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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Portrait of a Lady, by Henry James
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Portrait of a Lady
+       Volume 1 (of 2)
+
+Author: Henry James
+
+Posting Date: December 1, 2008 [EBook #2833]
+Release Date: September, 2001
+[Last updated: May 1, 2015]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Eve Sobol
+
+
+
+
+
+THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY
+
+VOLUME I
+
+
+By Henry James
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+"The Portrait of a Lady" was, like "Roderick Hudson," begun in Florence,
+during three months spent there in the spring of 1879. Like "Roderick"
+and like "The American," it had been designed for publication in "The
+Atlantic Monthly," where it began to appear in 1880. It differed from
+its two predecessors, however, in finding a course also open to it, from
+month to month, in "Macmillan's Magazine"; which was to be for me one of
+the last occasions of simultaneous "serialisation" in the two countries
+that the changing conditions of literary intercourse between England and
+the United States had up to then left unaltered. It is a long novel, and
+I was long in writing it; I remember being again much occupied with it,
+the following year, during a stay of several weeks made in Venice. I had
+rooms on Riva Schiavoni, at the top of a house near the passage leading
+off to San Zaccaria; the waterside life, the wondrous lagoon spread
+before me, and the ceaseless human chatter of Venice came in at my
+windows, to which I seem to myself to have been constantly driven, in
+the fruitless fidget of composition, as if to see whether, out in the
+blue channel, the ship of some right suggestion, of some better phrase,
+of the next happy twist of my subject, the next true touch for my
+canvas, mightn't come into sight. But I recall vividly enough that the
+response most elicited, in general, to these restless appeals was the
+rather grim admonition that romantic and historic sites, such as
+the land of Italy abounds in, offer the artist a questionable aid to
+concentration when they themselves are not to be the subject of it. They
+are too rich in their own life and too charged with their own meanings
+merely to help him out with a lame phrase; they draw him away from his
+small question to their own greater ones; so that, after a little, he
+feels, while thus yearning toward them in his difficulty, as if he were
+asking an army of glorious veterans to help him to arrest a peddler who
+has given him the wrong change.
+
+There are pages of the book which, in the reading over, have seemed
+to make me see again the bristling curve of the wide Riva, the large
+colour-spots of the balconied houses and the repeated undulation of the
+little hunchbacked bridges, marked by the rise and drop again, with the
+wave, of foreshortened clicking pedestrians. The Venetian footfall and
+the Venetian cry--all talk there, wherever uttered, having the pitch of
+a call across the water--come in once more at the window, renewing one's
+old impression of the delighted senses and the divided, frustrated mind.
+How can places that speak IN GENERAL so to the imagination not give
+it, at the moment, the particular thing it wants? I recollect again
+and again, in beautiful places, dropping into that wonderment. The
+real truth is, I think, that they express, under this appeal, only too
+much--more than, in the given case, one has use for; so that one
+finds one's self working less congruously, after all, so far as the
+surrounding picture is concerned, than in presence of the moderate and
+the neutral, to which we may lend something of the light of our vision.
+Such a place as Venice is too proud for such charities; Venice doesn't
+borrow, she but all magnificently gives. We profit by that enormously,
+but to do so we must either be quite off duty or be on it in her service
+alone. Such, and so rueful, are these reminiscences; though on the
+whole, no doubt, one's book, and one's "literary effort" at large, were
+to be the better for them. Strangely fertilising, in the long run, does
+a wasted effort of attention often prove. It all depends on HOW the
+attention has been cheated, has been squandered. There are high-handed
+insolent frauds, and there are insidious sneaking ones. And there is,
+I fear, even on the most designing artist's part, always witless enough
+good faith, always anxious enough desire, to fail to guard him against
+their deceits.
+
+Trying to recover here, for recognition, the germ of my idea, I see that
+it must have consisted not at all in any conceit of a "plot," nefarious
+name, in any flash, upon the fancy, of a set of relations, or in any one
+of those situations that, by a logic of their own, immediately fall, for
+the fabulist, into movement, into a march or a rush, a patter of quick
+steps; but altogether in the sense of a single character, the character
+and aspect of a particular engaging young woman, to which all the usual
+elements of a "subject," certainly of a setting, were to need to be
+super added. Quite as interesting as the young woman herself at her
+best, do I find, I must again repeat, this projection of memory upon the
+whole matter of the growth, in one's imagination, of some such apology
+for a motive. These are the fascinations of the fabulist's art, these
+lurking forces of expansion, these necessities of upspringing in
+the seed, these beautiful determinations, on the part of the idea
+entertained, to grow as tall as possible, to push into the light and
+the air and thickly flower there; and, quite as much, these fine
+possibilities of recovering, from some good standpoint on the ground
+gained, the intimate history of the business--of retracing and
+reconstructing its steps and stages. I have always fondly remembered a
+remark that I heard fall years ago from the lips of Ivan Turgenieff in
+regard to his own experience of the usual origin of the fictive picture.
+It began for him almost always with the vision of some person or
+persons, who hovered before him, soliciting him, as the active or
+passive figure, interesting him and appealing to him just as they were
+and by what they were. He saw them, in that fashion, as disponibles,
+saw them subject to the chances, the complications of existence, and saw
+them vividly, but then had to find for them the right relations, those
+that would most bring them out; to imagine, to invent and select and
+piece together the situations most useful and favourable to the sense of
+the creatures themselves, the complications they would be most likely to
+produce and to feel.
+
+"To arrive at these things is to arrive at my story," he said, "and
+that's the way I look for it. The result is that I'm often accused
+of not having 'story' enough. I seem to myself to have as much as I
+need--to show my people, to exhibit their relations with each other;
+for that is all my measure. If I watch them long enough I see them come
+together, I see them PLACED, I see them engaged in this or that act and
+in this or that difficulty. How they look and move and speak and behave,
+always in the setting I have found for them, is my account of them--of
+which I dare say, alas, que cela manque souvent d'architecture. But I
+would rather, I think, have too little architecture than too much--when
+there's danger of its interfering with my measure of the truth. The
+French of course like more of it than I give--having by their own genius
+such a hand for it; and indeed one must give all one can. As for the
+origin of one's wind-blown germs themselves, who shall say, as you ask,
+where THEY come from? We have to go too far back, too far behind,
+to say. Isn't it all we can say that they come from every quarter
+of heaven, that they are THERE at almost any turn of the road? They
+accumulate, and we are always picking them over, selecting among them.
+They are the breath of life--by which I mean that life, in its own
+way, breathes them upon us. They are so, in a manner prescribed and
+imposed--floated into our minds by the current of life. That reduces to
+imbecility the vain critic's quarrel, so often, with one's subject, when
+he hasn't the wit to accept it. Will he point out then which other it
+should properly have been?--his office being, essentially to point out.
+Il en serait bien embarrasse. Ah, when he points out what I've done or
+failed to do with it, that's another matter: there he's on his ground. I
+give him up my 'sarchitecture,'" my distinguished friend concluded, "as
+much as he will."
+
+So this beautiful genius, and I recall with comfort the gratitude I drew
+from his reference to the intensity of suggestion that may reside in the
+stray figure, the unattached character, the image en disponibilite.
+It gave me higher warrant than I seemed then to have met for just
+that blest habit of one's own imagination, the trick of investing some
+conceived or encountered individual, some brace or group of individuals,
+with the germinal property and authority. I was myself so much more
+antecedently conscious of my figures than of their setting--a too
+preliminary, a preferential interest in which struck me as in general
+such a putting of the cart before the horse. I might envy, though I
+couldn't emulate, the imaginative writer so constituted as to see his
+fable first and to make out its agents afterwards. I could think so
+little of any fable that didn't need its agents positively to launch
+it; I could think so little of any situation that didn't depend for its
+interest on the nature of the persons situated, and thereby on their
+way of taking it. There are methods of so-called presentation, I believe
+among novelists who have appeared to flourish--that offer the situation
+as indifferent to that support; but I have not lost the sense of the
+value for me, at the time, of the admirable Russian's testimony to my
+not needing, all superstitiously, to try and perform any such gymnastic.
+Other echoes from the same source linger with me, I confess, as
+unfadingly--if it be not all indeed one much-embracing echo. It was
+impossible after that not to read, for one's uses, high lucidity into
+the tormented and disfigured and bemuddled question of the objective
+value, and even quite into that of the critical appreciation, of
+"subject" in the novel.
+
+One had had from an early time, for that matter, the instinct of the
+right estimate of such values and of its reducing to the inane the
+dull dispute over the "immoral" subject and the moral. Recognising so
+promptly the one measure of the worth of a given subject, the question
+about it that, rightly answered, disposes of all others--is it valid,
+in a word, is it genuine, is it sincere, the result of some direct
+impression or perception of life?--I had found small edification,
+mostly, in a critical pretension that had neglected from the first
+all delimitation of ground and all definition of terms. The air of
+my earlier time shows, to memory, as darkened, all round, with that
+vanity--unless the difference to-day be just in one's own final
+impatience, the lapse of one's attention. There is, I think, no more
+nutritive or suggestive truth in this connexion than that of the perfect
+dependence of the "moral" sense of a work of art on the amount of felt
+life concerned in producing it. The question comes back thus, obviously,
+to the kind and the degree of the artist's prime sensibility, which is
+the soil out of which his subject springs. The quality and capacity of
+that soil, its ability to "grow" with due freshness and straightness any
+vision of life, represents, strongly or weakly, the projected morality.
+That element is but another name for the more or less close connexion of
+the subject with some mark made on the intelligence, with some sincere
+experience. By which, at the same time, of course, one is far from
+contending that this enveloping air of the artist's humanity--which
+gives the last touch to the worth of the work--is not a widely and
+wondrously varying element; being on one occasion a rich and magnificent
+medium and on another a comparatively poor and ungenerous one. Here we
+get exactly the high price of the novel as a literary form--its power
+not only, while preserving that form with closeness, to range
+through all the differences of the individual relation to its general
+subject-matter, all the varieties of outlook on life, of disposition to
+reflect and project, created by conditions that are never the same from
+man to man (or, so far as that goes, from man to woman), but positively
+to appear more true to its character in proportion as it strains, or
+tends to burst, with a latent extravagance, its mould.
+
+The house of fiction has in short not one window, but a million--a
+number of possible windows not to be reckoned, rather; every one of
+which has been pierced, or is still pierceable, in its vast front, by
+the need of the individual vision and by the pressure of the individual
+will. These apertures, of dissimilar shape and size, hang so, all
+together, over the human scene that we might have expected of them a
+greater sameness of report than we find. They are but windows at the
+best, mere holes in a dead wall, disconnected, perched aloft; they are
+not hinged doors opening straight upon life. But they have this mark of
+their own that at each of them stands a figure with a pair of eyes,
+or at least with a field-glass, which forms, again and again, for
+observation, a unique instrument, insuring to the person making use of
+it an impression distinct from every other. He and his neighbours are
+watching the same show, but one seeing more where the other sees less,
+one seeing black where the other sees white, one seeing big where the
+other sees small, one seeing coarse where the other sees fine. And
+so on, and so on; there is fortunately no saying on what, for the
+particular pair of eyes, the window may NOT open; "fortunately" by
+reason, precisely, of this incalculability of range. The spreading
+field, the human scene, is the "choice of subject"; the pierced
+aperture, either broad or balconied or slit-like and low-browed, is the
+"literary form"; but they are, singly or together, as nothing without
+the posted presence of the watcher--without, in other words, the
+consciousness of the artist. Tell me what the artist is, and I will tell
+you of what he has BEEN conscious. Thereby I shall express to you at
+once his boundless freedom and his "moral" reference.
+
+All this is a long way round, however, for my word about my dim first
+move toward "The Portrait," which was exactly my grasp of a single
+character--an acquisition I had made, moreover, after a fashion not
+here to be retraced. Enough that I was, as seemed to me, in complete
+possession of it, that I had been so for a long time, that this had made
+it familiar and yet had not blurred its charm, and that, all urgently,
+all tormentingly, I saw it in motion and, so to speak, in transit. This
+amounts to saying that I saw it as bent upon its fate--some fate or
+other; which, among the possibilities, being precisely the question.
+Thus I had my vivid individual--vivid, so strangely, in spite of being
+still at large, not confined by the conditions, not engaged in the
+tangle, to which we look for much of the impress that constitutes an
+identity. If the apparition was still all to be placed how came it to
+be vivid?--since we puzzle such quantities out, mostly, just by the
+business of placing them. One could answer such a question beautifully,
+doubtless, if one could do so subtle, if not so monstrous, a thing as to
+write the history of the growth of one's imagination. One would describe
+then what, at a given time, had extraordinarily happened to it, and one
+would so, for instance, be in a position to tell, with an approach to
+clearness, how, under favour of occasion, it had been able to take over
+(take over straight from life) such and such a constituted, animated
+figure or form. The figure has to that extent, as you see, BEEN
+placed--placed in the imagination that detains it, preserves,
+protects, enjoys it, conscious of its presence in the dusky, crowded,
+heterogeneous back-shop of the mind very much as a wary dealer in
+precious odds and ends, competent to make an "advance" on rare objects
+confided to him, is conscious of the rare little "piece" left in deposit
+by the reduced, mysterious lady of title or the speculative amateur,
+and which is already there to disclose its merit afresh as soon as a key
+shall have clicked in a cupboard-door.
+
+That may he, I recognise, a somewhat superfine analogy for the
+particular "value" I here speak of, the image of the young feminine
+nature that I had had for so considerable a time all curiously at my
+disposal; but it appears to fond memory quite to fit the fact--with the
+recall, in addition, of my pious desire but to place my treasure right.
+I quite remind myself thus of the dealer resigned not to "realise,"
+resigned to keeping the precious object locked up indefinitely rather
+than commit it, at no matter what price, to vulgar hands. For there
+ARE dealers in these forms and figures and treasures capable of that
+refinement. The point is, however, that this single small corner-stone,
+the conception of a certain young woman affronting her destiny, had
+begun with being all my outfit for the large building of "The Portrait
+of a Lady." It came to be a square and spacious house--or has at least
+seemed so to me in this going over it again; but, such as it is, it
+had to be put up round my young woman while she stood there in perfect
+isolation. That is to me, artistically speaking, the circumstance of
+interest; for I have lost myself once more, I confess, in the curiosity
+of analysing the structure. By what process of logical accretion was
+this slight "personality," the mere slim shade of an intelligent but
+presumptuous girl, to find itself endowed with the high attributes of a
+Subject?--and indeed by what thinness, at the best, would such a subject
+not be vitiated? Millions of presumptuous girls, intelligent or not
+intelligent, daily affront their destiny, and what is it open to their
+destiny to be, at the most, that we should make an ado about it? The
+novel is of its very nature an "ado," an ado about something, and the
+larger the form it takes the greater of course the ado. Therefore,
+consciously, that was what one was in for--for positively organising an
+ado about Isabel Archer.
+
+One looked it well in the face, I seem to remember, this extravagance;
+and with the effect precisely of recognising the charm of the problem.
+Challenge any such problem with any intelligence, and you immediately
+see how full it is of substance; the wonder being, all the while, as we
+look at the world, how absolutely, how inordinately, the Isabel Archers,
+and even much smaller female fry, insist on mattering. George Eliot has
+admirably noted it--"In these frail vessels is borne onward through the
+ages the treasure of human affection." In "Romeo and Juliet" Juliet has
+to be important, just as, in "Adam Bede" and "The Mill on the Floss" and
+"Middlemarch" and "Daniel Deronda," Hetty Sorrel and Maggie Tulliver and
+Rosamond Vincy and Gwendolen Harleth have to be; with that much of firm
+ground, that much of bracing air, at the disposal all the while of
+their feet and their lungs. They are typical, none the less, of a class
+difficult, in the individual case, to make a centre of interest; so
+difficult in fact that many an expert painter, as for instance Dickens
+and Walter Scott, as for instance even, in the main, so subtle a hand
+as that of R. L. Stevenson, has preferred to leave the task unattempted.
+There are in fact writers as to whom we make out that their refuge
+from this is to assume it to be not worth their attempting; by which
+pusillanimity in truth their honour is scantly saved. It is never an
+attestation of a value, or even of our imperfect sense of one, it is
+never a tribute to any truth at all, that we shall represent that value
+badly. It never makes up, artistically, for an artist's dim feeling
+about a thing that he shall "do" the thing as ill as possible. There are
+better ways than that, the best of all of which is to begin with less
+stupidity.
+
+It may be answered meanwhile, in regard to Shakespeare's and to George
+Eliot's testimony, that their concession to the "importance" of their
+Juliets and Cleopatras and Portias (even with Portia as the very type
+and model of the young person intelligent and presumptuous) and to that
+of their Hettys and Maggies and Rosamonds and Gwendolens, suffers the
+abatement that these slimnesses are, when figuring as the main props of
+the theme, never suffered to be sole ministers of its appeal, but have
+their inadequacy eked out with comic relief and underplots, as the
+playwrights say, when not with murders and battles and the great
+mutations of the world. If they are shown as "mattering" as much as
+they could possibly pretend to, the proof of it is in a hundred other
+persons, made of much stouter stuff; and each involved moreover in a
+hundred relations which matter to THEM concomitantly with that one.
+Cleopatra matters, beyond bounds, to Antony, but his colleagues,
+his antagonists, the state of Rome and the impending battle also
+prodigiously matter; Portia matters to Antonio, and to Shylock, and
+to the Prince of Morocco, to the fifty aspiring princes, but for these
+gentry there are other lively concerns; for Antonio, notably, there
+are Shylock and Bassanio and his lost ventures and the extremity of
+his predicament. This extremity indeed, by the same token, matters to
+Portia--though its doing so becomes of interest all by the fact that
+Portia matters to US. That she does so, at any rate, and that almost
+everything comes round to it again, supports my contention as to this
+fine example of the value recognised in the mere young thing. (I say
+"mere" young thing because I guess that even Shakespeare, preoccupied
+mainly though he may have been with the passions of princes, would
+scarce have pretended to found the best of his appeal for her on her
+high social position.) It is an example exactly of the deep difficulty
+braved--the difficulty of making George Eliot's "frail vessel," if not
+the all-in-all for our attention, at least the clearest of the call.
+
+Now to see deep difficulty braved is at any time, for the really
+addicted artist, to feel almost even as a pang the beautiful incentive,
+and to feel it verily in such sort as to wish the danger intensified.
+The difficulty most worth tackling can only be for him, in these
+conditions, the greatest the case permits of. So I remember feeling
+here (in presence, always, that is, of the particular uncertainty of my
+ground), that there would be one way better than another--oh, ever so
+much better than any other!--of making it fight out its battle. The
+frail vessel, that charged with George Eliot's "treasure," and thereby
+of such importance to those who curiously approach it, has likewise
+possibilities of importance to itself, possibilities which permit of
+treatment and in fact peculiarly require it from the moment they are
+considered at all. There is always the escape from any close account
+of the weak agent of such spells by using as a bridge for evasion, for
+retreat and flight, the view of her relation to those surrounding her.
+Make it predominantly a view of THEIR relation and the trick is played:
+you give the general sense of her effect, and you give it, so far as the
+raising on it of a superstructure goes, with the maximum of ease. Well,
+I recall perfectly how little, in my now quite established connexion,
+the maximum of ease appealed to me, and how I seemed to get rid of it
+by an honest transposition of the weights in the two scales. "Place the
+centre of the subject in the young woman's own consciousness," I said to
+myself, "and you get as interesting and as beautiful a difficulty as you
+could wish. Stick to THAT--for the centre; put the heaviest weight
+into THAT scale, which will be so largely the scale of her relation
+to herself. Make her only interested enough, at the same time, in the
+things that are not herself, and this relation needn't fear to be too
+limited. Place meanwhile in the other scale the lighter weight (which is
+usually the one that tips the balance of interest): press least hard, in
+short, on the consciousness of your heroine's satellites, especially the
+male; make it an interest contributive only to the greater one. See, at
+all events, what can be done in this way. What better field could there
+be for a due ingenuity? The girl hovers, inextinguishable, as a charming
+creature, and the job will be to translate her into the highest terms
+of that formula, and as nearly as possible moreover into ALL of them. To
+depend upon her and her little concerns wholly to see you through will
+necessitate, remember, your really 'doing' her."
+
+So far I reasoned, and it took nothing less than that technical rigour,
+I now easily see, to inspire me with the right confidence for erecting
+on such a plot of ground the neat and careful and proportioned pile of
+bricks that arches over it and that was thus to form, constructionally
+speaking, a literary monument. Such is the aspect that to-day "The
+Portrait" wears for me: a structure reared with an "architectural"
+competence, as Turgenieff would have said, that makes it, to the
+author's own sense, the most proportioned of his productions after "The
+Ambassadors" which was to follow it so many years later and which has,
+no doubt, a superior roundness. On one thing I was determined; that,
+though I should clearly have to pile brick upon brick for the creation
+of an interest, I would leave no pretext for saying that anything is
+out of line, scale or perspective. I would build large--in fine embossed
+vaults and painted arches, as who should say, and yet never let it
+appear that the chequered pavement, the ground under the reader's
+feet, fails to stretch at every point to the base of the walls. That
+precautionary spirit, on re-perusal of the book, is the old note that
+most touches me: it testifies so, for my own ear, to the anxiety of my
+provision for the reader's amusement. I felt, in view of the possible
+limitations of my subject, that no such provision could be excessive,
+and the development of the latter was simply the general form of that
+earnest quest. And I find indeed that this is the only account I can
+give myself of the evolution of the fable it is all under the head thus
+named that I conceive the needful accretion as having taken place, the
+right complications as having started. It was naturally of the essence
+that the young woman should be herself complex; that was rudimentary--or
+was at any rate the light in which Isabel Archer had originally dawned.
+It went, however, but a certain way, and other lights, contending,
+conflicting lights, and of as many different colours, if possible, as
+the rockets, the Roman candles and Catherine-wheels of a "pyrotechnic
+display," would be employable to attest that she was. I had, no doubt, a
+groping instinct for the right complications, since I am quite unable
+to track the footsteps of those that constitute, as the case stands, the
+general situation exhibited. They are there, for what they are worth,
+and as numerous as might be; but my memory, I confess, is a blank as to
+how and whence they came.
+
+I seem to myself to have waked up one morning in possession of them--of
+Ralph Touchett and his parents, of Madame Merle, of Gilbert Osmond and
+his daughter and his sister, of Lord Warburton, Caspar Goodwood and
+Miss Stackpole, the definite array of contributions to Isabel Archer's
+history. I recognised them, I knew them, they were the numbered pieces
+of my puzzle, the concrete terms of my "plot." It was as if they had
+simply, by an impulse of their own, floated into my ken, and all in
+response to my primary question: "Well, what will she DO?" Their answer
+seemed to be that if I would trust them they would show me; on which,
+with an urgent appeal to them to make it at least as interesting as
+they could, I trusted them. They were like the group of attendants and
+entertainers who come down by train when people in the country give a
+party; they represented the contract for carrying the party on. That was
+an excellent relation with them--a possible one even with so broken a
+reed (from her slightness of cohesion) as Henrietta Stackpole. It is a
+familiar truth to the novelist, at the strenuous hour, that, as certain
+elements in any work are of the essence, so others are only of the
+form; that as this or that character, this or that disposition of the
+material, belongs to the subject directly, so to speak, so this or that
+other belongs to it but indirectly--belongs intimately to the treatment.
+This is a truth, however, of which he rarely gets the benefit--since it
+could be assured to him, really, but by criticism based upon perception,
+criticism which is too little of this world. He must not think of
+benefits, moreover, I freely recognise, for that way dishonour lies:
+he has, that is, but one to think of--the benefit, whatever it may be,
+involved in his having cast a spell upon the simpler, the very simplest,
+forms of attention. This is all he is entitled to; he is entitled to
+nothing, he is bound to admit, that can come to him, from the reader, as
+a result on the latter's part of any act of reflexion or discrimination.
+He may ENJOY this finer tribute--that is another affair, but on
+condition only of taking it as a gratuity "thrown in," a mere miraculous
+windfall, the fruit of a tree he may not pretend to have shaken. Against
+reflexion, against discrimination, in his interest, all earth and air
+conspire; wherefore it is that, as I say, he must in many a case have
+schooled himself, from the first, to work but for a "living wage." The
+living wage is the reader's grant of the least possible quantity of
+attention required for consciousness of a "spell." The occasional
+charming "tip" is an act of his intelligence over and beyond this, a
+golden apple, for the writer's lap, straight from the wind-stirred tree.
+The artist may of course, in wanton moods, dream of some Paradise (for
+art) where the direct appeal to the intelligence might be legalised; for
+to such extravagances as these his yearning mind can scarce hope ever
+completely to close itself. The most he can do is to remember they ARE
+extravagances.
+
+All of which is perhaps but a gracefully devious way of saying that
+Henrietta Stackpole was a good example, in "The Portrait," of the truth
+to which I just adverted--as good an example as I could name were it not
+that Maria Gostrey, in "The Ambassadors," then in the bosom of time,
+may be mentioned as a better. Each of these persons is but wheels to the
+coach; neither belongs to the body of that vehicle, or is for a moment
+accommodated with a seat inside. There the subject alone is ensconced,
+in the form of its "hero and heroine," and of the privileged high
+officials, say, who ride with the king and queen. There are reasons
+why one would have liked this to be felt, as in general one would like
+almost anything to be felt, in one's work, that one has one's self
+contributively felt. We have seen, however, how idle is that pretension,
+which I should be sorry to make too much of. Maria Gostrey and Miss
+Stackpole then are cases, each, of the light ficelle, not of the true
+agent; they may run beside the coach "for all they are worth," they may
+cling to it till they are out of breath (as poor Miss Stackpole all so
+visibly does), but neither, all the while, so much as gets her foot on
+the step, neither ceases for a moment to tread the dusty road. Put it
+even that they are like the fishwives who helped to bring back to Paris
+from Versailles, on that most ominous day of the first half of the
+French Revolution, the carriage of the royal family. The only thing
+is that I may well be asked, I acknowledge, why then, in the present
+fiction, I have suffered Henrietta (of whom we have indubitably too
+much) so officiously, so strangely, so almost inexplicably, to pervade.
+I will presently say what I can for that anomaly--and in the most
+conciliatory fashion.
+
+A point I wish still more to make is that if my relation of confidence
+with the actors in my drama who WERE, unlike Miss Stackpole, true
+agents, was an excellent one to have arrived at, there still remained my
+relation with the reader, which was another affair altogether and as to
+which I felt no one to be trusted but myself. That solicitude was to be
+accordingly expressed in the artful patience with which, as I have
+said, I piled brick upon brick. The bricks, for the whole
+counting-over--putting for bricks little touches and inventions and
+enhancements by the way--affect me in truth as well-nigh innumerable and
+as ever so scrupulously fitted together and packed-in. It is an effect
+of detail, of the minutest; though, if one were in this connexion to say
+all, one would express the hope that the general, the ampler air of the
+modest monument still survives. I do at least seem to catch the key to
+a part of this abundance of small anxious, ingenious illustration as I
+recollect putting my finger, in my young woman's interest, on the most
+obvious of her predicates. "What will she 'do'? Why, the first thing
+she'll do will be to come to Europe; which in fact will form, and all
+inevitably, no small part of her principal adventure. Coming to
+Europe is even for the 'frail vessels,' in this wonderful age, a mild
+adventure; but what is truer than that on one side--the side of their
+independence of flood and field, of the moving accident, of battle and
+murder and sudden death--her adventures are to be mild? Without her
+sense of them, her sense FOR them, as one may say, they are next to
+nothing at all; but isn't the beauty and the difficulty just in showing
+their mystic conversion by that sense, conversion into the stuff of
+drama or, even more delightful word still, of 'story'?" It was all
+as clear, my contention, as a silver bell. Two very good instances, I
+think, of this effect of conversion, two cases of the rare chemistry,
+are the pages in which Isabel, coming into the drawing-room at
+Gardencourt, coming in from a wet walk or whatever, that rainy
+afternoon, finds Madame Merle in possession of the place, Madame
+Merle seated, all absorbed but all serene, at the piano, and deeply
+recognises, in the striking of such an hour, in the presence there,
+among the gathering shades, of this personage, of whom a moment before
+she had never so much as heard, a turning-point in her life. It is
+dreadful to have too much, for any artistic demonstration, to dot one's
+i's and insist on one's intentions, and I am not eager to do it now; but
+the question here was that of producing the maximum of intensity with
+the minimum of strain.
+
+The interest was to be raised to its pitch and yet the elements to be
+kept in their key; so that, should the whole thing duly impress, I might
+show what an "exciting" inward life may do for the person leading it
+even while it remains perfectly normal. And I cannot think of a more
+consistent application of that ideal unless it be in the long statement,
+just beyond the middle of the book, of my young woman's extraordinary
+meditative vigil on the occasion that was to become for her such a
+landmark. Reduced to its essence, it is but the vigil of searching
+criticism; but it throws the action further forward that twenty
+"incidents" might have done. It was designed to have all the vivacity
+of incidents and all the economy of picture. She sits up, by her dying
+fire, far into the night, under the spell of recognitions on which she
+finds the last sharpness suddenly wait. It is a representation simply
+of her motionlessly SEEING, and an attempt withal to make the mere still
+lucidity of her act as "interesting" as the surprise of a caravan or the
+identification of a pirate. It represents, for that matter, one of the
+identifications dear to the novelist, and even indispensable to him;
+but it all goes on without her being approached by another person and
+without her leaving her chair. It is obviously the best thing in the
+book, but it is only a supreme illustration of the general plan. As to
+Henrietta, my apology for whom I just left incomplete, she exemplifies,
+I fear, in her superabundance, not an element of my plan, but only
+an excess of my zeal. So early was to begin my tendency to OVERTREAT,
+rather than undertreat (when there was choice or danger) my subject.
+(Many members of my craft, I gather, are far from agreeing with me, but
+I have always held overtreating the minor disservice.) "Treating" that
+of "The Portrait" amounted to never forgetting, by any lapse, that the
+thing was under a special obligation to be amusing. There was the danger
+of the noted "thinness"--which was to be averted, tooth and nail,
+by cultivation of the lively. That is at least how I see it to-day.
+Henrietta must have been at that time a part of my wonderful notion of
+the lively. And then there was another matter. I had, within the few
+preceding years, come to live in London, and the "international" light
+lay, in those days, to my sense, thick and rich upon the scene. It was
+the light in which so much of the picture hung. But that IS another
+matter. There is really too much to say.
+
+HENRY JAMES
+
+
+
+
+THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable
+than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. There
+are circumstances in which, whether you partake of the tea or not--some
+people of course never do,--the situation is in itself delightful. Those
+that I have in mind in beginning to unfold this simple history offered
+an admirable setting to an innocent pastime. The implements of
+the little feast had been disposed upon the lawn of an old English
+country-house, in what I should call the perfect middle of a splendid
+summer afternoon. Part of the afternoon had waned, but much of it was
+left, and what was left was of the finest and rarest quality. Real dusk
+would not arrive for many hours; but the flood of summer light had begun
+to ebb, the air had grown mellow, the shadows were long upon the smooth,
+dense turf. They lengthened slowly, however, and the scene expressed
+that sense of leisure still to come which is perhaps the chief source
+of one's enjoyment of such a scene at such an hour. From five o'clock to
+eight is on certain occasions a little eternity; but on such an occasion
+as this the interval could be only an eternity of pleasure. The persons
+concerned in it were taking their pleasure quietly, and they were not
+of the sex which is supposed to furnish the regular votaries of the
+ceremony I have mentioned. The shadows on the perfect lawn were straight
+and angular; they were the shadows of an old man sitting in a deep
+wicker-chair near the low table on which the tea had been served, and
+of two younger men strolling to and fro, in desultory talk, in front of
+him. The old man had his cup in his hand; it was an unusually large cup,
+of a different pattern from the rest of the set and painted in brilliant
+colours. He disposed of its contents with much circumspection, holding
+it for a long time close to his chin, with his face turned to the house.
+His companions had either finished their tea or were indifferent to
+their privilege; they smoked cigarettes as they continued to stroll.
+One of them, from time to time, as he passed, looked with a certain
+attention at the elder man, who, unconscious of observation, rested his
+eyes upon the rich red front of his dwelling. The house that rose beyond
+the lawn was a structure to repay such consideration and was the most
+characteristic object in the peculiarly English picture I have attempted
+to sketch.
+
+It stood upon a low hill, above the river--the river being the Thames at
+some forty miles from London. A long gabled front of red brick, with
+the complexion of which time and the weather had played all sorts of
+pictorial tricks, only, however, to improve and refine it, presented
+to the lawn its patches of ivy, its clustered chimneys, its windows
+smothered in creepers. The house had a name and a history; the old
+gentleman taking his tea would have been delighted to tell you these
+things: how it had been built under Edward the Sixth, had offered a
+night's hospitality to the great Elizabeth (whose august person had
+extended itself upon a huge, magnificent and terribly angular bed which
+still formed the principal honour of the sleeping apartments), had been
+a good deal bruised and defaced in Cromwell's wars, and then, under the
+Restoration, repaired and much enlarged; and how, finally, after having
+been remodelled and disfigured in the eighteenth century, it had passed
+into the careful keeping of a shrewd American banker, who had bought it
+originally because (owing to circumstances too complicated to set forth)
+it was offered at a great bargain: bought it with much grumbling at its
+ugliness, its antiquity, its incommodity, and who now, at the end of
+twenty years, had become conscious of a real aesthetic passion for it,
+so that he knew all its points and would tell you just where to stand
+to see them in combination and just the hour when the shadows of
+its various protuberances which fell so softly upon the warm, weary
+brickwork--were of the right measure. Besides this, as I have said,
+he could have counted off most of the successive owners and occupants,
+several of whom were known to general fame; doing so, however, with an
+undemonstrative conviction that the latest phase of its destiny was not
+the least honourable. The front of the house overlooking that portion
+of the lawn with which we are concerned was not the entrance-front; this
+was in quite another quarter. Privacy here reigned supreme, and the wide
+carpet of turf that covered the level hill-top seemed but the extension
+of a luxurious interior. The great still oaks and beeches flung down a
+shade as dense as that of velvet curtains; and the place was furnished,
+like a room, with cushioned seats, with rich-coloured rugs, with
+the books and papers that lay upon the grass. The river was at some
+distance; where the ground began to slope the lawn, properly speaking,
+ceased. But it was none the less a charming walk down to the water.
+
+The old gentleman at the tea-table, who had come from America thirty
+years before, had brought with him, at the top of his baggage, his
+American physiognomy; and he had not only brought it with him, but he
+had kept it in the best order, so that, if necessary, he might have
+taken it back to his own country with perfect confidence. At present,
+obviously, nevertheless, he was not likely to displace himself; his
+journeys were over and he was taking the rest that precedes the
+great rest. He had a narrow, clean-shaven face, with features evenly
+distributed and an expression of placid acuteness. It was evidently a
+face in which the range of representation was not large, so that the air
+of contented shrewdness was all the more of a merit. It seemed to tell
+that he had been successful in life, yet it seemed to tell also that his
+success had not been exclusive and invidious, but had had much of the
+inoffensiveness of failure. He had certainly had a great experience of
+men, but there was an almost rustic simplicity in the faint smile that
+played upon his lean, spacious cheek and lighted up his humorous eye
+as he at last slowly and carefully deposited his big tea-cup upon the
+table. He was neatly dressed, in well-brushed black; but a shawl was
+folded upon his knees, and his feet were encased in thick, embroidered
+slippers. A beautiful collie dog lay upon the grass near his chair,
+watching the master's face almost as tenderly as the master took in the
+still more magisterial physiognomy of the house; and a little bristling,
+bustling terrier bestowed a desultory attendance upon the other
+gentlemen.
+
+One of these was a remarkably well-made man of five-and-thirty, with a
+face as English as that of the old gentleman I have just sketched was
+something else; a noticeably handsome face, fresh-coloured, fair and
+frank, with firm, straight features, a lively grey eye and the rich
+adornment of a chestnut beard. This person had a certain fortunate,
+brilliant exceptional look--the air of a happy temperament fertilised by
+a high civilisation--which would have made almost any observer envy him
+at a venture. He was booted and spurred, as if he had dismounted from a
+long ride; he wore a white hat, which looked too large for him; he
+held his two hands behind him, and in one of them--a large, white,
+well-shaped fist--was crumpled a pair of soiled dog-skin gloves.
+
+His companion, measuring the length of the lawn beside him, was a person
+of quite a different pattern, who, although he might have excited
+grave curiosity, would not, like the other, have provoked you to wish
+yourself, almost blindly, in his place. Tall, lean, loosely and feebly
+put together, he had an ugly, sickly, witty, charming face, furnished,
+but by no means decorated, with a straggling moustache and whisker. He
+looked clever and ill--a combination by no means felicitous; and he wore
+a brown velvet jacket. He carried his hands in his pockets, and there
+was something in the way he did it that showed the habit was inveterate.
+His gait had a shambling, wandering quality; he was not very firm on
+his legs. As I have said, whenever he passed the old man in the chair he
+rested his eyes upon him; and at this moment, with their faces brought
+into relation, you would easily have seen they were father and son.
+The father caught his son's eye at last and gave him a mild, responsive
+smile.
+
+"I'm getting on very well," he said.
+
+"Have you drunk your tea?" asked the son.
+
+"Yes, and enjoyed it."
+
+"Shall I give you some more?"
+
+The old man considered, placidly. "Well, I guess I'll wait and see." He
+had, in speaking, the American tone.
+
+"Are you cold?" the son enquired.
+
+The father slowly rubbed his legs. "Well, I don't know. I can't tell
+till I feel."
+
+"Perhaps some one might feel for you," said the younger man, laughing.
+
+"Oh, I hope some one will always feel for me! Don't you feel for me,
+Lord Warburton?"
+
+"Oh yes, immensely," said the gentleman addressed as Lord Warburton,
+promptly. "I'm bound to say you look wonderfully comfortable."
+
+"Well, I suppose I am, in most respects." And the old man looked down at
+his green shawl and smoothed it over his knees. "The fact is I've been
+comfortable so many years that I suppose I've got so used to it I don't
+know it."
+
+"Yes, that's the bore of comfort," said Lord Warburton. "We only know
+when we're uncomfortable."
+
+"It strikes me we're rather particular," his companion remarked.
+
+"Oh yes, there's no doubt we're particular," Lord Warburton murmured.
+And then the three men remained silent a while; the two younger ones
+standing looking down at the other, who presently asked for more tea. "I
+should think you would be very unhappy with that shawl," Lord Warburton
+resumed while his companion filled the old man's cup again.
+
+"Oh no, he must have the shawl!" cried the gentleman in the velvet coat.
+"Don't put such ideas as that into his head."
+
+"It belongs to my wife," said the old man simply.
+
+"Oh, if it's for sentimental reasons--" And Lord Warburton made a
+gesture of apology.
+
+"I suppose I must give it to her when she comes," the old man went on.
+
+"You'll please to do nothing of the kind. You'll keep it to cover your
+poor old legs."
+
+"Well, you mustn't abuse my legs," said the old man. "I guess they are
+as good as yours."
+
+"Oh, you're perfectly free to abuse mine," his son replied, giving him
+his tea.
+
+"Well, we're two lame ducks; I don't think there's much difference."
+
+"I'm much obliged to you for calling me a duck. How's your tea?"
+
+"Well, it's rather hot."
+
+"That's intended to be a merit."
+
+"Ah, there's a great deal of merit," murmured the old man, kindly. "He's
+a very good nurse, Lord Warburton."
+
+"Isn't he a bit clumsy?" asked his lordship.
+
+"Oh no, he's not clumsy--considering that he's an invalid himself. He's
+a very good nurse--for a sick-nurse. I call him my sick-nurse because
+he's sick himself."
+
+"Oh, come, daddy!" the ugly young man exclaimed.
+
+"Well, you are; I wish you weren't. But I suppose you can't help it."
+
+"I might try: that's an idea," said the young man.
+
+"Were you ever sick, Lord Warburton?" his father asked.
+
+Lord Warburton considered a moment. "Yes, sir, once, in the Persian
+Gulf."
+
+"He's making light of you, daddy," said the other young man. "That's a
+sort of joke."
+
+"Well, there seem to be so many sorts now," daddy replied, serenely.
+"You don't look as if you had been sick, anyway, Lord Warburton."
+
+"He's sick of life; he was just telling me so; going on fearfully about
+it," said Lord Warburton's friend.
+
+"Is that true, sir?" asked the old man gravely.
+
+"If it is, your son gave me no consolation. He's a wretched fellow to
+talk to--a regular cynic. He doesn't seem to believe in anything."
+
+"That's another sort of joke," said the person accused of cynicism.
+
+"It's because his health is so poor," his father explained to Lord
+Warburton. "It affects his mind and colours his way of looking at
+things; he seems to feel as if he had never had a chance. But it's
+almost entirely theoretical, you know; it doesn't seem to affect his
+spirits. I've hardly ever seen him when he wasn't cheerful--about as he
+is at present. He often cheers me up."
+
+The young man so described looked at Lord Warburton and laughed. "Is it
+a glowing eulogy or an accusation of levity? Should you like me to carry
+out my theories, daddy?"
+
+"By Jove, we should see some queer things!" cried Lord Warburton.
+
+"I hope you haven't taken up that sort of tone," said the old man.
+
+"Warburton's tone is worse than mine; he pretends to be bored. I'm not
+in the least bored; I find life only too interesting."
+
+"Ah, too interesting; you shouldn't allow it to be that, you know!"
+
+"I'm never bored when I come here," said Lord Warburton. "One gets such
+uncommonly good talk."
+
+"Is that another sort of joke?" asked the old man. "You've no excuse for
+being bored anywhere. When I was your age I had never heard of such a
+thing."
+
+"You must have developed very late."
+
+"No, I developed very quick; that was just the reason. When I was twenty
+years old I was very highly developed indeed. I was working tooth and
+nail. You wouldn't be bored if you had something to do; but all you
+young men are too idle. You think too much of your pleasure. You're too
+fastidious, and too indolent, and too rich."
+
+"Oh, I say," cried Lord Warburton, "you're hardly the person to accuse a
+fellow-creature of being too rich!"
+
+"Do you mean because I'm a banker?" asked the old man.
+
+"Because of that, if you like; and because you have--haven't you?--such
+unlimited means."
+
+"He isn't very rich," the other young man mercifully pleaded. "He has
+given away an immense deal of money."
+
+"Well, I suppose it was his own," said Lord Warburton; "and in that case
+could there be a better proof of wealth? Let not a public benefactor
+talk of one's being too fond of pleasure."
+
+"Daddy's very fond of pleasure--of other people's."
+
+The old man shook his head. "I don't pretend to have contributed
+anything to the amusement of my contemporaries."
+
+"My dear father, you're too modest!"
+
+"That's a kind of joke, sir," said Lord Warburton.
+
+"You young men have too many jokes. When there are no jokes you've
+nothing left."
+
+"Fortunately there are always more jokes," the ugly young man remarked.
+
+"I don't believe it--I believe things are getting more serious. You
+young men will find that out."
+
+"The increasing seriousness of things, then that's the great opportunity
+of jokes."
+
+"They'll have to be grim jokes," said the old man. "I'm convinced there
+will be great changes, and not all for the better."
+
+"I quite agree with you, sir," Lord Warburton declared. "I'm very sure
+there will be great changes, and that all sorts of queer things will
+happen. That's why I find so much difficulty in applying your advice;
+you know you told me the other day that I ought to 'take hold' of
+something. One hesitates to take hold of a thing that may the next
+moment be knocked sky-high."
+
+"You ought to take hold of a pretty woman," said his companion. "He's
+trying hard to fall in love," he added, by way of explanation, to his
+father.
+
+"The pretty women themselves may be sent flying!" Lord Warburton
+exclaimed.
+
+"No, no, they'll be firm," the old man rejoined; "they'll not be
+affected by the social and political changes I just referred to."
+
+"You mean they won't be abolished? Very well, then, I'll lay hands on
+one as soon as possible and tie her round my neck as a life-preserver."
+
+"The ladies will save us," said the old man; "that is the best of them
+will--for I make a difference between them. Make up to a good one and
+marry her, and your life will become much more interesting."
+
+A momentary silence marked perhaps on the part of his auditors a sense
+of the magnanimity of this speech, for it was a secret neither for his
+son nor for his visitor that his own experiment in matrimony had not
+been a happy one. As he said, however, he made a difference; and these
+words may have been intended as a confession of personal error; though
+of course it was not in place for either of his companions to remark
+that apparently the lady of his choice had not been one of the best.
+
+"If I marry an interesting woman I shall be interested: is that what you
+say?" Lord Warburton asked. "I'm not at all keen about marrying--your
+son misrepresented me; but there's no knowing what an interesting woman
+might do with me."
+
+"I should like to see your idea of an interesting woman," said his
+friend.
+
+"My dear fellow, you can't see ideas--especially such highly ethereal
+ones as mine. If I could only see it myself--that would be a great step
+in advance."
+
+"Well, you may fall in love with whomsoever you please; but you mustn't
+fall in love with my niece," said the old man.
+
+His son broke into a laugh. "He'll think you mean that as a provocation!
+My dear father, you've lived with the English for thirty years, and
+you've picked up a good many of the things they say. But you've never
+learned the things they don't say!"
+
+"I say what I please," the old man returned with all his serenity.
+
+"I haven't the honour of knowing your niece," Lord Warburton said. "I
+think it's the first time I've heard of her."
+
+"She's a niece of my wife's; Mrs. Touchett brings her to England."
+
+Then young Mr. Touchett explained. "My mother, you know, has been
+spending the winter in America, and we're expecting her back. She writes
+that she has discovered a niece and that she has invited her to come out
+with her."
+
+"I see,--very kind of her," said Lord Warburton. Is the young lady
+interesting?"
+
+"We hardly know more about her than you; my mother has not gone into
+details. She chiefly communicates with us by means of telegrams, and her
+telegrams are rather inscrutable. They say women don't know how to write
+them, but my mother has thoroughly mastered the art of condensation.
+'Tired America, hot weather awful, return England with niece, first
+steamer decent cabin.' That's the sort of message we get from her--that
+was the last that came. But there had been another before, which I think
+contained the first mention of the niece. 'Changed hotel, very bad,
+impudent clerk, address here. Taken sister's girl, died last year, go to
+Europe, two sisters, quite independent.' Over that my father and I
+have scarcely stopped puzzling; it seems to admit of so many
+interpretations."
+
+"There's one thing very clear in it," said the old man; "she has given
+the hotel-clerk a dressing."
+
+"I'm not sure even of that, since he has driven her from the field. We
+thought at first that the sister mentioned might be the sister of the
+clerk; but the subsequent mention of a niece seems to prove that the
+allusion is to one of my aunts. Then there was a question as to whose
+the two other sisters were; they are probably two of my late aunt's
+daughters. But who's 'quite independent,' and in what sense is the term
+used?--that point's not yet settled. Does the expression apply more
+particularly to the young lady my mother has adopted, or does it
+characterise her sisters equally?--and is it used in a moral or in a
+financial sense? Does it mean that they've been left well off, or
+that they wish to be under no obligations? or does it simply mean that
+they're fond of their own way?"
+
+"Whatever else it means, it's pretty sure to mean that," Mr. Touchett
+remarked.
+
+"You'll see for yourself," said Lord Warburton. "When does Mrs. Touchett
+arrive?"
+
+"We're quite in the dark; as soon as she can find a decent cabin.
+She may be waiting for it yet; on the other hand she may already have
+disembarked in England."
+
+"In that case she would probably have telegraphed to you."
+
+"She never telegraphs when you would expect it--only when you don't,"
+said the old man. "She likes to drop on me suddenly; she thinks she'll
+find me doing something wrong. She has never done so yet, but she's not
+discouraged."
+
+"It's her share in the family trait, the independence she speaks of."
+Her son's appreciation of the matter was more favourable. "Whatever the
+high spirit of those young ladies may be, her own is a match for it. She
+likes to do everything for herself and has no belief in any one's power
+to help her. She thinks me of no more use than a postage-stamp without
+gum, and she would never forgive me if I should presume to go to
+Liverpool to meet her."
+
+"Will you at least let me know when your cousin arrives?" Lord Warburton
+asked.
+
+"Only on the condition I've mentioned--that you don't fall in love with
+her!" Mr. Touchett replied.
+
+"That strikes me as hard, don't you think me good enough?"
+
+"I think you too good--because I shouldn't like her to marry you. She
+hasn't come here to look for a husband, I hope; so many young ladies are
+doing that, as if there were no good ones at home. Then she's probably
+engaged; American girls are usually engaged, I believe. Moreover I'm not
+sure, after all, that you'd be a remarkable husband."
+
+"Very likely she's engaged; I've known a good many American girls, and
+they always were; but I could never see that it made any difference,
+upon my word! As for my being a good husband," Mr. Touchett's visitor
+pursued, "I'm not sure of that either. One can but try!"
+
+"Try as much as you please, but don't try on my niece," smiled the old
+man, whose opposition to the idea was broadly humorous.
+
+"Ah, well," said Lord Warburton with a humour broader still, "perhaps,
+after all, she's not worth trying on!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+While this exchange of pleasantries took place between the two Ralph
+Touchett wandered away a little, with his usual slouching gait, his
+hands in his pockets and his little rowdyish terrier at his heels. His
+face was turned toward the house, but his eyes were bent musingly on the
+lawn; so that he had been an object of observation to a person who had
+just made her appearance in the ample doorway for some moments before
+he perceived her. His attention was called to her by the conduct of
+his dog, who had suddenly darted forward with a little volley of shrill
+barks, in which the note of welcome, however, was more sensible than
+that of defiance. The person in question was a young lady, who seemed
+immediately to interpret the greeting of the small beast. He advanced
+with great rapidity and stood at her feet, looking up and barking hard;
+whereupon, without hesitation, she stooped and caught him in her hands,
+holding him face to face while he continued his quick chatter. His
+master now had had time to follow and to see that Bunchie's new friend
+was a tall girl in a black dress, who at first sight looked pretty.
+She was bareheaded, as if she were staying in the house--a fact which
+conveyed perplexity to the son of its master, conscious of that immunity
+from visitors which had for some time been rendered necessary by the
+latter's ill-health. Meantime the two other gentlemen had also taken
+note of the new-comer.
+
+"Dear me, who's that strange woman?" Mr. Touchett had asked.
+
+"Perhaps it's Mrs. Touchett's niece--the independent young lady," Lord
+Warburton suggested. "I think she must be, from the way she handles the
+dog."
+
+The collie, too, had now allowed his attention to be diverted, and he
+trotted toward the young lady in the doorway, slowly setting his tail in
+motion as he went.
+
+"But where's my wife then?" murmured the old man.
+
+"I suppose the young lady has left her somewhere: that's a part of the
+independence."
+
+The girl spoke to Ralph, smiling, while she still held up the terrier.
+"Is this your little dog, sir?"
+
+"He was mine a moment ago; but you've suddenly acquired a remarkable air
+of property in him."
+
+"Couldn't we share him?" asked the girl. "He's such a perfect little
+darling."
+
+Ralph looked at her a moment; she was unexpectedly pretty. "You may have
+him altogether," he then replied.
+
+The young lady seemed to have a great deal of confidence, both in
+herself and in others; but this abrupt generosity made her blush. "I
+ought to tell you that I'm probably your cousin," she brought out,
+putting down the dog. "And here's another!" she added quickly, as the
+collie came up.
+
+"Probably?" the young man exclaimed, laughing. "I supposed it was quite
+settled! Have you arrived with my mother?"
+
+"Yes, half an hour ago."
+
+"And has she deposited you and departed again?"
+
+"No, she went straight to her room, and she told me that, if I should
+see you, I was to say to you that you must come to her there at a
+quarter to seven."
+
+The young man looked at his watch. "Thank you very much; I shall be
+punctual." And then he looked at his cousin. "You're very welcome here.
+I'm delighted to see you."
+
+She was looking at everything, with an eye that denoted clear
+perception--at her companion, at the two dogs, at the two gentlemen
+under the trees, at the beautiful scene that surrounded her. "I've never
+seen anything so lovely as this place. I've been all over the house;
+it's too enchanting."
+
+"I'm sorry you should have been here so long without our knowing it."
+
+"Your mother told me that in England people arrived very quietly; so I
+thought it was all right. Is one of those gentlemen your father?"
+
+"Yes, the elder one--the one sitting down," said Ralph.
+
+The girl gave a laugh. "I don't suppose it's the other. Who's the
+other?"
+
+"He's a friend of ours--Lord Warburton."
+
+"Oh, I hoped there would be a lord; it's just like a novel!" And then,
+"Oh you adorable creature!" she suddenly cried, stooping down and
+picking up the small dog again.
+
+She remained standing where they had met, making no offer to advance or
+to speak to Mr. Touchett, and while she lingered so near the threshold,
+slim and charming, her interlocutor wondered if she expected the old man
+to come and pay her his respects. American girls were used to a great
+deal of deference, and it had been intimated that this one had a high
+spirit. Indeed Ralph could see that in her face.
+
+"Won't you come and make acquaintance with my father?" he nevertheless
+ventured to ask. "He's old and infirm--he doesn't leave his chair."
+
+"Ah, poor man, I'm very sorry!" the girl exclaimed, immediately moving
+forward. "I got the impression from your mother that he was rather
+intensely active."
+
+Ralph Touchett was silent a moment. "She hasn't seen him for a year."
+
+"Well, he has a lovely place to sit. Come along, little hound."
+
+"It's a dear old place," said the young man, looking sidewise at his
+neighbour.
+
+"What's his name?" she asked, her attention having again reverted to the
+terrier.
+
+"My father's name?"
+
+"Yes," said the young lady with amusement; "but don't tell him I asked
+you."
+
+They had come by this time to where old Mr. Touchett was sitting, and he
+slowly got up from his chair to introduce himself.
+
+"My mother has arrived," said Ralph, "and this is Miss Archer."
+
+The old man placed his two hands on her shoulders, looked at her a
+moment with extreme benevolence and then gallantly kissed her. "It's
+a great pleasure to me to see you here; but I wish you had given us a
+chance to receive you."
+
+"Oh, we were received," said the girl. "There were about a dozen
+servants in the hall. And there was an old woman curtseying at the
+gate."
+
+"We can do better than that--if we have notice!" And the old man stood
+there smiling, rubbing his hands and slowly shaking his head at her.
+"But Mrs. Touchett doesn't like receptions."
+
+"She went straight to her room."
+
+"Yes--and locked herself in. She always does that. Well, I suppose I
+shall see her next week." And Mrs. Touchett's husband slowly resumed his
+former posture.
+
+"Before that," said Miss Archer. "She's coming down to dinner--at eight
+o'clock. Don't you forget a quarter to seven," she added, turning with a
+smile to Ralph.
+
+"What's to happen at a quarter to seven?"
+
+"I'm to see my mother," said Ralph.
+
+"Ah, happy boy!" the old man commented. "You must sit down--you must
+have some tea," he observed to his wife's niece.
+
+"They gave me some tea in my room the moment I got there," this young
+lady answered. "I'm sorry you're out of health," she added, resting her
+eyes upon her venerable host.
+
+"Oh, I'm an old man, my dear; it's time for me to be old. But I shall be
+the better for having you here."
+
+She had been looking all round her again--at the lawn, the great trees,
+the reedy, silvery Thames, the beautiful old house; and while engaged
+in this survey she had made room in it for her companions; a
+comprehensiveness of observation easily conceivable on the part of a
+young woman who was evidently both intelligent and excited. She had
+seated herself and had put away the little dog; her white hands, in
+her lap, were folded upon her black dress; her head was erect, her eye
+lighted, her flexible figure turned itself easily this way and that, in
+sympathy with the alertness with which she evidently caught impressions.
+Her impressions were numerous, and they were all reflected in a clear,
+still smile. "I've never seen anything so beautiful as this."
+
+"It's looking very well," said Mr. Touchett. "I know the way it strikes
+you. I've been through all that. But you're very beautiful yourself," he
+added with a politeness by no means crudely jocular and with the happy
+consciousness that his advanced age gave him the privilege of saying
+such things--even to young persons who might possibly take alarm at
+them.
+
+What degree of alarm this young person took need not be exactly
+measured; she instantly rose, however, with a blush which was not a
+refutation. "Oh yes, of course I'm lovely!" she returned with a quick
+laugh. "How old is your house? Is it Elizabethan?"
+
+"It's early Tudor," said Ralph Touchett.
+
+She turned toward him, watching his face. "Early Tudor? How very
+delightful! And I suppose there are a great many others."
+
+"There are many much better ones."
+
+"Don't say that, my son!" the old man protested. "There's nothing better
+than this."
+
+"I've got a very good one; I think in some respects it's rather better,"
+said Lord Warburton, who as yet had not spoken, but who had kept an
+attentive eye upon Miss Archer. He slightly inclined himself, smiling;
+he had an excellent manner with women. The girl appreciated it in an
+instant; she had not forgotten that this was Lord Warburton. "I should
+like very much to show it to you," he added.
+
+"Don't believe him," cried the old man; "don't look at it! It's a
+wretched old barrack--not to be compared with this."
+
+"I don't know--I can't judge," said the girl, smiling at Lord Warburton.
+
+In this discussion Ralph Touchett took no interest whatever; he stood
+with his hands in his pockets, looking greatly as if he should like to
+renew his conversation with his new-found cousin.
+
+"Are you very fond of dogs?" he enquired by way of beginning. He seemed
+to recognise that it was an awkward beginning for a clever man.
+
+"Very fond of them indeed."
+
+"You must keep the terrier, you know," he went on, still awkwardly.
+
+"I'll keep him while I'm here, with pleasure."
+
+"That will be for a long time, I hope."
+
+"You're very kind. I hardly know. My aunt must settle that."
+
+"I'll settle it with her--at a quarter to seven." And Ralph looked at
+his watch again.
+
+"I'm glad to be here at all," said the girl.
+
+"I don't believe you allow things to be settled for you."
+
+"Oh yes; if they're settled as I like them."
+
+"I shall settle this as I like it," said Ralph. "It's most unaccountable
+that we should never have known you."
+
+"I was there--you had only to come and see me."
+
+"There? Where do you mean?"
+
+"In the United States: in New York and Albany and other American
+places."
+
+"I've been there--all over, but I never saw you. I can't make it out."
+
+Miss Archer just hesitated. "It was because there had been some
+disagreement between your mother and my father, after my mother's death,
+which took place when I was a child. In consequence of it we never
+expected to see you."
+
+"Ah, but I don't embrace all my mother's quarrels--heaven forbid!"
+the young man cried. "You've lately lost your father?" he went on more
+gravely.
+
+"Yes; more than a year ago. After that my aunt was very kind to me; she
+came to see me and proposed that I should come with her to Europe."
+
+"I see," said Ralph. "She has adopted you."
+
+"Adopted me?" The girl stared, and her blush came back to her, together
+with a momentary look of pain which gave her interlocutor some alarm. He
+had underestimated the effect of his words. Lord Warburton, who appeared
+constantly desirous of a nearer view of Miss Archer, strolled toward the
+two cousins at the moment, and as he did so she rested her wider eyes on
+him.
+
+"Oh no; she has not adopted me. I'm not a candidate for adoption."
+
+"I beg a thousand pardons," Ralph murmured. "I meant--I meant--" He
+hardly knew what he meant.
+
+"You meant she has taken me up. Yes; she likes to take people up.
+She has been very kind to me; but," she added with a certain visible
+eagerness of desire to be explicit, "I'm very fond of my liberty."
+
+"Are you talking about Mrs. Touchett?" the old man called out from his
+chair. "Come here, my dear, and tell me about her. I'm always thankful
+for information."
+
+The girl hesitated again, smiling. "She's really very benevolent,"
+she answered; after which she went over to her uncle, whose mirth was
+excited by her words.
+
+Lord Warburton was left standing with Ralph Touchett, to whom in a
+moment he said: "You wished a while ago to see my idea of an interesting
+woman. There it is!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+Mrs. Touchett was certainly a person of many oddities, of which her
+behaviour on returning to her husband's house after many months was a
+noticeable specimen. She had her own way of doing all that she did, and
+this is the simplest description of a character which, although by no
+means without liberal motions, rarely succeeded in giving an impression
+of suavity. Mrs. Touchett might do a great deal of good, but she
+never pleased. This way of her own, of which she was so fond, was not
+intrinsically offensive--it was just unmistakeably distinguished from
+the ways of others. The edges of her conduct were so very clear-cut that
+for susceptible persons it sometimes had a knife-like effect. That hard
+fineness came out in her deportment during the first hours of her return
+from America, under circumstances in which it might have seemed that
+her first act would have been to exchange greetings with her husband
+and son. Mrs. Touchett, for reasons which she deemed excellent, always
+retired on such occasions into impenetrable seclusion, postponing the
+more sentimental ceremony until she had repaired the disorder of dress
+with a completeness which had the less reason to be of high importance
+as neither beauty nor vanity were concerned in it. She was a plain-faced
+old woman, without graces and without any great elegance, but with an
+extreme respect for her own motives. She was usually prepared to explain
+these--when the explanation was asked as a favour; and in such a case
+they proved totally different from those that had been attributed to
+her. She was virtually separated from her husband, but she appeared to
+perceive nothing irregular in the situation. It had become clear, at an
+early stage of their community, that they should never desire the same
+thing at the same moment, and this appearance had prompted her to rescue
+disagreement from the vulgar realm of accident. She did what she could
+to erect it into a law--a much more edifying aspect of it--by going to
+live in Florence, where she bought a house and established herself; and
+by leaving her husband to take care of the English branch of his bank.
+This arrangement greatly pleased her; it was so felicitously definite.
+It struck her husband in the same light, in a foggy square in London,
+where it was at times the most definite fact he discerned; but he
+would have preferred that such unnatural things should have a greater
+vagueness. To agree to disagree had cost him an effort; he was ready to
+agree to almost anything but that, and saw no reason why either assent
+or dissent should be so terribly consistent. Mrs. Touchett indulged in
+no regrets nor speculations, and usually came once a year to spend a
+month with her husband, a period during which she apparently took pains
+to convince him that she had adopted the right system. She was not fond
+of the English style of life, and had three or four reasons for it to
+which she currently alluded; they bore upon minor points of that ancient
+order, but for Mrs. Touchett they amply justified non-residence. She
+detested bread-sauce, which, as she said, looked like a poultice
+and tasted like soap; she objected to the consumption of beer by
+her maid-servants; and she affirmed that the British laundress (Mrs.
+Touchett was very particular about the appearance of her linen) was not
+a mistress of her art. At fixed intervals she paid a visit to her own
+country; but this last had been longer than any of its predecessors.
+
+She had taken up her niece--there was little doubt of that. One wet
+afternoon, some four months earlier than the occurrence lately narrated,
+this young lady had been seated alone with a book. To say she was so
+occupied is to say that her solitude did not press upon her; for her
+love of knowledge had a fertilising quality and her imagination was
+strong. There was at this time, however, a want of fresh taste in
+her situation which the arrival of an unexpected visitor did much to
+correct. The visitor had not been announced; the girl heard her at last
+walking about the adjoining room. It was in an old house at Albany, a
+large, square, double house, with a notice of sale in the windows of one
+of the lower apartments. There were two entrances, one of which had
+long been out of use but had never been removed. They were exactly
+alike--large white doors, with an arched frame and wide side-lights,
+perched upon little "stoops" of red stone, which descended sidewise
+to the brick pavement of the street. The two houses together formed a
+single dwelling, the party-wall having been removed and the rooms placed
+in communication. These rooms, above-stairs, were extremely numerous,
+and were painted all over exactly alike, in a yellowish white which had
+grown sallow with time. On the third floor there was a sort of arched
+passage, connecting the two sides of the house, which Isabel and her
+sisters used in their childhood to call the tunnel and which, though it
+was short and well lighted, always seemed to the girl to be strange and
+lonely, especially on winter afternoons. She had been in the house,
+at different periods, as a child; in those days her grandmother lived
+there. Then there had been an absence of ten years, followed by a return
+to Albany before her father's death. Her grandmother, old Mrs. Archer,
+had exercised, chiefly within the limits of the family, a large
+hospitality in the early period, and the little girls often spent weeks
+under her roof--weeks of which Isabel had the happiest memory. The
+manner of life was different from that of her own home--larger, more
+plentiful, practically more festal; the discipline of the nursery was
+delightfully vague and the opportunity of listening to the conversation
+of one's elders (which with Isabel was a highly-valued pleasure) almost
+unbounded. There was a constant coming and going; her grandmother's
+sons and daughters and their children appeared to be in the enjoyment of
+standing invitations to arrive and remain, so that the house offered to
+a certain extent the appearance of a bustling provincial inn kept by a
+gentle old landlady who sighed a great deal and never presented a bill.
+Isabel of course knew nothing about bills; but even as a child she
+thought her grandmother's home romantic. There was a covered piazza
+behind it, furnished with a swing which was a source of tremulous
+interest; and beyond this was a long garden, sloping down to the stable
+and containing peach-trees of barely credible familiarity. Isabel had
+stayed with her grandmother at various seasons, but somehow all her
+visits had a flavour of peaches. On the other side, across the street,
+was an old house that was called the Dutch House--a peculiar structure
+dating from the earliest colonial time, composed of bricks that had been
+painted yellow, crowned with a gable that was pointed out to strangers,
+defended by a rickety wooden paling and standing sidewise to the street.
+It was occupied by a primary school for children of both sexes, kept
+or rather let go, by a demonstrative lady of whom Isabel's chief
+recollection was that her hair was fastened with strange bedroomy combs
+at the temples and that she was the widow of some one of consequence.
+The little girl had been offered the opportunity of laying a foundation
+of knowledge in this establishment; but having spent a single day in it,
+she had protested against its laws and had been allowed to stay at home,
+where, in the September days, when the windows of the Dutch House
+were open, she used to hear the hum of childish voices repeating the
+multiplication table--an incident in which the elation of liberty and
+the pain of exclusion were indistinguishably mingled. The foundation
+of her knowledge was really laid in the idleness of her grandmother's
+house, where, as most of the other inmates were not reading people,
+she had uncontrolled use of a library full of books with frontispieces,
+which she used to climb upon a chair to take down. When she had found
+one to her taste--she was guided in the selection chiefly by the
+frontispiece--she carried it into a mysterious apartment which lay
+beyond the library and which was called, traditionally, no one knew
+why, the office. Whose office it had been and at what period it had
+flourished, she never learned; it was enough for her that it contained
+an echo and a pleasant musty smell and that it was a chamber of disgrace
+for old pieces of furniture whose infirmities were not always apparent
+(so that the disgrace seemed unmerited and rendered them victims
+of injustice) and with which, in the manner of children, she had
+established relations almost human, certainly dramatic. There was an old
+haircloth sofa in especial, to which she had confided a hundred childish
+sorrows. The place owed much of its mysterious melancholy to the fact
+that it was properly entered from the second door of the house, the
+door that had been condemned, and that it was secured by bolts which a
+particularly slender little girl found it impossible to slide. She
+knew that this silent, motionless portal opened into the street; if the
+sidelights had not been filled with green paper she might have looked
+out upon the little brown stoop and the well-worn brick pavement. But
+she had no wish to look out, for this would have interfered with her
+theory that there was a strange, unseen place on the other side--a place
+which became to the child's imagination, according to its different
+moods, a region of delight or of terror.
+
+It was in the "office" still that Isabel was sitting on that melancholy
+afternoon of early spring which I have just mentioned. At this time
+she might have had the whole house to choose from, and the room she had
+selected was the most depressed of its scenes. She had never opened the
+bolted door nor removed the green paper (renewed by other hands) from
+its sidelights; she had never assured herself that the vulgar street lay
+beyond. A crude, cold rain fell heavily; the spring-time was indeed an
+appeal--and it seemed a cynical, insincere appeal--to patience. Isabel,
+however, gave as little heed as possible to cosmic treacheries; she kept
+her eyes on her book and tried to fix her mind. It had lately occurred
+to her that her mind was a good deal of a vagabond, and she had spent
+much ingenuity in training it to a military step and teaching it
+to advance, to halt, to retreat, to perform even more complicated
+manoeuvres, at the word of command. Just now she had given it marching
+orders and it had been trudging over the sandy plains of a history of
+German Thought. Suddenly she became aware of a step very different from
+her own intellectual pace; she listened a little and perceived that some
+one was moving in the library, which communicated with the office. It
+struck her first as the step of a person from whom she was looking for a
+visit, then almost immediately announced itself as the tread of a
+woman and a stranger--her possible visitor being neither. It had an
+inquisitive, experimental quality which suggested that it would not stop
+short of the threshold of the office; and in fact the doorway of this
+apartment was presently occupied by a lady who paused there and looked
+very hard at our heroine. She was a plain, elderly woman, dressed in
+a comprehensive waterproof mantle; she had a face with a good deal of
+rather violent point.
+
+"Oh," she began, "is that where you usually sit?" She looked about at
+the heterogeneous chairs and tables.
+
+"Not when I have visitors," said Isabel, getting up to receive the
+intruder.
+
+She directed their course back to the library while the visitor
+continued to look about her. "You seem to have plenty of other rooms;
+they're in rather better condition. But everything's immensely worn."
+
+"Have you come to look at the house?" Isabel asked. "The servant will
+show it to you."
+
+"Send her away; I don't want to buy it. She has probably gone to
+look for you and is wandering about upstairs; she didn't seem at all
+intelligent. You had better tell her it's no matter." And then, since
+the girl stood there hesitating and wondering, this unexpected critic
+said to her abruptly: "I suppose you're one of the daughters?"
+
+Isabel thought she had very strange manners. "It depends upon whose
+daughters you mean."
+
+"The late Mr. Archer's--and my poor sister's."
+
+"Ah," said Isabel slowly, "you must be our crazy Aunt Lydia!"
+
+"Is that what your father told you to call me? I'm your Aunt Lydia, but
+I'm not at all crazy: I haven't a delusion! And which of the daughters
+are you?"
+
+"I'm the youngest of the three, and my name's Isabel."
+
+"Yes; the others are Lilian and Edith. And are you the prettiest?"
+
+"I haven't the least idea," said the girl.
+
+"I think you must be." And in this way the aunt and the niece made
+friends. The aunt had quarrelled years before with her brother-in-law,
+after the death of her sister, taking him to task for the manner in
+which he brought up his three girls. Being a high-tempered man he had
+requested her to mind her own business, and she had taken him at his
+word. For many years she held no communication with him and after his
+death had addressed not a word to his daughters, who had been bred in
+that disrespectful view of her which we have just seen Isabel betray.
+Mrs. Touchett's behaviour was, as usual, perfectly deliberate. She
+intended to go to America to look after her investments (with which her
+husband, in spite of his great financial position, had nothing to
+do) and would take advantage of this opportunity to enquire into the
+condition of her nieces. There was no need of writing, for she should
+attach no importance to any account of them she should elicit by letter;
+she believed, always, in seeing for one's self. Isabel found, however,
+that she knew a good deal about them, and knew about the marriage of the
+two elder girls; knew that their poor father had left very little money,
+but that the house in Albany, which had passed into his hands, was to
+be sold for their benefit; knew, finally, that Edmund Ludlow,
+Lilian's husband, had taken upon himself to attend to this matter, in
+consideration of which the young couple, who had come to Albany during
+Mr. Archer's illness, were remaining there for the present and, as well
+as Isabel herself, occupying the old place.
