Page 618 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

very far-quite into the days of our innocent childhood.’
‘Don’t make me out too old,’ Isabel patiently answered.
‘You come back to that very often, and I’ve never denied it.
But I must tell you that, old friends as we are, if you had
done me the honour to ask me to marry you I should have
refused you on the spot.’
‘Ah, you don’t esteem me then. Say at once that you think
me a mere Parisian trifler!’
‘I esteem you very much, but I’m not in love with you.
What I mean by that, of course, is that I’m not in love with
you for Pansy.’
‘Very good; I see. You pity me-that’s all.’ And Edward
Rosier looked all round, inconsequently, with his single
glass. It was a revelation to him that people shouldn’t be
more pleased; but he was at least too proud to show that the
deficiency struck him as general.
Isabel for a moment said nothing. His manner and ap-
pearance had not the dignity of the deepest tragedy; his
little glass, among other things, was against that. But she
suddenly felt touched; her own unhappiness, after all, had
something in common with his, and it came over her, more
than before, that here, in recognizable, if not in romantic
form, was the most affecting thing in the world-young love
struggling with adversity. ‘Would you really be very kind to
her?’ she finally asked in a low tone.
He dropped his eyes devoutly and raised the little flower
that he held in his fingers to his lips. Then he looked at her.
‘You pity me; but don’t you pity her a little?’
‘I don’t know; I’m not sure. She’ll always enjoy life.’

618 The Portrait of a Lady