initial commit of ebook 2833HEADmain

3 files changed, 29875 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/old/1pldy10.txt b/old/1pldy10.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..223d93c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/1pldy10.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,14145 @@
+Project Gutenberg's The Portrait of a Lady, V. 1, by Henry James
+#36 in our series by Henry James
+
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check
+the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!!
+
+Please take a look at the important information in this header.
+We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an
+electronic path open for the next readers.  Do not remove this.
+
+*It must legally be the first thing seen when opening the book.*
+In fact, our legal advisors said we can't even change margins.
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations*
+
+Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and
+further information is included below.  We need your donations.
+
+
+Title:  The Portrait of a Lady  [Volume 1]
+
+Author:  Henry James
+
+September, 2001  [Etext #2833]
+[Yes, we are about one year ahead of schedule]
+
+Project Gutenberg's The Portrait of a Lady, V. 1, by Henry James
+******This file should be named 1pldy10.txt or 1pldy10.zip******
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, 1pldy11.txt
+VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 1pldy10a.txt
+
+
+Etext created by Eve Sobol, South Bend, Indiana, USA
+
+Project Gutenberg Etexts are usually created from multiple editions,
+all of which are in the Public Domain in the United States, unless a
+copyright notice is included.  Therefore, we usually do NOT keep any
+of these books in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance
+of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
+
+Please note:  neither this list nor its contents are final till
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.  To be sure you have an
+up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes
+in the first week of the next month.  Since our ftp program has
+a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a
+look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a
+new copy has at least one byte more or less.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
+to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.  This
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If our value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
+million dollars per hour this year as we release thirty-six text
+files per month, or 432 more Etexts in 1999 for a total of 2000+
+If these reach just 10% of the computerized population, then the
+total should reach over 200 billion Etexts given away this year.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext
+Files by December 31, 2001.  [10,000 x 100,000,000 = 1 Trillion]
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is only ~5% of the present number of computer users.
+
+At our revised rates of production, we will reach only one-third
+of that goal by the end of 2001, or about 3,333 Etexts unless we
+manage to get some real funding; currently our funding is mostly
+from Michael Hart's salary at Carnegie-Mellon University, and an
+assortment of sporadic gifts; this salary is only good for a few
+more years, so we are looking for something to replace it, as we
+don't want Project Gutenberg to be so dependent on one person.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+
+All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/CMU": and are
+tax deductible to the extent allowable by law.  (CMU = Carnegie-
+Mellon University).
+
+For these and other matters, please mail to:
+
+Project Gutenberg
+P. O. Box  2782
+Champaign, IL 61825
+
+When all other email fails. . .try our Executive Director:
+Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>
+hart@pobox.com forwards to hart@prairienet.org and archive.org
+if your mail bounces from archive.org, I will still see it, if
+it bounces from prairienet.org, better resend later on. . . .
+
+We would prefer to send you this information by email.
+
+******
+
+To access Project Gutenberg etexts, use any Web browser
+to view http://promo.net/pg.  This site lists Etexts by
+author and by title, and includes information about how
+to get involved with Project Gutenberg.  You could also
+download our past Newsletters, or subscribe here.  This
+is one of our major sites, please email hart@pobox.com,
+for a more complete list of our various sites.
+
+To go directly to the etext collections, use FTP or any
+Web browser to visit a Project Gutenberg mirror (mirror
+sites are available on 7 continents; mirrors are listed
+at http://promo.net/pg).
+
+Mac users, do NOT point and click, typing works better.
+
+Example FTP session:
+
+ftp metalab.unc.edu
+login: anonymous
+password: your@login
+cd pub/docs/books/gutenberg
+cd etext90 through etext99 or etext00 through etext01, etc.
+dir [to see files]
+get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files]
+GET GUTINDEX.??  [to get a year's listing of books, e.g., GUTINDEX.99]
+GET GUTINDEX.ALL [to get a listing of ALL books]
+
+***
+
+**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor**
+
+(Three Pages)
+
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here?  You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault.  So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you.  It also tells you how
+you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement.  If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from.  If you received this etext on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-
+tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor
+Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at
+Carnegie-Mellon University (the "Project").  Among other
+things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext
+under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works.  Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects".  Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this
+etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from.  If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy.  If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS".  NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors,
+officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost
+and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or
+indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause:
+[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification,
+or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     etext or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word pro-
+     cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The etext may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the etext (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the
+     net profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Association/Carnegie-Mellon
+     University" within the 60 days following each
+     date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare)
+     your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time,
+scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty
+free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution
+you can think of.  Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg
+Association / Carnegie-Mellon University".
+
+We are planning on making some changes in our donation structure
+in 2000, so you might want to email me, hart@pobox.com beforehand.
+
+
+
+
+*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
+
+
+
+
+
+Etext created by Eve Sobol, South Bend, Indiana, USA
+
+
+
+
+
+The Portrait of a Lady
+
+by Henry James
+
+
+
+
+VOLUME I
+
+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, any way, 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 anyway, 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 he 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.
+Banding 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
+vows 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 Uffzi 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 he 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 Project Gutenberg's The Portrait of a Lady, V. 1, by Henry James
+
diff --git a/old/1pldy10.zip b/old/1pldy10.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3afe032
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/1pldy10.zip
diff --git a/old/2833-h.htm.2021-01-27 b/old/2833-h.htm.2021-01-27
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..85b1abf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/2833-h.htm.2021-01-27
@@ -0,0 +1,15730 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      The Portrait of a Lady, Volume 1 (of 2) by Henry James
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+.smcap  {font-variant:small-caps;font-size:100%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+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
+
+Release Date: December 1, 2008 [EBook #2833]
+Last Updated: December 10, 2012
+Last Updated: September 20, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Eve Sobol, and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      VOLUME I (of II)
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By Henry James
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <h3>
+        Contents
+      </h3>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_PREF"> PREFACE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> <b>THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY</b> </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER XXVI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER XXVII </a>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <table summary="" border="3" cellpadding="4">
+      <tbody>
+        <tr>
+          <td>
+            &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+            href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2834/2834-h/2834-h.htm">Next
+            Volume</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+          </td>
+        </tr>
+      </tbody>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_PREF" id="link2H_PREF">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      PREFACE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;<i>The Portrait of a Lady</i>&rdquo; was, like &ldquo;<i>Roderick Hudson</i>,&rdquo; begun
+      in Florence, during three months spent there in the spring of 1879. Like &ldquo;<i>Roderick</i>&rdquo;
+       and like &ldquo;<i>The American</i>,&rdquo; it had been designed for publication in &ldquo;<i>The
+      Atlantic Monthly</i>,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;<i>Macmillan&rsquo;s Magazine</i>&rdquo;; which was to be for me
+      one of the last occasions of simultaneous &ldquo;serialisation&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;all talk there, wherever uttered, having the pitch of a
+      call across the water&mdash;come in once more at the window, renewing
+      one&rsquo;s old impression of the delighted senses and the divided, frustrated
+      mind. How can places that speak <i>in general</i> 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&mdash;more than, in the given case, one has use for; so that one
+      finds one&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s book, and one&rsquo;s &ldquo;literary effort&rdquo; 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 <i>how</i> 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&rsquo;s part, always witless enough good
+      faith, always anxious enough desire, to fail to guard him against their
+      deceits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;plot,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;subject,&rdquo; 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&rsquo;s imagination, of some such apology for a motive.
+      These are the fascinations of the fabulist&rsquo;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To arrive at these things is to arrive at my story,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and that&rsquo;s
+      the way I look for it. The result is that I&rsquo;m often accused of not having
+      &lsquo;story&rsquo; enough. I seem to myself to have as much as I need&mdash;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
+      <i>placed</i>, 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&mdash;of which I dare
+      say, alas, <i>que cela manque souvent d&rsquo;architecture</i>. But I would
+      rather, I think, have too little architecture than too much&mdash;when
+      there&rsquo;s danger of its interfering with my measure of the truth. The French
+      of course like more of it than I give&mdash;having by their own genius
+      such a hand for it; and indeed one must give all one can. As for the
+      origin of one&rsquo;s wind-blown germs themselves, who shall say, as you ask,
+      where <i>they</i> come from? We have to go too far back, too far behind,
+      to say. Isn&rsquo;t it all we can say that they come from every quarter of
+      heaven, that they are <i>there</i> 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&mdash;by which I mean that life, in its own
+      way, breathes them upon us. They are so, in a manner prescribed and
+      imposed&mdash;floated into our minds by the current of life. That reduces
+      to imbecility the vain critic&rsquo;s quarrel, so often, with one&rsquo;s subject,
+      when he hasn&rsquo;t the wit to accept it. Will he point out then which other it
+      should properly have been?&mdash;his office being, essentially to point
+      out. <i>Il en serait bien embarrassé</i>. Ah, when he points out what I&rsquo;ve
+      done or failed to do with it, that&rsquo;s another matter: there he&rsquo;s on his
+      ground. I give him up my &lsquo;sarchitecture,&rsquo;&rdquo; my distinguished friend
+      concluded, &ldquo;as much as he will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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 <i>en disponibilité</i>.
+      It gave me higher warrant than I seemed then to have met for just that
+      blest habit of one&rsquo;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&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t need its agents positively to launch it; I could think
+      so little of any situation that didn&rsquo;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&mdash;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&rsquo;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&mdash;if it be
+      not all indeed one much-embracing echo. It was impossible after that not
+      to read, for one&rsquo;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 &ldquo;subject&rdquo; in the novel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;immoral&rdquo; 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&mdash;is it valid, in a word, is
+      it genuine, is it sincere, the result of some direct impression or
+      perception of life?&mdash;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&mdash;unless the
+      difference to-day be just in one&rsquo;s own final impatience, the lapse of
+      one&rsquo;s attention. There is, I think, no more nutritive or suggestive truth
+      in this connexion than that of the perfect dependence of the &ldquo;moral&rdquo; 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&rsquo;s prime sensibility, which is the soil out of which his subject
+      springs. The quality and capacity of that soil, its ability to &ldquo;grow&rdquo; 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&rsquo;s humanity&mdash;which gives the last touch to the worth of the
+      work&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The house of fiction has in short not one window, but a million&mdash;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 <i>not</i> open;
+      &ldquo;fortunately&rdquo; by reason, precisely, of this incalculability of range. The
+      spreading field, the human scene, is the &ldquo;choice of subject&rdquo;; the pierced
+      aperture, either broad or balconied or slit-like and low-browed, is the
+      &ldquo;literary form&rdquo;; but they are, singly or together, as nothing without the
+      posted presence of the watcher&mdash;without, in other words, the
+      consciousness of the artist. Tell me what the artist is, and I will tell
+      you of what he has <i>been</i> conscious. Thereby I shall express to you
+      at once his boundless freedom and his &ldquo;moral&rdquo; reference.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this is a long way round, however, for my word about my dim first move
+      toward &ldquo;The Portrait,&rdquo; which was exactly my grasp of a single character&mdash;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&mdash;some fate or other; which, among the
+      possibilities, being precisely the question. Thus I had my vivid
+      individual&mdash;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?&mdash;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&rsquo;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, <i>been</i> placed&mdash;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 &ldquo;advance&rdquo; on rare objects confided to him, is
+      conscious of the rare little &ldquo;piece&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That may he, I recognise, a somewhat superfine analogy for the particular
+      &ldquo;value&rdquo; 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&mdash;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 &ldquo;realise,&rdquo; resigned to
+      keeping the precious object locked up indefinitely rather than commit it,
+      at no matter what price, to vulgar hands. For there <i>are</i> 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 &ldquo;<i>The Portrait of a Lady</i>.&rdquo; It came
+      to be a square and spacious house&mdash;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 &ldquo;personality,&rdquo; the
+      mere slim shade of an intelligent but presumptuous girl, to find itself
+      endowed with the high attributes of a Subject?&mdash;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 &ldquo;ado,&rdquo; 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&mdash;for
+      positively organising an ado about Isabel Archer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;&ldquo;In these frail vessels is borne onward through
+      the ages the treasure of human affection.&rdquo; In &ldquo;<i>Romeo and Juliet</i>&rdquo;
+       Juliet has to be important, just as, in &ldquo;<i>Adam Bede</i>&rdquo; and &ldquo;<i>The
+      Mill on the Floss</i>&rdquo; and &ldquo;<i>Middlemarch</i>&rdquo; and &ldquo;Daniel Deronda,&rdquo;
+       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&rsquo;s dim
+      feeling about a thing that he shall &ldquo;do&rdquo; the thing as ill as possible.
+      There are better ways than that, the best of all of which is to begin with
+      less stupidity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It may be answered meanwhile, in regard to Shakespeare&rsquo;s and to George
+      Eliot&rsquo;s testimony, that their concession to the &ldquo;importance&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;mattering&rdquo; 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 <i>them</i> 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&mdash;though its doing so becomes of
+      interest all by the fact that Portia matters to <i>us</i>. 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 &ldquo;mere&rdquo; 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&mdash;the difficulty of making George Eliot&rsquo;s &ldquo;frail
+      vessel,&rdquo; if not the all-in-all for our attention, at least the clearest of
+      the call.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;oh, ever so much better than any other!&mdash;of
+      making it fight out its battle. The frail vessel, that charged with George
+      Eliot&rsquo;s &ldquo;treasure,&rdquo; 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 <i>their</i>
+      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. &ldquo;Place the centre of the subject in the young woman&rsquo;s own
+      consciousness,&rdquo; I said to myself, &ldquo;and you get as interesting and as
+      beautiful a difficulty as you could wish. Stick to <i>that</i>&mdash;for
+      the centre; put the heaviest weight into <i>that</i> 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 <i>all</i> of them. To depend upon her and her
+      little concerns wholly to see you through will necessitate, remember, your
+      really &lsquo;doing&rsquo; her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;The Portrait&rdquo; wears
+      for me: a structure reared with an &ldquo;architectural&rdquo; competence, as
+      Turgenieff would have said, that makes it, to the author&rsquo;s own sense, the
+      most proportioned of his productions after &ldquo;The Ambassadors&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;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
+      &ldquo;pyrotechnic display,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I seem to myself to have waked up one morning in possession of them&mdash;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&rsquo;s history.
+      I recognised them, I knew them, they were the numbered pieces of my
+      puzzle, the concrete terms of my &ldquo;plot.&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;Well, what will she <i>do</i>?&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;belongs intimately to the treatment. This is a truth,
+      however, of which he rarely gets the benefit&mdash;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&mdash;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&rsquo;s part of any act of reflexion or discrimination. He may <i>enjoy</i>
+      this finer tribute&mdash;that is another affair, but on condition only of
+      taking it as a gratuity &ldquo;thrown in,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;living wage.&rdquo; The living wage is the reader&rsquo;s
+      grant of the least possible quantity of attention required for
+      consciousness of a &ldquo;spell.&rdquo; The occasional charming &ldquo;tip&rdquo; is an act of his
+      intelligence over and beyond this, a golden apple, for the writer&rsquo;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 <i>are</i> extravagances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All of which is perhaps but a gracefully devious way of saying that
+      Henrietta Stackpole was a good example, in &ldquo;The Portrait,&rdquo; of the truth to
+      which I just adverted&mdash;as good an example as I could name were it not
+      that Maria Gostrey, in &ldquo;The Ambassadors,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;hero and heroine,&rdquo; 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&rsquo;s work, that one has one&rsquo;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 <i>ficelle</i>, not of the true agent; they may run
+      beside the coach &ldquo;for all they are worth,&rdquo; 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&mdash;and in the most conciliatory fashion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A point I wish still more to make is that if my relation of confidence
+      with the actors in my drama who <i>were</i>, 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&mdash;putting
+      for bricks little touches and inventions and enhancements by the way&mdash;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&rsquo;s interest, on the most obvious of her predicates. &ldquo;What
+      will she &lsquo;do&rsquo;? Why, the first thing she&rsquo;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 &lsquo;frail vessels,&rsquo; in
+      this wonderful age, a mild adventure; but what is truer than that on one
+      side&mdash;the side of their independence of flood and field, of the
+      moving accident, of battle and murder and sudden death&mdash;her
+      adventures are to be mild? Without her sense of them, her sense <i>for</i>
+      them, as one may say, they are next to nothing at all; but isn&rsquo;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 &lsquo;story&rsquo;?&rdquo; 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&rsquo;s i&rsquo;s and insist
+      on one&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;exciting&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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 &ldquo;incidents&rdquo; 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 <i>seeing</i>, and an
+      attempt withal to make the mere still lucidity of her act as &ldquo;interesting&rdquo;
+       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 <i>overtreat</i>, 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.) &ldquo;Treating&rdquo; that of &ldquo;The Portrait&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;thinness&rdquo;&mdash;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
+      &ldquo;international&rdquo; 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
+      <i>is</i> another matter. There is really too much to say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      HENRY JAMES <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;some
+      people of course never do,&mdash;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&rsquo;s
+      enjoyment of such a scene at such an hour. From five o&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It stood upon a low hill, above the river&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;the air of a happy temperament fertilised
+      by a high civilisation&mdash;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&mdash;a large, white,
+      well-shaped fist&mdash;was crumpled a pair of soiled dog-skin gloves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&rsquo;s eye
+      at last and gave him a mild, responsive smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m getting on very well,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you drunk your tea?&rdquo; asked the son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, and enjoyed it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I give you some more?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man considered, placidly. &ldquo;Well, I guess I&rsquo;ll wait and see.&rdquo; He
+      had, in speaking, the American tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you cold?&rdquo; the son enquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The father slowly rubbed his legs. &ldquo;Well, I don&rsquo;t know. I can&rsquo;t tell till
+      I feel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps some one might feel for you,&rdquo; said the younger man, laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I hope some one will always feel for me! Don&rsquo;t you feel for me, Lord
+      Warburton?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes, immensely,&rdquo; said the gentleman addressed as Lord Warburton,
+      promptly. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m bound to say you look wonderfully comfortable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I suppose I am, in most respects.&rdquo; And the old man looked down at
+      his green shawl and smoothed it over his knees. &ldquo;The fact is I&rsquo;ve been
+      comfortable so many years that I suppose I&rsquo;ve got so used to it I don&rsquo;t
+      know it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, that&rsquo;s the bore of comfort,&rdquo; said Lord Warburton. &ldquo;We only know when
+      we&rsquo;re uncomfortable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It strikes me we&rsquo;re rather particular,&rdquo; his companion remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes, there&rsquo;s no doubt we&rsquo;re particular,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;I should
+      think you would be very unhappy with that shawl,&rdquo; Lord Warburton resumed
+      while his companion filled the old man&rsquo;s cup again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh no, he must have the shawl!&rdquo; cried the gentleman in the velvet coat.
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t put such ideas as that into his head.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It belongs to my wife,&rdquo; said the old man simply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, if it&rsquo;s for sentimental reasons&mdash;&rdquo; And Lord Warburton made a
+      gesture of apology.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose I must give it to her when she comes,&rdquo; the old man went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll please to do nothing of the kind. You&rsquo;ll keep it to cover your
+      poor old legs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you mustn&rsquo;t abuse my legs,&rdquo; said the old man. &ldquo;I guess they are as
+      good as yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you&rsquo;re perfectly free to abuse mine,&rdquo; his son replied, giving him his
+      tea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, we&rsquo;re two lame ducks; I don&rsquo;t think there&rsquo;s much difference.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m much obliged to you for calling me a duck. How&rsquo;s your tea?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, it&rsquo;s rather hot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s intended to be a merit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, there&rsquo;s a great deal of merit,&rdquo; murmured the old man, kindly. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a
+      very good nurse, Lord Warburton.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t he a bit clumsy?&rdquo; asked his lordship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh no, he&rsquo;s not clumsy&mdash;considering that he&rsquo;s an invalid himself.
+      He&rsquo;s a very good nurse&mdash;for a sick-nurse. I call him my sick-nurse
+      because he&rsquo;s sick himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, come, daddy!&rdquo; the ugly young man exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you are; I wish you weren&rsquo;t. But I suppose you can&rsquo;t help it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I might try: that&rsquo;s an idea,&rdquo; said the young man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Were you ever sick, Lord Warburton?&rdquo; his father asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Warburton considered a moment. &ldquo;Yes, sir, once, in the Persian Gulf.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s making light of you, daddy,&rdquo; said the other young man. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a
+      sort of joke.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, there seem to be so many sorts now,&rdquo; daddy replied, serenely. &ldquo;You
+      don&rsquo;t look as if you had been sick, anyway, Lord Warburton.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s sick of life; he was just telling me so; going on fearfully about
+      it,&rdquo; said Lord Warburton&rsquo;s friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that true, sir?&rdquo; asked the old man gravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it is, your son gave me no consolation. He&rsquo;s a wretched fellow to talk
+      to&mdash;a regular cynic. He doesn&rsquo;t seem to believe in anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s another sort of joke,&rdquo; said the person accused of cynicism.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s because his health is so poor,&rdquo; his father explained to Lord
+      Warburton. &ldquo;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&rsquo;s almost entirely
+      theoretical, you know; it doesn&rsquo;t seem to affect his spirits. I&rsquo;ve hardly
+      ever seen him when he wasn&rsquo;t cheerful&mdash;about as he is at present. He
+      often cheers me up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man so described looked at Lord Warburton and laughed. &ldquo;Is it a
+      glowing eulogy or an accusation of levity? Should you like me to carry out
+      my theories, daddy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By Jove, we should see some queer things!&rdquo; cried Lord Warburton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope you haven&rsquo;t taken up that sort of tone,&rdquo; said the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Warburton&rsquo;s tone is worse than mine; he pretends to be bored. I&rsquo;m not in
+      the least bored; I find life only too interesting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, too interesting; you shouldn&rsquo;t allow it to be that, you know!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m never bored when I come here,&rdquo; said Lord Warburton. &ldquo;One gets such
+      uncommonly good talk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that another sort of joke?&rdquo; asked the old man. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve no excuse for
+      being bored anywhere. When I was your age I had never heard of such a
+      thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must have developed very late.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;re too
+      fastidious, and too indolent, and too rich.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I say,&rdquo; cried Lord Warburton, &ldquo;you&rsquo;re hardly the person to accuse a
+      fellow-creature of being too rich!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean because I&rsquo;m a banker?&rdquo; asked the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because of that, if you like; and because you have&mdash;haven&rsquo;t you?&mdash;such
+      unlimited means.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He isn&rsquo;t very rich,&rdquo; the other young man mercifully pleaded. &ldquo;He has
+      given away an immense deal of money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I suppose it was his own,&rdquo; said Lord Warburton; &ldquo;and in that case
+      could there be a better proof of wealth? Let not a public benefactor talk
+      of one&rsquo;s being too fond of pleasure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Daddy&rsquo;s very fond of pleasure&mdash;of other people&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man shook his head. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t pretend to have contributed anything
+      to the amusement of my contemporaries.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear father, you&rsquo;re too modest!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a kind of joke, sir,&rdquo; said Lord Warburton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You young men have too many jokes. When there are no jokes you&rsquo;ve nothing
+      left.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fortunately there are always more jokes,&rdquo; the ugly young man remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe it&mdash;I believe things are getting more serious. You
+      young men will find that out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The increasing seriousness of things, then that&rsquo;s the great opportunity
+      of jokes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They&rsquo;ll have to be grim jokes,&rdquo; said the old man. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m convinced there
+      will be great changes, and not all for the better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I quite agree with you, sir,&rdquo; Lord Warburton declared. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m very sure
+      there will be great changes, and that all sorts of queer things will
+      happen. That&rsquo;s why I find so much difficulty in applying your advice; you
+      know you told me the other day that I ought to &lsquo;take hold&rsquo; of something.
+      One hesitates to take hold of a thing that may the next moment be knocked
+      sky-high.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You ought to take hold of a pretty woman,&rdquo; said his companion. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s
+      trying hard to fall in love,&rdquo; he added, by way of explanation, to his
+      father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The pretty women themselves may be sent flying!&rdquo; Lord Warburton
+      exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no, they&rsquo;ll be firm,&rdquo; the old man rejoined; &ldquo;they&rsquo;ll not be affected
+      by the social and political changes I just referred to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean they won&rsquo;t be abolished? Very well, then, I&rsquo;ll lay hands on one
+      as soon as possible and tie her round my neck as a life-preserver.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The ladies will save us,&rdquo; said the old man; &ldquo;that is the best of them
+      will&mdash;for I make a difference between them. Make up to a good one and
+      marry her, and your life will become much more interesting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I marry an interesting woman I shall be interested: is that what you
+      say?&rdquo; Lord Warburton asked. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not at all keen about marrying&mdash;your
+      son misrepresented me; but there&rsquo;s no knowing what an interesting woman
+      might do with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like to see your idea of an interesting woman,&rdquo; said his friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear fellow, you can&rsquo;t see ideas&mdash;especially such highly ethereal
+      ones as mine. If I could only see it myself&mdash;that would be a great
+      step in advance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you may fall in love with whomsoever you please; but you mustn&rsquo;t
+      fall in love with my niece,&rdquo; said the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His son broke into a laugh. &ldquo;He&rsquo;ll think you mean that as a provocation!
+      My dear father, you&rsquo;ve lived with the English for thirty years, and you&rsquo;ve
+      picked up a good many of the things they say. But you&rsquo;ve never learned the
+      things they don&rsquo;t say!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say what I please,&rdquo; the old man returned with all his serenity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t the honour of knowing your niece,&rdquo; Lord Warburton said. &ldquo;I
+      think it&rsquo;s the first time I&rsquo;ve heard of her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s a niece of my wife&rsquo;s; Mrs. Touchett brings her to England.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then young Mr. Touchett explained. &ldquo;My mother, you know, has been spending
+      the winter in America, and we&rsquo;re expecting her back. She writes that she
+      has discovered a niece and that she has invited her to come out with her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see,&mdash;very kind of her,&rdquo; said Lord Warburton. Is the young lady
+      interesting?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;t know how to write
+      them, but my mother has thoroughly mastered the art of condensation.
+      &lsquo;Tired America, hot weather awful, return England with niece, first
+      steamer decent cabin.&rsquo; That&rsquo;s the sort of message we get from her&mdash;that
+      was the last that came. But there had been another before, which I think
+      contained the first mention of the niece. &lsquo;Changed hotel, very bad,
+      impudent clerk, address here. Taken sister&rsquo;s girl, died last year, go to
+      Europe, two sisters, quite independent.&rsquo; Over that my father and I have
+      scarcely stopped puzzling; it seems to admit of so many interpretations.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s one thing very clear in it,&rdquo; said the old man; &ldquo;she has given the
+      hotel-clerk a dressing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;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&rsquo;s daughters.
+      But who&rsquo;s &lsquo;quite independent,&rsquo; and in what sense is the term used?&mdash;that
+      point&rsquo;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?&mdash;and is it used in a moral or in a financial sense? Does it
+      mean that they&rsquo;ve been left well off, or that they wish to be under no
+      obligations? or does it simply mean that they&rsquo;re fond of their own way?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whatever else it means, it&rsquo;s pretty sure to mean that,&rdquo; Mr. Touchett
+      remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll see for yourself,&rdquo; said Lord Warburton. &ldquo;When does Mrs. Touchett
+      arrive?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In that case she would probably have telegraphed to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She never telegraphs when you would expect it&mdash;only when you don&rsquo;t,&rdquo;
+       said the old man. &ldquo;She likes to drop on me suddenly; she thinks she&rsquo;ll
+      find me doing something wrong. She has never done so yet, but she&rsquo;s not
+      discouraged.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s her share in the family trait, the independence she speaks of.&rdquo; Her
+      son&rsquo;s appreciation of the matter was more favourable. &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you at least let me know when your cousin arrives?&rdquo; Lord Warburton
+      asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only on the condition I&rsquo;ve mentioned&mdash;that you don&rsquo;t fall in love
+      with her!&rdquo; Mr. Touchett replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That strikes me as hard, don&rsquo;t you think me good enough?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you too good&mdash;because I shouldn&rsquo;t like her to marry you. She
+      hasn&rsquo;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&rsquo;s probably
+      engaged; American girls are usually engaged, I believe. Moreover I&rsquo;m not
+      sure, after all, that you&rsquo;d be a remarkable husband.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very likely she&rsquo;s engaged; I&rsquo;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,&rdquo; Mr. Touchett&rsquo;s visitor pursued,
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not sure of that either. One can but try!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Try as much as you please, but don&rsquo;t try on my niece,&rdquo; smiled the old
+      man, whose opposition to the idea was broadly humorous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, well,&rdquo; said Lord Warburton with a humour broader still, &ldquo;perhaps,
+      after all, she&rsquo;s not worth trying on!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&mdash;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&rsquo;s ill-health. Meantime the two other
+      gentlemen had also taken note of the new-comer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear me, who&rsquo;s that strange woman?&rdquo; Mr. Touchett had asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps it&rsquo;s Mrs. Touchett&rsquo;s niece&mdash;the independent young lady,&rdquo;
+       Lord Warburton suggested. &ldquo;I think she must be, from the way she handles
+      the dog.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But where&rsquo;s my wife then?&rdquo; murmured the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose the young lady has left her somewhere: that&rsquo;s a part of the
+      independence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl spoke to Ralph, smiling, while she still held up the terrier. &ldquo;Is
+      this your little dog, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was mine a moment ago; but you&rsquo;ve suddenly acquired a remarkable air
+      of property in him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Couldn&rsquo;t we share him?&rdquo; asked the girl. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s such a perfect little
+      darling.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ralph looked at her a moment; she was unexpectedly pretty. &ldquo;You may have
+      him altogether,&rdquo; he then replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young lady seemed to have a great deal of confidence, both in herself
+      and in others; but this abrupt generosity made her blush. &ldquo;I ought to tell
+      you that I&rsquo;m probably your cousin,&rdquo; she brought out, putting down the dog.
+      &ldquo;And here&rsquo;s another!&rdquo; she added quickly, as the collie came up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Probably?&rdquo; the young man exclaimed, laughing. &ldquo;I supposed it was quite
+      settled! Have you arrived with my mother?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, half an hour ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And has she deposited you and departed again?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man looked at his watch. &ldquo;Thank you very much; I shall be
+      punctual.&rdquo; And then he looked at his cousin. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re very welcome here.
+      I&rsquo;m delighted to see you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was looking at everything, with an eye that denoted clear perception&mdash;at
+      her companion, at the two dogs, at the two gentlemen under the trees, at
+      the beautiful scene that surrounded her. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never seen anything so
+      lovely as this place. I&rsquo;ve been all over the house; it&rsquo;s too enchanting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry you should have been here so long without our knowing it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, the elder one&mdash;the one sitting down,&rdquo; said Ralph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl gave a laugh. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t suppose it&rsquo;s the other. Who&rsquo;s the other?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a friend of ours&mdash;Lord Warburton.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I hoped there would be a lord; it&rsquo;s just like a novel!&rdquo; And then, &ldquo;Oh
+      you adorable creature!&rdquo; she suddenly cried, stooping down and picking up
+      the small dog again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Won&rsquo;t you come and make acquaintance with my father?&rdquo; he nevertheless
+      ventured to ask. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s old and infirm&mdash;he doesn&rsquo;t leave his chair.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, poor man, I&rsquo;m very sorry!&rdquo; the girl exclaimed, immediately moving
+      forward. &ldquo;I got the impression from your mother that he was rather
+      intensely active.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ralph Touchett was silent a moment. &ldquo;She hasn&rsquo;t seen him for a year.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, he has a lovely place to sit. Come along, little hound.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a dear old place,&rdquo; said the young man, looking sidewise at his
+      neighbour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s his name?&rdquo; she asked, her attention having again reverted to the
+      terrier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My father&rsquo;s name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said the young lady with amusement; &ldquo;but don&rsquo;t tell him I asked
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They had come by this time to where old Mr. Touchett was sitting, and he
+      slowly got up from his chair to introduce himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My mother has arrived,&rdquo; said Ralph, &ldquo;and this is Miss Archer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man placed his two hands on her shoulders, looked at her a moment
+      with extreme benevolence and then gallantly kissed her. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a great
+      pleasure to me to see you here; but I wish you had given us a chance to
+      receive you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, we were received,&rdquo; said the girl. &ldquo;There were about a dozen servants
+      in the hall. And there was an old woman curtseying at the gate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We can do better than that&mdash;if we have notice!&rdquo; And the old man
+      stood there smiling, rubbing his hands and slowly shaking his head at her.
+      &ldquo;But Mrs. Touchett doesn&rsquo;t like receptions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She went straight to her room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;and locked herself in. She always does that. Well, I suppose I
+      shall see her next week.&rdquo; And Mrs. Touchett&rsquo;s husband slowly resumed his
+      former posture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Before that,&rdquo; said Miss Archer. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s coming down to dinner&mdash;at
+      eight o&rsquo;clock. Don&rsquo;t you forget a quarter to seven,&rdquo; she added, turning
+      with a smile to Ralph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s to happen at a quarter to seven?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m to see my mother,&rdquo; said Ralph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, happy boy!&rdquo; the old man commented. &ldquo;You must sit down&mdash;you must
+      have some tea,&rdquo; he observed to his wife&rsquo;s niece.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They gave me some tea in my room the moment I got there,&rdquo; this young lady
+      answered. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry you&rsquo;re out of health,&rdquo; she added, resting her eyes
+      upon her venerable host.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I&rsquo;m an old man, my dear; it&rsquo;s time for me to be old. But I shall be
+      the better for having you here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had been looking all round her again&mdash;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. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve
+      never seen anything so beautiful as this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s looking very well,&rdquo; said Mr. Touchett. &ldquo;I know the way it strikes
+      you. I&rsquo;ve been through all that. But you&rsquo;re very beautiful yourself,&rdquo; 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&mdash;even to young persons who might possibly take alarm at them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;Oh
+      yes, of course I&rsquo;m lovely!&rdquo; she returned with a quick laugh. &ldquo;How old is
+      your house? Is it Elizabethan?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s early Tudor,&rdquo; said Ralph Touchett.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned toward him, watching his face. &ldquo;Early Tudor? How very
+      delightful! And I suppose there are a great many others.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are many much better ones.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t say that, my son!&rdquo; the old man protested. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing better
+      than this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got a very good one; I think in some respects it&rsquo;s rather better,&rdquo;
+       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. &ldquo;I should like very
+      much to show it to you,&rdquo; he added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t believe him,&rdquo; cried the old man; &ldquo;don&rsquo;t look at it! It&rsquo;s a wretched
+      old barrack&mdash;not to be compared with this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know&mdash;I can&rsquo;t judge,&rdquo; said the girl, smiling at Lord
+      Warburton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you very fond of dogs?&rdquo; he enquired by way of beginning. He seemed to
+      recognise that it was an awkward beginning for a clever man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very fond of them indeed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must keep the terrier, you know,&rdquo; he went on, still awkwardly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll keep him while I&rsquo;m here, with pleasure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That will be for a long time, I hope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re very kind. I hardly know. My aunt must settle that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll settle it with her&mdash;at a quarter to seven.&rdquo; And Ralph looked at
+      his watch again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad to be here at all,&rdquo; said the girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe you allow things to be settled for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes; if they&rsquo;re settled as I like them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall settle this as I like it,&rdquo; said Ralph. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s most unaccountable
+      that we should never have known you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was there&mdash;you had only to come and see me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There? Where do you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the United States: in New York and Albany and other American places.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been there&mdash;all over, but I never saw you. I can&rsquo;t make it
+      out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Archer just hesitated. &ldquo;It was because there had been some
+      disagreement between your mother and my father, after my mother&rsquo;s death,
+      which took place when I was a child. In consequence of it we never
+      expected to see you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, but I don&rsquo;t embrace all my mother&rsquo;s quarrels&mdash;heaven forbid!&rdquo;
+       the young man cried. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve lately lost your father?&rdquo; he went on more
+      gravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see,&rdquo; said Ralph. &ldquo;She has adopted you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Adopted me?&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh no; she has not adopted me. I&rsquo;m not a candidate for adoption.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg a thousand pardons,&rdquo; Ralph murmured. &ldquo;I meant&mdash;I meant&mdash;&rdquo;
+       He hardly knew what he meant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You meant she has taken me up. Yes; she likes to take people up. She has
+      been very kind to me; but,&rdquo; she added with a certain visible eagerness of
+      desire to be explicit, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m very fond of my liberty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you talking about Mrs. Touchett?&rdquo; the old man called out from his
+      chair. &ldquo;Come here, my dear, and tell me about her. I&rsquo;m always thankful for
+      information.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl hesitated again, smiling. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s really very benevolent,&rdquo; she
+      answered; after which she went over to her uncle, whose mirth was excited
+      by her words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Warburton was left standing with Ralph Touchett, to whom in a moment
+      he said: &ldquo;You wished a while ago to see my idea of an interesting woman.
