Hyacinth hesitated. 'I am not sure of that.' Then he asked, 'Did she go out alone?'
'Sola, sola,' said Assunta, smiling. 'Oh, don't be afraid; you were the first!' And she flung open the door of the little drawing-room, with an air of irresistible solicitation and sympathy.
He sat there nearly an hour, in the chair the Princess habitually used, under her shaded lamp, with a dozen objects around him which seemed as much a part of herself as if they had been folds of her dress or even tones of her voice. His thoughts were tremendously active, but his body was too tired for restlessness; he had not been at work, and had been walking about all day, to fill the time; so that he simply reclined there, with his head on one of the Princess's cushions, his feet on one of her little stools—one of the ugly ones, that belonged to the house—and his respiration coming quickly, like that of a man in a state of acute agitation. Hyacinth was agitated now, but it was not because he was waiting for the Princess; a deeper source of emotion had been opened to him, and he had not on the present occasion more sharpness of impatience than had already visited him at certain moments of the past twenty hours. He had not closed his eyes the night before, and the day had not made up for that torment. A fever of reflection had descended upon him, and the range of his imagination had been wide. It whirled him through circles of immeasurable compass; and this is the reason that, thinking of many things while he sat in the Princess's chair, he wondered why, after all, he had come to Madeira Crescent, and what interest he could have in seeing the lady of the house. He had a very complete sense that
