Part 44

“How can I persuade them? If I could, I wouldn’t have approached you. I have no influence, and even if I had my motives would be suspected. You are the one to interpose.”

“Shall I tell them he funks it?” Muniment asked.

“He doesn’t—he doesn’t!” exclaimed the Princess.

“On what ground, then, shall I put it?”

“Tell them he has changed his opinions.”

“Wouldn’t that be rather like denouncing him as a traitor, and doing it hypocritically?”

“Tell them then it’s simply my wish.”

“That won’t do _you_ much good,” Muniment said, with his natural laugh.

“Will it put me in danger? That’s exactly what I want.”

“Yes; but as I understand you, you want to suffer _for_ the people, not by them. You are very fond of Robinson; it couldn’t be otherwise,” the young man went on. “But you ought to remember that, in the line you have chosen, our affections, our natural ties, our timidities, our shrinkings—” His voice had become low and grave, and he paused a little, while the Princess’s deep and lovely eyes, attaching themselves to his face, showed that in an instant she was affected by this unwonted adjuration. He spoke now as if he were taking her seriously. “All those things are as nothing, and must never weigh a feather beside our service.”

The Princess began to draw on her gloves. “You’re a most extraordinary man.”

“That’s what Rosy tells me.”

“Why don’t you do it yourself?”

“Do Hyacinth’s job? Because it’s better to do my own.”

“And, pray, what is your own?”

“I don’t know,” said Paul Muniment, with perfect serenity and good-nature. “I expect to be instructed.”

“Have you taken an oath, like Hyacinth?”

“Ah, madam, the oaths _I_ take I don’t tell,” said the young man, gravely.

“Oh, you . . .!” the Princess murmured, with an ambiguous cadence. She appeared to dismiss the question, but to suggest at the same time that he was very abnormal. This imputation was further conveyed by the next words she uttered: “And can you see a dear friend whirled away like that?”

At this, for the first time, Paul Muniment exhibited a certain irritation. “You had better leave my dear friend to me.”

The Princess, with her eyes still fixed upon him, gave a long, soft sigh. “Well, then, shall we go?”

Muniment took up his hat again, but he made no movement toward the door. “If you did me the honour to seek my acquaintance, to ask me to come and see you, only in order to say what you have just said about Hyacinth, perhaps we needn’t carry out the form of going to the place you proposed. Wasn’t this only your pretext?”

“I believe you _are_ afraid!” the Princess exclaimed; but in spite of her exclamation the pair presently went out of the house. They quitted the door together, after having stood on the step for a moment, looking up and down, apparently for a cab. So far as the darkness, which was now complete, permitted the prospect to be scanned, there was no such vehicle within hail. They turned to the left, and after a walk of several minutes, during which they were engaged in small, dull by-streets, emerged upon a more populous way, where there were lighted shops and omnibuses and the evident chance of a hansom. Here they paused again, and very soon an empty hansom passed, and, at a sign, pulled up near them. Meanwhile, it should be recorded, they had been followed, at an interval, by a cautious figure, a person who, in Madeira Crescent, when they came out of the house, was stationed on the other side of the street, at a considerable distance. When they appeared he retreated a little, still however keeping them in sight. When they moved away he moved in the same direction, watching them but maintaining his distance. He drew nearer, seemingly because he could not control his eagerness, as they turned into Westbourne Grove, and during the minute they stood there he was exposed to recognition by the Princess if she had happened to turn her head. In the event of her having felt such an impulse she would have discovered, in the lamp-light, that her noble husband was hovering in her rear. But the Princess was otherwise occupied; she failed to see that at one moment he came so close as to suggest that he had an intention of addressing himself to the couple. The reader scarcely needs to be informed that his real intention was to satisfy himself as to the kind of person his wife was walking with. The time allowed him for this research was brief, especially as he had perceived, more rapidly than he sometimes perceived things, that they were looking for a vehicle and that with its assistance they would pass out of his range—a reflection which caused him to give half his attention to the business of hailing any second cab which should come that way. There are parts of London in which you may never see a cab at all, but there are none in which you may see only one; in accordance with which fortunate truth Prince Casamassima was able to wave his stick to good purpose as soon as the two objects of his pursuit had rattled away. Behind them now, in the gloom, he had no fear of being seen. In little more than an instant he had jumped into another hansom, the driver of which accompanied the usual exclamation of “All right, sir!” with a small, amused grunt, which the Prince thought eminently British, after he had hissed at him, over the hood, expressively, and in a manner by no means indicative of that nationality, the injunction, “Follow, follow, follow!”

