Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 2.djvu/40

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as might very well have happened; he had been saved by his enjoyment and admiration, which had not gone to his head and prompted him to show that he too, in his improbable little way, was remarkable, but had kept him in a state of anxious, delicious tension, as if the occasion had been a great solemnity. He had said, indeed, much more than he had warrant for, when she questioned him about his socialistic affiliations; he had spoken as if the movement were vast and mature, whereas, in fact, so far, at least, as he was as yet concerned with it, and could answer for it from personal knowledge, it was circumscribed by the hideously papered walls of the little club-room at the 'Sun and Moon.' He reproached himself with this laxity, but it had not been engendered by vanity. He was only afraid of disappointing his hostess too much; of making her say, 'Why in the world, then, did you come to see me, if you have nothing more remarkable to relate?'—an inquiry to which, of course, he would have had an answer ready, if it had not been impossible to him to say that he had never asked to come: his coming was her own affair. He wanted too much to come a second time to have the courage to make that speech. Nevertheless, when she exclaimed, changing the subject abruptly, as she always did, from something else they had been talking about, 'I wonder whether I shall ever see you again!' he replied, with perfect sincerity, that it was very difficult for him to believe anything so delightful could be repeated. There were some kinds of happiness that to many people never came at all, and to others could come only once. He added, 'It is very true I had just that feeling after I left you the other night at the theatre. And yet here I am!'