Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 1.djvu/87

 to opportunity, 'Miss 'Enning wouldn't live in Lomax Place for the world. She thinks it too abominably low.'

'So it is; it's a beastly hole,' said the young man.

The poor dressmaker's little dart fell to the ground, and Millicent exclaimed, jovially, 'Right you are!' while she directed to the object of her childhood's admiration a smile that put him more and more at his ease.

'Don't you suppose I'm clever?' he asked, planted before her with his little legs slightly apart, while, with his hands behind him, he made the open door waver to and fro.

'You? Oh, I don't care whether you are or not!' said Millicent Henning; and Hyacinth was at any rate quick-witted enough to see what she meant by that. If she meant he was so good-looking that he might pass on this score alone her judgment was conceivable, though many women would strongly have dissented from it. He was as small as he had threatened—he had never got his growth—and she could easily see that he was not what she, at least, would call strong. His bones were small, his chest was narrow, his complexion pale, his whole figure almost childishly slight; and Millicent perceived afterward that he had a very delicate hand—the hand, as she said to herself, of a gentleman. What she liked was his face, and something jaunty and entertaining, almost theatrical in his whole little person. Miss Henning was not acquainted with any member of the dramatic profession, but she supposed, vaguely, that that was the way an actor would look in private life. Hyacinth's features were perfect; his eyes, large and much divided, had as their usual expression a kind of witty candour, and a small, soft, fair moustache