THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. 473 it could be anything but a rupture ; she sincerely wished .to know what else it might be. Osmond sat down before his table. " I really can't argue with you on the hypothesis of your defying me," he said. And he took up one of his little brushes again. Isabel lingered but a moment longer ; long enough to embrace with her eye his whole deliberately indifferent, yet most express- ive, figure ; after which she quickly left the room. Her faculties, her energy, her passion, were all dispersed again ; she felt as if a cold, dark mist had suddenly encompassed her. Osmond possessed in a supreme degree the art of eliciting one's weakness. On her way back to her room she found the Countess Gemini standing in the open doorway of a little parlour in which a small collection of heterogeneous books had been arranged. The Countess had an open volume in her hand ; she appeared to have been glancing down a page which failed to strike her as interest- ing. At the sound of Isabel's step she raised her head. " Ah my dear," she said, " you, who are so literary, do tell me some amusing book to read ! Everything here is so fearfully edifying. Do you think this would do me any good 1 " Isabel glanced at the title of the volume she held out, but without reading or understanding it. "I am afraid I can't advise you. I have had bad news. My cousin, Ralph Touchett, is dying." The Countess threw down her book. " Ah, he was so nice ! I am sorry for you," she said. " You would be sorrier still if you knew." " What is there to know 1 You look very badly," the Countess added. " You must have been with Osmond." Half-an-hour before, Isabel would have listened very coldly to an intimation that she. should ever feel a desire for the sympathy of her sister-in-law, and there can be no better proof of her present embarrassment than the fact that she almost clutched at this lady's fluttering attention. " I have been with Osmond," she said, while the Countess's bright eyes glittered at her. " I am sure he has been odious ! " the Countess cried. " Did he say he was glad poor Mr. Touchett is dying?" " He said it is impossible I should go to England." The Countess's mind, when her interests were concerned, was agile ; she already foresaw the extinction of any further bright- ness in her visit to Rome. Ralph Touchett would die, Isabel would go into mourning, and then there would be no more dinner-parties. Such a prospect produced for a moment in her
