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114 114 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. you will gain more than you will lose," Lord Warburton observed. "I can't escape unhappiness," said Isabel. "In marrying you, I shall be trying to." " I don't know whether you would try to, but you certainly would : that I must in candour admit ! " Lord "Warburton exclaimed, with an anxious laugh. " I must not I can't ! " cried the girl. " Well, if you are bent on being miserable, I don't see why you should make me so. Whatever charms unhappiness may have for you, it has none for me." " I am not bent on being miserable," said Isabel. ". I have always been intensely determined to be happy, and I have often believed I should be. I have told people that ; you can ask them. But it comes over me every now and then that I can never be happy in any extraordinary way ; not by turning away, by separating myself." "By separating yourself from what?" " From life. From the usual chances and dangers, from what most people know and suffer." Lord Warburton broke into a smile that almost denoted hope. " Why, my dear Miss Archer," he began to explain, with the most considerate eagerness, " I don't offer you any exoneration from life, or from any chances or dangers whatever. I wish I could; depend upon it I would ! For what do you take me, pray ? Heaven help me, I am not the Emperor of China ! All I offer you is the chance of taking the common lot in a comfortable sort of way. The common lot 1 Why, I am devoted to the common lot ! Strike an alliance with me, and I promise you that you shall have plenty of it. You shall separate from nothing what- ever not even from your friend Miss Stackpole." " She would never approve of it," said Isabel, trying to smile and take advantage of this side-issue ; despising herself too, not a little, for doing so. " Are we speaking of Miss Stackpole 1 " Lord Warburton asked, impatiently. " I never saw a person judge things on such theoretic grounds." " Now I suppose you are speaking of me," said Isabel, with humility; and she turned away again, for she saw Miss Molyneux enter the gallery, accompanied by Henrietta and by Ralph. Lord Warburton' s sister addressed him with a certain timidity, and reminded him that she ought to return home in time for tea, as she was expecting some company. He made no answer