Hyacinth asked this question with considerable heat, but the effect of it was to send his companion off into a new fit of laughter. “You say that just like a man that my brother described to me three days ago; a little man at some club, whose hair stood up—Paul imitated the way he glowered and screamed. I don’t mean that you scream, you know; but you use almost the same words that he did.” Hyacinth scarcely knew what to make of this allusion, or of the picture offered to him of Paul Muniment casting ridicule upon those who spoke in the name of the down-trodden. But Rosy went on, before he had time to do more than reflect that there would evidently be a great deal more to learn about her brother: “I haven’t the least objection to seeing the people improved, but I don’t want to see the aristocracy lowered an inch. I like so much to look at it up there.” “You ought to know my aunt Pinnie—she’s just such another benighted idolater!” Hyacinth exclaimed. “Oh, you are making me like you very fast! And pray, who is your aunt Pinnie?” “She’s a dressmaker, and a charming little woman. I should like her to come and see you.” “I’m afraid I’m not in her line—I never had on a dress in my life. But, as a charming woman, I should be delighted to see her.” “I will bring her some day,” said Hyacinth. And then he added, rather incongruously, for he was irritated by the girl’s optimism, thinking it a shame that her sharpness should be enlisted on the wrong side, “Don’t you want, for yourself, a better place to live in?” She jerked herself up, and for a moment he thought she would jump out of her bed at him. “A better place than this? Pray, how could there be a better place? Every one thinks it’s lovely; you should see our view by daylight—you should see everything I’ve got. Perhaps you are used to something very fine, but Lady Aurora says that in all Belgrave Square there isn’t such a cosy little room. If you think I’m not perfectly content, you are very much mistaken!” Such a sentiment as that could only exasperate Hyacinth, and his exasperation made him indifferent to the fact that he had appeared to cast discredit on Miss Muniment’s apartment. Pinnie herself, submissive as she was, had spared him that sort of displeasure; she groaned over the dinginess of Lomax Place sufficiently to remind him that she had not been absolutely stultified by misery. “Don’t you sometimes make your brother very angry?” he asked, smiling, of Rose Muniment. “Angry? I don’t know what you take us for! I never saw him lose his temper in his life.” “He must be a rum customer! Doesn’t he really care for—for what we were talking about?” For a moment Rosy was silent; then she replied, “What my brother really cares for—well, one of these days, when you know, you’ll tell me.” Hyacinth stared. “But isn’t he tremendously deep in—” He hesitated. “Deep in what?” “Well, in what’s going on, beneath the surface. Doesn’t he belong to things?”