Page:The Portrait of a Lady (1882).djvu/102

94 94 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. you take, it must seem to me long, and I suppose I must make the best of that." " I shall not keep you in suspense ; I only want to collect my mind a little." He gave a melancholy sigh and stood looking at her a moment, with his hands behind him, giving short nervous shakes to his hunting-whip. " Do you know I am very much afraid of it of that mind of yours % " Our heroine's biographer can scarcely tell why, but the question made her start and brought a conscious blush to her cheek. She returned his look a moment, and then, with a note in her voice that might almost have appealed to his compassion " So am I, my lord ! " she exclaimed. His compassion was not stirred, however ; all that he possessed of the faculty of pity was needed at home. " Ah ! be merciful, be merciful," he murmured. "I think you had better go," said Isabel. " I will write to you." " Very good ; but whatever you write, I will come and see you/' And then he stood reflecting, with his eyes fixed on the observant countenance of Bunchie, who had the air of having understood all that had been said, and of pretending to carry off the indiscretion by a simulated fit of curiosity as to the roots of an ancient beech. "There is one thing more," said Lord Warburton. "You know, if you don't like Lockleigh if you think it's damp, or anything of that sort you need never go within fifty miles of it.* It is not damp, by the way; I have had the house thoroughly examined ; it is perfectly sanitary. But if you shouldn't fancy it, you needn't dream of living in it. There is no difficulty whatever about that ; there are plenty of houses. I thought I would just mention it; some people don't like a moat, you know. Good-bye." " I delight in a moat," said Isabel. " Good-bye." He held out his hand, and she gave him hers a moment a moment long enough for him to bend his head and kiss it. Then, shaking his hunting-whip with little quick strokes, he walked rapidly away. He was evidently very nervous. Isabel herself was nervous, but she was not affected as she would have imagined. What she felt was not a great responsi- bility, a great difficulty of choice ; for it appeared to her that there was no choice in the question. She could not marry Lord Warburton ; the idea failed to correspond to any vision of happiness that she had hitherto entertained, or was now capable of entertaining. She must write this to him, she must convince him, and this duty was comparatively simple. But what