+
+"How much money do you expect for it?" Mrs. Touchett asked of her
+companion, who had brought her to sit in the front parlour, which she
+had inspected without enthusiasm.
+
+"I haven't the least idea," said the girl.
+
+"That's the second time you have said that to me," her aunt rejoined.
+"And yet you don't look at all stupid."
+
+"I'm not stupid; but I don't know anything about money."
+
+"Yes, that's the way you were brought up--as if you were to inherit a
+million. What have you in point of fact inherited?"
+
+"I really can't tell you. You must ask Edmund and Lilian; they'll be
+back in half an hour."
+
+"In Florence we should call it a very bad house," said Mrs. Touchett;
+"but here, I dare say, it will bring a high price. It ought to make
+a considerable sum for each of you. In addition to that you must have
+something else; it's most extraordinary your not knowing. The position's
+of value, and they'll probably pull it down and make a row of shops.
+I wonder you don't do that yourself; you might let the shops to great
+advantage."
+
+Isabel stared; the idea of letting shops was new to her. "I hope they
+won't pull it down," she said; "I'm extremely fond of it."
+
+"I don't see what makes you fond of it; your father died here."
+
+"Yes; but I don't dislike it for that," the girl rather strangely
+returned. "I like places in which things have happened--even if they're
+sad things. A great many people have died here; the place has been full
+of life."
+
+"Is that what you call being full of life?"
+
+"I mean full of experience--of people's feelings and sorrows. And not of
+their sorrows only, for I've been very happy here as a child."
+
+"You should go to Florence if you like houses in which things have
+happened--especially deaths. I live in an old palace in which three
+people have been murdered; three that were known and I don't know how
+many more besides."
+
+"In an old palace?" Isabel repeated.
+
+"Yes, my dear; a very different affair from this. This is very
+bourgeois."
+
+Isabel felt some emotion, for she had always thought highly of her
+grandmother's house. But the emotion was of a kind which led her to say:
+"I should like very much to go to Florence."
+
+"Well, if you'll be very good, and do everything I tell you I'll take
+you there," Mrs. Touchett declared.
+
+Our young woman's emotion deepened; she flushed a little and smiled at
+her aunt in silence. "Do everything you tell me? I don't think I can
+promise that."
+
+"No, you don't look like a person of that sort. You're fond of your own
+way; but it's not for me to blame you."
+
+"And yet, to go to Florence," the girl exclaimed in a moment, "I'd
+promise almost anything!"
+
+Edmund and Lilian were slow to return, and Mrs. Touchett had an
+hour's uninterrupted talk with her niece, who found her a strange and
+interesting figure: a figure essentially--almost the first she had ever
+met. She was as eccentric as Isabel had always supposed; and hitherto,
+whenever the girl had heard people described as eccentric, she had
+thought of them as offensive or alarming. The term had always suggested
+to her something grotesque and even sinister. But her aunt made it a
+matter of high but easy irony, or comedy, and led her to ask herself
+if the common tone, which was all she had known, had ever been as
+interesting. No one certainly had on any occasion so held her as this
+little thin-lipped, bright-eyed, foreign-looking woman, who retrieved an
+insignificant appearance by a distinguished manner and, sitting there in
+a well-worn waterproof, talked with striking familiarity of the courts
+of Europe. There was nothing flighty about Mrs. Touchett, but she
+recognised no social superiors, and, judging the great ones of the earth
+in a way that spoke of this, enjoyed the consciousness of making
+an impression on a candid and susceptible mind. Isabel at first had
+answered a good many questions, and it was from her answers apparently
+that Mrs. Touchett derived a high opinion of her intelligence. But after
+this she had asked a good many, and her aunt's answers, whatever turn
+they took, struck her as food for deep reflexion. Mrs. Touchett waited
+for the return of her other niece as long as she thought reasonable, but
+as at six o'clock Mrs. Ludlow had not come in she prepared to take her
+departure.
+
+"Your sister must be a great gossip. Is she accustomed to staying out so
+many hours?"
+
+"You've been out almost as long as she," Isabel replied; "she can have
+left the house but a short time before you came in."
+
+Mrs. Touchett looked at the girl without resentment; she appeared to
+enjoy a bold retort and to be disposed to be gracious. "Perhaps she
+hasn't had so good an excuse as I. Tell her at any rate that she must
+come and see me this evening at that horrid hotel. She may bring her
+husband if she likes, but she needn't bring you. I shall see plenty of
+you later."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+Mrs. Ludlow was the eldest of the three sisters, and was usually thought
+the most sensible; the classification being in general that Lilian
+was the practical one, Edith the beauty and Isabel the "intellectual"
+superior. Mrs. Keyes, the second of the group, was the wife of an
+officer of the United States Engineers, and as our history is not
+further concerned with her it will suffice that she was indeed very
+pretty and that she formed the ornament of those various military
+stations, chiefly in the unfashionable West, to which, to her deep
+chagrin, her husband was successively relegated. Lilian had married a
+New York lawyer, a young man with a loud voice and an enthusiasm for
+his profession; the match was not brilliant, any more than Edith's, but
+Lilian had occasionally been spoken of as a young woman who might be
+thankful to marry at all--she was so much plainer than her sisters.
+She was, however, very happy, and now, as the mother of two peremptory
+little boys and the mistress of a wedge of brown stone violently driven
+into Fifty-third Street, seemed to exult in her condition as in a bold
+escape. She was short and solid, and her claim to figure was questioned,
+but she was conceded presence, though not majesty; she had moreover, as
+people said, improved since her marriage, and the two things in life
+of which she was most distinctly conscious were her husband's force in
+argument and her sister Isabel's originality. "I've never kept up with
+Isabel--it would have taken all my time," she had often remarked;
+in spite of which, however, she held her rather wistfully in sight;
+watching her as a motherly spaniel might watch a free greyhound. "I want
+to see her safely married--that's what I want to see," she frequently
+noted to her husband.
+
+"Well, I must say I should have no particular desire to marry her,"
+Edmund Ludlow was accustomed to answer in an extremely audible tone.
+
+"I know you say that for argument; you always take the opposite ground.
+I don't see what you've against her except that she's so original."
+
+"Well, I don't like originals; I like translations," Mr. Ludlow had more
+than once replied. "Isabel's written in a foreign tongue. I can't make
+her out. She ought to marry an Armenian or a Portuguese."
+
+"That's just what I'm afraid she'll do!" cried Lilian, who thought
+Isabel capable of anything.
+
+She listened with great interest to the girl's account of Mrs.
+Touchett's appearance and in the evening prepared to comply with their
+aunt's commands. Of what Isabel then said no report has remained, but
+her sister's words had doubtless prompted a word spoken to her husband
+as the two were making ready for their visit. "I do hope immensely
+she'll do something handsome for Isabel; she has evidently taken a great
+fancy to her."
+
+"What is it you wish her to do?" Edmund Ludlow asked. "Make her a big
+present?"
+
+"No indeed; nothing of the sort. But take an interest in her--sympathise
+with her. She's evidently just the sort of person to appreciate her. She
+has lived so much in foreign society; she told Isabel all about it. You
+know you've always thought Isabel rather foreign."
+
+"You want her to give her a little foreign sympathy, eh? Don't you think
+she gets enough at home?"
+
+"Well, she ought to go abroad," said Mrs. Ludlow. "She's just the person
+to go abroad."
+
+"And you want the old lady to take her, is that it?"
+
+"She has offered to take her--she's dying to have Isabel go. But what
+I want her to do when she gets her there is to give her all the
+advantages. I'm sure all we've got to do," said Mrs. Ludlow, "is to give
+her a chance."
+
+"A chance for what?"
+
+"A chance to develop."
+
+"Oh Moses!" Edmund Ludlow exclaimed. "I hope she isn't going to develop
+any more!"
+
+"If I were not sure you only said that for argument I should feel very
+badly," his wife replied. "But you know you love her."
+
+"Do you know I love you?" the young man said, jocosely, to Isabel a
+little later, while he brushed his hat.
+
+"I'm sure I don't care whether you do or not!" exclaimed the girl; whose
+voice and smile, however, were less haughty than her words.
+
+"Oh, she feels so grand since Mrs. Touchett's visit," said her sister.
+
+But Isabel challenged this assertion with a good deal of seriousness.
+"You must not say that, Lily. I don't feel grand at all."
+
+"I'm sure there's no harm," said the conciliatory Lily.
+
+"Ah, but there's nothing in Mrs. Touchett's visit to make one feel
+grand."
+
+"Oh," exclaimed Ludlow, "she's grander than ever!"
+
+"Whenever I feel grand," said the girl, "it will be for a better
+reason."
+
+Whether she felt grand or no, she at any rate felt different, as if
+something had happened to her. Left to herself for the evening she sat
+a while under the lamp, her hands empty, her usual avocations unheeded.
+Then she rose and moved about the room, and from one room to another,
+preferring the places where the vague lamplight expired. She was
+restless and even agitated; at moments she trembled a little. The
+importance of what had happened was out of proportion to its appearance;
+there had really been a change in her life. What it would bring with it
+was as yet extremely indefinite; but Isabel was in a situation that gave
+a value to any change. She had a desire to leave the past behind her
+and, as she said to herself, to begin afresh. This desire indeed was not
+a birth of the present occasion; it was as familiar as the sound of the
+rain upon the window and it had led to her beginning afresh a great many
+times. She closed her eyes as she sat in one of the dusky corners of the
+quiet parlour; but it was not with a desire for dozing forgetfulness. It
+was on the contrary because she felt too wide-eyed and wished to check
+the sense of seeing too many things at once. Her imagination was by
+habit ridiculously active; when the door was not open it jumped out of
+the window. She was not accustomed indeed to keep it behind bolts; and
+at important moments, when she would have been thankful to make use
+of her judgement alone, she paid the penalty of having given undue
+encouragement to the faculty of seeing without judging. At present, with
+her sense that the note of change had been struck, came gradually a host
+of images of the things she was leaving behind her. The years and hours
+of her life came back to her, and for a long time, in a stillness broken
+only by the ticking of the big bronze clock, she passed them in
+review. It had been a very happy life and she had been a very fortunate
+person--this was the truth that seemed to emerge most vividly. She had
+had the best of everything, and in a world in which the circumstances
+of so many people made them unenviable it was an advantage never to have
+known anything particularly unpleasant. It appeared to Isabel that the
+unpleasant had been even too absent from her knowledge, for she had
+gathered from her acquaintance with literature that it was often a
+source of interest and even of instruction. Her father had kept it
+away from her--her handsome, much loved father, who always had such
+an aversion to it. It was a great felicity to have been his daughter;
+Isabel rose even to pride in her parentage. Since his death she had
+seemed to see him as turning his braver side to his children and as
+not having managed to ignore the ugly quite so much in practice as in
+aspiration. But this only made her tenderness for him greater; it
+was scarcely even painful to have to suppose him too generous, too
+good-natured, too indifferent to sordid considerations. Many persons
+had held that he carried this indifference too far, especially the large
+number of those to whom he owed money. Of their opinions Isabel was
+never very definitely informed; but it may interest the reader to know
+that, while they had recognised in the late Mr. Archer a remarkably
+handsome head and a very taking manner (indeed, as one of them had said,
+he was always taking something), they had declared that he was making a
+very poor use of his life. He had squandered a substantial fortune, he
+had been deplorably convivial, he was known to have gambled freely.
+A few very harsh critics went so far as to say that he had not even
+brought up his daughters. They had had no regular education and no
+permanent home; they had been at once spoiled and neglected; they had
+lived with nursemaids and governesses (usually very bad ones) or had
+been sent to superficial schools, kept by the French, from which, at the
+end of a month, they had been removed in tears. This view of the matter
+would have excited Isabel's indignation, for to her own sense her
+opportunities had been large. Even when her father had left his
+daughters for three months at Neufchatel with a French bonne who had
+eloped with a Russian nobleman staying at the same hotel--even in this
+irregular situation (an incident of the girl's eleventh year) she had
+been neither frightened nor ashamed, but had thought it a romantic
+episode in a liberal education. Her father had a large way of looking at
+life, of which his restlessness and even his occasional incoherency
+of conduct had been only a proof. He wished his daughters, even as
+children, to see as much of the world as possible; and it was for this
+purpose that, before Isabel was fourteen, he had transported them three
+times across the Atlantic, giving them on each occasion, however, but a
+few months' view of the subject proposed: a course which had whetted
+our heroine's curiosity without enabling her to satisfy it. She ought to
+have been a partisan of her father, for she was the member of his trio
+who most "made up" to him for the disagreeables he didn't mention. In
+his last days his general willingness to take leave of a world in which
+the difficulty of doing as one liked appeared to increase as one grew
+older had been sensibly modified by the pain of separation from his
+clever, his superior, his remarkable girl. Later, when the journeys to
+Europe ceased, he still had shown his children all sorts of indulgence,
+and if he had been troubled about money-matters nothing ever disturbed
+their irreflective consciousness of many possessions. Isabel, though she
+danced very well, had not the recollection of having been in New York a
+successful member of the choreographic circle; her sister Edith was,
+as every one said, so very much more fetching. Edith was so striking
+an example of success that Isabel could have no illusions as to what
+constituted this advantage, or as to the limits of her own power to
+frisk and jump and shriek--above all with rightness of effect. Nineteen
+persons out of twenty (including the younger sister herself) pronounced
+Edith infinitely the prettier of the two; but the twentieth, besides
+reversing this judgement, had the entertainment of thinking all the
+others aesthetic vulgarians. Isabel had in the depths of her nature an
+even more unquenchable desire to please than Edith; but the depths of
+this young lady's nature were a very out-of-the-way place, between which
+and the surface communication was interrupted by a dozen capricious
+forces. She saw the young men who came in large numbers to see her
+sister; but as a general thing they were afraid of her; they had a
+belief that some special preparation was required for talking with her.
+Her reputation of reading a great deal hung about her like the cloudy
+envelope of a goddess in an epic; it was supposed to engender difficult
+questions and to keep the conversation at a low temperature. The poor
+girl liked to be thought clever, but she hated to be thought bookish;
+she used to read in secret and, though her memory was excellent, to
+abstain from showy reference. She had a great desire for knowledge, but
+she really preferred almost any source of information to the printed
+page; she had an immense curiosity about life and was constantly staring
+and wondering. She carried within herself a great fund of life, and her
+deepest enjoyment was to feel the continuity between the movements of
+her own soul and the agitations of the world. For this reason she was
+fond of seeing great crowds and large stretches of country, of reading
+about revolutions and wars, of looking at historical pictures--a class
+of efforts as to which she had often committed the conscious solecism of
+forgiving them much bad painting for the sake of the subject. While the
+Civil War went on she was still a very young girl; but she passed months
+of this long period in a state of almost passionate excitement, in which
+she felt herself at times (to her extreme confusion) stirred
+almost indiscriminately by the valour of either army. Of course the
+circumspection of suspicious swains had never gone the length of making
+her a social proscript; for the number of those whose hearts, as they
+approached her, beat only just fast enough to remind them they had heads
+as well, had kept her unacquainted with the supreme disciplines of
+her sex and age. She had had everything a girl could have: kindness,
+admiration, bonbons, bouquets, the sense of exclusion from none of the
+privileges of the world she lived in, abundant opportunity for dancing,
+plenty of new dresses, the London Spectator, the latest publications,
+the music of Gounod, the poetry of Browning, the prose of George Eliot.
+
+These things now, as memory played over them, resolved themselves into a
+multitude of scenes and figures. Forgotten things came back to her; many
+others, which she had lately thought of great moment, dropped out of
+sight. The result was kaleidoscopic, but the movement of the instrument
+was checked at last by the servant's coming in with the name of a
+gentleman. The name of the gentleman was Caspar Goodwood; he was a
+straight young man from Boston, who had known Miss Archer for the last
+twelvemonth and who, thinking her the most beautiful young woman of her
+time, had pronounced the time, according to the rule I have hinted at,
+a foolish period of history. He sometimes wrote to her and had within a
+week or two written from New York. She had thought it very possible he
+would come in--had indeed all the rainy day been vaguely expecting him.
+Now that she learned he was there, nevertheless, she felt no eagerness
+to receive him. He was the finest young man she had ever seen, was
+indeed quite a splendid young man; he inspired her with a sentiment of
+high, of rare respect. She had never felt equally moved to it by any
+other person. He was supposed by the world in general to wish to marry
+her, but this of course was between themselves. It at least may be
+affirmed that he had travelled from New York to Albany expressly to see
+her; having learned in the former city, where he was spending a few
+days and where he had hoped to find her, that she was still at the State
+capital. Isabel delayed for some minutes to go to him; she moved about
+the room with a new sense of complications. But at last she presented
+herself and found him standing near the lamp. He was tall, strong and
+somewhat stiff; he was also lean and brown. He was not romantically, he
+was much rather obscurely, handsome; but his physiognomy had an air of
+requesting your attention, which it rewarded according to the charm you
+found in blue eyes of remarkable fixedness, the eyes of a complexion
+other than his own, and a jaw of the somewhat angular mould which is
+supposed to bespeak resolution. Isabel said to herself that it bespoke
+resolution to-night; in spite of which, in half an hour, Caspar
+Goodwood, who had arrived hopeful as well as resolute, took his way back
+to his lodging with the feeling of a man defeated. He was not, it may be
+added, a man weakly to accept defeat.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+Ralph Touchett was a philosopher, but nevertheless he knocked at his
+mother's door (at a quarter to seven) with a good deal of eagerness.
+Even philosophers have their preferences, and it must be admitted
+that of his progenitors his father ministered most to his sense of the
+sweetness of filial dependence. His father, as he had often said to
+himself, was the more motherly; his mother, on the other hand, was
+paternal, and even, according to the slang of the day, gubernatorial.
+She was nevertheless very fond of her only child and had always insisted
+on his spending three months of the year with her. Ralph rendered
+perfect justice to her affection and knew that in her thoughts and her
+thoroughly arranged and servanted life his turn always came after the
+other nearest subjects of her solicitude, the various punctualities of
+performance of the workers of her will. He found her completely dressed
+for dinner, but she embraced her boy with her gloved hands and made
+him sit on the sofa beside her. She enquired scrupulously about her
+husband's health and about the young man's own, and, receiving no
+very brilliant account of either, remarked that she was more than ever
+convinced of her wisdom in not exposing herself to the English climate.
+In this case she also might have given way. Ralph smiled at the idea of
+his mother's giving way, but made no point of reminding her that his
+own infirmity was not the result of the English climate, from which he
+absented himself for a considerable part of each year.
+
+He had been a very small boy when his father, Daniel Tracy Touchett,
+a native of Rutland, in the State of Vermont, came to England as
+subordinate partner in a banking-house where some ten years later he
+gained preponderant control. Daniel Touchett saw before him a life-long
+residence in his adopted country, of which, from the first, he took a
+simple, sane and accommodating view. But, as he said to himself, he had
+no intention of disamericanising, nor had he a desire to teach his
+only son any such subtle art. It had been for himself so very soluble a
+problem to live in England assimilated yet unconverted that it seemed to
+him equally simple his lawful heir should after his death carry on the
+grey old bank in the white American light. He was at pains to intensify
+this light, however, by sending the boy home for his education. Ralph
+spent several terms at an American school and took a degree at an
+American university, after which, as he struck his father on his return
+as even redundantly native, he was placed for some three years in
+residence at Oxford. Oxford swallowed up Harvard, and Ralph became
+at last English enough. His outward conformity to the manners that
+surrounded him was none the less the mask of a mind that greatly enjoyed
+its independence, on which nothing long imposed itself, and which,
+naturally inclined to adventure and irony, indulged in a boundless
+liberty of appreciation. He began with being a young man of promise; at
+Oxford he distinguished himself, to his father's ineffable satisfaction,
+and the people about him said it was a thousand pities so clever a
+fellow should be shut out from a career. He might have had a career
+by returning to his own country (though this point is shrouded in
+uncertainty) and even if Mr. Touchett had been willing to part with
+him (which was not the case) it would have gone hard with him to put
+a watery waste permanently between himself and the old man whom he
+regarded as his best friend. Ralph was not only fond of his father,
+he admired him--he enjoyed the opportunity of observing him. Daniel
+Touchett, to his perception, was a man of genius, and though he himself
+had no aptitude for the banking mystery he made a point of learning
+enough of it to measure the great figure his father had played. It was
+not this, however, he mainly relished; it was the fine ivory surface,
+polished as by the English air, that the old man had opposed to
+possibilities of penetration. Daniel Touchett had been neither at
+Harvard nor at Oxford, and it was his own fault if he had placed in his
+son's hands the key to modern criticism. Ralph, whose head was full
+of ideas which his father had never guessed, had a high esteem for the
+latter's originality. Americans, rightly or wrongly, are commended for
+the ease with which they adapt themselves to foreign conditions; but Mr.
+Touchett had made of the very limits of his pliancy half the ground
+of his general success. He had retained in their freshness most of
+his marks of primary pressure; his tone, as his son always noted with
+pleasure, was that of the more luxuriant parts of New England. At the
+end of his life he had become, on his own ground, as mellow as he
+was rich; he combined consummate shrewdness with the disposition
+superficially to fraternise, and his "social position," on which he had
+never wasted a care, had the firm perfection of an unthumbed fruit. It
+was perhaps his want of imagination and of what is called the historic
+consciousness; but to many of the impressions usually made by English
+life upon the cultivated stranger his sense was completely closed. There
+were certain differences he had never perceived, certain habits he had
+never formed, certain obscurities he had never sounded. As regards these
+latter, on the day he had sounded them his son would have thought less
+well of him.
+
+Ralph, on leaving Oxford, had spent a couple of years in travelling;
+after which he had found himself perched on a high stool in his father's
+bank. The responsibility and honour of such positions is not, I
+believe, measured by the height of the stool, which depends upon other
+considerations: Ralph, indeed, who had very long legs, was fond of
+standing, and even of walking about, at his work. To this exercise,
+however, he was obliged to devote but a limited period, for at the end
+of some eighteen months he had become aware of his being seriously out
+of health. He had caught a violent cold, which fixed itself on his lungs
+and threw them into dire confusion. He had to give up work and apply,
+to the letter, the sorry injunction to take care of himself. At first he
+slighted the task; it appeared to him it was not himself in the least
+he was taking care of, but an uninteresting and uninterested person
+with whom he had nothing in common. This person, however, improved
+on acquaintance, and Ralph grew at last to have a certain grudging
+tolerance, even an undemonstrative respect, for him. Misfortune makes
+strange bedfellows, and our young man, feeling that he had something
+at stake in the matter--it usually struck him as his reputation for
+ordinary wit--devoted to his graceless charge an amount of attention of
+which note was duly taken and which had at least the effect of keeping
+the poor fellow alive. One of his lungs began to heal, the other
+promised to follow its example, and he was assured he might outweather
+a dozen winters if he would betake himself to those climates in which
+consumptives chiefly congregate. As he had grown extremely fond of
+London, he cursed the flatness of exile: but at the same time that he
+cursed he conformed, and gradually, when he found his sensitive organ
+grateful even for grim favours, he conferred them with a lighter hand.
+He wintered abroad, as the phrase is; basked in the sun, stopped at home
+when the wind blew, went to bed when it rained, and once or twice, when
+it had snowed overnight, almost never got up again.
+
+A secret hoard of indifference--like a thick cake a fond old nurse might
+have slipped into his first school outfit--came to his aid and helped to
+reconcile him to sacrifice; since at the best he was too ill for aught
+but that arduous game. As he said to himself, there was really nothing
+he had wanted very much to do, so that he had at least not renounced the
+field of valour. At present, however, the fragrance of forbidden fruit
+seemed occasionally to float past him and remind him that the finest of
+pleasures is the rush of action. Living as he now lived was like reading
+a good book in a poor translation--a meagre entertainment for a young
+man who felt that he might have been an excellent linguist. He had good
+winters and poor winters, and while the former lasted he was sometimes
+the sport of a vision of virtual recovery. But this vision was dispelled
+some three years before the occurrence of the incidents with which this
+history opens: he had on that occasion remained later than usual in
+England and had been overtaken by bad weather before reaching Algiers.
+He arrived more dead than alive and lay there for several weeks between
+life and death. His convalescence was a miracle, but the first use he
+made of it was to assure himself that such miracles happen but once. He
+said to himself that his hour was in sight and that it behoved him to
+keep his eyes upon it, yet that it was also open to him to spend the
+interval as agreeably as might be consistent with such a preoccupation.
+With the prospect of losing them the simple use of his faculties became
+an exquisite pleasure; it seemed to him the joys of contemplation had
+never been sounded. He was far from the time when he had found it hard
+that he should be obliged to give up the idea of distinguishing himself;
+an idea none the less importunate for being vague and none the less
+delightful for having had to struggle in the same breast with bursts
+of inspiring self-criticism. His friends at present judged him more
+cheerful, and attributed it to a theory, over which they shook their
+heads knowingly, that he would recover his health. His serenity was but
+the array of wild flowers niched in his ruin.
+
+It was very probably this sweet-tasting property of the observed thing
+in itself that was mainly concerned in Ralph's quickly-stirred interest
+in the advent of a young lady who was evidently not insipid. If he was
+consideringly disposed, something told him, here was occupation enough
+for a succession of days. It may be added, in summary fashion, that the
+imagination of loving--as distinguished from that of being loved--had
+still a place in his reduced sketch. He had only forbidden himself the
+riot of expression. However, he shouldn't inspire his cousin with a
+passion, nor would she be able, even should she try, to help him to one.
+"And now tell me about the young lady," he said to his mother. "What do
+you mean to do with her?"
+
+Mrs. Touchett was prompt. "I mean to ask your father to invite her to
+stay three or four weeks at Gardencourt."
+
+"You needn't stand on any such ceremony as that," said Ralph. "My father
+will ask her as a matter of course."
+
+"I don't know about that. She's my niece; she's not his."
+
+"Good Lord, dear mother; what a sense of property! That's all the more
+reason for his asking her. But after that--I mean after three months
+(for its absurd asking the poor girl to remain but for three or four
+paltry weeks)--what do you mean to do with her?"
+
+"I mean to take her to Paris. I mean to get her clothing."
+
+"Ah yes, that's of course. But independently of that?"
+
+"I shall invite her to spend the autumn with me in Florence."
+
+"You don't rise above detail, dear mother," said Ralph. "I should like
+to know what you mean to do with her in a general way."
+
+"My duty!" Mrs. Touchett declared. "I suppose you pity her very much,"
+she added.
+
+"No, I don't think I pity her. She doesn't strike me as inviting
+compassion. I think I envy her. Before being sure, however, give me a
+hint of where you see your duty."
+
+"In showing her four European countries--I shall leave her the choice of
+two of them--and in giving her the opportunity of perfecting herself in
+French, which she already knows very well."
+
+Ralph frowned a little. "That sounds rather dry--even allowing her the
+choice of two of the countries."
+
+"If it's dry," said his mother with a laugh, "you can leave Isabel alone
+to water it! She is as good as a summer rain, any day."
+
+"Do you mean she's a gifted being?"
+
+"I don't know whether she's a gifted being, but she's a clever
+girl--with a strong will and a high temper. She has no idea of being
+bored."
+
+"I can imagine that," said Ralph; and then he added abruptly: "How do
+you two get on?"
+
+"Do you mean by that that I'm a bore? I don't think she finds me one.
+Some girls might, I know; but Isabel's too clever for that. I think I
+greatly amuse her. We get on because I understand her, I know the sort
+of girl she is. She's very frank, and I'm very frank: we know just what
+to expect of each other."
+
+"Ah, dear mother," Ralph exclaimed, "one always knows what to expect
+of you! You've never surprised me but once, and that's to-day--in
+presenting me with a pretty cousin whose existence I had never
+suspected."
+
+"Do you think her so very pretty?"
+
+"Very pretty indeed; but I don't insist upon that. It's her general
+air of being some one in particular that strikes me. Who is this rare
+creature, and what is she? Where did you find her, and how did you make
+her acquaintance?"
+
+"I found her in an old house at Albany, sitting in a dreary room on a
+rainy day, reading a heavy book and boring herself to death. She didn't
+know she was bored, but when I left her no doubt of it she seemed very
+grateful for the service. You may say I shouldn't have enlightened he--I
+should have let her alone. There's a good deal in that, but I acted
+conscientiously; I thought she was meant for something better. It
+occurred to me that it would be a kindness to take her about and
+introduce her to the world. She thinks she knows a great deal of
+it--like most American girls; but like most American girls she's
+ridiculously mistaken. If you want to know, I thought she would do me
+credit. I like to be well thought of, and for a woman of my age there's
+no greater convenience, in some ways, than an attractive niece. You
+know I had seen nothing of my sister's children for years; I disapproved
+entirely of the father. But I always meant to do something for them when
+he should have gone to his reward. I ascertained where they were to be
+found and, without any preliminaries, went and introduced myself. There
+are two others of them, both of whom are married; but I saw only the
+elder, who has, by the way, a very uncivil husband. The wife, whose name
+is Lily, jumped at the idea of my taking an interest in Isabel; she
+said it was just what her sister needed--that some one should take
+an interest in her. She spoke of her as you might speak of some young
+person of genius--in want of encouragement and patronage. It may be that
+Isabel's a genius; but in that case I've not yet learned her special
+line. Mrs. Ludlow was especially keen about my taking her to Europe;
+they all regard Europe over there as a land of emigration, of rescue, a
+refuge for their superfluous population. Isabel herself seemed very
+glad to come, and the thing was easily arranged. There was a little
+difficulty about the money-question, as she seemed averse to being
+under pecuniary obligations. But she has a small income and she supposes
+herself to be travelling at her own expense."
+
+Ralph had listened attentively to this judicious report, by which his
+interest in the subject of it was not impaired. "Ah, if she's a genius,"
+he said, "we must find out her special line. Is it by chance for
+flirting?"
+
+"I don't think so. You may suspect that at first, but you'll be wrong.
+You won't, I think, in any way, be easily right about her."
+
+"Warburton's wrong then!" Ralph rejoicingly exclaimed. "He flatters
+himself he has made that discovery."
+
+His mother shook her head. "Lord Warburton won't understand her. He
+needn't try."
+
+"He's very intelligent," said Ralph; "but it's right he should be
+puzzled once in a while."
+
+"Isabel will enjoy puzzling a lord," Mrs. Touchett remarked.
+
+Her son frowned a little. "What does she know about lords?"
+
+"Nothing at all: that will puzzle him all the more."
+
+Ralph greeted these words with a laugh and looked out of the window.
+Then, "Are you not going down to see my father?" he asked.
+
+"At a quarter to eight," said Mrs. Touchett.
+
+Her son looked at his watch. "You've another quarter of an hour then.
+Tell me some more about Isabel." After which, as Mrs. Touchett declined
+his invitation, declaring that he must find out for himself, "Well," he
+pursued, "she'll certainly do you credit. But won't she also give you
+trouble?"
+
+"I hope not; but if she does I shall not shrink from it. I never do
+that."
+
+"She strikes me as very natural," said Ralph.
+
+"Natural people are not the most trouble."
+
+"No," said Ralph; "you yourself are a proof of that. You're extremely
+natural, and I'm sure you have never troubled any one. It takes trouble
+to do that. But tell me this; it just occurs to me. Is Isabel capable of
+making herself disagreeable?"
+
+"Ah," cried his mother, "you ask too many questions! Find that out for
+yourself."
+
+His questions, however, were not exhausted. "All this time," he said,
+"you've not told me what you intend to do with her."
+
+"Do with her? You talk as if she were a yard of calico. I shall do
+absolutely nothing with her, and she herself will do everything she
+chooses. She gave me notice of that."
+
+"What you meant then, in your telegram, was that her character's
+independent."
+
+"I never know what I mean in my telegrams--especially those I send from
+America. Clearness is too expensive. Come down to your father."
+
+"It's not yet a quarter to eight," said Ralph.
+
+"I must allow for his impatience," Mrs. Touchett answered. Ralph knew
+what to think of his father's impatience; but, making no rejoinder, he
+offered his mother his arm. This put it in his power, as they
+descended together, to stop her a moment on the middle landing of the
+staircase--the broad, low, wide-armed staircase of time-blackened oak
+which was one of the most striking features of Gardencourt. "You've no
+plan of marrying her?" he smiled.
+
+"Marrying her? I should be sorry to play her such a trick! But apart
+from that, she's perfectly able to marry herself. She has every
+facility."
+
+"Do you mean to say she has a husband picked out?"
+
+"I don't know about a husband, but there's a young man in Boston--!"
+
+Ralph went on; he had no desire to hear about the young man in Boston.
+"As my father says, they're always engaged!"
+
+His mother had told him that he must satisfy his curiosity at the
+source, and it soon became evident he should not want for occasion. He
+had a good deal of talk with his young kinswoman when the two had been
+left together in the drawing-room. Lord Warburton, who had ridden over
+from his own house, some ten miles distant, remounted and took his
+departure before dinner; and an hour after this meal was ended Mr. and
+Mrs. Touchett, who appeared to have quite emptied the measure of their
+forms, withdrew, under the valid pretext of fatigue, to their respective
+apartments. The young man spent an hour with his cousin; though she had
+been travelling half the day she appeared in no degree spent. She was
+really tired; she knew it, and knew she should pay for it on the morrow;
+but it was her habit at this period to carry exhaustion to the furthest
+point and confess to it only when dissimulation broke down. A fine
+hypocrisy was for the present possible; she was interested; she was, as
+she said to herself, floated. She asked Ralph to show her the pictures;
+there were a great many in the house, most of them of his own choosing.
+The best were arranged in an oaken gallery, of charming proportions,
+which had a sitting-room at either end of it and which in the evening
+was usually lighted. The light was insufficient to show the pictures
+to advantage, and the visit might have stood over to the morrow.
+This suggestion Ralph had ventured to make; but Isabel looked
+disappointed--smiling still, however--and said: "If you please I should
+like to see them just a little." She was eager, she knew she was eager
+and now seemed so; she couldn't help it. "She doesn't take suggestions,"
+Ralph said to himself; but he said it without irritation; her pressure
+amused and even pleased him. The lamps were on brackets, at intervals,
+and if the light was imperfect it was genial. It fell upon the vague
+squares of rich colour and on the faded gilding of heavy frames; it made
+a sheen on the polished floor of the gallery. Ralph took a candlestick
+and moved about, pointing out the things he liked; Isabel, inclining to
+one picture after another, indulged in little exclamations and murmurs.
+She was evidently a judge; she had a natural taste; he was struck with
+that. She took a candlestick herself and held it slowly here and there;
+she lifted it high, and as she did so he found himself pausing in the
+middle of the place and bending his eyes much less upon the pictures
+than on her presence. He lost nothing, in truth, by these wandering
+glances, for she was better worth looking at than most works of art.
+She was undeniably spare, and ponderably light, and proveably tall; when
+people had wished to distinguish her from the other two Miss Archers
+they had always called her the willowy one. Her hair, which was dark
+even to blackness, had been an object of envy to many women; her light
+grey eyes, a little too firm perhaps in her graver moments, had an
+enchanting range of concession. They walked slowly up one side of the
+gallery and down the other, and then she said: "Well, now I know more
+than I did when I began!"
+
+"You apparently have a great passion for knowledge," her cousin
+returned.
+
+"I think I have; most girls are horridly ignorant."
+
+"You strike me as different from most girls."
+
+"Ah, some of them would--but the way they're talked to!" murmured
+Isabel, who preferred not to dilate just yet on herself. Then in a
+moment, to change the subject, "Please tell me--isn't there a ghost?"
+she went on.
+
+"A ghost?"
+
+"A castle-spectre, a thing that appears. We call them ghosts in
+America."
+
+"So we do here, when we see them."
+
+"You do see them then? You ought to, in this romantic old house."
+
+"It's not a romantic old house," said Ralph. "You'll be disappointed if
+you count on that. It's a dismally prosaic one; there's no romance here
+but what you may have brought with you."
+
+"I've brought a great deal; but it seems to me I've brought it to the
+right place."
+
+"To keep it out of harm, certainly; nothing will ever happen to it here,
+between my father and me."
+
+Isabel looked at him a moment. "Is there never any one here but your
+father and you?"
+
+"My mother, of course."
+
+"Oh, I know your mother; she's not romantic. Haven't you other people?"
+
+"Very few."
+
+"I'm sorry for that; I like so much to see people."
+
+"Oh, we'll invite all the county to amuse you," said Ralph.
+
+"Now you're making fun of me," the girl answered rather gravely. "Who
+was the gentleman on the lawn when I arrived?"
+
+"A county neighbour; he doesn't come very often."
+
+"I'm sorry for that; I liked him," said Isabel.
+
+"Why, it seemed to me that you barely spoke to him," Ralph objected.
+
+"Never mind, I like him all the same. I like your father too,
+immensely."
+
+"You can't do better than that. He's the dearest of the dear."
+
+"I'm so sorry he is ill," said Isabel.
+
+"You must help me to nurse him; you ought to be a good nurse."
+
+"I don't think I am; I've been told I'm not; I'm said to have too many
+theories. But you haven't told me about the ghost," she added.
+
+Ralph, however, gave no heed to this observation. "You like my father
+and you like Lord Warburton. I infer also that you like my mother."
+
+"I like your mother very much, because--because--" And Isabel found
+herself attempting to assign a reason for her affection for Mrs.
+Touchett.
+
+"Ah, we never know why!" said her companion, laughing.
+
+"I always know why," the girl answered. "It's because she doesn't expect
+one to like her. She doesn't care whether one does or not."
+
+"So you adore her--out of perversity? Well, I take greatly after my
+mother," said Ralph.
+
+"I don't believe you do at all. You wish people to like you, and you try
+to make them do it."
+
+"Good heavens, how you see through one!" he cried with a dismay that was
+not altogether jocular.
+
+"But I like you all the same," his cousin went on. "The way to clinch
+the matter will be to show me the ghost."
+
+Ralph shook his head sadly. "I might show it to you, but you'd never see
+it. The privilege isn't given to every one; it's not enviable. It has
+never been seen by a young, happy, innocent person like you. You must
+have suffered first, have suffered greatly, have gained some miserable
+knowledge. In that way your eyes are opened to it. I saw it long ago,"
+said Ralph.
+
+"I told you just now I'm very fond of knowledge," Isabel answered.
+
+"Yes, of happy knowledge--of pleasant knowledge. But you haven't
+suffered, and you're not made to suffer. I hope you'll never see the
+ghost!"
+
+She had listened to him attentively, with a smile on her lips, but with
+a certain gravity in her eyes. Charming as he found her, she had struck
+him as rather presumptuous--indeed it was a part of her charm; and he
+wondered what she would say. "I'm not afraid, you know," she said: which
+seemed quite presumptuous enough.
+
+"You're not afraid of suffering?"
+
+"Yes, I'm afraid of suffering. But I'm not afraid of ghosts. And I think
+people suffer too easily," she added.
+
+"I don't believe you do," said Ralph, looking at her with his hands in
+his pockets.
+
+"I don't think that's a fault," she answered. "It's not absolutely
+necessary to suffer; we were not made for that."
+
+"You were not, certainly."
+
+"I'm not speaking of myself." And she wandered off a little.
+
+"No, it isn't a fault," said her cousin. "It's a merit to be strong."
+
+"Only, if you don't suffer they call you hard," Isabel remarked.
+
+They passed out of the smaller drawing-room, into which they had
+returned from the gallery, and paused in the hall, at the foot of the
+staircase. Here Ralph presented his companion with her bedroom candle,
+which he had taken from a niche. "Never mind what they call you. When
+you do suffer they call you an idiot. The great point's to be as happy
+as possible."
+
+She looked at him a little; she had taken her candle and placed her foot
+on the oaken stair. "Well," she said, "that's what I came to Europe for,
+to be as happy as possible. Good-night."
+
+"Good-night! I wish you all success, and shall be very glad to
+contribute to it!"
+
+She turned away, and he watched her as she slowly ascended. Then, with
+his hands always in his pockets, he went back to the empty drawing-room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+Isabel Archer was a young person of many theories; her imagination was
+remarkably active. It had been her fortune to possess a finer mind
+than most of the persons among whom her lot was cast; to have a larger
+perception of surrounding facts and to care for knowledge that was
+tinged with the unfamiliar. It is true that among her contemporaries
+she passed for a young woman of extraordinary profundity; for these
+excellent people never withheld their admiration from a reach of
+intellect of which they themselves were not conscious, and spoke of
+Isabel as a prodigy of learning, a creature reported to have read the
+classic authors--in translations. Her paternal aunt, Mrs. Varian, once
+spread the rumour that Isabel was writing a book--Mrs. Varian having a
+reverence for books, and averred that the girl would distinguish herself
+in print. Mrs. Varian thought highly of literature, for which she
+entertained that esteem that is connected with a sense of privation.
+Her own large house, remarkable for its assortment of mosaic tables and
+decorated ceilings, was unfurnished with a library, and in the way of
+printed volumes contained nothing but half a dozen novels in paper on
+a shelf in the apartment of one of the Miss Varians. Practically, Mrs.
+Varian's acquaintance with literature was confined to The New York
+Interviewer; as she very justly said, after you had read the Interviewer
+you had lost all faith in culture. Her tendency, with this, was rather
+to keep the Interviewer out of the way of her daughters; she was
+determined to bring them up properly, and they read nothing at all. Her
+impression with regard to Isabel's labours was quite illusory; the girl
+had never attempted to write a book and had no desire for the laurels
+of authorship. She had no talent for expression and too little of the
+consciousness of genius; she only had a general idea that people were
+right when they treated her as if she were rather superior. Whether or
+no she were superior, people were right in admiring her if they thought
+her so; for it seemed to her often that her mind moved more quickly
+than theirs, and this encouraged an impatience that might easily be
+confounded with superiority. It may be affirmed without delay that
+Isabel was probably very liable to the sin of self-esteem; she often
+surveyed with complacency the field of her own nature; she was in the
+habit of taking for granted, on scanty evidence, that she was right;
+she treated herself to occasions of homage. Meanwhile her errors and
+delusions were frequently such as a biographer interested in preserving
+the dignity of his subject must shrink from specifying. Her thoughts
+were a tangle of vague outlines which had never been corrected by the
+judgement of people speaking with authority. In matters of opinion
+she had had her own way, and it had led her into a thousand ridiculous
+zigzags. At moments she discovered she was grotesquely wrong, and then
+she treated herself to a week of passionate humility. After this she
+held her head higher than ever again; for it was of no use, she had an
+unquenchable desire to think well of herself. She had a theory that it
+was only under this provision life was worth living; that one should
+be one of the best, should be conscious of a fine organisation (she
+couldn't help knowing her organisation was fine), should move in a realm
+of light, of natural wisdom, of happy impulse, of inspiration gracefully
+chronic. It was almost as unnecessary to cultivate doubt of one's self
+as to cultivate doubt of one's best friend: one should try to be one's
+own best friend and to give one's self, in this manner, distinguished
+company. The girl had a certain nobleness of imagination which rendered
+her a good many services and played her a great many tricks. She spent
+half her time in thinking of beauty and bravery and magnanimity; she had
+a fixed determination to regard the world as a place of brightness, of
+free expansion, of irresistible action: she held it must be detestable
+to be afraid or ashamed. She had an infinite hope that she should never
+do anything wrong. She had resented so strongly, after discovering them,
+her mere errors of feeling (the discovery always made her tremble as if
+she had escaped from a trap which might have caught her and smothered
+her) that the chance of inflicting a sensible injury upon another
+person, presented only as a contingency, caused her at moments to hold
+her breath. That always struck her as the worst thing that could happen
+to her. On the whole, reflectively, she was in no uncertainty about
+the things that were wrong. She had no love of their look, but when
+she fixed them hard she recognised them. It was wrong to be mean, to be
+jealous, to be false, to be cruel; she had seen very little of the evil
+of the world, but she had seen women who lied and who tried to hurt
+each other. Seeing such things had quickened her high spirit; it seemed
+indecent not to scorn them. Of course the danger of a high spirit was
+the danger of inconsistency--the danger of keeping up the flag after the
+place has surrendered; a sort of behaviour so crooked as to be almost
+a dishonour to the flag. But Isabel, who knew little of the sorts of
+artillery to which young women are exposed, flattered herself that such
+contradictions would never be noted in her own conduct. Her life should
+always be in harmony with the most pleasing impression she should
+produce; she would be what she appeared, and she would appear what she
+was. Sometimes she went so far as to wish that she might find herself
+some day in a difficult position, so that she should have the pleasure
+of being as heroic as the occasion demanded. Altogether, with her meagre
+knowledge, her inflated ideals, her confidence at once innocent and
+dogmatic, her temper at once exacting and indulgent, her mixture of
+curiosity and fastidiousness, of vivacity and indifference, her desire
+to look very well and to be if possible even better, her determination
+to see, to try, to know, her combination of the delicate, desultory,
+flame-like spirit and the eager and personal creature of conditions: she
+would be an easy victim of scientific criticism if she were not intended
+to awaken on the reader's part an impulse more tender and more purely
+expectant.
+
+It was one of her theories that Isabel Archer was very fortunate in
+being independent, and that she ought to make some very enlightened use
+of that state. She never called it the state of solitude, much less of
+singleness; she thought such descriptions weak, and, besides, her sister
+Lily constantly urged her to come and abide. She had a friend whose
+acquaintance she had made shortly before her father's death, who offered
+so high an example of useful activity that Isabel always thought of her
+as a model. Henrietta Stackpole had the advantage of an admired ability;
+she was thoroughly launched in journalism, and her letters to the
+Interviewer, from Washington, Newport, the White Mountains and other
+places, were universally quoted. Isabel pronounced them with confidence
+"ephemeral," but she esteemed the courage, energy and good-humour of the
+writer, who, without parents and without property, had adopted three
+of the children of an infirm and widowed sister and was paying their
+school-bills out of the proceeds of her literary labour. Henrietta was
+in the van of progress and had clear-cut views on most subjects; her
+cherished desire had long been to come to Europe and write a series of
+letters to the Interviewer from the radical point of view--an enterprise
+the less difficult as she knew perfectly in advance what her opinions
+would be and to how many objections most European institutions lay
+open. When she heard that Isabel was coming she wished to start at once;
+thinking, naturally, that it would be delightful the two should travel
+together. She had been obliged, however, to postpone this enterprise.
+She thought Isabel a glorious creature, and had spoken of her covertly
+in some of her letters, though she never mentioned the fact to her
+friend, who would not have taken pleasure in it and was not a regular
+student of the Interviewer. Henrietta, for Isabel, was chiefly a proof
+that a woman might suffice to herself and be happy. Her resources were
+of the obvious kind; but even if one had not the journalistic talent and
+a genius for guessing, as Henrietta said, what the public was going to
+want, one was not therefore to conclude that one had no vocation,
+no beneficent aptitude of any sort, and resign one's self to being
+frivolous and hollow. Isabel was stoutly determined not to be hollow. If
+one should wait with the right patience one would find some happy work
+to one's hand. Of course, among her theories, this young lady was not
+without a collection of views on the subject of marriage. The first on
+the list was a conviction of the vulgarity of thinking too much of it.
+From lapsing into eagerness on this point she earnestly prayed she might
+be delivered; she held that a woman ought to be able to live to herself,
+in the absence of exceptional flimsiness, and that it was perfectly
+possible to be happy without the society of a more or less coarse-minded
+person of another sex. The girl's prayer was very sufficiently answered;
+something pure and proud that there was in her--something cold and dry
+an unappreciated suitor with a taste for analysis might have called
+it--had hitherto kept her from any great vanity of conjecture on the
+article of possible husbands. Few of the men she saw seemed worth a
+ruinous expenditure, and it made her smile to think that one of them
+should present himself as an incentive to hope and a reward of patience.
+Deep in her soul--it was the deepest thing there--lay a belief that if
+a certain light should dawn she could give herself completely; but
+this image, on the whole, was too formidable to be attractive. Isabel's
+thoughts hovered about it, but they seldom rested on it long; after a
+little it ended in alarms. It often seemed to her that she thought too
+much about herself; you could have made her colour, any day in the
+year, by calling her a rank egoist. She was always planning out her
+development, desiring her perfection, observing her progress. Her nature
+had, in her conceit, a certain garden-like quality, a suggestion of
+perfume and murmuring boughs, of shady bowers and lengthening vistas,
+which made her feel that introspection was, after all, an exercise
+in the open air, and that a visit to the recesses of one's spirit was
+harmless when one returned from it with a lapful of roses. But she was
+often reminded that there were other gardens in the world than those of
+her remarkable soul, and that there were moreover a great many places
+which were not gardens at all--only dusky pestiferous tracts, planted
+thick with ugliness and misery. In the current of that repaid curiosity
+on which she had lately been floating, which had conveyed her to this
+beautiful old England and might carry her much further still, she often
+checked herself with the thought of the thousands of people who were
+less happy than herself--a thought which for the moment made her fine,
+full consciousness appear a kind of immodesty. What should one do with
+the misery of the world in a scheme of the agreeable for one's self? It
+must be confessed that this question never held her long. She was too
+young, too impatient to live, too unacquainted with pain. She always
+returned to her theory that a young woman whom after all every one
+thought clever should begin by getting a general impression of life.
+This impression was necessary to prevent mistakes, and after it should
+be secured she might make the unfortunate condition of others a subject
+of special attention.
+
+England was a revelation to her, and she found herself as diverted as a
+child at a pantomime. In her infantine excursions to Europe she had
+seen only the Continent, and seen it from the nursery window; Paris, not
+London, was her father's Mecca, and into many of his interests there his
+children had naturally not entered. The images of that time moreover had
+grown faint and remote, and the old-world quality in everything that
+she now saw had all the charm of strangeness. Her uncle's house seemed a
+picture made real; no refinement of the agreeable was lost upon
+Isabel; the rich perfection of Gardencourt at once revealed a world and
+gratified a need. The large, low rooms, with brown ceilings and dusky
+corners, the deep embrasures and curious casements, the quiet light on
+dark, polished panels, the deep greenness outside, that seemed always
+peeping in, the sense of well-ordered privacy in the centre of a
+"property"--a place where sounds were felicitously accidental, where
+the tread was muffed by the earth itself and in the thick mild air all
+friction dropped out of contact and all shrillness out of talk--these
+things were much to the taste of our young lady, whose taste played a
+considerable part in her emotions. She formed a fast friendship with her
+uncle, and often sat by his chair when he had had it moved out to the
+lawn. He passed hours in the open air, sitting with folded hands like
+a placid, homely household god, a god of service, who had done his work
+and received his wages and was trying to grow used to weeks and months
+made up only of off-days. Isabel amused him more than she suspected--the
+effect she produced upon people was often different from what she
+supposed--and he frequently gave himself the pleasure of making her
+chatter. It was by this term that he qualified her conversation, which
+had much of the "point" observable in that of the young ladies of her
+country, to whom the ear of the world is more directly presented than to
+their sisters in other lands. Like the mass of American girls Isabel had
+been encouraged to express herself; her remarks had been attended
+to; she had been expected to have emotions and opinions. Many of her
+opinions had doubtless but a slender value, many of her emotions passed
+away in the utterance; but they had left a trace in giving her the habit
+of seeming at least to feel and think, and in imparting moreover to
+her words when she was really moved that prompt vividness which so many
+people had regarded as a sign of superiority. Mr. Touchett used to think
+that she reminded him of his wife when his wife was in her teens. It was
+because she was fresh and natural and quick to understand, to speak--so
+many characteristics of her niece--that he had fallen in love with Mrs.
+Touchett. He never expressed this analogy to the girl herself, however;
+for if Mrs. Touchett had once been like Isabel, Isabel was not at all
+like Mrs. Touchett. The old man was full of kindness for her; it was a
+long time, as he said, since they had had any young life in the house;
+and our rustling, quickly-moving, clear-voiced heroine was as agreeable
+to his sense as the sound of flowing water. He wanted to do something
+for her and wished she would ask it of him. She would ask nothing but
+questions; it is true that of these she asked a quantity. Her uncle had
+a great fund of answers, though her pressure sometimes came in forms
+that puzzled him. She questioned him immensely about England, about the
+British constitution, the English character, the state of politics,
+the manners and customs of the royal family, the peculiarities of the
+aristocracy, the way of living and thinking of his neighbours; and in
+begging to be enlightened on these points she usually enquired whether
+they corresponded with the descriptions in the books. The old man always
+looked at her a little with his fine dry smile while he smoothed down
+the shawl spread across his legs.
+
+"The books?" he once said; "well, I don't know much about the books. You
+must ask Ralph about that. I've always ascertained for myself--got my
+information in the natural form. I never asked many questions even;
+I just kept quiet and took notice. Of course I've had very good
+opportunities--better than what a young lady would naturally have. I'm
+of an inquisitive disposition, though you mightn't think it if you were
+to watch me: however much you might watch me I should be watching you
+more. I've been watching these people for upwards of thirty-five years,
+and I don't hesitate to say that I've acquired considerable information.
+It's a very fine country on the whole--finer perhaps than what we give
+it credit for on the other side. Several improvements I should like to
+see introduced; but the necessity of them doesn't seem to be generally
+felt as yet. When the necessity of a thing is generally felt they
+usually manage to accomplish it; but they seem to feel pretty
+comfortable about waiting till then. I certainly feel more at home among
+them than I expected to when I first came over; I suppose it's because
+I've had a considerable degree of success. When you're successful you
+naturally feel more at home."
+
+"Do you suppose that if I'm successful I shall feel at home?" Isabel
+asked.
+
+"I should think it very probable, and you certainly will be successful.
+They like American young ladies very much over here; they show them
+a great deal of kindness. But you mustn't feel too much at home, you
+know."
+
+"Oh, I'm by no means sure it will satisfy me," Isabel judicially
+emphasised. "I like the place very much, but I'm not sure I shall like
+the people."
+
+"The people are very good people; especially if you like them."
+
+"I've no doubt they're good," Isabel rejoined; "but are they pleasant
+in society? They won't rob me nor beat me; but will they make themselves
+agreeable to me? That's what I like people to do. I don't hesitate to
+say so, because I always appreciate it. I don't believe they're very
+nice to girls; they're not nice to them in the novels."
+
+"I don't know about the novels," said Mr. Touchett. "I believe the
+novels have a great deal but I don't suppose they're very accurate.
+We once had a lady who wrote novels staying here; she was a friend
+of Ralph's and he asked her down. She was very positive, quite up to
+everything; but she was not the sort of person you could depend on
+for evidence. Too free a fancy--I suppose that was it. She afterwards
+published a work of fiction in which she was understood to have given
+a representation--something in the nature of a caricature, as you might
+say--of my unworthy self. I didn't read it, but Ralph just handed me
+the book with the principal passages marked. It was understood to be
+a description of my conversation; American peculiarities, nasal twang,
+Yankee notions, stars and stripes. Well, it was not at all accurate;
+she couldn't have listened very attentively. I had no objection to her
+giving a report of my conversation, if she liked but I didn't like the
+idea that she hadn't taken the trouble to listen to it. Of course I talk
+like an American--I can't talk like a Hottentot. However I talk, I've
+made them understand me pretty well over here. But I don't talk like the
+old gentleman in that lady's novel. He wasn't an American; we wouldn't
+have him over there at any price. I just mention that fact to show you
+that they're not always accurate. Of course, as I've no daughters,
+and as Mrs. Touchett resides in Florence, I haven't had much chance
+to notice about the young ladies. It sometimes appears as if the young
+women in the lower class were not very well treated; but I guess their
+position is better in the upper and even to some extent in the middle."
+
+"Gracious," Isabel exclaimed; "how many classes have they? About fifty,
+I suppose."
+
+"Well, I don't know that I ever counted them. I never took much notice
+of the classes. That's the advantage of being an American here; you
+don't belong to any class."
+
+"I hope so," said Isabel. "Imagine one's belonging to an English class!"
+
+"Well, I guess some of them are pretty comfortable--especially towards
+the top. But for me there are only two classes: the people I trust and
+the people I don't. Of those two, my dear Isabel, you belong to the
+first."
+
+"I'm much obliged to you," said the girl quickly. Her way of taking
+compliments seemed sometimes rather dry; she got rid of them as rapidly
+as possible. But as regards this she was sometimes misjudged; she was
+thought insensible to them, whereas in fact she was simply unwilling to
+show how infinitely they pleased her. To show that was to show too much.
+"I'm sure the English are very conventional," she added.
+
+"They've got everything pretty well fixed," Mr. Touchett admitted. "It's
+all settled beforehand--they don't leave it to the last moment."
+
+"I don't like to have everything settled beforehand," said the girl. "I
+like more unexpectedness."
+
+Her uncle seemed amused at her distinctness of preference. "Well, it's
+settled beforehand that you'll have great success," he rejoined. "I
+suppose you'll like that."
+
+"I shall not have success if they're too stupidly conventional. I'm not
+in the least stupidly conventional. I'm just the contrary. That's what
+they won't like."
+
+"No, no, you're all wrong," said the old man. "You can't tell what
+they'll like. They're very inconsistent; that's their principal
+interest."
+
+"Ah well," said Isabel, standing before her uncle with her hands
+clasped about the belt of her black dress and looking up and down the
+lawn--"that will suit me perfectly!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+The two amused themselves, time and again, with talking of the attitude
+of the British public as if the young lady had been in a position to
+appeal to it; but in fact the British public remained for the present
+profoundly indifferent to Miss Isabel Archer, whose fortune had dropped
+her, as her cousin said, into the dullest house in England. Her gouty
+uncle received very little company, and Mrs. Touchett, not having
+cultivated relations with her husband's neighbours, was not warranted
+in expecting visits from them. She had, however, a peculiar taste; she
+liked to receive cards. For what is usually called social intercourse
+she had very little relish; but nothing pleased her more than to find
+her hall-table whitened with oblong morsels of symbolic pasteboard. She
+flattered herself that she was a very just woman, and had mastered the
+sovereign truth that nothing in this world is got for nothing. She had
+played no social part as mistress of Gardencourt, and it was not to be
+supposed that, in the surrounding country, a minute account should be
+kept of her comings and goings. But it is by no means certain that she
+did not feel it to be wrong that so little notice was taken of them and
+that her failure (really very gratuitous) to make herself important in
+the neighbourhood had not much to do with the acrimony of her allusions
+to her husband's adopted country. Isabel presently found herself in the
+singular situation of defending the British constitution against her
+aunt; Mrs. Touchett having formed the habit of sticking pins into this
+venerable instrument. Isabel always felt an impulse to pull out the
+pins; not that she imagined they inflicted any damage on the tough old
+parchment, but because it seemed to her her aunt might make better use
+of her sharpness. She was very critical herself--it was incidental to
+her age, her sex and her nationality; but she was very sentimental as
+well, and there was something in Mrs. Touchett's dryness that set her
+own moral fountains flowing.
+
+"Now what's your point of view?" she asked of her aunt. "When you
+criticise everything here you should have a point of view. Yours doesn't
+seem to be American--you thought everything over there so disagreeable.
+When I criticise I have mine; it's thoroughly American!"
+
+"My dear young lady," said Mrs. Touchett, "there are as many points of
+view in the world as there are people of sense to take them. You may
+say that doesn't make them very numerous! American? Never in the world;
+that's shockingly narrow. My point of view, thank God, is personal!"
+
+Isabel thought this a better answer than she admitted; it was a
+tolerable description of her own manner of judging, but it would not
+have sounded well for her to say so. On the lips of a person less
+advanced in life and less enlightened by experience than Mrs. Touchett
+such a declaration would savour of immodesty, even of arrogance. She
+risked it nevertheless in talking with Ralph, with whom she talked a
+great deal and with whom her conversation was of a sort that gave a
+large licence to extravagance. Her cousin used, as the phrase is, to
+chaff her; he very soon established with her a reputation for treating
+everything as a joke, and he was not a man to neglect the privileges
+such a reputation conferred. She accused him of an odious want of
+seriousness, of laughing at all things, beginning with himself. Such
+slender faculty of reverence as he possessed centred wholly upon his
+father; for the rest, he exercised his wit indifferently upon his
+father's son, this gentleman's weak lungs, his useless life, his
+fantastic mother, his friends (Lord Warburton in especial), his adopted,
+and his native country, his charming new-found cousin. "I keep a band
+of music in my ante-room," he said once to her. "It has orders to play
+without stopping; it renders me two excellent services. It keeps the
+sounds of the world from reaching the private apartments, and it makes
+the world think that dancing's going on within." It was dance-music
+indeed that you usually heard when you came within ear-shot of Ralph's
+band; the liveliest waltzes seemed to float upon the air. Isabel often
+found herself irritated by this perpetual fiddling; she would have liked
+to pass through the ante-room, as her cousin called it, and enter the
+private apartments. It mattered little that he had assured her they were
+a very dismal place; she would have been glad to undertake to sweep them
+and set them in order. It was but half-hospitality to let her remain
+outside; to punish him for which Isabel administered innumerable taps
+with the ferule of her straight young wit. It must be said that her wit
+was exercised to a large extent in self-defence, for her cousin amused
+himself with calling her "Columbia" and accusing her of a patriotism so
+heated that it scorched. He drew a caricature of her in which she was
+represented as a very pretty young woman dressed, on the lines of the
+prevailing fashion, in the folds of the national banner. Isabel's chief
+dread in life at this period of her development was that she should
+appear narrow-minded; what she feared next afterwards was that she
+should really be so. But she nevertheless made no scruple of abounding
+in her cousin's sense and pretending to sigh for the charms of her
+native land. She would be as American as it pleased him to regard her,
+and if he chose to laugh at her she would give him plenty of occupation.
+She defended England against his mother, but when Ralph sang its praises
+on purpose, as she said, to work her up, she found herself able to
+differ from him on a variety of points. In fact, the quality of this
+small ripe country seemed as sweet to her as the taste of an October
+pear; and her satisfaction was at the root of the good spirits which
+enabled her to take her cousin's chaff and return it in kind. If her
+good-humour flagged at moments it was not because she thought herself
+ill-used, but because she suddenly felt sorry for Ralph. It seemed to
+her he was talking as a blind and had little heart in what he said. "I
+don't know what's the matter with you," she observed to him once; "but I
+suspect you're a great humbug."
+
+"That's your privilege," Ralph answered, who had not been used to being
+so crudely addressed.
+
+"I don't know what you care for; I don't think you care for anything.
+You don't really care for England when you praise it; you don't care for
+America even when you pretend to abuse it."
+
+"I care for nothing but you, dear cousin," said Ralph.
+
+"If I could believe even that, I should be very glad."
+
+"Ah well, I should hope so!" the young man exclaimed.
+
+Isabel might have believed it and not have been far from the truth. He
+thought a great deal about her; she was constantly present to his mind.
+At a time when his thoughts had been a good deal of a burden to him her
+sudden arrival, which promised nothing and was an open-handed gift of
+fate, had refreshed and quickened them, given them wings and something
+to fly for. Poor Ralph had been for many weeks steeped in melancholy;
+his outlook, habitually sombre, lay under the shadow of a deeper cloud.
+He had grown anxious about his father, whose gout, hitherto confined to
+his legs, had begun to ascend into regions more vital. The old man had
+been gravely ill in the spring, and the doctors had whispered to
+Ralph that another attack would be less easy to deal with. Just now
+he appeared disburdened of pain, but Ralph could not rid himself of a
+suspicion that this was a subterfuge of the enemy, who was waiting to
+take him off his guard. If the manoeuvre should succeed there would be
+little hope of any great resistance. Ralph had always taken for granted
+that his father would survive him--that his own name would be the first
+grimly called. The father and son had been close companions, and the
+idea of being left alone with the remnant of a tasteless life on his
+hands was not gratifying to the young man, who had always and tacitly
+counted upon his elder's help in making the best of a poor business.
+At the prospect of losing his great motive Ralph lost indeed his one
+inspiration. If they might die at the same time it would be all very
+well; but without the encouragement of his father's society he should
+barely have patience to await his own turn. He had not the incentive of
+feeling that he was indispensable to his mother; it was a rule with his
+mother to have no regrets. He bethought himself of course that it had
+been a small kindness to his father to wish that, of the two, the active
+rather than the passive party should know the felt wound; he remembered
+that the old man had always treated his own forecast of an early end as
+a clever fallacy, which he should be delighted to discredit so far as
+he might by dying first. But of the two triumphs, that of refuting a
+sophistical son and that of holding on a while longer to a state of
+being which, with all abatements, he enjoyed, Ralph deemed it no sin to
+hope the latter might be vouchsafed to Mr. Touchett.
+
+These were nice questions, but Isabel's arrival put a stop to his
+puzzling over them. It even suggested there might be a compensation for
+the intolerable ennui of surviving his genial sire. He wondered whether
+he were harbouring "love" for this spontaneous young woman from Albany;
+but he judged that on the whole he was not. After he had known her for
+a week he quite made up his mind to this, and every day he felt a little
+more sure. Lord Warburton had been right about her; she was a really
+interesting little figure. Ralph wondered how their neighbour had
+found it out so soon; and then he said it was only another proof of his
+friend's high abilities, which he had always greatly admired. If his
+cousin were to be nothing more than an entertainment to him, Ralph was
+conscious she was an entertainment of a high order. "A character like
+that," he said to himself--"a real little passionate force to see at
+play is the finest thing in nature. It's finer than the finest work
+of art--than a Greek bas-relief, than a great Titian, than a Gothic
+cathedral. It's very pleasant to be so well treated where one had least
+looked for it. I had never been more blue, more bored, than for a week
+before she came; I had never expected less that anything pleasant would
+happen. Suddenly I receive a Titian, by the post, to hang on my wall--a
+Greek bas-relief to stick over my chimney-piece. The key of a beautiful
+edifice is thrust into my hand, and I'm told to walk in and admire. My
+poor boy, you've been sadly ungrateful, and now you had better keep very
+quiet and never grumble again." The sentiment of these reflexions was
+very just; but it was not exactly true that Ralph Touchett had had a key
+put into his hand. His cousin was a very brilliant girl, who would take,
+as he said, a good deal of knowing; but she needed the knowing, and his
+attitude with regard to her, though it was contemplative and critical,
+was not judicial. He surveyed the edifice from the outside and admired
+it greatly; he looked in at the windows and received an impression of
+proportions equally fair. But he felt that he saw it only by glimpses
+and that he had not yet stood under the roof. The door was fastened, and
+though he had keys in his pocket he had a conviction that none of them
+would fit. She was intelligent and generous; it was a fine free nature;
+but what was she going to do with herself? This question was irregular,
+for with most women one had no occasion to ask it. Most women did
+with themselves nothing at all; they waited, in attitudes more or less
+gracefully passive, for a man to come that way and furnish them with
+a destiny. Isabel's originality was that she gave one an impression of
+having intentions of her own. "Whenever she executes them," said Ralph,
+"may I be there to see!"
+
+It devolved upon him of course to do the honours of the place. Mr.
+Touchett was confined to his chair, and his wife's position was that of
+rather a grim visitor; so that in the line of conduct that opened itself
+to Ralph duty and inclination were harmoniously mixed. He was not a
+great walker, but he strolled about the grounds with his cousin--a
+pastime for which the weather remained favourable with a persistency not
+allowed for in Isabel's somewhat lugubrious prevision of the climate;
+and in the long afternoons, of which the length was but the measure of
+her gratified eagerness, they took a boat on the river, the dear little
+river, as Isabel called it, where the opposite shore seemed still a
+part of the foreground of the landscape; or drove over the country in a
+phaeton--a low, capacious, thick-wheeled phaeton formerly much used by
+Mr. Touchett, but which he had now ceased to enjoy. Isabel enjoyed it
+largely and, handling the reins in a manner which approved itself to
+the groom as "knowing," was never weary of driving her uncle's capital
+horses through winding lanes and byways full of the rural incidents she
+had confidently expected to find; past cottages thatched and timbered,
+past ale-houses latticed and sanded, past patches of ancient common and
+glimpses of empty parks, between hedgerows made thick by midsummer. When
+they reached home they usually found tea had been served on the lawn
+and that Mrs. Touchett had not shrunk from the extremity of handing her
+husband his cup. But the two for the most part sat silent; the old
+man with his head back and his eyes closed, his wife occupied with her
+knitting and wearing that appearance of rare profundity with which some
+ladies consider the movement of their needles.
+
+One day, however, a visitor had arrived. The two young persons, after
+spending an hour on the river, strolled back to the house and perceived
+Lord Warburton sitting under the trees and engaged in conversation, of
+which even at a distance the desultory character was appreciable, with
+Mrs. Touchett. He had driven over from his own place with a portmanteau
+and had asked, as the father and son often invited him to do, for a
+dinner and a lodging. Isabel, seeing him for half an hour on the day of
+her arrival, had discovered in this brief space that she liked him; he
+had indeed rather sharply registered himself on her fine sense and
+she had thought of him several times. She had hoped she should see him
+again--hoped too that she should see a few others. Gardencourt was not
+dull; the place itself was sovereign, her uncle was more and more a
+sort of golden grandfather, and Ralph was unlike any cousin she had
+ever encountered--her idea of cousins having tended to gloom. Then her
+impressions were still so fresh and so quickly renewed that there was as
+yet hardly a hint of vacancy in the view. But Isabel had need to remind
+herself that she was interested in human nature and that her foremost
+hope in coming abroad had been that she should see a great many people.
+When Ralph said to her, as he had done several times, "I wonder you find
+this endurable; you ought to see some of the neighbours and some of
+our friends, because we have really got a few, though you would never
+suppose it"--when he offered to invite what he called a "lot of people"
+and make her acquainted with English society, she encouraged the
+hospitable impulse and promised in advance to hurl herself into the
+fray. Little, however, for the present, had come of his offers, and it
+may be confided to the reader that if the young man delayed to carry
+them out it was because he found the labour of providing for his
+companion by no means so severe as to require extraneous help. Isabel
+had spoken to him very often about "specimens;" it was a word that
+played a considerable part in her vocabulary; she had given him to
+understand that she wished to see English society illustrated by eminent
+cases.
+
+"Well now, there's a specimen," he said to her as they walked up from
+the riverside and he recognised Lord Warburton.
+
+"A specimen of what?" asked the girl.
+
+"A specimen of an English gentleman."
+
+"Do you mean they're all like him?"
+
+"Oh no; they're not all like him."
+
+"He's a favourable specimen then," said Isabel; "because I'm sure he's
+nice."
+
+"Yes, he's very nice. And he's very fortunate."
+
+The fortunate Lord Warburton exchanged a handshake with our heroine
+and hoped she was very well. "But I needn't ask that," he said, "since
+you've been handling the oars."
+
+"I've been rowing a little," Isabel answered; "but how should you know
+it?"
+
+"Oh, I know he doesn't row; he's too lazy," said his lordship,
+indicating Ralph Touchett with a laugh.
+
+"He has a good excuse for his laziness," Isabel rejoined, lowering her
+voice a little.
