“To-morrow?”
“I noticed Madame Grandoni took for granted just now that you are going. But that has nothing to do with the business. She has so little imagination!”
Hyacinth shook his head, smiling. “I can’t stay!” He had an idea his mind was made up.
She returned his smile, but there was something strangely touching—it was so sad, yet, as a rebuke, so gentle—in the tone in which she replied, “You oughtn’t to force me to beg. It isn’t nice.”
He had reckoned without that tone; all his reasons suddenly seemed to fall from under him, to liquefy. He remained a moment, looking on the ground; then he said, “Princess, you have no idea—how should you have?—into the midst of what abject, pitiful preoccupations you thrust yourself. I have no money—I have no clothes.”
“What do you want of money? This isn’t an hotel.”
“Every day I stay here I lose a day’s wages; and I live on my wages from day to day.”
“Let me, then, give you wages. You will work for me.”
“What do you mean—work for you?”
“You will bind all my books. I have ever so many foreign ones, in paper.”