Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 2.djvu/259

 to him to hear that she had been accepting the Captain's mediation, and this was not softened by her saying that she was too impatient to wait for his own return; he was apparently so happy on the Continent that one couldn't be sure it would ever take place. The Princess might at least have been sure that to see her again very soon was still more necessary to his happiness than anything the Continent could offer.

It came out in the conversation he had with her, to which the others listened with respectful curiosity, that Captain Sholto had brought her a week before, but then, she had seen only Miss Muniment. 'I took the liberty of coming again, by myself, to-day, because I wanted to see the whole family,' the Princess remarked, looking from Paul to Lady Aurora, with a friendly gaiety in her face which purified the observation (as regarded her ladyship), of impertinence. The Princess added, frankly, that she had now been careful to arrive at an hour when she thought Mr. Muniment might be at home. 'When I come to see gentlemen, I like at least to find them,' she continued, and she was so great a lady that there was no small diffidence in her attitude; it was a simple matter for her to call on a chemist's assistant, if she had a reason. Hyacinth could see that the reason had already been brought forward—her immense interest in problems that Mr. Muniment had completely mastered, and in particular their common acquaintance with the extraordinary man whose mission it was to solve them. Hyacinth learned later that she had pronounced the name of Hoffendahl. A part of the lustre in Rosy's eye came no doubt from the explanation she had inevitably been moved to make