Why should she mark so one of his values-
quite the wrong one- when she would have nothing to do with another,
which was quite the right? He was angry with himself for being
puzzled, and then angry for being angry. Verdi's music did little to
comfort him, and he left the theatre and walked homeward, without
knowing his way, through the tortuous, tragic streets of Rome, where
heavier sorrows than his had been carried under the stars.
"What's the character of that gentleman?" Osmond asked of Isabel
after he had retired.
"Irreproachable- don't you see it?"
"He owns about half England; that's his character," Henrietta
remarked. "That's what they call a free country!"
"Ah, he's a great proprietor? Happy man!" said Gilbert Osmond.
"Do you call that happiness- the ownership of wretched human
beings?" cried Miss Stackpole. "He owns his tenants and has
thousands of them. It's pleasant to own something, but inanimate
objects are enough for me. I don't insist on flesh and blood and minds
and consciences."
"It seems to me you own a human being or two," Mr. Bantling
suggested jocosely. "I wonder if Warburton orders his tenants about as
you do me.
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