The Princess came back to tea in a very dull gown and with a bunch of keys at her girdle; and nothing could have suggested the thrifty housewife better than the manner in which she superintended the laying of the cloth and the placing on it of a little austere refreshment—a pile of bread and butter flanked by a pot of marmalade and a morsel of bacon. She filled the teapot from a shiny tin canister locked up in a cupboard, of which the key worked with difficulty, and made the tea with her own superb hands; taking pains, however, to explain to Hyacinth that she was far from imposing that régime on Madame Grandoni, who understood that the grocer had a standing order to supply her, for her private consumption, with any delicacy she might desire. For herself she had never been so well as since following a homely diet. On Sundays they had muffins and sometimes for a change a smoked haddock or even a fried sole. Hyacinth lost himself in worship of the Princess’s housewifely ways and of the exquisite figure she made as a small bourgeoise; judging that if her attempt to combine plain living with high thinking were all a burlesque it was at least the most finished entertainment she had yet offered him. She talked to Madame Grandoni of Lady Aurora; described her with much drollery, even to the details of her dress; declared that she was a delightful creature and one of the most interesting persons she had seen for an age; expressed to Hyacinth the conviction that she should like her exceedingly if the poor dear would only believe a little in _her_. “But I shall like her whether she does or not,” the Princess all the same declared. “I always know when that’s going to happen; it isn’t so common. She’ll begin very well with me and be ‘fascinated’—isn’t that the way people begin with me?—but she won’t understand me at all nor make out in the least what kind of a queer fish I am, try as I may to show her. When she thinks she does at last she’ll give me up in disgust and never know she has understood me quite wrong. That has been the way with most of the people I’ve liked; they’ve run away from me _à toutes jambes_. Oh I’ve inspired aversions!” she mirthfully wailed as she handed Hyacinth his cup of tea. He recognised it by the aroma as a mixture not inferior to that of which he had partaken at Medley. “I’ve never succeeded in knowing any one who would do me good, for by the time I began to improve under their influence they could put up with me no longer.” “You told me you were going to visit the poor. I don’t understand what your Gräfin was doing there,” said Madame Grandoni. “She had come out of charity—in the same way as I. She evidently goes about immensely over there; I shall insist on her taking me with her.” “I thought you had promised to let _me_ be your guide in those explorations,” Hyacinth promptly pleaded. The Princess looked at him a moment. “Dear Mr. Robinson, Lady Aurora knows more than you.”