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He waited a little; he was still questioning her face. ‘Well
then, I don’t understand you. You don’t mean that she cares
for him?’
‘Surely I’ve told you I thought she did.’
A quick blush sprang to his brow. ‘You told me she would
have no wish apart from her father’s, and as I’ve gathered
that he would favour me-!’ He paused a little and then sug-
gested ‘Don’t you see?’ through his blush.
‘Yes, I told you she has an immense wish to please her fa-
ther, and that it would probably take her very far.’
‘That seems to me a very proper feeling,’ said Lord War-
burton.
‘Certainly; it’s a very proper feeling.’ Isabel remained
silent for some moments; the room continued empty; the
sound of the music reached them with its richness softened
by the interposing apartments. Then at last she said: ‘But
it hardly strikes me as the sort of feeling to which a man
would wish to be indebted for a wife.’
‘I don’t know; if the wife’s a good one and he thinks she
does well!
‘Yes, of course you must think that.’
‘I do; I can’t help it. You call that very British, of course.’
‘No, I don’t. I think Pansy would do wonderfully well
to marry you, and I don’t know who should know it better
than you. But you’re not in love.’
‘Ah, yes I am, Mrs. Osmond!’
Isabel shook her head. ‘You like to think you are while
you sit here with me. But that’s not how you strike me.’
‘I’m not like the young man in the doorway. I admit that.

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