382 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. " May I hold it a little, Mrs. Osmond ? " the poor young man " No, I can't trust you ; I am afraid you wouldn't give it back." " I am not sure that I should ; I should leave the house with it instantly. But may I not at least have a single flower ? " Isabel hesitated a moment, and then, smiling still, held out the bouquet. " Choose one yourself. It's frightful what I am doing for you." " Ah, if you do no more than this, Mrs. Osmond ! " Rosier exclaimed, with his glass in one eye, carefully choosing his flower. " Don't put it into your button-hole," she said. " Don't for the world ! " " I should like her to see it. She has refused to dance with me, but I wish to show her that I believe in her still." " It's very well to show it to her, but it's out of place to show it to others. Her father has told her not to dance with you." "And is that all you can do for me? I expected more from you, Mrs. Osmond," said the young man, in a tone of fine general reference. " You know that our acquaintance goes back very far quite into the days of our innocent childhood." " Don't make me out too old," Isabel answered, smiling. "You come back to that very often, and I have never denied it. But I must tell you that, old friends as we are, if you had done me the honour to ask me to marry you I should have refused you." "Ah, you don't esteem me, then. Say at once that you think I'm a trifler ! " u I esteem you very much, but I'm not in love with you. What I mean by that, of course, is that I am not in love with you for Pansy." ."Very good; I see; you pity me, that's all." And Edward Rosier looked all round, inconsequently, with his single glass. It was a revelation to him that people shouldn't be more pleased ; but he was at least too proud to show that the movement struck him as general. Isabel for a moment said nothing. His manner and appear- ance had not the dignity of the deepest tragedy ; his little glass, among other things, was against that. But she suddenly felt touched; her own unhappiness, after all, had something in common with his, and it came over her, more than before, that here, in recognisable, if not in romantic form, was the~ most
