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INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
CYBER SECURITY FOR

Chen
Zhang
Cheng
Cyber Security for Industrial Control Systems: From the Viewpoint of
Close-Loop provides a comprehensive technical guide on up-to-date new
secure defending theories and technologies, novel design, and systematic
INDUSTRIAL
understanding of secure architecture with practical applications. The book
consists of 10 chapters, which are divided into three sections. CONTROL
SYSTEMS

INDUSTRIAL CONTROL SYSTEMS

CYBER SECURITY FOR
The first three chapters extensively introduce secure state estimation
technologies, providing a systematic presentation on the latest progress
in security issues regarding state estimation. The next five chapters
focus on the design of secure feedback control technologies in industrial
control systems, displaying an extraordinary difference from that of from the viewpoint of close-loop
traditional secure defending approaches from the viewpoint of network
and communication. The last two chapters elaborate on the systematic
secure control architecture and algorithms for various concrete application
scenarios.

The book has the following salient features:

• Provides an extensive introduction to state-of-the-art cyber security

theories and technologies from the viewpoint of close-loop
• Identifies the quantitative characteristics of typical cyber attacks and
analyzes the attack decision mechanisms in closed-loop industrial
systems in depth
• Proposes novel intrusion detection mechanisms against cyber attacks
in industrial control systems
• Presents a systematic understanding of the secure architectural design
for industrial control systems
• Addresses secure control approaches against cyber attacks for the
representative applications in industrial control systems

The authors provide detailed descriptions on attack model and strategy

analysis, intrusion detection, secure state estimation and control, game
theory in closed-loop systems, and various cyber security applications.
The book is useful to anyone interested in secure theories and
technologies for industrial control systems.

Edited by
K26386
6000 Broken Sound Parkway, NW
Suite 300, Boca Raton, FL 33487 ISBN: 978-1-4987-3473-8 Peng Cheng • Heng Zhang • Jiming Chen
711 Third Avenue
90000
New York, NY 10017
2 Park Square, Milton Park
Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN, UK 9 78 1 498 734738
w w w. c rc p r e s s . c o m
CYBER SECURITY FOR
INDUSTRIAL
CONTROL
SYSTEMS
from the viewpoint of close-loop
This page intentionally left blank
CYBER SECURITY FOR
INDUSTRIAL
CONTROL
SYSTEMS
from the viewpoint of close-loop

Edited by
Peng Cheng
Heng Zhang
Jiming Chen

Boca Raton London New York

CRC Press is an imprint of the

Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
CRC Press
Taylor & Francis Group
6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300
Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742

© 2016 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

CRC Press is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business

No claim to original U.S. Government works

Version Date: 20160301

International Standard Book Number-13: 978-1-4987-3474-5 (eBook - PDF)

This book contains information obtained from authentic and highly regarded sources. Reasonable efforts
have been made to publish reliable data and information, but the author and publisher cannot assume
responsibility for the validity of all materials or the consequences of their use. The authors and publishers
have attempted to trace the copyright holders of all material reproduced in this publication and apologize to
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Contents

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

SECTION I: SECURE STATE ESTIMATION 1

1 A Game-Theoretic Approach to Jamming Attacks on Remote State

Estimation in Cyber-Physical Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Yuzhe Li, Ling Shi, Peng Cheng, Jiming Chen, and Daniel E. Quevedo

2 Secure State Estimation against Stealthy Attack . . . . . . . . . . 31

Yilin Mo

3 Secure State Estimation in Industrial Control Systems . . . . . . . 57

Arash Mohammadi and Konstantinos N. Plataniotis

SECTION II: RESILIENT CONTROL THEORY 95

4 Optimal Denial-of-Service Attack Policy against Wireless Industrial

Control Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Heng Zhang, Peng Cheng, Ling Shi, and Jiming Chen

5 Behavior Rule Specification-Based False Data Injection Detection

Technique for Smart Grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Beibei Li, Rongxing Lu, and Haiyong Bao
vi  Contents

6 Hierarchical Architectures of Resilient Control Systems: Concepts,

Metrics, and Design Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Quanyan Zhu, Dong Wei, and Kun Ji

7 Topology Control in Secure Wireless Sensors Networks . . . . . . 183

Jun Zhao

8 Resilient Distributed Control in Cyber-Physical Energy

Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
Wente Zeng and Mo-Yuen Chow

SECTION III: SECURITY ISSUES IN APPLICATION

FIELDS 251
9 Distributed Resilient Control of Operator-Vehicle Networks under
Cyber Attacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
Minghui Zhu and Sonia Martı́nez

10 Privacy-Preserving Data Access Control in the Smart Grid . . . . 285

Kan Yang, Xiaohua Jia, and Xuemin (Sherman) Shen

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
Preface

By exploiting sensing, networking, and computation capabilities, the new-

generation industrial control systems are able to better connect cyber space and
the physical process in close-loop than ever before. However, such connections
have also provided rich opportunities for adversaries to perform potential mali-
cious attacks.
There has been extensive research on security issues from the viewpoint of
networks and communication, and the secure defending approaches mainly con-
sider how to guarantee network performance. Considerable efforts have been
devoted to the design of secure defending approaches against malicious attacks
with communication technologies. For example, channel hopping is often used
to maintain network performance, for example, throughput, in a jamming attack
environment.
Such network performance rarely considers the operation of physical plants
without the features of automatic control or feedback. However, industrial con-
trol systems are characterized by feedback control and aim to optimize the sys-
tem control performances, such as reducing state estimation errors, improving
the stability of unstable plants, and enhancing the robustness against uncertain-
ties and noise. Thus, it is equivalent or even more important to protect the system
control performance while studying the cyber-security issues in industrial con-
trol systems. For example, when the communication of system entities is under
a jamming attack, different from the existing design, such as the channel hop-
ping algorithm, the secure state estimation and control algorithms may be better
configured by exploiting the feedback information as well as the dynamics of
the physical plants. As a result, it is of great research interest to develop novel
theories and technologies from the viewpoint of close-loop in order to protect the
industrial control system performance under various cyber and physical attacks.
Cyber Security for Industrial Control Systems: From the Viewpoint of Close-
Loop is the first comprehensive and updated book on cyber security from the