XL

An hour after the Princess had left the house with Paul Muniment, Madame Grandoni came down to supper, a meal of which she partook, in gloomy solitude, in the little back parlour. She had pushed away her plate, and sat motionless, staring at the crumpled cloth, with her hands folded on the edge of the table, when she became aware that a gentleman had been ushered into the drawing-room and was standing before the fire in an attitude of discreet expectancy. At the same moment the maid-servant approached the old lady, remarking with bated breath, “The Prince, the Prince, mum! It’s you he ’ave asked for, mum!” Upon this, Madame Grandoni called out to the visitor from her place, addressed him as her poor illustrious friend and bade him come and give her his arm. He obeyed with solemn alacrity, and conducted her into the front room, near the fire. He helped her to arrange herself in her arm-chair and to gather her shawl about her; then he seated himself near her and remained with his dismal eyes bent upon her. After a moment she said, “Tell me something about Rome. The grass in the Villa Borghese must already be thick with flowers.”

“I would have brought you some, if I had thought,” he answered. Then he turned his gaze about the room. “Yes, you may well ask, in such a black little hole as this. My wife should not live here,” he added.

“Ah, my dear friend, for all that she’s your wife!” the old woman exclaimed.

The Prince sprang up in sudden, passionate agitation, and then she saw that the rigid quietness with which he had come into the room and greeted her was only an effort of his good manners. He was really trembling with excitement. “It is true—it is true! She _has_ lovers—she _has_ lovers!” he broke out. “I have seen it with my eyes, and I have come here to know!”

“I don’t know what you have seen, but your coming here to know will not have helped you much. Besides, if you have seen, you know for yourself. At any rate, I have ceased to be able to tell you.”

“You are afraid—you are afraid!” cried the visitor, with a wild accusatory gesture.

Madame Grandoni looked up at him with slow speculation. “Sit down and be tranquil, very tranquil. I have ceased to pay attention—I take no heed.”

“Well, I do, then,” said the Prince, subsiding a little. “Don’t you know she has gone out to a house, in a horrible quarter, with a man?”

“I think it highly probable, dear Prince.”

“And who is he? That’s what I want to discover.”

“How can I tell you? I haven’t seen him.”

He looked at her a moment, with his distended eyes. “Dear lady, is that kind to me, when I have counted on you?”

“Oh, I am not kind any more; it’s not a question of that. I am angry—as angry, almost, as you.”

“Then why don’t you watch her, eh?”

“It’s not with her I am angry. It’s with myself,” said Madame Grandoni, meditatively.

“For becoming so indifferent, do you mean?”

“On the contrary, for staying in the house.”

“Thank God, you are still here, or I couldn’t have come. But what a lodging for the Princess!” the visitor exclaimed. “She might at least live in a manner befitting.”

“Eh, the last time you were in London you thought it was too costly!” she cried.

He hesitated a moment. “Whatever she does is wrong. Is it because it’s so bad that you must go?” he went on.

“It is foolish—foolish—foolish,” said Madame Grandoni, slowly, impressively.

“Foolish, _chè, chè!_ He was in the house nearly an hour, this one.”

“In the house? In what house?”

“Here, where you sit. I saw him go in, and when he came out it was after a long time, with her.”

“And where were you, meanwhile?”

Again Prince Casamassima hesitated. “I was on the other side of the street. When they came out I followed them. It was more than an hour ago.”

“Was it for that you came to London?”

“Ah, what I came for! To put myself in hell!”

“You had better go back to Rome,” said Madame Grandoni.

“Of course I will go back, but if you will tell me who this one is! How can you be ignorant, dear friend, when he comes freely in and out of the house where I have to watch, at the door, for a moment that I can snatch? He was not the same as the other.”

