Lady Aurora looked a little surprised. “Oh, I see; you don’t like—you don’t like—!” She hesitated: he saw she was going to say he didn’t like the idea of going in to that extent for a trade; but he stopped her in time from imputing to him a sentiment so foolish and declared what he meant to be simply that his one faculty was the faculty of doing his little piece of work, whatever it was, of liking to do it skilfully and prettily, and of liking still better to get his money for it when done. His conception of “business” or of rising in the world didn’t go beyond that. “Oh yes, I can fancy!” her ladyship exclaimed; but she looked at him a moment with eyes which showed that he puzzled her, that she didn’t quite understand his tone. Before he left her she asked him abruptly (nothing had led up to it) what he thought of Captain Sholto, whom she had seen that other evening in Audley Court. Didn’t he think him a very odd sort of person? Hyacinth confessed to this impression; whereupon Lady Aurora went on anxiously, eagerly: “Don’t you consider him decidedly vulgar?” “How can I know?” “You can know perfectly—as well as any one!” Then she added: “I think it’s a pity they should form relations with any one of that kind.” “They” of course meant Paul Muniment and his sister. “With a person who may be vulgar?”—Hyacinth regarded this solicitude as exquisite. “But think of the people they know—think of those they’re surrounded with—think of all Audley Court!” “The poor, the unhappy, the labouring classes? Oh, I don’t call _them_ vulgar!” cried her ladyship with radiant eyes. The young man, lying awake a good deal that night, laughed to himself, on his pillow, not unkindly, at her fear that he and his friends would be contaminated by the familiar of a princess. He even wondered if she wouldn’t find the Princess herself a bit vulgar. XX