“Well, I don’t as a general thing. Nevertheless, it is possible that, this year, I may get two or three days at the seaside. I should like to take my old lady. I have done it before.”
“And except for that you shall be always at work?”
“Yes; but you must understand that I like my work. You must understand that it’s a great blessing for a young fellow like me to have it.”
“And if you didn’t have it, what would you do? Should you starve?”
“Oh, I don’t think I should starve,” the young man replied, judicially.
The Princess looked a little chagrined, but after a moment she remarked, “I wonder whether you would come to see me, in the country, somewhere.”
“Oh, dear!” Hyacinth exclaimed, catching his breath. “You are so kind, I don’t know what to do.”
“Don’t be banal, please. That’s what other people are. What’s the use of my looking for something fresh in other walks of life, if you are going to be banal too? I ask you, would you come?”
Hyacinth hesitated a moment. “Yes, I think I would come. I don’t know, at all, how I should do it—there would be several obstacles; but wherever you should call for me, I would come.”
“You mean you can’t leave your work, like that; you might lose it, if you did, and be in want of money and much embarrassed?”