THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. 303 At these words a sudden passion leaped to Ralph's lips. "Ah, that's wilful, that's unworthy of you ! " he cried. " You were not meant to be measured in that way you were meant for something better than to keep guard over the sensibilities of a sterile dilettante ! " Isabel rose quickly and Ralph did the same, so that they stood for a moment looking at each other as if he had flung down a defiance or an insult. " You go too far," she murmured. " I have said what I had on my mind and I have said it because I love you ! " Isabel turned pale : was he too on that tiresome list 1 She had a sudden wish to strike him off. " Ah then, you are not disinterested ! " " I love you, but I love without hope," said Ralph, quickly, 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 am afraid your talk, then, is the wildness of despair. I don't understand it but it doesn't matter. I am not arguing witn you ; it is impossible that I should ; I have only tried to listen to you. I am 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 is very good of you to try to warn me, if you are really alarmed. But I won't promise to think of what you have said ; I shall forget it as soon as possible. Try and forget it * yourself ; you have 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 she 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 is not important no, he is not important ; he is a man to whom importance is supremely indifferent. If that is what you mean when you call him ' small,' then he is 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 am going to marry," Isabel repeated. " I am not in the least concerned to defend Mr. Osmond ; he is not so weak as to need my defence. 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 would not talk of him at all, to any one but you ; and you, after what
