Isabel, can't you see Osmond's a phony! : Portrait of a Lady

Ralph Touchett comes as close as he (presumably) ever will to professing his love for Isabel Archer (Henry James's "The Portrait of a Lady") now that she's engaged to another and out of reach. Sad character - s Jamesian. Isabel is clearly engaged to a horrible man - everyone knows it but her, all of her other suitors fell for her before she was wealthy and it's obvious that he's interested in her only because she's wealthy. So what happened to her? Where and how has she totally lost her judgment? I'd thought she was a sharp, perceptive, independent woman - but no, she's worse than anyone else, cruel and stupid. And yet: does her falling for Gilbert Osmond have something to do with a desire to rescue Osmond's totally ignored teenage daughter, Pansy? Isabel has not articulated this, but it clearly seems to be part of her attraction to Osmond. Bu why should Isabel throw her life away for the young girl whom she hardly knows? Why not bequeath her a legacy, get her a decent education, send her to America? These are questions James never raises, but you have to think part of the problem all of his characters have is either too much money, too much time, or too much of an absorption in all the class-status bullshit of 19th-century Europe - Osmond the worst of them all, with his precious little observations about this and that ornamental artifact or touch of light on the horizon. Isabel, can't you see this guy's a phony? If not, the rest of you guys are well rid of her, she'd only cause you trouble.