Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 2.djvu/188

 and a kind of solution. Lady Aurora sat down beside him and laid her finger-tips gently on his hand. So, for a minute, while his tears flowed and she said nothing, he felt her timid, consoling touch. At the end of the minute he raised his head; it came back to him that she had said 'we' just before, and he asked her whom she meant.

'Oh, Mr. Vetch, don't you know? I have made his acquaintance; it's impossible to be more kind.' Then, while, for an instant, Hyacinth was silent, wincing, pricked with the thought that Pinnie had been beholden to the fiddler while he was masquerading in high life, Lady Aurora added, 'He's a charming musician. She asked him once, at first, to bring his violin; she thought it would soothe her.'

'I'm much obliged to him, but now that I'm here we needn't trouble him,' said Hyacinth.

Apparently there was a certain dryness in his tone, which was the cause of her ladyship's venturing to reply, after an hesitation, 'Do let him come, Mr. Robinson; let him be near you! I wonder whether you know that—that he has a great affection for you.'

'The more fool he; I have always treated him like a brute!' Hyacinth exclaimed, colouring.

The way Lady Aurora spoke proved to him, later, that she now definitely did know his secret, or one of them, rather; for at the rate things had been going for the last few months he was making a regular collection. She knew the smaller—not, of course, the greater; she had, decidedly, been illuminated by Pinnie's divagations. At the moment he made that reflection, however, he was almost startled to perceive how completely he had ceased to resent such