Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 3.djvu/240

 at which their conversation had arrived, there was a natural difficulty in his delivering himself. But presently he raised his head, showing a face still slightly embarrassed but none the less bright and frank. 'I have no intention whatever of saying anything harsh or offensive to you, but since you challenge me perhaps it is well that I should let you know that I do consider that in giving your money—or, rather, your husband's—to our business you gave the most valuable thing you had to contribute.'

'This is the day of plain truths!' the Princess exclaimed, with a laugh that was not expressive of pleasure. 'You don't count then any devotion, any intelligence, that I may have placed at your service, even rating my faculties modestly?'

'I count your intelligence, but I don't count your devotion, and one is nothing without the other. You are not trusted at headquarters.'

'Not trusted!' the Princess repeated, with her splendid stare. 'Why, I thought I could be hanged to-morrow!'

'They may let you hang, perfectly, without letting you act. You are liable to be weary of us,' Paul Muniment went on; 'and, indeed, I think you are weary of us already.'

'Ah, you must be a first-rate man—you are such a brute!' replied the Princess, who noticed, as she had noticed before, that he pronounced 'weary' weery.

'I didn't say you were weary of me,' said Muniment, blushing again. 'You can never live poor—you don't begin to know the meaning of it.'

'Oh, no, I am not tired of you,' the Princess returned, in a strange tone. 'In a moment you will make me cry with passion, and no man has done that for years. I was