Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 2.djvu/172

 'Oh, all the straw one chews, to cheat one's appetite; all the rot one dabbles in, because it may lead to something which it never does lead to; all the beastly buncombe (you know) that you and I have heard together in Bloomsbury and that I myself have poured out, damme, with an eloquence worthy of a better cause. Don't you remember what I have said to you—all as my own opinion—about the impending change of the relations of class with class? Impending fiddlesticks! I believe those that are on top the heap are better than those that are under it, that they mean to stay there, and that if they are not a pack of poltroons they will.'

'You don't care for the social question, then?' Hyacinth inquired, with an aspect of which he was conscious of the blankness.

'I only took it up because she did. It hasn't helped me,' Sholto remarked, smiling. 'My dear Robinson,' he went on, 'there is only one thing I care for in life: to have a look at that woman when I can, and when I can't, to approach her in the sort of way I'm doing now.'

'It's a very curious sort of way.'

'Indeed it is; but if it is good enough for me it ought to be good enough for you. What I want you to do is this—to induce her to ask me over to dine.'

'To induce her?' Hyacinth murmured.

'Tell her I'm staying at Bonchester and it would be an act of common humanity.'

They proceeded till they reached the gates, and in a moment Hyacinth said, 'You took up the social question, then, because she did; but do you happen to know why she took it up?'