“Or a deep-sea fisherman, if you like better still. I give you your choice of comparisons. I made them up as we came along in the hansom. He throws his nets and hauls in the little fishes—the pretty little shining, wriggling fishes. They are all for _her_; she swallows ’em down.” “For her? Do you mean the Princess?” “Who else should I mean? Take care, my tadpole!” “Why should I take care? The other day you told me not to.” “Yes, I remember. But now I see more.” “Did he speak of her? What did he say?” Hyacinth eagerly asked. “I can’t tell you now what he said, but I’ll tell you what I guessed.” “And what’s that?” They had been talking of course in a very low tone, and their voices were covered by Rosy’s chatter in the corner, by the liberal laughter with which Captain Sholto accompanied it, and by the much more discreet, though earnest, intermingled accents of Lady Aurora and Miss Pynsent. But Muniment spoke more softly still—Hyacinth felt a kind of suspense—as he replied in a moment: “Why, she’s a monster!” “A monster?” repeated our young man, from whom, this evening, his friend was destined to draw ejaculations and echoes. Paul glanced toward the Captain, who was apparently more and more engaged by Rosy. “In him I think there’s no great harm. He’s only a patient angler.” It must be admitted that Captain Sholto justified to a certain extent this definition by the manner in which he baited his hook for such little facts as might help him to a more intimate knowledge of his host and hostess. When the tea was made Rosy asked Miss Pynsent to be so good as to hand it about. They must let her poor ladyship rest a little, mustn’t they?—and Hyacinth could see that in her innocent but inveterate self-complacency she wished to reward and encourage the dressmaker, draw her out and present her still more by offering her this graceful exercise. Sholto sprang up, however, and begged Pinnie to let him relieve her, taking a cup from her hand; and poor Pinnie, who noted in a moment that he was some kind of uncanny masquerader, who was bewildered by the strange mixture of elements that surrounded her and unused to being treated like a duchess (for the Captain’s manner was a triumph of respectful gallantry), collapsed on the instant into a chair, appealing to Lady Aurora with a frightened smile and conscious that, deeply versed as she might be in the theory of decorum, she had no precedent that could meet such an occasion. “Now how many families would there be in such a house as this, and what should you say about the sanitary arrangements? Would there be others on this floor—what is it, the third, the fourth?—beside yourselves, you know, and should you call it a fair example of a tenement of its class?” It was with such inquiries as this that the good gentleman beguiled their tea-drinking, while Hyacinth made the reflexion that, though he evidently meant them very well, they were characterised by a want of fine tact, by too patronising a curiosity.