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219 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. 219 Isabel said no more about Mr. Osmond, but she presently remarked to her cousin that she was not satisfied with his tone about Madame Merle. " It seems to me that you insinuate things about her. I don't know what you mean, but if you have any grounds for disliking her, I think you should either mention them frankly or else say nothing at all." Ealph, however, resented this charge with more apparent earnestness than he commonly used. "I speak of Madame Merle exactly as I speak to her : with an even exaggerated respect." " Exaggerated, precisely. That is what I complain of." " I do so because Madame Merle's merits are exaggerated." " By whom, pray ? By me ? If so, I do her a poor service. " " No, no ; by herself." " Ah, I protest ! " Isabel cried with fervour. " If ever there was a woman who made small claims " "You put your finger on it," Kalph interrupted. "Her modesty is exaggerated. She has no business with small claims she has a perfect right to make large ones." " Her merits are large, then. You contradict yourself." "Her merits are immense," said Ealph. She is perfect; she is the only woman I know who has but that one little fault." Isabel turned away with impatience. " I don't understand you ; you are too paradoxical for my plain mind." " Let me explain. When I say she exaggerates, I don't mean it in the vulgar sense that she boasts, overstates, gives too fine an account of herself. I mean literally that she pushes the search for perfection too far that her merits are in themselves overstrained. She is too good, too kind, too clever, too learned, too accomplished, too everything. She is too complete, in a word. I confess to you that she acts a little on my nerves, and that I feel about her a good deal as that intensely human Athenian felt about Aristides the Just." Isabel looked hard at her cousin; but the mocking spirit, if 't lurked in his words, failed on this occasion to peep from his eye. "Do you wish Madame Merle to be banished 1 " she inquired. " By no means. She is much too good company. I delight in Madame Merle," said Ealph Touchett, simply. " You are very odious, sir ! " Isabel exclaimed. And then she asked him if he knew anything that was not to the honour of her brilliant friend. " Nothing whatever. Don't you see that is just what I mean 1 Upon the character of every one else you may find some