“The dome of St Paul’s doesn’t come to see you, and doesn’t ask you to return the visit.”
“Oh, I don’t return visits—I’ve got a lot of jobs of my own to do. If I don’t put myself out for the Princess, isn’t that a sufficient answer to your question?”
“I’m by no means sure,” said Hyacinth. “If you went to see her, simply and civilly, because she asked you, I shouldn’t regard it as a proof that you had taken a fancy to her. Your hanging off is more suspicious; it may mean that you don’t trust yourself—that you are in danger of falling in love if you go in for a more intimate acquaintance.”
“It’s a rum job, your wanting me to make up to her. I shouldn’t think it would suit your book,” Muniment rejoined, staring at the sky, with his hands clasped under his head.
“Do you suppose I’m afraid of you?” his companion asked. “Besides,” Hyacinth added in a moment, “why the devil should I care, now?”
Muniment, for a little, made no rejoinder; he turned over on his side, and with his arm resting on the ground leaned his head on his hand. Hyacinth felt his eyes on his face, but he also felt himself colouring, and didn’t meet them. He had taken a private vow never to indulge, to Muniment, in certain inauspicious references, and the words he had just spoken had slipped out of his mouth too easily. “What do you mean by that?” Paul demanded, at last; and when Hyacinth looked at him he saw nothing but his companion’s strong, fresh, irresponsible face. Muniment, before speaking, had had time to guess what he meant by it.
Suddenly, an impulse that he had never known before, or rather that he had always resisted, took possession of him. There was a mystery which it concerned his happiness to clear up, and he became unconscious of his scruples, of his pride, of the strength that he had believed to be in him—the strength for going through his work and passing away without a look behind. He sat forward on the grass, with his arms round his knees, and bent upon Muniment a face lighted up by his difficulties. For a minute the two men’s eyes met with extreme clearness, and then Hyacinth exclaimed, “What an extraordinary fellow you are!”
“You’ve hit it there!” said Muniment, smiling.
“I don’t want to make a scene, or work on your feelings, but how will you like it when I’m strung up on the gallows?”
“You mean for Hoffendahl’s job? That’s what you were alluding to just now?” Muniment lay there, in the same attitude, chewing a long blade of dry grass, which he held to his lips with his free hand.