Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 3.djvu/59

 Presently he was sitting opposite to her, on the other side of the fire, with his big foot crossed over his big knee, his large, gloved hands fumbling with each other, drawing and smoothing the gloves (of very red, new-looking dogskin) in places, as if they hurt him. So far as the size of his extremities, and even his attitude and movement, went, he might have belonged to her former circle. With the details of his dress remaining vague in the lamp-light, which threw into relief mainly his powerful, important head, he might have been one of the most considerable men she had ever known. The first thing she said to him was that she wondered extremely what had brought him at last to come to see her: the idea, when she proposed it, evidently had so little attraction for him. She had only seen him once since then—the day she met him coming into Audley Court as she was leaving it, after a visit to his sister and, as he probably remembered, she had not on that occasion repeated her invitation.

'It wouldn't have done any good, at the time, if you had,' Muniment rejoined, with his natural laugh.

'Oh, I felt that; my silence wasn't accidental!' the Princess exclaimed, joining in his merriment.

'I have only come now—since you have asked me the reason—because my sister hammered at me, week after week, dinning it into me that I ought to. Oh, I've been under the lash! If she had left me alone I wouldn't have come.'

The Princess blushed on hearing these words, but not with shame or with pain; rather with the happy excitement of being spoken to in a manner so fresh and original. She