+      There it is!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Touchett was certainly a person of many oddities, of which her
+      behaviour on returning to her husband&rsquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;a much more edifying aspect of it&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had taken up her niece&mdash;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&mdash;large white
+      doors, with an arched frame and wide side-lights, perched upon little
+      &ldquo;stoops&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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&mdash;weeks of which Isabel had the
+      happiest memory. The manner of life was different from that of her own
+      home&mdash;larger, more plentiful, practically more festal; the discipline
+      of the nursery was delightfully vague and the opportunity of listening to
+      the conversation of one&rsquo;s elders (which with Isabel was a highly-valued
+      pleasure) almost unbounded. There was a constant coming and going; her
+      grandmother&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;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&rsquo;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&mdash;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&rsquo;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&mdash;she was guided in the selection chiefly
+      by the frontispiece&mdash;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&mdash;a place which became to the child&rsquo;s
+      imagination, according to its different moods, a region of delight or of
+      terror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was in the &ldquo;office&rdquo; 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&mdash;and it seemed a cynical, insincere appeal&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; she began, &ldquo;is that where you usually sit?&rdquo; She looked about at the
+      heterogeneous chairs and tables.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not when I have visitors,&rdquo; said Isabel, getting up to receive the
+      intruder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She directed their course back to the library while the visitor continued
+      to look about her. &ldquo;You seem to have plenty of other rooms; they&rsquo;re in
+      rather better condition. But everything&rsquo;s immensely worn.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you come to look at the house?&rdquo; Isabel asked. &ldquo;The servant will show
+      it to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Send her away; I don&rsquo;t want to buy it. She has probably gone to look for
+      you and is wandering about upstairs; she didn&rsquo;t seem at all intelligent.
+      You had better tell her it&rsquo;s no matter.&rdquo; And then, since the girl stood
+      there hesitating and wondering, this unexpected critic said to her
+      abruptly: &ldquo;I suppose you&rsquo;re one of the daughters?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel thought she had very strange manners. &ldquo;It depends upon whose
+      daughters you mean.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The late Mr. Archer&rsquo;s&mdash;and my poor sister&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; said Isabel slowly, &ldquo;you must be our crazy Aunt Lydia!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that what your father told you to call me? I&rsquo;m your Aunt Lydia, but
+      I&rsquo;m not at all crazy: I haven&rsquo;t a delusion! And which of the daughters are
+      you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m the youngest of the three, and my name&rsquo;s Isabel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; the others are Lilian and Edith. And are you the prettiest?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t the least idea,&rdquo; said the girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you must be.&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s illness, were remaining there for the present and, as
+      well as Isabel herself, occupying the old place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How much money do you expect for it?&rdquo; Mrs. Touchett asked of her
+      companion, who had brought her to sit in the front parlour, which she had
+      inspected without enthusiasm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t the least idea,&rdquo; said the girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the second time you have said that to me,&rdquo; her aunt rejoined. &ldquo;And
+      yet you don&rsquo;t look at all stupid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not stupid; but I don&rsquo;t know anything about money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, that&rsquo;s the way you were brought up&mdash;as if you were to inherit a
+      million. What have you in point of fact inherited?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I really can&rsquo;t tell you. You must ask Edmund and Lilian; they&rsquo;ll be back
+      in half an hour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In Florence we should call it a very bad house,&rdquo; said Mrs. Touchett; &ldquo;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&rsquo;s most extraordinary your not knowing. The position&rsquo;s
+      of value, and they&rsquo;ll probably pull it down and make a row of shops. I
+      wonder you don&rsquo;t do that yourself; you might let the shops to great
+      advantage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel stared; the idea of letting shops was new to her. &ldquo;I hope they
+      won&rsquo;t pull it down,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;I&rsquo;m extremely fond of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see what makes you fond of it; your father died here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; but I don&rsquo;t dislike it for that,&rdquo; the girl rather strangely
+      returned. &ldquo;I like places in which things have happened&mdash;even if
+      they&rsquo;re sad things. A great many people have died here; the place has been
+      full of life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that what you call being full of life?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean full of experience&mdash;of people&rsquo;s feelings and sorrows. And not
+      of their sorrows only, for I&rsquo;ve been very happy here as a child.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You should go to Florence if you like houses in which things have
+      happened&mdash;especially deaths. I live in an old palace in which three
+      people have been murdered; three that were known and I don&rsquo;t know how many
+      more besides.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In an old palace?&rdquo; Isabel repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, my dear; a very different affair from this. This is very bourgeois.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel felt some emotion, for she had always thought highly of her
+      grandmother&rsquo;s house. But the emotion was of a kind which led her to say:
+      &ldquo;I should like very much to go to Florence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, if you&rsquo;ll be very good, and do everything I tell you I&rsquo;ll take you
+      there,&rdquo; Mrs. Touchett declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our young woman&rsquo;s emotion deepened; she flushed a little and smiled at her
+      aunt in silence. &ldquo;Do everything you tell me? I don&rsquo;t think I can promise
+      that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, you don&rsquo;t look like a person of that sort. You&rsquo;re fond of your own
+      way; but it&rsquo;s not for me to blame you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And yet, to go to Florence,&rdquo; the girl exclaimed in a moment, &ldquo;I&rsquo;d promise
+      almost anything!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Edmund and Lilian were slow to return, and Mrs. Touchett had an hour&rsquo;s
+      uninterrupted talk with her niece, who found her a strange and interesting
+      figure: a figure essentially&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;clock Mrs. Ludlow
+      had not come in she prepared to take her departure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your sister must be a great gossip. Is she accustomed to staying out so
+      many hours?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve been out almost as long as she,&rdquo; Isabel replied; &ldquo;she can have
+      left the house but a short time before you came in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Touchett looked at the girl without resentment; she appeared to enjoy
+      a bold retort and to be disposed to be gracious. &ldquo;Perhaps she hasn&rsquo;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&rsquo;t bring you. I shall see plenty of you later.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;intellectual&rdquo; 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&rsquo;s, but Lilian had occasionally been spoken
+      of as a young woman who might be thankful to marry at all&mdash;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&rsquo;s force in argument and her sister Isabel&rsquo;s originality. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve
+      never kept up with Isabel&mdash;it would have taken all my time,&rdquo; 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.
+      &ldquo;I want to see her safely married&mdash;that&rsquo;s what I want to see,&rdquo; she
+      frequently noted to her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I must say I should have no particular desire to marry her,&rdquo; Edmund
+      Ludlow was accustomed to answer in an extremely audible tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know you say that for argument; you always take the opposite ground. I
+      don&rsquo;t see what you&rsquo;ve against her except that she&rsquo;s so original.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I don&rsquo;t like originals; I like translations,&rdquo; Mr. Ludlow had more
+      than once replied. &ldquo;Isabel&rsquo;s written in a foreign tongue. I can&rsquo;t make her
+      out. She ought to marry an Armenian or a Portuguese.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s just what I&rsquo;m afraid she&rsquo;ll do!&rdquo; cried Lilian, who thought Isabel
+      capable of anything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She listened with great interest to the girl&rsquo;s account of Mrs. Touchett&rsquo;s
+      appearance and in the evening prepared to comply with their aunt&rsquo;s
+      commands. Of what Isabel then said no report has remained, but her
+      sister&rsquo;s words had doubtless prompted a word spoken to her husband as the
+      two were making ready for their visit. &ldquo;I do hope immensely she&rsquo;ll do
+      something handsome for Isabel; she has evidently taken a great fancy to
+      her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it you wish her to do?&rdquo; Edmund Ludlow asked. &ldquo;Make her a big
+      present?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No indeed; nothing of the sort. But take an interest in her&mdash;sympathise
+      with her. She&rsquo;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&rsquo;ve always thought Isabel rather foreign.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You want her to give her a little foreign sympathy, eh? Don&rsquo;t you think
+      she gets enough at home?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, she ought to go abroad,&rdquo; said Mrs. Ludlow. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s just the person
+      to go abroad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you want the old lady to take her, is that it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has offered to take her&mdash;she&rsquo;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&rsquo;m sure all we&rsquo;ve got to do,&rdquo; said Mrs. Ludlow, &ldquo;is to give
+      her a chance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A chance for what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A chance to develop.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh Moses!&rdquo; Edmund Ludlow exclaimed. &ldquo;I hope she isn&rsquo;t going to develop
+      any more!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I were not sure you only said that for argument I should feel very
+      badly,&rdquo; his wife replied. &ldquo;But you know you love her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know I love you?&rdquo; the young man said, jocosely, to Isabel a little
+      later, while he brushed his hat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure I don&rsquo;t care whether you do or not!&rdquo; exclaimed the girl; whose
+      voice and smile, however, were less haughty than her words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, she feels so grand since Mrs. Touchett&rsquo;s visit,&rdquo; said her sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Isabel challenged this assertion with a good deal of seriousness. &ldquo;You
+      must not say that, Lily. I don&rsquo;t feel grand at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure there&rsquo;s no harm,&rdquo; said the conciliatory Lily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, but there&rsquo;s nothing in Mrs. Touchett&rsquo;s visit to make one feel grand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; exclaimed Ludlow, &ldquo;she&rsquo;s grander than ever!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whenever I feel grand,&rdquo; said the girl, &ldquo;it will be for a better reason.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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&rsquo;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 <i>bonne</i> who
+      had eloped with a Russian nobleman staying at the same hotel&mdash;even in
+      this irregular situation (an incident of the girl&rsquo;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&rsquo; view of
+      the subject proposed: a course which had whetted our heroine&rsquo;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 &ldquo;made up&rdquo; to him
+      for the disagreeables he didn&rsquo;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&mdash;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&rsquo;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&mdash;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 <i>Spectator</i>, the latest
+      publications, the music of Gounod, the poetry of Browning, the prose of
+      George Eliot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Ralph Touchett was a philosopher, but nevertheless he knocked at his
+      mother&rsquo;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&rsquo;s health and about the young man&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 &ldquo;social position,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&mdash;it
+      usually struck him as his reputation for ordinary wit&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A secret hoard of indifference&mdash;like a thick cake a fond old nurse
+      might have slipped into his first school outfit&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was very probably this sweet-tasting property of the observed thing in
+      itself that was mainly concerned in Ralph&rsquo;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&mdash;as distinguished from that of being loved&mdash;had
+      still a place in his reduced sketch. He had only forbidden himself the
+      riot of expression. However, he shouldn&rsquo;t inspire his cousin with a
+      passion, nor would she be able, even should she try, to help him to one.
+      &ldquo;And now tell me about the young lady,&rdquo; he said to his mother. &ldquo;What do
+      you mean to do with her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Touchett was prompt. &ldquo;I mean to ask your father to invite her to stay
+      three or four weeks at Gardencourt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You needn&rsquo;t stand on any such ceremony as that,&rdquo; said Ralph. &ldquo;My father
+      will ask her as a matter of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know about that. She&rsquo;s my niece; she&rsquo;s not his.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good Lord, dear mother; what a sense of property! That&rsquo;s all the more
+      reason for his asking her. But after that&mdash;I mean after three months
+      (for its absurd asking the poor girl to remain but for three or four
+      paltry weeks)&mdash;what do you mean to do with her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean to take her to Paris. I mean to get her clothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah yes, that&rsquo;s of course. But independently of that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall invite her to spend the autumn with me in Florence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t rise above detail, dear mother,&rdquo; said Ralph. &ldquo;I should like to
+      know what you mean to do with her in a general way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My duty!&rdquo; Mrs. Touchett declared. &ldquo;I suppose you pity her very much,&rdquo; she
+      added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I don&rsquo;t think I pity her. She doesn&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In showing her four European countries&mdash;I shall leave her the choice
+      of two of them&mdash;and in giving her the opportunity of perfecting
+      herself in French, which she already knows very well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ralph frowned a little. &ldquo;That sounds rather dry&mdash;even allowing her
+      the choice of two of the countries.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it&rsquo;s dry,&rdquo; said his mother with a laugh, &ldquo;you can leave Isabel alone
+      to water it! She is as good as a summer rain, any day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean she&rsquo;s a gifted being?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know whether she&rsquo;s a gifted being, but she&rsquo;s a clever girl&mdash;with
+      a strong will and a high temper. She has no idea of being bored.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can imagine that,&rdquo; said Ralph; and then he added abruptly: &ldquo;How do you
+      two get on?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean by that that I&rsquo;m a bore? I don&rsquo;t think she finds me one. Some
+      girls might, I know; but Isabel&rsquo;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&rsquo;s very frank, and I&rsquo;m very frank: we know just what to expect of
+      each other.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, dear mother,&rdquo; Ralph exclaimed, &ldquo;one always knows what to expect of
+      you! You&rsquo;ve never surprised me but once, and that&rsquo;s to-day&mdash;in
+      presenting me with a pretty cousin whose existence I had never suspected.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think her so very pretty?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very pretty indeed; but I don&rsquo;t insist upon that. It&rsquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t have enlightened her&mdash;I
+      should have let her alone. There&rsquo;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&mdash;like most
+      American girls; but like most American girls she&rsquo;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&rsquo;s no greater convenience, in
+      some ways, than an attractive niece. You know I had seen nothing of my
+      sister&rsquo;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&mdash;that some one should take an interest in her. She spoke of
+      her as you might speak of some young person of genius&mdash;in want of
+      encouragement and patronage. It may be that Isabel&rsquo;s a genius; but in that
+      case I&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ralph had listened attentively to this judicious report, by which his
+      interest in the subject of it was not impaired. &ldquo;Ah, if she&rsquo;s a genius,&rdquo;
+       he said, &ldquo;we must find out her special line. Is it by chance for
+      flirting?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think so. You may suspect that at first, but you&rsquo;ll be wrong. You
+      won&rsquo;t, I think, in any way, be easily right about her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Warburton&rsquo;s wrong then!&rdquo; Ralph rejoicingly exclaimed. &ldquo;He flatters
+      himself he has made that discovery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His mother shook her head. &ldquo;Lord Warburton won&rsquo;t understand her. He
+      needn&rsquo;t try.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s very intelligent,&rdquo; said Ralph; &ldquo;but it&rsquo;s right he should be puzzled
+      once in a while.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isabel will enjoy puzzling a lord,&rdquo; Mrs. Touchett remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her son frowned a little. &ldquo;What does she know about lords?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing at all: that will puzzle him all the more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ralph greeted these words with a laugh and looked out of the window. Then,
+      &ldquo;Are you not going down to see my father?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At a quarter to eight,&rdquo; said Mrs. Touchett.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her son looked at his watch. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve another quarter of an hour then. Tell
+      me some more about Isabel.&rdquo; After which, as Mrs. Touchett declined his
+      invitation, declaring that he must find out for himself, &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he
+      pursued, &ldquo;she&rsquo;ll certainly do you credit. But won&rsquo;t she also give you
+      trouble?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope not; but if she does I shall not shrink from it. I never do that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She strikes me as very natural,&rdquo; said Ralph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Natural people are not the most trouble.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Ralph; &ldquo;you yourself are a proof of that. You&rsquo;re extremely
+      natural, and I&rsquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; cried his mother, &ldquo;you ask too many questions! Find that out for
+      yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His questions, however, were not exhausted. &ldquo;All this time,&rdquo; he said,
+      &ldquo;you&rsquo;ve not told me what you intend to do with her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What you meant then, in your telegram, was that her character&rsquo;s
+      independent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never know what I mean in my telegrams&mdash;especially those I send
+      from America. Clearness is too expensive. Come down to your father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not yet a quarter to eight,&rdquo; said Ralph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must allow for his impatience,&rdquo; Mrs. Touchett answered. Ralph knew what
+      to think of his father&rsquo;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&mdash;the
+      broad, low, wide-armed staircase of time-blackened oak which was one of
+      the most striking features of Gardencourt. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve no plan of marrying
+      her?&rdquo; he smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Marrying her? I should be sorry to play her such a trick! But apart from
+      that, she&rsquo;s perfectly able to marry herself. She has every facility.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean to say she has a husband picked out?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know about a husband, but there&rsquo;s a young man in Boston&mdash;!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ralph went on; he had no desire to hear about the young man in Boston. &ldquo;As
+      my father says, they&rsquo;re always engaged!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;smiling still, however&mdash;and said:
+      &ldquo;If you please I should like to see them just a little.&rdquo; She was eager,
+      she knew she was eager and now seemed so; she couldn&rsquo;t help it. &ldquo;She
+      doesn&rsquo;t take suggestions,&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;Well, now I
+      know more than I did when I began!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You apparently have a great passion for knowledge,&rdquo; her cousin returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I have; most girls are horridly ignorant.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You strike me as different from most girls.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, some of them would&mdash;but the way they&rsquo;re talked to!&rdquo; murmured
+      Isabel, who preferred not to dilate just yet on herself. Then in a moment,
+      to change the subject, &ldquo;Please tell me&mdash;isn&rsquo;t there a ghost?&rdquo; she
+      went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A ghost?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A castle-spectre, a thing that appears. We call them ghosts in America.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So we do here, when we see them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do see them then? You ought to, in this romantic old house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not a romantic old house,&rdquo; said Ralph. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll be disappointed if
+      you count on that. It&rsquo;s a dismally prosaic one; there&rsquo;s no romance here
+      but what you may have brought with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve brought a great deal; but it seems to me I&rsquo;ve brought it to the
+      right place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To keep it out of harm, certainly; nothing will ever happen to it here,
+      between my father and me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel looked at him a moment. &ldquo;Is there never any one here but your
+      father and you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My mother, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I know your mother; she&rsquo;s not romantic. Haven&rsquo;t you other people?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very few.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry for that; I like so much to see people.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, we&rsquo;ll invite all the county to amuse you,&rdquo; said Ralph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now you&rsquo;re making fun of me,&rdquo; the girl answered rather gravely. &ldquo;Who was
+      the gentleman on the lawn when I arrived?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A county neighbour; he doesn&rsquo;t come very often.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry for that; I liked him,&rdquo; said Isabel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, it seemed to me that you barely spoke to him,&rdquo; Ralph objected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind, I like him all the same. I like your father too, immensely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t do better than that. He&rsquo;s the dearest of the dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m so sorry he is ill,&rdquo; said Isabel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must help me to nurse him; you ought to be a good nurse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I am; I&rsquo;ve been told I&rsquo;m not; I&rsquo;m said to have too many
+      theories. But you haven&rsquo;t told me about the ghost,&rdquo; she added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ralph, however, gave no heed to this observation. &ldquo;You like my father and
+      you like Lord Warburton. I infer also that you like my mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I like your mother very much, because&mdash;because&mdash;&rdquo; And Isabel
+      found herself attempting to assign a reason for her affection for Mrs.
+      Touchett.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, we never know why!&rdquo; said her companion, laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I always know why,&rdquo; the girl answered. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s because she doesn&rsquo;t expect
+      one to like her. She doesn&rsquo;t care whether one does or not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you adore her&mdash;out of perversity? Well, I take greatly after my
+      mother,&rdquo; said Ralph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe you do at all. You wish people to like you, and you try
+      to make them do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good heavens, how you see through one!&rdquo; he cried with a dismay that was
+      not altogether jocular.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I like you all the same,&rdquo; his cousin went on. &ldquo;The way to clinch the
+      matter will be to show me the ghost.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ralph shook his head sadly. &ldquo;I might show it to you, but you&rsquo;d never see
+      it. The privilege isn&rsquo;t given to every one; it&rsquo;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,&rdquo;
+       said Ralph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told you just now I&rsquo;m very fond of knowledge,&rdquo; Isabel answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, of happy knowledge&mdash;of pleasant knowledge. But you haven&rsquo;t
+      suffered, and you&rsquo;re not made to suffer. I hope you&rsquo;ll never see the
+      ghost!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;indeed it was a part of her charm; and he
+      wondered what she would say. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not afraid, you know,&rdquo; she said: which
+      seemed quite presumptuous enough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re not afraid of suffering?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I&rsquo;m afraid of suffering. But I&rsquo;m not afraid of ghosts. And I think
+      people suffer too easily,&rdquo; she added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe you do,&rdquo; said Ralph, looking at her with his hands in his
+      pockets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think that&rsquo;s a fault,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not absolutely
+      necessary to suffer; we were not made for that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You were not, certainly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not speaking of myself.&rdquo; And she wandered off a little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, it isn&rsquo;t a fault,&rdquo; said her cousin. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a merit to be strong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only, if you don&rsquo;t suffer they call you hard,&rdquo; Isabel remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;Never mind what they call you. When you do suffer
+      they call you an idiot. The great point&rsquo;s to be as happy as possible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him a little; she had taken her candle and placed her foot
+      on the oaken stair. &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;that&rsquo;s what I came to Europe for,
+      to be as happy as possible. Good-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-night! I wish you all success, and shall be very glad to contribute
+      to it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;in
+      translations. Her paternal aunt, Mrs. Varian, once spread the rumour that
+      Isabel was writing a book&mdash;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&rsquo;s acquaintance with
+      literature was confined to The New York <i>Interviewer</i>; as she very
+      justly said, after you had read the <i>Interviewer</i> you had lost all
+      faith in culture. Her tendency, with this, was rather to keep the <i>Interviewer</i>
+      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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s self as to cultivate doubt of
+      one&rsquo;s best friend: one should try to be one&rsquo;s own best friend and to give
+      one&rsquo;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&mdash;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&rsquo;s part an impulse more tender
+      and more purely expectant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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 <i>Interviewer</i>,
+      from Washington, Newport, the White Mountains and other places, were
+      universally quoted. Isabel pronounced them with confidence &ldquo;ephemeral,&rdquo;
+       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 <i>Interviewer</i>
+      from the radical point of view&mdash;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 <i>Interviewer</i>.
+      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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s
+      prayer was very sufficiently answered; something pure and proud that there
+      was in her&mdash;something cold and dry an unappreciated suitor with a
+      taste for analysis might have called it&mdash;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&mdash;it was the deepest thing
+      there&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 &ldquo;property&rdquo;&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;the effect she produced upon
+      people was often different from what she supposed&mdash;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 &ldquo;point&rdquo; 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&mdash;so many characteristics of her niece&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The books?&rdquo; he once said; &ldquo;well, I don&rsquo;t know much about the books. You
+      must ask Ralph about that. I&rsquo;ve always ascertained for myself&mdash;got my
+      information in the natural form. I never asked many questions even; I just
+      kept quiet and took notice. Of course I&rsquo;ve had very good opportunities&mdash;better
+      than what a young lady would naturally have. I&rsquo;m of an inquisitive
+      disposition, though you mightn&rsquo;t think it if you were to watch me: however
+      much you might watch me I should be watching you more. I&rsquo;ve been watching
+      these people for upwards of thirty-five years, and I don&rsquo;t hesitate to say
+      that I&rsquo;ve acquired considerable information. It&rsquo;s a very fine country on
+      the whole&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s because I&rsquo;ve had a considerable degree of
+      success. When you&rsquo;re successful you naturally feel more at home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you suppose that if I&rsquo;m successful I shall feel at home?&rdquo; Isabel
+      asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;t feel too much at home, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I&rsquo;m by no means sure it will satisfy me,&rdquo; Isabel judicially
+      emphasised. &ldquo;I like the place very much, but I&rsquo;m not sure I shall like the
+      people.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The people are very good people; especially if you like them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve no doubt they&rsquo;re good,&rdquo; Isabel rejoined; &ldquo;but are they pleasant in
+      society? They won&rsquo;t rob me nor beat me; but will they make themselves
+      agreeable to me? That&rsquo;s what I like people to do. I don&rsquo;t hesitate to say
+      so, because I always appreciate it. I don&rsquo;t believe they&rsquo;re very nice to
+      girls; they&rsquo;re not nice to them in the novels.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know about the novels,&rdquo; said Mr. Touchett. &ldquo;I believe the novels
+      have a great deal but I don&rsquo;t suppose they&rsquo;re very accurate. We once had a
+      lady who wrote novels staying here; she was a friend of Ralph&rsquo;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&mdash;I
+      suppose that was it. She afterwards published a work of fiction in which
+      she was understood to have given a representation&mdash;something in the
+      nature of a caricature, as you might say&mdash;of my unworthy self. I
+      didn&rsquo;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&rsquo;t have listened very
+      attentively. I had no objection to her giving a report of my conversation,
+      if she liked but I didn&rsquo;t like the idea that she hadn&rsquo;t taken the trouble
+      to listen to it. Of course I talk like an American&mdash;I can&rsquo;t talk like
+      a Hottentot. However I talk, I&rsquo;ve made them understand me pretty well over
+      here. But I don&rsquo;t talk like the old gentleman in that lady&rsquo;s novel. He
+      wasn&rsquo;t an American; we wouldn&rsquo;t have him over there at any price. I just
+      mention that fact to show you that they&rsquo;re not always accurate. Of course,
+      as I&rsquo;ve no daughters, and as Mrs. Touchett resides in Florence, I haven&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gracious,&rdquo; Isabel exclaimed; &ldquo;how many classes have they? About fifty, I
+      suppose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I don&rsquo;t know that I ever counted them. I never took much notice of
+      the classes. That&rsquo;s the advantage of being an American here; you don&rsquo;t
+      belong to any class.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope so,&rdquo; said Isabel. &ldquo;Imagine one&rsquo;s belonging to an English class!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I guess some of them are pretty comfortable&mdash;especially
+      towards the top. But for me there are only two classes: the people I trust
+      and the people I don&rsquo;t. Of those two, my dear Isabel, you belong to the
+      first.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m much obliged to you,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure
+      the English are very conventional,&rdquo; she added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve got everything pretty well fixed,&rdquo; Mr. Touchett admitted. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+      all settled beforehand&mdash;they don&rsquo;t leave it to the last moment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like to have everything settled beforehand,&rdquo; said the girl. &ldquo;I
+      like more unexpectedness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her uncle seemed amused at her distinctness of preference. &ldquo;Well, it&rsquo;s
+      settled beforehand that you&rsquo;ll have great success,&rdquo; he rejoined. &ldquo;I
+      suppose you&rsquo;ll like that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not have success if they&rsquo;re too stupidly conventional. I&rsquo;m not in
+      the least stupidly conventional. I&rsquo;m just the contrary. That&rsquo;s what they
+      won&rsquo;t like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no, you&rsquo;re all wrong,&rdquo; said the old man. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t tell what they&rsquo;ll
+      like. They&rsquo;re very inconsistent; that&rsquo;s their principal interest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah well,&rdquo; said Isabel, standing before her uncle with her hands clasped
+      about the belt of her black dress and looking up and down the lawn&mdash;&ldquo;that
+      will suit me perfectly!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;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&rsquo;s dryness
+      that set her own moral fountains flowing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now what&rsquo;s your point of view?&rdquo; she asked of her aunt. &ldquo;When you
+      criticise everything here you should have a point of view. Yours doesn&rsquo;t
+      seem to be American&mdash;you thought everything over there so
+      disagreeable. When I criticise I have mine; it&rsquo;s thoroughly American!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear young lady,&rdquo; said Mrs. Touchett, &ldquo;there are as many points of
+      view in the world as there are people of sense to take them. You may say
+      that doesn&rsquo;t make them very numerous! American? Never in the world; that&rsquo;s
+      shockingly narrow. My point of view, thank God, is personal!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s son, this gentleman&rsquo;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. &ldquo;I keep a band of music in
+      my ante-room,&rdquo; he said once to her. &ldquo;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&rsquo;s going on within.&rdquo; It was dance-music indeed that you
+      usually heard when you came within ear-shot of Ralph&rsquo;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 &ldquo;Columbia&rdquo;
+       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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t
+      know what&rsquo;s the matter with you,&rdquo; she observed to him once; &ldquo;but I suspect
+      you&rsquo;re a great humbug.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s your privilege,&rdquo; Ralph answered, who had not been used to being so
+      crudely addressed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what you care for; I don&rsquo;t think you care for anything. You
+      don&rsquo;t really care for England when you praise it; you don&rsquo;t care for
+      America even when you pretend to abuse it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I care for nothing but you, dear cousin,&rdquo; said Ralph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I could believe even that, I should be very glad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah well, I should hope so!&rdquo; the young man exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These were nice questions, but Isabel&rsquo;s arrival put a stop to his puzzling
+      over them. It even suggested there might be a compensation for the
+      intolerable <i>ennui</i> of surviving his genial sire. He wondered whether
+      he were harbouring &ldquo;love&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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. &ldquo;A character like that,&rdquo; he said to
+      himself&mdash;&ldquo;a real little passionate force to see at play is the finest
+      thing in nature. It&rsquo;s finer than the finest work of art&mdash;than a Greek
+      bas-relief, than a great Titian, than a Gothic cathedral. It&rsquo;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&mdash;a Greek bas-relief
+      to stick over my chimney-piece. The key of a beautiful edifice is thrust
+      into my hand, and I&rsquo;m told to walk in and admire. My poor boy, you&rsquo;ve been
+      sadly ungrateful, and now you had better keep very quiet and never grumble
+      again.&rdquo; 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&rsquo;s originality was
+      that she gave one an impression of having intentions of her own. &ldquo;Whenever
+      she executes them,&rdquo; said Ralph, &ldquo;may I be there to see!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It devolved upon him of course to do the honours of the place. Mr.
+      Touchett was confined to his chair, and his wife&rsquo;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&mdash;a pastime
+      for which the weather remained favourable with a persistency not allowed
+      for in Isabel&rsquo;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&mdash;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 &ldquo;knowing,&rdquo; was
+      never weary of driving her uncle&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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, &ldquo;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&rdquo;&mdash;when he offered to
+      invite what he called a &ldquo;lot of people&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;specimens;&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well now, there&rsquo;s a specimen,&rdquo; he said to her as they walked up from the
+      riverside and he recognised Lord Warburton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A specimen of what?&rdquo; asked the girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A specimen of an English gentleman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean they&rsquo;re all like him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh no; they&rsquo;re not all like him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a favourable specimen then,&rdquo; said Isabel; &ldquo;because I&rsquo;m sure he&rsquo;s
+      nice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, he&rsquo;s very nice. And he&rsquo;s very fortunate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The fortunate Lord Warburton exchanged a handshake with our heroine and
+      hoped she was very well. &ldquo;But I needn&rsquo;t ask that,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;since you&rsquo;ve
+      been handling the oars.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been rowing a little,&rdquo; Isabel answered; &ldquo;but how should you know
+      it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I know he doesn&rsquo;t row; he&rsquo;s too lazy,&rdquo; said his lordship, indicating
+      Ralph Touchett with a laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has a good excuse for his laziness,&rdquo; Isabel rejoined, lowering her
+      voice a little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, he has a good excuse for everything!&rdquo; cried Lord Warburton, still
+      with his sonorous mirth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My excuse for not rowing is that my cousin rows so well,&rdquo; said Ralph.
+      &ldquo;She does everything well. She touches nothing that she doesn&rsquo;t adorn!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It makes one want to be touched, Miss Archer,&rdquo; Lord Warburton declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be touched in the right sense and you&rsquo;ll never look the worse for it,&rdquo;
+       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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;though quite without luridity&mdash;as a hero of romance.
+      She retired to rest with a sense of good fortune, with a quickened
+      consciousness of possible felicities. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s very nice to know two such
+      charming people as those,&rdquo; she said, meaning by &ldquo;those&rdquo; her cousin and her
+      cousin&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Need I go, dear aunt? I&rsquo;ll come up in half an hour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s impossible I should wait for you,&rdquo; Mrs. Touchett answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, you needn&rsquo;t wait! Ralph will light my candle,&rdquo; Isabel gaily engaged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll light your candle; do let me light your candle, Miss Archer!&rdquo; Lord
+      Warburton exclaimed. &ldquo;Only I beg it shall not be before midnight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Touchett fixed her bright little eyes upon him a moment and
+      transferred them coldly to her niece. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t stay alone with the
+      gentlemen. You&rsquo;re not&mdash;you&rsquo;re not at your blest Albany, my dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel rose, blushing. &ldquo;I wish I were,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I say, mother!&rdquo; Ralph broke out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Mrs. Touchett!&rdquo; Lord Warburton murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t make your country, my lord,&rdquo; Mrs. Touchett said majestically. &ldquo;I
+      must take it as I find it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can&rsquo;t I stay with my own cousin?&rdquo; Isabel enquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not aware that Lord Warburton is your cousin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps I had better go to bed!&rdquo; the visitor suggested. &ldquo;That will
+      arrange it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Touchett gave a little look of despair and sat down again. &ldquo;Oh, if
+      it&rsquo;s necessary I&rsquo;ll stay up till midnight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ralph meanwhile handed Isabel her candlestick. He had been watching her;
+      it had seemed to him her temper was involved&mdash;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&rsquo;s door. Isabel had said nothing on her way up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course you&rsquo;re vexed at my interfering with you,&rdquo; said Mrs. Touchett.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel considered. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not vexed, but I&rsquo;m surprised&mdash;and a good deal
+      mystified. Wasn&rsquo;t it proper I should remain in the drawing-room?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not in the least. Young girls here&mdash;in decent houses&mdash;don&rsquo;t sit
+      alone with the gentlemen late at night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You were very right to tell me then,&rdquo; said Isabel. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t understand
+      it, but I&rsquo;m very glad to know it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall always tell you,&rdquo; her aunt answered, &ldquo;whenever I see you taking
+      what seems to me too much liberty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pray do; but I don&rsquo;t say I shall always think your remonstrance just.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very likely not. You&rsquo;re too fond of your own ways.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I think I&rsquo;m very fond of them. But I always want to know the things
+      one shouldn&rsquo;t do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So as to do them?&rdquo; asked her aunt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So as to choose,&rdquo; said Isabel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;&ldquo;not particularly clever, you know,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but very
+      decent and pleasant;&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;one of the
+      most precious privileges of an elder brother. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I shall pay
+      any more,&rdquo; said her friend; &ldquo;he lives a monstrous deal better than I do,
+      enjoys unheard-of luxuries and thinks himself a much finer gentleman than
+      I. As I&rsquo;m a consistent radical I go in only for equality; I don&rsquo;t go in
+      for the superiority of the younger brothers.&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;He thinks I&rsquo;m a barbarian,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and that I&rsquo;ve never
+      seen forks and spoons;&rdquo; and she used to ask him artless questions for the
+      pleasure of hearing him answer seriously. Then when he had fallen into the
+      trap, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a pity you can&rsquo;t see me in my war-paint and feathers,&rdquo; she
+      remarked; &ldquo;if I had known how kind you are to the poor savages I would
+      have brought over my native costume!&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;If I
+      had only had you to explain things to me in America!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;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&rsquo;re rather clever about
+      that over there. But when I explain you can trust me; about what I tell
+      you there&rsquo;s no mistake.&rdquo; 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&mdash;oh, so easily come by!&mdash;with
+      a modesty at times almost boyish; the sweet and wholesome savour of which&mdash;it
+      was as agreeable as something tasted&mdash;lost nothing from the addition
+      of a tone of responsible kindness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I like your specimen English gentleman very much,&rdquo; Isabel said to Ralph
+      after Lord Warburton had gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I like him too&mdash;I love him well,&rdquo; Ralph returned. &ldquo;But I pity him
+      more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel looked at him askance. &ldquo;Why, that seems to me his only fault&mdash;that
+      one can&rsquo;t pity him a little. He appears to have everything, to know
+      everything, to be everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, he&rsquo;s in a bad way!&rdquo; Ralph insisted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose you don&rsquo;t mean in health?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, as to that he&rsquo;s detestably sound. What I mean is that he&rsquo;s a man with
+      a great position who&rsquo;s playing all sorts of tricks with it. He doesn&rsquo;t
+      take himself seriously.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does he regard himself as a joke?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Much worse; he regards himself as an imposition&mdash;as an abuse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, perhaps he is,&rdquo; said Isabel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps he is&mdash;though on the whole I don&rsquo;t think so. But in that
+      case what&rsquo;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&rsquo;s all in a muddle
+      about himself, his position, his power, and indeed about everything in the
+      world. He&rsquo;s the victim of a critical age; he has ceased to believe in
+      himself and he doesn&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He doesn&rsquo;t look very wretched,&rdquo; Isabel observed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;s not miserable? Besides, I believe he is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; said Isabel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; her cousin rejoined, &ldquo;if he isn&rsquo;t he ought to be!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel was prompt. &ldquo;I think he&rsquo;s charming.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a nice person,&rdquo; said Mr. Touchett, &ldquo;but I don&rsquo;t recommend you to
+      fall in love with him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not do it then; I shall never fall in love but on your
+      recommendation. Moreover,&rdquo; Isabel added, &ldquo;my cousin gives me rather a sad
+      account of Lord Warburton.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, indeed? I don&rsquo;t know what there may be to say, but you must remember
+      that Ralph must talk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He thinks your friend&rsquo;s too subversive&mdash;or not subversive enough! I
+      don&rsquo;t quite understand which,&rdquo; said Isabel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man shook his head slowly, smiled and put down his cup. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t
+      know which either. He goes very far, but it&rsquo;s quite possible he doesn&rsquo;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&rsquo;s natural, but it&rsquo;s rather
+      inconsistent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I hope he&rsquo;ll remain himself,&rdquo; said Isabel. &ldquo;If he were to be done
+      away with his friends would miss him sadly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said the old man, &ldquo;I guess he&rsquo;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&rsquo;s a
+      considerable number like him, round in society; they&rsquo;re very fashionable
+      just now. I don&rsquo;t know what they&rsquo;re trying to do&mdash;whether they&rsquo;re
+      trying to get up a revolution. I hope at any rate they&rsquo;ll put it off till
+      after I&rsquo;m gone. You see they want to disestablish everything; but I&rsquo;m a
+      pretty big landowner here, and I don&rsquo;t want to be disestablished. I
+      wouldn&rsquo;t have come over if I had thought they were going to behave like
+      that,&rdquo; Mr. Touchett went on with expanding hilarity. &ldquo;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&rsquo;ll be a large
+      number disappointed in that case.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I do hope they&rsquo;ll make a revolution!&rdquo; Isabel exclaimed. &ldquo;I should
+      delight in seeing a revolution.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me see,&rdquo; said her uncle, with a humorous intention; &ldquo;I forget whether
+      you&rsquo;re on the side of the old or on the side of the new. I&rsquo;ve heard you
+      take such opposite views.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m on the side of both. I guess I&rsquo;m a little on the side of everything.
