Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 1.djvu/233

 'Secrets? What secrets could you tell her, my pretty lad?'

Hyacinth stared a moment. 'You don't trust me—you never have.'

'We will, some day—don't be afraid,' said Muniment, who, evidently, had no intention of unkindness, a thing that appeared to be impossible to him. 'And when we do, you'll cry with disappointment.'

'Well, you won't,' Hyacinth declared. And then he asked whether his friend thought the Princess Casamassima a spy; and why, if she were in that line, Mr. Sholto was not inasmuch as it must be supposed he was not, since they had seen fit to let him walk in and out, at that rate, in the place in Bloomsbury. Muniment did not even know whom he meant, not having had any relations with the gentleman; but he summoned a sufficient image when his companion had described the Captain's appearance. He then remarked, with his usual geniality, that he didn't take him for a spy—he took him for an ass; but even if he had edged himself into the place with every intention to betray them, what handle could he possibly get—what use, against them, could he make of anything he had seen or heard? If he had a fancy to dip into working-men's clubs (Muniment remembered, now, the first night he came; he had been brought by that German cabinetmaker, who had a stiff neck and smoked a pipe with a bowl as big as a stove); if it amused him to put on a bad hat, and inhale foul tobacco, and call his 'inferiors' 'my dear fellow'; if he thought that in doing so he was getting an insight into the people and going half-way to meet them and preparing for what was coming—all this was his own affair, and he was very welcome,