“Why what in the world would you have? You’ve the faculty, the precious faculty, of inspiring women with an interest—but an interest!”
“Yes, ask them in the box there! I behaved like an awful muff,” Hyacinth declared, overwhelmed now with a sense of opportunities missed.
“They won’t tell me that. And the lady upstairs?”
“Well,” said Hyacinth gravely, “what about her?”
“She wouldn’t talk to me of anything but you. You may imagine how I liked it!”
“I don’t like it either. But I must go up.”
“Oh yes, she counts the minutes. Such a charming person!” Captain Sholto added with more propriety of tone. As Hyacinth left him he called out: “Don’t be afraid—you’ll go far.”
When the young man took his place in the balcony beside Millicent she gave him no greeting nor asked any question about his adventures in the more privileged part of the house. She only turned her fine complexion upon him for some minutes, and as he himself was not in the mood to begin to chatter the silence continued—continued till after the curtain had risen on the last act of the play. Millicent’s attention was now evidently not at her disposal for the stage, and in the midst of a violent scene which included pistol-shots and shrieks she said at last to her companion: “She’s a tidy lot, your Princess, by what I learn.”
“Pray what do you know about her?”
“I know what that fellow told me.”