“Of the girl or her brother.”
“Oh, I think he’ll be some day prime minister of England.”
“Do you really? I’m so glad!” she cried with a flush of colour. “I do rejoice if you think that will be possible. You know it ought to be if things were right.”
Hyacinth had not professed this high faith for the purpose of playing on her ladyship’s feelings, but when he felt her intense agreement it was as if he had been making sport of her. Still he said no more than he believed when he observed in a moment that he had the greatest expectations of Paul Muniment’s future: he was sure the world would hear of him, that England would need him, that the public some day would acclaim him. It was impossible to know him without feeling he was very strong and must play some important part.
“Yes, people wouldn’t believe—they wouldn’t believe.” She abounded in his sense and he could measure the good he did her. It was moreover a pleasure to himself to place on record his opinion of his friend; it seemed to make that opinion more clear, to give it the force of an invocation or a prophecy. This was especially the case when he asked why on earth nature had endowed Paul Muniment with such extraordinary powers of mind, and powers of body too—because he was as strong as a horse—if it hadn’t been intended he should do something supreme for his fellow-men. Hyacinth confided to her ladyship that he thought the people in his own class generally very stupid—distinctly what he should call third-rate minds. He wished it hadn’t been so, for heaven knew he felt kindly to them and only asked to cast his lot with theirs; but he was obliged to confess that centuries of poverty, of ill-paid toil, of bad insufficient food and wretched housing hadn’t a favourable effect on the higher faculties. All the more reason that when there was a splendid exception like their friend it should count for a tremendous force—it had so much to make up for, so many to act for. And then Hyacinth repeated that in his own low walk of life people had really not the faculty of thought; their minds had been simplified—reduced to two or three elements. He saw that such judgements made his fellow-guest very uncomfortable; she turned about, she twisted herself vaguely as if she wished to protest, but she was far too considerate to interrupt him. He had no wish to worry her, but there were times when he couldn’t withstand the perverse satisfaction of insisting on his lowliness of station, of turning the knife in the wound inflicted by such explicit reference, and of letting it be seen that if his place in the world was immeasurably small he at least had no illusions about either himself or his species. Lady Aurora replied as quickly as possible that she knew a great deal about the poor—not the poor after the fashion of Rosy, but the terribly, hopelessly poor, with whom she was more familiar than Hyacinth would perhaps believe—and that she was often struck with their great talents and their quick wit, with their command of conversation really of much more interest to her than most of what one usually heard in drawing-rooms. She often found them immensely clever.
Hyacinth smiled at her and said: “Ah when you get to the lowest depths of poverty they may become rich and rare again. But I’m afraid I haven’t gone so far down. In spite of my opportunities I don’t know many absolute paupers.”
“I know a great many.” Lady Aurora hesitated as if she didn’t like to swagger, but she brought it out. “I daresay I know more than any one.” There was something touching and beautiful to Hyacinth in this simple and diffident claim: it confirmed his impression that she was in some mysterious, incongruous and even slightly ludicrous manner a true heroine, a creature of a noble ideal. She perhaps guessed he was indulging in reflexions that might be favourable to her, for she said precipitately the next minute, as if there were nothing she dreaded so much as the danger of a compliment: “I think your aunt’s so very attractive—and I’m sure dear Rosy thinks so.” No sooner had she spoken than she blushed again; it appeared to have occurred to her that he might suppose she wished to contradict him by presenting this case of his aunt as a proof that the baser sort, even in a prosaic upper layer, were not without redeeming points. There was no reason why she should not have had this intention; so without sparing her he replied:
“You mean she’s an exception to what I was saying?”
She 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’ve blood in my veins that’s not the blood of the people.”