Page 388 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

few months of his knowing her he should observe a fresh
suitor at her gate. She had wanted to see life, and fortune
was serving her to her taste; a succession of fine gentlemen
going down on their knees to her would do as well as any-
thing else. Ralph looked forward to a fourth, a fifth, a tenth
besieger; he had no conviction she would stop at a third.
She would keep the gate ajar and open a parley; she would
certainly not allow number three to come in. He expressed
this view, somewhat after this fashion, to his mother, who
looked at him as if he had been dancing a jig. He had such a
fanciful, pictorial way of saying things that he might as well
address her in the deaf-mute’s alphabet.
‘I don’t think I know what you mean,’ she said; ‘you use
too many figures of speech; I could never understand alle-
gories. The two words in the language I most respect are Yes
and No. If Isabel wants to marry Mr. Osmond she’ll do so
in spite of all your comparisons. Let her alone to find a fine
one herself for anything she undertakes. I know very little
about the young man in America; I don’t think she spends
much of her time in thinking of him, and I suspect he has
got tired of waiting for her. There’s nothing in life to prevent
her marrying Mr. Osmond if she only looks at him in a cer-
tain way. That’s all very well; no one approves more than I of
one’s pleasing one’s self. But she takes her pleasure in such
odd things; she’s capable of marrying Mr. Osmond for the
beauty of his opinions or for his autograph of Michael An-
gelo. She wants to be disinterested: as if she were the only
person who’s in danger of not being so! Will he be so disin-
terested when he has the spending of her money? That was

388 The Portrait of a Lady