and all the rest of it, sir—­and at the end of all things to find myself at this pass.  It can’t be, it ’s too cruel, such things don’t happen, the Lord don’t allow it.  I ’m a religious woman, sir, and the Lord knows all about me.  With his own hand he had given me his reward!  I would have lain down in the dust and let her walk over me; I would have given her the eyes out of my head, if she had taken a fancy to them.  No, she ’s a cruel, wicked, heartless, unnatural girl!  I speak to you, Mr. Mallet, in my dire distress, as to my only friend.  There is n’t a creature here that I can look to—­not one of them all that I have faith in.  But I always admired you.  I said to Christina the first time I saw you that there at last was a real gentleman.  Come, don’t disappoint me now!  I feel so terribly alone, you see; I feel what a nasty, hard, heartless world it is that has come and devoured my dinners and danced to my fiddles, and yet that has n’t a word to throw to me in my agony!  Oh, the money, alone, that I have put into this thing, would melt the heart of a Turk!”

During this frenzied outbreak Rowland had had time to look round the room, and to see the Cavaliere sitting in a corner, like a major-domo on the divan of an antechamber, pale, rigid, and inscrutable.

“I have it at heart to tell you,” Rowland said, “that if you consider my friend Hudson”—­

Mrs. Light gave a toss of her head and hands.  “Oh, it ’s not that.  She told me last night to bother her no longer with Hudson, Hudson!  She did n’t care a button for Hudson.  I almost wish she did; then perhaps one might understand it.  But she does n’t care for anything in the wide world, except to do her own hard, wicked will, and to crush me and shame me with her cruelty.”

“Ah, then,” said Rowland, “I am as much at sea as you, and my presence here is an impertinence.  I should like to say three words to Miss Light on my own account.  But I must absolutely and inexorably decline to urge the cause of Prince Casamassima.  This is simply impossible.”

Mrs. Light burst into angry tears.  “Because the poor boy is a prince, eh? because he ’s of a great family, and has an income of millions, eh?  That ’s why you grudge him and hate him.  I knew there were vulgar people of that way of feeling, but I did n’t expect it of you.  Make an effort, Mr. Mallet; rise to the occasion; forgive the poor fellow his splendor.  Be just, be reasonable!  It ’s not his fault, and it ’s not mine.  He ’s the best, the kindest young man in the world, and the most correct and moral and virtuous!  If he were standing here in rags, I would say it all the same.  The man first—­the money afterwards:  that was always my motto, and always will be.  What do you take me for?  Do you suppose I would give Christina to a vicious person? do you suppose I would sacrifice my precious child, little comfort as I have in her, to a man against whose character one word could be breathed?  Casamassima is only