Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 3.djvu/61

 'Ay, she's a dear old girl!'

The Princess reflected that her visitor was not a gentleman, like Hyacinth; but this made no difference in her present attitude. The expectation that he would be a gentleman had had nothing to do with her interest in him; that, in fact, had rested largely on the supposition that he had a rich plebeian strain. 'I don't know that there is any one in the world I envy so much,' she remarked; an observation which her visitor received in silence. 'Better than any one I have ever met she has solved the problem—which, if we are wise, we all try to solve, don't we?—of getting out of herself. She has got out of herself more perfectly than any one I have ever known. She has merged herself in the passion of doing something for others. That's why I envy her,' said the Princess, with an explanatory smile, as if perhaps he didn't understand her.

'It's an amusement, like any other,' said Paul Muniment.

'Ah, not like any other! It carries light into dark places; it makes a great many wretched people considerably less wretched.'

'How many, eh?' asked the young man, not exactly as if he wished to dispute, but as if it were always in him to enjoy an argument.

The Princess wondered why he should desire to argue at Lady Aurora's expense. 'Well, one who is very near to you, to begin with.'

'Oh, she's kind, most kind; it's altogether wonderful. But Rosy makes her considerably less wretched,' Paul Muniment rejoined.