Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 1.djvu/154

 Muniment asked, laying his hand on Hyacinth's shoulder, and shaking it gently.

'Don't you belong to the party of action?' said Hyacinth, solemnly.

'Look at the way he has picked up all the silly bits of catchwords!' Paul cried, laughing, to his sister. 'You must have got that precious phrase out of the newspapers, out of some drivelling leader. Is that the party you want to belong to?' he went on, with his clear eyes ranging over his diminutive friend.

'If you'll show me the thing itself I shall have no more occasion to mind the newspapers,' Hyacinth pleaded. It was his view of himself, and it was not an unfair one, that his was a character that would never beg for a favour; but now he felt that in any relation he might have with Paul Muniment such a law would be suspended. This man he could entreat, pray to, go on his knees to, without a sense of humiliation.

'What thing do you mean, infatuated, deluded youth?' Paul went on, refusing to be serious.

'Well, you know you do go to places you had far better keep out of, and that often when I lie here and listen to steps on the stairs I'm sure they are coming in to make a search for your papers,' Miss Muniment lucidly interposed.

'The day they find my papers, my dear, will be the day you'll get up and dance.'

'What did you ask me to come home with you for?' Hyacinth demanded, twirling his hat. It was an effort for him, for a moment, to keep the tears out of his eyes; he found himself forced to put such a different construction on