Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 3.djvu/122

 immensely remarkable—more remarkable than anything any one, male or female, good or bad, of the aristocracy or of the vulgar sort, can ever do for you?'

'What on earth have I ever done to show it?' Paul demanded.

'Oh, I don't know your secrets, and that's one of them. But we're out of the common beyond any one, you and I, and, between ourselves, with the door fastened, we might as well admit it.'

'I admit it for you, with all my heart,' said the young man, laughing.

'Well, then, if I admit it for you, that's all that's required.'

The brother and sister considered each other a while in silence, as if each were tasting, agreeably, the distinction the other conferred; then Muniment said, 'If I'm such an awfully superior chap, why shouldn't I behave in keeping?'

'Oh, you do, you do!'

'All the same, you don't like it.'

'It isn't so much what you do; it's what she does.'

'How do you mean, what she does?'

'She makes Lady Aurora suffer.'

'Oh, I can't go into that,' said Paul. 'A man feels like a muff, talking about the women that "suffer" for him.'

'Well, if they do it, I think you might bear it!' Rosy exclaimed. 'That's what a man is. When it comes to being sorry, oh, that's too ridiculous!'

'There are plenty of things in the world I'm sorry for,' Paul rejoined, smiling. 'One of them is that you should keep me gossiping here when I want to go out.'