Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 2.djvu/75

 air alone the better for her respectability, she had asked how respectable he thought she pretended to be, and had remarked that if he would make her a present of a brougham, or even call for her three or four times a week in a cab, she would doubtless preserve more of her social purity. She could turn the tables quickly enough, and she exclaimed, now, professing, on her own side, great astonishment—

'What are you prowling about here for? You're after no good, I'll be bound!'

'Good evening, Miss Henning; what a jolly meeting!' said the Captain, removing his hat with a humorous flourish.

'Oh, how d'ye do?' Millicent returned, as if she did not immediately place him.

'Where were you going so fast? What are you doing?' asked Hyacinth, who had looked from one to the other.

'Well, I never did see such a manner—from one that knocks about like you!' cried Miss Henning. 'I'm going to see a friend of mine—a lady's-maid in Curzon Street. Have you anything to say to that?'

'Don't tell us—don't tell us!' Sholto interposed, after she had spoken (she had not hesitated an instant). 'I, at least, disavow the indiscretion. Where may not a charming woman be going when she trips with a light foot through the gathering dusk?'

'I say, what are you talking about?' the girl inquired, with dignity, of Hyacinth's companion. She spoke as if with a resentful suspicion that her foot had not really been perceived to be light.