Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 2.djvu/137

 her attentions? Perhaps you can think of me as—what shall I call it?—as a kind of coquette.'

Hyacinth demurred. 'That would be very conceited.'

'Surely, you have the right to be as conceited as you please, after the advances I have made you! Pray, who has a better one? But you persist in remaining humble, and that is very provoking.'

'It is not I that am provoking; it is life, and society, and all the difficulties that surround us.'

'I am precisely of that opinion—that they are exasperating; that when I appeal to you, frankly, candidly, disinterestedly—simply because I like you, for no other reason in the world—to help me to disregard and surmount these obstructions, to treat them with the contempt they deserve, you drop your eyes, you even blush a little, and make yourself small, and try to edge out of the situation by pleading general devotion and insignificance. Please remember this: you cease to be insignificant from the moment I have anything to do with you. My dear fellow,' the Princess went on, in her free, audacious, fraternising way, to which her beauty and simplicity gave nobleness, 'there are people who would be very glad to enjoy, in your place, that form of obscurity.'

'What do you wish me to do?' Hyacinth asked, as quietly as he could.

If he had had an idea that this question, to which, as coming from his lips, and even as being uttered with perceptible impatience, a certain unexpectedness might attach, would cause her a momentary embarrassment, he was completely out in his calculation. She answered on the instant: 'I want you to give me time! That's all I ask of