She would cling, yes, she would cling; but it really mattered to her
very little what she clung to. Lord Warburton would do as well as
Mr. Rosier-especially as she seemed quite to like him; she had
expressed this sentiment to Isabel without a single reservation; she
had said she thought his conversation most interesting-he had told her
all about India. His manner to Pansy had been of the rightest and
easiest-Isabel noticed that for herself, as she also observed that
he talked to her not in the least in a patronizing way, reminding
himself of her youth and simplicity, but quite as if she understood
his subjects with that sufficiency with which she followed those of
the fashionable operas. This went far enough for attention to the
music and the barytone. He was careful only to be kind-he was as
kind as he had been to another fluttered young chit at Gardencourt.
A girl might well be touched by that; she remembered how she herself
had been touched, and said to herself that if she had been as simple
as Pansy the impression would have been deeper still. She had not been
simple when she refused him; that operation had been as complicated
as, later, her acceptance of Osmond had been.
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