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302 302 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. drop to the ground. It hurts me," said Ralph, audaciously, " as if I had fallen myself ! " The lo^k of pain and bewilderment deepened in his com- panion's face. " I don't understand you in the least," she repeated. " You say you amused yourself with planning out my future I don't understand that. Don't amuse yourself too much, or I shall think you are doing it at my expense." Ralph shook his head. " I am not afraid of your not believing that I have had great ideas for you." " What do you mean by my soaring and sailing 1 ?" the girl asked. " I have never moved on a higher line than I am moving on now. There is nothing higher for a girl than to marry a a person she likes," said poor Isabel, wandering into the didactic. " It's your liking the person we speak of that I venture to criticise, my dear Isabel ! I should have said that the man for you would have been a more active, larger, freer sort of nature." Ralph hesitated a moment, then he added, " I can't get over the belief that there's something small in Osmond." He had uttered these last words with a tremor of the voice ; he was afraid that she would flash out again. But to his surprise she was quiet ; she had the air of considering. " Something small 1 " she said reflectively. " I think he's narrow, selfish. He takes himself so seriously ! " " He has a great respect for himself ; I don't blame him for that," said Isabel. " It's the proper way to respect others." Ralph for a moment felt almost reassured by her reasonable tone. " Yes, but everything is relative ; one ought to feel one's relations. I don't think Mr. Osmond does that." " I have chiefly to do with the relation in which he stands to me. In that he is excellent." " He is the incarnation of taste," Ralph went on, thinking hard how he could best express Gilbert Osmond's sinister attri- butes without putting himself in the wrong by seeming to describe him coarsely. He wished to describe him impersonally, scientifically. " He judges and measures, approves and condemns, altogether by that." " It is a happy thing then that his tastes should be exquisite." " It is exquisite, indeed, since it has led him to select you as his wife. But have you ever seen an exquisite taste ruffled ] " " I hope it may never be my fortune to fail to gratify my husband's."