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301 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. 301 " Well, T can hardly say. I hadn't exactly a positive view of it, but I had a negative. I didn't think you would marry a man like Mr. Osmond." " What do you know against him 1 You know him scarcely at all." "Yes," Ralph said, "I know him very little, and I know nothing against him. But all the same I can't help feeling that you are running a risk." " Marriage is always a risk, and his risk is as great as mine." " That's his affair ! If he is afraid, let him recede ; I wish he would." Isabel leaned back in her chair, folded her arms, and gazed a while at her cousin. " I don't think I understand you," she said at last, coldly. " I don't know what you are talking about." " I thought you would marry a man of more importance." Cold, I say, her tone had been, but at this a colour like a flame leaped into her face. " Of more importance to whom 1 ? It seems to me enough that one's husband should be important to one's self ! " Ralph blushed as well ; his attitude embarrassed him. Physic- ally speaking, he proceeded to change it ; he straightened him- self, then leaned forward, resting a hand on each knee. He fixed his eyes on the ground ; be had an air of the most respectful deliberation. " I will tell you in a moment what I mean," he presently said. He felt agitated, intensely eager ; now that he had opened the discussion he wished to discharge his mind. But he wished also to be superlatively gentle. Isabel waited a little, and then she went on, with majesty. " In everything that makes one care for people, Mr. Osmond is pre-eminent. There may: be nobler natures, but I have never had the pleasure of meeting one. Mr. Osmond is the best I know ; he is important enough for me." " I had a sort of vision of your future," Ralph said, without answering this ; " I amused myself with planning out a kind of destiny for you. There was to be nothing of this sort in it. You were not to come down so easily, so soon." " To come down 3 What strange expressions you use ! Is that your description of my marriage 1 " " It expresses my idea of it. You seemed to me to be soaring far up in the blue to be sailing in the bright light, over the neads of men. Suddenly some one tosses up a faded rosebud a' missile that should never have reached you and down you