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442 442 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. expansive, seemed possessed with a kind of intellectual gaiety. He leaned back with his legs crossed, lounging and chatting, while Goodwood, more restless, but not at all lively, shifted his position, played with his hat, made the little sofa creak beneath him. Osmond's face wore a sharp, aggressive smile ; he was like a man whose perceptions had been quickened by good news. He remarked to Goodwood that he was very sorry they were to lose him ;~ he himself should particularly miss him. He saw so few intelligent men they were surprisingly scarce in Rome. He must be sure to come back; there was something very refreshing, to an inveterate Italian like himself, in talking with a genuine outsider. " I am very fond of Rome, you know," Osmond said ; " but there is nothing I like better than to meet people who haven't that superstition. The modern world is after all very fine. Now you are thoroughly modern, and yet you are not at all flimsy. So many of the moderns we see are such very poor stuff. If they are the children of the future we are willing to die young. Of course the ancients too are often very tiresome. My wife and I like everything that is really new not the mere pretence of it. There is nothing new, unfortunately, in ignor- ance and stupidity. We see plenty of that in forms that offer themselves as a revelation of progress, of light. A revelation of vulgarity ! There is a certain kind of vulgarity which I believe is really new ; I don't think there ever was anything like it before. Indeed I don't find vulgarity, at all, before the' present century. You see a faint menace of it here and there in the last, but to-day the air has grown so dense that delicate things are literally not recognised. Now, we have liked you " And Osmond hesitated a moment, laying his hand gently on Goodwood's knee and smiling with a mixture of assurance and embarrassment. " I am going to say something extremely offen- sive and patronising, but you must let me have the satisfaction of it. We have liked you because because you have reconciled us a little to the future. If there are to be a certain number of people like you a la bonne lieure! I am talking for my wife as well as for myself, you see. She speaks for me; why shouldn't I speak for her 1 ? We are as united, you know, as the candle- stick and the snuffers. Am I assuming too much when I say that I think I have understood from you that your occupations have been a commercial 1 There is a danger in that, you know ; but it's the Avay you have escaped that strikes us. Excuse me if my little compliment seems in execrable taste ; fortunately my wife doesn't hear me. What I mean is that you