Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 3.djvu/214

 fitting of which was in this manner vividly illustrated. He stopped and considered this mysterious brightness, and his first impulse was to connect it with the incident just ushered in by Schinkel; for what could anything that touched him now be but a part of the same business? It was natural that some punctual emissary should be awaiting him. Then it occurred to him that when he went out to call on Lady Aurora, after tea, he had simply left a tallow candle burning, and that it showed a cynical spirit on the part of his landlady, who could be so close-fisted for herself, not to have gone in and put it out. Lastly, it came over him that he had had a visitor, in his absence, and that the visitor had taken possession of his apartment till his return, seeking sources of comfort, as was perfectly just. When he opened the door he found that this last prevision was the right one, though his visitor was not one of the figures that had risen before him. Mr. Vetch sat there, beside the little table at which Hyacinth did his writing, with his head resting on his hand and his eyes bent on the floor. He looked up when Hyacinth appeared, and said, 'Oh, I didn't hear you; you are very quiet.'

'I come in softly, when I'm late, for the sake of the house—though I am bound to say I am the only lodger who has that refinement. Besides, you have been asleep,' Hyacinth said.

'No, I have not been asleep,' returned the old man. 'I don't sleep much nowadays.'

'Then you have been plunged in meditation.'

'Yes, I have been thinking.' Then Mr. Vetch explained that the woman of the house wouldn't let him come in, at first, till he had given proper assurances that his intentions