+
+"Ah, he has a good excuse for everything!" cried Lord Warburton, still
+with his sonorous mirth.
+
+"My excuse for not rowing is that my cousin rows so well," said Ralph.
+"She does everything well. She touches nothing that she doesn't adorn!"
+
+"It makes one want to be touched, Miss Archer," Lord Warburton declared.
+
+"Be touched in the right sense and you'll never look the worse for
+it," said Isabel, who, if it pleased her to hear it said that her
+accomplishments were numerous, was happily able to reflect that such
+complacency was not the indication of a feeble mind, inasmuch as there
+were several things in which she excelled. Her desire to think well of
+herself had at least the element of humility that it always needed to be
+supported by proof.
+
+Lord Warburton not only spent the night at Gardencourt, but he was
+persuaded to remain over the second day; and when the second day was
+ended he determined to postpone his departure till the morrow. During
+this period he addressed many of his remarks to Isabel, who accepted
+this evidence of his esteem with a very good grace. She found herself
+liking him extremely; the first impression he had made on her had had
+weight, but at the end of an evening spent in his society she scarce
+fell short of seeing him--though quite without luridity--as a hero
+of romance. She retired to rest with a sense of good fortune, with a
+quickened consciousness of possible felicities. "It's very nice to know
+two such charming people as those," she said, meaning by "those" her
+cousin and her cousin's friend. It must be added moreover that an
+incident had occurred which might have seemed to put her good-humour to
+the test. Mr. Touchett went to bed at half-past nine o'clock, but his
+wife remained in the drawing-room with the other members of the party.
+She prolonged her vigil for something less than an hour, and then,
+rising, observed to Isabel that it was time they should bid the
+gentlemen good-night. Isabel had as yet no desire to go to bed; the
+occasion wore, to her sense, a festive character, and feasts were not
+in the habit of terminating so early. So, without further thought, she
+replied, very simply--
+
+"Need I go, dear aunt? I'll come up in half an hour."
+
+"It's impossible I should wait for you," Mrs. Touchett answered.
+
+"Ah, you needn't wait! Ralph will light my candle," Isabel gaily
+engaged.
+
+"I'll light your candle; do let me light your candle, Miss Archer!" Lord
+Warburton exclaimed. "Only I beg it shall not be before midnight."
+
+Mrs. Touchett fixed her bright little eyes upon him a moment and
+transferred them coldly to her niece. "You can't stay alone with the
+gentlemen. You're not--you're not at your blest Albany, my dear."
+
+Isabel rose, blushing. "I wish I were," she said.
+
+"Oh, I say, mother!" Ralph broke out.
+
+"My dear Mrs. Touchett!" Lord Warburton murmured.
+
+"I didn't make your country, my lord," Mrs. Touchett said majestically.
+"I must take it as I find it."
+
+"Can't I stay with my own cousin?" Isabel enquired.
+
+"I'm not aware that Lord Warburton is your cousin."
+
+"Perhaps I had better go to bed!" the visitor suggested. "That will
+arrange it."
+
+Mrs. Touchett gave a little look of despair and sat down again. "Oh, if
+it's necessary I'll stay up till midnight."
+
+Ralph meanwhile handed Isabel her candlestick. He had been watching her;
+it had seemed to him her temper was involved--an accident that might
+be interesting. But if he had expected anything of a flare he was
+disappointed, for the girl simply laughed a little, nodded good-night
+and withdrew accompanied by her aunt. For himself he was annoyed at his
+mother, though he thought she was right. Above-stairs the two ladies
+separated at Mrs. Touchett's door. Isabel had said nothing on her way
+up.
+
+"Of course you're vexed at my interfering with you," said Mrs. Touchett.
+
+Isabel considered. "I'm not vexed, but I'm surprised--and a good deal
+mystified. Wasn't it proper I should remain in the drawing-room?"
+
+"Not in the least. Young girls here--in decent houses--don't sit alone
+with the gentlemen late at night."
+
+"You were very right to tell me then," said Isabel. "I don't understand
+it, but I'm very glad to know it.
+
+"I shall always tell you," her aunt answered, "whenever I see you taking
+what seems to me too much liberty."
+
+"Pray do; but I don't say I shall always think your remonstrance just."
+
+"Very likely not. You're too fond of your own ways."
+
+"Yes, I think I'm very fond of them. But I always want to know the
+things one shouldn't do."
+
+"So as to do them?" asked her aunt.
+
+"So as to choose," said Isabel.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+As she was devoted to romantic effects Lord Warburton ventured to
+express a hope that she would come some day and see his house, a very
+curious old place. He extracted from Mrs. Touchett a promise that she
+would bring her niece to Lockleigh, and Ralph signified his willingness
+to attend the ladies if his father should be able to spare him. Lord
+Warburton assured our heroine that in the mean time his sisters would
+come and see her. She knew something about his sisters, having sounded
+him, during the hours they spent together while he was at Gardencourt,
+on many points connected with his family. When Isabel was interested she
+asked a great many questions, and as her companion was a copious talker
+she urged him on this occasion by no means in vain. He told her he
+had four sisters and two brothers and had lost both his parents. The
+brothers and sisters were very good people--"not particularly clever,
+you know," he said, "but very decent and pleasant;" and he was so good
+as to hope Miss Archer might know them well. One of the brothers was in
+the Church, settled in the family living, that of Lockleigh, which was
+a heavy, sprawling parish, and was an excellent fellow in spite of his
+thinking differently from himself on every conceivable topic. And then
+Lord Warburton mentioned some of the opinions held by his brother, which
+were opinions Isabel had often heard expressed and that she supposed to
+be entertained by a considerable portion of the human family. Many of
+them indeed she supposed she had held herself, till he assured her
+she was quite mistaken, that it was really impossible, that she had
+doubtless imagined she entertained them, but that she might depend that,
+if she thought them over a little, she would find there was nothing
+in them. When she answered that she had already thought several of the
+questions involved over very attentively he declared that she was only
+another example of what he had often been struck with--the fact that,
+of all the people in the world, the Americans were the most grossly
+superstitious. They were rank Tories and bigots, every one of them;
+there were no conservatives like American conservatives. Her uncle and
+her cousin were there to prove it; nothing could be more medieval than
+many of their views; they had ideas that people in England nowadays were
+ashamed to confess to; and they had the impudence moreover, said his
+lordship, laughing, to pretend they knew more about the needs and
+dangers of this poor dear stupid old England than he who was born in it
+and owned a considerable slice of it--the more shame to him! From all of
+which Isabel gathered that Lord Warburton was a nobleman of the newest
+pattern, a reformer, a radical, a contemner of ancient ways. His other
+brother, who was in the army in India, was rather wild and pig-headed
+and had not been of much use as yet but to make debts for Warburton to
+pay--one of the most precious privileges of an elder brother. "I don't
+think I shall pay any more," said her friend; "he lives a monstrous deal
+better than I do, enjoys unheard-of luxuries and thinks himself a much
+finer gentleman than I. As I'm a consistent radical I go in only for
+equality; I don't go in for the superiority of the younger brothers."
+Two of his four sisters, the second and fourth, were married, one of
+them having done very well, as they said, the other only so-so.
+The husband of the elder, Lord Haycock, was a very good fellow, but
+unfortunately a horrid Tory; and his wife, like all good English wives,
+was worse than her husband. The other had espoused a smallish squire
+in Norfolk and, though married but the other day, had already five
+children. This information and much more Lord Warburton imparted to his
+young American listener, taking pains to make many things clear and to
+lay bare to her apprehension the peculiarities of English life. Isabel
+was often amused at his explicitness and at the small allowance he
+seemed to make either for her own experience or for her imagination. "He
+thinks I'm a barbarian," she said, "and that I've never seen forks and
+spoons;" and she used to ask him artless questions for the pleasure of
+hearing him answer seriously. Then when he had fallen into the trap,
+"It's a pity you can't see me in my war-paint and feathers," she
+remarked; "if I had known how kind you are to the poor savages I would
+have brought over my native costume!" Lord Warburton had travelled
+through the United States and knew much more about them than Isabel; he
+was so good as to say that America was the most charming country in the
+world, but his recollections of it appeared to encourage the idea that
+Americans in England would need to have a great many things explained
+to them. "If I had only had you to explain things to me in America!"
+he said. "I was rather puzzled in your country; in fact I was quite
+bewildered, and the trouble was that the explanations only puzzled me
+more. You know I think they often gave me the wrong ones on purpose;
+they're rather clever about that over there. But when I explain you
+can trust me; about what I tell you there's no mistake." There was no
+mistake at least about his being very intelligent and cultivated and
+knowing almost everything in the world. Although he gave the most
+interesting and thrilling glimpses Isabel felt he never did it to
+exhibit himself, and though he had had rare chances and had tumbled in,
+as she put it, for high prizes, he was as far as possible from making
+a merit of it. He had enjoyed the best things of life, but they had not
+spoiled his sense of proportion. His quality was a mixture of the effect
+of rich experience--oh, so easily come by!--with a modesty at times
+almost boyish; the sweet and wholesome savour of which--it was as
+agreeable as something tasted--lost nothing from the addition of a tone
+of responsible kindness.
+
+"I like your specimen English gentleman very much," Isabel said to Ralph
+after Lord Warburton had gone.
+
+"I like him too--I love him well," Ralph returned. "But I pity him
+more."
+
+Isabel looked at him askance. "Why, that seems to me his only
+fault--that one can't pity him a little. He appears to have everything,
+to know everything, to be everything."
+
+"Oh, he's in a bad way!" Ralph insisted.
+
+"I suppose you don't mean in health?"
+
+"No, as to that he's detestably sound. What I mean is that he's a man
+with a great position who's playing all sorts of tricks with it. He
+doesn't take himself seriously."
+
+"Does he regard himself as a joke?"
+
+"Much worse; he regards himself as an imposition--as an abuse."
+
+"Well, perhaps he is," said Isabel.
+
+"Perhaps he is--though on the whole I don't think so. But in that case
+what's more pitiable than a sentient, self-conscious abuse planted by
+other hands, deeply rooted but aching with a sense of its injustice?
+For me, in his place, I could be as solemn as a statue of Buddha.
+He occupies a position that appeals to my imagination. Great
+responsibilities, great opportunities, great consideration, great
+wealth, great power, a natural share in the public affairs of a great
+country. But he's all in a muddle about himself, his position, his
+power, and indeed about everything in the world. He's the victim of a
+critical age; he has ceased to believe in himself and he doesn't know
+what to believe in. When I attempt to tell him (because if I were he I
+know very well what I should believe in) he calls me a pampered bigot.
+I believe he seriously thinks me an awful Philistine; he says I don't
+understand my time. I understand it certainly better than he, who
+can neither abolish himself as a nuisance nor maintain himself as an
+institution."
+
+"He doesn't look very wretched," Isabel observed.
+
+"Possibly not; though, being a man of a good deal of charming taste, I
+think he often has uncomfortable hours. But what is it to say of a being
+of his opportunities that he's not miserable? Besides, I believe he is."
+
+"I don't," said Isabel.
+
+"Well," her cousin rejoined, "if he isn't he ought to be!"
+
+In the afternoon she spent an hour with her uncle on the lawn, where the
+old man sat, as usual, with his shawl over his legs and his large cup
+of diluted tea in his hands. In the course of conversation he asked her
+what she thought of their late visitor.
+
+Isabel was prompt. "I think he's charming."
+
+"He's a nice person," said Mr. Touchett, "but I don't recommend you to
+fall in love with him."
+
+"I shall not do it then; I shall never fall in love but on your
+recommendation. Moreover," Isabel added, "my cousin gives me rather a
+sad account of Lord Warburton."
+
+"Oh, indeed? I don't know what there may be to say, but you must
+remember that Ralph must talk."
+
+"He thinks your friend's too subversive--or not subversive enough! I
+don't quite understand which," said Isabel.
+
+The old man shook his head slowly, smiled and put down his cup. "I don't
+know which either. He goes very far, but it's quite possible he doesn't
+go far enough. He seems to want to do away with a good many things, but
+he seems to want to remain himself. I suppose that's natural, but it's
+rather inconsistent."
+
+"Oh, I hope he'll remain himself," said Isabel. "If he were to be done
+away with his friends would miss him sadly."
+
+"Well," said the old man, "I guess he'll stay and amuse his friends.
+I should certainly miss him very much here at Gardencourt. He always
+amuses me when he comes over, and I think he amuses himself as well.
+There's a considerable number like him, round in society; they're very
+fashionable just now. I don't know what they're trying to do--whether
+they're trying to get up a revolution. I hope at any rate they'll put it
+off till after I'm gone. You see they want to disestablish everything;
+but I'm a pretty big landowner here, and I don't want to be
+disestablished. I wouldn't have come over if I had thought they
+were going to behave like that," Mr. Touchett went on with expanding
+hilarity. "I came over because I thought England was a safe country. I
+call it a regular fraud if they are going to introduce any considerable
+changes; there'll be a large number disappointed in that case."
+
+"Oh, I do hope they'll make a revolution!" Isabel exclaimed. "I should
+delight in seeing a revolution."
+
+"Let me see," said her uncle, with a humorous intention; "I forget
+whether you're on the side of the old or on the side of the new. I've
+heard you take such opposite views."
+
+"I'm on the side of both. I guess I'm a little on the side of
+everything. In a revolution--after it was well begun--I think I should
+be a high, proud loyalist. One sympathises more with them, and they've a
+chance to behave so exquisitely. I mean so picturesquely."
+
+"I don't know that I understand what you mean by behaving picturesquely,
+but it seems to me that you do that always, my dear."
+
+"Oh, you lovely man, if I could believe that!" the girl interrupted.
+
+"I'm afraid, after all, you won't have the pleasure of going gracefully
+to the guillotine here just now," Mr. Touchett went on. "If you want to
+see a big outbreak you must pay us a long visit. You see, when you come
+to the point it wouldn't suit them to be taken at their word."
+
+"Of whom are you speaking?"
+
+"Well, I mean Lord Warburton and his friends--the radicals of the upper
+class. Of course I only know the way it strikes me. They talk about the
+changes, but I don't think they quite realise. You and I, you know, we
+know what it is to have lived under democratic institutions: I always
+thought them very comfortable, but I was used to them from the first.
+And then I ain't a lord; you're a lady, my dear, but I ain't a lord. Now
+over here I don't think it quite comes home to them. It's a matter of
+every day and every hour, and I don't think many of them would find it
+as pleasant as what they've got. Of course if they want to try, it's
+their own business; but I expect they won't try very hard."
+
+"Don't you think they're sincere?" Isabel asked.
+
+"Well, they want to FEEL earnest," Mr. Touchett allowed; "but it seems
+as if they took it out in theories mostly. Their radical views are a
+kind of amusement; they've got to have some amusement, and they might
+have coarser tastes than that. You see they're very luxurious, and these
+progressive ideas are about their biggest luxury. They make them feel
+moral and yet don't damage their position. They think a great deal of
+their position; don't let one of them ever persuade you he doesn't, for
+if you were to proceed on that basis you'd be pulled up very short."
+
+Isabel followed her uncle's argument, which he unfolded with his quaint
+distinctness, most attentively, and though she was unacquainted with the
+British aristocracy she found it in harmony with her general impressions
+of human nature. But she felt moved to put in a protest on Lord
+Warburton's behalf. "I don't believe Lord Warburton's a humbug; I don't
+care what the others are. I should like to see Lord Warburton put to the
+test."
+
+"Heaven deliver me from my friends!" Mr. Touchett answered. "Lord
+Warburton's a very amiable young man--a very fine young man. He has a
+hundred thousand a year. He owns fifty thousand acres of the soil of
+this little island and ever so many other things besides. He has half a
+dozen houses to live in. He has a seat in Parliament as I have one at my
+own dinner-table. He has elegant tastes--cares for literature, for art,
+for science, for charming young ladies. The most elegant is his taste
+for the new views. It affords him a great deal of pleasure--more
+perhaps than anything else, except the young ladies. His old house over
+there--what does he call it, Lockleigh?--is very attractive; but I don't
+think it's as pleasant as this. That doesn't matter, however--he has
+so many others. His views don't hurt any one as far as I can see; they
+certainly don't hurt himself. And if there were to be a revolution he
+would come off very easily. They wouldn't touch him, they'd leave him as
+he is: he's too much liked."
+
+"Ah, he couldn't be a martyr even if he wished!" Isabel sighed. "That's
+a very poor position."
+
+"He'll never be a martyr unless you make him one," said the old man.
+
+Isabel shook her head; there might have been something laughable in the
+fact that she did it with a touch of melancholy. "I shall never make any
+one a martyr."
+
+"You'll never be one, I hope."
+
+"I hope not. But you don't pity Lord Warburton then as Ralph does?"
+
+Her uncle looked at her a while with genial acuteness. "Yes, I do, after
+all!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+The two Misses Molyneux, this nobleman's sisters, came presently to call
+upon her, and Isabel took a fancy to the young ladies, who appeared to
+her to show a most original stamp. It is true that when she described
+them to her cousin by that term he declared that no epithet could be
+less applicable than this to the two Misses Molyneux, since there
+were fifty thousand young women in England who exactly resembled them.
+Deprived of this advantage, however, Isabel's visitors retained that
+of an extreme sweetness and shyness of demeanour, and of having, as
+she thought, eyes like the balanced basins, the circles of "ornamental
+water," set, in parterres, among the geraniums.
+
+"They're not morbid, at any rate, whatever they are," our heroine said
+to herself; and she deemed this a great charm, for two or three of the
+friends of her girlhood had been regrettably open to the charge (they
+would have been so nice without it), to say nothing of Isabel's having
+occasionally suspected it as a tendency of her own. The Misses Molyneux
+were not in their first youth, but they had bright, fresh complexions
+and something of the smile of childhood. Yes, their eyes, which Isabel
+admired, were round, quiet and contented, and their figures, also of a
+generous roundness, were encased in sealskin jackets. Their friendliness
+was great, so great that they were almost embarrassed to show it; they
+seemed somewhat afraid of the young lady from the other side of the
+world and rather looked than spoke their good wishes. But they made it
+clear to her that they hoped she would come to luncheon at Lockleigh,
+where they lived with their brother, and then they might see her very,
+very often. They wondered if she wouldn't come over some day, and sleep:
+they were expecting some people on the twenty-ninth, so perhaps she
+would come while the people were there.
+
+"I'm afraid it isn't any one very remarkable," said the elder sister;
+"but I dare say you'll take us as you find us."
+
+"I shall find you delightful; I think you're enchanting just as you
+are," replied Isabel, who often praised profusely.
+
+Her visitors flushed, and her cousin told her, after they were gone,
+that if she said such things to those poor girls they would think she
+was in some wild, free manner practising on them: he was sure it was the
+first time they had been called enchanting.
+
+"I can't help it," Isabel answered. "I think it's lovely to be so quiet
+and reasonable and satisfied. I should like to be like that."
+
+"Heaven forbid!" cried Ralph with ardour.
+
+"I mean to try and imitate them," said Isabel. "I want very much to see
+them at home."
+
+She had this pleasure a few days later, when, with Ralph and his mother,
+she drove over to Lockleigh. She found the Misses Molyneux sitting in a
+vast drawing-room (she perceived afterwards it was one of several) in a
+wilderness of faded chintz; they were dressed on this occasion in black
+velveteen. Isabel liked them even better at home than she had done at
+Gardencourt, and was more than ever struck with the fact that they were
+not morbid. It had seemed to her before that if they had a fault it was
+a want of play of mind; but she presently saw they were capable of deep
+emotion. Before luncheon she was alone with them for some time, on one
+side of the room, while Lord Warburton, at a distance, talked to Mrs.
+Touchett.
+
+"Is it true your brother's such a great radical?" Isabel asked. She
+knew it was true, but we have seen that her interest in human nature was
+keen, and she had a desire to draw the Misses Molyneux out.
+
+"Oh dear, yes; he's immensely advanced," said Mildred, the younger
+sister.
+
+"At the same time Warburton's very reasonable," Miss Molyneux observed.
+
+Isabel watched him a moment at the other side of the room; he was
+clearly trying hard to make himself agreeable to Mrs. Touchett. Ralph
+had met the frank advances of one of the dogs before the fire that the
+temperature of an English August, in the ancient expanses, had not
+made an impertinence. "Do you suppose your brother's sincere?" Isabel
+enquired with a smile.
+
+"Oh, he must be, you know!" Mildred exclaimed quickly, while the elder
+sister gazed at our heroine in silence.
+
+"Do you think he would stand the test?"
+
+"The test?"
+
+"I mean for instance having to give up all this."
+
+"Having to give up Lockleigh?" said Miss Molyneux, finding her voice.
+
+"Yes, and the other places; what are they called?"
+
+The two sisters exchanged an almost frightened glance. "Do you mean--do
+you mean on account of the expense?" the younger one asked.
+
+"I dare say he might let one or two of his houses," said the other.
+
+"Let them for nothing?" Isabel demanded.
+
+"I can't fancy his giving up his property," said Miss Molyneux.
+
+"Ah, I'm afraid he is an impostor!" Isabel returned. "Don't you think
+it's a false position?"
+
+Her companions, evidently, had lost themselves. "My brother's position?"
+Miss Molyneux enquired.
+
+"It's thought a very good position," said the younger sister. "It's the
+first position in this part of the county."
+
+"I dare say you think me very irreverent," Isabel took occasion to
+remark. "I suppose you revere your brother and are rather afraid of
+him."
+
+"Of course one looks up to one's brother," said Miss Molyneux simply.
+
+"If you do that he must be very good--because you, evidently, are
+beautifully good."
+
+"He's most kind. It will never be known, the good he does."
+
+"His ability is known," Mildred added; "every one thinks it's immense."
+
+"Oh, I can see that," said Isabel. "But if I were he I should wish to
+fight to the death: I mean for the heritage of the past. I should hold
+it tight."
+
+"I think one ought to be liberal," Mildred argued gently. "We've always
+been so, even from the earliest times."
+
+"Ah well," said Isabel, "you've made a great success of it; I don't
+wonder you like it. I see you're very fond of crewels."
+
+When Lord Warburton showed her the house, after luncheon, it seemed to
+her a matter of course that it should be a noble picture. Within, it
+had been a good deal modernised--some of its best points had lost their
+purity; but as they saw it from the gardens, a stout grey pile, of the
+softest, deepest, most weather-fretted hue, rising from a broad, still
+moat, it affected the young visitor as a castle in a legend. The day was
+cool and rather lustreless; the first note of autumn had been struck,
+and the watery sunshine rested on the walls in blurred and desultory
+gleams, washing them, as it were, in places tenderly chosen, where the
+ache of antiquity was keenest. Her host's brother, the Vicar, had come
+to luncheon, and Isabel had had five minutes' talk with him--time enough
+to institute a search for a rich ecclesiasticism and give it up as
+vain. The marks of the Vicar of Lockleigh were a big, athletic figure,
+a candid, natural countenance, a capacious appetite and a tendency to
+indiscriminate laughter. Isabel learned afterwards from her cousin
+that before taking orders he had been a mighty wrestler and that he
+was still, on occasion--in the privacy of the family circle as it
+were--quite capable of flooring his man. Isabel liked him--she was in
+the mood for liking everything; but her imagination was a good deal
+taxed to think of him as a source of spiritual aid. The whole party, on
+leaving lunch, went to walk in the grounds; but Lord Warburton exercised
+some ingenuity in engaging his least familiar guest in a stroll apart
+from the others.
+
+"I wish you to see the place properly, seriously," he said. "You can't
+do so if your attention is distracted by irrelevant gossip." His own
+conversation (though he told Isabel a good deal about the house, which
+had a very curious history) was not purely archaeological; he reverted
+at intervals to matters more personal--matters personal to the young
+lady as well as to himself. But at last, after a pause of some duration,
+returning for a moment to their ostensible theme, "Ah, well," he said,
+"I'm very glad indeed you like the old barrack. I wish you could see
+more of it--that you could stay here a while. My sisters have taken an
+immense fancy to you--if that would be any inducement."
+
+"There's no want of inducements," Isabel answered; "but I'm afraid I
+can't make engagements. I'm quite in my aunt's hands."
+
+"Ah, pardon me if I say I don't exactly believe that. I'm pretty sure
+you can do whatever you want."
+
+"I'm sorry if I make that impression on you; I don't think it's a nice
+impression to make."
+
+"It has the merit of permitting me to hope." And Lord Warburton paused a
+moment.
+
+"To hope what?"
+
+"That in future I may see you often."
+
+"Ah," said Isabel, "to enjoy that pleasure I needn't be so terribly
+emancipated."
+
+"Doubtless not; and yet, at the same time, I don't think your uncle
+likes me."
+
+"You're very much mistaken. I've heard him speak very highly of you."
+
+"I'm glad you have talked about me," said Lord Warburton. "But, I
+nevertheless don't think he'd like me to keep coming to Gardencourt."
+
+"I can't answer for my uncle's tastes," the girl rejoined, "though I
+ought as far as possible to take them into account. But for myself I
+shall be very glad to see you."
+
+"Now that's what I like to hear you say. I'm charmed when you say that."
+
+"You're easily charmed, my lord," said Isabel.
+
+"No, I'm not easily charmed!" And then he stopped a moment. "But you've
+charmed me, Miss Archer."
+
+These words were uttered with an indefinable sound which startled the
+girl; it struck her as the prelude to something grave: she had heard the
+sound before and she recognised it. She had no wish, however, that for
+the moment such a prelude should have a sequel, and she said as gaily
+as possible and as quickly as an appreciable degree of agitation would
+allow her: "I'm afraid there's no prospect of my being able to come here
+again."
+
+"Never?" said Lord Warburton.
+
+"I won't say 'never'; I should feel very melodramatic."
+
+"May I come and see you then some day next week?"
+
+"Most assuredly. What is there to prevent it?"
+
+"Nothing tangible. But with you I never feel safe. I've a sort of sense
+that you're always summing people up."
+
+"You don't of necessity lose by that."
+
+"It's very kind of you to say so; but, even if I gain, stern justice is
+not what I most love. Is Mrs. Touchett going to take you abroad?"
+
+"I hope so."
+
+"Is England not good enough for you?"
+
+"That's a very Machiavellian speech; it doesn't deserve an answer. I
+want to see as many countries as I can."
+
+"Then you'll go on judging, I suppose."
+
+"Enjoying, I hope, too."
+
+"Yes, that's what you enjoy most; I can't make out what you're up to,"
+said Lord Warburton. "You strike me as having mysterious purposes--vast
+designs."
+
+"You're so good as to have a theory about me which I don't at all fill
+out. Is there anything mysterious in a purpose entertained and
+executed every year, in the most public manner, by fifty thousand of
+my fellow-countrymen--the purpose of improving one's mind by foreign
+travel?"
+
+"You can't improve your mind, Miss Archer," her companion declared.
+"It's already a most formidable instrument. It looks down on us all; it
+despises us."
+
+"Despises you? You're making fun of me," said Isabel seriously.
+
+"Well, you think us 'quaint'--that's the same thing. I won't be thought
+'quaint,' to begin with; I'm not so in the least. I protest."
+
+"That protest is one of the quaintest things I've ever heard," Isabel
+answered with a smile.
+
+Lord Warburton was briefly silent. "You judge only from the outside--you
+don't care," he said presently. "You only care to amuse yourself." The
+note she had heard in his voice a moment before reappeared, and mixed
+with it now was an audible strain of bitterness--a bitterness so abrupt
+and inconsequent that the girl was afraid she had hurt him. She had
+often heard that the English are a highly eccentric people, and she
+had even read in some ingenious author that they are at bottom the most
+romantic of races. Was Lord Warburton suddenly turning romantic--was he
+going to make her a scene, in his own house, only the third time they
+had met? She was reassured quickly enough by her sense of his great good
+manners, which was not impaired by the fact that he had already touched
+the furthest limit of good taste in expressing his admiration of a young
+lady who had confided in his hospitality. She was right in trusting
+to his good manners, for he presently went on, laughing a little and
+without a trace of the accent that had discomposed her: "I don't mean of
+course that you amuse yourself with trifles. You select great materials;
+the foibles, the afflictions of human nature, the peculiarities of
+nations!"
+
+"As regards that," said Isabel, "I should find in my own nation
+entertainment for a lifetime. But we've a long drive, and my aunt
+will soon wish to start." She turned back toward the others and Lord
+Warburton walked beside her in silence. But before they reached the
+others, "I shall come and see you next week," he said.
+
+She had received an appreciable shock, but as it died away she felt that
+she couldn't pretend to herself that it was altogether a painful one.
+Nevertheless she made answer to his declaration, coldly enough, "Just as
+you please." And her coldness was not the calculation of her effect--a
+game she played in a much smaller degree than would have seemed probable
+to many critics. It came from a certain fear.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+The day after her visit to Lockleigh she received a note from her friend
+Miss Stackpole--a note of which the envelope, exhibiting in conjunction
+the postmark of Liverpool and the neat calligraphy of the quick-fingered
+Henrietta, caused her some liveliness of emotion. "Here I am, my lovely
+friend," Miss Stackpole wrote; "I managed to get off at last. I decided
+only the night before I left New York--the Interviewer having come round
+to my figure. I put a few things into a bag, like a veteran journalist,
+and came down to the steamer in a street-car. Where are you and where
+can we meet? I suppose you're visiting at some castle or other and have
+already acquired the correct accent. Perhaps even you have married a
+lord; I almost hope you have, for I want some introductions to the first
+people and shall count on you for a few. The Interviewer wants some
+light on the nobility. My first impressions (of the people at large) are
+not rose-coloured; but I wish to talk them over with you, and you know
+that, whatever I am, at least I'm not superficial. I've also something
+very particular to tell you. Do appoint a meeting as quickly as you can;
+come to London (I should like so much to visit the sights with you) or
+else let me come to you, wherever you are. I will do so with pleasure;
+for you know everything interests me and I wish to see as much as
+possible of the inner life."
+
+Isabel judged best not to show this letter to her uncle; but she
+acquainted him with its purport, and, as she expected, he begged her
+instantly to assure Miss Stackpole, in his name, that he should be
+delighted to receive her at Gardencourt. "Though she's a literary lady,"
+he said, "I suppose that, being an American, she won't show me up, as
+that other one did. She has seen others like me."
+
+"She has seen no other so delightful!" Isabel answered; but she was
+not altogether at ease about Henrietta's reproductive instincts, which
+belonged to that side of her friend's character which she regarded with
+least complacency. She wrote to Miss Stackpole, however, that she would
+be very welcome under Mr. Touchett's roof; and this alert young woman
+lost no time in announcing her prompt approach. She had gone up to
+London, and it was from that centre that she took the train for the
+station nearest to Gardencourt, where Isabel and Ralph were in waiting
+to receive her.
+
+"Shall I love her or shall I hate her?" Ralph asked while they moved
+along the platform.
+
+"Whichever you do will matter very little to her," said Isabel. "She
+doesn't care a straw what men think of her."
+
+"As a man I'm bound to dislike her then. She must be a kind of monster.
+Is she very ugly?"
+
+"No, she's decidedly pretty."
+
+"A female interviewer--a reporter in petticoats? I'm very curious to see
+her," Ralph conceded.
+
+"It's very easy to laugh at her but it is not easy to be as brave as
+she."
+
+"I should think not; crimes of violence and attacks on the person
+require more or less pluck. Do you suppose she'll interview me?"
+
+"Never in the world. She'll not think you of enough importance."
+
+"You'll see," said Ralph. "She'll send a description of us all,
+including Bunchie, to her newspaper."
+
+"I shall ask her not to," Isabel answered.
+
+"You think she's capable of it then?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"And yet you've made her your bosom-friend?"
+
+"I've not made her my bosom-friend; but I like her in spite of her
+faults."
+
+"Ah well," said Ralph, "I'm afraid I shall dislike her in spite of her
+merits."
+
+"You'll probably fall in love with her at the end of three days."
+
+"And have my love-letters published in the Interviewer? Never!" cried
+the young man.
+
+The train presently arrived, and Miss Stackpole, promptly descending,
+proved, as Isabel had promised, quite delicately, even though rather
+provincially, fair. She was a neat, plump person, of medium stature,
+with a round face, a small mouth, a delicate complexion, a bunch of
+light brown ringlets at the back of her head and a peculiarly open,
+surprised-looking eye. The most striking point in her appearance was the
+remarkable fixedness of this organ, which rested without impudence or
+defiance, but as if in conscientious exercise of a natural right, upon
+every object it happened to encounter. It rested in this manner upon
+Ralph himself, a little arrested by Miss Stackpole's gracious and
+comfortable aspect, which hinted that it wouldn't be so easy as he had
+assumed to disapprove of her. She rustled, she shimmered, in fresh,
+dove-coloured draperies, and Ralph saw at a glance that she was as crisp
+and new and comprehensive as a first issue before the folding. From top
+to toe she had probably no misprint. She spoke in a clear, high voice--a
+voice not rich but loud; yet after she had taken her place with her
+companions in Mr. Touchett's carriage she struck him as not all in the
+large type, the type of horrid "headings," that he had expected. She
+answered the enquiries made of her by Isabel, however, and in which the
+young man ventured to join, with copious lucidity; and later, in the
+library at Gardencourt, when she had made the acquaintance of Mr.
+Touchett (his wife not having thought it necessary to appear) did more
+to give the measure of her confidence in her powers.
+
+"Well, I should like to know whether you consider yourselves American
+or English," she broke out. "If once I knew I could talk to you
+accordingly."
+
+"Talk to us anyhow and we shall be thankful," Ralph liberally answered.
+
+She fixed her eyes on him, and there was something in their character
+that reminded him of large polished buttons--buttons that might have
+fixed the elastic loops of some tense receptacle: he seemed to see the
+reflection of surrounding objects on the pupil. The expression of a
+button is not usually deemed human, but there was something in Miss
+Stackpole's gaze that made him, as a very modest man, feel vaguely
+embarrassed--less inviolate, more dishonoured, than he liked. This
+sensation, it must be added, after he had spent a day or two in her
+company, sensibly diminished, though it never wholly lapsed. "I don't
+suppose that you're going to undertake to persuade me that you're an
+American," she said.
+
+"To please you I'll be an Englishman, I'll be a Turk!"
+
+"Well, if you can change about that way you're very welcome," Miss
+Stackpole returned.
+
+"I'm sure you understand everything and that differences of nationality
+are no barrier to you," Ralph went on.
+
+Miss Stackpole gazed at him still. "Do you mean the foreign languages?"
+
+"The languages are nothing. I mean the spirit--the genius."
+
+"I'm not sure that I understand you," said the correspondent of the
+Interviewer; "but I expect I shall before I leave."
+
+"He's what's called a cosmopolite," Isabel suggested.
+
+"That means he's a little of everything and not much of any. I must say
+I think patriotism is like charity--it begins at home."
+
+"Ah, but where does home begin, Miss Stackpole?" Ralph enquired.
+
+"I don't know where it begins, but I know where it ends. It ended a long
+time before I got here."
+
+"Don't you like it over here?" asked Mr. Touchett with his aged,
+innocent voice.
+
+"Well, sir, I haven't quite made up my mind what ground I shall take.
+I feel a good deal cramped. I felt it on the journey from Liverpool to
+London."
+
+"Perhaps you were in a crowded carriage," Ralph suggested.
+
+"Yes, but it was crowded with friends--party of Americans whose
+acquaintance I had made upon the steamer; a lovely group from Little
+Rock, Arkansas. In spite of that I felt cramped--I felt something
+pressing upon me; I couldn't tell what it was. I felt at the very
+commencement as if I were not going to accord with the atmosphere. But
+I suppose I shall make my own atmosphere. That's the true way--then you
+can breathe. Your surroundings seem very attractive."
+
+"Ah, we too are a lovely group!" said Ralph. "Wait a little and you'll
+see."
+
+Miss Stackpole showed every disposition to wait and evidently was
+prepared to make a considerable stay at Gardencourt. She occupied
+herself in the mornings with literary labour; but in spite of this
+Isabel spent many hours with her friend, who, once her daily task
+performed, deprecated, in fact defied, isolation. Isabel speedily found
+occasion to desire her to desist from celebrating the charms of their
+common sojourn in print, having discovered, on the second morning
+of Miss Stackpole's visit, that she was engaged on a letter to the
+Interviewer, of which the title, in her exquisitely neat and legible
+hand (exactly that of the copybooks which our heroine remembered at
+school) was "Americans and Tudors--Glimpses of Gardencourt." Miss
+Stackpole, with the best conscience in the world, offered to read her
+letter to Isabel, who immediately put in her protest.
+
+"I don't think you ought to do that. I don't think you ought to describe
+the place."
+
+Henrietta gazed at her as usual. "Why, it's just what the people want,
+and it's a lovely place."
+
+"It's too lovely to be put in the newspapers, and it's not what my uncle
+wants."
+
+"Don't you believe that!" cried Henrietta. "They're always delighted
+afterwards."
+
+"My uncle won't be delighted--nor my cousin either. They'll consider it
+a breach of hospitality."
+
+Miss Stackpole showed no sense of confusion; she simply wiped her pen,
+very neatly, upon an elegant little implement which she kept for the
+purpose, and put away her manuscript. "Of course if you don't approve I
+won't do it; but I sacrifice a beautiful subject."
+
+"There are plenty of other subjects, there are subjects all round you.
+We'll take some drives; I'll show you some charming scenery."
+
+"Scenery's not my department; I always need a human interest. You know
+I'm deeply human, Isabel; I always was," Miss Stackpole rejoined. "I was
+going to bring in your cousin--the alienated American. There's a
+great demand just now for the alienated American, and your cousin's a
+beautiful specimen. I should have handled him severely."
+
+"He would have died of it!" Isabel exclaimed. "Not of the severity, but
+of the publicity."
+
+"Well, I should have liked to kill him a little. And I should have
+delighted to do your uncle, who seems to me a much nobler type--the
+American faithful still. He's a grand old man; I don't see how he can
+object to my paying him honour."
+
+Isabel looked at her companion in much wonderment; it struck her as
+strange that a nature in which she found so much to esteem should break
+down so in spots. "My poor Henrietta," she said, "you've no sense of
+privacy."
+
+Henrietta coloured deeply, and for a moment her brilliant eyes were
+suffused, while Isabel found her more than ever inconsequent. "You do me
+great injustice," said Miss Stackpole with dignity. "I've never written
+a word about myself!"
+
+"I'm very sure of that; but it seems to me one should be modest for
+others also!"
+
+"Ah, that's very good!" cried Henrietta, seizing her pen again. "Just
+let me make a note of it and I'll put it in somewhere." she was a
+thoroughly good-natured woman, and half an hour later she was in as
+cheerful a mood as should have been looked for in a newspaper-lady
+in want of matter. "I've promised to do the social side," she said to
+Isabel; "and how can I do it unless I get ideas? If I can't describe
+this place don't you know some place I can describe?" Isabel promised
+she would bethink herself, and the next day, in conversation with her
+friend, she happened to mention her visit to Lord Warburton's ancient
+house. "Ah, you must take me there--that's just the place for me!" Miss
+Stackpole cried. "I must get a glimpse of the nobility."
+
+"I can't take you," said Isabel; "but Lord Warburton's coming here, and
+you'll have a chance to see him and observe him. Only if you intend to
+repeat his conversation I shall certainly give him warning."
+
+"Don't do that," her companion pleaded; "I want him to be natural."
+
+"An Englishman's never so natural as when he's holding his tongue,"
+Isabel declared.
+
+It was not apparent, at the end of three days, that her cousin had,
+according to her prophecy, lost his heart to their visitor, though he
+had spent a good deal of time in her society. They strolled about the
+park together and sat under the trees, and in the afternoon, when it was
+delightful to float along the Thames, Miss Stackpole occupied a place
+in the boat in which hitherto Ralph had had but a single companion. Her
+presence proved somehow less irreducible to soft particles than Ralph
+had expected in the natural perturbation of his sense of the perfect
+solubility of that of his cousin; for the correspondent of the
+Interviewer prompted mirth in him, and he had long since decided that
+the crescendo of mirth should be the flower of his declining days.
+Henrietta, on her side, failed a little to justify Isabel's declaration
+with regard to her indifference to masculine opinion; for poor Ralph
+appeared to have presented himself to her as an irritating problem,
+which it would be almost immoral not to work out.
+
+"What does he do for a living?" she asked of Isabel the evening of her
+arrival. "Does he go round all day with his hands in his pockets?"
+
+"He does nothing," smiled Isabel; "he's a gentleman of large leisure."
+
+"Well, I call that a shame--when I have to work like a car-conductor,"
+Miss Stackpole replied. "I should like to show him up."
+
+"He's in wretched health; he's quite unfit for work," Isabel urged.
+
+"Pshaw! don't you believe it. I work when I'm sick," cried her friend.
+Later, when she stepped into the boat on joining the water-party, she
+remarked to Ralph that she supposed he hated her and would like to drown
+her.
+
+"Ah no," said Ralph, "I keep my victims for a slower torture. And you'd
+be such an interesting one!"
+
+"Well, you do torture me; I may say that. But I shock all your
+prejudices; that's one comfort."
+
+"My prejudices? I haven't a prejudice to bless myself with. There's
+intellectual poverty for you."
+
+"The more shame to you; I've some delicious ones. Of course I spoil your
+flirtation, or whatever it is you call it, with your cousin; but I don't
+care for that, as I render her the service of drawing you out. She'll
+see how thin you are."
+
+"Ah, do draw me out!" Ralph exclaimed. "So few people will take the
+trouble."
+
+Miss Stackpole, in this undertaking, appeared to shrink from no effort;
+resorting largely, whenever the opportunity offered, to the natural
+expedient of interrogation. On the following day the weather was
+bad, and in the afternoon the young man, by way of providing indoor
+amusement, offered to show her the pictures. Henrietta strolled through
+the long gallery in his society, while he pointed out its principal
+ornaments and mentioned the painters and subjects. Miss Stackpole looked
+at the pictures in perfect silence, committing herself to no opinion,
+and Ralph was gratified by the fact that she delivered herself of none
+of the little ready-made ejaculations of delight of which the visitors
+to Gardencourt were so frequently lavish. This young lady indeed, to do
+her justice, was but little addicted to the use of conventional terms;
+there was something earnest and inventive in her tone, which at times,
+in its strained deliberation, suggested a person of high culture
+speaking a foreign language. Ralph Touchett subsequently learned that
+she had at one time officiated as art critic to a journal of the other
+world; but she appeared, in spite of this fact, to carry in her pocket
+none of the small change of admiration. Suddenly, just after he had
+called her attention to a charming Constable, she turned and looked at
+him as if he himself had been a picture.
+
+"Do you always spend your time like this?" she demanded.
+
+"I seldom spend it so agreeably."
+
+"Well, you know what I mean--without any regular occupation."
+
+"Ah," said Ralph, "I'm the idlest man living."
+
+Miss Stackpole directed her gaze to the Constable again, and Ralph
+bespoke her attention for a small Lancret hanging near it, which
+represented a gentleman in a pink doublet and hose and a ruff, leaning
+against the pedestal of the statue of a nymph in a garden and playing
+the guitar to two ladies seated on the grass. "That's my ideal of a
+regular occupation," he said.
+
+Miss Stackpole turned to him again, and, though her eyes had rested
+upon the picture, he saw she had missed the subject. She was thinking
+of something much more serious. "I don't see how you can reconcile it to
+your conscience."
+
+"My dear lady, I have no conscience!"
+
+"Well, I advise you to cultivate one. You'll need it the next time you
+go to America."
+
+"I shall probably never go again."
+
+"Are you ashamed to show yourself?"
+
+Ralph meditated with a mild smile. "I suppose that if one has no
+conscience one has no shame."
+
+"Well, you've got plenty of assurance," Henrietta declared. "Do you
+consider it right to give up your country?"
+
+"Ah, one doesn't give up one's country any more than one gives UP
+one's grandmother. They're both antecedent to choice--elements of one's
+composition that are not to be eliminated."
+
+"I suppose that means that you've tried and been worsted. What do they
+think of you over here?"
+
+"They delight in me."
+
+"That's because you truckle to them."
+
+"Ah, set it down a little to my natural charm!" Ralph sighed.
+
+"I don't know anything about your natural charm. If you've got any charm
+it's quite unnatural. It's wholly acquired--or at least you've tried
+hard to acquire it, living over here. I don't say you've succeeded. It's
+a charm that I don't appreciate, anyway. Make yourself useful in some
+way, and then we'll talk about it." "Well, now, tell me what I shall
+do," said Ralph.
+
+"Go right home, to begin with."
+
+"Yes, I see. And then?"
+
+"Take right hold of something."
+
+"Well, now, what sort of thing?"
+
+"Anything you please, so long as you take hold. Some new idea, some big
+work."
+
+"Is it very difficult to take hold?" Ralph enquired.
+
+"Not if you put your heart into it."
+
+"Ah, my heart," said Ralph. "If it depends upon my heart--!"
+
+"Haven't you got a heart?"
+
+"I had one a few days ago, but I've lost it since."
+
+"You're not serious," Miss Stackpole remarked; "that's what's the matter
+with you." But for all this, in a day or two, she again permitted him to
+fix her attention and on the later occasion assigned a different cause
+to her mysterious perversity. "I know what's the matter with you, Mr.
+Touchett," she said. "You think you're too good to get married."
+
+"I thought so till I knew you, Miss Stackpole," Ralph answered; "and
+then I suddenly changed my mind."
+
+"Oh pshaw!" Henrietta groaned.
+
+"Then it seemed to me," said Ralph, "that I was not good enough."
+
+"It would improve you. Besides, it's your duty."
+
+"Ah," cried the young man, "one has so many duties! Is that a duty too?"
+
+"Of course it is--did you never know that before? It's every one's duty
+to get married."
+
+Ralph meditated a moment; he was disappointed. There was something in
+Miss Stackpole he had begun to like; it seemed to him that if she
+was not a charming woman she was at least a very good "sort." She was
+wanting in distinction, but, as Isabel had said, she was brave: she went
+into cages, she flourished lashes, like a spangled lion-tamer. He had
+not supposed her to be capable of vulgar arts, but these last words
+struck him as a false note. When a marriageable young woman urges
+matrimony on an unencumbered young man the most obvious explanation of
+her conduct is not the altruistic impulse.
+
+"Ah, well now, there's a good deal to be said about that," Ralph
+rejoined.
+
+"There may be, but that's the principal thing. I must say I think it
+looks very exclusive, going round all alone, as if you thought no woman
+was good enough for you. Do you think you're better than any one else in
+the world? In America it's usual for people to marry."
+
+"If it's my duty," Ralph asked, "is it not, by analogy, yours as well?"
+
+Miss Stackpole's ocular surfaces unwinkingly caught the sun. "Have you
+the fond hope of finding a flaw in my reasoning? Of course I've as good
+a right to marry as any one else."
+
+"Well then," said Ralph, "I won't say it vexes me to see you single. It
+delights me rather."
+
+"You're not serious yet. You never will be."
+
+"Shall you not believe me to be so on the day I tell you I desire to
+give up the practice of going round alone?"
+
+Miss Stackpole looked at him for a moment in a manner which seemed to
+announce a reply that might technically be called encouraging. But to
+his great surprise this expression suddenly resolved itself into an
+appearance of alarm and even of resentment. "No, not even then," she
+answered dryly. After which she walked away.
+
+"I've not conceived a passion for your friend," Ralph said that evening
+to Isabel, "though we talked some time this morning about it."
+
+"And you said something she didn't like," the girl replied.
+
+Ralph stared. "Has she complained of me?"
+
+"She told me she thinks there's something very low in the tone of
+Europeans towards women."
+
+"Does she call me a European?"
+
+"One of the worst. She told me you had said to her something that an
+American never would have said. But she didn't repeat it."
+
+Ralph treated himself to a luxury of laughter. "She's an extraordinary
+combination. Did she think I was making love to her?"
+
+"No; I believe even Americans do that. But she apparently thought you
+mistook the intention of something she had said, and put an unkind
+construction on it."
+
+"I thought she was proposing marriage to me and I accepted her. Was that
+unkind?"
+
+Isabel smiled. "It was unkind to me. I don't want you to marry."
+
+"My dear cousin, what's one to do among you all?" Ralph demanded. "Miss
+Stackpole tells me it's my bounden duty, and that it's hers, in general,
+to see I do mine!"
+
+"She has a great sense of duty," said Isabel gravely. "She has indeed,
+and it's the motive of everything she says. That's what I like her for.
+She thinks it's unworthy of you to keep so many things to yourself.
+That's what she wanted to express. If you thought she was trying to--to
+attract you, you were very wrong."
+
+"It's true it was an odd way, but I did think she was trying to attract
+me. Forgive my depravity."
+
+"You're very conceited. She had no interested views, and never supposed
+you would think she had."
+
+"One must be very modest then to talk with such women," Ralph said
+humbly. "But it's a very strange type. She's too personal--considering
+that she expects other people not to be. She walks in without knocking
+at the door."
+
+"Yes," Isabel admitted, "she doesn't sufficiently recognise the
+existence of knockers; and indeed I'm not sure that she doesn't think
+them rather a pretentious ornament. She thinks one's door should stand
+ajar. But I persist in liking her."
+
+"I persist in thinking her too familiar," Ralph rejoined, naturally
+somewhat uncomfortable under the sense of having been doubly deceived in
+Miss Stackpole.
+
+"Well," said Isabel, smiling, "I'm afraid it's because she's rather
+vulgar that I like her."
+
+"She would be flattered by your reason!"
+
+"If I should tell her I wouldn't express it in that way. I should say
+it's because there's something of the 'people' in her."
+
+"What do you know about the people? and what does she, for that matter?"
+
+"She knows a great deal, and I know enough to feel that she's a kind
+of emanation of the great democracy--of the continent, the country, the
+nation. I don't say that she sums it all up, that would be too much to
+ask of her. But she suggests it; she vividly figures it."
+
+"You like her then for patriotic reasons. I'm afraid it is on those very
+grounds I object to her."
+
+"Ah," said Isabel with a kind of joyous sigh, "I like so many things! If
+a thing strikes me with a certain intensity I accept it. I don't want to
+swagger, but I suppose I'm rather versatile. I like people to be totally
+different from Henrietta--in the style of Lord Warburton's sisters for
+instance. So long as I look at the Misses Molyneux they seem to me
+to answer a kind of ideal. Then Henrietta presents herself, and I'm
+straightway convinced by her; not so much in respect to herself as in
+respect to what masses behind her."
+
+"Ah, you mean the back view of her," Ralph suggested.
+
+"What she says is true," his cousin answered; "you'll never be serious.
+I like the great country stretching away beyond the rivers and across
+the prairies, blooming and smiling and spreading till it stops at the
+green Pacific! A strong, sweet, fresh odour seems to rise from it,
+and Henrietta--pardon my simile--has something of that odour in her
+garments."
+
+Isabel blushed a little as she concluded this speech, and the blush,
+together with the momentary ardour she had thrown into it, was so
+becoming to her that Ralph stood smiling at her for a moment after she
+had ceased speaking. "I'm not sure the Pacific's so green as that," he
+said; "but you're a young woman of imagination. Henrietta, however, does
+smell of the Future--it almost knocks one down!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+He took a resolve after this not to misinterpret her words even when
+Miss Stackpole appeared to strike the personal note most strongly. He
+bethought himself that persons, in her view, were simple and homogeneous
+organisms, and that he, for his own part, was too perverted a
+representative of the nature of man to have a right to deal with her
+in strict reciprocity. He carried out his resolve with a great deal of
+tact, and the young lady found in renewed contact with him no obstacle
+to the exercise of her genius for unshrinking enquiry, the general
+application of her confidence. Her situation at Gardencourt therefore,
+appreciated as we have seen her to be by Isabel and full of appreciation
+herself of that free play of intelligence which, to her sense, rendered
+Isabel's character a sister-spirit, and of the easy venerableness of Mr.
+Touchett, whose noble tone, as she said, met with her full approval--her
+situation at Gardencourt would have been perfectly comfortable had she
+not conceived an irresistible mistrust of the little lady for whom she
+had at first supposed herself obliged to "allow" as mistress of the
+house. She presently discovered, in truth, that this obligation was of
+the lightest and that Mrs. Touchett cared very little how Miss Stackpole
+behaved. Mrs. Touchett had defined her to Isabel as both an adventuress
+and a bore--adventuresses usually giving one more of a thrill; she had
+expressed some surprise at her niece's having selected such a friend,
+yet had immediately added that she knew Isabel's friends were her own
+affair and that she had never undertaken to like them all or to restrict
+the girl to those she liked.
+
+"If you could see none but the people I like, my dear, you'd have a very
+small society," Mrs. Touchett frankly admitted; "and I don't think I
+like any man or woman well enough to recommend them to you. When
+it comes to recommending it's a serious affair. I don't like Miss
+Stackpole--everything about her displeases me; she talks so much
+too loud and looks at one as if one wanted to look at her--which one
+doesn't. I'm sure she has lived all her life in a boarding-house, and I
+detest the manners and the liberties of such places. If you ask me if I
+prefer my own manners, which you doubtless think very bad, I'll tell
+you that I prefer them immensely. Miss Stackpole knows I detest
+boarding-house civilisation, and she detests me for detesting it,
+because she thinks it the highest in the world. She'd like Gardencourt a
+great deal better if it were a boarding-house. For me, I find it almost
+too much of one! We shall never get on together therefore, and there's
+no use trying."
+
+Mrs. Touchett was right in guessing that Henrietta disapproved of her,
+but she had not quite put her finger on the reason. A day or two after
+Miss Stackpole's arrival she had made some invidious reflexions on
+American hotels, which excited a vein of counter-argument on the part
+of the correspondent of the Interviewer, who in the exercise of her
+profession had acquainted herself, in the western world, with every form
+of caravansary. Henrietta expressed the opinion that American hotels
+were the best in the world, and Mrs. Touchett, fresh from a renewed
+struggle with them, recorded a conviction that they were the worst.
+Ralph, with his experimental geniality, suggested, by way of healing
+the breach, that the truth lay between the two extremes and that the
+establishments in question ought to be described as fair middling. This
+contribution to the discussion, however, Miss Stackpole rejected with
+scorn. Middling indeed! If they were not the best in the world they were
+the worst, but there was nothing middling about an American hotel.
+
+"We judge from different points of view, evidently," said Mrs. Touchett.
+"I like to be treated as an individual; you like to be treated as a
+'party.'"
+
+"I don't know what you mean," Henrietta replied. "I like to be treated
+as an American lady."
+
+"Poor American ladies!" cried Mrs. Touchett with a laugh. "They're the
+slaves of slaves."
+
+"They're the companions of freemen," Henrietta retorted.
+
+"They're the companions of their servants--the Irish chambermaid and the
+negro waiter. They share their work."
+
+"Do you call the domestics in an American household 'slaves'?" Miss
+Stackpole enquired. "If that's the way you desire to treat them, no
+wonder you don't like America."
+
+"If you've not good servants you're miserable," Mrs. Touchett serenely
+said. "They're very bad in America, but I've five perfect ones in
+Florence."
+
+"I don't see what you want with five," Henrietta couldn't help
+observing. "I don't think I should like to see five persons surrounding
+me in that menial position."
+
+"I like them in that position better than in some others," proclaimed
+Mrs. Touchett with much meaning.
+
+"Should you like me better if I were your butler, dear?" her husband
+asked.
+
+"I don't think I should: you wouldn't at all have the tenue."
+
+"The companions of freemen--I like that, Miss Stackpole," said Ralph.
+"It's a beautiful description."
+
+"When I said freemen I didn't mean you, sir!"
+
+And this was the only reward that Ralph got for his compliment. Miss
+Stackpole was baffled; she evidently thought there was something
+treasonable in Mrs. Touchett's appreciation of a class which she
+privately judged to be a mysterious survival of feudalism. It was
+perhaps because her mind was oppressed with this image that she suffered
+some days to elapse before she took occasion to say to Isabel: "My dear
+friend, I wonder if you're growing faithless."
+
+"Faithless? Faithless to you, Henrietta?"
+
+"No, that would be a great pain; but it's not that."
+
+"Faithless to my country then?"
+
+"Ah, that I hope will never be. When I wrote to you from Liverpool I
+said I had something particular to tell you. You've never asked me what
+it is. Is it because you've suspected?"
+
+"Suspected what? As a rule I don't think I suspect," said Isabel.
+
+"I remember now that phrase in your letter, but I confess I had
+forgotten it. What have you to tell me?"
+
+Henrietta looked disappointed, and her steady gaze betrayed it.
+"You don't ask that right--as if you thought it important. You're
+changed--you're thinking of other things."
+
+"Tell me what you mean, and I'll think of that."
+
+"Will you really think of it? That's what I wish to be sure of."
+
+"I've not much control of my thoughts, but I'll do my best," said
+Isabel. Henrietta gazed at her, in silence, for a period which tried
+Isabel's patience, so that our heroine added at last: "Do you mean that
+you're going to be married?"
+
+"Not till I've seen Europe!" said Miss Stackpole. "What are you laughing
+at?" she went on. "What I mean is that Mr. Goodwood came out in the
+steamer with me."
+
+"Ah!" Isabel responded.
+
+"You say that right. I had a good deal of talk with him; he has come
+after you."
+
+"Did he tell you so?"
+
+"No, he told me nothing; that's how I knew it," said Henrietta cleverly.
+"He said very little about you, but I spoke of you a good deal."
+
+Isabel waited. At the mention of Mr. Goodwood's name she had turned a
+little pale. "I'm very sorry you did that," she observed at last.
+
+"It was a pleasure to me, and I liked the way he listened. I could have
+talked a long time to such a listener; he was so quiet, so intense; he
+drank it all in."
+
+"What did you say about me?" Isabel asked.
+
+"I said you were on the whole the finest creature I know."
+
+"I'm very sorry for that. He thinks too well of me already; he oughtn't
+to be encouraged."
+
+"He's dying for a little encouragement. I see his face now, and his
+earnest absorbed look while I talked. I never saw an ugly man look so
+handsome."
+
+"He's very simple-minded," said Isabel. "And he's not so ugly."
+
+"There's nothing so simplifying as a grand passion."
+
+"It's not a grand passion; I'm very sure it's not that."
+
+"You don't say that as if you were sure."
+
+Isabel gave rather a cold smile. "I shall say it better to Mr. Goodwood
+himself."
+
+"He'll soon give you a chance," said Henrietta. Isabel offered no
+answer to this assertion, which her companion made with an air of great
+confidence. "He'll find you changed," the latter pursued. "You've been
+affected by your new surroundings."
+
+"Very likely. I'm affected by everything."
+
+"By everything but Mr. Goodwood!" Miss Stackpole exclaimed with a
+slightly harsh hilarity.
+
+Isabel failed even to smile back and in a moment she said: "Did he ask
+you to speak to me?"
+
+"Not in so many words. But his eyes asked it--and his handshake, when he
+bade me good-bye."
+
+"Thank you for doing so." And Isabel turned away.
+
+"Yes, you're changed; you've got new ideas over here," her friend
+continued.
+
+"I hope so," said Isabel; "one should get as many new ideas as
+possible."
+
+"Yes; but they shouldn't interfere with the old ones when the old ones
+have been the right ones."
+
+Isabel turned about again. "If you mean that I had any idea with regard
+to Mr. Goodwood--!" But she faltered before her friend's implacable
+glitter.
+
+"My dear child, you certainly encouraged him."
+
+Isabel made for the moment as if to deny this charge; instead of which,
+however, she presently answered: "It's very true. I did encourage him."
+And then she asked if her companion had learned from Mr. Goodwood
+what he intended to do. It was a concession to her curiosity, for she
+disliked discussing the subject and found Henrietta wanting in delicacy.
+
+"I asked him, and he said he meant to do nothing," Miss Stackpole
+answered. "But I don't believe that; he's not a man to do nothing. He
+is a man of high, bold action. Whatever happens to him he'll always do
+something, and whatever he does will always be right."
+
+"I quite believe that." Henrietta might be wanting in delicacy, but it
+touched the girl, all the same, to hear this declaration.
+
+"Ah, you do care for him!" her visitor rang out.
+
+"Whatever he does will always be right," Isabel repeated. "When a man's
+of that infallible mould what does it matter to him what one feels?"
+
+"It may not matter to him, but it matters to one's self."
+
+"Ah, what it matters to me--that's not what we're discussing," said
+Isabel with a cold smile.
+
+This time her companion was grave. "Well, I don't care; you have
+changed. You're not the girl you were a few short weeks ago, and Mr.
+Goodwood will see it. I expect him here any day."
+
+"I hope he'll hate me then," said Isabel.
+
+"I believe you hope it about as much as I believe him capable of it."
+
+To this observation our heroine made no return; she was absorbed in the
+alarm given her by Henrietta's intimation that Caspar Goodwood would
+present himself at Gardencourt. She pretended to herself, however,
+that she thought the event impossible, and, later, she communicated her
+disbelief to her friend. For the next forty-eight hours, nevertheless,
+she stood prepared to hear the young man's name announced. The feeling
+pressed upon her; it made the air sultry, as if there were to be a
+change of weather; and the weather, socially speaking, had been so
+agreeable during Isabel's stay at Gardencourt that any change would be
+for the worse. Her suspense indeed was dissipated the second day. She
+had walked into the park in company with the sociable Bunchie, and
+after strolling about for some time, in a manner at once listless and
+restless, had seated herself on a garden-bench, within sight of the
+house, beneath a spreading beech, where, in a white dress ornamented
+with black ribbons, she formed among the flickering shadows a graceful
+and harmonious image. She entertained herself for some moments with
+talking to the little terrier, as to whom the proposal of an ownership
+divided with her cousin had been applied as impartially as possible--as
+impartially as Bunchie's own somewhat fickle and inconstant sympathies
+would allow. But she was notified for the first time, on this occasion,
+of the finite character of Bunchie's intellect; hitherto she had been
+mainly struck with its extent. It seemed to her at last that she would
+do well to take a book; formerly, when heavy-hearted, she had been
+able, with the help of some well-chosen volume, to transfer the seat
+of consciousness to the organ of pure reason. Of late, it was not to
+be denied, literature had seemed a fading light, and even after she had
+reminded herself that her uncle's library was provided with a complete
+set of those authors which no gentleman's collection should be without,
+she sat motionless and empty-handed, her eyes bent on the cool green
+turf of the lawn. Her meditations were presently interrupted by the
+arrival of a servant who handed her a letter. The letter bore the
+London postmark and was addressed in a hand she knew--that came into her
+vision, already so held by him, with the vividness of the writer's voice
+or his face. This document proved short and may be given entire.
+
+MY DEAR MISS ARCHER--I don't know whether you will have heard of my
+coming to England, but even if you have not it will scarcely be a
+surprise to you. You will remember that when you gave me my dismissal at
+Albany, three months ago, I did not accept it. I protested against it.
+You in fact appeared to accept my protest and to admit that I had the
+right on my side. I had come to see you with the hope that you would
+let me bring you over to my conviction; my reasons for entertaining this
+hope had been of the best. But you disappointed it; I found you changed,
+and you were able to give me no reason for the change. You admitted that
+you were unreasonable, and it was the only concession you would make;
+but it was a very cheap one, because that's not your character. No, you
+are not, and you never will be, arbitrary or capricious. Therefore it is
+that I believe you will let me see you again. You told me that I'm not
+disagreeable to you, and I believe it; for I don't see why that should
+be. I shall always think of you; I shall never think of any one else.
+I came to England simply because you are here; I couldn't stay at home
+after you had gone: I hated the country because you were not in it. If
+I like this country at present it is only because it holds you. I have
+been to England before, but have never enjoyed it much. May I not come
+and see you for half an hour? This at present is the dearest wish of
+yours faithfully,
+
+CASPAR GOODWOOD.
+
+
+Isabel read this missive with such deep attention that she had not
+perceived an approaching tread on the soft grass. Looking up, however,
+as she mechanically folded it she saw Lord Warburton standing before
+her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+She put the letter into her pocket and offered her visitor a smile of
+welcome, exhibiting no trace of discomposure and half surprised at her
+coolness.
+
+"They told me you were out here," said Lord Warburton; "and as there
+was no one in the drawing-room and it's really you that I wish to see, I
+came out with no more ado."
+
+Isabel had got up; she felt a wish, for the moment, that he should not
+sit down beside her. "I was just going indoors."
+
+"Please don't do that; it's much jollier here; I've ridden over from
+Lockleigh; it's a lovely day." His smile was peculiarly friendly
+and pleasing, and his whole person seemed to emit that radiance of
+good-feeling and good fare which had formed the charm of the girl's
+first impression of him. It surrounded him like a zone of fine June
+weather.
+
+"We'll walk about a little then," said Isabel, who could not divest
+herself of the sense of an intention on the part of her visitor and who
+wished both to elude the intention and to satisfy her curiosity about
+it. It had flashed upon her vision once before, and it had given her on
+that occasion, as we know, a certain alarm. This alarm was composed of
+several elements, not all of which were disagreeable; she had indeed
+spent some days in analysing them and had succeeded in separating the
+pleasant part of the idea of Lord Warburton's "making up" to her from
+the painful. It may appear to some readers that the young lady was both
+precipitate and unduly fastidious; but the latter of these facts, if
+the charge be true, may serve to exonerate her from the discredit of
+the former. She was not eager to convince herself that a territorial
+magnate, as she had heard Lord Warburton called, was smitten with her
+charms; the fact of a declaration from such a source carrying with it
+really more questions than it would answer. She had received a strong
+impression of his being a "personage," and she had occupied herself in
+examining the image so conveyed. At the risk of adding to the evidence
+of her self-sufficiency it must be said that there had been moments
+when this possibility of admiration by a personage represented to her an
+aggression almost to the degree of an affront, quite to the degree of
+an inconvenience. She had never yet known a personage; there had been no
+personages, in this sense, in her life; there were probably none such at
+all in her native land. When she had thought of individual eminence she
+had thought of it on the basis of character and wit--of what one
+might like in a gentleman's mind and in his talk. She herself was a
+character--she couldn't help being aware of that; and hitherto her
+visions of a completed consciousness had concerned themselves largely
+with moral images--things as to which the question would be whether they
+pleased her sublime soul. Lord Warburton loomed up before her, largely
+and brightly, as a collection of attributes and powers which were not to
+be measured by this simple rule, but which demanded a different sort of
+appreciation--an appreciation that the girl, with her habit of judging
+quickly and freely, felt she lacked patience to bestow. He appeared to
+demand of her something that no one else, as it were, had presumed to
+do. What she felt was that a territorial, a political, a social magnate
+had conceived the design of drawing her into the system in which he
+rather invidiously lived and moved. A certain instinct, not imperious,
+but persuasive, told her to resist--murmured to her that virtually
+she had a system and an orbit of her own. It told her other things
+besides--things which both contradicted and confirmed each other; that
+a girl might do much worse than trust herself to such a man and that it
+would be very interesting to see something of his system from his own
+point of view; that on the other hand, however, there was evidently a
+great deal of it which she should regard only as a complication of every
+hour, and that even in the whole there was something stiff and stupid
+which would make it a burden. Furthermore there was a young man lately
+come from America who had no system at all, but who had a character
+of which it was useless for her to try to persuade herself that the
+impression on her mind had been light. The letter she carried in
+her pocket all sufficiently reminded her of the contrary. Smile not,
+however, I venture to repeat, at this simple young woman from Albany who
+debated whether she should accept an English peer before he had offered
+himself and who was disposed to believe that on the whole she could do
+better. She was a person of great good faith, and if there was a great
+deal of folly in her wisdom those who judge her severely may have the
+satisfaction of finding that, later, she became consistently wise only
+at the cost of an amount of folly which will constitute almost a direct
+appeal to charity.
+
+Lord Warburton seemed quite ready to walk, to sit or to do anything that
+Isabel should propose, and he gave her this assurance with his usual air
+of being particularly pleased to exercise a social virtue. But he was,
+nevertheless, not in command of his emotions, and as he strolled beside
+her for a moment, in silence, looking at her without letting her know
+it, there was something embarrassed in his glance and his misdirected
+laughter. Yes, assuredly--as we have touched on the point, we may return
+to it for a moment again--the English are the most romantic people in
+the world and Lord Warburton was about to give an example of it. He was
+about to take a step which would astonish all his friends and displease
+a great many of them, and which had superficially nothing to recommend
+it. The young lady who trod the turf beside him had come from a queer
+country across the sea which he knew a good deal about; her antecedents,
+her associations were very vague to his mind except in so far as they
+were generic, and in this sense they showed as distinct and unimportant.
+Miss Archer had neither a fortune nor the sort of beauty that justifies
+a man to the multitude, and he calculated that he had spent about
+twenty-six hours in her company. He had summed up all this--the
+perversity of the impulse, which had declined to avail itself of the
+most liberal opportunities to subside, and the judgement of mankind, as
+exemplified particularly in the more quickly-judging half of it: he had
+looked these things well in the face and then had dismissed them from
+his thoughts. He cared no more for them than for the rosebud in his
+buttonhole. It is the good fortune of a man who for the greater part of
+a lifetime has abstained without effort from making himself disagreeable
+to his friends, that when the need comes for such a course it is not
+discredited by irritating associations.
+
+"I hope you had a pleasant ride," said Isabel, who observed her
+companion's hesitancy.
+
+"It would have been pleasant if for nothing else than that it brought me
+here."
+
+"Are you so fond of Gardencourt?" the girl asked, more and more sure
+that he meant to make some appeal to her; wishing not to challenge him
+if he hesitated, and yet to keep all the quietness of her reason if he
+proceeded. It suddenly came upon her that her situation was one which a
+few weeks ago she would have deemed deeply romantic: the park of an old
+English country-house, with the foreground embellished by a "great" (as
+she supposed) nobleman in the act of making love to a young lady who, on
+careful inspection, should be found to present remarkable analogies with
+herself. But if she was now the heroine of the situation she succeeded
+scarcely the less in looking at it from the outside.
+
+"I care nothing for Gardencourt," said her companion. "I care only for
+you."
+
+"You've known me too short a time to have a right to say that, and I
+can't believe you're serious."
+
+These words of Isabel's were not perfectly sincere, for she had no doubt
+whatever that he himself was. They were simply a tribute to the fact, of
+which she was perfectly aware, that those he had just uttered would
+have excited surprise on the part of a vulgar world. And, moreover, if
+anything beside the sense she had already acquired that Lord Warburton
+was not a loose thinker had been needed to convince her, the tone in
+which he replied would quite have served the purpose.
