Did all women have
lovers? Did they all lie and even the best have their price? Were
there only three or four that didn't deceive their husbands? When
Isabel heard such things she felt a greater scorn for them than for
the gossip of a village parlour-a scorn that kept its freshness in a
very tainted air. There was the taint of her sister-in-law: did her
husband judge only by the Countess Gemini? This lady very often
lied, and she had practised deceptions that were not simply verbal. It
was enough to find these facts assumed among Osmond's traditions-it
was enough without giving them such a general extension. It was her
scorn of his assumptions, it was this that made him draw himself up.
He had plenty of contempt, and it was proper his wife should be as
well furnished; but that she should turn the hot light of her
disdain upon his own conception of things-this was a danger he had not
allowed for. He believed he should have regulated her emotions
before she came to it; and Isabel could easily imagine how his ears
had scorched on his discovering he had been too confident. When one
had a wife who gave one that sensation there was nothing left but to
hate her.
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