“Why do you call it a ‘step’?” the Princess asked. “That’s what people say when they have to do something disagreeable.”
“I call very seldom on ladies. It’s long time since I have been in the house of a person like the Princess Casamassima. I remember the last time,” said the old man. “It was to get some money from a lady at whose party I had been playing—for a dance.”
“You must bring your fiddle, sometime, and play to us. Of course I don’t mean for money,” the Princess rejoined.
“I will do it with pleasure, or anything else that will gratify you. But my ability is very small. I only know vulgar music—things that are played at theatres.”
“I don’t believe that; there must be things you play for yourself, in your room, alone.”
For a moment the old man made no reply; then he said, “Now that I see you, that I hear you, it helps me to understand.”
“I don’t think you do see me!” cried the Princess, kindly, laughing; while the fiddler went on to ask whether there were any danger of Hyacinth’s coming in while he was there. The Princess replied that he only came, unless by prearrangement, in the evening, and Mr Vetch made a request that she would not let their young friend know that he himself had been with her. “It doesn’t matter; he will guess it, he will know it by instinct, as soon as he comes in. He is terribly subtle,” said the Princess; and she added that she had never been able to hide anything from him. Perhaps it served her right, for attempting to make a mystery of things that were not worth it.
“How well you know him!” Mr Vetch murmured, with his eyes wandering again to Madame Grandoni, who paid no attention to him as she sat staring at the fire. He delayed, visibly, to say what he had come for, and his hesitation could only be connected with the presence of the old lady. He said to himself that the Princess might have divined this from his manner; he had an idea that he could trust himself to convey such an intimation with clearness and yet with delicacy. But the most she appeared to apprehend was that he desired to be presented to her companion.
“You must know the most delightful of women. She also takes a particular interest in Mr Robinson: of a different kind from mine—much more sentimental!” And then she explained to the old lady, who seemed absorbed in other ideas, that Mr Vetch was a distinguished musician, a person whom she, who had known so many in her day, and was so fond of that kind of thing, would like to talk with. The Princess spoke of ‘that kind of thing’ quite as if she herself had given it up, though Madame Grandoni heard her by the hour together improvising on the piano revolutionary battle-songs and pæans.
“I think you are laughing at me,” Mr Vetch said to the Princess, while Madame Grandoni twisted herself slowly round in her chair and considered him. She looked at him leisurely, up and down, and then she observed, with a sigh—