“He has very advanced stone walls. His park’s enclosed by a gigantic iron fence, some thirty miles round,” Henrietta announced for the information of Mr. Osmond. “I should like him to converse with a few of our Boston radicals.”
“Don’t they approve of iron fences?” asked Mr. Bantling.
“Only to shut up wicked conservatives. I always feel as if I were talking to you over something with a neat top-finish of broken glass.”
“Do you know him well, this unreformed reformer?” Osmond went on, questioning Isabel.
“Well enough for all the use I have for him.”
“And how much of a use is that?”
“Well, I like to like him.”
“‘Liking to like’—why, it makes a passion!” said Osmond.
“No”—she considered—“keep that for liking to dislike.”
“Do you wish to provoke me then,” Osmond laughed, “to a passion for him?”