Page:The Portrait of a Lady (London, Macmillan & Co., 1881) Volume 2.djvu/26

 "Leave it to some one you care less for—that's what I should have said."

"To yourself, for instance?" Isabel suggested, jocosely. And then—"Do you really believe it will ruin me?" she asked, in quite another tone.

"I hope it won't ruin you; but it will certainly confirm your dangerous tendencies."

"Do you mean the love of luxury—of extravagance?"

"No, no," said Henrietta; "I mean your moral tendencies. I approve of luxury; I think we ought to be as elegant as possible. Look at the luxury of our western cities; I have seen nothing over here to compare with it. I hope you will never become sensual; but I am not afraid of that. The peril for you is that you live too much in the world of your own dreams—you are not enough in contact with reality—with the toiling, striving, suffering, I may even say sinning, world that surrounds you. You are too fastidious; you have too many graceful illusions. Your newly-acquired thousands will shut you up more and more to the society of a few selfish and heartless people, who will be interested in keeping up those illusions."

Isabel's eyes expanded as she gazed upon this vivid but dusky picture of her future. "What are my illusions?" she asked. "I try so hard not to have any."

"Well," said Henrietta, "you think that you can lead a romantic life, that you can live by pleasing yourself and pleasing others. You will find you are mistaken. Whatever life you lead, you must put your soul into it—to make any sort of success of it; and from the moment you do that it ceases to be romance, I assure you; it becomes reality! And you can't always please yourself; you must sometimes please other people. That, I admit, you are very ready to do; but there is another thing