Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 2.djvu/160

 I have related the whole of this conversation, because it supplies a highly important chapter of Hyacinth's history, but it will not be possible to trace all the stages through which the friendship of the Princess Casamassima with the young man she had constituted her bookbinder was confirmed. By the end of a week the standard of fitness she had set up in the place of exploded proprieties appeared the model of justice and convenience; and during this period many other things happened. One of them was that Hyacinth drove over to Broome with his hostess, and called on Lady Marchant and her daughters; an episode from which the Princess appeared to derive an exquisite gratification. When they came away he asked her why she hadn't told the ladies who he was. Otherwise, where was the point? And she replied, 'Simply because they wouldn't have believed me. That's your fault!' This was the same note she had struck when, the third day of his stay (the weather had changed for the worse, and a rainy afternoon kept them in-doors), she remarked to him, irrelevantly and abruptly, 'It is most extraordinary, your knowing about Schopenhauer!' He answered that she really seemed quite unable to accustom herself to his little talents; and this led to a long talk, longer than the one I have already narrated, in which he took her still further into his confidence. Never had the pleasure of conversation (the greatest he knew), been so largely opened to him. The Princess admitted, frankly, that he would, to her sense, take a great deal of accounting for; she observed that he was, no doubt, pretty well used to himself, but he must give other people time. 'I have watched you, constantly, since you have been here, in