+
+"One's right in such a matter is not measured by the time, Miss Archer;
+it's measured by the feeling itself. If I were to wait three months it
+would make no difference; I shall not be more sure of what I mean than I
+am to-day. Of course I've seen you very little, but my impression dates
+from the very first hour we met. I lost no time, I fell in love with you
+then. It was at first sight, as the novels say; I know now that's not a
+fancy-phrase, and I shall think better of novels for evermore. Those two
+days I spent here settled it; I don't know whether you suspected I was
+doing so, but I paid-mentally speaking I mean--the greatest possible
+attention to you. Nothing you said, nothing you did, was lost upon
+me. When you came to Lockleigh the other day--or rather when you went
+away--I was perfectly sure. Nevertheless I made up my mind to think it
+over and to question myself narrowly. I've done so; all these days I've
+done nothing else. I don't make mistakes about such things; I'm a very
+judicious animal. I don't go off easily, but when I'm touched, it's
+for life. It's for life, Miss Archer, it's for life," Lord Warburton
+repeated in the kindest, tenderest, pleasantest voice Isabel had ever
+heard, and looking at her with eyes charged with the light of a passion
+that had sifted itself clear of the baser parts of emotion--the heat,
+the violence, the unreason--and that burned as steadily as a lamp in a
+windless place.
+
+By tacit consent, as he talked, they had walked more and more slowly,
+and at last they stopped and he took her hand. "Ah, Lord Warburton, how
+little you know me!" Isabel said very gently. Gently too she drew her
+hand away.
+
+"Don't taunt me with that; that I don't know you better makes me unhappy
+enough already; it's all my loss. But that's what I want, and it seems
+to me I'm taking the best way. If you'll be my wife, then I shall know
+you, and when I tell you all the good I think of you you'll not be able
+to say it's from ignorance."
+
+"If you know me little I know you even less," said Isabel.
+
+"You mean that, unlike yourself, I may not improve on acquaintance? Ah,
+of course that's very possible. But think, to speak to you as I do,
+how determined I must be to try and give satisfaction! You do like me
+rather, don't you?"
+
+"I like you very much, Lord Warburton," she answered; and at this moment
+she liked him immensely.
+
+"I thank you for saying that; it shows you don't regard me as a
+stranger. I really believe I've filled all the other relations of life
+very creditably, and I don't see why I shouldn't fill this one--in which
+I offer myself to you--seeing that I care so much more about it. Ask the
+people who know me well; I've friends who'll speak for me."
+
+"I don't need the recommendation of your friends," said Isabel.
+
+"Ah now, that's delightful of you. You believe in me yourself."
+
+"Completely," Isabel declared. She quite glowed there, inwardly, with
+the pleasure of feeling she did.
+
+The light in her companion's eyes turned into a smile, and he gave a
+long exhalation of joy. "If you're mistaken, Miss Archer, let me lose
+all I possess!"
+
+She wondered whether he meant this for a reminder that he was rich, and,
+on the instant, felt sure that he didn't. He was thinking that, as he
+would have said himself; and indeed he might safely leave it to the
+memory of any interlocutor, especially of one to whom he was offering
+his hand. Isabel had prayed that she might not be agitated, and her mind
+was tranquil enough, even while she listened and asked herself what it
+was best she should say, to indulge in this incidental criticism. What
+she should say, had she asked herself? Her foremost wish was to say
+something if possible not less kind than what he had said to her. His
+words had carried perfect conviction with them; she felt she did, all so
+mysteriously, matter to him. "I thank you more than I can say for your
+offer," she returned at last. "It does me great honour."
+
+"Ah, don't say that!" he broke out. "I was afraid you'd say something
+like that. I don't see what you've to do with that sort of thing. I
+don't see why you should thank me--it's I who ought to thank you for
+listening to me: a man you know so little coming down on you with such
+a thumper! Of course it's a great question; I must tell you that
+I'd rather ask it than have it to answer myself. But the way you've
+listened--or at least your having listened at all--gives me some hope."
+
+"Don't hope too much," Isabel said.
+
+"Oh Miss Archer!" her companion murmured, smiling again, in his
+seriousness, as if such a warning might perhaps be taken but as the play
+of high spirits, the exuberance of elation.
+
+"Should you be greatly surprised if I were to beg you not to hope at
+all?" Isabel asked.
+
+"Surprised? I don't know what you mean by surprise. It wouldn't be that;
+it would be a feeling very much worse."
+
+Isabel walked on again; she was silent for some minutes. "I'm very sure
+that, highly as I already think of you, my opinion of you, if I should
+know you well, would only rise. But I'm by no means sure that you
+wouldn't be disappointed. And I say that not in the least out of
+conventional modesty; it's perfectly sincere."
+
+"I'm willing to risk it, Miss Archer," her companion replied.
+
+"It's a great question, as you say. It's a very difficult question."
+
+"I don't expect you of course to answer it outright. Think it over as
+long as may be necessary. If I can gain by waiting I'll gladly wait a
+long time. Only remember that in the end my dearest happiness depends on
+your answer."
+
+"I should be very sorry to keep you in suspense," said Isabel.
+
+"Oh, don't mind. I'd much rather have a good answer six months hence
+than a bad one to-day."
+
+"But it's very probable that even six months hence I shouldn't be able
+to give you one that you'd think good."
+
+"Why not, since you really like me?"
+
+"Ah, you must never doubt that," said Isabel.
+
+"Well then, I don't see what more you ask!"
+
+"It's not what I ask; it's what I can give. I don't think I should suit
+you; I really don't think I should."
+
+"You needn't worry about that. That's my affair. You needn't be a better
+royalist than the king."
+
+"It's not only that," said Isabel; "but I'm not sure I wish to marry any
+one."
+
+"Very likely you don't. I've no doubt a great many women begin that
+way," said his lordship, who, be it averred, did not in the least
+believe in the axiom he thus beguiled his anxiety by uttering. "But
+they're frequently persuaded."
+
+"Ah, that's because they want to be!" And Isabel lightly laughed. Her
+suitor's countenance fell, and he looked at her for a while in silence.
+"I'm afraid it's my being an Englishman that makes you hesitate," he
+said presently. "I know your uncle thinks you ought to marry in your own
+country."
+
+Isabel listened to this assertion with some interest; it had never
+occurred to her that Mr. Touchett was likely to discuss her matrimonial
+prospects with Lord Warburton. "Has he told you that?"
+
+"I remember his making the remark. He spoke perhaps of Americans
+generally."
+
+"He appears himself to have found it very pleasant to live in England."
+Isabel spoke in a manner that might have seemed a little perverse, but
+which expressed both her constant perception of her uncle's outward
+felicity and her general disposition to elude any obligation to take a
+restricted view.
+
+It gave her companion hope, and he immediately cried with warmth: "Ah,
+my dear Miss Archer, old England's a very good sort of country, you
+know! And it will be still better when we've furbished it up a little."
+
+"Oh, don't furbish it, Lord Warburton--, leave it alone. I like it this
+way."
+
+"Well then, if you like it, I'm more and more unable to see your
+objection to what I propose."
+
+"I'm afraid I can't make you understand."
+
+"You ought at least to try. I've a fair intelligence. Are you
+afraid--afraid of the climate? We can easily live elsewhere, you know.
+You can pick out your climate, the whole world over."
+
+These words were uttered with a breadth of candour that was like the
+embrace of strong arms--that was like the fragrance straight in her
+face, and by his clean, breathing lips, of she knew not what strange
+gardens, what charged airs. She would have given her little finger at
+that moment to feel strongly and simply the impulse to answer: "Lord
+Warburton, it's impossible for me to do better in this wonderful world,
+I think, than commit myself, very gratefully, to your loyalty." But
+though she was lost in admiration of her opportunity she managed to move
+back into the deepest shade of it, even as some wild, caught creature in
+a vast cage. The "splendid" security so offered her was not the greatest
+she could conceive. What she finally bethought herself of saying was
+something very different--something that deferred the need of really
+facing her crisis. "Don't think me unkind if I ask you to say no more
+about this to-day."
+
+"Certainly, certainly!" her companion cried. "I wouldn't bore you for
+the world."
+
+"You've given me a great deal to think about, and I promise you to do it
+justice."
+
+"That's all I ask of you, of course--and that you'll remember how
+absolutely my happiness is in your hands."
+
+Isabel listened with extreme respect to this admonition, but she said
+after a minute: "I must tell you that what I shall think about is some
+way of letting you know that what you ask is impossible--letting you
+know it without making you miserable."
+
+"There's no way to do that, Miss Archer. I won't say that if you refuse
+me you'll kill me; I shall not die of it. But I shall do worse; I shall
+live to no purpose."
+
+"You'll live to marry a better woman than I."
+
+"Don't say that, please," said Lord Warburton very gravely. "That's fair
+to neither of us."
+
+"To marry a worse one then."
+
+"If there are better women than you I prefer the bad ones. That's all I
+can say," he went on with the same earnestness. "There's no accounting
+for tastes."
+
+His gravity made her feel equally grave, and she showed it by again
+requesting him to drop the subject for the present. "I'll speak to you
+myself--very soon. Perhaps I shall write to you."
+
+"At your convenience, yes," he replied. "Whatever time you take, it must
+seem to me long, and I suppose I must make the best of that."
+
+"I shall not keep you in suspense; I only want to collect my mind a
+little."
+
+He gave a melancholy sigh and stood looking at her a moment, with his
+hands behind him, giving short nervous shakes to his hunting-crop. "Do
+you know I'm very much afraid of it--of that remarkable mind of yours?"
+
+Our heroine's biographer can scarcely tell why, but the question made
+her start and brought a conscious blush to her cheek. She returned his
+look a moment, and then with a note in her voice that might almost have
+appealed to his compassion, "So am I, my lord!" she oddly exclaimed.
+
+His compassion was not stirred, however; all he possessed of the faculty
+of pity was needed at home. "Ah! be merciful, be merciful," he murmured.
+
+"I think you had better go," said Isabel. "I'll write to you."
+
+"Very good; but whatever you write I'll come and see you, you know." And
+then he stood reflecting, his eyes fixed on the observant countenance of
+Bunchie, who had the air of having understood all that had been said
+and of pretending to carry off the indiscretion by a simulated fit of
+curiosity as to the roots of an ancient oak. "There's one thing more,"
+he went on. "You know, if you don't like Lockleigh--if you think it's
+damp or anything of that sort--you need never go within fifty miles of
+it. It's not damp, by the way; I've had the house thoroughly examined;
+it's perfectly safe and right. But if you shouldn't fancy it you needn't
+dream of living in it. There's no difficulty whatever about that; there
+are plenty of houses. I thought I'd just mention it; some people don't
+like a moat, you know. Good-bye."
+
+"I adore a moat," said Isabel. "Good-bye."
+
+He held out his hand, and she gave him hers a moment--a moment long
+enough for him to bend his handsome bared head and kiss it. Then, still
+agitating, in his mastered emotion, his implement of the chase, he
+walked rapidly away. He was evidently much upset.
+
+Isabel herself was upset, but she had not been affected as she would
+have imagined. What she felt was not a great responsibility, a great
+difficulty of choice; it appeared to her there had been no choice in the
+question. She couldn't marry Lord Warburton; the idea failed to support
+any enlightened prejudice in favour of the free exploration of life that
+she had hitherto entertained or was now capable of entertaining.
+She must write this to him, she must convince him, and that duty was
+comparatively simple. But what disturbed her, in the sense that it
+struck her with wonderment, was this very fact that it cost her so
+little to refuse a magnificent "chance." With whatever qualifications
+one would, Lord Warburton had offered her a great opportunity; the
+situation might have discomforts, might contain oppressive, might
+contain narrowing elements, might prove really but a stupefying anodyne;
+but she did her sex no injustice in believing that nineteen women out of
+twenty would have accommodated themselves to it without a pang. Why then
+upon her also should it not irresistibly impose itself? Who was she,
+what was she, that she should hold herself superior? What view of
+life, what design upon fate, what conception of happiness, had she that
+pretended to be larger than these large these fabulous occasions? If she
+wouldn't do such a thing as that then she must do great things, she must
+do something greater. Poor Isabel found ground to remind herself from
+time to time that she must not be too proud, and nothing could be
+more sincere than her prayer to be delivered from such a danger: the
+isolation and loneliness of pride had for her mind the horror of a
+desert place. If it had been pride that interfered with her accepting
+Lord Warburton such a betise was singularly misplaced; and she was so
+conscious of liking him that she ventured to assure herself it was the
+very softness, and the fine intelligence, of sympathy. She liked him too
+much to marry him, that was the truth; something assured her there was
+a fallacy somewhere in the glowing logic of the proposition--as he saw
+it--even though she mightn't put her very finest finger-point on it;
+and to inflict upon a man who offered so much a wife with a tendency to
+criticise would be a peculiarly discreditable act. She had promised him
+she would consider his question, and when, after he had left her, she
+wandered back to the bench where he had found her and lost herself in
+meditation, it might have seemed that she was keeping her vow. But
+this was not the case; she was wondering if she were not a cold, hard,
+priggish person, and, on her at last getting up and going rather
+quickly back to the house, felt, as she had said to her friend, really
+frightened at herself.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+It was this feeling and not the wish to ask advice--she had no desire
+whatever for that--that led her to speak to her uncle of what had taken
+place. She wished to speak to some one; she should feel more natural,
+more human, and her uncle, for this purpose, presented himself in a
+more attractive light than either her aunt or her friend Henrietta. Her
+cousin of course was a possible confidant; but she would have had to do
+herself violence to air this special secret to Ralph. So the next day,
+after breakfast, she sought her occasion. Her uncle never left his
+apartment till the afternoon, but he received his cronies, as he said,
+in his dressing-room. Isabel had quite taken her place in the class
+so designated, which, for the rest, included the old man's son, his
+physician, his personal servant, and even Miss Stackpole. Mrs. Touchett
+did not figure in the list, and this was an obstacle the less to
+Isabel's finding her host alone. He sat in a complicated mechanical
+chair, at the open window of his room, looking westward over the park
+and the river, with his newspapers and letters piled up beside him,
+his toilet freshly and minutely made, and his smooth, speculative face
+composed to benevolent expectation.
+
+She approached her point directly. "I think I ought to let you know that
+Lord Warburton has asked me to marry him. I suppose I ought to tell my
+aunt; but it seems best to tell you first."
+
+The old man expressed no surprise, but thanked her for the confidence
+she showed him. "Do you mind telling me whether you accepted him?" he
+then enquired.
+
+"I've not answered him definitely yet; I've taken a little time to think
+of it, because that seems more respectful. But I shall not accept him."
+
+Mr. Touchett made no comment upon this; he had the air of thinking that,
+whatever interest he might take in the matter from the point of view of
+sociability, he had no active voice in it. "Well, I told you you'd be a
+success over here. Americans are highly appreciated."
+
+"Very highly indeed," said Isabel. "But at the cost of seeming both
+tasteless and ungrateful, I don't think I can marry Lord Warburton."
+
+"Well," her uncle went on, "of course an old man can't judge for a young
+lady. I'm glad you didn't ask me before you made up your mind. I suppose
+I ought to tell you," he added slowly, but as if it were not of much
+consequence, "that I've known all about it these three days."
+
+"About Lord Warburton's state of mind?"
+
+"About his intentions, as they say here. He wrote me a very pleasant
+letter, telling me all about them. Should you like to see his letter?"
+the old man obligingly asked.
+
+"Thank you; I don't think I care about that. But I'm glad he wrote to
+you; it was right that he should, and he would be certain to do what was
+right."
+
+"Ah well, I guess you do like him!" Mr. Touchett declared. "You needn't
+pretend you don't."
+
+"I like him extremely; I'm very free to admit that. But I don't wish to
+marry any one just now."
+
+"You think some one may come along whom you may like better. Well,
+that's very likely," said Mr. Touchett, who appeared to wish to show his
+kindness to the girl by easing off her decision, as it were, and finding
+cheerful reasons for it.
+
+"I don't care if I don't meet any one else. I like Lord Warburton quite
+well enough." she fell into that appearance of a sudden change of
+point of view with which she sometimes startled and even displeased her
+interlocutors.
+
+Her uncle, however, seemed proof against either of these impressions.
+"He's a very fine man," he resumed in a tone which might have passed
+for that of encouragement. "His letter was one of the pleasantest I've
+received for some weeks. I suppose one of the reasons I liked it was
+that it was all about you; that is all except the part that was about
+himself. I suppose he told you all that."
+
+"He would have told me everything I wished to ask him," Isabel said.
+
+"But you didn't feel curious?"
+
+"My curiosity would have been idle--once I had determined to decline his
+offer."
+
+"You didn't find it sufficiently attractive?" Mr. Touchett enquired.
+
+She was silent a little. "I suppose it was that," she presently
+admitted. "But I don't know why."
+
+"Fortunately ladies are not obliged to give reasons," said her uncle.
+"There's a great deal that's attractive about such an idea; but I don't
+see why the English should want to entice us away from our native land.
+I know that we try to attract them over there, but that's because our
+population is insufficient. Here, you know, they're rather crowded.
+However, I presume there's room for charming young ladies everywhere."
+
+"There seems to have been room here for you," said Isabel, whose eyes
+had been wandering over the large pleasure-spaces of the park.
+
+Mr. Touchett gave a shrewd, conscious smile. "There's room everywhere,
+my dear, if you'll pay for it. I sometimes think I've paid too much for
+this. Perhaps you also might have to pay too much."
+
+"Perhaps I might," the girl replied.
+
+That suggestion gave her something more definite to rest on than she
+had found in her own thoughts, and the fact of this association of her
+uncle's mild acuteness with her dilemma seemed to prove that she was
+concerned with the natural and reasonable emotions of life and
+not altogether a victim to intellectual eagerness and vague
+ambitions--ambitions reaching beyond Lord Warburton's beautiful appeal,
+reaching to something indefinable and possibly not commendable. In so
+far as the indefinable had an influence upon Isabel's behaviour at this
+juncture, it was not the conception, even unformulated, of a union with
+Caspar Goodwood; for however she might have resisted conquest at her
+English suitor's large quiet hands she was at least as far removed
+from the disposition to let the young man from Boston take positive
+possession of her. The sentiment in which She sought refuge after
+reading his letter was a critical view of his having come abroad; for it
+was part of the influence he had upon her that he seemed to deprive her
+of the sense of freedom. There was a disagreeably strong push, a kind
+of hardness of presence, in his way of rising before her. She had been
+haunted at moments by the image, by the danger, of his disapproval and
+had wondered--a consideration she had never paid in equal degree to any
+one else--whether he would like what she did. The difficulty was that
+more than any man she had ever known, more than poor Lord Warburton (she
+had begun now to give his lordship the benefit of this epithet), Caspar
+Goodwood expressed for her an energy--and she had already felt it as a
+power that was of his very nature. It was in no degree a matter of
+his "advantages"--it was a matter of the spirit that sat in his
+clear-burning eyes like some tireless watcher at a window. She might
+like it or not, but he insisted, ever, with his whole weight and force:
+even in one's usual contact with him one had to reckon with that. The
+idea of a diminished liberty was particularly disagreeable to her at
+present, since she had just given a sort of personal accent to her
+independence by looking so straight at Lord Warburton's big bribe and
+yet turning away from it. Sometimes Caspar Goodwood had seemed to range
+himself on the side of her destiny, to be the stubbornest fact she knew;
+she said to herself at such moments that she might evade him for a time,
+but that she must make terms with him at last--terms which would be
+certain to be favourable to himself. Her impulse had been to avail
+herself of the things that helped her to resist such an obligation;
+and this impulse had been much concerned in her eager acceptance of her
+aunt's invitation, which had come to her at an hour when she expected
+from day to day to see Mr. Goodwood and when she was glad to have an
+answer ready for something she was sure he would say to her. When she
+had told him at Albany, on the evening of Mrs. Touchett's visit, that
+she couldn't then discuss difficult questions, dazzled as she was by
+the great immediate opening of her aunt's offer of "Europe," he declared
+that this was no answer at all; and it was now to obtain a better one
+that he was following her across the sea. To say to herself that he was
+a kind of grim fate was well enough for a fanciful young woman who was
+able to take much for granted in him; but the reader has a right to a
+nearer and a clearer view.
+
+He was the son of a proprietor of well-known cotton-mills in
+Massachusetts--a gentleman who had accumulated a considerable fortune in
+the exercise of this industry. Caspar at present managed the works, and
+with a judgement and a temper which, in spite of keen competition and
+languid years, had kept their prosperity from dwindling. He had received
+the better part of his education at Harvard College, where, however, he
+had gained renown rather as a gymnast and an oarsman than as a gleaner
+of more dispersed knowledge. Later on he had learned that the finer
+intelligence too could vault and pull and strain--might even, breaking
+the record, treat itself to rare exploits. He had thus discovered in
+himself a sharp eye for the mystery of mechanics, and had invented an
+improvement in the cotton-spinning process which was now largely used
+and was known by his name. You might have seen it in the newspapers in
+connection with this fruitful contrivance; assurance of which he
+had given to Isabel by showing her in the columns of the New York
+Interviewer an exhaustive article on the Goodwood patent--an article not
+prepared by Miss Stackpole, friendly as she had proved herself to his
+more sentimental interests. There were intricate, bristling things he
+rejoiced in; he liked to organise, to contend, to administer; he could
+make people work his will, believe in him, march before him and justify
+him. This was the art, as they said, of managing men--which rested, in
+him, further, on a bold though brooding ambition. It struck those
+who knew him well that he might do greater things than carry on a
+cotton-factory; there was nothing cottony about Caspar Goodwood, and
+his friends took for granted that he would somehow and somewhere
+write himself in bigger letters. But it was as if something large and
+confused, something dark and ugly, would have to call upon him: he was
+not after all in harmony with mere smug peace and greed and gain, an
+order of things of which the vital breath was ubiquitous advertisement.
+It pleased Isabel to believe that he might have ridden, on a plunging
+steed, the whirlwind of a great war--a war like the Civil strife that
+had overdarkened her conscious childhood and his ripening youth.
+
+She liked at any rate this idea of his being by character and in fact a
+mover of men--liked it much better than some other points in his nature
+and aspect. She cared nothing for his cotton-mill--the Goodwood patent
+left her imagination absolutely cold. She wished him no ounce less of
+his manhood, but she sometimes thought he would be rather nicer if he
+looked, for instance, a little differently. His jaw was too square and
+set and his figure too straight and stiff: these things suggested a want
+of easy consonance with the deeper rhythms of life. Then she viewed with
+reserve a habit he had of dressing always in the same manner; it was
+not apparently that he wore the same clothes continually, for, on the
+contrary, his garments had a way of looking rather too new. But they all
+seemed of the same piece; the figure, the stuff, was so drearily usual.
+She had reminded herself more than once that this was a frivolous
+objection to a person of his importance; and then she had amended the
+rebuke by saying that it would be a frivolous objection only if she
+were in love with him. She was not in love with him and therefore might
+criticise his small defects as well as his great--which latter consisted
+in the collective reproach of his being too serious, or, rather, not of
+his being so, since one could never be, but certainly of his seeming so.
+He showed his appetites and designs too simply and artlessly; when one
+was alone with him he talked too much about the same subject, and when
+other people were present he talked too little about anything. And yet
+he was of supremely strong, clean make--which was so much she saw the
+different fitted parts of him as she had seen, in museums and portraits,
+the different fitted parts of armoured warriors--in plates of steel
+handsomely inlaid with gold. It was very strange: where, ever, was any
+tangible link between her impression and her act? Caspar Goodwood had
+never corresponded to her idea of a delightful person, and she supposed
+that this was why he left her so harshly critical. When, however, Lord
+Warburton, who not only did correspond with it, but gave an extension to
+the term, appealed to her approval, she found herself still unsatisfied.
+It was certainly strange.
+
+The sense of her incoherence was not a help to answering Mr. Goodwood's
+letter, and Isabel determined to leave it a while unhonoured. If he
+had determined to persecute her he must take the consequences; foremost
+among which was his being left to perceive how little it charmed her
+that he should come down to Gardencourt. She was already liable to the
+incursions of one suitor at this place, and though it might be pleasant
+to be appreciated in opposite quarters there was a kind of grossness in
+entertaining two such passionate pleaders at once, even in a case where
+the entertainment should consist of dismissing them. She made no
+reply to Mr. Goodwood; but at the end of three days she wrote to Lord
+Warburton, and the letter belongs to our history.
+
+DEAR LORD WARBURTON--A great deal of earnest thought has not led me to
+change my mind about the suggestion you were so kind as to make me the
+other day. I am not, I am really and truly not, able to regard you
+in the light of a companion for life; or to think of your home--your
+various homes--as the settled seat of my existence. These things cannot
+be reasoned about, and I very earnestly entreat you not to return to
+the subject we discussed so exhaustively. We see our lives from our own
+point of view; that is the privilege of the weakest and humblest of us;
+and I shall never be able to see mine in the manner you proposed. Kindly
+let this suffice you, and do me the justice to believe that I have given
+your proposal the deeply respectful consideration it deserves. It is
+with this very great regard that I remain sincerely yours,
+
+ISABEL ARCHER.
+
+While the author of this missive was making up her mind to dispatch it
+Henrietta Stackpole formed a resolve which was accompanied by no demur.
+She invited Ralph Touchett to take a walk with her in the garden, and
+when he had assented with that alacrity which seemed constantly to
+testify to his high expectations, she informed him that she had a favour
+to ask of him. It may be admitted that at this information the young man
+flinched; for we know that Miss Stackpole had struck him as apt to push
+an advantage. The alarm was unreasoned, however; for he was clear about
+the area of her indiscretion as little as advised of its vertical depth,
+and he made a very civil profession of the desire to serve her. He
+was afraid of her and presently told her so. "When you look at me in a
+certain way my knees knock together, my faculties desert me; I'm filled
+with trepidation and I ask only for strength to execute your commands.
+You've an address that I've never encountered in any woman."
+
+"Well," Henrietta replied good-humouredly, "if I had not known before
+that you were trying somehow to abash me I should know it now. Of course
+I'm easy game--I was brought up with such different customs and ideas.
+I'm not used to your arbitrary standards, and I've never been spoken to
+in America as you have spoken to me. If a gentleman conversing with me
+over there were to speak to me like that I shouldn't know what to make
+of it. We take everything more naturally over there, and, after all,
+we're a great deal more simple. I admit that; I'm very simple myself.
+Of course if you choose to laugh at me for it you're very welcome; but I
+think on the whole I would rather be myself than you. I'm quite content
+to be myself; I don't want to change. There are plenty of people that
+appreciate me just as I am. It's true they're nice fresh free-born
+Americans!" Henrietta had lately taken up the tone of helpless innocence
+and large concession. "I want you to assist me a little," she went on.
+"I don't care in the least whether I amuse you while you do so; or,
+rather, I'm perfectly willing your amusement should be your reward. I
+want you to help me about Isabel."
+
+"Has she injured you?" Ralph asked.
+
+"If she had I shouldn't mind, and I should never tell you. What I'm
+afraid of is that she'll injure herself."
+
+"I think that's very possible," said Ralph.
+
+His companion stopped in the garden-walk, fixing on him perhaps the very
+gaze that unnerved him. "That too would amuse you, I suppose. The way
+you do say things! I never heard any one so indifferent."
+
+"To Isabel? Ah, not that!"
+
+"Well, you're not in love with her, I hope."
+
+"How can that be, when I'm in love with Another?"
+
+"You're in love with yourself, that's the Other!" Miss Stackpole
+declared. "Much good may it do you! But if you wish to be serious once
+in your life here's a chance; and if you really care for your cousin
+here's an opportunity to prove it. I don't expect you to understand her;
+that's too much to ask. But you needn't do that to grant my favour. I'll
+supply the necessary intelligence."
+
+"I shall enjoy that immensely!" Ralph exclaimed. "I'll be Caliban and
+you shall be Ariel."
+
+"You're not at all like Caliban, because you're sophisticated, and
+Caliban was not. But I'm not talking about imaginary characters; I'm
+talking about Isabel. Isabel's intensely real. What I wish to tell you
+is that I find her fearfully changed."
+
+"Since you came, do you mean?"
+
+"Since I came and before I came. She's not the same as she once so
+beautifully was."
+
+"As she was in America?"
+
+"Yes, in America. I suppose you know she comes from there. She can't
+help it, but she does."
+
+"Do you want to change her back again?"
+
+"Of course I do, and I want you to help me."
+
+"Ah," said Ralph, "I'm only Caliban; I'm not Prospero."
+
+"You were Prospero enough to make her what she has become. You've acted
+on Isabel Archer since she came here, Mr. Touchett."
+
+"I, my dear Miss Stackpole? Never in the world. Isabel Archer has acted
+on me--yes; she acts on every one. But I've been absolutely passive."
+
+"You're too passive then. You had better stir yourself and be careful.
+Isabel's changing every day; she's drifting away--right out to sea. I've
+watched her and I can see it. She's not the bright American girl she
+was. She's taking different views, a different colour, and turning away
+from her old ideals. I want to save those ideals, Mr. Touchett, and
+that's where you come in."
+
+"Not surely as an ideal?"
+
+"Well, I hope not," Henrietta replied promptly. "I've got a fear in my
+heart that she's going to marry one of these fell Europeans, and I want
+to prevent it.
+
+"Ah, I see," cried Ralph; "and to prevent it you want me to step in and
+marry her?"
+
+"Not quite; that remedy would be as bad as the disease, for you're the
+typical, the fell European from whom I wish to rescue her. No; I wish
+you to take an interest in another person--a young man to whom she once
+gave great encouragement and whom she now doesn't seem to think good
+enough. He's a thoroughly grand man and a very dear friend of mine, and
+I wish very much you would invite him to pay a visit here."
+
+Ralph was much puzzled by this appeal, and it is perhaps not to the
+credit of his purity of mind that he failed to look at it at first in
+the simplest light. It wore, to his eyes, a tortuous air, and his fault
+was that he was not quite sure that anything in the world could really
+be as candid as this request of Miss Stackpole's appeared. That a young
+woman should demand that a gentleman whom she described as her very dear
+friend should be furnished with an opportunity to make himself agreeable
+to another young woman, a young woman whose attention had wandered and
+whose charms were greater--this was an anomaly which for the moment
+challenged all his ingenuity of interpretation. To read between the
+lines was easier than to follow the text, and to suppose that Miss
+Stackpole wished the gentleman invited to Gardencourt on her own account
+was the sign not so much of a vulgar as of an embarrassed mind. Even
+from this venial act of vulgarity, however, Ralph was saved, and saved
+by a force that I can only speak of as inspiration. With no more outward
+light on the subject than he already possessed he suddenly acquired the
+conviction that it would be a sovereign injustice to the correspondent
+of the Interviewer to assign a dishonourable motive to any act of hers.
+This conviction passed into his mind with extreme rapidity; it was
+perhaps kindled by the pure radiance of the young lady's imperturbable
+gaze. He returned this challenge a moment, consciously, resisting an
+inclination to frown as one frowns in the presence of larger luminaries.
+"Who's the gentleman you speak of?"
+
+"Mr. Caspar Goodwood--of Boston. He has been extremely attentive to
+Isabel--just as devoted to her as he can live. He has followed her out
+here and he's at present in London. I don't know his address, but I
+guess I can obtain it."
+
+"I've never heard of him," said Ralph.
+
+"Well, I suppose you haven't heard of every one. I don't believe he has
+ever heard of you; but that's no reason why Isabel shouldn't marry him."
+
+Ralph gave a mild ambiguous laugh. "What a rage you have for marrying
+people! Do you remember how you wanted to marry me the other day?"
+
+"I've got over that. You don't know how to take such ideas. Mr. Goodwood
+does, however; and that's what I like about him. He's a splendid man and
+a perfect gentleman, and Isabel knows it."
+
+"Is she very fond of him?"
+
+"If she isn't she ought to be. He's simply wrapped up in her."
+
+"And you wish me to ask him here," said Ralph reflectively.
+
+"It would be an act of true hospitality."
+
+"Caspar Goodwood," Ralph continued--"it's rather a striking name."
+
+"I don't care anything about his name. It might be Ezekiel Jenkins, and
+I should say the same. He's the only man I have ever seen whom I think
+worthy of Isabel."
+
+"You're a very devoted friend," said Ralph.
+
+"Of course I am. If you say that to pour scorn on me I don't care."
+
+"I don't say it to pour scorn on you; I'm very much struck with it."
+
+"You're more satiric than ever, but I advise you not to laugh at Mr.
+Goodwood."
+
+"I assure you I'm very serious; you ought to understand that," said
+Ralph.
+
+In a moment his companion understood it. "I believe you are; now you're
+too serious."
+
+"You're difficult to please."
+
+"Oh, you're very serious indeed. You won't invite Mr. Goodwood."
+
+"I don't know," said Ralph. "I'm capable of strange things. Tell me a
+little about Mr. Goodwood. What's he like?"
+
+"He's just the opposite of you. He's at the head of a cotton-factory; a
+very fine one."
+
+"Has he pleasant manners?" asked Ralph.
+
+"Splendid manners--in the American style."
+
+"Would he be an agreeable member of our little circle?"
+
+"I don't think he'd care much about our little circle. He'd concentrate
+on Isabel."
+
+"And how would my cousin like that?"
+
+"Very possibly not at all. But it will be good for her. It will call
+back her thoughts."
+
+"Call them back--from where?"
+
+"From foreign parts and other unnatural places. Three months ago she
+gave Mr. Goodwood every reason to suppose he was acceptable to her, and
+it's not worthy of Isabel to go back on a real friend simply because she
+has changed the scene. I've changed the scene too, and the effect of it
+has been to make me care more for my old associations than ever. It's my
+belief that the sooner Isabel changes it back again the better. I know
+her well enough to know that she would never be truly happy over here,
+and I wish her to form some strong American tie that will act as a
+preservative."
+
+"Aren't you perhaps a little too much in a hurry?" Ralph enquired.
+"Don't you think you ought to give her more of a chance in poor old
+England?"
+
+"A chance to ruin her bright young life? One's never too much in a hurry
+to save a precious human creature from drowning."
+
+"As I understand it then," said Ralph, "you wish me to push Mr. Goodwood
+overboard after her. Do you know," he added, "that I've never heard her
+mention his name?"
+
+Henrietta gave a brilliant smile. "I'm delighted to hear that; it proves
+how much she thinks of him."
+
+Ralph appeared to allow that there was a good deal in this, and he
+surrendered to thought while his companion watched him askance. "If I
+should invite Mr. Goodwood," he finally said, "it would be to quarrel
+with him."
+
+"Don't do that; he'd prove the better man."
+
+"You certainly are doing your best to make me hate him! I really don't
+think I can ask him. I should be afraid of being rude to him."
+
+"It's just as you please," Henrietta returned. "I had no idea you were
+in love with her yourself."
+
+"Do you really believe that?" the young man asked with lifted eyebrows.
+
+"That's the most natural speech I've ever heard you make! Of course I
+believe it," Miss Stackpole ingeniously said.
+
+"Well," Ralph concluded, "to prove to you that you're wrong I'll invite
+him. It must be of course as a friend of yours."
+
+"It will not be as a friend of mine that he'll come; and it will not be
+to prove to me that I'm wrong that you'll ask him--but to prove it to
+yourself!"
+
+These last words of Miss Stackpole's (on which the two presently
+separated) contained an amount of truth which Ralph Touchett was obliged
+to recognise; but it so far took the edge from too sharp a recognition
+that, in spite of his suspecting it would be rather more indiscreet
+to keep than to break his promise, he wrote Mr. Goodwood a note of six
+lines, expressing the pleasure it would give Mr. Touchett the elder that
+he should join a little party at Gardencourt, of which Miss Stackpole
+was a valued member. Having sent his letter (to the care of a banker
+whom Henrietta suggested) he waited in some suspense. He had heard this
+fresh formidable figure named for the first time; for when his mother
+had mentioned on her arrival that there was a story about the girl's
+having an "admirer" at home, the idea had seemed deficient in reality
+and he had taken no pains to ask questions the answers to which would
+involve only the vague or the disagreeable. Now, however, the native
+admiration of which his cousin was the object had become more concrete;
+it took the form of a young man who had followed her to London, who was
+interested in a cotton-mill and had manners in the most splendid of the
+American styles. Ralph had two theories about this intervenes. Either
+his passion was a sentimental fiction of Miss Stackpole's (there was
+always a sort of tacit understanding among women, born of the solidarity
+of the sex, that they should discover or invent lovers for each other),
+in which case he was not to be feared and would probably not accept the
+invitation; or else he would accept the invitation and in this event
+prove himself a creature too irrational to demand further consideration.
+The latter clause of Ralph's argument might have seemed incoherent;
+but it embodied his conviction that if Mr. Goodwood were interested in
+Isabel in the serious manner described by Miss Stackpole he would not
+care to present himself at Gardencourt on a summons from the latter
+lady. "On this supposition," said Ralph, "he must regard her as a thorn
+on the stem of his rose; as an intercessor he must find her wanting in
+tact."
+
+Two days after he had sent his invitation he received a very short
+note from Caspar Goodwood, thanking him for it, regretting that other
+engagements made a visit to Gardencourt impossible and presenting many
+compliments to Miss Stackpole. Ralph handed the note to Henrietta, who,
+when she had read it, exclaimed: "Well, I never have heard of anything
+so stiff!"
+
+"I'm afraid he doesn't care so much about my cousin as you suppose,"
+Ralph observed.
+
+"No, it's not that; it's some subtler motive. His nature's very deep.
+But I'm determined to fathom it, and I shall write to him to know what
+he means."
+
+His refusal of Ralph's overtures was vaguely disconcerting; from the
+moment he declined to come to Gardencourt our friend began to think
+him of importance. He asked himself what it signified to him whether
+Isabel's admirers should be desperadoes or laggards; they were not
+rivals of his and were perfectly welcome to act out their genius.
+Nevertheless he felt much curiosity as to the result of Miss Stackpole's
+promised enquiry into the causes of Mr. Goodwood's stiffness--a
+curiosity for the present ungratified, inasmuch as when he asked her
+three days later if she had written to London she was obliged to confess
+she had written in vain. Mr. Goodwood had not replied.
+
+"I suppose he's thinking it over," she said; "he thinks everything
+over; he's not really at all impetuous. But I'm accustomed to having my
+letters answered the same day." She presently proposed to Isabel, at
+all events, that they should make an excursion to London together. "If I
+must tell the truth," she observed, "I'm not seeing much at this
+place, and I shouldn't think you were either. I've not even seen that
+aristocrat--what's his name?--Lord Washburton. He seems to let you
+severely alone."
+
+"Lord Warburton's coming to-morrow, I happen to know," replied her
+friend, who had received a note from the master of Lockleigh in answer
+to her own letter. "You'll have every opportunity of turning him inside
+out."
+
+"Well, he may do for one letter, but what's one letter when you want to
+write fifty? I've described all the scenery in this vicinity and raved
+about all the old women and donkeys. You may say what you please,
+scenery doesn't make a vital letter. I must go back to London and get
+some impressions of real life. I was there but three days before I came
+away, and that's hardly time to get in touch."
+
+As Isabel, on her journey from New York to Gardencourt, had seen even
+less of the British capital than this, it appeared a happy suggestion of
+Henrietta's that the two should go thither on a visit of pleasure. The
+idea struck Isabel as charming; he was curious of the thick detail of
+London, which had always loomed large and rich to her. They turned over
+their schemes together and indulged in visions of romantic hours. They
+would stay at some picturesque old inn--one of the inns described by
+Dickens--and drive over the town in those delightful hansoms. Henrietta
+was a literary woman, and the great advantage of being a literary woman
+was that you could go everywhere and do everything. They would dine at
+a coffee-house and go afterwards to the play; they would frequent the
+Abbey and the British Museum and find out where Doctor Johnson had
+lived, and Goldsmith and Addison. Isabel grew eager and presently
+unveiled the bright vision to Ralph, who burst into a fit of laughter
+which scarce expressed the sympathy she had desired.
+
+"It's a delightful plan," he said. "I advise you to go to the Duke's
+Head in Covent Garden, an easy, informal, old-fashioned place, and I'll
+have you put down at my club."
+
+"Do you mean it's improper?" Isabel asked. "Dear me, isn't anything
+proper here? With Henrietta surely I may go anywhere; she isn't hampered
+in that way. She has travelled over the whole American continent and can
+at least find her way about this minute island."
+
+"Ah then," said Ralph, "let me take advantage of her protection to go up
+to town as well. I may never have a chance to travel so safely!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+Miss Stackpole would have prepared to start immediately; but Isabel, as
+we have seen, had been notified that Lord Warburton would come again to
+Gardencourt, and she believed it her duty to remain there and see him.
+For four or five days he had made no response to her letter; then he had
+written, very briefly, to say he would come to luncheon two days later.
+There was something in these delays and postponements that touched the
+girl and renewed her sense of his desire to be considerate and patient,
+not to appear to urge her too grossly; a consideration the more studied
+that she was so sure he "really liked" her. Isabel told her uncle she
+had written to him, mentioning also his intention of coming; and the
+old man, in consequence, left his room earlier than usual and made his
+appearance at the two o'clock repast. This was by no means an act of
+vigilance on his part, but the fruit of a benevolent belief that his
+being of the company might help to cover any conjoined straying away
+in case Isabel should give their noble visitor another hearing. That
+personage drove over from Lockleigh and brought the elder of his sisters
+with him, a measure presumably dictated by reflexions of the same order
+as Mr. Touchett's. The two visitors were introduced to Miss Stackpole,
+who, at luncheon, occupied a seat adjoining Lord Warburton's. Isabel,
+who was nervous and had no relish for the prospect of again arguing
+the question he had so prematurely opened, could not help admiring his
+good-humoured self-possession, which quite disguised the symptoms of
+that preoccupation with her presence it was natural she should suppose
+him to feel. He neither looked at her nor spoke to her, and the only
+sign of his emotion was that he avoided meeting her eyes. He had plenty
+of talk for the others, however, and he appeared to eat his luncheon
+with discrimination and appetite. Miss Molyneux, who had a smooth,
+nun-like forehead and wore a large silver cross suspended from her neck,
+was evidently preoccupied with Henrietta Stackpole, upon whom her
+eyes constantly rested in a manner suggesting a conflict between deep
+alienation and yearning wonder. Of the two ladies from Lockleigh she
+was the one Isabel had liked best; there was such a world of hereditary
+quiet in her. Isabel was sure moreover that her mild forehead and
+silver cross referred to some weird Anglican mystery--some delightful
+reinstitution perhaps of the quaint office of the canoness. She wondered
+what Miss Molyneux would think of her if she knew Miss Archer had
+refused her brother; and then she felt sure that Miss Molyneux would
+never know--that Lord Warburton never told her such things. He was fond
+of her and kind to her, but on the whole he told her little. Such, at
+least, was Isabel's theory; when, at table, she was not occupied in
+conversation she was usually occupied in forming theories about her
+neighbours. According to Isabel, if Miss Molyneux should ever learn what
+had passed between Miss Archer and Lord Warburton she would probably be
+shocked at such a girl's failure to rise; or no, rather (this was our
+heroine's last position) she would impute to the young American but a
+due consciousness of inequality.
+
+Whatever Isabel might have made of her opportunities, at all events,
+Henrietta Stackpole was by no means disposed to neglect those in which
+she now found herself immersed. "Do you know you're the first lord I've
+ever seen?" she said very promptly to her neighbour. "I suppose you
+think I'm awfully benighted."
+
+"You've escaped seeing some very ugly men," Lord Warburton answered,
+looking a trifle absently about the table.
+
+"Are they very ugly? They try to make us believe in America that they're
+all handsome and magnificent and that they wear wonderful robes and
+crowns."
+
+"Ah, the robes and crowns are gone out of fashion," said Lord Warburton,
+"like your tomahawks and revolvers."
+
+"I'm sorry for that; I think an aristocracy ought to be splendid,"
+Henrietta declared. "If it's not that, what is it?"
+
+"Oh, you know, it isn't much, at the best," her neighbour allowed.
+"Won't you have a potato?"
+
+"I don't care much for these European potatoes. I shouldn't know you
+from an ordinary American gentleman."
+
+"Do talk to me as if I were one," said Lord Warburton. "I don't see how
+you manage to get on without potatoes; you must find so few things to
+eat over here."
+
+Henrietta was silent a little; there was a chance he was not sincere.
+"I've had hardly any appetite since I've been here," she went on at
+last; "so it doesn't much matter. I don't approve of you, you know; I
+feel as if I ought to tell you that."
+
+"Don't approve of me?"
+
+"Yes; I don't suppose any one ever said such a thing to you before, did
+they? I don't approve of lords as an institution. I think the world has
+got beyond them--far beyond."
+
+"Oh, so do I. I don't approve of myself in the least. Sometimes it comes
+over me--how I should object to myself if I were not myself, don't you
+know? But that's rather good, by the way--not to be vainglorious."
+
+"Why don't you give it up then?" Miss Stackpole enquired.
+
+"Give up--a--?" asked Lord Warburton, meeting her harsh inflexion with a
+very mellow one.
+
+"Give up being a lord."
+
+"Oh, I'm so little of one! One would really forget all about it if you
+wretched Americans were not constantly reminding one. However, I do
+think of giving it up, the little there is left of it, one of these
+days."
+
+"I should like to see you do it!" Henrietta exclaimed rather grimly.
+
+"I'll invite you to the ceremony; we'll have a supper and a dance."
+
+"Well," said Miss Stackpole, "I like to see all sides. I don't approve
+of a privileged class, but I like to hear what they have to say for
+themselves."
+
+"Mighty little, as you see!"
+
+"I should like to draw you out a little more," Henrietta continued. "But
+you're always looking away. You're afraid of meeting my eye. I see you
+want to escape me."
+
+"No, I'm only looking for those despised potatoes."
+
+"Please explain about that young lady--your sister--then. I don't
+understand about her. Is she a Lady?"
+
+"She's a capital good girl."
+
+"I don't like the way you say that--as if you wanted to change the
+subject. Is her position inferior to yours?"
+
+"We neither of us have any position to speak of; but she's better off
+than I, because she has none of the bother."
+
+"Yes, she doesn't look as if she had much bother. I wish I had as little
+bother as that. You do produce quiet people over here, whatever else you
+may do."
+
+"Ah, you see one takes life easily, on the whole," said Lord Warburton.
+"And then you know we're very dull. Ah, we can be dull when we try!"
+
+"I should advise you to try something else. I shouldn't know what to
+talk to your sister about; she looks so different. Is that silver cross
+a badge?"
+
+"A badge?"
+
+"A sign of rank."
+
+Lord Warburton's glance had wandered a good deal, but at this it met the
+gaze of his neighbour. "Oh yes," he answered in a moment; "the women go
+in for those things. The silver cross is worn by the eldest daughters of
+Viscounts." Which was his harmless revenge for having occasionally had
+his credulity too easily engaged in America. After luncheon he proposed
+to Isabel to come into the gallery and look at the pictures; and though
+she knew he had seen the pictures twenty times she complied without
+criticising this pretext. Her conscience now was very easy; ever since
+she sent him her letter she had felt particularly light of spirit. He
+walked slowly to the end of the gallery, staring at its contents and
+saying nothing; and then he suddenly broke out: "I hoped you wouldn't
+write to me that way."
+
+"It was the only way, Lord Warburton," said the girl. "Do try and
+believe that."
+
+"If I could believe it of course I should let you alone. But we can't
+believe by willing it; and I confess I don't understand. I could
+understand your disliking me; that I could understand well. But that you
+should admit you do--"
+
+"What have I admitted?" Isabel interrupted, turning slightly pale.
+
+"That you think me a good fellow; isn't that it?" She said nothing,
+and he went on: "You don't seem to have any reason, and that gives me a
+sense of injustice."
+
+"I have a reason, Lord Warburton." She said it in a tone that made his
+heart contract.
+
+"I should like very much to know it."
+
+"I'll tell you some day when there's more to show for it."
+
+"Excuse my saying that in the mean time I must doubt of it."
+
+"You make me very unhappy," said Isabel.
+
+"I'm not sorry for that; it may help you to know how I feel. Will you
+kindly answer me a question?" Isabel made no audible assent, but he
+apparently saw in her eyes something that gave him courage to go on. "Do
+you prefer some one else?"
+
+"That's a question I'd rather not answer."
+
+"Ah, you do then!" her suitor murmured with bitterness.
+
+The bitterness touched her, and she cried out: "You're mistaken! I
+don't."
+
+He sat down on a bench, unceremoniously, doggedly, like a man in
+trouble; leaning his elbows on his knees and staring at the floor. "I
+can't even be glad of that," he said at last, throwing himself back
+against the wall; "for that would be an excuse."
+
+She raised her eyebrows in surprise. "An excuse? Must I excuse myself?"
+
+He paid, however, no answer to the question. Another idea had come into
+his head. "Is it my political opinions? Do you think I go too far?"
+
+"I can't object to your political opinions, because I don't understand
+them."
+
+"You don't care what I think!" he cried, getting up. "It's all the same
+to you."
+
+Isabel walked to the other side of the gallery and stood there showing
+him her charming back, her light slim figure, the length of her white
+neck as she bent her head, and the density of her dark braids. She
+stopped in front of a small picture as if for the purpose of examining
+it; and there was something so young and free in her movement that her
+very pliancy seemed to mock at him. Her eyes, however, saw nothing; they
+had suddenly been suffused with tears. In a moment he followed her, and
+by this time she had brushed her tears away; but when she turned round
+her face was pale and the expression of her eyes strange. "That reason
+that I wouldn't tell you--I'll tell it you after all. It's that I can't
+escape my fate."
+
+"Your fate?"
+
+"I should try to escape it if I were to marry you."
+
+"I don't understand. Why should not that be your fate as well as
+anything else?"
+
+"Because it's not," said Isabel femininely. "I know it's not. It's not
+my fate to give up--I know it can't be."
+
+Poor Lord Warburton stared, an interrogative point in either eye. "Do
+you call marrying me giving up?"
+
+"Not in the usual sense. It's getting--getting--getting a great deal.
+But it's giving up other chances."
+
+"Other chances for what?"
+
+"I don't mean chances to marry," said Isabel, her colour quickly coming
+back to her. And then she stopped, looking down with a deep frown, as if
+it were hopeless to attempt to make her meaning clear.
+
+"I don't think it presumptuous in me to suggest that you'll gain more
+than you'll lose," her companion observed.
+
+"I can't escape unhappiness," said Isabel. "In marrying you I shall be
+trying to."
+
+"I don't know whether you'd try to, but you certainly would: that I must
+in candour admit!" he exclaimed with an anxious laugh.
+
+"I mustn't--I can't!" cried the girl.
+
+"Well, if you're bent on being miserable I don't see why you should make
+me so. Whatever charms a life of misery may have for you, it has none
+for me."
+
+"I'm not bent on a life of misery," said Isabel. "I've always been
+intensely determined to be happy, and I've often believed I should be.
+I've told people that; you can ask them. But it comes over me every
+now and then that I can never be happy in any extraordinary way; not by
+turning away, by separating myself."
+
+"By separating yourself from what?"
+
+"From life. From the usual chances and dangers, from what most people
+know and suffer."
+
+Lord Warburton broke into a smile that almost denoted hope. "Why,
+my dear Miss Archer," he began to explain with the most considerate
+eagerness, "I don't offer you any exoneration from life or from any
+chances or dangers whatever. I wish I could; depend upon it I would! For
+what do you take me, pray? Heaven help me, I'm not the Emperor of China!
+All I offer you is the chance of taking the common lot in a comfortable
+sort of way. The common lot? Why, I'm devoted to the common lot! Strike
+an alliance with me, and I promise you that you shall have plenty of it.
+You shall separate from nothing whatever--not even from your friend Miss
+Stackpole."
+
+"She'd never approve of it," said Isabel, trying to smile and take
+advantage of this side-issue; despising herself too, not a little, for
+doing so.
+
+"Are we speaking of Miss Stackpole?" his lordship asked impatiently. "I
+never saw a person judge things on such theoretic grounds."
+
+"Now I suppose you're speaking of me," said Isabel with humility; and
+she turned away again, for she saw Miss Molyneux enter the gallery,
+accompanied by Henrietta and by Ralph.
+
+Lord Warburton's sister addressed him with a certain timidity and
+reminded him she ought to return home in time for tea, as she was
+expecting company to partake of it. He made no answer--apparently
+not having heard her; he was preoccupied, and with good reason. Miss
+Molyneux--as if he had been Royalty--stood like a lady-in-waiting.
+
+"Well, I never, Miss Molyneux!" said Henrietta Stackpole. "If I wanted
+to go he'd have to go. If I wanted my brother to do a thing he'd have to
+do it."
+
+"Oh, Warburton does everything one wants," Miss Molyneux answered with
+a quick, shy laugh. "How very many pictures you have!" she went on,
+turning to Ralph.
+
+"They look a good many, because they're all put together," said Ralph.
+"But it's really a bad way."
+
+"Oh, I think it's so nice. I wish we had a gallery at Lockleigh. I'm so
+very fond of pictures," Miss Molyneux went on, persistently, to Ralph,
+as if she were afraid Miss Stackpole would address her again. Henrietta
+appeared at once to fascinate and to frighten her.
+
+"Ah yes, pictures are very convenient," said Ralph, who appeared to know
+better what style of reflexion was acceptable to her.
+
+"They're so very pleasant when it rains," the young lady continued. "It
+has rained of late so very often."
+
+"I'm sorry you're going away, Lord Warburton," said Henrietta. "I wanted
+to get a great deal more out of you."
+
+"I'm not going away," Lord Warburton answered.
+
+"Your sister says you must. In America the gentlemen obey the ladies."
+
+"I'm afraid we have some people to tea," said Miss Molyneux, looking at
+her brother.
+
+"Very good, my dear. We'll go."
+
+"I hoped you would resist!" Henrietta exclaimed. "I wanted to see what
+Miss Molyneux would do."
+
+"I never do anything," said this young lady.
+
+"I suppose in your position it's sufficient for you to exist!" Miss
+Stackpole returned. "I should like very much to see you at home."
+
+"You must come to Lockleigh again," said Miss Molyneux, very sweetly, to
+Isabel, ignoring this remark of Isabel's friend. Isabel looked into her
+quiet eyes a moment, and for that moment seemed to see in their grey
+depths the reflexion of everything she had rejected in rejecting Lord
+Warburton--the peace, the kindness, the honour, the possessions, a deep
+security and a great exclusion. She kissed Miss Molyneux and then she
+said: "I'm afraid I can never come again."
+
+"Never again?"
+
+"I'm afraid I'm going away."
+
+"Oh, I'm so very sorry," said Miss Molyneux. "I think that's so very
+wrong of you."
+
+Lord Warburton watched this little passage; then he turned away and
+stared at a picture. Ralph, leaning against the rail before the picture
+with his hands in his pockets, had for the moment been watching him.
+
+"I should like to see you at home," said Henrietta, whom Lord Warburton
+found beside him. "I should like an hour's talk with you; there are a
+great many questions I wish to ask you."
+
+"I shall be delighted to see you," the proprietor of Lockleigh answered;
+"but I'm certain not to be able to answer many of your questions. When
+will you come?"
+
+"Whenever Miss Archer will take me. We're thinking of going to London,
+but we'll go and see you first. I'm determined to get some satisfaction
+out of you."
+
+"If it depends upon Miss Archer I'm afraid you won't get much. She won't
+come to Lockleigh; she doesn't like the place."
+
+"She told me it was lovely!" said Henrietta.
+
+Lord Warburton hesitated. "She won't come, all the same. You had better
+come alone," he added.
+
+Henrietta straightened herself, and her large eyes expanded. "Would you
+make that remark to an English lady?" she enquired with soft asperity.
+
+Lord Warburton stared. "Yes, if I liked her enough."
+
+"You'd be careful not to like her enough. If Miss Archer won't visit
+your place again it's because she doesn't want to take me. I know what
+she thinks of me, and I suppose you think the same--that I oughtn't to
+bring in individuals." Lord Warburton was at a loss; he had not been
+made acquainted with Miss Stackpole's professional character and failed
+to catch her allusion. "Miss Archer has been warning you!" she therefore
+went on.
+
+"Warning me?"
+
+"Isn't that why she came off alone with you here--to put you on your
+guard?"
+
+"Oh dear, no," said Lord Warburton brazenly; "our talk had no such
+solemn character as that."
+
+"Well, you've been on your guard--intensely. I suppose it's natural
+to you; that's just what I wanted to observe. And so, too, Miss
+Molyneux--she wouldn't commit herself. You have been warned, anyway,"
+Henrietta continued, addressing this young lady; "but for you it wasn't
+necessary."
+
+"I hope not," said Miss Molyneux vaguely.
+
+"Miss Stackpole takes notes," Ralph soothingly explained. "She's a great
+satirist; she sees through us all and she works us up."
+
+"Well, I must say I never have had such a collection of bad material!"
+Henrietta declared, looking from Isabel to Lord Warburton and from this
+nobleman to his sister and to Ralph. "There's something the matter with
+you all; you're as dismal as if you had got a bad cable."
+
+"You do see through us, Miss Stackpole," said Ralph in a low tone,
+giving her a little intelligent nod as he led the party out of the
+gallery. "There's something the matter with us all."
+
+Isabel came behind these two; Miss Molyneux, who decidedly liked her
+immensely, had taken her arm, to walk beside her over the polished
+floor. Lord Warburton strolled on the other side with his hands behind
+him and his eyes lowered. For some moments he said nothing; and then,
+"Is it true you're going to London?" he asked.
+
+"I believe it has been arranged."
+
+"And when shall you come back?"
+
+"In a few days; but probably for a very short time. I'm going to Paris
+with my aunt."
+
+"When, then, shall I see you again?"
+
+"Not for a good while," said Isabel. "But some day or other, I hope."
+
+"Do you really hope it?"
+
+"Very much."
+
+He went a few steps in silence; then he stopped and put out his hand.
+"Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye," said Isabel.
+
+Miss Molyneux kissed her again, and she let the two depart. After it,
+without rejoining Henrietta and Ralph, she retreated to her own room; in
+which apartment, before dinner, she was found by Mrs. Touchett, who had
+stopped on her way to the salon. "I may as well tell you," said that
+lady, "that your uncle has informed me of your relations with Lord
+Warburton."
+
+Isabel considered. "Relations? They're hardly relations. That's the
+strange part of it: he has seen me but three or four times."
+
+"Why did you tell your uncle rather than me?" Mrs. Touchett
+dispassionately asked.
+
+Again the girl hesitated. "Because he knows Lord Warburton better."
+
+"Yes, but I know you better."
+
+"I'm not sure of that," said Isabel, smiling.
+
+"Neither am I, after all; especially when you give me that rather
+conceited look. One would think you were awfully pleased with yourself
+and had carried off a prize! I suppose that when you refuse an offer
+like Lord Warburton's it's because you expect to do something better."
+
+"Ah, my uncle didn't say that!" cried Isabel, smiling still.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+It had been arranged that the two young ladies should proceed to London
+under Ralph's escort, though Mrs. Touchett looked with little favour on
+the plan. It was just the sort of plan, she said, that Miss Stackpole
+would be sure to suggest, and she enquired if the correspondent of
+the Interviewer was to take the party to stay at her favourite
+boarding-house.
+
+"I don't care where she takes us to stay, so long as there's local
+colour," said Isabel. "That's what we're going to London for."
+
+"I suppose that after a girl has refused an English lord she may do
+anything," her aunt rejoined. "After that one needn't stand on trifles."
+
+"Should you have liked me to marry Lord Warburton?" Isabel enquired.
+
+"Of course I should."
+
+"I thought you disliked the English so much."
+
+"So I do; but it's all the greater reason for making use of them."
+
+"Is that your idea of marriage?" And Isabel ventured to add that her
+aunt appeared to her to have made very little use of Mr. Touchett.
+
+"Your uncle's not an English nobleman," said Mrs. Touchett, "though even
+if he had been I should still probably have taken up my residence in
+Florence."
+
+"Do you think Lord Warburton could make me any better than I am?" the
+girl asked with some animation. "I don't mean I'm too good to improve. I
+mean that I don't love Lord Warburton enough to marry him."
+
+"You did right to refuse him then," said Mrs. Touchett in her smallest,
+sparest voice. "Only, the next great offer you get, I hope you'll manage
+to come up to your standard."
+
+"We had better wait till the offer comes before we talk about it. I
+hope very much I may have no more offers for the present. They upset me
+completely."
+
+"You probably won't be troubled with them if you adopt permanently the
+Bohemian manner of life. However, I've promised Ralph not to criticise."
+
+"I'll do whatever Ralph says is right," Isabel returned. "I've unbounded
+confidence in Ralph."
+
+"His mother's much obliged to you!" this lady dryly laughed.
+
+"It seems to me indeed she ought to feel it!" Isabel irrepressibly
+answered.
+
+Ralph had assured her that there would be no violation of decency in
+their paying a visit--the little party of three--to the sights of the
+metropolis; but Mrs. Touchett took a different view. Like many ladies of
+her country who had lived a long time in Europe, she had completely
+lost her native tact on such points, and in her reaction, not in itself
+deplorable, against the liberty allowed to young persons beyond the
+seas, had fallen into gratuitous and exaggerated scruples. Ralph
+accompanied their visitors to town and established them at a quiet inn
+in a street that ran at right angles to Piccadilly. His first idea had
+been to take them to his father's house in Winchester Square, a large,
+dull mansion which at this period of the year was shrouded in silence
+and brown holland; but he bethought himself that, the cook being at
+Gardencourt, there was no one in the house to get them their meals,
+and Pratt's Hotel accordingly became their resting-place. Ralph, on his
+side, found quarters in Winchester Square, having a "den" there of which
+he was very fond and being familiar with deeper fears than that of a
+cold kitchen. He availed himself largely indeed of the resources of
+Pratt's Hotel, beginning his day with an early visit to his fellow
+travellers, who had Mr. Pratt in person, in a large bulging white
+waistcoat, to remove their dish-covers. Ralph turned up, as he said,
+after breakfast, and the little party made out a scheme of entertainment
+for the day. As London wears in the month of September a face blank but
+for its smears of prior service, the young man, who occasionally took
+an apologetic tone, was obliged to remind his companion, to Miss
+Stackpole's high derision, that there wasn't a creature in town.
+
+"I suppose you mean the aristocracy are absent," Henrietta answered;
+"but I don't think you could have a better proof that if they were
+absent altogether they wouldn't be missed. It seems to me the place is
+about as full as it can be. There's no one here, of course, but three
+or four millions of people. What is it you call them--the lower-middle
+class? They're only the population of London, and that's of no
+consequence."
+
+Ralph declared that for him the aristocracy left no void that Miss
+Stackpole herself didn't fill, and that a more contented man was nowhere
+at that moment to be found. In this he spoke the truth, for the stale
+September days, in the huge half-empty town, had a charm wrapped in them
+as a coloured gem might be wrapped in a dusty cloth. When he went home
+at night to the empty house in Winchester Square, after a chain of hours
+with his comparatively ardent friends, he wandered into the big dusky
+dining-room, where the candle he took from the hall-table, after letting
+himself in, constituted the only illumination. The square was still, the
+house was still; when he raised one of the windows of the dining-room to
+let in the air he heard the slow creak of the boots of a lone constable.
+His own step, in the empty place, seemed loud and sonorous; some of the
+carpets had been raised, and whenever he moved he roused a melancholy
+echo. He sat down in one of the armchairs; the big dark dining table
+twinkled here and there in the small candle-light; the pictures on the
+wall, all of them very brown, looked vague and incoherent. There was a
+ghostly presence as of dinners long since digested, of table-talk
+that had lost its actuality. This hint of the supernatural perhaps had
+something to do with the fact that his imagination took a flight and
+that he remained in his chair a long time beyond the hour at which he
+should have been in bed; doing nothing, not even reading the evening
+paper. I say he did nothing, and I maintain the phrase in the face of
+the fact that he thought at these moments of Isabel. To think of Isabel
+could only be for him an idle pursuit, leading to nothing and profiting
+little to any one. His cousin had not yet seemed to him so charming
+as during these days spent in sounding, tourist-fashion, the deeps
+and shallows of the metropolitan element. Isabel was full of premises,
+conclusions, emotions; if she had come in search of local colour she
+found it everywhere. She asked more questions than he could answer, and
+launched brave theories, as to historic cause and social effect, that he
+was equally unable to accept or to refute. The party went more than once
+to the British Museum and to that brighter palace of art which reclaims
+for antique variety so large an area of a monotonous suburb; they spent
+a morning in the Abbey and went on a penny-steamer to the Tower; they
+looked at pictures both in public and private collections and sat
+on various occasions beneath the great trees in Kensington Gardens.
+Henrietta proved an indestructible sight-seer and a more lenient judge
+than Ralph had ventured to hope. She had indeed many disappointments,
+and London at large suffered from her vivid remembrance of the strong
+points of the American civic idea; but she made the best of its dingy
+dignities and only heaved an occasional sigh and uttered a desultory
+"Well!" which led no further and lost itself in retrospect. The truth
+was that, as she said herself, she was not in her element. "I've not a
+sympathy with inanimate objects," she remarked to Isabel at the National
+Gallery; and she continued to suffer from the meagreness of the glimpse
+that had as yet been vouchsafed to her of the inner life. Landscapes
+by Turner and Assyrian bulls were a poor substitute for the literary
+dinner-parties at which she had hoped to meet the genius and renown of
+Great Britain.
+
+"Where are your public men, where are your men and women of intellect?"
+she enquired of Ralph, standing in the middle of Trafalgar Square as
+if she had supposed this to be a place where she would naturally meet a
+few. "That's one of them on the top of the column, you say--Lord Nelson.
+Was he a lord too? Wasn't he high enough, that they had to stick him a
+hundred feet in the air? That's the past--I don't care about the past; I
+want to see some of the leading minds of the present. I won't say of the
+future, because I don't believe much in your future." Poor Ralph had few
+leading minds among his acquaintance and rarely enjoyed the pleasure
+of buttonholing a celebrity; a state of things which appeared to Miss
+Stackpole to indicate a deplorable want of enterprise. "If I were on the
+other side I should call," she said, "and tell the gentleman, whoever
+he might be, that I had heard a great deal about him and had come to see
+for myself. But I gather from what you say that this is not the custom
+here. You seem to have plenty of meaningless customs, but none of those
+that would help along. We are in advance, certainly. I suppose I shall
+have to give up the social side altogether;" and Henrietta, though
+she went about with her guidebook and pencil and wrote a letter to the
+Interviewer about the Tower (in which she described the execution of
+Lady Jane Grey), had a sad sense of falling below her mission.
+
+The incident that had preceded Isabel's departure from Gardencourt left
+a painful trace in our young woman's mind: when she felt again in her
+face, as from a recurrent wave, the cold breath of her last suitor's
+surprise, she could only muffle her head till the air cleared. She could
+not have done less than what she did; this was certainly true. But her
+necessity, all the same, had been as graceless as some physical act in
+a strained attitude, and she felt no desire to take credit for her
+conduct. Mixed with this imperfect pride, nevertheless, was a feeling of
+freedom which in itself was sweet and which, as she wandered through the
+great city with her ill-matched companions, occasionally throbbed into
+odd demonstrations. When she walked in Kensington Gardens she stopped
+the children (mainly of the poorer sort) whom she saw playing on the
+grass; she asked them their names and gave them sixpence and, when
+they were pretty, kissed them. Ralph noticed these quaint charities;
+he noticed everything she did. One afternoon, that his companions might
+pass the time, he invited them to tea in Winchester Square, and he had
+the house set in order as much as possible for their visit. There
+was another guest to meet them, an amiable bachelor, an old friend of
+Ralph's who happened to be in town and for whom prompt commerce with
+Miss Stackpole appeared to have neither difficulty nor dread. Mr.
+Bantling, a stout, sleek, smiling man of forty, wonderfully dressed,
+universally informed and incoherently amused, laughed immoderately at
+everything Henrietta said, gave her several cups of tea, examined in her
+society the bric-a-brac, of which Ralph had a considerable collection,
+and afterwards, when the host proposed they should go out into the
+square and pretend it was a fete-champetre, walked round the limited
+enclosure several times with her and, at a dozen turns of their talk,
+bounded responsive--as with a positive passion for argument--to her
+remarks upon the inner life.
+
+"Oh, I see; I dare say you found it very quiet at Gardencourt. Naturally
+there's not much going on there when there's such a lot of illness
+about. Touchett's very bad, you know; the doctors have forbidden his
+being in England at all, and he has only come back to take care of his
+father. The old man, I believe, has half a dozen things the matter
+with him. They call it gout, but to my certain knowledge he has organic
+disease so developed that you may depend upon it he'll go, some day
+soon, quite quickly. Of course that sort of thing makes a dreadfully
+dull house; I wonder they have people when they can do so little for
+them. Then I believe Mr. Touchett's always squabbling with his wife; she
+lives away from her husband, you know, in that extraordinary American
+way of yours. If you want a house where there's always something going
+on, I recommend you to go down and stay with my sister, Lady Pensil,
+in Bedfordshire. I'll write to her to-morrow and I'm sure she'll be
+delighted to ask you. I know just what you want--you want a house
+where they go in for theatricals and picnics and that sort of thing. My
+sister's just that sort of woman; she's always getting up something or
+other and she's always glad to have the sort of people who help her. I'm
+sure she'll ask you down by return of post: she's tremendously fond of
+distinguished people and writers. She writes herself, you know; but
+I haven't read everything she has written. It's usually poetry, and I
+don't go in much for poetry--unless it's Byron. I suppose you think a
+great deal of Byron in America," Mr. Bantling continued, expanding
+in the stimulating air of Miss Stackpole's attention, bringing up his
+sequences promptly and changing his topic with an easy turn of hand.
+Yet he none the less gracefully kept in sight of the idea, dazzling to
+Henrietta, of her going to stay with Lady Pensil in Bedfordshire. "I
+understand what you want; you want to see some genuine English sport.
+The Touchetts aren't English at all, you know; they have their own
+habits, their own language, their own food--some odd religion even, I
+believe, of their own. The old man thinks it's wicked to hunt, I'm told.
+You must get down to my sister's in time for the theatricals, and I'm
+sure she'll be glad to give you a part. I'm sure you act well; I know
+you're very clever. My sister's forty years old and has seven children,
+but she's going to play the principal part. Plain as she is she makes up
+awfully well--I will say for her. Of course you needn't act if you don't
+want to."
+
+In this manner Mr. Bantling delivered himself while they strolled over
+the grass in Winchester Square, which, although it had been peppered
+by the London soot, invited the tread to linger. Henrietta thought her
+blooming, easy-voiced bachelor, with his impressibility to feminine
+merit and his splendid range of suggestion, a very agreeable man, and
+she valued the opportunity he offered her. "I don't know but I would go,
+if your sister should ask me. I think it would be my duty. What do you
+call her name?"
+
+"Pensil. It's an odd name, but it isn't a bad one."
+
+"I think one name's as good as another. But what's her rank?".
+
+"Oh, she's a baron's wife; a convenient sort of rank. You're fine enough
+and you're not too fine."
+
+"I don't know but what she'd be too fine for me. What do you call the
+place she lives in--Bedfordshire?"
+
+"She lives away in the northern corner of it. It's a tiresome country,
+but I dare say you won't mind it. I'll try and run down while you're
+there."
