"Thank you very much. I haven't been out of England since then. Till
a month ago I really supposed my travels over."
"I've heard of you from time to time," said Isabel, who had already,
with her rare capacity for such inward feats, taken the measure of
what meeting him again meant for her.
"I hope you've heard no harm. My life has been a remarkably complete
blank."
"Like the good reigns in history," Osmond suggested. He appeared
to think his duties as a host now terminated-he had performed them
so conscientiously. Nothing could have been more adequate, more nicely
measured, than his courtesy to his wife's old friend. It was
punctilious, it was explicit, it was everything but natural-a
deficiency which Lord Warburton, who, himself, had on the whole a good
deal of nature, may be supposed to have perceived. "I'll leave you and
Mrs. Osmond together," he added. "You have reminiscences into which
I don't enter."
"I'm afraid you lose a good deal!" Lord Warburton called after
him, as he moved away, in a tone which perhaps betrayed overmuch an
appreciation of his generosity. Then the visitor turned on Isabel
the deeper, the deepest, consciousness of his look, which gradually
became more serious.
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