Half an hour after Paul Muniment’s departure the Princess heard another rat-tat-tat at her door; but this was a briefer, discreeter peal¹, and was accompanied by a faint tintinnabulation. The person who had produced it was presently ushered² 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, inadequately⁴, 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 apparition⁶ 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 rusty⁷ sheen and an undulating brim – stood there without a salutation or a speech, but with a little fixed⁸, 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, abruptly⁹, 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

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