"Fortunate for me, I suppose you mean. For him it matters little."
"There's no use talking of him," Osmond said. "As I tell you, I've
turned him out."
"Yes; but a lover outside's always a lover. He's sometimes even more
of one. Mr. Rosier still has hope."
"He's welcome to the comfort of it! My daughter has only to sit
perfectly quiet to become Lady Warburton."
"Should you like that?" Isabel asked with a simplicity which was not
so affected as it may appear. She was resolved to assume nothing,
for Osmond had a way of unexpectedly turning her assumptions against
her. The intensity with which he would like his daughter to become
Lady Warburton had been the very basis of her own recent
reflections. But that was for herself; she would recognize nothing
until Osmond should have put it into words; she would not take for
granted with him that he thought Lord Warburton a prize worth an
amount of effort that was unusual among the Osmonds. It was
Gilbert's constant intimation that for him nothing in life was a
prize; that he treated as from equal to equal with the most
distinguished people in the world, and that his daughter had only to
look about her to pick out a prince.
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