"To be free to soar—to see the world—to feel its throb—to demonstrate some of my ideas."
"On what subjects?"
"The meanings of things—and why they are—and the common sense aspect of them. Then one could help humanity. Lady Garribardine is my ideal of what a woman should be. There is nothing small about her; she is as big as a great man and far more sagacious."
"There I am with you!" and his voice became eager. "Her Ladyship has always been the perfection of things feminine, in my opinion. You know her well?"
"Extremely well. She is not afraid of her views and principles. She is really an aristocrat. She believes in herself, so everyone believes in her, too!"
"Most of us are shaky about ourselves."
"You are not—I shall turn the tables now and say I want to talk about you! What does it feel like to be a Duke?—A real Duke, not a parvenu or one who makes a laughing stock of his order."
He smiled; she was a most engaging and audacious young person, because she did not speak with childish artlessness, but with deliberation.
"It feels a great responsibility sometimes, and a thing of very little consequence at others. It enforces perhaps a standard of behaviour which it is difficult always to follow. If the circumstances of my life had been different when I was younger, I should have endeavoured not to let our order slip into impotency; now the whole modern political outlook disgusts me so that I seldom speak in the House."
"That is very wrong of you, and cowardly." She was quite fearless. "You should never give up a fight or remain passive when what really belongs to you is being filched from you. If you do, as a band, you deserve to be put aside. You should fight with the same fierceness with which those Radicals do who know they are shams, but are indeed in earnest to obtain their own ends."