The Princess Casamassima (Volume 2 of 2)

by Henry James

XL

An hour after her companion had left the house with Paul Muniment Madame Grandoni came down to supper, a meal for which she made use, in gloomy solitude, of the little back parlour. She had pushed away her plate and sat motionless, staring at the crumpled cloth with her hands folded on the edge of the table, when she became aware that a gentleman had been ushered into the drawing-room and was standing before the fire in discreet suspense. At the same moment the maid-servant approached the old lady, remarking with bated breath: “The Prince, the Prince, mum! It’s you he ’ave asked for, mum!” Upon this Madame Grandoni called out to the visitor from her place, addressed him as her poor, dear, distinguished friend and bade him come and give her his arm. He obeyed with solemn alacrity, conducting her to the front room and the fire. He helped her to arrange herself in her chair and gather her shawl about her; then he seated himself at hand and remained with his dismal eyes bent on her. After a moment she said: “Tell me something about Rome. The grass in Villa Borghese must already be thick with flowers.”

“I would have brought you some if I had thought,” he answered. Then he turned his gaze about the room. “Yes, you may well ask in such a black little hole as this. My wife shouldn’t live here,” he added.

“Ah my dear friend, for all she’s your wife——!” the old woman exclaimed.

The Prince sprang up in sudden, sharp agitation, and then she saw that the stiff propriety with which he had come into the room and greeted her was only an effort of his good manners. He was really trembling with excitement. “It’s true—it’s true! She has lovers—she has lovers!” he broke out. “I’ve seen it with my eyes and I’ve come here to know!”

“I don’t know what you’ve seen, but your coming here to know won’t have helped you much. Besides, if you’ve seen you know for yourself. At any rate I’ve ceased to be able to tell you.”

“You’re afraid—you’re afraid!” cried the visitor with a wild, accusatory gesture.

The old woman looked up at him with slow speculation. “Sit down and be quiet, very quiet. I’ve ceased to pay attention—I take no heed.”

“Well, I do then,” said the Prince, subsiding a little. “Don’t you know she has gone out to a house in a horrible quarter with a man?”

“I think it highly probable, dear Prince.”

“And who is he? That’s what I want to discover.”

“How can I tell you? I haven’t seen him.”

He looked at her with eyes of anguish. “Dear lady, is that kind to me when I’ve counted on you?”

“Oh I’m not kind any more; it’s not a question of that. I’m angry—as angry almost as you.”

“Then why don’t you watch her, eh?”

“It’s not with her I’m angry. It’s with myself,” said Madame Grandoni, all in thought.

“For becoming so indifferent, do you mean?”

“On the contrary, for staying in the house.”

“Thank God you’re still here, or I couldn’t have come. But what a lodging for the Princess!” the visitor exclaimed. “She might at least live in a manner befitting.”

“Eh, the last time you were in London you thought it too expensive!” she cried.

He cast about him. “Whatever she does is wrong. Is it because it’s so bad that you must go?” he went on.

“It’s foolish—foolish—foolish,” said his friend, slowly and impressively.

“Foolish, che, che! He was in the house nearly an hour, this one.”

“In the house? In what house?”

“Here where you sit. I saw him go in, and when he came out it was after a long time, and she with him.”

“And where were you meanwhile?”

Again the Prince faltered. “I was on the other side of the street. When they came out I followed them. It was more than an hour ago.”

“Was it for that you came to London?”

“Ah what I came for——! To put myself in hell!”

“You had better go back to Rome,” said Madame Grandoni.

“Of course I’ll go back, but only if you’ll tell me who this one is! How can you be ignorant, dear friend, when he comes freely in and out of the place?—where I have to watch at the door for a moment I can snatch. He wasn’t the same as the other.”

“As the other?”

“Doubtless there are fifty! I mean the little one I met in the house that Sunday afternoon.”

“I sit in my room almost always now,” said the old woman. “I only come down to eat.”

“Dear lady, it would be better if you would sit here,” the Prince returned.

“Better for whom?”

“I mean that if you didn’t withdraw yourself you could at least answer my questions.”

“Ah but I haven’t the slightest desire to answer them,” Madame Grandoni replied. “You must remember that I’m not here as your spy.”

“No,” said the Prince in a tone of extreme and simple melancholy. “If you had given me more information I shouldn’t have been obliged to come here myself. I arrived in London only this morning, and this evening I spent two hours walking up and down opposite there, like a groom waiting for his master to come back from a ride. I wanted a personal impression. It was so I saw him come in. He’s not a gentleman—not even one of the strange ones of this country.”

