The Portrait of a Lady, vol 2 | Page 6

thought you had
company.
"So I have--the best." And she glanced at the Antinous and the Faun.
"Do you call them better company than an English peer?"
"Ah, my English peer left me some time ago." She got up, speaking

with intention a little dryly.
Mr. Osmond noted her dryness, which contributed for him to the
interest of his question. "I'm afraid that what I heard the other evening
is true: you're rather cruel to that nobleman."
Isabel looked a moment at the vanquished Gladiator. "It's not true. I'm
scrupulously kind."
"That's exactly what I mean!" Gilbert Osmond returned, and with such
happy hilarity that his joke needs to be explained. We know that he was
fond of originals, of rarities, of the superior and the exquisite; and now
that he had seen Lord Warburton, whom he thought a very fine
example of his race and order, he perceived a new attraction in the idea
of taking to himself a young lady who had qualified herself to figure in
his collection of choice objects by declining so noble a hand. Gilbert
Osmond had a high appreciation of this particular patriciate; not so
much for its distinction, which he thought easily surpassable, as for its
solid actuality. He had never forgiven his star for not appointing him to
an English dukedom, and he could measure the unexpectedness of such
conduct as Isabel's. It would be proper that the woman he might marry
should have done something of that sort.

CHAPTER XXIX
Ralph Touchett, in talk with his excellent friend, had rather markedly
qualified, as we know, his recognition of Gilbert Osmond's personal
merits; but he might really have felt himself illiberal in the light of that
gentleman's conduct during the rest of the visit to Rome. Osmond spent
a portion of each day with Isabel and her companions, and ended by
affecting them as the easiest of men to live with. Who wouldn't have
seen that he could command, as it were, both tact and gaiety?--which
perhaps was exactly why Ralph had made his old-time look of
superficial sociability a reproach to him. Even Isabel's invidious
kinsman was obliged to admit that he was just now a delightful
associate. His good humour was imperturbable, his knowledge of the

right fact, his production of the right word, as convenient as the
friendly flicker of a match for your cigarette. Clearly he was
amused--as amused as a man could be who was so little ever surprised,
and that made him almost applausive. It was not that his spirits were
visibly high--he would never, in the concert of pleasure, touch the big
drum by so much as a knuckle: he had a mortal dislike to the high,
ragged note, to what he called random ravings. He thought Miss Archer
sometimes of too precipitate a readiness. It was pity she had that fault,
because if she had not had it she would really have had none; she
would have been as smooth to his general need of her as handled ivory
to the palm. If he was not personally loud, however, he was deep, and
during these closing days of the Roman May he knew a complacency
that matched with slow irregular walks under the pines of the Villa
Borghese, among the small sweet meadow-flowers and the mossy
marbles. He was pleased with everything; he had never before been
pleased with so many things at once. Old impressions, old enjoyments,
renewed themselves; one evening, going home to his room at the inn,
he wrote down a little sonnet to which he prefixed the title of "Rome
Revisited." A day or two later he showed this piece of correct and
ingenious verse to Isabel, explaining to her that it was an Italian fashion
to commemorate the occasions of life by a tribute to the muse.
He took his pleasures in general singly; he was too often--he would
have admitted that--too sorely aware of something wrong, something
ugly; the fertilising dew of a conceivable felicity too seldom descended
on his spirit. But at present he was happy-- happier than he had perhaps
ever been in his life, and the feeling had a large foundation. This was
simply the sense of success--the most agreeable emotion of the human
heart. Osmond had never had too much of it; in this respect he had the
irritation of satiety, as he knew perfectly well and often reminded
himself. "Ah no, I've not been spoiled; certainly I've not been spoiled,"
he used inwardly to repeat. "If I do succeed before I die I shall
thoroughly have earned it." He was too apt to reason as if "earning" this
boon consisted above all of covertly aching for it and might be
confined to that exercise. Absolutely void of it, also, his career had not