She had been on the point of pushing a chair toward him, but she stopped in the act, staring with a smile. “Ah I hope you haven’t come to ask me to give him up!” “On the contrary—on the contrary!” the old man returned, lifting his hand expressively and with his head on one side as if he were holding his fiddle. “How do you mean, on the contrary?” she asked after he had seated himself and she had sunk into her former place. As if that might sound contradictious she went on: “Surely he hasn’t any fear that I shall cease to be a good friend to him?” “I don’t know what he fears; I don’t know what he hopes,” said Mr. Vetch, looking at her now with a face in which she could see there was something more tonic than old-fashioned politeness. “It will be difficult to tell you, but at least I must try. Properly speaking, I suppose, it’s no business of mine, as I’m not a blood-relation to the boy; but I’ve known him since he was a mite—he’s not much more even now—and I can’t help saying that I thank you for your great kindness to him.” “All the same I don’t think you like it,” the Princess declared. “To me it oughtn’t to be difficult to say anything.” “He has told me very little about you; he doesn’t know I’ve taken this step,” the fiddler said, turning his eyes about the room and letting them rest on Madame Grandoni. “Why do you speak of it as a ‘step’? That’s what people say when they’ve to do something disagreeable.” “I call very seldom on ladies. It’s a long time since I’ve been in the house of a person like the Princess Casamassima. I remember the last time,” said the old man. “It was to get my money from a lady at whose party I had been playing—for a dance.” “You must bring your fiddle some time and play to us. Of course I don’t mean for money,” the Princess added. “I’ll do it with pleasure, or anything else that will gratify you. But my ability’s very small. I only know vulgar music—things that are played at theatres.” “I don’t believe that. There must be things you play for yourself—in your room alone.” Mr. Vetch had a pause. “Now that I see you, that I hear you, it helps me to understand.” “I don’t think you do see me!” his hostess freely laughed; on which he desired to know if there were danger of Hyacinth’s coming in while he was there. She replied that he only came, unless by prearrangement, in the evening, and her visitor made a request that she wouldn’t let their young friend imagine he himself had been with her. “It doesn’t matter; he’ll guess it, he’ll know it by instinct, as soon as he comes in. He’s terribly subtle,” she said; and she added that she had never been able to hide anything from him. Perhaps this served her right—for attempting to make a mystery of things not worth it.