vii
viii  Preface

viewpoint of close-loop. This book provides a comprehensive technical guide on

up-to-date secure defending theories and technologies, novel design, and sys-
tematic understanding of secure architecture and some practical applications.
Specifically, it consists of 10 chapters, which are divided into three parts. The
first part, consisting of Chapters 1 through 3, extensively introduces secure
state estimation technologies, providing a systematic presentation on the latest
progress in security issues regarding state estimation. The second part, composed
of five chapters, focuses on the design of secure feedback control technologies
in industrial control systems, showing its extraordinary difference from that of
traditional secure defending approaches from the viewpoint of network and com-
munication. The third part, with two chapters, elaborates on the systematic secure
control architecture and algorithms for various concrete application scenarios.
This book has the following salient features:
1. Provides an extensive introduction to state-of-the-art cyber security theo-
ries and technologies from the viewpoint of close-loop
2. Identifies the quantitative characteristics of typical cyber attacks and ana-
lyzes the attack decision mechanisms in closed-loop industrial systems in
depth
3. Proposes novel intrusion detection mechanisms against cyber attacks in
industrial control systems
4. Presents a systematic understanding of the secure architectural design for
industrial control systems
5. Addresses secure control approaches against cyber attacks for the repre-
sentative applications in industrial control systems
This book provides detailed descriptions on attack model and strategy anal-
ysis, intrusion detection, secure state estimation and control, game theory in
closed-loop systems, and various cyber-security applications. We expect the
book to be favorable to those who are interested in secure theories and tech-
nologies for industrial control systems.
We would like to thank all the contributors of each chapter for their expertise
and cooperation, and efforts invested, without which we would not have such an
excellent book. Specially, we highly appreciate the support, patience, and pro-
fessionalism of Ruijun He and Kathryn Everett from the very beginning to the
final publication of the book. Last but not least, we are grateful for our families
and friends for their constant encouragement and understanding throughout this
project.

Peng Cheng
Heng Zhang
Jiming Chen
Contributors

Haiyong Bao Xiaohua Jia

School of Electrical and Electronic Department of Computer Science
Engineering City University of Hong Kong
Nanyang Technological University Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong, China
Singapore
Beibei Li
Jiming Chen School of Electrical and Electronic
College of Control Science and Engineering
Technology Nanyang Technological University
Zhejiang University Singapore
Zhejiang, China
Yuzhe Li
Peng Cheng Department of Electronic and
Computer Engineering
College of Control Science and Hong Kong University of Science
Technology and Technology
Zhejiang University Kowloon, Hong Kong, China
Hangzhou, China
Rongxing Lu
Mo-Yuen Chow School of Electrical and Electronic
Department of Electrical and Engineering
Computer Engineering Nanyang Technological University
North Carolina State University Singapore
Raleigh, North Carolina, USA
Sonia Martı́nez
Kun Ji Department of Mechanical and
Corporate Technology Aerospace Engineering
Siemens Corporation University of California
Princeton, New Jersey, USA San Diego, California, USA

ix
x  Contributors

Yilin Mo Kan Yang

School of Electrical and Electronic Department of Electrical and
Engineering Computer Engineering
Nanyang Technological University University of Waterloo
Singapore Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

Arash Mohammadi
Department of Electrical and Wente Zeng
Computer Engineering
Department of Electrical and
University of Toronto Computer Engineering
Toronto, Ontario, Canada North Carolina State University
Raleigh, North Carolina, USA
Konstantinos N. Plataniotis
Department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering
University of Toronto Heng Zhang
Toronto, Ontario, Canada College of Control Science and
Technology
Daniel E. Quevedo Zhejiang University
Department of Electrical Hangzhou, China
Engineering
University of Paderborn
North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany Jun Zhao
CyLab and Department of Electrical
Xuemin (Sherman) Shen and Computer Engineering
Department of Electrical and Carnegie Mellon University
Computer Engineering Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
University of Waterloo
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Minghui Zhu
Ling Shi Department of Electrical
Engineering
Department of Electronic and
Computer Engineering Pennsylvania State University
Hong Kong University of Science University Park, Pennsylvania, USA
and Technology
Kowloon, Hong Kong, China
Quanyan Zhu
Dong Wei Department of Electrical and
Corporate Technology Computer Engineering
Siemens Corporation New York University
Princeton, New Jersey, USA New York, New York, USA
SECURE STATE I
ESTIMATION
This page intentionally left blank
Chapter 1

A Game-Theoretic
Approach to Jamming
Attacks on Remote State
Estimation in
Cyber-Physical Systems

Yuzhe Li
Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering,
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Ling Shi
Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering,
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Peng Cheng
College of Control Science and Technology, Zhejiang University

Jiming Chen
College of Control Science and Technology, Zhejiang University

Daniel E. Quevedo
Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Paderborn

3
4  Cyber Security for Industrial Control Systems

CONTENTS
1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2 Problem Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.2.1 Local State Estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.2.2 Communication Channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.2.3 Estimation Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.2.4 Main Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.3 Game-Theoretic Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.3.1 Nash Equilibrium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.3.2 Existence of the Nash Equilibrium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.3.3 Finding the Nash Equilibrium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.4 Dynamic Update Based on Online Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
1.5 Relaxation: Average Energy Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
1.5.1 Constraint-Relaxed Problem Formulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.5.2 Markov Chain Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
1.5.3 Comparison and Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
1.6 Multisensor Scenario . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
1.6.1 Multiple Sensor Formulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
1.6.2 Constraint-Relaxed Game Formulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
1.7 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

We consider security issues in remote state estimation of cyber-physical systems

in this chapter. We first investigate the single-sensor case. A sensor node commu-
nicates with a remote estimator through a wireless channel that may be jammed
by an external attacker. The interactive decision-making process of when to send
and when to attack is studied when the sensor and the attacker are both subject to
energy constraints. We formulate a game-theoretic framework and prove that the
optimal strategies for both sides constitute a Nash equilibrium of this zero-sum
game. To tackle the computational complexity issues, we present a constraint-
relaxed problem and provide corresponding solutions using Markov chain the-
ory. Under a constraint-relaxed formulation, taking the multisensor data fusion
into consideration, the problem for the multiple sensors case is also studied.

