Isabel had in fact her solemnity;
he had seen it before. "You have an imagination that startles one!"
"That's exactly what I say. You think such an idea absurd."
"I would give my little finger to go to Japan; it's one of the
countries I want most to see. Can't you believe that, with my taste
for old lacquer?"
"I haven't a taste for old lacquer to excuse me," said Isabel.
"You've a better excuse- the means of going. You're quite wrong in
your theory that I laugh at you. I don't know what has put it into
your head."
"It wouldn't be remarkable if you did think it ridiculous that I
should have the means to travel when you've not; for you know
everything, and I know nothing."
"The more reason why you should travel and learn," smiled Osmond.
"Besides," he added as if it were a point to be made, "I don't know
everything."
Isabel was not struck with the oddity of his saying this gravely;
she was thinking that the pleasantest incident of her life- so it
pleased her to qualify these too few days in Rome, which she might
musingly have likened to the figure of some small princess of one of
the ages of dress over-muffled in a mantle of state and dragging a
train that it took pages or historians to hold up- that this
felicity was coming to an end.
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