Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 3.djvu/123

 'Oh, I don't care if I worry her a little. Does she do it on purpose?' Rosy continued.

'You ladies must settle all that together,' Muniment answered, rubbing his hat with the cuff of his coat. It was a new one, the bravest he had ever possessed, and in a moment he put it on his head, as if to reinforce his reminder to his sister that it was time she should release him.

'Well, you do look genteel,' she remarked, complacently, gazing up at him. 'No wonder she has lost her head! I mean the Princess,' she explained. 'You never went to any such expense for her ladyship.'

'My dear, the Princess is worth it—she's worth it,' said the young man, speaking seriously now, and reflectively.

'Will she help you very much?' Rosy demanded, with a strange, sudden transition to eagerness.

'Well,' said Paul, 'that's rather what I look for.'

She threw herself forward on her sofa, with a movement that was rare with her, and shaking her clasped hands she exclaimed, 'Then go off, go off quickly!'

He came round and kissed her, as if he were not more struck than usual with her freakish inconsistency. 'It's not bad to have a little person at home who wants a fellow to succeed.'

'Oh, I know they will look after me,' she said, sinking back upon her pillow with an air of agreeable security.

He was aware that whenever she said 'they,' without further elucidation, she meant the populace surging up in his rear, and he rejoined, always hilarious, 'I don't think we'll leave it much to "them.

'No, it's not much you'll leave to them, I'll be bound.'