Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 1.djvu/151

 girl's optimism, thinking it a shame that her sharpness should be enlisted on the wrong side, 'Don't you want, for yourself, a better place to live in?'

She jerked herself up, and for a moment he thought she would jump out of her bed at him. 'A better place than this? Pray, how could there be a better place? Every one thinks it's lovely; you should see our view by daylight—you should see everything I've got. Perhaps you are used to something very fine, but Lady Aurora says that in all Belgrave Square there isn't such a cosy little room. If you think I'm not perfectly content, you are very much mistaken!'

Such a sentiment as that could only exasperate Hyacinth, and his exasperation made him indifferent to the fact that he had appeared to cast discredit on Miss Muniment's apartment. Pinnie herself, submissive as she was, had spared him that sort of displeasure; she groaned over the dinginess of Lomax Place sufficiently to remind him that she had not been absolutely stultified by misery. 'Don't you sometimes make your brother very angry?' he asked, smiling, of Rose Muniment.

'Angry? I don't know what you take us for! I never saw him lose his temper in his life.'

'He must be a rum customer! Doesn't he really care for—for what we were talking about?'

For a moment Rosy was silent; then she replied, 'What my brother really cares for—well, one of these days, when you know, you'll tell me.'

Hyacinth stared. 'But isn't he tremendously deep in' He hesitated.

'Deep in what?'