“As the other?”

“Doubtless there are fifty! I mean the little one whom I met in the other house, that Sunday afternoon.”

“I sit in my room almost always now,” said the old woman. “I only come down to eat.”

“Dear lady, it would be better if you would sit here,” the Prince remarked.

“Better for whom?”

“I mean that if you did not withdraw yourself you could at least answer my questions.”

“Ah, but I have not the slightest desire to answer them,” Madame Grandoni replied. “You must remember that I am not here as your spy.”

“No,” said the Prince, in a tone of extreme and simple melancholy. “If you had given me more information I should not have been obliged to come here myself. I arrived in London only this morning, and this evening I spent two hours walking up and down opposite the house, like a groom waiting for his master to come back from a ride. I wanted a personal impression. It was so that I saw him come in. He is not a gentleman—not even like some of the strange ones here.”

“I think he is Scotch,” remarked Madame Grandoni.

“Ah, then, you _have_ seen him?”

“No, but I have heard him. He speaks very loud—the floors of this house are not built as we build in Italy—and his voice is the same that I have heard in the people of that country. Besides, she has told me—some things. He is a chemist’s assistant.”

“A chemist’s assistant? _Santo Dio!_ And the other one, a year ago—more than a year ago—was a bookbinder.”

“Oh, the bookbinder!” murmured Madame Grandoni.

“And does she associate with no people of good? Has she no other society?”

“For me to tell you more, Prince, you must wait till I am free,” said the old lady.

“How do you mean, free?”

“I must choose. I must either go away—and then I can tell you what I have seen—or if I stay here I must hold my tongue.”

“But if you go away you will have seen nothing,” the Prince objected.

“Ah, plenty as it is—more than I ever expected to!”

The Prince clasped his hands together in tremulous suppliance; but at the same time he smiled, as if to conciliate, to corrupt. “Dearest friend, you torment my curiosity. If you will tell me this, I will never ask you anything more. Where did they go? For the love of God, what is that house?”

“I know nothing of their houses,” she returned, with an impatient shrug.

“Then there are others—there are many?” She made no answer, but sat brooding, with her chin in her protrusive kerchief. Her visitor presently continued, in a soft, earnest tone, with his beautiful Italian distinctness, as if his lips cut and carved the sound, while his fine fingers quivered into quick, emphasising gestures, “The street is small and black, but it is like all the streets. It has no importance; it is at the end of an endless imbroglio. They drove for twenty minutes; then they stopped their cab and got out. They went together on foot some minutes more. There were many turns; they seemed to know them well. For me it was very difficult—of course I also got out; I had to stay so far behind—close against the houses. Chiffinch Street, N.E.—that was the name,” the Prince continued, pronouncing the word with difficulty; “and the house is number 32—I looked at that after they went in. It’s a very bad house—worse than this; but it has no sign of a chemist, and there are no shops in the street. They rang the bell—only once, though they waited a long time; it seemed to me, at least, that they did not touch it again. It was several minutes before the door was opened; and that was a bad time for me, because as they stood there they looked up and down. Fortunately you know the air of this place! I saw no light in the house—not even after they went in. Who let them enter I couldn’t tell. I waited nearly half an hour, to see how long they would stay and what they would do on coming out; then, at last, my impatience brought me here, for to know she was absent made me hope I might see you. While I was there two persons went in—two men, together, smoking, who looked like _artisti_ (I didn’t see them near), but no one came out. I could see they took their cigars—and you can fancy what tobacco!—into the presence of the Princess. Formerly,” pursued Madame Grandoni’s visitor, with a touching attempt at a jocular treatment of this point, “she never tolerated smoking—never mine, at least. The street is very quiet—very few people pass. Now what is the house? Is it where that man lives?” he asked, almost in a whisper.

He had been encouraged by her consenting, in spite of her first protests, to listen to him—he could see she _was_ listening; and he was still more encouraged when, after a moment, she answered his question by a question of her own: “Did you cross the river to go there? I know that he lives over the water.”