1.1 Introduction
Cyber-physical systems (CPS) are systems that integrate sensing, control, com-
munication, computation, and physical process. Typical CPS usually consist of
a group of networked agents, including sensors, actuators, control processing
units, and communication devices [27] (Figure 1.1), which have a wide spec-
trum of applications in areas such as aerospace, smart grids, civil infrastruc-
ture, and transportation. Significant advances in terms of efficiency, reliability,
adaptability, and autonomy of engineered systems have been brought by the rapid
development of CPS in recent years.
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 “I don’t want in the least to throw the business up, but did you
suppose I liked it?” Hyacinth asked, with rather a forced laugh.
“My dear fellow, how could I tell? You like a lot of things I don’t.
You like excitement and emotion and change, you like remarkable
sensations, whereas I go in for a holy calm, for sweet repose.”
“If you object, for yourself, to change, and are so fond of still
waters, why have you associated yourself with a revolutionary
movement?” Hyacinth demanded, with a little air of making rather a
good point.
“Just for that reason!” Muniment answered, with a smile. “Isn’t
our revolutionary movement as quiet as the grave? Who knows, who
suspects, anything like the full extent of it?”
“I see—you take only the quiet parts!”
In speaking these words Hyacinth had had no derisive intention,
but a moment later he flushed with the sense that they had a
sufficiently petty sound. Muniment, however, appeared to see no
offence in them, and it was in the gentlest, most suggestive way, as
if he had been thinking over what might comfort his comrade, that
he replied, “There’s one thing you ought to remember—that it’s quite
on the cards it may never come off.”
“I don’t desire that reminder,” Hyacinth said; “and, moreover, you
must let me say that, somehow, I don’t easily fancy you mixed up
with things that don’t come off. Anything you have to do with will
come off, I think.”
Muniment reflected a moment, as if his little companion were
charmingly ingenious. “Surely, I have nothing to do with this idea of
Hoffendahl’s.”
“With the execution, perhaps not; but how about the conception?
You seemed to me to have a great deal to do with it the night you
took me to see him.”
Muniment changed his position, raising himself, and in a moment
he was seated, Turk-fashion, beside his mate. He put his arm over
his shoulder and held him, studying his face; and then, in the
kindest manner in the world, he remarked, “There are three or four
definite chances in your favour.”
“I don’t want comfort, you know,” said Hyacinth, with his eyes on
the distant atmospheric mixture that represented London.
“What the devil do you want?” Muniment asked, still holding him,
and with perfect good-humour.
“Well, to get inside of you a little; to know how a chap feels when
he’s going to part with his best friend.”
“To part with him?” Muniment repeated.
“I mean, putting it at the worst.”
“I should think you would know by yourself, if you’re going to part
with me!”
At this Hyacinth prostrated himself, tumbled over on the grass, on
his face, which he buried in his arms. He remained in this attitude,
saying nothing, for a long time; and while he lay there he thought,
with a sudden, quick flood of association, of many strange things.
Most of all, he had the sense of the brilliant, charming day; the
warm stillness, touched with cries of amusement; the sweetness of
loafing there, in an interval of work, with a friend who was a
tremendously fine fellow, even if he didn’t understand the
inexpressible. Muniment also kept silent, and Hyacinth perceived
that he was unaffectedly puzzled. He wanted now to relieve him, so
that he pulled himself together again and turned round, saying the
first thing he could think of, in relation to the general subject of their
conversation, that would carry them away from the personal
question: “I have asked you before, and you have told me, but
somehow I have never quite grasped it (so I just touch on the
matter again), exactly what good you think it will do.”
“This idea of Hoffendahl’s? You must remember that as yet we
know only very vaguely what it is. It is difficult, therefore, to
measure closely the importance it may have, and I don’t think I have
ever, in talking with you, pretended to fix that importance. I don’t
suppose it will matter immensely whether your own engagement is
carried out or not; but if it is it will have been a detail in a scheme of
which the general effect will be decidedly useful. I believe, and you
pretend to believe, though I am not sure you do, in the advent of
the democracy. It will help the democracy to get possession that the
classes that keep them down shall be admonished from time to time
that they have a very definite and very determined intention of
doing so. An immense deal will depend upon that. Hoffendahl is a
capital admonisher.”
Hyacinth listened to this explanation with an expression of interest
that was not feigned; and after a moment he rejoined, “When you
say you believe in the democracy, I take for granted you mean you
positively wish for their coming into power, as I have always
supposed. Now what I really have never understood is this—why you
should desire to put forward a lot of people whom you regard,
almost without exception, as donkeys.”
“Ah, my dear lad,” laughed Muniment, “when one undertakes to
meddle in human affairs one must deal with human material. The
upper classes have the longest ears.”
“I have heard you say that you were working for an equality in
human conditions, to abolish the immemorial inequality. What you
want, then, for all mankind is a similar nuance of asininity.”
“That’s very clever; did you pick it up in France? The low tone of
our fellow-mortals is a result of bad conditions; it is the conditions I
want to alter. When those that have no start to speak of have a
good one, it is but fair to infer that they will go further. I want to try
them, you know.”
“But why equality?” Hyacinth asked. “Somehow, that word doesn’t
say so much to me as it used to. Inequality—inequality! I don’t know
whether it’s by dint of repeating it over to myself, but that doesn’t
shock me as it used.”
“They didn’t put you up to that in France, I’m sure!” Muniment
exclaimed. “Your point of view has changed; you have risen in the
world.”
“Risen? Good God, what have I risen to?”
 “True enough; you were always a bloated little swell!” And
Muniment gave his young friend a sociable slap on the back. There
was a momentary bitterness in its being imputed to such a one as
Hyacinth, even in joke, that he had taken sides with the fortunate
ones of the earth, and he had it on his tongue’s end to ask his friend
if he had never guessed what his proud titles were—the bastard of a
murderess, spawned in a gutter, out of which he had been picked by
a sewing-girl. But his life-long reserve on this point was a habit not
easily broken, and before such an inquiry could flash through it
Muniment had gone on: “If you’ve ceased to believe we can do
anything, it will be rather awkward, you know.”
“I don’t know what I believe, God help me!” Hyacinth remarked, in
a tone of an effect so lugubrious that Paul gave one of his longest,
most boyish-sounding laughs. And he added, “I don’t want you to
think I have ceased to care for the people. What am I but one of the
poorest and meanest of them?”
“You, my boy? You’re a duke in disguise, and so I thought the first
time I ever saw you. That night I took you to Hoffendahl you had a
little way with you that made me forget it; I mean that your disguise
happened to be better than usual. As regards caring for the people,
there’s surely no obligation at all,” Muniment continued. “I wouldn’t
if I could help it—I promise you that. It all depends on what you see.
The way I’ve used my eyes in this abominable metropolis has led to
my seeing that present arrangements won’t do. They won’t do,” he
repeated, placidly.
“Yes, I see that, too,” said Hyacinth, with the same dolefulness
that had marked his tone a moment before—a dolefulness begotten
of the rather helpless sense that, whatever he saw, he saw (and this
was always the case) so many other things beside. He saw the
