To which she answered: “Of course I do—that’s exactly what I mean. How else does one know one has gone far enough? That poor, dear woman’s an angel, yet isn’t in the least in it,” she added in a moment. She would give him no further satisfaction on the subject; when he pressed her she asked if he had brought the copy of Browning he had promised the last time. If he had he was to sit down and read it to her. In such a case as this Hyacinth had no disposition to insist; he was glad enough not to talk about the everlasting nightmare. He took Men and Women from his pocket and read aloud for twenty minutes; but on his making some remark on one of the poems at the end of this time he noted that his companion had paid no attention. When he charged her with this levity she only replied, looking at him musingly: “How can one, after all, go too far? That’s the word of cowards.”
“Do you mean her ladyship’s a coward?”
“Yes, in not having the courage of her opinions, of her conclusions. The way the English can go half-way to a thing and then stick in the middle!” the Princess exclaimed impatiently.
“That’s not your fault, certainly!” said Hyacinth. “But it seems to me Lady Aurora, for herself, goes pretty far.”
“We’re all afraid of some things and brave about others,” his friend pursued.
“The thing Lady Aurora’s most afraid of is the Princess Casamassima,” Hyacinth returned.
His companion looked at him but wouldn’t take this up. “There’s one particular in which she would be very brave. She’d marry her friend—your friend—Mr. Muniment.”
“Marry him, do you think?”
“What else pray?” the Princess asked. “She adores the ground he walks on.”
“And what would Belgrave Square and Inglefield and all the rest of it say?”