Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 3.djvu/231

 what he came for? To beg me, on his knees, to snatch you away.'

'To snatch me away?'

'From the danger that hangs over you. Poor man, he was very pathetic.'

'Oh yes, he has talked to me about it,' Hyacinth said. 'He has picked up the idea, but he knows nothing whatever about it. And how did he expect that you would be able to snatch me?'

'He left that to me; he had only a general conviction of my influence with you.'

'And he thought you would exercise it to make me back out? He does you injustice; you wouldn't!' Hyacinth exclaimed, with a laugh. 'In that case, taking one false position with another, yours would be no better than mine.'

'Oh, speaking seriously, I am perfectly quiet about you and about myself. I know you won't be called,' the Princess returned.

'May I inquire how you know it?'

After a slight hesitation she replied, 'Mr. Muniment tells me so.'

'And how does he know it?'

'We have information. My dear fellow,' the Princess went on, 'you are so much out of it now that if I were to tell you, you wouldn't understand.'

'Yes, no doubt I am out of it; but I still have a right to say, all the same, in contradiction to your imputation of a moment ago, that I care for the people exactly as much as I ever did.'

'My poor Hyacinth, my dear infatuated little aristocrat, was that ever very much?' the Princess asked.