, saw all the unanswered questions and baffled -passions that might ferment in him—once he should -be made both sufficiently thoughtful and sufficiently -“disinherited”; but this image, however interesting, -was of course not by itself a progression, an action, -didn’t by itself make a drama. I got my action, -however—failing which one has nothing—under the -prompt sense that the state of feeling I was concerned -with might develop and beget another state, might -return at a given moment, and with the greatest -vivacity, on itself. To see this was really to feel -one’s subject swim into one’s ken, especially after -a certain other ingenious connexion had been made -for it. I find myself again recalling, and with the -possible “fun” of it reviving too, how I recognised, -as revealed and prescribed, the particular complexion, -profession and other conditions of my -little presumptuous adventurer, with his combination -of intrinsic fineness and fortuitous adversity, -his small cluster of “dingy” London associations -and the swelling spirit in him which was to be the -field of his strange experience. Accessible through -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_xxii' href='#Page_xxii'>xxii</a></span> -his imagination, as I have hinted, to a thousand -provocations and intimations, he would become -most acquainted with destiny in the form of a lively -inward revolution. His being jealous of all the ease of -life of which he tastes so little, and, bitten, under this -exasperation, with an aggressive, vindictive, destructive -social faith, his turning to “treasons, stratagems -and spoils” might be as vivid a picture as one chose, -but would move to pity and terror only by the aid -of some deeper complication, some imposed and -formidable issue. -</p> - -<p> -The complication most interesting then would be -that he should fall in love with the beauty of the -world, actual order and all, at the moment of his -most feeling and most hating the famous “iniquity -of its social arrangements”; so that his position -as an irreconcilable pledged enemy to it, thus -rendered false by something more personal than his -opinions and his vows, becomes the sharpest of his -torments. To make it a torment that really matters, -however, he must have got practically involved, -specifically committed to the stand he has, under -the pressure of more knowledge, found impossible; -out of which has come for him the deep dilemma of -the disillusioned and repentant conspirator. He has -thrown himself into the more than “shady” underworld -of militant socialism, he has undertaken to -play a part—a part that with the drop of his exasperation -and the growth, simply expressed, of his taste, -is out of all tune with his passion, at any cost, for -life itself, the life, whatever it be, that surrounds -him. Dabbling deeply in revolutionary politics of -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_xxiii' href='#Page_xxiii'>xxiii</a></span> -a hole-and-corner sort, he would be “in” up to his -neck, and with that precarious part of him particularly -involved, so that his tergiversation is the climax -of his adventure. What was essential with this -was that he should have a social—not less than a -socialist—connexion, find a door somehow open -to him into the appeased and civilised state, into -that warmer glow of things he is precisely to help -to undermine. To look for this necessary connexion -was for me to meet it suddenly in the form of that -extremely <i><span class="fr_FR">disponible</span></i> figure of Christina Light whom -I had ten years before found left on my hands at -the conclusion of <i>Roderick Hudson</i>. She had for -so long, in the vague limbo of those ghosts we -have conjured but not exorcised, been looking for -a situation, awaiting a niche and a function. -</p> - -<p> -I shall not pretend to trace the steps and stages -by which the imputability of a future to that young -woman—which was like the act of clothing her chilled -and patient nakedness—had for its prime effect to -plant her in my little bookbinder’s path. Nothing -would doubtless beckon us on further, with a large -leisure, than such a chance to study the obscure -law under which certain of a novelist’s characters, -more or less honourably buried, revive for him by a -force or a whim of their own and “walk” round his -house of art like haunting ghosts, feeling for the old -doors they knew, fumbling at stiff latches and pressing -their pale faces, in the outer dark, to lighted -windows. I mistrust them, I confess, in general; -my sense of a really expressed character is that it -shall have originally so tasted of the ordeal of service -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_xxiv' href='#Page_xxiv'>xxiv</a></span> -as to feel no disposition to yield again to the strain. -Why should the Princess of the climax of <i>Roderick -Hudson</i> still have made her desire felt, unless in -fact to testify that she had not been—for what she -was—completely recorded? To continue in evidence, -that had struck me from far back as her natural -passion; in evidence at any price, not consenting -to be laid away with folded hands in the pasteboard -tomb, the doll’s box, to which we usually relegate -the spent puppet after the fashion of a recumbent -worthy on the slab of a sepulchral monument. I -was to see this, after all, in the event, as the fruit of -a restless vanity: Christina had felt herself, known -herself, striking, in the earlier connexion, and -couldn’t resign herself not to strike again. Her -pressure then was not to be resisted—sharply as the -question might come up of why she should pretend -to strike just <i>there</i>. I shall not attempt to answer -it with reasons (one can never tell everything); it -was enough that I could recognise her claim to have -travelled far—far from where I had last left her: -that, one felt, was in character—that was what she -naturally <i>would</i> have done. Her prime note had been -an aversion to the <i>banal</i>, and nothing could be of an -effect less <i>banal</i>, I judged, than her intervention in the -life of a dingy little London bookbinder whose sensibility, -whose flow of opinions on “public questions” -in especial, should have been poisoned at the source. -</p> - -<p> -She would be world-weary—that was another of her -notes; and the extravagance of her attitude in these -new relations would have its root and its apparent -logic in her need to feel freshly about something or -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_xxv' href='#Page_xxv'>xxv</a></span> -other—it might scarce matter what. She can, or -she believes she can, feel freshly about the “people” -and their wrongs and their sorrows and their perpetual -smothered ferment; for these things are furthest -removed from those others among which she has -hitherto tried to make her life. That was to a -certainty where I was to have looked for her—quite -<i>off</i> and away (once granted the wisdom of listening -to her anew at all): therefore Hyacinth’s encounter -with her could pass for natural, and it was fortunately -to be noted that she was to serve for his experience -in quite another and a more “leading” sense than -any in which he was to serve for hers. I confess -I was not averse—such are the possible weaknesses -of the artist in face of high difficulties—to feeling -that if his appearance of consistency were obtained -I might at least try to remain comparatively at -my ease about hers. I may add, moreover, that -the resuscitation of Christina (and, on the minor -scale, of the Prince and of Madame Grandoni) put -in a strong light for me the whole question, for -the romancer, of “going on with a character”: as -Balzac first of all systematically went on, as Thackeray, -as Trollope, as Zola all more or less ingeniously went -on. I was to find no small savour in the reflexions -so precipitated; though I may treat myself here -only to this remark about them—that the revivalist -impulse on the fond writer’s part strikes me as one -thing, a charmingly conceivable thing, but the effect -of a free indulgence in it (effect, that is, on the nerves -of the reader) as, for twenty rather ineffable reasons, -quite another. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_xxvi' href='#Page_xxvi'>xxvi</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -I remember at any rate feeling myself all in possession -of little Hyacinth’s consistency, as I have called -it, down at Dover during certain weeks that were -none too remotely precedent to the autumn of -1885 and the appearance, in the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i> -again, of the first chapters of the story. There -were certain sunny, breezy, balconied rooms at the -quieter end of the Esplanade of that cheerful castle-crested -little town—now infinitely perturbed by -gigantic “harbour works,” but then only faded and -over-soldiered and all pleasantly and humbly submissive -to the law that snubs in due course the -presumption of flourishing resorts—to which I had -already more than once had recourse in hours of -quickened industry and which, though much else -has been swept away, still archaically exist. To -have lately noted this again from the old benched and -asphalted walk by the sea, the twinkling Channel -beyond which on occasion the opposite coast of -France used to gleam as an incident of the charming -tendency of the whole prospect (immediate picture -and fond design alike) amusingly to <i>shine</i>, was somehow -to taste afresh, and with a certain surprise, the -odd quality of that original confidence that the parts -of my plan <i>would</i> somehow hang together. I may -wonder at my confidence now—given the extreme, -the very particular truth and “authority” required -at so many points; but to wonder is to live back -gratefully into the finer reasons of things, with all -the detail of harsh application and friction (that -there must have been) quite happily blurred and dim. -The finest of reasons—I mean for the sublime confidence -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_xxvii' href='#Page_xxvii'>xxvii</a></span> -I speak of—was that I felt in full <i>personal</i> -possession of my matter; this really seemed the fruit -of direct experience. My scheme called for the -suggested nearness (to all our apparently ordered -life) of some sinister anarchic underworld, heaving -in its pain, its power and its hate; a presentation -not of sharp particulars, but of loose appearances, -vague motions and sounds and symptoms, just -perceptible presences and general looming possibilities. -To have adopted the scheme was to have had to -meet the question of one’s “notes,” over the whole -ground, the question of what, in such directions, -one had “gone into” and how far one had gone; -and to have answered that question—to one’s own -satisfaction at least—was truly to see one’s way. -</p> - -<p> -My notes then, on the much-mixed world of my -hero’s both overt and covert consciousness, were -exactly my gathered impressions and stirred perceptions, -the deposit in my working imagination -of all my visual and all my constructive sense of -London. The very plan of my book had in fact -directly confronted me with the rich principle of the -Note, and was to do much to clear up, once for all, -my practical view of it. If one was to undertake to -tell tales and to report with truth on the human -scene, it could be but because “notes” had been -from the cradle the ineluctable consequence of one’s -greatest inward energy: to take them was as natural -as to look, to think, to feel, to recognise, to remember, -as to perform any act of understanding. The play -of the energy had been continuous and couldn’t -change; what changed was only the objects and -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_xxviii' href='#Page_xxviii'>xxviii</a></span> -situations pressing the spring of it. Notes had -been, in other words, the things one couldn’t <i>not</i> -take, and the prime result of all fresh experience -was to remind one of that. I have endeavoured -to characterise the peremptory fashion in which -my fresh experience of London—the London of -the habitual observer, the preoccupied painter, the -pedestrian prowler—reminded me; an admonition -that represented, I think, the sum of my investigations. -I recall pulling no wires, knocking at no closed doors, -applying for no “authentic” information; but I -recall also on the other hand the practice of never -missing an opportunity to add a drop, however small, -to the bucket of my impressions or to renew my -sense of being able to dip into it. To haunt the great -city and by this habit to penetrate it, imaginatively, -in as many places as possible—<i>that</i> was to be informed, -<i>that</i> was to pull wires, <i>that</i> was to open doors, <i>that</i> -positively was to groan at times under the weight of -one’s accumulations. -</p> - -<p> -Face to face with the idea of Hyacinth’s subterraneous -politics and occult affiliations, I recollect -perfectly feeling, in short, that I might well be ashamed -if, with my advantages—and there wasn’t a street, -a corner, an hour, of London that was not an -advantage—I shouldn’t be able to piece together a -proper semblance of those things, as indeed a proper -semblance of all the odd parts of his life. There -was always of course the chance that the propriety -might be challenged—challenged by readers of a -knowledge greater than mine. Yet knowledge, after -all, of what? My vision of the aspects I more or -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_xxix' href='#Page_xxix'>xxix</a></span> -less fortunately rendered <i>was</i>, exactly, my knowledge. -If I made my appearances live, what was this but -the utmost one could do with them? Let me at the -same time not deny that, in answer to probable ironic -reflexions on the full licence for sketchiness and -vagueness and dimness taken indeed by my picture, -I had to bethink myself in advance of a defence of -my “artistic position.” Shouldn’t I find it in the -happy contention that the value I wished most -to render and the effect I wished most to produce -were precisely those of our not knowing, of society’s -not knowing, but only guessing and suspecting and -trying to ignore, what “goes on” irreconcilably, -subversively, beneath the vast smug surface? I -couldn’t deal with that positive quantity for itself—my -subject had another too exacting side; but I -might perhaps show the social ear as on occasion -applied to the ground, or catch some gust of the hot -breath that I had at many an hour seemed to see -escape and hover. What it all came back to was, -no doubt, something like <i>this</i> wisdom—that if you -haven’t, for fiction, the root of the matter in you, -haven’t the sense of life and the penetrating imagination, -you are a fool in the very presence of the revealed -and assured; but that if you <i>are</i> so armed you are -not really helpless, not without your resource, even -before mysteries abysmal. -</p> - - -<div class="signature"> -<p class="flright">HENRY JAMES.</p> -</div> - - - - -<h2> -BOOK FIRST -</h2> - -<p> -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_3' href='#Page_3'>3</a></span> -</p> - - -<h3> -I -</h3> - - -<p> -“Oh yes, I daresay I can find the child, if you -would like to see him,” Miss Pynsent said; she had -a fluttered 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_4' href='#Page_4'>4</a></span> -of an exemplary benevolence, suddenly aspired -to appear, throughout, as devoted to the child as -she had struck her large, grave 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 refreshment 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 “cheffoneer,” as Amanda was -always careful to call it, yielded up a small bottle -which, formerly containing eau-de-cologne, now -exhibited half a pint of a rich gold-coloured liquid. -Miss Pynsent was very delicate; she lived on tea -and watercress and kept the little bottle in the -cheffoneer 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 and spell out the first page of the romances -in the <i>Family Herald</i> and the <i>London Journal</i>, where -he particularly admired 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; for the remaining halfpenny -he always bought a ballad with a vivid woodcut at -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_5' href='#Page_5'>5</a></span> -the top. Now, however, he was not at his post of -contemplation, nor was he visible anywhere to Miss -Pynsent’s impatient glance. -</p> - -<p> -“Millicent ’Enning, 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 whose -extraordinary luxuriance of dark brown hair was -surmounted by a torn straw hat. -</p> - -<p> -The child looked up from her dandling and patting -and, after a stare of which the blankness was visibly -overdone, replied: “Law no, Miss Pynsent, I never -see him.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“I assure <i>you</i> 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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, if you want to be called good please go -find him and tell him there’s a lady come here 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_6' href='#Page_6'>6</a></span> -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 hateful. -It was in this action and epithet he had indulged -half an hour ago; but she had reflected rapidly -(while she made play with Miss Pynsent) that it -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_7' href='#Page_7'>7</a></span> -could easily imagine she should be glad to get away -at night, for at that time the place must be much -more terrible. -</p> - -<p> -“And aren’t you frightened of them—ever?” she -inquired, looking up at her visitor with her little -heated face. -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Bowerbank, who was very slow, considered -her so long before replying that she felt herself to -be, to 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’re more frightened of me,” she declared at last; -and it was an idea into which Miss Pynsent could -easily enter. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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 shouldn’t 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 real -little gentleman?” -</p> - -<p> -“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 real little gentleman,” she -added with an effort at mitigation which, as she -immediately became conscious, only involved her -more deeply. -</p> - -<p> -“There are people silly enough to say anything. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_8' href='#Page_8'>8</a></span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 and with a tight clasp of her hands in -her lap. -</p> - -<p> -“His father? Who knows who he was? He -doesn’t set up for having a father, does he?” -</p> - -<p> -“But, surely, wasn’t it proved that Lord -Frederick—?” -</p> - -<p> -“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!” -</p> - -<p> -This view of the case caused Miss Pynsent fairly -to gasp, for it pushed over with a touch a tall fond -fantastic structure that 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!” -</p> - -<p> -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 of the sort 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.” -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_9' href='#Page_9'>9</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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 -had herself as few belongings as the desolate baby, -and it had seemed to her 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 own isolation went out to his, -and in the course of time their associated solitude -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 -a proud and ancient race, the list of whose representatives -and the record of whose alliances she had -once (when she took home some work and was made -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_10' href='#Page_10'>10</a></span> -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 mere words -she couldn’t answer—of course she couldn’t answer -them—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 <i>was</i> 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 she prayed -she might not be questioned 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 -applied 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 innocent child know it?” -</p> - -<p> -“Know about Lord Frederick?” Miss Pynsent -palpitated. -</p> - -<p> -“Bother Lord Frederick! Know about his -mother.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, I can’t say that. I’ve never told him.” -</p> - -<p> -“But has any one else told him?” -</p> - -<p> -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’ve never breathed it to a creature!” -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Bowerbank gave utterance to no commendation; -she only put down her empty glass and wiped -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_11' href='#Page_11'>11</a></span> -her large mouth with much thoroughness and judgement. -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!” -</p> - -<p> -“I pray God he may live and die without knowing -it!” Miss Pynsent cried with intensity. -</p> - -<p> -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?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, did you mean she’d tell him?” Miss Pynsent -plaintively gasped. -</p> - -<p> -“Tell him! He won’t need to be told, once she -gets hold of him and gives him—what she mentioned -to me.” -</p> - -<p> -“What she mentioned—?” Miss Pynsent repeated, -open-eyed. -</p> - -<p> -“The kiss her lips have been famished for all -these years.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, poor desolate woman!” the little dressmaker -murmured while her pity gushed 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!” -</p> - -<p> -“You may tell him she’s his grandmother if you -like. But it’s all in the family.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, on that side,” said Miss Pynsent musingly -and irrepressibly. “And will she speak that fluent -French?” she inquired as from a full mind. “In -that case he won’t understand.” -</p> - -<p> -“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 idea. You needn’t -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_12' href='#Page_12'>12</a></span> -bring the child at all unless you like. There’s many -a one that wouldn’t. There’s no compulsion.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“The only thing that could happen to you would -be that <i>he</i> might throw it up against you later,” the -lady from the prison observed with a gloomy breadth -of view. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, indeed, if he were to know that I had kept -him back.” -</p> - -<p> -“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 outlook appeared -to abound in cheerless contingencies. “You must -remember that it’s her dying wish and that you -may have it on your conscience.” -</p> - -<p> -“That’s a thing I <i>never</i> 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’re very sure she <i>is</i> dying.” -</p> - -<p> -“Do you mean she’s shamming? We’ve plenty -of that—but we know how to treat ’em.” -</p> - -<p> -“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 and with nothing left of her but the main desire -to see her child. -</p> - -<p> -“If you’re afraid of her talking, it isn’t much -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_13' href='#Page_13'>13</a></span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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 <i>did</i> 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.” -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Bowerbank considered this a moment as if -it were rather an intricate argument, and then -answered quite in the spirit of her official pessimism. -“There’s one thing you may be sure of: whatever -you decide to do, as soon as ever he grows up he’ll -make you wish you had done the opposite.” Mrs. -Bowerbank called it oppos<i>ite</i>. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh dear then, I’m glad it will be a long time.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“It’s too impossible to decide.” -</p> - -<p> -“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: -</p> - -<p> -“If you could only wait and see the child I’m -sure it would help you to judge!” -</p> - -<p> -“My dear woman, I don’t want to judge—it’s -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_14' href='#Page_14'>14</a></span> -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 <i>him</i>!” -</p> - -<p> -“Now <i>ain’t</i> 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’re -very sorry to have kept her waiting.” -</p> - -<p> -The child hesitated while he repaid with interest -Mrs. Bowerbank’s inspection, and then he said with -a cool, conscious indifference which Miss Pynsent -instantly recognised as his aristocratic manner: “I -don’t think she can have been in a very great hurry.” -</p> - -<p> -There was irony in the words, for it is a remarkable -fact that even at the age of ten Hyacinth Robinson -was ironic; but the subject of his allusion, who was -not nimble withal, appeared not to interpret it; so -that she met it only by remarking over his head to -Miss Pynsent: “It’s the very face of her again—only -for the complexion!” -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_15' href='#Page_15'>15</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -“Of <i>her</i>? But what do you say to Lord -Frederick?” -</p> - -<p> -“I <i>have</i> seen lords that wasn’t so dainty!” -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Millicent ’Enning’s a very bad little girl; she’ll -come to no good,” said Miss Pynsent with familiar -decision and also, considering the young lady in -question had been her effective messenger, with -marked ingratitude. -</p> - -<p> -Against this qualification the child instantly -protested. “Why is she bad? I don’t think she’s -bad; I like her awfully.” 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 this betrayal. He dimly felt that -nothing but that particular accusation could have -pushed him to it, for he hated people with too few -fair interspaces, too many smutches and streaks. -Millicent Henning generally had two or three of these -at least, 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. -</p> - -<p> -Miss Pynsent held the boy against her knee, trying -to present him so that Mrs. Bowerbank should agree -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_16' href='#Page_16'>16</a></span> -with her about his having the air of race. He was -exceedingly diminutive, even for his years, and though -his appearance was not so sickly as to excite remark, -it seemed written in his attenuated little person that -he would never be either tall or positively hard. 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 -formed and distributed; his head was set on a slim, -straight neck; his expression, grave and clear, -showed a quick perception as well as a great credulity; -and he was altogether, in his tender fineness, an -interesting, an appealing little person. -</p> - -<p> -“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 dress: -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 -<i>do</i> 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. -</p> - -<p> -“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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_17' href='#Page_17'>17</a></span> -exactly what I think: the impression would go so -deep.” -</p> - -<p> -“Do you want to see me only to look at me?” -Hyacinth inquired with a candour which, though -unstudied, had again much satiric force. -</p> - -<p> -“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 know you from one, and not one of -them ‘performing’ ones either.” -</p> - -<p> -“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 done -for she couldn’t but feel the other side was to be -considered. In her effort to be discreet by reason -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, -yet that 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 the person who had -stepped into her place for not producing him. “Certainly, -in her position, 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 she was leaving -her dreadfully ploughed up and without any really -fertilising seed sown. The little dressmaker packed -the child upstairs to tidy himself for his tea, and as -she accompanied her visitor to the door pleaded that -if the latter would have a little more patience she -would think a day or two longer what was best and -write when she should have decided. Mrs. Bowerbank -continued to move in a realm superior to poor Miss -Pynsent’s vacillations and timidities, and her detachment -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_18' href='#Page_18'>18</a></span> -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 ever so much worse!” -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_19' href='#Page_19'>19</a></span> -</p> - - - - -<h3> -II -</h3> - - -<p> -Miss Pynsent, when she found herself alone, felt -she was really quite upside down; for this lurid -crisis had never entered into her calculations: the -very nature of the case had seemed to preclude it. -All she had known or had wished to know was that -in one of the dreadful establishments 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 had been no -question of <i>that</i> concession’s being stretched any -further, poor Florentine had 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 had no idea to what prison she was -committed on removal from Newgate (she had wished -to keep her mind a blank about the matter in the -interest of the child), and it couldn’t occur to her -that out of such silence and darkness a second voice -would reach her, especially a voice 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 on, poor and -precarious though her own subsistence, without a -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_20' href='#Page_20'>20</a></span> -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 had gone to see her at Newgate -(that terrible episode, nine years before, still -overshadowed all Miss Pynsent’s other memories): -had gone 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 to run 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 reflexion, 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 struck 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_21' href='#Page_21'>21</a></span> -home that night, as she had something very particular -indeed 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 -no end of good. Miss Pynsent knew it was 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 on a great occasion, within the year, obtained for -the pair an order for two seats at a pantomime, and -to 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 these 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. -</p> - -<p> -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 and 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 and sensibilities of a gentleman, yet whose -fate had condemned him for the last ten years to -play a fiddle at a second-rate establishment for a few -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_22' href='#Page_22'>22</a></span> -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, so -that 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 occupied 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, unless in more wicked -words as well as more grand ones, 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 aspects of his character—his blasphemous -republican, radical views and the licentious manner -in which he expressed himself about the nobility. -On that ground he worried her extremely, though -he never seemed to her so probably well-connected, -like Hyacinth himself, as when he horrified her most. -These dreadful theories (expressed so brilliantly that -really they might have been dangerous if Miss Pynsent -had not been so grounded in the Christian faith and -known thereby 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 -position. 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 buttonhole, and -wore a glass in one eye. He looked placid and -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_23' href='#Page_23'>23</a></span> -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 an at all bold -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 absurdity, -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 there 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? -</p> - -<p> -He laid his violin-case on the table, which was -covered with a confusion of fashion-plates and -pin-cushions, 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 -cheffoneer. 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_24' href='#Page_24'>24</a></span> -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 “connexion” -was confined to small shopkeepers, but she didn’t -wish others to know it and would have liked them to -believe it important 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 treacherous untrimmed truth, about -everything in a moment. She was sure he would -do so now in regard to this solemn question that had -come up for Hyacinth; he would see that, though -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 it was -too late. 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 on 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 that she had no -startling revelation to make. He was not in the -least agitated to hear of Florentine’s approaching -end in prison and of her having managed to get a -message conveyed to Amanda; he thought this so -much in the usual course that he said to Miss -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_25' href='#Page_25'>25</a></span> -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, to save you a -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 if 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 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_26' href='#Page_26'>26</a></span> -swallowed up the mother. Mrs. Bowerbank had had -a half-holiday, and she also rejoiced in a sister living -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 an -informal, natural 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—<i>must</i> she—consent? -That was the terrible, the heart-shaking question, -with which Miss Pynsent’s unaided wisdom had been -unable to grapple. -</p> - -<p> -“After all, he isn’t hers any more—he’s mine, -mine only and mine always. I should like to know -if all I’ve 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. -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Vetch watched her a while, blowing silently -at his pipe, 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’ve done a good -deal for him. You’re 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. -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve done what I could, and I don’t put myself -forward above others. Only it does make a difference -when you come to look at it—about taking him off -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_27' href='#Page_27'>27</a></span> -to see another woman. And <i>such</i> another woman—and -in such a place! I think it’s hardly right to -take an innocent child.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t know about that; there are people who -would tell you it would do him good. If he didn’t -like the place as a child he’d take more care to keep -out of it later.” -</p> - -<p> -“Lord, Mr. Vetch, how can you think? And him -such a perfect little gentleman!” Miss Pynsent cried. -</p> - -<p> -“Is it you that have made him one?” the fiddler -asked. “It doesn’t run in the family, you’d say.” -</p> - -<p> -“Family? what do you know about that?” she -returned quickly, catching at her dearest, her only -hobby. -</p> - -<p> -“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 -extra good? No one else thinks it necessary.” -</p> - -<p> -“I didn’t want to be extra good. That is I do -want to, of course, in a general way: but that wasn’t -the reason then. You see I had nothing of my own—I -had nothing in the world but my thimble.” -</p> - -<p> -“That would have seemed to most people a reason -for not adopting a prostitute’s bastard.” -</p> - -<p> -“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 <i>that</i> was, -and felt it a shame an unspotted 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. <i>They</i> wouldn’t have troubled themselves -long with a helpless baby. <i>They’d</i> have played some -bad trick on him, if it was only to send him to the -workhouse. Besides, I always was fond of tiny -creatures and I’ve been fond of this one,” she went -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_28' href='#Page_28'>28</a></span> -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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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’ll bring him.” -</p> - -<p> -“Who believes? Mrs. Bowerbank?” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“So long as you’re there I shall never stop. What -is it you want me to advise you? to take the child, -or to leave the mother to wail herself away?” -</p> - -<p> -“I want you to tell me if he’ll curse me when he -grows older.” -</p> - -<p> -“That depends on what you do. However, he’ll -probably curse you in either case.” -</p> - -<p> -“You don’t believe that, because you like him, -you love him,” said Amanda with acuteness. -</p> - -<p> -“Precisely; and he’ll curse me too. He’ll curse -every one. Much good will our love do us! He -won’t be happy.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t know how you think I bring him up,” -the little dressmaker remarked with dignity. -</p> - -<p> -“You don’t bring him up at all. He brings -you up.” -</p> - -<p> -“That’s what you’ve always said; but you don’t -know. If you mean that he does as he likes, then -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_29' href='#Page_29'>29</a></span> -he ought to be happy. It ain’t kind of you to say -he won’t be,” Miss Pynsent added reproachfully. -</p> - -<p> -“I’d say anything you like if what I say would -help the matter. He’s a thin-skinned, morbid, mooning, -introspective little beggar, with a good deal of -imagination and not much perseverance, who’ll expect -a good deal more of life than he’ll find in it. That’s -why he won’t be happy.” -</p> - -<p> -Miss Pynsent listened to this description of her -<i><span class="fr_FR">protégé</span></i> with an appearance of criticising it mentally; -but in reality she didn’t know what “introspective” -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Thank you very much for putting me first,” -the fiddler returned after a series of puffs. “The -youngster’s interesting; one sees he has a mind and -even a soul, and in that respect he’s—I won’t say -unique, but peculiar. I shall watch with curiosity -to see what he grows into. But I shall always be -glad that I’m a selfish brute of a decent bachelor—that -I never invested in that class of goods.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, you <i>are</i> comforting. You’d spoil him more -than I do,” said Amanda. -</p> - -<p> -“Possibly, but it would be in a different way. -I wouldn’t tell him every three minutes that his -father was a duke.” -</p> - -<p> -“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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_30' href='#Page_30'>30</a></span> -wanting if I hadn’t given him a glimpse of that. -But there’s one thing I’ve always added—that the -truth never <i>is</i> found out.” -</p> - -<p> -“You’re 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’s the use of my -telling you?” -</p> - -<p> -“I assure you I will, if you say you believe it’s -the only right.” -</p> - -<p> -“Do I often say anything so asinine? Right—right? -what have you to do with that? If you -want the only right you’re very particular.” -</p> - -<p> -“Please then what am I to go by?” the dressmaker -asked bewildered. -</p> - -<p> -“You’re to go by this, by what will take the -youngster down.” -</p> - -<p> -“Take him down, my poor little pet?” -</p> - -<p> -“Your poor little pet thinks himself the flower -of creation. I don’t say there’s any harm in that: -a fine blooming, odoriferous conceit is a natural -appendage of youth and intelligence. I don’t say -there’s any great harm in it, but if you want a guide -as to how you’re to treat the boy, that’s as good a -guide as any other.” -</p> - -<p> -“You want me to arrange the interview then?” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t want you to do anything but give me -another <i>leetle</i> swig—thanks. 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 rank fools’ 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 that had had elements -of distinction Miss Pynsent observed a respectful, a -tasteful silence and that is why she didn’t challenge -him now, though she wanted very much to say that -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_31' href='#Page_31'>31</a></span> -Hyacinth was no more “presumptious” (that was -the term she would have used) than he had reason to -be, with his genteel appearance, and his acknowledged -powers; 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 any -good family, 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, for all the sign between her windows— -</p> - - -<p class="p2 center"> -MISS AMANDA PYNSENT <br> -<i><span class="fr_FR">Modes et Robes</span></i><br> - -DRESSMAKING IN ALL ITS BRANCHES: COURT-DRESSES: -MANTLES AND FASHIONABLE BONNETS -</p> - -<p class="p2"> -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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Do you mean he’ll forget <i>me</i>, he’ll deny me?” -cried Miss Pynsent, stopping the movement of her -needle short off for the first time. -</p> - -<p> -“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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_32' href='#Page_32'>32</a></span> -fiddler who regarded you as the most perfect lady -of his acquaintance. I don’t mean he’ll disown you -and pretend he never knew you: I don’t think he’ll -ever be such an odious little cad as that; he probably -won’t be a sneak, and he strikes me as having some -affection and possibly even some gratitude in him. -But his imagination (which will always give him -his cue about everything) shall subject you to -some extraordinary metamorphosis. He’ll dress -you up.” -</p> - -<p> -“He’ll dress me up?” Amanda ejaculated, quite -ceasing to follow the train of Mr. Vetch’s demonstration. -“Do you mean he’ll have the property—that -his relations will take him up?” -</p> - -<p> -“My dear, delightful, idiotic Pinnie, I’m speaking -in a figurative manner. I don’t pretend to say what -his precise position will be when we’re relegated; but -I’m sure relegation will be our fate. Therefore don’t -stuff him with any more false notions and fine -illusions than are necessary to keep him alive; he’ll -be sure to pick up enough on the way. On the -contrary, give him a good stiff dose of the truth at the -start.” -</p> - -<p> -“Deary me, of course you see much further into -it than I could ever do,” Pinnie murmured as she -threaded a needle. -</p> - -<p> -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’s -the illegitimate child of a French impropriety 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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Lord, Mr. Vetch, how you <i>can</i> talk!” cried Miss -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_33' href='#Page_33'>33</a></span> -Pynsent with her ever-fresh faculty of vain protest. -“I don’t know what one would think, to hear you.” -</p> - -<p> -“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, take him straight.” -</p> - -<p> -“And if later, when he’s twenty, he says to me that -if I hadn’t meddled in it he need never have known, -need never have had that shame, pray what am I to -say to him then? That’s what I can’t get out of my -head.” -</p> - -<p> -“You can say to him that a young man who’s -sorry for having gone to his mother when, in her last -hours, she lay crying 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. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, I’m sure it’s natural he should feel badly,” -said Miss Pynsent, folding up her work with the same -desperate quickness that had animated her through -the evening. -</p> - -<p> -“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 reflexion, -the impenetrable density.” Here Mr. Vetch stopped -short; his hostess stood before him with eyes of -entreaty, with clasped hands. -</p> - -<p> -“Now, Anastasius Vetch, don’t go off into them -dreadful wild theories!” she cried, always ungrammatical -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_34' href='#Page_34'>34</a></span> -when she was strongly moved. “You always -fly away over the house-tops. I thought you liked -him better—the dear little unfortunate.” -</p> - -<p> -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!” -</p> - -<p> -“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!” -</p> - -<p> -He bent over, for all his figure, to kiss her hand -with the flourish of a troubadour and as he had seen -people do on the stage. “My dear friend, we’ve -different ideas, and I never shall succeed in driving -mine into your head. It’s because I <i>am</i> fond of him, -poor little devil; but you’ll never understand that. -I want him to know everything, and especially the -worst—the very worst, as I’ve said. If I were in his -position I shouldn’t thank you for trying to make -a fool of me.” -</p> - -<p> -“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 reflexions; -she had given up the attempt to enter into -his whims. She remembered what she had noticed -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 immoral. “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 with his composed face -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_35' href='#Page_35'>35</a></span> -taking a strange expression from the quizzical -glimmer of his little round eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_36' href='#Page_36'>36</a></span> -</p> - - - - -<h3> -III -</h3> - - -<p> -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 prostrate -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, once she had -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 committed many 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_37' href='#Page_37'>37</a></span> -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 fierce light of his questions on Miss -Pynsent’s incarcerated friend. She had to admit -that she had been her friend (since 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 severe!