“I think he’s Scotch or Welsh,” Madame Grandoni explained.

“Ah then you have seen him?”

“No, but I’ve heard him. He speaks straight out (the floors of this house are not built as we build in Italy) and his voice is the same I’ve noticed in the people of the wild parts, where they ‘shoot.’ Besides, she has told me—some few things. He’s a chemist’s assistant.”

“A chemist’s assistant? Santo Dio! And the other one, a year ago—more than a year ago—was a bookbinder.”

“Oh the bookbinder——!” the old woman wailed.

“And does she associate with no people of good? Has she no other society?”

“For me to tell you more, Prince, you must wait till I’m free,” she pleaded.

“How do you mean, free?”

“I must choose. I must either go away—and then I can tell you what I’ve seen—or if I stay here I must hold my tongue.”

“But if you go away you’ll have seen nothing,” the Prince objected.

“Ah plenty as it is—more than I ever expected to!”

He clasped his hands as in strenuous suppliance but at the same time smiled as to conciliate, to corrupt. “Dearest friend, you torment my curiosity. If you’ll tell me this I’ll never ask you anything more. Where did they go? For the love of God, what is that house?”

“I know nothing of their houses,” she returned with an impatient shrug.

“Then there are others? there are many?” She made no answer but to sit intent, her chin in her bulging kerchief. Her visitor presently continued with his pressure of pain and his beautiful Italian distinctness, as if his lips cut and carved the sound, while his fine fingers quivered into quick, emphasising gestures: “The street’s small and black, but it’s like all the dreadful streets. It has no importance; it’s at the end of a long imbroglio. They drove for twenty minutes, then stopped their cab and got out. They went together on foot some minutes more. There were many turns; they seemed to know them well. For me it was very difficult—of course I also got out; I had to stay so far behind—close against the houses. Chiffinch Street, N.E.—that was the name,” the Prince continued, pronouncing the word with difficulty; “and the house is number 32—I looked at that after they went in. It’s a very bad house—worse than this; but it has no sign of a chemist and there are no shops in the street. They rang the bell—only once, though they waited a long time; it seemed to me at least that they didn’t touch it again. It was several minutes before the door was opened, and that was a bad time for me, because as they stood there they looked up and down. Fortunately you know the air of this place! I saw no light in the house—not even after they went in. Who opened to them I couldn’t tell. I waited nearly half an hour, to see how long they might stay and what they would do on coming out; then at last my impatience brought me here, for to know she was absent made me hope I might see you. While I was there two persons went in: two men together, both smoking, who looked like artisti—I saw them badly—but no one came out. I could see they took their cigars—and you can fancy what tobacco!—into the presence of the Princess. Formerly,” pursued Madame Grandoni’s visitor with a touching attempt at pleasantry on this point, “she never tolerated smoking—never mine at least. The street’s very quiet—very few people pass. Now what’s the house? Is it where that man lives?” he almost panted.

He had been encouraged by her consenting, in spite of her first protests, to listen to him—he could see she was listening; and he was still more encouraged when after a moment she answered his question by a question of her own. “Did you cross the river to go there? I know he lives over the water!”

“Ah no, it was not in that part. I tried to ask the cabman who brought me back to explain to me what it’s called; but I couldn’t make him understand. They’ve heavy minds,” the Prince declared. Then he pursued, drawing a little closer to his hostess: “But what were they doing there? Why did she go with him?”

“They think they’re conspiring. Ecco!” said Madame Grandoni.

“You mean they’ve joined a secret society, a band of revolutionists and murderers? Capisco bene—that’s not new to me. But perhaps they only pretend it’s for that,” added the Prince.

“Only pretend? Why should they pretend? That’s not Christina’s way.”

“There are other possibilities,” he portentously observed.

“Oh of course when your wife goes off with strange, low men in the dark, goes off to des maisons louches, you can think anything you like and I’ve nothing to say to your thoughts. I’ve my own, but they’re my affair, and I shall not undertake to defend Christina, who’s indefensible. When she commits these follies she provokes, she invites, the worst construction; there let it rest save for this one remark which I will content myself with making. That is that if she were a real wretch, capable of all, she wouldn’t behave as she does now, she wouldn’t expose herself to the supposition; the appearance of everything would be good and proper. I simply tell you what I believe. If I believed that what she’s doing concerned you alone I should say nothing about it—at least sitting here. But it concerns others, it concerns every one, so I open my mouth at last. She has gone to that house to break up society.”

