An hour after the Princess had left the house with Paul Muniment, Madame Grandoni came down to supper, a meal of which she partook, in gloomy solitude, in the little back parlour. She had pushed away her plate, and sat motionless, staring at the crumpled cloth, with her hands folded on the edge of the table, when she became aware that a gentleman had been ushered into the drawing-room and was standing before the fire in an attitude of discreet expectancy. At the same moment the maid-servant approached the old lady, remarking with bated breath, “The Prince, the Prince, mum! It’s you he ’ave asked for, mum!” Upon this, Madame Grandoni called out to the visitor from her place, addressed him as her poor illustrious friend and bade him come and give her his arm. He obeyed with solemn alacrity, and conducted her into the front room, near the fire. He helped her to arrange herself in her arm-chair and to gather her shawl about her; then he seated himself near her and remained with his dismal eyes bent upon her. After a moment she said, “Tell me something about Rome. The grass in the Villa Borghese must already be thick with flowers.”

“I would have brought you some, if I had thought,” he answered. Then he turned his gaze about the room. “Yes, you may well ask, in such a black little hole as this. My wife should not live here,” he added.

“Ah, my dear friend, for all that she’s your wife!” the old woman exclaimed.

The Prince sprang up in sudden, passionate agitation, and then she saw that the rigid quietness with which he had come into the room and greeted her was only an effort of his good manners. He was really trembling with excitement. “It is true – it is true! She has lovers – she has lovers!” he broke out. “I have seen it with my eyes, and I have come here to know!”

“I don’t know what you have seen, but your coming here to know will not have helped you much. Besides, if you have seen, you know for yourself. At any rate, I have ceased to be able to tell you.”

“You are afraid – you are afraid!” cried the visitor, with a wild accusatory gesture.

Madame Grandoni looked up at him with slow speculation. “Sit down and be tranquil, very tranquil. I have ceased to pay attention – I take no heed.”

“Well, I do, then,” said the Prince, subsiding a little. “Don’t you know she has gone out to a house, in a horrible quarter, with a man?”

“I think it highly probable, dear Prince.”

“And who is he? That’s what I want to discover.”

“How can I tell you? I haven’t seen him.”

He looked at her a moment, with his distended eyes. “Dear lady, is that kind to me, when I have counted on you?”

“Oh, I am not kind any more; it’s not a question of that. I am angry – as angry, almost, as you.”

“Then why don’t you watch her, eh?”

“It’s not with her I am angry. It’s with myself,” said Madame Grandoni, meditatively.

“For becoming so indifferent, do you mean?”

“On the contrary, for staying in the house.”

“Thank God, you are still here, or I couldn’t have come. But what a lodging for the Princess!” the visitor exclaimed. “She might at least live in a manner befitting.”

“Eh, the last time you were in London you thought it was too costly!” she cried.

He hesitated a moment. “Whatever she does is wrong. Is it because it’s so bad that you must go?” he went on.

“It is foolish – foolish – foolish,” said Madame Grandoni, slowly, impressively.

“Foolish, chè, chè! He was in the house nearly an hour, this one.”

“In the house? In what house?”

“Here, where you sit. I saw him go in, and when he came out it was after a long time, with her.”

“And where were you, meanwhile?”

Again Prince Casamassima hesitated. “I was on the other side of the street. When they came out I followed them. It was more than an hour ago.”

“Was it for that you came to London?”

“Ah, what I came for! To put myself in hell!”

“You had better go back to Rome,” said Madame Grandoni.

“Of course I will go back, but if you will tell me who this one is! How can you be ignorant, dear friend, when he comes freely in and out of the house where I have to watch, at the door, for a moment that I can snatch? He was not the same as the other.”

“As the other?”

“Doubtless there are fifty! I mean the little one whom I met in the other house, that Sunday afternoon.”

“I sit in my room almost always now,” said the old woman. “I only come down to eat.”

“Dear lady, it would be better if you would sit here,” the Prince remarked.

“Better for whom?”

“I mean that if you did not withdraw yourself you could at least answer my questions.”

“Ah, but I have not the slightest desire to answer them,” Madame Grandoni replied. “You must remember that I am not here as your spy.”

“No,” said the Prince, in a tone of extreme and simple melancholy. “If you had given me more information I should not have been obliged to come here myself. I arrived in London only this morning, and this evening I spent two hours walking up and down opposite the house, like a groom waiting for his master to come back from a ride. I wanted a personal impression. It was so that I saw him come in. He is not a gentleman – not even like some of the strange ones here.”

