"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.