It must be a charming place to live in," he added with a look, round him, at her established home, in which she might have caught the dim ghost of his old ruefulness.
"We should have been glad to see you at any time," Osmond observed with propriety.
"Thank you very much.

I haven't been out of England since then.

Till a month ago I really supposed my travels over." "I've heard of you from time to time," said Isabel, who had already, with her rare capacity for such inward feats, taken the measure of what meeting him again meant for her.
"I hope you've heard no harm.

My life has been a remarkably complete blank." "Like the good reigns in history," Osmond suggested.

He appeared to think his duties as a host now terminated--he had performed them so conscientiously.