Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 2.djvu/36

 varied in the two women as much as the face and the manner, and that perhaps made their curiosity the more significant.

'I haven't the least doubt of it: there is nothing in life in which I have not been awfully disappointed. But disappointment for disappointment I shall like it better than some others. You'll not persuade me, either, that among the people I speak of, characters and passions and motives are not more natural, more complete, more naïf. The upper classes are so insipid! My husband traces his descent from the fifth century, and he's the greatest bore on earth. That is the kind of people I was condemned to live with after my marriage. Oh, if you knew what I have been through, you would allow that intelligent mechanics (of course I don't want to know idiots), would be a pleasant change. I must begin with some one—mustn't I?—so I began, the other night, with you!' As soon as she had uttered these words the Princess added a correction, with the consciousness of her mistake in her face. It made that face, to Hyacinth, more nobly, tenderly pure. 'The only objection to you, individually, is that you have nothing of the people about you—to-day not even the dress.' Her eyes wandered over him from head to foot, and their friendly beauty made him ashamed. 'I wish you had come in the clothes you wear at your work!'

'You see you do regard me as a curious animal,' he answered.

It was perhaps to contradict this that, after a moment, she began to tell him more about her domestic affairs. He ought to know who she was, unless Captain Sholto had told him; and she related her parentage—American on the