slowly, with short pauses
between, and his intelligent regard was fixed on his visitor's with the
conscious air of a man who has brought himself to confess something.

"Do you call that simple?" she asked with mild irony.

"Yes, because it's negative."

"Has your life been negative?"

"Call it affirmative if you like. Only it has affirmed my indifference.
Mind you, not my natural indifference--I HAD none. But my studied, my
wilful renunciation."

She scarcely understood him; it seemed a question whether he were
joking or not. Why should a man who struck her as having a great fund
of reserve suddenly bring himself to be so confidential? This was his
affair, however, and his confidences were interesting. "I don't see why
you should have renounced," she said in a moment.

"Because I could do nothing. I had no prospects, I was poor, and I was
not a man of genius. I had no talents even; I took my measure early in
life. I was simply the most fastidious young gentleman living. There
were two or three people in the world I envied--the Emperor of Russia,
for instance, and the Sultan of Turkey! There were even moments when I
envied the Pope of Rome--for the consideration he enjoys. I should have
been delighted to be considered to that extent; but since that couldn't
be I didn't care for anything less, and I made up my mind not to go
in for honours. The leanest gentleman can always consider himself,
and fortunately I was, though lean, a gentleman. I could do nothing in
Italy--I couldn't even be an Italian patriot. To do that I should have
had to get out of the country; and I was too fond of it to leave it, to
say nothing of my being too well satisfied with it, on the whole, as it
then was, to wish it altered. So I've passed a great many years here on
that quiet plan I spoke of. I've not been at all unhappy. I don't mean
to say I've cared for nothing; but the things I've cared for have
been definite--limited. The events of my life have been absolutely
unperceived by any one save myself; getting an old silver crucifix at a
bargain (I've never bought anything dear, of course), or discovering,
as I once did, a sketch by Correggio on a panel daubed over by some
inspired idiot."

This would have been rather a dry account of Mr. Osmond's career if
Isabel had fully believed it; but her imagination supplied the human
element which she was sure had not been wanting. His life had been
mingled with other lives more than he admitted; n