Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 2.djvu/18

 'You mean it should give me more hope for the future?' the young man asked, quickly.

Madame Grandoni hesitated a moment. 'I mean it's better for me,' she answered, with a laugh of which the friendly ring covered as much as possible her equivocation.

'Ah, you like me enough to care,' he murmured, turning on her his sad, grateful eyes.

'I am very sorry for you. Ma che vuole?'

The Prince had, apparently, nothing to suggest, and he only exhaled, in reply, another gloomy groan. Then he inquired whether his wife pleased herself in that country, and whether she intended to pass the summer in London. Would she remain long in England, and—might he take the liberty to ask?—what were her plans? Madame Grandoni explained that the Princess had found the British metropolis much more to her taste than one might have expected, and that as for plans, she had as many, or as few, as she had always had. Had he ever known her to carry out any arrangement, or to do anything, of any kind, she had selected or determined upon? She always, at the last moment, did the other thing, the one that had been out of the question; and it was for this that Madame Grandoni herself privately made her preparations. Christina, now that everything was over, would leave London from one day to the other; but they should not know where they were going until they arrived. The old lady concluded by asking the Prince if he himself liked England. He thrust forward his thick lips. 'How can I like anything? Besides, I have been here before; I have friends,' he said.