Their companions watched them as if they considered that something rather witty and showy now would be likely to come off between them; but Hyacinth was too full of regard for his beautiful friend’s tacit notification to him that they must not appear too thick, which was after all more flattering than the most pressing inquiries or the most liberal announcements about herself could have been. She never asked him when he had come back; and indeed it was not long before Rose Muniment took that business on herself. Hyacinth, however, ventured to assure himself if Madame Grandoni were still at her post and even to remark—when his fellow-visitor had replied, “Oh yes, still, still. The great refusal, as Dante calls it, has not yet come off”—“You ought to bring her to see Miss Rosy. She’s a person Miss Rosy would particularly appreciate.”
“I’m sure I should be most happy to receive any friend of the Princess Casamassima,” said this young lady from the sofa; and when the Princess answered that she certainly would not fail to produce Madame Grandoni some day, Hyacinth—though he doubted if the presentation would really take place—guessed how much she wished her old friend might have heard the strange, bedizened little invalid make that speech.
There were only three other seats, for the introduction of the sofa—the question profoundly studied in advance—had rendered necessary the elimination of certain articles; so that Muniment, on his feet, hovered round the little circle with his hands in his pockets, laughing freely and sociably but not looking at the Princess; even if, as Hyacinth was sure, none the less agitated by her presence.
“You ought to tell us about foreign parts and the grand things you’ve seen; except that our distinguished visitor must know all about them,” Muniment threw out to him. Then he added: “Surely, at any rate, you’ve seen nothing more worthy of your respect than Camberwell.”
“Is this the worst part?” the Princess asked, looking up with her noble, interested face.
“The worst, madam? What grand ideas you must have! We admire Camberwell immensely.”
“It’s my brother’s ideas that are grand!” cried Rose Muniment, betraying him conscientiously. “He does want everything changed, no less than you, Princess; though he’s more cunning than you and won’t give one a handle where one can take him up. He thinks all this part most objectionable—as if dirty people won’t always make everything dirty where they live! I daresay he thinks there ought to be no dirty people, and it may be so; only if every one was clean where would be the merit? You’d get no credit for keeping yourself tidy. If it’s a question of soap and water, at any rate, every one can begin by himself. My brother thinks the whole place ought to be as handsome as Brompton.”
“Ah yes, that’s where the artists and literary people live, isn’t it?” the Princess asked attentively.
“I’ve never seen it, but it’s very well laid out,” Rosy returned with her competent manner.
“Oh I like Camberwell better than that,” Muniment said with due amusement.