+      In a revolution&mdash;after it was well begun&mdash;I think I should be a
+      high, proud loyalist. One sympathises more with them, and they&rsquo;ve a chance
+      to behave so exquisitely. I mean so picturesquely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know that I understand what you mean by behaving picturesquely,
+      but it seems to me that you do that always, my dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you lovely man, if I could believe that!&rdquo; the girl interrupted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid, after all, you won&rsquo;t have the pleasure of going gracefully to
+      the guillotine here just now,&rdquo; Mr. Touchett went on. &ldquo;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&rsquo;t suit them to be taken at their word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of whom are you speaking?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I mean Lord Warburton and his friends&mdash;the radicals of the
+      upper class. Of course I only know the way it strikes me. They talk about
+      the changes, but I don&rsquo;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&rsquo;t a lord; you&rsquo;re a lady, my dear, but I ain&rsquo;t a lord. Now over
+      here I don&rsquo;t think it quite comes home to them. It&rsquo;s a matter of every day
+      and every hour, and I don&rsquo;t think many of them would find it as pleasant
+      as what they&rsquo;ve got. Of course if they want to try, it&rsquo;s their own
+      business; but I expect they won&rsquo;t try very hard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you think they&rsquo;re sincere?&rdquo; Isabel asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, they want to <i>feel</i> earnest,&rdquo; Mr. Touchett allowed; &ldquo;but it
+      seems as if they took it out in theories mostly. Their radical views are a
+      kind of amusement; they&rsquo;ve got to have some amusement, and they might have
+      coarser tastes than that. You see they&rsquo;re very luxurious, and these
+      progressive ideas are about their biggest luxury. They make them feel
+      moral and yet don&rsquo;t damage their position. They think a great deal of
+      their position; don&rsquo;t let one of them ever persuade you he doesn&rsquo;t, for if
+      you were to proceed on that basis you&rsquo;d be pulled up very short.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel followed her uncle&rsquo;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&rsquo;s behalf. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe Lord Warburton&rsquo;s a humbug; I don&rsquo;t
+      care what the others are. I should like to see Lord Warburton put to the
+      test.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heaven deliver me from my friends!&rdquo; Mr. Touchett answered. &ldquo;Lord
+      Warburton&rsquo;s a very amiable young man&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;more perhaps
+      than anything else, except the young ladies. His old house over there&mdash;what
+      does he call it, Lockleigh?&mdash;is very attractive; but I don&rsquo;t think
+      it&rsquo;s as pleasant as this. That doesn&rsquo;t matter, however&mdash;he has so
+      many others. His views don&rsquo;t hurt any one as far as I can see; they
+      certainly don&rsquo;t hurt himself. And if there were to be a revolution he
+      would come off very easily. They wouldn&rsquo;t touch him, they&rsquo;d leave him as
+      he is: he&rsquo;s too much liked.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, he couldn&rsquo;t be a martyr even if he wished!&rdquo; Isabel sighed. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a
+      very poor position.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;ll never be a martyr unless you make him one,&rdquo; said the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel shook her head; there might have been something laughable in the
+      fact that she did it with a touch of melancholy. &ldquo;I shall never make any
+      one a martyr.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll never be one, I hope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope not. But you don&rsquo;t pity Lord Warburton then as Ralph does?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her uncle looked at her a while with genial acuteness. &ldquo;Yes, I do, after
+      all!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The two Misses Molyneux, this nobleman&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 &ldquo;ornamental water,&rdquo; set, in
+      parterres, among the geraniums.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They&rsquo;re not morbid, at any rate, whatever they are,&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid it isn&rsquo;t any one very remarkable,&rdquo; said the elder sister; &ldquo;but
+      I dare say you&rsquo;ll take us as you find us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall find you delightful; I think you&rsquo;re enchanting just as you are,&rdquo;
+       replied Isabel, who often praised profusely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t help it,&rdquo; Isabel answered. &ldquo;I think it&rsquo;s lovely to be so quiet
+      and reasonable and satisfied. I should like to be like that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heaven forbid!&rdquo; cried Ralph with ardour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean to try and imitate them,&rdquo; said Isabel. &ldquo;I want very much to see
+      them at home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it true your brother&rsquo;s such a great radical?&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh dear, yes; he&rsquo;s immensely advanced,&rdquo; said Mildred, the younger sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At the same time Warburton&rsquo;s very reasonable,&rdquo; Miss Molyneux observed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+      &ldquo;Do you suppose your brother&rsquo;s sincere?&rdquo; Isabel enquired with a smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, he must be, you know!&rdquo; Mildred exclaimed quickly, while the elder
+      sister gazed at our heroine in silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think he would stand the test?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The test?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean for instance having to give up all this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Having to give up Lockleigh?&rdquo; said Miss Molyneux, finding her voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, and the other places; what are they called?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The two sisters exchanged an almost frightened glance. &ldquo;Do you mean&mdash;do
+      you mean on account of the expense?&rdquo; the younger one asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I dare say he might let one or two of his houses,&rdquo; said the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let them for nothing?&rdquo; Isabel demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t fancy his giving up his property,&rdquo; said Miss Molyneux.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, I&rsquo;m afraid he is an impostor!&rdquo; Isabel returned. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you think it&rsquo;s
+      a false position?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her companions, evidently, had lost themselves. &ldquo;My brother&rsquo;s position?&rdquo;
+       Miss Molyneux enquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s thought a very good position,&rdquo; said the younger sister. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the
+      first position in this part of the county.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I dare say you think me very irreverent,&rdquo; Isabel took occasion to remark.
+      &ldquo;I suppose you revere your brother and are rather afraid of him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course one looks up to one&rsquo;s brother,&rdquo; said Miss Molyneux simply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you do that he must be very good&mdash;because you, evidently, are
+      beautifully good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s most kind. It will never be known, the good he does.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His ability is known,&rdquo; Mildred added; &ldquo;every one thinks it&rsquo;s immense.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I can see that,&rdquo; said Isabel. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think one ought to be liberal,&rdquo; Mildred argued gently. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve always
+      been so, even from the earliest times.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah well,&rdquo; said Isabel, &ldquo;you&rsquo;ve made a great success of it; I don&rsquo;t wonder
+      you like it. I see you&rsquo;re very fond of crewels.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&rsquo;s brother, the Vicar, had come to
+      luncheon, and Isabel had had five minutes&rsquo; talk with him&mdash;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&mdash;in
+      the privacy of the family circle as it were&mdash;quite capable of
+      flooring his man. Isabel liked him&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish you to see the place properly, seriously,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t do
+      so if your attention is distracted by irrelevant gossip.&rdquo; 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&mdash;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, &ldquo;Ah, well,&rdquo; he said,
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m very glad indeed you like the old barrack. I wish you could see more
+      of it&mdash;that you could stay here a while. My sisters have taken an
+      immense fancy to you&mdash;if that would be any inducement.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no want of inducements,&rdquo; Isabel answered; &ldquo;but I&rsquo;m afraid I can&rsquo;t
+      make engagements. I&rsquo;m quite in my aunt&rsquo;s hands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, pardon me if I say I don&rsquo;t exactly believe that. I&rsquo;m pretty sure you
+      can do whatever you want.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry if I make that impression on you; I don&rsquo;t think it&rsquo;s a nice
+      impression to make.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It has the merit of permitting me to hope.&rdquo; And Lord Warburton paused a
+      moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To hope what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That in future I may see you often.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; said Isabel, &ldquo;to enjoy that pleasure I needn&rsquo;t be so terribly
+      emancipated.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doubtless not; and yet, at the same time, I don&rsquo;t think your uncle likes
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re very much mistaken. I&rsquo;ve heard him speak very highly of you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad you have talked about me,&rdquo; said Lord Warburton. &ldquo;But, I
+      nevertheless don&rsquo;t think he&rsquo;d like me to keep coming to Gardencourt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t answer for my uncle&rsquo;s tastes,&rdquo; the girl rejoined, &ldquo;though I ought
+      as far as possible to take them into account. But for myself I shall be
+      very glad to see you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now that&rsquo;s what I like to hear you say. I&rsquo;m charmed when you say that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re easily charmed, my lord,&rdquo; said Isabel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I&rsquo;m not easily charmed!&rdquo; And then he stopped a moment. &ldquo;But you&rsquo;ve
+      charmed me, Miss Archer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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: &ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid there&rsquo;s no prospect of my being able to come here again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never?&rdquo; said Lord Warburton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I won&rsquo;t say &lsquo;never&rsquo;; I should feel very melodramatic.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May I come and see you then some day next week?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Most assuredly. What is there to prevent it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing tangible. But with you I never feel safe. I&rsquo;ve a sort of sense
+      that you&rsquo;re always summing people up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t of necessity lose by that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is England not good enough for you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a very Machiavellian speech; it doesn&rsquo;t deserve an answer. I want
+      to see as many countries as I can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you&rsquo;ll go on judging, I suppose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Enjoying, I hope, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, that&rsquo;s what you enjoy most; I can&rsquo;t make out what you&rsquo;re up to,&rdquo;
+       said Lord Warburton. &ldquo;You strike me as having mysterious purposes&mdash;vast
+      designs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re so good as to have a theory about me which I don&rsquo;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&mdash;the purpose of improving one&rsquo;s mind by foreign
+      travel?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t improve your mind, Miss Archer,&rdquo; her companion declared. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+      already a most formidable instrument. It looks down on us all; it despises
+      us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Despises you? You&rsquo;re making fun of me,&rdquo; said Isabel seriously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you think us &lsquo;quaint&rsquo;&mdash;that&rsquo;s the same thing. I won&rsquo;t be
+      thought &lsquo;quaint,&rsquo; to begin with; I&rsquo;m not so in the least. I protest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That protest is one of the quaintest things I&rsquo;ve ever heard,&rdquo; Isabel
+      answered with a smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Warburton was briefly silent. &ldquo;You judge only from the outside&mdash;you
+      don&rsquo;t care,&rdquo; he said presently. &ldquo;You only care to amuse yourself.&rdquo; The
+      note she had heard in his voice a moment before reappeared, and mixed with
+      it now was an audible strain of bitterness&mdash;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&mdash;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: &ldquo;I don&rsquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As regards that,&rdquo; said Isabel, &ldquo;I should find in my own nation
+      entertainment for a lifetime. But we&rsquo;ve a long drive, and my aunt will
+      soon wish to start.&rdquo; She turned back toward the others and Lord Warburton
+      walked beside her in silence. But before they reached the others, &ldquo;I shall
+      come and see you next week,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had received an appreciable shock, but as it died away she felt that
+      she couldn&rsquo;t pretend to herself that it was altogether a painful one.
+      Nevertheless she made answer to his declaration, coldly enough, &ldquo;Just as
+      you please.&rdquo; And her coldness was not the calculation of her effect&mdash;a
+      game she played in a much smaller degree than would have seemed probable
+      to many critics. It came from a certain fear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The day after her visit to Lockleigh she received a note from her friend
+      Miss Stackpole&mdash;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. &ldquo;Here I
+      am, my lovely friend,&rdquo; Miss Stackpole wrote; &ldquo;I managed to get off at
+      last. I decided only the night before I left New York&mdash;the <i>Interviewer</i>
+      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&rsquo;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 <i>Interviewer</i>
+      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&rsquo;m not superficial. I&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;Though she&rsquo;s a literary lady,&rdquo;
+       he said, &ldquo;I suppose that, being an American, she won&rsquo;t show me up, as that
+      other one did. She has seen others like me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has seen no other so delightful!&rdquo; Isabel answered; but she was not
+      altogether at ease about Henrietta&rsquo;s reproductive instincts, which
+      belonged to that side of her friend&rsquo;s character which she regarded with
+      least complacency. She wrote to Miss Stackpole, however, that she would be
+      very welcome under Mr. Touchett&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I love her or shall I hate her?&rdquo; Ralph asked while they moved along
+      the platform.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whichever you do will matter very little to her,&rdquo; said Isabel. &ldquo;She
+      doesn&rsquo;t care a straw what men think of her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As a man I&rsquo;m bound to dislike her then. She must be a kind of monster. Is
+      she very ugly?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, she&rsquo;s decidedly pretty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A female interviewer&mdash;a reporter in petticoats? I&rsquo;m very curious to
+      see her,&rdquo; Ralph conceded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s very easy to laugh at her but it is not easy to be as brave as she.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should think not; crimes of violence and attacks on the person require
+      more or less pluck. Do you suppose she&rsquo;ll interview me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never in the world. She&rsquo;ll not think you of enough importance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll see,&rdquo; said Ralph. &ldquo;She&rsquo;ll send a description of us all, including
+      Bunchie, to her newspaper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall ask her not to,&rdquo; Isabel answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You think she&rsquo;s capable of it then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perfectly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And yet you&rsquo;ve made her your bosom-friend?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve not made her my bosom-friend; but I like her in spite of her
+      faults.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah well,&rdquo; said Ralph, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid I shall dislike her in spite of her
+      merits.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll probably fall in love with her at the end of three days.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And have my love-letters published in the <i>Interviewer</i>? Never!&rdquo;
+       cried the young man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s gracious and comfortable aspect, which
+      hinted that it wouldn&rsquo;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&mdash;a voice not rich but loud; yet
+      after she had taken her place with her companions in Mr. Touchett&rsquo;s
+      carriage she struck him as not all in the large type, the type of horrid
+      &ldquo;headings,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I should like to know whether you consider yourselves American or
+      English,&rdquo; she broke out. &ldquo;If once I knew I could talk to you accordingly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Talk to us anyhow and we shall be thankful,&rdquo; Ralph liberally answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She fixed her eyes on him, and there was something in their character that
+      reminded him of large polished buttons&mdash;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&rsquo;s
+      gaze that made him, as a very modest man, feel vaguely embarrassed&mdash;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. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t suppose that you&rsquo;re
+      going to undertake to persuade me that you&rsquo;re an American,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To please you I&rsquo;ll be an Englishman, I&rsquo;ll be a Turk!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, if you can change about that way you&rsquo;re very welcome,&rdquo; Miss
+      Stackpole returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure you understand everything and that differences of nationality
+      are no barrier to you,&rdquo; Ralph went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Stackpole gazed at him still. &ldquo;Do you mean the foreign languages?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The languages are nothing. I mean the spirit&mdash;the genius.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not sure that I understand you,&rdquo; said the correspondent of the <i>Interviewer</i>;
+      &ldquo;but I expect I shall before I leave.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s what&rsquo;s called a cosmopolite,&rdquo; Isabel suggested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That means he&rsquo;s a little of everything and not much of any. I must say I
+      think patriotism is like charity&mdash;it begins at home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, but where does home begin, Miss Stackpole?&rdquo; Ralph enquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know where it begins, but I know where it ends. It ended a long
+      time before I got here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you like it over here?&rdquo; asked Mr. Touchett with his aged, innocent
+      voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, sir, I haven&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps you were in a crowded carriage,&rdquo; Ralph suggested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but it was crowded with friends&mdash;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&mdash;I felt something pressing
+      upon me; I couldn&rsquo;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&rsquo;s the true way&mdash;then you can breathe.
+      Your surroundings seem very attractive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, we too are a lovely group!&rdquo; said Ralph. &ldquo;Wait a little and you&rsquo;ll
+      see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s visit, that
+      she was engaged on a letter to the <i>Interviewer</i>, of which the title,
+      in her exquisitely neat and legible hand (exactly that of the copybooks
+      which our heroine remembered at school) was &ldquo;Americans and Tudors&mdash;Glimpses
+      of Gardencourt.&rdquo; Miss Stackpole, with the best conscience in the world,
+      offered to read her letter to Isabel, who immediately put in her protest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think you ought to do that. I don&rsquo;t think you ought to describe
+      the place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Henrietta gazed at her as usual. &ldquo;Why, it&rsquo;s just what the people want, and
+      it&rsquo;s a lovely place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s too lovely to be put in the newspapers, and it&rsquo;s not what my uncle
+      wants.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you believe that!&rdquo; cried Henrietta. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re always delighted
+      afterwards.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My uncle won&rsquo;t be delighted&mdash;nor my cousin either. They&rsquo;ll consider
+      it a breach of hospitality.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;Of course if you don&rsquo;t approve I
+      won&rsquo;t do it; but I sacrifice a beautiful subject.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are plenty of other subjects, there are subjects all round you.
+      We&rsquo;ll take some drives; I&rsquo;ll show you some charming scenery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Scenery&rsquo;s not my department; I always need a human interest. You know I&rsquo;m
+      deeply human, Isabel; I always was,&rdquo; Miss Stackpole rejoined. &ldquo;I was going
+      to bring in your cousin&mdash;the alienated American. There&rsquo;s a great
+      demand just now for the alienated American, and your cousin&rsquo;s a beautiful
+      specimen. I should have handled him severely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He would have died of it!&rdquo; Isabel exclaimed. &ldquo;Not of the severity, but of
+      the publicity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;the
+      American faithful still. He&rsquo;s a grand old man; I don&rsquo;t see how he can
+      object to my paying him honour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;My poor Henrietta,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you&rsquo;ve no sense of
+      privacy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Henrietta coloured deeply, and for a moment her brilliant eyes were
+      suffused, while Isabel found her more than ever inconsequent. &ldquo;You do me
+      great injustice,&rdquo; said Miss Stackpole with dignity. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never written a
+      word about myself!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m very sure of that; but it seems to me one should be modest for others
+      also!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, that&rsquo;s very good!&rdquo; cried Henrietta, seizing her pen again. &ldquo;Just let
+      me make a note of it and I&rsquo;ll put it in somewhere.&rdquo; 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.
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve promised to do the social side,&rdquo; she said to Isabel; &ldquo;and how can I
+      do it unless I get ideas? If I can&rsquo;t describe this place don&rsquo;t you know
+      some place I can describe?&rdquo; Isabel promised she would bethink herself, and
+      the next day, in conversation with her friend, she happened to mention her
+      visit to Lord Warburton&rsquo;s ancient house. &ldquo;Ah, you must take me there&mdash;that&rsquo;s
+      just the place for me!&rdquo; Miss Stackpole cried. &ldquo;I must get a glimpse of the
+      nobility.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t take you,&rdquo; said Isabel; &ldquo;but Lord Warburton&rsquo;s coming here, and
+      you&rsquo;ll have a chance to see him and observe him. Only if you intend to
+      repeat his conversation I shall certainly give him warning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t do that,&rdquo; her companion pleaded; &ldquo;I want him to be natural.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An Englishman&rsquo;s never so natural as when he&rsquo;s holding his tongue,&rdquo; Isabel
+      declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 <i>Interviewer</i>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does he do for a living?&rdquo; she asked of Isabel the evening of her
+      arrival. &ldquo;Does he go round all day with his hands in his pockets?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He does nothing,&rdquo; smiled Isabel; &ldquo;he&rsquo;s a gentleman of large leisure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I call that a shame&mdash;when I have to work like a
+      car-conductor,&rdquo; Miss Stackpole replied. &ldquo;I should like to show him up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s in wretched health; he&rsquo;s quite unfit for work,&rdquo; Isabel urged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pshaw! don&rsquo;t you believe it. I work when I&rsquo;m sick,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah no,&rdquo; said Ralph, &ldquo;I keep my victims for a slower torture. And you&rsquo;d be
+      such an interesting one!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you do torture me; I may say that. But I shock all your prejudices;
+      that&rsquo;s one comfort.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My prejudices? I haven&rsquo;t a prejudice to bless myself with. There&rsquo;s
+      intellectual poverty for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The more shame to you; I&rsquo;ve some delicious ones. Of course I spoil your
+      flirtation, or whatever it is you call it, with your cousin; but I don&rsquo;t
+      care for that, as I render her the service of drawing you out. She&rsquo;ll see
+      how thin you are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, do draw me out!&rdquo; Ralph exclaimed. &ldquo;So few people will take the
+      trouble.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you always spend your time like this?&rdquo; she demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I seldom spend it so agreeably.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you know what I mean&mdash;without any regular occupation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; said Ralph, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m the idlest man living.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s my ideal of a regular occupation,&rdquo;
+       he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see how you can reconcile it to your
+      conscience.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear lady, I have no conscience!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I advise you to cultivate one. You&rsquo;ll need it the next time you go
+      to America.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall probably never go again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you ashamed to show yourself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ralph meditated with a mild smile. &ldquo;I suppose that if one has no
+      conscience one has no shame.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you&rsquo;ve got plenty of assurance,&rdquo; Henrietta declared. &ldquo;Do you
+      consider it right to give up your country?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, one doesn&rsquo;t give up one&rsquo;s country any more than one gives <i>up</i>
+      one&rsquo;s grandmother. They&rsquo;re both antecedent to choice&mdash;elements of
+      one&rsquo;s composition that are not to be eliminated.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose that means that you&rsquo;ve tried and been worsted. What do they
+      think of you over here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They delight in me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s because you truckle to them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, set it down a little to my natural charm!&rdquo; Ralph sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know anything about your natural charm. If you&rsquo;ve got any charm
+      it&rsquo;s quite unnatural. It&rsquo;s wholly acquired&mdash;or at least you&rsquo;ve tried
+      hard to acquire it, living over here. I don&rsquo;t say you&rsquo;ve succeeded. It&rsquo;s a
+      charm that I don&rsquo;t appreciate, anyway. Make yourself useful in some way,
+      and then we&rsquo;ll talk about it.&rdquo; &ldquo;Well, now, tell me what I shall do,&rdquo; said
+      Ralph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go right home, to begin with.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I see. And then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take right hold of something.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, now, what sort of thing?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anything you please, so long as you take hold. Some new idea, some big
+      work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it very difficult to take hold?&rdquo; Ralph enquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not if you put your heart into it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, my heart,&rdquo; said Ralph. &ldquo;If it depends upon my heart&mdash;!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Haven&rsquo;t you got a heart?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had one a few days ago, but I&rsquo;ve lost it since.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re not serious,&rdquo; Miss Stackpole remarked; &ldquo;that&rsquo;s what&rsquo;s the matter
+      with you.&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;I know what&rsquo;s the matter with you, Mr.
+      Touchett,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You think you&rsquo;re too good to get married.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought so till I knew you, Miss Stackpole,&rdquo; Ralph answered; &ldquo;and then
+      I suddenly changed my mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh pshaw!&rdquo; Henrietta groaned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then it seemed to me,&rdquo; said Ralph, &ldquo;that I was not good enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would improve you. Besides, it&rsquo;s your duty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; cried the young man, &ldquo;one has so many duties! Is that a duty too?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course it is&mdash;did you never know that before? It&rsquo;s every one&rsquo;s
+      duty to get married.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;sort.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, well now, there&rsquo;s a good deal to be said about that,&rdquo; Ralph rejoined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There may be, but that&rsquo;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&rsquo;re better than any one else in the world?
+      In America it&rsquo;s usual for people to marry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it&rsquo;s my duty,&rdquo; Ralph asked, &ldquo;is it not, by analogy, yours as well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Stackpole&rsquo;s ocular surfaces unwinkingly caught the sun. &ldquo;Have you the
+      fond hope of finding a flaw in my reasoning? Of course I&rsquo;ve as good a
+      right to marry as any one else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well then,&rdquo; said Ralph, &ldquo;I won&rsquo;t say it vexes me to see you single. It
+      delights me rather.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re not serious yet. You never will be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;No, not even then,&rdquo; she answered dryly.
+      After which she walked away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve not conceived a passion for your friend,&rdquo; Ralph said that evening to
+      Isabel, &ldquo;though we talked some time this morning about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you said something she didn&rsquo;t like,&rdquo; the girl replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ralph stared. &ldquo;Has she complained of me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She told me she thinks there&rsquo;s something very low in the tone of
+      Europeans towards women.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does she call me a European?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One of the worst. She told me you had said to her something that an
+      American never would have said. But she didn&rsquo;t repeat it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ralph treated himself to a luxury of laughter. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s an extraordinary
+      combination. Did she think I was making love to her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought she was proposing marriage to me and I accepted her. Was that
+      unkind?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel smiled. &ldquo;It was unkind to me. I don&rsquo;t want you to marry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear cousin, what&rsquo;s one to do among you all?&rdquo; Ralph demanded. &ldquo;Miss
+      Stackpole tells me it&rsquo;s my bounden duty, and that it&rsquo;s hers, in general,
+      to see I do mine!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has a great sense of duty,&rdquo; said Isabel gravely. &ldquo;She has indeed, and
+      it&rsquo;s the motive of everything she says. That&rsquo;s what I like her for. She
+      thinks it&rsquo;s unworthy of you to keep so many things to yourself. That&rsquo;s
+      what she wanted to express. If you thought she was trying to&mdash;to
+      attract you, you were very wrong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s true it was an odd way, but I did think she was trying to attract
+      me. Forgive my depravity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re very conceited. She had no interested views, and never supposed
+      you would think she had.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One must be very modest then to talk with such women,&rdquo; Ralph said humbly.
+      &ldquo;But it&rsquo;s a very strange type. She&rsquo;s too personal&mdash;considering that
+      she expects other people not to be. She walks in without knocking at the
+      door.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; Isabel admitted, &ldquo;she doesn&rsquo;t sufficiently recognise the existence
+      of knockers; and indeed I&rsquo;m not sure that she doesn&rsquo;t think them rather a
+      pretentious ornament. She thinks one&rsquo;s door should stand ajar. But I
+      persist in liking her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I persist in thinking her too familiar,&rdquo; Ralph rejoined, naturally
+      somewhat uncomfortable under the sense of having been doubly deceived in
+      Miss Stackpole.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Isabel, smiling, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid it&rsquo;s because she&rsquo;s rather vulgar
+      that I like her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She would be flattered by your reason!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I should tell her I wouldn&rsquo;t express it in that way. I should say it&rsquo;s
+      because there&rsquo;s something of the &lsquo;people&rsquo; in her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you know about the people? and what does she, for that matter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She knows a great deal, and I know enough to feel that she&rsquo;s a kind of
+      emanation of the great democracy&mdash;of the continent, the country, the
+      nation. I don&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You like her then for patriotic reasons. I&rsquo;m afraid it is on those very
+      grounds I object to her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; said Isabel with a kind of joyous sigh, &ldquo;I like so many things! If a
+      thing strikes me with a certain intensity I accept it. I don&rsquo;t want to
+      swagger, but I suppose I&rsquo;m rather versatile. I like people to be totally
+      different from Henrietta&mdash;in the style of Lord Warburton&rsquo;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&rsquo;m
+      straightway convinced by her; not so much in respect to herself as in
+      respect to what masses behind her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, you mean the back view of her,&rdquo; Ralph suggested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What she says is true,&rdquo; his cousin answered; &ldquo;you&rsquo;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&mdash;pardon
+      my simile&mdash;has something of that odour in her garments.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not sure the Pacific&rsquo;s so green as that,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;but
+      you&rsquo;re a young woman of imagination. Henrietta, however, does smell of the
+      Future&mdash;it almost knocks one down!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s character a
+      sister-spirit, and of the easy venerableness of Mr. Touchett, whose noble
+      tone, as she said, met with her full approval&mdash;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 &ldquo;allow&rdquo; 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&mdash;adventuresses
+      usually giving one more of a thrill; she had expressed some surprise at
+      her niece&rsquo;s having selected such a friend, yet had immediately added that
+      she knew Isabel&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you could see none but the people I like, my dear, you&rsquo;d have a very
+      small society,&rdquo; Mrs. Touchett frankly admitted; &ldquo;and I don&rsquo;t think I like
+      any man or woman well enough to recommend them to you. When it comes to
+      recommending it&rsquo;s a serious affair. I don&rsquo;t like Miss Stackpole&mdash;everything
+      about her displeases me; she talks so much too loud and looks at one as if
+      one wanted to look at her&mdash;which one doesn&rsquo;t. I&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s no use trying.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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 <i>Interviewer</i>, 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We judge from different points of view, evidently,&rdquo; said Mrs. Touchett.
+      &ldquo;I like to be treated as an individual; you like to be treated as a
+      &lsquo;party.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what you mean,&rdquo; Henrietta replied. &ldquo;I like to be treated as
+      an American lady.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor American ladies!&rdquo; cried Mrs. Touchett with a laugh. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re the
+      slaves of slaves.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They&rsquo;re the companions of freemen,&rdquo; Henrietta retorted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They&rsquo;re the companions of their servants&mdash;the Irish chambermaid and
+      the negro waiter. They share their work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you call the domestics in an American household &lsquo;slaves&rsquo;?&rdquo; Miss
+      Stackpole enquired. &ldquo;If that&rsquo;s the way you desire to treat them, no wonder
+      you don&rsquo;t like America.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you&rsquo;ve not good servants you&rsquo;re miserable,&rdquo; Mrs. Touchett serenely
+      said. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re very bad in America, but I&rsquo;ve five perfect ones in
+      Florence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see what you want with five,&rdquo; Henrietta couldn&rsquo;t help observing.
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I should like to see five persons surrounding me in that
+      menial position.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I like them in that position better than in some others,&rdquo; proclaimed Mrs.
+      Touchett with much meaning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Should you like me better if I were your butler, dear?&rdquo; her husband
+      asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I should: you wouldn&rsquo;t at all have the <i>tenue</i>.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The companions of freemen&mdash;I like that, Miss Stackpole,&rdquo; said Ralph.
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a beautiful description.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I said freemen I didn&rsquo;t mean you, sir!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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: &ldquo;My dear friend, I
+      wonder if you&rsquo;re growing faithless.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Faithless? Faithless to you, Henrietta?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, that would be a great pain; but it&rsquo;s not that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Faithless to my country then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, that I hope will never be. When I wrote to you from Liverpool I said
+      I had something particular to tell you. You&rsquo;ve never asked me what it is.
+      Is it because you&rsquo;ve suspected?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Suspected what? As a rule I don&rsquo;t think I suspect,&rdquo; said Isabel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I remember now that phrase in your letter, but I confess I had forgotten
+      it. What have you to tell me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Henrietta looked disappointed, and her steady gaze betrayed it. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t
+      ask that right&mdash;as if you thought it important. You&rsquo;re changed&mdash;you&rsquo;re
+      thinking of other things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me what you mean, and I&rsquo;ll think of that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you really think of it? That&rsquo;s what I wish to be sure of.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve not much control of my thoughts, but I&rsquo;ll do my best,&rdquo; said Isabel.
+      Henrietta gazed at her, in silence, for a period which tried Isabel&rsquo;s
+      patience, so that our heroine added at last: &ldquo;Do you mean that you&rsquo;re
+      going to be married?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not till I&rsquo;ve seen Europe!&rdquo; said Miss Stackpole. &ldquo;What are you laughing
+      at?&rdquo; she went on. &ldquo;What I mean is that Mr. Goodwood came out in the
+      steamer with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; Isabel responded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You say that right. I had a good deal of talk with him; he has come after
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did he tell you so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, he told me nothing; that&rsquo;s how I knew it,&rdquo; said Henrietta cleverly.
+      &ldquo;He said very little about you, but I spoke of you a good deal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel waited. At the mention of Mr. Goodwood&rsquo;s name she had turned a
+      little pale. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m very sorry you did that,&rdquo; she observed at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you say about me?&rdquo; Isabel asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I said you were on the whole the finest creature I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m very sorry for that. He thinks too well of me already; he oughtn&rsquo;t to
+      be encouraged.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s very simple-minded,&rdquo; said Isabel. &ldquo;And he&rsquo;s not so ugly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing so simplifying as a grand passion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not a grand passion; I&rsquo;m very sure it&rsquo;s not that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t say that as if you were sure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel gave rather a cold smile. &ldquo;I shall say it better to Mr. Goodwood
+      himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;ll soon give you a chance,&rdquo; said Henrietta. Isabel offered no answer
+      to this assertion, which her companion made with an air of great
+      confidence. &ldquo;He&rsquo;ll find you changed,&rdquo; the latter pursued. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve been
+      affected by your new surroundings.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very likely. I&rsquo;m affected by everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By everything but Mr. Goodwood!&rdquo; Miss Stackpole exclaimed with a slightly
+      harsh hilarity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel failed even to smile back and in a moment she said: &ldquo;Did he ask you
+      to speak to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not in so many words. But his eyes asked it&mdash;and his handshake, when
+      he bade me good-bye.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you for doing so.&rdquo; And Isabel turned away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, you&rsquo;re changed; you&rsquo;ve got new ideas over here,&rdquo; her friend
+      continued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope so,&rdquo; said Isabel; &ldquo;one should get as many new ideas as possible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; but they shouldn&rsquo;t interfere with the old ones when the old ones
+      have been the right ones.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel turned about again. &ldquo;If you mean that I had any idea with regard to
+      Mr. Goodwood&mdash;!&rdquo; But she faltered before her friend&rsquo;s implacable
+      glitter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear child, you certainly encouraged him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel made for the moment as if to deny this charge; instead of which,
+      however, she presently answered: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s very true. I did encourage him.&rdquo;
+       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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I asked him, and he said he meant to do nothing,&rdquo; Miss Stackpole
+      answered. &ldquo;But I don&rsquo;t believe that; he&rsquo;s not a man to do nothing. He is a
+      man of high, bold action. Whatever happens to him he&rsquo;ll always do
+      something, and whatever he does will always be right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I quite believe that.&rdquo; Henrietta might be wanting in delicacy, but it
+      touched the girl, all the same, to hear this declaration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, you do care for him!&rdquo; her visitor rang out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whatever he does will always be right,&rdquo; Isabel repeated. &ldquo;When a man&rsquo;s of
+      that infallible mould what does it matter to him what one feels?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It may not matter to him, but it matters to one&rsquo;s self.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, what it matters to me&mdash;that&rsquo;s not what we&rsquo;re discussing,&rdquo; said
+      Isabel with a cold smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This time her companion was grave. &ldquo;Well, I don&rsquo;t care; you have changed.
+      You&rsquo;re not the girl you were a few short weeks ago, and Mr. Goodwood will
+      see it. I expect him here any day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope he&rsquo;ll hate me then,&rdquo; said Isabel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe you hope it about as much as I believe him capable of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To this observation our heroine made no return; she was absorbed in the
+      alarm given her by Henrietta&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;as impartially as Bunchie&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s library was
+      provided with a complete set of those authors which no gentleman&rsquo;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&mdash;that
+      came into her vision, already so held by him, with the vividness of the
+      writer&rsquo;s voice or his face. This document proved short and may be given
+      entire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <span class="smcap">My Dear Miss Archerspan</span>&mdash;I don&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;m not disagreeable to you, and I believe it; for I
+      don&rsquo;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&rsquo;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,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <span class="smcap">Caspar Goodwood</span>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They told me you were out here,&rdquo; said Lord Warburton; &ldquo;and as there was
+      no one in the drawing-room and it&rsquo;s really you that I wish to see, I came
+      out with no more ado.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel had got up; she felt a wish, for the moment, that he should not sit
+      down beside her. &ldquo;I was just going indoors.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please don&rsquo;t do that; it&rsquo;s much jollier here; I&rsquo;ve ridden over from
+      Lockleigh; it&rsquo;s a lovely day.&rdquo; 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&rsquo;s first
+      impression of him. It surrounded him like a zone of fine June weather.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll walk about a little then,&rdquo; 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&rsquo;s &ldquo;making up&rdquo; 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
+      &ldquo;personage,&rdquo; 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&mdash;of what one might like in a gentleman&rsquo;s mind
+      and in his talk. She herself was a character&mdash;she couldn&rsquo;t help being
+      aware of that; and hitherto her visions of a completed consciousness had
+      concerned themselves largely with moral images&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;murmured to her that virtually she had a system and an orbit
+      of her own. It told her other things besides&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;as we have touched on the point, we may
+      return to it for a moment again&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope you had a pleasant ride,&rdquo; said Isabel, who observed her
+      companion&rsquo;s hesitancy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would have been pleasant if for nothing else than that it brought me
+      here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you so fond of Gardencourt?&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;great&rdquo; (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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I care nothing for Gardencourt,&rdquo; said her companion. &ldquo;I care only for
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve known me too short a time to have a right to say that, and I can&rsquo;t
+      believe you&rsquo;re serious.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These words of Isabel&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One&rsquo;s right in such a matter is not measured by the time, Miss Archer;
+      it&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s not a
+      fancy-phrase, and I shall think better of novels for evermore. Those two
+      days I spent here settled it; I don&rsquo;t know whether you suspected I was
+      doing so, but I paid&mdash;mentally speaking I mean&mdash;the greatest
+      possible attention to you. Nothing you said, nothing you did, was lost
+      upon me. When you came to Lockleigh the other day&mdash;or rather when you
+      went away&mdash;I was perfectly sure. Nevertheless I made up my mind to
+      think it over and to question myself narrowly. I&rsquo;ve done so; all these
+      days I&rsquo;ve done nothing else. I don&rsquo;t make mistakes about such things; I&rsquo;m
+      a very judicious animal. I don&rsquo;t go off easily, but when I&rsquo;m touched, it&rsquo;s
+      for life. It&rsquo;s for life, Miss Archer, it&rsquo;s for life,&rdquo; 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&mdash;the heat,
+      the violence, the unreason&mdash;and that burned as steadily as a lamp in
+      a windless place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By tacit consent, as he talked, they had walked more and more slowly, and
+      at last they stopped and he took her hand. &ldquo;Ah, Lord Warburton, how little
+      you know me!&rdquo; Isabel said very gently. Gently too she drew her hand away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t taunt me with that; that I don&rsquo;t know you better makes me unhappy
+      enough already; it&rsquo;s all my loss. But that&rsquo;s what I want, and it seems to
+      me I&rsquo;m taking the best way. If you&rsquo;ll be my wife, then I shall know you,
+      and when I tell you all the good I think of you you&rsquo;ll not be able to say
+      it&rsquo;s from ignorance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you know me little I know you even less,&rdquo; said Isabel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean that, unlike yourself, I may not improve on acquaintance? Ah, of
+      course that&rsquo;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&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I like you very much, Lord Warburton,&rdquo; she answered; and at this moment
+      she liked him immensely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thank you for saying that; it shows you don&rsquo;t regard me as a stranger.