“To break it up, yes, as she has wanted before?”

“Oh more than ever before! She’s very much entangled. She has relations with people who are watched by the police. She hasn’t told me, but I’ve grown sure of it by simply living with her.”

The poor Prince stared. “And is she watched by the police?”

“I can’t tell you; it’s very possible—except that the police here isn’t like that of other countries.”

“It’s more stupid.” He gazed at his cold comforter with a flush of shame on his face. “Will she bring us to that scandal? It would be the worst of all.”

“There’s one chance—the chance she’ll get tired of it,” the old lady remarked. “Only the scandal may come before that.”

“Dear friend, she’s the Devil in person,” said the Prince woefully.

“No, she’s not the Devil, because she wishes to do good.”

“What good did she ever wish to do to me?” he asked with glowing eyes.

She shook her head with a gloom that matched his own. “You can do no good of any kind to each other. Each on your own side you must be quiet.”

“How can I be quiet when I hear of such infamies?” He got up in his violence and, after a fashion that caused his companion to burst into a short, incongruous laugh as soon as she heard the words, pronounced: “She shall not break up society!”

“No, she’ll bore herself to death before the coup is ripe. Make up your mind to that.”

“That’s what I expected to find—that the caprice was over. She has passed through so many madnesses.”

“Give her time—give her time,” replied Madame Grandoni.

“Time to drag my name into an assize-court? Those people are robbers, incendiaries, murderers!”

“You can say nothing to me about them that I haven’t said to her.”

“And how does she defend herself?”

“Defend herself? Did you ever hear Christina do that?” the old woman asked. “The only thing she says to me is: ‘Don’t be afraid; I promise you by all that’s sacred you personally shan’t suffer.’ She speaks as if she had it all in her hands. That’s very well. No doubt I’m a selfish old pig, but after all one has a heart for others.”

“And so have I, I think I may pretend,” said the Prince. “You tell me to give her time, and it’s certain she’ll take it whether I give it or no. But I can at least stop giving her money. By heaven it’s my duty as an honest man.”

“She tells me that as it is you don’t give her much.”

“Much, dear lady? It depends on what you call so. It’s enough to make all these scoundrels flock round her.”

“They’re not all scoundrels any more than she’s all one. That’s the tiresome part of it!” she wearily sighed.

“But this fellow, the chemist—to-night—what do you call him?”

“She has spoken to me of him as a fine young man.”

“But she thinks it fine to blow us all up,” the Prince returned. “Doesn’t he take her money?”

“I don’t know what he takes. But there are some things—heaven forbid one should forget them! The misery of London’s fearful.”

“Che vuole? There’s misery everywhere,” our personage opined. “It’s the will of God. Ci vuol pazienza! And in this country does no one give alms?”

“Every one, I believe. But it appears that that’s not enough.”

He said nothing for a moment; this statement of Madame Grandoni’s seemed to present difficulties. The solution, however, soon suggested itself; it was expressed in the inquiry: “What will you have in a country that hasn’t the true faith?”

“Ah the true faith’s a great thing, but there’s suffering even in countries that have it.”

“Evidentemente. But it helps suffering to be borne and, later, makes it up; whereas here——!” said the visitor with a sad if inconclusive smile. “If I may speak of myself it’s to me, in my circumstances, a support.”

“That’s good,” she returned a little curtly.

He stood before her, resting his eyes for a moment on the floor. “And the famous Cholto—Godfrey Gerald—does he come no more?”

“I haven’t seen him for months. I know nothing about him.”

“He doesn’t like the chemists and the bookbinders, eh?” asked the Prince.

“Ah it was he who first brought them—to gratify your wife.”

“If they’ve turned him out then that’s very well. Now if only some one could turn them out!”

“Aspetta, aspetta!” said the old woman.

“That’s very good advice, but to follow it isn’t amusing.” Then the Prince added: “You alluded, just now, as to something particular, to quel giovane, the young artisan whom I met in the other house. Is he also still proposed to our admiration, or has he paid the penalty of his crimes?”

“He has paid the penalty, but I don’t know of what. I’ve nothing bad to tell you of him except that I think his star’s on the wane.”

“Poverino!” the Prince exclaimed.

“That’s exactly the manner in which I addressed him the first time I saw him. I didn’t know how it would happen, but I felt it would happen somehow. It has happened through his changing his opinions. He has now the same idea as you—ci vuol pazienza.”

Her friend listened with the same expression of wounded eagerness, the same parted lips and excited eyes, to every added fact that dropped from Madame Grandoni’s lips. “That at least is more honest. Then he doesn’t go to Chiffinch Street?”

