Page:The Portrait of a Lady (1882).djvu/183

175 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. 175 that way, who had succeeded 1 The dreams of one's youth, why they were enchanting, they were divine ! Who had ever seen such things come to pass 1 " I myself a few of them," Isabel ventured to answer. "Already 3 They must have been dreams of yesterday." " I began to dream very young/' said Isabel, smiling. " Ah, if you mean the aspirations of your childhood that of having a pink sash and a doll that could close her eyes." " No, I don't mean that." "Or a young man with a moustache going down on his knees to you." " No, nor that either," Isabel declared, blushing. Madame Merle gave a glance at her blush which caused it to deepen. " I suspect that is what you do mean. "We have all had the young man with the moustache. He is the inevitable young man ; he doesn't count." Isabel was silent for a moment, and then, with extreme and characteristic inconsequence " Why shouldn't he count ? There are young men and young men." "And yours was a paragon is that what you mean 1 ? " cried her friend with a laugh. " If you have had the identical young man you dreamed of, then that was success, and I congratulate you. Only, in that case, why didn't you fly with him to his castle in the Apennines 1 " " He has no castle in the Apennines." "What has he? An ugly brick house in Fortieth Street? Don't tell me that ; I refuse to recognise that as an ideal." " I don't care anything about his house," sai4 Isabel. " That is very crude of you. When you have lived as long as I, you will see that every human being has his shell, and that you must take the shell into account. By the shell I mean the whole envelope of circumstances. There is no such thing as an isolated man or woman ; we are each of us made up of a cluster of appurtenances. What do you call one's self ? Where does it begin ] where does it end 1 It overflows into everything that belongs to us and then it flows back again. I know that a large part of myself is in the dresses I choose to wear. I have a great respect for things ! One's self for other people is one's expression of one's self ; and one's house, one's clothes, the book one reads, the company one keeps these things are all expressive." This was very metaphysical ; not more so, however, than