Page 436 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

gravely; she was thinking that the pleasantest incident of
her life—so it pleased her to qualify these too few days in
Rome, which she might musingly have likened to the figure
of some small princess of one of the ages of dress over-muf-
fled in a mantle of state and dragging a train that it took
pages or historians to hold up—that this felicity was com-
ing to an end. That most of the interest of the time had been
owing to Mr. Osmond was a reflexion she was not just now
at pains to make; she had already done the point abundant
justice. But she said to herself that if there were a danger
they should never meet again, perhaps after all it would
be as well. Happy things don’t repeat themselves, and her
adventure wore already the changed, the seaward face of
some romantic island from which, after feasting on purple
grapes, she was putting off while the breeze rose. She might
come back to Italy and find him different—this strange man
who pleased her just as he was; and it would be better not to
come than run the risk of that. But if she was not to come
the greater the pity that the chapter was closed; she felt for
a moment a pang that touched the source of tears. The sen-
sation kept her silent, and Gilbert Osmond was silent too;
he was looking at her. ‘Go everywhere,’ he said at last, in a
low, kind voice; ‘do everything; get everything out of life. Be
happy—be triumphant.’
‘What do you mean by being triumphant?’
‘Well, doing what you like.’
‘To triumph, then, it seems to me, is to fail! Doing all the
vain things one likes is often very tiresome.’
‘Exactly,’ said Osmond with his quiet quickness. ‘As I

436 The Portrait of a Lady