+
+All this was very pleasant to Miss Stackpole, and she was sorry to be
+obliged to separate from Lady Pensil's obliging brother. But it happened
+that she had met the day before, in Piccadilly, some friends whom she
+had not seen for a year: the Miss Climbers, two ladies from Wilmington,
+Delaware, who had been travelling on the Continent and were now
+preparing to re-embark. Henrietta had had a long interview with them on
+the Piccadilly pavement, and though the three ladies all talked at once
+they had not exhausted their store. It had been agreed therefore that
+Henrietta should come and dine with them in their lodgings in Jermyn
+Street at six o'clock on the morrow, and she now bethought herself of
+this engagement. She prepared to start for Jermyn Street, taking leave
+first of Ralph Touchett and Isabel, who, seated on garden chairs
+in another part of the enclosure, were occupied--if the term may be
+used--with an exchange of amenities less pointed than the practical
+colloquy of Miss Stackpole and Mr. Bantling. When it had been settled
+between Isabel and her friend that they should be reunited at some
+reputable hour at Pratt's Hotel, Ralph remarked that the latter must
+have a cab. She couldn't walk all the way to Jermyn Street.
+
+"I suppose you mean it's improper for me to walk alone!" Henrietta
+exclaimed. "Merciful powers, have I come to this?"
+
+"There's not the slightest need of your walking alone," Mr. Bantling
+gaily interposed. "I should be greatly pleased to go with you."
+
+"I simply meant that you'd be late for dinner," Ralph returned. "Those
+poor ladies may easily believe that we refuse, at the last, to spare
+you."
+
+"You had better have a hansom, Henrietta," said Isabel.
+
+"I'll get you a hansom if you'll trust me," Mr. Bantling went on.
+
+"We might walk a little till we meet one."
+
+"I don't see why I shouldn't trust him, do you?" Henrietta enquired of
+Isabel.
+
+"I don't see what Mr. Bantling could do to you," Isabel obligingly
+answered; "but, if you like, we'll walk with you till you find your
+cab."
+
+"Never mind; we'll go alone. Come on, Mr. Bantling, and take care you
+get me a good one."
+
+Mr. Bantling promised to do his best, and the two took their departure,
+leaving the girl and her cousin together in the square, over which
+a clear September twilight had now begun to gather. It was perfectly
+still; the wide quadrangle of dusky houses showed lights in none of the
+windows, where the shutters and blinds were closed; the pavements were
+a vacant expanse, and, putting aside two small children from a
+neighbouring slum, who, attracted by symptoms of abnormal animation
+in the interior, poked their faces between the rusty rails of
+the enclosure, the most vivid object within sight was the big red
+pillar-post on the southeast corner.
+
+"Henrietta will ask him to get into the cab and go with her to Jermyn
+Street," Ralph observed. He always spoke of Miss Stackpole as Henrietta.
+
+"Very possibly," said his companion.
+
+"Or rather, no, she won't," he went on. "But Bantling will ask leave to
+get in."
+
+"Very likely again. I'm glad very they're such good friends."
+
+"She has made a conquest. He thinks her a brilliant woman. It may go
+far," said Ralph.
+
+Isabel was briefly silent. "I call Henrietta a very brilliant woman, but
+I don't think it will go far. They would never really know each other.
+He has not the least idea what she really is, and she has no just
+comprehension of Mr. Bantling."
+
+"There's no more usual basis of union than a mutual misunderstanding.
+But it ought not to be so difficult to understand Bob Bantling," Ralph
+added. "He is a very simple organism."
+
+"Yes, but Henrietta's a simpler one still. And, pray, what am I to do?"
+Isabel asked, looking about her through the fading light, in which the
+limited landscape-gardening of the square took on a large and effective
+appearance. "I don't imagine that you'll propose that you and I, for our
+amusement, shall drive about London in a hansom."
+
+"There's no reason we shouldn't stay here--if you don't dislike it. It's
+very warm; there will be half an hour yet before dark; and if you permit
+it I'll light a cigarette."
+
+"You may do what you please," said Isabel, "if you'll amuse me till
+seven o'clock. I propose at that hour to go back and partake of a simple
+and solitary repast--two poached eggs and a muffin--at Pratt's Hotel."
+
+"Mayn't I dine with you?" Ralph asked.
+
+"No, you'll dine at your club."
+
+They had wandered back to their chairs in the centre of the square
+again, and Ralph had lighted his cigarette. It would have given him
+extreme pleasure to be present in person at the modest little feast she
+had sketched; but in default of this he liked even being forbidden. For
+the moment, however, he liked immensely being alone with her, in the
+thickening dusk, in the centre of the multitudinous town; it made her
+seem to depend upon him and to be in his power. This power he could
+exert but vaguely; the best exercise of it was to accept her decisions
+submissively which indeed there was already an emotion in doing. "Why
+won't you let me dine with you?" he demanded after a pause.
+
+"Because I don't care for it."
+
+"I suppose you're tired of me."
+
+"I shall be an hour hence. You see I have the gift of foreknowledge."
+
+"Oh, I shall be delightful meanwhile," said Ralph.
+
+But he said nothing more, and as she made no rejoinder they sat
+some time in a stillness which seemed to contradict his promise of
+entertainment. It seemed to him she was preoccupied, and he wondered
+what she was thinking about; there were two or three very possible
+subjects. At last he spoke again. "Is your objection to my society this
+evening caused by your expectation of another visitor?"
+
+She turned her head with a glance of her clear, fair eyes. "Another
+visitor? What visitor should I have?"
+
+He had none to suggest; which made his question seem to himself silly as
+well as brutal. "You've a great many friends that I don't know. You've a
+whole past from which I was perversely excluded."
+
+"You were reserved for my future. You must remember that my past is over
+there across the water. There's none of it here in London."
+
+"Very good, then, since your future is seated beside you. Capital thing
+to have your future so handy." And Ralph lighted another cigarette and
+reflected that Isabel probably meant she had received news that Mr.
+Caspar Goodwood had crossed to Paris. After he had lighted his cigarette
+he puffed it a while, and then he resumed. "I promised just now to be
+very amusing; but you see I don't come up to the mark, and the fact is
+there's a good deal of temerity in one's undertaking to amuse a
+person like you. What do you care for my feeble attempts? You've grand
+ideas--you've a high standard in such matters. I ought at least to bring
+in a band of music or a company of mountebanks."
+
+"One mountebank's enough, and you do very well. Pray go on, and in
+another ten minutes I shall begin to laugh."
+
+"I assure you I'm very serious," said Ralph. "You do really ask a great
+deal."
+
+"I don't know what you mean. I ask nothing."
+
+"You accept nothing," said Ralph. She coloured, and now suddenly it
+seemed to her that she guessed his meaning. But why should he speak
+to her of such things? He hesitated a little and then he continued:
+"There's something I should like very much to say to you. It's a
+question I wish to ask. It seems to me I've a right to ask it, because
+I've a kind of interest in the answer."
+
+"Ask what you will," Isabel replied gently, "and I'll try to satisfy
+you."
+
+"Well then, I hope you won't mind my saying that Warburton has told me
+of something that has passed between you."
+
+Isabel suppressed a start; she sat looking at her open fan. "Very good;
+I suppose it was natural he should tell you."
+
+"I have his leave to let you know he has done so. He has some hope
+still," said Ralph.
+
+"Still?"
+
+"He had it a few days ago."
+
+"I don't believe he has any now," said the girl.
+
+"I'm very sorry for him then; he's such an honest man."
+
+"Pray, did he ask you to talk to me?"
+
+"No, not that. But he told me because he couldn't help it. We're old
+friends, and he was greatly disappointed. He sent me a line asking me
+to come and see him, and I drove over to Lockleigh the day before he and
+his sister lunched with us. He was very heavy-hearted; he had just got a
+letter from you."
+
+"Did he show you the letter?" asked Isabel with momentary loftiness.
+
+"By no means. But he told me it was a neat refusal. I was very sorry for
+him," Ralph repeated.
+
+For some moments Isabel said nothing; then at last, "Do you know how
+often he had seen me?" she enquired. "Five or six times."
+
+"That's to your glory."
+
+"It's not for that I say it."
+
+"What then do you say it for. Not to prove that poor Warburton's state
+of mind's superficial, because I'm pretty sure you don't think that."
+
+Isabel certainly was unable to say she thought it; but presently she
+said something else. "If you've not been requested by Lord Warburton to
+argue with me, then you're doing it disinterestedly--or for the love of
+argument."
+
+"I've no wish to argue with you at all. I only wish to leave you alone.
+I'm simply greatly interested in your own sentiments."
+
+"I'm greatly obliged to you!" cried Isabel with a slightly nervous
+laugh.
+
+"Of course you mean that I'm meddling in what doesn't concern me. But
+why shouldn't I speak to you of this matter without annoying you or
+embarrassing myself? What's the use of being your cousin if I can't have
+a few privileges? What's the use of adoring you without hope of a reward
+if I can't have a few compensations? What's the use of being ill and
+disabled and restricted to mere spectatorship at the game of life if I
+really can't see the show when I've paid so much for my ticket? Tell me
+this," Ralph went on while she listened to him with quickened attention.
+"What had you in mind when you refused Lord Warburton?"
+
+"What had I in mind?"
+
+"What was the logic--the view of your situation--that dictated so
+remarkable an act?"
+
+"I didn't wish to marry him--if that's logic."
+
+"No, that's not logic--and I knew that before. It's really nothing, you
+know. What was it you said to yourself? You certainly said more than
+that."
+
+Isabel reflected a moment, then answered with a question of her own.
+"Why do you call it a remarkable act? That's what your mother thinks
+too."
+
+"Warburton's such a thorough good sort; as a man, I consider he has
+hardly a fault. And then he's what they call here no end of a swell. He
+has immense possessions, and his wife would be thought a superior being.
+He unites the intrinsic and the extrinsic advantages."
+
+Isabel watched her cousin as to see how far he would go. "I refused him
+because he was too perfect then. I'm not perfect myself, and he's too
+good for me. Besides, his perfection would irritate me."
+
+"That's ingenious rather than candid," said Ralph. "As a fact you think
+nothing in the world too perfect for you."
+
+"Do you think I'm so good?"
+
+"No, but you're exacting, all the same, without the excuse of thinking
+yourself good. Nineteen women out of twenty, however, even of the most
+exacting sort, would have managed to do with Warburton. Perhaps you
+don't know how he has been stalked."
+
+"I don't wish to know. But it seems to me," said Isabel, "that one day
+when we talked of him you mentioned odd things in him." Ralph smokingly
+considered. "I hope that what I said then had no weight with you;
+for they were not faults, the things I spoke of: they were simply
+peculiarities of his position. If I had known he wished to marry you I'd
+never have alluded to them. I think I said that as regards that position
+he was rather a sceptic. It would have been in your power to make him a
+believer."
+
+"I think not. I don't understand the matter, and I'm not conscious of
+any mission of that sort. You're evidently disappointed," Isabel added,
+looking at her cousin with rueful gentleness. "You'd have liked me to
+make such a marriage."
+
+"Not in the least. I'm absolutely without a wish on the subject. I don't
+pretend to advise you, and I content myself with watching you--with the
+deepest interest."
+
+She gave rather a conscious sigh. "I wish I could be as interesting to
+myself as I am to you!"
+
+"There you're not candid again; you're extremely interesting to
+yourself. Do you know, however," said Ralph, "that if you've really
+given Warburton his final answer I'm rather glad it has been what it
+was. I don't mean I'm glad for you, and still less of course for him.
+I'm glad for myself."
+
+"Are you thinking of proposing to me?"
+
+"By no means. From the point of view I speak of that would be fatal;
+I should kill the goose that supplies me with the material of my
+inimitable omelettes. I use that animal as the symbol of my insane
+illusions. What I mean is that I shall have the thrill of seeing what a
+young lady does who won't marry Lord Warburton."
+
+"That's what your mother counts upon too," said Isabel.
+
+"Ah, there will be plenty of spectators! We shall hang on the rest of
+your career. I shall not see all of it, but I shall probably see the
+most interesting years. Of course if you were to marry our friend you'd
+still have a career--a very decent, in fact a very brilliant one. But
+relatively speaking it would be a little prosaic. It would be definitely
+marked out in advance; it would be wanting in the unexpected. You know
+I'm extremely fond of the unexpected, and now that you've kept the game
+in your hands I depend on your giving us some grand example of it."
+
+"I don't understand you very well," said Isabel, "but I do so well
+enough to be able to say that if you look for grand examples of anything
+from me I shall disappoint you."
+
+"You'll do so only by disappointing yourself and that will go hard with
+you!"
+
+To this she made no direct reply; there was an amount of truth in it
+that would bear consideration. At last she said abruptly: "I don't see
+what harm there is in my wishing not to tie myself. I don't want to
+begin life by marrying. There are other things a woman can do."
+
+"There's nothing she can do so well. But you're of course so
+many-sided."
+
+"If one's two-sided it's enough," said Isabel.
+
+"You're the most charming of polygons!" her companion broke out. At a
+glance from his companion, however, he became grave, and to prove it
+went on: "You want to see life--you'll be hanged if you don't, as the
+young men say."
+
+"I don't think I want to see it as the young men want to see it. But I
+do want to look about me."
+
+"You want to drain the cup of experience."
+
+"No, I don't wish to touch the cup of experience. It's a poisoned drink!
+I only want to see for myself."
+
+"You want to see, but not to feel," Ralph remarked.
+
+"I don't think that if one's a sentient being one can make the
+distinction. I'm a good deal like Henrietta. The other day when I asked
+her if she wished to marry she said: 'Not till I've seen Europe!' I too
+don't wish to marry till I've seen Europe."
+
+"You evidently expect a crowned head will be struck with you."
+
+"No, that would be worse than marrying Lord Warburton. But it's getting
+very dark," Isabel continued, "and I must go home." She rose from her
+place, but Ralph only sat still and looked at her. As he remained there
+she stopped, and they exchanged a gaze that was full on either side, but
+especially on Ralph's, of utterances too vague for words.
+
+"You've answered my question," he said at last. "You've told me what I
+wanted. I'm greatly obliged to you."
+
+"It seems to me I've told you very little."
+
+"You've told me the great thing: that the world interests you and that
+you want to throw yourself into it."
+
+Her silvery eyes shone a moment in the dusk. "I never said that." "I
+think you meant it. Don't repudiate it. It's so fine!"
+
+"I don't know what you're trying to fasten upon me, for I'm not in the
+least an adventurous spirit. Women are not like men."
+
+Ralph slowly rose from his seat and they walked together to the gate of
+the square. "No," he said; "women rarely boast of their courage. Men do
+so with a certain frequency."
+
+"Men have it to boast of!"
+
+"Women have it too. You've a great deal."
+
+"Enough to go home in a cab to Pratt's Hotel, but not more."
+
+Ralph unlocked the gate, and after they had passed out he fastened it.
+"We'll find your cab," he said; and as they turned toward a neighbouring
+street in which this quest might avail he asked her again if he mightn't
+see her safely to the inn.
+
+"By no means," she answered; "you're very tired; you must go home and go
+to bed."
+
+The cab was found, and he helped her into it, standing a moment at the
+door. "When people forget I'm a poor creature I'm often incommoded," he
+said. "But it's worse when they remember it!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+She had had no hidden motive in wishing him not to take her home; it
+simply struck her that for some days past she had consumed an inordinate
+quantity of his time, and the independent spirit of the American girl
+whom extravagance of aid places in an attitude that she ends by finding
+"affected" had made her decide that for these few hours she must suffice
+to herself. She had moreover a great fondness for intervals of solitude,
+which since her arrival in England had been but meagrely met. It was a
+luxury she could always command at home and she had wittingly missed
+it. That evening, however, an incident occurred which--had there been a
+critic to note it--would have taken all colour from the theory that the
+wish to be quite by herself had caused her to dispense with her cousin's
+attendance. Seated toward nine o'clock in the dim illumination of
+Pratt's Hotel and trying with the aid of two tall candles to lose
+herself in a volume she had brought from Gardencourt, she succeeded
+only to the extent of reading other words than those printed on the
+page--words that Ralph had spoken to her that afternoon. Suddenly
+the well-muffed knuckle of the waiter was applied to the door, which
+presently gave way to his exhibition, even as a glorious trophy, of the
+card of a visitor. When this memento had offered to her fixed sight the
+name of Mr. Caspar Goodwood she let the man stand before her without
+signifying her wishes.
+
+"Shall I show the gentleman up, ma'am?" he asked with a slightly
+encouraging inflexion.
+
+Isabel hesitated still and while she hesitated glanced at the mirror.
+"He may come in," she said at last; and waited for him not so much
+smoothing her hair as girding her spirit.
+
+Caspar Goodwood was accordingly the next moment shaking hands with her,
+but saying nothing till the servant had left the room. "Why didn't you
+answer my letter?" he then asked in a quick, full, slightly peremptory
+tone--the tone of a man whose questions were habitually pointed and who
+was capable of much insistence.
+
+She answered by a ready question, "How did you know I was here?"
+
+"Miss Stackpole let me know," said Caspar Goodwood. "She told me you
+would probably be at home alone this evening and would be willing to see
+me."
+
+"Where did she see you--to tell you that?"
+
+"She didn't see me; she wrote to me."
+
+Isabel was silent; neither had sat down; they stood there with an air
+of defiance, or at least of contention. "Henrietta never told me she was
+writing to you," she said at last. "This is not kind of her."
+
+"Is it so disagreeable to you to see me?" asked the young man.
+
+"I didn't expect it. I don't like such surprises."
+
+"But you knew I was in town; it was natural we should meet."
+
+"Do you call this meeting? I hoped I shouldn't see you. In so big a
+place as London it seemed very possible."
+
+"It was apparently repugnant to you even to write to me," her visitor
+went on.
+
+Isabel made no reply; the sense of Henrietta Stackpole's treachery,
+as she momentarily qualified it, was strong within her. "Henrietta's
+certainly not a model of all the delicacies!" she exclaimed with
+bitterness. "It was a great liberty to take."
+
+"I suppose I'm not a model either--of those virtues or of any others.
+The fault's mine as much as hers."
+
+As Isabel looked at him it seemed to her that his jaw had never been
+more square. This might have displeased her, but she took a different
+turn. "No, it's not your fault so much as hers. What you've done was
+inevitable, I suppose, for you."
+
+"It was indeed!" cried Caspar Goodwood with a voluntary laugh.
+
+"And now that I've come, at any rate, mayn't I stay?"
+
+"You may sit down, certainly."
+
+She went back to her chair again, while her visitor took the first place
+that offered, in the manner of a man accustomed to pay little thought to
+that sort of furtherance. "I've been hoping every day for an answer to
+my letter. You might have written me a few lines."
+
+"It wasn't the trouble of writing that prevented me; I could as easily
+have written you four pages as one. But my silence was an intention,"
+Isabel said. "I thought it the best thing."
+
+He sat with his eyes fixed on hers while she spoke; then he lowered them
+and attached them to a spot in the carpet as if he were making a strong
+effort to say nothing but what he ought. He was a strong man in the
+wrong, and he was acute enough to see that an uncompromising exhibition
+of his strength would only throw the falsity of his position into
+relief. Isabel was not incapable of tasting any advantage of position
+over a person of this quality, and though little desirous to flaunt it
+in his face she could enjoy being able to say "You know you oughtn't to
+have written to me yourself!" and to say it with an air of triumph.
+
+Caspar Goodwood raised his eyes to her own again; they seemed to shine
+through the vizard of a helmet. He had a strong sense of justice and was
+ready any day in the year--over and above this--to argue the question
+of his rights. "You said you hoped never to hear from me again; I know
+that. But I never accepted any such rule as my own. I warned you that
+you should hear very soon."
+
+"I didn't say I hoped NEVER to hear from you," said Isabel.
+
+"Not for five years then; for ten years; twenty years. It's the same
+thing."
+
+"Do you find it so? It seems to me there's a great difference. I can
+imagine that at the end of ten years we might have a very pleasant
+correspondence. I shall have matured my epistolary style."
+
+She looked away while she spoke these words, knowing them of so much
+less earnest a cast than the countenance of her listener. Her eyes,
+however, at last came back to him, just as he said very irrelevantly;
+"Are you enjoying your visit to your uncle?"
+
+"Very much indeed." She dropped, but then she broke out. "What good do
+you expect to get by insisting?"
+
+"The good of not losing you."
+
+"You've no right to talk of losing what's not yours. And even from your
+own point of view," Isabel added, "you ought to know when to let one
+alone."
+
+"I disgust you very much," said Caspar Goodwood gloomily; not as if to
+provoke her to compassion for a man conscious of this blighting fact,
+but as if to set it well before himself, so that he might endeavour to
+act with his eyes on it.
+
+"Yes, you don't at all delight me, you don't fit in, not in any way,
+just now, and the worst is that your putting it to the proof in this
+manner is quite unnecessary." It wasn't certainly as if his nature had
+been soft, so that pin-pricks would draw blood from it; and from the
+first of her acquaintance with him, and of her having to defend herself
+against a certain air that he had of knowing better what was good for
+her than she knew herself, she had recognised the fact that perfect
+frankness was her best weapon. To attempt to spare his sensibility or to
+escape from him edgewise, as one might do from a man who had barred
+the way less sturdily--this, in dealing with Caspar Goodwood, who would
+grasp at everything of every sort that one might give him, was wasted
+agility. It was not that he had not susceptibilities, but his passive
+surface, as well as his active, was large and hard, and he might always
+be trusted to dress his wounds, so far as they required it, himself. She
+came back, even for her measure of possible pangs and aches in him,
+to her old sense that he was naturally plated and steeled, armed
+essentially for aggression.
+
+"I can't reconcile myself to that," he simply said. There was a
+dangerous liberality about it; for she felt how open it was to him to
+make the point that he had not always disgusted her.
+
+"I can't reconcile myself to it either, and it's not the state of things
+that ought to exist between us. If you'd only try to banish me from your
+mind for a few months we should be on good terms again."
+
+"I see. If I should cease to think of you at all for a prescribed time,
+I should find I could keep it up indefinitely."
+
+"Indefinitely is more than I ask. It's more even than I should like."
+
+"You know that what you ask is impossible," said the young man, taking
+his adjective for granted in a manner she found irritating.
+
+"Aren't you capable of making a calculated effort?" she demanded.
+"You're strong for everything else; why shouldn't you be strong for
+that?"
+
+"An effort calculated for what?" And then as she hung fire, "I'm
+capable of nothing with regard to you," he went on, "but just of being
+infernally in love with you. If one's strong one loves only the more
+strongly."
+
+"There's a good deal in that;" and indeed our young lady felt the
+force of it--felt it thrown off, into the vast of truth and poetry,
+as practically a bait to her imagination. But she promptly came round.
+"Think of me or not, as you find most possible; only leave me alone."
+
+"Until when?"
+
+"Well, for a year or two."
+
+"Which do you mean? Between one year and two there's all the difference
+in the world."
+
+"Call it two then," said Isabel with a studied effect of eagerness.
+
+"And what shall I gain by that?" her friend asked with no sign of
+wincing.
+
+"You'll have obliged me greatly."
+
+"And what will be my reward?"
+
+"Do you need a reward for an act of generosity?"
+
+"Yes, when it involves a great sacrifice."
+
+"There's no generosity without some sacrifice. Men don't understand such
+things. If you make the sacrifice you'll have all my admiration."
+
+"I don't care a cent for your admiration--not one straw, with nothing to
+show for it. When will you marry me? That's the only question."
+
+"Never--if you go on making me feel only as I feel at present."
+
+"What do I gain then by not trying to make you feel otherwise?"
+
+"You'll gain quite as much as by worrying me to death!" Caspar Goodwood
+bent his eyes again and gazed a while into the crown of his hat. A
+deep flush overspread his face; she could see her sharpness had at last
+penetrated. This immediately had a value--classic, romantic, redeeming,
+what did she know? for her; "the strong man in pain" was one of the
+categories of the human appeal, little charm as he might exert in the
+given case. "Why do you make me say such things to you?" she cried in a
+trembling voice. "I only want to be gentle--to be thoroughly kind. It's
+not delightful to me to feel people care for me and yet to have to try
+and reason them out of it. I think others also ought to be considerate;
+we have each to judge for ourselves. I know you're considerate, as much
+as you can be; you've good reasons for what you do. But I really don't
+want to marry, or to talk about it at all now. I shall probably never
+do it--no, never. I've a perfect right to feel that way, and it's no
+kindness to a woman to press her so hard, to urge her against her will.
+If I give you pain I can only say I'm very sorry. It's not my fault; I
+can't marry you simply to please you. I won't say that I shall always
+remain your friend, because when women say that, in these situations, it
+passes, I believe, for a sort of mockery. But try me some day."
+
+Caspar Goodwood, during this speech, had kept his eyes fixed upon the
+name of his hatter, and it was not until some time after she had ceased
+speaking that he raised them. When he did so the sight of a rosy, lovely
+eagerness in Isabel's face threw some confusion into his attempt to
+analyse her words. "I'll go home--I'll go to-morrow--I'll leave you
+alone," he brought out at last. "Only," he heavily said, "I hate to lose
+sight of you!"
+
+"Never fear. I shall do no harm."
+
+"You'll marry some one else, as sure as I sit here," Caspar Goodwood
+declared.
+
+"Do you think that a generous charge?"
+
+"Why not? Plenty of men will try to make you."
+
+"I told you just now that I don't wish to marry and that I almost
+certainly never shall."
+
+"I know you did, and I like your 'almost certainly'! I put no faith in
+what you say."
+
+"Thank you very much. Do you accuse me of lying to shake you off? You
+say very delicate things."
+
+"Why should I not say that? You've given me no pledge of anything at
+all."
+
+"No, that's all that would be wanting!"
+
+"You may perhaps even believe you're safe--from wishing to be. But
+you're not," the young man went on as if preparing himself for the
+worst.
+
+"Very well then. We'll put it that I'm not safe. Have it as you please."
+
+"I don't know, however," said Caspar Goodwood, "that my keeping you in
+sight would prevent it."
+
+"Don't you indeed? I'm after all very much afraid of you. Do you think
+I'm so very easily pleased?" she asked suddenly, changing her tone.
+
+"No--I don't; I shall try to console myself with that. But there are a
+certain number of very dazzling men in the world, no doubt; and if there
+were only one it would be enough. The most dazzling of all will make
+straight for you. You'll be sure to take no one who isn't dazzling."
+
+"If you mean by dazzling brilliantly clever," Isabel said--"and I can't
+imagine what else you mean--I don't need the aid of a clever man to
+teach me how to live. I can find it out for myself."
+
+"Find out how to live alone? I wish that, when you have, you'd teach
+me!"
+
+She looked at him a moment; then with a quick smile, "Oh, you ought to
+marry!" she said.
+
+He might be pardoned if for an instant this exclamation seemed to him
+to sound the infernal note, and it is not on record that her motive for
+discharging such a shaft had been of the clearest. He oughtn't to stride
+about lean and hungry, however--she certainly felt THAT for him. "God
+forgive you!" he murmured between his teeth as he turned away.
+
+Her accent had put her slightly in the wrong, and after a moment she
+felt the need to right herself. The easiest way to do it was to place
+him where she had been. "You do me great injustice--you say what you
+don't know!" she broke out. "I shouldn't be an easy victim--I've proved
+it."
+
+"Oh, to me, perfectly."
+
+"I've proved it to others as well." And she paused a moment. "I refused
+a proposal of marriage last week; what they call--no doubt--a dazzling
+one."
+
+"I'm very glad to hear it," said the young man gravely.
+
+"It was a proposal many girls would have accepted; it had everything to
+recommend it." Isabel had not proposed to herself to tell this story,
+but, now she had begun, the satisfaction of speaking it out and doing
+herself justice took possession of her. "I was offered a great position
+and a great fortune--by a person whom I like extremely."
+
+Caspar watched her with intense interest. "Is he an Englishman?"
+
+"He's an English nobleman," said Isabel.
+
+Her visitor received this announcement at first in silence, but at last
+said: "I'm glad he's disappointed."
+
+"Well then, as you have companions in misfortune, make the best of it."
+
+"I don't call him a companion," said Casper grimly.
+
+"Why not--since I declined his offer absolutely?"
+
+"That doesn't make him my companion. Besides, he's an Englishman."
+
+"And pray isn't an Englishman a human being?" Isabel asked.
+
+"Oh, those people? They're not of my humanity, and I don't care what
+becomes of them."
+
+"You're very angry," said the girl. "We've discussed this matter quite
+enough."
+
+"Oh yes, I'm very angry. I plead guilty to that!"
+
+She turned away from him, walked to the open window and stood a moment
+looking into the dusky void of the street, where a turbid gaslight
+alone represented social animation. For some time neither of these young
+persons spoke; Caspar lingered near the chimney-piece with eyes gloomily
+attached. She had virtually requested him to go--he knew that; but at
+the risk of making himself odious he kept his ground. She was far too
+dear to him to be easily renounced, and he had crossed the sea all to
+wring from her some scrap of a vow. Presently she left the window and
+stood again before him. "You do me very little justice--after my telling
+you what I told you just now. I'm sorry I told you--since it matters so
+little to you."
+
+"Ah," cried the young man, "if you were thinking of ME when you did it!"
+And then he paused with the fear that she might contradict so happy a
+thought.
+
+"I was thinking of you a little," said Isabel.
+
+"A little? I don't understand. If the knowledge of what I feel for you
+had any weight with you at all, calling it a 'little' is a poor account
+of it."
+
+Isabel shook her head as if to carry off a blunder. "I've refused a most
+kind, noble gentleman. Make the most of that."
+
+"I thank you then," said Caspar Goodwood gravely. "I thank you
+immensely."
+
+"And now you had better go home."
+
+"May I not see you again?" he asked.
+
+"I think it's better not. You'll be sure to talk of this, and you see it
+leads to nothing."
+
+"I promise you not to say a word that will annoy you."
+
+Isabel reflected and then answered: "I return in a day or two to my
+uncle's, and I can't propose to you to come there. It would be too
+inconsistent."
+
+Caspar Goodwood, on his side, considered. "You must do me justice too.
+I received an invitation to your uncle's more than a week ago, and I
+declined it."
+
+She betrayed surprise. "From whom was your invitation?"
+
+"From Mr. Ralph Touchett, whom I suppose to be your cousin. I declined
+it because I had not your authorisation to accept it. The suggestion
+that Mr. Touchett should invite me appeared to have come from Miss
+Stackpole."
+
+"It certainly never did from me. Henrietta really goes very far," Isabel
+added.
+
+"Don't be too hard on her--that touches ME."
+
+"No; if you declined you did quite right, and I thank you for it." And
+she gave a little shudder of dismay at the thought that Lord Warburton
+and Mr. Goodwood might have met at Gardencourt: it would have been so
+awkward for Lord Warburton.
+
+"When you leave your uncle where do you go?" her companion asked.
+
+"I go abroad with my aunt--to Florence and other places."
+
+The serenity of this announcement struck a chill to the young man's
+heart; he seemed to see her whirled away into circles from which he was
+inexorably excluded. Nevertheless he went on quickly with his questions.
+"And when shall you come back to America?"
+
+"Perhaps not for a long time. I'm very happy here."
+
+"Do you mean to give up your country?"
+
+"Don't be an infant!"
+
+"Well, you'll be out of my sight indeed!" said Caspar Goodwood.
+
+"I don't know," she answered rather grandly. "The world--with all these
+places so arranged and so touching each other--comes to strike one as
+rather small."
+
+"It's a sight too big for ME!" Caspar exclaimed with a simplicity
+our young lady might have found touching if her face had not been set
+against concessions.
+
+This attitude was part of a system, a theory, that she had lately
+embraced, and to be thorough she said after a moment: "Don't think me
+unkind if I say it's just THAT--being out of your sight--that I like.
+If you were in the same place I should feel you were watching me, and I
+don't like that--I like my liberty too much. If there's a thing in the
+world I'm fond of," she went on with a slight recurrence of grandeur,
+"it's my personal independence."
+
+But whatever there might be of the too superior in this speech moved
+Caspar Goodwood's admiration; there was nothing he winced at in the
+large air of it. He had never supposed she hadn't wings and the need of
+beautiful free movements--he wasn't, with his own long arms and strides,
+afraid of any force in her. Isabel's words, if they had been meant to
+shock him, failed of the mark and only made him smile with the sense
+that here was common ground. "Who would wish less to curtail your
+liberty than I? What can give me greater pleasure than to see you
+perfectly independent--doing whatever you like? It's to make you
+independent that I want to marry you."
+
+"That's a beautiful sophism," said the girl with a smile more beautiful
+still.
+
+"An unmarried woman--a girl of your age--isn't independent. There are
+all sorts of things she can't do. She's hampered at every step."
+
+"That's as she looks at the question," Isabel answered with much spirit.
+"I'm not in my first youth--I can do what I choose--I belong quite to
+the independent class. I've neither father nor mother; I'm poor and of
+a serious disposition; I'm not pretty. I therefore am not bound to be
+timid and conventional; indeed I can't afford such luxuries. Besides,
+I try to judge things for myself; to judge wrong, I think, is more
+honourable than not to judge at all. I don't wish to be a mere sheep in
+the flock; I wish to choose my fate and know something of human affairs
+beyond what other people think it compatible with propriety to tell me."
+She paused a moment, but not long enough for her companion to reply. He
+was apparently on the point of doing so when she went on: "Let me say
+this to you, Mr. Goodwood. You're so kind as to speak of being afraid of
+my marrying. If you should hear a rumour that I'm on the point of doing
+so--girls are liable to have such things said about them--remember what
+I have told you about my love of liberty and venture to doubt it."
+
+There was something passionately positive in the tone in which she gave
+him this advice, and he saw a shining candour in her eyes that helped
+him to believe her. On the whole he felt reassured, and you might have
+perceived it by the manner in which he said, quite eagerly: "You want
+simply to travel for two years? I'm quite willing to wait two years, and
+you may do what you like in the interval. If that's all you want,
+pray say so. I don't want you to be conventional; do I strike you as
+conventional myself? Do you want to improve your mind? Your mind's quite
+good enough for me; but if it interests you to wander about a while and
+see different countries I shall be delighted to help you in any way in
+my power."
+
+"You're very generous; that's nothing new to me. The best way to help me
+will be to put as many hundred miles of sea between us as possible."
+
+"One would think you were going to commit some atrocity!" said Caspar
+Goodwood.
+
+"Perhaps I am. I wish to be free even to do that if the fancy takes me."
+
+"Well then," he said slowly, "I'll go home." And he put out his hand,
+trying to look contented and confident.
+
+Isabel's confidence in him, however, was greater than any he could feel
+in her. Not that he thought her capable of committing an atrocity; but,
+turn it over as he would, there was something ominous in the way she
+reserved her option. As she took his hand she felt a great respect for
+him; she knew how much he cared for her and she thought him magnanimous.
+They stood so for a moment, looking at each other, united by a
+hand-clasp which was not merely passive on her side. "That's right,"
+she said very kindly, almost tenderly. "You'll lose nothing by being a
+reasonable man."
+
+"But I'll come back, wherever you are, two years hence," he returned
+with characteristic grimness.
+
+We have seen that our young lady was inconsequent, and at this she
+suddenly changed her note. "Ah, remember, I promise nothing--absolutely
+nothing!" Then more softly, as if to help him to leave her: "And
+remember too that I shall not be an easy victim!"
+
+"You'll get very sick of your independence."
+
+"Perhaps I shall; it's even very probable. When that day comes I shall
+be very glad to see you."
+
+She had laid her hand on the knob of the door that led into her room,
+and she waited a moment to see whether her visitor would not take his
+departure. But he appeared unable to move; there was still an immense
+unwillingness in his attitude and a sore remonstrance in his eyes. "I
+must leave you now," said Isabel; and she opened the door and passed
+into the other room.
+
+This apartment was dark, but the darkness was tempered by a vague
+radiance sent up through the window from the court of the hotel, and
+Isabel could make out the masses of the furniture, the dim shining of
+the mirror and the looming of the big four-posted bed. She stood still a
+moment, listening, and at last she heard Caspar Goodwood walk out of
+the sitting-room and close the door behind him. She stood still a little
+longer, and then, by an irresistible impulse, dropped on her knees
+before her bed and hid her face in her arms.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+She was not praying; she was trembling--trembling all over. Vibration
+was easy to her, was in fact too constant with her, and she found
+herself now humming like a smitten harp. She only asked, however, to put
+on the cover, to case herself again in brown holland, but she wished to
+resist her excitement, and the attitude of devotion, which she kept for
+some time, seemed to help her to be still. She intensely rejoiced that
+Caspar Goodwood was gone; there was something in having thus got rid of
+him that was like the payment, for a stamped receipt, of some debt
+too long on her mind. As she felt the glad relief she bowed her head a
+little lower; the sense was there, throbbing in her heart; it was part
+of her emotion, but it was a thing to be ashamed of--it was profane and
+out of place. It was not for some ten minutes that she rose from her
+knees, and even when she came back to the sitting-room her tremor had
+not quite subsided. It had had, verily, two causes: part of it was to be
+accounted for by her long discussion with Mr. Goodwood, but it might be
+feared that the rest was simply the enjoyment she found in the exercise
+of her power. She sat down in the same chair again and took up her book,
+but without going through the form of opening the volume. She leaned
+back, with that low, soft, aspiring murmur with which she often
+uttered her response to accidents of which the brighter side was not
+superficially obvious, and yielded to the satisfaction of having refused
+two ardent suitors in a fortnight. That love of liberty of which she
+had given Caspar Goodwood so bold a sketch was as yet almost exclusively
+theoretic; she had not been able to indulge it on a large scale. But it
+appeared to her she had done something; she had tasted of the delight,
+if not of battle, at least of victory; she had done what was truest to
+her plan. In the glow of this consciousness the image of Mr. Goodwood
+taking his sad walk homeward through the dingy town presented itself
+with a certain reproachful force; so that, as at the same moment the
+door of the room was opened, she rose with an apprehension that he
+had come back. But it was only Henrietta Stackpole returning from her
+dinner.
+
+Miss Stackpole immediately saw that our young lady had been "through"
+something, and indeed the discovery demanded no great penetration. She
+went straight up to her friend, who received her without a greeting.
+Isabel's elation in having sent Caspar Goodwood back to America
+presupposed her being in a manner glad he had come to see her; but at
+the same time she perfectly remembered Henrietta had had no right to set
+a trap for her. "Has he been here, dear?" the latter yearningly asked.
+
+Isabel turned away and for some moments answered nothing. "You acted
+very wrongly," she declared at last.
+
+"I acted for the best. I only hope you acted as well."
+
+"You're not the judge. I can't trust you," said Isabel.
+
+This declaration was unflattering, but Henrietta was much too unselfish
+to heed the charge it conveyed; she cared only for what it intimated
+with regard to her friend. "Isabel Archer," she observed with equal
+abruptness and solemnity, "if you marry one of these people I'll never
+speak to you again!"
+
+"Before making so terrible a threat you had better wait till I'm asked,"
+Isabel replied. Never having said a word to Miss Stackpole about Lord
+Warburton's overtures, she had now no impulse whatever to justify
+herself to Henrietta by telling her that she had refused that nobleman.
+
+"Oh, you'll be asked quick enough, once you get off on the Continent.
+Annie Climber was asked three times in Italy--poor plain little Annie."
+
+"Well, if Annie Climber wasn't captured why should I be?"
+
+"I don't believe Annie was pressed; but you'll be."
+
+"That's a flattering conviction," said Isabel without alarm.
+
+"I don't flatter you, Isabel, I tell you the truth!" cried her friend.
+"I hope you don't mean to tell me that you didn't give Mr. Goodwood some
+hope."
+
+"I don't see why I should tell you anything; as I said to you just now,
+I can't trust you. But since you're so much interested in Mr. Goodwood I
+won't conceal from you that he returns immediately to America."
+
+"You don't mean to say you've sent him off?" Henrietta almost shrieked.
+
+"I asked him to leave me alone; and I ask you the same, Henrietta." Miss
+Stackpole glittered for an instant with dismay, and then passed to the
+mirror over the chimney-piece and took off her bonnet. "I hope you've
+enjoyed your dinner," Isabel went on.
+
+But her companion was not to be diverted by frivolous propositions. "Do
+you know where you're going, Isabel Archer?"
+
+"Just now I'm going to bed," said Isabel with persistent frivolity.
+
+"Do you know where you're drifting?" Henrietta pursued, holding out her
+bonnet delicately.
+
+"No, I haven't the least idea, and I find it very pleasant not to know.
+A swift carriage, of a dark night, rattling with four horses over roads
+that one can't see--that's my idea of happiness."
+
+"Mr. Goodwood certainly didn't teach you to say such things as
+that--like the heroine of an immoral novel," said Miss Stackpole.
+"You're drifting to some great mistake."
+
+Isabel was irritated by her friend's interference, yet she still tried
+to think what truth this declaration could represent. She could think
+of nothing that diverted her from saying: "You must be very fond of me,
+Henrietta, to be willing to be so aggressive."
+
+"I love you intensely, Isabel," said Miss Stackpole with feeling.
+
+"Well, if you love me intensely let me as intensely alone. I asked that
+of Mr. Goodwood, and I must also ask it of you."
+
+"Take care you're not let alone too much."
+
+"That's what Mr. Goodwood said to me. I told him I must take the risks."
+
+"You're a creature of risks--you make me shudder!" cried Henrietta.
+"When does Mr. Goodwood return to America?"
+
+"I don't know--he didn't tell me."
+
+"Perhaps you didn't enquire," said Henrietta with the note of righteous
+irony.
+
+"I gave him too little satisfaction to have the right to ask questions
+of him."
+
+This assertion seemed to Miss Stackpole for a moment to bid defiance to
+comment; but at last she exclaimed: "Well, Isabel, if I didn't know you
+I might think you were heartless!"
+
+"Take care," said Isabel; "you're spoiling me."
+
+"I'm afraid I've done that already. I hope, at least," Miss Stackpole
+added, "that he may cross with Annie Climber!"
+
+Isabel learned from her the next morning that she had determined not to
+return to Gardencourt (where old Mr. Touchett had promised her a renewed
+welcome), but to await in London the arrival of the invitation that Mr.
+Bantling had promised her from his sister Lady Pensil. Miss Stackpole
+related very freely her conversation with Ralph Touchett's sociable
+friend and declared to Isabel that she really believed she had now got
+hold of something that would lead to something. On the receipt of Lady
+Pensil's letter--Mr. Bantling had virtually guaranteed the arrival of
+this document--she would immediately depart for Bedfordshire, and if
+Isabel cared to look out for her impressions in the Interviewer
+she would certainly find them. Henrietta was evidently going to see
+something of the inner life this time.
+
+"Do you know where you're drifting, Henrietta Stackpole?" Isabel asked,
+imitating the tone in which her friend had spoken the night before.
+
+"I'm drifting to a big position--that of the Queen of American
+Journalism. If my next letter isn't copied all over the West I'll
+swallow my penwiper!"
+
+She had arranged with her friend Miss Annie Climber, the young lady
+of the continental offers, that they should go together to make
+those purchases which were to constitute Miss Climber's farewell to a
+hemisphere in which she at least had been appreciated; and she presently
+repaired to Jermyn Street to pick up her companion. Shortly after her
+departure Ralph Touchett was announced, and as soon as he came in Isabel
+saw he had something on his mind. He very soon took his cousin into his
+confidence. He had received from his mother a telegram to the effect
+that his father had had a sharp attack of his old malady, that she
+was much alarmed and that she begged he would instantly return to
+Gardencourt. On this occasion at least Mrs. Touchett's devotion to the
+electric wire was not open to criticism.
+
+"I've judged it best to see the great doctor, Sir Matthew Hope,
+first," Ralph said; "by great good luck he's in town. He's to see me
+at half-past twelve, and I shall make sure of his coming down to
+Gardencourt--which he will do the more readily as he has already seen
+my father several times, both there and in London. There's an express
+at two-forty-five, which I shall take; and you'll come back with me or
+remain here a few days longer, exactly as you prefer."
+
+"I shall certainly go with you," Isabel returned. "I don't suppose I can
+be of any use to my uncle, but if he's ill I shall like to be near him."
+
+"I think you're fond of him," said Ralph with a certain shy pleasure
+in his face. "You appreciate him, which all the world hasn't done. The
+quality's too fine."
+
+"I quite adore him," Isabel after a moment said.
+
+"That's very well. After his son he's your greatest admirer." She
+welcomed this assurance, but she gave secretly a small sigh of relief
+at the thought that Mr. Touchett was one of those admirers who couldn't
+propose to marry her. This, however, was not what she spoke; she went on
+to inform Ralph that there were other reasons for her not remaining in
+London. She was tired of it and wished to leave it; and then Henrietta
+was going away--going to stay in Bedfordshire.
+
+"In Bedfordshire?"
+
+"With Lady Pensil, the sister of Mr. Bantling, who has answered for an
+invitation."
+
+Ralph was feeling anxious, but at this he broke into a laugh. Suddenly,
+none the less, his gravity returned. "Bantling's a man of courage. But
+if the invitation should get lost on the way?"
+
+"I thought the British post-office was impeccable."
+
+"The good Homer sometimes nods," said Ralph. "However," he went on more
+brightly, "the good Bantling never does, and, whatever happens, he'll
+take care of Henrietta."
+
+Ralph went to keep his appointment with Sir Matthew Hope, and Isabel
+made her arrangements for quitting Pratt's Hotel. Her uncle's danger
+touched her nearly, and while she stood before her open trunk, looking
+about her vaguely for what she should put into it, the tears suddenly
+rose to her eyes. It was perhaps for this reason that when Ralph came
+back at two o'clock to take her to the station she was not yet ready. He
+found Miss Stackpole, however, in the sitting-room, where she had just
+risen from her luncheon, and this lady immediately expressed her regret
+at his father's illness.
+
+"He's a grand old man," she said; "he's faithful to the last. If it's
+really to be the last--pardon my alluding to it, but you must often
+have thought of the possibility--I'm sorry that I shall not be at
+Gardencourt."
+
+"You'll amuse yourself much more in Bedfordshire."
+
+"I shall be sorry to amuse myself at such a time," said Henrietta
+with much propriety. But she immediately added: "I should like so to
+commemorate the closing scene."
+
+"My father may live a long time," said Ralph simply. Then, adverting
+to topics more cheerful, he interrogated Miss Stackpole as to her own
+future.
+
+Now that Ralph was in trouble she addressed him in a tone of larger
+allowance and told him that she was much indebted to him for having made
+her acquainted with Mr. Bantling. "He has told me just the things I
+want to know," she said; "all the society items and all about the royal
+family. I can't make out that what he tells me about the royal family is
+much to their credit; but he says that's only my peculiar way of looking
+at it. Well, all I want is that he should give me the facts; I can put
+them together quick enough, once I've got them." And she added that Mr.
+Bantling had been so good as to promise to come and take her out that
+afternoon.
+
+"To take you where?" Ralph ventured to enquire.
+
+"To Buckingham Palace. He's going to show me over it, so that I may get
+some idea how they live."
+
+"Ah," said Ralph, "we leave you in good hands. The first thing we shall
+hear is that you're invited to Windsor Castle."
+
+"If they ask me, I shall certainly go. Once I get started I'm not
+afraid. But for all that," Henrietta added in a moment, "I'm not
+satisfied; I'm not at peace about Isabel."
+
+"What is her last misdemeanour?"
+
+"Well, I've told you before, and I suppose there's no harm in my going
+on. I always finish a subject that I take up. Mr. Goodwood was here last
+night."
+
+Ralph opened his eyes; he even blushed a little--his blush being
+the sign of an emotion somewhat acute. He remembered that Isabel, in
+separating from him in Winchester Square, had repudiated his suggestion
+that her motive in doing so was the expectation of a visitor at Pratt's
+Hotel, and it was a new pang to him to have to suspect her of duplicity.
+On the other hand, he quickly said to himself, what concern was it of
+his that she should have made an appointment with a lover? Had it not
+been thought graceful in every age that young ladies should make a
+mystery of such appointments? Ralph gave Miss Stackpole a diplomatic
+answer. "I should have thought that, with the views you expressed to me
+the other day, this would satisfy you perfectly."
+
+"That he should come to see her? That was very well, as far as it went.
+It was a little plot of mine; I let him know that we were in London, and
+when it had been arranged that I should spend the evening out I sent him
+a word--the word we just utter to the 'wise.' I hoped he would find her
+alone; I won't pretend I didn't hope that you'd be out of the way. He
+came to see her, but he might as well have stayed away."
+
+"Isabel was cruel?"--and Ralph's face lighted with the relief of his
+cousin's not having shown duplicity.
+
+"I don't exactly know what passed between them. But she gave him no
+satisfaction--she sent him back to America."
+
+"Poor Mr. Goodwood!" Ralph sighed.
+
+"Her only idea seems to be to get rid of him," Henrietta went on.
+
+"Poor Mr. Goodwood!" Ralph repeated. The exclamation, it must be
+confessed, was automatic; it failed exactly to express his thoughts,
+which were taking another line.
+
+"You don't say that as if you felt it. I don't believe you care."
+
+"Ah," said Ralph, "you must remember that I don't know this interesting
+young man--that I've never seen him."
+
+"Well, I shall see him, and I shall tell him not to give up. If I didn't
+believe Isabel would come round," Miss Stackpole added--"well, I'd give
+up myself. I mean I'd give HER up!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+It had occurred to Ralph that, in the conditions, Isabel's parting with
+her friend might be of a slightly embarrassed nature, and he went down
+to the door of the hotel in advance of his cousin, who, after a slight
+delay, followed with the traces of an unaccepted remonstrance, as he
+thought, in her eyes. The two made the journey to Gardencourt in almost
+unbroken silence, and the servant who met them at the station had no
+better news to give them of Mr. Touchett--a fact which caused Ralph to
+congratulate himself afresh on Sir Matthew Hope's having promised to
+come down in the five o'clock train and spend the night. Mrs. Touchett,
+he learned, on reaching home, had been constantly with the old man and
+was with him at that moment; and this fact made Ralph say to himself
+that, after all, what his mother wanted was just easy occasion. The
+finer natures were those that shone at the larger times. Isabel went to
+her own room, noting throughout the house that perceptible hush which
+precedes a crisis. At the end of an hour, however, she came downstairs
+in search of her aunt, whom she wished to ask about Mr. Touchett. She
+went into the library, but Mrs. Touchett was not there, and as the
+weather, which had been damp and chill, was now altogether spoiled, it
+was not probable she had gone for her usual walk in the grounds. Isabel
+was on the point of ringing to send a question to her room, when this
+purpose quickly yielded to an unexpected sound--the sound of low music
+proceeding apparently from the saloon. She knew her aunt never touched
+the piano, and the musician was therefore probably Ralph, who played for
+his own amusement. That he should have resorted to this recreation at
+the present time indicated apparently that his anxiety about his father
+had been relieved; so that the girl took her way, almost with restored
+cheer, toward the source of the harmony. The drawing-room at Gardencourt
+was an apartment of great distances, and, as the piano was placed at
+the end of it furthest removed from the door at which she entered, her
+arrival was not noticed by the person seated before the instrument.
+This person was neither Ralph nor his mother; it was a lady whom
+Isabel immediately saw to be a stranger to herself, though her back was
+presented to the door. This back--an ample and well-dressed one--Isabel
+viewed for some moments with surprise. The lady was of course a visitor
+who had arrived during her absence and who had not been mentioned by
+either of the servants--one of them her aunt's maid--of whom she had had
+speech since her return. Isabel had already learned, however, with
+what treasures of reserve the function of receiving orders may be
+accompanied, and she was particularly conscious of having been treated
+with dryness by her aunt's maid, through whose hands she had slipped
+perhaps a little too mistrustfully and with an effect of plumage but
+the more lustrous. The advent of a guest was in itself far from
+disconcerting; she had not yet divested herself of a young faith that
+each new acquaintance would exert some momentous influence on her life.
+By the time she had made these reflexions she became aware that the
+lady at the piano played remarkably well. She was playing something
+of Schubert's--Isabel knew not what, but recognised Schubert--and she
+touched the piano with a discretion of her own. It showed skill, it
+showed feeling; Isabel sat down noiselessly on the nearest chair and
+waited till the end of the piece. When it was finished she felt a strong
+desire to thank the player, and rose from her seat to do so, while at
+the same time the stranger turned quickly round, as if but just aware of
+her presence.
+
+"That's very beautiful, and your playing makes it more beautiful still,"
+said Isabel with all the young radiance with which she usually uttered a
+truthful rapture.
+
+"You don't think I disturbed Mr. Touchett then?" the musician answered
+as sweetly as this compliment deserved. "The house is so large and his
+room so far away that I thought I might venture, especially as I played
+just--just du bout des doigts."
+
+"She's a Frenchwoman," Isabel said to herself; "she says that as if she
+were French." And this supposition made the visitor more interesting to
+our speculative heroine. "I hope my uncle's doing well," Isabel added.
+"I should think that to hear such lovely music as that would really make
+him feel better."
+
+The lady smiled and discriminated. "I'm afraid there are moments in life
+when even Schubert has nothing to say to us. We must admit, however,
+that they are our worst."
+
+"I'm not in that state now then," said Isabel. "On the contrary I should
+be so glad if you would play something more."
+
+"If it will give you pleasure--delighted." And this obliging person took
+her place again and struck a few chords, while Isabel sat down nearer
+the instrument. Suddenly the new-comer stopped with her hands on the
+keys, half-turning and looking over her shoulder. She was forty years
+old and not pretty, though her expression charmed. "Pardon me," she
+said; "but are you the niece--the young American?"
+
+"I'm my aunt's niece," Isabel replied with simplicity.
+
+The lady at the piano sat still a moment longer, casting her air of
+interest over her shoulder. "That's very well; we're compatriots." And
+then she began to play.
+
+"Ah then she's not French," Isabel murmured; and as the opposite
+supposition had made her romantic it might have seemed that this
+revelation would have marked a drop. But such was not the fact; rarer
+even than to be French seemed it to be American on such interesting
+terms.
+
+The lady played in the same manner as before, softly and solemnly, and
+while she played the shadows deepened in the room. The autumn twilight
+gathered in, and from her place Isabel could see the rain, which had now
+begun in earnest, washing the cold-looking lawn and the wind shaking the
+great trees. At last, when the music had ceased, her companion got up
+and, coming nearer with a smile, before Isabel had time to thank her
+again, said: "I'm very glad you've come back; I've heard a great deal
+about you."
+
+Isabel thought her a very attractive person, but nevertheless spoke with
+a certain abruptness in reply to this speech. "From whom have you heard
+about me?"
+
+The stranger hesitated a single moment and then, "From your uncle," she
+answered. "I've been here three days, and the first day he let me come
+and pay him a visit in his room. Then he talked constantly of you."
+
+"As you didn't know me that must rather have bored you."
+
+"It made me want to know you. All the more that since then--your aunt
+being so much with Mr. Touchett--I've been quite alone and have got
+rather tired of my own society. I've not chosen a good moment for my
+visit."
+
+A servant had come in with lamps and was presently followed by another
+bearing the tea-tray. On the appearance of this repast Mrs. Touchett had
+apparently been notified, for she now arrived and addressed herself to
+the tea-pot. Her greeting to her niece did not differ materially from
+her manner of raising the lid of this receptacle in order to glance at
+the contents: in neither act was it becoming to make a show of avidity.
+Questioned about her husband she was unable to say he was better; but
+the local doctor was with him, and much light was expected from this
+gentleman's consultation with Sir Matthew Hope.
+
+"I suppose you two ladies have made acquaintance," she pursued. "If you
+haven't I recommend you to do so; for so long as we continue--Ralph and
+I--to cluster about Mr. Touchett's bed you're not likely to have much
+society but each other."
+
+"I know nothing about you but that you're a great musician," Isabel said
+to the visitor.
+
+"There's a good deal more than that to know," Mrs. Touchett affirmed in
+her little dry tone.
+
+"A very little of it, I am sure, will content Miss Archer!" the lady
+exclaimed with a light laugh. "I'm an old friend of your aunt's.
+I've lived much in Florence. I'm Madame Merle." She made this last
+announcement as if she were referring to a person of tolerably distinct
+identity. For Isabel, however, it represented little; she could only
+continue to feel that Madame Merle had as charming a manner as any she
+had ever encountered.
+
+"She's not a foreigner in spite of her name," said Mrs. Touchett.
+
+"She was born--I always forget where you were born."
+
+"It's hardly worth while then I should tell you."
+
+"On the contrary," said Mrs. Touchett, who rarely missed a logical
+point; "if I remembered your telling me would be quite superfluous."
+
+Madame Merle glanced at Isabel with a sort of world-wide smile, a
+thing that over-reached frontiers. "I was born under the shadow of the
+national banner."
+
+"She's too fond of mystery," said Mrs. Touchett; "that's her great
+fault."
+
+"Ah," exclaimed Madame Merle, "I've great faults, but I don't think
+that's one of then; it certainly isn't the greatest. I came into the
+world in the Brooklyn navy-yard. My father was a high officer in the
+United States Navy, and had a post--a post of responsibility--in that
+establishment at the time. I suppose I ought to love the sea, but I hate
+it. That's why I don't return to America. I love the land; the great
+thing is to love something."
+
+Isabel, as a dispassionate witness, had not been struck with the
+force of Mrs. Touchett's characterisation of her visitor, who had an
+expressive, communicative, responsive face, by no means of the sort
+which, to Isabel's mind, suggested a secretive disposition. It was a
+face that told of an amplitude of nature and of quick and free motions
+and, though it had no regular beauty, was in the highest degree engaging
+and attaching. Madame Merle was a tall, fair, smooth woman; everything
+in her person was round and replete, though without those accumulations
+which suggest heaviness. Her features were thick but in perfect
+proportion and harmony, and her complexion had a healthy clearness.
+Her grey eyes were small but full of light and incapable of
+stupidity--incapable, according to some people, even of tears; she had
+a liberal, full-rimmed mouth which when she smiled drew itself upward to
+the left side in a manner that most people thought very odd, some very
+affected and a few very graceful. Isabel inclined to range herself in
+the last category. Madame Merle had thick, fair hair, arranged somehow
+"classically" and as if she were a Bust, Isabel judged--a Juno or a
+Niobe; and large white hands, of a perfect shape, a shape so perfect
+that their possessor, preferring to leave them unadorned, wore no
+jewelled rings. Isabel had taken her at first, as we have seen, for
+a Frenchwoman; but extended observation might have ranked her as a
+German--a German of high degree, perhaps an Austrian, a baroness, a
+countess, a princess. It would never have been supposed she had come
+into the world in Brooklyn--though one could doubtless not have carried
+through any argument that the air of distinction marking her in so
+eminent a degree was inconsistent with such a birth. It was true that
+the national banner had floated immediately over her cradle, and the
+breezy freedom of the stars and stripes might have shed an influence
+upon the attitude she there took towards life. And yet she had evidently
+nothing of the fluttered, flapping quality of a morsel of bunting in the
+wind; her manner expressed the repose and confidence which come from a
+large experience. Experience, however, had not quenched her youth; it
+had simply made her sympathetic and supple. She was in a word a woman of
+strong impulses kept in admirable order. This commended itself to Isabel
+as an ideal combination.
+
+The girl made these reflexions while the three ladies sat at their tea,
+but that ceremony was interrupted before long by the arrival of the
+great doctor from London, who had been immediately ushered into the
+drawing-room. Mrs. Touchett took him off to the library for a private
+talk; and then Madame Merle and Isabel parted, to meet again at dinner.
+The idea of seeing more of this interesting woman did much to mitigate
+Isabel's sense of the sadness now settling on Gardencourt.
+
+When she came into the drawing-room before dinner she found the place
+empty; but in the course of a moment Ralph arrived. His anxiety about
+his father had been lightened; Sir Matthew Hope's view of his condition
+was less depressed than his own had been. The doctor recommended that
+the nurse alone should remain with the old man for the next three or
+four hours; so that Ralph, his mother and the great physician himself
+were free to dine at table. Mrs. Touchett and Sir Matthew appeared;
+Madame Merle was the last.
+
+Before she came Isabel spoke of her to Ralph, who was standing before
+the fireplace. "Pray who is this Madame Merle?"
+
+"The cleverest woman I know, not excepting yourself," said Ralph.
+
+"I thought she seemed very pleasant."
+
+"I was sure you'd think her very pleasant."
+
+"Is that why you invited her?"
+
+"I didn't invite her, and when we came back from London I didn't know
+she was here. No one invited her. She's a friend of my mother's, and
+just after you and I went to town my mother got a note from her. She had
+arrived in England (she usually lives abroad, though she has first and
+last spent a good deal of time here), and asked leave to come down for
+a few days. She's a woman who can make such proposals with perfect
+confidence; she's so welcome wherever she goes. And with my mother there
+could be no question of hesitating; she's the one person in the world
+whom my mother very much admires. If she were not herself (which she
+after all much prefers), she would like to be Madame Merle. It would
+indeed be a great change."
+
+"Well, she's very charming," said Isabel. "And she plays beautifully."
+
+"She does everything beautifully. She's complete."
+
+Isabel looked at her cousin a moment. "You don't like her."
+
+"On the contrary, I was once in love with her."
+
+"And she didn't care for you, and that's why you don't like her."
+
+"How can we have discussed such things? Monsieur Merle was then living."
+
+"Is he dead now?"
+
+"So she says."
+
+"Don't you believe her?"
+
+"Yes, because the statement agrees with the probabilities. The husband
+of Madame Merle would be likely to pass away."
+
+Isabel gazed at her cousin again. "I don't know what you mean. You mean
+something--that you don't mean. What was Monsieur Merle?"
+
+"The husband of Madame."
+
+"You're very odious. Has she any children?"
+
+"Not the least little child--fortunately."
+
+"Fortunately?"
+
+"I mean fortunately for the child. She'd be sure to spoil it."
+
+Isabel was apparently on the point of assuring her cousin for the third
+time that he was odious; but the discussion was interrupted by the
+arrival of the lady who was the topic of it. She came rustling in
+quickly, apologising for being late, fastening a bracelet, dressed in
+dark blue satin, which exposed a white bosom that was ineffectually
+covered by a curious silver necklace. Ralph offered her his arm with the
+exaggerated alertness of a man who was no longer a lover.
+
+Even if this had still been his condition, however, Ralph had other
+things to think about. The great doctor spent the night at Gardencourt
+and, returning to London on the morrow, after another consultation with
+Mr. Touchett's own medical adviser, concurred in Ralph's desire that he
+should see the patient again on the day following. On the day following
+Sir Matthew Hope reappeared at Gardencourt, and now took a less
+encouraging view of the old man, who had grown worse in the twenty-four
+hours. His feebleness was extreme, and to his son, who constantly sat
+by his bedside, it often seemed that his end must be at hand. The local
+doctor, a very sagacious man, in whom Ralph had secretly more confidence
+than in his distinguished colleague, was constantly in attendance, and
+Sir Matthew Hope came back several times. Mr. Touchett was much of the
+time unconscious; he slept a great deal; he rarely spoke. Isabel had a
+great desire to be useful to him and was allowed to watch with him at
+hours when his other attendants (of whom Mrs. Touchett was not the least
+regular) went to take rest. He never seemed to know her, and she always
+said to herself "Suppose he should die while I'm sitting here;" an idea
+which excited her and kept her awake. Once he opened his eyes for a
+while and fixed them upon her intelligently, but when she went to him,
+hoping he would recognise her, he closed them and relapsed into stupor.
+The day after this, however, he revived for a longer time; but on this
+occasion Ralph only was with him. The old man began to talk, much to his
+son's satisfaction, who assured him that they should presently have him
+sitting up.
+
+"No, my boy," said Mr. Touchett, "not unless you bury me in a sitting
+posture, as some of the ancients--was it the ancients?--used to do."
+
+"Ah, daddy, don't talk about that," Ralph murmured. "You mustn't deny
+that you're getting better."
+
+"There will be no need of my denying it if you don't say it," the old
+man answered. "Why should we prevaricate just at the last? We never
+prevaricated before. I've got to die some time, and it's better to die
+when one's sick than when one's well. I'm very sick--as sick as I shall
+ever be. I hope you don't want to prove that I shall ever be worse than
+this? That would be too bad. You don't? Well then."
+
+Having made this excellent point he became quiet; but the next time that
+Ralph was with him he again addressed himself to conversation. The
+nurse had gone to her supper and Ralph was alone in charge, having just
+relieved Mrs. Touchett, who had been on guard since dinner. The room was
+lighted only by the flickering fire, which of late had become necessary,
+and Ralph's tall shadow was projected over wall and ceiling with an
+outline constantly varying but always grotesque.
+
+"Who's that with me--is it my son?" the old man asked.
+
+"Yes, it's your son, daddy."
+
+"And is there no one else?"
+
+"No one else."
+
+Mr. Touchett said nothing for a while; and then, "I want to talk a
+little," he went on.
+
+"Won't it tire you?" Ralph demurred.
+
+"It won't matter if it does. I shall have a long rest. I want to talk
+about YOU."
+
+Ralph had drawn nearer to the bed; he sat leaning forward with his hand
+on his father's. "You had better select a brighter topic."
+
+"You were always bright; I used to be proud of your brightness. I should
+like so much to think you'd do something."
+
+"If you leave us," said Ralph, "I shall do nothing but miss you."
+
+"That's just what I don't want; it's what I want to talk about. You must
+get a new interest."
+
+"I don't want a new interest, daddy. I have more old ones than I know
+what to do with."
+
+The old man lay there looking at his son; his face was the face of the
+dying, but his eyes were the eyes of Daniel Touchett. He seemed to be
+reckoning over Ralph's interests. "Of course you have your mother," he
+said at last. "You'll take care of her."
+
+"My mother will always take care of herself," Ralph returned.
+
+"Well," said his father, "perhaps as she grows older she'll need a
+little help."
+
+"I shall not see that. She'll outlive me."
+
+"Very likely she will; but that's no reason--!" Mr. Touchett let his
+phrase die away in a helpless but not quite querulous sigh and remained
+silent again.
+
+"Don't trouble yourself about us," said his son, "My mother and I get on
+very well together, you know."
+
+"You get on by always being apart; that's not natural."
+
+"If you leave us we shall probably see more of each other."
+
+"Well," the old man observed with wandering irrelevance, "it can't be
+said that my death will make much difference in your mother's life."
+
+"It will probably make more than you think."
+
+"Well, she'll have more money," said Mr. Touchett. "I've left her a good
+wife's portion, just as if she had been a good wife."
+
+"She has been one, daddy, according to her own theory. She has never
+troubled you."
+
+"Ah, some troubles are pleasant," Mr. Touchett murmured. "Those you've
+given me for instance. But your mother has been less--less--what shall
+I call it? less out of the way since I've been ill. I presume she knows
+I've noticed it."
+
+"I shall certainly tell her so; I'm so glad you mention it."
+
+"It won't make any difference to her; she doesn't do it to please me.
+She does it to please--to please--" And he lay a while trying to think
+why she did it. "She does it because it suits her. But that's not what
+I want to talk about," he added. "It's about you. You'll be very well
+off."
+
+"Yes," said Ralph, "I know that. But I hope you've not forgotten the
+talk we had a year ago--when I told you exactly what money I should need
+and begged you to make some good use of the rest."
+
+"Yes, yes, I remember. I made a new will--in a few days. I suppose it
+was the first time such a thing had happened--a young man trying to get
+a will made against him."
+
+"It is not against me," said Ralph. "It would be against me to have a
+large property to take care of. It's impossible for a man in my state of
+health to spend much money, and enough is as good as a feast."
+
+"Well, you'll have enough--and something over. There will be more than
+enough for one--there will be enough for two."
+
+"That's too much," said Ralph.
+
+"Ah, don't say that. The best thing you can do; when I'm gone, will be
+to marry."
+
+Ralph had foreseen what his father was coming to, and this suggestion
+was by no means fresh. 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. He stood before it an instant and then he stooped and stirred
+it mechanically. "I like Isabel very much," he repeated.
+
+"Well," said his father, "I know she likes you. She has told me how much
+she likes you."
+
+"Did she remark that she would like to marry me?"
+
+"No, but she can't have anything against you. And she's the most
+charming young lady I've ever seen. And she would be good to you. I have
+thought a great deal about it."
+
+"So have I," said Ralph, coming back to the bedside again. "I don't mind
+telling you that."
+
+"You ARE in love with her then? I should think you would be. It's as if
+she came over on purpose."
+
+"No, I'm not in love with her; but I should be if--if certain things
+were different."
+
+"Ah, things are always different from what they might be," said the old
+man. "If you wait for them to change you'll never do anything. I don't
+know whether you know," he went on; "but I suppose there's no harm in
+my alluding to it at such an hour as this: there was some one wanted to
+marry Isabel the other day, and she wouldn't have him."
+
+"I know she refused Warburton: he told me himself."
+
+"Well, that proves there's a chance for somebody else."
+
+"Somebody else took his chance the other day in London--and got nothing
+by it."
+
+"Was it you?" Mr. Touchett eagerly asked.
+
+"No, it was an older friend; a poor gentleman who came over from America
+to see about it."
+
+"Well, I'm sorry for him, whoever he was. But it only proves what I
+say--that the way's open to you."
+
+"If it is, dear father, it's all the greater pity that I'm unable to
+tread it. I haven't many convictions; but I have three or four that I
+hold strongly. One is that people, on the whole, had better not marry
+their cousins. Another is that people in an advanced stage of pulmonary
+disorder had better not marry at all."
+
+The old man raised his weak hand and moved it to and fro before his
+face. "What do you mean by that? You look at things in a way that would
+make everything wrong. What sort of a cousin is a cousin that you
+had never seen for more than twenty years of her life? We're all each
+other's cousins, and if we stopped at that the human race would die out.
+It's just the same with your bad lung. You're a great deal better than
+you used to be. All you want is to lead a natural life. It is a great
+deal more natural to marry a pretty young lady that you're in love with
+than it is to remain single on false principles."
+
+"I'm not in love with Isabel," said Ralph.
+
+"You said just now that you would be if you didn't think it wrong. I
+want to prove to you that it isn't wrong."
+
+"It will only tire you, dear daddy," said Ralph, who marvelled at his
+father's tenacity and at his finding strength to insist. "Then where
+shall we all be?"
+
+"Where shall you be if I don't provide for you? You won't have anything
+to do with the bank, and you won't have me to take care of. You say
+you've so many interests; but I can't make them out."
+
+Ralph leaned back in his chair with folded arms; his eyes were fixed for
+some time in meditation. At last, with the air of a man fairly mustering
+courage, "I take a great interest in my cousin," he said, "but not the
+sort of interest you desire. I shall not live many years; but I hope I
+shall live long enough to see what she does with herself. She's entirely
+independent of me; I can exercise very little influence upon her life.
+But I should like to do something for her."
+
+"What should you like to do?"
+
+"I should like to put a little wind in her sails."
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+"I should like to put it into her power to do some of the things she
+wants. She wants to see the world for instance. I should like to put
+money in her purse."
+
+"Ah, I'm glad you've thought of that," said the old man. "But I've
+thought of it too. I've left her a legacy--five thousand pounds."
+
+"That's capital; it's very kind of you. But I should like to do a little
+more."
+
+Something of that veiled acuteness with which it had been on Daniel
+Touchett's part the habit of a lifetime to listen to a financial
+proposition still lingered in the face in which the invalid had not
+obliterated the man of business. "I shall be happy to consider it," he
+said softly.
