Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 1.djvu/137

 'Didn't you ever hear of the Earl of Inglefield?' cried Rose Muniment.

'He is one of the best,' said Lady Aurora, as if she were pleading for him.

'Very likely, but he is a landlord, and he has an hereditary seat and a park of five thousand acres all to himself, while we are bundled together into this sort of kennel.' Hyacinth admired the young man's consistency until he saw that he was chaffing; after which he still admired the way he mixed up merriment with the tremendous opinions our hero was sure he entertained. In his own imagination Hyacinth associated bitterness with the revolutionary passion; but the young chemist, at the same time that he was planning far ahead, seemed capable of turning revolutionists themselves into ridicule, even for the entertainment of the revolutionised.

'Well, I have told you often enough that I don't go with you at all,' said Rose Muniment, whose recumbency appeared not in the least to interfere with her sense of responsibility. 'You'll make a tremendous mistake if you try to turn everything round. There ought to be differences, and high and low, and there always will be, true as ever I lie here. I think it's against everything, pulling down them that's above.'

'Everything points to great changes in this country, but if once our Rosy's against them, how can you be sure? That's the only thing that makes me doubt,' her brother went on, looking at her with a placidity which showed the habit of indulgence.

'Well, I may be ill, but I ain't buried, and if I'm content with my position—such a position as it is—surely