“I’m not afraid of you, but I’ll give you no names,” said Hyacinth; and he related what had happened in the back-room in Bloomsbury, in the course of that evening of which I have given some account. The Princess listened, intently, while they strolled under the budding trees with a more interrupted step. Never had the old oaks and beeches, renewing themselves in the sunshine as they did to-day, or naked in some gray November, witnessed such an extraordinary series of confidences, since the first pair that sought isolation wandered over the grassy slopes and ferny dells beneath them. Among other things Hyacinth mentioned to his companion that he didn’t go to the ‘Sun and Moon’ any more; he now perceived, what he ought to have perceived long before, that this particular temple of their faith, and everything that pretended to get hatched there, was a hopeless sham. He had been a rare muff, from the first, to take it seriously. He had done so mainly because a friend of his, in whom he had confidence, appeared to set him the example; but now it turned out that this friend (it was Paul Muniment again, by the way) had always thought the men who went there a pack of duffers and was only trying them because he tried everything. There was nobody you could begin to call a first-rate man there, putting aside another friend of his, a Frenchman named Poupin—and Poupin was magnificent, but he wasn’t first-rate. Hyacinth had a standard, now that he had seen a man who was the very incarnation of his programme. You felt that _he_ was a big chap the very moment you came into his presence. “Into whose presence, Mr Robinson?” the Princess inquired. “I don’t know that I ought to tell you, much as I believe in you! I am speaking of the very remarkable individual with whom I entered into that engagement.” “To give away your life?” “To do something which in a certain contingency he will require of me. He will require my poor little carcass.” “Those plans have a way of failing—unfortunately,” the Princess murmured, adding the last word more quickly. “Is that a consolation, or a lament?” Hyacinth asked. “This one shall not fail, so far as it depends on me. They wanted an obliging young man—the place was vacant—I stepped in.” “I have no doubt you are right. We must pay for what we do.” The Princess made that remark calmly and coldly; then she said, “I think I know the person in whose power you have placed yourself.” “Possibly, but I doubt it.” “You can’t believe I have already gone so far? Why not? I have given you a certain amount of proof that I don’t hang back.” “Well, if you know my friend, you have gone very far indeed.” The Princess appeared to be on the point of pronouncing a name; but she checked herself, and asked suddenly, smiling, “Don’t they also want, by chance, an obliging young woman?” “I happen to know he doesn’t think much of women, my first-rate man. He doesn’t trust them.”