The air was never cleared, though the subject of their dispute was afterwards dropped, Hyacinth promising himself to watch his playmate as he had never done before. She let him know, as may well be supposed, that she had her eye on him, and it must be confessed that as regards the exercise of a right of supervision he had felt himself at a disadvantage ever since the night at the theatre. It mattered little that she had pushed him into the Princess’s box (for she herself had not been jealous beforehand; she had wanted too much to know what such a person could be ‘up to’, desiring, perhaps, to borrow a hint), and it mattered little, also, that his relations with the great lady were all for the sake of suffering humanity; the atmosphere, none the less, was full of thunder for many weeks, and it scarcely signified from which quarter the flash and the explosion proceeded. Hyacinth was a good deal surprised to find that he should care whether Millicent deceived him or not, and even tried to persuade himself that he didn’t; but there was a grain of conviction in his heart that some kind of personal affinity existed between them and that it would torment him more never to see her at all than to see her go into tantrums in order to cover her tracks. An inner sense told him that her mingled beauty and grossness, her vulgar vitality, the spirit of contradiction yet at the same time of attachment that was in her, had ended by making her indispensable to him. She bored him as much as she irritated him; but if she was full of execrable taste she was also full of life, and her rustlings and chatterings, her wonderful stories, her bad grammar and good health, her insatiable thirst, her shrewd perceptions and grotesque opinions, her mistakes and her felicities, were now all part of the familiar human sound of his little world. He could say to himself that she came after him much more than he went after her, and this helped him, a little, to believe, though the logic was but lame, that she was not making a fool of him. If she were really taking up with a swell he didn’t see why she wished to retain a bookbinder. Of late, it must be added, he had ceased to devote much consideration to Millicent’s ambiguities; for although he was lingering on at Medley for the sake of suffering humanity he was quite aware that to say so (if she should ask him for a reason) would have almost as absurd a sound as some of the girl’s own speeches. As regards Sholto, he was in the awkward position of having let him off, as it were, by accepting his hospitality, his bounty; so that he couldn’t quarrel with him except on a fresh pretext. This pretext the Captain had apparently been careful not to give, and Millicent had told him, after the triple encounter in the street, that he had driven him out of England, the poor gentleman whom he insulted by his low insinuations even more (why ‘even more’ Hyacinth hardly could think) than he outraged herself. When he asked her what she knew about the Captain’s movements she made no scruple to announce to him that the latter had come to her great shop to make a little purchase (it was a pair of silk braces, if she remembered rightly, and she admitted, perfectly, the transparency of the pretext), and had asked her with much concern whether his gifted young friend (that’s what he called him—Hyacinth could see he meant well) was still in a huff. Millicent had answered that she was afraid he was—the more shame to him; and then the Captain had said that it didn’t matter, for he himself was on the point of leaving England for several weeks (Hyacinth—he called him Hyacinth this time—couldn’t have ideas about a man in a foreign country, could he?), and he hoped that by the time he returned the little cloud would have blown over. Sholto had added that she had better tell him frankly—recommending her at the same time to be gentle with their morbid friend—about his visit to the shop. Their candour, their humane precautions, were all very well; but after this, two or three evenings, Hyacinth passed and repassed the Captain’s chambers in Queen Anne Street, to see if, at the window, there were signs of his being in London. Darkness, however, prevailed, and he was forced to comfort himself a little when, at last making up his mind to ring at the door and inquire, by way of a test, for the occupant, he was informed, by the superior valet whose acquaintance he had already made, and whose air of wearing a jacket left behind by his master confirmed the statement, that the gentleman in question was at Monte Carlo.
“Have you still got your back up a little?” the Captain demanded, without rancour; and in a moment he had swung a long leg over the saddle and dismounted, walking beside his young friend and leading his horse by the bridle. Hyacinth pretended not to know what he meant, for it came over him that after all, even if he had not condoned, at the time, the Captain’s suspected treachery, he was in no position, sitting at the feet of the Princess, to sound the note of jealousy in relation to another woman. He reflected that the Princess had originally been, in a manner, Sholto’s property, and if he did en fin de compte wish to quarrel with him about Millicent he would have to cease to appear to poach on the Captain’s preserves. It now occurred to him, for the first time, that the latter had intended a kind of exchange; though it must be added that the Princess, who on a couple of occasions had alluded slightingly to her military friend, had given him no sign of recognising this gentleman’s claim. Sholto let him know, at present, that he was staying at Bonchester, seven miles off; he had come down from London and put up at the inn. That morning he had ridden over on a hired horse (Hyacinth had supposed this steed was a very fine animal, but Sholto spoke of it as an infernal screw); he had been taken by the sudden fancy of seeing how his young friend was coming on.
“I’m coming on very well, thank you,” said Hyacinth, with some shortness, not knowing exactly what business it was of the Captain’s.
“Of course you understand my interest in you, don’t you? I’m responsible for you—I put you forward.”
“There are a great many things in the world that I don’t understand, but I think the thing I understand least is your interest in me. Why the devil—” And Hyacinth paused, breathless with the force of his inquiry. Then he went on, “If I were you, I shouldn’t care a filbert for the sort of person that I happen to be.”
“That proves how different my nature is from yours! But I don’t believe it, my boy; you are too generous for that.” Sholto’s imperturbability always appeared to grow with the irritation it produced, and it was proof even against the just resentment excited by his want of tact. That want of tact was sufficiently marked when he went on to say, “I wanted to see you here, with my own eyes. I wanted to see how it looked; it is a rum sight! Of course you know what I mean, though you are always trying to make a fellow explain. I don’t explain well, in any sense, and that’s why I go in only for clever people, who can do without it. It’s very grand, her having brought you down.”
“Grand, no doubt, but hardly surprising, considering that, as you say, I was put forward by you.”
“Oh, that’s a great thing for me, but it doesn’t make any difference to her!” Sholto exclaimed. “She may care for certain things for themselves, but it will never signify a jot to her what I may have thought about them. One good turn deserves another. I wish you would put me forward!”
“I don’t understand you, and I don’t think I want to,” said Hyacinth, as his companion strolled beside him.
The latter put a hand on his arm, stopping him, and they stood face to face a moment. “I say, my dear Robinson, you’re not spoiled already, at the end of a week—how long is it? It isn’t possible you’re jealous!”