Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 3.djvu/65

 an expression of the most passionate yet the purest longing. 'I want to do something for the cause you represent; for the millions that are rotting under our feet—the millions whose whole life is passed on the brink of starvation, so that the smallest accident pushes them over. Try me, test me; ask me to put my hand to something, to prove that I am as deeply in earnest as those who have already given proof. I know what I am talking about—what one must meet and face and count with, the nature and the immensity of your organisation. I am not playing. No, I am not playing.'

Paul Muniment watched her with his steady smile until this sudden outbreak had spent itself. 'I was afraid you would be like this—that you would turn on the fountains and let off the fireworks.'

'Permit me to believe you thought nothing about it. There is no reason my fireworks should disturb you.'

'I have always had a fear of women.'

'I see—that's a part of your prudence,' said the Princess, reflectively. 'But you are the sort of man who ought to know how to use them.'

Muniment said nothing, immediately, in answer to this; the way he appeared to consider the Princess suggested that he was not following closely what she said, so much as losing himself in certain matters which were beside that question—her beauty, for instance, her grace, her fragrance, the spectacle of a manner and quality so new to him. After a little, however, he remarked, irrelevantly, 'I'm afraid I'm very rude.'

'Of course you are, but it doesn't signify. What I mainly object to is that you don't answer my questions.