Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 2.djvu/61

 practical sense. It was not less present to him that Pinnie might have tattled, put forward his claims to high consanguinity, than it had been when the dressmaker herself descanted on her ladyship's condescensions; but he remembered now that he too had only just escaped being asinine, when, the other day, he flashed out an allusion to his accursed origin. At all events, he was much touched by the delicacy with which the earl's daughter comported herself, simply assuming that he was 'one of themselves'; and he reflected that if she did know his history (he was sure he might pass twenty years in her society without discovering whether she did or not), this shade of courtesy, this natural tact, coexisting even with extreme awkwardness, illustrated that 'best breeding' which he had seen alluded to in novels portraying the aristocracy. The only remark on Lady Aurora's part that savoured in the least of looking down at him from a height was when she said, cheerfully, encouragingly, 'I suppose that one of these days you will be setting up in business for yourself'; and this was not so cruelly patronising that he could not reply, with a smile equally free from any sort of impertinence, 'Oh dear, no, I shall never do that. I should make a great mess of any attempt to carry on a business. I haven't a particle of that kind of aptitude.'

Lady Aurora looked a little surprised; then she said, 'Oh, I see; you don't like—you don't like' She hesitated: he saw she was going to say that he didn't like the idea of going in, to that extent, for a trade; but he stopped her in time from attributing to him a sentiment so foolish, and declared that what he meant was simply that the only faculty he possessed was the faculty of doing his