'Assunta—because I am here?' Hyacinth did not immediately catch her meaning.
'You must have seen her Italian maid at Medley. She has kept her, and she's ashamed of it. When we are alone Assunta comes for her bonnet. But she likes you to think she waits on herself.'
'That's a weakness—when she's so strong! And what does Assunta think of it?' Hyacinth asked, looking at the stuffed birds in the window, the alabaster Cupid, the wax flowers on the chimney-piece, the florid antimacassars on the chairs, the sentimental engravings on the walls—in frames of papier-mâché and 'composition,' some of them enveloped in pink tissue-paper and the prismatic glass pendants which seemed attached to everything.
'She says, "What on earth will it matter to-morrow?'"
'Does she mean that to-morrow the Princess will have her luxury back again? Hasn't she sold all her beautiful things?'
Madame Grandoni was silent a moment. 'She has kept a few. They are put away.'
'A la bonne heure!' cried Hyacinth, laughing. He sat down with the ironical old woman; he spent nearly half an hour in desultory conversation with her, before candles were brought in, and while Christina was in Assunta's hands. He noticed how resolutely the Princess had withheld herself from any attempt to sweeten the dose she had taken it into her head to swallow, to mitigate the ugliness of her vulgar little house. She had respected its horrible idiosyncrasies, and left, rigidly, in their places the gimcracks which found favour in Madeira Crescent. She had flung no draperies over the pretentious furniture and disposed no rugs upon the staring carpet; and it was
