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heard the other evening is true: you’re rather cruel to that
nobleman.’
Isabel looked a moment at the vanquished Gladiator. ‘It’s
not true. I’m scrupulously kind.’
‘That’s exactly what I mean!’ Gilbert Osmond returned,
and with such happy hilarity that his joke needs to be ex-
plained. We know that he was fond of originals, of rarities,
of the superior and the exquisite; and now that he had seen
Lord Warburton, whom he thought a very fine example of
his race and order, he perceived a new attraction in the idea
of taking to himself a young lady who had qualified her-
self to figure in his collection of choice objects by declining
so noble a hand. Gilbert Osmond had a high appreciation
of this particular patriciate; not so much for its distinction,
which he thought easily surpassable, as for its solid actual-
ity. He had never forgiven his star for not appointing him to
an English dukedom, and he could measure the unexpect-
edness of such conduct as Isabel’s. It would be proper that
the woman he might marry should have done something of
that sort.

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