It had long been Mr.Touchett's most ingenious way of taking the cheerful view of his son's possible duration.

Ralph had usually treated it facetiously; but present circumstances proscribed the facetious.

He simply fell back in his chair and returned his father's appealing gaze.
"If I, with a wife who hasn't been very fond of me, have had a very happy life," said the old man, carrying his ingenuity further still, "what a life mightn't you have if you should marry a person different from Mrs.Touchett.There are more different from her than there are like her." Ralph still said nothing; and after a pause his father resumed softly: "What do you think of your cousin ?" At this Ralph started, meeting the question with a strained smile.

"Do I understand you to propose that I should marry Isabel ?" "Well, that's what it comes to in the end.

Don't you like Isabel ?" "Yes, very much." And Ralph got up from his chair and wandered over to the fire.