Page 440 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

‘Very likely; but you’re very wise.’
‘So are you, Miss Archer!’ Osmond exclaimed.
‘I don’t feel so just now. Still, I’m wise enough to think
you had better go. Good-night.’
‘God bless you!’ said Gilbert Osmond, taking the hand
which she failed to surrender. After which he added: ‘If we
meet again you’ll find me as you leave me. If we don’t I shall
be so all the same.’
‘Thank you very much. Good-bye.’
There was something quietly firm about Isabel’s visitor;
he might go of his own movement, but wouldn’t be dis-
missed. ‘There’s one thing more. I haven’t asked anything
of you—not even a thought in the future; you must do me
that justice. But there’s a little service I should like to ask.
I shall not return home for several days; Rome’s delightful,
and it’s a good place for a man in my state of mind. Oh, I
know you’re sorry to leave it; but you’re right to do what
your aunt wishes.’
‘She doesn’t even wish it!’ Isabel broke out strangely.
Osmond was apparently on the point of saying some-
thing that would match these words, but he changed his
mind and rejoined simply: ‘Ah well, it’s proper you should
go with her, very proper. Do everything that’s proper; I go
in for that. Excuse my being so patronizing. You say you
don’t know me, but when you do you’ll discover what a wor-
ship I have for propriety.’
‘You’re not conventional?’ Isabel gravely asked.
‘I like the way you utter that word! No, I’m not conven-
tional: I’m convention itself. You don’t understand that?’

440 The Portrait of a Lady