+      I really believe I&rsquo;ve filled all the other relations of life very
+      creditably, and I don&rsquo;t see why I shouldn&rsquo;t fill this one&mdash;in which I
+      offer myself to you&mdash;seeing that I care so much more about it. Ask
+      the people who know me well; I&rsquo;ve friends who&rsquo;ll speak for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t need the recommendation of your friends,&rdquo; said Isabel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah now, that&rsquo;s delightful of you. You believe in me yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Completely,&rdquo; Isabel declared. She quite glowed there, inwardly, with the
+      pleasure of feeling she did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The light in her companion&rsquo;s eyes turned into a smile, and he gave a long
+      exhalation of joy. &ldquo;If you&rsquo;re mistaken, Miss Archer, let me lose all I
+      possess!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She wondered whether he meant this for a reminder that he was rich, and,
+      on the instant, felt sure that he didn&rsquo;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. &ldquo;I thank you more than I can say for your
+      offer,&rdquo; she returned at last. &ldquo;It does me great honour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, don&rsquo;t say that!&rdquo; he broke out. &ldquo;I was afraid you&rsquo;d say something like
+      that. I don&rsquo;t see what you&rsquo;ve to do with that sort of thing. I don&rsquo;t see
+      why you should thank me&mdash;it&rsquo;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&rsquo;s a great question; I must tell you that I&rsquo;d rather ask it than
+      have it to answer myself. But the way you&rsquo;ve listened&mdash;or at least
+      your having listened at all&mdash;gives me some hope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t hope too much,&rdquo; Isabel said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh Miss Archer!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Should you be greatly surprised if I were to beg you not to hope at all?&rdquo;
+       Isabel asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surprised? I don&rsquo;t know what you mean by surprise. It wouldn&rsquo;t be that;
+      it would be a feeling very much worse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel walked on again; she was silent for some minutes. &ldquo;I&rsquo;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&rsquo;m by no means sure that you wouldn&rsquo;t
+      be disappointed. And I say that not in the least out of conventional
+      modesty; it&rsquo;s perfectly sincere.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m willing to risk it, Miss Archer,&rdquo; her companion replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a great question, as you say. It&rsquo;s a very difficult question.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll gladly wait a long
+      time. Only remember that in the end my dearest happiness depends on your
+      answer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should be very sorry to keep you in suspense,&rdquo; said Isabel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, don&rsquo;t mind. I&rsquo;d much rather have a good answer six months hence than
+      a bad one to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it&rsquo;s very probable that even six months hence I shouldn&rsquo;t be able to
+      give you one that you&rsquo;d think good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not, since you really like me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, you must never doubt that,&rdquo; said Isabel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well then, I don&rsquo;t see what more you ask!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not what I ask; it&rsquo;s what I can give. I don&rsquo;t think I should suit
+      you; I really don&rsquo;t think I should.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You needn&rsquo;t worry about that. That&rsquo;s my affair. You needn&rsquo;t be a better
+      royalist than the king.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not only that,&rdquo; said Isabel; &ldquo;but I&rsquo;m not sure I wish to marry any
+      one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very likely you don&rsquo;t. I&rsquo;ve no doubt a great many women begin that way,&rdquo;
+       said his lordship, who, be it averred, did not in the least believe in the
+      axiom he thus beguiled his anxiety by uttering. &ldquo;But they&rsquo;re frequently
+      persuaded.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, that&rsquo;s because they want to be!&rdquo; And Isabel lightly laughed. Her
+      suitor&rsquo;s countenance fell, and he looked at her for a while in silence.
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid it&rsquo;s my being an Englishman that makes you hesitate,&rdquo; he said
+      presently. &ldquo;I know your uncle thinks you ought to marry in your own
+      country.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;Has he told you that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I remember his making the remark. He spoke perhaps of Americans
+      generally.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He appears himself to have found it very pleasant to live in England.&rdquo;
+       Isabel spoke in a manner that might have seemed a little perverse, but
+      which expressed both her constant perception of her uncle&rsquo;s outward
+      felicity and her general disposition to elude any obligation to take a
+      restricted view.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It gave her companion hope, and he immediately cried with warmth: &ldquo;Ah, my
+      dear Miss Archer, old England&rsquo;s a very good sort of country, you know! And
+      it will be still better when we&rsquo;ve furbished it up a little.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, don&rsquo;t furbish it, Lord Warburton&mdash;, leave it alone. I like it
+      this way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well then, if you like it, I&rsquo;m more and more unable to see your objection
+      to what I propose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid I can&rsquo;t make you understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You ought at least to try. I&rsquo;ve a fair intelligence. Are you afraid&mdash;afraid
+      of the climate? We can easily live elsewhere, you know. You can pick out
+      your climate, the whole world over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These words were uttered with a breadth of candour that was like the
+      embrace of strong arms&mdash;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: &ldquo;Lord Warburton,
+      it&rsquo;s impossible for me to do better in this wonderful world, I think, than
+      commit myself, very gratefully, to your loyalty.&rdquo; 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
+      &ldquo;splendid&rdquo; security so offered her was not the greatest she could
+      conceive. What she finally bethought herself of saying was something very
+      different&mdash;something that deferred the need of really facing her
+      crisis. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t think me unkind if I ask you to say no more about this
+      to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly, certainly!&rdquo; her companion cried. &ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t bore you for the
+      world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve given me a great deal to think about, and I promise you to do it
+      justice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s all I ask of you, of course&mdash;and that you&rsquo;ll remember how
+      absolutely my happiness is in your hands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel listened with extreme respect to this admonition, but she said
+      after a minute: &ldquo;I must tell you that what I shall think about is some way
+      of letting you know that what you ask is impossible&mdash;letting you know
+      it without making you miserable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no way to do that, Miss Archer. I won&rsquo;t say that if you refuse me
+      you&rsquo;ll kill me; I shall not die of it. But I shall do worse; I shall live
+      to no purpose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll live to marry a better woman than I.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t say that, please,&rdquo; said Lord Warburton very gravely. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s fair
+      to neither of us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To marry a worse one then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If there are better women than you I prefer the bad ones. That&rsquo;s all I
+      can say,&rdquo; he went on with the same earnestness. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no accounting for
+      tastes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His gravity made her feel equally grave, and she showed it by again
+      requesting him to drop the subject for the present. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll speak to you
+      myself&mdash;very soon. Perhaps I shall write to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At your convenience, yes,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;Whatever time you take, it must
+      seem to me long, and I suppose I must make the best of that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not keep you in suspense; I only want to collect my mind a
+      little.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;Do you
+      know I&rsquo;m very much afraid of it&mdash;of that remarkable mind of yours?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Our heroine&rsquo;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, &ldquo;So am I, my lord!&rdquo; she oddly exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His compassion was not stirred, however; all he possessed of the faculty
+      of pity was needed at home. &ldquo;Ah! be merciful, be merciful,&rdquo; he murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you had better go,&rdquo; said Isabel. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll write to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very good; but whatever you write I&rsquo;ll come and see you, you know.&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s one thing more,&rdquo; he
+      went on. &ldquo;You know, if you don&rsquo;t like Lockleigh&mdash;if you think it&rsquo;s
+      damp or anything of that sort&mdash;you need never go within fifty miles
+      of it. It&rsquo;s not damp, by the way; I&rsquo;ve had the house thoroughly examined;
+      it&rsquo;s perfectly safe and right. But if you shouldn&rsquo;t fancy it you needn&rsquo;t
+      dream of living in it. There&rsquo;s no difficulty whatever about that; there
+      are plenty of houses. I thought I&rsquo;d just mention it; some people don&rsquo;t
+      like a moat, you know. Good-bye.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I adore a moat,&rdquo; said Isabel. &ldquo;Good-bye.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He held out his hand, and she gave him hers a moment&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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 &ldquo;chance.&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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 <i>bêtise</i> 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&mdash;as he saw it&mdash;even though she
+      mightn&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It was this feeling and not the wish to ask advice&mdash;she had no desire
+      whatever for that&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She approached her point directly. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man expressed no surprise, but thanked her for the confidence she
+      showed him. &ldquo;Do you mind telling me whether you accepted him?&rdquo; he then
+      enquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve not answered him definitely yet; I&rsquo;ve taken a little time to think
+      of it, because that seems more respectful. But I shall not accept him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;Well, I told you you&rsquo;d be a
+      success over here. Americans are highly appreciated.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very highly indeed,&rdquo; said Isabel. &ldquo;But at the cost of seeming both
+      tasteless and ungrateful, I don&rsquo;t think I can marry Lord Warburton.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; her uncle went on, &ldquo;of course an old man can&rsquo;t judge for a young
+      lady. I&rsquo;m glad you didn&rsquo;t ask me before you made up your mind. I suppose I
+      ought to tell you,&rdquo; he added slowly, but as if it were not of much
+      consequence, &ldquo;that I&rsquo;ve known all about it these three days.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About Lord Warburton&rsquo;s state of mind?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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?&rdquo; the
+      old man obligingly asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you; I don&rsquo;t think I care about that. But I&rsquo;m glad he wrote to you;
+      it was right that he should, and he would be certain to do what was
+      right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah well, I guess you do like him!&rdquo; Mr. Touchett declared. &ldquo;You needn&rsquo;t
+      pretend you don&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I like him extremely; I&rsquo;m very free to admit that. But I don&rsquo;t wish to
+      marry any one just now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You think some one may come along whom you may like better. Well, that&rsquo;s
+      very likely,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care if I don&rsquo;t meet any one else. I like Lord Warburton quite
+      well enough.&rdquo; she fell into that appearance of a sudden change of point of
+      view with which she sometimes startled and even displeased her
+      interlocutors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her uncle, however, seemed proof against either of these impressions.
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a very fine man,&rdquo; he resumed in a tone which might have passed for
+      that of encouragement. &ldquo;His letter was one of the pleasantest I&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He would have told me everything I wished to ask him,&rdquo; Isabel said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you didn&rsquo;t feel curious?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My curiosity would have been idle&mdash;once I had determined to decline
+      his offer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You didn&rsquo;t find it sufficiently attractive?&rdquo; Mr. Touchett enquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was silent a little. &ldquo;I suppose it was that,&rdquo; she presently admitted.
+      &ldquo;But I don&rsquo;t know why.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fortunately ladies are not obliged to give reasons,&rdquo; said her uncle.
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a great deal that&rsquo;s attractive about such an idea; but I don&rsquo;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&rsquo;s because our
+      population is insufficient. Here, you know, they&rsquo;re rather crowded.
+      However, I presume there&rsquo;s room for charming young ladies everywhere.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There seems to have been room here for you,&rdquo; said Isabel, whose eyes had
+      been wandering over the large pleasure-spaces of the park.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Touchett gave a shrewd, conscious smile. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s room everywhere, my
+      dear, if you&rsquo;ll pay for it. I sometimes think I&rsquo;ve paid too much for this.
+      Perhaps you also might have to pay too much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps I might,&rdquo; the girl replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&mdash;ambitions
+      reaching beyond Lord Warburton&rsquo;s beautiful appeal, reaching to something
+      indefinable and possibly not commendable. In so far as the indefinable had
+      an influence upon Isabel&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;a consideration she had
+      never paid in equal degree to any one else&mdash;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&mdash;and she had already felt it as a power that was of his
+      very nature. It was in no degree a matter of his &ldquo;advantages&rdquo;&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s visit, that
+      she couldn&rsquo;t then discuss difficult questions, dazzled as she was by the
+      great immediate opening of her aunt&rsquo;s offer of &ldquo;Europe,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was the son of a proprietor of well-known cotton-mills in Massachusetts&mdash;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&mdash;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 <i>Interviewer</i> an exhaustive
+      article on the Goodwood patent&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;a war like
+      the Civil strife that had overdarkened her conscious childhood and his
+      ripening youth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She liked at any rate this idea of his being by character and in fact a
+      mover of men&mdash;liked it much better than some other points in his
+      nature and aspect. She cared nothing for his cotton-mill&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sense of her incoherence was not a help to answering Mr. Goodwood&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <span class="smcap">Dear Lord Warburton</span>&mdash;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&mdash;your various homes&mdash;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,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <span class="smcap">Isabel Archer</span>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;When you look at me in a certain way my
+      knees knock together, my faculties desert me; I&rsquo;m filled with trepidation
+      and I ask only for strength to execute your commands. You&rsquo;ve an address
+      that I&rsquo;ve never encountered in any woman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; Henrietta replied good-humouredly, &ldquo;if I had not known before that
+      you were trying somehow to abash me I should know it now. Of course I&rsquo;m
+      easy game&mdash;I was brought up with such different customs and ideas.
+      I&rsquo;m not used to your arbitrary standards, and I&rsquo;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&rsquo;t know what to make of it.
+      We take everything more naturally over there, and, after all, we&rsquo;re a
+      great deal more simple. I admit that; I&rsquo;m very simple myself. Of course if
+      you choose to laugh at me for it you&rsquo;re very welcome; but I think on the
+      whole I would rather be myself than you. I&rsquo;m quite content to be myself; I
+      don&rsquo;t want to change. There are plenty of people that appreciate me just
+      as I am. It&rsquo;s true they&rsquo;re nice fresh free-born Americans!&rdquo; Henrietta had
+      lately taken up the tone of helpless innocence and large concession. &ldquo;I
+      want you to assist me a little,&rdquo; she went on. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care in the least
+      whether I amuse you while you do so; or, rather, I&rsquo;m perfectly willing
+      your amusement should be your reward. I want you to help me about Isabel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has she injured you?&rdquo; Ralph asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If she had I shouldn&rsquo;t mind, and I should never tell you. What I&rsquo;m afraid
+      of is that she&rsquo;ll injure herself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think that&rsquo;s very possible,&rdquo; said Ralph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His companion stopped in the garden-walk, fixing on him perhaps the very
+      gaze that unnerved him. &ldquo;That too would amuse you, I suppose. The way you
+      do say things! I never heard any one so indifferent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To Isabel? Ah, not that!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you&rsquo;re not in love with her, I hope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How can that be, when I&rsquo;m in love with Another?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re in love with yourself, that&rsquo;s the Other!&rdquo; Miss Stackpole declared.
+      &ldquo;Much good may it do you! But if you wish to be serious once in your life
+      here&rsquo;s a chance; and if you really care for your cousin here&rsquo;s an
+      opportunity to prove it. I don&rsquo;t expect you to understand her; that&rsquo;s too
+      much to ask. But you needn&rsquo;t do that to grant my favour. I&rsquo;ll supply the
+      necessary intelligence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall enjoy that immensely!&rdquo; Ralph exclaimed. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll be Caliban and you
+      shall be Ariel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re not at all like Caliban, because you&rsquo;re sophisticated, and Caliban
+      was not. But I&rsquo;m not talking about imaginary characters; I&rsquo;m talking about
+      Isabel. Isabel&rsquo;s intensely real. What I wish to tell you is that I find
+      her fearfully changed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Since you came, do you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Since I came and before I came. She&rsquo;s not the same as she once so
+      beautifully was.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As she was in America?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, in America. I suppose you know she comes from there. She can&rsquo;t help
+      it, but she does.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you want to change her back again?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I do, and I want you to help me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; said Ralph, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m only Caliban; I&rsquo;m not Prospero.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You were Prospero enough to make her what she has become. You&rsquo;ve acted on
+      Isabel Archer since she came here, Mr. Touchett.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I, my dear Miss Stackpole? Never in the world. Isabel Archer has acted on
+      me&mdash;yes; she acts on every one. But I&rsquo;ve been absolutely passive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re too passive then. You had better stir yourself and be careful.
+      Isabel&rsquo;s changing every day; she&rsquo;s drifting away&mdash;right out to sea.
+      I&rsquo;ve watched her and I can see it. She&rsquo;s not the bright American girl she
+      was. She&rsquo;s taking different views, a different colour, and turning away
+      from her old ideals. I want to save those ideals, Mr. Touchett, and that&rsquo;s
+      where you come in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not surely as an ideal?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I hope not,&rdquo; Henrietta replied promptly. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got a fear in my
+      heart that she&rsquo;s going to marry one of these fell Europeans, and I want to
+      prevent it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, I see,&rdquo; cried Ralph; &ldquo;and to prevent it you want me to step in and
+      marry her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not quite; that remedy would be as bad as the disease, for you&rsquo;re the
+      typical, the fell European from whom I wish to rescue her. No; I wish you
+      to take an interest in another person&mdash;a young man to whom she once
+      gave great encouragement and whom she now doesn&rsquo;t seem to think good
+      enough. He&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&mdash;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 <i>Interviewer</i>
+      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&rsquo;s imperturbable gaze. He returned this
+      challenge a moment, consciously, resisting an inclination to frown as one
+      frowns in the presence of larger luminaries. &ldquo;Who&rsquo;s the gentleman you
+      speak of?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Caspar Goodwood&mdash;of Boston. He has been extremely attentive to
+      Isabel&mdash;just as devoted to her as he can live. He has followed her
+      out here and he&rsquo;s at present in London. I don&rsquo;t know his address, but I
+      guess I can obtain it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never heard of him,&rdquo; said Ralph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I suppose you haven&rsquo;t heard of every one. I don&rsquo;t believe he has
+      ever heard of you; but that&rsquo;s no reason why Isabel shouldn&rsquo;t marry him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ralph gave a mild ambiguous laugh. &ldquo;What a rage you have for marrying
+      people! Do you remember how you wanted to marry me the other day?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got over that. You don&rsquo;t know how to take such ideas. Mr. Goodwood
+      does, however; and that&rsquo;s what I like about him. He&rsquo;s a splendid man and a
+      perfect gentleman, and Isabel knows it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is she very fond of him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If she isn&rsquo;t she ought to be. He&rsquo;s simply wrapped up in her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you wish me to ask him here,&rdquo; said Ralph reflectively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would be an act of true hospitality.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Caspar Goodwood,&rdquo; Ralph continued&mdash;&ldquo;it&rsquo;s rather a striking name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care anything about his name. It might be Ezekiel Jenkins, and I
+      should say the same. He&rsquo;s the only man I have ever seen whom I think
+      worthy of Isabel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re a very devoted friend,&rdquo; said Ralph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I am. If you say that to pour scorn on me I don&rsquo;t care.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t say it to pour scorn on you; I&rsquo;m very much struck with it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re more satiric than ever, but I advise you not to laugh at Mr.
+      Goodwood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I assure you I&rsquo;m very serious; you ought to understand that,&rdquo; said Ralph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a moment his companion understood it. &ldquo;I believe you are; now you&rsquo;re
+      too serious.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re difficult to please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you&rsquo;re very serious indeed. You won&rsquo;t invite Mr. Goodwood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; said Ralph. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m capable of strange things. Tell me a
+      little about Mr. Goodwood. What&rsquo;s he like?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s just the opposite of you. He&rsquo;s at the head of a cotton-factory; a
+      very fine one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has he pleasant manners?&rdquo; asked Ralph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Splendid manners&mdash;in the American style.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would he be an agreeable member of our little circle?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think he&rsquo;d care much about our little circle. He&rsquo;d concentrate on
+      Isabel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how would my cousin like that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very possibly not at all. But it will be good for her. It will call back
+      her thoughts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Call them back&mdash;from where?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;s
+      not worthy of Isabel to go back on a real friend simply because she has
+      changed the scene. I&rsquo;ve changed the scene too, and the effect of it has
+      been to make me care more for my old associations than ever. It&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aren&rsquo;t you perhaps a little too much in a hurry?&rdquo; Ralph enquired. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t
+      you think you ought to give her more of a chance in poor old England?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A chance to ruin her bright young life? One&rsquo;s never too much in a hurry
+      to save a precious human creature from drowning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As I understand it then,&rdquo; said Ralph, &ldquo;you wish me to push Mr. Goodwood
+      overboard after her. Do you know,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;that I&rsquo;ve never heard her
+      mention his name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Henrietta gave a brilliant smile. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m delighted to hear that; it proves
+      how much she thinks of him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ralph appeared to allow that there was a good deal in this, and he
+      surrendered to thought while his companion watched him askance. &ldquo;If I
+      should invite Mr. Goodwood,&rdquo; he finally said, &ldquo;it would be to quarrel with
+      him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t do that; he&rsquo;d prove the better man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You certainly are doing your best to make me hate him! I really don&rsquo;t
+      think I can ask him. I should be afraid of being rude to him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s just as you please,&rdquo; Henrietta returned. &ldquo;I had no idea you were in
+      love with her yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you really believe that?&rdquo; the young man asked with lifted eyebrows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the most natural speech I&rsquo;ve ever heard you make! Of course I
+      believe it,&rdquo; Miss Stackpole ingeniously said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; Ralph concluded, &ldquo;to prove to you that you&rsquo;re wrong I&rsquo;ll invite
+      him. It must be of course as a friend of yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will not be as a friend of mine that he&rsquo;ll come; and it will not be to
+      prove to me that I&rsquo;m wrong that you&rsquo;ll ask him&mdash;but to prove it to
+      yourself!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These last words of Miss Stackpole&rsquo;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&rsquo;s having an
+      &ldquo;admirer&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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. &ldquo;On this supposition,&rdquo; said Ralph, &ldquo;he must
+      regard her as a thorn on the stem of his rose; as an intercessor he must
+      find her wanting in tact.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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: &ldquo;Well, I never have heard of anything so
+      stiff!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid he doesn&rsquo;t care so much about my cousin as you suppose,&rdquo; Ralph
+      observed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, it&rsquo;s not that; it&rsquo;s some subtler motive. His nature&rsquo;s very deep. But
+      I&rsquo;m determined to fathom it, and I shall write to him to know what he
+      means.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His refusal of Ralph&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s promised enquiry into
+      the causes of Mr. Goodwood&rsquo;s stiffness&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose he&rsquo;s thinking it over,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;he thinks everything over;
+      he&rsquo;s not really at all impetuous. But I&rsquo;m accustomed to having my letters
+      answered the same day.&rdquo; She presently proposed to Isabel, at all events,
+      that they should make an excursion to London together. &ldquo;If I must tell the
+      truth,&rdquo; she observed, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not seeing much at this place, and I shouldn&rsquo;t
+      think you were either. I&rsquo;ve not even seen that aristocrat&mdash;what&rsquo;s his
+      name?&mdash;Lord Washburton. He seems to let you severely alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord Warburton&rsquo;s coming to-morrow, I happen to know,&rdquo; replied her friend,
+      who had received a note from the master of Lockleigh in answer to her own
+      letter. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll have every opportunity of turning him inside out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, he may do for one letter, but what&rsquo;s one letter when you want to
+      write fifty? I&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s hardly time to get in touch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s that the two should go thither on a visit of pleasure. The
+      idea struck Isabel as charming; she 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&mdash;one of the inns described by
+      Dickens&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a delightful plan,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I advise you to go to the Duke&rsquo;s Head
+      in Covent Garden, an easy, informal, old-fashioned place, and I&rsquo;ll have
+      you put down at my club.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean it&rsquo;s improper?&rdquo; Isabel asked. &ldquo;Dear me, isn&rsquo;t anything proper
+      here? With Henrietta surely I may go anywhere; she isn&rsquo;t hampered in that
+      way. She has travelled over the whole American continent and can at least
+      find her way about this minute island.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah then,&rdquo; said Ralph, &ldquo;let me take advantage of her protection to go up
+      to town as well. I may never have a chance to travel so safely!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;really liked&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s. The
+      two visitors were introduced to Miss Stackpole, who, at luncheon, occupied
+      a seat adjoining Lord Warburton&rsquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s failure to rise; or no, rather (this was our heroine&rsquo;s last
+      position) she would impute to the young American but a due consciousness
+      of inequality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;Do you know you&rsquo;re the first lord I&rsquo;ve ever
+      seen?&rdquo; she said very promptly to her neighbour. &ldquo;I suppose you think I&rsquo;m
+      awfully benighted.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve escaped seeing some very ugly men,&rdquo; Lord Warburton answered,
+      looking a trifle absently about the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are they very ugly? They try to make us believe in America that they&rsquo;re
+      all handsome and magnificent and that they wear wonderful robes and
+      crowns.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, the robes and crowns are gone out of fashion,&rdquo; said Lord Warburton,
+      &ldquo;like your tomahawks and revolvers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry for that; I think an aristocracy ought to be splendid,&rdquo;
+       Henrietta declared. &ldquo;If it&rsquo;s not that, what is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you know, it isn&rsquo;t much, at the best,&rdquo; her neighbour allowed. &ldquo;Won&rsquo;t
+      you have a potato?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care much for these European potatoes. I shouldn&rsquo;t know you from
+      an ordinary American gentleman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do talk to me as if I were one,&rdquo; said Lord Warburton. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see how
+      you manage to get on without potatoes; you must find so few things to eat
+      over here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Henrietta was silent a little; there was a chance he was not sincere.
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve had hardly any appetite since I&rsquo;ve been here,&rdquo; she went on at last;
+      &ldquo;so it doesn&rsquo;t much matter. I don&rsquo;t approve of you, you know; I feel as if
+      I ought to tell you that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t approve of me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; I don&rsquo;t suppose any one ever said such a thing to you before, did
+      they? I don&rsquo;t approve of lords as an institution. I think the world has
+      got beyond them&mdash;far beyond.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, so do I. I don&rsquo;t approve of myself in the least. Sometimes it comes
+      over me&mdash;how I should object to myself if I were not myself, don&rsquo;t
+      you know? But that&rsquo;s rather good, by the way&mdash;not to be
+      vainglorious.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t you give it up then?&rdquo; Miss Stackpole enquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give up&mdash;a&mdash;?&rdquo; asked Lord Warburton, meeting her harsh
+      inflexion with a very mellow one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give up being a lord.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like to see you do it!&rdquo; Henrietta exclaimed rather grimly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll invite you to the ceremony; we&rsquo;ll have a supper and a dance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Miss Stackpole, &ldquo;I like to see all sides. I don&rsquo;t approve of
+      a privileged class, but I like to hear what they have to say for
+      themselves.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mighty little, as you see!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like to draw you out a little more,&rdquo; Henrietta continued. &ldquo;But
+      you&rsquo;re always looking away. You&rsquo;re afraid of meeting my eye. I see you
+      want to escape me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I&rsquo;m only looking for those despised potatoes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please explain about that young lady&mdash;your sister&mdash;then. I
+      don&rsquo;t understand about her. Is she a Lady?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s a capital good girl.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like the way you say that&mdash;as if you wanted to change the
+      subject. Is her position inferior to yours?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We neither of us have any position to speak of; but she&rsquo;s better off than
+      I, because she has none of the bother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, she doesn&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, you see one takes life easily, on the whole,&rdquo; said Lord Warburton.
+      &ldquo;And then you know we&rsquo;re very dull. Ah, we can be dull when we try!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should advise you to try something else. I shouldn&rsquo;t know what to talk
+      to your sister about; she looks so different. Is that silver cross a
+      badge?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A badge?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A sign of rank.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Warburton&rsquo;s glance had wandered a good deal, but at this it met the
+      gaze of his neighbour. &ldquo;Oh yes,&rdquo; he answered in a moment; &ldquo;the women go in
+      for those things. The silver cross is worn by the eldest daughters of
+      Viscounts.&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;I hoped you wouldn&rsquo;t write to me
+      that way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was the only way, Lord Warburton,&rdquo; said the girl. &ldquo;Do try and believe
+      that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I could believe it of course I should let you alone. But we can&rsquo;t
+      believe by willing it; and I confess I don&rsquo;t understand. I could
+      understand your disliking me; that I could understand well. But that you
+      should admit you do&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What have I admitted?&rdquo; Isabel interrupted, turning slightly pale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That you think me a good fellow; isn&rsquo;t that it?&rdquo; She said nothing, and he
+      went on: &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t seem to have any reason, and that gives me a sense of
+      injustice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have a reason, Lord Warburton.&rdquo; She said it in a tone that made his
+      heart contract.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like very much to know it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you some day when there&rsquo;s more to show for it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excuse my saying that in the mean time I must doubt of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You make me very unhappy,&rdquo; said Isabel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not sorry for that; it may help you to know how I feel. Will you
+      kindly answer me a question?&rdquo; Isabel made no audible assent, but he
+      apparently saw in her eyes something that gave him courage to go on. &ldquo;Do
+      you prefer some one else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a question I&rsquo;d rather not answer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, you do then!&rdquo; her suitor murmured with bitterness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bitterness touched her, and she cried out: &ldquo;You&rsquo;re mistaken! I don&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He sat down on a bench, unceremoniously, doggedly, like a man in trouble;
+      leaning his elbows on his knees and staring at the floor. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t even be
+      glad of that,&rdquo; he said at last, throwing himself back against the wall;
+      &ldquo;for that would be an excuse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She raised her eyebrows in surprise. &ldquo;An excuse? Must I excuse myself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paid, however, no answer to the question. Another idea had come into
+      his head. &ldquo;Is it my political opinions? Do you think I go too far?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t object to your political opinions, because I don&rsquo;t understand
+      them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t care what I think!&rdquo; he cried, getting up. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all the same to
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;That reason that I wouldn&rsquo;t
+      tell you&mdash;I&rsquo;ll tell it you after all. It&rsquo;s that I can&rsquo;t escape my
+      fate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your fate?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should try to escape it if I were to marry you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t understand. Why should not that be your fate as well as anything
+      else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because it&rsquo;s not,&rdquo; said Isabel femininely. &ldquo;I know it&rsquo;s not. It&rsquo;s not my
+      fate to give up&mdash;I know it can&rsquo;t be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Lord Warburton stared, an interrogative point in either eye. &ldquo;Do you
+      call marrying me giving up?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not in the usual sense. It&rsquo;s getting&mdash;getting&mdash;getting a great
+      deal. But it&rsquo;s giving up other chances.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Other chances for what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t mean chances to marry,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think it presumptuous in me to suggest that you&rsquo;ll gain more than
+      you&rsquo;ll lose,&rdquo; her companion observed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t escape unhappiness,&rdquo; said Isabel. &ldquo;In marrying you I shall be
+      trying to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know whether you&rsquo;d try to, but you certainly would: that I must
+      in candour admit!&rdquo; he exclaimed with an anxious laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mustn&rsquo;t&mdash;I can&rsquo;t!&rdquo; cried the girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, if you&rsquo;re bent on being miserable I don&rsquo;t see why you should make
+      me so. Whatever charms a life of misery may have for you, it has none for
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not bent on a life of misery,&rdquo; said Isabel. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve always been
+      intensely determined to be happy, and I&rsquo;ve often believed I should be.
+      I&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By separating yourself from what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From life. From the usual chances and dangers, from what most people know
+      and suffer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Warburton broke into a smile that almost denoted hope. &ldquo;Why, my dear
+      Miss Archer,&rdquo; he began to explain with the most considerate eagerness, &ldquo;I
+      don&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;not even from your friend Miss Stackpole.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;d never approve of it,&rdquo; said Isabel, trying to smile and take
+      advantage of this side-issue; despising herself too, not a little, for
+      doing so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are we speaking of Miss Stackpole?&rdquo; his lordship asked impatiently. &ldquo;I
+      never saw a person judge things on such theoretic grounds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now I suppose you&rsquo;re speaking of me,&rdquo; said Isabel with humility; and she
+      turned away again, for she saw Miss Molyneux enter the gallery,
+      accompanied by Henrietta and by Ralph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Warburton&rsquo;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&mdash;apparently not having heard her;
+      he was preoccupied, and with good reason. Miss Molyneux&mdash;as if he had
+      been Royalty&mdash;stood like a lady-in-waiting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I never, Miss Molyneux!&rdquo; said Henrietta Stackpole. &ldquo;If I wanted to
+      go he&rsquo;d have to go. If I wanted my brother to do a thing he&rsquo;d have to do
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Warburton does everything one wants,&rdquo; Miss Molyneux answered with a
+      quick, shy laugh. &ldquo;How very many pictures you have!&rdquo; she went on, turning
+      to Ralph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They look a good many, because they&rsquo;re all put together,&rdquo; said Ralph.
+      &ldquo;But it&rsquo;s really a bad way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I think it&rsquo;s so nice. I wish we had a gallery at Lockleigh. I&rsquo;m so
+      very fond of pictures,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah yes, pictures are very convenient,&rdquo; said Ralph, who appeared to know
+      better what style of reflexion was acceptable to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They&rsquo;re so very pleasant when it rains,&rdquo; the young lady continued. &ldquo;It
+      has rained of late so very often.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry you&rsquo;re going away, Lord Warburton,&rdquo; said Henrietta. &ldquo;I wanted
+      to get a great deal more out of you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not going away,&rdquo; Lord Warburton answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your sister says you must. In America the gentlemen obey the ladies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid we have some people to tea,&rdquo; said Miss Molyneux, looking at
+      her brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very good, my dear. We&rsquo;ll go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hoped you would resist!&rdquo; Henrietta exclaimed. &ldquo;I wanted to see what
+      Miss Molyneux would do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never do anything,&rdquo; said this young lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose in your position it&rsquo;s sufficient for you to exist!&rdquo; Miss
+      Stackpole returned. &ldquo;I should like very much to see you at home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must come to Lockleigh again,&rdquo; said Miss Molyneux, very sweetly, to
+      Isabel, ignoring this remark of Isabel&rsquo;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&mdash;the peace, the kindness, the honour, the possessions, a
+      deep security and a great exclusion. She kissed Miss Molyneux and then she
+      said: &ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid I can never come again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never again?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid I&rsquo;m going away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I&rsquo;m so very sorry,&rdquo; said Miss Molyneux. &ldquo;I think that&rsquo;s so very wrong
+      of you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like to see you at home,&rdquo; said Henrietta, whom Lord Warburton
+      found beside him. &ldquo;I should like an hour&rsquo;s talk with you; there are a
+      great many questions I wish to ask you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall be delighted to see you,&rdquo; the proprietor of Lockleigh answered;
+      &ldquo;but I&rsquo;m certain not to be able to answer many of your questions. When
+      will you come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whenever Miss Archer will take me. We&rsquo;re thinking of going to London, but
+      we&rsquo;ll go and see you first. I&rsquo;m determined to get some satisfaction out of
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it depends upon Miss Archer I&rsquo;m afraid you won&rsquo;t get much. She won&rsquo;t
+      come to Lockleigh; she doesn&rsquo;t like the place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She told me it was lovely!&rdquo; said Henrietta.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Warburton hesitated. &ldquo;She won&rsquo;t come, all the same. You had better
+      come alone,&rdquo; he added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henrietta straightened herself, and her large eyes expanded. &ldquo;Would you
+      make that remark to an English lady?&rdquo; she enquired with soft asperity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Warburton stared. &ldquo;Yes, if I liked her enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;d be careful not to like her enough. If Miss Archer won&rsquo;t visit your
+      place again it&rsquo;s because she doesn&rsquo;t want to take me. I know what she
+      thinks of me, and I suppose you think the same&mdash;that I oughtn&rsquo;t to
+      bring in individuals.&rdquo; Lord Warburton was at a loss; he had not been made
+      acquainted with Miss Stackpole&rsquo;s professional character and failed to
+      catch her allusion. &ldquo;Miss Archer has been warning you!&rdquo; she therefore went
+      on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Warning me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t that why she came off alone with you here&mdash;to put you on your
+      guard?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh dear, no,&rdquo; said Lord Warburton brazenly; &ldquo;our talk had no such solemn
+      character as that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you&rsquo;ve been on your guard&mdash;intensely. I suppose it&rsquo;s natural
+      to you; that&rsquo;s just what I wanted to observe. And so, too, Miss Molyneux&mdash;she
+      wouldn&rsquo;t commit herself. You have been warned, anyway,&rdquo; Henrietta
+      continued, addressing this young lady; &ldquo;but for you it wasn&rsquo;t necessary.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope not,&rdquo; said Miss Molyneux vaguely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Stackpole takes notes,&rdquo; Ralph soothingly explained. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s a great
+      satirist; she sees through us all and she works us up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I must say I never have had such a collection of bad material!&rdquo;
+       Henrietta declared, looking from Isabel to Lord Warburton and from this
+      nobleman to his sister and to Ralph. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s something the matter with
+      you all; you&rsquo;re as dismal as if you had got a bad cable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do see through us, Miss Stackpole,&rdquo; said Ralph in a low tone, giving
+      her a little intelligent nod as he led the party out of the gallery.