“I think he is Scotch,” remarked Madame Grandoni.

“Ah, then, you have seen him?”

“No, but I have heard him. He speaks very loud – the floors of this house are not built as we build in Italy – and his voice is the same that I have heard in the people of that country. Besides, she has told me – some things. He is a chemist’s assistant.”

“A chemist’s assistant? Santo Dio! And the other one, a year ago – more than a year ago – was a bookbinder.”

“Oh, the bookbinder!” murmured Madame Grandoni.

“And does she associate with no people of good? Has she no other society?”

“For me to tell you more, Prince, you must wait till I am free,” said the old lady.

“How do you mean, free?”

“I must choose. I must either go away – and then I can tell you what I have seen – or if I stay here I must hold my tongue.”

“But if you go away you will have seen nothing,” the Prince objected.

“Ah, plenty as it is – more than I ever expected to!”

The Prince clasped his hands together in tremulous suppliance; but at the same time he smiled, as if to conciliate, to corrupt. “Dearest friend, you torment my curiosity. If you will tell me this, I will never ask you anything more. Where did they go? For the love of God, what is that house?”

“I know nothing of their houses,” she returned, with an impatient shrug.

“Then there are others – there are many?” She made no answer, but sat brooding, with her chin in her protrusive kerchief. Her visitor presently continued, in a soft, earnest tone, with his beautiful Italian distinctness, as if his lips cut and carved the sound, while his fine fingers quivered into quick, emphasising gestures, “The street is small and black, but it is like all the streets. It has no importance; it is at the end of an endless imbroglio. They drove for twenty minutes; then they stopped their cab and got out. They went together on foot some minutes more. There were many turns; they seemed to know them well. For me it was very difficult – of course I also got out; I had to stay so far behind – close against the houses. Chiffinch Street, N.E. – that was the name,” the Prince continued, pronouncing the word with difficulty; “and the house is number 32 – I looked at that after they went in. It’s a very bad house – worse than this; but it has no sign of a chemist, and there are no shops in the street. They rang the bell – only once, though they waited a long time; it seemed to me, at least, that they did not touch it again. It was several minutes before the door was opened; and that was a bad time for me, because as they stood there they looked up and down. Fortunately you know the air of this place! I saw no light in the house – not even after they went in. Who let them enter I couldn’t tell. I waited nearly half an hour, to see how long they would stay and what they would do on coming out; then, at last, my impatience brought me here, for to know she was absent made me hope I might see you. While I was there two persons went in – two men, together, smoking, who looked like artisti (I didn’t see them near), but no one came out. I could see they took their cigars – and you can fancy what tobacco! – into the presence of the Princess. Formerly,” pursued Madame Grandoni’s visitor, with a touching attempt at a jocular treatment of this point, “she never tolerated smoking – never mine, at least. The street is very quiet – very few people pass. Now what is the house? Is it where that man lives?” he asked, almost in a whisper.

He had been encouraged by her consenting, in spite of her first protests, to listen to him – he could see she was listening; and he was still more encouraged when, after a moment, she answered his question by a question of her own: “Did you cross the river to go there? I know that he lives over the water.”

“Ah, no, it was not in that part. I tried to ask the cabman who brought me back to explain to me what it is called; but I couldn’t make him understand. They have heavy minds,” the Prince declared. Then he pursued, drawing a little closer to his hostess: “But what were they doing there? Why did she go with him?”

“They are plotting. There!” said Madame Grandoni.

“You mean a secret society, a band of revolutionists and murderers? Capisco bene – that is not new to me. But perhaps they only pretend it’s for that,” added the Prince.

“Only pretend? Why should they pretend? That is not Christina’s way.”

“There are other possibilities,” the Prince observed.

“Oh, of course, when your wife goes away with strange men, in the dark, to far-away houses, you can think anything you like, and I have nothing to say to your thoughts. I have my own, but they are my own affair, and I shall not undertake to defend Christina, for she is indefensible. When she does the things she does, she provokes, she invites, the worst construction; there let it rest, save for this one remark, which I will content myself with making: if she were a licentious woman she would not behave as she does now, she would not expose herself to irresistible interpretations; the appearance of everything would be good and proper. I simply tell you what I believe. If I believed that what she is doing concerned you alone, I should say nothing about it – at least sitting here. But it concerns others, it concerns every one, so I will open my mouth at last. She has gone to that house to break up society.”

