He evidently was arguing from pure good nature and not in the least from curiosity; but his sister replied as eagerly as if he would be floored by her answer: “Hasn’t she got a hundred a year of her own? Don’t I know every penny of her affairs?”
Paul gave no sign of any inward judgement passed on Rosy’s conception of the delicate course or of a superior policy; perhaps indeed, for it is perfectly possible, her question didn’t strike him as having a mixture of motives. He only said with a small, pleasant, patient sigh: “I don’t want the dear old girl’s money.”
His sister, in spite of her eagerness, waited twenty seconds; then she flashed at him: “Pray do you like the Princess’s better?”
“If I did there’d be much more of it,” he quietly returned.
“How can she marry you? Hasn’t she got a husband?” Rosy cried.
“Lord, how you give me away!” laughed her brother. “Daughters of earls, wives of princes—I’ve only to pick.”
“I don’t speak of the Princess so long as there’s a Prince. But if you haven’t seen that Lady Aurora’s a beautiful, wonderful exception and quite unlike any one else in all the wide world—well, all I can say is that I have.”
“I thought it was your opinion,” Paul objected, “that the swells should remain swells and the high ones keep their place.”
“And pray would she lose hers if she were to marry you?”
“Her place at Inglefield certainly,” he answered as lucidly as if his sister could never tire him with any insistence or any minuteness.