—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 cruel -want. The woman had had a wicked husband who -maltreated and deserted her; she had been very -poor, almost starving, dreadfully pressed. Hyacinth -listened to her history with absorbed attention and -then said: -</p> - -<p> -“And hadn’t she any children—hadn’t she a -little boy?” -</p> - -<p> -This inquiry seemed to Miss Pynsent an omen of -future embarrassments, but she met it as bravely as -she could, replying that she believed the wretched -victim of the law had had (once upon a time) a very -small baby, but 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 of his size. Miss -Pynsent fortified herself with the memory of her other -pilgrimage, the visit to Newgate upwards of ten years -before; she had escaped from <i>that</i> 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 faltered and feared, but -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_38' href='#Page_38'>38</a></span> -on that of the tender sensibility over which the -shadow of the house of shame might cast itself. -</p> - -<p> -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-towered building 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 air -if it was erected in the interest of justice and order—a -builded protest, precisely, against vice and villainy. -This particular penitentiary struck her as about as -bad and wrong as those who were in it; it threw -a blight on the face of day, making the river seem -foul and poisonous and the opposite bank, with a 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 barred and blind and deaf -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 away his hand -and, placing it behind him in the clutch of the other, -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_39' href='#Page_39'>39</a></span> -said to her respectfully but resolutely, while he -planted himself at a considerable distance: -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t like this place.” -</p> - -<p> -“Neither do I like it, my darling,” cried the dressmaker -pitifully. “Oh, if you knew how little!” -</p> - -<p> -“Then we’ll go away. I won’t go in.” -</p> - -<p> -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 Miss Pynsent could feel -that they had already entered into relation with her. -They were near her and she was aware; 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 our pilgrim 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, were -she to lead the boy away. She looked into his pale -face, perfectly conscious 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: -</p> - -<p> -“The reason why we’ve come is only to be kind. -If we’re kind we shan’t mind its being disagreeable.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why should we be so kind if she’s a bad woman?” -Hyacinth demanded. “She must be very low; I -don’t want to know her.” -</p> - -<p> -“Hush, hush,” groaned poor Amanda, edging toward -him with clasped hands. “She’s not bad now; -it has all been washed away—it has been expiated.” -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_40' href='#Page_40'>40</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -“What’s ‘expiated’?” asked the child while she -almost kneeled down in the dust to catch him to her -bosom. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s when you’ve suffered terribly—suffered so -much that it has made you good again.” -</p> - -<p> -“Has <i>she</i> suffered very much?” -</p> - -<p> -“For years and years. And now she’s dying. It -proves she’s very good now—that she should want -to see us.” -</p> - -<p> -“Do you mean because <i>we</i> 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. -</p> - -<p> -“We shall be good if we’re compassionate, if we -make an effort,” said the dressmaker, seeming to look -up at him rather than down. -</p> - -<p> -“But if she’s dying? I don’t want to see any one -die.” -</p> - -<p> -Miss Pynsent was bewildered, but her desperation -helped. “If we go to her perhaps she won’t. Maybe -we shall save her.” -</p> - -<p> -He transferred his remarkable little eyes—eyes -which always appeared to her to belong to a person -older and stronger than herself—to her face; and -then he put to her: “Why should I save such a -creature if I don’t like her?” -</p> - -<p> -“If she likes you, that will be enough.” -</p> - -<p> -At this Miss Pynsent began to see that he was -moved. “Will she like me very much?” -</p> - -<p> -“More, much more, than any one—ever.” -</p> - -<p> -“More than you, now?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh,” said Amanda quickly, “I mean more than -she likes any one.” -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth had slipped his hands into the pockets of -his scanty knickerbockers and, with his legs slightly -apart, looked from his companion back to the immense -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_41' href='#Page_41'>41</a></span> -dreary jail. A great deal, to her sense, -depended on the moment. “Oh well,” he said at -last, “I’ll just step in.” -</p> - -<p> -“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: -</p> - -<p> -“How can she like me so much if she has never -seen me?” -</p> - -<p> -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 she replied, seizing the first pretext that came -into her head: “It’s because the little baby she had -of old was also named Hyacinth.” -</p> - -<p> -“That’s a rummy reason,” the boy murmured, -still staring across at the Battersea shore. -</p> - -<p> -A moment later they found themselves in a vast -interior dimness, while a grinding of keys and bolts -went on behind them. Hereupon Miss Pynsent gave -herself up to an overruling providence, and she -remembered afterwards no circumstance of what -happened to her till the great person of Mrs. Bowerbank -loomed up in the narrowness of a strange, dark -corridor. She had only had meanwhile 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 -grey, 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_42' href='#Page_42'>42</a></span> -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 trusted not to have struck 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 scene 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 to, 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 -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 subsequently 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_43' href='#Page_43'>43</a></span> -Pynsent couldn’t 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 -reflexion 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. -</p> - -<p> -It was on the outskirts of the infirmary she had -been hovering, and it was into certain dismal chambers -dedicated to sick criminals she presently ushered -her guests. 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, whereby your case was simple. Such simplification, -nevertheless, 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 businesslike pat to -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_44' href='#Page_44'>44</a></span> -her pillow, signed 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 she was approaching -a perfect stranger, so completely had nine years -of prison transformed Florentine. She felt it immediately -to have been a mercy she hadn’t told -Hyacinth she was pretty (as she used to be) since -there was no beauty left in the hollow bloodless mask -that presented itself without a movement. She <i>had</i> -told him the poor woman was good, but she didn’t -look so, nor evidently was he struck with it as he -returned her gaze across the interval he declined to -traverse, though kept at the same time from retreating -by this appeal of her strange, fixed eyes, the only -part of all her wasted person in which 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 degree -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, -which would be quite another matter. 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, a monumental timekeeper, and remarked, -in the manner of one speaking from a -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_45' href='#Page_45'>45</a></span> -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 on the boy; -he was too intensely absorbed in watching the -prisoner. A chair had been placed near her pillow, -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 on 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— -</p> - -<p> -“<i><span class="fr_FR">Dieu de Dieu, qu’il est donc beau!</span></i>” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“It used to be so pretty when she spoke her odd -English—and so very amusing,” Miss Pynsent ventured -to mention with a feeble attempt to brighten -up the scene. “I suppose she has forgotten it all.” -</p> - -<p> -“She may well have forgotten it—she never gave -her tongue much exercise. There was little enough -trouble to keep <i>her</i> 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 gruesome -awkwardness in that, considering the delicacy of -Florentine’s position. Not indeed that she looked -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_46' href='#Page_46'>46</a></span> -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, yet felt, -more than this, how she had but the thinnest pulse -of energy left and how 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 substituted guardian, -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 the confession of a broken 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. -</p> - -<p> -“<i><span class="fr_FR">Est-il possible, mon Dieu, qu’il soit gentil comme -ça?</span></i>” his mother moaned just above her breath. -</p> - -<p> -“We’re very glad you should have cared—that -they look after you so well,” said Miss Pynsent confusedly -and 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. -These 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 she -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_47' href='#Page_47'>47</a></span> -know how to treat the young, referred herself to the -little boy. -</p> - -<p> -“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’d think themselves -lucky if they could see what he has seen.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i><span class="fr_FR">Mon pauvre joujou, mon pauvre chéri</span></i>,” the -prisoner went on in her tender, tragic whisper. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“He might have stayed at home then—with this -wretched person taking on so over him,” Mrs. Bowerbank -remarked with some sternness. She plainly -felt the occasion threaten 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. -</p> - -<p> -“I came because Pinnie brought me,” Hyacinth -spoke up 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 -crosspiece of the stool as if to touch the institution -at as few points as possible. -</p> - -<p> -The woman in bed continued her strange, almost -whining plaint. “<i><span class="fr_FR">Il ne veut pas s’approcher, il a -honte de moi.</span></i>” -</p> - -<p> -“There’s a many who begin like that!” laughed -Mrs. Bowerbank, irritated by the boy’s contempt for -one of Her Majesty’s finest establishments. -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth’s little white face exhibited no confusion; -he only turned it to the prisoner again, -and Miss Pynsent felt that some extraordinary dumb -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_48' href='#Page_48'>48</a></span> -exchange of meanings was taking place between -them. “She used to be so elegant; she <i>was</i> a fine -woman,” she observed gently and helplessly. -</p> - -<p> -“<i><span class="fr_FR">Il a honte de moi—il a honte, Dieu le pardonne!</span></i>” -Florentine Vivier went on, never moving her eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“She’s asking for something, in her language. -I used to know a few words,” said Miss Pynsent, -stroking down the bed very nervously. -</p> - -<p> -“Who is that woman? what does she want?” -Hyacinth broke out again, his small, clear voice -ringing over the dreary room. -</p> - -<p> -“She wants you to come near her, she wants to -kiss you, sir,” said Mrs. Bowerbank, as if it were -more than he deserved. -</p> - -<p> -“I won’t kiss her; Pinnie says she stole a watch!” -the child answered with resolution. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, you dreadful—how could you ever?” cried -Pinnie, blushing all over and starting out of her -chair. -</p> - -<p> -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 protesting hands, shrieked -out, “<i><span class="fr_FR">Ah quelle infamie!</span></i> I never stole a watch, -I never stole anything—anything! <i><span class="fr_FR">Ah par exemple!</span></i>” -Then she fell back sobbing with the passion that had -given her a moment’s strength. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m sure you needn’t put more on her than she -has by rights,” said Mrs. Bowerbank with dignity to -the dressmaker, and laid a large red hand on the -patient to keep her in her place. -</p> - -<p> -“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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_49' href='#Page_49'>49</a></span> -the child, as if she wished to fling herself on the one -for contrition and the other for revenge. -</p> - -<p> -“<i><span class="fr_FR">Il a honte de moi—il a honte de moi!</span></i>” Florentine -repeated in the misery of her sobs. “<i><span class="fr_FR">Dieu de bonté, -quelle horreur!</span></i>” -</p> - -<p> -Miss Pynsent dropped on her knees beside the bed -and, trying to possess herself of the unfortunate’s -hand again, protested with an almost equal passion -(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. -</p> - -<p> -“The child’s 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 <i>me</i> of -course for putting her in such a state, so we’ll just -pass out again.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’m very sorry I made you cry. And you must -pardon Pinnie—I asked her so many questions.” -</p> - -<p> -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 on the latter an effect even more powerful -than his misguided speech of a moment before; for -she found strength partly to raise herself in her bed -again and to hold out her arms to him with the same -thrilling sobs. She was talking still, but had become -quite inarticulate, and Miss Pynsent had but a glimpse -of her white ravaged face and the hollows of its eyes -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_50' href='#Page_50'>50</a></span> -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 -well, 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 sad charge 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 -his protectress 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 and with closed eyes, -to her pillow and given Hyacinth a businesslike little -push which sent him on in advance. Miss Pynsent -went home in a cab—she was so shaken; though -she reflected very nervously, 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 looking out of -the window in silence till they re-entered Lomax -Place. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_51' href='#Page_51'>51</a></span> -</p> - - - - -<h3> -IV -</h3> - - -<p> -“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 grey, had not been renewed for years -and came back to her out of the past. As Miss -Pynsent closed the door, seeing her visitor so resolute, -the light filtered in from the street through the -narrow dusty glass above, and then the very smell -and sense of the place returned to Millicent: the -impression of a musty dimness with a small steep -staircase at the end, covered with the very strip of -oilcloth she could recognise and made a little less -dark by a window in the turn (you could see it from -the hall) where you might almost bump your head -against the house behind. Nothing was changed but -Miss Pynsent and of course the girl herself. She -had noticed outside how 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 this artist was looking at -her hat, a wonderful composition of flowers and -ribbons; her eyes had travelled up and down Millicent’s -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_52' href='#Page_52'>52</a></span> -whole person, but they rested in fascination -on that grandest 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 it 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 she was a -magnificent young woman. -</p> - -<p> -“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. 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. -</p> - -<p> -“The show-room’s 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, a piece of furniture covered -with a tight shrunken shroud of 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, against 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, 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_53' href='#Page_53'>53</a></span> -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 stuck all over the front of her dress—they -might almost have figured the stiff sparse fur -of a sick animal; but there were no rustling fabrics -tossed in heaps over 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 -old friend’s business had not increased, and felt -some safe 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 capital. -</p> - -<p> -“Now tell me, how’s old Hyacinth? I should -like so much to see him,” she remarked while she -extended a pair of large protrusive feet and supported -herself on the sofa by her hands. -</p> - -<p> -“Old Hyacinth?” Miss Pynsent repeated with -majestic blankness and as if she had never heard of -such a person. She felt the girl to be cruelly, scathingly -well dressed and couldn’t imagine who she was -nor with what design she might have presented herself. -</p> - -<p> -“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 just see if I don’t!” -</p> - -<p> -“Bless my soul, you must be the awful little -’Enning!” Miss Pynsent exclaimed, planted before -her and going now into every detail. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, I’m glad you’ve made up your mind. -I thought you’d know me directly and I daresay -I <i>was</i> awful. But I ain’t so bad now, hey?” the -young woman went on with confidence. “I had a -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_54' href='#Page_54'>54</a></span> -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.” -</p> - -<p> -“I never knew you—you’ve improved as I couldn’t -have believed,” Miss Pynsent returned with a candour -justified by her age and her consciousness of -respectability. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, <i>you</i> haven’t changed; you were always -calling me something horrid.” -</p> - -<p> -“I daresay it doesn’t matter to you now, does -it?” said the dressmaker, seating herself but quite -unable to take up her work, blank as she was before -the greatness of her visitor. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, I’m all right now,” Miss Henning declared -with the air of one who had nothing to fear from -human judgements. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, I enjoy beautiful ’ealth,” said the young -lady; “every one thinks I’m at least twenty-two.” -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 certainly handsome, with -a shining, bold, good-natured eye, a fine, free, -physiognomic oval, an abundance of brown hair and -a smile that fairly flaunted the whiteness of her -teeth. Her head was set on a fair strong neck and -her robust 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_55' href='#Page_55'>55</a></span> -graceful, and even the little dressmaker, whose -preference for distinguished forms never deserted -her, indulged in the mental reflexion that she was -common, despite 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 bustling 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 clustered 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 herself made -on Millicent, and how the whole place seemed to -that prosperous young lady to smell of poverty and -failure. Her childish image of its mistress had shown -her as neat, fine, superior, with round loops of hair -fastened on the temples by combs and associations -of brilliancy arising from the constant manipulation -of precious stuffs—tissues at least that 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 didn’t disguise the way everything had -gone. Miss Henning thanked her stars, as she had -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_56' href='#Page_56'>56</a></span> -often done before, that she hadn’t been obliged to -get <i>her</i> 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 on her good fortune in being -attached to a more exciting, a more dramatic department -of the great drapery interest, 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. -</p> - -<p> -If she thought that lady’s eyes suspicious it must -be confessed that her hostess felt much on her -guard in 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, the vicissitudes -of which she was able to follow, as she sat near her -window at work, by simply inclining an ear to the -thin partition behind her—these scenes, rendering -the crash of crockery and the imprecations of the -wounded frequently and peculiarly audible, had long -been the scandal of a humble but harmonious neighbourhood. -Mr. Henning was supposed to fill 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_57' href='#Page_57'>57</a></span> -important still had never presided at their councils. -The freedom and frequency of Mrs. Henning’s relations -with a stove-polisher off 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 race 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 double the -cape, that is 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_58' href='#Page_58'>58</a></span> -they were engulfed altogether in the fathomless deeps -of the town. Miss Pynsent drew a long breath; it -was her judgement that none of them would come -to any good whatever, and Millicent least of all. -</p> - -<p> -When therefore this young lady reappeared with -all the signs of accomplished survival she couldn’t -fail to ask herself whether, under a specious seeming, -the phenomenon didn’t 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 shock and her curiosity she passed an -uncomfortable half-hour. She felt the familiar -mysterious creature to be playing with her; revenging -herself for former animadversions, for having -been snubbed and miscalled by a prying little spinster -who could now 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 get -hold of him and somehow mislead and tempt 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 her -vigorous legs had no occasion to deprecate; but it -must be confessed that with her shrewd guess of this -estimate of her as a ravening wolf and of her early -playmate as an unspotted lamb she laughed out, in -Miss Pynsent’s anxious face, irrelevantly and good-humouredly -and without deigning to explain. But -what indeed had she come for if she hadn’t come for -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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_59' href='#Page_59'>59</a></span> -of her full-blown freedom—her attachment also to -any tolerable pretext for wandering through the -streets of London and gazing into shop-windows—had -said to herself she might dedicate an afternoon -to the pleasures of memory, might 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 scarce-dissimulated -slum had never learned what their -banished fellows were to go through she herself had -at least retained a deep impression of those horrible -intermediate years. The family, as a family, had -gone downhill, 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 achieve miracles 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. -</p> - -<p> -She told the dressmaker 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, an immense one in Oxford Street, and -was just thinking if she should accept it. “We have -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_60' href='#Page_60'>60</a></span> -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 she had been obliged to wear of late -years, seemed still not to know what to make of her. -On the subject of her parents, 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—stood very firm. -Her staying so long, her remaining over the half-hour, -proved she had come for Hyacinth, since 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 in a house where they turned out the -best work of that kind that was to be found in -London. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“A trade?” cried Miss Pynsent. “You should -hear Mr. Robinson speak of it. He considers it too -lovely, quite one of the fine arts.” -</p> - -<p> -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’ll -say there’s more than there is here,” she went on, -finding at last an effect of irritation, or reprehension, -an implication of aggressive respectability, in the -image of the patient dressmaker’s sitting for so many -years in her close brown little den with the foggy -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_61' href='#Page_61'>61</a></span> -familiarities of Lomax Place on the other side of the -pane. Millicent liked to think she herself was strong, -yet she was not strong enough for that. -</p> - -<p> -This allusion to her shrunken industry seemed to -Miss Pynsent very cruel; but she reflected 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 matching of -colours she was not absolutely 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.” -</p> - -<p> -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 of a -“tasty” turn who would brighten up the business -and give her new ideas. “I can see you’ve got the -same old ones, always: I can tell that by the way -you’ve stuck the braid on that dress”; and she -directed a poke of her neat little umbrella at 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 had been a public performer of some kind, -a ballad-singer or a conjurer, and went so far as to -ask herself whether the creature 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”; -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_62' href='#Page_62'>62</a></span> -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 exponent of the latest thing 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, goodness -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 this 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 judgement he had passed on 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 blunder, so blinded and -weakened herself with weeping that she might for a -while have believed she should never be able to touch -a needle again. She lost all interest in her work, and -that play of invention 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_63' href='#Page_63'>63</a></span> -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 that only made the wrong she had done -him seem sharper, and that determined in Mr. Vetch, -so soon as she was able to hold up her head a -little, the impulse to come and sit with her through -the dull hours of convalescence. She re-established -to a certain extent, after a time, her connexion, -so far as the letting of her rooms was concerned -(from the other department of her activity the -tide had ebbed apparently for ever); 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 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 as Millicent at last got up and -stood there, smoothing the glossy cylinder of her -umbrella. -</p> - -<p> -“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’ve 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 childhood’s sweetheart. He -may know I call him that!” Millicent continued with -her showroom laugh, as Miss Pynsent judged it to be; -conferring these permissions, successively, as if they -were great indulgences. “Do give him my best love -and tell him I hope he’ll come and see me. I see -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_64' href='#Page_64'>64</a></span> -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 mirth at the sight of her hostess’s half-hungry, -half-astonished look. “What <i>do</i> you think I want -to do with him? I could swallow him at a single -bite!” she cried. -</p> - -<p> -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 an agitated 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’ve -been here, and exactly how you strike me.” -</p> - -<p> -“Of course you’ll say something nasty—like you -used to when I was a child. You usually let me ’ave -it then, you know!” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah well,” said Miss Pynsent, nettled at this -reminder of an acerbity which the girl’s present -development caused to appear absurdly ineffectual, -“you’re very different now, when I think what you’ve -come from.” -</p> - -<p> -“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’ve had to stay in it yourself, so you might speak -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_65' href='#Page_65'>65</a></span> -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 <i>he</i> come -from—the mysterious ‘Mr. Robinson’ who used to -be such a puzzle to the whole Plice? I thought -perhaps I might clear it up, but you haven’t told me -that yet!” -</p> - -<p> -Miss Pynsent turned straight away, covering her -ears with her hands. “I’ve nothing to tell you! -Leave my room—leave my house!” she cried with -a trembling voice. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_66' href='#Page_66'>66</a></span> -</p> - - - - -<h3> -V -</h3> - - -<p> -It was in this way she 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 he had heard her last tones resound into the -passage. He entered as if, young as he was, he knew -that when women were squabbling men were not -called upon to be headlong, and now evidently -wondered who the dressmaker’s evident “match” -might be. She recognised on the instant her old -playmate, and without reflexion, confusion or diplomacy, -in the fulness of her vulgarity and sociability, -exclaimed at no lower pitch: “Gracious, Hyacinth -Robinson, is <i>that</i> your form?” -</p> - -<p> -Miss Pynsent turned round in a flash, but kept -silent; then, very white and shaken, took up her -work again and seated herself in her window. -Hyacinth on his side stood staring—he blushed all -over. He knew who she was but 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?” -</p> - -<p> -“When I asked where you had come from? That -was because we ’eard you in the ’all,” said Millicent, -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_67' href='#Page_67'>67</a></span> -smiling. “I suppose you’ve come from your -work.” -</p> - -<p> -“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 satisfaction -he felt. “Didn’t she live in the Place, Pinnie?” -</p> - -<p> -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 plastered-up Frenchman! -Don’t he look like a funny little Frenchman, Miss -Pynsent?” she went on as if she were on the best -possible terms with the mistress of the establishment. -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth caught a light from that afflicted woman; -he saw something in her face that he knew very -well by this time and in the sight of which he always -found an odd, perverse, unholy relish. 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 vague counter-irritant -to the soreness lodged in his own heart -for ever and which had often at night made him cry -with rage in his little room under the roof. Pinnie -meant this to-day as a matter of course, and 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, often -quite grandly, he felt like one—like one of those he -had read about in Michelet and Carlyle. He had -picked up their language with the most extraordinary -facility, by the aid of one of his mates, a refugee from -Paris, in the workroom, and of a second-hand dog’s-eared -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_68' href='#Page_68'>68</a></span> -dictionary bought for a shilling in the Brompton -Road during one of his interminable, restless, -melancholy, moody, yet all-observant strolls through -London. He spoke it, he believed, by a natural -impulse, caught the accent, the gesture, the movement -of eyebrow and shoulder; so that on any occasion of -his having to pass for a foreigner—there was no telling -what might happen—he should certainly be able -to do so to admiration, especially if 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 the complications -might be which should compel him to assume the -disguise of a person of a social station lower still than -his own he 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. Actually, 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 rueful -profession; there was a dumb intimation, almost as -pathetic as the other, that if he cared to let her off -easily he wouldn’t 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 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?” -</p> - -<p> -“Heaven forbid I should ever do that!” cried -Miss Henning with genuine emotion. “I must live -near the establishment in which I’m employed.” -</p> - -<p> -“And what establishment is that now?” the -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_69' href='#Page_69'>69</a></span> -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 had such looks a jocular tone of -address, a pleasing freedom, was <i><span class="fr_FR">de rigueur</span></i>; so he -added: “Is it the Bull and Gate or the Elephant -and Castle?” -</p> - -<p> -“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 -barmaid—a blowsy beauty who handled pewter—was -tempered by her more and more curious consideration -of Hyacinth’s form. He was exceedingly “rum,” -but he had a stamp as sharp for her as that of a new -coin and which also agreeably suggested value. Since -he remembered so well that she had been fond of -kissing him in their early days she would have liked -to show herself prepared to repeat this graceful -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 knows a lot. That’s -the form <i>I</i> like!” -</p> - -<p> -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, in mitigation of her brilliancy, by remarking -sarcastically, according to opportunity, “Miss -’Enning wouldn’t live in Lomax Plice for the world. -She thinks it too dreadfully low.” -</p> - -<p> -“So it is; it’s a beastly hole,” said the young man. -</p> - -<p> -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 an expression of face that put him more -and more at his ease. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_70' href='#Page_70'>70</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t you suppose I know something?” he asked, -planted before her with his little legs slightly apart -and, with his hands behind him, making the open -door waver to and fro. -</p> - -<p> -“You? Oh, I don’t care a straw what you know!” -she said; and he had at any rate a mind sufficiently -enriched to see what she meant by that. If she meant -he was so good-looking that he might pass on this -score alone her judgement was conceivable, though -many women would strongly have dissented from it. -He was as small as he had announced from the first—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 noted afterwards 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 romantic, 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, -almost an impertinent, candour, and a small, soft, -fair moustache disposed itself upon his upper lip in -a way that made him appear to smile 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_71' href='#Page_71'>71</a></span> -and muslin. He was shabby and work-stained, but -an observant eye would have caught the hint of an -“arrangement” in his dress (his appearance being -plainly not a matter of indifference to himself), while -a painter (not of the heroic) would have liked to make -a sketch of him. There was something exotic in -him, and yet, with his sharp young face, destitute of -bloom but not of sweetness, and a certain conscious -cockneyism that 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, -but he made them—so they had repeatedly -assured him—die of laughing. -</p> - -<p> -“I think you had better shut the door,” said Miss -Pynsent, meaning that he had better shut their -departing visitor out. -</p> - -<p> -“Did you come here on purpose to see us?” he -went on, 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 their getting hold of him and persuading -him to make a marriage beneath his station. His -station!—poor Hyacinth had often asked himself -and inquired of Miss Pynsent what it could possibly -be. He had thought of it bitterly enough, wondering -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 that had made his own young -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_72' href='#Page_72'>72</a></span> -spirit so intolerably sore, the inheritance that 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. -</p> - -<p> -“I thought I’d 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.” -</p> - -<p> -“We needed you to look after us!” Miss Pynsent -irrepressibly exclaimed. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, you’re such a rattling swell yourself!” -Hyacinth observed without heeding the dressmaker. -</p> - -<p> -“None of <i>your</i> ‘rattling’ 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’d tell -you I don’t knock about that way with gentlemen.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’ll go with you as far as you like,” Hyacinth -replied simply, as if he knew how to treat that sort -of speech. -</p> - -<p> -“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 a cruelly familiar nod -of farewell over her shoulder. -</p> - -<p> -It was a long walk from Lomax Place to the -quarter of the town in which (to be near the haberdashers -of 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_73' href='#Page_73'>73</a></span> -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 -and vaguely, 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 reflexion 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 liked the respectable ones; -she couldn’t abide the smell of fish, which the whole -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_74' href='#Page_74'>74</a></span> -place seemed full of, so that she hoped they would -soon get into the Edgeware Road, toward which they -tended and which was a proper street for a lady. -To Hyacinth she appeared to have no connexion -with the long-haired little girl who, in Lomax Place, -years before, was always hugging a smutty doll and -courting his society; she was a stranger, a new -acquaintance, and he observed her in suspense, -wondering by what transitions she had reached her -present pitch. -</p> - -<p> -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—which last were as emphatic as -the giggles of a person tickled. She was tremendously -particular, difficult to please, he could see -that; and she assured him she never put up with -anything a moment after she had ceased to care -for it. 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 assured her 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 Edgeware Road -(which had still the brightness of late closing, but -with more nobleness), he proposed 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 he had them in his -pocket (they had been destined in some degree for -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_75' href='#Page_75'>75</a></span> -Pinnie) and therefore 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 of -its propriety, suggested, among several things, by -photographs, on the walls, of young ladies in tights. -He 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 thrills; -it seemed the beginning of something new and rare. -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, in which he had often felt a likeness -to great square blackboards uninscribed with a stroke -of chalk. 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 ceasing to be so had -hitherto left his fancy unstirred. He knew what -Millicent’s age must be, but felt her nevertheless -older, much older, than himself—she seemed 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 -connexion with the question of the character of the -establishment; if this character was what it easily -might be 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 wouldn’t -mind so long as the tea was strong and the bread and -butter thick. She described to him what had passed -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_76' href='#Page_76'>76</a></span> -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. “But of course she ain’t your mother! -How stupid I am! I keep forgetting.” -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth had, as he supposed, from far back -cultivated 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.” -</p> - -<p> -“My mother’s dead too”—Miss Henning was -prompt, as if “capping” it. “She died very suddenly. -I daresay you remember her in the Plice.” -Then, while Hyacinth disengaged from the past the -obscure figure of Mrs. Henning, of whom he mainly -remembered that she used to strike him as cross -and dirty, the girl added, smiling, but with more -sentiment, “But I’ve had no Pinnie.” -</p> - -<p> -“You look as if you could take care of yourself.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“He’s her young man still,” Hyacinth returned. -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -Millicent looked a little at her companion, after -which she observed, “I should have thought he -would have got you a place at his theatre.” -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_77' href='#Page_77'>77</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -“At his theatre? That would have been no use. -I don’t play any instrument.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t mean in the orchestra, you gaby! You’d -look very nice in a fancy costume.” She had her -elbows on the table and her shoulders lifted, 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 reflexion that this -was exactly what he was apparently 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 and -with the utmost irrelevance Miss Henning inquired: -“Is Miss Pynsent some relation? What gave her -any right over you?” -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth had an answer ready for this question; -he had determined to say as he had several times -said before: “Miss Pynsent’s 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 the girl with the same -inscrutable calmness, as he fancied; though a remark -more to his taste would have been that his mother -was none of her business. But she was too handsome -for such risks, 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 some listening -ear that would be attached to some kissable cheek, -certain other words would be spoken to him which -would make his pain for ever less sharp. But what -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_78' href='#Page_78'>78</a></span> -woman could he trust, what ear would be both safe -and happily enough attached? How much didn’t -he already ask? 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 at any rate now -taken up the subject of Mrs. Henning’s death; he -felt himself incapable of researches into 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 repulsive, -but at least her daughter could speak of her. -“Mr. Vetch has changed his lodgings: he moved -out of 17 three years ago,” he said, to vary the -topic. “He couldn’t stand the other people in the -house; there was a man who played the accordeon.” -</p> - -<p> -Millicent, however, was but moderately interested -in this anecdote, though wanting 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.” -</p> - -<p> -“He wasn’t obliged to put me into anything. -It’s a very good place.” -</p> - -<p> -“All the same, it isn’t where I should have looked -to find you,” the girl declared, not so much in the -tone of wishing to offer him tribute as of resentment -at having miscalculated. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_79' href='#Page_79'>79</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -She faced him over her cup while she drank in -ladylike sips. “Do you know what they used to -say in the Plice? That your father was a lord.” -</p> - -<p> -“Very likely. That’s the kind of rot they talk -in that precious hole,” the young man said without -blenching. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, perhaps he was,” Millicent ventured. -</p> - -<p> -“He may have been a prime-minister for all the -good it has done me.” -</p> - -<p> -“Fancy your talking as if you didn’t know!” -said Millicent. -</p> - -<p> -“Finish your tea—don’t mind how I talk.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, you <i>’ave</i> got a temper!” she archly -retorted. “I should have thought you’d be a clerk -at a banker’s.” -</p> - -<p> -“Do they select them for their tempers?” -</p> - -<p> -“You know what I mean. You used to be too -clever to follow a trade.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, I’m not clever enough to live on air.” -</p> - -<p> -“You might be, really, for all the tea you drink! -Why didn’t you go in for some high profession?” -</p> - -<p> -“How was I to go in? Who the devil was to -help me?” Hyacinth asked with a certain vibration. -</p> - -<p> -“Haven’t you got any relations?” said Millicent -after a moment. -</p> - -<p> -“What are you doing? Are you trying to make -me swagger?” -</p> - -<p> -When he spoke sharply she only laughed, not in -the least ruffled, and by the way she looked at him -seemed to like the effect. “Well, I’m sorry you’re -only a journeyman,” she went on as she pushed -away her cup. -</p> - -<p> -“So am I,” Hyacinth answered; but he called -for the bill as if he had been an employer of labour. -Then while they waited 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, -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_80' href='#Page_80'>80</a></span> -I get up books for the shops,” he said when she had -asserted that she perfectly understood. “But the -art of the binder’s an exquisite art.” -</p> - -<p> -“So Miss Pynsent told me. She said you had -some samples at home. I should like to see them.” -</p> - -<p> -“You wouldn’t know how good they are,” he -finely smiled. -</p> - -<p> -He expected she would exclaim in answer that he -was an impudent wretch, and for a moment she -seemed 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.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t care about that. I hate all that -time.