“To break it up, yes, as she has wanted before?”

“Oh, more than before! She is very much entangled. She has relations with people who are watched by the police. She has not told me, but I have perceived it by simply living with her.”

Prince Casamassima stared. “And is she watched by the police?”

“I can’t tell you; it is very possible – except that the police here is not like that of other countries.”

“It is more stupid,” said the Prince. He gazed at Madame Grandoni with a flush of shame on his face. “Will she bring us to that scandal? It would be the worst of all.”

“There is one chance – the chance that she will get tired of it,” the old lady remarked. “Only the scandal may come before that.”

“Dear friend, she is the devil,” said the Prince, solemnly.

“No, she is not the devil, because she wishes to do good.”

“What good did she ever wish to do to me?” the Italian demanded, with glowing eyes.

Madame Grandoni shook her head very sadly. “You can do no good, of any kind, to each other. Each on your own side, you must be quiet.”

“How can I be quiet when I hear of such infamies?” Prince Casamassima got up, in his violence, and, in a tone which caused his companion to burst into a short, incongruous laugh as soon as she heard the words, exclaimed, “She shall not break up society!”

“No, she will bore herself before the trick is played. Make up your mind to that.”

“That is what I expected to find – that the caprice was over. She has passed through so many follies.”

“Give her time – give her time,” replied Madame Grandoni.

“Time to drag my name into an assize-court? Those people are robbers, incendiaries, murderers!”

“You can say nothing to me about them that I haven’t said to her.”

“And how does she defend herself?”

“Defend herself? Did you ever hear Christina do that?” Madame Grandoni asked. “The only thing she says to me is, ‘Don’t be afraid; I promise you by all that’s sacred that you shan’t suffer.’ She speaks as if she had it all in her hands. That is very well. No doubt I’m a selfish old woman, but, after all, one has a heart for others.”

“And so have I, I think I may pretend,” said the Prince. “You tell me to give her time, and it is certain that she will take it, whether I give it or not. But I can at least stop giving her money. By heaven, it’s my duty, as an honest man.”

“She tells me that as it is you don’t give her much.”

“Much, dear lady? It depends on what you call so. It’s enough to make all these scoundrels flock around her.”

“They are not all scoundrels, any more than she is. That is the strange part of it,” said the old woman, with a weary sigh.

“But this fellow, the chemist – to-night – what do you call him?”

“She has spoken to me of him as a most estimable young man.”

“But she thinks it’s estimable to blow us all up,” the Prince returned. “Doesn’t he take her money?”

“I don’t know what he takes. But there are some things – heaven forbid one should forget them! The misery of London is something fearful.”

“Che vuole? There is misery everywhere,” returned the Prince. “It is the will of God. Ci vuol’ pazienza! And in this country does no one give alms?”

“Every one, I believe. But it appears that it is not enough.”

The Prince said nothing for a moment; this statement of Madame Grandoni’s seemed to present difficulties. The solution, however, soon suggested itself; it was expressed in the inquiry, “What will you have in a country which has not the true faith?”

“Ah, the true faith is a great thing; but there is suffering even in countries that have it.”

“Evidentemente. But it helps suffering to be borne, and, later, it makes it up; whereas here —!” said the old lady’s visitor, with a melancholy smile. “If I may speak of myself, it is to me, in my circumstances, a support.”

“That is good,” said Madame Grandoni.

He stood before her, resting his eyes for a moment on the floor. “And the famous Cholto – Godfrey Gerald – does he come no more?”

“I haven’t seen him for months, and know nothing about him.”

“He doesn’t like the chemists and the bookbinders, eh?” asked the Prince.

“Ah, it was he who first brought them – to gratify your wife.”

“If they have turned him out, then, that is very well. Now, if only some one could turn them out!”

“Aspetta, aspetta!” said the old woman.

“That is very good advice, but to follow it isn’t amusing.” Then the Prince added, “You alluded, just now, as to something particular, to quel giovane, the young artisan whom I met in the other house. Is he also estimable, or has he paid the penalty of his crimes?”

“He has paid the penalty, but I don’t know of what. I have nothing bad to tell you of him, except that I think his star is on the wane.”

“Poverino!” the Prince exclaimed.

“That is exactly the manner in which I addressed him the first time I saw him. I didn’t know how it would happen, but I felt that it would happen someho............