LUCAS. [Biting his lip.] Really?
ST. OLPHERTS. Then she denounced the gilded aristocracy generally. Our day is over; we're broken wooden dolls, and are going to be chucked. The old tune; but I enjoyed the novelty of being so near the instrument. I assure you, dear fellow, I was within three feet of her when she deliberately Trafalgar Squared me.
LUCAS. [With an uneasy laugh.] You're the red rag, Duke. This spirit of revolt in her—it's ludicrously extravagant; but it will die out in time, when she has become used to being happy and cared for—[partly to himself, with clenched hands]—yes, cared for.
ST. OLPHERTS. Die out? Bred in the bone, dear Lucas.
LUCAS. On some topics she's a mere echo of her father, if you mean that?
ST. OLPHERTS. The father—one of those public park vermin, eh?
LUCAS. Dead years ago.
ST. OLPHERTS. I once heard her bellowing in a dirty little shed in St.
Luke's. I told you?
LUCAS. Yes, you've told me.
ST. OLPHERTS. I sat there again, it seemed, this afternoon. The orator not quite so lean, perhaps—a little less witch-like; but—