Page:The Portrait of a Lady (London, Macmillan & Co., 1881) Volume 2.djvu/233

 other side of her; the old lady was an Italian, and Rosier took for granted that she understood no English.

"You said just now you wouldn't help me," he began, to Mrs. Osmond. "Perhaps you will feel differently when you know—when you know{longdash}}"

He hesitated a little.

"When I know what?" Isabel asked, gently.

"That she is all right."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well, that we have come to an understanding."

"She is all wrong," said Isabel. "It won't do."

Poor Rosier gazed at her half-pleadingly, half-angrily; a sudden flush testified to his sense of injury.

"I have never been treated so," he said. "What is there against me, after all? That is not the way I am usually considered. I could have married twenty times."

"It's a pity you didn't. I don't mean twenty times, but once, comfortably," Isabel added, smiling kindly. "You are not rich enough for Pansy."

"She doesn't care a straw for one's money."

"No, but her father does."

"Ah yes, he has proved that!" cried the young man.

Isabel got up, turning away from him, leaving her old lady, without saying anything; and he occupied himself for the next ten minutes in pretending to look at Gilbert Osmond's collection of miniatures, which were neatly arranged on a series of small velvet screens. But he looked without seeing; his cheek burned; he was too full of his sense of injury. It was certain that he had never been treated that way before; he was not used to being thought not good enough. He knew how good he was, and if such a fallacy had not been so pernicious he could