So atypical of Henry James - The Princess Casamassima

"The Princess Casamassima" continues to surprise me - a completely different area for Henry James to explore; not only is it focused on a working-class character and his troubles making a living and his despair about the poverty that he sees on his daily (and nightly) walks throughout London, but it also includes a romantic element that's not entirely enshrouded in feints and hesitations and concerns about appearances and proprieties - could the opening chapters be any more different from the genteel tea party that opens Portrait of a Lady? In chapter I read last night the young man, Hyacinth Robinson (?) - yes, that's his first name - and young woman Millicent Henning go on a long walk through London - he's taking her home, after she surprises him with a visit to the old "Plice" where she'd grown up and he still lives. Millicent now a somewhat fashionable if course woman about town, and we're not sure why she's interested in striking up re-acquaintance with Hyacinth - but it's obvious that she knows what he does not: that he's actually the child of a murderess who died in prison. She hints about this and tries to find out how much he actually knows about his origins - and we're not sure how much she actually knows or why this information is important to her - a very good set-up for a long novel, which will probably take these two characters through many permutations.