Page 258 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

man.
‘Very probably; I shall like him to think it,’ said Ralph,
smiling; ‘and, to carry out the idea, I give you notice that I
shall be very sharp, quite horrid and strange, with you.’
The humour of this appeared to touch his father, who
lay a little while taking it in. ‘I’ll do anything you like,’ Mr.
Touchett said at last; ‘but I’m not sure it’s right. You say you
want to put wind in her sails; but aren’t you afraid of put-
ting too much?’
‘I should like to see her going before the breeze!’ Ralph
answered.
‘You speak as if it were for your mere amusement.’
‘So it is, a good deal.’
‘Well, I don’t think I understand,’ said Mr. Touchett
with a sigh. ‘Young men are very different from what I was.
When I cared for a girl—when I was young—I wanted to do
more than look at her. You’ve scruples that I shouldn’t have
had, and you’ve ideas that I shouldn’t have had either. You
say Isabel wants to be free, and that her being rich will keep
her from marrying for money. Do you think that she’s a girl
to do that?’
‘By no means. But she has less money than she has ever
had before. Her father then gave her everything, because he
used to spend his capital. She has nothing but the crumbs of
that feast to live on, and she doesn’t really know how meagre
they are—she has yet to learn it. My mother has told me all
about it. Isabel will learn it when she’s really thrown upon
the world, and it would be very painful to me to think of her
coming to the consciousness of a lot of wants she should be

258 The Portrait of a Lady