Page:The Portrait of a Lady (1882).djvu/397

389 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. 389 "He seems to me rather ill-treated. He had a face a yard long ; I wondered what ailed him." " You are a just man," said Isabel. " You have a kind thought even for a rival." Lord Warburton turned, suddenly, with a stare. " A rival ! Do you call him my rival ? " " Surely If you both wish to marry the same person." " Yes but since he has no chance ! " " All the same, I like you for putting yourself in his place. It shows imagination." "You like me for it?" And Lord Warburton looked at her with an uncertain eye. "I think you mean that you are laughing at me for it." " Yes, I am laughing at you, a little. But I like you, too." " Ah well, then, let me enter into his situation a little more. What do you suppose one could do for him 1 " " Since I have been praising your imagination, I will leave you to imagine that yourself," Isabel said. " Pansy, too, would like you for that." " Miss Osmond 1 Ah, she, I flatter myself, likes me already." "Very much, I think." He hesitated a little ; he was still questioning her face. " Well, then, I don't understand you. You don't mean that she cares for him 1 " " Surely, I have told you that I thought she did." A sudden blush sprung to his face. " You told me that she would have no wish apart from her father's, and as I have gathered that he would favour me " He paused a little, and then he added " Don't you see 1 " suggestively, through his blush. " Yes, I told you that she had an immense wish to please her father, and that it would probably take her very far." " That seems to me a very proper feeling," said Lord War- burton. " Certainly ; it's a very proper feeling." Isabel remained silent for some moments ; the room continued to be empty ; the sound of the music reached them with its richness softened by the interposing apartments. Then at last she said "But it hardly strikes me as the sort of feeling to which a man would wish to be indebted for a wife." " I don't know ; if the wife is a good one, and he thinks she does well ! " " Yes, of course you must think that." "I do ; I can't help it. You call that very British, of