Hyacinth glanced at Madame Grandoni, but that worthy woman was engaged in a survey of the house through an old-fashioned eyeglass with a long gilt handle. He had perceived much before this that the Princess Casamassima had no desire for vain phrases, and he had the good taste to feel that from himself to such a great lady compliments, even had he wished to pay them, would have had no suitability. “I don’t know whether he would be willing to come. He’s the sort of man that in such a case you can’t answer for.”
“That makes me want to know him all the more. But you’ll come yourself at all events, eh?”
Poor Hyacinth murmured something about the unexpected honour; after all he had a French heredity and it wasn’t so easy for him to say things as ill as his other idiom mainly required. But Madame Grandoni, laying down her eyeglass, almost took the words out of his mouth with the cheerful exhortation: “Go and see her—go and see her once or twice. She’ll treat you like an angel.”
“You must think me very peculiar,” the Princess remarked sadly.
“I don’t know what I think. It will take a good while.”
“I wish I could make you trust me—inspire you with confidence,” she went on. “I don’t mean only you personally, but others who think as you do. You’d find I’d go with you—pretty far. I was answering just now for Captain Sholto; but who in the world’s to answer for me?” And her sadness merged itself in a smile that affected Hyacinth as indescribably magnanimous and touching.
“Not I, my dear, I promise you!” her ancient companion ejaculated with a laugh which made the people in the stalls look up at the box.
Her spirit was contagious; it gave Hyacinth the audacity to say to her, “I’d trust you, if you did!” though he felt the next minute that this was even a more familiar speech than if he had expressed a want of confidence.
“It comes then to the same thing,” said the Princess. “She wouldn’t show herself with me in public if I weren’t respectable. If you knew more about me you’d understand what has led me to turn my attention to the great social question. It’s a long story and the details wouldn’t interest you; but perhaps some day, if we have more talk, you’ll put yourself a little in my place. I’m very serious, you know; I’m not amusing myself with peeping and running away. I’m convinced that we’re living in a fool’s paradise, that the ground’s heaving under our feet.”
“It’s not the ground, my dear; it’s you who are turning somersaults,” Madame Grandoni interposed.