He waited a little; he was still questioning her face."Well then, Idon't understand you.You don't mean that she cares for him?""Surely I've told you I thought she did."A quick blush sprang to his brow."You told me she would have no wish apart from her father's, and as I've gathered that he would favour me-!" He paused a little and then suggested "Don't you see?"through his blush.
"Yes, I told you she has an immense wish to please her father, and that it would probably take her very far.""That seems to me a very proper feeling," said Lord Warburton.
"Certainly; it's a very proper feeling." Isabel remained silent for some moments; the room continued empty; the sound of the music reached them with its richness softened by the interposing apartments.
Then at last she said: "But it hardly strikes me as the sort of feeling to which a man would wish to be indebted for a wife.""I don't know; if the wife's a good one and he thinks she does well!
"Yes, of course you must think that."
"I do; I can't help it.You call that very British, of course.""No, I don't.I think Pansy would do wonderfully well to marry you, and I don't know who should know it better than you.But you're not in love.""Ah, yes I am, Mrs.Osmond!"
Isabel shook her head."You like to think you are while you sit here with me.But that's not how you strike me.""I'm not like the young man in the doorway.I admit that.But what makes it so unnatural? Could any one in the world be more loveable than Miss Osmond?""No one, possibly.But love has nothing to do with good reasons.""I don't agree with you.I'm delighted to have good reasons.""Of course you are.If you were really in love you wouldn't care a straw for them.""Ah, really in love-really in love!" Lord Warburton exclaimed, folding his arms, leaning back his head and stretching himself a little."You must remember that I'm forty-two years old.I won't pretend I'm as I once "Well, if you're sure," said Isabel, "it's all right."He answered nothing; he sat there, with his head back, looking before him.Abruptly, however, he changed his position; he turned quickly to his friend."Why are you so unwilling, so sceptical?"She met his eyes, and for a moment they looked straight at each other.If she wished to be satisfied she saw something that satisfied her; she saw in his expression the gleam of an idea that she was uneasy on her own account-that she was perhaps even in fear.It showed a suspicion, not a hope, but such as it was it told her what she wanted to know.Not for an instant should he suspect her of detecting in his proposal of marrying her stepdaughter an implication of increased nearness to herself, or of thinking it, on such a betrayal, ominous.In that brief, extremely personal gaze, however, deeper meanings passed between them than they were conscious of at the moment.
"My dear Lord Warburton," she said, smiling, "you may do, as far as I'm concerned, whatever comes into your head."And with this she got up and wandered into the adjoining room, where, within her companion's view, she was immediately addressed by a pair of gentlemen, high personages in the Roman world, who met her as if they had been looking for her.While she talked with them she found herself regretting she had moved; it looked a little like running away-all the more as Lord Warburton didn't follow her.She was glad of this, however, and at any rate she was satisfied.She was so well satisfied that when, in passing back into the ball-room, she found Edward Rosier still planted in the doorway, she stopped and spoke to him again."You did right not to go away.I've some comfort for you.""I need it," the young man softly wailed, "when I see you so awfully thick with him!""Don't speak of him; I'll do what I can for you.I'm afraid it won't be much, but what I can I'll do."He looked at her with gloomy obliqueness."What has suddenly brought you round?""The sense that you are an inconvenience in doorways!" she answered, smiling as she passed him.Half an hour later she took leave, with Pansy, and at the foot of the staircase the two ladies, with many other departing guests, waited a while for their carriage.just as it approached Lord Warburton came out of the house and assisted them to reach their vehicle.He stood a moment at the door, asking Pansy if she had amused herself; and she, having answered him, fell back with a little air of fatigue.Then Isabel, at the window, detaining him by a movement of her finger, murmured gently: "Don't forget to send your letter to her father!"
