Half an hour after Paul Muniment’s departure the Princess heard another rat-tat-tat at her door; but this was a briefer, discreeter peal, and was accompanied by a faint tintinnabulation. The person who had produced it was presently ushered in, without, however, causing Madame Grandoni to look round, or rather to look up, from an arm-chair as low as a sitz-bath, and of very much the shape of such a receptacle, in which, near the fire, she had been immersed. She left this care to the Princess, who rose on hearing the name of the visitor pronounced, inadequately, by her maid. ‘Mr Fetch’ Assunta called it; but the Princess recognised without difficulty the little fat, ‘reduced’ fiddler of whom Hyacinth had talked to her, who, as Pinnie’s most intimate friend, had been so mixed up with his existence, and whom she herself had always had a curiosity to see. Hyacinth had not told her he was coming, and the unexpectedness of the apparition added to its interest. Much as she liked seeing queer types and exploring out-of-the-way social corners, she never engaged in a fresh encounter, nor formed a new relation of this kind, without a fit of nervousness, a fear that she might be awkward and fail to hit the right tone. She perceived in a moment, however, that Mr Vetch would take her as she was and require no special adjustments; he was a gentleman and a man of experience, and she would only have to leave the tone to him. He stood there with his large, polished hat in his two hands, a hat of the fashion of ten years before, with a rusty sheen and an undulating brim – stood there without a salutation or a speech, but with a little fixed, acute, tentative smile, which seemed half to inquire and half to explain. What he explained was that he was clever enough to be trusted, and that if he had come to see her that way, abruptly, without an invitation, he had a reason which she would be sure to think good enough when she should hear it. There was even a certain jauntiness in this confidence – an insinuation that he knew how to present himself to a lady; and though it quickly appeared that he really did, that was the only thing about him that was inferior – it suggested a long experience of actresses at rehearsal, with whom he had formed habits of advice and compliment.

“I know who you are – I know who you are,” said the Princess, though she could easily see that he knew she did.

“I wonder whether you also know why I have come to see you,” Mr Vetch replied, presenting the top of his hat to her as if it were a looking-glass.

“No, but it doesn’t matter. I am very glad; you might even have come before.” Then the Princess added, with her characteristic honesty, “Don’t you know of the great interest I have taken in your nephew?”

“In my nephew? Yes, my young friend Robinson. It is in regard to him that I have ventured to intrude upon you.”

The Princess 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 rejoined, lifting his hand expressively, and with his head on one side, as if he were holding his violin.

“How do you mean, on the contrary?” the Princess demanded, 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 am not a blood-relation to the boy; but I have known him since he was an urchin, 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 remarked. “To me it oughtn’t to be difficult to say anything.”

“He has told me very little about you; he doesn’t know I have taken this step,” the fiddler said, turning his eyes about the room, and letting them rest on Madame Grandoni.

“Why do you call it a ‘step’?” the Princess asked. “That’s what people say when they have to do something disagreeable.”

“I call very seldom on ladies. It’s long time since I have been in the house of a person like the Princess Casamassima. I remember the last time,” said the old man. “It was to get some money from a lady at whose party I had been playing – for a dance.”

“You must bring your fiddle, sometime, and play to us. Of course I don’t mean for money,” the Princess rejoined.

“I will do it with pleasure, or anything else that will gratify you. But my ability is 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.”

For a moment the old man made no reply; then he said, “Now that I see you, that I hear you, it helps me to understand.”

“I don’t think you do see me!” cried the Princess, kindly, laughing; while the fiddler went on to ask whether there were any danger of Hyacinth’s coming in while he was there. The Princess replied that he only came, unless by prearrangement, in the evening, and Mr Vetch made a request that she would not let their young friend know that he himself had been with her. “It doesn’t matter; he will guess it, he will know it by instinct, as soon as he comes in. He is terribly subtle,” said the Princess; and she added that she had never been able to hide anything from him. Perhaps it served her right, for attempting to make a mystery of things that were not worth it.

“How well you know him!” Mr Vetch murmured, with his eyes wandering again to Madame Grandoni, who paid no attention to him as she sat staring at the fire. He delayed, visibly, to say what he had come for, and his hesitation could only be connected with the presence of the old lady. He said to himself that the Princess might have divined this from his manner; he had an idea that he could trust himself to convey such an intimation with clearness and yet with delicacy. But the most she appeared to apprehend was that he desired to be presented to her companion.

“You must know the most delightful of women. She also takes a particular interest in Mr Robinson: of a different kind from mine – much more sentimental!” And then she explained to the old lady, who seemed absorbed in other ideas, that Mr Vetch was a distinguished musician, a person whom she, who had known so many in her day, and was so fond of that kind of thing, would like to talk with. The Princess spoke of ‘that kind of thing’ quite as if she herself had given it up, though Madame Grandoni heard her by the hour together improvising on the piano revolutionary battle-songs and p?ans.

“I think you are laughing at me,” Mr Vetch said to the Princess, while Madame Grandoni twisted herself slowly round in her chair and considered him. She looked at him leisurely, up and down, and then she observed, with a sigh –

“Strange people – strange people!”

“It is indeed a strange world, madam,” the fiddler replied; and he then inquired of the Princess whether he might have a little conversation with her in private.

She looked about her, embarrassed and smiling. “My dear sir, I have only this one room to receive in. We live in a very small way.”

“Yes, your excellency is laughing at me. Your ideas are very large, too. However, I would gladly come at any other time that might suit you.”

