Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 3.djvu/167

 Hyacinth inquired, putting his hand into her arm. 'I'll tell you anything you like.'

'I dare say you'll tell me a lot of trash! Certainly, I tried kindness,' Miss Henning declared.

'Try it again; don't give it up,' said her companion, strolling along with her in close association.

She stopped short, detaching herself, though not with intention. 'Well, then, has she—has she chucked you over?'

Hyacinth turned his eyes away; he looked at the green expanse, misty and sunny, dotted with Sunday-keeping figures which made it seem larger; at the wooded boundary of the Park, beyond the grassy moat of Kensington Gardens; at a shining reach of the Serpentine on the one side and the far façades of Bayswater, brightened by the fine weather and the privilege of their view, on the other. 'Well, you know I rather think so,' he replied, in a moment.

'Ah, the nasty brute!' cried Millicent, as they resumed their walk.

Upwards of an hour later they were sitting under the great trees of Kensington Gardens, those scattered over the slope which rises gently from the side of the water most distant from the old red palace. They had taken possession of a couple of the chairs placed there for the convenience of that part of the public for which a penny is not, as the French say, an affair, and Millicent, of whom such speculations were highly characteristic, had devoted considerable conjecture to the question whether the functionary charged with collecting the said penny would omit to come and ask for his fee. Miss Henning liked to enjoy her pleasures gratis, as well as to see others do so, and even