+
+"Isabel's poor then. My mother tells me that she has but a few hundred
+dollars a year. I should like to make her rich."
+
+"What do you mean by rich?"
+
+"I call people rich when they're able to meet the requirements of their
+imagination. Isabel has a great deal of imagination."
+
+"So have you, my son," said Mr. Touchett, listening very attentively but
+a little confusedly.
+
+"You tell me I shall have money enough for two. What I want is that you
+should kindly relieve me of my superfluity and make it over to Isabel.
+Divide my inheritance into two equal halves and give her the second."
+
+"To do what she likes with?"
+
+"Absolutely what she likes."
+
+"And without an equivalent?"
+
+"What equivalent could there be?"
+
+"The one I've already mentioned."
+
+"Her marrying--some one or other? It's just to do away with anything of
+that sort that I make my suggestion. If she has an easy income she'll
+never have to marry for a support. That's what I want cannily to
+prevent. She wishes to be free, and your bequest will make her free."
+
+"Well, you seem to have thought it out," said Mr. Touchett. "But I don't
+see why you appeal to me. The money will be yours, and you can easily
+give it to her yourself."
+
+Ralph openly stared. "Ah, dear father, I can't offer Isabel money!"
+
+The old man gave a groan. "Don't tell me you're not in love with her! Do
+you want me to have the credit of it?"
+
+"Entirely. I should like it simply to be a clause in your will, without
+the slightest reference to me."
+
+"Do you want me to make a new will then?"
+
+"A few words will do it; you can attend to it the next time you feel a
+little lively."
+
+"You must telegraph to Mr. Hilary then. I'll do nothing without my
+solicitor."
+
+"You shall see Mr. Hilary to-morrow."
+
+"He'll think we've quarrelled, you and I," said the old man.
+
+"Very probably; I shall like him to think it," said Ralph, smiling;
+"and, to carry out the idea, I give you notice that I shall be very
+sharp, quite horrid and strange, with you."
+
+The humour of this appeared to touch his father, who lay a little while
+taking it in. "I'll do anything you like," Mr. Touchett said at last;
+"but I'm not sure it's right. You say you want to put wind in her sails;
+but aren't you afraid of putting too much?"
+
+"I should like to see her going before the breeze!" Ralph answered.
+
+"You speak as if it were for your mere amusement."
+
+"So it is, a good deal."
+
+"Well, I don't think I understand," said Mr. Touchett with a sigh.
+"Young men are very different from what I was. When I cared for a
+girl--when I was young--I wanted to do more than look at her."
+
+"You've scruples that I shouldn't have had, and you've ideas that I
+shouldn't have had either. You say Isabel wants to be free, and that
+her being rich will keep her from marrying for money. Do you think that
+she's a girl to do that?"
+
+"By no means. But she has less money than she has ever had before. Her
+father then gave her everything, because he used to spend his capital.
+She has nothing but the crumbs of that feast to live on, and she doesn't
+really know how meagre they are--she has yet to learn it. My mother has
+told me all about it. Isabel will learn it when she's really thrown upon
+the world, and it would be very painful to me to think of her coming to
+the consciousness of a lot of wants she should be unable to satisfy."
+
+"I've left her five thousand pounds. She can satisfy a good many wants
+with that."
+
+"She can indeed. But she would probably spend it in two or three years."
+
+"You think she'd be extravagant then?"
+
+"Most certainly," said Ralph, smiling serenely.
+
+Poor Mr. Touchett's acuteness was rapidly giving place to pure
+confusion. "It would merely be a question of time then, her spending the
+larger sum?"
+
+"No--though at first I think she'd plunge into that pretty freely: she'd
+probably make over a part of it to each of her sisters. But after that
+she'd come to her senses, remember she has still a lifetime before her,
+and live within her means."
+
+"Well, you HAVE worked it out," said the old man helplessly. "You do
+take an interest in her, certainly."
+
+"You can't consistently say I go too far. You wished me to go further."
+
+"Well, I don't know," Mr. Touchett answered. "I don't think I enter into
+your spirit. It seems to me immoral."
+
+"Immoral, dear daddy?"
+
+"Well, I don't know that it's right to make everything so easy for a
+person."
+
+"It surely depends upon the person. When the person's good, your making
+things easy is all to the credit of virtue. To facilitate the execution
+of good impulses, what can be a nobler act?"
+
+This was a little difficult to follow, and Mr. Touchett considered it
+for a while. At last he said: "Isabel's a sweet young thing; but do you
+think she's so good as that?"
+
+"She's as good as her best opportunities," Ralph returned.
+
+"Well," Mr. Touchett declared, "she ought to get a great many
+opportunities for sixty thousand pounds."
+
+"I've no doubt she will."
+
+"Of course I'll do what you want," said the old man. "I only want to
+understand it a little."
+
+"Well, dear daddy, don't you understand it now?" his son caressingly
+asked. "If you don't we won't take any more trouble about it. We'll
+leave it alone."
+
+Mr. Touchett lay a long time still. Ralph supposed he had given up the
+attempt to follow. But at last, quite lucidly, he began again. "Tell
+me this first. Doesn't it occur to you that a young lady with sixty
+thousand pounds may fall a victim to the fortune-hunters?"
+
+"She'll hardly fall a victim to more than one."
+
+"Well, one's too many."
+
+"Decidedly. That's a risk, and it has entered into my calculation. I
+think it's appreciable, but I think it's small, and I'm prepared to take
+it."
+
+Poor Mr. Touchett's acuteness had passed into perplexity, and his
+perplexity now passed into admiration. "Well, you have gone into it!" he
+repeated. "But I don't see what good you're to get of it."
+
+Ralph leaned over his father's pillows and gently smoothed them; he was
+aware their talk had been unduly prolonged. "I shall get just the good
+I said a few moments ago I wished to put into Isabel's reach--that of
+having met the requirements of my imagination. But it's scandalous, the
+way I've taken advantage of you!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+As Mrs. Touchett had foretold, Isabel and Madame Merle were thrown
+much together during the illness of their host, so that if they had
+not become intimate it would have been almost a breach of good manners.
+Their manners were of the best, but in addition to this they happened
+to please each other. It is perhaps too much to say that they swore
+an eternal friendship, but tacitly at least they called the future to
+witness. Isabel did so with a perfectly good conscience, though she
+would have hesitated to admit she was intimate with her new friend in
+the high sense she privately attached to this term. She often wondered
+indeed if she ever had been, or ever could be, intimate with any one.
+She had an ideal of friendship as well as of several other sentiments,
+which it failed to seem to her in this case--it had not seemed to her
+in other cases--that the actual completely expressed. But she often
+reminded herself that there were essential reasons why one's ideal
+could never become concrete. It was a thing to believe in, not to see--a
+matter of faith, not of experience. Experience, however, might supply
+us with very creditable imitations of it, and the part of wisdom was
+to make the best of these. Certainly, on the whole, Isabel had never
+encountered a more agreeable and interesting figure than Madame Merle;
+she had never met a person having less of that fault which is the
+principal obstacle to friendship--the air of reproducing the more
+tiresome, the stale, the too-familiar parts of one's own character.
+The gates of the girl's confidence were opened wider than they had ever
+been; she said things to this amiable auditress that she had not yet
+said to any one. Sometimes she took alarm at her candour: it was as
+if she had given to a comparative stranger the key to her cabinet of
+jewels. These spiritual gems were the only ones of any magnitude that
+Isabel possessed, but there was all the greater reason for their being
+carefully guarded. Afterwards, however, she always remembered that one
+should never regret a generous error and that if Madame Merle had not
+the merits she attributed to her, so much the worse for Madame Merle.
+There was no doubt she had great merits--she was charming, sympathetic,
+intelligent, cultivated. More than this (for it had not been Isabel's
+ill-fortune to go through life without meeting in her own sex several
+persons of whom no less could fairly be said), she was rare, superior
+and preeminent. There are many amiable people in the world, and Madame
+Merle was far from being vulgarly good-natured and restlessly witty. She
+knew how to think--an accomplishment rare in women; and she had thought
+to very good purpose. Of course, too, she knew how to feel; Isabel
+couldn't have spent a week with her without being sure of that. This was
+indeed Madame Merle's great talent, her most perfect gift. Life had told
+upon her; she had felt it strongly, and it was part of the satisfaction
+to be taken in her society that when the girl talked of what she was
+pleased to call serious matters this lady understood her so easily and
+quickly. Emotion, it is true, had become with her rather historic; she
+made no secret of the fact that the fount of passion, thanks to having
+been rather violently tapped at one period, didn't flow quite so
+freely as of yore. She proposed moreover, as well as expected, to cease
+feeling; she freely admitted that of old she had been a little mad, and
+now she pretended to be perfectly sane.
+
+"I judge more than I used to," she said to Isabel, "but it seems to me
+one has earned the right. One can't judge till one's forty; before that
+we're too eager, too hard, too cruel, and in addition much too ignorant.
+I'm sorry for you; it will be a long time before you're forty. But every
+gain's a loss of some kind; I often think that after forty one can't
+really feel. The freshness, the quickness have certainly gone. You'll
+keep them longer than most people; it will be a great satisfaction to me
+to see you some years hence. I want to see what life makes of you. One
+thing's certain--it can't spoil you. It may pull you about horribly, but
+I defy it to break you up."
+
+Isabel received this assurance as a young soldier, still panting from
+a slight skirmish in which he has come off with honour, might receive a
+pat on the shoulder from his colonel. Like such a recognition of merit
+it seemed to come with authority. How could the lightest word do less
+on the part of a person who was prepared to say, of almost everything
+Isabel told her, "Oh, I've been in that, my dear; it passes, like
+everything else." On many of her interlocutors Madame Merle might have
+produced an irritating effect; it was disconcertingly difficult to
+surprise her. But Isabel, though by no means incapable of desiring to
+be effective, had not at present this impulse. She was too sincere, too
+interested in her judicious companion. And then moreover Madame Merle
+never said such things in the tone of triumph or of boastfulness; they
+dropped from her like cold confessions.
+
+A period of bad weather had settled upon Gardencourt; the days grew
+shorter and there was an end to the pretty tea-parties on the lawn. But
+our young woman had long indoor conversations with her fellow visitor,
+and in spite of the rain the two ladies often sallied forth for a walk,
+equipped with the defensive apparatus which the English climate and
+the English genius have between them brought to such perfection. Madame
+Merle liked almost everything, including the English rain. "There's
+always a little of it and never too much at once," she said; "and it
+never wets you and it always smells good." She declared that in England
+the pleasures of smell were great--that in this inimitable island there
+was a certain mixture of fog and beer and soot which, however odd it
+might sound, was the national aroma, and was most agreeable to the
+nostril; and she used to lift the sleeve of her British overcoat and
+bury her nose in it, inhaling the clear, fine scent of the wool. Poor
+Ralph Touchett, as soon as the autumn had begun to define itself, became
+almost a prisoner; in bad weather he was unable to step out of the
+house, and he used sometimes to stand at one of the windows with his
+hands in his pockets and, from a countenance half-rueful, half-critical,
+watch Isabel and Madame Merle as they walked down the avenue under a
+pair of umbrellas. The roads about Gardencourt were so firm, even in the
+worst weather, that the two ladies always came back with a healthy glow
+in their cheeks, looking at the soles of their neat, stout boots and
+declaring that their walk had done them inexpressible good. Before
+luncheon, always, Madame Merle was engaged; Isabel admired and envied
+her rigid possession of her morning. Our heroine had always passed for a
+person of resources and had taken a certain pride in being one; but she
+wandered, as by the wrong side of the wall of a private garden, round
+the enclosed talents, accomplishments, aptitudes of Madame Merle. She
+found herself desiring to emulate them, and in twenty such ways this
+lady presented herself as a model. "I should like awfully to be so!"
+Isabel secretly exclaimed, more than once, as one after another of her
+friend's fine aspects caught the light, and before long she knew that
+she had learned a lesson from a high authority. It took no great time
+indeed for her to feel herself, as the phrase is, under an influence.
+"What's the harm," she wondered, "so long as it's a good one? The more
+one's under a good influence the better. The only thing is to see our
+steps as we take them--to understand them as we go. That, no doubt, I
+shall always do. I needn't be afraid of becoming too pliable; isn't it
+my fault that I'm not pliable enough?" It is said that imitation is the
+sincerest flattery; and if Isabel was sometimes moved to gape at her
+friend aspiringly and despairingly it was not so much because she
+desired herself to shine as because she wished to hold up the lamp for
+Madame Merle. She liked her extremely, but was even more dazzled than
+attracted. She sometimes asked herself what Henrietta Stackpole would
+say to her thinking so much of this perverted product of their common
+soil, and had a conviction that it would be severely judged. Henrietta
+would not at all subscribe to Madame Merle; for reasons she could not
+have defined this truth came home to the girl. On the other hand she
+was equally sure that, should the occasion offer, her new friend would
+strike off some happy view of her old: Madame Merle was too humorous,
+too observant, not to do justice to Henrietta, and on becoming
+acquainted with her would probably give the measure of a tact which
+Miss Stackpole couldn't hope to emulate. She appeared to have in her
+experience a touchstone for everything, and somewhere in the capacious
+pocket of her genial memory she would find the key to Henrietta's value.
+"That's the great thing," Isabel solemnly pondered; "that's the supreme
+good fortune: to be in a better position for appreciating people than
+they are for appreciating you." And she added that such, when one
+considered it, was simply the essence of the aristocratic situation.
+In this light, if in none other, one should aim at the aristocratic
+situation.
+
+I may not count over all the links in the chain which led Isabel to
+think of Madame Merle's situation as aristocratic--a view of it never
+expressed in any reference made to it by that lady herself. She had
+known great things and great people, but she had never played a great
+part. She was one of the small ones of the earth; she had not been born
+to honours; she knew the world too well to nourish fatuous illusions
+on the article of her own place in it. She had encountered many of the
+fortunate few and was perfectly aware of those points at which their
+fortune differed from hers. But if by her informed measure she was no
+figure for a high scene, she had yet to Isabel's imagination a sort of
+greatness. To be so cultivated and civilised, so wise and so easy,
+and still make so light of it--that was really to be a great lady,
+especially when one so carried and presented one's self. It was as if
+somehow she had all society under contribution, and all the arts and
+graces it practised--or was the effect rather that of charming uses
+found for her, even from a distance, subtle service rendered by her to
+a clamorous world wherever she might be? After breakfast she wrote a
+succession of letters, as those arriving for her appeared innumerable:
+her correspondence was a source of surprise to Isabel when they
+sometimes walked together to the village post-office to deposit Madame
+Merle's offering to the mail. She knew more people, as she told Isabel,
+than she knew what to do with, and something was always turning up to be
+written about. Of painting she was devotedly fond, and made no more of
+brushing in a sketch than of pulling off her gloves. At Gardencourt she
+was perpetually taking advantage of an hour's sunshine to go out with a
+camp-stool and a box of water-colours. That she was a brave musician we
+have already perceived, and it was evidence of the fact that when she
+seated herself at the piano, as she always did in the evening, her
+listeners resigned themselves without a murmur to losing the grace
+of her talk. Isabel, since she had known her, felt ashamed of her own
+facility, which she now looked upon as basely inferior; and indeed,
+though she had been thought rather a prodigy at home, the loss to
+society when, in taking her place upon the music-stool, she turned her
+back to the room, was usually deemed greater than the gain. When Madame
+Merle was neither writing, nor painting, nor touching the piano, she
+was usually employed upon wonderful tasks of rich embroidery, cushions,
+curtains, decorations for the chimneypiece; an art in which her bold,
+free invention was as noted as the agility of her needle. She was never
+idle, for when engaged in none of the ways I have mentioned she was
+either reading (she appeared to Isabel to read "everything important"),
+or walking out, or playing patience with the cards, or talking with her
+fellow inmates. And with all this she had always the social quality, was
+never rudely absent and yet never too seated. She laid down her pastimes
+as easily as she took them up; she worked and talked at the same time,
+and appeared to impute scant worth to anything she did. She gave away
+her sketches and tapestries; she rose from the piano or remained
+there, according to the convenience of her auditors, which she always
+unerringly divined. She was in short the most comfortable, profitable,
+amenable person to live with. If for Isabel she had a fault it was that
+she was not natural; by which the girl meant, not that she was either
+affected or pretentious, since from these vulgar vices no woman could
+have been more exempt, but that her nature had been too much overlaid by
+custom and her angles too much rubbed away. She had become too flexible,
+too useful, was too ripe and too final. She was in a word too perfectly
+the social animal that man and woman are supposed to have been intended
+to be; and she had rid herself of every remnant of that tonic wildness
+which we may assume to have belonged even to the most amiable persons
+in the ages before country-house life was the fashion. Isabel found it
+difficult to think of her in any detachment or privacy, she existed only
+in her relations, direct or indirect, with her fellow mortals. One might
+wonder what commerce she could possibly hold with her own spirit.
+One always ended, however, by feeling that a charming surface doesn't
+necessarily prove one superficial; this was an illusion in which, in
+one's youth, one had but just escaped being nourished. Madame Merle was
+not superficial--not she. She was deep, and her nature spoke none the
+less in her behaviour because it spoke a conventional tongue. "What's
+language at all but a convention?" said Isabel. "She has the good
+taste not to pretend, like some people I've met, to express herself by
+original signs."
+
+"I'm afraid you've suffered much," she once found occasion to say to her
+friend in response to some allusion that had appeared to reach far.
+
+"What makes you think that?" Madame Merle asked with the amused smile
+of a person seated at a game of guesses. "I hope I haven't too much the
+droop of the misunderstood."
+
+"No; but you sometimes say things that I think people who have always
+been happy wouldn't have found out."
+
+"I haven't always been happy," said Madame Merle, smiling still, but
+with a mock gravity, as if she were telling a child a secret. "Such a
+wonderful thing!"
+
+But Isabel rose to the irony. "A great many people give me the
+impression of never having for a moment felt anything."
+
+"It's very true; there are many more iron pots certainly than porcelain.
+But you may depend on it that every one bears some mark; even the
+hardest iron pots have a little bruise, a little hole somewhere. I
+flatter myself that I'm rather stout, but if I must tell you the truth
+I've been shockingly chipped and cracked. I do very well for service
+yet, because I've been cleverly mended; and I try to remain in the
+cupboard--the quiet, dusky cupboard where there's an odour of stale
+spices--as much as I can. But when I've to come out and into a strong
+light--then, my dear, I'm a horror!"
+
+I know not whether it was on this occasion or on some other that the
+conversation had taken the turn I have just indicated she said to Isabel
+that she would some day a tale unfold. Isabel assured her she should
+delight to listen to one, and reminded her more than once of this
+engagement. Madame Merle, however, begged repeatedly for a respite, and
+at last frankly told her young companion that they must wait till they
+knew each other better. This would be sure to happen, a long friendship
+so visibly lay before them. Isabel assented, but at the same time
+enquired if she mightn't be trusted--if she appeared capable of a
+betrayal of confidence.
+
+"It's not that I'm afraid of your repeating what I say," her fellow
+visitor answered; "I'm afraid, on the contrary, of your taking it too
+much to yourself. You'd judge me too harshly; you're of the cruel age."
+She preferred for the present to talk to Isabel of Isabel, and exhibited
+the greatest interest in our heroine's history, sentiments, opinions,
+prospects. She made her chatter and listened to her chatter with
+infinite good nature. This flattered and quickened the girl, who was
+struck with all the distinguished people her friend had known and with
+her having lived, as Mrs. Touchett said, in the best company in Europe.
+Isabel thought the better of herself for enjoying the favour of a person
+who had so large a field of comparison; and it was perhaps partly to
+gratify the sense of profiting by comparison that she often appealed to
+these stores of reminiscence. Madame Merle had been a dweller in many
+lands and had social ties in a dozen different countries. "I don't
+pretend to be educated," she would say, "but I think I know my Europe;"
+and she spoke one day of going to Sweden to stay with an old friend,
+and another of proceeding to Malta to follow up a new acquaintance. With
+England, where she had often dwelt, she was thoroughly familiar, and
+for Isabel's benefit threw a great deal of light upon the customs of
+the country and the character of the people, who "after all," as she was
+fond of saying, were the most convenient in the world to live with.
+
+"You mustn't think it strange her remaining here at such a time as this,
+when Mr. Touchett's passing away," that gentleman's wife remarked to her
+niece. "She is incapable of a mistake; she's the most tactful woman I
+know. It's a favour to me that she stays; she's putting off a lot of
+visits at great houses," said Mrs. Touchett, who never forgot that when
+she herself was in England her social value sank two or three degrees in
+the scale. "She has her pick of places; she's not in want of a shelter.
+But I've asked her to put in this time because I wish you to know her. I
+think it will be a good thing for you. Serena Merle hasn't a fault."
+
+"If I didn't already like her very much that description might alarm
+me," Isabel returned.
+
+"She's never the least little bit 'off.' I've brought you out here and I
+wish to do the best for you. Your sister Lily told me she hoped I would
+give you plenty of opportunities. I give you one in putting you in
+relation with Madame Merle. She's one of the most brilliant women in
+Europe."
+
+"I like her better than I like your description of her," Isabel
+persisted in saying.
+
+"Do you flatter yourself that you'll ever feel her open to criticism? I
+hope you'll let me know when you do."
+
+"That will be cruel--to you," said Isabel.
+
+"You needn't mind me. You won't discover a fault in her."
+
+"Perhaps not. But I dare say I shan't miss it."
+
+"She knows absolutely everything on earth there is to know," said Mrs.
+Touchett.
+
+Isabel after this observed to their companion that she hoped she knew
+Mrs. Touchett considered she hadn't a speck on her perfection. On which
+"I'm obliged to you," Madame Merle replied, "but I'm afraid your aunt
+imagines, or at least alludes to, no aberrations that the clock-face
+doesn't register."
+
+"So that you mean you've a wild side that's unknown to her?"
+
+"Ah no, I fear my darkest sides are my tamest. I mean that having no
+faults, for your aunt, means that one's never late for dinner--that is
+for her dinner. I was not late, by the way, the other day, when you
+came back from London; the clock was just at eight when I came into the
+drawing-room: it was the rest of you that were before the time. It means
+that one answers a letter the day one gets it and that when one comes to
+stay with her one doesn't bring too much luggage and is careful not to
+be taken ill. For Mrs. Touchett those things constitute virtue; it's a
+blessing to be able to reduce it to its elements."
+
+Madame Merle's own conversation, it will be perceived, was enriched with
+bold, free touches of criticism, which, even when they had a restrictive
+effect, never struck Isabel as ill-natured. It couldn't occur to the
+girl for instance that Mrs. Touchett's accomplished guest was abusing
+her; and this for very good reasons. In the first place Isabel rose
+eagerly to the sense of her shades; in the second Madame Merle implied
+that there was a great deal more to say; and it was clear in the
+third that for a person to speak to one without ceremony of one's near
+relations was an agreeable sign of that person's intimacy with one's
+self. These signs of deep communion multiplied as the days elapsed, and
+there was none of which Isabel was more sensible than of her companion's
+preference for making Miss Archer herself a topic. Though she referred
+frequently to the incidents of her own career she never lingered upon
+them; she was as little of a gross egotist as she was of a flat gossip.
+
+"I'm old and stale and faded," she said more than once; "I'm of no
+more interest than last week's newspaper. You're young and fresh and of
+to-day; you've the great thing--you've actuality. I once had it--we all
+have it for an hour. You, however, will have it for longer. Let us talk
+about you then; you can say nothing I shall not care to hear. It's a
+sign that I'm growing old--that I like to talk with younger people. I
+think it's a very pretty compensation. If we can't have youth within us
+we can have it outside, and I really think we see it and feel it better
+that way. Of course we must be in sympathy with it--that I shall always
+be. I don't know that I shall ever be ill-natured with old people--I
+hope not; there are certainly some old people I adore. But I shall never
+be anything but abject with the young; they touch me and appeal to me
+too much. I give you carte blanche then; you can even be impertinent if
+you like; I shall let it pass and horribly spoil you. I speak as if I
+were a hundred years old, you say? Well, I am, if you please; I was born
+before the French Revolution. Ah, my dear, je viens de loin; I belong to
+the old, old world. But it's not of that I want to talk; I want to talk
+about the new. You must tell me more about America; you never tell me
+enough. Here I've been since I was brought here as a helpless child, and
+it's ridiculous, or rather it's scandalous, how little I know about that
+splendid, dreadful, funny country--surely the greatest and drollest of
+them all. There are a great many of us like that in these parts, and I
+must say I think we're a wretched set of people. You should live in your
+own land; whatever it may be you have your natural place there. If we're
+not good Americans we're certainly poor Europeans; we've no natural
+place here. We're mere parasites, crawling over the surface; we haven't
+our feet in the soil. At least one can know it and not have illusions. A
+woman perhaps can get on; a woman, it seems to me, has no natural place
+anywhere; wherever she finds herself she has to remain on the surface
+and, more or less, to crawl. You protest, my dear? you're horrified?
+you declare you'll never crawl? It's very true that I don't see you
+crawling; you stand more upright than a good many poor creatures.
+Very good; on the whole, I don't think you'll crawl. But the men, the
+Americans; je vous demande un peu, what do they make of it over here?
+I don't envy them trying to arrange themselves. Look at poor Ralph
+Touchett: what sort of a figure do you call that? Fortunately he has a
+consumption; I say fortunately, because it gives him something to do.
+His consumption's his carriere it's a kind of position. You can say:
+'Oh, Mr. Touchett, he takes care of his lungs, he knows a great deal
+about climates.' But without that who would he be, what would he
+represent? 'Mr. Ralph Touchett: an American who lives in Europe.' That
+signifies absolutely nothing--it's impossible anything should signify
+less. 'He's very cultivated,' they say: 'he has a very pretty collection
+of old snuff-boxes.' The collection is all that's wanted to make it
+pitiful. I'm tired of the sound of the word; I think it's grotesque.
+With the poor old father it's different; he has his identity, and it's
+rather a massive one. He represents a great financial house, and that,
+in our day, is as good as anything else. For an American, at any rate,
+that will do very well. But I persist in thinking your cousin very lucky
+to have a chronic malady so long as he doesn't die of it. It's much
+better than the snuffboxes. If he weren't ill, you say, he'd do
+something?--he'd take his father's place in the house. My poor child, I
+doubt it; I don't think he's at all fond of the house. However, you know
+him better than I, though I used to know him rather well, and he may
+have the benefit of the doubt. The worst case, I think, is a friend
+of mine, a countryman of ours, who lives in Italy (where he also was
+brought before he knew better), and who is one of the most delightful
+men I know. Some day you must know him. I'll bring you together and then
+you'll see what I mean. He's Gilbert Osmond--he lives in Italy; that's
+all one can say about him or make of him. He's exceedingly clever, a
+man made to be distinguished; but, as I tell you, you exhaust the
+description when you say he's Mr. Osmond who lives tout betement in
+Italy. No career, no name, no position, no fortune, no past, no future,
+no anything. Oh yes, he paints, if you please--paints in water-colours;
+like me, only better than I. His painting's pretty bad; on the whole I'm
+rather glad of that. Fortunately he's very indolent, so indolent that
+it amounts to a sort of position. He can say, 'Oh, I do nothing; I'm too
+deadly lazy. You can do nothing to-day unless you get up at five o'clock
+in the morning.' In that way he becomes a sort of exception; you feel
+he might do something if he'd only rise early. He never speaks of his
+painting to people at large; he's too clever for that. But he has a
+little girl--a dear little girl; he does speak of her. He's devoted
+to her, and if it were a career to be an excellent father he'd be very
+distinguished. But I'm afraid that's no better than the snuff-boxes;
+perhaps not even so good. Tell me what they do in America," pursued
+Madame Merle, who, it must be observed parenthetically, did not deliver
+herself all at once of these reflexions, which are presented in a
+cluster for the convenience of the reader. She talked of Florence, where
+Mr. Osmond lived and where Mrs. Touchett occupied a medieval palace; she
+talked of Rome, where she herself had a little pied-a-terre with some
+rather good old damask. She talked of places, of people and even, as the
+phrase is, of "subjects"; and from time to time she talked of their kind
+old host and of the prospect of his recovery. From the first she
+had thought this prospect small, and Isabel had been struck with the
+positive, discriminating, competent way in which she took the measure
+of his remainder of life. One evening she announced definitely that he
+wouldn't live.
+
+"Sir Matthew Hope told me so as plainly as was proper," she said;
+"standing there, near the fire, before dinner. He makes himself very
+agreeable, the great doctor. I don't mean his saying that has anything
+to do with it. But he says such things with great tact. I had told him
+I felt ill at my ease, staying here at such a time; it seemed to me so
+indiscreet--it wasn't as if I could nurse. 'You must remain, you must
+remain,' he answered; 'your office will come later.' Wasn't that a very
+delicate way of saying both that poor Mr. Touchett would go and that I
+might be of some use as a consoler? In fact, however, I shall not be of
+the slightest use. Your aunt will console herself; she, and she alone,
+knows just how much consolation she'll require. It would be a very
+delicate matter for another person to undertake to administer the dose.
+With your cousin it will be different; he'll miss his father immensely.
+But I should never presume to condole with Mr. Ralph; we're not on
+those terms." Madame Merle had alluded more than once to some undefined
+incongruity in her relations with Ralph Touchett; so Isabel took this
+occasion of asking her if they were not good friends.
+
+"Perfectly, but he doesn't like me."
+
+"What have you done to him?"
+
+"Nothing whatever. But one has no need of a reason for that."
+
+"For not liking you? I think one has need of a very good reason."
+
+"You're very kind. Be sure you have one ready for the day you begin."
+
+"Begin to dislike you? I shall never begin."
+
+"I hope not; because if you do you'll never end. That's the way with
+your cousin; he doesn't get over it. It's an antipathy of nature--if
+I can call it that when it's all on his side. I've nothing whatever
+against him and don't bear him the least little grudge for not doing me
+justice. Justice is all I want. However, one feels that he's a gentleman
+and would never say anything underhand about one. Cartes sur table,"
+Madame Merle subjoined in a moment, "I'm not afraid of him."
+
+"I hope not indeed," said Isabel, who added something about his being
+the kindest creature living. She remembered, however, that on her first
+asking him about Madame Merle he had answered her in a manner which
+this lady might have thought injurious without being explicit. There
+was something between them, Isabel said to herself, but she said nothing
+more than this. If it were something of importance it should inspire
+respect; if it were not it was not worth her curiosity. With all her
+love of knowledge she had a natural shrinking from raising curtains and
+looking into unlighted corners. The love of knowledge coexisted in her
+mind with the finest capacity for ignorance.
+
+But Madame Merle sometimes said things that startled her, made her raise
+her clear eyebrows at the time and think of the words afterwards. "I'd
+give a great deal to be your age again," she broke out once with a
+bitterness which, though diluted in her customary amplitude of ease, was
+imperfectly disguised by it. "If I could only begin again--if I could
+have my life before me!"
+
+"Your life's before you yet," Isabel answered gently, for she was
+vaguely awe-struck.
+
+"No; the best part's gone, and gone for nothing."
+
+"Surely not for nothing," said Isabel.
+
+"Why not--what have I got? Neither husband, nor child, nor fortune, nor
+position, nor the traces of a beauty that I never had."
+
+"You have many friends, dear lady."
+
+"I'm not so sure!" cried Madame Merle.
+
+"Ah, you're wrong. You have memories, graces, talents--"
+
+But Madame Merle interrupted her. "What have my talents brought me?
+Nothing but the need of using them still, to get through the hours,
+the years, to cheat myself with some pretence of movement, of
+unconsciousness. As for my graces and memories the less said about them
+the better. You'll be my friend till you find a better use for your
+friendship."
+
+"It will be for you to see that I don't then," said Isabel.
+
+"Yes; I would make an effort to keep you." And her companion looked at
+her gravely. "When I say I should like to be your age I mean with your
+qualities--frank, generous, sincere like you. In that case I should have
+made something better of my life."
+
+"What should you have liked to do that you've not done?"
+
+Madame Merle took a sheet of music--she was seated at the piano and
+had abruptly wheeled about on the stool when she first spoke--and
+mechanically turned the leaves. "I'm very ambitious!" she at last
+replied.
+
+"And your ambitions have not been satisfied? They must have been great."
+
+"They WERE great. I should make myself ridiculous by talking of them."
+
+Isabel wondered what they could have been--whether Madame Merle had
+aspired to wear a crown. "I don't know what your idea of success may be,
+but you seem to me to have been successful. To me indeed you're a vivid
+image of success."
+
+Madame Merle tossed away the music with a smile. "What's YOUR idea of
+success?"
+
+"You evidently think it must be a very tame one. It's to see some dream
+of one's youth come true."
+
+"Ah," Madame Merle exclaimed, "that I've never seen! But my dreams were
+so great--so preposterous. Heaven forgive me, I'm dreaming now!" And she
+turned back to the piano and began grandly to play. On the morrow she
+said to Isabel that her definition of success had been very pretty,
+yet frightfully sad. Measured in that way, who had ever succeeded? The
+dreams of one's youth, why they were enchanting, they were divine! Who
+had ever seen such things come to pass?
+
+"I myself--a few of them," Isabel ventured to answer.
+
+"Already? They must have been dreams of yesterday."
+
+"I began to dream very young," Isabel smiled.
+
+"Ah, if you mean the aspirations of your childhood--that of having a
+pink sash and a doll that could close her eyes."
+
+"No, I don't mean that."
+
+"Or a young man with a fine moustache going down on his knees to you."
+
+"No, nor that either," Isabel declared with still more emphasis.
+
+Madame Merle appeared to note this eagerness. "I suspect that's what
+you do mean. We've all had the young man with the moustache. He's the
+inevitable young man; he doesn't count."
+
+Isabel was silent a little but then spoke with extreme and
+characteristic inconsequence. "Why shouldn't he count? There are young
+men and young men."
+
+"And yours was a paragon--is that what you mean?" asked her friend with
+a laugh. "If you've had the identical young man you dreamed of, then
+that was success, and I congratulate you with all my heart. Only in that
+case why didn't you fly with him to his castle in the Apennines?"
+
+"He has no castle in the Apennines."
+
+"What has he? An ugly brick house in Fortieth Street? Don't tell me
+that; I refuse to recognise that as an ideal."
+
+"I don't care anything about his house," said Isabel.
+
+"That's very crude of you. When you've lived as long as I you'll see
+that every human being has his shell and that you must take the shell
+into account. By the shell I mean the whole envelope of circumstances.
+There's no such thing as an isolated man or woman; we're each of us
+made up of some cluster of appurtenances. What shall we call our 'self'?
+Where does it begin? where does it end? It overflows into everything
+that belongs to us--and then it flows back again. I know a large part
+of myself is in the clothes I choose to wear. I've a great respect for
+THINGS! One's self--for other people--is one's expression of one's self;
+and one's house, one's furniture, one's garments, the books one reads,
+the company one keeps--these things are all expressive."
+
+This was very metaphysical; not more so, however, than several
+observations Madame Merle had already made. Isabel was fond of
+metaphysics, but was unable to accompany her friend into this bold
+analysis of the human personality. "I don't agree with you. I think just
+the other way. I don't know whether I succeed in expressing myself, but
+I know that nothing else expresses me. Nothing that belongs to me is any
+measure of me; everything's on the contrary a limit, a barrier, and
+a perfectly arbitrary one. Certainly the clothes which, as you say, I
+choose to wear, don't express me; and heaven forbid they should!"
+
+"You dress very well," Madame Merle lightly interposed.
+
+"Possibly; but I don't care to be judged by that. My clothes may express
+the dressmaker, but they don't express me. To begin with it's not my own
+choice that I wear them; they're imposed upon me by society."
+
+"Should you prefer to go without them?" Madame Merle enquired in a tone
+which virtually terminated the discussion.
+
+I am bound to confess, though it may cast some discredit on the sketch I
+have given of the youthful loyalty practised by our heroine toward this
+accomplished woman, that Isabel had said nothing whatever to her about
+Lord Warburton and had been equally reticent on the subject of Caspar
+Goodwood. She had not, however, concealed the fact that she had had
+opportunities of marrying and had even let her friend know of how
+advantageous a kind they had been. Lord Warburton had left Lockleigh
+and was gone to Scotland, taking his sisters with him; and though he had
+written to Ralph more than once to ask about Mr. Touchett's health the
+girl was not liable to the embarrassment of such enquiries as, had he
+still been in the neighbourhood, he would probably have felt bound to
+make in person. He had excellent ways, but she felt sure that if he had
+come to Gardencourt he would have seen Madame Merle, and that if he had
+seen her he would have liked her and betrayed to her that he was in love
+with her young friend. It so happened that during this lady's previous
+visits to Gardencourt--each of them much shorter than the present--he
+had either not been at Lockleigh or had not called at Mr. Touchett's.
+Therefore, though she knew him by name as the great man of that
+county, she had no cause to suspect him as a suitor of Mrs. Touchett's
+freshly-imported niece.
+
+"You've plenty of time," she had said to Isabel in return for the
+mutilated confidences which our young woman made her and which didn't
+pretend to be perfect, though we have seen that at moments the girl
+had compunctions at having said so much. "I'm glad you've done nothing
+yet--that you have it still to do. It's a very good thing for a girl to
+have refused a few good offers--so long of course as they are not the
+best she's likely to have. Pardon me if my tone seems horribly corrupt;
+one must take the worldly view sometimes. Only don't keep on refusing
+for the sake of refusing. It's a pleasant exercise of power; but
+accepting's after all an exercise of power as well. There's always the
+danger of refusing once too often. It was not the one I fell into--I
+didn't refuse often enough. You're an exquisite creature, and I should
+like to see you married to a prime minister. But speaking strictly, you
+know, you're not what is technically called a parti. You're extremely
+good-looking and extremely clever; in yourself you're quite exceptional.
+You appear to have the vaguest ideas about your earthly possessions; but
+from what I can make out you're not embarrassed with an income. I wish
+you had a little money."
+
+"I wish I had!" said Isabel, simply, apparently forgetting for the
+moment that her poverty had been a venial fault for two gallant
+gentlemen.
+
+In spite of Sir Matthew Hope's benevolent recommendation Madame Merle
+did not remain to the end, as the issue of poor Mr. Touchett's malady
+had now come frankly to be designated. She was under pledges to other
+people which had at last to be redeemed, and she left Gardencourt with
+the understanding that she should in any event see Mrs. Touchett there
+again, or else in town, before quitting England. Her parting with Isabel
+was even more like the beginning of a friendship than their meeting had
+been. "I'm going to six places in succession, but I shall see no one I
+like so well as you. They'll all be old friends, however; one doesn't
+make new friends at my age. I've made a great exception for you. You
+must remember that and must think as well of me as possible. You must
+reward me by believing in me."
+
+By way of answer Isabel kissed her, and, though some women kiss with
+facility, there are kisses and kisses, and this embrace was satisfactory
+to Madame Merle. Our young lady, after this, was much alone; she saw her
+aunt and cousin only at meals, and discovered that of the hours during
+which Mrs. Touchett was invisible only a minor portion was now devoted
+to nursing her husband. She spent the rest in her own apartments, to
+which access was not allowed even to her niece, apparently occupied
+there with mysterious and inscrutable exercises. At table she was grave
+and silent; but her solemnity was not an attitude--Isabel could see it
+was a conviction. She wondered if her aunt repented of having taken her
+own way so much; but there was no visible evidence of this--no tears, no
+sighs, no exaggeration of a zeal always to its own sense adequate. Mrs.
+Touchett seemed simply to feel the need of thinking things over and
+summing them up; she had a little moral account-book--with columns
+unerringly ruled and a sharp steel clasp--which she kept with exemplary
+neatness. Uttered reflection had with her ever, at any rate, a practical
+ring. "If I had foreseen this I'd not have proposed your coming abroad
+now," she said to Isabel after Madame Merle had left the house. "I'd
+have waited and sent for you next year."
+
+"So that perhaps I should never have known my uncle? It's a great
+happiness to me to have come now."
+
+"That's very well. But it was not that you might know your uncle that
+I brought you to Europe." A perfectly veracious speech; but, as Isabel
+thought, not as perfectly timed. She had leisure to think of this and
+other matters. She took a solitary walk every day and spent vague hours
+in turning over books in the library. Among the subjects that engaged
+her attention were the adventures of her friend Miss Stackpole, with
+whom she was in regular correspondence. Isabel liked her friend's
+private epistolary style better than her public; that is she felt her
+public letters would have been excellent if they had not been printed.
+Henrietta's career, however, was not so successful as might have been
+wished even in the interest of her private felicity; that view of the
+inner life of Great Britain which she was so eager to take appeared to
+dance before her like an ignis fatuus. The invitation from Lady Pensil,
+for mysterious reasons, had never arrived; and poor Mr. Bantling
+himself, with all his friendly ingenuity, had been unable to explain
+so grave a dereliction on the part of a missive that had obviously been
+sent. He had evidently taken Henrietta's affairs much to heart,
+and believed that he owed her a set-off to this illusory visit to
+Bedfordshire. "He says he should think I would go to the Continent,"
+Henrietta wrote; "and as he thinks of going there himself I suppose his
+advice is sincere. He wants to know why I don't take a view of French
+life; and it's a fact that I want very much to see the new Republic. Mr.
+Bantling doesn't care much about the Republic, but he thinks of going
+over to Paris anyway. I must say he's quite as attentive as I could
+wish, and at least I shall have seen one polite Englishman. I keep
+telling Mr. Bantling that he ought to have been an American, and you
+should see how that pleases him. Whenever I say so he always breaks out
+with the same exclamation--'Ah, but really, come now!" A few days later
+she wrote that she had decided to go to Paris at the end of the week and
+that Mr. Bantling had promised to see her off--perhaps even would go
+as far as Dover with her. She would wait in Paris till Isabel should
+arrive, Henrietta added; speaking quite as if Isabel were to start on
+her continental journey alone and making no allusion to Mrs. Touchett.
+Bearing in mind his interest in their late companion, our heroine
+communicated several passages from this correspondence to Ralph,
+who followed with an emotion akin to suspense the career of the
+representative of the Interviewer.
+
+"It seems to me she's doing very well," he said, "going over to Paris
+with an ex-Lancer! If she wants something to write about she has only to
+describe that episode."
+
+"It's not conventional, certainly," Isabel answered; "but if you mean
+that--as far as Henrietta is concerned--it's not perfectly innocent,
+you're very much mistaken. You'll never understand Henrietta."
+
+"Pardon me, I understand her perfectly. I didn't at all at first, but
+now I've the point of view. I'm afraid, however, that Bantling hasn't;
+he may have some surprises. Oh, I understand Henrietta as well as if I
+had made her!"
+
+Isabel was by no means sure of this, but she abstained from expressing
+further doubt, for she was disposed in these days to extend a great
+charity to her cousin. One afternoon less than a week after Madame
+Merle's departure she was seated in the library with a volume to
+which her attention was not fastened. She had placed herself in a deep
+window-bench, from which she looked out into the dull, damp park; and as
+the library stood at right angles to the entrance-front of the house she
+could see the doctor's brougham, which had been waiting for the last two
+hours before the door. She was struck with his remaining so long, but at
+last she saw him appear in the portico, stand a moment slowly drawing on
+his gloves and looking at the knees of his horse, and then get into the
+vehicle and roll away. Isabel kept her place for half an hour; there was
+a great stillness in the house. It was so great that when she at last
+heard a soft, slow step on the deep carpet of the room she was almost
+startled by the sound. She turned quickly away from the window and saw
+Ralph Touchett standing there with his hands still in his pockets, but
+with a face absolutely void of its usual latent smile. She got up and
+her movement and glance were a question.
+
+"It's all over," said Ralph.
+
+"Do you mean that my uncle...?" And Isabel stopped.
+
+"My dear father died an hour ago."
+
+"Ah, my poor Ralph!" she gently wailed, putting out her two hands to
+him.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+Some fortnight after this Madame Merle drove up in a hansom cab to
+the house in Winchester Square. As she descended from her vehicle she
+observed, suspended between the dining-room windows, a large, neat,
+wooden tablet, on whose fresh black ground were inscribed in white paint
+the words--"This noble freehold mansion to be sold"; with the name of
+the agent to whom application should be made. "They certainly lose no
+time," said the visitor as, after sounding the big brass knocker, she
+waited to be admitted; "it's a practical country!" And within the house,
+as she ascended to the drawing-room, she perceived numerous signs of
+abdication; pictures removed from the walls and placed upon sofas,
+windows undraped and floors laid bare. Mrs. Touchett presently received
+her and intimated in a few words that condolences might be taken for
+granted.
+
+"I know what you're going to say--he was a very good man. But I know it
+better than any one, because I gave him more chance to show it. In that
+I think I was a good wife." Mrs. Touchett added that at the end her
+husband apparently recognised this fact. "He has treated me most
+liberally," she said; "I won't say more liberally than I expected,
+because I didn't expect. You know that as a general thing I don't
+expect. But he chose, I presume, to recognise the fact that though I
+lived much abroad and mingled--you may say freely--in foreign life, I
+never exhibited the smallest preference for any one else."
+
+"For any one but yourself," Madame Merle mentally observed; but the
+reflexion was perfectly inaudible.
+
+"I never sacrificed my husband to another," Mrs. Touchett continued with
+her stout curtness.
+
+"Oh no," thought Madame Merle; "you never did anything for another!"
+
+There was a certain cynicism in these mute comments which demands an
+explanation; the more so as they are not in accord either with the
+view--somewhat superficial perhaps--that we have hitherto enjoyed of
+Madame Merle's character or with the literal facts of Mrs. Touchett's
+history; the more so, too, as Madame Merle had a well-founded conviction
+that her friend's last remark was not in the least to be construed as a
+side-thrust at herself. The truth is that the moment she had crossed the
+threshold she received an impression that Mr. Touchett's death had had
+subtle consequences and that these consequences had been profitable to
+a little circle of persons among whom she was not numbered. Of course
+it was an event which would naturally have consequences; her imagination
+had more than once rested upon this fact during her stay at Gardencourt.
+But it had been one thing to foresee such a matter mentally and another
+to stand among its massive records. The idea of a distribution of
+property--she would almost have said of spoils--just now pressed upon
+her senses and irritated her with a sense of exclusion. I am far from
+wishing to picture her as one of the hungry mouths or envious hearts of
+the general herd, but we have already learned of her having desires
+that had never been satisfied. If she had been questioned, she would
+of course have admitted--with a fine proud smile--that she had not the
+faintest claim to a share in Mr. Touchett's relics. "There was never
+anything in the world between us," she would have said. "There was never
+that, poor man!"--with a fillip of her thumb and her third finger. I
+hasten to add, moreover, that if she couldn't at the present moment keep
+from quite perversely yearning she was careful not to betray herself.
+She had after all as much sympathy for Mrs. Touchett's gains as for her
+losses.
+
+"He has left me this house," the newly-made widow said; "but of course
+I shall not live in it; I've a much better one in Florence. The will
+was opened only three days since, but I've already offered the house for
+sale. I've also a share in the bank; but I don't yet understand if I'm
+obliged to leave it there. If not I shall certainly take it out. Ralph,
+of course, has Gardencourt; but I'm not sure that he'll have means to
+keep up the place. He's naturally left very well off, but his father has
+given away an immense deal of money; there are bequests to a string of
+third cousins in Vermont. Ralph, however, is very fond of Gardencourt
+and would be quite capable of living there--in summer--with a
+maid-of-all-work and a gardener's boy. There's one remarkable clause
+in my husband's will," Mrs. Touchett added. "He has left my niece a
+fortune."
+
+"A fortune!" Madame Merle softly repeated.
+
+"Isabel steps into something like seventy thousand pounds." Madame
+Merle's hands were clasped in her lap; at this she raised them, still
+clasped, and held them a moment against her bosom while her eyes, a
+little dilated, fixed themselves on those of her friend. "Ah," she
+cried, "the clever creature!"
+
+Mrs. Touchett gave her a quick look. "What do you mean by that?"
+
+For an instant Madame Merle's colour rose and she dropped her eyes. "It
+certainly is clever to achieve such results--without an effort!"
+
+"There assuredly was no effort. Don't call it an achievement."
+
+Madame Merle was seldom guilty of the awkwardness of retracting what she
+had said; her wisdom was shown rather in maintaining it and placing it
+in a favourable light. "My dear friend, Isabel would certainly not
+have had seventy thousand pounds left her if she had not been the most
+charming girl in the world. Her charm includes great cleverness."
+
+"She never dreamed, I'm sure, of my husband's doing anything for her;
+and I never dreamed of it either, for he never spoke to me of his
+intention," Mrs. Touchett said. "She had no claim upon him whatever; it
+was no great recommendation to him that she was my niece. Whatever she
+achieved she achieved unconsciously."
+
+"Ah," rejoined Madame Merle, "those are the greatest strokes!" Mrs.
+Touchett reserved her opinion. "The girl's fortunate; I don't deny that.
+But for the present she's simply stupefied."
+
+"Do you mean that she doesn't know what to do with the money?"
+
+"That, I think, she has hardly considered. She doesn't know what to
+think about the matter at all. It has been as if a big gun were suddenly
+fired off behind her; she's feeling herself to see if she be hurt. It's
+but three days since she received a visit from the principal executor,
+who came in person, very gallantly, to notify her. He told me afterwards
+that when he had made his little speech she suddenly burst into tears.
+The money's to remain in the affairs of the bank, and she's to draw the
+interest."
+
+Madame Merle shook her head with a wise and now quite benignant smile.
+"How very delicious! After she has done that two or three times she'll
+get used to it." Then after a silence, "What does your son think of it?"
+she abruptly asked.
+
+"He left England before the will was read--used up by his fatigue and
+anxiety and hurrying off to the south. He's on his way to the Riviera
+and I've not yet heard from him. But it's not likely he'll ever object
+to anything done by his father."
+
+"Didn't you say his own share had been cut down?"
+
+"Only at his wish. I know that he urged his father to do something for
+the people in America. He's not in the least addicted to looking after
+number one."
+
+"It depends upon whom he regards as number one!" said Madame Merle. And
+she remained thoughtful a moment, her eyes bent on the floor.
+
+"Am I not to see your happy niece?" she asked at last as she raised
+them.
+
+"You may see her; but you'll not be struck with her being happy. She
+has looked as solemn, these three days, as a Cimabue Madonna!" And Mrs.
+Touchett rang for a servant.
+
+Isabel came in shortly after the footman had been sent to call her; and
+Madame Merle thought, as she appeared, that Mrs. Touchett's comparison
+had its force. The girl was pale and grave--an effect not mitigated by
+her deeper mourning; but the smile of her brightest moments came into
+her face as she saw Madame Merle, who went forward, laid her hand on our
+heroine's shoulder and, after looking at her a moment, kissed her as if
+she were returning the kiss she had received from her at Gardencourt.
+This was the only allusion the visitor, in her great good taste, made
+for the present to her young friend's inheritance.
+
+Mrs. Touchett had no purpose of awaiting in London the sale of her
+house. After selecting from among its furniture the objects she wished
+to transport to her other abode, she left the rest of its contents to be
+disposed of by the auctioneer and took her departure for the Continent.
+She was of course accompanied on this journey by her niece, who now had
+plenty of leisure to measure and weigh and otherwise handle the windfall
+on which Madame Merle had covertly congratulated her. Isabel thought
+very often of the fact of her accession of means, looking at it in a
+dozen different lights; but we shall not now attempt to follow her train
+of thought or to explain exactly why her new consciousness was at first
+oppressive. This failure to rise to immediate joy was indeed but brief;
+the girl presently made up her mind that to be rich was a virtue because
+it was to be able to do, and that to do could only be sweet. It was
+the graceful contrary of the stupid side of weakness--especially the
+feminine variety. To be weak was, for a delicate young person, rather
+graceful, but, after all, as Isabel said to herself, there was a larger
+grace than that. Just now, it is true, there was not much to do--once
+she had sent off a cheque to Lily and another to poor Edith; but she was
+thankful for the quiet months which her mourning robes and her aunt's
+fresh widowhood compelled them to spend together. The acquisition of
+power made her serious; she scrutinised her power with a kind of tender
+ferocity, but was not eager to exercise it. She began to do so during
+a stay of some weeks which she eventually made with her aunt in Paris,
+though in ways that will inevitably present themselves as trivial. They
+were the ways most naturally imposed in a city in which the shops are
+the admiration of the world, and that were prescribed unreservedly by
+the guidance of Mrs. Touchett, who took a rigidly practical view of the
+transformation of her niece from a poor girl to a rich one. "Now that
+you're a young woman of fortune you must know how to play the part--I
+mean to play it well," she said to Isabel once for all; and she added
+that the girl's first duty was to have everything handsome. "You don't
+know how to take care of your things, but you must learn," she went on;
+this was Isabel's second duty. Isabel submitted, but for the present
+her imagination was not kindled; she longed for opportunities, but these
+were not the opportunities she meant.
+
+Mrs. Touchett rarely changed her plans, and, having intended before her
+husband's death to spend a part of the winter in Paris, saw no reason to
+deprive herself--still less to deprive her companion--of this advantage.
+Though they would live in great retirement she might still present
+her niece, informally, to the little circle of her fellow countrymen
+dwelling upon the skirts of the Champs Elysees. With many of these
+amiable colonists Mrs. Touchett was intimate; she shared their
+expatriation, their convictions, their pastimes, their ennui. Isabel
+saw them arrive with a good deal of assiduity at her aunt's hotel, and
+pronounced on them with a trenchancy doubtless to be accounted for by
+the temporary exaltation of her sense of human duty. She made up her
+mind that their lives were, though luxurious, inane, and incurred some
+disfavour by expressing this view on bright Sunday afternoons, when the
+American absentees were engaged in calling on each other. Though her
+listeners passed for people kept exemplarily genial by their cooks and
+dressmakers, two or three of them thought her cleverness, which was
+generally admitted, inferior to that of the new theatrical pieces. "You
+all live here this way, but what does it lead to?" she was pleased to
+ask. "It doesn't seem to lead to anything, and I should think you'd get
+very tired of it."
+
+Mrs. Touchett thought the question worthy of Henrietta Stackpole. The
+two ladies had found Henrietta in Paris, and Isabel constantly saw her;
+so that Mrs. Touchett had some reason for saying to herself that if her
+niece were not clever enough to originate almost anything, she might be
+suspected of having borrowed that style of remark from her journalistic
+friend. The first occasion on which Isabel had spoken was that of
+a visit paid by the two ladies to Mrs. Luce, an old friend of Mrs.
+Touchett's and the only person in Paris she now went to see. Mrs. Luce
+had been living in Paris since the days of Louis Philippe; she used to
+say jocosely that she was one of the generation of 1830--a joke of
+which the point was not always taken. When it failed Mrs. Luce used to
+explain--"Oh yes, I'm one of the romantics;" her French had never
+become quite perfect. She was always at home on Sunday afternoons and
+surrounded by sympathetic compatriots, usually the same. In fact she
+was at home at all times, and reproduced with wondrous truth in her
+well-cushioned little corner of the brilliant city, the domestic tone of
+her native Baltimore. This reduced Mr. Luce, her worthy husband, a tall,
+lean, grizzled, well-brushed gentleman who wore a gold eye-glass and
+carried his hat a little too much on the back of his head, to mere
+platonic praise of the "distractions" of Paris--they were his great
+word--since you would never have guessed from what cares he escaped to
+them. One of them was that he went every day to the American banker's,
+where he found a post-office that was almost as sociable and colloquial
+an institution as in an American country town. He passed an hour (in
+fine weather) in a chair in the Champs Elysees, and he dined uncommonly
+well at his own table, seated above a waxed floor which it was Mrs.
+Luce's happiness to believe had a finer polish than any other in the
+French capital. Occasionally he dined with a friend or two at the Cafe
+Anglais, where his talent for ordering a dinner was a source of felicity
+to his companions and an object of admiration even to the headwaiter
+of the establishment. These were his only known pastimes, but they had
+beguiled his hours for upwards of half a century, and they doubtless
+justified his frequent declaration that there was no place like Paris.
+In no other place, on these terms, could Mr. Luce flatter himself that
+he was enjoying life. There was nothing like Paris, but it must be
+confessed that Mr. Luce thought less highly of this scene of his
+dissipations than in earlier days. In the list of his resources his
+political reflections should not be omitted, for they were doubtless the
+animating principle of many hours that superficially seemed vacant.
+Like many of his fellow colonists Mr. Luce was a high--or rather a
+deep--conservative, and gave no countenance to the government lately
+established in France. He had no faith in its duration and would assure
+you from year to year that its end was close at hand. "They want to be
+kept down, sir, to be kept down; nothing but the strong hand--the iron
+heel--will do for them," he would frequently say of the French people;
+and his ideal of a fine showy clever rule was that of the superseded
+Empire. "Paris is much less attractive than in the days of the Emperor;
+HE knew how to make a city pleasant," Mr. Luce had often remarked to
+Mrs. Touchett, who was quite of his own way of thinking and wished to
+know what one had crossed that odious Atlantic for but to get away from
+republics.
+
+"Why, madam, sitting in the Champs Elysees, opposite to the Palace of
+Industry, I've seen the court-carriages from the Tuileries pass up and
+down as many as seven times a day. I remember one occasion when they
+went as high as nine. What do you see now? It's no use talking, the
+style's all gone. Napoleon knew what the French people want, and
+there'll be a dark cloud over Paris, our Paris, till they get the Empire
+back again."
+
+Among Mrs. Luce's visitors on Sunday afternoons was a young man with
+whom Isabel had had a good deal of conversation and whom she found
+full of valuable knowledge. Mr. Edward Rosier--Ned Rosier as he was
+called--was native to New York and had been brought up in Paris, living
+there under the eye of his father who, as it happened, had been an early
+and intimate friend of the late Mr. Archer. Edward Rosier remembered
+Isabel as a little girl; it had been his father who came to the rescue
+of the small Archers at the inn at Neufchatel (he was travelling that
+way with the boy and had stopped at the hotel by chance), after their
+bonne had gone off with the Russian prince and when Mr. Archer's
+whereabouts remained for some days a mystery. Isabel remembered
+perfectly the neat little male child whose hair smelt of a delicious
+cosmetic and who had a bonne all his own, warranted to lose sight of him
+under no provocation. Isabel took a walk with the pair beside the lake
+and thought little Edward as pretty as an angel--a comparison by no
+means conventional in her mind, for she had a very definite conception
+of a type of features which she supposed to be angelic and which her
+new friend perfectly illustrated. A small pink face surmounted by a blue
+velvet bonnet and set off by a stiff embroidered collar had become the
+countenance of her childish dreams; and she had firmly believed for some
+time afterwards that the heavenly hosts conversed among themselves in
+a queer little dialect of French-English, expressing the properest
+sentiments, as when Edward told her that he was "defended" by his bonne
+to go near the edge of the lake, and that one must always obey to one's
+bonne. Ned Rosier's English had improved; at least it exhibited in a
+less degree the French variation. His father was dead and his bonne
+dismissed, but the young man still conformed to the spirit of their
+teaching--he never went to the edge of the lake. There was still
+something agreeable to the nostrils about him and something not
+offensive to nobler organs. He was a very gentle and gracious youth,
+with what are called cultivated tastes--an acquaintance with old china,
+with good wine, with the bindings of books, with the Almanach de Gotha,
+with the best shops, the best hotels, the hours of railway-trains. He
+could order a dinner almost as well as Mr. Luce, and it was probable
+that as his experience accumulated he would be a worthy successor to
+that gentleman, whose rather grim politics he also advocated in a soft
+and innocent voice. He had some charming rooms in Paris, decorated with
+old Spanish altar-lace, the envy of his female friends, who declared
+that his chimney-piece was better draped than the high shoulders of many
+a duchess. He usually, however, spent a part of every winter at Pau, and
+had once passed a couple of months in the United States.
+
+He took a great interest in Isabel and remembered perfectly the walk at
+Neufchatel, when she would persist in going so near the edge. He seemed
+to recognise this same tendency in the subversive enquiry that I quoted
+a moment ago, and set himself to answer our heroine's question with
+greater urbanity than it perhaps deserved. "What does it lead to, Miss
+Archer? Why Paris leads everywhere. You can't go anywhere unless you
+come here first. Every one that comes to Europe has got to pass through.
+You don't mean it in that sense so much? You mean what good it does you?
+Well, how can you penetrate futurity? How can you tell what lies ahead?
+If it's a pleasant road I don't care where it leads. I like the road,
+Miss Archer; I like the dear old asphalte. You can't get tired of
+it--you can't if you try. You think you would, but you wouldn't;
+there's always something new and fresh. Take the Hotel Drouot, now;
+they sometimes have three and four sales a week. Where can you get such
+things as you can here? In spite of all they say I maintain they're
+cheaper too, if you know the right places. I know plenty of places,
+but I keep them to myself. I'll tell you, if you like, as a particular
+favour; only you mustn't tell any one else. Don't you go anywhere
+without asking me first; I want you to promise me that. As a general
+thing avoid the Boulevards; there's very little to be done on the
+Boulevards. Speaking conscientiously--sans blague--I don't believe
+any one knows Paris better than I. You and Mrs. Touchett must come and
+breakfast with me some day, and I'll show you my things; je ne vous dis
+que ca! There has been a great deal of talk about London of late; it's
+the fashion to cry up London. But there's nothing in it--you can't
+do anything in London. No Louis Quinze--nothing of the First Empire;
+nothing but their eternal Queen Anne. It's good for one's bed-room,
+Queen Anne--for one's washing-room; but it isn't proper for a salon. Do
+I spend my life at the auctioneer's?" Mr. Rosier pursued in answer to
+another question of Isabel's. "Oh no; I haven't the means. I wish I
+had. You think I'm a mere trifler; I can tell by the expression of your
+face--you've got a wonderfully expressive face. I hope you don't mind
+my saying that; I mean it as a kind of warning. You think I ought to do
+something, and so do I, so long as you leave it vague. But when you
+come to the point you see you have to stop. I can't go home and be
+a shopkeeper. You think I'm very well fitted? Ah, Miss Archer, you
+overrate me. I can buy very well, but I can't sell; you should see when
+I sometimes try to get rid of my things. It takes much more ability to
+make other people buy than to buy yourself. When I think how clever they
+must be, the people who make ME buy! Ah no; I couldn't be a shopkeeper.
+I can't be a doctor; it's a repulsive business. I can't be a clergyman;
+I haven't got convictions. And then I can't pronounce the names right in
+the Bible. They're very difficult, in the Old Testament particularly. I
+can't be a lawyer; I don't understand--how do you call it?--the American
+procedure. Is there anything else? There's nothing for a gentleman
+in America. I should like to be a diplomatist; but American
+diplomacy--that's not for gentlemen either. I'm sure if you had seen the
+last min--"
+
+Henrietta Stackpole, who was often with her friend when Mr. Rosier,
+coming to pay his compliments late in the afternoon, expressed himself
+after the fashion I have sketched, usually interrupted the young man at
+this point and read him a lecture on the duties of the American citizen.
+She thought him most unnatural; he was worse than poor Ralph Touchett.
+Henrietta, however, was at this time more than ever addicted to fine
+criticism, for her conscience had been freshly alarmed as regards
+Isabel. She had not congratulated this young lady on her augmentations
+and begged to be excused from doing so.
+
+"If Mr. Touchett had consulted me about leaving you the money," she
+frankly asserted, "I'd have said to him 'Never!"
+
+"I see," Isabel had answered. "You think it will prove a curse in
+disguise. Perhaps it will."
+
+"Leave it to some one you care less for--that's what I should have
+said."
+
+"To yourself for instance?" Isabel suggested jocosely. And then, "Do you
+really believe it will ruin me?" she asked in quite another tone.
+
+"I hope it won't ruin you; but it will certainly confirm your dangerous
+tendencies."
+
+"Do you mean the love of luxury--of extravagance?"
+
+"No, no," said Henrietta; "I mean your exposure on the moral side. I
+approve of luxury; I think we ought to be as elegant as possible. Look
+at the luxury of our western cities; I've seen nothing over here to
+compare with it. I hope you'll never become grossly sensual; but I'm not
+afraid of that. The peril for you is that you live too much in the world
+of your own dreams. You're not enough in contact with reality--with
+the toiling, striving, suffering, I may even say sinning, world
+that surrounds you. You're too fastidious; you've too many graceful
+illusions. Your newly-acquired thousands will shut you up more and
+more to the society of a few selfish and heartless people who will be
+interested in keeping them up."
+
+Isabel's eyes expanded as she gazed at this lurid scene. "What are my
+illusions?" she asked. "I try so hard not to have any."
+
+"Well," said Henrietta, "you think you can lead a romantic life, that
+you can live by pleasing yourself and pleasing others. You'll find
+you're mistaken. Whatever life you lead you must put your soul in it--to
+make any sort of success of it; and from the moment you do that it
+ceases to be romance, I assure you: it becomes grim reality! And you
+can't always please yourself; you must sometimes please other people.
+That, I admit, you're very ready to do; but there's another thing that's
+still more important--you must often displease others. You must always
+be ready for that--you must never shrink from it. That doesn't suit you
+at all--you're too fond of admiration, you like to be thought well
+of. You think we can escape disagreeable duties by taking romantic
+views--that's your great illusion, my dear. But we can't. You must be
+prepared on many occasions in life to please no one at all--not even
+yourself."
+
+Isabel shook her head sadly; she looked troubled and frightened. "This,
+for you, Henrietta," she said, "must be one of those occasions!"
+
+It was certainly true that Miss Stackpole, during her visit to Paris,
+which had been professionally more remunerative than her English
+sojourn, had not been living in the world of dreams. Mr. Bantling, who
+had now returned to England, was her companion for the first four weeks
+of her stay; and about Mr. Bantling there was nothing dreamy. Isabel
+learned from her friend that the two had led a life of great personal
+intimacy and that this had been a peculiar advantage to Henrietta,
+owing to the gentleman's remarkable knowledge of Paris. He had
+explained everything, shown her everything, been her constant guide and
+interpreter. They had breakfasted together, dined together, gone to
+the theatre together, supped together, really in a manner quite lived
+together. He was a true friend, Henrietta more than once assured our
+heroine; and she had never supposed that she could like any Englishman
+so well. Isabel could not have told you why, but she found something
+that ministered to mirth in the alliance the correspondent of the
+Interviewer had struck with Lady Pensil's brother; her amusement
+moreover subsisted in face of the fact that she thought it a credit to
+each of them. Isabel couldn't rid herself of a suspicion that they were
+playing somehow at cross-purposes--that the simplicity of each had
+been entrapped. But this simplicity was on either side none the less
+honourable. It was as graceful on Henrietta's part to believe that Mr.
+Bantling took an interest in the diffusion of lively journalism and in
+consolidating the position of lady-correspondents as it was on the
+part of his companion to suppose that the cause of the Interviewer--a
+periodical of which he never formed a very definite conception--was, if
+subtly analysed (a task to which Mr. Bantling felt himself quite equal),
+but the cause of Miss Stackpole's need of demonstrative affection. Each
+of these groping celibates supplied at any rate a want of which the
+other was impatiently conscious. Mr. Bantling, who was of rather a slow
+and a discursive habit, relished a prompt, keen, positive woman, who
+charmed him by the influence of a shining, challenging eye and a kind of
+bandbox freshness, and who kindled a perception of raciness in a mind
+to which the usual fare of life seemed unsalted. Henrietta, on the other
+hand, enjoyed the society of a gentleman who appeared somehow, in his
+way, made, by expensive, roundabout, almost "quaint" processes, for
+her use, and whose leisured state, though generally indefensible, was a
+decided boon to a breathless mate, and who was furnished with an easy,
+traditional, though by no means exhaustive, answer to almost any social
+or practical question that could come up. She often found Mr. Bantling's
+answers very convenient, and in the press of catching the American post
+would largely and showily address them to publicity. It was to be feared
+that she was indeed drifting toward those abysses of sophistication as
+to which Isabel, wishing for a good-humoured retort, had warned her.
+There might be danger in store for Isabel; but it was scarcely to be
+hoped that Miss Stackpole, on her side, would find permanent rest in any
+adoption of the views of a class pledged to all the old abuses. Isabel
+continued to warn her good-humouredly; Lady Pensil's obliging brother
+was sometimes, on our heroine's lips, an object of irreverent and
+facetious allusion. Nothing, however, could exceed Henrietta's
+amiability on this point; she used to abound in the sense of Isabel's
+irony and to enumerate with elation the hours she had spent with this
+perfect man of the world--a term that had ceased to make with her, as
+previously, for opprobrium. Then, a few moments later, she would forget
+that they had been talking jocosely and would mention with impulsive
+earnestness some expedition she had enjoyed in his company. She would
+say: "Oh, I know all about Versailles; I went there with Mr. Bantling. I
+was bound to see it thoroughly--I warned him when we went out there that
+I was thorough: so we spent three days at the hotel and wandered all
+over the place. It was lovely weather--a kind of Indian summer, only not
+so good. We just lived in that park. Oh yes; you can't tell me anything
+about Versailles." Henrietta appeared to have made arrangements to meet
+her gallant friend during the spring in Italy.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+Mrs. Touchett, before arriving in Paris, had fixed the day for her
+departure and by the middle of February had begun to travel southward.
+She interrupted her journey to pay a visit to her son, who at San Remo,
+on the Italian shore of the Mediterranean, had been spending a dull,
+bright winter beneath a slow-moving white umbrella. Isabel went with her
+aunt as a matter of course, though Mrs. Touchett, with homely, customary
+logic, had laid before her a pair of alternatives.
+
+"Now, of course, you're completely your own mistress and are as free as
+the bird on the bough. I don't mean you were not so before, but you're
+at present on a different footing--property erects a kind of barrier.
+You can do a great many things if you're rich which would be severely
+criticised if you were poor. You can go and come, you can travel alone,
+you can have your own establishment: I mean of course if you'll take
+a companion--some decayed gentlewoman, with a darned cashmere and dyed
+hair, who paints on velvet. You don't think you'd like that? Of course
+you can do as you please; I only want you to understand how much you're
+at liberty. You might take Miss Stackpole as your dame de compagnie;
+she'd keep people off very well. I think, however, that it's a great
+deal better you should remain with me, in spite of there being no
+obligation. It's better for several reasons, quite apart from your
+liking it. I shouldn't think you'd like it, but I recommend you to make
+the sacrifice. Of course whatever novelty there may have been at first
+in my society has quite passed away, and you see me as I am--a dull,
+obstinate, narrow-minded old woman."
+
+"I don't think you're at all dull," Isabel had replied to this.
+
+"But you do think I'm obstinate and narrow-minded? I told you so!" said
+Mrs. Touchett with much elation at being justified.
+
+Isabel remained for the present with her aunt, because, in spite of
+eccentric impulses, she had a great regard for what was usually deemed
+decent, and a young gentlewoman without visible relations had always
+struck her as a flower without foliage. It was true that Mrs. Touchett's
+conversation had never again appeared so brilliant as that first
+afternoon in Albany, when she sat in her damp waterproof and sketched
+the opportunities that Europe would offer to a young person of taste.
