188 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. you must not tell any one else. Don't you go anywhere with- out asking me first; I want you to promise me that. As a general thing avoid the Boulevards ; there is very little to be done on the Boulevards. Speaking conscientiously sans blague I don't believe any one knows Paris better than I. You and Mrs. Touchett must come and breakfast with me some day, and I'll show you rny things ; je ne vous dis que $a ! There has been a great deal of talk about London of late ; it's the fashion to cry up London. But there is nothing in it you can't dp anything in London. No Louis Quinze nothing of the First Empire ; nothing but their eternal Queen Anne. It's good for one's bed-room, Queen Anne for one's washing-room ; but it isn't proper for a salon. Do I spend my life at the auctioneer's ? " Mr. Hosier pursued, in answer to another question of Isabel's. " Oh, no ; I haven't the means. I wish I had. You think I'm a mere trifler; I can tell by the expression of your face you have got a wonderfully expressive face. I hope you don't mind my saying that ; I mean it as a kind of warning. You think I ought to do something, and so do I, so long as you leave it vague. But when you come to the point, you see you have to stop. I can't go home and be a shopkeeper. You think I am very well fitted? Ah, Miss Archer, you overrate me. I can buy very well, but I can't sell ; you should see when I some- times try to get rid of my things. It takes much more ability to make other people buy than to buy yourself. When I think how clever they must be, the people who make me buy ! Ah, no; I couldn't be a shopkeeper. I can't be a doctor, it's a repulsive business. I can't be a clergyman, I haven't got con- victions. And then I can't pronounce the names right in the Bible. They are very difficult, in the Old Testament particularly. I can't be a lawyer ; I don't understand how do you call it 1 the American procedure. Is there anything else 1 There is nothing for a gentleman to do in America. I should like to be a diplomatist; but American diplomacy that is not for gentlemen either. I am sure if you had seen the last min " Henrietta Stackpole, who was often with her friend when Mr. Rosier, coming to pay his compliments, late in the afternoon, expressed himself after the fashion I have sketched, usually interrupted the young man at this point and read him a lecture on the duties of the American citizen. She thought him most unnatural ; he was worse than Mr. Ralph Touchett. Henrietta, however, was at this time more than ever addicted to fine criticism, for her conscience had been freshly alarmed as regards
