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I didn't think you'd decide for well, for that type." "What's the matter with Mr. Osmond's type, if it be one? His being so independent, so individual, is what I most see in him," the girl declared. "What do you know against him? You know him scarcely at all." "Yes," Ralph said, "I know him very little, and I confess I haven't facts and items to prove him a villain.
"Isabel probably wouldn't object to being kind to her. I think she likes the poor child." "Another reason then for Mr. Osmond's stopping at home! Otherwise, a week hence, we shall have my niece arriving at the conviction that her mission in life's to prove that a stepmother may sacrifice herself and that, to prove it, she must first become one."
She had suffered a disappointment which excited Isabel's surprise our heroine having no knowledge of her zealous interest in Pansy's marriage; and she betrayed it in a manner which quickened Mrs. Osmond's alarm.
He watched her talking with other people and wondered when she would be at liberty and whether he might ask her to go into one of the other rooms. His humour was not, like Osmond's, of the best; there was an element of dull rage in his consciousness of things.
Osmond's kindness and generosity of course influenced her, but for the rest they have only had the free discussions of which from the first I approved. Years ago he said to me plainly, 'What if she should see reasons to change her mind? I scouted the notion then, it seemed and still seems almost INCREDIBLE. He has, you see, acted quite honorably. It is Erica's own doing.
Is that all he has said? Ah then, you keep him in good-humour. Has he opened on one of his favourite subjects? I give you notice that there are two or three that he treats a fond. In that case you had better take off your bonnet." "I don't think I know what Mr. Osmond's favourite subjects are," said Isabel, who had risen to her feet.
"Why in the world should I, pray? Mr. Osmond has nothing the least solid to offer." Again Madame Merle was silent while her thoughtful smile drew up her mouth even more charmingly than usual toward the left corner. "Let us distinguish. Gilbert Osmond's certainly not the first comer. He's a man who in favourable conditions might very well make a great impression.
Erica forgot her anxiety for a moment; she was watching Charles Osmond's face with mingled curiosity and perplexity. She knew him too well and loved him too truly to pause often, as it were, to analyze his character.
"You're very kind; I'll be very good," the young man promised. "But I'm afraid Mr. Osmond's pretty hard," he added in his mild voice as he went to the door. Madame Merle gave a short laugh. "It has been said before. But his wife isn't easy either." "Ah, she's a splendid woman!" Ned Rosier repeated, for departure.
And there was Alfred hanging over her, and in agony at her grief: out came his love for her in words and accents unmistakable, and this in Osmond's hearing and the maid's. "Oh, hush! hush!" cried poor Mrs. Dodd, and her face was seen to burn through her tears. And this was the happy, quiet, little villa of my opening chapters. Ah! Richard Hardie! Richard Hardie!
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