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s something the matter with us all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;Is it true
+      you&rsquo;re going to London?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe it has been arranged.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And when shall you come back?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In a few days; but probably for a very short time. I&rsquo;m going to Paris
+      with my aunt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When, then, shall I see you again?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not for a good while,&rdquo; said Isabel. &ldquo;But some day or other, I hope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you really hope it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He went a few steps in silence; then he stopped and put out his hand.
+      &ldquo;Good-bye.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye,&rdquo; said Isabel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;I may as well tell you,&rdquo; said that lady,
+      &ldquo;that your uncle has informed me of your relations with Lord Warburton.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel considered. &ldquo;Relations? They&rsquo;re hardly relations. That&rsquo;s the
+      strange part of it: he has seen me but three or four times.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did you tell your uncle rather than me?&rdquo; Mrs. Touchett
+      dispassionately asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again the girl hesitated. &ldquo;Because he knows Lord Warburton better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but I know you better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not sure of that,&rdquo; said Isabel, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;s it&rsquo;s because you expect to do something better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, my uncle didn&rsquo;t say that!&rdquo; cried Isabel, smiling still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It had been arranged that the two young ladies should proceed to London
+      under Ralph&rsquo;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 <i>Interviewer</i>
+      was to take the party to stay at her favourite boarding-house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care where she takes us to stay, so long as there&rsquo;s local
+      colour,&rdquo; said Isabel. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what we&rsquo;re going to London for.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose that after a girl has refused an English lord she may do
+      anything,&rdquo; her aunt rejoined. &ldquo;After that one needn&rsquo;t stand on trifles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Should you have liked me to marry Lord Warburton?&rdquo; Isabel enquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I should.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought you disliked the English so much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So I do; but it&rsquo;s all the greater reason for making use of them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that your idea of marriage?&rdquo; And Isabel ventured to add that her aunt
+      appeared to her to have made very little use of Mr. Touchett.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your uncle&rsquo;s not an English nobleman,&rdquo; said Mrs. Touchett, &ldquo;though even
+      if he had been I should still probably have taken up my residence in
+      Florence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think Lord Warburton could make me any better than I am?&rdquo; the girl
+      asked with some animation. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t mean I&rsquo;m too good to improve. I mean
+      that I don&rsquo;t love Lord Warburton enough to marry him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You did right to refuse him then,&rdquo; said Mrs. Touchett in her smallest,
+      sparest voice. &ldquo;Only, the next great offer you get, I hope you&rsquo;ll manage
+      to come up to your standard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You probably won&rsquo;t be troubled with them if you adopt permanently the
+      Bohemian manner of life. However, I&rsquo;ve promised Ralph not to criticise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll do whatever Ralph says is right,&rdquo; Isabel returned. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve unbounded
+      confidence in Ralph.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His mother&rsquo;s much obliged to you!&rdquo; this lady dryly laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It seems to me indeed she ought to feel it!&rdquo; Isabel irrepressibly
+      answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ralph had assured her that there would be no violation of decency in their
+      paying a visit&mdash;the little party of three&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s Hotel
+      accordingly became their resting-place. Ralph, on his side, found quarters
+      in Winchester Square, having a &ldquo;den&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s high derision, that there wasn&rsquo;t a creature
+      in town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose you mean the aristocracy are absent,&rdquo; Henrietta answered; &ldquo;but
+      I don&rsquo;t think you could have a better proof that if they were absent
+      altogether they wouldn&rsquo;t be missed. It seems to me the place is about as
+      full as it can be. There&rsquo;s no one here, of course, but three or four
+      millions of people. What is it you call them&mdash;the lower-middle class?
+      They&rsquo;re only the population of London, and that&rsquo;s of no consequence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ralph declared that for him the aristocracy left no void that Miss
+      Stackpole herself didn&rsquo;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 &ldquo;Well!&rdquo; which led no further and lost itself in retrospect. The
+      truth was that, as she said herself, she was not in her element. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve not
+      a sympathy with inanimate objects,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are your public men, where are your men and women of intellect?&rdquo;
+       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.
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s one of them on the top of the column, you say&mdash;Lord Nelson.
+      Was he a lord too? Wasn&rsquo;t he high enough, that they had to stick him a
+      hundred feet in the air? That&rsquo;s the past&mdash;I don&rsquo;t care about the
+      past; I want to see some of the leading minds of the present. I won&rsquo;t say
+      of the future, because I don&rsquo;t believe much in your future.&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;If I were on
+      the other side I should call,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;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;&rdquo; and Henrietta, though she
+      went about with her guidebook and pencil and wrote a letter to the <i>Interviewer</i>
+      about the Tower (in which she described the execution of Lady Jane Grey),
+      had a sad sense of falling below her mission.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The incident that had preceded Isabel&rsquo;s departure from Gardencourt left a
+      painful trace in our young woman&rsquo;s mind: when she felt again in her face,
+      as from a recurrent wave, the cold breath of her last suitor&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 <i>bric-à-brac</i>, 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 <i>fête-champetre</i>,
+      walked round the limited enclosure several times with her and, at a dozen
+      turns of their talk, bounded responsive&mdash;as with a positive passion
+      for argument&mdash;to her remarks upon the inner life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I see; I dare say you found it very quiet at Gardencourt. Naturally
+      there&rsquo;s not much going on there when there&rsquo;s such a lot of illness about.
+      Touchett&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s always something going on, I recommend you to
+      go down and stay with my sister, Lady Pensil, in Bedfordshire. I&rsquo;ll write
+      to her to-morrow and I&rsquo;m sure she&rsquo;ll be delighted to ask you. I know just
+      what you want&mdash;you want a house where they go in for theatricals and
+      picnics and that sort of thing. My sister&rsquo;s just that sort of woman; she&rsquo;s
+      always getting up something or other and she&rsquo;s always glad to have the
+      sort of people who help her. I&rsquo;m sure she&rsquo;ll ask you down by return of
+      post: she&rsquo;s tremendously fond of distinguished people and writers. She
+      writes herself, you know; but I haven&rsquo;t read everything she has written.
+      It&rsquo;s usually poetry, and I don&rsquo;t go in much for poetry&mdash;unless it&rsquo;s
+      Byron. I suppose you think a great deal of Byron in America,&rdquo; Mr. Bantling
+      continued, expanding in the stimulating air of Miss Stackpole&rsquo;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. &ldquo;I understand what you want; you want to see some genuine
+      English sport. The Touchetts aren&rsquo;t English at all, you know; they have
+      their own habits, their own language, their own food&mdash;some odd
+      religion even, I believe, of their own. The old man thinks it&rsquo;s wicked to
+      hunt, I&rsquo;m told. You must get down to my sister&rsquo;s in time for the
+      theatricals, and I&rsquo;m sure she&rsquo;ll be glad to give you a part. I&rsquo;m sure you
+      act well; I know you&rsquo;re very clever. My sister&rsquo;s forty years old and has
+      seven children, but she&rsquo;s going to play the principal part. Plain as she
+      is she makes up awfully well&mdash;I will say for her. Of course you
+      needn&rsquo;t act if you don&rsquo;t want to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pensil. It&rsquo;s an odd name, but it isn&rsquo;t a bad one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think one name&rsquo;s as good as another. But what&rsquo;s her rank?&rdquo;.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, she&rsquo;s a baron&rsquo;s wife; a convenient sort of rank. You&rsquo;re fine enough
+      and you&rsquo;re not too fine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know but what she&rsquo;d be too fine for me. What do you call the
+      place she lives in&mdash;Bedfordshire?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She lives away in the northern corner of it. It&rsquo;s a tiresome country, but
+      I dare say you won&rsquo;t mind it. I&rsquo;ll try and run down while you&rsquo;re there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All this was very pleasant to Miss Stackpole, and she was sorry to be
+      obliged to separate from Lady Pensil&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;if the term may be used&mdash;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&rsquo;s
+      Hotel, Ralph remarked that the latter must have a cab. She couldn&rsquo;t walk
+      all the way to Jermyn Street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose you mean it&rsquo;s improper for me to walk alone!&rdquo; Henrietta
+      exclaimed. &ldquo;Merciful powers, have I come to this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s not the slightest need of your walking alone,&rdquo; Mr. Bantling gaily
+      interposed. &ldquo;I should be greatly pleased to go with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I simply meant that you&rsquo;d be late for dinner,&rdquo; Ralph returned. &ldquo;Those
+      poor ladies may easily believe that we refuse, at the last, to spare you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You had better have a hansom, Henrietta,&rdquo; said Isabel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll get you a hansom if you&rsquo;ll trust me,&rdquo; Mr. Bantling went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We might walk a little till we meet one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see why I shouldn&rsquo;t trust him, do you?&rdquo; Henrietta enquired of
+      Isabel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see what Mr. Bantling could do to you,&rdquo; Isabel obligingly
+      answered; &ldquo;but, if you like, we&rsquo;ll walk with you till you find your cab.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind; we&rsquo;ll go alone. Come on, Mr. Bantling, and take care you get
+      me a good one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Henrietta will ask him to get into the cab and go with her to Jermyn
+      Street,&rdquo; Ralph observed. He always spoke of Miss Stackpole as Henrietta.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very possibly,&rdquo; said his companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Or rather, no, she won&rsquo;t,&rdquo; he went on. &ldquo;But Bantling will ask leave to
+      get in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very likely again. I am very glad they are such good friends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has made a conquest. He thinks her a brilliant woman. It may go far,&rdquo;
+       said Ralph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel was briefly silent. &ldquo;I call Henrietta a very brilliant woman, but I
+      don&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no more usual basis of union than a mutual misunderstanding. But
+      it ought not to be so difficult to understand Bob Bantling,&rdquo; Ralph added.
+      &ldquo;He is a very simple organism.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but Henrietta&rsquo;s a simpler one still. And, pray, what am I to do?&rdquo;
+       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. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t imagine that you&rsquo;ll propose that you and I, for our
+      amusement, shall drive about London in a hansom.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no reason we shouldn&rsquo;t stay here&mdash;if you don&rsquo;t dislike it.
+      It&rsquo;s very warm; there will be half an hour yet before dark; and if you
+      permit it I&rsquo;ll light a cigarette.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may do what you please,&rdquo; said Isabel, &ldquo;if you&rsquo;ll amuse me till seven
+      o&rsquo;clock. I propose at that hour to go back and partake of a simple and
+      solitary repast&mdash;two poached eggs and a muffin&mdash;at Pratt&rsquo;s
+      Hotel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mayn&rsquo;t I dine with you?&rdquo; Ralph asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, you&rsquo;ll dine at your club.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;Why won&rsquo;t you let me
+      dine with you?&rdquo; he demanded after a pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I don&rsquo;t care for it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose you&rsquo;re tired of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall be an hour hence. You see I have the gift of foreknowledge.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I shall be delightful meanwhile,&rdquo; said Ralph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;Is your objection to my society this evening caused by your
+      expectation of another visitor?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned her head with a glance of her clear, fair eyes. &ldquo;Another
+      visitor? What visitor should I have?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had none to suggest; which made his question seem to himself silly as
+      well as brutal. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve a great many friends that I don&rsquo;t know. You&rsquo;ve a
+      whole past from which I was perversely excluded.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You were reserved for my future. You must remember that my past is over
+      there across the water. There&rsquo;s none of it here in London.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very good, then, since your future is seated beside you. Capital thing to
+      have your future so handy.&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;I promised just now to be very
+      amusing; but you see I don&rsquo;t come up to the mark, and the fact is there&rsquo;s
+      a good deal of temerity in one&rsquo;s undertaking to amuse a person like you.
+      What do you care for my feeble attempts? You&rsquo;ve grand ideas&mdash;you&rsquo;ve a
+      high standard in such matters. I ought at least to bring in a band of
+      music or a company of mountebanks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One mountebank&rsquo;s enough, and you do very well. Pray go on, and in another
+      ten minutes I shall begin to laugh.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I assure you I&rsquo;m very serious,&rdquo; said Ralph. &ldquo;You do really ask a great
+      deal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what you mean. I ask nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You accept nothing,&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;There&rsquo;s
+      something I should like very much to say to you. It&rsquo;s a question I wish to
+      ask. It seems to me I&rsquo;ve a right to ask it, because I&rsquo;ve a kind of
+      interest in the answer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ask what you will,&rdquo; Isabel replied gently, &ldquo;and I&rsquo;ll try to satisfy you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well then, I hope you won&rsquo;t mind my saying that Warburton has told me of
+      something that has passed between you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel suppressed a start; she sat looking at her open fan. &ldquo;Very good; I
+      suppose it was natural he should tell you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have his leave to let you know he has done so. He has some hope still,&rdquo;
+       said Ralph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Still?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He had it a few days ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe he has any now,&rdquo; said the girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m very sorry for him then; he&rsquo;s such an honest man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pray, did he ask you to talk to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, not that. But he told me because he couldn&rsquo;t help it. We&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did he show you the letter?&rdquo; asked Isabel with momentary loftiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By no means. But he told me it was a neat refusal. I was very sorry for
+      him,&rdquo; Ralph repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For some moments Isabel said nothing; then at last, &ldquo;Do you know how often
+      he had seen me?&rdquo; she enquired. &ldquo;Five or six times.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s to your glory.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not for that I say it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What then do you say it for. Not to prove that poor Warburton&rsquo;s state of
+      mind&rsquo;s superficial, because I&rsquo;m pretty sure you don&rsquo;t think that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel certainly was unable to say she thought it; but presently she said
+      something else. &ldquo;If you&rsquo;ve not been requested by Lord Warburton to argue
+      with me, then you&rsquo;re doing it disinterestedly&mdash;or for the love of
+      argument.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve no wish to argue with you at all. I only wish to leave you alone.
+      I&rsquo;m simply greatly interested in your own sentiments.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m greatly obliged to you!&rdquo; cried Isabel with a slightly nervous laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course you mean that I&rsquo;m meddling in what doesn&rsquo;t concern me. But why
+      shouldn&rsquo;t I speak to you of this matter without annoying you or
+      embarrassing myself? What&rsquo;s the use of being your cousin if I can&rsquo;t have a
+      few privileges? What&rsquo;s the use of adoring you without hope of a reward if
+      I can&rsquo;t have a few compensations? What&rsquo;s the use of being ill and disabled
+      and restricted to mere spectatorship at the game of life if I really can&rsquo;t
+      see the show when I&rsquo;ve paid so much for my ticket? Tell me this,&rdquo; Ralph
+      went on while she listened to him with quickened attention. &ldquo;What had you
+      in mind when you refused Lord Warburton?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What had I in mind?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What was the logic&mdash;the view of your situation&mdash;that dictated
+      so remarkable an act?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t wish to marry him&mdash;if that&rsquo;s logic.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, that&rsquo;s not logic&mdash;and I knew that before. It&rsquo;s really nothing,
+      you know. What was it you said to yourself? You certainly said more than
+      that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel reflected a moment, then answered with a question of her own. &ldquo;Why
+      do you call it a remarkable act? That&rsquo;s what your mother thinks too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Warburton&rsquo;s such a thorough good sort; as a man, I consider he has hardly
+      a fault. And then he&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel watched her cousin as to see how far he would go. &ldquo;I refused him
+      because he was too perfect then. I&rsquo;m not perfect myself, and he&rsquo;s too good
+      for me. Besides, his perfection would irritate me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s ingenious rather than candid,&rdquo; said Ralph. &ldquo;As a fact you think
+      nothing in the world too perfect for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think I&rsquo;m so good?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, but you&rsquo;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&rsquo;t
+      know how he has been stalked.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t wish to know. But it seems to me,&rdquo; said Isabel, &ldquo;that one day
+      when we talked of him you mentioned odd things in him.&rdquo; Ralph smokingly
+      considered. &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think not. I don&rsquo;t understand the matter, and I&rsquo;m not conscious of any
+      mission of that sort. You&rsquo;re evidently disappointed,&rdquo; Isabel added,
+      looking at her cousin with rueful gentleness. &ldquo;You&rsquo;d have liked me to make
+      such a marriage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not in the least. I&rsquo;m absolutely without a wish on the subject. I don&rsquo;t
+      pretend to advise you, and I content myself with watching you&mdash;with
+      the deepest interest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She gave rather a conscious sigh. &ldquo;I wish I could be as interesting to
+      myself as I am to you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There you&rsquo;re not candid again; you&rsquo;re extremely interesting to yourself.
+      Do you know, however,&rdquo; said Ralph, &ldquo;that if you&rsquo;ve really given Warburton
+      his final answer I&rsquo;m rather glad it has been what it was. I don&rsquo;t mean I&rsquo;m
+      glad for you, and still less of course for him. I&rsquo;m glad for myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you thinking of proposing to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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
+      <i>omelettes</i>. 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&rsquo;t marry Lord Warburton.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what your mother counts upon too,&rdquo; said Isabel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;d still
+      have a career&mdash;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&rsquo;m
+      extremely fond of the unexpected, and now that you&rsquo;ve kept the game in
+      your hands I depend on your giving us some grand example of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t understand you very well,&rdquo; said Isabel, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll do so only by disappointing yourself and that will go hard with
+      you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To this she made no direct reply; there was an amount of truth in it that
+      would bear consideration. At last she said abruptly: &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see what
+      harm there is in my wishing not to tie myself. I don&rsquo;t want to begin life
+      by marrying. There are other things a woman can do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing she can do so well. But you&rsquo;re of course so many-sided.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If one&rsquo;s two-sided it&rsquo;s enough,&rdquo; said Isabel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re the most charming of polygons!&rdquo; her companion broke out. At a
+      glance from his companion, however, he became grave, and to prove it went
+      on: &ldquo;You want to see life&mdash;you&rsquo;ll be hanged if you don&rsquo;t, as the
+      young men say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I want to see it as the young men want to see it. But I do
+      want to look about me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You want to drain the cup of experience.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I don&rsquo;t wish to touch the cup of experience. It&rsquo;s a poisoned drink! I
+      only want to see for myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You want to see, but not to feel,&rdquo; Ralph remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think that if one&rsquo;s a sentient being one can make the
+      distinction. I&rsquo;m a good deal like Henrietta. The other day when I asked
+      her if she wished to marry she said: &lsquo;Not till I&rsquo;ve seen Europe!&rsquo; I too
+      don&rsquo;t wish to marry till I&rsquo;ve seen Europe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You evidently expect a crowned head will be struck with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, that would be worse than marrying Lord Warburton. But it&rsquo;s getting
+      very dark,&rdquo; Isabel continued, &ldquo;and I must go home.&rdquo; 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&rsquo;s, of utterances too vague for words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve answered my question,&rdquo; he said at last. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve told me what I
+      wanted. I&rsquo;m greatly obliged to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It seems to me I&rsquo;ve told you very little.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve told me the great thing: that the world interests you and that you
+      want to throw yourself into it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her silvery eyes shone a moment in the dusk. &ldquo;I never said that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you meant it. Don&rsquo;t repudiate it. It&rsquo;s so fine!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what you&rsquo;re trying to fasten upon me, for I&rsquo;m not in the
+      least an adventurous spirit. Women are not like men.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ralph slowly rose from his seat and they walked together to the gate of
+      the square. &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;women rarely boast of their courage. Men do so
+      with a certain frequency.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Men have it to boast of!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Women have it too. You&rsquo;ve a great deal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Enough to go home in a cab to Pratt&rsquo;s Hotel, but not more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ralph unlocked the gate, and after they had passed out he fastened it.
+      &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll find your cab,&rdquo; he said; and as they turned toward a neighbouring
+      street in which this quest might avail he asked her again if he mightn&rsquo;t
+      see her safely to the inn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By no means,&rdquo; she answered; &ldquo;you&rsquo;re very tired; you must go home and go
+      to bed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The cab was found, and he helped her into it, standing a moment at the
+      door. &ldquo;When people forget I&rsquo;m a poor creature I&rsquo;m often incommoded,&rdquo; he
+      said. &ldquo;But it&rsquo;s worse when they remember it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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
+      &ldquo;affected&rdquo; 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&mdash;had there been a
+      critic to note it&mdash;would have taken all colour from the theory that
+      the wish to be quite by herself had caused her to dispense with her
+      cousin&rsquo;s attendance. Seated toward nine o&rsquo;clock in the dim illumination of
+      Pratt&rsquo;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I show the gentleman up, ma&rsquo;am?&rdquo; he asked with a slightly
+      encouraging inflexion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel hesitated still and while she hesitated glanced at the mirror. &ldquo;He
+      may come in,&rdquo; she said at last; and waited for him not so much smoothing
+      her hair as girding her spirit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Caspar Goodwood was accordingly the next moment shaking hands with her,
+      but saying nothing till the servant had left the room. &ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t you
+      answer my letter?&rdquo; he then asked in a quick, full, slightly peremptory
+      tone&mdash;the tone of a man whose questions were habitually pointed and
+      who was capable of much insistence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She answered by a ready question, &ldquo;How did you know I was here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Stackpole let me know,&rdquo; said Caspar Goodwood. &ldquo;She told me you would
+      probably be at home alone this evening and would be willing to see me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where did she see you&mdash;to tell you that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She didn&rsquo;t see me; she wrote to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel was silent; neither had sat down; they stood there with an air of
+      defiance, or at least of contention. &ldquo;Henrietta never told me she was
+      writing to you,&rdquo; she said at last. &ldquo;This is not kind of her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it so disagreeable to you to see me?&rdquo; asked the young man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t expect it. I don&rsquo;t like such surprises.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you knew I was in town; it was natural we should meet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you call this meeting? I hoped I shouldn&rsquo;t see you. In so big a place
+      as London it seemed very possible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was apparently repugnant to you even to write to me,&rdquo; her visitor went
+      on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel made no reply; the sense of Henrietta Stackpole&rsquo;s treachery, as she
+      momentarily qualified it, was strong within her. &ldquo;Henrietta&rsquo;s certainly
+      not a model of all the delicacies!&rdquo; she exclaimed with bitterness. &ldquo;It was
+      a great liberty to take.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose I&rsquo;m not a model either&mdash;of those virtues or of any others.
+      The fault&rsquo;s mine as much as hers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+      &ldquo;No, it&rsquo;s not your fault so much as hers. What you&rsquo;ve done was inevitable,
+      I suppose, for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was indeed!&rdquo; cried Caspar Goodwood with a voluntary laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now that I&rsquo;ve come, at any rate, mayn&rsquo;t I stay?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may sit down, certainly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been hoping every day for an answer to my
+      letter. You might have written me a few lines.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;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,&rdquo;
+       Isabel said. &ldquo;I thought it the best thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;You know you oughtn&rsquo;t to have written to me
+      yourself!&rdquo; and to say it with an air of triumph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;over and above this&mdash;to argue the
+      question of his rights. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t say I hoped <i>never</i> to hear from you,&rdquo; said Isabel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not for five years then; for ten years; twenty years. It&rsquo;s the same
+      thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you find it so? It seems to me there&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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; &ldquo;Are you
+      enjoying your visit to your uncle?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very much indeed.&rdquo; She dropped, but then she broke out. &ldquo;What good do you
+      expect to get by insisting?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The good of not losing you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve no right to talk of losing what&rsquo;s not yours. And even from your
+      own point of view,&rdquo; Isabel added, &ldquo;you ought to know when to let one
+      alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I disgust you very much,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, you don&rsquo;t at all delight me, you don&rsquo;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.&rdquo; It wasn&rsquo;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t reconcile myself to that,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t reconcile myself to it either, and it&rsquo;s not the state of things
+      that ought to exist between us. If you&rsquo;d only try to banish me from your
+      mind for a few months we should be on good terms again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indefinitely is more than I ask. It&rsquo;s more even than I should like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know that what you ask is impossible,&rdquo; said the young man, taking his
+      adjective for granted in a manner she found irritating.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aren&rsquo;t you capable of making a calculated effort?&rdquo; she demanded. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re
+      strong for everything else; why shouldn&rsquo;t you be strong for that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An effort calculated for what?&rdquo; And then as she hung fire, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m capable
+      of nothing with regard to you,&rdquo; he went on, &ldquo;but just of being infernally
+      in love with you. If one&rsquo;s strong one loves only the more strongly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a good deal in that;&rdquo; and indeed our young lady felt the force of
+      it&mdash;felt it thrown off, into the vast of truth and poetry, as
+      practically a bait to her imagination. But she promptly came round. &ldquo;Think
+      of me or not, as you find most possible; only leave me alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Until when?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, for a year or two.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Which do you mean? Between one year and two there&rsquo;s all the difference in
+      the world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Call it two then,&rdquo; said Isabel with a studied effect of eagerness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what shall I gain by that?&rdquo; her friend asked with no sign of wincing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll have obliged me greatly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what will be my reward?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you need a reward for an act of generosity?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, when it involves a great sacrifice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no generosity without some sacrifice. Men don&rsquo;t understand such
+      things. If you make the sacrifice you&rsquo;ll have all my admiration.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care a cent for your admiration&mdash;not one straw, with nothing
+      to show for it. When will you marry me? That&rsquo;s the only question.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never&mdash;if you go on making me feel only as I feel at present.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do I gain then by not trying to make you feel otherwise?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll gain quite as much as by worrying me to death!&rdquo; 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&mdash;classic, romantic,
+      redeeming, what did she know? for her; &ldquo;the strong man in pain&rdquo; was one of
+      the categories of the human appeal, little charm as he might exert in the
+      given case. &ldquo;Why do you make me say such things to you?&rdquo; she cried in a
+      trembling voice. &ldquo;I only want to be gentle&mdash;to be thoroughly kind.
+      It&rsquo;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&rsquo;re
+      considerate, as much as you can be; you&rsquo;ve good reasons for what you do.
+      But I really don&rsquo;t want to marry, or to talk about it at all now. I shall
+      probably never do it&mdash;no, never. I&rsquo;ve a perfect right to feel that
+      way, and it&rsquo;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&rsquo;m very sorry. It&rsquo;s
+      not my fault; I can&rsquo;t marry you simply to please you. I won&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s face threw some confusion into his attempt to
+      analyse her words. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll go home&mdash;I&rsquo;ll go to-morrow&mdash;I&rsquo;ll leave
+      you alone,&rdquo; he brought out at last. &ldquo;Only,&rdquo; he heavily said, &ldquo;I hate to
+      lose sight of you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never fear. I shall do no harm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll marry some one else, as sure as I sit here,&rdquo; Caspar Goodwood
+      declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think that a generous charge?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not? Plenty of men will try to make you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told you just now that I don&rsquo;t wish to marry and that I almost
+      certainly never shall.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know you did, and I like your &lsquo;almost certainly&rsquo;! I put no faith in
+      what you say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you very much. Do you accuse me of lying to shake you off? You say
+      very delicate things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why should I not say that? You&rsquo;ve given me no pledge of anything at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, that&rsquo;s all that would be wanting!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may perhaps even believe you&rsquo;re safe&mdash;from wishing to be. But
+      you&rsquo;re not,&rdquo; the young man went on as if preparing himself for the worst.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well then. We&rsquo;ll put it that I&rsquo;m not safe. Have it as you please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know, however,&rdquo; said Caspar Goodwood, &ldquo;that my keeping you in
+      sight would prevent it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you indeed? I&rsquo;m after all very much afraid of you. Do you think I&rsquo;m
+      so very easily pleased?&rdquo; she asked suddenly, changing her tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;I don&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll be sure to take no one who isn&rsquo;t dazzling.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you mean by dazzling brilliantly clever,&rdquo; Isabel said&mdash;&ldquo;and I
+      can&rsquo;t imagine what else you mean&mdash;I don&rsquo;t need the aid of a clever
+      man to teach me how to live. I can find it out for myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Find out how to live alone? I wish that, when you have, you&rsquo;d teach me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him a moment; then with a quick smile, &ldquo;Oh, you ought to
+      marry!&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;t to stride
+      about lean and hungry, however&mdash;she certainly felt <i>that</i> for
+      him. &ldquo;God forgive you!&rdquo; he murmured between his teeth as he turned away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;You do me great injustice&mdash;you say what you don&rsquo;t
+      know!&rdquo; she broke out. &ldquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t be an easy victim&mdash;I&rsquo;ve proved
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, to me, perfectly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve proved it to others as well.&rdquo; And she paused a moment. &ldquo;I refused a
+      proposal of marriage last week; what they call&mdash;no doubt&mdash;a
+      dazzling one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m very glad to hear it,&rdquo; said the young man gravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was a proposal many girls would have accepted; it had everything to
+      recommend it.&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;I was offered a great position and a
+      great fortune&mdash;by a person whom I like extremely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Caspar watched her with intense interest. &ldquo;Is he an Englishman?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s an English nobleman,&rdquo; said Isabel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her visitor received this announcement at first in silence, but at last
+      said: &ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad he&rsquo;s disappointed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well then, as you have companions in misfortune, make the best of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t call him a companion,&rdquo; said Casper grimly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not&mdash;since I declined his offer absolutely?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That doesn&rsquo;t make him my companion. Besides, he&rsquo;s an Englishman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And pray isn&rsquo;t an Englishman a human being?&rdquo; Isabel asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, those people? They&rsquo;re not of my humanity, and I don&rsquo;t care what
+      becomes of them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re very angry,&rdquo; said the girl. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve discussed this matter quite
+      enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes, I&rsquo;m very angry. I plead guilty to that!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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. &ldquo;You do me very little justice&mdash;after my telling you what I told
+      you just now. I&rsquo;m sorry I told you&mdash;since it matters so little to
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; cried the young man, &ldquo;if you were thinking of <i>me</i> when you did
+      it!&rdquo; And then he paused with the fear that she might contradict so happy a
+      thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was thinking of you a little,&rdquo; said Isabel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A little? I don&rsquo;t understand. If the knowledge of what I feel for you had
+      any weight with you at all, calling it a &lsquo;little&rsquo; is a poor account of
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel shook her head as if to carry off a blunder. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve refused a most
+      kind, noble gentleman. Make the most of that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thank you then,&rdquo; said Caspar Goodwood gravely. &ldquo;I thank you immensely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now you had better go home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May I not see you again?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think it&rsquo;s better not. You&rsquo;ll be sure to talk of this, and you see it
+      leads to nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I promise you not to say a word that will annoy you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel reflected and then answered: &ldquo;I return in a day or two to my
+      uncle&rsquo;s, and I can&rsquo;t propose to you to come there. It would be too
+      inconsistent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Caspar Goodwood, on his side, considered. &ldquo;You must do me justice too. I
+      received an invitation to your uncle&rsquo;s more than a week ago, and I
+      declined it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She betrayed surprise. &ldquo;From whom was your invitation?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It certainly never did from me. Henrietta really goes very far,&rdquo; Isabel
+      added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be too hard on her&mdash;that touches <i>me</i>.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; if you declined you did quite right, and I thank you for it.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When you leave your uncle where do you go?&rdquo; her companion asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I go abroad with my aunt&mdash;to Florence and other places.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The serenity of this announcement struck a chill to the young man&rsquo;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.
+      &ldquo;And when shall you come back to America?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps not for a long time. I&rsquo;m very happy here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean to give up your country?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be an infant!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you&rsquo;ll be out of my sight indeed!&rdquo; said Caspar Goodwood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; she answered rather grandly. &ldquo;The world&mdash;with all
+      these places so arranged and so touching each other&mdash;comes to strike
+      one as rather small.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a sight too big for <i>me</i>!&rdquo; Caspar exclaimed with a simplicity
+      our young lady might have found touching if her face had not been set
+      against concessions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This attitude was part of a system, a theory, that she had lately
+      embraced, and to be thorough she said after a moment: &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t think me
+      unkind if I say it&rsquo;s just <i>that</i>&mdash;being out of your sight&mdash;that
+      I like. If you were in the same place I should feel you were watching me,
+      and I don&rsquo;t like that&mdash;I like my liberty too much. If there&rsquo;s a thing
+      in the world I&rsquo;m fond of,&rdquo; she went on with a slight recurrence of
+      grandeur, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s my personal independence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But whatever there might be of the too superior in this speech moved
+      Caspar Goodwood&rsquo;s admiration; there was nothing he winced at in the large
+      air of it. He had never supposed she hadn&rsquo;t wings and the need of
+      beautiful free movements&mdash;he wasn&rsquo;t, with his own long arms and
+      strides, afraid of any force in her. Isabel&rsquo;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. &ldquo;Who would wish less to curtail your
+      liberty than I? What can give me greater pleasure than to see you
+      perfectly independent&mdash;doing whatever you like? It&rsquo;s to make you
+      independent that I want to marry you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a beautiful sophism,&rdquo; said the girl with a smile more beautiful
+      still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An unmarried woman&mdash;a girl of your age&mdash;isn&rsquo;t independent.
+      There are all sorts of things she can&rsquo;t do. She&rsquo;s hampered at every step.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s as she looks at the question,&rdquo; Isabel answered with much spirit.
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not in my first youth&mdash;I can do what I choose&mdash;I belong
+      quite to the independent class. I&rsquo;ve neither father nor mother; I&rsquo;m poor
+      and of a serious disposition; I&rsquo;m not pretty. I therefore am not bound to
+      be timid and conventional; indeed I can&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+       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: &ldquo;Let me say this
+      to you, Mr. Goodwood. You&rsquo;re so kind as to speak of being afraid of my
+      marrying. If you should hear a rumour that I&rsquo;m on the point of doing so&mdash;girls
+      are liable to have such things said about them&mdash;remember what I have
+      told you about my love of liberty and venture to doubt it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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: &ldquo;You want
+      simply to travel for two years? I&rsquo;m quite willing to wait two years, and
+      you may do what you like in the interval. If that&rsquo;s all you want, pray say
+      so. I don&rsquo;t want you to be conventional; do I strike you as conventional
+      myself? Do you want to improve your mind? Your mind&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re very generous; that&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One would think you were going to commit some atrocity!&rdquo; said Caspar
+      Goodwood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps I am. I wish to be free even to do that if the fancy takes me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well then,&rdquo; he said slowly, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll go home.&rdquo; And he put out his hand,
+      trying to look contented and confident.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel&rsquo;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. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s right,&rdquo; she said very kindly,
+      almost tenderly. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll lose nothing by being a reasonable man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I&rsquo;ll come back, wherever you are, two years hence,&rdquo; he returned with
+      characteristic grimness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We have seen that our young lady was inconsequent, and at this she
+      suddenly changed her note. &ldquo;Ah, remember, I promise nothing&mdash;absolutely
+      nothing!&rdquo; Then more softly, as if to help him to leave her: &ldquo;And remember
+      too that I shall not be an easy victim!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll get very sick of your independence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps I shall; it&rsquo;s even very probable. When that day comes I shall be
+      very glad to see you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;I must
+      leave you now,&rdquo; said Isabel; and she opened the door and passed into the
+      other room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      She was not praying; she was trembling&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Stackpole immediately saw that our young lady had been &ldquo;through&rdquo;
+       something, and indeed the discovery demanded no great penetration. She
+      went straight up to her friend, who received her without a greeting.
+      Isabel&rsquo;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. &ldquo;Has he been here, dear?&rdquo; the latter yearningly asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel turned away and for some moments answered nothing. &ldquo;You acted very
+      wrongly,&rdquo; she declared at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I acted for the best. I only hope you acted as well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re not the judge. I can&rsquo;t trust you,&rdquo; said Isabel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;Isabel Archer,&rdquo; she observed with equal abruptness
+      and solemnity, &ldquo;if you marry one of these people I&rsquo;ll never speak to you
+      again!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Before making so terrible a threat you had better wait till I&rsquo;m asked,&rdquo;
+       Isabel replied. Never having said a word to Miss Stackpole about Lord
+      Warburton&rsquo;s overtures, she had now no impulse whatever to justify herself
+      to Henrietta by telling her that she had refused that nobleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you&rsquo;ll be asked quick enough, once you get off on the Continent.
