Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 3.djvu/117

 Rose Muniment hesitated a moment. 'Well, I'm glad I'm not a man!' she broke out. 'I think a woman on her back is cleverer than a man on his two legs. And you such a wonderful one, too!'

'You are all too clever for me, my dear. If she goes—and twenty times a week, too—why shouldn't I go, once in ever so long? Especially as I like her, and Lady Aurora doesn't.'

'Lady Aurora doesn't? Do you think she'd be guilty of hypocrisy? Lady Aurora delights in her; she won't let me say that she herself is fit to dust the Princess's shoes. I needn't tell you how she goes down before them she likes. And I don't believe you care a button; you have got something in your head, some wicked game or other, that you think she can hatch for you.'

At this Paul Muniment turned round and looked at his sister a moment, smiling still and whistling just audibly. 'Why shouldn't I care? Ain't I soft, ain't I susceptible?'

'I never thought I should hear you ask that, after what I have seen these four years. For four years she has come, and it's all for you, as well it might be, and you never showing any more sense of what she'd be willing to do for you than if you had been that woollen cat on the hearthrug!'

'What would you like me to do? Would you like me to hang round her neck and hold her hand, the same as you do?' Muniment asked.

'Yes, it would do me good, I can tell you. It's better than what I see—the poor lady getting spotted and dim, like a mirror that wants rubbing.'