Page:The Portrait of a Lady (London, Macmillan & Co., 1881) Volume 2.djvu/146

 had been owing to Mr. Osmond—this reflection she was not just now at pains to make; she had already done the point abundant justice. But she said to herself that if there were a danger that they should not meet again, perhaps after all it would be as well. Happy things do not repeat themselves, and these few days had been interfused with the element of success. She might come back to Italy and find him different—this strange man who pleased her just as he was; and it would be better not to come than run the risk of that. But if she was not to come, the greater was the pity that this happy week was over; for a moment she felt her heart throb with a kind of delicious pain. The sensation kept her silent, and Gilbert Osmond was silent too; he was looking at her.

"Go everywhere," he said at last, in a low, kind voice; "do everything; get everything out of life. Be happy—be triumphant."

"What do you mean by being triumphant?"

"Doing what you like."

"To triumph, then, it seems to me, is to fail! Doing what we like is often very tiresome."

"Exactly," said Osmond, with his quick responsiveness. "As I intimated just now, you will be tired some day." He paused a moment, and then he went on: "I don't know whether I had better not wait till then for something I wish to say to you."

"Ah, I can't advise you without knowing what it is. But I am horrid when I am tired," Isabel added, with due inconsequence.

"I don't believe that. You are angry, sometimes—that I can believe, though I have never seen it. But I am sure you are never disagreeable."

"Not even when I lose my temper?"