“I have some little acquaintance with it,” Hyacinth murmured. “I have French blood in my veins.”
She considered him as if he had proposed to her some kind of problem. “Yes, I can see that you are not _le premier venu_. Now, your friend, of whom you were speaking, is a chemist; and you, yourself—what is your occupation?”
“That must be delightful. I wonder if you would bind some books for me.”
“You would have to bring them to our shop, and I can do there only the work that’s given out to me. I might manage it by myself, at home,” Hyacinth added, smiling.
“I should like that better. And what do you call home?”
“The place I live in, in the north of London: a little street you certainly never heard of.”
“Lomax Place, at your service,” said Hyacinth, laughing.
She laughed back at him, and he didn’t know whether her brightness or her gravity were the more charming. “No, I don’t think I have heard of it. I don’t know London very well; I haven’t lived here long. I have spent most of my life abroad. My husband is a foreigner, an Italian. We don’t live together much. I haven’t the manners of this country—not of any class; have I, eh? Oh, this country—there is a great deal to be said about it; and a great deal to be done, as you, of course, understand better than any one. But I want to know London; it interests me more than I can say—the huge, swarming, smoky, human city. I mean real London, the people and all their sufferings and passions; not Park Lane and Bond Street. Perhaps you can help me—it would be a great kindness: that’s what I want to know men like you for. You see it isn’t idle, my having given you so much trouble to-night.”
“I shall be very glad to show you all I know. But it isn’t much, and above all it isn’t pretty,” said Hyacinth.
“Whom do you live with, in Lomax Place?” the Princess asked, by way of rejoinder to this.
“Captain Sholto is leaving the young lady—he is coming back here,” Madame Grandoni announced, inspecting the balcony with her instrument. The orchestra had been for some time playing the overture to the following act.
Hyacinth hesitated a moment. “I live with a dressmaker.”
“With a dressmaker? Do you mean—do you mean—?” And the Princess paused.
“Do you mean she’s your wife?” asked Madame Grandoni, humorously.