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She was grand, but she was highly solicitous; she was indif-
ferent, but she was all in a passion. ‘What sort of a person
should you have liked me to marry?’ she asked suddenly.
‘You talk about one’s soaring and sailing, but if one marries
at all one touches the earth. One has human feelings and
needs, one has a heart in one’s bosom, and one must mar-
ry a particular individual. Your mother has never forgiven
me for not having come to a better understanding with
Lord Warburton, and she’s horrified at my contenting my-
self with a person who has none of his great advantages-no
property, no title, no honours, no houses, nor lands, nor po-
sition, nor reputation, nor brilliant belongings of any sort.
It’s the total absence of all these things that pleases me. Mr.
Osmond’s simply a very lonely, a very cultivated and a very
honest man-he’s not a prodigious proprietor.’
Ralph had listened with great attention, as if every-
thing she said merited deep consideration; but in truth he
was only half thinking of the things she said, he was for
the rest simply accommodating himself to the weight of his
total impression-the impression of her ardent good faith.
She was wrong, but she believed; she was deluded, but she
was dismally consistent. It was wonderfully characteristic
of her that, having invented a fine theory about Gilbert Os-
mond, she loved him not for what he really possessed, but
for his very poverties dressed out as honours. Ralph remem-
bered what be had said to his father about wishing to put it
into her power to meet the requirements of her imagina-
tion. He had done so, and the girl had taken full advantage
of luxury. Poor Ralph felt sick; he felt ashamed. Isabel had

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