Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 3.djvu/77

 nice room, the best in the house. Me, at least, she does not treat ill. It looks to-day like the end of all things. If you would turn your climate the other side up, the rest would do well enough. Good-night to you, whoever you are.'

The old lady shuffled away, in spite of Mr. Vetch's renewed apologies, and the Princess stood before the fire, watching her companions, while he opened the door. 'She goes away, she comes back; it doesn't matter. She thinks it's a bad house, but she knows it would be worse without her. I remember now,' the Princess added. 'Mr. Robinson told me that you had been a great democrat in old days, but that now you had ceased to care for the people.'

'The people—the people? That is a vague term. Whom do you mean?'

The Princess hesitated. 'Those you used to care for, to plead for; those who are underneath every one, every thing, and have the whole social mass crushing them.'

'I see you think I'm a renegade. The way certain classes arrogate to themselves the title of the people has never pleased me. Why are some human beings the people, and the people only, and others not? I am of the people myself, I have worked all my days like a knife-grinder, and I have really never changed.'

'You must not let me make you angry,' said the Princess, laughing and sitting down again. 'I am sometimes very provoking, but you must stop me off. You wouldn't think it, perhaps, but no one takes a snub better than I.'

Mr. Vetch dropped his eyes a minute; he appeared to wish to show that he regarded such a speech as that as one of the Princess's characteristic humours, and knew that he