Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 1.djvu/198

 way, as if he had known them both for years, and Millicent could see, on a nearer view, that he was a fine distinguished, easy, genial gentleman, at least six feet high, in spite of a habit, or an affectation, of carrying himself in a casual, relaxed, familiar manner. Hyacinth felt a little, after the first moment, as if he were treating them rather too much as a pair of children whom he had stolen upon, to startle; but this impression was speedily removed by the air with which he said, laying his hand on our hero's shoulder as he stood in the little passage at the end of the bench where the holders of Mr. Vetch's order occupied the first seats, 'My dear fellow, I really thought I must come round and speak to you. My spirits are all gone with this brute of a play. And those boxes are fearfully stuffy, you know,' he added, as if Hyacinth had had at least an equal experience of that part of the theatre.

'It's hot here, too,' Millicent's companion murmured. He had suddenly become much more conscious of the high temperature, of his proximity to the fierce chandelier, and he added that the plot of the play certainly was unnatural, though he thought the piece rather well acted.

'Oh, it's the good old stodgy British tradition. This is the only place where you find it still, and even here it can't last much longer; it can't survive old Baskerville and Mrs. Ruffler. 'Gad, how old they are! I remember her, long past her prime, when I used to be taken to the play, as a boy, in the Christmas holidays. Between them, they must be something like a hundred and eighty, eh? I believe one is supposed to cry a good deal about the middle,' Captain Sholto continued, in the same friendly, familiar, encouraging way, addressing himself to Millicent, upon