Page 312 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

very obstinate.’
‘So,’ said the girl, ‘you did know.’
‘Yes; he told me. We even talked it over a little.’
‘What did he do it for?’ asked Isabel abruptly.
‘Why, as a kind of compliment.’
‘A compliment on what?’
‘On your so beautifully existing.’
‘He liked me too much,’ she presently declared.
‘That’s a way we all have.’
‘If I believed that I should be very unhappy. Fortunately
I don’t believe it. I want to be treated with justice; I want
nothing but that.’
‘Very good. But you must remember that justice to a
lovely being is after all a florid sort of sentiment.’
‘I’m not a lovely being. How can you say that, at the very
moment when I’m asking such odious questions? I must
seem to you delicate!’
‘You seem to me troubled,’ said Ralph.
‘I am troubled.’
‘About what?’
For a moment she answered nothing; then she broke out:
‘Do you think it good for me suddenly to be made so rich?
Henrietta doesn’t.’
‘Oh, hang Henrietta!’ said Ralph coarsely. ‘If you ask me
I’m delighted at it.’
‘Is that why your father did it—for your amusement?’
‘I differ with Miss Stackpole,’ Ralph went on more grave-
ly. ‘I think it very good for you to have means.’
Isabel looked at him with serious eyes. ‘I wonder whether

312 The Portrait of a Lady