Page:The Portrait of a Lady (London, Macmillan & Co., 1881) Volume 2.djvu/189

 Ralph to utter a word that should not be to the honour of her ingenious purpose.

"I think I have hardly got over my surprise," he said at last. "You were the last person I expected to see caught."

"I don't know why you call it caught."

"Because you are going to be put into a cage."

"If I like my cage, that needn't trouble you," said Isabel.

"That's what I wonder at; that's what I have been thinking of."

"If you have been thinking, you may imagine how I have thought! I am satisfied that I am doing well."

"You must have changed immensely. A year ago you valued your liberty beyond everything. You wanted only to see life."

"I have seen it," said Isabel. "It doesn't seem to me so charming."

"I don't pretend it is; only I had an idea that you took a genial view of it and wanted to survey the whole field."

"I have seen that one can't do that. One must choose a corner and cultivate that."

"That's what I think. And one must choose a good corner. I had no idea, all winter, while I read your delightful letters that you were choosing. You said nothing about it, and your silence put me off my guard."

"It was not a matter I was likely to write to you about. Besides, I knew nothing of the future. It has all come lately. If you had been on your guard, however," Isabel asked, "what would you have done?"

"I should have said—'Wait a little longer.'"

"Wait for what?"

"Well, for a little more light," said Ralph, with a rather absurd smile, while his hands found their way into his pockets.