Page 424 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

through the tortuous, tragic streets of Rome, where heavier
sorrows than his had been carried under the stars.
‘What’s the character of that gentleman?’ Osmond asked
of Isabel after he had retired.
‘Irreproachable—don’t you see it?’
‘He owns about half England; that’s his character,’ Hen-
rietta remarked. ‘That’s what they call a free country!’
‘Ah, he’s a great proprietor? Happy man!’ said Gilbert
Osmond.
‘Do you call that happiness—the ownership of wretched
human beings?’ cried Miss Stackpole. ‘He owns his tenants
and has thousands of them. It’s pleasant to own something,
but inanimate objects are enough for me. I don’t insist on
flesh and blood and minds and consciences.’
‘It seems to me you own a human being or two,’ Mr.
Bantling suggested jocosely. ‘I wonder if Warburton orders
his tenants about as you do me.’
‘Lord Warburton’s a great radical,’ Isabel said. ‘He has
very advanced opinions.’
‘He has very advanced stone walls. His park’s enclosed
by a gigantic iron fence, some thirty miles round,’ Henrietta
announced for the information of Mr. Osmond. ‘I should
like him to converse with a few of our Boston radicals.’
‘Don’t they approve of iron fences?’ asked Mr. Bantling.
‘Only to shut up wicked conservatives. I always feel as if
I were talking to you over something with a neat top-finish
of broken glass.’
‘Do you know him well, this unreformed reformer?’ Os-
mond went on, questioning Isabel.

424 The Portrait of a Lady