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on the other side of her; the old lady was Italian, and Ros-
ier took for granted she understood no English. ‘You said
just now you wouldn’t help me,’ he began to Mrs. Osmond.
‘Perhaps you’ll feel differently when you know-when you
know-!
Isabel met his hesitation. ‘When I know what?’
‘That she’s all right.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Well, that we’ve come to an understanding.’
‘She’s all wrong,’ said Isabel. ‘It won’t do.’
Poor Rosier gazed at her half-pleadingly, half-angrily;
a sudden flush testified to his sense of injury. ‘I’ve never
been treated so,’ he said. ‘What is there against me, after
all? That’s not the way I’m usually considered. I could have
married twenty times.’
‘It’s a pity you didn’t. I don’t mean twenty times, but once
comfortably,’ Isabel added, smiling kindly. ‘You’re not rich
enough for Pansy.’ ‘She doesn’t care a straw for one’s mon-
ey.’
‘No, but her father does.’
‘Ah yes, he has proved that!’ cried the young man.
Isabel got up, turning away from him, leaving her old
lady without ceremony; and he occupied himself for the
next ten minutes in pretending to look at Gilbert Osmond’s
collection of miniatures, which were neatly arranged on a
series of small velvet screens. But he looked without see-
ing; his cheek burned; he was too full of his sense of injury.
It was certain that he had never been treated that way be-
fore; he was not used to being thought not good enough. He

530 The Portrait of a Lady