urned her embrace with even more than his
usual munificence, and Isabel wondered if he meant it as a hint that his
daughter had been injured by the machinations of her stepmother. It was
a partial expression, at any rate, of what he continued to expect of his
wife. She was about to follow Pansy, but he remarked that he wished she
would remain; he had something to say to her. Then he walked about the
drawing-room a little, while she stood waiting in her cloak.

"I don't understand what you wish to do," he said in a moment. "I should
like to know--so that I may know how to act."

"Just now I wish to go to bed. I'm very tired."

"Sit down and rest; I shall not keep you long. Not there--take a
comfortable place." And he arranged a multitude of cushions that were
scattered in picturesque disorder upon a vast divan. This was not,
however, where she seated herself; she dropped into the nearest chair.
The fire had gone out; the lights in the great room were few. She drew
her cloak about her; she felt mortally cold. "I think you're trying to
humiliate me," Osmond went on. "It's a most absurd undertaking."

"I haven't the least idea what you mean," she returned.

"You've played a very deep game; you've managed it beautifully."

"What is it that I've managed?"

"You've not quite settled it, however; we shall see him again." And he
stopped in front of her, with his hands in his pockets, looking down at
her thoughtfully, in his usual way, which seemed meant to let her know
that she was not an object, but only a rather disagreeable incident, of
thought.

"If you mean that Lord Warburton's under an obligation to come back
you're wrong," Isabel said. "He's under none whatever."

"That's just what I complain of. But when I say he'll come back I don't
mean he'll come from a sense of duty."

"There's nothing else to make him. I think he has quite exhausted Rome."

"Ah no, that's a shallow judgement. Rome's inexhaustible." And Osmond
began to walk about again. "However, about that perhaps there's no
hurry," he added. "It's rather a good idea of his that we should go
to England. If it were not for the fear of finding your cousin there I
think I should try to persuade you."

"It may be that you'll not find my cousin," said Isabel.

"I should like to be sure of it. However, I shall be as sure as
possible. At the same time I should like to see his house, that you told
me so much about at one time: what do you call it?--Gardencour