“Ah, no, it was not in that part. I tried to ask the cabman who brought me back to explain to me what it is called; but I couldn’t make him understand. They have heavy minds,” the Prince declared. Then he pursued, drawing a little closer to his hostess: “But what were they doing there? Why did she go with him?”

“They are plotting. There!” said Madame Grandoni.

“You mean a secret society, a band of revolutionists and murderers? _Capisco bene_—that is not new to me. But perhaps they only pretend it’s for that,” added the Prince.

“Only pretend? Why should they pretend? That is not Christina’s way.”

“There are other possibilities,” the Prince observed.

“Oh, of course, when your wife goes away with strange men, in the dark, to far-away houses, you can think anything you like, and I have nothing to say to your thoughts. I have my own, but they are my own affair, and I shall not undertake to defend Christina, for she is indefensible. When she does the things she does, she provokes, she invites, the worst construction; there let it rest, save for this one remark, which I will content myself with making: if she were a licentious woman she would not behave as she does now, she would not expose herself to irresistible interpretations; the appearance of everything would be good and proper. I simply tell you what I believe. If I believed that what she is doing concerned you alone, I should say nothing about it—at least sitting here. But it concerns others, it concerns every one, so I will open my mouth at last. She has gone to that house to break up society.”

“To break it up, yes, as she has wanted before?”

“Oh, more than before! She is very much entangled. She has relations with people who are watched by the police. She has not told me, but I have perceived it by simply living with her.”

Prince Casamassima stared. “And is _she_ watched by the police?”

“I can’t tell you; it is very possible—except that the police here is not like that of other countries.”

“It is more stupid,” said the Prince. He gazed at Madame Grandoni with a flush of shame on his face. “Will she bring us to _that_ scandal? It would be the worst of all.”

“There is one chance—the chance that she will get tired of it,” the old lady remarked. “Only the scandal may come before that.”

“Dear friend, she is the devil,” said the Prince, solemnly.

“No, she is not the devil, because she wishes to do good.”

“What good did she ever wish to do to me?” the Italian demanded, with glowing eyes.

Madame Grandoni shook her head very sadly. “You can do no good, of any kind, to each other. Each on your own side, you must be quiet.”

“How can I be quiet when I hear of such infamies?” Prince Casamassima got up, in his violence, and, in a tone which caused his companion to burst into a short, incongruous laugh as soon as she heard the words, exclaimed, “She shall _not_ break up society!”

“No, she will bore herself before the trick is played. Make up your mind to that.”

“That is what I expected to find—that the caprice was over. She has passed through so many follies.”

“Give her time—give her time,” replied Madame Grandoni.

“Time to drag my name into an assize-court? Those people are robbers, incendiaries, murderers!”

“You can say nothing to me about them that I haven’t said to her.”

“And how does she defend herself?”

“Defend herself? Did you ever hear Christina do that?” Madame Grandoni asked. “The only thing she says to me is, ‘Don’t be afraid; I promise you by all that’s sacred that you shan’t suffer.’ She speaks as if she had it all in her hands. That is very well. No doubt I’m a selfish old woman, but, after all, one has a heart for others.”

“And so have I, I think I may pretend,” said the Prince. “You tell me to give her time, and it is certain that she will take it, whether I give it or not. But I can at least stop giving her money. By heaven, it’s my duty, as an honest man.”

“She tells me that as it is you don’t give her much.”

“Much, dear lady? It depends on what you call so. It’s enough to make all these scoundrels flock around her.”

“They are not all scoundrels, any more than she is. That is the strange part of it,” said the old woman, with a weary sigh.

“But this fellow, the chemist—to-night—what do you call him?”

“She has spoken to me of him as a most estimable young man.”

“But she thinks it’s estimable to blow us all up,” the Prince returned. “Doesn’t _he_ take her money?”

“I don’t know what he takes. But there are some things—heaven forbid one should forget them! The misery of London is something fearful.”

“_Che vuole?_ There is misery everywhere,” returned the Prince. “It is the will of God. _Ci vuol’ pazienza!_ And in this country does no one give alms?”

“Every one, I believe. But it appears that it is not enough.”

