Page 126 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

‘Well, now, what sort of thing?’
‘Anything you please, so long as you take hold. Some new
idea, some big work.’
‘Is it very difficult to take hold?’ Ralph enquired.
‘Not if you put your heart into it.’
‘Ah, my heart,’ said Ralph. ‘If it depends upon my
heart-!’
‘Haven’t you got a heart?’
‘I had one a few days ago, but I’ve lost it since.’
‘You’re not serious,’ Miss Stackpole remarked; ‘that’s
what’s the matter with you.’ But for all this, in a day or two,
she again permitted him to fix her attention and on the later
occasion assigned a different cause to her mysterious per-
versity.
‘I know what’s the matter with you, Mr. Touchett,’ she
said. ‘You think you’re too good to get married.’
‘I thought so till I knew you, Miss Stackpole,’ Ralph an-
swered; ‘and then I suddenly changed my mind.’
‘Oh pshaw!’ Henrietta groaned.
‘Then it seemed to me,’ said Ralph, ‘that I was not good
enough.’
‘It would improve you. Besides, it’s your duty.’
‘Ah,’ cried the young man, ‘one has so many duties! Is that
a duty too?’
‘Of course it is—did you never know that before? It’s ev-
ery one’s duty to get married.’
Ralph meditated a moment; he was disappointed. There
was something in Miss Stackpole he had begun to like; it
seemed to him that if she was not a charming woman she

126 The Portrait of a Lady