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, so do I, if you come to that,” said Millicent -as if she could rise to any breadth of view. With -which she returned to her idea that he had not done -himself justice. “You used always to have your -nose in something or other. I never thought you’d -work with your ’ands.” -</p> - -<p> -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.” -</p> - -<p> -“What will you do then?” -</p> - -<p> -“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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_81' href='#Page_81'>81</a></span> -what I could get.” He spoke as if he had been -touched by the imputation of having derogated. -</p> - -<p> -Millicent seemed to imply that he defended himself -successfully when she said: “You express yourself -like a reg’lar 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—quite -as for publication; he was haunted with the dream -of literary distinction. This appeared to impress -her, and she branched off to remark, with the agreeable -incoherence that characterised her, that she -didn’t care anything for a man’s family if she liked -the man himself; she thought families and that sort -of rot were about played out. Hyacinth wished she -would leave his origin alone; and while they lingered -in front of her house before she went in he broke out: -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve no doubt you’re a jolly girl, and I’m very -happy to have seen you again. But you’ve awfully -little tact.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>I</i> have little tact? You should see me work off -an old jacket!” -</p> - -<p> -He was silent a little, standing before her with -his hands in his pockets. “It’s a good job you’re -so lovely.” -</p> - -<p> -Millicent didn’t blush at this compliment, and -probably didn’t understand all it conveyed, but she -looked into his eyes a while, with all the smile that -showed her teeth, and then came back more inconsequently -than ever. “Come now, who are you?” -</p> - -<p> -“Who am I? I’m a wretched little ‘forwarder’ -in the shop.” -</p> - -<p> -“I didn’t think I ever could fancy any one in -that line!” she competently cried. Then she let -him know she couldn’t ask him in, as she made it a -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_82' href='#Page_82'>82</a></span> -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 -enough. 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. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_83' href='#Page_83'>83</a></span> -</p> - - - - -<h3> -VI -</h3> - - -<p> -One day shortly after this, at the bindery, his friend -Poupin, absent, had failed to send the explanation -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, was in fact 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 by the solemnity and -candour of his attention. 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. -He was a Republican of the old-fashioned -sort, of the note of 1848, humanitary and idealistic, -infinitely addicted to fraternity and equality and -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_84' href='#Page_84'>84</a></span> -inexhaustibly surprised and exasperated at finding -so little enthusiasm for them in the land of his exile. -He had a marked claim upon Hyacinth’s esteem and -gratitude, for he had been his <i><span class="fr_FR">parrain</span></i>, his protector -at the bindery. When Anastasius Vetch found -something for Miss Pynsent’s young charge to do, -it was through the Frenchman, with whom he had -accidentally made acquaintance, that he found it. -</p> - -<p> -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 who 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_85' href='#Page_85'>85</a></span> -a small superannuated square in Soho and where the -proposal of so slender a job was received at first with -chilling calm. Mr. Vetch, however, insisted; he -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, in -favouring conditions, 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 if the job 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. -</p> - -<p> -In response to an appreciation which he felt not -to be <i>banal</i> 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 thing itself, 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 thing itself, went one Sunday afternoon to see -the binder’s esoteric studies. On this occasion he -made the acquaintance of Madame Poupin, a small, -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_86' href='#Page_86'>86</a></span> -fat lady with a bristling moustache, the white cap -of an <i><span class="fr_FR">ouvrière</span></i>, 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 indefatigable -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 an aggressive 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 collectivist and -a perfectionist and a visionary; he believed 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, <i><span class="fr_FR">par exemple!</span></i>) -and listening to the music of the spheres. Mr. Vetch -neither prefigured nor desired this organised beatitude; -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 gives wings to our heavy-footed -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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_87' href='#Page_87'>87</a></span> -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 hanging on -the agitated fiddlestick of their friend in the orchestra. -But this adventure failed to 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 -camisole in some hideous print, her uncorseted overflow -and her carpet slippers. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<i><span class="fr_FR">comme il faut—dans le genre anglais</span></i>; 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 remarks -exchanged between that gentleman and M. Poupin. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_88' href='#Page_88'>88</a></span> -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 -merchant prince, 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_89' href='#Page_89'>89</a></span> -occasion, see him articled to a shoemaker or a -tailor. -</p> - -<p> -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 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_90' href='#Page_90'>90</a></span> -limits of his reading had been 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 extravagance, while -the absence of any direct contact with a library -represented for him mainly the hard shock of the -real; the shock, that is, he could most easily complain -of. Mr. Vetch believed him subtly intelligent, and -therefore thought it a woeful pity that he couldn’t -have furtherance in some liberal walk; but he would -have thought it a greater pity still that a youth with -that expression in his eyes should be condemned to -measure tape or cut slices of cheese. He himself -had no influence he could bring into play, no connexion -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 her stars, 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 didn’t begin by carrying parcels -he couldn’t hope to be promoted, through the more -refined nimbleness of tying them up, to a position as -accountant or manager; 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 fervid Frenchman if there were a chance of the -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_91' href='#Page_91'>91</a></span> -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 elegant 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 deficiency; 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 the inexhaustible -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 Hyacinth -Robinson. In a day or two M. Poupin replied to the -fiddler that he had now been several years in <i><span class="fr_FR">le vieux</span></i> -“Crook’s” employ; that during that time he had -done work for him which he would have had <i><span class="fr_FR">bien -du mal</span></i> 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. -“<i><span class="fr_FR">La société lui doit bien cela</span></i>,” he remarked afterwards, -when, Mr. Crookenden proving dryly 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_92' href='#Page_92'>92</a></span> -him a susceptibility to philosophic, to cosmic, as well -as to 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 fostered and drew out 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. -</p> - -<p> -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 <i><span class="fr_FR">tisane</span></i> 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 <i><span class="fr_FR">intérieur</span></i> of his friends in -Lisson Grove gave rather a vivid idea of that city. -The two small rooms constituting 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. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_93' href='#Page_93'>93</a></span> -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 stood 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 <i><span class="fr_FR">cuisine</span></i>. On the -windows were curtains of white muslin much fluted -and frilled and tied with pink ribbon. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_94' href='#Page_94'>94</a></span> -</p> - - - - -<h3> -VII -</h3> - - -<p> -“I’m 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 -declamatory, reclamatory, proclamatory, the same -universally inaugurative 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. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah yes; with their filthy politics the situation -of the <i><span class="fr_FR">pauvre monde</span></i> 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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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 a force that will -shake the globe.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“We may not see it, but <i>they’ll</i> see it,” her -husband returned. “But what do I say, my -children? I do see it,” he pursued. “It’s before -my eyes in its radiant reality, especially as I lie here—the -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_95' href='#Page_95'>95</a></span> -revendication, the rehabilitation, the rectification.” -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth ceased to pay attention, not because he -had a differing opinion about what M. Poupin called -the <i><span class="fr_FR">avènement</span></i> 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 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 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, affectional sense. There were hypocritical -concessions and debasing superstitions of -which this exalted pair had 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_96' href='#Page_96'>96</a></span> -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 his French friends, and so was Pinnie, -and so were most of the inhabitants of Lomax Place -and the workmen in old Crook’s shop. But was old -Crook himself, who wore an apron rather dirtier than -the rest of them and was a master-hand at “forwarding,” -yet who, on the other side, was the occupant of -a villa all but detached, at 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, at 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 he had something to make -up to him for and had ever treated him with marked -benevolence. 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 look at him with the kindest eyes. -It would make a difference therefore if he were of the -people or not, inasmuch as on 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, -<i><span class="fr_FR">accapareurs</span></i>, 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?” -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_97' href='#Page_97'>97</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -“I didn’t know but you were a bourgeois,” the -young man answered. -</p> - -<p> -“No, I’m neither. I’m a Bohemian.” -</p> - -<p> -“With your evening dress, every night?” -</p> - -<p> -“My dear boy,” said the fiddler, “those are the -most confirmed.” -</p> - -<p> -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 governmental agent, 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 governmental agent in extraordinary disguises, -the wondrous <i><span class="fr_FR">mouchard</span></i> of M. Poupin’s view, 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_98' href='#Page_98'>98</a></span> -wonder-working fingers. “What will you have? -<i><span class="fr_FR">J’ai la main parisienne</span></i>,” 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 <i>he</i> had the same happy conformation. “There’s -no reason why you shouldn’t be a good workman, -<i><span class="fr_FR">il n’y a que ça</span></i>”; 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. -</p> - -<p> -“What do you mean by force that will shake the -globe?” 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 -took in that there was nothing French about -<i>him</i>—M. Poupin could never tell him he had <i><span class="fr_FR">la -main parisienne</span></i>. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“And in this country, I hope, in their coal-bins. -<i>La-la</i>, we shall find them even there,” his wife -remarked. -</p> - -<p> -“’89 was an irresistible force,” said M. Poupin. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_99' href='#Page_99'>99</a></span> -“I believe you would have thought so if you had -been there.” -</p> - -<p> -“And so was the entrance of the Versaillais, which -sent you over here ten years ago,” the young man -returned. He saw Hyacinth was watching him and -he met his eyes, smiling a little, in a way that added -to our hero’s interest. -</p> - -<p> -“<i><span class="fr_FR">Pardon, pardon</span></i>, 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 didn’t -abate that it was really frivolous of him to ask such -questions as that, knowing as he did—what he did -know. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh the trial will be on a great scale—<i><span class="fr_FR">soyez tranquille</span></i>! -It will be one of those experiments that -constitute a proof.” -</p> - -<p> -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, could see 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 reflexions in Hyacinth’s -face, but after a moment, looking across at him, -he said in a friendly yet just slightly diffident -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_100' href='#Page_100'>100</a></span> -way, a way our hero liked: “And do you know -too?” -</p> - -<p> -“Do I know what?” asked Hyacinth in wonder. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, if you did you would!” the young man -exclaimed and laughed again. Such a rejoinder from -any one else would have irritated our sensitive hero, -but it only made him more curious about his interlocutor, -whose laugh was loud and extraordinarily -gay. -</p> - -<p> -“<i><span class="fr_FR">Mon ami</span></i>, you ought to present <i><span class="fr_FR">ces messieurs</span></i>,” -Madame Poupin remarked. -</p> - -<p> -“<i><span class="fr_FR">Ah ça</span></i>, is that the way you trifle with state -secrets?” her husband cried without heeding her. -Then he went on in a different tone: “M. Hyacinthe -is a gifted child, <i><span class="fr_FR">un enfant très-doué</span></i>, in whom I take -a tender interest—a child who has an account to -settle. Oh, a thumping big one! Isn’t it so, <i><span class="fr_FR">mon -petit</span></i>?” -</p> - -<p> -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!” -</p> - -<p> -“He’s very young,” said Eustache Poupin. -</p> - -<p> -“He’s the person we have seen in this country -whom we like best,” his wife added. -</p> - -<p> -“Perhaps you’re French,” suggested the strange -young man. -</p> - -<p> -The trio seemed to Hyacinth to be waiting for his -answer to this; it was as if a listening stillness had -fallen. He found it a difficult pass, 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 if he were French or were -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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_101' href='#Page_101'>101</a></span> -her in a place and among a people she must have -execrated—all this made him French; yet he was -conscious at the same time of qualities that didn’t -mix with it. He had spun to the last fineness, 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 -spirit and his senses, when the effort to think it out -didn’t 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 of 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 he was ridiculous. “Oh, -I daresay I ain’t anything,” he replied in a moment. -</p> - -<p> -“<i><span class="fr_FR">En v’là des bêtises!</span></i>” cried Madame Poupin. -“Do you mean to say you’re not as good as any -one in the world? I should like to see!” -</p> - -<p> -“We all have an account to settle, don’t you -know?” said the strange young man. -</p> - -<p> -He evidently meant this to be encouraging to -Hyacinth, whose quick desire to avert M. Poupin’s -allusions had not been lost on 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_102' href='#Page_102'>102</a></span> -at least Hyacinth couldn’t—if 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 steady eyes, light-coloured -and set very deep; for despite a want of -fineness in some of its parts his face had a marked -expression of intelligence and resolution, spoke somehow, -as if it had showed you his soul drawing deep -and even breaths, of a state of moral health. He -was dressed as 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 feeling sure he was the reverse of -stupid, that he probably indeed had a large easy -brain quite as some people had big strong fists. Our -little hero had a great desire to know superior persons, -and he interested himself on the spot in this quiet -stranger whose gravity, by any fine balance, showed, -like that of a precious metal, in the small piece as -well as in the big. He had the complexion of a -ploughboy and the glance of a commander-in-chief, -and might have been a distinguished young <i><span class="fr_FR">savant</span></i> -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 -their friend had met and expected to meet again, -Madame Poupin exclaimed that it was a shame not -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_103' href='#Page_103'>103</a></span> -to take in M. Hyacinthe, who, she would answer for -it, had in him the making of one of the pure. -</p> - -<p> -“All in good time, in good time, <i><span class="fr_FR">ma bonne</span></i>,” the -worthy invalid replied. “M. Hyacinthe knows I -count on him, whether or no I make him an <i><span class="fr_FR">interne</span></i> -to-day or only wait a little longer.” -</p> - -<p> -“What do you mean by an <i><span class="fr_FR">interne</span></i>?” Hyacinth -asked. -</p> - -<p> -“<i><span class="fr_FR">Mon Dieu</span></i>, what shall I say!”—and Eustache -Poupin stared at him solemnly from his pillow. -“You’re very sympathetic, but I’m afraid you’re -too young.” -</p> - -<p> -“One is never too young to contribute one’s <i><span class="fr_FR">obole</span></i>,” -said Madame Poupin. -</p> - -<p> -“Can you keep a secret?” asked the other guest, -but not as if he thought it probable. -</p> - -<p> -“Is it a plot—a conspiracy?” Hyacinth broke out. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“It’s a group of workers to which he and I and -a good many others belong. There’s no harm in -telling him that,” the young man went on. -</p> - -<p> -“I advise you not to tell it to Mademoiselle; she’s -quite in the old ideas,” Madame Poupin suggested to -Hyacinth, tasting her <i><span class="fr_FR">tisane</span></i>. -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth sat baffled and wondering, looking from -his fellow-labourer in Soho to his new acquaintance -opposite. “If you’ve 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. -</p> - -<p> -The latter merely viewed him a little as if he were -a pleasing object and then said to the strange young -man: “He’s a little jealous of you. But there’s no -harm in that; it’s of his age. You must know him, -you must like him. We’ll tell you his history some -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_104' href='#Page_104'>104</a></span> -other day; it will make you feel that he belongs to -us of necessity. It’s an accident that he hasn’t met -you here before.” -</p> - -<p> -“How could <i><span class="fr_FR">ces messieurs</span></i> have met when M. Paul -never comes? He doesn’t spoil us!” Madame -Poupin cried. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, you see I’ve my little sister at home to -take care of when I ain’t at the works,” M. Paul -explained. “This afternoon it was just a chance; -there was a lady we know came in to sit with her.” -</p> - -<p> -“A lady—a real lady?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh yes, every inch,” smiled M. Paul. -</p> - -<p> -“Do you like them to thrust themselves into your -apartment like that because you’ve the <i><span class="fr_FR">désagrément</span></i> -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 <i><span class="fr_FR">ces -dames</span></i>—the real ones—coming in to sit with me!” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, you’re not a cripple; you’ve got the use of -your legs!” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, and of my arms!” cried the Frenchwoman. -</p> - -<p> -“This lady looks after several others in our court -and she reads to my sister.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, well, you’re patient, you other English.” -</p> - -<p> -“We shall never do anything without that,” said -M. Paul with undisturbed good-humour. -</p> - -<p> -“You’re 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 <i><span class="fr_FR">tisane</span></i> in rather a -full bowl and tasting it again and yet again as she -came. -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth had been watching his fellow-visitor with -deepening interest; a fact of which M. Paul apparently -became aware, for he volunteered presently, -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_105' href='#Page_105'>105</a></span> -giving a little nod in the direction of the bed, “He -says we ought to know each other. I’m sure I’ve -nothing against it. I like to know folk if they’re -likely to be worth it.” -</p> - -<p> -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?” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Isn’t it a new era?” asked Hyacinth, rather -disappointed. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, I don’t know; it’s just a taking of a stand -on two or three points.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i><span class="fr_FR">Ah bien, voilà du propre</span></i>; between us we’ve -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. Her patient 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; their friend must be perfectly -quiet. They accordingly withdrew with apologies -and promises to return for further news on the -morrow, and two minutes later Hyacinth found -himself standing face to face with his companion -on the pavement in front of M. Poupin’s residence, -under a street-lamp which struggled ineffectually -with the brown winter dusk. -</p> - -<p> -“Is that your name, M. Paul?” he asked as he -looked up at him. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh bless you, no; that’s only her Frenchified -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_106' href='#Page_106'>106</a></span> -way of putting it. My name <i>is</i> Paul, though—Paul -Muniment.” -</p> - -<p> -“And what’s your trade?” Hyacinth demanded -with a jump into familiarity; for his friend seemed -to have told him a great deal more than was usually -conveyed in that item of information. -</p> - -<p> -Paul Muniment looked down at him from above -broad shoulders. “I work for a firm of wholesale -chemists at Lambeth.” -</p> - -<p> -“And where do you live?” -</p> - -<p> -“I live over the water too; in the far south of -London.” -</p> - -<p> -“And are you going home now?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh yes, I’m going to toddle.” -</p> - -<p> -“And may I toddle with you?” -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Muniment considered him further and then -gave a laugh. “I’ll carry you if you like.” -</p> - -<p> -“Thank you; I expect I can walk as far as you,” -said Hyacinth. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, I admire your spirit and I daresay I shall -like your company.” -</p> - -<p> -There was something in his face, taken in connexion -with the idea that he was concerned in the -taking of a stand—it offered our quick youth the -image of a rank of bristling bayonets—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, exchanging -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 the “points” -of his reference or Hyacinth, on his side, had detailed -the circumstances involved in his being, according -to M. Poupin, one of the disinherited. Hyacinth -didn’t wish to press, wouldn’t for the world have -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_107' href='#Page_107'>107</a></span> -appeared indiscreet, and moreover, though he had -taken so great a fancy to Muniment, was not quite -prepared as yet to be pressed himself. Therefore it -failed to become very clear how his companion had -made Poupin’s acquaintance and how long he had -enjoyed it. Paul Muniment nevertheless was to a -certain extent communicative, especially on the question -of his living 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 bob 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 Saint 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 penetrate 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’s -Rosy.” He spoke as if this would be a great privilege -and added, for the joke, 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 the room on the threshold of which they -stood to be unlighted. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh dear, no; we’re sitting in the dark,” a small -bright voice instantly replied. “Lady Aurora’s so -kind; she’s here still.” -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_108' href='#Page_108'>108</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -The voice came out of a corner so pervaded by -gloom that the speaker was indistinguishable. “Well -now, that’s beautiful!” Paul Muniment rejoined. -“You’ll have a party then, for I’ve brought some -one else. We’re poor, you know, but honest, and -not afraid of showing up, and I daresay we can -manage a candle.” -</p> - -<p> -At this, in the dim firelight, Hyacinth saw a tall -figure erect itself—a figure angular and slim, crowned -with a large vague hat and a flowing umbrageous -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.” Both the tone -and the purport of the words announced to Hyacinth -that they proceeded from Lady Aurora. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_109' href='#Page_109'>109</a></span> -</p> - - - - -<h3> -VIII -</h3> - - -<p> -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 object stretched upon it—an object 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 presented moreover, 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 -wonderful people. Lady Aurora hovered before him -with an odd drooping, swaying erectness, and she -laughed a good deal, vaguely and shyly, as for the -awkwardness of her being found still on the premises. -“Rosy, girl, I’ve brought you a visitor,” Hyacinth’s -guide soon said. “This young man has walked all -the way from Lisson Grove to make your acquaintance.” -Rosy continued to look at the visitor from -over her counterpane, and he felt slightly embarrassed, -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_110' href='#Page_110'>110</a></span> -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 -slippery trout’s in the water.” -</p> - -<p> -“Dear me, if I didn’t receive company because -I was in bed, there wouldn’t be much use, would -there, Lady Aurora?” -</p> - -<p> -Rosy put this question in a light, gay tone, with -a dart of shining eyes at her companion, who replied -at once with still greater hilarity and in a voice -which struck Hyacinth as strange and affected: “Oh -mercy, no; it seems quite the natural place!” -Then she added: “And it’s such a lovely bed, such -a comfortable bed!” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“I say now, you haven’t been doing that again -to-day?” Muniment asked, punching the mattress -of the invalid with a vigorous hand. -</p> - -<p> -“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 <i>r</i> as a <i>w</i>. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, I’ve no doubt whatever!” Lady Aurora -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_111' href='#Page_111'>111</a></span> -exclaimed quickly. “Mrs. Major must have so very -much to do.” -</p> - -<p> -“Not in the making-up of beds, I’m afraid; there -are only two or three, down there, for so many,” the -young man returned loudly and with a kind of -inconsequent cheerfulness. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, I’ve thought a great deal about that. But -there wouldn’t be room for more, you know,” said -Lady Aurora, this time with all gravity. -</p> - -<p> -“There’s not much room for a family of that sort -anywhere—thirteen people of all ages and sizes,” -her host observed. “The world’s pretty big, but -there doesn’t seem room.” -</p> - -<p> -“We’re also thirteen at home,” Lady Aurora -hastened to mention. “We’re also rather crowded.” -</p> - -<p> -“Surely you don’t mean at Inglefield?” Rosy -demanded from her dusky nook. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t know about Inglefield. I’m 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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, it’s fortunate you’re not all <i>your</i> size!” -Paul Muniment declared 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 the life of a capital; and later still he -wished to know 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. -</p> - -<p> -At this familiar allusion to her stature Lady -Aurora turned hither and thither a little confusedly; -Hyacinth saw her high, lean figure almost rock in -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_112' href='#Page_112'>112</a></span> -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’s standing up that -she’s so, you gawk? <i>We’re</i> not thirteen, at any -rate, and we’ve got all the furniture we want, so -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’m 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.” -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth thought Miss Muniment very charming; -he had begun to make her out better by this time, -and he watched her small 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 accomplishment—he judged it impossible to -tell her age. Lady Aurora pleaded that she -ought to have gone, long since; but she seated -herself nevertheless on the chair that Paul pushed -toward her. -</p> - -<p> -“Here’s a go!” this young man exclaimed to the -other guest. “You told me your name, but I’ve -clean forgotten it.” Then when Hyacinth had -pronounced 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 all right; -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 Crookenden’s. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_113' href='#Page_113'>113</a></span> -Hyacinth knew how much nearer to the right thing -he himself came. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” Rose Muniment -addressed this question to Hyacinth while Lady -Aurora gazed at her shyly and mutely and as if -admiring 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 she should be -called the dawn when she brings light where she -goes? The Puppins are the charming foreigners I’ve -told you about,” she explained to her friend. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, it’s so pleasant knowing a few foreigners!” -Lady Aurora exclaimed with a spasm of expression. -“They’re often so very fresh.” -</p> - -<p> -“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 gift of tongues -it would bring me on.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’m sure I should be very happy to help you -with your French. I feel the advantage of knowing -it,” Hyacinth remarked finely, becoming conscious -that his declaration drew the attention of Lady -Aurora toward 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 long and lean. She had the -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_114' href='#Page_114'>114</a></span> -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 that had resulted from -fortunate touch after touch. She was not a common -woman; she was one of the caprices of an aristocracy. -Hyacinth didn’t define her in this manner to himself, -but he received from her the impression that if she -was a simple creature (which he learned later she -was not) aristocracies were yet complicated things. -Lady Aurora remarked that there were many delightful -books in French, and he proclaimed it a torment -to know that (as he did very well) when you saw no -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 method surreptitiously -during his first weeks at old Crook’s and -come very near being sacked in consequence) while -he wondered how such a system could be put into -practice; whether she would expect him to call at -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_115' href='#Page_115'>115</a></span> -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 lucky 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 the 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. -</p> - -<p> -“I wonder if she’s worse than me,” Hyacinth -returned 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 learning 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 in the habit of visiting the nobility at their -country-seats; she talked about Inglefield as if she -had stayed there. -</p> - -<p> -“Hullo, I didn’t know you were so advanced!” -exclaimed the master of the scene, who had been -sitting silent and sidewise in a chair that was too -narrow for him, his big arm hugging the back. “Have -we been entertaining an angel unawares?” -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth made out he was chaffing him, but he -knew the way to face that sort of thing was to -exaggerate one’s 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 any -one.” -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_116' href='#Page_116'>116</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -“I thought the principal thing about you was that -you knew French,” Paul Muniment said with an air -of derision which showed him he wouldn’t put that -ridicule upon him unless he liked him, at the same -time that it revealed to him how he had come within -an ace of posturing. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, I don’t know it for nothing. I’ll say something -that will take your head off if you don’t look -out—just the sort of thing they say so well in -French.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, do say something of that kind; we should -enjoy it so much!” cried Rosy in perfect good faith -and clasping her hands for expectation. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -This challenge was hardly less alarming than the -other, for he was far from being ready with an -impressive formula. He replied, however, with a -candour in which he tried as far as possible to sink -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.” -</p> - -<p> -“I should like so much to know Madame,” Lady -Aurora murmured as if politeness demanded that she -should content herself with this answer. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, Puppin isn’t strong,” said Muniment; “you -can easily look over his head! He has a sweet assortment -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_117' href='#Page_117'>117</a></span> -of phrases—they’re 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 a spark of the sacred fire. The -principal conclusion 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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah yes, the French Revolution.” -</p> - -<p> -“Lord, I don’t know anything about your father, -my lady!” Hyacinth interposed. -</p> - -<p> -“Didn’t you ever hear of the Earl of Inglefield?” -cried Rose Muniment. -</p> - -<p> -“He’s one of the best,” said Lady Aurora as if she -were pleading for him. -</p> - -<p> -“Very likely, but he’s a landlord, and he has an -hereditary seat and a park of five thousand acres all -to himself, while we’re bundled together into this sort -of kennel.” Hyacinth admired the young man’s consistency -till he saw he was amusing himself; after -which he still admired the way he could mix that up -with the tremendous opinions it must have been -certain he entertained. In his own imagination he -associated bitterness with the revolutionary passion; -but the young chemical expert, 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. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, I’ve 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 -universal participation. “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.” -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_118' href='#Page_118'>118</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“I think you’re much better than I, and I know -very few people so good as you,” Lady Aurora -brought out, 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, <i><span class="fr_FR">à propos</span></i> 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.” -</p> - -<p> -“What people do you mean?” Hyacinth allowed -himself to inquire. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, the upper class, the people who’ve got all -the things.” -</p> - -<p> -“We don’t call them the <i>people</i>,” observed -Hyacinth, reflecting the next instant that his remark -was a little primitive. -</p> - -<p> -“I suppose you call them the wretches, the -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_119' href='#Page_119'>119</a></span> -scoundrels!” Rose Muniment suggested, laughing -merrily. -</p> - -<p> -“All the things, but not all the brains,” her brother -said. -</p> - -<p> -“No indeed, aren’t they stupid?” exclaimed her -ladyship. “All the same, I don’t think they’d all -go abroad.” -</p> - -<p> -“Go abroad?” -</p> - -<p> -“I mean like the French nobles who emigrated so -much. They’d stay at home and resist; they’d -make more of a fight. I think they’d fight very -hard.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’m delighted to hear it, and I’m sure they’d -win!” cried Rosy. -</p> - -<p> -“They wouldn’t collapse, don’t you know,” Lady -Aurora continued. “They’d struggle till they were -beaten.” -</p> - -<p> -“And you think they’d be beaten in the end?” -Hyacinth asked. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh dear, yes,” she replied with a familiar confidence -at which he was greatly surprised. “But of -course one hopes it won’t happen.” -</p> - -<p> -“I infer from what you say that they talk it over -a good deal among themselves, to settle the line -they’ll take,” said Paul Muniment. -</p> - -<p> -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 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’s 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’d just advise her to save herself the -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_120' href='#Page_120'>120</a></span> -disappointment and the trouble. They won’t be a -bit the wiser and they won’t either know or care. If -they’re going to trample over their betters it isn’t on -account of her having seemed to give up everything -to us here that they’ll let <i>her</i> off. They’ll trample on -her just the same as on the others, and they’ll say 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 the powers above have made you a -lady the best thing you can do is to hold up your -head. I can promise your ladyship <i>I</i> would!” -</p> - -<p> -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 on -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 pleading gasps, while Paul Muniment, with his -humorous density, which was deliberate, and acute -too, not seeing, or at any rate not heeding, that she -had been sufficiently snubbed by his sister, inflicted -a fresh humiliation in 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. -Eat your pudding while you have it; you mayn’t -have it long.” -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_121' href='#Page_121'>121</a></span> -movement suggested she had taken offence and he -would have liked to show her he thought she had -been rather roughly used. But she gave him no -chance, not glancing at him for a moment. Then -he saw 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’re 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. -</p> - -<p> -“Paul will see you as far as you like on your way -home,” this young woman remarked. -</p> - -<p> -Lady Aurora protested, but Paul, without protesting -in return, only took up his hat and smiled at her -as if he knew his duty. On this her ladyship said: -“Well, you may see me downstairs; I forgot it was -so dark.” -</p> - -<p> -“You must take her ladyship’s own candle and -you must call a cab,” Rosy directed. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, I don’t go in cabs. I walk.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Superb? Oh mercy!” cried the poor devoted, -grotesque lady, leaving the room with Paul, who -told Hyacinth to wait for him a little. She neglected -to take leave of 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 <i>demos</i>—reverted inevitably to the -supercilious. She had said no more about lending -him her books. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_122' href='#Page_122'>122</a></span> -</p> - - - - -<h3> -IX -</h3> - - -<p> -“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 cards 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 Saint 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_123' href='#Page_123'>123</a></span> -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) if 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 <i>her</i> -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 -on it all with a kind of terror—a sort of shivering -sinking state 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 connexion. The little woman, the -little girl, as she lay there (Hyacinth scarce 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 precipitate a confidence. -The secret was that, of all the people she had ever -seen in the world, her ladyship thought Rosy’s Paul -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_124' href='#Page_124'>124</a></span> -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 a 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 a real one by the way he listened) -to know what was thought of him by them that had -an experience of intellect. 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 <i>might</i> 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_125' href='#Page_125'>125</a></span> -spent half an hour with Paul Muniment’s small, odd, -sharp, crippled, chattering sister, who gave him an -impression of education and native wit (she expressed -herself far better than Pinnie or than Milly 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 truly high spirit. 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 flood that whirled -past it and round it, in the hope of being carried to -some brighter, happier vision—the vision of societies -where, in splendid rooms, with smiles and soft voices, -distinguished men, with women who were both -proud and gentle, talked of 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 -straight questions of her guest, 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.” -</p> - -<p> -Miss Muniment didn’t in the least repudiate the -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_126' href='#Page_126'>126</a></span> -imputation. “Oh yes, I daresay we seem very curious. -I think we’re generally thought so; especially me, -being so miserable and yet so lively.” And she -laughed till her bed creaked again. -</p> - -<p> -“Perhaps it’s lucky you’re ill; perhaps if you had -your health you’d be all over the place,” Hyacinth -suggested. And he went on candidly: “I can’t -make it out, your being so up in everything.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t see why you need make it out! But you -would, perhaps, if you had known my father and -mother.” -</p> - -<p> -“Were they such a rare lot?” -</p> - -<p> -“I think you’d say so if you had ever been in the -mines. Yes, in the mines, where the filthy coal’s -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 the awfulness too. My -father had no great figure, but <i>she</i> 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 <i>he</i> did -have his legs, when the liquor hadn’t got into them. -Yet 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 very nature. He invented, -for use in machine-shops, a mechanical improvement—a -new kind of beam-fixing, whatever that is—and -he sold it at Bradford for fifteen pounds: I -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_127' href='#Page_127'>127</a></span> -mean the whole right and profit of it and every hope -and comfort 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 home, or only came 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 won’t ever touch so much as you -could wet your finger with, and that I’ve only 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 but 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’d have -been a bold man that had taken on 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 of it. How he got it’s more than -I can say, as we never had a penny to pay for it; -and of course my mother’s head wouldn’t have -been of much use if he hadn’t had a head himself. -Well, it was all in the family. Paul was a boy that -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_128' href='#Page_128'>128</a></span> -would learn more from a yellow poster 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 really grand character 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 jolly good brains at least to give us.” -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth listened to this eloquence—the clearest -statement of anything he had ever heard made by -a woman—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 talked of brains made him feel this; she -pronounced the word as if she were distributing prizes -for intellectual eminence from off a platform. No -doubt the weak inventor and the strong worker had -been fine specimens, but that didn’t diminish the -merit of their highly original offspring. The girl’s -insistence on 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 -aimless wonder as to the difference it would have -made for his life to have had some rich warm -presence like that in it. -</p> - -<p> -“Are you very fond of your brother?” he inquired -after a little. -</p> - -<p> -The eyes of his hostess glittered at him. “If you -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_129' href='#Page_129'>129</a></span> -ever quarrel with him you’ll see whose side I shall -take.