Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 2.djvu/269

 'I have sold them all, to give to the poor.'

'Ah, Princess!' the young man almost moaned; for the memory of some of her treasures was vivid within him.

She became very grave, even stern, and with an accent of reproach that seemed to show she had been wounded where she was most sensitive, she demanded, 'When I said I was willing to make the last sacrifice, did you then believe I was lying?'

'Haven't you kept anything?' Hyacinth went on, without heeding this challenge.

She looked at him a moment. 'I have kept you!' Then she took his arm, and they moved forward. He saw what she had done; she was living in a little ugly, bare, middle-class house and wearing simple gowns; and the energy and good faith of her behaviour, with the abruptness of the transformation, took away his breath. 'I thought I should please you so much,' she added, after they had gone a few steps. And before he had time to reply, as they came to a part of the street where there were small shops, those of butchers, greengrocers and pork-pie men, with open fronts, flaring lamps and humble purchasers, she broke out, joyously, 'Ah, this is the way I like to see London!'