Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/271

 The Cavaliere gave a little cough and began to wipe his eye-glass.

"Stupendous!" said Christina. "To go from one end to the other the Prince must have out his golden coach." This was apparently an allusion to one of the other items of the young man's grandeur.

"You always laugh at me," said the Prince. "I know no more what to say."

She looked at him with a sad smile and shook her head. "No, no, dear Prince, I don't laugh at you. Heaven forbid! You 're much too serious an affair. I assure you I feel your importance. What did you inform us was the value of the hereditary diamonds of the Princess Casamassima?"

"Ah, you 're laughing at me yet!" said the young man, who had turned rather pale and stiff.

"It does n't matter," Christina went on. "We 've a note of it; mamma writes all those things down in a little book!"

"If you 're laughed at, dear Prince, at least it 's in company," said Mrs. Light caressingly; and she took his arm as if to combat his possible displacement under the shock of her daughter's sarcasm. But the Prince looked heavy-eyed at Rowland and Roderick, to whom the girl was turning, as if he had much rather his lot were cast with theirs.

"Is the villa inhabited?" Christina asked, pointing to the vast melancholy structure that rises above the terrace.

"Not privately," said Roderick. "It 's occupied by a Jesuits' college for little boys."

"Can women go in?" 237