Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 2.djvu/113

 forgot the outer world, and the morning waned—the beautiful vernal Sunday—while he lingered there.

He was on the top of a ladder when he heard a voice remark, 'I am afraid they are very dusty; in this house, you know, it is the dust of centuries;' and, looking down, he saw Madame Grandoni stationed in the middle of the room. He instantly prepared to descend, to make her his salutation, when she exclaimed, 'Stay, stay, if you are not giddy; we can talk from here! I only came in to show you we are in the house, and to tell you to keep up your patience. The Princess will probably see you in a few hours.'

'I really hope so,' said Hyacinth, from his perch, rather dismayed at the 'probably.'

'Natürlich,' the old lady rejoined; 'but people have come, sometimes, and gone away without seeing her. It all depends upon her mood.'

'Do you mean even when she has sent for them?'

'Oh, who can tell whether she has sent for them or not?'

'But she sent for me, you know,' Hyacinth declared, staring down—struck with the odd effect of Madame Grandoni's wig in that bird's-eye view.

'Oh yes, she sent for you, poor young man!' The old lady looked up at him with a smile, and they remained a moment exchanging a silent scrutiny. Then she added, 'Captain Sholto has come, like that, more than once; and he has gone away no better off.'

'Captain Sholto?' Hyacinth repeated.

'Very true, if we talk at this distance I must shut the door.' She took her way back to it (she had left it open), and pushed it to; then advanced into the room again, with her superannuated, shuffling step, walking as if her shoes