immeasurable misery of the people, and yet he saw all that had
been, as it were, rescued and redeemed from it: the treasures, the
felicities, the splendours, the successes, of the world. All this took
the form, sometimes, to his imagination, of a vast, vague, dazzling
presence, an irradiation of light from objects undefined, mixed with
the atmosphere of Paris and of Venice. He presently added that a
hundred things Muniment had told him about the foul horrors of the
worst districts of London, pictures of incredible shame and suffering
that he had put before him, came back to him now, with the
memory of the passion they had kindled at the time.
“Oh, I don’t want you to go by what I have told you; I want you
to go by what you have seen yourself. I remember there were things
you told me that weren’t bad in their way.” And at this Paul
Muniment sprang to his feet, as if their conversation had drawn to
an end, or they must at all events be thinking of their homeward
way. Hyacinth got up, too, while his companion stood there.
Muniment was looking off toward London, with a face that expressed
all the healthy singleness of his vision. Suddenly Paul remarked, as if
it occurred to him to complete, or at any rate confirm, the
declaration he had made a short time before, “Yes, I don’t believe in
the millennium, but I do believe in the democracy.”
The young man, as he spoke these words, struck his comrade as
such a fine embodiment of the spirit of the people; he stood there,
in his powerful, sturdy newness, with such an air of having learnt
what he had learnt and of good-nature that had purposes in it, that
our hero felt the simple inrush of his old, frequent pride at having a
person of that promise, a nature of that capacity, for a friend. He
passed his hand into Muniment’s arm and said, with an
imperceptible tremor in his voice, “It’s no use your saying I’m not to
go by what you tell me. I would go by what you tell me, anywhere.
There’s no awkwardness to speak of. I don’t know that I believe
exactly what you believe, but I believe in you, and doesn’t that come
to the same thing?”
Muniment evidently appreciated the cordiality and candour of this
little tribute, and the way he showed it was by a movement of his
arm, to check his companion, before they started to leave the spot,
and by looking down at him with a certain anxiety of friendliness. “I
should never have taken you to Hoffendahl if I hadn’t thought you
would jump at the job. It was that flaring little oration of yours, at
the club, when you floored Delancey for saying you were afraid, that
put me up to it.”
 “I did jump at it—upon my word I did; and it was just what I was
looking for. That’s all correct!” said Hyacinth, cheerfully, as they went
forward. There was a strain of heroism in these words—of heroism
of which the sense was not conveyed to Muniment by a vibration in
their interlocked arms. Hyacinth did not make the reflection that he
was infernally literal; he dismissed the sentimental problem that had
bothered him; he condoned, excused, admired—he merged himself,
resting happy for the time in the consciousness that Paul was a
grand fellow, that friendship was a purer feeling than love, and that
there was an immense deal of affection between them. He did not
even observe at that moment that it was preponderantly on his own
side.
 XXXVI
A certain Sunday in November, more than three months after she
had gone to live in Madeira Crescent, was so important an occasion
for the Princess Casamassima that I must give as complete an
account of it as the limits of my space will allow. Early in the
afternoon a loud peal from her door-knocker came to her ear; it had
a sound of resolution, almost of defiance, which made her look up
from her book and listen. She was sitting by the fire, alone, with a
volume of a heavy work on Labour and Capital in her hand. It was
not yet four o’clock, but she had had candles for an hour; a dense
brown fog made the daylight impure, without suggesting an answer
to the question whether the scheme of nature had been to veil or to
deepen the sabbatical dreariness. She was not tired of Madeira
Crescent—such an idea she would indignantly have repudiated; but
the prospect of a visitor was rather pleasant to her—the possibility
even of his being an ambassador, or a cabinet minister, or another of
the eminent personages with whom she had associated before
embracing the ascetic life. They had not knocked at her present door
hitherto in any great numbers, for more reasons than one; they
were out of town, and she had taken pains to diffuse the belief that
she had left England. If the impression prevailed, it was exactly the
impression she had desired; she forgot this fact whenever she felt a
certain surprise, even, it may be, a certain irritation, in perceiving
that people were not taking the way to Madeira Crescent. She was
making the discovery, in which she had had many predecessors, that
in London it is only too possible to hide one’s self. It was very much
in that fashion that Godfrey Sholto was in the habit of announcing
himself, when he reappeared after the intervals she explicitly
imposed upon him; there was a kind of artlessness, for so world-
worn a personage, in the point he made of showing that he knocked
with confidence, that he had as good a right as any other. This
afternoon she was ready to accept a visit from him: she was
perfectly detached from the shallow, frivolous world in which he
lived, but there was still a freshness in her renunciation which
coveted reminders and enjoyed comparisons; he would prove to her
how right she had been to do exactly what she was doing. It did not
occur to her that Hyacinth Robinson might be at her door, for it was
understood between them that, except by special appointment, he
was to come to see her only in the evening. She heard in the hail,
when the servant arrived, a voice that she failed to recognise; but in
a moment the door of the room was thrown open and the name of
Mr Muniment was pronounced. It may be said at once that she felt
great pleasure in hearing it, for she had both wished to see more of
Hyacinth’s extraordinary friend and had given him up, so little likely
had it begun to appear that he would put himself out for her. She
had been glad he wouldn’t come, as she had told Hyacinth three
months before; but now that he had come she was still more glad.
Presently he was sitting opposite to her, on the other side of the
fire, with his big foot crossed over his big knee, his large, gloved
hands fumbling with each other, drawing and smoothing the gloves
(of very red, new-looking dog-skin) in places, as if they hurt him. So
far as the size of his extremities, and even his attitude and
movement, went, he might have belonged to her former circle. With
the details of his dress remaining vague in the lamp-light, which
threw into relief mainly his powerful, important head, he might have
been one of the most considerable men she had ever known. The
first thing she said to him was that she wondered extremely what
had brought him at last to come to see her: the idea, when she
proposed it, evidently had so little attraction for him. She had only
seen him once since then—the day she met him coming into Audley
Court as she was leaving it, after a visit to his sister—and, as he
probably remembered, she had not on that occasion repeated her
invitation.
“It wouldn’t have done any good, at the time, if you had,”
Muniment rejoined, with his natural laugh.
 “Oh, I felt that; my silence wasn’t accidental!” the Princess
exclaimed, joining in his merriment.
“I have only come now—since you have asked me the reason—
because my sister hammered at me, week after week, dinning it into
me that I ought to. Oh, I’ve been under the lash! If she had left me
alone, I wouldn’t have come.”
The Princess blushed on hearing these words, but not with shame
or with pain; rather with the happy excitement of being spoken to in
a manner so fresh and original. She had never before had a visitor
who practised so racy a frankness, or who, indeed, had so curious a
story to tell. She had never before so completely failed, and her
failure greatly interested her, especially as it seemed now to be
turning a little to success. She had succeeded promptly with every
