Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 2.djvu/139

 now that you are going. But that has nothing to do with the business. She has so little imagination!'

Hyacinth shook his head, smiling. 'I can't stay!' He had an idea his mind was made up.

She returned his smile, but there was something strangely touching—it was so sad, yet, as a rebuke, so gentle—in the tone in which she replied, 'You oughtn't to force me to beg. It isn't nice.'

He had reckoned without that tone; all his reasons suddenly seemed to fall from under him, to liquefy. He remained a moment, looking on the ground; then he said, 'Princess, you have no idea—how should you have?—into the midst of what abject, pitiful preoccupations you thrust yourself. I have no money—I have no clothes.'

'What do you want of money? This isn't an hotel.'

'Every day I stay here I lose a day's wages; and I live on my wages from day to day.'

'Let me, then, give you wages. You will work for me.'

'What do you mean—work for you?'

'You will bind all my books. I have ever so many foreign ones, in paper.'

'You speak as if I had brought my tools!'

'No, I don't imagine that. I will give you the wages now, and you can do the work, at your leisure and convenience, afterwards. Then, if you want anything, you can go over to Bonchester and buy it. There are very good shops; I have used them.' Hyacinth thought of a great many things at this juncture; the Princess had that quickening effect upon him. Among others, he thought of these two: first, that it was indelicate (though such an opinion was not very strongly held either in Pentonville or