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‘Sit down and rest; I shall not keep you long. Not there-
take a comfortable place.’ And he arranged a multitude of
cushions that were scattered in picturesque disorder upon a
vast divan. This was not, however, where she seated herself;
she dropped into the nearest chair. The fire had gone out;
the lights in the great room were few. She drew her cloak
about her; she felt mortally cold. ‘I think you’re trying to
humiliate me,’ Osmond went on. ‘It’s a most absurd under-
taking.’
‘I haven’t the least idea what you mean,’ she returned.
‘You’ve played a very deep game; you’ve managed it beau-
tifully.’
‘What is it that I’ve managed?’
‘You’ve not quite settled it, however; we shall see him
again.’ And he stopped in front of her, with his hands in his
pockets, looking down at her thoughtfully, in his usual way,
which seemed meant to let her know that she was not an ob-
ject, but only a rather disagreeable incident, of thought.
‘If you mean that Lord Warburton’s under an obligation
to come back you’re wrong,’ Isabel said. ‘He’s under none
whatever.’
‘That’s just what I complain of. But when I say he’ll come
back I don’t mean he’ll come from a sense of duty.’
‘There’s nothing else to make him. I think he has quite
exhausted Rome.’
‘Ah no, that’s a shallow judgement. Rome’s inexhaust-
ible.’ And Osmond began to walk about again. ‘However,
about that perhaps there’s no hurry,’ he added. ‘It’s rather a
good idea of his that we should go to England. If it were not

680 The Portrait of a Lady