Page 496 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

‘Are you speaking of my aunt-of my cousin?’ Isabel asked.
‘How do you know what they think?’
‘You’ve not told me they’re pleased, and when I wrote to
Mrs. Touchett the other day she never answered my note.
If they had been delighted I should have had some sign of
it, and the fact of my being poor and you rich is the most
obvious explanation of their reserve. But of course when a
poor man marries a rich girl he must be prepared for im-
putations. I don’t mind them; I only care for one thing-for
your not having the shadow of a doubt. I don’t care what
people of whom I ask nothing think-I’m not even capable
perhaps of wanting to know. I’ve never so concerned my-
self, God forgive me, and why should I begin to-day, when
I have taken to myself a compensation for everything? I
won’t pretend I’m sorry you’re rich; I’m delighted. I delight
in everything that’s yours-whether it be money or virtue.
Money’s a horrid thing to follow, but a charming thing to
meet. It seems to me, however, that I’ve sufficiently proved
the limits of my itch for it: I never in my life tried to earn a
penny, and I ought to be less subject to suspicion than most
of the people one sees grubbing and grabbing. I suppose it’s
their business to suspect-that of your family; it’s proper on
the whole they should. They’ll like me better some day; so
will you, for that matter. Meanwhile my business is not to
make myself bad blood, but simply to be thankful for life
and love.’ ‘It has made me better, loving you,’ he said on
another occasion; ‘it has made me wiser and easier and I
won’t pretend to deny-brighter and nicer and even stronger.
I used to want a great many things before and to be angry I

496 The Portrait of a Lady