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, before that I shall make you like <i>me</i>.” -</p> - -<p> -“That’s very possible, and you’ll see how I shall -fling you over!” -</p> - -<p> -“Why then do you object so to his views—his -ideas about the way the people are to come up?” -</p> - -<p> -“Because I think he’ll get over them.” -</p> - -<p> -“Never—never!” cried Hyacinth. “I’ve only -known him an hour or two, but I deny that with -all my strength.” -</p> - -<p> -“Is that the way you’re going to make me like -you—contradicting me so?” Miss Muniment asked -with familiar archness. -</p> - -<p> -“What’s the use, when you tell me I shall be -sacrificed? One might as well perish for a lamb as -for a sheep.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t believe you’re a lamb at all. Certainly -you’re not if you want all the great people pulled -down and the most dreadful scenes enacted.” -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth asked this question with considerable -heat, but the effect of it was to send his companion -off into a new ring of laughter. “You say that just -like a man my brother described to me three days -ago, a little man at some club whose hair stood up—Paul -imitated the way he raved and stamped. I -don’t mean that you do either, but you use almost -the same words as him.” Hyacinth scarce knew -what to make of this allusion or of the picture offered -him of Paul Muniment casting ridicule on 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 great things to learn -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_130' href='#Page_130'>130</a></span> -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.” -</p> - -<p> -“You ought to know my Aunt Pinnie—she’s -just such another benighted idolater!” Hyacinth -returned. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, you’re making me like you very fast! And -pray who’s your Aunt Pinnie?” -</p> - -<p> -“She’s a dressmaker and a charming little woman. -I should like her to come and see you.” -</p> - -<p> -“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,” Miss Muniment -hastened to add. -</p> - -<p> -“I’ll bring her some day,” he said; and then he -went on rather incongruously, for he was irritated by -the girl’s optimism, thinking it a shame her sharpness -should be enlisted on the wrong side. “Don’t -you want, for yourself, a better place to live in?” -</p> - -<p> -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’re 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’re very much -mistaken!” -</p> - -<p> -Such an attitude could only exasperate him, and -his exasperation made him indifferent to the mistake -of his having appeared to sniff at Miss Muniment’s -quarters. 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_131' href='#Page_131'>131</a></span> -by misery. “Don’t you sometimes make your -brother very cross?” he asked, smiling, of his present -entertainer. -</p> - -<p> -“Cross? I don’t know what you take us for! -I never saw him lose his temper in his life.” -</p> - -<p> -“He must be a rum customer! Doesn’t he really -care for—for what we were talking about?” -</p> - -<p> -For a space Rosy was silent; then she replied: -“What my brother really cares for—well, one of -these days, when you know, you’ll tell me.” -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth stared. “But isn’t he tremendously -deep in—” What should he call the mystery? -</p> - -<p> -“Deep in what?” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, in what’s going on beneath the surface. -Doesn’t he belong to important things?” -</p> - -<p> -“I’m sure I don’t know what he belongs to—you -may ask him!” cried Rosy, who laughed gaily again -as the opening door re-admitted the subject of their -conversation. “You must have crossed the water -with her ladyship,” she pursued. “I wonder who -enjoyed their walk most.” -</p> - -<p> -“She’s a handy old girl and she has a goodish -stride,” said the young man. -</p> - -<p> -“I think she’s in love with you simply, Mr. -Muniment.” -</p> - -<p> -“Really, my dear, for an admirer of the aristocracy -you allow yourself a licence,” Paul scoffed, smiling at -Hyacinth. -</p> - -<p> -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 struck out. -</p> - -<p> -“Perhaps she is then; she’s daft enough for -anything.” -</p> - -<p> -“There have been fine folks before who have -patted the people on the back and pretended to -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_132' href='#Page_132'>132</a></span> -enter into their life,” Hyacinth said. “Is she only -playing with that idea or is she in earnest?” -</p> - -<p> -“In earnest—in terrible deadly earnest, my dear -fellow! I think she must be rather crowded out at -home.” -</p> - -<p> -“Crowded out of Inglefield? Why, there’s room -for three hundred!” Rosy broke in. -</p> - -<p> -“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 -that 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 that hung over her ladyship’s -head. Muniment asked if Hyacinth and Rosy had -got on together, and the girl replied that Mr. Robinson -had made himself most 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. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh yes, I’ll tell you everything—you know how -I like describing.” -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth found himself amused 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 guessing the truth, said to him all -pertinently: “It’s very wonderful—she can describe -things she has never seen. And they’re just like the -reality.” -</p> - -<p> -“There’s nothing I’ve never seen,” Rosy declared. -“That’s the advantage of my lying here in such a -manner. I see everything in the world.” -</p> - -<p> -“You don’t seem to see your brother’s meetings—his -secret societies and his revolutionary clubs. -You put that aside when I asked you.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, you mustn’t ask her that sort of thing,” -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_133' href='#Page_133'>133</a></span> -said Paul, lowering at Hyacinth with a fierce frown—an -expression he perceived in a moment to be -facetiously assumed. -</p> - -<p> -“What am I to do then, since you won’t tell me -anything definite yourself?” -</p> - -<p> -“It will be definite enough when you get hanged -for it!” Rosy exclaimed mockingly. -</p> - -<p> -“Why do you want to poke your head into ugly -black holes?” Muniment asked, laying his hand on -Hyacinth’s shoulder and shaking it gently. -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t you belong to the party of action?” our -young man gravely demanded. -</p> - -<p> -“Look at the way he has picked up all the silly -bits of catchwords!” Paul cried in not unkindly -derision 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. -</p> - -<p> -“If you’ll show me the thing itself I shall have no -more occasion to mind the newspapers,” Hyacinth -candidly pleaded, rejoicing all the while to feel -himself in such a relation. It was his view of himself, -and not an unfair one, that his was a character -that would never sue for a favour; but now he felt -that in any connexion with Paul Muniment such a -law would be suspended. This rare man he could -go on his knees to without a sense of humiliation. -</p> - -<p> -“What thing do you mean, infatuated, deluded -youth?” Paul pursued, refusing to be serious. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“The day they find my papers, my dear, will be -the day you’ll get up and dance.” -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_134' href='#Page_134'>134</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -“What did you ask me to come home with you -for?” Hyacinth demanded as he twirled his hat. It -was an effort for a moment to keep the tears from -his eyes; he saw himself forced to put such a -different construction on his new friend’s hospitality. -He had had a happy impression that Muniment had -divined in him a possible associate of a high type in -a subterranean crusade against the existing order of -things, whereas it now 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 justified at the present -juncture the high estimate Lady Aurora Langrish -had formed of his intelligence: whatever his natural -reply to Hyacinth’s question would have been he -invented straight off a better one and said at random, -smiling and not knowing exactly what his visitor -had meant: -</p> - -<p> -“What did I ask you to come with me for? To -see if you’d be afraid.” -</p> - -<p> -What there was to be afraid of was to Hyacinth -a quantity equally vague; but he answered quickly -enough: “I think you’ve only to try me to see.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’m sure that 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. -</p> - -<p> -“Those are just the kind of people I want to -know,” Hyacinth rang out. -</p> - -<p> -His sincerity appeared to touch his friend. “Well, -I see you’re a good ’un. Just meet me some night.” -</p> - -<p> -“Where, where?” asked Hyacinth eagerly. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, I’ll tell you where when we get away from -<i>her</i>.” And Muniment led him good-humouredly out. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_135' href='#Page_135'>135</a></span> -</p> - - - - -<h3> -X -</h3> - - -<p> -Several months after Hyacinth had made his -acquaintance, Millicent Henning remarked that it -was high time our hero should take her to some -first-class place of amusement. He proposed hereupon -the Canterbury Music Hall; at which 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 give her an evening -at 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 had come 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; the flaring cometary creature had -become a fixed star. She had never spoken to him -of Millicent but once, several weeks after her interview -with the girl; and this had not been 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_136' href='#Page_136'>136</a></span> -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 -of vain semblance that he had forgotten the wrong -she had done him, so that she could almost forget -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, cocking it with a victorious exalted -air. He hummed to himself; he fingered his moustache; -he looked out of window when there was -nothing to look at; he seemed preoccupied, launched -in intellectual excursions, half anxious and half in -spirits. During the whole winter Miss Pynsent -explained everything by four words murmured -beneath her breath: “That beastly forward jade!” -On the single occasion, however, on which she had -sought relief from her agitation in an appeal to -Hyacinth she didn’t trust herself to designate the -girl by epithet or title. -</p> - -<p> -“There’s 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?” -</p> - -<p> -“Does who expect me? I should like to see the -woman who does!” -</p> - -<p> -“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 for a -moment. “Aren’t there plenty of vulgar fellows in -that low part where she lives without her ravaging -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_137' href='#Page_137'>137</a></span> -over here? Why can’t she stick to her own beat, -I should like to know?” Hyacinth had flushed at -the question, and she had seen something in his face -to make 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.” -</p> - -<p> -“My poor old Pinnie sometimes makes me quite -sick,” he remarked for answer. “What sort of a -mess do you suppose I shall get into?” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, suppose she does come it over you that -you promised to marry her?” -</p> - -<p> -“You don’t know what you’re talking about. -She doesn’t want to marry any one—the way she -sees it.” -</p> - -<p> -“Then how the dickens does she see it?” -</p> - -<p> -“Do you imagine I’d tell a lady’s secrets?” the -young man returned. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh laws, if she was a lady I shouldn’t be afraid!” -said Pinnie. -</p> - -<p> -“Every woman’s a lady when she has placed -herself under one’s protection,” Hyacinth declared -with his little manner of a man of the great -world. -</p> - -<p> -“Under your protection? Oh I say!” cried -Pinnie, staring. “And pray who’s to protect you?” -</p> - -<p> -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 heavenly when -he needn’t have been at all. At such moments -Pinnie wanted to kiss him and had often tried to -make Mr. Vetch understand what fascinating traits -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_138' href='#Page_138'>138</a></span> -of character she was always noting in their young -friend. This particular one 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, though 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 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 the -youth’s name would have been written down in very -big letters before a solicitor. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“I can’t think why you like her,” Pinnie remarked -as if she had spent on the question treasures of -impartiality. -</p> - -<p> -“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 sigh as for -long experience. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_139' href='#Page_139'>139</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -“Well, what am I ready to do? I’m not ready -to see you gobbled up before my eyes!” -</p> - -<p> -“You needn’t be afraid. She won’t drag me to -the altar.” -</p> - -<p> -“And pray doesn’t she think you good enough—for -one of the beautiful ’Ennings?” -</p> - -<p> -“You don’t understand, my poor Pinnie,” he -wearily pleaded. “I sometimes think there isn’t a -single thing in life that you understand. One of -these days she’ll marry an alderman.” -</p> - -<p> -“An alderman—that creature?” -</p> - -<p> -“An alderman or a banker or a bishop or some -of that bloated kind. She doesn’t want to end her -career to-day—she wants to begin it.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, I wish she’d take you later!” the dressmaker -returned. -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth said nothing for a little, but then 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?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, you wouldn’t, would you?” cried Pinnie -with conciliatory eagerness. “That’s the way I like -to hear you talk!” -</p> - -<p> -“Do you think I’d marry any one who would -marry me?” Hyacinth went on. “The kind of girl -who’d look at me is the kind of girl I’d never look -at.” He struck Pinnie as having thought it all out; -which didn’t 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 that 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_140' href='#Page_140'>140</a></span> -in some case where it could have consequences, might -have been termed profligate and which yet never -cost her a scruple or a compunction. -</p> - -<p> -“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 worse danger. -This the dressmaker considered to be the chance of -his marrying some person of her own base order. -Still it came over her that his taste might be lowered, -and before the subject was dropped, on the present -occasion, she said that of course he must be quite -aware of all that was wanting to such a girl as -Millicent ’Enning—who visibly wasn’t worth any -struggle for her aspirate. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, I don’t bother about what’s wanting to her. -I’m content with what she has.” -</p> - -<p> -“Content, dearest—how do you mean?” the little -dressmaker quavered. “Content to make an intimate -friend of her?” -</p> - -<p> -“It’s impossible I should discuss these matters -with you,” Hyacinth grandly enough replied. -</p> - -<p> -“Of course I see that. But I should think -she’d bore you sometimes,” Miss Pynsent threw off -cunningly. -</p> - -<p> -“She does, I assure you, to extinction!” -</p> - -<p> -“Then why do you spend every evening with -her?” -</p> - -<p> -“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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_141' href='#Page_141'>141</a></span> -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 old Crook’s, -under Eustache Poupin’s influence, was a kind of -education of the taste, trained him in the finest -discriminations, in the recognition of the rare and -the hatred of the cheap. 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 had been still very young when the -“gin-palace” ceased to convey to him an idea of -the palatial. -</p> - -<p> -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, nothing in life had such an interest or -such a price for him as his impressions and reflexions. -They came from everything he touched, -they made him vibrate, kept him thrilled and throbbing, -for most of his waking consciousness, and -they constituted as yet the principal events and -stages of his career. Fortunately they were often -an immense amusement. Everything in the field of -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_142' href='#Page_142'>142</a></span> -observation suggested this or that; everything struck -him, penetrated, stirred; he had in a word more -news of life, as he might have called it, than he -knew what to do with—felt sometimes as he could -have imagined an overwhelmed man of business to -whom the post brought too many letters. The man -of business indeed could keep a secretary, but what -secretary could have cleared up for Hyacinth some -of the strange communications of life? He liked -to talk about these things, but it was only a few -here and there he could discuss with Milly. He -allowed Miss Pynsent to 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 -he at this crude period of his growth held it was his -lot to languish. It didn’t matter if one was a little -more or a little less misunderstood. He might indeed -have remembered it mattered to Pinnie, who, after -her first relief at hearing him express himself so -properly on the subject of a matrimonial connexion -with Miss Henning, allowed her faded, kind, weak -face little by little to lengthen out to its old solemnity. -This came back 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, -however, 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 more than fifty years -in a world of wickedness; like so many London -women of her class and kind she had little sentimental -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_143' href='#Page_143'>143</a></span> -softness for her own sex, whose general “paying” -seemed the simplest and most natural arrangement; -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 young person who -had taken a gross risk and a premature, lowering -marriage for her beloved little boy she very well -knew which she preferred. It should be added that -her view of Millicent’s power to look after herself -was such as to make it absurd to pity her in advance. -Pinnie thought Hyacinth the cleverest young man -in the, or at least in their, world, but her state of -mind implied that the young lady in Pimlico was -cleverer. Her ability, at any rate, was of a kind -that precluded the knowledge of suffering, whereas -Hyacinth’s was somehow fairly founded on it. -</p> - -<p> -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 element of romance which -overshadowed, though by no means eclipsing, 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 playfellow off -and without indeed demanding of him an account -she was not on her own side prepared to give. -Hyacinth was, in the language of the circle in which -she moved, her personal fancy, and she was content -to fill as regards himself the same eminent and -somewhat irresponsible position. She had the assurance -that she was a 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_144' href='#Page_144'>144</a></span> -an extraordinary supply, at the service of his incurable -verdancy; looking after him generally as no -one, poor child, had ever done. Millicent made light -of the dingy dressmaker in this view of her friend’s -meagre little past (she thought Pinnie no better than -a starved cat) and enjoyed herself immensely in the -character of guide and philosopher. She felt that -character never so high as when she pushed the -young man with a robust elbow or said to him, -“Well, you <i>are</i> a sharp ’un, you are!” Her theory -of herself, as we know, was that she was the “best -sort” in the world, as well as one of the greatest -beauties and quickest wits, 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 immense, 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 he was -fastidious, will be wondered at; the judgement will -be that she didn’t represent it very favourably. -</p> - -<p> -It may easily be believed that he criticised his -inclination even while he gave himself up to it, and -that he often wondered he should find so much to -attract in a girl in whom he found so much to -condemn. She was vulgar, clumsy and grotesquely -ignorant; her conceit was proportionate and she -hadn’t a grain of tact or of quick perception. And -yet there was something so elementally free in her, -by his loose measure, she carried with such an air -the advantages she did possess, that her figure constantly -mingled itself even with those bright visions -hovering before him after Paul Muniment had opened -a queerly-placed but far-reaching window. She was -bold and generous and incalculable, and if she was -coarse she was neither false nor cruel. She laughed -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_145' href='#Page_145'>145</a></span> -with the laugh of the people and if you hit her hard -enough would cry with their tears. When he himself -was not letting his imagination wander among the -haunts of the aristocracy and stretching it in the -shadow of an ancestral beech to read the last number -of the <i><span class="fr_FR">Revue des Deux Mondes</span></i> 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 raise it to -passion, 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 as 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, for being 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 -(with Pinnie to put sugar in his tea and let him -never want for neckties) like a regular little swell. -</p> - -<p> -Millicent, to hear her talk, only asked to keep her -skirts clear and marry some respectable tea-merchant. -But for our hero she was magnificently plebeian, in -the sense that implied 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 oiled -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_146' href='#Page_146'>146</a></span> -hair and plates in rows on dressers and stuffed birds -under glass and family photographs of a quite similar -effect 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 Capital—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 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 -him she was so handsome. If she had been ugly he -couldn’t have listened to her; but the rare bloom and -grand style of her person glorified even her accent, -interfused her cockney genius with prismatic hues, -gave her a large and constant impunity. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_147' href='#Page_147'>147</a></span> -</p> - - - - -<h3> -XI -</h3> - - -<p> -She desired at last to raise their common experience -to a loftier level, to enjoy what she called a high-class -treat. Their commerce had been 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 having put up for her. He invariably -pronounced the objects of her selection hideous -and made no scruple to assure her she had the worst -taste of any girl in the place. Nothing he could say -to her affronted her so much, for her pretensions in -the way of a cultivated judgement 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 -made the point that 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_148' href='#Page_148'>148</a></span> -description of his own few inches; but in reality she -was fascinated as much as she was provoked by his -attitude of being difficult to please, of seeing indescribable -differences among the smartest things. She had -given herself out originally as very knowing, but he -could make her gape with doubts. 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 and bruised him with her elbow, declaring 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 couldn’t rid herself of -a suspicion that there might be something in his -judgement and was angry at not finding herself as -positive as any one. Then he would reply that it -was no use attempting to tell her; she wouldn’t -understand and had better continue to admire the -insipid productions of an age that had lost the sense -of fineness—a phrase she remembered, proposing -to herself even to make use of it on some future -occasion, but was quite unable to interpret. -</p> - -<p> -When her companion demeaned himself in this -manner it was not with a view of strengthening the -tie that united him to his childhood’s friend; but -the effect followed on Millicent’s side and the girl -was proud to think herself 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 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_149' href='#Page_149'>149</a></span> -for five minutes in perfect silence and she delivered -herself according to her wont at such junctures, she -was a thousand miles from guessing the perverse -sentiments that 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 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 her fellow-sufferer -the case was very different; the remedy for -him was terribly vague and inaccessible. He was -liable to moods in which the sense of exclusion -from all he would have liked most to enjoy in life -settled on 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 reflexion, in which he felt how in this world of -effort and suffering life was endurable, the spirit able -to expand, only in the best conditions, and how 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 involve. -</p> - -<p> -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 -on themselves to make him smart with the sense that -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_150' href='#Page_150'>150</a></span> -<i>he</i> was above all out of it. He felt, moreover, that -there was neither consolation nor 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 on our -young man his brothers of the people fared, collectively, -very ill 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 mightn’t do full justice. It was not so much that -he wanted to enjoy as that he wanted to know; his -desire wasn’t 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 on the stage of his -inner consciousness. 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 “bloated” as they passed -didn’t so much as rest their eyes on for a quarter of a -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_151' href='#Page_151'>151</a></span> -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 fencing the “likes” of him off from -social recognition. -</p> - -<p> -And this was not the fruit of a morbid vanity on -his part, or of a jealousy that couldn’t be intelligent; -his personal discomfort was the result of an intense -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 -yet 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 appeared to expect him nevertheless -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_152' href='#Page_152'>152</a></span> -to have them ready on demand, and Hyacinth -had ever a 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 wasn’t there one half of him always -either playing tricks on the other or getting snubs -and pinches from it? -</p> - -<p> -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 had sickened 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 that had transformed the whole face of his -future. It was one January afternoon when he had -come in from a walk. She was seated at her lamp, -as usual, with her work, and had begun to tell him -of a letter 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 had listened to -her story, standing in front of her, and then by way -of response had suddenly said to her: “Who was -that awful 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—this strange, scared, sick glance -was a thing he could never forget, any more than the -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_153' href='#Page_153'>153</a></span> -tone, with her breath failing her, in which she had -repeated “That awful woman?” -</p> - -<p> -“That woman in the prison years ago—how old -was I?—who was dying and who kissed me so, as -I’ve never been kissed, as I never shall be again! -Who <i>was</i> she, who <span class="smcap">WAS</span> she?” Poor Pinnie, to do -her justice, had made, after she recovered her breath, -a gallant fight: it had lasted a week; it was to leave -her spent and sore for ever after, and before it was -over Anastasius Vetch had been called in. At his -instance she had retracted the falsehoods with which -she had previously tried to put the boy off, and had -made at last a confession and a report which he was -satisfied to believe as complete as her knowledge. -Hyacinth could never have told you why the crisis -had occurred on such a day, why his question had -broken 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 had reconstructed his antecedents, -taken the measure, so far as was possible, of -his heredity. His having the courage to disinter -from the <i>Times</i> 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 <i><span class="fr_FR">cause célèbre</span></i>; 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 Pinnie knew that appalled him; and there -were others, as to which he would have given his -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_154' href='#Page_154'>154</a></span> -hand to have some light, that it made his heart ache -supremely to find she was honestly ignorant of. He -scarce understood 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 -judgement 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 they had refused -absolutely to recognise his lordship’s responsibility? -Pinnie had to admit this under Hyacinth’s terrible -cross-questioning; she couldn’t 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 immutably as the son of the recreant -and sacrificed Lord Frederick. -</p> - -<p> -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 -Pinnie could tell him of her parentage was that -Florentine had once mentioned that in her extreme -childhood her father, his gun in his hand, had fallen -in the blood-stained streets of Paris on a barricade; -but on the other side it took an English aristocrat to -account for him, though a poor specimen apparently -had to suffice. This, with its further implications, -became Hyacinth’s article of faith; the reflexion -that he was a bastard involved in a remarkable -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_155' href='#Page_155'>155</a></span> -manner the reflexion that he was a gentleman. He -was conscious 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 him resided; -his mother wouldn’t have armed herself on account -of any injury less cruel than the passage 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, hopeless brat, lay there in her lap. <i>He</i> was -the one properly to have been sacrificed: that remark -our young man often made to himself. That his -judgement of the whole question was passionate and -personal and took little account of any disturbing -conflict of evidence is proved by the importance 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 had insinuated himself -into her confidence he had had reasons for preferring -to be known as plain Mr. Robinson—reasons, however, -into which, in spite of the light thrown upon -them at the trial, it was difficult after so many years -to enter. -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth had never known of Mr. Vetch’s saying -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 -had answered, with some ingenuity, by remarking -that she couldn’t call him after a man she had -murdered, as one must suppose her unwilling to -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_156' href='#Page_156'>156</a></span> -publish to every one his connexion 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 judgement 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 a feature of the -general fact of the poor woman’s professional life—so -much cutting and trimming and shaping and -embroidering, so much turning and altering and doing-up. -When it came over him that she had for years -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 over -which he spent nine-tenths of his own time in all -gloomily brooding. 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 her to be 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 impracticability -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 she was making up by so much for her -grand mistake. He sometimes saw the name of his -father’s kin in the newspaper, but he then always -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_157' href='#Page_157'>157</a></span> -cast the sheet away. He had nothing to ask of them -and 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. A thousand -times yes, 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 he had blood in his veins that would account -for the finest sensibilities. -</p> - -<p> -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 bob apiece?” he asked of -her on a note of that too uniform irony which formed -the basis of almost all their talk. She had replied -that she would content herself with a seat in the -second balcony, in the very front; and as such a -position involved an expenditure still beyond his -compass he waited one night on Mr. Vetch, to whom -he had already more than once had recourse in -moments of pecuniary embarrassment. His relations -with the caustic fiddler were of the oddest and much -easier when put to the proof than 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 at the crisis of that question of -her captive’s being taken to call on Mrs. Bowerbank; -and Hyacinth, in the face of this information, had -asked with some sublimity what the devil the fiddler -had had to do with his private affairs. Their neighbour -had replied that it was not as an affair of his -but as an affair of Pinnie’s he had considered the -matter; and our hero had afterwards let it drop, -though he had never been formally reconciled to so -officious a critic. Of course his feeling on this head -had been immensely modified by the trouble Mr. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_158' href='#Page_158'>158</a></span> -Vetch had taken to get him a place with old Crook; -and at the period of which I write it had long been -familiar to him that the author of that benefit didn’t -care a straw what he thought of his advice at the dark -hour and in fact took a perverse pleasure in “following” -the career of a youth put together of such queer -pieces. It was impossible to Hyacinth not to be -conscious that this projected attention was kindly; -and to-day, at any rate, he would have declared that -nothing could have made up to him for not knowing -the truth, horrible as it might be. His miserable -mother’s embrace seemed to furnish him with an -inexhaustible fund of motive, and in the conditions -that was a support. What he chiefly objected to in -Mr. Vetch was the betrayed habit of still regarding -him as extremely juvenile; he would have got on -much better with a better recognition of his being -already a man of the world. The obscure virtuoso -knew an immense deal about society and 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 boon in life -was a private diverting commentary on the conversation -of his young friend. Hyacinth felt that he -gave considerable evidence of patience with this -when he occasionally asked his fellow-resident in -Lomax Place to lend him half-a-crown. Somehow -circumstances had of old 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 of him -some substantial service. Mr. Vetch had never once -refused. It was satisfactory to Hyacinth to remember -as much when knocking at his door late, after allowing -him time to come home from the theatre. He -knew his habits: he never went straight to bed, but -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_159' href='#Page_159'>159</a></span> -sat by his fire an hour, smoking his pipe, mixing a -grog and reading some old book. Hyacinth could -tell when to go up by the light in his window, which -he could see from a court behind. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, I know I haven’t been to see you for a long -time,” he said in response to the remark with which -his neighbour 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.” -</p> - -<p> -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 as on -the spot to settle 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.” -</p> - -<p> -“I find everything expensive,” said Hyacinth as -if to finish that subject. -</p> - -<p> -“Especially, I suppose, your secret societies.” -</p> - -<p> -“What do you mean by that?” the young man -asked with a fine stare. -</p> - -<p> -“Why, you told me in the autumn that you were -just about to join a few.” -</p> - -<p> -“A few? How many do you suppose?” But -our friend checked himself. “Do you suppose if -I had been serious I’d tell?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh dear, oh dear!” sighed Mr. Vetch. Then -he went on: “You want to take her to my shop, -eh?” -</p> - -<p> -“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 <i>The Pearl of Paraguay</i>. -I don’t wish to pay anything, if possible; I’m sorry -to say I haven’t a penny. But as you know people -at the other theatres and I’ve heard you say that -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_160' href='#Page_160'>160</a></span> -you do each other little favours from place to place, -<i><span class="fr_FR">à charge de revanche</span></i>, it occurred to me 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.” -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Vetch listened in silence and presently said: -“Do you want a box?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh no; something more modest.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why not a box?” asked the fiddler in a tone -the youth knew. -</p> - -<p> -“Because I haven’t the clothes people wear in -that sort of place,—if you must have such a definite -reason.” -</p> - -<p> -“And your young lady—has <i>she</i> the clothes?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, I daresay; she seems to have everything.” -</p> - -<p> -“Where does she get ’em?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, I don’t know. She belongs to a big shop; -she has to be fine.” -</p> - -<p> -“Won’t you have a pipe?” Mr. Vetch asked, -pushing an old tobacco-pouch across the table; and -while the young man helped himself he puffed a -while in silence. “What will she do with you?” -he finally asked. -</p> - -<p> -“What will who do with me?” -</p> - -<p> -“Your big beauty—Miss Henning. I know all -about her from Pinnie.” -</p> - -<p> -“Then you know what she’ll do with me!” -Hyacinth returned with rather a scornful laugh. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, but, after all, it doesn’t very much matter.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said -Hyacinth. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, now the other thing—what do they call it? -the Subterranean?—are you very deep in that?” -the fiddler went on as if he had not heard him. -</p> - -<p> -“Did Pinnie tell you also about that?” -</p> - -<p> -“No, our friend Puppin has told me a good deal. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_161' href='#Page_161'>161</a></span> -He knows you’ve put your head into something. -Besides, I see it,” said Mr. Vetch. -</p> - -<p> -“How do you see it, pray?” -</p> - -<p> -“You’ve got such a speaking eye. Any one can -tell, to look at you, that you’ve taken some oath on -bloody bones, that you belong to some terrible gang. -You seem to say to every one, ‘Slow torture won’t -induce me to tell where it meets!’” -</p> - -<p> -“You won’t get me an order then?” Hyacinth -said in a moment. -</p> - -<p> -“My dear boy, I offer you a box. I take the -greatest interest in you.” -</p> - -<p> -They smoked together a while and at last Hyacinth -remarked: “It has nothing to do with the Subterranean.” -</p> - -<p> -“Is it more terrible, more deadly secret?” his -companion asked with extreme seriousness. -</p> - -<p> -“I thought you pretended to be a radical,” -Hyacinth returned. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, so I am—of the old-fashioned, constitutional, -milk-and-water, jog-trot sort. I’m not an -exterminator.” -</p> - -<p> -“We don’t know what we may be when the time -comes,” Hyacinth observed more sententiously than -he intended. -</p> - -<p> -“Is the time coming then, my dear young friend?” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t think I’ve a right to give you any more -of a warning than that,” smiled our hero. -</p> - -<p> -“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 crowd in all possible enjoyment with the young -ladies: that’s a very natural inclination.” To which -Mr. Vetch irrelevantly added: “Do you see many -foreigners?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, a good many.” -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_162' href='#Page_162'>162</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -“And what do you think of them?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, all sorts of things. I rather like Englishmen -best.” -</p> - -<p> -“Mr. Muniment for example?” -</p> - -<p> -“I say, what do you know about <i>him</i>?” Hyacinth -asked. -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve seen him at the Puppins’. I know you and -he are as thick as thieves.” -</p> - -<p> -“He’ll distinguish himself some day very much,” -said Hyacinth, who was perfectly willing and indeed -very proud to be thought a close ally of a highly -original man. -</p> - -<p> -“Very likely—very likely. And what will <i>he</i> do -with you?” the fiddler inquired. -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth got up; they looked at each other -hard. “Do get me two good places in the second -balcony.” -</p> - -<p> -Mr. Vetch replied that he would do what he -could, and three days afterwards he handed his -young friend the coveted order. He accompanied -it with the injunction, “You had better put in all -the fun you can, you know!” -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_163' href='#Page_163'>163</a></span> -</p> - - - - -<h2> -BOOK SECOND -</h2> -<p><span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_164' href='#Page_164'></a></span> -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_165' href='#Page_165'>165</a></span> -</p> - - - -<h3> -XII -</h3> - - -<p> -Hyacinth and his companion took their seats with -extreme promptitude before the curtain rose on <i>The -Pearl of Paraguay</i>. 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 -powerfully laced, presented a splendid appearance -and, on Hyacinth’s part, gratified a 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 of 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 entertained 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_166' href='#Page_166'>166</a></span> -retort courteous than by flying at him with a pair -of very small fists. -</p> - -<p> -By the time they had reached their places in the -balcony she was rather flushed and a good deal -ruffled; but she had composed herself in season for -the rising of the curtain on the farce preceding 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, losing itself so effectually -in the fictive world that the end of the piece, however -long or however short, brought with it something -of the alarm of 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 -intermittently to the occupants of the boxes -and stalls, concerning several of whom she had -theories which she imparted to Hyacinth, while the -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_167' href='#Page_167'>167</a></span> -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 at his own point of -view, his companion made him feel all the characteristic -points he had missed. Her interpretations -differed from his largely in being so very bold -and irreverent. Miss Henning’s observation of the -London world 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 hypocrites and had in all ways a low -opinion of her own sex, which more than once before -this she had justified to Hyacinth by narrating -observations of a 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 circumstances -appearing 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. -</p> - -<p> -“Watching <i>me</i>! I like that! When I want to -be watched I take you with me.” -</p> - -<p> -“Of course he has looked at me,” Millicent -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_168' href='#Page_168'>168</a></span> -answered as if she had no interest in denying that. -“But you’re the one he wants to get hold of.” -</p> - -<p> -“To get hold of!” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, you ninny: don’t hang back. He may -make your fortune.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, if you’d 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 -to the back, which must have had considerable -depth. There were other persons there, 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 piece -proceeded regarded it with a certain interest; but -till the curtain fell at the end of the act there was -no further symptom that a gentleman wished to get -hold of him. -</p> - -<p> -“Now do you say it’s me he’s after?” Millicent -asked abruptly, giving him a sidelong dig while the -fiddlers in the orchestra began to scrape their instruments -for the interlude. -</p> - -<p> -“Of course; I’m 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 friend -was once more at the front and leaning forward with -his arms on the edge. Hyacinth saw 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. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, if he knows us he might give some sign, -and if he doesn’t he might leave us alone,” Millicent -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_169' href='#Page_169'>169</a></span> -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 didn’t -immediately appear. “I say, I say—is it one of -your grand relations?” she promptly asked. “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!” -</p> - -<p> -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 reflexions. 