Rosy was a match for him, however; he evidently didn’t puzzle her in the least and she thought his visit the most natural thing in the world. She expressed all the gratitude decency required, but appeared to assume that people who climbed her stairs would always find themselves repaid. She remarked that her brother must have met him for the first time that day, since the way he sealed a new acquaintance was usually by bringing the person immediately to call on her. And when the Captain said that if she didn’t like them he supposed the poor wretches were dropped on the spot she admitted that this would be true if it ever happened she disapproved: as yet, however, she had not been obliged to draw the line. This was perhaps partly because he hadn’t brought up any of his awful firebrands, the people he knew for unmentionable reasons. Of such in general she had a very small opinion, and she wouldn’t conceal from Captain Sholto that she hoped he wasn’t one of them. Rosy spoke as if her brother represented the Camberwell district in the House of Commons and she had discovered that a parliamentary career lowered the moral tone. The Captain nevertheless entered quite into her views and told her that it was as common friends of Mr. Hyacinth Robinson Mr. Muniment and he had come together; they were both so fond of him that this had immediately constituted a kind of tie. On hearing himself commemorated in such a brilliant way Mr. Hyacinth Robinson averted his head; he saw Captain Sholto might be trusted to make as great an effort for Rosy’s entertainment as he gathered he had made for Milly Henning’s that evening at the theatre. There were not chairs enough to go round, and Paul fetched a three-legged stool from his own apartment, after which he undertook to make tea for the company with the aid of a tin kettle and a spirit-lamp—these implements having been set out, flanked by half-a-dozen cups, in honour, presumably, of the little dressmaker, who had come such a distance. The little dressmaker, Hyacinth observed with pleasure, fell into earnest conversation with Lady Aurora, who bent over her, flushed, smiling, stammering and apparently so nervous that Pinnie, in comparison, was majestic and serene. They communicated presently to Hyacinth a plan they had arrived at as by a quick freemasonry, the idea that Miss Pynsent should go home to Belgrave Square with her ladyship and settle certain preliminaries in regard to the pink dressing-gown, toward which, if Miss Pynsent assented, her ladyship hoped to be able to contribute sundry brown “breadths” that had proved their quality in honourable service and might be dyed to the proper hue. Pinnie, Hyacinth could see, was in a state of religious exaltation; the visit to Belgrave Square and the idea of co-operating in such a manner with the nobility were privileges she couldn’t take solemnly enough. The latter luxury indeed she began to enjoy without delay, Lady Aurora suggesting that Mr. Muniment might be rather awkward about making tea and that they should take the business off his hands. Paul gave it up to them with a pretence of compassion for their conceit and the observation that at any rate it took two women to supplant one man; and Hyacinth drew him to the window to ask where he had encountered Sholto and how he liked him.
They had met in Bloomsbury, as Hyacinth supposed, and Sholto had made up to him very much as a country curate might make up to an archbishop. He wanted to know what he thought of this and that: of the state of the labour market at the East End, of the terrible case of the old woman who had starved to death at Walham Green, of the practicability of more systematic out-of-door agitation and of the prospect of their getting one of their own men—one of the Bloomsbury lot—into the House. “He was mighty civil,” Muniment said, “and I don’t find that he has yet picked my pocket. He looked as if he would like me to suggest that he should stand as one of our own men, one of the Bloomsbury lot. He asks too many questions, but makes up for it by not paying any attention to the answers. He told me he’d give the world to see a really superior workingman’s ‘interior.’ I didn’t know at first just where he proposed to cut me open: he wanted a favourable specimen, one of the best; he had seen one or two that he didn’t believe to be up to the average. I suppose he meant Schinkel’s, the cabinetmaker’s, neat home, and he wanted to compare. I told him I didn’t know what sort of a specimen my place would be, but that he was welcome to look in and that it contained at any rate one or two original features. I expect he has found that’s the case—with Rosy and the noble lady. I wanted to show him off to Rosy; he’s good for that if he isn’t good for anything else. I told him we expected a little company this evening, so it might be a good time; and he assured me that to mingle in such an occasion as that was the dream of his existence. He seemed in a rare hurry, as if I were going to show him a hidden treasure, and insisted on driving me over in a hansom. Perhaps his idea is to introduce the use of cabs among the working-classes; certainly I’ll work to return him if that’s to be his platform. On our way over he talked to me about you; told me you were an intimate friend of his.”
“What did he say about me?” Hyacinth asked with promptness.
“Vain little beggar!”
“Did he call me that?” said Hyacinth ingenuously.
“He said you were simply astonishing.”
“Simply astonishing?” Hyacinth repeated.
“For a person of your low extraction.”
“Well, I may be rum, but he is certainly rummer. Don’t you think so now you know him?”
Paul eyed his young friend. “Do you want to know what he is? He’s a tout.”