Page:The Portrait of a Lady (London, Macmillan & Co., 1881) Volume 2.djvu/34

 rare, and a comfortable income is not one of them." Ralph paused, smiling; Isabel had listened quickly. "You have too much conscience," Ralph added. "It's out of all reason, the number of things you think wrong. Spread your wings; rise above the ground. It's never wrong to do that."

She had listened eagerly, as I say; and it was her nature to understand quickly.

"I wonder if you appreciate what you say. If you do, you take a great responsibility."

"You frighten me a little, but I think I am right," said Ralph, continuing to smile.

"All the same, what you say is very true," Isabel went on. "You could say nothing more true. I am absorbed in myself—I look at life too much as a doctor's prescription. Why, indeed, should we perpetually be thinking whether things are good for us, as if we were patients lying in a hospital? Why should I be so afraid of not doing right? As if it mattered to the world whether I do right or wrong!"

"You are a capital person to advise," said Ralph; "you take the wind out of my sails!"

She looked at him as if she had not heard him—though she was following out the train of reflection which he himself had kindled. "I try to care more about the world than about myself—but I always come back to myself. It's because I am afraid." She stopped; her voice had trembled a little. "Yes, I am afraid; I can't tell you. A large fortune means freedom, and I am afraid of that. It's such a fine thing, and one should make such a good use of it. If one shouldn't, one would be ashamed. And one must always be thinking—it's a constant effort. I am not sure that it's not a greater happiness to be powerless."