Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 1.djvu/135

 knew more of the world he remembered this tone of Muniment's sister (he was to have plenty of observation of it on other occasions) as that of a person who was in the habit of visiting the nobility at their country-seats; she talked about Inglefield as if she had stayed there.

'Hullo, I didn't know you were so advanced!' exclaimed Paul Muniment, who had been sitting silent, sidewise, in a chair that was too narrow for him, with his big arm hugging the back. 'Have we been entertaining an angel unawares?'

Hyacinth seemed to see that he was laughing at him, but he knew the way to face that sort of thing was to exaggerate his meaning. 'You didn't know I was advanced? Why, I thought that was the principal thing about me. I think I go about as far as it is possible to go.'

'I thought the principal thing about you was that you knew French,' Paul Muniment said, with an air of derision which showed Hyacinth that he wouldn't put that ridicule upon him unless he liked him, at the same time that it revealed to him that he himself had just been posturing a little.

'Well, I don't know it for nothing. I'll say something very neat and sharp to you, if you don't look out—just the sort of thing they say so much in French.'

'Oh, do say something of that kind; we should enjoy it so much!' cried Rosy, in perfect good faith, clasping her hands in expectation.

The appeal was embarrassing, but Hyacinth was saved from the consequences of it by a remark from Lady Aurora, who quavered out the words after two or