Page:The Portrait of a Lady (1882).djvu/337

329 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. 329 Poor Rosier gazed at her half-pleadingly, half -angrily ; a sudden flush testified to his sense of injury. "I have never been treated so," he said. "What is there against me, after all 1 That is not the way I am usually con- sidered. I could have married twenty times." "It's a pity you didn't. I don't mean twenty times, but once, comfortably," Isabel added, smiling kindly. "You are not rich enough for Pansy." " She doesn't care a straw for one's money." " No, but her father does." " Ah yes, he has proved that ! " cried theyoung man. Isabel got up, turning away from him, leaving her old lady, without saying anything ; and he occupied himself for the next ten minutes in pretending to look at Gilbert Osmond's collection of miniatures, which were neatly arranged on a series of small velvet screens. But he looked without seeing; his cheek burned; he was too full of his sense of injury. It was certain that he had never been treated that way before ; he was not used to being thought not good enough. He knew how good he was, and if such a fallacy had not been so pernicious, he could have laughed at it. He looked about again for Pansy, but she had disappeared, and his main desire was now to get out of the house. Before doing so he spoke to Isabel again ; it was not agreeable to him to reflect that he had just said a rude thing to her the only point that would now justify a low view of him. " I spoke of Mr. Osmond as I shouldn't have done, a while ago," he said. " But you must remember my situation." " I don't remember what you said," she answered, coldly. " Ah, you are offended, and now you will never help me." She was silent an instant, and then, with a change of tone " It's not that I won't ; I simply can't ! " Her manner was almost passionate. "If you could just a little," said Rosier, "I would never again speak of your husband save as an angel.' " The inducement is great," said Isabel gravely inscrutably, as he afterwards, to himself, called it; and she gave him, straight in the eyes, a look which was also inscrutable. It made him remember, somehow, that he had known her as a child; and yet it was keener than he liked, and he took himself off.