The matter concerned him only indirectly¹, but it may concern the reader more closely to know that before the visit to the duke took place Madame Grandoni granted to Prince Casamassima the private interview she had promised him on that sad Sunday afternoon. She crept out of South Street after breakfast – a repast which under the Princess’s roof was served at twelve o’clock, in the foreign fashion – crossed the sultry solitude² into which, at such a season, that precinct resolves itself, and entered the Park, where the grass was already brown and a warm, smoky haze³ prevailed, a sort of summer edition of what was most characteristic in the London air. The Prince met her, by appointment, at the gate, and they went and sat down together under the trees beside the drive, amid a wilderness⁴ of empty chairs and with nothing to distract their attention from an equestrian⁵ or two, left over from the cavalcades⁶ of a fortnight before, and whose vain agitation⁷ in the saddle the desolate⁸ scene seemed to throw into high relief. They remained there for nearly an hour, though Madame Grandoni, in spite of her leaning to friendly interpretations⁹, could not have told herself what comfort it was to the depressed¹⁰, embarrassed young man at her side. She had nothing to say to him which could better his case, as he bent¹¹ his mournful gaze on a

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