Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 3.djvu/88

 a long time that it was either Muniment or you that had got him into his scrape. It was you I suspected most—much the most; but if it isn't you, it must be he.'

'You had better go to him, then!'

'Of course I will go to him. I scarcely know him—I have seen him but once—but I will speak my mind.'

The Princess rang for her maid to usher the fiddler out, but at the moment he laid his hand on the door of the room she checked him with a quick gesture. 'Now that I think of it, don't go to Mr. Muniment. It will be better to leave him quiet. Leave him to me,' she added, smiling.

'Why not, why not?' he pleaded. And as she could not tell him on the instant why not, he asked, 'Doesn't he know?'

'No, he doesn't know; he has nothing to do with it.' She suddenly found herself desiring to protect Paul Muniment from the imputation that was in Mr. Vetch's mind—the imputation of an ugly responsibility; and though she was not a person who took the trouble to tell fibs, this repudiation, on his behalf, issued from her lips before she could check it. It was a result of the same desire, though it was also an inconsequence, that she added, 'Don't do that—you'll spoil everything!' She went to him, suddenly eager, and herself opened the door for him. 'Leave him to me—leave him to me,' she continued, persuasively, while the fiddler, gazing at her, dazzled and submissive, allowed himself to be wafted away. A thought that excited her had come to her with a bound, and after she had heard the house door close behind Mr. Vetch she walked up and down the room half an hour, restlessly, under the possession of it.