one, and the sign of it was that every one had rendered her a
monotony of homage. Even poor little Hyacinth had tried, in the
beginning, to say sweet things to her. This very different type of man
appeared to have his thoughts fixed on anything but sweetness; she
felt the liveliest hope that he would move further and further away
from it. “I remember what you asked me—what good it would do
you. I couldn’t tell you then; and though I now have had a long time
to turn it over, I haven’t thought of it yet.”
“Oh, but I hope it will do me some,” said Paul. “A fellow wants a
reward, when he has made a great effort.”
“It does me some,” the Princess remarked, gaily.
“Naturally, the awkward things I say amuse you. But I don’t say
them for that, but just to give you an idea.”
“You give me a great many ideas. Besides, I know you already a
good deal.”
“From little Robinson, I suppose,” said Muniment.
The Princess hesitated. “More particularly from Lady Aurora.”
“Oh, she doesn’t know much about me!” the young man
exclaimed.
“It’s a pity you say that, because she likes you.”
 “Yes, she likes me,” Muniment replied, serenely.
Again the Princess hesitated. “And I hope you like her.”
“Ay, she’s a dear old girl!”
The Princess reflected that her visitor was not a gentleman, like
Hyacinth; but this made no difference in her present attitude. The
expectation that he would be a gentleman had had nothing to do
with her interest in him; that, in fact, had rested largely on the
supposition that he had a rich plebeian strain. “I don’t know that
there is any one in the world I envy so much,” she remarked; an
observation which her visitor received in silence. “Better than any
one I have ever met she has solved the problem—which, if we are
wise, we all try to solve, don’t we?—of getting out of herself. She
has got out of herself more perfectly than any one I have ever
known. She has merged herself in the passion of doing something
for others. That’s why I envy her,” said the Princess, with an
explanatory smile, as if perhaps he didn’t understand her.
“It’s an amusement, like any other,” said Paul Muniment.
“Ah, not like any other! It carries light into dark places; it makes a
great many wretched people considerably less wretched.”
“How many, eh?” asked the young man, not exactly as if he
wished to dispute, but as if it were always in him to enjoy an
argument.
The Princess wondered why he should desire to argue at Lady
Aurora’s expense. “Well, one who is very near to you, to begin with.”
“Oh, she’s kind, most kind; it’s altogether wonderful. But Rosy
makes her considerably less wretched,” Paul Muniment rejoined.
“Very likely, of course; and so she does me.”
“May I inquire what you are wretched about?” Muniment went on.
“About nothing at all. That’s the worst of it. But I am much
happier now than I have ever been.”
“Is that also about nothing?”
“No, about a sort of change that has taken place in my life. I have
been able to do some little things.”
 “For the poor, I suppose you mean. Do you refer to the presents
you have made to Rosy?” the young man inquired.
“The presents?” The Princess appeared not to remember. “Oh,
those are trifles. It isn’t anything one has been able to give; it’s
some talks one has had, some convictions one has arrived at.”
“Convictions are a source of very innocent pleasure,” said the
young man, smiling at his interlocutress with his bold, pleasant eyes,
which seemed to project their glance further than any she had seen.
“Having them is nothing. It’s the acting on them,” the Princess
replied.
“Yes; that doubtless, too, is good.” He continued to look at her
peacefully, as if he liked to consider that this might be what she had
asked him to come for. He said nothing more, and she went on—
“It’s far better, of course, when one is a man.”
“I don’t know. Women do pretty well what they like. My sister and
you have managed, between you, to bring me to this.”
“It’s more your sister, I suspect, than I. But why, after all, should
you have disliked so much to come?”
“Well, since you ask me,” said Paul Muniment, “I will tell you
frankly, though I don’t mean it uncivilly, that I don’t know what to
make of you.”
“Most people don’t,” returned the Princess. “But they usually take
the risk.”
“Ah, well, I’m the most prudent of men.”
“I was sure of it; that is one of the reasons why I wanted to know
you. I know what some of your ideas are—Hyacinth Robinson has
told me; and the source of my interest in them is partly the fact that
you consider very carefully what you attempt.”
“That I do—I do,” said Muniment, simply.
The tone in which he said this would have been almost ignoble, as
regards a kind of northern canniness which it expressed, had it not
been corrected by the character of his face, his youth and strength,
and his military eye. The Princess recognised both the shrewdness
and the latent audacity as she rejoined, “To do anything with you
would be very safe. It would be sure to succeed.”
“That’s what poor Hyacinth thinks,” said Paul Muniment.
The Princess wondered a little that he could allude in that light
tone to the faith their young friend had placed in him, considering
the consequences such a trustfulness might yet have; but this
curious mixture of qualities could only make her visitor, as a tribune
of the people, more interesting to her. She abstained for the moment
from touching on the subject of Hyacinth’s peculiar position, and
only said, “Hasn’t he told you about me? Hasn’t he explained me a
little?”
“Oh, his explanations are grand!” Muniment exclaimed, hilariously.
“He’s fine sport when he talks about you.”
“Don’t betray him,” said the Princess, gently.
“There’s nothing to betray. You would be the first to admire it if
you were there. Besides, I don’t betray,” the young man added.
“I love him very much,” said the Princess; and it would have been
impossible for the most impudent cynic to smile at the manner in
which she made the declaration.
Paul accepted it respectfully. “He’s a sweet little lad, and, putting
her ladyship aside, quite the light of our home.”
There was a short pause after this exchange of amenities, which
the Princess terminated by inquiring, “Wouldn’t some one else do his
work quite as well?”
“His work? Why, I’m told he’s a master-hand.”
“Oh, I don’t mean his bookbinding.” Then the Princess added, “I
don’t know whether you know it, but I am in correspondence with
Hoffendahl. I am acquainted with many of our most important men.”
“Yes, I know it. Hyacinth has told me. Do you mention it as a
guarantee, so that I may know you are genuine?”
“Not exactly; that would be weak, wouldn’t it?” the Princess
asked. “My genuineness must be in myself—a matter for you to
appreciate as you know me better; not in my references and
vouchers.”
“I shall never know you better. What business is it of mine?”
“I want to help you,” said the Princess, and as she made this
earnest appeal her face became transfigured; it wore an expression
of the most passionate yet the purest longing. “I want to do
something for the cause you represent; for the millions that are
rotting under our feet—the millions whose whole life is passed on
the brink of starvation, so that the smallest accident pushes them
over. Try me, test me; ask me to put my hand to something, to
prove that I am as deeply in earnest as those who have already
given proof. I know what I am talking about—what one must meet
and face and count with, the nature and the immensity of your
organisation. I am not playing. No, I am not playing.”
Paul Muniment watched her with his steady smile until this sudden
outbreak had spent itself. “I was afraid you would be like this—that
you would turn on the fountains and let off the fireworks.”
“Permit me to believe you thought nothing about it. There is no
reason my fireworks should disturb you.”
“I have always had a fear of women.”
“I see—that’s a part of your prudence,” said the Princess,
reflectively. “But you are the sort of man who ought to know how to
use them.”
Muniment said nothing, immediately, in answer to this; the way he
appeared to consider the Princess suggested that he was not
following closely what she said, so much as losing himself in certain
matters which were beside that question—her beauty, for instance,
her grace, her fragrance, the spectacle of a manner and quality so