+      Annie Climber was asked three times in Italy&mdash;poor plain little
+      Annie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, if Annie Climber wasn&rsquo;t captured why should I be?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe Annie was pressed; but you&rsquo;ll be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a flattering conviction,&rdquo; said Isabel without alarm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t flatter you, Isabel, I tell you the truth!&rdquo; cried her friend. &ldquo;I
+      hope you don&rsquo;t mean to tell me that you didn&rsquo;t give Mr. Goodwood some
+      hope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see why I should tell you anything; as I said to you just now, I
+      can&rsquo;t trust you. But since you&rsquo;re so much interested in Mr. Goodwood I
+      won&rsquo;t conceal from you that he returns immediately to America.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t mean to say you&rsquo;ve sent him off?&rdquo; Henrietta almost shrieked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I asked him to leave me alone; and I ask you the same, Henrietta.&rdquo; Miss
+      Stackpole glittered for an instant with dismay, and then passed to the
+      mirror over the chimney-piece and took off her bonnet. &ldquo;I hope you&rsquo;ve
+      enjoyed your dinner,&rdquo; Isabel went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But her companion was not to be diverted by frivolous propositions. &ldquo;Do
+      you know where you&rsquo;re going, Isabel Archer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just now I&rsquo;m going to bed,&rdquo; said Isabel with persistent frivolity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know where you&rsquo;re drifting?&rdquo; Henrietta pursued, holding out her
+      bonnet delicately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I haven&rsquo;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&rsquo;t see&mdash;that&rsquo;s my idea of happiness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Goodwood certainly didn&rsquo;t teach you to say such things as that&mdash;like
+      the heroine of an immoral novel,&rdquo; said Miss Stackpole. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re drifting to
+      some great mistake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel was irritated by her friend&rsquo;s interference, yet she still tried to
+      think what truth this declaration could represent. She could think of
+      nothing that diverted her from saying: &ldquo;You must be very fond of me,
+      Henrietta, to be willing to be so aggressive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I love you intensely, Isabel,&rdquo; said Miss Stackpole with feeling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take care you&rsquo;re not let alone too much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what Mr. Goodwood said to me. I told him I must take the risks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re a creature of risks&mdash;you make me shudder!&rdquo; cried Henrietta.
+      &ldquo;When does Mr. Goodwood return to America?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know&mdash;he didn&rsquo;t tell me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps you didn&rsquo;t enquire,&rdquo; said Henrietta with the note of righteous
+      irony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I gave him too little satisfaction to have the right to ask questions of
+      him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This assertion seemed to Miss Stackpole for a moment to bid defiance to
+      comment; but at last she exclaimed: &ldquo;Well, Isabel, if I didn&rsquo;t know you I
+      might think you were heartless!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take care,&rdquo; said Isabel; &ldquo;you&rsquo;re spoiling me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid I&rsquo;ve done that already. I hope, at least,&rdquo; Miss Stackpole
+      added, &ldquo;that he may cross with Annie Climber!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s
+      letter&mdash;Mr. Bantling had virtually guaranteed the arrival of this
+      document&mdash;she would immediately depart for Bedfordshire, and if
+      Isabel cared to look out for her impressions in the <i>Interviewer</i> she
+      would certainly find them. Henrietta was evidently going to see something
+      of the inner life this time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know where you&rsquo;re drifting, Henrietta Stackpole?&rdquo; Isabel asked,
+      imitating the tone in which her friend had spoken the night before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m drifting to a big position&mdash;that of the Queen of American
+      Journalism. If my next letter isn&rsquo;t copied all over the West I&rsquo;ll swallow
+      my penwiper!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s devotion to the electric wire was not open to
+      criticism.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve judged it best to see the great doctor, Sir Matthew Hope, first,&rdquo;
+       Ralph said; &ldquo;by great good luck he&rsquo;s in town. He&rsquo;s to see me at half-past
+      twelve, and I shall make sure of his coming down to Gardencourt&mdash;which
+      he will do the more readily as he has already seen my father several
+      times, both there and in London. There&rsquo;s an express at two-forty-five,
+      which I shall take; and you&rsquo;ll come back with me or remain here a few days
+      longer, exactly as you prefer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall certainly go with you,&rdquo; Isabel returned. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t suppose I can
+      be of any use to my uncle, but if he&rsquo;s ill I shall like to be near him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you&rsquo;re fond of him,&rdquo; said Ralph with a certain shy pleasure in
+      his face. &ldquo;You appreciate him, which all the world hasn&rsquo;t done. The
+      quality&rsquo;s too fine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I quite adore him,&rdquo; Isabel after a moment said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s very well. After his son he&rsquo;s your greatest admirer.&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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&mdash;going
+      to stay in Bedfordshire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In Bedfordshire?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With Lady Pensil, the sister of Mr. Bantling, who has answered for an
+      invitation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ralph was feeling anxious, but at this he broke into a laugh. Suddenly,
+      none the less, his gravity returned. &ldquo;Bantling&rsquo;s a man of courage. But if
+      the invitation should get lost on the way?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought the British post-office was impeccable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The good Homer sometimes nods,&rdquo; said Ralph. &ldquo;However,&rdquo; he went on more
+      brightly, &ldquo;the good Bantling never does, and, whatever happens, he&rsquo;ll take
+      care of Henrietta.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ralph went to keep his appointment with Sir Matthew Hope, and Isabel made
+      her arrangements for quitting Pratt&rsquo;s Hotel. Her uncle&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s
+      illness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a grand old man,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;he&rsquo;s faithful to the last. If it&rsquo;s
+      really to be the last&mdash;pardon my alluding to it, but you must often
+      have thought of the possibility&mdash;I&rsquo;m sorry that I shall not be at
+      Gardencourt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll amuse yourself much more in Bedfordshire.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall be sorry to amuse myself at such a time,&rdquo; said Henrietta with
+      much propriety. But she immediately added: &ldquo;I should like so to
+      commemorate the closing scene.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My father may live a long time,&rdquo; said Ralph simply. Then, adverting to
+      topics more cheerful, he interrogated Miss Stackpole as to her own future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;He has told me just the things I want
+      to know,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;all the society items and all about the royal family.
+      I can&rsquo;t make out that what he tells me about the royal family is much to
+      their credit; but he says that&rsquo;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&rsquo;ve got them.&rdquo; And she added that Mr.
+      Bantling had been so good as to promise to come and take her out that
+      afternoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To take you where?&rdquo; Ralph ventured to enquire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To Buckingham Palace. He&rsquo;s going to show me over it, so that I may get
+      some idea how they live.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; said Ralph, &ldquo;we leave you in good hands. The first thing we shall
+      hear is that you&rsquo;re invited to Windsor Castle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If they ask me, I shall certainly go. Once I get started I&rsquo;m not afraid.
+      But for all that,&rdquo; Henrietta added in a moment, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not satisfied; I&rsquo;m
+      not at peace about Isabel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is her last misdemeanour?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;ve told you before, and I suppose there&rsquo;s no harm in my going on.
+      I always finish a subject that I take up. Mr. Goodwood was here last
+      night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ralph opened his eyes; he even blushed a little&mdash;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&rsquo;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. &ldquo;I
+      should have thought that, with the views you expressed to me the other
+      day, this would satisfy you perfectly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;the
+      word we just utter to the &lsquo;wise.&rsquo; I hoped he would find her alone; I won&rsquo;t
+      pretend I didn&rsquo;t hope that you&rsquo;d be out of the way. He came to see her,
+      but he might as well have stayed away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isabel was cruel?&rdquo;&mdash;and Ralph&rsquo;s face lighted with the relief of his
+      cousin&rsquo;s not having shown duplicity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t exactly know what passed between them. But she gave him no
+      satisfaction&mdash;she sent him back to America.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor Mr. Goodwood!&rdquo; Ralph sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her only idea seems to be to get rid of him,&rdquo; Henrietta went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor Mr. Goodwood!&rdquo; Ralph repeated. The exclamation, it must be
+      confessed, was automatic; it failed exactly to express his thoughts, which
+      were taking another line.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t say that as if you felt it. I don&rsquo;t believe you care.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; said Ralph, &ldquo;you must remember that I don&rsquo;t know this interesting
+      young man&mdash;that I&rsquo;ve never seen him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I shall see him, and I shall tell him not to give up. If I didn&rsquo;t
+      believe Isabel would come round,&rdquo; Miss Stackpole added&mdash;&ldquo;well, I&rsquo;d
+      give up myself. I mean I&rsquo;d give <i>her</i> up!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It had occurred to Ralph that, in the conditions, Isabel&rsquo;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&mdash;a fact which caused Ralph to congratulate
+      himself afresh on Sir Matthew Hope&rsquo;s having promised to come down in the
+      five o&rsquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;an ample and well-dressed one&mdash;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&mdash;one of them her aunt&rsquo;s maid&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s&mdash;Isabel
+      knew not what, but recognised Schubert&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s very beautiful, and your playing makes it more beautiful still,&rdquo;
+       said Isabel with all the young radiance with which she usually uttered a
+      truthful rapture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t think I disturbed Mr. Touchett then?&rdquo; the musician answered as
+      sweetly as this compliment deserved. &ldquo;The house is so large and his room
+      so far away that I thought I might venture, especially as I played just&mdash;just
+      <i>du bout des doigts</i>.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s a Frenchwoman,&rdquo; Isabel said to herself; &ldquo;she says that as if she
+      were French.&rdquo; And this supposition made the visitor more interesting to
+      our speculative heroine. &ldquo;I hope my uncle&rsquo;s doing well,&rdquo; Isabel added. &ldquo;I
+      should think that to hear such lovely music as that would really make him
+      feel better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The lady smiled and discriminated. &ldquo;I&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not in that state now then,&rdquo; said Isabel. &ldquo;On the contrary I should
+      be so glad if you would play something more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it will give you pleasure&mdash;delighted.&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;Pardon me,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;but are
+      you the niece&mdash;the young American?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m my aunt&rsquo;s niece,&rdquo; Isabel replied with simplicity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lady at the piano sat still a moment longer, casting her air of
+      interest over her shoulder. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s very well; we&rsquo;re compatriots.&rdquo; And
+      then she began to play.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah then she&rsquo;s not French,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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: &ldquo;I&rsquo;m very glad you&rsquo;ve come back; I&rsquo;ve heard a great deal about you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel thought her a very attractive person, but nevertheless spoke with a
+      certain abruptness in reply to this speech. &ldquo;From whom have you heard
+      about me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger hesitated a single moment and then, &ldquo;From your uncle,&rdquo; she
+      answered. &ldquo;I&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As you didn&rsquo;t know me that must rather have bored you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It made me want to know you. All the more that since then&mdash;your aunt
+      being so much with Mr. Touchett&mdash;I&rsquo;ve been quite alone and have got
+      rather tired of my own society. I&rsquo;ve not chosen a good moment for my
+      visit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s consultation with Sir Matthew Hope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose you two ladies have made acquaintance,&rdquo; she pursued. &ldquo;If you
+      haven&rsquo;t I recommend you to do so; for so long as we continue&mdash;Ralph
+      and I&mdash;to cluster about Mr. Touchett&rsquo;s bed you&rsquo;re not likely to have
+      much society but each other.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know nothing about you but that you&rsquo;re a great musician,&rdquo; Isabel said
+      to the visitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a good deal more than that to know,&rdquo; Mrs. Touchett affirmed in
+      her little dry tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A very little of it, I am sure, will content Miss Archer!&rdquo; the lady
+      exclaimed with a light laugh. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m an old friend of your aunt&rsquo;s. I&rsquo;ve
+      lived much in Florence. I&rsquo;m Madame Merle.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s not a foreigner in spite of her name,&rdquo; said Mrs. Touchett.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She was born&mdash;I always forget where you were born.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s hardly worth while then I should tell you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On the contrary,&rdquo; said Mrs. Touchett, who rarely missed a logical point;
+      &ldquo;if I remembered your telling me would be quite superfluous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Merle glanced at Isabel with a sort of world-wide smile, a thing
+      that over-reached frontiers. &ldquo;I was born under the shadow of the national
+      banner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s too fond of mystery,&rdquo; said Mrs. Touchett; &ldquo;that&rsquo;s her great fault.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; exclaimed Madame Merle, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve great faults, but I don&rsquo;t think that&rsquo;s
+      one of then; it certainly isn&rsquo;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&mdash;a post of responsibility&mdash;in that
+      establishment at the time. I suppose I ought to love the sea, but I hate
+      it. That&rsquo;s why I don&rsquo;t return to America. I love the land; the great thing
+      is to love something.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel, as a dispassionate witness, had not been struck with the force of
+      Mrs. Touchett&rsquo;s characterisation of her visitor, who had an expressive,
+      communicative, responsive face, by no means of the sort which, to Isabel&rsquo;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&mdash;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 &ldquo;classically&rdquo; and as if she were a Bust,
+      Isabel judged&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s sense of the sadness now settling on Gardencourt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before she came Isabel spoke of her to Ralph, who was standing before the
+      fireplace. &ldquo;Pray who is this Madame Merle?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The cleverest woman I know, not excepting yourself,&rdquo; said Ralph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought she seemed very pleasant.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was sure you&rsquo;d think her very pleasant.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that why you invited her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t invite her, and when we came back from London I didn&rsquo;t know she
+      was here. No one invited her. She&rsquo;s a friend of my mother&rsquo;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&rsquo;s a woman who can make such proposals with perfect
+      confidence; she&rsquo;s so welcome wherever she goes. And with my mother there
+      could be no question of hesitating; she&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, she&rsquo;s very charming,&rdquo; said Isabel. &ldquo;And she plays beautifully.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She does everything beautifully. She&rsquo;s complete.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel looked at her cousin a moment. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t like her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On the contrary, I was once in love with her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And she didn&rsquo;t care for you, and that&rsquo;s why you don&rsquo;t like her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How can we have discussed such things? Monsieur Merle was then living.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he dead now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So she says.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you believe her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, because the statement agrees with the probabilities. The husband of
+      Madame Merle would be likely to pass away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel gazed at her cousin again. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what you mean. You mean
+      something&mdash;that you don&rsquo;t mean. What was Monsieur Merle?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The husband of Madame.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re very odious. Has she any children?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not the least little child&mdash;fortunately.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fortunately?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean fortunately for the child. She&rsquo;d be sure to spoil it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s own medical adviser, concurred in Ralph&rsquo;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 &ldquo;Suppose he should die while I&rsquo;m sitting here;&rdquo; 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&rsquo;s
+      satisfaction, who assured him that they should presently have him sitting
+      up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, my boy,&rdquo; said Mr. Touchett, &ldquo;not unless you bury me in a sitting
+      posture, as some of the ancients&mdash;was it the ancients?&mdash;used to
+      do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, daddy, don&rsquo;t talk about that,&rdquo; Ralph murmured. &ldquo;You mustn&rsquo;t deny that
+      you&rsquo;re getting better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There will be no need of my denying it if you don&rsquo;t say it,&rdquo; the old man
+      answered. &ldquo;Why should we prevaricate just at the last? We never
+      prevaricated before. I&rsquo;ve got to die some time, and it&rsquo;s better to die
+      when one&rsquo;s sick than when one&rsquo;s well. I&rsquo;m very sick&mdash;as sick as I
+      shall ever be. I hope you don&rsquo;t want to prove that I shall ever be worse
+      than this? That would be too bad. You don&rsquo;t? Well then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s tall shadow was projected over wall and ceiling with an outline
+      constantly varying but always grotesque.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who&rsquo;s that with me&mdash;is it my son?&rdquo; the old man asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, it&rsquo;s your son, daddy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And is there no one else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No one else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Touchett said nothing for a while; and then, &ldquo;I want to talk a
+      little,&rdquo; he went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Won&rsquo;t it tire you?&rdquo; Ralph demurred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It won&rsquo;t matter if it does. I shall have a long rest. I want to talk
+      about <i>you</i>.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ralph had drawn nearer to the bed; he sat leaning forward with his hand on
+      his father&rsquo;s. &ldquo;You had better select a brighter topic.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You were always bright; I used to be proud of your brightness. I should
+      like so much to think you&rsquo;d do something.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you leave us,&rdquo; said Ralph, &ldquo;I shall do nothing but miss you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s just what I don&rsquo;t want; it&rsquo;s what I want to talk about. You must
+      get a new interest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want a new interest, daddy. I have more old ones than I know what
+      to do with.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s interests. &ldquo;Of course you have your mother,&rdquo; he
+      said at last. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll take care of her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My mother will always take care of herself,&rdquo; Ralph returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said his father, &ldquo;perhaps as she grows older she&rsquo;ll need a little
+      help.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not see that. She&rsquo;ll outlive me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very likely she will; but that&rsquo;s no reason&mdash;!&rdquo; Mr. Touchett let his
+      phrase die away in a helpless but not quite querulous sigh and remained
+      silent again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t trouble yourself about us,&rdquo; said his son, &ldquo;My mother and I get on
+      very well together, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You get on by always being apart; that&rsquo;s not natural.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you leave us we shall probably see more of each other.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; the old man observed with wandering irrelevance, &ldquo;it can&rsquo;t be said
+      that my death will make much difference in your mother&rsquo;s life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will probably make more than you think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, she&rsquo;ll have more money,&rdquo; said Mr. Touchett. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve left her a good
+      wife&rsquo;s portion, just as if she had been a good wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has been one, daddy, according to her own theory. She has never
+      troubled you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, some troubles are pleasant,&rdquo; Mr. Touchett murmured. &ldquo;Those you&rsquo;ve
+      given me for instance. But your mother has been less&mdash;less&mdash;what
+      shall I call it? less out of the way since I&rsquo;ve been ill. I presume she
+      knows I&rsquo;ve noticed it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall certainly tell her so; I&rsquo;m so glad you mention it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It won&rsquo;t make any difference to her; she doesn&rsquo;t do it to please me. She
+      does it to please&mdash;to please&mdash;&rdquo; And he lay a while trying to
+      think why she did it. &ldquo;She does it because it suits her. But that&rsquo;s not
+      what I want to talk about,&rdquo; he added. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s about you. You&rsquo;ll be very well
+      off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Ralph, &ldquo;I know that. But I hope you&rsquo;ve not forgotten the talk
+      we had a year ago&mdash;when I told you exactly what money I should need
+      and begged you to make some good use of the rest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes, I remember. I made a new will&mdash;in a few days. I suppose it
+      was the first time such a thing had happened&mdash;a young man trying to
+      get a will made against him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not against me,&rdquo; said Ralph. &ldquo;It would be against me to have a
+      large property to take care of. It&rsquo;s impossible for a man in my state of
+      health to spend much money, and enough is as good as a feast.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you&rsquo;ll have enough&mdash;and something over. There will be more
+      than enough for one&mdash;there will be enough for two.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s too much,&rdquo; said Ralph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, don&rsquo;t say that. The best thing you can do; when I&rsquo;m gone, will be to
+      marry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ralph had foreseen what his father was coming to, and this suggestion was
+      by no means fresh. It had long been Mr. Touchett&rsquo;s most ingenious way of
+      taking the cheerful view of his son&rsquo;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&rsquo;s
+      appealing gaze.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I, with a wife who hasn&rsquo;t been very fond of me, have had a very happy
+      life,&rdquo; said the old man, carrying his ingenuity further still, &ldquo;what a
+      life mightn&rsquo;t you have if you should marry a person different from Mrs.
+      Touchett. There are more different from her than there are like her.&rdquo;
+       Ralph still said nothing; and after a pause his father resumed softly:
+      &ldquo;What do you think of your cousin?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this Ralph started, meeting the question with a strained smile. &ldquo;Do I
+      understand you to propose that I should marry Isabel?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, that&rsquo;s what it comes to in the end. Don&rsquo;t you like Isabel?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, very much.&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;I like Isabel very much,&rdquo; he repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said his father, &ldquo;I know she likes you. She has told me how much
+      she likes you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did she remark that she would like to marry me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, but she can&rsquo;t have anything against you. And she&rsquo;s the most charming
+      young lady I&rsquo;ve ever seen. And she would be good to you. I have thought a
+      great deal about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So have I,&rdquo; said Ralph, coming back to the bedside again. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t mind
+      telling you that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You <i>are</i> in love with her then? I should think you would be. It&rsquo;s
+      as if she came over on purpose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I&rsquo;m not in love with her; but I should be if&mdash;if certain things
+      were different.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, things are always different from what they might be,&rdquo; said the old
+      man. &ldquo;If you wait for them to change you&rsquo;ll never do anything. I don&rsquo;t
+      know whether you know,&rdquo; he went on; &ldquo;but I suppose there&rsquo;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&rsquo;t have him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know she refused Warburton: he told me himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, that proves there&rsquo;s a chance for somebody else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Somebody else took his chance the other day in London&mdash;and got
+      nothing by it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was it you?&rdquo; Mr. Touchett eagerly asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, it was an older friend; a poor gentleman who came over from America
+      to see about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;m sorry for him, whoever he was. But it only proves what I say&mdash;that
+      the way&rsquo;s open to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it is, dear father, it&rsquo;s all the greater pity that I&rsquo;m unable to tread
+      it. I haven&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man raised his weak hand and moved it to and fro before his face.
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;re all each other&rsquo;s
+      cousins, and if we stopped at that the human race would die out. It&rsquo;s just
+      the same with your bad lung. You&rsquo;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&rsquo;re in love with than it is
+      to remain single on false principles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not in love with Isabel,&rdquo; said Ralph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You said just now that you would be if you didn&rsquo;t think it wrong. I want
+      to prove to you that it isn&rsquo;t wrong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will only tire you, dear daddy,&rdquo; said Ralph, who marvelled at his
+      father&rsquo;s tenacity and at his finding strength to insist. &ldquo;Then where shall
+      we all be?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where shall you be if I don&rsquo;t provide for you? You won&rsquo;t have anything to
+      do with the bank, and you won&rsquo;t have me to take care of. You say you&rsquo;ve so
+      many interests; but I can&rsquo;t make them out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;I take a great interest in my cousin,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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&rsquo;s entirely
+      independent of me; I can exercise very little influence upon her life. But
+      I should like to do something for her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What should you like to do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like to put a little wind in her sails.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean by that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, I&rsquo;m glad you&rsquo;ve thought of that,&rdquo; said the old man. &ldquo;But I&rsquo;ve thought
+      of it too. I&rsquo;ve left her a legacy&mdash;five thousand pounds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s capital; it&rsquo;s very kind of you. But I should like to do a little
+      more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Something of that veiled acuteness with which it had been on Daniel
+      Touchett&rsquo;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. &ldquo;I shall be happy to consider it,&rdquo; he
+      said softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isabel&rsquo;s poor then. My mother tells me that she has but a few hundred
+      dollars a year. I should like to make her rich.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean by rich?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I call people rich when they&rsquo;re able to meet the requirements of their
+      imagination. Isabel has a great deal of imagination.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So have you, my son,&rdquo; said Mr. Touchett, listening very attentively but a
+      little confusedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To do what she likes with?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Absolutely what she likes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And without an equivalent?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What equivalent could there be?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The one I&rsquo;ve already mentioned.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her marrying&mdash;some one or other? It&rsquo;s just to do away with anything
+      of that sort that I make my suggestion. If she has an easy income she&rsquo;ll
+      never have to marry for a support. That&rsquo;s what I want cannily to prevent.
+      She wishes to be free, and your bequest will make her free.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you seem to have thought it out,&rdquo; said Mr. Touchett. &ldquo;But I don&rsquo;t
+      see why you appeal to me. The money will be yours, and you can easily give
+      it to her yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ralph openly stared. &ldquo;Ah, dear father, I can&rsquo;t offer Isabel money!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man gave a groan. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t tell me you&rsquo;re not in love with her! Do
+      you want me to have the credit of it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Entirely. I should like it simply to be a clause in your will, without
+      the slightest reference to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you want me to make a new will then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A few words will do it; you can attend to it the next time you feel a
+      little lively.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must telegraph to Mr. Hilary then. I&rsquo;ll do nothing without my
+      solicitor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall see Mr. Hilary to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;ll think we&rsquo;ve quarrelled, you and I,&rdquo; said the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very probably; I shall like him to think it,&rdquo; said Ralph, smiling; &ldquo;and,
+      to carry out the idea, I give you notice that I shall be very sharp, quite
+      horrid and strange, with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The humour of this appeared to touch his father, who lay a little while
+      taking it in. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll do anything you like,&rdquo; Mr. Touchett said at last; &ldquo;but
+      I&rsquo;m not sure it&rsquo;s right. You say you want to put wind in her sails; but
+      aren&rsquo;t you afraid of putting too much?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like to see her going before the breeze!&rdquo; Ralph answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You speak as if it were for your mere amusement.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So it is, a good deal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I don&rsquo;t think I understand,&rdquo; said Mr. Touchett with a sigh. &ldquo;Young
+      men are very different from what I was. When I cared for a girl&mdash;when
+      I was young&mdash;I wanted to do more than look at her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve scruples that I shouldn&rsquo;t have had, and you&rsquo;ve ideas that I
+      shouldn&rsquo;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&rsquo;s
+      a girl to do that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;t
+      really know how meagre they are&mdash;she has yet to learn it. My mother
+      has told me all about it. Isabel will learn it when she&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve left her five thousand pounds. She can satisfy a good many wants
+      with that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She can indeed. But she would probably spend it in two or three years.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You think she&rsquo;d be extravagant then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Most certainly,&rdquo; said Ralph, smiling serenely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Mr. Touchett&rsquo;s acuteness was rapidly giving place to pure confusion.
+      &ldquo;It would merely be a question of time then, her spending the larger sum?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;though at first I think she&rsquo;d plunge into that pretty freely:
+      she&rsquo;d probably make over a part of it to each of her sisters. But after
+      that she&rsquo;d come to her senses, remember she has still a lifetime before
+      her, and live within her means.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you <i>have</i> worked it out,&rdquo; said the old man helplessly. &ldquo;You
+      do take an interest in her, certainly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t consistently say I go too far. You wished me to go further.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; Mr. Touchett answered. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I enter into
+      your spirit. It seems to me immoral.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Immoral, dear daddy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I don&rsquo;t know that it&rsquo;s right to make everything so easy for a
+      person.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It surely depends upon the person. When the person&rsquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was a little difficult to follow, and Mr. Touchett considered it for
+      a while. At last he said: &ldquo;Isabel&rsquo;s a sweet young thing; but do you think
+      she&rsquo;s so good as that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s as good as her best opportunities,&rdquo; Ralph returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; Mr. Touchett declared, &ldquo;she ought to get a great many
+      opportunities for sixty thousand pounds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve no doubt she will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I&rsquo;ll do what you want,&rdquo; said the old man. &ldquo;I only want to
+      understand it a little.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, dear daddy, don&rsquo;t you understand it now?&rdquo; his son caressingly
+      asked. &ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t we won&rsquo;t take any more trouble about it. We&rsquo;ll leave
+      it alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;Tell me
+      this first. Doesn&rsquo;t it occur to you that a young lady with sixty thousand
+      pounds may fall a victim to the fortune-hunters?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;ll hardly fall a victim to more than one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, one&rsquo;s too many.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Decidedly. That&rsquo;s a risk, and it has entered into my calculation. I think
+      it&rsquo;s appreciable, but I think it&rsquo;s small, and I&rsquo;m prepared to take it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Mr. Touchett&rsquo;s acuteness had passed into perplexity, and his
+      perplexity now passed into admiration. &ldquo;Well, you have gone into it!&rdquo; he
+      repeated. &ldquo;But I don&rsquo;t see what good you&rsquo;re to get of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ralph leaned over his father&rsquo;s pillows and gently smoothed them; he was
+      aware their talk had been unduly prolonged. &ldquo;I shall get just the good I
+      said a few moments ago I wished to put into Isabel&rsquo;s reach&mdash;that of
+      having met the requirements of my imagination. But it&rsquo;s scandalous, the
+      way I&rsquo;ve taken advantage of you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;it had not seemed to her in other cases&mdash;that
+      the actual completely expressed it. But she often reminded herself that
+      there were essential reasons why one&rsquo;s ideal could never become concrete.
+      It was a thing to believe in, not to see&mdash;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&mdash;the
+      air of reproducing the more tiresome, the stale, the too-familiar parts of
+      one&rsquo;s own character. The gates of the girl&rsquo;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&mdash;she was charming,
+      sympathetic, intelligent, cultivated. More than this (for it had not been
+      Isabel&rsquo;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&mdash;an accomplishment rare in women; and
+      she had thought to very good purpose. Of course, too, she knew how to
+      feel; Isabel couldn&rsquo;t have spent a week with her without being sure of
+      that. This was indeed Madame Merle&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I judge more than I used to,&rdquo; she said to Isabel, &ldquo;but it seems to me one
+      has earned the right. One can&rsquo;t judge till one&rsquo;s forty; before that we&rsquo;re
+      too eager, too hard, too cruel, and in addition much too ignorant. I&rsquo;m
+      sorry for you; it will be a long time before you&rsquo;re forty. But every
+      gain&rsquo;s a loss of some kind; I often think that after forty one can&rsquo;t
+      really feel. The freshness, the quickness have certainly gone. You&rsquo;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&rsquo;s
+      certain&mdash;it can&rsquo;t spoil you. It may pull you about horribly, but I
+      defy it to break you up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;Oh, I&rsquo;ve been in that, my dear; it passes, like everything else.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s always a
+      little of it and never too much at once,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;and it never wets you
+      and it always smells good.&rdquo; She declared that in England the pleasures of
+      smell were great&mdash;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. &ldquo;I should like awfully
+      to be so!&rdquo; Isabel secretly exclaimed, more than once, as one after another
+      of her friend&rsquo;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.
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s the harm,&rdquo; she wondered, &ldquo;so long as it&rsquo;s a good one? The more
+      one&rsquo;s under a good influence the better. The only thing is to see our
+      steps as we take them&mdash;to understand them as we go. That, no doubt, I
+      shall always do. I needn&rsquo;t be afraid of becoming too pliable; isn&rsquo;t it my
+      fault that I&rsquo;m not pliable enough?&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s value. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the great thing,&rdquo; Isabel solemnly
+      pondered; &ldquo;that&rsquo;s the supreme good fortune: to be in a better position for
+      appreciating people than they are for appreciating you.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I may not count over all the links in the chain which led Isabel to think
+      of Madame Merle&rsquo;s situation as aristocratic&mdash;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&rsquo;s imagination a sort of greatness. To be so cultivated and
+      civilised, so wise and so easy, and still make so light of it&mdash;that
+      was really to be a great lady, especially when one so carried and
+      presented one&rsquo;s self. It was as if somehow she had all society under
+      contribution, and all the arts and graces it practised&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 &ldquo;everything important&rdquo;), 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&rsquo;t necessarily prove one superficial; this was an illusion in which,
+      in one&rsquo;s youth, one had but just escaped being nourished. Madame Merle was
+      not superficial&mdash;not she. She was deep, and her nature spoke none the
+      less in her behaviour because it spoke a conventional tongue. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s
+      language at all but a convention?&rdquo; said Isabel. &ldquo;She has the good taste
+      not to pretend, like some people I&rsquo;ve met, to express herself by original
+      signs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid you&rsquo;ve suffered much,&rdquo; she once found occasion to say to her
+      friend in response to some allusion that had appeared to reach far.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What makes you think that?&rdquo; Madame Merle asked with the amused smile of a
+      person seated at a game of guesses. &ldquo;I hope I haven&rsquo;t too much the droop
+      of the misunderstood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; but you sometimes say things that I think people who have always been
+      happy wouldn&rsquo;t have found out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t always been happy,&rdquo; said Madame Merle, smiling still, but with
+      a mock gravity, as if she were telling a child a secret. &ldquo;Such a wonderful
+      thing!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Isabel rose to the irony. &ldquo;A great many people give me the impression
+      of never having for a moment felt anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;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&rsquo;m rather stout, but if I must tell you the truth I&rsquo;ve been
+      shockingly chipped and cracked. I do very well for service yet, because
+      I&rsquo;ve been cleverly mended; and I try to remain in the cupboard&mdash;the
+      quiet, dusky cupboard where there&rsquo;s an odour of stale spices&mdash;as much
+      as I can. But when I&rsquo;ve to come out and into a strong light&mdash;then, my
+      dear, I&rsquo;m a horror!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;t be trusted&mdash;if she appeared capable of a betrayal of
+      confidence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not that I&rsquo;m afraid of your repeating what I say,&rdquo; her fellow
+      visitor answered; &ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid, on the contrary, of your taking it too much
+      to yourself. You&rsquo;d judge me too harshly; you&rsquo;re of the cruel age.&rdquo; She
+      preferred for the present to talk to Isabel of Isabel, and exhibited the
+      greatest interest in our heroine&rsquo;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. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t pretend to be
+      educated,&rdquo; she would say, &ldquo;but I think I know my Europe;&rdquo; 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&rsquo;s benefit
+      threw a great deal of light upon the customs of the country and the
+      character of the people, who &ldquo;after all,&rdquo; as she was fond of saying, were
+      the most convenient in the world to live with.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mustn&rsquo;t think it strange her remaining here at such a time as this,
+      when Mr. Touchett&rsquo;s passing away,&rdquo; that gentleman&rsquo;s wife remarked to her
+      niece. &ldquo;She is incapable of a mistake; she&rsquo;s the most tactful woman I
+      know. It&rsquo;s a favour to me that she stays; she&rsquo;s putting off a lot of
+      visits at great houses,&rdquo; said Mrs. Touchett, who never forgot that when
+      she herself was in England her social value sank two or three degrees in
+      the scale. &ldquo;She has her pick of places; she&rsquo;s not in want of a shelter.
+      But I&rsquo;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&rsquo;t a fault.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I didn&rsquo;t already like her very much that description might alarm me,&rdquo;
+       Isabel returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s never the least little bit &lsquo;off.&rsquo; I&rsquo;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&rsquo;s one of the most brilliant women in
+      Europe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I like her better than I like your description of her,&rdquo; Isabel persisted
+      in saying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you flatter yourself that you&rsquo;ll ever feel her open to criticism? I
+      hope you&rsquo;ll let me know when you do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That will be cruel&mdash;to you,&rdquo; said Isabel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You needn&rsquo;t mind me. You won&rsquo;t discover a fault in her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps not. But I dare say I shan&rsquo;t miss it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She knows absolutely everything on earth there is to know,&rdquo; said Mrs.
+      Touchett.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel after this observed to their companion that she hoped she knew Mrs.
+      Touchett considered she hadn&rsquo;t a speck on her perfection. On which &ldquo;I&rsquo;m
+      obliged to you,&rdquo; Madame Merle replied, &ldquo;but I&rsquo;m afraid your aunt imagines,
+      or at least alludes to, no aberrations that the clock-face doesn&rsquo;t
+      register.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So that you mean you&rsquo;ve a wild side that&rsquo;s unknown to her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah no, I fear my darkest sides are my tamest. I mean that having no
+      faults, for your aunt, means that one&rsquo;s never late for dinner&mdash;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&rsquo;t bring too much luggage and is careful not to be
+      taken ill. For Mrs. Touchett those things constitute virtue; it&rsquo;s a
+      blessing to be able to reduce it to its elements.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Merle&rsquo;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&rsquo;t occur to the girl
+      for instance that Mrs. Touchett&rsquo;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&rsquo;s near relations was an agreeable
+      sign of that person&rsquo;s intimacy with one&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m old and stale and faded,&rdquo; she said more than once; &ldquo;I&rsquo;m of no more
+      interest than last week&rsquo;s newspaper. You&rsquo;re young and fresh and of to-day;
+      you&rsquo;ve the great thing&mdash;you&rsquo;ve actuality. I once had it&mdash;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&rsquo;s a sign
+      that I&rsquo;m growing old&mdash;that I like to talk with younger people. I
+      think it&rsquo;s a very pretty compensation. If we can&rsquo;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&mdash;that I shall always
+      be. I don&rsquo;t know that I shall ever be ill-natured with old people&mdash;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 <i>carte blanche</i> 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, <i>je viens de loin</i>; I belong to
+      the old, old world. But it&rsquo;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&rsquo;ve been since I was brought here as a helpless child, and
+      it&rsquo;s ridiculous, or rather it&rsquo;s scandalous, how little I know about that
+      splendid, dreadful, funny country&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;re
+      not good Americans we&rsquo;re certainly poor Europeans; we&rsquo;ve no natural place
+      here. We&rsquo;re mere parasites, crawling over the surface; we haven&rsquo;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&rsquo;re horrified? you
+      declare you&rsquo;ll never crawl? It&rsquo;s very true that I don&rsquo;t see you crawling;
+      you stand more upright than a good many poor creatures. Very good; on the
+      whole, I don&rsquo;t think you&rsquo;ll crawl. But the men, the Americans; <i>je vous
+      demande un peu</i>, what do they make of it over here? I don&rsquo;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&rsquo;s his
+      <i>carriere</i> it&rsquo;s a kind of position. You can say: &lsquo;Oh, Mr. Touchett,
+      he takes care of his lungs, he knows a great deal about climates.&rsquo; But
+      without that who would he be, what would he represent? &lsquo;Mr. Ralph
+      Touchett: an American who lives in Europe.&rsquo; That signifies absolutely
+      nothing&mdash;it&rsquo;s impossible anything should signify less. &lsquo;He&rsquo;s very
+      cultivated,&rsquo; they say: &lsquo;he has a very pretty collection of old
+      snuff-boxes.&rsquo; The collection is all that&rsquo;s wanted to make it pitiful. I&rsquo;m
+      tired of the sound of the word; I think it&rsquo;s grotesque. With the poor old
+      father it&rsquo;s different; he has his identity, and it&rsquo;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&rsquo;t die of it. It&rsquo;s much better than the snuffboxes. If he
+      weren&rsquo;t ill, you say, he&rsquo;d do something?&mdash;he&rsquo;d take his father&rsquo;s
+      place in the house. My poor child, I doubt it; I don&rsquo;t think he&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll bring you
+      together and then you&rsquo;ll see what I mean. He&rsquo;s Gilbert Osmond&mdash;he
+      lives in Italy; that&rsquo;s all one can say about him or make of him. He&rsquo;s
+      exceedingly clever, a man made to be distinguished; but, as I tell you,
+      you exhaust the description when you say he&rsquo;s Mr. Osmond who lives <i>tout
+      bêtement</i> in Italy. No career, no name, no position, no fortune, no
+      past, no future, no anything. Oh yes, he paints, if you please&mdash;paints
+      in water-colours; like me, only better than I. His painting&rsquo;s pretty bad;
+      on the whole I&rsquo;m rather glad of that. Fortunately he&rsquo;s very indolent, so
+      indolent that it amounts to a sort of position. He can say, &lsquo;Oh, I do
+      nothing; I&rsquo;m too deadly lazy. You can do nothing to-day unless you get up
+      at five o&rsquo;clock in the morning.&rsquo; In that way he becomes a sort of
+      exception; you feel he might do something if he&rsquo;d only rise early. He
+      never speaks of his painting to people at large; he&rsquo;s too clever for that.