“I don’t know about Chiffinch Street, though it would be my impression that he doesn’t go to any place visited by Christina and the other one, by the Scotchman, together. But these are delicate matters,” the old woman pursued.

They seemed much to impress her interlocutor. “Do you mean that the Scotchman is—what shall I call it?—his successor?”

For a time she made no reply. “I imagine this case different. But I don’t understand; it was the other, the little one, who helped her to know the Scotchman.”

“And now they’ve quarrelled—about my wife? It’s all tremendously edifying!” the Prince wailed.

“I can’t tell you, and shouldn’t have attempted it, only that Assunta talks to me.”

“I wish she would talk to me,” he said wistfully.

“Ah my friend, if Christina were to find you getting at her servants——!”

“How could it be worse for me than it is now? However, I don’t know why I speak as if I cared, for I don’t care any more. I’ve given her up. It’s finished.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” said Madame Grandoni gravely.

“You yourself made the distinction perfectly. So long as she endeavoured only to injure me, and in my private capacity, I could condone, I could wait, I could hope. But since she has so shamelessly thrown herself into criminal undertakings, since she lifts her hand with a determined purpose, as you tell me, against the most sacred institutions—it’s too much; ah yes, it’s too much! She may go her way; she’s no wife of mine. Not another penny of mine shall go into her pocket and into that of the wretches who prey upon her, who have corrupted her.”

“Dear Prince, I think you’re right. And yet I’m sorry!” sighed his hostess, extending her hand for assistance to rise from her chair. “If she becomes really poor it will be much more difficult for me to leave her. This is not poverty, and not even a good imitation of it, as she would like it to be. But what will be said of me if, having remained with her through so much of her splendour, I turn away from her the moment she begins to want?”

“Dear lady, do you ask that to make me relent?” the Prince uneasily quavered.

“Not in the least; for whatever’s said and whatever you do there’s nothing for me in decency at present but to pack my trunk. Judge by the way I’ve tattled.”

“If you’ll stay on she shall have everything.” He spoke in a very low tone, with a manner that betrayed the shame he felt for his attempt at bribery.

Madame Grandoni gave him an astonished glance and moved away from him. “What does that mean? I thought you didn’t care.”

I know not what explanation of his inconsequence her guest would have given her if at that moment the door of the room hadn’t been pushed open to permit the entrance of Hyacinth Robinson. He stopped short on finding a stranger in the field, but before he had time to say anything the old lady addressed him rather shortly. “Ah you don’t fall well; the Princess isn’t at home.”

“That was mentioned to me, but I ventured to come in to see you as I’ve done before,” our young man replied. Then he added as to accommodate: “I beg many pardons. I was not told you were not alone.”

“My visitor’s going, but I’m going too,” said Madame Grandoni. “I must take myself to my room—I’m all falling to pieces. Therefore kindly excuse me.”

Hyacinth had had time to recognise the Prince, and this nobleman paid him the same compliment, as was proved by his asking of their companion in a rapid Italian aside: “Isn’t it the bookbinder?”

“Sicuro,” said the old lady; while Hyacinth, murmuring a regret that he should find her indisposed, turned back to the door.

“One moment—one moment, I pray!” the Prince interposed, raising his hand persuasively and looking at Mr. Robinson with an unexpected, exaggerated smile. “Please introduce me to the gentleman,” he added in English to Madame Grandoni.

She manifested no surprise at the request—she had none left for anything—but pronounced the name of Prince Casamassima and then added for Hyacinth’s benefit: “He knows who you are.”

“Will you permit me to keep you a very little minute?” The Prince appealed to his fellow-visitor, after which he remarked to Madame Grandoni: “I’ll talk with him a little. It’s perhaps not necessary we should incommode you if you don’t wish to stay.”

She had for an instant, as she tossed off a small satirical laugh, a return of her ancient drollery. “Remember that if you talk long she may come back! Yes, yes, I’ll go upstairs. Felicissima notte, signori!” She took her way to the door, which Hyacinth, considerably bewildered, held open for her.

The reasons for which Prince Casamassima wished to converse with him were mysterious; nevertheless he was about to close the door behind their friend as a sign that he was at the service of the greater personage. At this moment the latter raised again a courteous, remonstrant hand. “After all, as my visit is finished and as yours comes to nothing, might we not go out?”