“You impute to me higher spirits than I possess. Why should I be so gay?” the Princess asked. “I should be delighted to see you again. I am extremely curious as to what you may have to say to me. I would even meet you anywhere – in Kensington Gardens or the British Museum.”

The fiddler looked at her a moment before replying; then, with his white old face flushing a little, he exclaimed, “Poor dear little Hyacinth!”

Madame Grandoni made an effort to rise from her chair, but she had sunk so low that at first it was not successful. Mr Vetch gave her his hand, to help her, and she slowly erected herself, keeping hold of him for a moment after she stood there. “What did she tell me? That you are a great musician? Isn’t that enough for any man? You ought to be content, my dear gentleman. It has sufficed for people whom I don’t believe you surpass.”

“I don’t surpass any one,” said poor Mr Vetch. “I don’t know what you take me for.”

“You are not a conspirator, then? You are not an assassin? It surprises me, but so much the better. In this house one can never know. It is not a good house, and if you are a respectable person it is a pity you should come here. Yes, she is very gay, and I am very sad. I don’t know how it will end. After me, I hope. The world is not good, certainly; but God alone can make it better.” And as the fiddler expressed the hope that he was not the cause of her leaving the room, she went on, “Doch, doch, you are the cause; but why not you as well as another? I am always leaving it for some one or for some thing, and I would sooner do so for an honest man, if you are one – but, as I say, who can tell? – than for a destroyer. I wander about. I have no rest. I have, however, a very nice room, the best in the house. Me, at least, she does not treat ill. It looks to-day like the end of all things. If you would turn your climate the other side up, the rest would do well enough. Good-night to you, whoever you are.”

The old lady shuffled away, in spite of Mr Vetch’s renewed apologies, and the Princess stood before the fire, watching her companions, while he opened the door. “She goes away, she comes back; it doesn’t matter. She thinks it’s a bad house, but she knows it would be worse without her. I remember now,” the Princess added. “Mr Robinson told me that you had been a great democrat in old days, but that now you had ceased to care for the people.”

“The people – the people? That is a vague term. Whom do you mean?”

The Princess hesitated. “Those you used to care for, to plead for; those who are underneath every one, every thing, and have the whole social mass crushing them.”

“I see you think I’m a renegade. The way certain classes arrogate to themselves the title of the people has never pleased me. Why are some human beings the people, and the people only, and others not? I am of the people myself, I have worked all my days like a knife-grinder, and I have really never changed.”

“You must not let me make you angry,” said the Princess, laughing and sitting down again. “I am sometimes very provoking, but you must stop me off. You wouldn’t think it, perhaps, but no one takes a snub better than I.”

Mr Vetch dropped his eyes a minute; he appeared to wish to show that he regarded such a speech as that as one of the Princess’s characteristic humours, and knew that he should be wanting in respect to her if he took it seriously or made a personal application of it. “What I want is this,” he began, after a moment: “that you will – that you will —” But he stopped before he had got further. She was watching him, listening to him, and she waited while he paused. It was a long pause, and she said nothing. “Princess,” the old man broke out at last, “I would give my own life many times for that boy’s!”

“I always told him you must have been fond of him!” she cried, with bright exultation.

“Fond of him? Pray, who can doubt it? I made him, I invented him!”

“He knows it, moreover,” said the Princess, smiling. “It is an exquisite organisation.” And as the old man gazed at her, not knowing, apparently, what to make of her tone, she continued: “It is a very interesting opportunity for me to learn certain things. Speak to me of his early years. How was he as a child? When I like people I want to know everything about them.”

“I shouldn’t have supposed there was much left for you to learn about our young friend. You have taken possession of his life,” the fiddler added, gravely.

“Yes, but as I understand you, you don’t complain of it? Sometimes one does so much more than one has intended. One must use one’s influence for good,” said the Princess, with the noble, gentle air of accessibility to reason that sometimes lighted up her face. And then she went on, irrelevantly: “I know the terrible story of his mother. He told it me himself, when he was staying with me; and in the course of my life I think I have never been more affected.”

“That was my fault, that he ever learned it. I suppose he also told you that.”

“Yes, but I think he understood your idea. If you had the question to determine again, would you judge differently?”

“I thought it would do him good,” said the old man, simply and rather wearily.

“Well, I dare say it has,” the Princess rejoined, with the manner of wishing to encourage him.

“I don’t know what was in my head. I wanted him to quarrel with society. Now I want him to be reconciled to it,” Mr Vetch remarked, earnestly. He appeared to wish the Princess to understand that he made a great point of this.

“Ah, but he is!” she immediately returned. “We often talk about that; he is not like me, who see all kinds of abominations. He’s a tremendous aristocrat. What more would you have?”

“Those are not the opinions that he expresses to me,” said Mr Vetch, shaking his head sadly. “I am greatly distressed, and I don’t understand. I have not come here with the presumptuous wish to cross-examine you, but I should like very much to know if I am wrong in believing that he has gone about with you in the bad quarters – in St Giles’s and Whitechapel.”

“We have certainly inquired and explored together,” the Princess admitted, “and in the depths of this huge, luxurious, wanton, wasteful city we have seen sights of unspeakable misery and horror. But we have been not only in the slums; we have been to a music-hall and a penny-reading.”

The fiddler received this information at first in silence, so that his hostess went on to mention some of the phases of life they had observed; describing with great vividness, but at the same time with............