Page 722 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

no; I don’t mean all that.’
‘What do you mean? I don’t understand! But I said I’d
go, and I’ll go,’
Goodwood added.
‘Come back whenever you like,’ said Isabel with attempt-
ed lightness.
‘I don’t care a straw for your cousin!’ Caspar broke out.
‘Is that what you wished to tell me?’
‘No, no; I didn’t want to tell you anything. I wanted to
ask you-’ he paused a moment, and then-”what have you
really made of your life?’ he said, in a low, quick tone. He
paused again, as if for an answer; but she said nothing, and
he went on: ‘I can’t understand, I can’t penetrate you! What
am I to believe-what do you want me to think?’ Still she said
nothing; she only stood looking at him, now quite without
pretending to ease. ‘I’m told you’re unhappy, and if you are I
should like to know it. That would be something for me. But
you yourself say you’re happy, and you’re somehow so still,
so smooth, so hard. You’re completely changed. You conceal
everything; I haven’t really come near you.’
‘You come very near,’ Isabel said gently, but in a tone of
warning.
‘And yet I don’t touch you! I want to know the truth.
Have you done well?’
‘You ask a great deal.’
‘Yes-I’ve always asked a great deal. Of course you won’t
tell me. I shall never know if you can help it. And then it’s
none of my business.’ He had spoken with a visible effort to
control himself, to give a considerate form to an inconsider-

722 The Portrait of a Lady