ll me it's not to have been the last. Ah,
you're not grateful!"

"What am I to be grateful for?"

Gilbert Osmond laid down his little implements, blew a speck of dust
from his drawing, slowly got up, and for the first time looked at his
wife. "For my not having interfered while he was here."

"Oh yes, I am. I remember perfectly how distinctly you let me know you
didn't like it. I was very glad when he went away."

"Leave him alone then. Don't run after him."

Isabel turned her eyes away from him; they rested upon his little
drawing. "I must go to England," she said, with a full consciousness
that her tone might strike an irritable man of taste as stupidly
obstinate.

"I shall not like it if you do," Osmond remarked.

"Why should I mind that? You won't like it if I don't. You like nothing
I do or don't do. You pretend to think I lie."

Osmond turned slightly pale; he gave a cold smile. "That's why you must
go then? Not to see your cousin, but to take a revenge on me."

"I know nothing about revenge."

"I do," said Osmond. "Don't give me an occasion."

"You're only too eager to take one. You wish immensely that I would
commit some folly."

"I should be gratified in that case if you disobeyed me."

"If I disobeyed you?" said Isabel in a low tone which had the effect of
mildness.

"Let it be clear. If you leave Rome to-day it will be a piece of the
most deliberate, the most calculated, opposition."

"How can you call it calculated? I received my aunt's telegram but three
minutes ago."

"You calculate rapidly; it's a great accomplishment. I don't see why we
should prolong our discussion; you know my wish." And he stood there as
if he expected to see her withdraw.

But she never moved; she couldn't move, strange as it may seem; she
still wished to justify herself; he had the power, in an extraordinary
degree, of making her feel this need. There was something in her
imagination he could always appeal to against her judgement. "You've no
reason for such a wish," said Isabel, "and I've every reason for going.
I can't tell you how unjust you seem to me. But I think you know. It's
your own opposition that's calculated. It's malignant."

She had never uttered her worst thought to her husband before, and the
sensation of hearing it was evidently new to Osmond. But he showed no
surprise, and his coolness was apparently a proof that he had believed
his wife would in fact be unable to resist for ever his ingeniou