Isabel wandered among these ugly
possibilities until she had completely lost her way; some of them,
as she suddenly encountered them, seemed ugly enough. Then she broke
out of the labyrinth, rubbing her eyes, and declared that her
imagination surely did her little honour and that her husband's did
him even less. Lord Warburton was as disinterested as he need be,
and she was no more to him than she need wish. She would rest upon
this till the contrary should be proved; proved more effectually
than by a cynical intimation of Osmond's.
Such a resolution, however, brought her this evening but little
peace, for her soul was haunted with terrors which crowded to the
foreground of thought as quickly as a place was made for them. What
had suddenly set them into livelier motion she hardly knew, unless
it were the strange impression she had received in the afternoon of
her husband's being in more direct communication with Madame Merle
than she suspected. That impression came back to her from time to
time, and now she wondered it had never come before. Besides this, her
short interview with Osmond half an hour ago was a striking example of
his faculty for making everything wither that he touched, spoiling
everything for her that he looked at.
Pages:
717
718
719
720
721
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741