Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 2.djvu/26

 'I don't think I am very wild,' said Hyacinth, smiling still. He though the old woman patronising, but he forgave her.

'I don't know how one speaks, in this country, to young men like you. Perhaps one is considered meddling, impertinent.'

'I like the way you speak,' Hyacinth interposed.

She stared, and then with a comical affectation of dignity, replied, 'You are very good. I am glad it amuses you. You are evidently intelligent and clever, she went on, 'and if you are disappointed it will be a pity.'

'How do you mean, if I am disappointed?' Hyacinth looked more grave.

'Well, I daresay you expect great things, when you come into a house like this. You must tell me if I wound you. I am very old-fashioned, and I am not of this country. I speak as one speaks to young men, like you, in other places.'

'I am not so easily wounded!' Hyacinth exclaimed, with a flight of imagination. 'To expect anything, one must know something, one must understand: isn't it so? And I am here without knowing, without understanding. I have come only because a lady who seems to me very beautiful and very kind has done me the honour to send for me.'

Madame Grandoni examined him a moment, as if she were struck by his good looks, by something delicate that was stamped upon him everywhere. 'I can see you are very clever, very intelligent; no, you are not like the young men I mean. All the more reason'And she paused, giving a little sigh. 'I want to warn you a little,