Page:The Portrait of a Lady (London, Macmillan & Co., 1881) Volume 2.djvu/194

 "Something small?" she said reflectively.

"I think he's narrow, selfish. He takes himself so seriously!"

"He has a great respect for himself; I don't blame him for that," said Isabel. "It's the proper way to respect others."

Ralph for a moment felt almost reassured by her reasonable tone.

"Yes, but everything is relative; one ought to feel one's relations. I don't think Mr. Osmond does that."

"I have chiefly to do with the relation in which he stands to me. In that he is excellent."

"He is the incarnation of taste," Ralph went on, thinking hard how he could best express Gilbert Osmond's sinister attributes without putting himself in the wrong by seeming to describe him coarsely. He wished to describe him impersonally, scientifically. "He judges and measures, approves and condemns altogether by that."

"It is a happy thing then that his tastes should be exquisite."

"It is exquisite, indeed, since it has led him to select you as his wife. But have you ever seen an exquisite taste ruffled?"

"I hope it may never be my fortune to fail to gratify my husband's."

At these words a sudden passion leaped to Ealph's lips. "Ah, that's wilful, that's unworthy of you!" he cried. "You were not meant to be measured in that way—you were meant for something better than to keep guard over the sensibilities of a sterile dilettante!"

Isabel rose quickly and Ralph did the same, so that they stood for a moment looking at each other as if he had flung down a defiance or an insult.

"You go too far," she murmured.