+This, however, was in a great measure the girl's own fault; she had
+got a glimpse of her aunt's experience, and her imagination constantly
+anticipated the judgements and emotions of a woman who had very little
+of the same faculty. Apart from this, Mrs. Touchett had a great merit;
+she was as honest as a pair of compasses. There was a comfort in her
+stiffness and firmness; you knew exactly where to find her and were
+never liable to chance encounters and concussions. On her own ground
+she was perfectly present, but was never over-inquisitive as regards
+the territory of her neighbour. Isabel came at last to have a kind of
+undemonstrable pity for her; there seemed something so dreary in
+the condition of a person whose nature had, as it were, so little
+surface--offered so limited a face to the accretions of human contact.
+Nothing tender, nothing sympathetic, had ever had a chance to fasten
+upon it--no wind-sown blossom, no familiar softening moss. Her offered,
+her passive extent, in other words, was about that of a knife-edge.
+Isabel had reason to believe none the less that as she advanced in life
+she made more of those concessions to the sense of something obscurely
+distinct from convenience--more of them than she independently exacted.
+She was learning to sacrifice consistency to considerations of that
+inferior order for which the excuse must be found in the particular
+case. It was not to the credit of her absolute rectitude that she should
+have gone the longest way round to Florence in order to spend a few
+weeks with her invalid son; since in former years it had been one of her
+most definite convictions that when Ralph wished to see her he was at
+liberty to remember that Palazzo Crescentini contained a large apartment
+known as the quarter of the signorino.
+
+"I want to ask you something," Isabel said to this young man the day
+after her arrival at San Remo--"something I've thought more than once
+of asking you by letter, but that I've hesitated on the whole to write
+about. Face to face, nevertheless, my question seems easy enough. Did
+you know your father intended to leave me so much money?"
+
+Ralph stretched his legs a little further than usual and gazed a little
+more fixedly at the Mediterranean.
+
+"What does it matter, my dear Isabel, whether I knew? My father was very
+obstinate."
+
+"So," said the girl, "you did know."
+
+"Yes; he told me. We even talked it over a little." "What did he do it
+for?" asked Isabel abruptly. "Why, as a kind of compliment."
+
+"A compliment on what?"
+
+"On your so beautifully existing."
+
+"He liked me too much," she presently declared.
+
+"That's a way we all have."
+
+"If I believed that I should be very unhappy. Fortunately I don't
+believe it. I want to be treated with justice; I want nothing but that."
+
+"Very good. But you must remember that justice to a lovely being is
+after all a florid sort of sentiment."
+
+"I'm not a lovely being. How can you say that, at the very moment when
+I'm asking such odious questions? I must seem to you delicate!"
+
+"You seem to me troubled," said Ralph.
+
+"I am troubled."
+
+"About what?"
+
+For a moment she answered nothing; then she broke out: "Do you think it
+good for me suddenly to be made so rich? Henrietta doesn't."
+
+"Oh, hang Henrietta!" said Ralph coarsely, "If you ask me I'm delighted
+at it."
+
+"Is that why your father did it--for your amusement?"
+
+"I differ with Miss Stackpole," Ralph went on more gravely. "I think it
+very good for you to have means."
+
+Isabel looked at him with serious eyes. "I wonder whether you know
+what's good for me--or whether you care."
+
+"If I know depend upon it I care. Shall I tell you what it is? Not to
+torment yourself."
+
+"Not to torment you, I suppose you mean."
+
+"You can't do that; I'm proof. Take things more easily. Don't ask
+yourself so much whether this or that is good for you. Don't question
+your conscience so much--it will get out of tune like a strummed
+piano. Keep it for great occasions. Don't try so much to form your
+character--it's like trying to pull open a tight, tender young rose.
+Live as you like best, and your character will take care of itself. Most
+things are good for you; the exceptions are very rare, and a comfortable
+income's not one of them." Ralph paused, smiling; Isabel had listened
+quickly. "You've too much power of thought--above all too much
+conscience," Ralph added. "It's out of all reason, the number of things
+you think wrong. Put back your watch. Diet your fever. Spread your
+wings; rise above the ground. It's never wrong to do that."
+
+She had listened eagerly, as I say; and it was her nature to understand
+quickly. "I wonder if you appreciate what you say. If you do, you take a
+great responsibility."
+
+"You frighten me a little, but I think I'm right," said Ralph,
+persisting in cheer.
+
+"All the same what you say is very true," Isabel pursued. "You could say
+nothing more true. I'm absorbed in myself--I look at life too much as
+a doctor's prescription. Why indeed should we perpetually be thinking
+whether things are good for us, as if we were patients lying in a
+hospital? Why should I be so afraid of not doing right? As if it
+mattered to the world whether I do right or wrong!"
+
+"You're a capital person to advise," said Ralph; "you take the wind out
+of my sails!"
+
+She looked at him as if she had not heard him--though she was following
+out the train of reflexion which he himself had kindled. "I try to
+care more about the world than about myself--but I always come back to
+myself. It's because I'm afraid." She stopped; her voice had trembled
+a little. "Yes, I'm afraid; I can't tell you. A large fortune means
+freedom, and I'm afraid of that. It's such a fine thing, and one should
+make such a good use of it. If one shouldn't one would be ashamed. And
+one must keep thinking; it's a constant effort. I'm not sure it's not a
+greater happiness to be powerless."
+
+"For weak people I've no doubt it's a greater happiness. For weak people
+the effort not to be contemptible must be great."
+
+"And how do you know I'm not weak?" Isabel asked.
+
+"Ah," Ralph answered with a flush that the girl noticed, "if you are I'm
+awfully sold!"
+
+The charm of the Mediterranean coast only deepened for our heroine
+on acquaintance, for it was the threshold of Italy, the gate of
+admirations. Italy, as yet imperfectly seen and felt, stretched before
+her as a land of promise, a land in which a love of the beautiful might
+be comforted by endless knowledge. Whenever she strolled upon the shore
+with her cousin--and she was the companion of his daily walk--she looked
+across the sea, with longing eyes, to where she knew that Genoa lay. She
+was glad to pause, however, on the edge of this larger adventure; there
+was such a thrill even in the preliminary hovering. It affected her
+moreover as a peaceful interlude, as a hush of the drum and fife in a
+career which she had little warrant as yet for regarding as agitated,
+but which nevertheless she was constantly picturing to herself by
+the light of her hopes, her fears, her fancies, her ambitions, her
+predilections, and which reflected these subjective accidents in
+a manner sufficiently dramatic. Madame Merle had predicted to Mrs.
+Touchett that after their young friend had put her hand into her pocket
+half a dozen times she would be reconciled to the idea that it had been
+filled by a munificent uncle; and the event justified, as it had so
+often justified before, that lady's perspicacity. Ralph Touchett had
+praised his cousin for being morally inflammable, that is for being
+quick to take a hint that was meant as good advice. His advice had
+perhaps helped the matter; she had at any rate before leaving San Remo
+grown used to feeling rich. The consciousness in question found a
+proper place in rather a dense little group of ideas that she had about
+herself, and often it was by no means the least agreeable. It took
+perpetually for granted a thousand good intentions. She lost herself in
+a maze of visions; the fine things to be done by a rich, independent,
+generous girl who took a large human view of occasions and obligations
+were sublime in the mass. Her fortune therefore became to her mind a
+part of her better self; it gave her importance, gave her even, to her
+own imagination, a certain ideal beauty. What it did for her in the
+imagination of others is another affair, and on this point we must also
+touch in time. The visions I have just spoken of were mixed with other
+debates. Isabel liked better to think of the future than of the past;
+but at times, as she listened to the murmur of the Mediterranean waves,
+her glance took a backward flight. It rested upon two figures which, in
+spite of increasing distance, were still sufficiently salient; they were
+recognisable without difficulty as those of Caspar Goodwood and Lord
+Warburton. It was strange how quickly these images of energy had fallen
+into the background of our young lady's life. It was in her disposition
+at all times to lose faith in the reality of absent things; she could
+summon back her faith, in case of need, with an effort, but the effort
+was often painful even when the reality had been pleasant. The past was
+apt to look dead and its revival rather to show the livid light of a
+judgement-day. The girl moreover was not prone to take for granted that
+she herself lived in the mind of others--she had not the fatuity to
+believe she left indelible traces. She was capable of being wounded by
+the discovery that she had been forgotten; but of all liberties the one
+she herself found sweetest was the liberty to forget. She had not given
+her last shilling, sentimentally speaking, either to Caspar Goodwood or
+to Lord Warburton, and yet couldn't but feel them appreciably in debt
+to her. She had of course reminded herself that she was to hear from Mr.
+Goodwood again; but this was not to be for another year and a half, and
+in that time a great many things might happen. She had indeed failed to
+say to herself that her American suitor might find some other girl more
+comfortable to woo; because, though it was certain many other girls
+would prove so, she had not the smallest belief that this merit
+would attract him. But she reflected that she herself might know the
+humiliation of change, might really, for that matter, come to the end of
+the things that were not Caspar (even though there appeared so many of
+them), and find rest in those very elements of his presence which struck
+her now as impediments to the finer respiration. It was conceivable
+that these impediments should some day prove a sort of blessing
+in disguise--a clear and quiet harbour enclosed by a brave granite
+breakwater. But that day could only come in its order, and she couldn't
+wait for it with folded hands. That Lord Warburton should continue
+to cherish her image seemed to her more than a noble humility or an
+enlightened pride ought to wish to reckon with. She had so definitely
+undertaken to preserve no record of what had passed between them that a
+corresponding effort on his own part would be eminently just. This
+was not, as it may seem, merely a theory tinged with sarcasm. Isabel
+candidly believed that his lordship would, in the usual phrase, get over
+his disappointment. He had been deeply affected--this she believed, and
+she was still capable of deriving pleasure from the belief; but it
+was absurd that a man both so intelligent and so honourably dealt with
+should cultivate a scar out of proportion to any wound. Englishmen
+liked moreover to be comfortable, said Isabel, and there could be
+little comfort for Lord Warburton, in the long run, in brooding over a
+self-sufficient American girl who had been but a casual acquaintance.
+She flattered herself that, should she hear from one day to another that
+he had married some young woman of his own country who had done more
+to deserve him, she should receive the news without a pang even of
+surprise. It would have proved that he believed she was firm--which was
+what she wished to seem to him. That alone was grateful to her pride.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+On one of the first days of May, some six months after old Mr.
+Touchett's death, a small group that might have been described by a
+painter as composing well was gathered in one of the many rooms of an
+ancient villa crowning an olive-muffled hill outside of the Roman gate
+of Florence. The villa was a long, rather blank-looking structure, with
+the far-projecting roof which Tuscany loves and which, on the hills that
+encircle Florence, when considered from a distance, makes so harmonious
+a rectangle with the straight, dark, definite cypresses that usually
+rise in groups of three or four beside it. The house had a front upon
+a little grassy, empty, rural piazza which occupied a part of the
+hill-top; and this front, pierced with a few windows in irregular
+relations and furnished with a stone bench lengthily adjusted to the
+base of the structure and useful as a lounging-place to one or two
+persons wearing more or less of that air of undervalued merit which in
+Italy, for some reason or other, always gracefully invests any one who
+confidently assumes a perfectly passive attitude--this antique,
+solid, weather-worn, yet imposing front had a somewhat incommunicative
+character. It was the mask, not the face of the house. It had heavy
+lids, but no eyes; the house in reality looked another way--looked off
+behind, into splendid openness and the range of the afternoon light.
+In that quarter the villa overhung the slope of its hill and the long
+valley of the Arno, hazy with Italian colour. It had a narrow garden, in
+the manner of a terrace, productive chiefly of tangles of wild roses
+and other old stone benches, mossy and sun-warmed. The parapet of the
+terrace was just the height to lean upon, and beneath it the ground
+declined into the vagueness of olive-crops and vineyards. It is not,
+however, with the outside of the place that we are concerned; on this
+bright morning of ripened spring its tenants had reason to prefer the
+shady side of the wall. The windows of the ground-floor, as you saw
+them from the piazza, were, in their noble proportions, extremely
+architectural; but their function seemed less to offer communication
+with the world than to defy the world to look in. They were massively
+cross-barred, and placed at such a height that curiosity, even on
+tiptoe, expired before it reached them. In an apartment lighted by a
+row of three of these jealous apertures--one of the several distinct
+apartments into which the villa was divided and which were mainly
+occupied by foreigners of random race long resident in Florence--a
+gentleman was seated in company with a young girl and two good sisters
+from a religious house. The room was, however, less sombre than our
+indications may have represented, for it had a wide, high door, which
+now stood open into the tangled garden behind; and the tall iron
+lattices admitted on occasion more than enough of the Italian
+sunshine. It was moreover a seat of ease, indeed of luxury, telling
+of arrangements subtly studied and refinements frankly proclaimed, and
+containing a variety of those faded hangings of damask and tapestry,
+those chests and cabinets of carved and time-polished oak, those angular
+specimens of pictorial art in frames as pedantically primitive, those
+perverse-looking relics of medieval brass and pottery, of which Italy
+has long been the not quite exhausted storehouse. These things kept
+terms with articles of modern furniture in which large allowance had
+been made for a lounging generation; it was to be noticed that all the
+chairs were deep and well padded and that much space was occupied by a
+writing-table of which the ingenious perfection bore the stamp of London
+and the nineteenth century. There were books in profusion and magazines
+and newspapers, and a few small, odd, elaborate pictures, chiefly in
+water-colour. One of these productions stood on a drawing-room easel
+before which, at the moment we begin to be concerned with her, the young
+girl I have mentioned had placed herself. She was looking at the picture
+in silence.
+
+Silence--absolute silence--had not fallen upon her companions; but their
+talk had an appearance of embarrassed continuity. The two good sisters
+had not settled themselves in their respective chairs; their attitude
+expressed a final reserve and their faces showed the glaze of
+prudence. They were plain, ample, mild-featured women, with a kind of
+business-like modesty to which the impersonal aspect of their stiffened
+linen and of the serge that draped them as if nailed on frames gave an
+advantage. One of them, a person of a certain age, in spectacles, with a
+fresh complexion and a full cheek, had a more discriminating manner
+than her colleague, as well as the responsibility of their errand, which
+apparently related to the young girl. This object of interest wore her
+hat--an ornament of extreme simplicity and not at variance with her
+plain muslin gown, too short for her years, though it must already
+have been "let out." The gentleman who might have been supposed to be
+entertaining the two nuns was perhaps conscious of the difficulties of
+his function, it being in its way as arduous to converse with the very
+meek as with the very mighty. At the same time he was clearly much
+occupied with their quiet charge, and while she turned her back to
+him his eyes rested gravely on her slim, small figure. He was a man of
+forty, with a high but well-shaped head, on which the hair, still dense,
+but prematurely grizzled, had been cropped close. He had a fine, narrow,
+extremely modelled and composed face, of which the only fault was just
+this effect of its running a trifle too much to points; an appearance to
+which the shape of the beard contributed not a little. This beard, cut
+in the manner of the portraits of the sixteenth century and surmounted
+by a fair moustache, of which the ends had a romantic upward flourish,
+gave its wearer a foreign, traditionary look and suggested that he was a
+gentleman who studied style. His conscious, curious eyes, however, eyes
+at once vague and penetrating, intelligent and hard, expressive of
+the observer as well as of the dreamer, would have assured you that
+he studied it only within well-chosen limits, and that in so far as he
+sought it he found it. You would have been much at a loss to determine
+his original clime and country; he had none of the superficial signs
+that usually render the answer to this question an insipidly easy one.
+If he had English blood in his veins it had probably received some
+French or Italian commixture; but he suggested, fine gold coin as he
+was, no stamp nor emblem of the common mintage that provides for general
+circulation; he was the elegant complicated medal struck off for a
+special occasion. He had a light, lean, rather languid-looking figure,
+and was apparently neither tall nor short. He was dressed as a man
+dresses who takes little other trouble about it than to have no vulgar
+things.
+
+"Well, my dear, what do you think of it?" he asked of the young girl. He
+used the Italian tongue, and used it with perfect ease; but this would
+not have convinced you he was Italian.
+
+The child turned her head earnestly to one side and the other. "It's
+very pretty, papa. Did you make it yourself?"
+
+"Certainly I made it. Don't you think I'm clever?"
+
+"Yes, papa, very clever; I also have learned to make pictures." And
+she turned round and showed a small, fair face painted with a fixed and
+intensely sweet smile.
+
+"You should have brought me a specimen of your powers."
+
+"I've brought a great many; they're in my trunk."
+
+"She draws very--very carefully," the elder of the nuns remarked,
+speaking in French.
+
+"I'm glad to hear it. Is it you who have instructed her?"
+
+"Happily no," said the good sister, blushing a little. "Ce n'est pas ma
+partie. I teach nothing; I leave that to those who are wiser. We've an
+excellent drawing-master, Mr.--Mr.--what is his name?" she asked of her
+companion.
+
+Her companion looked about at the carpet. "It's a German name," she said
+in Italian, as if it needed to be translated.
+
+"Yes," the other went on, "he's a German, and we've had him many years."
+
+The young girl, who was not heeding the conversation, had wandered away
+to the open door of the large room and stood looking into the garden.
+"And you, my sister, are French," said the gentleman.
+
+"Yes, sir," the visitor gently replied. "I speak to the pupils in my
+own tongue. I know no other. But we have sisters of other
+countries--English, German, Irish. They all speak their proper
+language."
+
+The gentleman gave a smile. "Has my daughter been under the care of one
+of the Irish ladies?" And then, as he saw that his visitors suspected
+a joke, though failing to understand it, "You're very complete," he
+instantly added.
+
+"Oh, yes, we're complete. We've everything, and everything's of the
+best."
+
+"We have gymnastics," the Italian sister ventured to remark. "But not
+dangerous."
+
+"I hope not. Is that YOUR branch?" A question which provoked much candid
+hilarity on the part of the two ladies; on the subsidence of which their
+entertainer, glancing at his daughter, remarked that she had grown.
+
+"Yes, but I think she has finished. She'll remain--not big," said the
+French sister.
+
+"I'm not sorry. I prefer women like books--very good and not too long.
+But I know," the gentleman said, "no particular reason why my child
+should be short."
+
+The nun gave a temperate shrug, as if to intimate that such things might
+be beyond our knowledge. "She's in very good health; that's the best
+thing."
+
+"Yes, she looks sound." And the young girl's father watched her a
+moment. "What do you see in the garden?" he asked in French.
+
+"I see many flowers," she replied in a sweet, small voice and with an
+accent as good as his own.
+
+"Yes, but not many good ones. However, such as they are, go out and
+gather some for ces dames."
+
+The child turned to him with her smile heightened by pleasure. "May I,
+truly?"
+
+"Ah, when I tell you," said her father.
+
+The girl glanced at the elder of the nuns. "May I, truly, ma mere?"
+
+"Obey monsieur your father, my child," said the sister, blushing again.
+
+The child, satisfied with this authorisation, descended from the
+threshold and was presently lost to sight. "You don't spoil them," said
+her father gaily.
+
+"For everything they must ask leave. That's our system. Leave is freely
+granted, but they must ask it."
+
+"Oh, I don't quarrel with your system; I've no doubt it's excellent. I
+sent you my daughter to see what you'd make of her. I had faith."
+
+"One must have faith," the sister blandly rejoined, gazing through her
+spectacles.
+
+"Well, has my faith been rewarded? What have you made of her?"
+
+The sister dropped her eyes a moment. "A good Christian, monsieur."
+
+Her host dropped his eyes as well; but it was probable that the movement
+had in each case a different spring. "Yes, and what else?"
+
+He watched the lady from the convent, probably thinking she would say
+that a good Christian was everything; but for all her simplicity she
+was not so crude as that. "A charming young lady--a real little woman--a
+daughter in whom you will have nothing but contentment."
+
+"She seems to me very gentille," said the father. "She's really pretty."
+
+"She's perfect. She has no faults."
+
+"She never had any as a child, and I'm glad you have given her none."
+
+"We love her too much," said the spectacled sister with dignity.
+
+"And as for faults, how can we give what we have not? Le couvent n'est
+pas comme le monde, monsieur. She's our daughter, as you may say. We've
+had her since she was so small."
+
+"Of all those we shall lose this year she's the one we shall miss most,"
+the younger woman murmured deferentially.
+
+"Ah, yes, we shall talk long of her," said the other. "We shall hold her
+up to the new ones." And at this the good sister appeared to find her
+spectacles dim; while her companion, after fumbling a moment, presently
+drew forth a pocket-handkerchief of durable texture.
+
+"It's not certain you'll lose her; nothing's settled yet," their host
+rejoined quickly; not as if to anticipate their tears, but in the tone
+of a man saying what was most agreeable to himself. "We should be very
+happy to believe that. Fifteen is very young to leave us."
+
+"Oh," exclaimed the gentleman with more vivacity than he had yet used,
+"it is not I who wish to take her away. I wish you could keep her
+always!"
+
+"Ah, monsieur," said the elder sister, smiling and getting up, "good as
+she is, she's made for the world. Le monde y gagnera."
+
+"If all the good people were hidden away in convents how would the world
+get on?" her companion softly enquired, rising also.
+
+This was a question of a wider bearing than the good woman apparently
+supposed; and the lady in spectacles took a harmonising view by saying
+comfortably: "Fortunately there are good people everywhere."
+
+"If you're going there will be two less here," her host remarked
+gallantly.
+
+For this extravagant sally his simple visitors had no answer, and they
+simply looked at each other in decent deprecation; but their confusion
+was speedily covered by the return of the young girl with two large
+bunches of roses--one of them all white, the other red.
+
+"I give you your choice, mamman Catherine," said the child. "It's only
+the colour that's different, mamman Justine; there are just as many
+roses in one bunch as in the other."
+
+The two sisters turned to each other, smiling and hesitating, with
+"Which will you take?" and "No, it's for you to choose."
+
+"I'll take the red, thank you," said Catherine in the spectacles. "I'm
+so red myself. They'll comfort us on our way back to Rome."
+
+"Ah, they won't last," cried the young girl. "I wish I could give you
+something that would last!"
+
+"You've given us a good memory of yourself, my daughter. That will
+last!"
+
+"I wish nuns could wear pretty things. I would give you my blue beads,"
+the child went on.
+
+"And do you go back to Rome to-night?" her father enquired.
+
+"Yes, we take the train again. We've so much to do la-bas."
+
+"Are you not tired?"
+
+"We are never tired."
+
+"Ah, my sister, sometimes," murmured the junior votaress.
+
+"Not to-day, at any rate. We have rested too well here. Que Dieu vous
+garde, ma fine."
+
+Their host, while they exchanged kisses with his daughter, went forward
+to open the door through which they were to pass; but as he did so he
+gave a slight exclamation, and stood looking beyond. The door opened
+into a vaulted ante-chamber, as high as a chapel and paved with red
+tiles; and into this antechamber a lady had just been admitted by a
+servant, a lad in shabby livery, who was now ushering her toward the
+apartment in which our friends were grouped. The gentleman at the door,
+after dropping his exclamation, remained silent; in silence too the lady
+advanced. He gave her no further audible greeting and offered her no
+hand, but stood aside to let her pass into the saloon. At the threshold
+she hesitated. "Is there any one?" she asked.
+
+"Some one you may see."
+
+She went in and found herself confronted with the two nuns and their
+pupil, who was coming forward, between them, with a hand in the arm of
+each. At the sight of the new visitor they all paused, and the lady, who
+had also stopped, stood looking at them. The young girl gave a little
+soft cry: "Ah, Madame Merle!"
+
+The visitor had been slightly startled, but her manner the next instant
+was none the less gracious. "Yes, it's Madame Merle, come to welcome you
+home." And she held out two hands to the girl, who immediately came up
+to her, presenting her forehead to be kissed. Madame Merle saluted this
+portion of her charming little person and then stood smiling at the two
+nuns. They acknowledged her smile with a decent obeisance, but permitted
+themselves no direct scrutiny of this imposing, brilliant woman, who
+seemed to bring in with her something of the radiance of the outer
+world. "These ladies have brought my daughter home, and now they return
+to the convent," the gentleman explained.
+
+"Ah, you go back to Rome? I've lately come from there. It's very lovely
+now," said Madame Merle.
+
+The good sisters, standing with their hands folded into their sleeves,
+accepted this statement uncritically; and the master of the house asked
+his new visitor how long it was since she had left Rome. "She came to
+see me at the convent," said the young girl before the lady addressed
+had time to reply.
+
+"I've been more than once, Pansy," Madame Merle declared. "Am I not your
+great friend in Rome?"
+
+"I remember the last time best," said Pansy, "because you told me I
+should come away."
+
+"Did you tell her that?" the child's father asked.
+
+"I hardly remember. I told her what I thought would please her. I've
+been in Florence a week. I hoped you would come to see me."
+
+"I should have done so if I had known you were there. One doesn't know
+such things by inspiration--though I suppose one ought. You had better
+sit down."
+
+These two speeches were made in a particular tone of voice--a tone
+half-lowered and carefully quiet, but as from habit rather than from any
+definite need. Madame Merle looked about her, choosing her seat. "You're
+going to the door with these women? Let me of course not interrupt the
+ceremony. Je vous salue, mesdames," she added, in French, to the nuns,
+as if to dismiss them.
+
+"This lady's a great friend of ours; you will have seen her at the
+convent," said their entertainer. "We've much faith in her judgement,
+and she'll help me to decide whether my daughter shall return to you at
+the end of the holidays."
+
+"I hope you'll decide in our favour, madame," the sister in spectacles
+ventured to remark.
+
+"That's Mr. Osmond's pleasantry; I decide nothing," said Madame Merle,
+but also as in pleasantry. "I believe you've a very good school, but
+Miss Osmond's friends must remember that she's very naturally meant for
+the world."
+
+"That's what I've told monsieur," sister Catherine answered. "It's
+precisely to fit her for the world," she murmured, glancing at Pansy,
+who stood, at a little distance, attentive to Madame Merle's elegant
+apparel.
+
+"Do you hear that, Pansy? You're very naturally meant for the world,"
+said Pansy's father.
+
+The child fixed him an instant with her pure young eyes. "Am I not meant
+for you, papa?"
+
+Papa gave a quick, light laugh. "That doesn't prevent it! I'm of the
+world, Pansy."
+
+"Kindly permit us to retire," said sister Catherine. "Be good and wise
+and happy in any case, my daughter."
+
+"I shall certainly come back and see you," Pansy returned, recommencing
+her embraces, which were presently interrupted by Madame Merle.
+
+"Stay with me, dear child," she said, "while your father takes the good
+ladies to the door."
+
+Pansy stared, disappointed, yet not protesting. She was evidently
+impregnated with the idea of submission, which was due to any one who
+took the tone of authority; and she was a passive spectator of the
+operation of her fate. "May I not see mamman Catherine get into the
+carriage?" she nevertheless asked very gently.
+
+"It would please me better if you'd remain with me," said Madame Merle,
+while Mr. Osmond and his companions, who had bowed low again to the
+other visitor, passed into the ante-chamber.
+
+"Oh yes, I'll stay," Pansy answered; and she stood near Madame Merle,
+surrendering her little hand, which this lady took. She stared out of
+the window; her eyes had filled with tears.
+
+"I'm glad they've taught you to obey," said Madame Merle. "That's what
+good little girls should do."
+
+"Oh yes, I obey very well," cried Pansy with soft eagerness, almost with
+boastfulness, as if she had been speaking of her piano-playing. And then
+she gave a faint, just audible sigh.
+
+Madame Merle, holding her hand, drew it across her own fine palm and
+looked at it. The gaze was critical, but it found nothing to deprecate;
+the child's small hand was delicate and fair. "I hope they always see
+that you wear gloves," she said in a moment. "Little girls usually
+dislike them."
+
+"I used to dislike them, but I like them now," the child made answer.
+
+"Very good, I'll make you a present of a dozen."
+
+"I thank you very much. What colours will they be?" Pansy demanded with
+interest.
+
+Madame Merle meditated. "Useful colours."
+
+"But very pretty?"
+
+"Are you very fond of pretty things?"
+
+"Yes; but--but not too fond," said Pansy with a trace of asceticism.
+
+"Well, they won't be too pretty," Madame Merle returned with a laugh.
+She took the child's other hand and drew her nearer; after which,
+looking at her a moment, "Shall you miss mother Catherine?" she went on.
+
+"Yes--when I think of her."
+
+"Try then not to think of her. Perhaps some day," added Madame Merle,
+"you'll have another mother."
+
+"I don't think that's necessary," Pansy said, repeating her little soft
+conciliatory sigh. "I had more than thirty mothers at the convent."
+
+Her father's step sounded again in the antechamber, and Madame Merle got
+up, releasing the child. Mr. Osmond came in and closed the door; then,
+without looking at Madame Merle, he pushed one or two chairs back into
+their places. His visitor waited a moment for him to speak, watching him
+as he moved about. Then at last she said: "I hoped you'd have come to
+Rome. I thought it possible you'd have wished yourself to fetch Pansy
+away."
+
+"That was a natural supposition; but I'm afraid it's not the first time
+I've acted in defiance of your calculations."
+
+"Yes," said Madame Merle, "I think you very perverse."
+
+Mr. Osmond busied himself for a moment in the room--there was plenty of
+space in it to move about--in the fashion of a man mechanically
+seeking pretexts for not giving an attention which may be embarrassing.
+Presently, however, he had exhausted his pretexts; there was nothing
+left for him--unless he took up a book--but to stand with his hands
+behind him looking at Pansy. "Why didn't you come and see the last of
+mamman Catherine?" he asked of her abruptly in French.
+
+Pansy hesitated a moment, glancing at Madame Merle. "I asked her to stay
+with me," said this lady, who had seated herself again in another place.
+
+"Ah, that was better," Osmond conceded. With which he dropped into a
+chair and sat looking at Madame Merle; bent forward a little, his elbows
+on the edge of the arms and his hands interlocked.
+
+"She's going to give me some gloves," said Pansy.
+
+"You needn't tell that to every one, my dear," Madame Merle observed.
+
+"You're very kind to her," said Osmond. "She's supposed to have
+everything she needs."
+
+"I should think she had had enough of the nuns."
+
+"If we're going to discuss that matter she had better go out of the
+room."
+
+"Let her stay," said Madame Merle. "We'll talk of something else."
+
+"If you like I won't listen," Pansy suggested with an appearance of
+candour which imposed conviction.
+
+"You may listen, charming child, because you won't understand," her
+father replied. The child sat down, deferentially, near the open door,
+within sight of the garden, into which she directed her innocent,
+wistful eyes; and Mr. Osmond went on irrelevantly, addressing himself to
+his other companion. "You're looking particularly well."
+
+"I think I always look the same," said Madame Merle.
+
+"You always ARE the same. You don't vary. You're a wonderful woman."
+
+"Yes, I think I am."
+
+"You sometimes change your mind, however. You told me on your return
+from England that you wouldn't leave Rome again for the present."
+
+"I'm pleased that you remember so well what I say. That was my
+intention. But I've come to Florence to meet some friends who have
+lately arrived and as to whose movements I was at that time uncertain."
+
+"That reason's characteristic. You're always doing something for your
+friends."
+
+Madame Merle smiled straight at her host. "It's less characteristic than
+your comment upon it which is perfectly insincere. I don't, however,
+make a crime of that," she added, "because if you don't believe what
+you say there's no reason why you should. I don't ruin myself for my
+friends; I don't deserve your praise. I care greatly for myself."
+
+"Exactly; but yourself includes so many other selves--so much of every
+one else and of everything. I never knew a person whose life touched so
+many other lives."
+
+"What do you call one's life?" asked Madame Merle. "One's appearance,
+one's movements, one's engagements, one's society?"
+
+"I call YOUR life your ambitions," said Osmond.
+
+Madame Merle looked a moment at Pansy. "I wonder if she understands
+that," she murmured.
+
+"You see she can't stay with us!" And Pansy's father gave rather a
+joyless smile. "Go into the garden, mignonne, and pluck a flower or two
+for Madame Merle," he went on in French.
+
+"That's just what I wanted to do," Pansy exclaimed, rising with
+promptness and noiselessly departing. Her father followed her to the
+open door, stood a moment watching her, and then came back, but remained
+standing, or rather strolling to and fro, as if to cultivate a sense of
+freedom which in another attitude might be wanting.
+
+"My ambitions are principally for you," said Madame Merle, looking up at
+him with a certain courage.
+
+"That comes back to what I say. I'm part of your life--I and a thousand
+others. You're not selfish--I can't admit that. If you were selfish,
+what should I be? What epithet would properly describe me?"
+
+"You're indolent. For me that's your worst fault."
+
+"I'm afraid it's really my best."
+
+"You don't care," said Madame Merle gravely.
+
+"No; I don't think I care much. What sort of a fault do you call that?
+My indolence, at any rate, was one of the reasons I didn't go to Rome.
+But it was only one of them."
+
+"It's not of importance--to me at least--that you didn't go; though I
+should have been glad to see you. I'm glad you're not in Rome now--which
+you might be, would probably be, if you had gone there a month ago.
+There's something I should like you to do at present in Florence."
+
+"Please remember my indolence," said Osmond.
+
+"I do remember it; but I beg you to forget it. In that way you'll have
+both the virtue and the reward. This is not a great labour, and it
+may prove a real interest. How long is it since you made a new
+acquaintance?"
+
+"I don't think I've made any since I made yours."
+
+"It's time then you should make another. There's a friend of mine I want
+you to know."
+
+Mr. Osmond, in his walk, had gone back to the open door again and was
+looking at his daughter as she moved about in the intense sunshine.
+"What good will it do me?" he asked with a sort of genial crudity.
+
+Madame Merle waited. "It will amuse you." There was nothing crude in
+this rejoinder; it had been thoroughly well considered.
+
+"If you say that, you know, I believe it," said Osmond, coming toward
+her. "There are some points in which my confidence in you is complete.
+I'm perfectly aware, for instance, that you know good society from bad."
+
+"Society is all bad."
+
+"Pardon me. That isn't--the knowledge I impute to you--a common sort
+of wisdom. You've gained it in the right way--experimentally; you've
+compared an immense number of more or less impossible people with each
+other."
+
+"Well, I invite you to profit by my knowledge."
+
+"To profit? Are you very sure that I shall?"
+
+"It's what I hope. It will depend on yourself. If I could only induce
+you to make an effort!"
+
+"Ah, there you are! I knew something tiresome was coming. What in the
+world--that's likely to turn up here--is worth an effort?"
+
+Madame Merle flushed as with a wounded intention. "Don't be foolish,
+Osmond. No one knows better than you what IS worth an effort. Haven't I
+seen you in old days?"
+
+"I recognise some things. But they're none of them probable in this poor
+life."
+
+"It's the effort that makes them probable," said Madame Merle.
+
+"There's something in that. Who then is your friend?"
+
+"The person I came to Florence to see. She's a niece of Mrs. Touchett,
+whom you'll not have forgotten."
+
+"A niece? The word niece suggests youth and ignorance. I see what you're
+coming to."
+
+"Yes, she's young--twenty-three years old. She's a great friend of mine.
+I met her for the first time in England, several months ago, and we
+struck up a grand alliance. I like her immensely, and I do what I don't
+do every day--I admire her. You'll do the same."
+
+"Not if I can help it."
+
+"Precisely. But you won't be able to help it."
+
+"Is she beautiful, clever, rich, splendid, universally intelligent and
+unprecedentedly virtuous? It's only on those conditions that I care to
+make her acquaintance. You know I asked you some time ago never to speak
+to me of a creature who shouldn't correspond to that description. I know
+plenty of dingy people; I don't want to know any more."
+
+"Miss Archer isn't dingy; she's as bright as the morning. She
+corresponds to your description; it's for that I wish you to know her.
+She fills all your requirements."
+
+"More or less, of course."
+
+"No; quite literally. She's beautiful, accomplished, generous and, for
+an American, well-born. She's also very clever and very amiable, and she
+has a handsome fortune."
+
+Mr. Osmond listened to this in silence, appearing to turn it over in his
+mind with his eyes on his informant. "What do you want to do with her?"
+he asked at last.
+
+"What you see. Put her in your way."
+
+"Isn't she meant for something better than that?"
+
+"I don't pretend to know what people are meant for," said Madame Merle.
+"I only know what I can do with them."
+
+"I'm sorry for Miss Archer!" Osmond declared.
+
+Madame Merle got up. "If that's a beginning of interest in her I take
+note of it."
+
+The two stood there face to face; she settled her mantilla, looking down
+at it as she did so. "You're looking very well," Osmond repeated still
+less relevantly than before. "You have some idea. You're never so well
+as when you've got an idea; they're always becoming to you."
+
+In the manner and tone of these two persons, on first meeting at any
+juncture, and especially when they met in the presence of others, was
+something indirect and circumspect, as if they had approached each other
+obliquely and addressed each other by implication. The effect of
+each appeared to be to intensify to an appreciable degree the
+self-consciousness of the other. Madame Merle of course carried off any
+embarrassment better than her friend; but even Madame Merle had not
+on this occasion the form she would have liked to have--the perfect
+self-possession she would have wished to wear for her host. The point to
+be made is, however, that at a certain moment the element between them,
+whatever it was, always levelled itself and left them more closely
+face to face than either ever was with any one else. This was what had
+happened now. They stood there knowing each other well and each on the
+whole willing to accept the satisfaction of knowing as a compensation
+for the inconvenience--whatever it might be--of being known. "I wish
+very much you were not so heartless," Madame Merle quietly said. "It has
+always been against you, and it will be against you now."
+
+"I'm not so heartless as you think. Every now and then something touches
+me--as for instance your saying just now that your ambitions are for
+me. I don't understand it; I don't see how or why they should be. But it
+touches me, all the same."
+
+"You'll probably understand it even less as time goes on. There are some
+things you'll never understand. There's no particular need you should."
+
+"You, after all, are the most remarkable of women," said Osmond. "You
+have more in you than almost any one. I don't see why you think Mrs.
+Touchett's niece should matter very much to me, when--when--" But he
+paused a moment.
+
+"When I myself have mattered so little?"
+
+"That of course is not what I meant to say. When I've known and
+appreciated such a woman as you."
+
+"Isabel Archer's better than I," said Madame Merle.
+
+Her companion gave a laugh. "How little you must think of her to say
+that!"
+
+"Do you suppose I'm capable of jealousy? Please answer me that."
+
+"With regard to me? No; on the whole I don't."
+
+"Come and see me then, two days hence. I'm staying at Mrs.
+Touchett's--Palazzo Crescentini--and the girl will be there."
+
+"Why didn't you ask me that at first simply, without speaking of the
+girl?" said Osmond. "You could have had her there at any rate."
+
+Madame Merle looked at him in the manner of a woman whom no question he
+could ever put would find unprepared. "Do you wish to know why? Because
+I've spoken of you to her."
+
+Osmond frowned and turned away. "I'd rather not know that." Then in
+a moment he pointed out the easel supporting the little water-colour
+drawing. "Have you seen what's there--my last?"
+
+Madame Merle drew near and considered. "Is it the Venetian Alps--one of
+your last year's sketches?"
+
+"Yes--but how you guess everything!"
+
+She looked a moment longer, then turned away. "You know I don't care for
+your drawings."
+
+"I know it, yet I'm always surprised at it. They're really so much
+better than most people's."
+
+"That may very well be. But as the only thing you do--well, it's so
+little. I should have liked you to do so many other things: those were
+my ambitions."
+
+"Yes; you've told me many times--things that were impossible."
+
+"Things that were impossible," said Madame Merle. And then in quite a
+different tone: "In itself your little picture's very good." She looked
+about the room--at the old cabinets, pictures, tapestries, surfaces
+of faded silk. "Your rooms at least are perfect. I'm struck with that
+afresh whenever I come back; I know none better anywhere. You understand
+this sort of thing as nobody anywhere does. You've such adorable taste."
+
+"I'm sick of my adorable taste," said Gilbert Osmond.
+
+"You must nevertheless let Miss Archer come and see it. I've told her
+about it."
+
+"I don't object to showing my things--when people are not idiots."
+
+"You do it delightfully. As cicerone of your museum you appear to
+particular advantage."
+
+Mr. Osmond, in return for this compliment, simply looked at once colder
+and more attentive. "Did you say she was rich?"
+
+"She has seventy thousand pounds."
+
+"En ecus bien comptes?"
+
+"There's no doubt whatever about her fortune. I've seen it, as I may
+say."
+
+"Satisfactory woman!--I mean you. And if I go to see her shall I see the
+mother?"
+
+"The mother? She has none--nor father either."
+
+"The aunt then--whom did you say?--Mrs. Touchett. I can easily keep her
+out of the way."
+
+"I don't object to her," said Osmond; "I rather like Mrs. Touchett.
+She has a sort of old-fashioned character that's passing away--a vivid
+identity. But that long jackanapes the son--is he about the place?"
+
+"He's there, but he won't trouble you."
+
+"He's a good deal of a donkey."
+
+"I think you're mistaken. He's a very clever man. But he's not fond of
+being about when I'm there, because he doesn't like me."
+
+"What could he be more asinine than that? Did you say she has looks?"
+Osmond went on.
+
+"Yes; but I won't say it again, lest you should be disappointed in them.
+Come and make a beginning; that's all I ask of you."
+
+"A beginning of what?"
+
+Madame Merle was silent a little. "I want you of course to marry her."
+
+"The beginning of the end? Well, I'll see for myself. Have you told her
+that?"
+
+"For what do you take me? She's not so coarse a piece of machinery--nor
+am I."
+
+"Really," said Osmond after some meditation, "I don't understand your
+ambitions."
+
+"I think you'll understand this one after you've seen Miss Archer.
+Suspend your judgement." Madame Merle, as she spoke, had drawn near the
+open door of the garden, where she stood a moment looking out. "Pansy
+has really grown pretty," she presently added.
+
+"So it seemed to me."
+
+"But she has had enough of the convent."
+
+"I don't know," said Osmond. "I like what they've made of her. It's very
+charming."
+
+"That's not the convent. It's the child's nature."
+
+"It's the combination, I think. She's as pure as a pearl."
+
+"Why doesn't she come back with my flowers then?" Madame Merle asked.
+"She's not in a hurry."
+
+"We'll go and get them."
+
+"She doesn't like me," the visitor murmured as she raised her parasol
+and they passed into the garden.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+Madame Merle, who had come to Florence on Mrs. Touchett's arrival at
+the invitation of this lady--Mrs. Touchett offering her for a month the
+hospitality of Palazzo Crescentini--the judicious Madame Merle spoke to
+Isabel afresh about Gilbert Osmond and expressed the hope she might know
+him; making, however, no such point of the matter as we have seen her do
+in recommending the girl herself to Mr. Osmond's attention. The reason
+of this was perhaps that Isabel offered no resistance whatever to Madame
+Merle's proposal. In Italy, as in England, the lady had a multitude of
+friends, both among the natives of the country and its heterogeneous
+visitors. She had mentioned to Isabel most of the people the girl would
+find it well to "meet"--of course, she said, Isabel could know whomever
+in the wide world she would--and had placed Mr. Osmond near the top of
+the list. He was an old friend of her own; she had known him these dozen
+years; he was one of the cleverest and most agreeable men--well, in
+Europe simply. He was altogether above the respectable average; quite
+another affair. He wasn't a professional charmer--far from it, and the
+effect he produced depended a good deal on the state of his nerves and
+his spirits. When not in the right mood he could fall as low as any one,
+saved only by his looking at such hours rather like a demoralised prince
+in exile. But if he cared or was interested or rightly challenged--just
+exactly rightly it had to be--then one felt his cleverness and his
+distinction. Those qualities didn't depend, in him, as in so many
+people, on his not committing or exposing himself. He had his
+perversities--which indeed Isabel would find to be the case with all the
+men really worth knowing--and didn't cause his light to shine equally
+for all persons. Madame Merle, however, thought she could undertake that
+for Isabel he would be brilliant. He was easily bored, too easily, and
+dull people always put him out; but a quick and cultivated girl like
+Isabel would give him a stimulus which was too absent from his life. At
+any rate he was a person not to miss. One shouldn't attempt to live in
+Italy without making a friend of Gilbert Osmond, who knew more about the
+country than any one except two or three German professors. And if
+they had more knowledge than he it was he who had most perception and
+taste--being artistic through and through. Isabel remembered that her
+friend had spoken of him during their plunge, at Gardencourt, into the
+deeps of talk, and wondered a little what was the nature of the tie
+binding these superior spirits. She felt that Madame Merle's ties always
+somehow had histories, and such an impression was part of the interest
+created by this inordinate woman. As regards her relations with Mr.
+Osmond, however, she hinted at nothing but a long-established calm
+friendship. Isabel said she should be happy to know a person who had
+enjoyed so high a confidence for so many years. "You ought to see a
+great many men," Madame Merle remarked; "you ought to see as many as
+possible, so as to get used to them."
+
+"Used to them?" Isabel repeated with that solemn stare which sometimes
+seemed to proclaim her deficient in the sense of comedy. "Why, I'm not
+afraid of them--I'm as used to them as the cook to the butcher-boys."
+
+"Used to them, I mean, so as to despise them. That's what one comes to
+with most of them. You'll pick out, for your society, the few whom you
+don't despise."
+
+This was a note of cynicism that Madame Merle didn't often allow herself
+to sound; but Isabel was not alarmed, for she had never supposed that
+as one saw more of the world the sentiment of respect became the
+most active of one's emotions. It was excited, none the less, by the
+beautiful city of Florence, which pleased her not less than Madame Merle
+had promised; and if her unassisted perception had not been able to
+gauge its charms she had clever companions as priests to the mystery.
+She was--in no want indeed of esthetic illumination, for Ralph found it
+a joy that renewed his own early passion to act as cicerone to his
+eager young kinswoman. Madame Merle remained at home; she had seen the
+treasures of Florence again and again and had always something else
+to do. But she talked of all things with remarkable vividness of
+memory--she recalled the right-hand corner of the large Perugino and the
+position of the hands of the Saint Elizabeth in the picture next to it.
+She had her opinions as to the character of many famous works of art,
+differing often from Ralph with great sharpness and defending her
+interpretations with as much ingenuity as good-humour. Isabel listened
+to the discussions taking place between the two with a sense that
+she might derive much benefit from them and that they were among the
+advantages she couldn't have enjoyed for instance in Albany. In the
+clear May mornings before the formal breakfast--this repast at Mrs.
+Touchett's was served at twelve o'clock--she wandered with her cousin
+through the narrow and sombre Florentine streets, resting a while in
+the thicker dusk of some historic church or the vaulted chambers of some
+dispeopled convent. She went to the galleries and palaces; she looked at
+the pictures and statues that had hitherto been great names to her,
+and exchanged for a knowledge which was sometimes a limitation a
+presentiment which proved usually to have been a blank. She performed
+all those acts of mental prostration in which, on a first visit to
+Italy, youth and enthusiasm so freely indulge; she felt her heart beat
+in the presence of immortal genius and knew the sweetness of rising
+tears in eyes to which faded fresco and darkened marble grew dim. But
+the return, every day, was even pleasanter than the going forth; the
+return into the wide, monumental court of the great house in which Mrs.
+Touchett, many years before, had established herself, and into the
+high, cool rooms where the carven rafters and pompous frescoes of the
+sixteenth century looked down on the familiar commodities of the age of
+advertisement. Mrs. Touchett inhabited an historic building in a narrow
+street whose very name recalled the strife of medieval factions; and
+found compensation for the darkness of her frontage in the modicity of
+her rent and the brightness of a garden where nature itself looked as
+archaic as the rugged architecture of the palace and which cleared
+and scented the rooms in regular use. To live in such a place was, for
+Isabel, to hold to her ear all day a shell of the sea of the past. This
+vague eternal rumour kept her imagination awake.
+
+Gilbert Osmond came to see Madame Merle, who presented him to the young
+lady lurking at the other side of the room. Isabel took on this occasion
+little part in the talk; she scarcely even smiled when the others turned
+to her invitingly; she sat there as if she had been at the play and had
+paid even a large sum for her place. Mrs. Touchett was not present, and
+these two had it, for the effect of brilliancy, all their own way. They
+talked of the Florentine, the Roman, the cosmopolite world, and might
+have been distinguished performers figuring for a charity. It all had
+the rich readiness that would have come from rehearsal. Madame Merle
+appealed to her as if she had been on the stage, but she could ignore
+any learnt cue without spoiling the scene--though of course she thus put
+dreadfully in the wrong the friend who had told Mr. Osmond she could be
+depended on. This was no matter for once; even if more had been involved
+she could have made no attempt to shine. There was something in
+the visitor that checked her and held her in suspense--made it more
+important she should get an impression of him than that she should
+produce one herself. Besides, she had little skill in producing an
+impression which she knew to be expected: nothing could be happier, in
+general, than to seem dazzling, but she had a perverse unwillingness to
+glitter by arrangement. Mr. Osmond, to do him justice, had a well-bred
+air of expecting nothing, a quiet ease that covered everything, even the
+first show of his own wit. This was the more grateful as his face, his
+head, was sensitive; he was not handsome, but he was fine, as fine as
+one of the drawings in the long gallery above the bridge of the
+Uffizi. And his very voice was fine--the more strangely that, with its
+clearness, it yet somehow wasn't sweet. This had had really to do with
+making her abstain from interference. His utterance was the vibration
+of glass, and if she had put out her finger she might have changed the
+pitch and spoiled the concert. Yet before he went she had to speak.
+
+"Madame Merle," he said, "consents to come up to my hill-top some day
+next week and drink tea in my garden. It would give me much pleasure if
+you would come with her. It's thought rather pretty--there's what they
+call a general view. My daughter too would be so glad--or rather, for
+she's too young to have strong emotions, I should be so glad--so very
+glad." And Mr. Osmond paused with a slight air of embarrassment, leaving
+his sentence unfinished. "I should be so happy if you could know my
+daughter," he went on a moment afterwards.
+
+Isabel replied that she should be delighted to see Miss Osmond and that
+if Madame Merle would show her the way to the hill-top she should be
+very grateful. Upon this assurance the visitor took his leave; after
+which Isabel fully expected her friend would scold her for having been
+so stupid. But to her surprise that lady, who indeed never fell into the
+mere matter-of-course, said to her in a few moments,
+
+"You were charming, my dear; you were just as one would have wished you.
+You're never disappointing."
+
+A rebuke might possibly have been irritating, though it is much more
+probable that Isabel would have taken it in good part; but, strange
+to say, the words that Madame Merle actually used caused her the first
+feeling of displeasure she had known this ally to excite. "That's more
+than I intended," she answered coldly. "I'm under no obligation that I
+know of to charm Mr. Osmond."
+
+Madame Merle perceptibly flushed, but we know it was not her habit to
+retract. "My dear child, I didn't speak for him, poor man; I spoke for
+yourself. It's not of course a question as to his liking you; it matters
+little whether he likes you or not! But I thought you liked HIM."
+
+"I did," said Isabel honestly. "But I don't see what that matters
+either."
+
+"Everything that concerns you matters to me," Madame Merle returned
+with her weary nobleness; "especially when at the same time another old
+friend's concerned."
+
+Whatever Isabel's obligations may have been to Mr. Osmond, it must be
+admitted that she found them sufficient to lead her to put to Ralph
+sundry questions about him. She thought Ralph's judgements distorted by
+his trials, but she flattered herself she had learned to make allowance
+for that.
+
+"Do I know him?" said her cousin. "Oh, yes, I 'know' him; not well,
+but on the whole enough. I've never cultivated his society, and he
+apparently has never found mine indispensable to his happiness. Who is
+he, what is he? He's a vague, unexplained American who has been living
+these thirty years, or less, in Italy. Why do I call him unexplained?
+Only as a cover for my ignorance; I don't know his antecedents, his
+family, his origin. For all I do know he may be a prince in disguise; he
+rather looks like one, by the way--like a prince who has abdicated in a
+fit of fastidiousness and has been in a state of disgust ever since. He
+used to live in Rome; but of late years he has taken up his abode here;
+I remember hearing him say that Rome has grown vulgar. He has a great
+dread of vulgarity; that's his special line; he hasn't any other that I
+know of. He lives on his income, which I suspect of not being vulgarly
+large. He's a poor but honest gentleman that's what he calls himself.
+He married young and lost his wife, and I believe he has a daughter. He
+also has a sister, who's married to some small Count or other, of these
+parts; I remember meeting her of old. She's nicer than he, I should
+think, but rather impossible. I remember there used to be some stories
+about her. I don't think I recommend you to know her. But why don't you
+ask Madame Merle about these people? She knows them all much better than
+I."
+
+"I ask you because I want your opinion as well as hers," said Isabel.
+
+"A fig for my opinion! If you fall in love with Mr. Osmond what will you
+care for that?"
+
+"Not much, probably. But meanwhile it has a certain importance. The more
+information one has about one's dangers the better."
+
+"I don't agree to that--it may make them dangers. We know too much about
+people in these days; we hear too much. Our ears, our minds, our mouths,
+are stuffed with personalities. Don't mind anything any one tells you
+about any one else. Judge everyone and everything for yourself."
+
+"That's what I try to do," said Isabel "but when you do that people call
+you conceited."
+
+"You're not to mind them--that's precisely my argument; not to mind what
+they say about yourself any more than what they say about your friend or
+your enemy."
+
+Isabel considered. "I think you're right; but there are some things I
+can't help minding: for instance when my friend's attacked or when I
+myself am praised."
+
+"Of course you're always at liberty to judge the critic. Judge people as
+critics, however," Ralph added, "and you'll condemn them all!"
+
+"I shall see Mr. Osmond for myself," said Isabel. "I've promised to pay
+him a visit."
+
+"To pay him a visit?"
+
+"To go and see his view, his pictures, his daughter--I don't know
+exactly what. Madame Merle's to take me; she tells me a great many
+ladies call on him."
+
+"Ah, with Madame Merle you may go anywhere, de confiance," said Ralph.
+"She knows none but the best people."
+
+Isabel said no more about Mr. Osmond, but she presently remarked to her
+cousin that she was not satisfied with his tone about Madame Merle. "It
+seems to me you insinuate things about her. I don't know what you mean,
+but if you've any grounds for disliking her I think you should either
+mention them frankly or else say nothing at all."
+
+Ralph, however, resented this charge with more apparent earnestness than
+he commonly used. "I speak of Madame Merle exactly as I speak to her:
+with an even exaggerated respect."
+
+"Exaggerated, precisely. That's what I complain of."
+
+"I do so because Madame Merle's merits are exaggerated."
+
+"By whom, pray? By me? If so I do her a poor service."
+
+"No, no; by herself."
+
+"Ah, I protest!" Isabel earnestly cried. "If ever there was a woman who
+made small claims--!"
+
+"You put your finger on it," Ralph interrupted. "Her modesty's
+exaggerated. She has no business with small claims--she has a perfect
+right to make large ones."
+
+"Her merits are large then. You contradict yourself."
+
+"Her merits are immense," said Ralph. "She's indescribably blameless; a
+pathless desert of virtue; the only woman I know who never gives one a
+chance."
+
+"A chance for what?"
+
+"Well, say to call her a fool! She's the only woman I know who has but
+that one little fault."
+
+Isabel turned away with impatience. "I don't understand you; you're too
+paradoxical for my plain mind."
+
+"Let me explain. When I say she exaggerates I don't mean it in the
+vulgar sense--that she boasts, overstates, gives too fine an account of
+herself. I mean literally that she pushes the search for perfection too
+far--that her merits are in themselves overstrained. She's too good, too
+kind, too clever, too learned, too accomplished, too everything. She's
+too complete, in a word. I confess to you that she acts on my nerves and
+that I feel about her a good deal as that intensely human Athenian felt
+about Aristides the Just."
+
+Isabel looked hard at her cousin; but the mocking spirit, if it lurked
+in his words, failed on this occasion to peep from his face. "Do you
+wish Madame Merle to be banished?"
+
+"By no means. She's much too good company. I delight in Madame Merle,"
+said Ralph Touchett simply.
+
+"You're very odious, sir!" Isabel exclaimed. And then she asked him if
+he knew anything that was not to the honour of her brilliant friend.
+
+"Nothing whatever. Don't you see that's just what I mean? On the
+character of every one else you may find some little black speck; if
+I were to take half an hour to it, some day, I've no doubt I should be
+able to find one on yours. For my own, of course, I'm spotted like a
+leopard. But on Madame Merle's nothing, nothing, nothing!"
+
+"That's just what I think!" said Isabel with a toss of her head. "That
+is why I like her so much."
+
+"She's a capital person for you to know. Since you wish to see the world
+you couldn't have a better guide."
+
+"I suppose you mean by that that she's worldly?"
+
+"Worldly? No," said Ralph, "she's the great round world itself!"
+
+It had certainly not, as Isabel for the moment took it into her head to
+believe, been a refinement of malice in him to say that he delighted in
+Madame Merle. Ralph Touchett took his refreshment wherever he could find
+it, and he would not have forgiven himself if he had been left wholly
+unbeguiled by such a mistress of the social art. There are deep-lying
+sympathies and antipathies, and it may have been that, in spite of the
+administered justice she enjoyed at his hands, her absence from his
+mother's house would not have made life barren to him. But Ralph
+Touchett had learned more or less inscrutably to attend, and there could
+have been nothing so "sustained" to attend to as the general performance
+of Madame Merle. He tasted her in sips, he let her stand, with an
+opportuneness she herself could not have surpassed. There were moments
+when he felt almost sorry for her; and these, oddly enough, were the
+moments when his kindness was least demonstrative. He was sure she had
+been yearningly ambitious and that what she had visibly accomplished was
+far below her secret measure. She had got herself into perfect training,
+but had won none of the prizes. She was always plain Madame Merle,
+the widow of a Swiss negociant, with a small income and a large
+acquaintance, who stayed with people a great deal and was almost as
+universally "liked" as some new volume of smooth twaddle. The contrast
+between this position and any one of some half-dozen others that he
+supposed to have at various moments engaged her hope had an element of
+the tragical. His mother thought he got on beautifully with their genial
+guest; to Mrs. Touchett's sense two persons who dealt so largely in
+too-ingenious theories of conduct--that is of their own--would have much
+in common. He had given due consideration to Isabel's intimacy with her
+eminent friend, having long since made up his mind that he could not,
+without opposition, keep his cousin to himself; and he made the best of
+it, as he had done of worse things. He believed it would take care of
+itself; it wouldn't last forever. Neither of these two superior persons
+knew the other as well as she supposed, and when each had made an
+important discovery or two there would be, if not a rupture, at least
+a relaxation. Meanwhile he was quite willing to admit that the
+conversation of the elder lady was an advantage to the younger, who had
+a great deal to learn and would doubtless learn it better from Madame
+Merle than from some other instructors of the young. It was not probable
+that Isabel would be injured.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+It would certainly have been hard to see what injury could arise to
+her from the visit she presently paid to Mr. Osmond's hill-top. Nothing
+could have been more charming than this occasion--a soft afternoon in
+the full maturity of the Tuscan spring. The companions drove out of the
+Roman Gate, beneath the enormous blank superstructure which crowns the
+fine clear arch of that portal and makes it nakedly impressive, and
+wound between high-walled lanes into which the wealth of blossoming
+orchards over-drooped and flung a fragrance, until they reached the
+small superurban piazza, of crooked shape, where the long brown wall of
+the villa occupied in part by Mr. Osmond formed a principal, or at least
+a very imposing, object. Isabel went with her friend through a wide,
+high court, where a clear shadow rested below and a pair of light-arched
+galleries, facing each other above, caught the upper sunshine upon their
+slim columns and the flowering plants in which they were dressed. There
+was something grave and strong in the place; it looked somehow as
+if, once you were in, you would need an act of energy to get out. For
+Isabel, however, there was of course as yet no thought of getting out,
+but only of advancing. Mr. Osmond met her in the cold ante-chamber--it
+was cold even in the month of May--and ushered her, with her
+conductress, into the apartment to which we have already been
+introduced. Madame Merle was in front, and while Isabel lingered a
+little, talking with him, she went forward familiarly and greeted two
+persons who were seated in the saloon. One of these was little Pansy, on
+whom she bestowed a kiss; the other was a lady whom Mr. Osmond indicated
+to Isabel as his sister, the Countess Gemini. "And that's my little
+girl," he said, "who has just come out of her convent."
+
+Pansy had on a scant white dress, and her fair hair was neatly arranged
+in a net; she wore her small shoes tied sandal-fashion about her ankles.
+She made Isabel a little conventual curtsey and then came to be kissed.
+The Countess Gemini simply nodded without getting up: Isabel could see
+she was a woman of high fashion. She was thin and dark and not at
+all pretty, having features that suggested some tropical bird--a long
+beak-like nose, small, quickly-moving eyes and a mouth and chin
+that receded extremely. Her expression, however, thanks to various
+intensities of emphasis and wonder, of horror and joy, was not inhuman,
+and, as regards her appearance, it was plain she understood herself
+and made the most of her points. Her attire, voluminous and delicate,
+bristling with elegance, had the look of shimmering plumage, and her
+attitudes were as light and sudden as those of a creature who perched
+upon twigs. She had a great deal of manner; Isabel, who had never
+known any one with so much manner, immediately classed her as the most
+affected of women. She remembered that Ralph had not recommended her as
+an acquaintance; but she was ready to acknowledge that to a casual view
+the Countess Gemini revealed no depths. Her demonstrations suggested the
+violent waving of some flag of general truce--white silk with fluttering
+streamers.
+
+"You'll believe I'm glad to see you when I tell you it's only because
+I knew you were to be here that I came myself. I don't come and see my
+brother--I make him come and see me. This hill of his is impossible--I
+don't see what possesses him. Really, Osmond, you'll be the ruin of my
+horses some day, and if it hurts them you'll have to give me another
+pair. I heard them wheezing to-day; I assure you I did. It's very
+disagreeable to hear one's horses wheezing when one's sitting in the
+carriage; it sounds too as if they weren't what they should be. But
+I've always had good horses; whatever else I may have lacked I've always
+managed that. My husband doesn't know much, but I think he knows a
+horse. In general Italians don't, but my husband goes in, according to
+his poor light, for everything English. My horses are English--so it's
+all the greater pity they should be ruined. I must tell you," she went
+on, directly addressing Isabel, "that Osmond doesn't often invite me;
+I don't think he likes to have me. It was quite my own idea, coming
+to-day. I like to see new people, and I'm sure you're very new. But
+don't sit there; that chair's not what it looks. There are some very
+good seats here, but there are also some horrors."
+
+These remarks were delivered with a series of little jerks and pecks, of
+roulades of shrillness, and in an accent that was as some fond recall of
+good English, or rather of good American, in adversity.
+
+"I don't like to have you, my dear?" said her brother. "I'm sure you're
+invaluable."
+
+"I don't see any horrors anywhere," Isabel returned, looking about her.
+"Everything seems to me beautiful and precious."
+
+"I've a few good things," Mr. Osmond allowed; "indeed I've nothing very
+bad. But I've not what I should have liked."
+
+He stood there a little awkwardly, smiling and glancing about; his
+manner was an odd mixture of the detached and the involved. He seemed to
+hint that nothing but the right "values" was of any consequence. Isabel
+made a rapid induction: perfect simplicity was not the badge of his
+family. Even the little girl from the convent, who, in her prim white
+dress, with her small submissive face and her hands locked before her,
+stood there as if she were about to partake of her first communion,
+even Mr. Osmond's diminutive daughter had a kind of finish that was not
+entirely artless.
+
+"You'd have liked a few things from the Uffizi and the Pitti--that's what
+you'd have liked," said Madame Merle.
+
+"Poor Osmond, with his old curtains and crucifixes!" the Countess Gemini
+exclaimed: she appeared to call her brother only by his family-name. Her
+ejaculation had no particular object; she smiled at Isabel as she made
+it and looked at her from head to foot.
+
+Her brother had not heard her; he seemed to be thinking what he could
+say to Isabel. "Won't you have some tea?--you must be very tired," he at
+last bethought himself of remarking.
+
+"No indeed, I'm not tired; what have I done to tire me?" Isabel felt a
+certain need of being very direct, of pretending to nothing; there was
+something in the air, in her general impression of things--she could
+hardly have said what it was--that deprived her of all disposition to
+put herself forward. The place, the occasion, the combination of people,
+signified more than lay on the surface; she would try to understand--she
+would not simply utter graceful platitudes. Poor Isabel was doubtless
+not aware that many women would have uttered graceful platitudes to
+cover the working of their observation. It must be confessed that her
+pride was a trifle alarmed. A man she had heard spoken of in terms
+that excited interest and who was evidently capable of distinguishing
+himself, had invited her, a young lady not lavish of her favours,
+to come to his house. Now that she had done so the burden of the
+entertainment rested naturally on his wit. Isabel was not rendered
+less observant, and for the moment, we judge, she was not rendered
+more indulgent, by perceiving that Mr. Osmond carried his burden less
+complacently than might have been expected. "What a fool I was to
+have let myself so needlessly in--!" she could fancy his exclaiming to
+himself.
+
+"You'll be tired when you go home, if he shows you all his bibelots and
+gives you a lecture on each," said the Countess Gemini.
+
+"I'm not afraid of that; but if I'm tired I shall at least have learned
+something."
+
+"Very little, I suspect. But my sister's dreadfully afraid of learning
+anything," said Mr. Osmond.
+
+"Oh, I confess to that; I don't want to know anything more--I know too
+much already. The more you know the more unhappy you are."
+
+"You should not undervalue knowledge before Pansy, who has not finished
+her education," Madame Merle interposed with a smile. "Pansy will
+never know any harm," said the child's father. "Pansy's a little
+convent-flower."
+
+"Oh, the convents, the convents!" cried the Countess with a flutter of
+her ruffles. "Speak to me of the convents! You may learn anything there;
+I'm a convent-flower myself. I don't pretend to be good, but the nuns
+do. Don't you see what I mean?" she went on, appealing to Isabel.
+
+Isabel was not sure she saw, and she answered that she was very bad
+at following arguments. The Countess then declared that she herself
+detested arguments, but that this was her brother's taste--he would
+always discuss. "For me," she said, "one should like a thing or one
+shouldn't; one can't like everything, of course. But one shouldn't
+attempt to reason it out--you never know where it may lead you. There
+are some very good feelings that may have bad reasons, don't you know?
+And then there are very bad feelings, sometimes, that have good reasons.
+Don't you see what I mean? I don't care anything about reasons, but I
+know what I like."
+
+"Ah, that's the great thing," said Isabel, smiling and suspecting that
+her acquaintance with this lightly flitting personage would not lead to
+intellectual repose. If the Countess objected to argument Isabel at this
+moment had as little taste for it, and she put out her hand to Pansy
+with a pleasant sense that such a gesture committed her to nothing that
+would admit of a divergence of views. Gilbert Osmond apparently took a
+rather hopeless view of his sister's tone; he turned the conversation to
+another topic. He presently sat down on the other side of his daughter,
+who had shyly brushed Isabel's fingers with her own; but he ended by
+drawing her out of her chair and making her stand between his knees,
+leaning against him while he passed his arm round her slimness. The
+child fixed her eyes on Isabel with a still, disinterested gaze which
+seemed void of an intention, yet conscious of an attraction. Mr. Osmond
+talked of many things; Madame Merle had said he could be agreeable
+when he chose, and to-day, after a little, he appeared not only to have
+chosen but to have determined. Madame Merle and the Countess Gemini sat
+a little apart, conversing in the effortless manner of persons who knew
+each other well enough to take their ease; but every now and then Isabel
+heard the Countess, at something said by her companion, plunge into the
+latter's lucidity as a poodle splashes after a thrown stick. It was as
+if Madame Merle were seeing how far she would go. Mr. Osmond talked of
+Florence, of Italy, of the pleasure of living in that country and of the
+abatements to the pleasure. There were both satisfactions and drawbacks;
+the drawbacks were numerous; strangers were too apt to see such a world
+as all romantic. It met the case soothingly for the human, for the
+social failure--by which he meant the people who couldn't "realise," as
+they said, on their sensibility: they could keep it about them there,
+in their poverty, without ridicule, as you might keep an heirloom or an
+inconvenient entailed place that brought you in nothing. Thus there were
+advantages in living in the country which contained the greatest sum of
+beauty. Certain impressions you could get only there. Others, favourable
+to life, you never got, and you got some that were very bad. But from
+time to time you got one of a quality that made up for everything.
+Italy, all the same, had spoiled a great many people; he was even
+fatuous enough to believe at times that he himself might have been a
+better man if he had spent less of his life there. It made one idle and
+dilettantish and second-rate; it had no discipline for the character,
+didn't cultivate in you, otherwise expressed, the successful social
+and other "cheek" that flourished in Paris and London. "We're sweetly
+provincial," said Mr. Osmond, "and I'm perfectly aware that I myself am
+as rusty as a key that has no lock to fit it. It polishes me up a little
+to talk with you--not that I venture to pretend I can turn that very
+complicated lock I suspect your intellect of being! But you'll be going
+away before I've seen you three times, and I shall perhaps never see you
+after that. That's what it is to live in a country that people come to.
+When they're disagreeable here it's bad enough; when they're agreeable
+it's still worse. As soon as you like them they're off again! I've been
+deceived too often; I've ceased to form attachments, to permit myself
+to feel attractions. You mean to stay--to settle? That would be really
+comfortable. Ah yes, your aunt's a sort of guarantee; I believe she may
+be depended on. Oh, she's an old Florentine; I mean literally an old
+one; not a modern outsider. She's a contemporary of the Medici; she must
+have been present at the burning of Savonarola, and I'm not sure she
+didn't throw a handful of chips into the flame. Her face is very much
+like some faces in the early pictures; little, dry, definite faces that
+must have had a good deal of expression, but almost always the same one.
+Indeed I can show you her portrait in a fresco of Ghirlandaio's. I hope
+you don't object to my speaking that way of your aunt, eh? I've an idea
+you don't. Perhaps you think that's even worse. I assure you there's
+no want of respect in it, to either of you. You know I'm a particular
+admirer of Mrs. Touchett."
+
+While Isabel's host exerted himself to entertain her in this somewhat
+confidential fashion she looked occasionally at Madame Merle, who met
+her eyes with an inattentive smile in which, on this occasion, there
+was no infelicitous intimation that our heroine appeared to advantage.
+Madame Merle eventually proposed to the Countess Gemini that they
+should go into the garden, and the Countess, rising and shaking out
+her feathers, began to rustle toward the door. "Poor Miss Archer!" she
+exclaimed, surveying the other group with expressive compassion. "She
+has been brought quite into the family."
+
+"Miss Archer can certainly have nothing but sympathy for a family to
+which you belong," Mr. Osmond answered, with a laugh which, though it
+had something of a mocking ring, had also a finer patience.
+
+"I don't know what you mean by that! I'm sure she'll see no harm in
+me but what you tell her. I'm better than he says, Miss Archer," the
+Countess went on. "I'm only rather an idiot and a bore. Is that all he
+has said? Ah then, you keep him in good-humour. Has he opened on one of
+his favourite subjects? I give you notice that there are two or three
+that he treats a fond. In that case you had better take off your
+bonnet."
