‘And yet might be a very unfeeling dame at the same time,’ said the Princess. ‘I never thought of that,’ said Sidonia. ‘The heart, apparently, does not reckon in your philosophy.’ ‘What we call the heart,’ said Sidonia, ‘is a nervous sensation, like shyness, which gradually disappears in society. It is fervent in the nursery, strong in the domestic circle, tumultuous at school. The affections are the children of ignorance; when the horizon of our experience expands, and models multiply, love and admiration imperceptibly vanish.’ ‘I fear the horizon of your experience has very greatly expanded. With your opinions, what charm can there be in life?’ ‘The sense of existence.’ ‘So Sidonia is off to-morrow, Monmouth,’ said Lord Eskdale. ‘Hah!’ said the Marquess. ‘I must get him to breakfast with me before he goes.’ The party broke up. Coningsby, who had heard Lord Eskdale announce Sidonia’s departure, lingered to express his regret, and say farewell. ‘I cannot sleep,’ said Sidonia, ‘and I never smoke in Europe. If you are not stiff with your wounds, come to my rooms.’ This invitation was willingly accepted. ‘I am going to Cambridge in a week,’ said Coningsby. I was almost in hopes you might have remained as long.’ ‘I also; but my letters of this morning demand me. If it had not been for our chase, I should have quitted immediately. The minister cannot pay the interest on the national debt; not an unprecedented circumstance, and has applied to us. I never permit any business of State to be transacted without my personal interposition; and so I must go up to town immediately.’ ‘Suppose you don’t pay it,’ said Coningsby, smiling. ‘If I followed my own impulse, I would remain here,’ said Sidonia. ‘Can anything be more absurd than that a nation should apply to an individual to maintain its credit, and, with its credit, its existence as an empire, and its comfort as a people; and that individual one to whom its laws deny the proudest rights of citizenship, the privilege of sitting in its senate and of holding land? for though I have been rash enough to buy several estates, my own opinion is, that, by the existing law of England, an Englishman of Hebrew faith cannot possess the soil.’ ‘But surely it would be easy to repeal a law so illiberal--’