“And what’s that?”
They had been talking of course in a very low tone, and their voices were covered by Rosy’s chatter in the corner, by the liberal laughter with which Captain Sholto accompanied it, and by the much more discreet, though earnest, intermingled accents of Lady Aurora and Miss Pynsent. But Muniment spoke more softly still—Hyacinth felt a kind of suspense—as he replied in a moment: “Why, she’s a monster!”
“A monster?” repeated our young man, from whom, this evening, his friend was destined to draw ejaculations and echoes.
Paul glanced toward the Captain, who was apparently more and more engaged by Rosy. “In him I think there’s no great harm. He’s only a patient angler.”
It must be admitted that Captain Sholto justified to a certain extent this definition by the manner in which he baited his hook for such little facts as might help him to a more intimate knowledge of his host and hostess. When the tea was made Rosy asked Miss Pynsent to be so good as to hand it about. They must let her poor ladyship rest a little, mustn’t they?—and Hyacinth could see that in her innocent but inveterate self-complacency she wished to reward and encourage the dressmaker, draw her out and present her still more by offering her this graceful exercise. Sholto sprang up, however, and begged Pinnie to let him relieve her, taking a cup from her hand; and poor Pinnie, who noted in a moment that he was some kind of uncanny masquerader, who was bewildered by the strange mixture of elements that surrounded her and unused to being treated like a duchess (for the Captain’s manner was a triumph of respectful gallantry), collapsed on the instant into a chair, appealing to Lady Aurora with a frightened smile and conscious that, deeply versed as she might be in the theory of decorum, she had no precedent that could meet such an occasion. “Now how many families would there be in such a house as this, and what should you say about the sanitary arrangements? Would there be others on this floor—what is it, the third, the fourth?—beside yourselves, you know, and should you call it a fair example of a tenement of its class?” It was with such inquiries as this that the good gentleman beguiled their tea-drinking, while Hyacinth made the reflexion that, though he evidently meant them very well, they were characterised by a want of fine tact, by too patronising a curiosity. The Captain invited information as to the position in life, the avocations and habits of the other lodgers, the rent they paid, their relations with each other, both in and out of the family. “Now would there be a good deal of close packing, do you suppose, and any perceptible want of—a—sobriety?”
Paul Muniment, who had swallowed his cup of tea at a single gulp—there was no offer of a second—gazed out of the window into the dark, which had now come on, with his hands in his pockets, whistling, impolitely, no doubt, but with extreme animation. He had the manner of having made over their visitor altogether to Rosy and of thinking that whatever that personage said or did was all so much grist to her indefatigable little mill. Lady Aurora writhed in her pain, and it is a proof of the degree to which our slight hero had the instincts of a man of the world that he guessed exactly how vulgar she thought this new acquaintance. She was doubtless rather vexed also—Hyacinth had learned this evening that Lady Aurora could be vexed—at the alacrity of Rosy’s responses: the little person in the bed gave the Captain every satisfaction, considered his questions as a proper tribute to humble respectability and supplied him, as regards the population of Audley Court, with statistics and anecdotes picked up by mysterious processes of her own. At last her ladyship, on whom Paul Muniment had not been at pains to bestow much conversation, took leave of her, signifying to Hyacinth that for the rest of the evening she would assume the care of Miss Pynsent. Pinnie might have been consciously laid bare for monstrous rites now that she was really about to be transported to Belgrave Square, but Hyacinth was sure she would acquit herself only the more honourably; and when he offered to call for her there later on she reminded him under her breath and with a small sad smile of the many years during which, after nightfall, she carried her work, pinned up in a cloth, about London.
Paul Muniment, according to his habit, lighted Lady Aurora downstairs, and Captain Sholto and Hyacinth were alone for some minutes with Rosy; which gave the former, taking up his hat and stick, an opportunity to say to his young friend: “Which way are you going? Not my way, by chance?” Hyacinth saw that he hoped for his company, and he became conscious that, strangely as Paul had indulged him and too promiscuously investigating as he had just shown himself, this ingratiating character was not more easy to resist than he had been the other night at the theatre. The Captain bent over Rosy’s bed as if she had been a fine lady on a satin sofa, promising to come back very soon and very often, and the two men went downstairs. On their way they met their host coming up, and Hyacinth felt rather ashamed, he could scarce tell why, that his friend should see him marching off with the “tout.” After all, if Paul had brought him to see his sister might not Paul’s pupil and devotee at least walk with him? “I’m coming again, you know, very often. I daresay you’ll find me a great bore!” the Captain announced as he bade good-night to Muniment. “Your sister’s a most interesting creature, one of the most interesting creatures I’ve ever seen, and the whole thing, you know, exactly the type of place I wanted to get at, only much more—really much more—original and curious. It has been a jolly glimpse—a grand success!”
And the Captain felt his way down the dusky shaft, while Paul Muniment, above, gave him the benefit of rather a wavering candlestick and answered his civil speech with an “Oh well, you take us as you find us, you know!” and an outburst of frank but not unfriendly laughter.
Half an hour later Hyacinth found himself in Captain Sholto’s chambers, seated on a big divan covered with Persian rugs and cushions and smoking the most expensive cigar that had ever touched his lips. As they left Audley Court the Captain had taken his arm and they had walked along together in a desultory, colloquial manner, till on Westminster Bridge (they had followed the embankment beneath Saint Thomas’s Hospital) Sholto brought out: “By the way, why shouldn’t you come home with me and see my little place? I’ve a few things that might amuse you—some pictures, some odds and ends I’ve picked up, and a few bindings; you might tell me what you think of them.” Hyacinth assented without demur; he had still in his ear the reverberation of the Captain’s inquiries in Rosy’s room, and he saw no reason why he on his side shouldn’t embrace an occasion of ascertaining how, as his companion would have said, a man of fashion would live now.
This particular specimen lived in a large old-fashioned house in Queen Anne Street, of which he occupied the upper floors, where he had filled the high wainscoted rooms with the spoils of travel and the ingenuities of modern taste. There was not a country in the world he appeared not to have ransacked, and to Hyacinth his trophies represented a wonderfully long purse. The whole establishment, from the low-voiced inexpressive valet who, after he had poured brandy into tall tumblers, solemnised the very popping of soda-water corks, to the quaint little silver receptacle in which he was invited to deposit the ashes of his cigar, was such a revelation for our appreciative youth that he felt himself hushed and depressed, so poignant was the thought that it took thousands of things he then should never possess nor know to make a civilised being. He had often in evening walks wondered what was behind the walls of certain ample bright-windowed houses in the West End, and now he got an idea. The first effect of the idea was to lay him rather flat.