new to him. After a little, however, he remarked, irrelevantly, “I’m
afraid I’m very rude.”
“Of course you are, but it doesn’t signify. What I mainly object to
is that you don’t answer my questions. Would not some one else do
Hyacinth Robinson’s work quite as well? Is it necessary to take a
nature so delicate, so intellectual? Oughtn’t we to keep him for
something finer?”
“Finer than what?”
“Than what Hoffendahl will call upon him to do.”
“And pray what is that?” the young man demanded. “You know
nothing about it; no more do I,” he added in a moment. “It will
require whatever it will. Besides, if some one else might have done
it, no one else volunteered. It happened that Robinson did.”
“Yes, and you nipped him up!” the Princess exclaimed.
At this expression Muniment burst out laughing. “I have no doubt
you can easily keep him, if you want him.”
“I should like to do it in his place—that’s what I should like,” said
the Princess.
“As I say, you don’t even know what it is.”
“It may be nothing,” she went on, with her grave eyes fixed on her
visitor. “I dare say you think that what I wanted to see you for was
to beg you to let him off. But it wasn’t. Of course it’s his own affair,
and you can do nothing. But oughtn’t it to make some difference,
when his opinions have changed?”
“His opinions? He never had any opinions,” Muniment replied. “He
is not like you and me.”
“Well, then, his feelings, his attachments. He hasn’t the passion
for democracy he had when I first knew him. He’s much more tepid.”
“Ah, well, he’s quite right.”
The Princess stared. “Do you mean that you are giving up—?”
“A fine stiff conservative is a thing I perfectly understand,” said
Paul Muniment. “If I were on the top, I’d stick there.”
“I see, you are not narrow,” the Princess murmured,
appreciatively.
“I beg your pardon, I am. I don’t call that wide. One must be
narrow to penetrate.”
 “Whatever you are, you’ll succeed,” said the Princess. “Hyacinth
won’t, but you will.”
“It depends upon what you call success!” the young man
exclaimed. And in a moment, before she replied, he added, looking
about the room, “You’ve got a very lovely dwelling.”
“Lovely? My dear sir, it’s hideous. That’s what I like it for,” the
Princess added.
“Well, I like it; but perhaps I don’t know the reason. I thought you
had given up everything—pitched your goods out of the window, for
a grand scramble.”
“Well, so I have. You should have seen me before.”
“I should have liked that,” said Muniment, smiling. “I like to see
solid wealth.”
“Ah, you’re as bad as Hyacinth. I am the only consistent one!” the
Princess sighed.
“You have a great deal left, for a person who has given everything
away.”
“These are not mine—these abominations—or I would give them,
too!” Paul’s hostess rejoined, artlessly.
Muniment got up from his chair, still looking about the room. “I
would give my nose for such a place as this. At any rate, you are not
yet reduced to poverty.”
“I have a little left—to help you.”
“I dare say you’ve a great deal,” said Paul, with his north-country
accent.
“I could get money—I could get money,” the Princess continued,
gravely. She had also risen, and was standing before him.
These two remarkable persons faced each other, their eyes met
again, and they exchanged a long, deep glance of mutual scrutiny.
Each seemed to drop a plummet into the other’s mind. Then a
strange and, to the Princess, unexpected expression passed over the
countenance of the young man; his lips compressed themselves, as
if he were making a strong effort, his colour rose, and in a moment
he stood there blushing like a boy. He dropped his eyes and stared
at the carpet, while he observed, “I don’t trust women—I don’t trust
women!”
“I am sorry, but, after all, I can understand it,” said the Princess;
“therefore I won’t insist on the question of your allowing me to work
with you. But this appeal I will make to you: help me a little yourself
—help me!”
“How do you mean, help you?” Muniment demanded, raising his
eyes, which had a new, conscious look.
“Advise me; you will know how. I am in trouble—I have gone very
far.”
“I have no doubt of that!” said Paul, laughing.
“I mean with some of those people abroad. I’m not frightened,
but I’m perplexed; I want to know what to do.”
“No, you are not frightened,” Muniment rejoined, after a moment.
“I am, however, in a sad entanglement. I think you can straighten
it out. I will give you the facts, but not now, for we shall be
interrupted; I hear my old lady on the stairs. For this, you must
come to see me again.”
At this point the door opened, and Madame Grandoni appeared,
cautiously, creepingly, as if she didn’t know what might be going on
in the parlour. “Yes, I will come again,” said Paul Muniment, in a low
but distinct tone; and he walked away, passing Madame Grandoni on
the threshold, without having exchanged the hand-shake of farewell
with his hostess. In the hall he paused an instant, feeling she was
behind him; and he learned that she had not come to exact from
him this omitted observance, but to say once more, dropping her
voice, so that her companion, through the open door, might not hear
—
“I could get money—I could!”
Muniment passed his hand through his hair, and, as if he had not
heard her, remarked, “I have not given you, after all, half Rosy’s
messages.”
 “Oh, that doesn’t matter!” the Princess answered, turning back
into the parlour.
Madame Grandoni was in the middle of the room, wrapped in an
old shawl, looking vaguely around her, and the two ladies heard the
house-door close. “And pray, who may that be? Isn’t it a new face?”
the elder one inquired.
“He’s the brother of the little person I took you to see over the
river—the chattering cripple with the wonderful manners.”
“Ah, she had a brother! That, then, was why you went?”
It was striking, the good-humour with which the Princess received
this rather coarse thrust, which could have been drawn from
Madame Grandoni only by the petulance and weariness of increasing
age, and the antipathy she now felt to Madeira Crescent and
everything it produced. Christina bent a calm, charitable smile upon
her ancient companion, and replied—
“There could have been no question of our seeing him. He was, of
course, at his work.”
“Ah, how do I know, my dear? And is he a successor?”
“A successor?”
“To the little bookbinder.”
“My darling,” said the Princess, “you will see how absurd that
question is when I tell you he’s his greatest friend!”
 XXXVII
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 pæans.
“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
a kind of argumentative moderation, several scenes which did little
honour to ‘our boasted civilisation’. “What wonder is it, then, that he
should tell me that things cannot go on any longer as they are?” he
asked, when she had finished. “He said only the other day that he
should regard himself as one of the most contemptible of human
beings if he should do nothing to alter them, to better them.”
“What wonder, indeed? But if he said that, he was in one of his
bad days. He changes constantly, and his impressions change. The
misery of the people is by no means always weighing on his heart.
You tell me what he has told you; well, he has told me that the
people may perish over and over, rather than the conquests of
civilisation shall be sacrificed to them. He declares, at such
moments, that they will be sacrificed—sacrificed utterly—if the
ignorant masses get the upper hand.”
“He needn’t be afraid! That will never happen.”
“I don’t know. We can at least try!”
“Try what you like, madam, but, for God’s sake, get the boy out of
his mess!”
The Princess had suddenly grown excited, in speaking of the
cause she believed in, and she gave, for the moment, no heed to
this appeal, which broke from Mr Vetch’s lips with a sudden passion
of anxiety. Her beautiful head raised itself higher, and the deep
expression that was always in her eyes became an extraordinary
radiance. “Do you know what I say to Mr Robinson when he makes
such remarks as that to me? I ask him what he means by
civilisation. Let civilisation come a little, first, and then we will talk
about it. For the present, face to face with those horrors, I scorn it, I
deny it!” And the Princess laughed ineffable things, like some
splendid syren of the Revolution.
