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man so accomplished and a husband originally at least so
tender. But there were certain things she could never take
in. To begin with, they were hideously unclean. She was not
a daughter of the Puritans, but for all that she believed in
such a thing as chastity and even as decency. It would ap-
pear that Osmond was far from doing anything of the sort;
some of his traditions made her push back her skirts. Did
all women have lovers? Did they all lie and even the best
have their price? Were there only three or four that didn’t
deceive their husbands? When Isabel heard such things she
felt a greater scorn for them than for the gossip of a vil-
lage parlour-a scorn that kept its freshness in a very tainted
air. There was the taint of her sister-in-law: did her husband
judge only by the Countess Gemini? This lady very often
lied, and she had practised deceptions that were not simply
verbal. It was enough to find these facts assumed among Os-
mond’s traditions-it was enough without giving them such
a general extension. It was her scorn of his assumptions, it
was this that made him draw himself up. He had plenty of
contempt, and it was proper his wife should be as well fur-
nished; but that she should turn the hot light of her disdain
upon his own conception of things-this was a danger he
had not allowed for. He believed he should have regulated
her emotions before she came to it; and Isabel could easily
imagine how his ears had scorched on his discovering he
had been too confident. When one had a wife who gave one
that sensation there was nothing left but to hate her.
She was morally certain now that this feeling of hatred,
which at first had been a refuge and a refreshment, had be-

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