find you alone, I thought you had company.

"So I have--the best." And she glanced at the Antinous and the
Faun.

"Do you call them better company than an English peer?"

"Ah, my English peer left me some time ago." She got up, speaking
with intention a little dryly.

Mr. Osmond noted her dryness, which contributed for him to the
interest of his question. "I'm afraid that what I heard the other
evening is true: you're rather cruel to that nobleman."

Isabel looked a moment at the vanquished Gladiator. "It's not
true. I'm scrupulously kind."

"That's exactly what I mean!" Gilbert Osmond returned, and with
such happy hilarity that his joke needs to be explained. We know
that he was fond of originals, of rarities, of the superior and
the exquisite; and now that he had seen Lord Warburton, whom he
thought a very fine example of his race and order, he perceived a
new attraction in the idea of taking to himself a young lady who
had qualified herself to figure in his collection of choice
objects by declining so noble a hand. Gilbert Osmond had a high
appreciation of this particular patriciate; not so much for its
distinction, which he thought easily surpassable, as for its
solid actuality. He had never forgiven his star for not appointing
him to an English dukedom, and he could measure the unexpectedness
of such conduct as Isabel's. It would be proper that the woman he