Page:The Portrait of a Lady (1882).djvu/98

90 90 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. you went away I was perfectly sure. Nevertheless, I made up my mind to think it over, and to question myself narrowly. I have done so ; all these days I have thought of nothing else. I don't make mistakes about such things; I am a very judicious fellow. I don't go off easily, but when I am touched, it's for life. It's for life, Miss Archer, it's for life," Lord Warburton repeated in the kindest, tenderest, pleasantest voice Isabel had ever heard, and looking at her with eyes that shone with the light of a passion that had sifted itself clear of the baser parts of emotion the heat, the violence, the unreason and which burned as steadily as a lamp in a windless place. By tacit consent, as he talked, they had walked more and more slowly, and at last they stopped, and he took her hand. " Ah, Lord Warburton, how little you know me ! " Isabel said, very gently ; gently, too, she drew her hand away. " Don't taunt me with that ; that I don't know you better makes me unhappy enough already ; it's all my loss. But that is what I want, and it seems to me I am taking the best way. If you will be my wife, then I shall know you, and when I tell you all the good I think of you, you will not be able to say it is from ignorance." " If you know me little, I know you even less," said Isabel. "You mean that, unlike yourself, I may not improve on acquaintance 1 ? Ah, of course, that is very possible. But think, to speak to you as I do, how determined I must be to try and give satisfaction ! You do like me rather, don't you?" " I like you very much, Lord "Warburton," the girl answered ; and at this moment she liked him immensely. " I thank you for saying that ; it shows you don't regard mo as a stranger. I really believe I have filled all the other relations of life very creditably, and I don't see why I should not fill this one in which I offer myself to you seeing that I care so much more about it. Ask the people who know me well ; I have friends who will speak for me." " I don't need the recommendation of your friends," said Isabel. "Ah now, that is delightful of you. You believe in me yourself." " Completely," Isabel declared ; and it was the truth. , The light in her companion's eyes turned into a smile, and he gave a long exhalation of joy. " If you are mistaken, Miss Archer, let me lose all I possess ! " She wondered whether he meant this for a reminder that he