408 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. your step-daughter's husband. It makes such a very queer relation to you ! " said Ealph, smiling. " But I'm rather nervous Jest your husband should think you haven't pushed him enough." Isabel found herself able to smile as well as he. " He knows me well enough not to have expected me to push. He himself has no intention of pushing, I presume. I am not afraid I shall not be able to justify myself! " she said, lightly. Her mask had dropped for an instant, but she had put it on again, to Ralph's infinite disappointment. He had caughr, a glimpse of her natural face, and he wished immensely to look into it. He had an almost savage de-ire to hear her complain of her husband hear her say that she should be held accountable for Lord Warburton's defection. Ralph was certain that this was her situation ; he knew by instinct, in advance, the form that in such an event Osmond's displeasure would take. It could only take the meanest and cruellest. He would have liked to warn Isabel of it to let her see at least that he knew it. It little mattered that Isabel would know it much better ; it was for his own satisfaction more than for hers than he longed to show her that he was not deceived. He tried and tried again to make her betray Osmond ; he felt cold-blooded, cruel, dishonour- able almost, in doing so. But it scarcely mattered, for he only failed. What had she come for then, and why did she seem almost to olfer him a chance to violate their tacit convention 1 Why did she ask him his advice, if she gave him no liberty to answer her? How could they talk of her domestic embarrass- ments, as it pleased her humorously to designate them, if the principal factor was not to be mentioned ? These contradictions were themselves but an indication of her trouble, and her cry for help, just before, was the only thing he was bound to consider. " You will be decidedly at variance, all the same," he s;tid, in a moment. And as she answered nothing, looking as if she scarcely understood " You will find yourselves thinking very differently," he continued. " That may easily happen, among the most united couples ! " She took up her parasol ; he saw that she was nervous, afraid of what he might say. " It's a matter we can hardly quarrel about, however," she added ; " for almost all the interest is on his side. That is very natural. Pansy is after all his daughter not mine." And she put out her hand to wish him good-bye. Ralph took an inward resolution that she should not leave him without his letting her know that he knew everything; it seemed too great an opportunity to lose. " Do you know what
