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forcing a smile and feeling that in that last declaration he
had expressed more than he intended.
Isabel moved away and stood looking into the sunny
stillness of the garden; but after a little she turned back to
him. ‘I’m afraid your talk then is the wildness of despair! I
don’t understand it-but it doesn’t matter. I’m not arguing
with you; it’s impossible I should; I’ve only tried to listen to
you. I’m much obliged to you for attempting to explain,’ she
said gently, as if the anger with which she had just sprung
up had already subsided. ‘It’s very good of you to try to warn
me, if you’re really alarmed; but I won’t promise to think of
what you’ve said: I shall forget it as soon as possible. Try and
forget it yourself; you’ve done your duty, and no man can
do more. I can’t explain to you what I feel, what I believe,
and I wouldn’t if I could.’ She paused a moment and then
went on with an inconsequence that Ralph observed even
in the midst of his eagerness to discover some symptom of
concession. ‘I can’t enter into your idea of Mr. Osmond; I
can’t do it justice, because I see him in quite another way.
He’s not important-no, he’s not important; he’s a man to
whom importance is supremely indifferent. If that’s what
you mean when you call him ‘small,’ then he’s as small as
you please. I call that large-it’s the largest thing I know. I
won’t pretend to argue with you about a person I’m going
to marry,’ Isabel repeated. ‘I’m not in the least concerned
to defend Mr. Osmond; he’s not so weak as to need my de-
fence. I should think it would seem strange even to yourself
that I should talk of him so quietly and coldly, as if he were
any one else. I wouldn’t talk of him at all to any one but

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