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458 458 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. " Ah no, I don't want to encourage you too muck" Osmond still had his head against the cushion behind him ; the ankle of one foot rested on the other knee. So he sat for a while. " I should like to know what is the matter with you," he said, at last. "The matter the matter ' And here Madame Merle stopped. Then she went on, with a sudden outbreak of passion, a burst of summer thunder in a clear sky " The matter is that I would give my right hand to be able to weep, and that I can't ! " " What good would it do you to weep 1 " " It would make me feel as I felt before I knew you." "If I have dried your tears, that's something. But I have seen you shed them." " Oh, I believe .you will make me cry still. I have a great hope of that. I was vile this morning; I was horrid," said Madame Merle. " If Isabel was in the stupid state of mind you mention, she probably didn't perceive it," Osmond answered. " It was precisely my devilry that stupefied her. I couldn't help it ; I was full of something bad. Perhaps it was something good ; I don't know. You have not only dried up my tears; you have dried up my soul." " It is not I then that am responsible for my wife's condition," Osmond said. " It is pleasant to think that I shall get the benefit of your influence upon her. Don't you know the soul is an immortal principle ? How can it suffer alteration 1 " "I don't * believe at all that it's an immortal principle. I believe it can perfectly be destroyed. That's what has happened to mine, which was a very good one to start with ; and it's you I have to thank for it. You are very bad," Madame Merle added, gravely. " Is this the way we are to end 1 " Osmond asked, with the same studied coldness. " I don't know how we are to end. I wish I did ! How do bad people end 1 You have made me bad." " I don't understand you. You seem to me quite good enough," said Osmond, his conscious indifference giving an extreme effect to the words. Madame Merle's self-possession tended on the contrary to diminish, and she was nearer losing it than on any occasion on which we have had the pleasure of meeting her. Her eye brightened, even flashed ; her smile betrayed a painful effort. " Good enough for anything that I have done with myself? I suppose that's what you mean."