She was showing off this treasure to the Captain, who was lost in contemplation. He had been beforehand with Hyacinth as a false purchaser, but he imitated a real one better than our young man, as, with his eyes travelling up and down the front of their beautiful friend’s person, he frowned consideringly and rubbed his lower lip slowly with his walking-stick. Millicent stood admirably still—the back view of the garment she displayed was magnificent. Hyacinth stood for a minute as still as she. By the end of that minute he was convinced Sholto saw him, and for an instant he thought him about to make Milly do as much. But Sholto only looked at him very hard a few seconds, not telling her he was there; to enjoy that satisfaction he would wait till the interloper had gone. Hyacinth gazed back at him for the same length of time—what these two pairs of eyes said to each other requires perhaps no definite mention—and then turned away. That evening about nine o’clock the Princess Casamassima drove in a hansom to Hyacinth’s lodgings in Westminster. The door of the house was a little open and a man stood on the step, smoking his big pipe and looking up and down. The Princess, seeing him while she was still at some distance, had hoped he was Hyacinth, but he proved a different figure indeed from her devoted young friend. He had not a forbidding countenance, but he faced her very directly as she descended from her hansom and approached the door. She was used to the last vulgarity of stare and didn’t mind it; she supposed him one of the lodgers in the house. He edged away to let her pass and watched her while she tried to twist life into the limp bell-pull beside the door. It gave no audible response, so that she said to him: “I wish to ask for Mr. Hyacinth Robinson. Perhaps you can tell me——” “Yes, I too,” the man strangely smirked. “I’ve come also for that.” She seemed to wonder about him. “I think you must be Mr. Schinkel. I’ve heard of you.” “You know me by my bad English,” her interlocutor said with a shade of benevolent coquetry. “Your English is remarkably good—I wish I spoke German as well. Only just a hint of an accent, and evidently an excellent vocabulary.” “I think I’ve heard also of you,” Schinkel returned with freedom. “Yes, we know each other in our circle, don’t we? We’re all brothers and sisters.” The Princess was anxious, was in a fever; but she could still relish the romance of standing in a species of back slum and fraternising with a personage so like a very tame horse whose collar galled him. “Then he’s at home, I hope; he’s coming down to you?” she went on. “That’s what I don’t know. I’m waiting.” “Have they gone to call him?” Schinkel looked at her while he puffed his pipe. “I’ve galled him myself, but he won’t zay.” “How do you mean he won’t say?” “His door’s locked. I’ve knocked many times.” “I suppose he is out,” said the Princess. “Yes, he may be out,” Schinkel remarked judicially.