The Portrait of a Lady, vol 2 | Page 8

my power to do so. You don't think a woman ought to do

that. You think it bold and ungraceful."
"I think it beautiful," said Osmond. "You know my opinions--I've
treated you to enough of them. Don't you remember my telling you that
one ought to make one's life a work of art? You looked rather shocked
at first; but then I told you that it was exactly what you seemed to me to
be trying to do with your own."
She looked up from her book. "What you despise most in the world is
bad, is stupid art."
"Possibly. But yours seem to me very clear and very good."
"If I were to go to Japan next winter you would laugh at me," she went
on.
Osmond gave a smile--a keen one, but not a laugh, for the tone of their
conversation was not jocose. Isabel had in fact her solemnity; he had
seen it before. "You have one!"
"That's exactly what I say. You think such an idea absurd."
"I would give my little finger to go to Japan; it's one of the countries I
want most to see. Can't you believe that, with my taste for old lacquer?"
"I haven't a taste for old lacquer to excuse me," said Isabel.
"You've a better excuse--the means of going. You're quite wrong in
your theory that I laugh at you. I don't know what has put it into your
head."
"It wouldn't be remarkable if you did think it ridiculous that I should
have the means to travel when you've not; for you know everything and
I know nothing."
"The more reason why you should travel and learn," smiled Osmond.
"Besides," he added as if it were a point to be made, "I don't know
everything."

Isabel was not struck with the oddity of his saying this gravely; she was
thinking that the pleasantest incident of her life--so it pleased her to
qualify these too few days in Rome, which she might musingly have
likened to the figure of some small princess of one of the ages of dress
overmuffled in a mantle of state and dragging a train that it took pages
or historians to hold up-- that this felicity was coming to an end. That
most of the interest of the time had been owing to Mr. Osmond was a
reflexion she was not just now at pains to make; she had already done
the point abundant justice. But she said to herself that if there were a
danger they should never meet again, perhaps after all it would be as
well. Happy things don't repeat themselves, and her adventure wore
already the changed, the seaward face of some romantic island from
which, after feasting on purple grapes, she was putting off while the
breeze rose. She might come back to Italy and find him different--this
strange man who pleased her just as he was; and it would be better not
to come than run the risk of that. But if she was not to come the greater
the pity that the chapter was closed; she felt for a moment a pang that
touched the source of tears. The sensation kept her silent, and Gilbert
Osmond was silent too; he was looking at her. "Go everywhere," he
said at last, in a low, kind voice; "do everything; get everything out of
life. Be happy,--be triumphant."
"What do you mean by being triumphant?"
"Well, doing what you like."
"To triumph, then, it seems to me, is to fail! Doing all the vain things
one likes is often very tiresome."
"Exactly," said Osmond with his quiet quickness. "As I intimated just
now, you'll be tired some day." He paused a moment and then he went
on: "I don't know whether I had better not wait till then for something I
want to say to you."
"Ah, I can't advise you without knowing what it is. But I'm horrid when
I'm tired," Isabel added with due inconsequence.
"I don't believe that. You're angry, sometimes--that I can believe,

though I've never seen it. But I'm sure you're never 'cross.'"
"Not even when I lose my temper?"
"You don't lose it--you find it, and that must be beautiful." Osmond
spoke with a noble earnestness. "They must be great moments to see."
"If I could only find it now!" Isabel nervously cried.
"I'm not afraid; I should fold my arms and admire you. I'm speaking
very seriously." He leaned forward, a hand on each knee; for some
moments he bent his eyes on the floor. "What I wish to say to you," he
went on at last, looking up, "is that I find I'm in love with you."
She instantly rose. "Ah, keep that till I am tired!"
"Tired of hearing it from others?" He sat