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‘You needn’t worry about that. That’s my affair. You
needn’t be a better royalist than the king.’
‘It’s not only that,’ said Isabel; ‘but I’m not sure I wish to
marry any one.’
‘Very likely you don’t. I’ve no doubt a great many women
begin that way,’ said his lordship, who, be it averred, did not
in the least believe in the axiom he thus beguiled his anxiety
by uttering. ‘But they’re frequently persuaded.’
‘Ah, that’s because they want to be!’ And Isabel lightly
laughed.
Her suitor’s countenance fell, and he looked at her for
a while in silence. ‘I’m afraid it’s my being an Englishman
that makes you hesitate,’ he said presently. ‘I know your un-
cle thinks you ought to marry in your own country.’
Isabel listened to this assertion with some interest; it had
never occurred to her that Mr. Touchett was likely to dis-
cuss her matrimonial prospects with Lord Warburton. ‘Has
he told you that?’
‘I remember his making the remark. He spoke perhaps of
Americans generally.’
‘He appears himself to have found it very pleasant to
live in England.’ Isabel spoke in a manner that might have
seemed a little perverse, but which expressed both her con-
stant perception of her uncle’s outward felicity and her
general disposition to elude any obligation to take a restrict-
ed view.
It gave her companion hope, and he immediately cried
with warmth: ‘Ah, my dear Miss Archer, old England’s a
very good sort of country, you know! And it will be still bet-

150 The Portrait of a Lady