Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 1.djvu/203

 Hyacinth was preoccupied with the idea of meeting the most remarkable woman in Europe; but at this juncture he looked at Millicent Henning with some curiosity. She rose to the situation, and replied, 'I am much obliged to you, but I don't know who you are.'

'Oh, I'll tell you all about that!' the Captain exclaimed, benevolently.

'Of course I should introduce you,' said Hyacinth, and he mentioned to Miss Henning the name of his distinguished acquaintance.

'In the army?' the young lady inquired, as if she must have every guarantee of social position.

'Yes—not in the navy! I have left the army, but it always sticks to one.'

'Mr. Robinson, is it your intention to leave me?' Millicent asked, in a tone of the highest propriety.

Hyacinth's imagination had taken such a flight that the idea of what he owed to the beautiful girl who had placed herself under his care for the evening had somehow effaced itself. Her words put it before him in a manner that threw him quickly and consciously back upon his honour; yet there was something in the way she uttered them that made him look at her harder still before he replied, 'Oh dear, no, of course it would never do. I must defer to some other occasion the honour of making the acquaintance of your friend,' he added, to Captain Sholto.

'Ah, my dear fellow, we might manage it so easily now,' this gentleman murmured, with evident disappointment. 'It is not as if Miss—a—Miss—a—were to be alone.'