“I call very seldom on ladies. It’s a long time since I’ve been in the house of a person like the Princess Casamassima. I remember the last time,” said the old man. “It was to get my money from a lady at whose party I had been playing—for a dance.”
“You must bring your fiddle some time and play to us. Of course I don’t mean for money,” the Princess added.
“I’ll do it with pleasure, or anything else that will gratify you. But my ability’s very small. I only know vulgar music—things that are played at theatres.”
“I don’t believe that. There must be things you play for yourself—in your room alone.”
Mr. Vetch had a pause. “Now that I see you, that I hear you, it helps me to understand.”
“I don’t think you do see me!” his hostess freely laughed; on which he desired to know if there were danger of Hyacinth’s coming in while he was there. She replied that he only came, unless by prearrangement, in the evening, and her visitor made a request that she wouldn’t let their young friend imagine he himself had been with her. “It doesn’t matter; he’ll guess it, he’ll know it by instinct, as soon as he comes in. He’s terribly subtle,” she said; and she added that she had never been able to hide anything from him. Perhaps this served her right—for attempting to make a mystery of things not worth it.
“How well you know him!” the fiddler commented while his eyes wandered again to Madame Grandoni, who paid no attention to him as she sat staring at the fire. He delayed visibly to say what he had come for, and his hesitation could only be connected with the presence of the old lady. He considered that the Princess might have divined this from his manner; he had an idea he could trust himself to convey such an intimation with clearness and yet with delicacy. But the most she appeared to apprehend was that he desired to be presented to her companion. “You must know the most delightful of women. She also takes a particular interest in Mr. Robinson: of a different kind from mine—much more sentimental!” And then she explained to her friend, who seemed absorbed in other ideas, that Mr. Vetch was a distinguished musician, a person whom she, who had known so many in her day and was so fond of that kind of thing, would like to talk with. The Princess spoke of “that kind of thing” quite as if she herself had given it up, though Madame Grandoni often heard her by the hour together improvising at the piano revolutionary battle-songs and pæans.
“I think you’re laughing at me,” Mr. Vetch said to her while the other figure twisted itself slowly round in its chair and regarded him. It looked at him conveniently, up and down, and then sighed out:
“Strange people—strange people!”
“It’s indeed a strange world, madam,” the fiddler replied; after which he inquired of the Princess if he might have a little conversation with her in private.