The Prince said nothing for a moment; this statement of Madame Grandoni’s seemed to present difficulties. The solution, however, soon suggested itself; it was expressed in the inquiry, “What will you have in a country which has not the true faith?”

“Ah, the true faith is a great thing; but there is suffering even in countries that have it.”

“_Evidentemente_. But it helps suffering to be borne, and, later, it makes it up; whereas here—!” said the old lady’s visitor, with a melancholy smile. “If I may speak of myself, it is to me, in my circumstances, a support.”

“That is good,” said Madame Grandoni.

He stood before her, resting his eyes for a moment on the floor. “And the famous Cholto—Godfrey Gerald—does he come no more?”

“I haven’t seen him for months, and know nothing about him.”

“He doesn’t like the chemists and the bookbinders, eh?” asked the Prince.

“Ah, it was he who first brought them—to gratify your wife.”

“If they have turned him out, then, that is very well. Now, if only some one could turn _them_ out!”

“_Aspetta, aspetta!_” said the old woman.

“That is very good advice, but to follow it isn’t amusing.” Then the Prince added, “You alluded, just now, as to something particular, to _quel giovane_, the young artisan whom I met in the other house. Is he also estimable, or has he paid the penalty of his crimes?”

“He has paid the penalty, but I don’t know of what. I have nothing bad to tell you of him, except that I think his star is on the wane.”

“_Poverino!_” the Prince exclaimed.

“That is exactly the manner in which I addressed him the first time I saw him. I didn’t know how it would happen, but I felt that it would happen somehow. It has happened through his changing his opinions. He has now the same idea as you—that _ci vuol’ pazienza_.”

The Prince listened with the same expression of wounded eagerness, the same parted lips and excited eyes, to every added fact that dropped from Madame Grandoni’s lips. “That, at least, is more honest. Then _he_ doesn’t go to Chiffinch Street?”

“I don’t know about Chiffinch Street; but it would be my impression that he doesn’t go anywhere that Christina and the other one—the Scotchman—go together. But these are delicate matters,” the old woman pursued.

They seemed much to interest her interlocutor. “Do you mean that the Scotchman is—what shall I call it?—his successor?”

For a moment Madame Grandoni made no reply. “I think that this case is different. But I don’t understand; it was the other, the little one, that helped her to know the Scotchman.”

“And now they have quarrelled—about my wife? It is all tremendously edifying!” the Prince exclaimed.

“I can’t tell you, and shouldn’t have attempted it, only that Assunta talks to me.”

“I wish she would talk to me,” said the Prince, wistfully.

“Ah, my friend, if Christina were to find you getting at her servants!”

“How could it be worse for me than it is now? However, I don’t know why I speak as if I cared, for I don’t care any more. I have given her up. It is finished.”

“I am glad to hear it,” said Madame Grandoni, gravely.

“You yourself made the distinction, perfectly. So long as she endeavoured only to injure _me_, and in my private capacity, I could condone, I could wait, I could hope. But since she has so recklessly thrown herself into the most criminal undertakings, since she lifts her hand with a determined purpose, as you tell me, against the most sacred institutions—it is too much; ah, yes, it is too much! She may go her way; she is no wife of mine. Not another penny of mine shall go into her pocket, and into that of the wretches who prey upon her, who have corrupted her.”

“Dear Prince, I think you are right. And yet I am sorry!” sighed the old woman, extending her hand for assistance to rise from her chair. “If she becomes really poor, it will be much more difficult for me to leave her. _This_ is not poverty, and not even a good imitation of it, as she would like it to be. But what will be said of me if having remained with her through so much of her splendour, I turn away from her the moment she begins to want?”

“Dear lady, do you ask that to make me relent?” the Prince inquired, after an hesitation.

“Not in the least; for whatever is said and whatever you do, there is nothing for me in decency, at present, but to pack my trunk. Judge, by the way I have tattled.”

“If you will stay on, she shall have everything.” The Prince spoke in a very low tone, with a manner that betrayed the shame he felt at his attempt at bribery.

Madame Grandoni gave him an astonished glance and moved away from him. “What does that mean? I thought you didn’t care.”