“Will you do me the honour to meet me then?” And as the old lady hesitated he added with sudden intensity: “Dearest friend, I beg you on my knees!” After she had agreed that if he would write to her proposing a day and place she would see him were it possible, he raised her ancient knuckles to his lips and, without further notice of Hyacinth, turned away. She bade the servant announce the other visitor to the Princess, and then approached Mr. Robinson, rubbing her hands and smiling, her head very much to one side. He smiled back at her vaguely; he didn’t know what she might be going to say. What she said was, to his surprise— “My poor young man, may I take the liberty of asking your age?” “Certainly, madam; I’m twenty-four.” “And I hope you’re industrious, and temperate in all ways and—what do you call it in English?—steady.” “I don’t think I’m very wild,” said Hyacinth without offence. He thought the old woman patronising, but he forgave her. “I don’t know how one speaks in this country to young men like you. Perhaps one’s considered meddling or impertinent.” “I like the way you speak,” Hyacinth hastened to profess. She stared, and then with a comical affectation of dignity: “You’re very good. I’m glad it amuses you. You’re evidently intelligent and clever,” she went on, “and if you’re disappointed it will be a pity.” “How do you mean if I’m disappointed?” “Well, I daresay you expect great things when you come into a house like this. You must tell me if I upset you. I’m very old-fashioned and I’m not of this country. I speak as one speaks to young men like you in other places.” “I’m not so easily upset!” Hyacinth assured her with a flight of imagination. “To expect anything one must know something, one must understand: isn’t it so? And I’m here without knowing, without understanding. I’ve come only because a lady who seems to me very beautiful and very kind has done me the honour to send for me.” Madame Grandoni examined him a moment as if struck by his good looks, by something delicate stamped on him everywhere. “I can see you’re very clever, very intelligent; no, you’re not like the young men I mean. All the more reason—!” And she paused, giving a short sigh. Her case might have been all too difficult. “I want to warn you a little, and I don’t know how. If you were a young Roman it would be different.” “A young Roman?” “That’s where I live properly, in the Eternal City. If I hurt you, you can explain it that way. No, you’re not like them.” “You don’t hurt me—please believe that; you interest me very much,” said Hyacinth, to whom it didn’t occur that he himself might seem patronising. “Of what do you want to warn me?” “Well—only to advise you a little. Don’t give up anything.” “What can I give up?”