+      But he has a little girl&mdash;a dear little girl; he does speak of her.
+      He&rsquo;s devoted to her, and if it were a career to be an excellent father
+      he&rsquo;d be very distinguished. But I&rsquo;m afraid that&rsquo;s no better than the
+      snuff-boxes; perhaps not even so good. Tell me what they do in America,&rdquo;
+       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 <i>pied-à-terre</i> with
+      some rather good old damask. She talked of places, of people and even, as
+      the phrase is, of &ldquo;subjects&rdquo;; 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&rsquo;t
+      live.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir Matthew Hope told me so as plainly as was proper,&rdquo; she said;
+      &ldquo;standing there, near the fire, before dinner. He makes himself very
+      agreeable, the great doctor. I don&rsquo;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&mdash;it
+      wasn&rsquo;t as if I could nurse. &lsquo;You must remain, you must remain,&rsquo; he
+      answered; &lsquo;your office will come later.&rsquo; Wasn&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll miss his father immensely. But I should never presume to
+      condole with Mr. Ralph; we&rsquo;re not on those terms.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perfectly, but he doesn&rsquo;t like me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What have you done to him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing whatever. But one has no need of a reason for that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For not liking you? I think one has need of a very good reason.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re very kind. Be sure you have one ready for the day you begin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Begin to dislike you? I shall never begin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope not; because if you do you&rsquo;ll never end. That&rsquo;s the way with your
+      cousin; he doesn&rsquo;t get over it. It&rsquo;s an antipathy of nature&mdash;if I can
+      call it that when it&rsquo;s all on his side. I&rsquo;ve nothing whatever against him
+      and don&rsquo;t bear him the least little grudge for not doing me justice.
+      Justice is all I want. However, one feels that he&rsquo;s a gentleman and would
+      never say anything underhand about one. <i>Cartes sur table</i>,&rdquo; Madame
+      Merle subjoined in a moment, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not afraid of him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope not indeed,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Madame Merle sometimes said things that startled her, made her raise
+      her clear eyebrows at the time and think of the words afterwards. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d
+      give a great deal to be your age again,&rdquo; she broke out once with a
+      bitterness which, though diluted in her customary amplitude of ease, was
+      imperfectly disguised by it. &ldquo;If I could only begin again&mdash;if I could
+      have my life before me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your life&rsquo;s before you yet,&rdquo; Isabel answered gently, for she was vaguely
+      awe-struck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; the best part&rsquo;s gone, and gone for nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely not for nothing,&rdquo; said Isabel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not&mdash;what have I got? Neither husband, nor child, nor fortune,
+      nor position, nor the traces of a beauty that I never had.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have many friends, dear lady.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not so sure!&rdquo; cried Madame Merle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, you&rsquo;re wrong. You have memories, graces, talents&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Madame Merle interrupted her. &ldquo;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&rsquo;ll
+      be my friend till you find a better use for your friendship.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will be for you to see that I don&rsquo;t then,&rdquo; said Isabel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; I would make an effort to keep you.&rdquo; And her companion looked at her
+      gravely. &ldquo;When I say I should like to be your age I mean with your
+      qualities&mdash;frank, generous, sincere like you. In that case I should
+      have made something better of my life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What should you have liked to do that you&rsquo;ve not done?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Merle took a sheet of music&mdash;she was seated at the piano and
+      had abruptly wheeled about on the stool when she first spoke&mdash;and
+      mechanically turned the leaves. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m very ambitious!&rdquo; she at last replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And your ambitions have not been satisfied? They must have been great.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They <i>were</i> great. I should make myself ridiculous by talking of
+      them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel wondered what they could have been&mdash;whether Madame Merle had
+      aspired to wear a crown. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what your idea of success may be,
+      but you seem to me to have been successful. To me indeed you&rsquo;re a vivid
+      image of success.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Merle tossed away the music with a smile. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s <i>your</i> idea
+      of success?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You evidently think it must be a very tame one. It&rsquo;s to see some dream of
+      one&rsquo;s youth come true.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; Madame Merle exclaimed, &ldquo;that I&rsquo;ve never seen! But my dreams were so
+      great&mdash;so preposterous. Heaven forgive me, I&rsquo;m dreaming now!&rdquo; 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&rsquo;s youth, why they were enchanting, they were divine! Who had ever
+      seen such things come to pass?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I myself&mdash;a few of them,&rdquo; Isabel ventured to answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Already? They must have been dreams of yesterday.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I began to dream very young,&rdquo; Isabel smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, if you mean the aspirations of your childhood&mdash;that of having a
+      pink sash and a doll that could close her eyes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I don&rsquo;t mean that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Or a young man with a fine moustache going down on his knees to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, nor that either,&rdquo; Isabel declared with still more emphasis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Merle appeared to note this eagerness. &ldquo;I suspect that&rsquo;s what you
+      do mean. We&rsquo;ve all had the young man with the moustache. He&rsquo;s the
+      inevitable young man; he doesn&rsquo;t count.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel was silent a little but then spoke with extreme and characteristic
+      inconsequence. &ldquo;Why shouldn&rsquo;t he count? There are young men and young
+      men.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And yours was a paragon&mdash;is that what you mean?&rdquo; asked her friend
+      with a laugh. &ldquo;If you&rsquo;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&rsquo;t you fly with him to his castle in the Apennines?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has no castle in the Apennines.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What has he? An ugly brick house in Fortieth Street? Don&rsquo;t tell me that;
+      I refuse to recognise that as an ideal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care anything about his house,&rdquo; said Isabel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s very crude of you. When you&rsquo;ve lived as long as I you&rsquo;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&rsquo;s
+      no such thing as an isolated man or woman; we&rsquo;re each of us made up of
+      some cluster of appurtenances. What shall we call our &lsquo;self&rsquo;? Where does
+      it begin? where does it end? It overflows into everything that belongs to
+      us&mdash;and then it flows back again. I know a large part of myself is in
+      the clothes I choose to wear. I&rsquo;ve a great respect for <i>things</i>!
+      One&rsquo;s self&mdash;for other people&mdash;is one&rsquo;s expression of one&rsquo;s self;
+      and one&rsquo;s house, one&rsquo;s furniture, one&rsquo;s garments, the books one reads, the
+      company one keeps&mdash;these things are all expressive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t agree with you. I think just
+      the other way. I don&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t express me; and heaven forbid they should!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You dress very well,&rdquo; Madame Merle lightly interposed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Possibly; but I don&rsquo;t care to be judged by that. My clothes may express
+      the dressmaker, but they don&rsquo;t express me. To begin with it&rsquo;s not my own
+      choice that I wear them; they&rsquo;re imposed upon me by society.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Should you prefer to go without them?&rdquo; Madame Merle enquired in a tone
+      which virtually terminated the discussion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s previous visits to
+      Gardencourt&mdash;each of them much shorter than the present&mdash;he had
+      either not been at Lockleigh or had not called at Mr. Touchett&rsquo;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&rsquo;s
+      freshly-imported niece.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve plenty of time,&rdquo; she had said to Isabel in return for the
+      mutilated confidences which our young woman made her and which didn&rsquo;t
+      pretend to be perfect, though we have seen that at moments the girl had
+      compunctions at having said so much. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad you&rsquo;ve done nothing yet&mdash;that
+      you have it still to do. It&rsquo;s a very good thing for a girl to have refused
+      a few good offers&mdash;so long of course as they are not the best she&rsquo;s
+      likely to have. Pardon me if my tone seems horribly corrupt; one must take
+      the worldly view sometimes. Only don&rsquo;t keep on refusing for the sake of
+      refusing. It&rsquo;s a pleasant exercise of power; but accepting&rsquo;s after all an
+      exercise of power as well. There&rsquo;s always the danger of refusing once too
+      often. It was not the one I fell into&mdash;I didn&rsquo;t refuse often enough.
+      You&rsquo;re an exquisite creature, and I should like to see you married to a
+      prime minister. But speaking strictly, you know, you&rsquo;re not what is
+      technically called a <i>parti</i>. You&rsquo;re extremely good-looking and
+      extremely clever; in yourself you&rsquo;re quite exceptional. You appear to have
+      the vaguest ideas about your earthly possessions; but from what I can make
+      out you&rsquo;re not embarrassed with an income. I wish you had a little money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish I had!&rdquo; said Isabel, simply, apparently forgetting for the moment
+      that her poverty had been a venial fault for two gallant gentlemen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of Sir Matthew Hope&rsquo;s benevolent recommendation Madame Merle did
+      not remain to the end, as the issue of poor Mr. Touchett&rsquo;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. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m
+      going to six places in succession, but I shall see no one I like so well
+      as you. They&rsquo;ll all be old friends, however; one doesn&rsquo;t make new friends
+      at my age. I&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;with columns
+      unerringly ruled and a sharp steel clasp&mdash;which she kept with
+      exemplary neatness. Uttered reflection had with her ever, at any rate, a
+      practical ring. &ldquo;If I had foreseen this I&rsquo;d not have proposed your coming
+      abroad now,&rdquo; she said to Isabel after Madame Merle had left the house.
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;d have waited and sent for you next year.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So that perhaps I should never have known my uncle? It&rsquo;s a great
+      happiness to me to have come now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s very well. But it was not that you might know your uncle that I
+      brought you to Europe.&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 <i>ignis fatuus</i>. 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&rsquo;s affairs much to heart, and believed
+      that he owed her a set-off to this illusory visit to Bedfordshire. &ldquo;He
+      says he should think I would go to the Continent,&rdquo; Henrietta wrote; &ldquo;and
+      as he thinks of going there himself I suppose his advice is sincere. He
+      wants to know why I don&rsquo;t take a view of French life; and it&rsquo;s a fact that
+      I want very much to see the new Republic. Mr. Bantling doesn&rsquo;t care much
+      about the Republic, but he thinks of going over to Paris anyway. I must
+      say he&rsquo;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&mdash;&lsquo;Ah, but
+      really, come now!&rdquo; 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&mdash;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 <i>Interviewer</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It seems to me she&rsquo;s doing very well,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;going over to Paris with
+      an ex-Lancer! If she wants something to write about she has only to
+      describe that episode.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not conventional, certainly,&rdquo; Isabel answered; &ldquo;but if you mean that&mdash;as
+      far as Henrietta is concerned&mdash;it&rsquo;s not perfectly innocent, you&rsquo;re
+      very much mistaken. You&rsquo;ll never understand Henrietta.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pardon me, I understand her perfectly. I didn&rsquo;t at all at first, but now
+      I&rsquo;ve the point of view. I&rsquo;m afraid, however, that Bantling hasn&rsquo;t; he may
+      have some surprises. Oh, I understand Henrietta as well as if I had made
+      her!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all over,&rdquo; said Ralph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean that my uncle...?&rdquo; And Isabel stopped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear father died an hour ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, my poor Ralph!&rdquo; she gently wailed, putting out her two hands to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;&ldquo;This noble freehold mansion to be sold&rdquo;; with the name of the
+      agent to whom application should be made. &ldquo;They certainly lose no time,&rdquo;
+       said the visitor as, after sounding the big brass knocker, she waited to
+      be admitted; &ldquo;it&rsquo;s a practical country!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know what you&rsquo;re going to say&mdash;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.&rdquo; Mrs. Touchett added that at the end her
+      husband apparently recognised this fact. &ldquo;He has treated me most
+      liberally,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;I won&rsquo;t say more liberally than I expected, because
+      I didn&rsquo;t expect. You know that as a general thing I don&rsquo;t expect. But he
+      chose, I presume, to recognise the fact that though I lived much abroad
+      and mingled&mdash;you may say freely&mdash;in foreign life, I never
+      exhibited the smallest preference for any one else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For any one but yourself,&rdquo; Madame Merle mentally observed; but the
+      reflexion was perfectly inaudible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never sacrificed my husband to another,&rdquo; Mrs. Touchett continued with
+      her stout curtness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh no,&rdquo; thought Madame Merle; &ldquo;you never did anything for another!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;somewhat
+      superficial perhaps&mdash;that we have hitherto enjoyed of Madame Merle&rsquo;s
+      character or with the literal facts of Mrs. Touchett&rsquo;s history; the more
+      so, too, as Madame Merle had a well-founded conviction that her friend&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;she
+      would almost have said of spoils&mdash;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&mdash;with a fine proud smile&mdash;that she had not the faintest
+      claim to a share in Mr. Touchett&rsquo;s relics. &ldquo;There was never anything in
+      the world between us,&rdquo; she would have said. &ldquo;There was never that, poor
+      man!&rdquo;&mdash;with a fillip of her thumb and her third finger. I hasten to
+      add, moreover, that if she couldn&rsquo;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&rsquo;s gains as for her losses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has left me this house,&rdquo; the newly-made widow said; &ldquo;but of course I
+      shall not live in it; I&rsquo;ve a much better one in Florence. The will was
+      opened only three days since, but I&rsquo;ve already offered the house for sale.
+      I&rsquo;ve also a share in the bank; but I don&rsquo;t yet understand if I&rsquo;m obliged
+      to leave it there. If not I shall certainly take it out. Ralph, of course,
+      has Gardencourt; but I&rsquo;m not sure that he&rsquo;ll have means to keep up the
+      place. He&rsquo;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&mdash;in summer&mdash;with a maid-of-all-work and
+      a gardener&rsquo;s boy. There&rsquo;s one remarkable clause in my husband&rsquo;s will,&rdquo;
+       Mrs. Touchett added. &ldquo;He has left my niece a fortune.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A fortune!&rdquo; Madame Merle softly repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isabel steps into something like seventy thousand pounds.&rdquo; Madame Merle&rsquo;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. &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;the clever
+      creature!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Touchett gave her a quick look. &ldquo;What do you mean by that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For an instant Madame Merle&rsquo;s colour rose and she dropped her eyes. &ldquo;It
+      certainly is clever to achieve such results&mdash;without an effort!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There assuredly was no effort. Don&rsquo;t call it an achievement.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She never dreamed, I&rsquo;m sure, of my husband&rsquo;s doing anything for her; and
+      I never dreamed of it either, for he never spoke to me of his intention,&rdquo;
+       Mrs. Touchett said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; rejoined Madame Merle, &ldquo;those are the greatest strokes!&rdquo; Mrs.
+      Touchett reserved her opinion. &ldquo;The girl&rsquo;s fortunate; I don&rsquo;t deny that.
+      But for the present she&rsquo;s simply stupefied.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean that she doesn&rsquo;t know what to do with the money?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That, I think, she has hardly considered. She doesn&rsquo;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&rsquo;s feeling herself to see if she be hurt. It&rsquo;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&rsquo;s to remain in the affairs of the bank, and she&rsquo;s to draw the
+      interest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Merle shook her head with a wise and now quite benignant smile.
+      &ldquo;How very delicious! After she has done that two or three times she&rsquo;ll get
+      used to it.&rdquo; Then after a silence, &ldquo;What does your son think of it?&rdquo; she
+      abruptly asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He left England before the will was read&mdash;used up by his fatigue and
+      anxiety and hurrying off to the south. He&rsquo;s on his way to the Riviera and
+      I&rsquo;ve not yet heard from him. But it&rsquo;s not likely he&rsquo;ll ever object to
+      anything done by his father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t you say his own share had been cut down?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only at his wish. I know that he urged his father to do something for the
+      people in America. He&rsquo;s not in the least addicted to looking after number
+      one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It depends upon whom he regards as number one!&rdquo; said Madame Merle. And
+      she remained thoughtful a moment, her eyes bent on the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Am I not to see your happy niece?&rdquo; she asked at last as she raised them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may see her; but you&rsquo;ll not be struck with her being happy. She has
+      looked as solemn, these three days, as a Cimabue Madonna!&rdquo; And Mrs.
+      Touchett rang for a servant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel came in shortly after the footman had been sent to call her; and
+      Madame Merle thought, as she appeared, that Mrs. Touchett&rsquo;s comparison had
+      its force. The girl was pale and grave&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s inheritance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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&rsquo;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. &ldquo;Now that
+      you&rsquo;re a young woman of fortune you must know how to play the part&mdash;I
+      mean to play it well,&rdquo; she said to Isabel once for all; and she added that
+      the girl&rsquo;s first duty was to have everything handsome. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t know how
+      to take care of your things, but you must learn,&rdquo; she went on; this was
+      Isabel&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Touchett rarely changed her plans, and, having intended before her
+      husband&rsquo;s death to spend a part of the winter in Paris, saw no reason to
+      deprive herself&mdash;still less to deprive her companion&mdash;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 Elysées. 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&rsquo;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. &ldquo;You all live here this
+      way, but what does it lead to?&rdquo; she was pleased to ask. &ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t seem
+      to lead to anything, and I should think you&rsquo;d get very tired of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&mdash;a joke of which the point was not
+      always taken. When it failed, Mrs. Luce used to explain&mdash;&ldquo;Oh yes, I&rsquo;m
+      one of the romantics;&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;distractions&rdquo; of
+      Paris&mdash;they were his great word&mdash;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&rsquo;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
+      Elysées, and he dined uncommonly well at his own table, seated above a
+      waxed floor which it was Mrs. Luce&rsquo;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 Café 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&mdash;or rather a deep&mdash;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. &ldquo;They want to be kept down, sir, to be kept
+      down; nothing but the strong hand&mdash;the iron heel&mdash;will do for
+      them,&rdquo; he would frequently say of the French people; and his ideal of a
+      fine showy clever rule was that of the superseded Empire. &ldquo;Paris is much
+      less attractive than in the days of the Emperor; <i>he</i> knew how to
+      make a city pleasant,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, madam, sitting in the Champs Elysées, opposite to the Palace of
+      Industry, I&rsquo;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&rsquo;s no use talking, the style&rsquo;s all
+      gone. Napoleon knew what the French people want, and there&rsquo;ll be a dark
+      cloud over Paris, our Paris, till they get the Empire back again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Among Mrs. Luce&rsquo;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&mdash;Ned Rosier as he was called&mdash;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 <i>bonne</i> had gone off
+      with the Russian prince and when Mr. Archer&rsquo;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 <i>bonne</i>
+      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&mdash;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 &ldquo;defended&rdquo; by his <i>bonne</i> to go near the edge of the
+      lake, and that one must always obey to one&rsquo;s <i>bonne</i>. Ned Rosier&rsquo;s
+      English had improved; at least it exhibited in a less degree the French
+      variation. His father was dead and his <i>bonne</i> dismissed, but the
+      young man still conformed to the spirit of their teaching&mdash;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&mdash;an
+      acquaintance with old china, with good wine, with the bindings of books,
+      with the <i>Almanach de Gotha</i>, 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s question with greater
+      urbanity than it perhaps deserved. &ldquo;What does it lead to, Miss Archer? Why
+      Paris leads everywhere. You can&rsquo;t go anywhere unless you come here first.
+      Every one that comes to Europe has got to pass through. You don&rsquo;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&rsquo;s a pleasant
+      road I don&rsquo;t care where it leads. I like the road, Miss Archer; I like the
+      dear old asphalte. You can&rsquo;t get tired of it&mdash;you can&rsquo;t if you try.
+      You think you would, but you wouldn&rsquo;t; there&rsquo;s always something new and
+      fresh. Take the Hôtel 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&rsquo;re cheaper too, if you know the right places.
+      I know plenty of places, but I keep them to myself. I&rsquo;ll tell you, if you
+      like, as a particular favour; only you mustn&rsquo;t tell any one else. Don&rsquo;t
+      you go anywhere without asking me first; I want you to promise me that. As
+      a general thing avoid the Boulevards; there&rsquo;s very little to be done on
+      the Boulevards. Speaking conscientiously&mdash;<i>sans blague</i>&mdash;I
+      don&rsquo;t believe any one knows Paris better than I. You and Mrs. Touchett
+      must come and breakfast with me some day, and I&rsquo;ll show you my things; <i>je
+      ne vous dis que ça</i>! There has been a great deal of talk about London
+      of late; it&rsquo;s the fashion to cry up London. But there&rsquo;s nothing in it&mdash;you
+      can&rsquo;t do anything in London. No Louis Quinze&mdash;nothing of the First
+      Empire; nothing but their eternal Queen Anne. It&rsquo;s good for one&rsquo;s
+      bed-room, Queen Anne&mdash;for one&rsquo;s washing-room; but it isn&rsquo;t proper for
+      a salon. Do I spend my life at the auctioneer&rsquo;s?&rdquo; Mr. Rosier pursued in
+      answer to another question of Isabel&rsquo;s. &ldquo;Oh no; I haven&rsquo;t the means. I
+      wish I had. You think I&rsquo;m a mere trifler; I can tell by the expression of
+      your face&mdash;you&rsquo;ve got a wonderfully expressive face. I hope you don&rsquo;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&rsquo;t go home and be a
+      shopkeeper. You think I&rsquo;m very well fitted? Ah, Miss Archer, you overrate
+      me. I can buy very well, but I can&rsquo;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 <i>me</i> buy! Ah no; I couldn&rsquo;t be a shopkeeper. I can&rsquo;t
+      be a doctor; it&rsquo;s a repulsive business. I can&rsquo;t be a clergyman; I haven&rsquo;t
+      got convictions. And then I can&rsquo;t pronounce the names right in the Bible.
+      They&rsquo;re very difficult, in the Old Testament particularly. I can&rsquo;t be a
+      lawyer; I don&rsquo;t understand&mdash;how do you call it?&mdash;the American
+      procedure. Is there anything else? There&rsquo;s nothing for a gentleman in
+      America. I should like to be a diplomatist; but American diplomacy&mdash;that&rsquo;s
+      not for gentlemen either. I&rsquo;m sure if you had seen the last min&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If Mr. Touchett had consulted me about leaving you the money,&rdquo; she
+      frankly asserted, &ldquo;I&rsquo;d have said to him &lsquo;Never!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see,&rdquo; Isabel had answered. &ldquo;You think it will prove a curse in
+      disguise. Perhaps it will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Leave it to some one you care less for&mdash;that&rsquo;s what I should have
+      said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To yourself for instance?&rdquo; Isabel suggested jocosely. And then, &ldquo;Do you
+      really believe it will ruin me?&rdquo; she asked in quite another tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope it won&rsquo;t ruin you; but it will certainly confirm your dangerous
+      tendencies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean the love of luxury&mdash;of extravagance?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; said Henrietta; &ldquo;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&rsquo;ve seen nothing over here to compare
+      with it. I hope you&rsquo;ll never become grossly sensual; but I&rsquo;m not afraid of
+      that. The peril for you is that you live too much in the world of your own
+      dreams. You&rsquo;re not enough in contact with reality&mdash;with the toiling,
+      striving, suffering, I may even say sinning, world that surrounds you.
+      You&rsquo;re too fastidious; you&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel&rsquo;s eyes expanded as she gazed at this lurid scene. &ldquo;What are my
+      illusions?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;I try so hard not to have any.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Henrietta, &ldquo;you think you can lead a romantic life, that you
+      can live by pleasing yourself and pleasing others. You&rsquo;ll find you&rsquo;re
+      mistaken. Whatever life you lead you must put your soul in it&mdash;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&rsquo;t always
+      please yourself; you must sometimes please other people. That, I admit,
+      you&rsquo;re very ready to do; but there&rsquo;s another thing that&rsquo;s still more
+      important&mdash;you must often displease others. You must always be ready
+      for that&mdash;you must never shrink from it. That doesn&rsquo;t suit you at all&mdash;you&rsquo;re
+      too fond of admiration, you like to be thought well of. You think we can
+      escape disagreeable duties by taking romantic views&mdash;that&rsquo;s your
+      great illusion, my dear. But we can&rsquo;t. You must be prepared on many
+      occasions in life to please no one at all&mdash;not even yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel shook her head sadly; she looked troubled and frightened. &ldquo;This,
+      for you, Henrietta,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;must be one of those occasions!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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 <i>Interviewer</i> had struck with Lady Pensil&rsquo;s
+      brother; her amusement moreover subsisted in face of the fact that she
+      thought it a credit to each of them. Isabel couldn&rsquo;t rid herself of a
+      suspicion that they were playing somehow at cross-purposes&mdash;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&rsquo;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 <i>Interviewer</i>&mdash;a
+      periodical of which he never formed a very definite conception&mdash;was,
+      if subtly analysed (a task to which Mr. Bantling felt himself quite
+      equal), but the cause of Miss Stackpole&rsquo;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 &ldquo;quaint&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s obliging brother was sometimes, on
+      our heroine&rsquo;s lips, an object of irreverent and facetious allusion.
+      Nothing, however, could exceed Henrietta&rsquo;s amiability on this point; she
+      used to abound in the sense of Isabel&rsquo;s irony and to enumerate with
+      elation the hours she had spent with this perfect man of the world&mdash;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: &ldquo;Oh, I know all about
+      Versailles; I went there with Mr. Bantling. I was bound to see it
+      thoroughly&mdash;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&mdash;a kind of Indian summer, only not so good. We
+      just lived in that park. Oh yes; you can&rsquo;t tell me anything about
+      Versailles.&rdquo; Henrietta appeared to have made arrangements to meet her
+      gallant friend during the spring in Italy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, of course, you&rsquo;re completely your own mistress and are as free as
+      the bird on the bough. I don&rsquo;t mean you were not so before, but you&rsquo;re at
+      present on a different footing&mdash;property erects a kind of barrier.
+      You can do a great many things if you&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll take a
+      companion&mdash;some decayed gentlewoman, with a darned cashmere and dyed
+      hair, who paints on velvet. You don&rsquo;t think you&rsquo;d like that? Of course you
+      can do as you please; I only want you to understand how much you&rsquo;re at
+      liberty. You might take Miss Stackpole as your <i>dame de compagnie</i>;
+      she&rsquo;d keep people off very well. I think, however, that it&rsquo;s a great deal
+      better you should remain with me, in spite of there being no obligation.
+      It&rsquo;s better for several reasons, quite apart from your liking it. I
+      shouldn&rsquo;t think you&rsquo;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&mdash;a dull, obstinate,
+      narrow-minded old woman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think you&rsquo;re at all dull,&rdquo; Isabel had replied to this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you do think I&rsquo;m obstinate and narrow-minded? I told you so!&rdquo; said
+      Mrs. Touchett with much elation at being justified.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s own fault; she had got a
+      glimpse of her aunt&rsquo;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&mdash;offered so limited a face
+      to the accretions of human contact. Nothing tender, nothing sympathetic,
+      had ever had a chance to fasten upon it&mdash;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&mdash;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 <i>signorino</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to ask you something,&rdquo; Isabel said to this young man the day after
+      her arrival at San Remo&mdash;&ldquo;something I&rsquo;ve thought more than once of
+      asking you by letter, but that I&rsquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ralph stretched his legs a little further than usual and gazed a little
+      more fixedly at the Mediterranean.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does it matter, my dear Isabel, whether I knew? My father was very
+      obstinate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So,&rdquo; said the girl, &ldquo;you did know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; he told me. We even talked it over a little.&rdquo; &ldquo;What did he do it
+      for?&rdquo; asked Isabel abruptly. &ldquo;Why, as a kind of compliment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A compliment on what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On your so beautifully existing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He liked me too much,&rdquo; she presently declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a way we all have.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I believed that I should be very unhappy. Fortunately I don&rsquo;t believe
+      it. I want to be treated with justice; I want nothing but that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very good. But you must remember that justice to a lovely being is after
+      all a florid sort of sentiment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not a lovely being. How can you say that, at the very moment when I&rsquo;m
+      asking such odious questions? I must seem to you delicate!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You seem to me troubled,&rdquo; said Ralph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am troubled.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For a moment she answered nothing; then she broke out: &ldquo;Do you think it
+      good for me suddenly to be made so rich? Henrietta doesn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, hang Henrietta!&rdquo; said Ralph coarsely, &ldquo;If you ask me I&rsquo;m delighted at
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that why your father did it&mdash;for your amusement?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I differ with Miss Stackpole,&rdquo; Ralph went on more gravely. &ldquo;I think it
+      very good for you to have means.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel looked at him with serious eyes. &ldquo;I wonder whether you know what&rsquo;s
+      good for me&mdash;or whether you care.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I know depend upon it I care. Shall I tell you what it is? Not to
+      torment yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not to torment you, I suppose you mean.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t do that; I&rsquo;m proof. Take things more easily. Don&rsquo;t ask yourself
+      so much whether this or that is good for you. Don&rsquo;t question your
+      conscience so much&mdash;it will get out of tune like a strummed piano.
+      Keep it for great occasions. Don&rsquo;t try so much to form your character&mdash;it&rsquo;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&rsquo;s not one
+      of them.&rdquo; Ralph paused, smiling; Isabel had listened quickly. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve too
+      much power of thought&mdash;above all too much conscience,&rdquo; Ralph added.
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;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&rsquo;s never wrong to do that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had listened eagerly, as I say; and it was her nature to understand
+      quickly. &ldquo;I wonder if you appreciate what you say. If you do, you take a
+      great responsibility.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You frighten me a little, but I think I&rsquo;m right,&rdquo; said Ralph, persisting
+      in cheer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All the same what you say is very true,&rdquo; Isabel pursued. &ldquo;You could say
+      nothing more true. I&rsquo;m absorbed in myself&mdash;I look at life too much as
+      a doctor&rsquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re a capital person to advise,&rdquo; said Ralph; &ldquo;you take the wind out of
+      my sails!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him as if she had not heard him&mdash;though she was
+      following out the train of reflexion which he himself had kindled. &ldquo;I try
+      to care more about the world than about myself&mdash;but I always come
+      back to myself. It&rsquo;s because I&rsquo;m afraid.&rdquo; She stopped; her voice had
+      trembled a little. &ldquo;Yes, I&rsquo;m afraid; I can&rsquo;t tell you. A large fortune
+      means freedom, and I&rsquo;m afraid of that. It&rsquo;s such a fine thing, and one
+      should make such a good use of it. If one shouldn&rsquo;t one would be ashamed.
+      And one must keep thinking; it&rsquo;s a constant effort. I&rsquo;m not sure it&rsquo;s not
+      a greater happiness to be powerless.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For weak people I&rsquo;ve no doubt it&rsquo;s a greater happiness. For weak people
+      the effort not to be contemptible must be great.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how do you know I&rsquo;m not weak?&rdquo; Isabel asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; Ralph answered with a flush that the girl noticed, &ldquo;if you are I&rsquo;m
+      awfully sold!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;and
+      she was the companion of his daily walk&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;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&rsquo;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&mdash;a clear and quiet
+      harbour enclosed by a brave granite breakwater. But that day could only
+      come in its order, and she couldn&rsquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;which was what
+      she wished to seem to him. That alone was grateful to her pride.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On one of the first days of May, some six months after old Mr. Touchett&rsquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Silence&mdash;absolute silence&mdash;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&mdash;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 &ldquo;let out.&rdquo;
+       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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, my dear, what do you think of it?&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child turned her head earnestly to one side and the other. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s very
+      pretty, papa. Did you make it yourself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly I made it. Don&rsquo;t you think I&rsquo;m clever?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, papa, very clever; I also have learned to make pictures.&rdquo; And she
+      turned round and showed a small, fair face painted with a fixed and
+      intensely sweet smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You should have brought me a specimen of your powers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve brought a great many; they&rsquo;re in my trunk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She draws very&mdash;very carefully,&rdquo; the elder of the nuns remarked,
+      speaking in French.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad to hear it. Is it you who have instructed her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Happily no,&rdquo; said the good sister, blushing a little. &ldquo;<i>Ce n&rsquo;est pas ma
+      partie.</i> I teach nothing; I leave that to those who are wiser. We&rsquo;ve an
+      excellent drawing-master, Mr.&mdash;Mr.&mdash;what is his name?&rdquo; she asked
+      of her companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her companion looked about at the carpet. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a German name,&rdquo; she said
+      in Italian, as if it needed to be translated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; the other went on, &ldquo;he&rsquo;s a German, and we&rsquo;ve had him many years.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;And
+      you, my sister, are French,&rdquo; said the gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; the visitor gently replied. &ldquo;I speak to the pupils in my own
+      tongue. I know no other. But we have sisters of other countries&mdash;English,
+      German, Irish. They all speak their proper language.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The gentleman gave a smile. &ldquo;Has my daughter been under the care of one of
+      the Irish ladies?&rdquo; And then, as he saw that his visitors suspected a joke,
+      though failing to understand it, &ldquo;You&rsquo;re very complete,&rdquo; he instantly
+      added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes, we&rsquo;re complete. We&rsquo;ve everything, and everything&rsquo;s of the best.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have gymnastics,&rdquo; the Italian sister ventured to remark. &ldquo;But not
+      dangerous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope not. Is that <i>your</i> branch?&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but I think she has finished. She&rsquo;ll remain&mdash;not big,&rdquo; said the
+      French sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not sorry. I prefer women like books&mdash;very good and not too
+      long. But I know,&rdquo; the gentleman said, &ldquo;no particular reason why my child
+      should be short.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The nun gave a temperate shrug, as if to intimate that such things might
+      be beyond our knowledge. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s in very good health; that&rsquo;s the best
+      thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, she looks sound.&rdquo; And the young girl&rsquo;s father watched her a moment.
+      &ldquo;What do you see in the garden?&rdquo; he asked in French.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see many flowers,&rdquo; she replied in a sweet, small voice and with an
+      accent as good as his own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but not many good ones. However, such as they are, go out and gather
+      some for <i>ces dames</i>.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The child turned to him with her smile heightened by pleasure. &ldquo;May I,
+      truly?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, when I tell you,&rdquo; said her father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl glanced at the elder of the nuns. &ldquo;May I, truly, <i>ma mère</i>?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Obey <i>monsieur</i> your father, my child,&rdquo; said the sister, blushing
+      again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child, satisfied with this authorisation, descended from the threshold
+      and was presently lost to sight. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t spoil them,&rdquo; said her father
+      gaily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For everything they must ask leave. That&rsquo;s our system. Leave is freely
+      granted, but they must ask it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I don&rsquo;t quarrel with your system; I&rsquo;ve no doubt it&rsquo;s excellent. I
+      sent you my daughter to see what you&rsquo;d make of her. I had faith.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One must have faith,&rdquo; the sister blandly rejoined, gazing through her
+      spectacles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, has my faith been rewarded? What have you made of her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sister dropped her eyes a moment. &ldquo;A good Christian, <i>monsieur</i>.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her host dropped his eyes as well; but it was probable that the movement
+      had in each case a different spring. &ldquo;Yes, and what else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;A charming young lady&mdash;a real little woman&mdash;a
+      daughter in whom you will have nothing but contentment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She seems to me very <i>gentille</i>,&rdquo; said the father. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s really
+      pretty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s perfect. She has no faults.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She never had any as a child, and I&rsquo;m glad you have given her none.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We love her too much,&rdquo; said the spectacled sister with dignity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And as for faults, how can we give what we have not? <i>Le couvent n&rsquo;est
+      pas comme le monde, monsieur</i>. She&rsquo;s our daughter, as you may say.