“The world is very sad and very hideous, and I am happy to say
that I soon shall have done with it. But before I go I want to save
Hyacinth. If he’s a little aristocrat, as you say, there is so much the
less fitness in his being ground in your mill. If he doesn’t even
believe in what he pretends to do, that’s a pretty situation! What is
he in for, madam? What devilish folly has he undertaken?”
“He is a strange mixture of contradictory impulses,” said the
Princess, musingly. Then, as if calling herself back to the old man’s
question, she continued: “How can I enter into his affairs with you?
How can I tell you his secrets? In the first place, I don’t know them,
and if I did—fancy me!”
The fiddler gave a long, low sigh, almost a moan, of
discouragement and perplexity. He had told the Princess that now he
saw her he understood how Hyacinth should have become her slave,
but he would not have been able to tell her that he understood her
own motives and mysteries, that he embraced the immense anomaly
of her behaviour. It came over him that she was incongruous and
perverse, a more complicated form of the feminine character than
any he had hitherto dealt with, and he felt helpless and baffled,
foredoomed to failure. He had come prepared to flatter her without
scruple, thinking that would be the clever, the efficacious, method of
dealing with her; but he now had a sense that this primitive device
had, though it was strange, no application to such a nature, while
his embarrassment was increased rather than diminished by the fact
that the lady at least made the effort to be accommodating. He had
put down his hat on the floor beside him, and his two hands were
clasped on the knob of an umbrella which had long since renounced
pretensions to compactness; he collapsed a little, and his chin rested
on his folded hands. “Why do you take such a line? Why do you
believe such things?” he asked; and he was conscious that his tone
was weak and his inquiry beside the question.
“My dear sir, how do you know what I believe? However, I have
my reasons, which it would take too long to tell you, and which,
after all, would not particularly interest you. One must see life as
one can; it comes, no doubt, to each of us in different ways. You
think me affected, of course, and my behaviour a fearful pose; but I
am only trying to be natural. Are you not yourself a little
inconsequent?” the Princess went on, with the bright mildness which
had the effect of making Mr Vetch feel that he should not extract
any pledge of assistance from her. “You don’t want our young friend
to pry into the wretchedness of London, because it excites his sense
of justice. It is a strange thing to wish, for a person of whom one is
fond and whom one esteems, that his sense of justice shall not be
excited.”
“I don’t care a fig for his sense of justice—I don’t care a fig for the
wretchedness of London; and if I were young, and beautiful, and
clever, and brilliant, and of a noble position, like you, I should care
still less. In that case I should have very little to say to a poor
mechanic—a youngster who earns his living with a glue-pot and
scraps of old leather.”
“Don’t misrepresent him; don’t make him out what you know he’s
not!” the Princess retorted, with her baffling smile. “You know he’s
one of the most civilised people possible.”
The fiddler sat breathing unhappily. “I only want to keep him—to
get him free.” Then he added, “I don’t understand you very well. If
you like him because he’s one of the lower orders, how can you like
him because he’s a swell?”
The Princess turned her eyes on the fire a moment, as if this little
problem might be worth considering, and presently she answered,
“Dear Mr Vetch, I am very sure you don’t mean to be impertinent,
but some things you say have that effect. Nothing is more annoying
than when one’s sincerity is doubted. I am not bound to explain
myself to you. I ask of my friends to trust me, and of the others to
leave me alone. Moreover, anything not very nice you may have said
to me, out of awkwardness, is nothing to the insults I am perfectly
prepared to see showered upon me before long. I shall do things
which will produce a fine crop of them—oh, I shall do things, my
dear sir! But I am determined not to mind them. Come, therefore,
pull yourself together. We both take such an interest in young
Robinson that I can’t see why in the world we should quarrel about
him.”
“My dear lady,” the old man pleaded, “I have indeed not the least
intention of failing in respect or courtesy, and you must excuse me if
I don’t look after my manners. How can I when I am so worried, so
haunted? God knows I don’t want to quarrel. As I tell you, I only
want to get Hyacinth free.”
“Free from what?” the Princess asked.
“From some abominable brotherhood or international league that
he belongs to, the thought of which keeps me awake at night. He’s
just the sort of youngster to be made a cat’s-paw.”
“Your fears seem very vague.”
“I hoped you would give me chapter and verse.”
“On what do your suspicions rest? What grounds have you?” the
Princess inquired.
“Well, a great many; none of them very definite, but all
contributing something—his appearance, his manner, the way he
strikes me. Dear madam, one feels those things, one guesses. Do
you know that poor, infatuated phrase-monger, Eustache Poupin,
who works at the same place as Hyacinth? He’s a very old friend of
mine, and he’s an honest man, considering everything. But he is
always conspiring, and corresponding, and pulling strings that make
a tinkle which he takes for the death-knell of society. He has nothing
in life to complain of, and he drives a roaring trade. But he wants
folks to be equal, heaven help him; and when he has made them so
I suppose he’s going to start a society for making the stars in the
sky all of the same size. He isn’t serious, though he thinks that he’s
the only human being who never trifles; and his machinations, which
I believe are for the most part very innocent, are a matter of habit
and tradition with him, like his theory that Christopher Columbus,
who discovered America, was a Frenchman, and his hot foot-bath on
Saturday nights. He has not confessed to me that Hyacinth has
taken some secret engagement to do something for the cause which
may have nasty consequences, but the way he turns off the idea
makes me almost as uncomfortable as if he had. He and his wife are
very sweet on Hyacinth, but they can’t make up their minds to
interfere; perhaps for them, indeed, as for me, there is no way in
which interference can be effective. Only I didn’t put him up to those
devil’s tricks—or, rather, I did originally! The finer the work, I
suppose, the higher the privilege of doing it; yet the Poupins heave
socialistic sighs over the boy, and their peace of mind evidently isn’t
all that it ought to be, if they have given him a noble opportunity. I
have appealed to them, in good round terms, and they have assured
me that every hair of his head is as precious to them as if he were
their own child. That doesn’t comfort me much, however, for the
simple reason that I believe the old woman (whose grandmother, in
Paris, in the Revolution, must certainly have carried bloody heads on
a pike) would be quite capable of chopping up her own child, if it
would do any harm to proprietors. Besides, they say, what influence
have they on Hyacinth any more? He is a deplorable little backslider;
he worships false gods. In short, they will give me no information,
and I dare say they themselves are tied up by some unholy vow.
They may be afraid of a vengeance if they tell tales. It’s all sad
rubbish, but rubbish may be a strong motive.”
The Princess listened attentively, following her visitor with
patience. “Don’t speak to me of the French; I have never liked
them.”
“That’s awkward, if you’re a socialist. You are likely to meet them.”
“Why do you call me a socialist? I hate labels and tickets,” she
declared. Then she added, “What is it you suppose on Mr Robinson’s
part?—for you must suppose something.”
“Well, that he may have drawn some accursed lot, to do some
idiotic thing—something in which even he himself doesn’t believe.”
“I haven’t an idea of what sort of thing you mean. But, if he
doesn’t believe in it he can easily let it alone.”
“Do you think he’s a customer who will back out of an
