Page:The Portrait of a Lady (London, Macmillan & Co., 1881) Volume 2.djvu/234

 have laughed at it. He looked about again for Pansy, but she had disappeared, and his main desire was now to get out of the house. Before doing so he spoke to Isabel again; it was not agreeable to him to reflect that he had just said a rude thing to her—the only point that would now justify a low view of him.

"I spoke of Mr. Osmond as I shouldn't have done, a while ago," he said. "But you must remember my situation."

"I don't remember what you said," she answered, coldly.

"Ah, you are offended, and now you will never help me.

She was silent an instant, and then, with a change of tone—

"It's not that I won't; I simply can't!" Her manner was almost passionate.

"If you could—just a little," said Rosier, "I would never again speak of your husband save as an angel."

"The inducement is great," said Isabel gravely—inscrutably, as he afterwards, to himself, called it; and she gave him, straight in the eyes, a look which was also inscrutable. It made him remember, somehow, that he had known her as a child; and yet it was keener than he liked, and he took himself off.