Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 2.djvu/16

 Madame Grandoni repeated, with a smile which was now distinctly facetious.

Prince Casamassima looked down at his boots. 'How can one ever know a person like that? I hoped she would see me for five minutes.'

'For what purpose? Have you anything to propose?'

'For what purpose? To rest my eyes on her beautiful face.'

'Did you come to England for that?'

'For what else should I have come?' the Prince inquired, turning his blighted gaze to the opposite side of South Street.

'In London, such a day as this, già,' said the old lady, sympathetically. 'I am very sorry for you; but if I had known you were coming I would have written to you that you might spare yourself the pain.'

The Prince gave a low, interminable sigh. 'You ask me what I wish to propose. What I wish to propose is that my wife does not kill me inch by inch.'

'She would be much more likely to do that if you lived with her!' Madame Grandoni cried.

'Cara signora, she doesn't appear to have killed you, the melancholy nobleman rejoined.

'Oh, me? I am past killing. I am as hard as a stone. I went through my miseries long ago; I suffered what you have not had to suffer; I wished for death many times, and I survived it all. Our troubles don't kill us, Prince; it is we who must try to kill them. I have buried not a few. Besides Christina is fond of me, God knows why!' Madame Grandoni added.