Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 1.djvu/47

 to follow the train of Mr. Vetch's demonstration. 'Do you mean that he'll have the property—that his relations will take him up?'

'My dear, delightful, idiotic Pinnie, I am speaking in a figurative manner. I don't pretend to say what his precise position will be when we are relegated; but I affirm that relegation will be our fate. Therefore don't stuff him with any more illusions than are necessary to keep him alive; he will be sure to pick up enough on the way. On the contrary, give him a good stiff dose of the truth at the start.'

'Dear me, dear me, of course you see much further into it than I could ever do,' Pinnie murmured, as she threaded a needle.

Mr. Vetch paused a minute, but apparently not out of deference to this amiable interruption. He went on suddenly, with a ring of feeling in his voice. 'Let him know, because it will be useful to him later, the state of the account between society and himself; he can then conduct himself accordingly. If he is the illegitimate child of a French good-for-naught who murdered one of her numerous lovers, don't shuffle out of sight so important a fact. I regard that as a most valuable origin.'

'Lord, Mr. Vetch, how you talk!' cried Miss Pynsent, staring. 'I don't know what one would think, to hear you.'

'Surely, my dear lady, and for this reason: that those are the people with whom society has to count. It hasn't with you and me.' Miss Pynsent gave a sigh which might have meant either that she was well aware of that, or that Mr. Vetch had a terrible way of enlarging a subject, especially when it was already too big for her; and her philosophic