“Yes. Prevent me from walking, and you deprive me of my health. Prevent me from going alone where I please and when I please, and you deprive me of my liberty--tear up Magna Charta, in effect. But I do not insist upon being alone in this instance. If you can return to your office by way of Regent’s Park and Gower Street without losing too much time, I shall be glad of your company.” Lucian decorously suppressed his eagerness to comply by looking at his watch and pretending to consider his engagements. In conclusion, he said that he should be happy to accompany her. It was a fine summer afternoon, and there were many people in the park. Lucian was soon incommoded by the attention his cousin attracted. In spite of the black beaver, her hair shone like fire in the sun. Women stared at her with unsympathetic curiosity, and turned as they passed to examine her attire. Men resorted to various subterfuges to get a satisfactory look without rudely betraying their intention. A few stupid youths gaped; and a few impudent ones smiled. Lucian would gladly have kicked them all, without distinction. He at last suggested that they should leave the path, and make a short cut across the green-sward. As they emerged from the shade of the trees he had a vague impression that the fineness of the weather and the beauty of the park made the occasion romantic, and that the words by which he hoped to make the relation between him and his cousin dearer and closer would be well spoken there. But he immediately began to talk, in spite of himself, about the cost of maintaining the public parks, of the particulars of which he happened to have some official knowledge. Lydia, readily interested by facts of any sort, thought the subject not a bad one for a casual afternoon conversation, and pursued it until they left the turf and got into the Euston Road, where the bustle of traffic silenced them for a while. When they escaped from the din into the respectable quietude of Gower Street, he suddenly said, “It is one of the evils of great wealth in the hands of a woman, that she can hardly feel sure--” His ideas fled suddenly. He stopped; but he kept his countenance so well that he had the air of having made a finished speech, and being perfectly satisfied with it. “Do you mean that she can never feel sure of the justice of her title to her riches? That used to trouble me; but it no longer does so.” “Nonsense!” said Lucian. “I alluded to the disinterestedness of your friends.” “That does not trouble me either. Absolutely disinterested friends I do not seek, as I should only find them among idiots or somnambulists. As to those whose interests are base, they do not know how to conceal their motives from me. For the rest, I am not so unreasonable as to object to a fair account being taken of my wealth in estimating the value of my friendship.” “Do you not believe in the existence of persons who would like you just as well if you were poor?”