Page:The Portrait of a Lady (1882).djvu/262

254 254 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. i talk of all that;" a speech, which hardly seemed to her an improvement on the other. "It's a small consolation to allow me!" Lord Warburton exclaimed, with force. " I can't pretend to console you," said the girl, who, as she sat there, found it good to think that she had given him the answer that had satisfied him so little six months before. He vas pleasant, he was powerful, he was gallant, there was no better man than he. But her answer remained. " It's very well you don't try to console me ; it would not be in your power," she heard him say, through the medium of her quickened reflections. " I hoped we should meet again, because I had no fear you would attempt to make me feel I had wronged you. But when you do that the pain is greater than the pleasure." And Isabel got up, looking for her companions. " I don't want to make you feel that ; of course I can't say that. I only just want you to know one or two things, in fairness to myself as it were. I won't return to the subject again. I felt very strongly what I expressed to you last year : I couldn't think of anything else. I tried to forget energetic- ally, systematically. I tried to take an interest in some one else. I tell you this because I want you to know I did my duty, I didn't succeed. It was for the same purpose I went abroad as far away as possible. They say travelling distracts the mind ; but it didn't distract mine. I have thought of you perpetually, ever since I last saw you. I am exactly the same. I love you just as much, and everything I said to you then is just as true. However, I don't mean to trouble you now ; it's only for a moment. I may add that when I came upon you a moment since, without the smallest idea of seeing you, I was in the very act of wishing I knew where you were." He had recovered his self-control, as I say, and while he spoke it became complete. He spoke plainly and simply, in a low tone of voice, in a matter-of-fact way. There might have been something impressive, even to a woman of less imagination than the one he addressed, in hearing this brilliant, brave-looking gentleman express himself so modestly and reasonably. " I have often thought of you, Lord Warburton," Isabel answered. "You may be sure I shall always do that." And then she added, with a smile " There is no harm in that, on either side." They walked along together, and she asked kindly about his sisters and requested him to let them know she had done so. He