Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/279

 for our friends that they too are children of the great Mother. He 's as you see him there: a young man without many ideas, but with a very firm grasp of a single one—the conviction that Prince Casamassima is a very great person, that he greatly honours any young lady by asking for her hand, and that things are going very strangely when the young lady turns her back upon him. The poor young man 's terribly puzzled. But I whisper to him every day 'Pazienza, Signor Principe!"

"So you firmly believe," said Rowland in conclusion, "that Miss Light will accept him just in time not to lose him?"

"I count upon it. She would fill a great position too perfectly to miss her destiny."

"And you hold that nevertheless, in the meanwhile, in allowing any sort of voice about it to my friend Hudson, she will have been acting in good faith?"

The Cavaliere lifted his shoulders a trifle, and gave an inscrutable smile. "Eh, caro signore, our young lady 's very romantic!"

"So much so, you intimate, that she'll eventually give way in consequence not of a change of sentiment, but of a mysterious outward pressure?"

"If everything else fails, there 's that resource. But it will be mysterious, as you say, and you need n't try to guess it. You won't make it out."

"It will be something then at least by which Miss Light will suffer?"

"Not too much, I hope."

"And the remarkable young man? I understand 245