Page 758 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

would in fact be unable to resist for ever his ingenious en-
deavour to draw her out. ‘It’s all the more intense then,’ he
answered. And he added almost as if he were giving her a
friendly counsel: ‘This is a very important matter.’ She rec-
ognized that; she was fully conscious of the weight of the
occasion; she knew that between them they had arrived at
a crisis. Its gravity made her careful; she said nothing, and
he went on. ‘You say I’ve no reason? I have the very best. I
dislike, from the bottom of my soul, what you intend to do.
It’s dishonourable; it’s indelicate; it’s indecent. Your cousin
is nothing whatever to me, and I’m under no obligation to
make concessions to him. I’ve already made the very hand-
somest. Your relations with him, while he was here, kept
me on pins and needles; but I let that pass, because from
week to week I expected him to go. I’ve never liked him and
he has never liked me. That’s why you like him-because he
hates me,’ said Osmond with a quick, barely audible tremor
in his voice. ‘I’ve an ideal of what my wife should do and
should not do. She should not travel across Europe alone, in
defiance of my deepest desire, to sit at the bedside of other
men. Your cousin’s nothing to you; he’s nothing to us. You
smile most expressively when I talk about us, but I assure
you that we, Mrs. Osmond, is all I know. I take our marriage
seriously; you appear to have found a way of not doing so.
I’m not aware that we’re divorced or separated; for me we’re
indissolubly united. You are nearer to me than any human
creature, and I’m nearer to you. It may be a disagreeable
proximity; it’s one, at any rate, of our own deliberate mak-
ing. You don’t like to be reminded of that, I know; but I’m

758 The Portrait of a Lady