Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 2.djvu/140

 in Soho) to accept money from a woman; and second, that it was still more indelicate to make such a woman as that go down on her knees to him. But it took more than a minute for one of these convictions to prevail over the other, and before that he had heard the Princess continue, in the tone of mild, disinterested argument: 'If we believe in the coming democracy, if it seems to us right and just, and we hold that in sweeping over the world the great wave will wash away a myriad iniquities and cruelties, why not make some attempt, with our own poor means—for one must begin somewhere—to carry out the spirit of it in our lives and our manners? I want to do that. I try to do it—in my relations with you, for instance. But you hang back; you are not democratic!'

The Princess accusing him of a patrician offishness was a very fine stroke; nevertheless it left him lucidity enough (though he still hesitated an instant, wondering whether the words would not offend her) to say, with a smile, 'I have been strongly warned against you.'

The offence seemed not to touch her. 'I can easily understand that. Of course my proceedings—though, after all, I have done little enough as yet—must appear most unnatural. Che vuole? as Madame Grandoni says.'

A certain knot of light blue ribbon, which formed part of the trimming of her dress, hung down, at her side, in the folds of it. On these glossy loops Hyacinth's eyes happened for a moment to have rested, and he now took one of them up and carried it to his lips. 'I will do all the work for you that you will give me. If you give it on purpose, by way of munificence, that is your own affair. I myself will estimate the price. What decides me is that I