no sign of apprehending it. He only remarked, gravely, 'In short she is here no more.'
'And the worst is that she will probably never come back. She didn't go for a long time, but when she decided herself it was finished,' Assunta declared. 'Peccato!' she added, with a sigh.
'I should have liked to see her again—I should have liked to bid her good-bye.' Hyacinth lingered there in strange, melancholy vagueness; since he had been told the Princess was not at home he had no reason for remaining, save the possibility that she might return before he turned away. This possibility, however, was small, for it was only nine o'clock, the middle of the evening—too early an hour for her to reappear, if, as Assunta said, she had gone out after tea. He looked up and down the Crescent, gently swinging his stick, and became conscious in a moment that Assunta was regarding him with tender interest.
'You should have come back sooner; then perhaps she wouldn't have gone, povera vecchia,' she rejoined in a moment. 'It is too many days since you have been here. She liked you—I know that.'
'She liked me, but she didn't like me to come,' said Hyacinth. 'Wasn't that why she went, because we came?'
'Ah, that other one—with the long legs—yes. But you are better.'
'The Princess doesn't think so, and she is the right judge,' Hyacinth replied, smiling.
'Eh, who knows what she thinks? It is not for me to say. But you had better come in and wait. I dare say she won't be long, and it would gratify her to find you.'
