“My visitor’s going, but I’m going too,” said Madame Grandoni. “I must take myself to my room—I’m all falling to pieces. Therefore kindly excuse me.”
Hyacinth had had time to recognise the Prince, and this nobleman paid him the same compliment, as was proved by his asking of their companion in a rapid Italian aside: “Isn’t it the bookbinder?”
“Sicuro,” said the old lady; while Hyacinth, murmuring a regret that he should find her indisposed, turned back to the door.
“One moment—one moment, I pray!” the Prince interposed, raising his hand persuasively and looking at Mr. Robinson with an unexpected, exaggerated smile. “Please introduce me to the gentleman,” he added in English to Madame Grandoni.
She manifested no surprise at the request—she had none left for anything—but pronounced the name of Prince Casamassima and then added for Hyacinth’s benefit: “He knows who you are.”
“Will you permit me to keep you a very little minute?” The Prince appealed to his fellow-visitor, after which he remarked to Madame Grandoni: “I’ll talk with him a little. It’s perhaps not necessary we should incommode you if you don’t wish to stay.”
She had for an instant, as she tossed off a small satirical laugh, a return of her ancient drollery. “Remember that if you talk long she may come back! Yes, yes, I’ll go upstairs. Felicissima notte, signori!” She took her way to the door, which Hyacinth, considerably bewildered, held open for her.
The reasons for which Prince Casamassima wished to converse with him were mysterious; nevertheless he was about to close the door behind their friend as a sign that he was at the service of the greater personage. At this moment the latter raised again a courteous, remonstrant hand. “After all, as my visit is finished and as yours comes to nothing, might we not go out?”
“Certainly I’ll go with you,” said Hyacinth. He spoke with an instinctive stiffness in spite of the Prince’s queer affability, and in spite also of the fact that he felt sorry for the nobleman to whose countenance Madame Grandoni’s last injunction, uttered in English, could bring a deep and painful blush. It is forbidden us to try the question of what Hyacinth, face to face with an aggrieved husband, may have had on his conscience, but he assumed, naturally enough, that the situation might be grave, though indeed the Prince’s manner was for the moment incongruously bland. He invited his new, his grand acquaintance to pass, and in a minute they were in the street together.
“Do you go here—do you go there?” the Prince inquired as they stood a moment before the house. “If you permit I’ll take the same direction.” On Hyacinth’s answering that it was indifferent to him he said, turning to the right: “Well then here, but adagio, if that pleases you, and only a little way.” His English was far from perfect, but his errors were like artificial flowers of accent: Hyacinth was struck with his effort to express himself very distinctly, so that in intercourse with a small untutored Briton his foreignness should not put him at a disadvantage. Quick to perceive and appreciate, our hero noted how the quality of breeding in him just enabled him to compass that coolness, and he mentally applauded the success of a difficult feat. Difficult he judged it because it seemed to him that the purpose for which the Prince wished to speak to him was one requiring an immensity of explanation, and it was a sign of training to explain adequately, in a strange tongue, especially if one were agitated, to a person in a social position very different from one’s own. Hyacinth knew what the Prince’s estimate of his importance must be—he could have no illusions as to the character of the people his wife received; but while he heard him carefully put one word after the other he was able to smile to himself at his needless precautions. Our young man reflected that at a pinch he could have encountered him in his own tongue: during his stay at Venice he had picked up an Italian vocabulary. “With Madame Grandoni I spoke of you,” the Prince announced dispassionately as they walked along. “She told me a thing that interested me,” he added; “that’s why I walk with you.” Hyacinth said nothing, deeming that better by silence than in any other fashion he held himself at the disposal of his interlocutor. “She told me you’ve changed—you’ve no more the same opinions.”