lands, nor position, nor reputation, nor
brilliant belongings of any sort. It's the total absence of all these
things that pleases me. Mr. Osmond's simply a very lonely, a very
cultivated and a very honest man--he's not a prodigious proprietor."

Ralph had listened with great attention, as if everything she said
merited deep consideration; but in truth he was only half thinking of
the things she said, he was for the rest simply accommodating himself
to the weight of his total impression--the impression of her ardent good
faith. She was wrong, but she believed; she was deluded, but she was
dismally consistent. It was wonderfully characteristic of her that,
having invented a fine theory, about Gilbert Osmond, she loved him not
for what he really possessed, but for his very poverties dressed out as
honours. Ralph remembered what he had said to his father about wishing
to put it into her power to meet the requirements of her imagination. He
had done so, and the girl had taken full advantage of the luxury. Poor
Ralph felt sick; he felt ashamed. Isabel had uttered her last words with
a low solemnity of conviction which virtually terminated the discussion,
and she closed it formally by turning away and walking back to the
house. Ralph walked beside her, and they passed into the court together
and reached the big staircase. Here he stopped and Isabel paused,
turning on him a face of elation--absolutely and perversely of
gratitude. His opposition had made her own conception of her conduct
clearer to her. "Shall you not come up to breakfast?" she asked.

"No; I want no breakfast; I'm not hungry."

"You ought to eat," said the girl; "you live on air."

"I do, very much, and I shall go back into the garden and take another
mouthful. I came thus far simply to say this. I told you last year that
if you were to get into trouble I should feel terribly sold. That's how
I feel to-day."

"Do you think I'm in trouble?"

"One's in trouble when one's in error."

"Very well," said Isabel; "I shall never complain of my trouble to you!"
And she moved up the staircase.

Ralph, standing there with his hands in his pockets, followed her with
his eyes; then the lurking chill of the high-walled court struck him and
made him shiver, so that he returned to the garden to breakfast on the
Florentine sunshine.

CHAPTER XXXV

Isabel, when she strolled in the Cascine with her lover, felt no impulse
to tell him how little he was approved at