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 no less surprised and puzzled him, producing -altogether, in his easily-excited organism, an agitation -of which, in spite of his attempted self-control, -the air he had for Millicent was the sign. They had -met three times, he and his fellow-spectator; but -they had met in quarters that, 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. Our friend would never have -permitted himself to greet him first, and this was -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_170' href='#Page_170'>170</a></span> -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, -lean and loose-jointed; he fell into lounging, dawdling -attitudes and even at a distance looked lazy. He -had a long, amused, contented face, unadorned with -moustache or whisker, and his brown hair, parted -at the side, came forward on either temple in a rich, -well-brushed lock, after the fashion of the portraits -of 1820. Millicent 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 continually smiled at -something, 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 of any -strength. 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!” -</p> - -<p> -“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 -reserve. -</p> - -<p> -“Comes round to speak to us—a chap like that!” -Hyacinth echoed. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -The gentleman had once more retreated from sight, -and there was that amount of evidence of the intention -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_171' href='#Page_171'>171</a></span> -she imputed to him. “I don’t think I’m at all -clear that I’ve a right to tell his name.” Hyacinth -spoke responsibly, yet with all disposition 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 he goes.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth had indulged in this reflexion himself; -but the only answer he made to Millicent was: -“Well then, perhaps he’ll be on yours!” -</p> - -<p> -“Laws, I hope <i>she</i> 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 and crumpled -white shawl—a stout, odd, foreign-looking woman -with a fair, nodding, wiggy head. She had a placid, -patient air and a round wrinkled face in which, however, -a pair of small bright eyes 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. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_172' href='#Page_172'>172</a></span> -Does <i>she</i> come to your wonderful club too? I daresay -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 of the moment she declared that in -that case, were he to come to see them, she shouldn’t -fear for herself. No wonder he wanted to get out of -<i>that</i> box! The party in the wig—and what a 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 -he quite liked her appearance and admired in her -a charm of her own; 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 she was covertly looking over -her shoulder to watch for his strange clubmate and -that she would be disappointed if he didn’t come. -This idea didn’t 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, was 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 -in more positive fashion than by Millicent’s supposing -it come out of the stage-box to see him, he would -bring with him rare influences. His view of this -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_173' href='#Page_173'>173</a></span> -possibility made suspense akin to preparation; -therefore when at the end of a few minutes he became -aware that his young woman, with her head turned, -was taking the measure of some one who had come in -behind them, he felt fate to be 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 she on her side had -performed with deliberation the ceremony of appraising -him. The Captain had his hands in his pockets -and wore his crush-hat pushed a good deal back. -He laughed to 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, as if -he were treating them rather too much as a pair of -children on whom he had stolen to startle them; 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—quite as -if Hyacinth had had at least an equal experience of -that part of the theatre. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s hot enough here too,” Millicent’s companion -returned. He had suddenly become much more -conscious of the high temperature, of his proximity -to the fierce chandelier, and he mentioned that the -plot of the play certainly was unnatural, though he -thought the piece rather well acted. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_174' href='#Page_174'>174</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -“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’s -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 start. She sustained -his glance with composure, but with just enough of -emphasised reserve to intimate (what was perfectly -true) that she was not in the habit of conversing with -gentlemen with whom she was unacquainted. 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, -facing toward 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 didn’t know -what one could talk of at such short notice to a -person whom he immediately perceived to be, and -the more finely that it was all unaggressively, a man -of the world. He instantly saw Captain Sholto -didn’t 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 couldn’t -in the presence of a third person allude to the matters -they had discussed at the “Sun and Moon”; nor -might he suppose his visitor would expect this, -though indeed he impressed him as a man of humours -and whims, disposed to amuse himself with everything, -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_175' href='#Page_175'>175</a></span> -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 slightly embarrassed, now that he -was completely launched in his attempt at fraternisation, -especially after failing to elicit a smile from -Millicent’s rare 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’s a very -different affair,” he said again to Millicent, who this -time replied “Oh yes, of course,” and, considering -afresh the old woman in the box, reflected that she -looked as if there were nothing in the world that she -at least hadn’t seen. -</p> - -<p> -“We’ve never been abroad,” Hyacinth candidly -said while he looked into his friend’s curious light-coloured -eyes, the palest in tint he had ever encountered. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh well, there’s a lot of nonsense talked about -that!” Captain Sholto replied; on which Hyacinth -remained uncertain of his reference and Millicent -decided to volunteer a remark. -</p> - -<p> -“They’re 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. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh yes, it’s much better here every way. I -think you’ve the best seats in the house,” said their -visitor. “I should like very much to finish my -evening beside you. The trouble is I’ve ladies—a -pair of them,” he pursued as if he were seriously -considering this possibility. Then laying his hand -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_176' href='#Page_176'>176</a></span> -again on Hyacinth’s shoulder he smiled at him a -moment and indulged in a still greater burst of -frankness. “My dear fellow, that’s 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!” -</p> - -<p> -“To make my acquaintance?” Hyacinth felt -himself turn pale; the first impulse he could have in -connexion 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—a—his young friend (Hyacinth saw -in a moment that the Captain had forgotten his -name) to look in at her if he didn’t mind. -</p> - -<p> -“She has a tremendous desire to meet 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 declared I must introduce -you at any cost. I hope you don’t mind just -for a quarter of an hour. I ought perhaps to tell you -that she’s a person 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’s -really very much in earnest: I don’t mean about -wishing to see you—that goes without saying—but -about our whole job, yours and mine. Then I -should add—it doesn’t spoil anything—that she’s -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_177' href='#Page_177'>177</a></span> -the most charming woman in the world, simply! -Honestly, my dear boy, she’s perhaps the most -remarkable woman in Europe.” -</p> - -<p> -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 -capricious not to say presumptuous 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 avoidance. Of course the lady in the box -couldn’t be sincere; she might think she was, though -even that was questionable; but you didn’t really -care for the cause exemplified in the guarded back -room in Bloomsbury when 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 <i>he</i> 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 indulge her. -None the less, I must add, the whole proposal continued -to make things dance, to appear fictive and -phantasmagoric; so that it sounded in comparison -like a note of reality when Millicent, who had been -turning from one of the men to the other, exclaimed— -</p> - -<p> -“That’s all very well, but who’s to look after <i>me</i>?” -Her assumption of the majestic had broken down -and this was the cry of nature. -</p> - -<p> -Nothing could have been pleasanter and more -charitable to her alarm than the manner in which -Captain Sholto reassured her. “My dear young lady, -can you suppose I’ve been unmindful of that? I’ve -been hoping that after I’ve taken down our friend -and introduced him you might allow me to come -back and in his absence occupy his seat.” -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_178' href='#Page_178'>178</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -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 grandly to the occasion. -“I’m much obliged to you, but I don’t know who -you are.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, I’ll tell you all about that!” the Captain -benevolently cried. -</p> - -<p> -“Of course I should introduce you,” said Hyacinth, -and he mentioned to Miss Henning the name of his -distinguished acquaintance. -</p> - -<p> -“In the army?” the young lady inquired as if -she must have every guarantee of social position. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes—not in the navy! I’ve left the army, but -it always sticks to one.” -</p> - -<p> -“Mr. Robinson, is it your intention to leave me?” -Millicent asked in a tone of the highest propriety. -</p> - -<p> -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 on 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 put off to -some other opportunity the honour of making the -acquaintance of your friend,” he added to their -visitor. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, my dear fellow, we might manage it so easily -now,” this gentleman murmured with evident disappointment. -“It’s not as if Miss—a—Miss—a—were -to be alone.” -</p> - -<p> -It flashed upon Hyacinth that the root of the -project might be a desire of Captain Sholto to insinuate -himself into Millicent’s good graces; then -he wondered why the most remarkable woman in -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_179' href='#Page_179'>179</a></span> -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 face -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?” -</p> - -<p> -“The Princess Casamassima.” -</p> - -<p> -“Laws!” cried Millicent Henning. And then -quickly, as if to cover up this crudity: “And might -one also know what it is, as you say, that she wants -to talk to him about?” -</p> - -<p> -“About the lower orders, the rising democracy, the -spread of ideas and all that.” -</p> - -<p> -“The lower orders? Does she think we belong to -them?” the girl demanded with a strange provoking -laugh. -</p> - -<p> -Captain Sholto was certainly the readiest of men. -“If she could see you she’d think you one of the first -ladies in the land.” -</p> - -<p> -“She’ll never see me!” Millicent replied in a -manner which made it plain that she at least was -not to be whistled for. -</p> - -<p> -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 inscrutable good: -“Having been in the army you’ll know that one -can’t desert one’s post.” -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_180' href='#Page_180'>180</a></span> -I tell you simply I want to talk with this young -lady, that certainly won’t help me particularly, and -there’s no reason why it should. Therefore I’ll tell -you the whole truth: I want to talk with her about -<i>you</i>!” 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. -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth was conscious of the endearment, but he -put before Millicent that he would do just as she -liked; he was determined not to let a member of a -justly-doomed patriciate suppose 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.” -</p> - -<p> -“That’s charming of you! I’ll rejoin you in -three minutes!” Captain Sholto exclaimed. -</p> - -<p> -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 spoke with -her bright boldness: “That kind of princess—I -should like to hear all about her.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, I’ll tell you that too,” the Captain returned -with his perfect ease 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. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_181' href='#Page_181'>181</a></span> -</p> - - - - -<h3> -XIII -</h3> - - -<p> -His first consciousness after his companion had -opened it was of his proximity to the stage, on which -the curtain had now again risen. 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 would at -any rate not be left long to languish in solitude. -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 odd party he had already -viewed at a distance; she looked queerer still on a -closer view and gave him a little friendly gratified -nod. The other was partly overshadowed by the -curtain of the box, drawn forward with the intention -of shielding her 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_182' href='#Page_182'>182</a></span> -fair face of welcome is to say that she dazzled him. -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; then for ten minutes he 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 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 consciously -embarrassed, overturned and bewildered; -he made a great effort to collect himself, to consider -the situation lucidly. He wondered if he ought to -speak, to look at her again, to behave differently in -some way; if she would take him for a clown, for an -idiot; if she were really as beautiful as she had seemed -or it were only a superficial glamour which a renewed -inspection would dissipate. While he so pondered the -minutes lapsed and neither of his hostesses spoke; -they watched the play in perfect stillness, so that -he divined this to be the proper thing and that he -himself must remain dumb until a word should be -addressed 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 bright -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_183' href='#Page_183'>183</a></span> -benevolence. She might well be a princess—it was -impossible to conform more to the finest evocations -of that romantic word. She was fair, shining, slender, -with an 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 still not have -set that down to his simplicity, for this was the effect -the Princess Casamassima produced on persons of a -wider experience and greater pretensions. Her dark -eyes, blue or grey, something that was not brown, -were as kind 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, something 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 her visitor, as he held himself in his -chair trembling with the revelation, questioned if she -were really of the same substance with the humanity -he had hitherto known. She might be divine, but he -could see she understood human needs—that she -wished him to be at his ease and happy; there was -something familiar in her benignity, 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. He took in all these things and -finally said to himself that if she wanted nothing more -of him he was content, he would like it to go on; so -pleasant was it to be enthroned with fine ladies in -a dusky, spacious receptacle which framed the bright -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_184' href='#Page_184'>184</a></span> -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 charity, 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 so keeping her eyes on her friend from -Lomax Place, whose position she thus endeavoured -to gauge. He 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 if -she would say anything. The consideration of this -problem as the moment of the solution drew nearer -made his heart again beat fast. He watched the old -lady on his left and supposed it was natural 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 -on his making 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 full -anomaly of his situation. She seemed to argue 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_185' href='#Page_185'>185</a></span> -moments before the Princess spoke, though she rested -her smile on her guest 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 -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.” -</p> - -<p> -“I shouldn’t think you’d find the least difficulty -in that,” Hyacinth replied. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, if one wants anything very much it’s sure -to be difficult. Every one isn’t so obliging as you.” -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth could think immediately of no proper -answer 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’d come—to two strange women.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, we’re strange women,” said the Princess -musingly. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s not true she finds things difficult; she makes -every one do everything,” her companion went on. -</p> - -<p> -The Princess glanced at her and then remarked to -Hyacinth: “Her name is Madame Grandoni.” The -tone was not familiar, but there was a happy shade -in it, as if he had really taken so much trouble for -them that it was but 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. -</p> - -<p> -“But I’m not Italian—ah no!” the old lady -cried. “In spite of my name I’m an honest, ugly, -unfortunate German. But <i><span class="fr_FR">cela n’a pas d’importance</span></i>. -She also, with such a name, isn’t Italian either. It’s -an accident; the world’s full of accidents. But -she isn’t German, poor lady, any more.” Madame -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_186' href='#Page_186'>186</a></span> -Grandoni appeared to have entered into the Princess’s -view, and Hyacinth thought her exceedingly -droll. In a moment she added: “That was a very -charming person you were with.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, she’s very charming,” Hyacinth replied, not -sorry to have a chance to say it. -</p> - -<p> -The Princess made no remark on this subject, and -Hyacinth saw 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 find the play very interesting?” -</p> - -<p> -He hesitated, then told the simple truth. “I -must confess I’ve lost the whole of this last act.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, poor bothered young man!” cried Madame -Grandoni. “You see—you see!” -</p> - -<p> -“What do I see?” the Princess inquired. “If -you’re annoyed at being here now you’ll 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. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, allow me, allow me, and speak only for -yourself!” the elder lady interposed. “I take no -interest whatever in the people; I don’t understand -them and I know nothing about them. An honourable -nature, of any class, I always respect; but I -won’t pretend to a passion for the ignorant masses, -because I have it not. Moreover that doesn’t touch -the gentleman.” -</p> - -<p> -The Princess Casamassima had a clear faculty of -completely ignoring things of which she wished to -take no account; it was not in the least the air of contempt, -but thoughtful, tranquil, convenient 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 vaguely -conscious she had been committing herself in some -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_187' href='#Page_187'>187</a></span> -absurd way: “She lives with me; she’s everything -to me; she’s the best woman in the world.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, fortunately, with many superficial defects -I’m as good as good bread,” Madame Grandoni -conceded. -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth was by this time less embarrassed than -when he had presented himself, but he was not less -mystified; he wondered afresh if he were not being -practised on for some inconceivable end: so strangely -did it strike him that two such products of another -world than his own should of their own movement -take the trouble to explain each other to a dire little -bookbinder. This idea made him flush; it might -have come over him that he had fallen into a trap. -He was conscious he looked frightened, and he was -conscious the moment afterwards that the Princess -noticed it. This was apparently what made her say: -“If you’ve lost so much of the play I ought to tell -you what has happened.” -</p> - -<p> -“Do you think he would follow that any more?” -Madame Grandoni asked. -</p> - -<p> -“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 hand 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 witless stranger to -amuse her; perhaps that was the way the foreign -aristocracy lived. There was no sharpness in her -face—for the present hour at least: there was -nothing but luminous charity, yet she looked as if -she knew what was going on in his mind. She made -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_188' href='#Page_188'>188</a></span> -no eager attempt to reassure him, but there was -a world almost of direct tenderness in the tone in -which she said: “Do you know I’m afraid I’ve -already forgotten what they have been doing—? -It’s terribly complicated; some one or other was -hurled over a precipice.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, you’re a brilliant pair,” Madame Grandoni -declared with a laugh of long experience. “I could -describe everything. The person who was hurled -over the precipice was the virtuous hero, and you’ll -see him in the next act all the better for it.” -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t describe anything; I’ve so much to ask.” -Hyacinth had looked away in tacit deprecation at -hearing himself “paired” with the Princess, and he -felt 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 surprise -more than anything else; and as he hesitated, -not knowing what to say, she added: “Isn’t he a -very curious type?” -</p> - -<p> -“I know him very little.” But he had no sooner -uttered the words than it struck him they were far -from brilliant, were poor and flat and very little -calculated to satisfy the Princess. Indeed he had -said nothing at all that could place him in a favourable -light; so he continued at a venture: “I mean -I’ve never seen him at home.” That sounded still -more silly. -</p> - -<p> -“At home? Oh, he’s never at home; he’s all -over the world. To-night he was as likely to have -been in Paraguay for instance—though what a place -to be!” she smiled—“as here. He is what they -call a cosmopolite. I don’t know if 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 lot of very interesting talk -with you. That was what made me say: ‘Oh, do -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_189' href='#Page_189'>189</a></span> -ask him to come in and see me. A little interesting -talk, that would be a change!’” -</p> - -<p> -“She’s very complimentary to me!” said Madame -Grandoni. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“Admit women—?” -</p> - -<p> -“Into those séances—what do you call them?—those -little meetings that Captain Sholto describes -to me. I should like so much to be present. Why -not?” -</p> - -<p> -“I haven’t seen any ladies,” Hyacinth said. “I -don’t know if it’s a rule, but I’ve seen nothing but -men”; and he subjoined, 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 -he ought to go about reporting our proceedings.” -</p> - -<p> -“I see. Perhaps you think he’s a spy, an <i><span class="fr_FR">agent -provocateur</span></i> or something of that sort.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” He spoke as with mild amusement. -</p> - -<p> -“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 beautiful deep 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,” she said of herself, -however, “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, -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_190' href='#Page_190'>190</a></span> -but of course I could see 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 -I tell you. Perhaps you didn’t know how he was -drawing you out.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’m afraid that’s rather easy,” said Hyacinth -with perfect candour; for it came over him that he -<i>had</i> chattered with a vengeance in Bloomsbury and -had thought it natural enough there that his sociable -fellow-visitor should offer him cigars and attach -importance to the views of a clever and original -young artisan. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m 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’d be -incapable of betraying you. However, don’t trust -him: not because he’s not safe, but because—!” -She took herself up. “No matter, you’ll 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’s so -difficult, especially for a woman in my position, who’s -tiresomely 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, but -her tone perfectly natural and easy, with a charming -assumption—for you could call it nothing else—of -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_191' href='#Page_191'>191</a></span> -more wonderful things than he could count. Her -manner of speaking was in fact altogether new to -her listener, for whom the pronunciation of her words -and the very punctuation of her sentences were the -revelation of what he supposed to be society—the -very Society to the destruction of which he was -dedicated. -</p> - -<p> -“Surely Captain Sholto doesn’t suppose <i>I’m</i> a -leading spirit!” he exclaimed with the resolve not -to be laughed at any more than he could help. -</p> - -<p> -“He told me you were very original.” -</p> - -<p> -“He doesn’t know, and—if you’ll allow me to -say so—I don’t think <i>you</i> know. How should you? -I’m one of many thousands of young men of my -class—you know, I suppose, what <i>that</i> is—in whose -brains certain ideas are fermenting. There’s nothing -original about me at all. I’m 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 could possibly do. I’m a mere particle,” -Hyacinth wound up, “in the grey immensity of the -people. All I pretend to is my good faith and a -great desire that justice shall be done.” -</p> - -<p> -The Princess listened to him intently and her -attitude made him feel how little <i>he</i>, in comparison, -expressed himself like a person who had the habit -of conversation; he seemed to himself to betray -ridiculous effort, to stammer and emit vulgar sounds. -For a moment she said nothing, only looking at him -with her exquisite smile. “I do draw you out!” -she exclaimed at last. “You’re 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_192' href='#Page_192'>192</a></span> -doubtless guessed it as well, for she quickly added: -“At the same time I can see you’re remarkable -enough.” -</p> - -<p> -“What do you think I’m remarkable for?” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, you’ve general ideas.” -</p> - -<p> -“Every one has them to-day. They have them -in Bloomsbury to a terrible degree. I’ve a friend -(who understands the matter much better than I) -who has no patience with them: he declares they’re -our folly, our danger and our bane. A few very -special ideas—if they’re the right ones—are what -we want.” -</p> - -<p> -“Who’s your friend?” the Princess asked abruptly. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, Christina, Christina!” Madame Grandoni -murmured from the other side of the box. -</p> - -<p> -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 and who’s in the -employ of a big wholesale chemist.” -</p> - -<p> -If he had designed in this description of his friend -a stronger dose than his hostess would be able to -digest he was greatly mistaken. She seemed to gaze -tenderly at the picture suggested by his words, and -she immediately inquired if the young man were -also clever and if she mightn’t 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, as he believed, had had no particular conversation -with him, the Princess asked with startling -frankness if her visitor wouldn’t bring the person so -vividly described some day to see her. -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth glanced at Madame Grandoni, but that -worthy woman was engaged in a survey of the house -through an old-fashioned eyeglass with a long gilt -handle. He had perceived much before this that -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_193' href='#Page_193'>193</a></span> -the Princess Casamassima had no desire for vain -phrases, and he had the good taste to feel that from -himself to such a great lady compliments, even had -he 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.” -</p> - -<p> -“That makes me want to know him all the more. -But you’ll come yourself at all events, eh?” -</p> - -<p> -Poor Hyacinth murmured something about the -unexpected honour; after all he had a French -heredity and it wasn’t so easy for him to say things -as ill as his other idiom mainly required. But -Madame Grandoni, laying down her eyeglass, almost -took the words out of his mouth with the cheerful -exhortation: “Go and see her—go and see her once -or twice. She’ll treat you like an angel.” -</p> - -<p> -“You must think me very peculiar,” the Princess -remarked sadly. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t know what I think. It will take a good -while.” -</p> - -<p> -“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’d find I’d go with you—pretty far. I was -answering just now for Captain Sholto; but who in -the world’s to answer for <i>me</i>?” And her sadness -merged itself in a smile that affected Hyacinth as -indescribably magnanimous and touching. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -Her spirit was contagious; it gave Hyacinth the -audacity to say to her, “I’d trust <i>you</i>, if you did!” -though he felt the next minute that this was even -a more familiar speech than if he had expressed a -want of confidence. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_194' href='#Page_194'>194</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -“It comes then to the same thing,” said the -Princess. “She wouldn’t show herself with me in -public if I weren’t respectable. If you knew more -about me you’d understand what has led me to turn -my attention to the great social question. It’s a -long story and the details wouldn’t interest you; -but perhaps some day, if we have more talk, you’ll -put yourself a little in my place. I’m very serious, -you know; I’m not amusing myself with peeping -and running away. I’m convinced that we’re living -in a fool’s paradise, that the ground’s heaving under -our feet.” -</p> - -<p> -“It’s not the ground, my dear; it’s you -who are turning somersaults,” Madame Grandoni -interposed. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah you, my friend, you’ve the happy faculty of -believing what you like to believe. I have to believe -what I see.” -</p> - -<p> -“She wishes to throw herself into the revolution, -to guide it, to enlighten it,” Madame Grandoni said -to Hyacinth, speaking now with imperturbable -gravity. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m sure she could direct it in any sense she -would wish!” the young man responded in his glow. -The pure, high dignity with which the Princess had -just spoken and which appeared to cover a suppressed -tremor of passion set his pulses throbbing, and though -he scarcely saw what she meant—her aspirations -appearing as yet so vague—her tone, her voice, her -wonderful face showed she had a generous soul. -</p> - -<p> -She answered his eager declaration with a serious -smile and a melancholy head-shake. “I’ve no such -pretensions and my good old friend’s laughing at me. -Of course that’s 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_195' href='#Page_195'>195</a></span> -upward struggles of those who are below? ‘Give all -that up and we’ll believe you,’ you’ve a right to say. -I’m 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 <i><span class="fr_FR">à quoi m’en tenir</span></i>. Are we on the -eve of great changes or are we not? Is everything -that’s 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 <i><span class="fr_FR">à -quoi m’en tenir</span></i>,” she repeated, fixing her visitor -with more brilliant eyes and almost as if he could -tell her on the spot. Then suddenly she added -in quite a different tone: “Pardon me, I’ve an -idea you know French. Didn’t Captain Sholto tell -me so?” -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve some little acquaintance with it,” Hyacinth -replied. “I’ve French blood in my veins.” -</p> - -<p> -She considered him as if he had proposed to her -some attaching problem. “Yes, I can see you’re -not <i><span class="fr_FR">le premier venu</span></i>. Now your friend, of whom you -were speaking, is a chemist; and you yourself—what’s -your occupation?” -</p> - -<p> -“I’m just a bookbinder.” -</p> - -<p> -“That must be delightful. I wonder if you’d bind -me some books.” -</p> - -<p> -“You’d 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 -freely professed. -</p> - -<p> -“I should like that better. And what do you call -home?” -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_196' href='#Page_196'>196</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -“The place I live in, in the north of London: a -little street you certainly never heard of.” -</p> - -<p> -“What is it called?” -</p> - -<p> -“Lomax Place, at your service,” he laughed. -</p> - -<p> -She seemed to reflect his innocent gaiety; she -wasn’t a bit afraid to let him see she liked him. -“No, I don’t think I’ve heard of it. I don’t know -London very well; I haven’t lived here long. I’ve -spent most of my life abroad. My husband’s a -foreigner, a South Italian. We don’t live always -together. I haven’t the manners of this country—not -of any class, have I, eh? Oh this country—there’s -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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Whom do you live with in Lomax Place?” she -asked, a little oddly, by way of allowance for this. -</p> - -<p> -“Captain Sholto’s leaving the young lady—he’s -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. -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth had just hesitated. “I live with a -dressmaker.” -</p> - -<p> -“With a dressmaker? Do you mean—do you -mean—?” But the Princess paused. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_197' href='#Page_197'>197</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -“Do you mean she’s your wife?” asked Madame -Grandoni more bravely. -</p> - -<p> -“Perhaps she gives you rooms,” the Princess -suggested. -</p> - -<p> -“How many do you think I have? She gives me -everything, or has done so in the past. She brought -me up; she’s the best little woman in the world.” -</p> - -<p> -“You had better command a dress of her,” -Madame Grandoni threw off. -</p> - -<p> -“And your family, where are they?” the Princess -continued. -</p> - -<p> -“I have no family.” -</p> - -<p> -“None at all?” -</p> - -<p> -“None at all. I never had.” -</p> - -<p> -“But the French blood 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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, through my mother.” -</p> - -<p> -“And she’s dead?” -</p> - -<p> -“Long ago.” -</p> - -<p> -“That’s a great loss, because French mothers are -usually so much to their sons.” The Princess looked -at her painted fan as she opened and closed it; after -which she said: “Well then, you’ll come some day. -We’ll arrange it.” Hyacinth felt the answer to this -could be only a silent inclination of his utmost -stature, and to make it he rose from his chair. As -he stood there, conscious 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?” -</p> - -<p> -“Will occur—?” -</p> - -<p> -“That there’ll be a crisis—that you’ll make yourselves -felt?” -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_198' href='#Page_198'>198</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -In this beautiful woman’s face there was to his -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. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t quite know what you’re 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. -</p> - -<p> -“Remember what I told you: I’d give up everything—everything!” -And the Princess kept looking -up at him. Then she held out her hand, and this -time he knew sufficiently what he was about to -take it. -</p> - -<p> -When he bade good-night to Madame Grandoni -the old lady sounded at 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 <i>is</i> respectable!” They were on -his lips as he stood suddenly face to face with Captain -Sholto, who grasped his shoulder once more and -shook him in that free yet insinuating manner for -which this officer appeared remarkable. -</p> - -<p> -“My dear fellow, you were born under a lucky -star.” -</p> - -<p> -“I never supposed it,” said Hyacinth, changing -colour. -</p> - -<p> -“Why what in the world would you have? -You’ve the faculty, the precious faculty, of inspiring -women with an interest—but an interest!” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, ask them in the box there! I behaved like -an awful muff,” Hyacinth declared, overwhelmed -now with a sense of opportunities missed. -</p> - -<p> -“They won’t tell me that. And the lady upstairs?” -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_199' href='#Page_199'>199</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” said Hyacinth gravely, “what about -her?” -</p> - -<p> -“She wouldn’t talk to me of anything but you. -You may imagine how I liked it!” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t like it either. But I must go up.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh yes, she counts the minutes. Such a -charming person!” Captain Sholto added with -more propriety of tone. As Hyacinth left him he -called out: “Don’t be afraid—you’ll go far.” -</p> - -<p> -When the young man took his place in the balcony -beside Millicent she gave him no greeting nor asked -any question about his adventures in the more -privileged 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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Pray what do you know about her?” -</p> - -<p> -“I know what that fellow told me.” -</p> - -<p> -“And what may that have been?” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, she’s a bad ’un as ever was. Her own -husband has had to turn her out of the house.” -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth remembered the allusion the lady herself -had made to her matrimonial situation; in spite of -which he would have liked to be able to reply to Miss -Henning that he didn’t believe a word of it. He -withheld the doubt and after a moment simply -remarked: “Well, I don’t care.” -</p> - -<p> -“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 at this -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_200' href='#Page_200'>200</a></span> -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!” Hyacinth then -wondered if Captain Sholto had given her this -formula. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_201' href='#Page_201'>201</a></span> -</p> - - - - -<h3> -XIV -</h3> - - -<p> -He didn’t 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 -in a degree that was hostile to fine loose talk; but he -discovered in him later 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 -unexasperated, was indulgent even to contempt. 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 humour -had no ferocity—the fault 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 of a 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 never dragged in with the least snarl -his personal lot and his daily life; it had not seemed -to occur to him for instance that “society” was -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_202' href='#Page_202'>202</a></span> -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 -save in so far as 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 merely, an imperturbably intelligent 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 pronounced the young bookbinder a suggestive -little beggar, and Hyacinth’s opinion of him was by -this time so exalted that the remark had almost the -value of a patent of nobility. Our hero treated himself -to a high unlimited faith in him; he had always -dreamed of some grand friendship and this was the -best opening he had yet encountered. No one could -entertain a sentiment of that sort more nobly, more -ingeniously than Hyacinth, or cultivate with more -art the intimate personal relation. It disappointed -him sometimes that his confidence was not more -unreservedly repaid; that on certain important -points of the socialistic programme Muniment would -never commit himself and had not yet shown the -<i><span class="fr_FR">fond du sac</span></i>, as Eustache Poupin called it, to so ardent -an admirer. He answered particular appeals freely -enough, and answered them occasionally in a manner -that made Hyacinth jump, as when in reply to a -question about his attitude on capital punishment -he said that so far from wishing it abolished he -should go in for extending it much further—he -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_203' href='#Page_203'>203</a></span> -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 any real poverty of programme Hyacinth -was sure 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, gasp and -turn pale. -</p> - -<p> -“She wants to see you; she asked me to bring -you; she was very serious,” our young man meanwhile -said, reporting 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. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, principally that you’re a friend of mine—that’s -enough for her.” -</p> - -<p> -“Do you mean it ought to be enough for me that -she’s a friend of yours? I’ve a notion you’ll have -some queer ones before you’ve 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 -said as he exhibited ten work-stained fingers. -</p> - -<p> -“Buy a pair of gloves—” Hyacinth recognised -the serious character of this obstacle. But after a -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_204' href='#Page_204'>204</a></span> -moment he added: “No, you oughtn’t to do that. -She wants to see dirty hands.” -</p> - -<p> -“That’s easy enough, good Lord! She needn’t -send for me for the purpose. But isn’t she making -game of you?” -</p> - -<p> -“It’s very possible, but I don’t see what good it -can do her.” -</p> - -<p> -“You’re not obliged to find excuses for the -pampered classes. Their bloated luxury begets evil, -impudent desires; they’re capable of doing harm for -the sake of harm. Besides, is she genuine?” -</p> - -<p> -“If she isn’t, what becomes of your explanation?” -Hyacinth asked. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, it doesn’t matter; at night all cats are grey. -Whatever she is, she’s an idle, bedizened trifler; -perhaps even a real profligate female.” -</p> - -<p> -“If you had seen her you wouldn’t talk of her -that way.” -</p> - -<p> -“God forbid I should see her then, if she’s going -to corrupt me!” -</p> - -<p> -“Do you suppose she’ll corrupt <i>me</i>?” Hyacinth -demanded with an expression of face and a tone of -voice which produced on his friend’s part an explosion -of mirth. -</p> - -<p> -“How can she, after all, when you’re already such -a little mass of corruption?” -</p> - -<p> -“You don’t think that—?” and Hyacinth looked -very grave. -</p> - -<p> -“Do you mean that if I did I wouldn’t say it? -Haven’t you noticed that I say what I think?” -</p> - -<p> -“No, you don’t, not half of it: you’re as dark as -a fish.” -</p> - -<p> -Paul Muniment glanced at his friend as if 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?” -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_205' href='#Page_205'>205</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Is that what your Princess told you? She must -be a precious piece of goods!” Paul exclaimed. -“Did she pick your pocket meanwhile?” -</p> - -<p> -“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’s going on among the like of us?” -</p> - -<p> -“It depends on what class you mean.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, a woman with a lot of wonderful jewels -and wonderful scents and the manners of an angel. -I wonder if even the young ladies in the perfumery -shops have such manners—they can’t have such -pearls. It’s queer of course, that sort of interest, but -it’s conceivable; why not? There may be unselfish -natures; there may be disinterested feelings.” -</p> - -<p> -“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’m -not in the least surprised at the aristocracy being -curious to know what we’re 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 tender heart!” -</p> - -<p> -“Are you afraid I’ll tell her secrets?” cried -Hyacinth, flushing with virtuous indignation. -</p> - -<p> -“Secrets? What secrets could you tell her, my -pretty lad?” -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth turned away. “You don’t trust me—you -never have.” -</p> - -<p> -“We will, some day—don’t be afraid,” said Muniment, -who evidently had no intention of harshness, -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_206' href='#Page_206'>206</a></span> -at least in respect to Hyacinth, a thing that appeared -impossible to him. “And when we do you’ll cry -with disappointment.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, <i>you</i> won’t,” Hyacinth returned. And -then he asked if his friend thought the Princess -Casamassima a spy of spies—the devil she’d have -to be!