“Yes, no doubt I’m out of it; but I still have a right to say, all the same, in contradiction to your charge of a moment ago, that I take interest in the ‘real business’ exactly as much as I ever did.” “My poor Hyacinth, my dear, infatuated, little aristocrat, was that ever very much?” she asked. “It was enough, and it’s still enough, to make me willing to lay down my life for anything that will clearly help.” “Yes, and of course you must decide for yourself what that is—or rather what it’s not.” “I didn’t decide when I gave my promise. I agreed to abide by the decision of others,” Hyacinth answered. “Well, you said just now that in relation to this business of yours you had thought of many things,” his friend pursued. “Have you ever by chance thought of anything that _will_ do their work?” “Their work?” “The people’s.” “Ah you call me fantastic names, but I’m one of them myself!” he cried. “I know what you’re going to say,” the Princess broke in. “You’re going to say it will help them to do what you do—to do their work themselves and earn their wages. That’s beautiful so far as it goes. But what do you propose for the thousands and hundreds of thousands for whom no work—on the overcrowded earth, under the pitiless heaven—is to be found? There’s less and less work in the world, and there are more and more people to do the little there is. The old ferocious selfishness _must_ come down. They won’t come down gracefully, so they must just be assisted.” The tone in which she spoke made his heart beat fast, and there was something so inspiring in the great union of her beauty, her sincerity and her energy that the image of a heroism not less great flashed up again before him in all the splendour it had lost—the idea of a tremendous risk and an unregarded sacrifice. Such a woman as that, at such an hour, one who could shine like silver and ring like crystal, made every scruple a poor prudence and every compunction a cowardice. “I wish to God I could see it as you see it!” he wailed after he had looked at her some seconds in silent admiration. “I see simply this: that what we’re doing is at least worth trying, and that as none of those who have the power, the place, the means, will bethink themselves of anything else, on _their_ head be the responsibility, on _their_ head be the blood!” “Princess,” said Hyacinth, clasping his hands and feeling that he trembled, “dearest Princess, if anything should happen to _you_——!” But his voice fell; the horror of it, a dozen hideous images of her possible perversity and her possible punishment were again before him, as he had already seen them in sinister musings: they seemed to him worse than anything he had imagined for himself. She threw back her head, looking at him almost in anger. “To me! And pray why not to me? What title have I to exemption, to security, more than any one else? Why am I so sacrosanct and so precious?”