“Are you afraid I’ll tell her secrets?” cried Hyacinth, flushing with virtuous indignation.
“Secrets? What secrets could you tell her, my pretty lad?”
Hyacinth turned away. “You don’t trust me—you never have.”
“We will, some day—don’t be afraid,” said Muniment, who evidently had no intention of harshness, at least in respect to Hyacinth, a thing that appeared impossible to him. “And when we do you’ll cry with disappointment.”
“Well, you won’t,” Hyacinth returned. And then he asked if his friend thought the Princess Casamassima a spy of spies—the devil she’d have to be!—and why, if she were in that line, Sholto was not, since it must be supposed he was not when they had seen fit to let him walk in and out, at any rate, at the place in Bloomsbury. Muniment didn’t even know whom he meant, not having had any relations with the gentleman; but he summoned a sufficient image after his companion had described the Captain’s appearance. He then remarked with his usual geniality that he didn’t take him for anything worse than a jackass; but even if he had edged himself into the place with every intention to betray them what handle could he possibly get—what use against them could he make of anything he had seen or heard? If he had a fancy to dip into workingmen’s clubs (Paul remembered now the first night he came; he had been brought by that German cabinet-maker who always had a bandaged neck and smoked a pipe with a bowl as big as a stove); if it amused him to put on a bad hat and inhale foul tobacco and call his “inferiors” “my dear fellow”; if he thought that in doing so he was getting an insight into the people and going halfway to meet them and preparing for what was coming—all this was his own affair and he was very welcome, though a man must be a flat who would spend his evening in a hole like that when he might enjoy his comfort in one of those flaming big shops, full of armchairs and flunkies, in Pall Mall. And what did he see after all in Bloomsbury? Nothing but a remarkably stupid “social gathering” where there were clay pipes and a sanded floor and not half enough gas and the principal papers; and where the men, as any one would know, were advanced radicals and mostly advanced idiots. He could pat as many of them on the back as he liked and say the House of Lords wouldn’t last till midsummer; but what discoveries would he make? He was simply on the same lay as Hyacinth’s Princess; he was nervous and scared and thought he would see for himself.
“Oh, he isn’t the same sort as the Princess. I’m sure he’s in a very different line!” Hyacinth objected.
“Different of course; she’s a handsome woman, I suppose, and he’s an ugly man; but I don’t think that either of them will save us or spoil us. Their curiosity’s natural, but I’ve other things to do than to show them over: therefore you can tell her Serene Highness that I’m much obliged.”
Hyacinth reflected a moment and then said: “You show Lady Aurora over; you seem to wish to give her the information she desires; therefore what’s the difference? If it’s right for her to take an interest why isn’t it right for my Princess?”
“If she’s already yours what more can she want?” Muniment asked. “All I know of Lady Aurora and all I look at is that she comes and sits with Rosy and brings her tea and waits on her. If the Princess will do as much I’ll see what I can do; but apart from that I shall never take a grain of interest in her interest in the masses—or in this particular mass!” And Paul, with his discoloured thumb, designated his own substantial person. His tone was disappointing to Hyacinth, who was surprised at his not appearing to think the incident at the theatre more remarkable and romantic. He seemed to regard his mate’s explanation of the passage as all-sufficient; but when a moment later he made use, in referring to the mysterious lady, of the expression that she was “quaking” that critic broke out: “Never in the world; she’s not afraid of anything!”
“Ah, my lad, not afraid of you, evidently!” Hyacinth paid no attention to this coarse sally, but resumed with a candour that was proof against further ridicule: “Do you think she can do me a hurt of any kind if we follow up our acquaintance?”