—and why, if she were in that line, Sholto was -not, since it must be supposed he was not when they -had seen fit to let him walk in and out, at any rate, -at the place in Bloomsbury. Muniment didn’t -even know whom he meant, not having had any -relations with the gentleman; but he summoned a -sufficient image after his companion had described -the Captain’s appearance. He then remarked with -his usual geniality that he didn’t take him for anything -worse than a jackass; 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 workingmen’s -clubs (Paul remembered now the first night he -came; he had been brought by that German cabinet-maker -who always had a bandaged 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 halfway 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 armchairs and flunkies, -in Pall Mall. And what did he see after all in -Bloomsbury? Nothing but a remarkably stupid -“social gathering” where there were clay pipes -and a sanded floor and not half enough gas and the -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_207' href='#Page_207'>207</a></span> -principal papers; 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 thought he would see for himself. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, he isn’t the same sort as the Princess. I’m -sure he’s in a very different line!” Hyacinth -objected. -</p> - -<p> -“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’s natural, but I’ve other things to do than -to show them over: therefore you can tell her Serene -Highness that I’m much obliged.” -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth reflected a moment and then said: -“You show Lady Aurora over; you seem to wish -to give her the information she desires; therefore -what’s the difference? If it’s right for her to take -an interest why isn’t it right for my Princess?” -</p> - -<p> -“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 on her. If the Princess will -do as much I’ll see what <i>I</i> can do; 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, 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 incident at the theatre more -remarkable and romantic. He seemed to regard -his mate’s explanation of the passage as all-sufficient; -but when a moment later he made use, in referring -to the mysterious lady, of the expression that she -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_208' href='#Page_208'>208</a></span> -was “quaking” that critic broke out: “Never in -the world; she’s not afraid of anything!” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, my lad, not afraid of you, evidently!” -Hyacinth paid no attention to this coarse sally, -but resumed 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?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, very likely, but you must hit her back and -give it to her badly. That’s your line, you know—to -go in for what’s going, to live your life, to gratify -the ‘sex.’ I’m an ugly, grimy brute, I’ve got to -watch the fires and mind the shop; but you’re one -of those taking little beggars who <i>must</i> run about -and see the world. You ought to be an ornament -to society, like a young man in an illustrated storybook. -Only you know,” Muniment added in a -moment, “if she should hurt you very much I <i>would</i> -have a go at her!” -</p> - -<p> -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 she was his -godmother—it sounded so right) should pay this -civility; but the affair had been delayed by wan -hesitations on the part of the dressmaker, the poor -woman having hard work to imagine to-day that -there were people in London forlorn enough for her -countenance to be of value to them. Her social -curiosity had quite died out and she knew 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 him of taking an unnatural interest in -politics and of being somehow not on the right side, -little as she knew about parties or causes; and she -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_209' href='#Page_209'>209</a></span> -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 breast 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 soiree at a scavenger’s. There was no more -danger of Rose Muniment’s being out than that one -of the bronze couchant lions in Trafalgar Square -should have 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 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 their meeting there. He presented his -companion to their reclining hostess, and Rosy -immediately repeated her name to the representative -of Belgrave Square. Pinnie curtseyed down to the -ground as Lady Aurora put out her hand to her, and -then 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 seen him. His attention, however, was mainly -given to Pinnie: he watched her jealously, to see if -on this important occasion she wouldn’t put forth a -certain stiff, quaint, polished politeness of which she -possessed the secret and which made him liken her -extraction of the sense of things to the nip of a pair -of old-fashioned silver sugar-tongs. Not only for -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_210' href='#Page_210'>210</a></span> -Pinnie’s sake but for his own as well he wished her -to figure as a superior little woman; so 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 while 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 -<i>her</i> 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: which it hadn’t done yet and perhaps -never would—she lay so quiet, pushing it about so -little. “Perhaps you’d think it’s me that trimmed -the little handkerchief I wear round my neck,” Miss -Muniment said; “perhaps you’d 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 how it strikes you.” The girl pulled off the -bit of muslin from her neck and thrust it at Pinnie, -who looked at it confusedly and gasped “Dear, -dear, dear!” partly in sympathy, partly as if, in -spite of the consideration she owed every one, those -were very odd proceedings. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s very badly done; surely you see that,” said -Lady Aurora. “It was only a joke.” -</p> - -<p> -“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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_211' href='#Page_211'>211</a></span> -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) to spend the -evening with me at the height of the London season, -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’s very jocular indeed, -but fortunately I know how to take it. You can see -it wouldn’t do for me to be touchy, can’t you, Miss -Pynsent?” -</p> - -<p> -“Dear, dear, I should be so glad to make you -anything myself; it would be better—it would be -better—!” poor Pinnie floundered. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, you see I don’t wear things—only a flannel -jacket to be a bit tidy,” Miss Muniment returned. -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh my good friend, how can you? I never -went so far as that!” Lady Aurora interposed with -visible anxiety. -</p> - -<p> -“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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_212' href='#Page_212'>212</a></span> -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 he took the two; for how should I -find (by which I naturally mean how should <i>he</i> -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’s my -dwelling-place, the prize was a beautiful counterpane -of every colour of the rainbow. Oh there never was -such luck as mine!” Rosy chattered, flashing her -gay demented eyes at Hyacinth as if to irritate him -with her contradictious optimism. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s very lovely, but if you’d like another for a -change I’ve got a great many pieces,” Pinnie -remarked with a generosity which made the young -man feel she was acquitting herself finely. -</p> - -<p> -Rose Muniment laid her little hand on the dressmaker’s arm and -responded straight: “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 invented or dreamed of since -the world began.” And with her other hand she stroked affectionately -her variegated quilt. “You’ve 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’ve 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 to associate and blend them as closely -as possible in their interest in her. “In connexion 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_213' href='#Page_213'>213</a></span> -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’ve -explained it: my idea is just simply a sweet pink dressing-gown!” -</p> - -<p> -“A sweet pink dressing-gown!” Lady Aurora -repeated. -</p> - -<p> -“With a neat black trimming! Don’t you see the -connexion with what we were talking of before our -good visitors came in?” -</p> - -<p> -“That would be very pretty,” said Pinnie. “I’ve -made them like that in my time. Or a carefully-selected -blue trimmed with white.” -</p> - -<p> -“No, pink and black, pink and black—to suit -my complexion. Perhaps you didn’t know I <i>have</i> -a complexion; but there are very few things I lack! -Anything at all I should fancy, you were so good -as to say. Well now, I fancy that! Your ladyship -does see the connexion by this time, doesn’t she?” -</p> - -<p> -Lady Aurora looked distressed, as if she felt 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 small 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, since 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 flat on your back like that -you had the right to reach out your hands (it wasn’t -far you could reach at best) and grab what you could -get. Pinnie declared she knew just the article Miss -Muniment wanted and that she would undertake to -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_214' href='#Page_214'>214</a></span> -make a perfect duck 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 <i>had</i> -she and Lady Aurora been talking about before they -came in? She clasped her hands and her eyes shone -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 idea 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 just the right sort of rub—there -<i>are</i> such wrong sorts!—or another spoonful of -that American stuff. We’re 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 <i>you</i> see the connexion -with the pink dressing-gown,” she pursued 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, ‘<i>Can</i> anything go?’” -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_215' href='#Page_215'>215</a></span> -</p> - - - - -<h3> -XV -</h3> - - -<p> -“I’m sure there’s nothing <i>I</i> should like to part with,” -Pinnie returned; and while she surveyed the scene -Lady Aurora, with discretion, 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 bent -far away in the country 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. Presently, to -Hyacinth’s astonishment, Lady Aurora said to him: -“You never came after to get the books.” -</p> - -<p> -“Those you kindly offered to lend me? I didn’t -know it was an understanding.” -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_216' href='#Page_216'>216</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -She gave an uneasy laugh. “I’ve picked them -out; they’re quite ready.” -</p> - -<p> -“It’s awfully kind of you,” the young man -hastened to say. “I’ll come and get them some -day with pleasure.” He wasn’t very sure he would, -but it was the least he could profess. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, I’ve no doubt she knows the way—she could -tell me every street and every turn!” Hyacinth -laughed. -</p> - -<p> -“She has made me describe to her very often how -I come and go,” his companion concurred. “I think -few people know more about London than she. She -never forgets anything.” -</p> - -<p> -“She’s a wonderful little witch—she terrifies me!” -he acknowledged. -</p> - -<p> -Lady Aurora turned her modest eyes on him. -“Oh, she’s so good, she’s so patient!” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, and so preternaturally wise and so awfully -all there.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, she’s immensely clever,” said her ladyship. -“Which do you think the cleverer?” -</p> - -<p> -“The cleverer?” -</p> - -<p> -“Of the girl or her brother.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, I think he’ll be some day prime minister of -England.” -</p> - -<p> -“Do you really? I’m so glad!” she cried with -a flush of colour. “I do rejoice if you think that -will be possible. You know it ought to be if things -were right.” -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth had not professed this high faith for the -purpose of playing on her ladyship’s feelings, but -when he felt her intense agreement it was as if he -had been making sport of her. Still he said no more -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_217' href='#Page_217'>217</a></span> -than he believed when he observed in a moment that -he had the greatest expectations of Paul Muniment’s -future: he was sure the world would hear of him, -that England would need him, that the public some -day would acclaim him. It was impossible to know -him without feeling he was very strong and must -play some important part. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, people wouldn’t believe—they wouldn’t -believe.” She abounded in his sense and he could -measure the good he did her. 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 or 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 hadn’t been intended he should do something -supreme for his fellow-men. Hyacinth confided -to her ladyship that he thought the people in his -own class generally very stupid—distinctly what he -should call third-rate minds. He wished it hadn’t -been so, for heaven knew 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 housing -hadn’t a favourable effect on the higher faculties. -All the more reason that when there was a splendid -exception like their friend it should count for a -tremendous force—it had so much to make up for, -so many 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 such judgements made his fellow-guest -very uncomfortable; she turned about, she twisted -herself vaguely as if she wished to protest, but she -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_218' href='#Page_218'>218</a></span> -was far too considerate to interrupt him. He had -no wish to worry her, but there were times when he -couldn’t withstand the perverse satisfaction of insisting -on his lowliness of station, of turning the knife -in the wound inflicted by such explicit reference, -and of 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 species. Lady Aurora -replied as quickly as possible that she knew a great -deal about the poor—not the poor after the fashion -of Rosy, 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 and their quick wit, with their command -of conversation really of much more interest -to her than most of what one usually heard in -drawing-rooms. She often found them immensely -clever. -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth smiled at her and said: “Ah when you -get to the lowest depths of poverty they may become -rich and rare again. But I’m afraid I haven’t gone -so far down. In spite of my opportunities I don’t -know many absolute paupers.” -</p> - -<p> -“I know a great many.” Lady Aurora hesitated -as if she didn’t like to swagger, but she brought it -out. “I daresay I know more than any one.” -There was something touching and beautiful to -Hyacinth in this simple and diffident claim: it -confirmed his impression that she was in some -mysterious, incongruous and even slightly ludicrous -manner a true heroine, a creature of a noble ideal. -She perhaps guessed he was indulging in reflexions -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 dear Rosy thinks so.” No sooner had she -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_219' href='#Page_219'>219</a></span> -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 he replied: -</p> - -<p> -“You mean she’s an exception to what I was -saying?” -</p> - -<p> -She 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. -</p> - -<p> -“No more do I myself; but that doesn’t prove -that exceptions are not frequent. I’ve blood in my -veins that’s not the blood of the people.” -</p> - -<p> -“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!” -</p> - -<p> -Her way of taking it was the kindest in the world, -but it didn’t blind Hyacinth to the fact that from his -own point of view he had been extraordinarily indiscreet. -He had 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 treat it as 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 his impression that people had ideas about -him, and with some of Miss Henning’s he had been -made acquainted: these were of such a nature that -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_220' href='#Page_220'>220</a></span> -he sometimes wondered if the tie uniting 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 he was impenetrable, -and none the less he had begun to swagger idiotically -the first time a temptation (really 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 from the model of civility -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. But as soon as possible he gave himself -a lesson in humility by remarking: “I gather -you spend most of your time among the poor and -I’m sure you carry blessings with you. But I frankly -confess I don’t understand a lady’s giving herself up -to people like us when there’s no obligation. Wretched -company we must be when there’s so much better -to be had.” -</p> - -<p> -“I like it very much—you don’t understand.” -</p> - -<p> -“Precisely—that’s what I say. Our little friend -on the bed is perpetually talking about your house, -your family, your splendours, your gardens and greenhouses. -They must be magnificent of course—” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, I wish she wouldn’t; really I wish she -wouldn’t. It makes one feel dreadfully!” Lady -Aurora interposed with vehemence. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, you had better give her her way; it’s such -a pleasure to her.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, more than to any of us!” sighed her -ladyship helplessly. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, how can you leave all those beautiful -things to come and breathe this beastly air, surround -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_221' href='#Page_221'>221</a></span> -yourself with hideous images and associate with -people whose smallest fault is that they’re 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. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, I wish I could make you understand!” -cried Lady Aurora, looking at him with troubled, -appealing eyes and as if he were unexpectedly -discouraging. -</p> - -<p> -“But when all’s said I think I do understand! -Charity exists in your nature as a kind of passion.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, yes, it’s a kind of passion!” her ladyship -repeated eagerly, all thankful for the word. “I don’t -know if 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 faltered as if there might be something -indecent in the confession or uncertain in the recipient; -and then evidently 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 intense -things. “Already when I was fifteen years old I -wanted to sell all I had and give to the poor. And -ever since I’ve wanted to do something: it has -seemed as if my heart would break if I shouldn’t -be able!” -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth was struck with a great respect, which -however didn’t prevent his presently saying, though -in words that sounded patronising even to himself: -“I suppose you’re very religious.” -</p> - -<p> -She looked away into the thickening dusk, at the -smutty housetops, the blurred emanation of lamp-light -above the streets. “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 daresay we had too -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_222' href='#Page_222'>222</a></span> -many always at home; my father likes them so -particularly. I think I’ve known too many bishops, -I’ve had the church too much on my back. I daresay -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’re twelve at home and eight -of us girls; and if you think it’s so very splendid, -and <i>she</i> thinks so, I should like you both to try it -for a little! My father isn’t rich and there’s only -one of us, Eva, married, and we’re not at all handsome, -and—oh there are all kinds of things,” the -young woman went on, looking round at him an -instant through her sense of being launched. “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 daresay -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’s 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 daresay I oughtn’t to say such -things to you, but, as I tell you, I’m quite a proper -lunatic and I might as well keep up the character. -When one’s one of eight daughters and there’s very -little money (for any of <i>us</i> at least) and nothing to -do but to go out with three or four others in mackintoshes, -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_223' href='#Page_223'>223</a></span> -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 goodness knows -they’re in want of it; but one must work with the -vicarage, and at the vicarage are four more daughters, -all old maids, and it’s dreary and dreadful and one -has too much of it, for they don’t understand what -one thinks or feels or a single word one says to them. -Besides, they <i>are</i> stupid, I admit, the country poor; -they’re 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 contortions, as if afraid that -from one moment to the other she would repent, not -of her confidence but of her egotism. -</p> - -<p> -It placed her for Hyacinth in an unexpected light, -making 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 this -timorous, scrupulous, though clearly all generous, -creature to be evidently most a person not to spare, -wherever she could prick them, the institutions -among which she had been brought up and against -which she had violently reacted. He had always -supposed a reactionary to mean 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 held -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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_224' href='#Page_224'>224</a></span> -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 that was a tribute to her sudden -vividness while he said: “I can easily understand -your wanting to do some good in the world, because -you’re a kind of saint.” -</p> - -<p> -“A very curious kind!” laughed her ladyship. -</p> - -<p> -“But I don’t understand your not liking what -your position gives you.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t know anything about my position. I -want to live!” -</p> - -<p> -“And do you call <i>this</i> life?” -</p> - -<p> -“I’ll tell you what my position is if you want to -know: it’s the deadness of the grave!” -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth was startled by her tone, but he nevertheless -laughed back at her: “Ah, as I say, you’re -a regular 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 on 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. Paul had -brought him up for Rosy’s entertainment, being -ready, and more than ready, always to introduce -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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_225' href='#Page_225'>225</a></span> -under contribution. But what the mischief was the -Captain up to? It can’t 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 dressed with ingenious cheapness, to an effect -coinciding, however different the cause, with poor -Hyacinth’s own; but his disguise prompted our -young man to wonder what made him so unmistakably -a gentleman in spite of it—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 intense when it rested on our hero, whom -he greeted 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—he was altogether -a problem. -</p> - -<p> -Rosy was a match for him, however; he evidently -didn’t puzzle her in the least and she thought his -visit the most natural thing in the world. She -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_226' href='#Page_226'>226</a></span> -expressed all the gratitude 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, since the way he sealed a -new acquaintance was usually by bringing the person -immediately to call on 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 she -disapproved: as yet, however, she had not been -obliged to draw the line. This was perhaps partly -because he hadn’t brought up any of his awful firebrands, -the people he knew for unmentionable reasons. -Of such in general she had a very small opinion, and -she wouldn’t conceal from Captain Sholto that she -hoped he wasn’t 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 nevertheless entered quite into her views and -told her that it was as common friends of Mr. -Hyacinth Robinson 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 his head; he saw -Captain Sholto might be trusted to make as great -an effort for Rosy’s entertainment as he gathered -he had made for Milly Henning’s 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 had come -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_227' href='#Page_227'>227</a></span> -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 arrived at as by a quick freemasonry, the -idea that Miss Pynsent should go home to Belgrave -Square with her ladyship and 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 brown “breadths” -that had proved their quality in honourable service -and might be dyed to the proper hue. 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 couldn’t 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 and the observation 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. -</p> - -<p> -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 of the prospect of their getting one of their own -men—one of the Bloomsbury lot—into the House. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_228' href='#Page_228'>228</a></span> -“He was mighty civil,” Muniment said, “and I don’t -find that he has yet picked my pocket. He looked as -if he would like me to suggest that <i>he</i> should stand -as one of our own men, one of the Bloomsbury lot. -He asks too many questions, but makes up for it by -not paying any attention to the answers. He told me -he’d give the world to see a really superior workingman’s -‘interior.’ I didn’t know at first just where he -proposed to cut me open: 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’s, the cabinetmaker’s, -neat home, 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 in 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 work to return him -if that’s to be his platform. On our way over he -talked to me about you; told me you were an intimate -friend of his.” -</p> - -<p> -“What did he say about me?” Hyacinth asked -with promptness. -</p> - -<p> -“Vain little beggar!” -</p> - -<p> -“Did he call me that?” said Hyacinth ingenuously. -</p> - -<p> -“He said you were simply astonishing.” -</p> - -<p> -“Simply astonishing?” Hyacinth repeated. -</p> - -<p> -“For a person of your low extraction.” -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_229' href='#Page_229'>229</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -“Well, I may be rum, but he is certainly rummer. -Don’t you think so now you know him?” -</p> - -<p> -Paul eyed his young friend. “Do you want to -know what he is? He’s a tout.” -</p> - -<p> -“A tout? What do you mean?” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, a cat’s-paw, if you like better.” -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth stared. “For whom, pray?” -</p> - -<p> -“Or a deep-sea 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 <i>her</i>; she -swallows ’em down.” -</p> - -<p> -“For her? Do you mean the Princess?” -</p> - -<p> -“Who else should I mean? Take care, my -tadpole!” -</p> - -<p> -“Why should I take care? The other day you -told me not to.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, I remember. But now I see more.” -</p> - -<p> -“Did he speak of her? What did he say?” -Hyacinth eagerly asked. -</p> - -<p> -“I can’t tell you now what he said, but I’ll tell you -what I guessed.” -</p> - -<p> -“And what’s that?” -</p> - -<p> -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 Muniment -spoke more softly still—Hyacinth felt a kind of -suspense—as he replied in a moment: “Why, she’s -a monster!” -</p> - -<p> -“A monster?” repeated our young man, from -whom, this evening, his friend was destined to draw -ejaculations and echoes. -</p> - -<p> -Paul glanced toward the Captain, who was apparently -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_230' href='#Page_230'>230</a></span> -more and more engaged by Rosy. “In him -I think there’s no great harm. He’s only a patient -angler.” -</p> - -<p> -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 Rosy asked -Miss Pynsent to be so good as to hand it about. -They must let her poor ladyship rest a little, mustn’t -they?—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, however, and begged -Pinnie to let him relieve her, taking a cup from her -hand; and poor Pinnie, who noted in a moment that -he was some kind of uncanny masquerader, 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 example of a -tenement of its class?” It was with such inquiries -as this that the good gentleman beguiled their tea-drinking, -while Hyacinth made the reflexion that, -though he evidently meant them very well, they were -characterised by a want of fine tact, by too patronising -a curiosity. The Captain invited information as -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_231' href='#Page_231'>231</a></span> -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?” -</p> - -<p> -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 extreme animation. -He had the manner of having made over their visitor -altogether to Rosy and of thinking that whatever that -personage said or did was all so much grist to her -indefatigable little mill. Lady Aurora writhed in -her pain, and it is a proof of the degree to which -our slight 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 picked up by -mysterious processes of her own. At last her ladyship, -on whom Paul Muniment had not been at pains -to bestow much conversation, took leave of her, -signifying to Hyacinth that for the rest of the evening -she would assume the care of Miss Pynsent. Pinnie -might have been consciously laid bare for monstrous -rites 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 on she -reminded him under her breath and with a small sad -smile of the many years during which, after nightfall, -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_232' href='#Page_232'>232</a></span> -she carried her work, pinned up in a cloth, about -London. -</p> - -<p> -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 Paul had -indulged him and too promiscuously investigating as -he had just shown himself, this ingratiating character -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 their host coming up, and Hyacinth -felt rather ashamed, he could scarce tell why, that his -friend should see him marching off with the “tout.” -After all, if Paul had brought him to see his sister -might not Paul’s pupil and devotee at least walk with -him? “I’m coming again, you know, very often. I -daresay you’ll find me a great bore!” the Captain -announced as he bade good-night to Muniment. -“Your sister’s a most interesting creature, one of -the most interesting creatures I’ve ever seen, and the -whole thing, you know, exactly the type of place I -wanted to get at, only much more—really much -more—original and curious. It has been a jolly -glimpse—a grand success!” -</p> - -<p> -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. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_233' href='#Page_233'>233</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -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 expensive 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 -Saint Thomas’s Hospital) Sholto brought out: “By -the way, why shouldn’t you come home with me and -see my little place? I’ve 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 demur; he had still in his ear the reverberation -of the Captain’s inquiries in Rosy’s room, and -he saw no reason why he on his side shouldn’t embrace -an occasion of ascertaining how, as his companion -would have said, a man of fashion would live now. -</p> - -<p> -This particular specimen lived in a large old-fashioned -house in Queen Anne Street, of which he -occupied the upper floors, where he had filled the -high wainscoted rooms with the spoils of travel and -the ingenuities of modern taste. There was not a -country in the world he appeared not 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, solemnised the -very 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 youth that he felt himself hushed and -depressed, so poignant was the thought that it took -thousands of things he then should never possess nor -know to make a civilised being. He had often in -evening walks wondered what was behind the walls -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_234' href='#Page_234'>234</a></span> -of certain ample bright-windowed houses in the West -End, and now he got an idea. The first effect of the -idea was to lay him rather flat. -</p> - -<p> -“Well now, tell me what you thought of our friend -the Princess,” the Captain said, thrusting out the -loose yellow slippers 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. -</p> - -<p> -“She’s beautiful—beautiful,” Hyacinth answered -almost dreamily while his eyes wandered all over the -room. -</p> - -<p> -“She was so interested in all you said to her; -she’d 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.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t know—I don’t know. It seems so -strange.” -</p> - -<p> -“What seems strange, my dear chap?” -</p> - -<p> -“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 its dim -rich curiosities hanging on the walls and glinting -in the light of that rose-coloured lamp. You yourself -too—you’re strangest of all.” -</p> - -<p> -The Captain looked at him so silently and so -fixedly, 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 signs 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_235' href='#Page_235'>235</a></span> -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 points 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 Milly had said about her -at the theatre—asked if this young lady had correctly -understood him in believing she had been turned out -of the house by her husband. -</p> - -<p> -“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, that the Prince would at the -present hour give everything he owns in the world -to get her back. Fancy such an absurd scene!” -said the Captain, laughing in a manner that struck -Hyacinth as rather profane. -</p> - -<p> -He stared with dilated eyes at this picture, which -seemed to demand 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?” -</p> - -<p> -“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—<i><span class="fr_FR">en tout bien -tout honneur, s’entend</span></i>. Now, <i>there</i> 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’ve seen many women, and the women -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_236' href='#Page_236'>236</a></span> -of many countries,” the Captain went on, “and I’ve -seen them as intimately as you like, and I know -what I’m talking about; and when I tell you that -that one—that one—!” Then he suddenly paused, -laughing in his democratic way. “But perhaps -I’m going too far: you must always pull me up, -you know, when I do. At any rate I congratulate -you; I do right 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 -go there and buy some pocket-handkerchiefs.” -</p> - -<p> -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 pecuniary gains. 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 one -somehow of certain of Bulwer’s novels. His host -gratified this pretension most liberally and told him -twenty stories of things of interest, often of amazement, -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 his friend’s books, which he told him frankly, with -the conscience of an artist, were not up to the mark. -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 grey London streets began to clear with the -summer dawn. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_237' href='#Page_237'>237</a></span> -</p> - - - - -<h3> -XVI -</h3> - - -<p> -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. Our personage, 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.” He made two reflexions: 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 <i><span class="fr_FR">mise-en-scène</span></i> of life, such a -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_238' href='#Page_238'>238</a></span> -talent for arranging a room. She had always, wherever -she was, the most charming room in Europe. -</p> - -<p> -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 this to be only when he had been -baited past endurance, so 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 -didn’t permit himself even to murmur at the long -delay he had to accept. 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. -</p> - -<p> -Their greeting was at first all a renouncement of -words. She came to him with both hands outstretched, -and took his own and held them a while, -looking up at him with full benignity. She had -elongated her florid, humorous face to a degree that -was almost comical, and the pair might have passed, -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_239' href='#Page_239'>239</a></span> -in their silent solemnity, for acquaintances meeting in -a house in which last obsequies were 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 sustain that note 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 brow on which a more -genial appreciation of the facts had already begun to -appear. -</p> - -<p> -“Never—never—never?” said the Prince in a -deep hoarse voice, a voice at variance with his -attenuated capacity. He had much of the complexion -which in late-coming members of long-descended -races we qualify to-day as effete; but his tone might -have served for the battle-cry of some deep-chested -fighting ancestor. -</p> - -<p> -“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’ve -been talking with her: that’s what has made me -keep you. I’ve urged her to see you. I’ve told her -that this could do no harm and would pledge her to -nothing. But you know your wife,” Madame -Grandoni repeated with an intensity now much -relaxed. -</p> - -<p> -Prince Casamassima looked down at his boots. -“How can one ever know a person like that? I -hoped she’d see me five little minutes.” -</p> - -<p> -“For what purpose? Have you anything to -propose?” -</p> - -<p> -“For what purpose? To rest my eyes on her -beautiful face.” -</p> - -<p> -“Did you come to England for that?” -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_240' href='#Page_240'>240</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -“For what else should I have come?” the Prince -asked as he turned his blighted gaze to the opposite -side of South Street. -</p> - -<p> -“In London, such a day as this, <i><span class="it_IT">già</span></i>,” said the old -lady sympathetically. “I’m very sorry for you; -but if I had known you were coming I’d have written -to you that you might spare yourself the pain.” -</p> - -<p> -He gave a deep interminable sigh. “You ask me -what I wish to propose. What I wish to propose is -that my wife shouldn’t kill me inch by inch.” -</p> - -<p> -“She’d be much more likely to do that if you lived -with her!” Madame Grandoni cried. -</p> - -<p> -“<i><span class="it_IT">Cara amica</span></i>, she doesn’t appear to have killed -you,” the melancholy nobleman returned. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, me? I’m past killing. I’m as hard as a -stone. I went through my miseries long ago; -I suffered what you’ve not had to suffer; I wished -for death many times and I survived it all. Our -troubles don’t kill us, <i><span class="it_IT">Principe mio</span></i>; it’s we who -must try to kill them. I’ve buried not a few. Besides, -Christina’s fond of me, the devil knows why!” -Madame Grandoni added. -</p> - -<p> -“And you’re so good to her,” said the Prince, who -laid his hand on her fat wrinkled fist. -</p> - -<p> -“<i><span class="it_IT">Che vuole?</span></i> I’ve known her so long. And she -has some such great qualities.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, to whom do you say it?” And he gazed -at his boots again, for some moments, in silence. -Suddenly he resumed: “How does she look to-day?” -</p> - -<p> -“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!” -</p> - -<p> -The Prince was evidently a man of a simple nature, -and Madame Grandoni’s rather violent metaphor -took his fancy. His face lighted up a little and he -replied with eagerness: “Ah, she’s the only woman -I’ve ever seen whose beauty never for a moment falls -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_241' href='#Page_241'>241</a></span> -below itself. She has no bad days. She’s so handsome -when she’s angry!” -</p> - -<p> -“She’s very handsome to-day, but she’s not angry,” -said the old lady. -</p> - -<p> -“Not when my name was announced?” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“She hates me, she despises me too much, eh?” -</p> - -<p> -“How can I tell, dear Prince, when she never -mentions you?” -</p> - -<p> -“Never, never?” -</p> - -<p> -“That’s much better than if she railed at you and -abused you.” -</p> - -<p> -“You mean it should give me more hope for the -future?” the young man asked quickly. -</p> - -<p> -His old friend had a pause. “I mean it’s better -for <i>me</i>,” she answered with a laugh of which the -friendly ring covered as much as possible her equivocation. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, you like me enough to care,” he murmured -as he turned on her his sad grateful eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m very sorry for you. <i><span class="it_IT">Ma che vuole?</span></i>” -</p> - -<p> -The Prince had apparently nothing to suggest and -only exhaled in reply another gloomy groan. Then -he inquired if his wife pleased herself in that country -and if 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 English capital 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 prepared or -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_242' href='#Page_242'>242</a></span> -promised? She always at the last moment did the -other thing, the one that had been out of the question; -and it was for this Madame Grandoni herself -privately made her preparations. Christina, now that -everything was over, would leave London from one -day to the other; but they shouldn’t know where -they were going till they arrived. The old lady -concluded by asking if the Prince himself liked -England. He thrust forward his full lips. “How -can I like anything? Besides, I’ve been here before; -I’ve many friends.” -</p> - -<p> -His companion saw 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—in spite of his -position of discomfiture, really very great—might -find it difficult to square itself. He looked vaguely -round the room and presently remarked: “I wanted -to see for myself how she’s living.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, that’s very natural.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve heard—I’ve heard—” And Prince Casamassima -stopped. -</p> - -<p> -“You’ve heard great rubbish, I’ve no doubt.” -Madame Grandoni watched him as if she foresaw -what was coming. -</p> - -<p> -“She spends a terrible deal of money,” said the -young man. -</p> - -<p> -“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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_243' href='#Page_243'>243</a></span> -which he had a boundless reverence. “She thinks -she’s a model of thrift—that she counts every shilling,” -Madame Grandoni continued. “If there’s a virtue -she prides herself upon it’s her economy. Indeed -it’s the only thing for which she takes any credit.” -</p> - -<p> -“I wonder if she knows that I”—he just hesitated, -then went on—“spend almost nothing at all. -But I’d rather live on dry bread than that in a -country like this, in this great English society, she -shouldn’t make a proper appearance.” -</p> - -<p> -“Her appearance is all you could wish. How can -it help being proper with me to set her off?” -</p> - -<p> -“You’re the best thing she has, dear friend. So -long as you’re 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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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’ll stay in the bath -when the hot water’s on. When I begin to be scalded -I’ve to jump out—naked as I may naturally be. -I’ll stay while I can, but I shouldn’t stay if she were -to do certain things.” Madame Grandoni uttered -these last words with a clear emphasis, and for a -minute she and her companion looked deep into each -other’s eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“What things do you mean?” -</p> - -<p> -“I can’t say what things. It’s utterly impossible -to predict on any occasion what Christina will do. -She’s 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 spot.” -</p> - -<p> -“So that if you’ve not left it yet—?” he asked -with extreme eagerness. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_244' href='#Page_244'>244</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -“It’s because I’ve thought I may do some good -by staying.” -</p> - -<p> -He seemed but half content 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.—You might interpose, -you might arrest—” He stopped short before -her large Germanic grimace. -</p> - -<p> -“You must have been in Rome more than once -when the Tiber had overflowed, <i><span class="it_IT">è vero</span></i>? 