For Osmond the place
was ugly to distress; the false colours, the sham splendour were
like vulgar, bragging, lying talk. Isabel had taken in hand a volume
of Ampere, presented, on their arrival in Rome, by Ralph; but though
she held it in her lap with her finger vaguely kept in the place she
was not impatient to pursue her study. A lamp covered with a
drooping veil of pink tissue-paper burned on the table beside her
and diffused a strange pale rosiness over the scene.
"You say you'll come back; but who knows?" Gilbert Osmond said. "I
think you're much more likely to start on your voyage round the world.
You're under no obligation to come back; you can do exactly what you
choose; you can roam through space."
"Well, Italy's a part of space," Isabel answered. "I can take it
on the way.
"On the way round the world? No, don't do that. Don't put us in a
parenthesis- give us a chapter to ourselves. I don't want to see you
on your travels. I'd rather see you when they're over. I should like
to see you when you're tired and satiated," Osmond added in a
moment. "I shall prefer you in that state."
Isabel, with her eyes bent, fingered the pages of M.
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