+
+"I don't think I know what Mr. Osmond's favourite subjects are," said
+Isabel, who had risen to her feet.
+
+The Countess assumed for an instant an attitude of intense meditation,
+pressing one of her hands, with the finger-tips gathered together, to
+her forehead. "I'll tell you in a moment. One's Machiavelli; the other's
+Vittoria Colonna; the next is Metastasio."
+
+"Ah, with me," said Madame Merle, passing her arm into the Countess
+Gemini's as if to guide her course to the garden, "Mr. Osmond's never so
+historical."
+
+"Oh you," the Countess answered as they moved away, "you yourself are
+Machiavelli--you yourself are Vittoria Colonna!"
+
+"We shall hear next that poor Madame Merle is Metastasio!" Gilbert
+Osmond resignedly sighed.
+
+Isabel had got up on the assumption that they too were to go into the
+garden; but her host stood there with no apparent inclination to leave
+the room, his hands in the pockets of his jacket and his daughter, who
+had now locked her arm into one of his own, clinging to him and looking
+up while her eyes moved from his own face to Isabel's. Isabel waited,
+with a certain unuttered contentedness, to have her movements directed;
+she liked Mr. Osmond's talk, his company: she had what always gave her
+a very private thrill, the consciousness of a new relation. Through
+the open doors of the great room she saw Madame Merle and the Countess
+stroll across the fine grass of the garden; then she turned, and her
+eyes wandered over the things scattered about her. The understanding
+had been that Mr. Osmond should show her his treasures; his pictures and
+cabinets all looked like treasures. Isabel after a moment went toward
+one of the pictures to see it better; but just as she had done so he
+said to her abruptly: "Miss Archer, what do you think of my sister?"
+
+She faced him with some surprise. "Ah, don't ask me that--I've seen your
+sister too little."
+
+"Yes, you've seen her very little; but you must have observed that
+there is not a great deal of her to see. What do you think of our family
+tone?" he went on with his cool smile. "I should like to know how
+it strikes a fresh, unprejudiced mind. I know what you're going to
+say--you've had almost no observation of it. Of course this is only
+a glimpse. But just take notice, in future, if you have a chance. I
+sometimes think we've got into a rather bad way, living off here among
+things and people not our own, without responsibilities or attachments,
+with nothing to hold us together or keep us up; marrying foreigners,
+forming artificial tastes, playing tricks with our natural mission. Let
+me add, though, that I say that much more for myself than for my sister.
+She's a very honest lady--more so than she seems. She's rather
+unhappy, and as she's not of a serious turn she doesn't tend to show
+it tragically: she shows it comically instead. She has got a horrid
+husband, though I'm not sure she makes the best of him. Of course,
+however, a horrid husband's an awkward thing. Madame Merle gives her
+excellent advice, but it's a good deal like giving a child a dictionary
+to learn a language with. He can look out the words, but he can't put
+them together. My sister needs a grammar, but unfortunately she's not
+grammatical. Pardon my troubling you with these details; my sister was
+very right in saying you've been taken into the family. Let me take down
+that picture; you want more light."
+
+He took down the picture, carried it toward the window, related some
+curious facts about it. She looked at the other works of art, and he
+gave her such further information as might appear most acceptable to
+a young lady making a call on a summer afternoon. His pictures, his
+medallions and tapestries were interesting; but after a while Isabel
+felt the owner much more so, and independently of them, thickly as they
+seemed to overhang him. He resembled no one she had ever seen; most
+of the people she knew might be divided into groups of half a dozen
+specimens. There were one or two exceptions to this; she could think for
+instance of no group that would contain her aunt Lydia. There were other
+people who were, relatively speaking, original--original, as one might
+say, by courtesy such as Mr. Goodwood, as her cousin Ralph, as Henrietta
+Stackpole, as Lord Warburton, as Madame Merle. But in essentials, when
+one came to look at them, these individuals belonged to types already
+present to her mind. Her mind contained no class offering a natural
+place to Mr. Osmond--he was a specimen apart. It was not that she
+recognised all these truths at the hour, but they were falling into
+order before her. For the moment she only said to herself that this "new
+relation" would perhaps prove her very most distinguished. Madame Merle
+had had that note of rarity, but what quite other power it immediately
+gained when sounded by a man! It was not so much what he said and did,
+but rather what he withheld, that marked him for her as by one of those
+signs of the highly curious that he was showing her on the underside of
+old plates and in the corner of sixteenth-century drawings: he indulged
+in no striking deflections from common usage, he was an original without
+being an eccentric. She had never met a person of so fine a grain.
+The peculiarity was physical, to begin with, and it extended to
+impalpabilities. His dense, delicate hair, his overdrawn, retouched
+features, his clear complexion, ripe without being coarse, the very
+evenness of the growth of his beard, and that light, smooth slenderness
+of structure which made the movement of a single one of his fingers
+produce the effect of an expressive gesture--these personal points
+struck our sensitive young woman as signs of quality, of intensity,
+somehow as promises of interest. He was certainly fastidious and
+critical; he was probably irritable. His sensibility had governed
+him--possibly governed him too much; it had made him impatient of
+vulgar troubles and had led him to live by himself, in a sorted, sifted,
+arranged world, thinking about art and beauty and history. He had
+consulted his taste in everything--his taste alone perhaps, as a sick
+man consciously incurable consults at last only his lawyer: that was
+what made him so different from every one else. Ralph had something of
+this same quality, this appearance of thinking that life was a matter
+of connoisseurship; but in Ralph it was an anomaly, a kind of humorous
+excrescence, whereas in Mr. Osmond it was the keynote, and everything
+was in harmony with it. She was certainly far from understanding him
+completely; his meaning was not at all times obvious. It was hard to see
+what he meant for instance by speaking of his provincial side--which
+was exactly the side she would have taken him most to lack. Was it a
+harmless paradox, intended to puzzle her? or was it the last refinement
+of high culture? She trusted she should learn in time; it would be very
+interesting to learn. If it was provincial to have that harmony, what
+then was the finish of the capital? And she could put this question
+in spite of so feeling her host a shy personage; since such shyness as
+his--the shyness of ticklish nerves and fine perceptions--was perfectly
+consistent with the best breeding. Indeed it was almost a proof of
+standards and touchstones other than the vulgar: he must be so sure the
+vulgar would be first on the ground. He wasn't a man of easy assurance,
+who chatted and gossiped with the fluency of a superficial nature; he
+was critical of himself as well as of others, and, exacting a good deal
+of others, to think them agreeable, probably took a rather ironical view
+of what he himself offered: a proof into the bargain that he was not
+grossly conceited. If he had not been shy he wouldn't have effected that
+gradual, subtle, successful conversion of it to which she owed both what
+pleased her in him and what mystified her. If he had suddenly asked her
+what she thought of the Countess Gemini, that was doubtless a proof that
+he was interested in her; it could scarcely be as a help to knowledge
+of his own sister. That he should be so interested showed an enquiring
+mind; but it was a little singular he should sacrifice his fraternal
+feeling to his curiosity. This was the most eccentric thing he had done.
+
+There were two other rooms, beyond the one in which she had been
+received, equally full of romantic objects, and in these apartments
+Isabel spent a quarter of an hour. Everything was in the last degree
+curious and precious, and Mr. Osmond continued to be the kindest of
+ciceroni as he led her from one fine piece to another and still held his
+little girl by the hand. His kindness almost surprised our young friend,
+who wondered why he should take so much trouble for her; and she was
+oppressed at last with the accumulation of beauty and knowledge to which
+she found herself introduced. There was enough for the present; she had
+ceased to attend to what he said; she listened to him with attentive
+eyes, but was not thinking of what he told her. He probably thought
+her quicker, cleverer in every way, more prepared, than she was. Madame
+Merle would have pleasantly exaggerated; which was a pity, because in
+the end he would be sure to find out, and then perhaps even her real
+intelligence wouldn't reconcile him to his mistake. A part of Isabel's
+fatigue came from the effort to appear as intelligent as she believed
+Madame Merle had described her, and from the fear (very unusual with
+her) of exposing--not her ignorance; for that she cared comparatively
+little--but her possible grossness of perception. It would have annoyed
+her to express a liking for something he, in his superior enlightenment,
+would think she oughtn't to like; or to pass by something at which the
+truly initiated mind would arrest itself. She had no wish to fall into
+that grotesqueness--in which she had seen women (and it was a warning)
+serenely, yet ignobly, flounder. She was very careful therefore as to
+what she said, as to what she noticed or failed to notice; more careful
+than she had ever been before.
+
+They came back into the first of the rooms, where the tea had been
+served; but as the two other ladies were still on the terrace, and as
+Isabel had not yet been made acquainted with the view, the paramount
+distinction of the place, Mr. Osmond directed her steps into the garden
+without more delay. Madame Merle and the Countess had had chairs brought
+out, and as the afternoon was lovely the Countess proposed they should
+take their tea in the open air. Pansy therefore was sent to bid the
+servant bring out the preparations. The sun had got low, the golden
+light took a deeper tone, and on the mountains and the plain that
+stretched beneath them the masses of purple shadow glowed as richly
+as the places that were still exposed. The scene had an extraordinary
+charm. The air was almost solemnly still, and the large expanse of the
+landscape, with its garden-like culture and nobleness of outline,
+its teeming valley and delicately-fretted hills, its peculiarly
+human-looking touches of habitation, lay there in splendid harmony and
+classic grace. "You seem so well pleased that I think you can be trusted
+to come back," Osmond said as he led his companion to one of the angles
+of the terrace.
+
+"I shall certainly come back," she returned, "in spite of what you say
+about its being bad to live in Italy. What was that you said about one's
+natural mission? I wonder if I should forsake my natural mission if I
+were to settle in Florence."
+
+"A woman's natural mission is to be where she's most appreciated."
+
+"The point's to find out where that is."
+
+"Very true--she often wastes a great deal of time in the enquiry. People
+ought to make it very plain to her."
+
+"Such a matter would have to be made very plain to me," smiled Isabel.
+
+"I'm glad, at any rate, to hear you talk of settling. Madame Merle had
+given me an idea that you were of a rather roving disposition. I thought
+she spoke of your having some plan of going round the world."
+
+"I'm rather ashamed of my plans; I make a new one every day."
+
+"I don't see why you should be ashamed; it's the greatest of pleasures."
+
+"It seems frivolous, I think," said Isabel. "One ought to choose
+something very deliberately, and be faithful to that."
+
+"By that rule then, I've not been frivolous."
+
+"Have you never made plans?"
+
+"Yes, I made one years ago, and I'm acting on it to-day."
+
+"It must have been a very pleasant one," Isabel permitted herself to
+observe.
+
+"It was very simple. It was to be as quiet as possible."
+
+"As quiet?" the girl repeated.
+
+"Not to worry--not to strive nor struggle. To resign myself. To be
+content with little." He spoke these sentences slowly, with short pauses
+between, and his intelligent regard was fixed on his visitor's with the
+conscious air of a man who has brought himself to confess something.
+
+"Do you call that simple?" she asked with mild irony.
+
+"Yes, because it's negative."
+
+"Has your life been negative?"
+
+"Call it affirmative if you like. Only it has affirmed my indifference.
+Mind you, not my natural indifference--I HAD none. But my studied, my
+wilful renunciation."
+
+She scarcely understood him; it seemed a question whether he were
+joking or not. Why should a man who struck her as having a great fund
+of reserve suddenly bring himself to be so confidential? This was his
+affair, however, and his confidences were interesting. "I don't see why
+you should have renounced," she said in a moment.
+
+"Because I could do nothing. I had no prospects, I was poor, and I was
+not a man of genius. I had no talents even; I took my measure early in
+life. I was simply the most fastidious young gentleman living. There
+were two or three people in the world I envied--the Emperor of Russia,
+for instance, and the Sultan of Turkey! There were even moments when I
+envied the Pope of Rome--for the consideration he enjoys. I should have
+been delighted to be considered to that extent; but since that couldn't
+be I didn't care for anything less, and I made up my mind not to go
+in for honours. The leanest gentleman can always consider himself,
+and fortunately I was, though lean, a gentleman. I could do nothing in
+Italy--I couldn't even be an Italian patriot. To do that I should have
+had to get out of the country; and I was too fond of it to leave it, to
+say nothing of my being too well satisfied with it, on the whole, as it
+then was, to wish it altered. So I've passed a great many years here on
+that quiet plan I spoke of. I've not been at all unhappy. I don't mean
+to say I've cared for nothing; but the things I've cared for have
+been definite--limited. The events of my life have been absolutely
+unperceived by any one save myself; getting an old silver crucifix at a
+bargain (I've never bought anything dear, of course), or discovering,
+as I once did, a sketch by Correggio on a panel daubed over by some
+inspired idiot."
+
+This would have been rather a dry account of Mr. Osmond's career if
+Isabel had fully believed it; but her imagination supplied the human
+element which she was sure had not been wanting. His life had been
+mingled with other lives more than he admitted; naturally she couldn't
+expect him to enter into this. For the present she abstained from
+provoking further revelations; to intimate that he had not told her
+everything would be more familiar and less considerate than she now
+desired to be--would in fact be uproariously vulgar. He had certainly
+told her quite enough. It was her present inclination, however, to
+express a measured sympathy for the success with which he had preserved
+his independence. "That's a very pleasant life," she said, "to renounce
+everything but Correggio!"
+
+"Oh, I've made in my way a good thing of it. Don't imagine I'm whining
+about it. It's one's own fault if one isn't happy."
+
+This was large; she kept down to something smaller. "Have you lived here
+always?"
+
+"No, not always. I lived a long time at Naples, and many years in
+Rome. But I've been here a good while. Perhaps I shall have to change,
+however; to do something else. I've no longer myself to think of. My
+daughter's growing up and may very possibly not care so much for the
+Correggios and crucifixes as I. I shall have to do what's best for
+Pansy."
+
+"Yes, do that," said Isabel. "She's such a dear little girl."
+
+"Ah," cried Gilbert Osmond beautifully, "she's a little saint of heaven!
+She is my great happiness!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+While this sufficiently intimate colloquy (prolonged for some time after
+we cease to follow it) went forward Madame Merle and her companion,
+breaking a silence of some duration, had begun to exchange remarks.
+They were sitting in an attitude of unexpressed expectancy; an attitude
+especially marked on the part of the Countess Gemini, who, being of a
+more nervous temperament than her friend, practised with less success
+the art of disguising impatience. What these ladies were waiting for
+would not have been apparent and was perhaps not very definite to their
+own minds. Madame Merle waited for Osmond to release their young friend
+from her tete-a-tete, and the Countess waited because Madame Merle did.
+The Countess, moreover, by waiting, found the time ripe for one of her
+pretty perversities. She might have desired for some minutes to place
+it. Her brother wandered with Isabel to the end of the garden, to which
+point her eyes followed them.
+
+"My dear," she then observed to her companion, "you'll excuse me if I
+don't congratulate you!"
+
+"Very willingly, for I don't in the least know why you should."
+
+"Haven't you a little plan that you think rather well of?" And the
+Countess nodded at the sequestered couple.
+
+Madame Merle's eyes took the same direction; then she looked serenely at
+her neighbour. "You know I never understand you very well," she smiled.
+
+"No one can understand better than you when you wish. I see that just
+now you DON'T wish."
+
+"You say things to me that no one else does," said Madame Merle gravely,
+yet without bitterness.
+
+"You mean things you don't like? Doesn't Osmond sometimes say such
+things?"
+
+"What your brother says has a point."
+
+"Yes, a poisoned one sometimes. If you mean that I'm not so clever as he
+you mustn't think I shall suffer from your sense of our difference. But
+it will be much better that you should understand me."
+
+"Why so?" asked Madame Merle. "To what will it conduce?"
+
+"If I don't approve of your plan you ought to know it in order to
+appreciate the danger of my interfering with it."
+
+Madame Merle looked as if she were ready to admit that there might be
+something in this; but in a moment she said quietly: "You think me more
+calculating than I am."
+
+"It's not your calculating I think ill of; it's your calculating wrong.
+You've done so in this case."
+
+"You must have made extensive calculations yourself to discover that."
+
+"No, I've not had time. I've seen the girl but this once," said the
+Countess, "and the conviction has suddenly come to me. I like her very
+much."
+
+"So do I," Madame Merle mentioned.
+
+"You've a strange way of showing it."
+
+"Surely I've given her the advantage of making your acquaintance."
+
+"That indeed," piped the Countess, "is perhaps the best thing that could
+happen to her!"
+
+Madame Merle said nothing for some time. The Countess's manner was
+odious, was really low; but it was an old story, and with her eyes upon
+the violet slope of Monte Morello she gave herself up to reflection. "My
+dear lady," she finally resumed, "I advise you not to agitate yourself.
+The matter you allude to concerns three persons much stronger of purpose
+than yourself."
+
+"Three persons? You and Osmond of course. But is Miss Archer also very
+strong of purpose?"
+
+"Quite as much so as we."
+
+"Ah then," said the Countess radiantly, "if I convince her it's her
+interest to resist you she'll do so successfully!"
+
+"Resist us? Why do you express yourself so coarsely? She's not exposed
+to compulsion or deception."
+
+"I'm not sure of that. You're capable of anything, you and Osmond. I
+don't mean Osmond by himself, and I don't mean you by yourself. But
+together you're dangerous--like some chemical combination."
+
+"You had better leave us alone then," smiled Madame Merle.
+
+"I don't mean to touch you--but I shall talk to that girl."
+
+"My poor Amy," Madame Merle murmured, "I don't see what has got into
+your head."
+
+"I take an interest in her--that's what has got into my head. I like
+her."
+
+Madame Merle hesitated a moment. "I don't think she likes you."
+
+The Countess's bright little eyes expanded and her face was set in a
+grimace. "Ah, you ARE dangerous--even by yourself!"
+
+"If you want her to like you don't abuse your brother to her," said
+Madame Merle.
+
+"I don't suppose you pretend she has fallen in love with him in two
+interviews."
+
+Madame Merle looked a moment at Isabel and at the master of the house.
+He was leaning against the parapet, facing her, his arms folded; and
+she at present was evidently not lost in the mere impersonal view,
+persistently as she gazed at it. As Madame Merle watched her she lowered
+her eyes; she was listening, possibly with a certain embarrassment,
+while she pressed the point of her parasol into the path. Madame Merle
+rose from her chair. "Yes, I think so!" she pronounced.
+
+The shabby footboy, summoned by Pansy--he might, tarnished as to livery
+and quaint as to type, have issued from some stray sketch of old-time
+manners, been "put in" by the brush of a Longhi or a Goya--had come out
+with a small table and placed it on the grass, and then had gone back
+and fetched the tea-tray; after which he had again disappeared, to
+return with a couple of chairs. Pansy had watched these proceedings with
+the deepest interest, standing with her small hands folded together
+upon the front of her scanty frock; but she had not presumed to offer
+assistance. When the tea-table had been arranged, however, she gently
+approached her aunt.
+
+"Do you think papa would object to my making the tea?"
+
+The Countess looked at her with a deliberately critical gaze and without
+answering her question. "My poor niece," she said, "is that your best
+frock?"
+
+"Ah no," Pansy answered, "it's just a little toilette for common
+occasions."
+
+"Do you call it a common occasion when I come to see you?--to say
+nothing of Madame Merle and the pretty lady yonder."
+
+Pansy reflected a moment, turning gravely from one of the persons
+mentioned to the other. Then her face broke into its perfect smile.
+"I have a pretty dress, but even that one's very simple. Why should I
+expose it beside your beautiful things?"
+
+"Because it's the prettiest you have; for me you must always wear the
+prettiest. Please put it on the next time. It seems to me they don't
+dress you so well as they might."
+
+The child sparingly stroked down her antiquated skirt. "It's a good
+little dress to make tea--don't you think? Don't you believe papa would
+allow me?"
+
+"Impossible for me to say, my child," said the Countess. "For me, your
+father's ideas are unfathomable. Madame Merle understands them better.
+Ask HER."
+
+Madame Merle smiled with her usual grace. "It's a weighty question--let
+me think. It seems to me it would please your father to see a careful
+little daughter making his tea. It's the proper duty of the daughter of
+the house--when she grows up."
+
+"So it seems to me, Madame Merle!" Pansy cried. "You shall see how well
+I'll make it. A spoonful for each." And she began to busy herself at the
+table.
+
+"Two spoonfuls for me," said the Countess, who, with Madame Merle,
+remained for some moments watching her. "Listen to me, Pansy," the
+Countess resumed at last. "I should like to know what you think of your
+visitor."
+
+"Ah, she's not mine--she's papa's," Pansy objected.
+
+"Miss Archer came to see you as well," said Madame Merle.
+
+"I'm very happy to hear that. She has been very polite to me."
+
+"Do you like her then?" the Countess asked.
+
+"She's charming--charming," Pansy repeated in her little neat
+conversational tone. "She pleases me thoroughly."
+
+"And how do you think she pleases your father?"
+
+"Ah really, Countess!" murmured Madame Merle dissuasively. "Go and call
+them to tea," she went on to the child.
+
+"You'll see if they don't like it!" Pansy declared; and departed to
+summon the others, who had still lingered at the end of the terrace.
+
+"If Miss Archer's to become her mother it's surely interesting to know
+if the child likes her," said the Countess.
+
+"If your brother marries again it won't be for Pansy's sake," Madame
+Merle replied. "She'll soon be sixteen, and after that she'll begin to
+need a husband rather than a stepmother."
+
+"And will you provide the husband as well?"
+
+"I shall certainly take an interest in her marrying fortunately. I
+imagine you'll do the same."
+
+"Indeed I shan't!" cried the Countess. "Why should I, of all women, set
+such a price on a husband?"
+
+"You didn't marry fortunately; that's what I'm speaking of. When I say a
+husband I mean a good one."
+
+"There are no good ones. Osmond won't be a good one."
+
+Madame Merle closed her eyes a moment. "You're irritated just now; I
+don't know why," she presently said. "I don't think you'll really object
+either to your brother's or to your niece's marrying, when the time
+comes for them to do so; and as regards Pansy I'm confident that we
+shall some day have the pleasure of looking for a husband for her
+together. Your large acquaintance will be a great help."
+
+"Yes, I'm irritated," the Countess answered. "You often irritate me.
+Your own coolness is fabulous. You're a strange woman."
+
+"It's much better that we should always act together," Madame Merle went
+on.
+
+"Do you mean that as a threat?" asked the Countess rising. Madame
+Merle shook her head as for quiet amusement. "No indeed, you've not my
+coolness!"
+
+Isabel and Mr. Osmond were now slowly coming toward them and Isabel
+had taken Pansy by the hand. "Do you pretend to believe he'd make her
+happy?" the Countess demanded.
+
+"If he should marry Miss Archer I suppose he'd behave like a gentleman."
+
+The Countess jerked herself into a succession of attitudes. "Do you
+mean as most gentlemen behave? That would be much to be thankful for! Of
+course Osmond's a gentleman; his own sister needn't be reminded of that.
+But does he think he can marry any girl he happens to pick out? Osmond's
+a gentleman, of course; but I must say I've NEVER, no, no, never, seen
+any one of Osmond's pretensions! What they're all founded on is more
+than I can say. I'm his own sister; I might be supposed to know. Who
+is he, if you please? What has he ever done? If there had been anything
+particularly grand in his origin--if he were made of some superior
+clay--I presume I should have got some inkling of it. If there had been
+any great honours or splendours in the family I should certainly have
+made the most of them: they would have been quite in my line. But
+there's nothing, nothing, nothing. One's parents were charming people of
+course; but so were yours, I've no doubt. Every one's a charming person
+nowadays. Even I'm a charming person; don't laugh, it has literally
+been said. As for Osmond, he has always appeared to believe that he's
+descended from the gods."
+
+"You may say what you please," said Madame Merle, who had listened to
+this quick outbreak none the less attentively, we may believe, because
+her eye wandered away from the speaker and her hands busied themselves
+with adjusting the knots of ribbon on her dress. "You Osmonds are a fine
+race--your blood must flow from some very pure source. Your brother,
+like an intelligent man, has had the conviction of it if he has not
+had the proofs. You're modest about it, but you yourself are extremely
+distinguished. What do you say about your niece? The child's a little
+princess. Nevertheless," Madame Merle added, "it won't be an easy matter
+for Osmond to marry Miss Archer. Yet he can try."
+
+"I hope she'll refuse him. It will take him down a little."
+
+"We mustn't forget that he is one of the cleverest of men."
+
+"I've heard you say that before, but I haven't yet discovered what he
+has done."
+
+"What he has done? He has done nothing that has had to be undone. And he
+has known how to wait."
+
+"To wait for Miss Archer's money? How much of it is there?"
+
+"That's not what I mean," said Madame Merle. "Miss Archer has seventy
+thousand pounds."
+
+"Well, it's a pity she's so charming," the Countess declared. "To be
+sacrificed, any girl would do. She needn't be superior."
+
+"If she weren't superior your brother would never look at her. He must
+have the best."
+
+"Yes," returned the Countess as they went forward a little to meet
+the others, "he's very hard to satisfy. That makes me tremble for her
+happiness!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+Gilbert Osmond came to see Isabel again; that is he came to Palazzo
+Crescentini. He had other friends there as well, and to Mrs. Touchett
+and Madame Merle he was always impartially civil; but the former of
+these ladies noted the fact that in the course of a fortnight he
+called five times, and compared it with another fact that she found no
+difficulty in remembering. Two visits a year had hitherto constituted
+his regular tribute to Mrs. Touchett's worth, and she had never
+observed him select for such visits those moments, of almost periodical
+recurrence, when Madame Merle was under her roof. It was not for Madame
+Merle that he came; these two were old friends and he never put himself
+out for her. He was not fond of Ralph--Ralph had told her so--and it was
+not supposable that Mr. Osmond had suddenly taken a fancy to her son.
+Ralph was imperturbable--Ralph had a kind of loose-fitting urbanity
+that wrapped him about like an ill-made overcoat, but of which he
+never divested himself; he thought Mr. Osmond very good company and was
+willing at any time to look at him in the light of hospitality. But he
+didn't flatter himself that the desire to repair a past injustice was
+the motive of their visitor's calls; he read the situation more clearly.
+Isabel was the attraction, and in all conscience a sufficient one.
+Osmond was a critic, a student of the exquisite, and it was natural he
+should be curious of so rare an apparition. So when his mother observed
+to him that it was plain what Mr. Osmond was thinking of, Ralph replied
+that he was quite of her opinion. Mrs. Touchett had from far back found
+a place on her scant list for this gentleman, though wondering dimly by
+what art and what process--so negative and so wise as they were--he
+had everywhere effectively imposed himself. As he had never been an
+importunate visitor he had had no chance to be offensive, and he was
+recommended to her by his appearance of being as well able to do without
+her as she was to do without him--a quality that always, oddly enough,
+affected her as providing ground for a relation with her. It gave her
+no satisfaction, however, to think that he had taken it into his head to
+marry her niece. Such an alliance, on Isabel's part, would have an air
+of almost morbid perversity. Mrs. Touchett easily remembered that the
+girl had refused an English peer; and that a young lady with whom Lord
+Warburton had not successfully wrestled should content herself with an
+obscure American dilettante, a middle-aged widower with an uncanny child
+and an ambiguous income, this answered to nothing in Mrs. Touchett's
+conception of success. She took, it will be observed, not the
+sentimental, but the political, view of matrimony--a view which has
+always had much to recommend it. "I trust she won't have the folly
+to listen to him," she said to her son; to which Ralph replied that
+Isabel's listening was one thing and Isabel's answering quite another.
+He knew she had listened to several parties, as his father would
+have said, but had made them listen in return; and he found much
+entertainment in the idea that in these few months of his knowing her he
+should observe a fresh suitor at her gate. She had wanted to see life,
+and fortune was serving her to her taste; a succession of fine gentlemen
+going down on their knees to her would do as well as anything else.
+Ralph looked forward to a fourth, a fifth, a tenth besieger; he had no
+conviction she would stop at a third. She would keep the gate ajar and
+open a parley; she would certainly not allow number three to come in.
+He expressed this view, somewhat after this fashion, to his mother, who
+looked at him as if he had been dancing a jig. He had such a fanciful,
+pictorial way of saying things that he might as well address her in the
+deaf-mute's alphabet.
+
+"I don't think I know what you mean," she said; "you use too many
+figures of speech; I could never understand allegories. The two words in
+the language I most respect are Yes and No. If Isabel wants to marry Mr.
+Osmond she'll do so in spite of all your comparisons. Let her alone to
+find a fine one herself for anything she undertakes. I know very little
+about the young man in America; I don't think she spends much of her
+time in thinking of him, and I suspect he has got tired of waiting for
+her. There's nothing in life to prevent her marrying Mr. Osmond if
+she only looks at him in a certain way. That's all very well; no one
+approves more than I of one's pleasing one's self. But she takes her
+pleasure in such odd things; she's capable of marrying Mr. Osmond for
+the beauty of his opinions or for his autograph of Michael Angelo.
+She wants to be disinterested: as if she were the only person who's
+in danger of not being so! Will HE be so disinterested when he has the
+spending of her money? That was her idea before your father's death, and
+it has acquired new charms for her since. She ought to marry some one of
+whose disinterestedness she shall herself be sure; and there would be no
+such proof of that as his having a fortune of his own."
+
+"My dear mother, I'm not afraid," Ralph answered. "She's making fools of
+us all. She'll please herself, of course; but she'll do so by studying
+human nature at close quarters and yet retaining her liberty. She has
+started on an exploring expedition, and I don't think she'll change her
+course, at the outset, at a signal from Gilbert Osmond. She may have
+slackened speed for an hour, but before we know it she'll be steaming
+away again. Excuse another metaphor."
+
+Mrs. Touchett excused it perhaps, but was not so much reassured as to
+withhold from Madame Merle the expression of her fears. "You who
+know everything," she said, "you must know this: whether that curious
+creature's really making love to my niece."
+
+"Gilbert Osmond?" Madame Merle widened her clear eyes and, with a full
+intelligence, "Heaven help us," she exclaimed, "that's an idea!"
+
+"Hadn't it occurred to you?"
+
+"You make me feel an idiot, but I confess it hadn't. I wonder," she
+added, "if it has occurred to Isabel."
+
+"Oh, I shall now ask her," said Mrs. Touchett.
+
+Madame Merle reflected. "Don't put it into her head. The thing would be
+to ask Mr. Osmond."
+
+"I can't do that," said Mrs. Touchett. "I won't have him enquire
+of me--as he perfectly may with that air of his, given Isabel's
+situation--what business it is of mine."
+
+"I'll ask him myself," Madame Merle bravely declared.
+
+"But what business--for HIM--is it of yours?"
+
+"It's being none whatever is just why I can afford to speak. It's so
+much less my business than any one's else that he can put me off with
+anything he chooses. But it will be by the way he does this that I shall
+know."
+
+"Pray let me hear then," said Mrs. Touchett, "of the fruits of your
+penetration. If I can't speak to him, however, at least I can speak to
+Isabel."
+
+Her companion sounded at this the note of warning. "Don't be too quick
+with her. Don't inflame her imagination."
+
+"I never did anything in life to any one's imagination. But I'm always
+sure of her doing something--well, not of MY kind."
+
+"No, you wouldn't like this," Madame Merle observed without the point of
+interrogation.
+
+"Why in the world should I, pray? Mr. Osmond has nothing the least solid
+to offer."
+
+Again Madame Merle was silent while her thoughtful smile drew up her
+mouth even more charmingly than usual toward the left corner. "Let us
+distinguish. Gilbert Osmond's certainly not the first comer. He's a man
+who in favourable conditions might very well make a great impression. He
+has made a great impression, to my knowledge, more than once."
+
+"Don't tell me about his probably quite cold-blooded love-affairs;
+they're nothing to me!" Mrs. Touchett cried. "What you say's precisely
+why I wish he would cease his visits. He has nothing in the world that
+I know of but a dozen or two of early masters and a more or less pert
+little daughter."
+
+"The early masters are now worth a good deal of money," said Madame
+Merle, "and the daughter's a very young and very innocent and very
+harmless person."
+
+"In other words she's an insipid little chit. Is that what you mean?
+Having no fortune she can't hope to marry as they marry here; so that
+Isabel will have to furnish her either with a maintenance or with a
+dowry."
+
+"Isabel probably wouldn't object to being kind to her. I think she likes
+the poor child."
+
+"Another reason then for Mr. Osmond's stopping at home! Otherwise, a
+week hence, we shall have my niece arriving at the conviction that her
+mission in life's to prove that a stepmother may sacrifice herself--and
+that, to prove it, she must first become one."
+
+"She would make a charming stepmother," smiled Madame Merle; "but I
+quite agree with you that she had better not decide upon her mission
+too hastily. Changing the form of one's mission's almost as difficult as
+changing the shape of one's nose: there they are, each, in the middle of
+one's face and one's character--one has to begin too far back. But I'll
+investigate and report to you."
+
+All this went on quite over Isabel's head; she had no suspicions that
+her relations with Mr. Osmond were being discussed. Madame Merle had
+said nothing to put her on her guard; she alluded no more pointedly to
+him than to the other gentlemen of Florence, native and foreign, who now
+arrived in considerable numbers to pay their respects to Miss Archer's
+aunt. Isabel thought him interesting--she came back to that; she liked
+so to think of him. She had carried away an image from her visit to his
+hill-top which her subsequent knowledge of him did nothing to efface
+and which put on for her a particular harmony with other supposed
+and divined things, histories within histories: the image of a quiet,
+clever, sensitive, distinguished man, strolling on a moss-grown terrace
+above the sweet Val d'Arno and holding by the hand a little girl whose
+bell-like clearness gave a new grace to childhood. The picture had no
+flourishes, but she liked its lowness of tone and the atmosphere of
+summer twilight that pervaded it. It spoke of the kind of personal issue
+that touched her most nearly; of the choice between objects, subjects,
+contacts--what might she call them?--of a thin and those of a rich
+association; of a lonely, studious life in a lovely land; of an old
+sorrow that sometimes ached to-day; of a feeling of pride that was
+perhaps exaggerated, but that had an element of nobleness; of a care
+for beauty and perfection so natural and so cultivated together that the
+career appeared to stretch beneath it in the disposed vistas and with
+the ranges of steps and terraces and fountains of a formal Italian
+garden--allowing only for arid places freshened by the natural dews of
+a quaint half-anxious, half-helpless fatherhood. At Palazzo Crescentini
+Mr. Osmond's manner remained the same; diffident at first--oh
+self-conscious beyond doubt! and full of the effort (visible only to a
+sympathetic eye) to overcome this disadvantage; an effort which
+usually resulted in a great deal of easy, lively, very positive, rather
+aggressive, always suggestive talk. Mr. Osmond's talk was not injured by
+the indication of an eagerness to shine; Isabel found no difficulty
+in believing that a person was sincere who had so many of the signs of
+strong conviction--as for instance an explicit and graceful appreciation
+of anything that might be said on his own side of the question, said
+perhaps by Miss Archer in especial. What continued to please this young
+woman was that while he talked so for amusement he didn't talk, as she
+had heard people, for "effect." He uttered his ideas as if, odd as
+they often appeared, he were used to them and had lived with them; old
+polished knobs and heads and handles, of precious substance, that could
+be fitted if necessary to new walking-sticks--not switches plucked in
+destitution from the common tree and then too elegantly waved about. One
+day he brought his small daughter with him, and she rejoiced to renew
+acquaintance with the child, who, as she presented her forehead to be
+kissed by every member of the circle, reminded her vividly of an ingenue
+in a French play. Isabel had never seen a little person of this pattern;
+American girls were very different--different too were the maidens of
+England. Pansy was so formed and finished for her tiny place in the
+world, and yet in imagination, as one could see, so innocent and
+infantine. She sat on the sofa by Isabel; she wore a small grenadine
+mantle and a pair of the useful gloves that Madame Merle had given
+her--little grey gloves with a single button. She was like a sheet of
+blank paper--the ideal jeune fille of foreign fiction. Isabel hoped that
+so fair and smooth a page would be covered with an edifying text.
+
+The Countess Gemini also came to call upon her, but the Countess was
+quite another affair. She was by no means a blank sheet; she had been
+written over in a variety of hands, and Mrs. Touchett, who felt by no
+means honoured by her visit, pronounced that a number of unmistakeable
+blots were to be seen upon her surface. The Countess gave rise indeed to
+some discussion between the mistress of the house and the visitor from
+Rome, in which Madame Merle (who was not such a fool as to irritate
+people by always agreeing with them) availed herself felicitously enough
+of that large licence of dissent which her hostess permitted as freely
+as she practised it. Mrs. Touchett had declared it a piece of audacity
+that this highly compromised character should have presented herself at
+such a time of day at the door of a house in which she was esteemed so
+little as she must long have known herself to be at Palazzo Crescentini.
+Isabel had been made acquainted with the estimate prevailing under that
+roof: it represented Mr. Osmond's sister as a lady who had so mismanaged
+her improprieties that they had ceased to hang together at all--which
+was at the least what one asked of such matters--and had become the mere
+floating fragments of a wrecked renown, incommoding social circulation.
+She had been married by her mother--a more administrative person, with
+an appreciation of foreign titles which the daughter, to do her justice,
+had probably by this time thrown off--to an Italian nobleman who had
+perhaps given her some excuse for attempting to quench the consciousness
+of outrage. The Countess, however, had consoled herself outrageously,
+and the list of her excuses had now lost itself in the labyrinth of her
+adventures. Mrs. Touchett had never consented to receive her, though the
+Countess had made overtures of old. Florence was not an austere city;
+but, as Mrs. Touchett said, she had to draw the line somewhere.
+
+Madame Merle defended the luckless lady with a great deal of zeal and
+wit. She couldn't see why Mrs. Touchett should make a scapegoat of a
+woman who had really done no harm, who had only done good in the wrong
+way. One must certainly draw the line, but while one was about it one
+should draw it straight: it was a very crooked chalk-mark that would
+exclude the Countess Gemini. In that case Mrs. Touchett had better
+shut up her house; this perhaps would be the best course so long as
+she remained in Florence. One must be fair and not make arbitrary
+differences: the Countess had doubtless been imprudent, she had not been
+so clever as other women. She was a good creature, not clever at
+all; but since when had that been a ground of exclusion from the best
+society? For ever so long now one had heard nothing about her, and there
+could be no better proof of her having renounced the error of her ways
+than her desire to become a member of Mrs. Touchett's circle. Isabel
+could contribute nothing to this interesting dispute, not even a patient
+attention; she contented herself with having given a friendly welcome to
+the unfortunate lady, who, whatever her defects, had at least the merit
+of being Mr. Osmond's sister. As she liked the brother Isabel thought it
+proper to try and like the sister: in spite of the growing complexity of
+things she was still capable of these primitive sequences. She had not
+received the happiest impression of the Countess on meeting her at the
+villa, but was thankful for an opportunity to repair the accident.
+Had not Mr. Osmond remarked that she was a respectable person? To have
+proceeded from Gilbert Osmond this was a crude proposition, but Madame
+Merle bestowed upon it a certain improving polish. She told Isabel
+more about the poor Countess than Mr. Osmond had done, and related the
+history of her marriage and its consequences. The Count was a member of
+an ancient Tuscan family, but of such small estate that he had been glad
+to accept Amy Osmond, in spite of the questionable beauty which had yet
+not hampered her career, with the modest dowry her mother was able
+to offer--a sum about equivalent to that which had already formed her
+brother's share of their patrimony. Count Gemini since then, however,
+had inherited money, and now they were well enough off, as Italians
+went, though Amy was horribly extravagant. The Count was a low-lived
+brute; he had given his wife every pretext. She had no children; she had
+lost three within a year of their birth. Her mother, who had bristled
+with pretensions to elegant learning and published descriptive poems and
+corresponded on Italian subjects with the English weekly journals, her
+mother had died three years after the Countess's marriage, the father,
+lost in the grey American dawn of the situation, but reputed originally
+rich and wild, having died much earlier. One could see this in Gilbert
+Osmond, Madame Merle held--see that he had been brought up by a woman;
+though, to do him justice, one would suppose it had been by a more
+sensible woman than the American Corinne, as Mrs. Osmond had liked to be
+called. She had brought her children to Italy after her husband's death,
+and Mrs. Touchett remembered her during the year that followed her
+arrival. She thought her a horrible snob; but this was an irregularity
+of judgement on Mrs. Touchett's part, for she, like Mrs. Osmond,
+approved of political marriages. The Countess was very good company and
+not really the featherhead she seemed; all one had to do with her was
+to observe the simple condition of not believing a word she said.
+Madame Merle had always made the best of her for her brother's sake;
+he appreciated any kindness shown to Amy, because (if it had to be
+confessed for him) he rather felt she let down their common name.
+Naturally he couldn't like her style, her shrillness, her egotism,
+her violations of taste and above all of truth: she acted badly on his
+nerves, she was not HIS sort of woman. What was his sort of woman? Oh,
+the very opposite of the Countess, a woman to whom the truth should be
+habitually sacred. Isabel was unable to estimate the number of times her
+visitor had, in half an hour, profaned it: the Countess indeed had
+given her an impression of rather silly sincerity. She had talked almost
+exclusively about herself; how much she should like to know Miss Archer;
+how thankful she should be for a real friend; how base the people in
+Florence were; how tired she was of the place; how much she should
+like to live somewhere else--in Paris, in London, in Washington; how
+impossible it was to get anything nice to wear in Italy except a little
+old lace; how dear the world was growing everywhere; what a life of
+suffering and privation she had led. Madame Merle listened with interest
+to Isabel's account of this passage, but she had not needed it to feel
+exempt from anxiety. On the whole she was not afraid of the Countess,
+and she could afford to do what was altogether best--not to appear so.
+
+Isabel had meanwhile another visitor, whom it was not, even behind her
+back, so easy a matter to patronise. Henrietta Stackpole, who had left
+Paris after Mrs. Touchett's departure for San Remo and had worked her
+way down, as she said, through the cities of North Italy, reached the
+banks of the Arno about the middle of May. Madame Merle surveyed her
+with a single glance, took her in from head to foot, and after a pang
+of despair determined to endure her. She determined indeed to delight
+in her. She mightn't be inhaled as a rose, but she might be grasped as
+a nettle. Madame Merle genially squeezed her into insignificance, and
+Isabel felt that in foreseeing this liberality she had done justice to
+her friend's intelligence. Henrietta's arrival had been announced by
+Mr. Bantling, who, coming down from Nice while she was at Venice, and
+expecting to find her in Florence, which she had not yet reached, called
+at Palazzo Crescentini to express his disappointment. Henrietta's own
+advent occurred two days later and produced in Mr. Bantling an emotion
+amply accounted for by the fact that he had not seen her since the
+termination of the episode at Versailles. The humorous view of his
+situation was generally taken, but it was uttered only by Ralph
+Touchett, who, in the privacy of his own apartment, when Bantling smoked
+a cigar there, indulged in goodness knew what strong comedy on the
+subject of the all-judging one and her British backer. This gentleman
+took the joke in perfectly good part and candidly confessed that he
+regarded the affair as a positive intellectual adventure. He liked
+Miss Stackpole extremely; he thought she had a wonderful head on her
+shoulders, and found great comfort in the society of a woman who was not
+perpetually thinking about what would be said and how what she did, how
+what they did--and they had done things!--would look. Miss Stackpole
+never cared how anything looked, and, if she didn't care, pray why
+should he? But his curiosity had been roused; he wanted awfully to see
+if she ever WOULD care. He was prepared to go as far as she--he didn't
+see why he should break down first.
+
+Henrietta showed no signs of breaking down. Her prospects had brightened
+on her leaving England, and she was now in the full enjoyment of her
+copious resources. She had indeed been obliged to sacrifice her hopes
+with regard to the inner life; the social question, on the Continent,
+bristled with difficulties even more numerous than those she had
+encountered in England. But on the Continent there was the outer
+life, which was palpable and visible at every turn, and more easily
+convertible to literary uses than the customs of those opaque islanders.
+Out of doors in foreign lands, as she ingeniously remarked, one seemed
+to see the right side of the tapestry; out of doors in England one
+seemed to see the wrong side, which gave one no notion of the figure.
+The admission costs her historian a pang, but Henrietta, despairing of
+more occult things, was now paying much attention to the outer life. She
+had been studying it for two months at Venice, from which city she sent
+to the Interviewer a conscientious account of the gondolas, the Piazza,
+the Bridge of Sighs, the pigeons and the young boatman who chanted
+Tasso. The Interviewer was perhaps disappointed, but Henrietta was at
+least seeing Europe. Her present purpose was to get down to Rome before
+the malaria should come on--she apparently supposed that it began on a
+fixed day; and with this design she was to spend at present but few days
+in Florence. Mr. Bantling was to go with her to Rome, and she pointed
+out to Isabel that as he had been there before, as he was a military man
+and as he had had a classical education--he had been bred at Eton, where
+they study nothing but Latin and Whyte-Melville, said Miss Stackpole--he
+would be a most useful companion in the city of the Caesars. At this
+juncture Ralph had the happy idea of proposing to Isabel that she also,
+under his own escort, should make a pilgrimage to Rome. She expected
+to pass a portion of the next winter there--that was very well; but
+meantime there was no harm in surveying the field. There were ten days
+left of the beautiful month of May--the most precious month of all
+to the true Rome-lover. Isabel would become a Rome-lover; that was a
+foregone conclusion. She was provided with a trusty companion of her
+own sex, whose society, thanks to the fact of other calls on this lady's
+attention, would probably not be oppressive. Madame Merle would remain
+with Mrs. Touchett; she had left Rome for the summer and wouldn't
+care to return. She professed herself delighted to be left at peace
+in Florence; she had locked up her apartment and sent her cook home to
+Palestrina. She urged Isabel, however, to assent to Ralph's proposal,
+and assured her that a good introduction to Rome was not a thing to
+be despised. Isabel in truth needed no urging, and the party of four
+arranged its little journey. Mrs. Touchett, on this occasion, had
+resigned herself to the absence of a duenna; we have seen that she
+now inclined to the belief that her niece should stand alone. One of
+Isabel's preparations consisted of her seeing Gilbert Osmond before she
+started and mentioning her intention to him.
+
+"I should like to be in Rome with you," he commented. "I should like to
+see you on that wonderful ground."
+
+She scarcely faltered. "You might come then."
+
+"But you'll have a lot of people with you."
+
+"Ah," Isabel admitted, "of course I shall not be alone."
+
+For a moment he said nothing more. "You'll like it," he went on at last.
+"They've spoiled it, but you'll rave about it."
+
+"Ought I to dislike it because, poor old dear--the Niobe of Nations, you
+know--it has been spoiled?" she asked.
+
+"No, I think not. It has been spoiled so often," he smiled. "If I were
+to go, what should I do with my little girl?"
+
+"Can't you leave her at the villa?"
+
+"I don't know that I like that--though there's a very good old woman who
+looks after her. I can't afford a governess."
+
+"Bring her with you then," said Isabel promptly.
+
+Mr. Osmond looked grave. "She has been in Rome all winter, at her
+convent; and she's too young to make journeys of pleasure."
+
+"You don't like bringing her forward?" Isabel enquired.
+
+"No, I think young girls should be kept out of the world."
+
+"I was brought up on a different system."
+
+"You? Oh, with you it succeeded, because you--you were exceptional."
+
+"I don't see why," said Isabel, who, however, was not sure there was not
+some truth in the speech.
+
+Mr. Osmond didn't explain; he simply went on: "If I thought it would
+make her resemble you to join a social group in Rome I'd take her there
+to-morrow."
+
+"Don't make her resemble me," said Isabel. "Keep her like herself."
+
+"I might send her to my sister," Mr. Osmond observed. He had almost
+the air of asking advice; he seemed to like to talk over his domestic
+matters with Miss Archer.
+
+"Yes," she concurred; "I think that wouldn't do much towards making her
+resemble me!"
+
+After she had left Florence Gilbert Osmond met Madame Merle at the
+Countess Gemini's. There were other people present; the Countess's
+drawing-room was usually well filled, and the talk had been general,
+but after a while Osmond left his place and came and sat on an ottoman
+half-behind, half-beside Madame Merle's chair. "She wants me to go to
+Rome with her," he remarked in a low voice.
+
+"To go with her?"
+
+"To be there while she's there. She proposed it.
+
+"I suppose you mean that you proposed it and she assented."
+
+"Of course I gave her a chance. But she's encouraging--she's very
+encouraging."
+
+"I rejoice to hear it--but don't cry victory too soon. Of course you'll
+go to Rome."
+
+"Ah," said Osmond, "it makes one work, this idea of yours!"
+
+"Don't pretend you don't enjoy it--you're very ungrateful. You've not
+been so well occupied these many years."
+
+"The way you take it's beautiful," said Osmond. "I ought to be grateful
+for that."
+
+"Not too much so, however," Madame Merle answered. She talked with
+her usual smile, leaning back in her chair and looking round the room.
+"You've made a very good impression, and I've seen for myself that
+you've received one. You've not come to Mrs. Touchett's seven times to
+oblige me."
+
+"The girl's not disagreeable," Osmond quietly conceded.
+
+Madame Merle dropped her eye on him a moment, during which her lips
+closed with a certain firmness. "Is that all you can find to say about
+that fine creature?"
+
+"All? Isn't it enough? Of how many people have you heard me say more?"
+
+She made no answer to this, but still presented her talkative grace to
+the room. "You're unfathomable," she murmured at last. "I'm frightened
+at the abyss into which I shall have cast her."
+
+He took it almost gaily. "You can't draw back--you've gone too far."
+
+"Very good; but you must do the rest yourself."
+
+"I shall do it," said Gilbert Osmond.
+
+Madame Merle remained silent and he changed his place again; but when
+she rose to go he also took leave. Mrs. Touchett's victoria was awaiting
+her guest in the court, and after he had helped his friend into it he
+stood there detaining her. "You're very indiscreet," she said rather
+wearily; "you shouldn't have moved when I did."
+
+He had taken off his hat; he passed his hand over his forehead. "I
+always forget; I'm out of the habit."
+
+"You're quite unfathomable," she repeated, glancing up at the windows of
+the house, a modern structure in the new part of the town.
+
+He paid no heed to this remark, but spoke in his own sense. "She's
+really very charming. I've scarcely known any one more graceful."
+
+"It does me good to hear you say that. The better you like her the
+better for me."
+
+"I like her very much. She's all you described her, and into the bargain
+capable, I feel, of great devotion. She has only one fault."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"Too many ideas."
+
+"I warned you she was clever."
+
+"Fortunately they're very bad ones," said Osmond.
+
+"Why is that fortunate?"
+
+"Dame, if they must be sacrificed!"
+
+Madame Merle leaned back, looking straight before her; then she spoke to
+the coachman. But her friend again detained her. "If I go to Rome what
+shall I do with Pansy?"
+
+"I'll go and see her," said Madame Merle.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+I may not attempt to report in its fulness our young woman's response
+to the deep appeal of Rome, to analyse her feelings as she trod the
+pavement of the Forum or to number her pulsations as she crossed the
+threshold of Saint Peter's. It is enough to say that her impression was
+such as might have been expected of a person of her freshness and her
+eagerness. She had always been fond of history, and here was history
+in the stones of the street and the atoms of the sunshine. She had an
+imagination that kindled at the mention of great deeds, and wherever she
+turned some great deed had been acted. These things strongly moved her,
+but moved her all inwardly. It seemed to her companions that she talked
+less than usual, and Ralph Touchett, when he appeared to be looking
+listlessly and awkwardly over her head, was really dropping on her an
+intensity of observation. By her own measure she was very happy; she
+would even have been willing to take these hours for the happiest she
+was ever to know. The sense of the terrible human past was heavy to her,
+but that of something altogether contemporary would suddenly give it
+wings that it could wave in the blue. Her consciousness was so mixed
+that she scarcely knew where the different parts of it would lead her,
+and she went about in a repressed ecstasy of contemplation, seeing often
+in the things she looked at a great deal more than was there, and yet
+not seeing many of the items enumerated in her Murray. Rome, as Ralph
+said, confessed to the psychological moment. The herd of reechoing
+tourists had departed and most of the solemn places had relapsed into
+solemnity. The sky was a blaze of blue, and the plash of the fountains
+in their mossy niches had lost its chill and doubled its music. On the
+corners of the warm, bright streets one stumbled on bundles of flowers.
+Our friends had gone one afternoon--it was the third of their stay--to
+look at the latest excavations in the Forum, these labours having been
+for some time previous largely extended. They had descended from the
+modern street to the level of the Sacred Way, along which they wandered
+with a reverence of step which was not the same on the part of each.
+Henrietta Stackpole was struck with the fact that ancient Rome had been
+paved a good deal like New York, and even found an analogy between the
+deep chariot-ruts traceable in the antique street and the overjangled
+iron grooves which express the intensity of American life. The sun had
+begun to sink, the air was a golden haze, and the long shadows of broken
+column and vague pedestal leaned across the field of ruin. Henrietta
+wandered away with Mr. Bantling, whom it was apparently delightful to
+her to hear speak of Julius Caesar as a "cheeky old boy," and Ralph
+addressed such elucidations as he was prepared to offer to the attentive
+ear of our heroine. One of the humble archeologists who hover about
+the place had put himself at the disposal of the two, and repeated his
+lesson with a fluency which the decline of the season had done nothing
+to impair. A process of digging was on view in a remote corner of the
+Forum, and he presently remarked that if it should please the signori
+to go and watch it a little they might see something of interest. The
+proposal commended itself more to Ralph than to Isabel, weary with much
+wandering; so that she admonished her companion to satisfy his curiosity
+while she patiently awaited his return. The hour and the place were much
+to her taste--she should enjoy being briefly alone. Ralph accordingly
+went off with the cicerone while Isabel sat down on a prostrate column
+near the foundations of the Capitol. She wanted a short solitude, but
+she was not long to enjoy it. Keen as was her interest in the rugged
+relics of the Roman past that lay scattered about her and in which the
+corrosion of centuries had still left so much of individual life, her
+thoughts, after resting a while on these things, had wandered, by a
+concatenation of stages it might require some subtlety to trace, to
+regions and objects charged with a more active appeal. From the Roman
+past to Isabel Archer's future was a long stride, but her imagination
+had taken it in a single flight and now hovered in slow circles over
+the nearer and richer field. She was so absorbed in her thoughts, as she
+bent her eyes upon a row of cracked but not dislocated slabs covering
+the ground at her feet, that she had not heard the sound of approaching
+footsteps before a shadow was thrown across the line of her vision. She
+looked up and saw a gentleman--a gentleman who was not Ralph come back
+to say that the excavations were a bore. This personage was startled as
+she was startled; he stood there baring his head to her perceptibly pale
+surprise.
+
+"Lord Warburton!" Isabel exclaimed as she rose.
+
+"I had no idea it was you. I turned that corner and came upon you."
+
+She looked about her to explain. "I'm alone, but my companions have just
+left me. My cousin's gone to look at the work over there."
+
+"Ah yes; I see." And Lord Warburton's eyes wandered vaguely in the
+direction she had indicated. He stood firmly before her now; he had
+recovered his balance and seemed to wish to show it, though very kindly.
+"Don't let me disturb you," he went on, looking at her dejected pillar.
+"I'm afraid you're tired."
+
+"Yes, I'm rather tired." She hesitated a moment, but sat down again.
+"Don't let me interrupt you," she added.
+
+"Oh dear, I'm quite alone, I've nothing on earth to do. I had no
+idea you were in Rome. I've just come from the East. I'm only passing
+through."
+
+"You've been making a long journey," said Isabel, who had learned from
+Ralph that Lord Warburton was absent from England.
+
+"Yes, I came abroad for six months--soon after I saw you last. I've been
+in Turkey and Asia Minor; I came the other day from Athens." He managed
+not to be awkward, but he wasn't easy, and after a longer look at the
+girl he came down to nature. "Do you wish me to leave you, or will you
+let me stay a little?"
+
+She took it all humanely. "I don't wish you to leave me, Lord Warburton;
+I'm very glad to see you."
+
+"Thank you for saying that. May I sit down?"
+
+The fluted shaft on which she had taken her seat would have afforded a
+resting-place to several persons, and there was plenty of room even for
+a highly-developed Englishman. This fine specimen of that great class
+seated himself near our young lady, and in the course of five minutes he
+had asked her several questions, taken rather at random and to which, as
+he put some of them twice over, he apparently somewhat missed catching
+the answer; had given her too some information about himself which was
+not wasted upon her calmer feminine sense. He repeated more than once
+that he had not expected to meet her, and it was evident that the
+encounter touched him in a way that would have made preparation
+advisable. He began abruptly to pass from the impunity of things
+to their solemnity, and from their being delightful to their being
+impossible. He was splendidly sunburnt; even his multitudinous beard had
+been burnished by the fire of Asia. He was dressed in the loose-fitting,
+heterogeneous garments in which the English traveller in foreign lands
+is wont to consult his comfort and affirm his nationality; and with
+his pleasant steady eyes, his bronzed complexion, fresh beneath its
+seasoning, his manly figure, his minimising manner and his general air
+of being a gentleman and an explorer, he was such a representative of
+the British race as need not in any clime have been disavowed by those
+who have a kindness for it. Isabel noted these things and was glad she
+had always liked him. He had kept, evidently in spite of shocks, every
+one of his merits--properties these partaking of the essence of great
+decent houses, as one might put it; resembling their innermost fixtures
+and ornaments, not subject to vulgar shifting and removable only by
+some whole break-up. They talked of the matters naturally in order;
+her uncle's death, Ralph's state of health, the way she had passed her
+winter, her visit to Rome, her return to Florence, her plans for the
+summer, the hotel she was staying at; and then of Lord Warburton's own
+adventures, movements, intentions, impressions and present domicile. At
+last there was a silence, and it said so much more than either had said
+that it scarce needed his final words. "I've written to you several
+times."
+
+"Written to me? I've never had your letters."
+
+"I never sent them. I burned them up."
+
+"Ah," laughed Isabel, "it was better that you should do that than I!"
+
+"I thought you wouldn't care for them," he went on with a simplicity
+that touched her. "It seemed to me that after all I had no right to
+trouble you with letters."
+
+"I should have been very glad to have news of you. You know how I hoped
+that--that--" But she stopped; there would be such a flatness in the
+utterance of her thought.
+
+"I know what you're going to say. You hoped we should always remain good
+friends." This formula, as Lord Warburton uttered it, was certainly flat
+enough; but then he was interested in making it appear so.
+
+She found herself reduced simply to "Please don't talk of all that"; a
+speech which hardly struck her as improvement on the other.
+
+"It's a small consolation to allow me!" her companion exclaimed with
+force.
+
+"I can't pretend to console you," said the girl, who, all still as
+she sat there, threw herself back with a sort of inward triumph on
+the answer that had satisfied him so little six months before. He was
+pleasant, he was powerful, he was gallant; there was no better man than
+he. But her answer remained.
+
+"It's very well you don't try to console me; it wouldn't be in your
+power," she heard him say through the medium of her strange elation.
+
+"I hoped we should meet again, because I had no fear you would attempt
+to make me feel I had wronged you. But when you do that--the pain's
+greater than the pleasure." And she got up with a small conscious
+majesty, looking for her companions.
+
+"I don't want to make you feel that; of course I can't say that. I only
+just want you to know one or two things--in fairness to myself, as it
+were. I won't return to the subject again. I felt very strongly what I
+expressed to you last year; I couldn't think of anything else. I tried
+to forget--energetically, systematically. I tried to take an interest in
+somebody else. I tell you this because I want you to know I did my duty.
+I didn't succeed. It was for the same purpose I went abroad--as far
+away as possible. They say travelling distracts the mind, but it didn't
+distract mine. I've thought of you perpetually, ever since I last saw
+you. I'm exactly the same. I love you just as much, and everything I
+said to you then is just as true. This instant at which I speak to you
+shows me again exactly how, to my great misfortune, you just insuperably
+charm me. There--I can't say less. I don't mean, however, to insist;
+it's only for a moment. I may add that when I came upon you a few
+minutes since, without the smallest idea of seeing you, I was, upon
+my honour, in the very act of wishing I knew where you were." He had
+recovered his self-control, and while he spoke it became complete. He
+might have been addressing a small committee--making all quietly and
+clearly a statement of importance; aided by an occasional look at a
+paper of notes concealed in his hat, which he had not again put on. And
+the committee, assuredly, would have felt the point proved.
+
+"I've often thought of you, Lord Warburton," Isabel answered. "You may
+be sure I shall always do that." And she added in a tone of which she
+tried to keep up the kindness and keep down the meaning: "There's no
+harm in that on either side."
+
+They walked along together, and she was prompt to ask about his sisters
+and request him to let them know she had done so. He made for the moment
+no further reference to their great question, but dipped again into
+shallower and safer waters. But he wished to know when she was to leave
+Rome, and on her mentioning the limit of her stay declared he was glad
+it was still so distant.
+
+"Why do you say that if you yourself are only passing through?" she
+enquired with some anxiety.
+
+"Ah, when I said I was passing through I didn't mean that one would
+treat Rome as if it were Clapham Junction. To pass through Rome is to
+stop a week or two."
+
+"Say frankly that you mean to stay as long as I do!"
+
+His flushed smile, for a little, seemed to sound her. "You won't like
+that. You're afraid you'll see too much of me."
+
+"It doesn't matter what I like. I certainly can't expect you to leave
+this delightful place on my account. But I confess I'm afraid of you."
+
+"Afraid I'll begin again? I promise to be very careful."
+
+They had gradually stopped and they stood a moment face to face. "Poor
+Lord Warburton!" she said with a compassion intended to be good for both
+of them.
+
+"Poor Lord Warburton indeed! But I'll be careful."
+
+"You may be unhappy, but you shall not make ME so. That I can't allow."
+
+"If I believed I could make you unhappy I think I should try it." At
+this she walked in advance and he also proceeded. "I'll never say a word
+to displease you."
+
+"Very good. If you do, our friendship's at an end."
+
+"Perhaps some day--after a while--you'll give me leave."
+
+"Give you leave to make me unhappy?"
+
+He hesitated. "To tell you again--" But he checked himself. "I'll keep
+it down. I'll keep it down always."
+
+Ralph Touchett had been joined in his visit to the excavation by Miss
+Stackpole and her attendant, and these three now emerged from among the
+mounds of earth and stone collected round the aperture and came into
+sight of Isabel and her companion. Poor Ralph hailed his friend with joy
+qualified by wonder, and Henrietta exclaimed in a high voice "Gracious,
+there's that lord!" Ralph and his English neighbour greeted with the
+austerity with which, after long separations, English neighbours greet,
+and Miss Stackpole rested her large intellectual gaze upon the sunburnt
+traveller. But she soon established her relation to the crisis. "I don't
+suppose you remember me, sir."
+
+"Indeed I do remember you," said Lord Warburton. "I asked you to come
+and see me, and you never came."
+
+"I don't go everywhere I'm asked," Miss Stackpole answered coldly.
+
+"Ah well, I won't ask you again," laughed the master of Lockleigh.
+
+"If you do I'll go; so be sure!"
+
+Lord Warburton, for all his hilarity, seemed sure enough. Mr. Bantling
+had stood by without claiming a recognition, but he now took occasion
+to nod to his lordship, who answered him with a friendly "Oh, you here,
+Bantling?" and a hand-shake.
+
+"Well," said Henrietta, "I didn't know you knew him!"
+
+"I guess you don't know every one I know," Mr. Bantling rejoined
+facetiously.
+
+"I thought that when an Englishman knew a lord he always told you."
+
+"Ah, I'm afraid Bantling was ashamed of me," Lord Warburton laughed
+again. Isabel took pleasure in that note; she gave a small sigh of
+relief as they kept their course homeward.
+
+The next day was Sunday; she spent her morning over two long
+letters--one to her sister Lily, the other to Madame Merle; but in
+neither of these epistles did she mention the fact that a rejected
+suitor had threatened her with another appeal. Of a Sunday afternoon
+all good Romans (and the best Romans are often the northern barbarians)
+follow the custom of going to vespers at Saint Peter's; and it had been
+agreed among our friends that they would drive together to the great
+church. After lunch, an hour before the carriage came, Lord Warburton
+presented himself at the Hotel de Paris and paid a visit to the two
+ladies, Ralph Touchett and Mr. Bantling having gone out together. The
+visitor seemed to have wished to give Isabel a proof of his intention to
+keep the promise made her the evening before; he was both discreet and
+frank--not even dumbly importunate or remotely intense. He thus left
+her to judge what a mere good friend he could be. He talked about his
+travels, about Persia, about Turkey, and when Miss Stackpole asked him
+whether it would "pay" for her to visit those countries assured her they
+offered a great field to female enterprise. Isabel did him justice, but
+she wondered what his purpose was and what he expected to gain even by
+proving the superior strain of his sincerity. If he expected to melt
+her by showing what a good fellow he was, he might spare himself the
+trouble. She knew the superior strain of everything about him, and
+nothing he could now do was required to light the view. Moreover
+his being in Rome at all affected her as a complication of the wrong
+sort--she liked so complications of the right. Nevertheless, when, on
+bringing his call to a close, he said he too should be at Saint Peter's
+and should look out for her and her friends, she was obliged to reply
+that he must follow his convenience.
+
+In the church, as she strolled over its tesselated acres, he was the
+first person she encountered. She had not been one of the superior
+tourists who are "disappointed" in Saint Peter's and find it smaller
+than its fame; the first time she passed beneath the huge leathern
+curtain that strains and bangs at the entrance, the first time she found
+herself beneath the far-arching dome and saw the light drizzle down
+through the air thickened with incense and with the reflections of
+marble and gilt, of mosaic and bronze, her conception of greatness rose
+and dizzily rose. After this it never lacked space to soar. She gazed
+and wondered like a child or a peasant, she paid her silent tribute to
+the seated sublime. Lord Warburton walked beside her and talked of Saint
+Sophia of Constantinople; she feared for instance that he would end
+by calling attention to his exemplary conduct. The service had not yet
+begun, but at Saint Peter's there is much to observe, and as there is
+something almost profane in the vastness of the place, which seems meant
+as much for physical as for spiritual exercise, the different figures
+and groups, the mingled worshippers and spectators, may follow their
+various intentions without conflict or scandal. In that splendid
+immensity individual indiscretion carries but a short distance. Isabel
+and her companions, however, were guilty of none; for though Henrietta
+was obliged in candour to declare that Michael Angelo's dome suffered
+by comparison with that of the Capitol at Washington, she addressed
+her protest chiefly to Mr. Bantling's ear and reserved it in its more
+accentuated form for the columns of the Interviewer. Isabel made the
+circuit of the church with his lordship, and as they drew near the choir
+on the left of the entrance the voices of the Pope's singers were borne
+to them over the heads of the large number of persons clustered outside
+the doors. They paused a while on the skirts of this crowd, composed
+in equal measure of Roman cockneys and inquisitive strangers, and while
+they stood there the sacred concert went forward. Ralph, with Henrietta
+and Mr. Bantling, was apparently within, where Isabel, looking beyond
+the dense group in front of her, saw the afternoon light, silvered by
+clouds of incense that seemed to mingle with the splendid chant, slope
+through the embossed recesses of high windows. After a while the singing
+stopped and then Lord Warburton seemed disposed to move off with her.
+Isabel could only accompany him; whereupon she found herself confronted
+with Gilbert Osmond, who appeared to have been standing at a short
+distance behind her. He now approached with all the forms--he appeared
+to have multiplied them on this occasion to suit the place.
+
+"So you decided to come?" she said as she put out her hand.
+
+"Yes, I came last night and called this afternoon at your hotel. They
+told me you had come here, and I looked about for you."
+
+"The others are inside," she decided to say.
+
+"I didn't come for the others," he promptly returned.
+
+She looked away; Lord Warburton was watching them; perhaps he had heard
+this. Suddenly she remembered it to be just what he had said to her the
+morning he came to Gardencourt to ask her to marry him. Mr. Osmond's
+words had brought the colour to her cheek, and this reminiscence had not
+the effect of dispelling it. She repaired any betrayal by mentioning to
+each companion the name of the other, and fortunately at this moment Mr.
+Bantling emerged from the choir, cleaving the crowd with British valour
+and followed by Miss Stackpole and Ralph Touchett. I say fortunately,
+but this is perhaps a superficial view of the matter; since on
+perceiving the gentleman from Florence Ralph Touchett appeared to take
+the case as not committing him to joy. He didn't hang back, however,
+from civility, and presently observed to Isabel, with due benevolence,
+that she would soon have all her friends about her. Miss Stackpole had
+met Mr. Osmond in Florence, but she had already found occasion to say
+to Isabel that she liked him no better than her other admirers--than Mr.
+Touchett and Lord Warburton, and even than little Mr. Rosier in Paris.
+"I don't know what it's in you," she had been pleased to remark, "but
+for a nice girl you do attract the most unnatural people. Mr. Goodwood's
+the only one I've any respect for, and he's just the one you don't
+appreciate."
+
+"What's your opinion of Saint Peter's?" Mr. Osmond was meanwhile
+enquiring of our young lady.
+
+"It's very large and very bright," she contented herself with replying.
+
+"It's too large; it makes one feel like an atom."
+
+"Isn't that the right way to feel in the greatest of human temples?" she
+asked with rather a liking for her phrase.
+
+"I suppose it's the right way to feel everywhere, when one IS nobody.
+But I like it in a church as little as anywhere else."
+
+"You ought indeed to be a Pope!" Isabel exclaimed, remembering something
+he had referred to in Florence.
+
+"Ah, I should have enjoyed that!" said Gilbert Osmond.
+
+Lord Warburton meanwhile had joined Ralph Touchett, and the two strolled
+away together. "Who's the fellow speaking to Miss Archer?" his lordship
+demanded.
+
+"His name's Gilbert Osmond--he lives in Florence," Ralph said.
+
+"What is he besides?"
+
+"Nothing at all. Oh yes, he's an American; but one forgets that--he's so
+little of one."
+
+"Has he known Miss Archer long?"
+
+"Three or four weeks."
+
+"Does she like him?"
+
+"She's trying to find out."
+
+"And will she?"
+
+"Find out--?" Ralph asked.
+
+"Will she like him?"
+
+"Do you mean will she accept him?"
+
+"Yes," said Lord Warburton after an instant; "I suppose that's what I
+horribly mean."
+
+"Perhaps not if one does nothing to prevent it," Ralph replied.
+
+His lordship stared a moment, but apprehended. "Then we must be
+perfectly quiet?"
+
+"As quiet as the grave. And only on the chance!" Ralph added.
+
+"The chance she may?"
+
+"The chance she may not?"
+
+Lord Warburton took this at first in silence, but he spoke again. "Is he
+awfully clever?"
+
+"Awfully," said Ralph.
+
+His companion thought. "And what else?"
+
+"What more do you want?" Ralph groaned.
+
+"Do you mean what more does SHE?"
+
+Ralph took him by the arm to turn him: they had to rejoin the others.
+"She wants nothing that WE can give her."
+
+"Ah well, if she won't have You--!" said his lordship handsomely as they
+went.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Portrait of a Lady, by Henry James
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