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?” -</p> - -<p> -“<i><span class="it_IT">Capisco bene</span></i>,” said the Prince, dropping his eyes. -He appeared to have closed them, for some moments, -as if under a slow spasm of pain. “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. -</p> - -<p> -“You needn’t tell me. I know what you mean, -my poor friend.” -</p> - -<p> -“Do you think then there <i>is</i> a danger—that she’ll -drag my name, do what no one has ever dared to -do? That I’d never forgive,” he declared almost -under his breath; and the hoarseness of his whisper -lent it a great effect. -</p> - -<p> -Madame Grandoni hastily wondered if 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 reflexion she reserved this information for -another hour. Besides, as she said to herself, the -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_245' href='#Page_245'>245</a></span> -Prince ought already to know perfectly to what -extent Christina attached the idea of an obligation -or an interdict to her ill-starred connexion with an -ignorant and superstitious Italian race whom she -despised for their provinciality, their parsimony and -their futility (she thought their talk the climax of -childishness) and whose fatuous conception of their -importance in the great modern world she had on -various public occasions sufficiently riddled with -her derision. She finally contented herself with -remarking: “Dear Prince, your wife’s a very proud -woman.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, how could my wife be anything else? But -her pride’s not my pride. And she has such ideas; -such opinions! Some of them are monstrous.” -</p> - -<p> -Madame Grandoni smiled. “She doesn’t think -it so necessary to have them when you’re not -there.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why then do you say that you enter into my -fears—that you recognise the stories I’ve heard?” -</p> - -<p> -I know not whether the good lady lost patience -with his pressure; 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 herself much more!” -</p> - -<p> -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 if suffering from -his long thin feet. He stopped before one of the -windows and took another survey of South Street; -then turning he suddenly asked 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?” -</p> - -<p> -“She’s thought very strange of course. But she -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_246' href='#Page_246'>246</a></span> -sees whom she likes. And they mostly bore her to -death!” Madame Grandoni conscientiously added. -</p> - -<p> -“Why then do you tell me this country pleases -her?” -</p> - -<p> -The old woman left her place. She had promised -Christina, who detested the sense of being under the -same roof with her husband, that the latter’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’s the common -people who please her,” she returned with her hands -folded on her crumpled satin stomach and her ancient -eyes, still keen for all comedy, raised to his face. -“It’s the lower orders, the <i><span class="it_IT">basso popolo</span></i>.” -</p> - -<p> -“The <i><span class="it_IT">basso popolo</span></i>?” The Prince stared at this -fantastic announcement. -</p> - -<p> -“The <i><span class="it_IT">povera gente</span></i>,” pursued his friend, amused -at his dismay. -</p> - -<p> -“The London mob—the most horrible, the most -brutal—?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, she wishes to raise them.” -</p> - -<p> -“After all, something like that’s no more than -I had heard,” said the Prince gravely. -</p> - -<p> -“<i><span class="it_IT">Che vuole?</span></i> Don’t trouble yourself; it won’t be -for long!” -</p> - -<p> -Madame Grandoni saw this comforting assurance -lost upon him; his face was turned to the door of -the room, which had been thrown open, and all his -attention given to the person who crossed the threshold. -She 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—afterwards informing her old friend that she -had sent for him to come and see her. -</p> - -<p> -“Mr. Robinson!” the butler, who had had a -lesson, announced in a loud colourless tone. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_247' href='#Page_247'>247</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth stood, while she 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 if 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 script could make -them. -</p> - -<p> -“Good-morning, good-morning. I hope you’re -well,” said Madame Grandoni with quick friendliness, -but turning her back upon him at the same -time in order to ask of their companion, in the other -idiom, as she extended her hand: “And don’t you -leave London soon—in a day or two?” -</p> - -<p> -The Prince made no answer; he still scanned the -little bookbinder from head to foot, as if 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 the -heat of wonder in his fine 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 said as a -prompt precaution; in case he should have incurred -the reproach of undue precipitation. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh yes, I daresay.” And Madame Grandoni -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_248' href='#Page_248'>248</a></span> -guided the Prince to the door with an expression -of the desire he might have a comfortable journey -back to Italy. -</p> - -<p> -But he stood stiff there; he appeared to have -jumped to a dark conclusion about Mr. Robinson. -“I must see you once more. I must. It’s impossible—!” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah well, not in this house, you know.” -</p> - -<p> -“Will you do me the honour to meet me then?” -And as the old lady hesitated he added with sudden -intensity: “Dearest friend, I beg you on my knees!” -After she had agreed that if he would write to her -proposing a day and place she would see him were -it possible, he raised her ancient knuckles to his lips -and, without further notice of Hyacinth, turned away. -She bade the servant announce the other visitor to -the Princess, and then approached Mr. Robinson, -rubbing her hands and smiling, her head very much -to 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— -</p> - -<p> -“My poor young man, may I take the liberty of -asking your age?” -</p> - -<p> -“Certainly, madam; I’m twenty-four.” -</p> - -<p> -“And I hope you’re industrious, and temperate in -all ways and—what do you call it in English?—steady.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t think I’m very wild,” said Hyacinth -without offence. He thought the old woman patronising, -but he forgave her. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t know how one speaks in this country -to young men like you. Perhaps one’s considered -meddling or impertinent.” -</p> - -<p> -“I like the way you speak,” Hyacinth hastened -to profess. -</p> - -<p> -She stared, and then with a comical affectation -of dignity: “You’re very good. I’m glad it amuses -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_249' href='#Page_249'>249</a></span> -you. You’re evidently intelligent and clever,” she -went on, “and if you’re disappointed it will be a -pity.” -</p> - -<p> -“How do you mean if I’m disappointed?” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, I daresay you expect great things when -you come into a house like this. You must tell me -if I upset you. I’m very old-fashioned and I’m not -of this country. I speak as one speaks to young -men like you in other places.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’m not so easily upset!” Hyacinth assured her -with a flight of imagination. “To expect anything -one must know something, one must understand: -isn’t it so? And I’m here without knowing, without -understanding. I’ve come only because a lady who -seems to me very beautiful and very kind has done -me the honour to send for me.” -</p> - -<p> -Madame Grandoni examined him a moment as -if struck by his good looks, by something delicate -stamped on him everywhere. “I can see you’re very -clever, very intelligent; no, you’re not like the young -men I mean. All the more reason—!” And she -paused, giving a short sigh. Her case might have -been all too difficult. “I want to warn you a little, -and I don’t know how. If you were a young Roman -it would be different.” -</p> - -<p> -“A young Roman?” -</p> - -<p> -“That’s where I live properly, in the Eternal City. -If I hurt you, you can explain it that way. No, you’re -not like them.” -</p> - -<p> -“You don’t hurt me—please believe that; you -interest me very much,” said Hyacinth, to whom it -didn’t occur that he himself might seem patronising. -“Of what do you want to warn me?” -</p> - -<p> -“Well—only to advise you a little. Don’t give -up anything.” -</p> - -<p> -“What can I give up?” -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t give up <i>yourself</i>. I say that to you in -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_250' href='#Page_250'>250</a></span> -your interest. I think you’ve some honest little -trade—I forget what. But whatever it may be -remember that to do it well is the best thing; better -than paying extraordinary visits, better even than -being liked by Princesses!” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah yes, I see what you mean!” Hyacinth -returned, exaggerating a little. “I’m very fond of -my trade indeed, I assure you.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’m delighted to hear it. Hold fast to it then -and be quiet; be diligent and good and get on. I -gathered the other night that you’re 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 who even think it 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’m 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’re right.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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’ll 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. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_251' href='#Page_251'>251</a></span> -</p> - - - - -<h3> -XVII -</h3> - - -<p> -He 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 couldn’t fail -to deepen the emotion which, any time these three -days, had made him draw his breath more quickly. -That emotion, nevertheless, didn’t actually 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 his adventure would throw him on -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 -and of which the legs and frame appeared of pure -gold. Here he sat perfectly still, only with 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 didn’t scruple to -keep him waiting twenty minutes (during which the -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_252' href='#Page_252'>252</a></span> -butler came in and set out on a small table a glittering -tea-service) Hyacinth had time to count over the -innumerable <i><span class="fr_FR">bibelots</span></i> (most of which he had never -dreamed of) involved in the character 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 temperament. -</p> - -<p> -When at last the door opened and the servant, -reappearing, threw it far back as 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 arrived she was so simply -dressed—besides his seeing her now on her feet—that -she looked quite a different figure. She approached -him rapidly and a little stiffly and shyly, -but in the prompt manner in which she shook hands -was an evident desire to be very direct and perfectly -easy. She might have been another 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 assailing and bewildering him -as to the reality of the vision bequeathed to him -by his former interview. And in this peculiar high -grace of her presence he couldn’t have told you if -she struck him as more proud or more kind. -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve 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’ve noticed -some of them. Over on that side for instance is -rather a curious collection of miniatures.” She spoke -abruptly, quickly, as if conscious that their communion -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_253' href='#Page_253'>253</a></span> -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 if 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 -wouldn’t have appeared to him 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; immediately adding, however, that -she was afraid he had not many opportunities of -seeing them, though of course there were the public -collections, open to all. He replied 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 fact appeared to interest -her greatly, so that she straightway begged him to -tell her what he thought of certain pictures and -antiques. In this way it was that in an incredibly -short time, as appeared to him, he found himself -discussing the Bacchus and Ariadne and the Elgin -Marbles with one of the most remarkable women in -Europe. It was true that she herself talked most, -passing precipitately from one point to another, -putting 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 in the least, but -absurdly loved it. It didn’t occur to him to think -these discriminations pedantic. Suddenly she threw off, -“Madame Grandoni told me you saw my husband.” -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_254' href='#Page_254'>254</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, was the gentleman your husband?” -</p> - -<p> -“Unfortunately! What do you think of him?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, I can’t think—!” Hyacinth decently -pleaded. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!”—and the young man stared, 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—naturally—nervous.” -Later on, when he had left -the house, he wondered how at that stage he could -have ventured on such a familiar remark. -</p> - -<p> -But she had taken it with a quick, surprised -laugh. “How do you know that?” Before he had -time to tell 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’ve 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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t think I understand too much. You might -easily exaggerate that,” Hyacinth declared conscientiously. -</p> - -<p> -“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’s your cousin the -dressmaker?” she inquired abruptly. And when -Hyacinth had briefly given some account of poor -Pinnie—described her as tolerably well for her, but -old and tired and sad and not very successful—she -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_255' href='#Page_255'>255</a></span> -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’ve 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.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t want any explanation,” said Hyacinth -with a sense of great presence of mind. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s charming 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.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t care how you treat me!” he smiled. -</p> - -<p> -There was a considerable silence, after which she -pursued: “All I ask of my husband is to let me -alone. But he won’t. He won’t return my indifference.” -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth wondered what reply he ought to make -to such an announcement as that, and it seemed to -him 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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why not if I’m odious? I <i>can</i> be—oh there’s -no doubt of that! However, I can honestly say that -with the Prince I’ve 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.” -</p> - -<p> -“She’ll tell me it’s none of my business.” -</p> - -<p> -“Very true—she might!” the Princess inconsequently -laughed. “And I don’t know either why I -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_256' href='#Page_256'>256</a></span> -should bore you with my domestic affairs; except -that I’ve been wondering what I could do to show -you confidence 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 on me I just mention it, though -the subject’s tiresome enough. Moreover, I ought -to let you know that I’ve very little respect for -distinctions of class—the sort of thing they make so -much of in this country. They’re 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’re 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’m more and more impressed with -the fact that you’re 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 wasn’t easily shocked; and then restlessly, -eagerly, as if it relieved her to talk and made their -queer conjunction less abnormal that she should talk -most, she arrived at the point that she wanted to -know the <i>people</i>, 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 question, “What could really be -in worse taste than for me to carry into such an undertaking -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_257' href='#Page_257'>257</a></span> -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 on 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.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’ll help you with pleasure to the best of my -humble ability. But you’ll 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 through the aristocracy. -Nevertheless, though there was much of the same -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 drove 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 aspect and the address, -and that perhaps made their curiosity the more -significant. -</p> - -<p> -“I haven’t the least doubt of it,” this investigator -answered; “there’s nothing in life in which I’ve 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 <i><span class="fr_FR">naïfs</span></i>. The -upper classes are so deadly <i>banals</i>. My husband -traces his descent from the fifth century, and he’s -the greatest bore in Europe. That’s the kind of -people I was condemned to by my marriage. Oh, if -you knew what I’ve been through you’d allow that -intelligent mechanics (of course I don’t want to know -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_258' href='#Page_258'>258</a></span> -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 beautiful. -“The only objection to you individually is that -you’ve nothing of the people about you—to-day -not even the dress.” Her eyes wandered over him -from head to foot, and their recognitions made him -ashamed. “I wish you had come in the clothes you -wear at your work.” -</p> - -<p> -“You see you do regard me as a curious animal,” -he returned. -</p> - -<p> -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 mentioned -her parentage—American on the mother’s -side, Italian on the father’s—and how she had led -from her youngest 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 great name, and it -had turned out as badly as her worst enemy could -have wished. 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 -uneasy but 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_259' href='#Page_259'>259</a></span> -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 woman’s attachment. 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 <i><span class="fr_FR">milieu</span></i> in which she had for -several years 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 which was -to throw herself into some effort that 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 willing submission; she -seemed so natural, so vivid, so exquisitely generous -and sincere. By the time he had been with her half -an hour she had made the situation itself easy and -usual, and a third person who should have joined -them at this moment would have noticed nothing to -suggest that friendly social intercourse between little -bookbinders and Neapolitan princesses was not in -London a matter of daily occurrence. -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth had seen plenty of women who chattered -about themselves and their affairs—a vulgar garrulity -of confidence was indeed a leading characteristic -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_260' href='#Page_260'>260</a></span> -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 her visitor’s eyes no sinister aspect. -Why was it not a noble and interesting whim, and -why mightn’t he stand for the hour at any rate in -the silvery moonshine it cast on his path? It must -be added that he was far from taking in everything -she said, some of her allusions and implications being -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 such 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 <i><span class="fr_FR">à outrance</span></i>—lead her to swear by Darwin -and Spencer and all the scientific iconoclasts as well -as by the revolutionary spirit. He surely needn’t -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_261' href='#Page_261'>261</a></span> -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, didn’t make her affect him -any the less as a creature compounded of the finest -elements; brilliant, delicate, complicated, but complicated -with something divine. -</p> - -<p> -It was not till after he had left her that he became -conscious she had forced him to talk in spite of talking -so much herself. He drew a long breath as he -reflected that he hadn’t made quite such an ass of -himself as might very well have happened; he had -been saved by the thrill of his interest 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, -conscious tension, as if the occasion had been a great -appointed solemnity, some initiation more formal -than any he believed practised even in the grimmest -subterranean circles. He had said indeed much more -than he had warrant for when she questioned him -on his “radical” 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 pride. 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’ve nothing more remarkable to put before -me?”—a question to which of course he would -have had an answer ready but for its being so impossible -to say he had never asked to come and that -his coming was her own affair. He wanted too -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_262' href='#Page_262'>262</a></span> -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 if I shall ever see you again!” -he replied with perfect sincerity that it was scarce -possible 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’s -very true I had just that feeling after I left you the -other night at the theatre. And yet here I am!” -</p> - -<p> -“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’s nothing essentially inconceivable in -my seeing you again; but it may very well be that -you’ll never again find it so pleasant. Perhaps that’s -the happiness that comes but once. At any rate, -you know, I’m going away.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh yes, of course; every one leaves town—!” -Hyacinth rose to that occasion. -</p> - -<p> -“Do <i>you</i>, Mr. Robinson?” the Princess asked. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, I don’t as a general thing. Nevertheless -it’s possible that this year I may get three or four -days at the seaside. I should like to take my old -lady. I’ve done it before.” -</p> - -<p> -“And except for that shall you be always at -work?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes; but you must understand that I love my -work. You must understand that it’s a great blessing -for a young fellow like me to have it.” -</p> - -<p> -“And if you didn’t have it what would you do? -Should you starve?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, I don’t think I should starve,” our friend -replied judicially. -</p> - -<p> -She looked a little chagrined, but after a moment -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_263' href='#Page_263'>263</a></span> -pursued: “I wonder whether you’d come to see me -in the country somewhere.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh cracky!” Hyacinth exclaimed, catching his -breath. “You’re so kind I don’t know what to -do.” -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t be <i>banal</i>, please. That’s what other -people are. What’s the use of my looking for something -fresh in other walks of life if you’re going to -be <i>banal</i> too? I ask if you’d come.” -</p> - -<p> -He couldn’t have said at this moment whether he -were plunging or soaring. “Yes, I think I’d 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’d come.” -</p> - -<p> -“You mean you can’t leave your work like that? -You might lose it if you did, and then be in want of -money and much embarrassed?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, there would be little difficulties of that -kind. You see that immediately, in practice, great -obstacles and complications come up when it’s a -question of a person like you making friends with -a person like me.” -</p> - -<p> -“That’s the way I like you to talk,” said the -Princess with a pitying gentleness that struck her -visitor as quite sacred. “After all I don’t know where -I shall be. I’ve got to pay stupid visits myself, visits -where the only comfort will be that I shall make -the people jump. Every one here thinks me exceedingly -odd—as there’s no doubt I am! I might be -ever so much more so if you’d only help me a little. -Why shouldn’t I have my bookbinder after all? -In attendance, you know—it would be awfully -<i>chic</i>. 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’ve got through that <i><span class="fr_FR">corvée</span></i>; -I shall be here next year. In the meantime don’t -forget me,” she went on as she rose to her feet. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_264' href='#Page_264'>264</a></span> -“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 high radiance. Then in a manner -almost equally quaint 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’m not by nature persevering, and am -really very easily put off, I don’t consider they’ll -prove insurmountable. They exist on my side as -well, and if you’ll help me to overcome mine I’ll -do the same for you with yours.” -</p> - -<p> -These words, repeating themselves again and again -in his 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 despite much handling. 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 old Crook’s, 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 to him the fruit of his toil, and -much more freely expressed than that of old Crook -himself, who grunted approbation but was always too -long-headed to create precedents. Hyacinth carried -the volume to South Street as an offering to the -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_265' href='#Page_265'>265</a></span> -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 major-domo in charge of -the house, opening the door yet looking down at him -as if from a second-story window, took the life out -of his vision and erected instead of it, by a touch, -a high blank wall. The Princess had been absent -for some days; her representative 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 “jucal” circle. He decided to retain -his little package for the present; he would offer -it to her when he should see her again, and he retreated -without giving it up. Later on it seemed to create -a manner of material link between the Princess and -himself, and at the end of three months it had almost -come to appear 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 -our young man, 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 to a virtual proof and -gage—as if a ghost in vanishing from sight had -left a palpable relic. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_266' href='#Page_266'>266</a></span> -</p> - - - - -<h3> -XVIII -</h3> - - -<p> -The matter touched him but indirectly, yet 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 -in the foreign fashion at twelve o’clock—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 tepid and tasteless <i><span class="fr_FR">réchauffé</span></i>, as it -struck our old friend, of the typical London fog. -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 threw into high relief. -They remained there nearly an hour, though Madame -Grandoni, in spite of her leaning to friendly interpretations, -couldn’t have told herself what comfort -it was to her afflicted companion. She had nothing -to say to him that could better his case as he bent -his mournful gaze on a prospect not after all perceptibly -improved by its not being Sunday, and -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_267' href='#Page_267'>267</a></span> -could only feel that with her he must seem to himself -to be nearer his wife—to be touching something she -had touched. She 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 conducted himself after the fashion -of a spoiled child, a 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 judgement, had put -his uncles upon her (as if she cared for his uncles, -powerful prelate as one of them might be!), had been -suspicious and jealous on exactly the wrong occasions—occasions -as to which her resentment of it had -been just and in particular had been showy. He had -not been clever enough or strong enough to make -good his valid rights, and had transferred the whole -quarrel to ground where his wife was far too accomplished -a combatant not to obtain the appearance of -victory. -</p> - -<p> -There was another reflexion for Madame Grandoni -to make 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 (mixed 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 -reached that particular crisis, Christina’s active, -various, ironical mind, with all its audacities and -impatiences, could not have tolerated long the simple -deadly dulness of the Prince’s company. The old -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_268' href='#Page_268'>268</a></span> -lady had begun on meeting him: “Of course what -you want to know at once 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 assures -me she has nothing whatever, of any kind, to say -to you. She knew I was coming out to see you—I -haven’t done so <i><span class="fr_FR">en cachette</span></i>. She doesn’t like it, -but she accepts the necessity for this once, since -you’ve made the mistake, as she considers it, of -approaching her again. We talked of you last night -after your note came to me—for five minutes; that -is, I talked in my independent way and Christina -was good enough to listen. At the end she spoke -briefly, 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’s 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 -contentedly alone!’ Those were your wife’s remarkable -words; they’re all I have to give you.” -</p> - -<p> -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 they might form a wholesome admonition, but -she now saw 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 after -all neither a crime nor a design nor a preference. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_269' href='#Page_269'>269</a></span> -How could the Prince occupy himself, what interests -could he create and what faculties, gracious heaven, -did he possess? He was as ignorant as one of the -dingy London sheep browsing before them, and as -contracted as his hat-band. His expression became -pitiful; it was as if he dimly measured the insult, felt -it more than saw it—felt he couldn’t plead incapacity -without putting his wife largely in the right. He -gazed at Madame Grandoni, his face worked, and for -a moment she thought he was going to cry right out. -But he said nothing—perhaps because he was afraid -of that—so that suffering silence, during which she -gently laid her hand on his own, remained his sole -answer. He might doubtless do so much he didn’t -that when Christina touched on 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 taken more form. But at last, as if -he had not heard her, he broke out on the identity -of the young man who had come in the day he called, -just as he was going. -</p> - -<p> -Madame Grandoni risked the truth. “He was -the Princess’s bookbinder.” -</p> - -<p> -“Her bookbinder? Do you mean one of her -lovers?” -</p> - -<p> -“Prince, how can you dream she’ll ever live with -you again?” the old lady asked in reply to this. -</p> - -<p> -“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 <i>her</i>,” he added as -if the declaration justified him. -</p> - -<p> -“I told you the other day that she’s making -studies of the people—the lower orders. The young -man you saw is a study.” She couldn’t help laughing -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_270' href='#Page_270'>270</a></span> -out as she gave her explanation this turn; but her -mirth elicited no echo. -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve thought that over—over and over; but the -more I think the less I understand. Would it be -your idea that she’s quite crazy? I must tell you -I don’t care if she is!” -</p> - -<p> -“We’re 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’s trying democracy, she’s going all lengths in -radicalism.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i><span class="it_IT">Santo Dio!</span></i>” murmured the young man. “And -what do they say here when they see the bookbinder?” -</p> - -<p> -“They haven’t seen him and perhaps they won’t. -But if they do it won’t matter, because here everything’s -forgiven. That a person should be extraordinary -in some way of his own—and a woman as -much as a man—is all they want. A bookbinder -will do as well as anything else.” -</p> - -<p> -The Prince mused a while. “How can she bear -the dirt, the bad smell?” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t know what you’re 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 <i>we</i> 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.” -</p> - -<p> -“They’re full of gin; their faces are awful, 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?” -</p> - -<p> -His friend looked at him a little sternly. “Believe -at least what <i>I</i> say, my poor friend! Never forget -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_271' href='#Page_271'>271</a></span> -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’ll speak the truth -always.” -</p> - -<p> -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 didn’t admit his error and she doubted if he even -saw 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’s better to conceal.” -</p> - -<p> -“It all depends on whether you’re afraid. Christina -never is. Oh, I grant you she’s very perverse, -and when the entertainment of watching her, to see -how she’ll carry out some of her inspirations, is not -stronger than anything else I lose all patience with -her. When she doesn’t charm she can only exasperate. -But, as regards yourself, since you’re here -and I mayn’t 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 her seem to you a -little less fantastic. At the bottom then of much -that she does is the fact that she’s ashamed of having -married you.” -</p> - -<p> -“Less fantastic?” the young man repeated, -staring. -</p> - -<p> -“You may say that there can be nothing more -extravagant—as even more insane—than that. But -you know—or if not it isn’t for want of her having -told you—how 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’t for the rest -of her days be serious enough to make up for it.” -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_272' href='#Page_272'>272</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, I know she pretends to have been forced. -And does she think she’s so serious now?” -</p> - -<p> -“The young man you saw the other day thinks -so,” the old woman smiled. “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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, we’re not anything of that low sort, thank -God! <i><span class="it_IT">Dio mio, Dio mio!</span></i>” groaned the Prince. He -seemed so exhausted by his reflexions 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 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 South Street (she wished him to -come no further) 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’s a great deal said.” -</p> - -<p> -“This English captain?” -</p> - -<p> -“Godfrey Gerald Cholto—you see I know a good -deal about him,” said the Prince, articulating the -English names with difficulty. -</p> - -<p> -They had stopped near the gate, on the edge of -Park Lane, and a couple of predatory hansoms -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_273' href='#Page_273'>273</a></span> -dashed at them from opposite quarters. “I thought -that was coming, and at bottom it’s he who has -occupied you most!” Madame Grandoni exclaimed -with a sigh. “But in reality he’s the last one you -need trouble about. He doesn’t count the least -little bit.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why doesn’t he count?” -</p> - -<p> -“I can’t tell you—except that some people don’t, -you know. He doesn’t even think he does.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why not, when she receives him always—lets -him go wherever she goes?” -</p> - -<p> -“Perhaps that’s 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 <i>factotum</i>, but he works without wages.” -</p> - -<p> -“Isn’t he then in love with her?” -</p> - -<p> -“Naturally. He has, however, no hope.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, poor gentleman!” said the Prince lugubriously. -</p> - -<p> -“He accepts the situation better than you. He -occupies himself—as she has strongly recommended -him in my hearing to do—with other women!” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh the brute!” the Prince exclaimed. “At all -events he sees her.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, but she doesn’t see <i>him</i>!” laughed Madame -Grandoni as she turned away. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_274' href='#Page_274'>274</a></span> -</p> - - - - -<h3> -XIX -</h3> - - -<p> -The pink dressing-gown that 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 detailed this episode minutely 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’re all there together -and everything’s 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 hadn’t -been afraid to appear to notice the disrepair of these -objects she should have been so happy to offer to -do any little mending. “If she’d only come to me -every week or two I’d keep up her rank for her,” -said Pinnie, who had visions of a needle that positively -flashed in the disinterested service of the -aristocracy. She added that her ladyship got all -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_275' href='#Page_275'>275</a></span> -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 dressing -up the cat. This was the second perversity that -left Miss Pynsent cold; it couldn’t 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 puppy 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 “confidential” housekeeper, a person 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. -</p> - -<p> -One day when Hyacinth came home Pinnie at once -announced to him that her ladyship had been there -to look at it—to pass judgement before the last -touches were conferred. The dressmaker intimated -that in such a case as that her judgement was rather -wild and she seemed to have embarrassing ideas -about pockets. Whatever could poor Miss Muniment -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_276' href='#Page_276'>276</a></span> -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 “Plice”: not in a meddling, prying -way, either, like some of those condescending swells, -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. -</p> - -<p> -“She said you had charming manners,” Miss -Pynsent hastened to remark; “but on my life, -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 it all: “How can I believe -you, and yet how can I prove you’re lying? I’m -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’d -never condescend to that.” Pinnie suffered acutely -from this imputation, yet exposed herself to it often, -because she could never deny herself the pleasure, -keener still than her pain, of letting Hyacinth know -he was appreciated, admired and, for those “charming -manners” commended by Lady Aurora, even all -but wondered at in so many words; and this kind -of interest always appeared to imply a suspicion of -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_277' href='#Page_277'>277</a></span> -his secret—something which, when he expressed to -himself the sense of it, he called, resenting it at once -and finding a certain softness in it, “a beastly <i><span class="fr_FR">attendrissement</span></i>.” -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 as a man of the world; and -meanwhile he considered much the extreme oddity -of this new phase of his life which 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 were -even taking up poor Pinnie as a means of getting at -him; so that he wondered with gaiety and irony if -it meant that his destiny was really seeking him out—that -the aristocracy, recognising a mysterious -affinity (with that fineness of <i>flair</i> for which they -were remarkable), were coming to him to save him -the trouble of coming to them. -</p> - -<p> -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 -appeal, conducted him through the house and ushered -him into her ladyship’s presence without the smallest -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_278' href='#Page_278'>278</a></span> -relaxation of a pair of tightly-closed lips. His good -hostess was seated in the little breakfast-parlour -by the light of a couple of candles and apparently -immersed in a collection of 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 hair 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’ve -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 noted that her -nervousness and 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, -staying half an hour, 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, <i><span class="fr_FR">Le Récit d’une Sœur</span></i> and -the tales of M. J. T. de Saint-Germain. There were -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_279' href='#Page_279'>279</a></span> -certain members of an intensely modern school, -advanced and consistent 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 our young man -had read more than once. -</p> - -<p> -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 -prohibitory presences. She spoke again of the poor -people in the south of London and of 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 their state—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: the rich couldn’t consider -poverty in the light of experience. Their mistakes -and illusions, their thinking they had got hold of the -sensations of want and dirt when they hadn’t at all, -would always be more or less irritating. It came over -Hyacinth that if he found this deficient perspective -in Lady Aurora’s deep conscientiousness it would be -a queer enough business when he should come to -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_280' href='#Page_280'>280</a></span> -pretending to hold the candlestick for the Princess -Casamassima. -</p> - -<p> -His present hostess said no word to him about -Pinnie, and he guessed she must have wished to -place him on the footing on which people don’t -express approbation or surprise at the decency or -good-breeding of each other’s relatives. He saw how -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 shouldn’t 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 at once the sense -of learning more about life, a sense always delightful -to him, 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 and reform might have implied -he was a benevolent nobleman (of the type of Lord -Shaftesbury) who had endowed many charities and -was noted, in philanthropic schemes, for the breadth -of his views. 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 if she did) this shade of courtesy, this -natural tact, coexisting even with extreme awkwardness, -illustrated that “best breeding” which he had -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_281' href='#Page_281'>281</a></span> -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 and encouragingly: -“I suppose one of these days you’ll be setting up -in business for yourself.” This was not so cruelly -patronising that he couldn’t 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’ve no turn -at all for that sort of thing.” -</p> - -<p> -Lady Aurora looked a little surprised. “Oh, I -see; you don’t like—you don’t like—!” She -hesitated: he saw she was going to say he didn’t like -the idea of going in to that extent for a trade; but -he stopped her in time from imputing to him a sentiment -so foolish and declared what he meant to be -simply that his one faculty was the faculty of doing -his little piece of work, whatever it was, of liking to -do it skilfully and prettily, and of liking still better -to get his money for it when 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 left her -she asked 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 he -think him a very odd sort of person? Hyacinth -confessed to this impression; whereupon Lady Aurora -went on anxiously, eagerly: “Don’t you consider -him decidedly vulgar?” -</p> - -<p> -“How can I know?” -</p> - -<p> -“You can know perfectly—as well as any one!” -Then she added: “I think it’s a pity they should -form relations with any one of that kind.” -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_282' href='#Page_282'>282</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -“They” of course meant Paul Muniment and his -sister. “With a person who may be vulgar?”—Hyacinth -regarded this solicitude as exquisite. “But -think of the people they know—think of those they’re -surrounded with—think of all Audley Court!” -</p> - -<p> -“The poor, the unhappy, the labouring classes? -Oh, I don’t call <i>them</i> 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 if she wouldn’t find -the Princess herself a bit vulgar. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_283' href='#Page_283'>283</a></span> -</p> - - - - -<h3> -XX -</h3> - - -<p> -It must not be supposed that his relations with -Millicent had remained unaffected by the remarkable -incident that had brushed her with its wing at the -theatre. The whole occurrence had made a great -impression on the young lady from Pimlico; he -never saw her, for weeks afterwards, that she had -not an immense deal to say about it; and though -it suited her to cultivate the shocked state at the -crudity of such proceedings and to denounce 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 she enjoyed having rubbed shoulders -across the house with a person so splendid and having -found her own critical estimate of her friend confirmed -in such high quarters. She professed to draw -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 notes of -it having nothing in common save that they were -alike unflattering to the Princess. Hyacinth had -many doubts of the Captain’s having talked indiscreetly; -it would be in such a case such a very -unnatural thing for him to do. He <i>was</i> unnatural—that -was true—and he might have told Millicent, -who was capable of having plied him with questions, -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_284' href='#Page_284'>284</a></span> -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 fine faculty of -free invention of which he had had frequent glimpses, -under pressure of 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) -didn’t 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 as -to whom she only knew that she disliked her and -could hope for no esteem, and indeed for no recognition -of any kind, in return. When people were fully -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 didn’t pretend -to repeat the remainder of his conversation, taking -on her air of grand indifference when Hyacinth -amused himself with repaying her criticism of his -new acquaintance by drawing a sufficiently derisive -portrait of hers. -</p> - -<p> -His line was 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 revolutionist and -should like therefore to confer with the little firebrand -above 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 showing so much more -charm than might have been expected. He described -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_285' href='#Page_285'>285</a></span> -with sportive variations his visit in South Street, -conscious 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, emphasised the frankness, the -passion and pluck 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 couldn’t take upon himself to say, but her -affection would never assume 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 <i><span class="fr_FR">défis</span></i>. 