"Yes, but everything is relative; one ought to feel one's relation to things-to others.I don't think Mr.Osmond does that.""I've chiefly to do with his relation to me.In that he's excellent.""He's the incarnation of taste," Ralph went on, thinking hard how he could best express Gilbert Osmond's sinister attributes without putting himself in the wrong by seeming to describe him coarsely.He wished to describe him impersonally, scientifically."He judges and measures, approves and condemns, altogether by that.""It's a happy thing then that his taste should be exquisite.""It's exquisite, indeed, since it has led him to select you as his bride.But have you ever seen such a taste-a really exquisite one-ruffled?""I hope it may never be my fortune to fail to gratify my husband's."At these words a sudden passion leaped to Ralph's lips."Ah, that's wilful, that's unworthy of you! You were not meant to be measured in that way-you were meant for something better than to keep guard over the sensibilities of a sterile dilettante!"Isabel rose quickly and he did the same, so that they stood for a moment looking at each other as if he had flung down a defiance or an insult.But "You go too far," she simply breathed.
"I've said what I had on my mind-and I've said it because I love you!"Isabel turned pale: was he too on that tiresome list? She had a sudden wish to strike him off."Ah then, you're not disinterested!""I love you, but I love without hope," said Ralph quickly, forcing a smile and feeling that in that last declaration he had expressed more than he intended.
Isabel moved away and stood looking into the sunny stillness of the garden; but after a little she turned back to him."I'm afraid your talk then is the wildness of despair! I don't understand it-but it doesn't matter.I'm not arguing with you; it's impossible I should;I've only tried to listen to you.I'm much obliged to you for attempting to explain," she said gently, as if the anger with which she had just sprung up had already subsided."It's very good of you to try to warn me, if you're really alarmed; but I won't promise to think of what you've said: I shall forget it as soon as possible.Try and forget it yourself; you've done your duty, and no man can do more.Ican't explain to you what I feel, what I believe, and I wouldn't if I could." She paused a moment and then went on with an inconsequence that Ralph observed even in the midst of his eagerness to discover some symptom of concession."I can't enter into your idea of Mr.
Osmond; I can't do it justice, because I see him in quite another way.
He's not important-no, he's not important; he's a man to whom importance is supremely indifferent.If that's what you mean when you call him 'small,' then he's as small as you please.I call that large-it's the largest thing I know.I won't pretend to argue with you about a person I'm going to marry," Isabel repeated."I'm not in the least concerned to defend Mr.Osmond; he's not so weak as to need my defence.I should think it would seem strange even to yourself that I should talk of him so quietly and coldly, as if he were any one else.I wouldn't talk of him at all to any one but you; and you, after what you've said-I may just answer you once for all.Pray, would you wish me to make a mercenary marriage-what they call a marriage of ambition? I've only one ambition-to be free to follow out a good feeling.I had others once, but they've passed away.Do you complain of Mr.Osmond because he's not rich? That's just what I like him for.I've fortunately money enough; I've never felt so thankful for it as to-day.There have been moments when I should like to go and kneel down by your father's grave: he did perhaps a better thing than he knew when he put it into my power to marry a poor man-a man who has borne his poverty with such dignity, with such indifference.
