"I haven't the idea that it will matter much to you,"said Osmond. "I've too little to offer you. What I have—it's enough for me; but it's not enough for you.I've neither fortune, nor fame, nor extrinsic advantages of any kind. So I offer nothing. I only tell you because I think it can't offend you, and some day or other it may give you pleasure. It gives me pleasure, I assure you," he went on, standing there before her,considerately inclined to her, turning his hat, which he had taken up, slowly round with a movement which had all the decent tremor of awkwardness and none of its oddity, and presenting to her his firm, refined,slightly ravaged face. "It gives me no pain, because it's perfectly simple. For me you'll always be the most important woman in the world."