“You mean that she’s an exception to what I was saying?”
Lady Aurora stammered a little; then, at last, as if, since he wouldn’t spare her, she wouldn’t spare him, either, “Yes, and you’re an exception, too; you’ll not make me believe you’re wanting in intelligence. The Muniments don’t think so,” she added.
“No more do I myself; but that doesn’t prove that exceptions are not frequent. I have blood in my veins that is not the blood of the people.”
“Oh, I see,” said Lady Aurora, sympathetically. And with a smile she went on: “Then you’re all the more of an exception—in the upper class!”
Her smile was the kindest in the world, but it did not blind Hyacinth to the fact that from his own point of view he had been extraordinarily indiscreet. He believed a moment before that he would have been proof against the strongest temptation to refer to the mysteries of his lineage, inasmuch as, if made in a boastful spirit (and he had no desire as yet to make it an exercise in humility), any such reference would inevitably contain an element of the grotesque. He had never opened his lips to any one about his birth (since the dreadful days when the question was discussed, with Mr Vetch’s assistance, in Lomax Place); never even to Paul Muniment, never to Millicent Henning nor to Eustache Poupin. He had an impression that people had ideas about him, and with some of Miss Henning’s he had been made acquainted: they were of such a nature that he sometimes wondered whether the tie which united him to her were not, on her own side, a secret determination to satisfy her utmost curiosity before she had done with him. But he flattered himself that he was impenetrable, and none the less he had begun to swagger, idiotically, the first time a temptation (to call a temptation) presented itself. He turned crimson as soon as he had spoken, partly at the sudden image of what he had to swagger about, and partly at the absurdity of a challenge having appeared to proceed from the bashful gentlewoman before him. He hoped she didn’t particularly regard what he had said (and indeed she gave no sign whatever of being startled by his claim to a pedigree—she had too much quick delicacy for that; she appeared to notice only the symptoms of confusion that followed it), but as soon as possible he gave himself a lesson in humility by remarking, “I gather that you spend most of your time among the poor, and I am sure you carry blessings with you. But I frankly confess that I don’t understand a lady giving herself up to people like us when there is no obligation. Wretched company we must be, when there is so much better to be had.”
“I like it very much—you don’t understand.”
“Precisely—that is what I say. Our little friend on the bed is perpetually talking about your house, your family, your splendours, your gardens and green-houses; they must be magnificent, of course—”
“Oh, I wish she wouldn’t; really, I wish she wouldn’t. It makes one feel dreadfully!” Lady Aurora interposed, with vehemence.
“Ah, you had better give her her way; it’s such a pleasure to her.”
“Yes, more than to any of us!” sighed her ladyship, helplessly.