“Certainly I’ll go with you,” said Hyacinth. He spoke with an instinctive stiffness in spite of the Prince’s queer affability, and in spite also of the fact that he felt sorry for the nobleman to whose countenance Madame Grandoni’s last injunction, uttered in English, could bring a deep and painful blush. It is forbidden us to try the question of what Hyacinth, face to face with an aggrieved husband, may have had on his conscience, but he assumed, naturally enough, that the situation might be grave, though indeed the Prince’s manner was for the moment incongruously bland. He invited his new, his grand acquaintance to pass, and in a minute they were in the street together.

“Do you go here—do you go there?” the Prince inquired as they stood a moment before the house. “If you permit I’ll take the same direction.” On Hyacinth’s answering that it was indifferent to him he said, turning to the right: “Well then here, but adagio, if that pleases you, and only a little way.” His English was far from perfect, but his errors were like artificial flowers of accent: Hyacinth was struck with his effort to express himself very distinctly, so that in intercourse with a small untutored Briton his foreignness should not put him at a disadvantage. Quick to perceive and appreciate, our hero noted how the quality of breeding in him just enabled him to compass that coolness, and he mentally applauded the success of a difficult feat. Difficult he judged it because it seemed to him that the purpose for which the Prince wished to speak to him was one requiring an immensity of explanation, and it was a sign of training to explain adequately, in a strange tongue, especially if one were agitated, to a person in a social position very different from one’s own. Hyacinth knew what the Prince’s estimate of his importance must be—he could have no illusions as to the character of the people his wife received; but while he heard him carefully put one word after the other he was able to smile to himself at his needless precautions. Our young man reflected that at a pinch he could have encountered him in his own tongue: during his stay at Venice he had picked up an Italian vocabulary. “With Madame Grandoni I spoke of you,” the Prince announced dispassionately as they walked along. “She told me a thing that interested me,” he added; “that’s why I walk with you.” Hyacinth said nothing, deeming that better by silence than in any other fashion he held himself at the disposal of his interlocutor. “She told me you’ve changed—you’ve no more the same opinions.”

“The same opinions?”

“About the arrangement of society. You desire no more the assassination of the rich.”

“I never desired any such thing!” said Hyacinth indignantly.

“Oh if you’ve changed you can confess,” his friend declared in an encouraging tone. “It’s very good for some people to be rich. It wouldn’t be right for all to be poor.”

“It would be pleasant if all could be rich,” Hyacinth more mildly suggested.

“Yes, but not by stealing and shooting.”

“No, not by stealing and shooting. I never desired that.”

“Ah no doubt she was mistaken. But to-day you think we must have patience?” the Prince went on as if greatly hoping Hyacinth would allow this valuable conviction to be attributed to him. “That’s also my view.”

“Oh yes, we must have patience,” said his companion, who was now smiling to himself in the dark.

They had by this time reached the end of the little Crescent, where the Prince paused under the street-lamp. He considered the small bookbinder’s countenance for a moment by its help and then pronounced: “If I’m not mistaken you know very well the Princess.”

Hyacinth hung back: “She has been very kind to me.”

“She’s my wife—perhaps you know.”

Again Mr. Robinson faltered, but after a moment he replied: “She has told me that she’s married.” As soon as he had spoken these words he thought them idiotic.

“You mean you wouldn’t know if she hadn’t told you, I suppose. Evidently there’s nothing to show it. You can think if that’s agreeable to me.”

“Oh I can’t think, I can’t judge.”

“You’re right—that’s impossible.” The Prince stood before his companion, and in the pale gaslight the latter saw more of his face. It had an unnatural expression, a look of wasted anxiety; the eyes seemed to glitter, and our fond observer conceived the unfortunate nobleman to be feverish and ill. He pursued in a moment: “Of course you think it strange—my conversation. I want you to tell me something.”

“I’m afraid you’re very unwell,” said Hyacinth.

“Yes, I’m very unwell; but I shall be better if you’ll tell me. It’s because you’ve come back to good ideas—that’s why I ask you.”

A sense that the situation of the Princess’s husband was really pitiful, that at any rate he suffered and was helpless, that he was a gentleman and even a person who would never have done any great harm—a perception of these appealing truths came into Hyacinth’s heart and stirred there a desire to be kind to him, to render him any service that in reason he might ask. It struck him he must be pretty sick to ask any at all, but that was his own affair. “If you’d like me to see you safely home I’ll do that,” our young friend brought out; and even while he spoke he was struck with the oddity of his being already on such friendly terms with a person whom he had hitherto supposed to be the worst enemy of the rarest of women. He found himself unable to consider the Prince with resentment.

