‘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?—Garden-court. It must be a charming thing. And then, you know, I’ve a devotion to the memory of your uncle: you made me take a great fancy to him. I should like to see where he lived and died. That indeed is a detail. Your friend was right. Pansy ought to see England.’
‘I’ve no doubt she would enjoy it,’ said Isabel.
‘But that’s a long time hence; next autumn’s far off,’ Osmond continued; ‘and meantime there are things that more nearly interest us. Do you think me so very proud?’ he suddenly asked.
‘I think you very strange.’
‘You don’t understand me.’
‘No, not even when you insult me.’
‘I don’t insult you; I’m incapable of it. I merely speak of certain facts, and if the allusion’s an injury to you the fault’s not mine. It’s surely a fact that you have kept all this matter quite in your own hands.’
‘Are you going back to Lord Warburton?’ Isabel asked. ‘I’m very tired of his name.’
‘You shall hear it again before we’ve done with it.’
She had spoken of his insulting her, but it suddenly seemed to her that this ceased to be a pain. He was going down—down; the vision of such a fall made her almost giddy: that was the only pain. He was too strange, too different; he didn’t touch her. Still, the working of his morbid passion was extraordinary, and she felt a rising curiosity to know in what light he saw himself justified. ‘I might say to you that I judge you’ve nothing to say to me that’s worth hearing,’ she returned in a moment. ‘But I should perhaps be wrong. There’s a thing that would be worth my hearing—to know in the plainest words of what it is you accuse me.’
‘Of having prevented Pansy’s marriage to Warburton. Are those words plain enough?’
‘On the contrary, I took a great interest in it. I told you so; and when you told me that you counted on me—that I think was what you said—I accepted the obligation. I was a fool to do so, but I did it.’
‘You pretended to do it, and you even pretended reluctance to make me more willing to trust you. Then you began to use your ingenuity to get him out of the way.’
‘I think I see what you mean,’ said Isabel.