Page 760 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

you’re a master of the art of mockery,’ she said. ‘How can
you speak of an indissoluble union-how can you speak of
your being contented? Where’s our union when you accuse
me of falsity? Where’s your contentment when you have
nothing but hideous suspicion in your heart?’
‘It is in our living decently together, in spite of such
drawbacks.’
‘We don’t live decently together!’ cried Isabel.
‘Indeed we don’t if you go to England.’
‘That’s very little; that’s nothing. I might do much
more.’
He raised his eyebrows and even his shoulders a little:
he had lived long enough in Italy to catch this trick. ‘Ah, if
you’ve come to threaten me I prefer my drawing.’ And he
walked back to his table, where he took up the sheet of pa-
per on which he had been working and stood studying it. ‘I
suppose that if I go you’ll not expect me to come back,’ said
Isabel.
He turned quickly around, and she could see this move-
ment at least was not designed. He looked at her a little, and
then, ‘Are you out of your mind?’ he enquired.
‘How can it be anything but a rupture?’ she went on; ‘es-
pecially if all you say is true?’ She was unable to see how
it could be anything but a rupture; she sincerely wished to
know what else it might be.
He sat down before his table. ‘I really can’t argue with
you on the hypothesis of your defying me,’ he said. And he
took up one of his little brushes again.
She lingered but a moment longer; long enough to em-

760 The Portrait of a Lady