Page:The Portrait of a Lady (1882).djvu/382

374 374 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. would lighten her own conscience more effectually than to make it over to the man who had the best taste in the world 1 Unless she should give it to a hospital, there was nothing better she could do with it; and there was no charitable institution in which she was as much interested as in Gilbert Osmond. He would use her fortune in a way that would make her think better of it, and rub off a certain grossness which attached to the good luck of an unexpected inheritance. There had been nothing very delicate in inheriting seventy thousand pounds; the delicacy had been all in Mr. Touchett's leaving them to her. But to marry Gilbert Osmond and bring him such a portion in that there would be delicacy for her as well. There would be less for him that was true ; but that was his affair, and if he loved her he would not object to her being rich. Had he not had the courage to say he was glad she was rich 1 Isabel's cheek tingled when she asked herself if she had really married on a factitious theory, in order to do something finely appreciable with her. money. But she was able to answer quickly enough that this was only half the story. It was because a certain feeling took possession of her a sense of the earnestness of his affection and a delight in his personal qualities. He was better than any one else. This supreme conviction had filled her life for months, and enough of it still remained to prove to her that she could not have done otherwise The finest indi- vidual she had ever known was hers ; the simple knowledge was a sort of act of devotion. She had not been mistaken about the beauty of his mind; she knew that organ perfectly now. She had lived with it, she had lived in it almost it appeared to have become her habitation. If she had been captured, it had taken a firm hand to do it ; that reflection perhaps had some worth. A mind more ingenious, more subtle, more cultivated, more trained to admirable exercises, she had not encountered ; and it was this exquisite instrument that she' had now to reckon with. She lost herself in infinite dismay when she thought of the magnitude of his deception. It was a wonder, perhaps, in view of this, that he didn't hate her more. She remembered perfectly the first sign he had given of it it had been like the bell that was to ring up the curtain upon the real drama of their life. He said to her one day that she had too many ideas, and that she must get rid of them. He had told her that already, before their marriage ; but then she had not noticed it ; it came back to her only afterwards. This time she might well notice it, because he had really meant it. The words were nothing, superficially; but when in the light of deepening experience she