Page:The Portrait of a Lady (1882).djvu/76

68 63 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. ' I hope so." " That's a very Machiavellian speech ; it doesn't deserve an answer. I want very much to see foreign lands as well." " Then you will go on judging, I suppose." "Enjoying, I hope, too." " Yes, that's what you enjoy most ; I can't make out what you are up to," said Lord Warburton. "You strike me as having mysterious purposes vast designs 1 " " You arc so good as to have a theory about me which I don't at all fill out. Is there anything mysterious in a purpose enter- tained and executed every year, in the most public manner, by fifty thousand of my fellow-countrymen the purpose of improving one's mind by foreign travel 1 " " You can't improve your mind, Miss Archer," her companion declared. " It's already a most formidable instrument. It looks down on us all ; it despises us." " Despises you ? You are making fun of me," said Isabel, seriously. " Well, you think us picturesque that's the same thing. I won't be thought picturesque, to begin with ; I am not so in the least. I protest." " That protest is one of the most picturesque things I have ever heard," Isabel answered with a smile. Lord Warburton was silent a moment. " You judge only from the outside you don't care," he said presently. " You only care to amuse yourself ! " The note she had heard in his voice a moment before reappeared, and mixed with it now was an audible strain of bitterness a bitterness so abrupt and inconse- quent that the girl was afraid she had hurt him. She had often heard that the English were a highly eccentric people ; and she had even read in some ingenious author that they were, at bottom, the most romantic of races. Was Lord Warburton suddenly turning romantic was he going to make a scene, in his own house, only the third time they had met ? She was reassured, quickly enough, by her sense of his great good manners, which was not impaired by the fact that he had already touched the furthest limit of good taste in expressing his admiration of a young lady who had confided in his hospitality. She was right in trusting to his good manners, for he presently went on, laughing a little, and without a trace of the accent that had dis- composed her " I don't mean, of course, that you amuse yourself with trifles. You select great materials ; the foibles, the afflic- tions of human nature, the peculiarities of nations ! "
 * ' Is England not good enough for you ? "