Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 1.djvu/120

 it made his name, which he liked well enough in English, sound like the name of a hair-dresser. Our young friend was under a cloud and a stigma, but he was not yet prepared to admit that he was ridiculous. 'Oh, I daresay I ain't anything,' he replied in a moment.

En v'là des bêtises! cried Madame Poupin. 'Do you mean to say you are not as good as any one in the world? I should like to see!'

'We all have an account to settle, don't you know?' said the strange young man.

He evidently meant this to be encouraging to Hyacinth, whose quick desire to avert M. Poupin's allusions had not been lost upon him; but our hero could see that he himself would be sure to be one of the first to be paid. He would make society bankrupt, but he would be paid. He was tall and fair and good-natured looking, but you couldn't tell—or at least Hyacinth couldn't—whether he were handsome or ugly, with his large head and square forehead, his thick, straight hair, his heavy mouth and rather vulgar nose, his admirably clear, bright eye, light-coloured and set very deep; for though there was a want of fineness in some of its parts, his face had a marked expression of intelligence and resolution, and denoted a kind of joyous moral health. He was dressed like a workman in his Sunday toggery, having evidently put on his best to call in Lisson Grove, where he was to meet a lady, and wearing in particular a necktie which was both cheap and pretentious, and of which Hyacinth, who noticed everything of that kind, observed the crude, false blue. He had very big shoes—the shoes, almost, of a country labourer—and spoke with a