"
"With Italy and with you," said Mr. Goodwood with gloomy plainness
and no appearance of trying to make an epigram. "What has he ever
done?" he added abruptly.
"That I should marry him? Nothing at all," Isabel replied while
her patience helped itself by turning a little to hardness. "If he had
done great things would you forgive me any better? Give me up, Mr.
Goodwood; I'm marrying a perfect nonentity. Don't try to take an
interest in him. You can't."
"I can't appreciate him; that's what you mean. And you don't mean in
the least that he's a perfect nonentity. You think he's grand, you
think he's great, though no one else thinks so."
Isabel's colour deepened; she felt this really acute of her
companion, and it was certainly a proof of the aid that passion
might render perceptions she had never taken for fine. "Why do you
always come back to what others think? I can't discuss Mr. Osmond with
you."
"Of course not," said Caspar reasonably. And he sat there with his
air of stiff helplessness, as if not only this were true, but there
were nothing else that they might discuss.
"You see how little you gain," she accordingly broke out-"how little
comfort or satisfaction I can give you.
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