at hard, and she didn't mind this; she supposed he was one of the lodgers in the house. He edged away to let her pass, and watched her while she endeavoured to impart an elasticity of movement to the limp bell-pull beside the door. It gave no audible response, so that she said to him, 'I wish to ask for Mr Hyacinth Robinson. Perhaps you can tell me———"
'Yes, I too,' the man replied, smiling. 'I have come also for that.'
The Princess hesitated a moment. 'I think you must be Mr Schinkel. I have heard of you.'
'You know me by my bad English,' her interlocutor remarked, with a sort of benevolent coquetry.
'Your English is remarkably good—I wish I spoke German as well. Only just a hint of an accent, and evidently an excellent vocabulary.'
'I think I have heard, also, of you,' said Schinkel, appreciatively.
'Yes, we know each other, in our circle, don't we? We are all brothers and sisters.' The Princess was anxious, she was in a fever; but she could still relish the romance of standing in a species of back-slum and fraternising with a personage looking like a very tame horse whose collar galled him. 'Then he's at home, I hope; he is coming down to you?' she went on.
'That's what I don't know. I am waiting.'
'Have they gone to call him?'
Schinkel looked at her, while he puffed his pipe. 'I have called him myself, but he will not say.'
'How do you mean—he will not say?'
'His door is locked. I have knocked many times.'