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 any actual ground for the girl’s jealousy of the -Princess he never thought; it couldn’t 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 bouncing shop-girl in a contest for a -prize which should have anything of <i>his</i> figure. -How could they show the least common mark—even -so small a one as a desire to possess themselves of -Hyacinth Robinson? A fact he didn’t impart to -Millicent and could have no wish to impart to her -was the different 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_286' href='#Page_286'>286</a></span> -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 Milly make free -with the ministering angel of Audley Court. The -distinction was perhaps somehow in her appearing -really not to touch or arrive at the Princess at all, -whereas Lady Aurora was within her range and -compass. -</p> - -<p> -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, but offered in its unsuspected rear a security -still 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 -one had a secret hope one should some day command -more light, he was probably buffeting breezy 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 mused, while his imagination -followed him through 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 that unite these regions -of labour. He had told the Princess he sometimes -had a holiday at this period and that there was a -chance of his escorting his respectable companion -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_287' href='#Page_287'>287</a></span> -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 lack of this convenience and was -forcibly reminded that the society of agreeable -women was a direct and constant appeal to the -pocket. He not only hadn’t a penny, but was much -in debt, owed pence and shillings, as he would have -largely put it, all over the place, and the explanation -of his pinched feeling was in a vague half-remorseful, -half-resigned reference to the numerous occasions -when he had had not to fail of funds 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 had come -over him that one couldn’t call on a princess just as -one was. So this year he didn’t ask old Crook 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 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 -in 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_288' href='#Page_288'>288</a></span> -shoulders and vulgar narrow inevitable faces of his -fellow-labourers. Our young friend’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 in a manner a -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 way that -marked him as a queer lot, but capable of queerness -in the line of equanimity too. He hadn’t 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 one be only clever -enough. Hyacinth was sufficiently so to have -invented a <i>modus vivendi</i> in respect to which M. -Poupin said to him, “<i><span class="fr_FR">Enfin vous voilà ferme!</span></i>” (the -Frenchman himself, terribly <i><span class="fr_FR">éprouvé</span></i> 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 a daily -dusky exhibition of projected shadows, confined to -the passive part of life and giving no hostages to -reality, or at least to ambition, save an insufficient -number of shillings on Saturday night and stray -spasmodic reminiscences of delicate work that -might have been more delicate still, as well as of -such applications of the tool as he flattered himself -unsurpassed unless by the supreme Eustache. -</p> - -<p> -One evening in November he had after discharging -himself of a considerable indebtedness to Pinnie still -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_289' href='#Page_289'>289</a></span> -a sovereign in his pocket—a sovereign that seemed -to spin there under the equal breath of a dozen -different lively 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 of how nice it would be to take something to -Rose Muniment, who delighted in a sixpenny present -and to whom he hadn’t for some time rendered any -such homage. At last, after he had wandered a -while, hesitating between the pilgrimage to Lambeth -and the possibility of still associating the two or three -hours with those perhaps in some lucky way or other -at Millicent Henning’s disposal, he reflected that if -a sovereign was to be pulled to pieces it was a simplification -to get it changed. He had struck through -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 with a rush it was so much gained to plunge -into a quarter where, 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 the large district -abutting on Grosvenor Square partake of the general -gentility of the neighbourhood, so that our friend -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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_290' href='#Page_290'>290</a></span> -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 -lonely reveller was Captain Godfrey Sholto. -</p> - -<p> -“Why, my dear boy, what a remarkable coincidence!” -the Captain exclaimed. “For once in five -years that I come into a place like this!” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t come in often myself. I thought you -were in Madagascar,” Hyacinth said. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, because I’ve not been at the ‘Sun and -Moon’? Well, I’ve 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 daresay 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, were it 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. Yet it was not any lower 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 the -pang of the felt charm that a good tailor would add -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 and his like had the world in their -pocket. Sholto requested the barmaid to please not -dawdle in preparing the brandy and soda 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_291' href='#Page_291'>291</a></span> -the glass from the counter didn’t he appear to -encourage him not to linger as he drank it and to -smile down at him very kindly and amusedly, as if -the combination of so small a bookbinder and so big -a tumbler were sufficiently droll? The Captain took -time, however, to ask how he had spent his autumn -and what was the news in Bloomsbury; he further -inquired about those jolly people across the river. -“I can’t tell you what an impression they made on -me—that evening you know.” After this he went -on suddenly and irrelevantly: “And so you’re just -going to stay on for the winter quietly?” Our -hero stared: he wondered what other high course -could be imputed to him; he couldn’t 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’ve got your work, and that sort of thing”; -and as Hyacinth didn’t succeed in swallowing at a -gulp the contents of his big tumbler he asked him -presently if he had heard anything from the Princess. -Our youth replied that he could have no news except -what the Captain might be good enough to give -him; but he added that he had been to see her just -before she left town. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, you did go? That was quite right—jolly -right.” -</p> - -<p> -“I went because she very kindly wrote me to -come.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah, she wrote to you to come?” The Captain -fixed him a moment with his curious colourless -eyes. “Do you know you’re a devilish privileged -mortal?” -</p> - -<p> -“Certainly I know it.” Hyacinth blushed and -felt foolish; the barmaid, who had heard this odd -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_292' href='#Page_292'>292</a></span> -couple talking of a princess, was staring at him -too with her elbows on the counter. -</p> - -<p> -“Do you know there are people who’d give their -heads that she should write them to come?” -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve no doubt of it whatever!”—and he took -refuge in a laugh that sounded less natural than he -would have liked, and wondered if his interlocutor -weren’t precisely one of these people. In this case -the barmaid 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 re-enforced -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. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah well, I see you know how to take it! And if -you’re in correspondence with her why do you say -you can hear from her only through me? My dear -fellow, I’m not in correspondence with her. You -might think I’d naturally be, but I’m 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 but once, and mentioned -her having told him how her letter-writing -came on 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 knowingly returned. “Look out -for the next fit! She’s visiting about, you know—at -a lot of great houses. It’s a great thing to be -somewhere with her—an immense comedy.” He -remarked that he had heard, now he remembered, -that she either had taken or was thinking of taking -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_293' href='#Page_293'>293</a></span> -a place 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 rum 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 good bust? It’s a pity they -always have such beastly hands.” Hyacinth had -instinctively 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 a prompt encounter with a young -woman who, coming in the opposite direction, turned -the angle as briskly as themselves. At this moment -he gave his friend a great jerk, but not before -Hyacinth 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. -</p> - -<p> -“Hullo, Millicent!” This was the simple cry that -escaped from his lips while the Captain, still going -on, but threw off, “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 -he saw 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_294' href='#Page_294'>294</a></span> -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, -and with violence, and to ask him why he should -look 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: -</p> - -<p> -“Whatever are you prowling about here for? -You’re after no good, I’ll be bound!” -</p> - -<p> -“Good evening, Miss Henning; what a jolly -meeting!” said the Captain, removing his hat with -a humorous flourish. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, how d’ye do?” Millicent returned as if not -at once placing him. -</p> - -<p> -“Where were you going so fast? What are you -doing?” asked Hyacinth, who had looked from one -to the other. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, I never did see such a manner—from one -that knocks about like <i>you</i>!” 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?” -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t tell us—don’t tell us!” Sholto interposed -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_295' href='#Page_295'>295</a></span> -after she had spoken—and she had not, however -slightly, hesitated. “I at least disavow the indiscretion. -Where may not a charming woman be -going when she trips with a light foot through the -deepening dusk?” -</p> - -<p> -“I say, what are you talking about?” the girl -demanded with dignity of Hyacinth’s companion. -She spoke as if with a resentful suspicion that her -foot had not really been felt to be light. -</p> - -<p> -“On what errand of mercy, on what secret -ministration?” the Captain laughed. -</p> - -<p> -“Secret yourself!” cried Millicent. “Do you two -always hunt in couples?” -</p> - -<p> -“All right, we’ll turn round and go with you as -far as your friend’s,” Hyacinth said. -</p> - -<p> -“All right,” Millicent replied. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“You haven’t told me where <i>you</i> were going yet, -you know.” -</p> - -<p> -“We met in that public-house,” the Captain said, -“and 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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, she’s rather nice,” the Captain went on. -“She told me her name was Georgiana.” -</p> - -<p> -“I went to get a piece of money changed,” -Hyacinth said with the sense of a certain dishonesty -in the air and glad he at least could afford to speak -the truth. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_296' href='#Page_296'>296</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -“To get your grandmother’s nightcap changed! -I recommend you to keep your money together—you’ve -none too much of it!” Millicent exclaimed. -</p> - -<p> -“Is that the reason you’re playing me false?” -Hyacinth flashed out. He had been thinking with -still intentness as they walked; at once nursing and -strangling a kindled suspicion. He was pale with -the idea that he had been bamboozled, yet was able -to say to himself that one must allow in life, thank -goodness, 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. -</p> - -<p> -The girl broke out on 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 apt to be 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!” -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t say anything about <i>her</i>,” the young man -interposed, trembling. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“My dear fellow, you know you <i>have</i> been to her,” -Captain Sholto wonderfully smiled. -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth turned on him staring and at once -provoked and baffled by his ambiguous part in an -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_297' href='#Page_297'>297</a></span> -incident it was doubtless possible to magnify but -not possible to treat as perfectly simple. “Certainly -I’ve been to the Princess Casamassima, thanks to -you. When you came and pressed me to go, when -you dragged me, do you make it a reproach? Who -the devil are you, anyway, and what do you want -of me?” our hero cried—his mind flooded in a -moment with everything in the Captain that had -puzzled and worried and escaped him. This swelling -tide obliterated on the spot everything that had -beguiled. -</p> - -<p> -“My dear fellow, whatever I am I’m 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’m determined this absurd misunderstanding -shall end as lovers’ quarrels ought always to end.” -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth withdrew himself from the Captain’s -touch and said to Millicent: “You’re not really -jealous of—of any one. You pretend that only to -throw dust in my eyes.” -</p> - -<p> -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 declared -them a dear delightful abominable pair; he pronounced -it rarely interesting to see how in people of -their sort the prime passions lay near the surface; -he almost pushed them into each other’s arms and -then wound up with 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_298' href='#Page_298'>298</a></span> -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 by his having -eventually placed this idea in so attractive a light -that his companions 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 our young man’s 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 this understanding -flourished at his expense the whole evening constituted -for them indeed an opportunity, and that -thought rendered his diversion but scantly absorbing, -though at the Pavilion the Captain engaged a big -private box and ordered ices 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 repeatedly on his lips—the impulse to -demand 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, before leaving the -Pavilion he decided with one of his highest flights of -intelligence that he could quite well see what Lady -Aurora had meant by calling Captain Sholto vulgar. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_299' href='#Page_299'>299</a></span> -</p> - - - - -<h3> -XXI -</h3> - - -<p> -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 to the retention of breath, and when -he said nothing 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 divined -him at moments bored or irritated by the serious -manner in which his small worrying bookbinder -couldn’t conceal from the world that he regarded -him. He wondered if this were a system, a calculated -prudence, on Muniment’s part, or only a -manifestation of the superior brutality latent in his -composition and which, without an intention of -direct harshness, was naturally impatient 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 crude fatuity -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, -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_300' href='#Page_300'>300</a></span> -“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 bob—with seventeen bloody bob? What -am I to do with them—will ye tell me that?” an -interrogation which in truth usually ended by producing -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 haul ’em -straight up. A little shoemaker with red eyes and a -greyish 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>I</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 v’ice of the -company on that question.” -</p> - -<p> -When the tone fell as low as this Paul Muniment -held his peace save for whistling a little and 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; -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_301' href='#Page_301'>301</a></span> -he judged it—this he once told his young comrade—too -valuable a weapon, so that he 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 amount, 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 wouldn’t 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 sore, -sharp, tantalising desirableness into that of solid, -seated reality. Muniment was listened to unanimously -when he spoke and much talked about, -usually with a knowing, implicit allusiveness, when -he was absent; it was generally admitted he could -see further than most. But it was suspected 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 ’eave a brick this was far enough. There -was an idea he had nothing particular to complain -of personally, or perhaps that if he had he didn’t -complain of it—an attitude which could only contain -the germs of a latent disaffection. Hyacinth was -aware of being himself exposed to the same imputation; -but he couldn’t help it—it would have been -impossible to him to keep up his character for -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_302' href='#Page_302'>302</a></span> -sincerity by revealing at the “Sun and Moon” the -condition of his wardrobe or by announcing that he -hadn’t had a penn’orth 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 cruellest rebuffs, the most vivid anecdotes -of the insolence of office. They made Hyacinth -uncomfortably conscious at times that if <i>he</i> should -be out of work it would be wholly by his own fault; -that he held in his hand a fine bread-winning tool -on which he might absolutely count. He was also -not unadvised, however, that his position in this little -band of malcontents (it was small only if measured -by the numbers gathered on any one occasion; he -liked to think it large in its latent possibilities, its -mysterious ramifications and affiliations) was peculiar -and distinguished: it would be favourable if he -should develop 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 on -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 <i>ab ovo</i> a revolutionist, -and that balanced against his smart neckties, -a certain suspicious security that was perceived in -him as to the <i>h</i> (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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_303' href='#Page_303'>303</a></span> -officious step that was meant in kindness; and, -moreover, his fellow-labourer at old Crook’s had said -to him, as if to anticipate such an impugnment of -his discretion: “Remember, my child, that I’m -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’s a mystic language which dispenses -with proofs—a freemasonry, a reciprocal -divination: they understand each other at half a -word.” It was at half a word then in Bloomsbury -that Hyacinth had been understood; but there was -a certain delicacy in him that forbade him to push -his advantage, to treat implications of sympathy, -none the less definite for being awkward and obscure, -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 -imposed 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 and stiffen its claws—at these hours, -some of them thrilling enough, Hyacinth waited for -the voice that should allot 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_304' href='#Page_304'>304</a></span> -he himself was ready for any sacrifice. Then it was—on -these nights of intenser vibration—that he -waited for the sacred sign. -</p> - -<p> -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 reached 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 affected him as wiser then, as more richly -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 hell am I to do -with half a quid?” 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, -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_305' href='#Page_305'>305</a></span> -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 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 even in their -most infuriated hours felt as Britons, appeared never -to have made the subtle reflexion, though they made -many others, that there was a want of tact in his -calling on 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 supreme France one was nowhere worth -speaking of, and ended by producing an impression -that that country had a quite supernatural charm. -Muniment had once said to Hyacinth that he was -sure Poupin would be very sorry to be enabled to -go home again (as he really 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 so -suffered from it. -</p> - -<p> -“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’re 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 an untidy bandage round his neck, -as if for a local ailment. “You remind us—that’s -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_306' href='#Page_306'>306</a></span> -very well; but we shall forget it in half an hour. -We’re not serious.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i><span class="fr_FR">Pardon, pardon</span></i>; for myself I don’t admit -that!” Poupin replied, striking the table with his -finger-tips several times, very fast. “If I’m not -serious I’m nothing.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh no, you’re something,” said the German, -smoking his monumental pipe with a contemplative -air. “We’re all something, but I’m not sure it’s -anything very useful.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, things would be worse without us. I’d -jolly rather be in here, in <i>this</i> kind of muck, than -outside,” remarked the fat man who understood dogs. -</p> - -<p> -“Certainly, it’s very pleasant, especially if you’ve -your beer; but not so pleasant over there at the -Docks, where fifty thousand people starve. It’s a -very unpleasant night,” the cabinet-maker went on. -</p> - -<p> -“How can it be worse?” Eustache Poupin asked -while he looked at the German as to make him -responsible for the fat man’s reflexion. “It’s so -bad that the imagination recoils, refuses—!” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, we don’t care for the imagination!” the -fat man declared. “We want a compact body in -marching order.” -</p> - -<p> -“What do you call a compact body?” the little -grey-faced shoemaker demanded. “I daresay you -don’t mean your kind of body.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, I know what I mean,” said the fat man -severely. -</p> - -<p> -“That’s a grand thing. Perhaps one of these -days you’ll tell us.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, you know, Schinkel says we don’t,” said -the shoemaker, nodding at the cloud-compelling -German. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_307' href='#Page_307'>307</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t care a bloody rap what no man says!” -the dog-fancier exclaimed, gazing straight before him. -</p> - -<p> -“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’s 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’s -too much to expect. Mr. Muniment’s very serious; -he looks as if he was waiting for the signal, but he -doesn’t speak—he never speaks if I want particularly -to hear him. He only deliberates very deeply—oh -I’m sure. But it’s almost as bad to think without -speaking as to speak without thinking.” -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth always admired the cool, easy way in -which Muniment comported himself when the attention -of the public was directed at 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 collected at the “Sun -and Moon,” looked at him or listened to him all 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 rather awful -in twenty. -</p> - -<p> -Muniment smiled 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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Hoffendahl? <i><span class="de_DE">Gott in Himmel!</span></i>” the cabinet-maker -exclaimed, taking the pipe out of his mouth. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_308' href='#Page_308'>308</a></span> -And the two men exchanged a longish glance. Then -Mr. Schinkel remarked: “That surprises me, <i><span class="de_DE">sehr</span></i>. -Are you very sure?” -</p> - -<p> -Muniment continued for a little to look at him. -“If I keep quiet 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.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah no, on the contrary—I want you to say three -more. If you tell me you’ve seen him I shall be -perfectly satisfied.” -</p> - -<p> -“Upon my word I should hope so! Do you think -he’s the kind of bloke a fellow says he has seen?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, when he hasn’t!” said Eustache Poupin, -who had been listening. Every one was listening -now. -</p> - -<p> -“It depends on the fellow he says it to. Not -even here?” the German asked. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh here!” Paul Muniment exclaimed in a -peculiar tone while he resumed his muffled whistle -again. -</p> - -<p> -“Take care—take care; you’ll make me think -you haven’t!” cried Poupin with his excited expression. -</p> - -<p> -“That’s just what I want,” said Muniment. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Nun</i>, 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. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>’Ere</i>, ’ere?” repeated the small shoemaker -indignantly. “I daresay it’s as good as the place -he came from. He might look in and see what he -thinks of it.” -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -Before the shoemaker had time to notice this -challenge some one inquired with a hoarse petulance -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_309' href='#Page_309'>309</a></span> -who the bloody 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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“<i><span class="de_DE">Doch, doch</span></i>, it’s useful,” the German remarked -philosophically among his yellow clouds. -</p> - -<p> -“Do you mean to say you’re not prepared for that -yourself?” Muniment asked of the shoemaker. -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -“They’ll smash best who’ve been inside,” the -German said; “unless they’ve only gone bad, like -fish too long caught. But Hoffendahl’s all there yet.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah no; no smashing, no smashing of any valuable -property,” Muniment went on. “There are no -wrong places—there are only wrong uses for them. -We want to keep them standing and even to put -up a few more; but the difference will be that we -shall put the correct sort into them.” -</p> - -<p> -“I take your idea—that Griffin’s one of the -correct sort,” the fat man remarked, indicating the -shoemaker. -</p> - -<p> -“I thought we was going to ’ave their ’eads—all -that bloomin’ lot!” Mr. Griffin protested; while -Eustache Poupin began to enlighten the company -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_310' href='#Page_310'>310</a></span> -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 his would-be -butchers the names they wanted. Was it possible -they didn’t remember that great combined assault, -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 ’im 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. -</p> - -<p> -“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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_311' href='#Page_311'>311</a></span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -“<i><span class="fr_FR">Ç’aurait été d’un bel exemple!</span></i>” said the Frenchman -with an impressive moderation of statement -which made even those who couldn’t understand -him see he was saying something fine; while the -cabinet-maker observed 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. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, who the dickens is to draw it up, eh? -That’s what we happen to be talking about,” returned -his antagonist the shoemaker. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“Capable of greatness of soul, I grant you not.” -</p> - -<p> -“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.” -</p> - -<p> -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?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, I daresay 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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_312' href='#Page_312'>312</a></span> -it your supreme duty, make it your religion, to lie -close and keep yourself for another go. The world’s -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.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i><span class="fr_FR">Trop d’arithmétique—trop d’arithmétique!</span></i>—That’s -fearfully English!” Poupin cried. -</p> - -<p> -“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!” Muniment laughed. -</p> - -<p> -Poupin stared at him and his coarse mirth, 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.” -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, I want to know what Hoffendahl has come -over for; it’s very kind of him, I’m sure. What’s -he going to do for <i>us</i>?—that’s what <i>I</i> want to know,” -brought out 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, as well as with the manner in which -he thrust over his ear, as if it were a barber’s comb, -the pencil addressed to his careful note-taking on the -discussions conducted at the “Sun and Moon.” His -opinions were distinct and frequently expressed; he -had a watery (Muniment had once called it a soda-watery) -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_313' href='#Page_313'>313</a></span> -eye and a personal aversion to a lord. He -desired to change everything except religion, of which -he approved. -</p> - -<p> -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 had at heart. He -had had a great experience, which they might very -well find it useful to appeal to. If there was a way -for them then and there he would be sure to know -the way. “I quite agree with the majority of you—as -I take it to be,” Muniment went on in 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 infamous -and hellish.” -</p> - -<p> -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’d be glad to see him—perhaps he’d show -where the thumbscrews 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 for something or for some one; -to go out somewhere and smash something on the -spot—why not?—smash it that very night. While -they sat still and talked there were about half a -million of people in London that didn’t know where -the hell the morrow’s meal was to come from; what -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_314' href='#Page_314'>314</a></span> -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, a quick pulse of high -fever, 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 certainly Paul -but played 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, possessed by an intense desire -to stand face to face with the sublime Hoffendahl, -to hear his voice and touch his mutilated hand. He -was ready for anything: he knew he was himself safe -to breakfast and dine, if poorly still sufficiently, and -that his colleagues were perhaps even more crude -and clumsy than usual; but a breath of popular -passion had warmed his cheek and his heart, and he -seemed to see, immensely magnified, the monstrosity -of the great ulcers and sores of London—the sick, -eternal misery crying out of the darkness in vain, -confronted with granaries and treasure-houses and -places of delight where shameless satiety kept guard. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_315' href='#Page_315'>315</a></span> -In such a mood as this he felt there was no need to -consider, to reason: the facts themselves were as -imperative as the cry of the drowning, since while -pedantry gained time didn’t starvation and anguish -gain it too? He knew 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 judicious -friend had given him a more definite warrant than -ever before for numbering him in the party of immediate -action, though indeed he remarked on this -occasion, once more, that that particular formula -the little bookbinder appeared to have taken such a -fancy to was mere gibberish. He hated this 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 transcending logic he would have -found it in his recall 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 any vociferation; he had -called Schinkel to come round and sit beside him, -and the two appeared to confer together in honest -ease while the brown atmosphere grew denser, the -passing to and fro of firebrands more lively and the -flush of faces more portentous. What Hyacinth -would have liked to know most of all was why -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_316' href='#Page_316'>316</a></span> -Muniment had not mentioned to him first that -Hoffendahl was in London and that he had seen him; -for he <i>had</i> 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 -patient conscious ache, 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 -were something to be silent and devoted about -Hyacinth ardently hoped that to him in particular -would a chance 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 communicating with the outer world, -went forth into the street. The air was foul and -sleety but 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, for 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 but made the helplessness -of every one concerned more abject. If -he had a definite wish while he stood there it was -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_317' href='#Page_317'>317</a></span> -that that exalted deluded company should pour itself -forth with Muniment at its head and surge through -the sleeping world and gather the myriad miserable -out of their slums and burrows, should roll into the -selfish squares and lift a tremendous hungry voice -and awaken the gorged indifferent to a terror that -would bring them down. He lingered a quarter of an -hour, but this grand treat 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. -</p> - -<p> -As he re-entered the place he saw the meeting was -breaking up in disorder, or at all events in confusion, -and that certainly no organised attempt at the rescue -of any number of victims would take place that night. -All the men were on their feet and were turning away -amid a shuffle of benches and chairs, a hunch of -shabby shoulders, a frugal abatement of flaring 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. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, I want you all to know what strikes me -before we part company. There isn’t a man in the -blessed lot of you 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!” -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_318' href='#Page_318'>318</a></span> -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, “<i><span class="fr_FR">Vous insultez le peuple—vous -insultez le peuple!</span></i>” of other retorts not remarkable -for refinement. The next moment he found he had -himself sprung up on a chair opposite the barber and -that at the sight of so prompt a display the commotion -had suddenly turned to almost amused -suspense. It was the first time he had asked the ear -of the company, which was given on the spot. He was -sure he looked very white—it was even possible they -could see him tremble. He could only hope 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 damned 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’s sure one isn’t afraid, and one’s -accused, why shouldn’t one say so?” -</p> - -<p> -It appeared to him 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 one -say, “Did ye hear the little bloody beggar, as bold as -a lion?” A trial of personal prowess between him -and Mr. Delancey was proposed, but somehow it -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_319' href='#Page_319'>319</a></span> -didn’t take place, and at the end of five minutes the -club-room had emptied itself, yet clearly not to be -reconstituted outside in a revolutionary procession. -Paul Muniment had taken hold of him and said, “I’ll -trouble you to stay, you small desperado: I’ll be -blowed if I ever expected to see <i>you</i> on the stump!” -Muniment remained and M. Poupin and Mr. Schinkel -lingered, donning overcoats, beneath a dim surviving -gas-burner in the unventilated medium in which -at each renewed gathering the Bloomsbury club -seemed to recognise itself. -</p> - -<p> -“Upon my life I believe you’re game,” said -Muniment, looking down at him with a serious face. -</p> - -<p> -“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?” -</p> - -<p> -“Ah my child, to whom do you say it?” Eustache -Poupin exclaimed, folding his arms despairingly. -</p> - -<p> -“Who do you mean by ‘we’?” said Muniment. -</p> - -<p> -“All the lot of us. There are plenty of them -ready.” -</p> - -<p> -“Ready for what? There’s nothing to be done -here.” -</p> - -<p> -Hyacinth stared. “Then why the deuce do you -come?” -</p> - -<p> -“I daresay I shan’t come much more. It’s a place -in which you’ve always seen too much.” -</p> - -<p> -“I wonder if I’ve seen too much in you,” Hyacinth -risked, gazing at his friend. -</p> - -<p> -“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. -</p> - -<p> -“Should you like to see the right man, Robinson, -that is the real thing?” Muniment asked with the -same rare grave sound. -</p> - -<p> -“The real thing?” Hyacinth looked from one of -his companions to the other. -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_320' href='#Page_320'>320</a></span> -</p> - -<p> -“You’ve never seen it yet—though you think you -have.” -</p> - -<p> -“And why haven’t you shown it me before?” -</p> - -<p> -“Because I had never seen you on the stump.” -This was more lightly said. -</p> - -<p> -“Bother the stump! I was trusting you.” -</p> - -<p> -“Exactly so. That gave me time.” -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t come unless your mind’s made up, <i><span class="fr_FR">mon -petit</span></i>,” said Poupin. -</p> - -<p> -“Are you going now—and to see Hoffendahl? Is -<i>he</i> the right man?” Hyacinth cried. -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t shout it all over the place. He wants a -perfect little gentleman, and if you’re not one—!” -Muniment went on. -</p> - -<p> -“Is it true? Are we all going?” Hyacinth eagerly -went on. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, these two are in it. They’re not very wise, -but they’re decent,” said Muniment, looking at -Poupin and Schinkel. -</p> - -<p> -“Are <i>you</i> the real thing, Muniment?” asked -Hyacinth, catching this look. -</p> - -<p> -Muniment dropped his eyes on him. “Yes, you’re -the lamb of sacrifice he wants. It’s at the other end -of London. We must have a growler.” -</p> - -<p> -“Be calm, my child; <i><span class="fr_FR">me voici</span></i>!” And Poupin -led their young friend out. -</p> - -<p> -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 so deepened -and dignified their purpose. After they were seated -in it Hyacinth learned that the “right man” 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 Muniment, -who passed a strong arm round him, holding him all -<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_321' href='#Page_321'>321</a></span> -the way as if for a tacit sign of indebtedness. This -gave Hyacinth pleasure till he began to wonder if it -mightn’t represent also the instinct to make sure of -him as against possible weak afterthoughts. They -all ended by sitting silent as the cab jogged along -murky miles, and by the time it stopped our young -man had wholly lost, in the drizzling gloom, a sense -of their whereabouts. -</p> - - -<p class="p4 center"> -END OF VOL. I -</p> - - -<p class="p4 center sm"> -<i>Printed by</i> <span class="smcap">R. & R. Clark, Limited</span>, <i>Edinburgh</i>.</p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRINCESS CASAMASSIMA (VOLUME 1 OF 2) ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -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™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following -the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use -of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for -copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very -easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation -of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project -Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may -do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected -by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark -license, especially commercial redistribution. -</div> - -<div style='margin-top:1em; font-size:1.1em; text-align:center'>START: FULL LICENSE</div> -<div style='text-align:center;font-size:0.9em'>THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE</div> -<div style='text-align:center;font-size:0.9em'>PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project -Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™ -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person -or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™ -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the -Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™ -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when -you share it without charge with others. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country other than the United States. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work -on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the -phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed: -</div> - -<blockquote> - <div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> - 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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. 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. - </div> -</blockquote> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project -Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™ -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™ -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg™ License. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format -other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain -Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works -provided that: -</div> - -<div style='margin-left:0.7em;'> - <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> - • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation.” - </div> - - <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> - • You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ - works. - </div> - - <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> - • You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work. - </div> - - <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> - • You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works. - </div> -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of -the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set -forth in Section 3 below. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right -of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™ -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, -Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up -to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website -and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact -</div> - -<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread -public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state -visit <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/donate/">www.gutenberg.org/donate</a>. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate -</div> - -<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Most people start at our website which has the main PG search -facility: <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. -</div> - -</div> -</body> -</html> diff --git a/old/69628-h/images/cover.png b/old/69628-h/images/cover.png Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 37d2d51..0000000 --- a/old/69628-h/images/cover.png +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/69628-h/images/logo.png b/old/69628-h/images/logo.png Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 887d266..0000000 --- a/old/69628-h/images/logo.png +++ /dev/null |