engagement?” the fiddler asked.
 The Princess hesitated a moment. “One can never judge of
people, in that way, until they are tested.” The next thing, she
inquired, “Haven’t you even taken the trouble to question him?”
“What would be the use? He would tell me nothing. It would be
like a man giving notice when he is going to fight a duel.”
The Princess sat for some moments in thought; she looked up at
Mr Vetch with a pitying, indulgent smile. “I am sure you are worrying
about a mere shadow; but that never prevents, does it? I still don’t
see exactly how I can help you.”
“Do you want him to commit some atrocity, some infamy?” the old
man murmured.
“My dear sir, I don’t want him to do anything in all the wide world.
I have not had the smallest connection with any arrangement of any
kind, that he may have entered into. Do me the honour to trust me,”
the Princess went on, with a certain dryness of tone. “I don’t know
what I have done to deprive myself of your confidence. Trust the
young man a little, too. He is a gentleman, and he will behave like a
gentleman.”
The fiddler rose from his chair, smoothing his hat, silently, with the
cuff of his coat. He stood there, whimsical and piteous, as if the
sense that he had still something to urge mingled with that of his
having received his dismissal, and both of them were tinged with the
oddity of another idea. “That’s exactly what I am afraid of!” he
exclaimed. Then he added, continuing to look at her, “But he must
be very fond of life.”
The Princess took no notice of the insinuation contained in these
words, and indeed it was of a sufficiently impalpable character.
“Leave him to me—leave him to me. I am sorry for your anxiety, but
it was very good of you to come to see me. That has been
interesting, because you have been one of our friend’s influences.”
“Unfortunately, yes! If it had not been for me, he would not have
known Poupin, and if he hadn’t known Poupin he wouldn’t have
known his chemical friend—what’s his name? Muniment.”
 “And has that done him harm, do you think?” the Princess asked.
She had got up.
“Surely: that fellow has been the main source of his infection.”
“I lose patience with you,” said the Princess, turning away.
And indeed her visitor’s persistence was irritating. He went on,
lingering, with his head thrust forward and his short arms out at his
sides, terminating in his hat and umbrella, which he held
grotesquely, as if they were intended for emphasis or illustration: “I
have supposed for a long time that it was either Muniment or you
that had got him into his scrape. It was you I suspected most—much
the most; but if it isn’t you, it must be he.”
“You had better go to him, then!”
“Of course I will go to him. I scarcely know him—I have seen him
but once—but I will speak my mind.”
The Princess rang for her maid to usher the fiddler out, but at the
moment he laid his hand on the door of the room she checked him
with a quick gesture. “Now that I think of it, don’t go to Mr
Muniment. It will be better to leave him quiet. Leave him to me,” she
added, smiling.
“Why not, why not?” he pleaded. And as she could not tell him on
the instant why not, he asked, “Doesn’t he know?”
“No, he doesn’t know; he has nothing to do with it.” She suddenly
found herself desiring to protect Paul Muniment from the imputation
that was in Mr Vetch’s mind—the imputation of an ugly
responsibility; and though she was not a person who took the
trouble to tell fibs, this repudiation, on his behalf, issued from her
lips before she could check it. It was a result of the same desire,
though it was also an inconsequence, that she added, “Don’t do that
—you’ll spoil everything!” She went to him, suddenly eager, and
herself opened the door for him. “Leave him to me—leave him to
me,” she continued, persuasively, while the fiddler, gazing at her,
dazzled and submissive, allowed himself to be wafted away. A
thought that excited her had come to her with a bound, and after
she had heard the house-door close behind Mr Vetch she walked up
and down the room half an hour, restlessly, under the possession of
it.
BOOK FIFTH
 XXXVIII
Hyacinth found, this winter, considerable occupation for his odd
hours, his evenings and holidays and scraps of leisure, in putting in
hand the books which he had promised himself, at Medley, to inclose
in covers worthy of the high station and splendour of the lady of his
life (these brilliant attributes had not then been shuffled out of
sight), and of the confidence and generosity she showed him. He
had determined she should receive from him something of value,
and took pleasure in thinking that after he was gone they would be
passed from hand to hand as specimens of rare work, while
connoisseurs bent their heads over them, smiling and murmuring,
handling them delicately. His invention stirred itself, and he had a
hundred admirable ideas, many of which he sat up late at night to
execute. He used all his skill, and by this time his skill was of a very
high order. Old Crookenden recognised it by raising the rates at
which he was paid; and though it was not among the traditions of
the proprietor of the establishment in Soho, who to the end wore
the apron with his workmen, to scatter sweet speeches, Hyacinth
learned accidentally that several books that he had given him to do
had been carried off and placed on a shelf of treasures at the villa,
where they were exhibited to the members of the Crookenden circle
who came to tea on Sundays. Hyacinth himself, indeed, was included
in this company on a great occasion—invited to a musical party
where he made the acquaintance of half a dozen Miss Crookendens,
an acquaintance which consisted in his standing in a corner, behind
several broad-backed old ladies, and watching the rotation, at the
piano and the harp, of three or four of his master’s thick-fingered
daughters. “You know it’s a tremendously musical house,” said one
of the old ladies to another (she called it ‘’ouse’); but the principal
impression made upon him by the performance of the Miss
Crookendens was that it was wonderfully different from the
Princess’s playing.
He knew that he was the only young man from the shop who had
been invited, not counting the foreman, who was sixty years old and
wore a wig which constituted in itself a kind of social position,
besides being accompanied by a little frightened, furtive wife, who
closed her eyes, as if in the presence of a blinding splendour, when
Mrs Crookenden spoke to her. The Poupins were not there—which,
however, was not a surprise to Hyacinth, who knew that (even if
they had been asked, which they were not) they had objections of
principle to putting their feet chez les bourgeois. They were not
asked because, in spite of the place Eustache had made for himself
in the prosperity of the business, it had come to be known that his
wife was somehow not his wife (though she was certainly no one’s
else); and the evidence of this irregularity was conceived to reside,
vaguely, in the fact that she had never been seen save in a camisole.
There had doubtless been an apprehension that if she had come to
the villa she would not have come with the proper number of hooks
and eyes, though Hyacinth, on two or three occasions, notably the
night he took the pair to Mr Vetch’s theatre, had been witness of the
proportions to which she could reduce her figure when she wished
to give the impression of a lawful tie.
It was not clear to him how the distinction conferred upon him
became known in Soho, where, however, it excited no sharpness of
jealousy—Grugan, Roker, and Hotchkin being hardly more likely to
envy a person condemned to spend a genteel evening than they
were to envy a monkey performing antics on a barrel-organ: both
forms of effort indicated an urbanity painfully acquired. But Roker
took his young comrade’s breath half away with his elbow and
remarked that he supposed he saw the old man had spotted him for
one of the darlings at home; inquiring, furthermore, what would
become in that case of the little thing he took to France, the one to
whom he had stood champagne and lobster. This was the first
allusion Hyacinth had heard made to the idea that he might some
day marry his master’s daughter, like the virtuous apprentice of
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