518 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. At first, in rejoinder to what she had said, it seemed to her that he would break out into greater violence. But after an instant he was perfectly quiet ; he wished to prove that he was sane, that he had reasoned it all out. " I wish to prevent that, and I think I may, if you will only listen to me. It's too mon- strous to think of sinking back into that misery. It's you that are out of your mind. Trust me as if I had the care of you. Why shouldn't we be happy when it's here before us, when it's so easy ? I am yours for ever for ever and ever. Here I stand ; I'm as firm as a rock. What have you to care about 1 You have no children ; that perhaps would be an obstacle. As it is, you have nothing to consider. You must save what you can of your life ; you mustn't lose it all simply because you have Ipst a part. It would be an insult to you to assume that you care for the look of the thing for what people will say for the bottomless idiocy of the world ! We have nothing to do with all that ; we are quite out of it ; we look at things as they are. You took the great step in coming away ; the next is nothing ; it's the natural one. I swear, as I stand here, that a woman deliberately made to suffer is justified in anything in life in going down into the streets, if that will help her ! I know how you suffer, and that's why I am here. We can do abso- lutely as we please ; to whom under the sun do we owe any- thing] What is it that holds us what is it that has the smallest right to interfere in such a question as this 1 Such a question is between ourselves and to say that is to settle it ! Were we born to rot in our misery were we born to be afraid 1 I never knew you afraid ! If you only trust me, how little you will be disappointed ! The world is all before us and the world is very large. I know something about that." Isabel gave a long murmur, like a creature in pain ; it was as if he were pressing something that hurt her. " The world is very small," she said, at random ; she had an immense desire to appear to resist. She said it at random, to hear herself say something ; but it was not what she meant. The world, in truth, had never seemed so large ; it seemed to open out, all round her, to take the form of a mighty sea, where she floated in fathomless waters. She had wanted help, and here was help ; it had come in a rushing torrent. I know not whether she believed everything that he said ; but she believed that to let him take her in his arms would be the next best thing to dying. This belief, for a moment, was a kind of rapture, in which she felt herself sinking and sinking. In the movement she seemed
