Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 3.djvu/40

 's affiliations; so she stared abstractedly at the piano and in a moment remarked to the Princess, 'I am sure you play awfully well; I should like so much to hear you.'

Hyacinth felt that their hostess thought this banal. She had not asked Lady Aurora to spend the evening with her simply that they should fall back on the resources of the vulgar. Nevertheless, she replied with perfect good-nature that she should be delighted to play; only there was a thing she should like much better, namely, that Lady Aurora should narrate her life.

'Oh, don't talk about mine; yours, yours!' her ladyship cried, colouring with eagerness and, for the first time since her arrival, indulging in the free gesture of laying her hand upon that of the Princess.

'With so many narratives in the air, I certainly had better take myself off,' said Hyacinth, and the Princess offered no opposition to his departure. She and Lady Aurora were evidently on the point of striking up a tremendous intimacy, and as he turned this idea over, walking away, it made him sad, for strange, vague reasons, which he could not have expressed.