This personage acknowledged the civility of the offer with a slight inclination of his high slimness.

“I’m very much obliged to you, but I don’t go home. I don’t go home till I know this—to what house she has gone. Will you tell me that?”

“To what house?” Hyacinth repeated.

“She has gone with a person whom you know. Madame Grandoni told me that. He’s a Scotch chemist.”

“A Scotch chemist?” Hyacinth stared.

“I saw them myself—an hour, two hours, ago. Listen, listen; I’ll be very clear,” said the Prince, laying his forefinger on the other hand with a pleading emphasis. “He came to that house—this one, where we’ve been, I mean—and stayed there a long time. I was here in the street—I’ve passed my day in the street! They came out together and I watched them—I followed them.”

Hyacinth had listened with wonder and even with suspense; the Prince’s manner gave an air of such importance and such mystery to what he had to relate. But at this he broke out: “This’s not my business—I can’t hear it! I don’t watch, I don’t follow.”

His friend stared in surprise, but then rejoined, more quickly than he had spoken yet: “Do you understand that they went to a house where they conspire, where they prepare horrible acts? How can you like that?”

“How do you know it, sir?” Hyacinth gravely asked.

“It’s Madame Grandoni who has told me.”

“Why then do you question me?”

“Because I’m not sure, I don’t think she knows. I want to know more, to be sure of what’s the truth. Does she go to such a place only for the revolution, or does she go to be alone with him?”

“With him?” The Prince’s tone and his excited eyes had somehow made the suggestion live.

“With the tall man—the chemist. They got into a hansom together; the house is far away, in the lost quarters.”

Hyacinth drew himself together. “I know nothing about the matter and I don’t care. If that’s all you wish to ask me we had better separate.”

The Prince’s high face grew long; it seemed to grow paler. “Then it’s not true that you hate those abominations!”

Hyacinth frankly wondered. “How can you know about my opinions? How can they interest you?”

The Prince looked at him with sick eyes; he raised his arms a certain distance and then let them drop at his sides. “I hoped you’d help me.”

“When we’re in trouble we can’t help each other much!” our young man exclaimed. But this austere reflexion was lost on the Prince, who at the moment it was uttered had already turned to look in the direction from which they had moved, the other end of the Crescent, his attention suddenly jerked round by the sound of a rapid hansom. The place was still and empty and the wheels of this vehicle reverberated. He glowered at it through the darkness and in an instant cried, under his breath, excitedly: “They’ve come back—they’ve come back! Now you can see—yes, the two!” The hansom had slackened pace and pulled up; the house before which it stopped was clearly the house the two men had lately quitted. Hyacinth felt his arm seized by his strange confidant, who hastily, with a strong effort, drew him forward several yards. At this moment a part of the agitation that possessed the Princess’s unhappy husband seemed to pass into his own blood; a wave of anxiety rushed through him—anxiety as to the relations of the two persons who had descended from the cab: he had in short for several instants a very exact revelation of the state of feeling of those who love in the rage of jealousy. If he had been told half an hour before that he was capable of surreptitious peepings in the interest of that passion he would have resented the insult; yet he allowed himself to be checked by his companion just at the nearest point at which they might safely consider the proceedings of the couple who alighted. It was in fact the Princess accompanied by Paul Muniment. Hyacinth noticed that the latter paid the cabman, who immediately drove away, from his own pocket. He stood with the Princess for some minutes at the door of the house—minutes during which Mr. Robinson felt his heart beat insanely, ignobly. He couldn’t tell why.

“What does he say? what does she say?” hissed the Prince; and when he went on the next moment, “Will he go in again or will he go away?” our stricken youth felt a voice given to his own sharpest thought. The pair were talking together with rapid sequences, and as the door had not yet been opened it was clear that, to prolong the conversation on the steps, the Princess delayed to ring. “It will make three, four hours he has been with her,” moaned the Prince.

“He may be with her fifty hours!” Hyacinth laughed as he turned away ashamed of himself.

“He has gone in—sangue di Dio!” cried the Prince, catching his companion again by the arm and making him look. All our friend saw was the door just closing; Paul and the Princess were on the other side of it. “Is that for the revolution?” the trembling nobleman panted. But Mr. Robinson made no answer; he only gazed at the closed door an instant and then, disengaging himself, walked straight away, leaving the victim of the wrong he could even then feel as deeper than his own to shake, in the dark, a helpless, foolish, gold-headed stick at the indifferent house where Madame Grandoni’s bedroom light glimmered aloft.