Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 3.djvu/126

 'Surely, Mr. Muniment. Don't you?'

'God forbid! I hope to have as little of it as possible.'

'Of course one doesn't want any vague rodomontade; one wants to do something. But it would be hard if one couldn't have a little pleasure by the way.'

'My pleasure is in quietness,' said Paul Muniment, smiling.

'So is mine. But it depends on how you understand it. Quietness, I mean, in the midst of a tumult.'

'You have rare ideas about tumults. They are not good in themselves.'

The Princess considered this a moment; then she remarked, 'I wonder if you are too prudent. I shouldn't like that. If it is made an accusation against you that you have been—where we are going—shall you deny it?'

'With that prospect it would be simpler not to go at all, wouldn't it?' Muniment inquired.

'Which prospect do you mean? That of being found out, or that of having to lie?'

'I suppose that if you lie you are not found out,' Muniment replied, humorously.

'You won't take me seriously,' said the Princess. She spoke without irritation, without resentment, with a kind of resigned sadness. But there was a certain fineness of reproach in the tone in which she added, 'I don't believe you want to go at all.'

'Why else should I have come, especially if I don't take you seriously?'

'That has never been a reason for a man's not going to see a woman,' said the Princess. 'It's usually a reason in favour of it.'