+      We&rsquo;ve had her since she was so small.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of all those we shall lose this year she&rsquo;s the one we shall miss most,&rdquo;
+       the younger woman murmured deferentially.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, yes, we shall talk long of her,&rdquo; said the other. &ldquo;We shall hold her
+      up to the new ones.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not certain you&rsquo;ll lose her; nothing&rsquo;s settled yet,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;We should be very happy
+      to believe that. Fifteen is very young to leave us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; exclaimed the gentleman with more vivacity than he had yet used, &ldquo;it
+      is not I who wish to take her away. I wish you could keep her always!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, <i>monsieur</i>,&rdquo; said the elder sister, smiling and getting up,
+      &ldquo;good as she is, she&rsquo;s made for the world. <i>Le monde y gagnera</i>.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If all the good people were hidden away in convents how would the world
+      get on?&rdquo; her companion softly enquired, rising also.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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: &ldquo;Fortunately there are good people everywhere.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you&rsquo;re going there will be two less here,&rdquo; her host remarked
+      gallantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;one of them all white, the other red.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I give you your choice, <i>mamman</i> Catherine,&rdquo; said the child. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+      only the colour that&rsquo;s different, <i>mamman</i> Justine; there are just as
+      many roses in one bunch as in the other.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The two sisters turned to each other, smiling and hesitating, with &ldquo;Which
+      will you take?&rdquo; and &ldquo;No, it&rsquo;s for you to choose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll take the red, thank you,&rdquo; said Catherine in the spectacles. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m so
+      red myself. They&rsquo;ll comfort us on our way back to Rome.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, they won&rsquo;t last,&rdquo; cried the young girl. &ldquo;I wish I could give you
+      something that would last!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve given us a good memory of yourself, my daughter. That will last!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish nuns could wear pretty things. I would give you my blue beads,&rdquo;
+       the child went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And do you go back to Rome to-night?&rdquo; her father enquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, we take the train again. We&rsquo;ve so much to do là-bas.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you not tired?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are never tired.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, my sister, sometimes,&rdquo; murmured the junior votaress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not to-day, at any rate. We have rested too well here. <i>Que Dieu vous
+      garde, ma fille.</i>&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;Is there
+      any one?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some one you may see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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: &ldquo;Ah, Madame Merle!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The visitor had been slightly startled, but her manner the next instant
+      was none the less gracious. &ldquo;Yes, it&rsquo;s Madame Merle, come to welcome you
+      home.&rdquo; 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.
+      &ldquo;These ladies have brought my daughter home, and now they return to the
+      convent,&rdquo; the gentleman explained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, you go back to Rome? I&rsquo;ve lately come from there. It&rsquo;s very lovely
+      now,&rdquo; said Madame Merle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;She came to see
+      me at the convent,&rdquo; said the young girl before the lady addressed had time
+      to reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been more than once, Pansy,&rdquo; Madame Merle declared. &ldquo;Am I not your
+      great friend in Rome?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I remember the last time best,&rdquo; said Pansy, &ldquo;because you told me I should
+      come away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you tell her that?&rdquo; the child&rsquo;s father asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hardly remember. I told her what I thought would please her. I&rsquo;ve been
+      in Florence a week. I hoped you would come to see me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should have done so if I had known you were there. One doesn&rsquo;t know
+      such things by inspiration&mdash;though I suppose one ought. You had
+      better sit down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These two speeches were made in a particular tone of voice&mdash;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. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re
+      going to the door with these women? Let me of course not interrupt the
+      ceremony. <i>Je vous salue, mesdames</i>,&rdquo; she added, in French, to the
+      nuns, as if to dismiss them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This lady&rsquo;s a great friend of ours; you will have seen her at the
+      convent,&rdquo; said their entertainer. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve much faith in her judgement, and
+      she&rsquo;ll help me to decide whether my daughter shall return to you at the
+      end of the holidays.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope you&rsquo;ll decide in our favour, madame,&rdquo; the sister in spectacles
+      ventured to remark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s Mr. Osmond&rsquo;s pleasantry; I decide nothing,&rdquo; said Madame Merle, but
+      also as in pleasantry. &ldquo;I believe you&rsquo;ve a very good school, but Miss
+      Osmond&rsquo;s friends must remember that she&rsquo;s very naturally meant for the
+      world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;ve told <i>monsieur</i>,&rdquo; sister Catherine answered. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+      precisely to fit her for the world,&rdquo; she murmured, glancing at Pansy, who
+      stood, at a little distance, attentive to Madame Merle&rsquo;s elegant apparel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you hear that, Pansy? You&rsquo;re very naturally meant for the world,&rdquo; said
+      Pansy&rsquo;s father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child fixed him an instant with her pure young eyes. &ldquo;Am I not meant
+      for you, papa?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Papa gave a quick, light laugh. &ldquo;That doesn&rsquo;t prevent it! I&rsquo;m of the
+      world, Pansy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kindly permit us to retire,&rdquo; said sister Catherine. &ldquo;Be good and wise and
+      happy in any case, my daughter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall certainly come back and see you,&rdquo; Pansy returned, recommencing
+      her embraces, which were presently interrupted by Madame Merle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay with me, dear child,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;while your father takes the good
+      ladies to the door.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;May I not see <i>mamman</i> Catherine get into the carriage?&rdquo;
+       she nevertheless asked very gently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would please me better if you&rsquo;d remain with me,&rdquo; said Madame Merle,
+      while Mr. Osmond and his companions, who had bowed low again to the other
+      visitor, passed into the ante-chamber.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes, I&rsquo;ll stay,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad they&rsquo;ve taught you to obey,&rdquo; said Madame Merle. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what
+      good little girls should do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes, I obey very well,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s small hand was delicate and fair. &ldquo;I hope they always see that
+      you wear gloves,&rdquo; she said in a moment. &ldquo;Little girls usually dislike
+      them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I used to dislike them, but I like them now,&rdquo; the child made answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very good, I&rsquo;ll make you a present of a dozen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thank you very much. What colours will they be?&rdquo; Pansy demanded with
+      interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Merle meditated. &ldquo;Useful colours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But very pretty?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you very fond of pretty things?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; but&mdash;but not too fond,&rdquo; said Pansy with a trace of asceticism.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, they won&rsquo;t be too pretty,&rdquo; Madame Merle returned with a laugh. She
+      took the child&rsquo;s other hand and drew her nearer; after which, looking at
+      her a moment, &ldquo;Shall you miss mother Catherine?&rdquo; she went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;when I think of her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Try then not to think of her. Perhaps some day,&rdquo; added Madame Merle,
+      &ldquo;you&rsquo;ll have another mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think that&rsquo;s necessary,&rdquo; Pansy said, repeating her little soft
+      conciliatory sigh. &ldquo;I had more than thirty mothers at the convent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her father&rsquo;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: &ldquo;I hoped you&rsquo;d have come to
+      Rome. I thought it possible you&rsquo;d have wished yourself to fetch Pansy
+      away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That was a natural supposition; but I&rsquo;m afraid it&rsquo;s not the first time
+      I&rsquo;ve acted in defiance of your calculations.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Madame Merle, &ldquo;I think you very perverse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Osmond busied himself for a moment in the room&mdash;there was plenty
+      of space in it to move about&mdash;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&mdash;unless he took up a book&mdash;but to stand with his hands
+      behind him looking at Pansy. &ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t you come and see the last of <i>mamman</i>
+      Catherine?&rdquo; he asked of her abruptly in French.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pansy hesitated a moment, glancing at Madame Merle. &ldquo;I asked her to stay
+      with me,&rdquo; said this lady, who had seated herself again in another place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, that was better,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s going to give me some gloves,&rdquo; said Pansy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You needn&rsquo;t tell that to every one, my dear,&rdquo; Madame Merle observed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re very kind to her,&rdquo; said Osmond. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s supposed to have everything
+      she needs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should think she had had enough of the nuns.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If we&rsquo;re going to discuss that matter she had better go out of the room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let her stay,&rdquo; said Madame Merle. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll talk of something else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you like I won&rsquo;t listen,&rdquo; Pansy suggested with an appearance of
+      candour which imposed conviction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may listen, charming child, because you won&rsquo;t understand,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re looking particularly well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I always look the same,&rdquo; said Madame Merle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You always <i>are</i> the same. You don&rsquo;t vary. You&rsquo;re a wonderful
+      woman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I think I am.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You sometimes change your mind, however. You told me on your return from
+      England that you wouldn&rsquo;t leave Rome again for the present.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m pleased that you remember so well what I say. That was my intention.
+      But I&rsquo;ve come to Florence to meet some friends who have lately arrived and
+      as to whose movements I was at that time uncertain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That reason&rsquo;s characteristic. You&rsquo;re always doing something for your
+      friends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Merle smiled straight at her host. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s less characteristic than
+      your comment upon it which is perfectly insincere. I don&rsquo;t, however, make
+      a crime of that,&rdquo; she added, &ldquo;because if you don&rsquo;t believe what you say
+      there&rsquo;s no reason why you should. I don&rsquo;t ruin myself for my friends; I
+      don&rsquo;t deserve your praise. I care greatly for myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Exactly; but yourself includes so many other selves&mdash;so much of
+      every one else and of everything. I never knew a person whose life touched
+      so many other lives.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you call one&rsquo;s life?&rdquo; asked Madame Merle. &ldquo;One&rsquo;s appearance,
+      one&rsquo;s movements, one&rsquo;s engagements, one&rsquo;s society?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I call <i>your</i> life your ambitions,&rdquo; said Osmond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Merle looked a moment at Pansy. &ldquo;I wonder if she understands that,&rdquo;
+       she murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see she can&rsquo;t stay with us!&rdquo; And Pansy&rsquo;s father gave rather a joyless
+      smile. &ldquo;Go into the garden, <i>mignonne</i>, and pluck a flower or two for
+      Madame Merle,&rdquo; he went on in French.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s just what I wanted to do,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My ambitions are principally for you,&rdquo; said Madame Merle, looking up at
+      him with a certain courage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That comes back to what I say. I&rsquo;m part of your life&mdash;I and a
+      thousand others. You&rsquo;re not selfish&mdash;I can&rsquo;t admit that. If you were
+      selfish, what should I be? What epithet would properly describe me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re indolent. For me that&rsquo;s your worst fault.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid it&rsquo;s really my best.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t care,&rdquo; said Madame Merle gravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; I don&rsquo;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&rsquo;t go to Rome. But it
+      was only one of them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not of importance&mdash;to me at least&mdash;that you didn&rsquo;t go;
+      though I should have been glad to see you. I&rsquo;m glad you&rsquo;re not in Rome now&mdash;which
+      you might be, would probably be, if you had gone there a month ago.
+      There&rsquo;s something I should like you to do at present in Florence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please remember my indolence,&rdquo; said Osmond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do remember it; but I beg you to forget it. In that way you&rsquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;ve made any since I made yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s time then you should make another. There&rsquo;s a friend of mine I want
+      you to know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;What
+      good will it do me?&rdquo; he asked with a sort of genial crudity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Merle waited. &ldquo;It will amuse you.&rdquo; There was nothing crude in this
+      rejoinder; it had been thoroughly well considered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you say that, you know, I believe it,&rdquo; said Osmond, coming toward her.
+      &ldquo;There are some points in which my confidence in you is complete. I&rsquo;m
+      perfectly aware, for instance, that you know good society from bad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Society is all bad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pardon me. That isn&rsquo;t&mdash;the knowledge I impute to you&mdash;a common
+      sort of wisdom. You&rsquo;ve gained it in the right way&mdash;experimentally;
+      you&rsquo;ve compared an immense number of more or less impossible people with
+      each other.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I invite you to profit by my knowledge.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To profit? Are you very sure that I shall?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s what I hope. It will depend on yourself. If I could only induce you
+      to make an effort!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, there you are! I knew something tiresome was coming. What in the
+      world&mdash;that&rsquo;s likely to turn up here&mdash;is worth an effort?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Merle flushed as with a wounded intention. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be foolish,
+      Osmond. No one knows better than you what <i>is</i> worth an effort.
+      Haven&rsquo;t I seen you in old days?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I recognise some things. But they&rsquo;re none of them probable in this poor
+      life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the effort that makes them probable,&rdquo; said Madame Merle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s something in that. Who then is your friend?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The person I came to Florence to see. She&rsquo;s a niece of Mrs. Touchett,
+      whom you&rsquo;ll not have forgotten.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A niece? The word niece suggests youth and ignorance. I see what you&rsquo;re
+      coming to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, she&rsquo;s young&mdash;twenty-three years old. She&rsquo;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&rsquo;t do
+      every day&mdash;I admire her. You&rsquo;ll do the same.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not if I can help it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Precisely. But you won&rsquo;t be able to help it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is she beautiful, clever, rich, splendid, universally intelligent and
+      unprecedentedly virtuous? It&rsquo;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&rsquo;t correspond to that description. I know
+      plenty of dingy people; I don&rsquo;t want to know any more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Archer isn&rsquo;t dingy; she&rsquo;s as bright as the morning. She corresponds
+      to your description; it&rsquo;s for that I wish you to know her. She fills all
+      your requirements.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;More or less, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; quite literally. She&rsquo;s beautiful, accomplished, generous and, for an
+      American, well-born. She&rsquo;s also very clever and very amiable, and she has
+      a handsome fortune.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Osmond listened to this in silence, appearing to turn it over in his
+      mind with his eyes on his informant. &ldquo;What do you want to do with her?&rdquo; he
+      asked at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What you see. Put her in your way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t she meant for something better than that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t pretend to know what people are meant for,&rdquo; said Madame Merle. &ldquo;I
+      only know what I can do with them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry for Miss Archer!&rdquo; Osmond declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Merle got up. &ldquo;If that&rsquo;s a beginning of interest in her I take note
+      of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The two stood there face to face; she settled her mantilla, looking down
+      at it as she did so. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re looking very well,&rdquo; Osmond repeated still
+      less relevantly than before. &ldquo;You have some idea. You&rsquo;re never so well as
+      when you&rsquo;ve got an idea; they&rsquo;re always becoming to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;whatever it might be&mdash;of being known. &ldquo;I wish
+      very much you were not so heartless,&rdquo; Madame Merle quietly said. &ldquo;It has
+      always been against you, and it will be against you now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not so heartless as you think. Every now and then something touches
+      me&mdash;as for instance your saying just now that your ambitions are for
+      me. I don&rsquo;t understand it; I don&rsquo;t see how or why they should be. But it
+      touches me, all the same.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll probably understand it even less as time goes on. There are some
+      things you&rsquo;ll never understand. There&rsquo;s no particular need you should.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You, after all, are the most remarkable of women,&rdquo; said Osmond. &ldquo;You have
+      more in you than almost any one. I don&rsquo;t see why you think Mrs. Touchett&rsquo;s
+      niece should matter very much to me, when&mdash;when&mdash;&rdquo; But he paused
+      a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I myself have mattered so little?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That of course is not what I meant to say. When I&rsquo;ve known and
+      appreciated such a woman as you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isabel Archer&rsquo;s better than I,&rdquo; said Madame Merle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her companion gave a laugh. &ldquo;How little you must think of her to say
+      that!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you suppose I&rsquo;m capable of jealousy? Please answer me that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With regard to me? No; on the whole I don&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come and see me then, two days hence. I&rsquo;m staying at Mrs. Touchett&rsquo;s&mdash;Palazzo
+      Crescentini&mdash;and the girl will be there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t you ask me that at first simply, without speaking of the
+      girl?&rdquo; said Osmond. &ldquo;You could have had her there at any rate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Merle looked at him in the manner of a woman whom no question he
+      could ever put would find unprepared. &ldquo;Do you wish to know why? Because
+      I&rsquo;ve spoken of you to her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Osmond frowned and turned away. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d rather not know that.&rdquo; Then in a
+      moment he pointed out the easel supporting the little water-colour
+      drawing. &ldquo;Have you seen what&rsquo;s there&mdash;my last?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Merle drew near and considered. &ldquo;Is it the Venetian Alps&mdash;one
+      of your last year&rsquo;s sketches?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;but how you guess everything!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked a moment longer, then turned away. &ldquo;You know I don&rsquo;t care for
+      your drawings.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know it, yet I&rsquo;m always surprised at it. They&rsquo;re really so much better
+      than most people&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That may very well be. But as the only thing you do&mdash;well, it&rsquo;s so
+      little. I should have liked you to do so many other things: those were my
+      ambitions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; you&rsquo;ve told me many times&mdash;things that were impossible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Things that were impossible,&rdquo; said Madame Merle. And then in quite a
+      different tone: &ldquo;In itself your little picture&rsquo;s very good.&rdquo; She looked
+      about the room&mdash;at the old cabinets, pictures, tapestries, surfaces
+      of faded silk. &ldquo;Your rooms at least are perfect. I&rsquo;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&rsquo;ve such adorable taste.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sick of my adorable taste,&rdquo; said Gilbert Osmond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must nevertheless let Miss Archer come and see it. I&rsquo;ve told her
+      about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t object to showing my things&mdash;when people are not idiots.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do it delightfully. As cicerone of your museum you appear to
+      particular advantage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Osmond, in return for this compliment, simply looked at once colder
+      and more attentive. &ldquo;Did you say she was rich?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has seventy thousand pounds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;<i>En ecus bien comptes</i>?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no doubt whatever about her fortune. I&rsquo;ve seen it, as I may say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Satisfactory woman!&mdash;I mean you. And if I go to see her shall I see
+      the mother?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The mother? She has none&mdash;nor father either.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The aunt then&mdash;whom did you say?&mdash;Mrs. Touchett. I can easily
+      keep her out of the way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t object to her,&rdquo; said Osmond; &ldquo;I rather like Mrs. Touchett. She
+      has a sort of old-fashioned character that&rsquo;s passing away&mdash;a vivid
+      identity. But that long jackanapes the son&mdash;is he about the place?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s there, but he won&rsquo;t trouble you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a good deal of a donkey.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you&rsquo;re mistaken. He&rsquo;s a very clever man. But he&rsquo;s not fond of
+      being about when I&rsquo;m there, because he doesn&rsquo;t like me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What could he be more asinine than that? Did you say she has looks?&rdquo;
+       Osmond went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; but I won&rsquo;t say it again, lest you should be disappointed in them.
+      Come and make a beginning; that&rsquo;s all I ask of you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A beginning of what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Merle was silent a little. &ldquo;I want you of course to marry her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The beginning of the end? Well, I&rsquo;ll see for myself. Have you told her
+      that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For what do you take me? She&rsquo;s not so coarse a piece of machinery&mdash;nor
+      am I.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really,&rdquo; said Osmond after some meditation, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t understand your
+      ambitions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you&rsquo;ll understand this one after you&rsquo;ve seen Miss Archer. Suspend
+      your judgement.&rdquo; Madame Merle, as she spoke, had drawn near the open door
+      of the garden, where she stood a moment looking out. &ldquo;Pansy has really
+      grown pretty,&rdquo; she presently added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So it seemed to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But she has had enough of the convent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; said Osmond. &ldquo;I like what they&rsquo;ve made of her. It&rsquo;s very
+      charming.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s not the convent. It&rsquo;s the child&rsquo;s nature.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the combination, I think. She&rsquo;s as pure as a pearl.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why doesn&rsquo;t she come back with my flowers then?&rdquo; Madame Merle asked.
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s not in a hurry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll go and get them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She doesn&rsquo;t like me,&rdquo; the visitor murmured as she raised her parasol and
+      they passed into the garden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Madame Merle, who had come to Florence on Mrs. Touchett&rsquo;s arrival at the
+      invitation of this lady&mdash;Mrs. Touchett offering her for a month the
+      hospitality of Palazzo Crescentini&mdash;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&rsquo;s attention. The reason
+      of this was perhaps that Isabel offered no resistance whatever to Madame
+      Merle&rsquo;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 &ldquo;meet&rdquo;&mdash;of course, she said, Isabel could know
+      whomever in the wide world she would&mdash;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&mdash;well,
+      in Europe simply. He was altogether above the respectable average; quite
+      another affair. He wasn&rsquo;t a professional charmer&mdash;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&mdash;just
+      exactly rightly it had to be&mdash;then one felt his cleverness and his
+      distinction. Those qualities didn&rsquo;t depend, in him, as in so many people,
+      on his not committing or exposing himself. He had his perversities&mdash;which
+      indeed Isabel would find to be the case with all the men really worth
+      knowing&mdash;and didn&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;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&rsquo;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. &ldquo;You
+      ought to see a great many men,&rdquo; Madame Merle remarked; &ldquo;you ought to see
+      as many as possible, so as to get used to them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Used to them?&rdquo; Isabel repeated with that solemn stare which sometimes
+      seemed to proclaim her deficient in the sense of comedy. &ldquo;Why, I&rsquo;m not
+      afraid of them&mdash;I&rsquo;m as used to them as the cook to the butcher-boys.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Used to them, I mean, so as to despise them. That&rsquo;s what one comes to
+      with most of them. You&rsquo;ll pick out, for your society, the few whom you
+      don&rsquo;t despise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was a note of cynicism that Madame Merle didn&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&rsquo;t have enjoyed for instance in
+      Albany. In the clear May mornings before the formal breakfast&mdash;this
+      repast at Mrs. Touchett&rsquo;s was served at twelve o&rsquo;clock&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;the more
+      strangely that, with its clearness, it yet somehow wasn&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame Merle,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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&rsquo;s thought rather pretty&mdash;there&rsquo;s what they
+      call a general view. My daughter too would be so glad&mdash;or rather, for
+      she&rsquo;s too young to have strong emotions, I should be so glad&mdash;so very
+      glad.&rdquo; And Mr. Osmond paused with a slight air of embarrassment, leaving
+      his sentence unfinished. &ldquo;I should be so happy if you could know my
+      daughter,&rdquo; he went on a moment afterwards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You were charming, my dear; you were just as one would have wished you.
+      You&rsquo;re never disappointing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s more
+      than I intended,&rdquo; she answered coldly. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m under no obligation that I
+      know of to charm Mr. Osmond.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Merle perceptibly flushed, but we know it was not her habit to
+      retract. &ldquo;My dear child, I didn&rsquo;t speak for him, poor man; I spoke for
+      yourself. It&rsquo;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 <i>him</i>.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did,&rdquo; said Isabel honestly. &ldquo;But I don&rsquo;t see what that matters either.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Everything that concerns you matters to me,&rdquo; Madame Merle returned with
+      her weary nobleness; &ldquo;especially when at the same time another old
+      friend&rsquo;s concerned.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Whatever Isabel&rsquo;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&rsquo;s judgements distorted by his
+      trials, but she flattered herself she had learned to make allowance for
+      that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do I know him?&rdquo; said her cousin. &ldquo;Oh, yes, I &lsquo;know&rsquo; him; not well, but on
+      the whole enough. I&rsquo;ve never cultivated his society, and he apparently has
+      never found mine indispensable to his happiness. Who is he, what is he?
+      He&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;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&rsquo;s his
+      special line; he hasn&rsquo;t any other that I know of. He lives on his income,
+      which I suspect of not being vulgarly large. He&rsquo;s a poor but honest
+      gentleman that&rsquo;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&rsquo;s married
+      to some small Count or other, of these parts; I remember meeting her of
+      old. She&rsquo;s nicer than he, I should think, but rather impossible. I
+      remember there used to be some stories about her. I don&rsquo;t think I
+      recommend you to know her. But why don&rsquo;t you ask Madame Merle about these
+      people? She knows them all much better than I.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ask you because I want your opinion as well as hers,&rdquo; said Isabel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A fig for my opinion! If you fall in love with Mr. Osmond what will you
+      care for that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not much, probably. But meanwhile it has a certain importance. The more
+      information one has about one&rsquo;s dangers the better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t agree to that&mdash;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&rsquo;t mind anything any one tells
+      you about any one else. Judge everyone and everything for yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what I try to do,&rdquo; said Isabel &ldquo;but when you do that people call
+      you conceited.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re not to mind them&mdash;that&rsquo;s precisely my argument; not to mind
+      what they say about yourself any more than what they say about your friend
+      or your enemy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel considered. &ldquo;I think you&rsquo;re right; but there are some things I
+      can&rsquo;t help minding: for instance when my friend&rsquo;s attacked or when I
+      myself am praised.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course you&rsquo;re always at liberty to judge the critic. Judge people as
+      critics, however,&rdquo; Ralph added, &ldquo;and you&rsquo;ll condemn them all!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall see Mr. Osmond for myself,&rdquo; said Isabel. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve promised to pay
+      him a visit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To pay him a visit?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To go and see his view, his pictures, his daughter&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know
+      exactly what. Madame Merle&rsquo;s to take me; she tells me a great many ladies
+      call on him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, with Madame Merle you may go anywhere, <i>de confiance</i>,&rdquo; said
+      Ralph. &ldquo;She knows none but the best people.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;It
+      seems to me you insinuate things about her. I don&rsquo;t know what you mean,
+      but if you&rsquo;ve any grounds for disliking her I think you should either
+      mention them frankly or else say nothing at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ralph, however, resented this charge with more apparent earnestness than
+      he commonly used. &ldquo;I speak of Madame Merle exactly as I speak to her: with
+      an even exaggerated respect.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Exaggerated, precisely. That&rsquo;s what I complain of.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do so because Madame Merle&rsquo;s merits are exaggerated.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By whom, pray? By me? If so I do her a poor service.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no; by herself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, I protest!&rdquo; Isabel earnestly cried. &ldquo;If ever there was a woman who
+      made small claims&mdash;!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You put your finger on it,&rdquo; Ralph interrupted. &ldquo;Her modesty&rsquo;s
+      exaggerated. She has no business with small claims&mdash;she has a perfect
+      right to make large ones.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her merits are large then. You contradict yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her merits are immense,&rdquo; said Ralph. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s indescribably blameless; a
+      pathless desert of virtue; the only woman I know who never gives one a
+      chance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A chance for what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, say to call her a fool! She&rsquo;s the only woman I know who has but
+      that one little fault.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel turned away with impatience. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t understand you; you&rsquo;re too
+      paradoxical for my plain mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me explain. When I say she exaggerates I don&rsquo;t mean it in the vulgar
+      sense&mdash;that she boasts, overstates, gives too fine an account of
+      herself. I mean literally that she pushes the search for perfection too
+      far&mdash;that her merits are in themselves overstrained. She&rsquo;s too good,
+      too kind, too clever, too learned, too accomplished, too everything. She&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;Do you wish
+      Madame Merle to be banished?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By no means. She&rsquo;s much too good company. I delight in Madame Merle,&rdquo;
+       said Ralph Touchett simply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re very odious, sir!&rdquo; Isabel exclaimed. And then she asked him if he
+      knew anything that was not to the honour of her brilliant friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing whatever. Don&rsquo;t you see that&rsquo;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&rsquo;ve no doubt I should be able to find one
+      on yours. For my own, of course, I&rsquo;m spotted like a leopard. But on Madame
+      Merle&rsquo;s nothing, nothing, nothing!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s just what I think!&rdquo; said Isabel with a toss of her head. &ldquo;That is
+      why I like her so much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s a capital person for you to know. Since you wish to see the world
+      you couldn&rsquo;t have a better guide.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose you mean by that that she&rsquo;s worldly?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Worldly? No,&rdquo; said Ralph, &ldquo;she&rsquo;s the great round world itself!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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 &ldquo;sustained&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;liked&rdquo; 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&rsquo;s sense two persons who dealt so
+      largely in too-ingenious theories of conduct&mdash;that is of their own&mdash;would
+      have much in common. He had given due consideration to Isabel&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It would certainly have been hard to see what injury could arise to her
+      from the visit she presently paid to Mr. Osmond&rsquo;s hill-top. Nothing could
+      have been more charming than this occasion&mdash;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&mdash;it was cold
+      even in the month of May&mdash;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. &ldquo;And that&rsquo;s my little girl,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;who has just come out of
+      her convent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;white silk with fluttering streamers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll believe I&rsquo;m glad to see you when I tell you it&rsquo;s only because I
+      knew you were to be here that I came myself. I don&rsquo;t come and see my
+      brother&mdash;I make him come and see me. This hill of his is impossible&mdash;I
+      don&rsquo;t see what possesses him. Really, Osmond, you&rsquo;ll be the ruin of my
+      horses some day, and if it hurts them you&rsquo;ll have to give me another pair.
+      I heard them wheezing to-day; I assure you I did. It&rsquo;s very disagreeable
+      to hear one&rsquo;s horses wheezing when one&rsquo;s sitting in the carriage; it
+      sounds too as if they weren&rsquo;t what they should be. But I&rsquo;ve always had
+      good horses; whatever else I may have lacked I&rsquo;ve always managed that. My
+      husband doesn&rsquo;t know much, but I think he knows a horse. In general
+      Italians don&rsquo;t, but my husband goes in, according to his poor light, for
+      everything English. My horses are English&mdash;so it&rsquo;s all the greater
+      pity they should be ruined. I must tell you,&rdquo; she went on, directly
+      addressing Isabel, &ldquo;that Osmond doesn&rsquo;t often invite me; I don&rsquo;t think he
+      likes to have me. It was quite my own idea, coming to-day. I like to see
+      new people, and I&rsquo;m sure you&rsquo;re very new. But don&rsquo;t sit there; that
+      chair&rsquo;s not what it looks. There are some very good seats here, but there
+      are also some horrors.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like to have you, my dear?&rdquo; said her brother. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure you&rsquo;re
+      invaluable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see any horrors anywhere,&rdquo; Isabel returned, looking about her.
+      &ldquo;Everything seems to me beautiful and precious.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve a few good things,&rdquo; Mr. Osmond allowed; &ldquo;indeed I&rsquo;ve nothing very
+      bad. But I&rsquo;ve not what I should have liked.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;values&rdquo; 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&rsquo;s
+      diminutive daughter had a kind of finish that was not entirely artless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;d have liked a few things from the Uffizi and the Pitti&mdash;that&rsquo;s
+      what you&rsquo;d have liked,&rdquo; said Madame Merle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor Osmond, with his old curtains and crucifixes!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her brother had not heard her; he seemed to be thinking what he could say
+      to Isabel. &ldquo;Won&rsquo;t you have some tea?&mdash;you must be very tired,&rdquo; he at
+      last bethought himself of remarking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No indeed, I&rsquo;m not tired; what have I done to tire me?&rdquo; 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&mdash;she could
+      hardly have said what it was&mdash;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&mdash;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. &ldquo;What
+      a fool I was to have let myself so needlessly in&mdash;!&rdquo; she could fancy
+      his exclaiming to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll be tired when you go home, if he shows you all his bibelots and
+      gives you a lecture on each,&rdquo; said the Countess Gemini.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not afraid of that; but if I&rsquo;m tired I shall at least have learned
+      something.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very little, I suspect. But my sister&rsquo;s dreadfully afraid of learning
+      anything,&rdquo; said Mr. Osmond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I confess to that; I don&rsquo;t want to know anything more&mdash;I know
+      too much already. The more you know the more unhappy you are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You should not undervalue knowledge before Pansy, who has not finished
+      her education,&rdquo; Madame Merle interposed with a smile. &ldquo;Pansy will never
+      know any harm,&rdquo; said the child&rsquo;s father. &ldquo;Pansy&rsquo;s a little
+      convent-flower.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, the convents, the convents!&rdquo; cried the Countess with a flutter of her
+      ruffles. &ldquo;Speak to me of the convents! You may learn anything there; I&rsquo;m a
+      convent-flower myself. I don&rsquo;t pretend to be good, but the nuns do. Don&rsquo;t
+      you see what I mean?&rdquo; she went on, appealing to Isabel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s taste&mdash;he would always
+      discuss. &ldquo;For me,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;one should like a thing or one shouldn&rsquo;t;
+      one can&rsquo;t like everything, of course. But one shouldn&rsquo;t attempt to reason
+      it out&mdash;you never know where it may lead you. There are some very
+      good feelings that may have bad reasons, don&rsquo;t you know? And then there
+      are very bad feelings, sometimes, that have good reasons. Don&rsquo;t you see
+      what I mean? I don&rsquo;t care anything about reasons, but I know what I like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, that&rsquo;s the great thing,&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;by
+      which he meant the people who couldn&rsquo;t &ldquo;realise,&rdquo; 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&rsquo;t cultivate in you, otherwise
+      expressed, the successful social and other &ldquo;cheek&rdquo; that flourished in
+      Paris and London. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re sweetly provincial,&rdquo; said Mr. Osmond, &ldquo;and I&rsquo;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&mdash;not that I venture
+      to pretend I can turn that very complicated lock I suspect your intellect
+      of being! But you&rsquo;ll be going away before I&rsquo;ve seen you three times, and I
+      shall perhaps never see you after that. That&rsquo;s what it is to live in a
+      country that people come to. When they&rsquo;re disagreeable here it&rsquo;s bad
+      enough; when they&rsquo;re agreeable it&rsquo;s still worse. As soon as you like them
+      they&rsquo;re off again! I&rsquo;ve been deceived too often; I&rsquo;ve ceased to form
+      attachments, to permit myself to feel attractions. You mean to stay&mdash;to
+      settle? That would be really comfortable. Ah yes, your aunt&rsquo;s a sort of
+      guarantee; I believe she may be depended on. Oh, she&rsquo;s an old Florentine;
+      I mean literally an old one; not a modern outsider. She&rsquo;s a contemporary
+      of the Medici; she must have been present at the burning of Savonarola,
+      and I&rsquo;m not sure she didn&rsquo;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&rsquo;s. I hope you don&rsquo;t object to my speaking that way of your
+      aunt, eh? I&rsquo;ve an idea you don&rsquo;t. Perhaps you think that&rsquo;s even worse. I
+      assure you there&rsquo;s no want of respect in it, to either of you. You know
+      I&rsquo;m a particular admirer of Mrs. Touchett.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While Isabel&rsquo;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. &ldquo;Poor Miss Archer!&rdquo; she exclaimed, surveying
+      the other group with expressive compassion. &ldquo;She has been brought quite
+      into the family.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Archer can certainly have nothing but sympathy for a family to which
+      you belong,&rdquo; Mr. Osmond answered, with a laugh which, though it had
+      something of a mocking ring, had also a finer patience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what you mean by that! I&rsquo;m sure she&rsquo;ll see no harm in me but
+      what you tell her. I&rsquo;m better than he says, Miss Archer,&rdquo; the Countess
+      went on. &ldquo;I&rsquo;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 <i>à
+      fond</i>. In that case you had better take off your bonnet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I know what Mr. Osmond&rsquo;s favourite subjects are,&rdquo; said
+      Isabel, who had risen to her feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you in a moment. One&rsquo;s Machiavelli; the other&rsquo;s
+      Vittoria Colonna; the next is Metastasio.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, with me,&rdquo; said Madame Merle, passing her arm into the Countess
+      Gemini&rsquo;s as if to guide her course to the garden, &ldquo;Mr. Osmond&rsquo;s never so
+      historical.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh you,&rdquo; the Countess answered as they moved away, &ldquo;you yourself are
+      Machiavelli&mdash;you yourself are Vittoria Colonna!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall hear next that poor Madame Merle is Metastasio!&rdquo; Gilbert Osmond
+      resignedly sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s. Isabel waited, with a
+      certain unuttered contentedness, to have her movements directed; she liked
+      Mr. Osmond&rsquo;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: &ldquo;Miss Archer, what do you think of my sister?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She faced him with some surprise. &ldquo;Ah, don&rsquo;t ask me that&mdash;I&rsquo;ve seen
+      your sister too little.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, you&rsquo;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?&rdquo;
+       he went on with his cool smile. &ldquo;I should like to know how it strikes a
+      fresh, unprejudiced mind. I know what you&rsquo;re going to say&mdash;you&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s a very honest lady&mdash;more
+      so than she seems. She&rsquo;s rather unhappy, and as she&rsquo;s not of a serious
+      turn she doesn&rsquo;t tend to show it tragically: she shows it comically
+      instead. She has got a horrid husband, though I&rsquo;m not sure she makes the
+      best of him. Of course, however, a horrid husband&rsquo;s an awkward thing.
+      Madame Merle gives her excellent advice, but it&rsquo;s a good deal like giving
+      a child a dictionary to learn a language with. He can look out the words,
+      but he can&rsquo;t put them together. My sister needs a grammar, but
+      unfortunately she&rsquo;s not grammatical. Pardon my troubling you with these
+      details; my sister was very right in saying you&rsquo;ve been taken into the
+      family. Let me take down that picture; you want more light.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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 &ldquo;new relation&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;the shyness of ticklish nerves and fine
+      perceptions&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;t reconcile him to
+      his mistake. A part of Isabel&rsquo;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&mdash;not her ignorance; for that
+      she cared comparatively little&mdash;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&rsquo;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;You seem so well pleased that I think you can
+      be trusted to come back,&rdquo; Osmond said as he led his companion to one of
+      the angles of the terrace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall certainly come back,&rdquo; she returned, &ldquo;in spite of what you say
+      about its being bad to live in Italy. What was that you said about one&rsquo;s
+      natural mission? I wonder if I should forsake my natural mission if I were
+      to settle in Florence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A woman&rsquo;s natural mission is to be where she&rsquo;s most appreciated.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The point&rsquo;s to find out where that is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very true&mdash;she often wastes a great deal of time in the enquiry.
+      People ought to make it very plain to her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Such a matter would have to be made very plain to me,&rdquo; smiled Isabel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m rather ashamed of my plans; I make a new one every day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see why you should be ashamed; it&rsquo;s the greatest of pleasures.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It seems frivolous, I think,&rdquo; said Isabel. &ldquo;One ought to choose something
+      very deliberately, and be faithful to that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By that rule then, I&rsquo;ve not been frivolous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you never made plans?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I made one years ago, and I&rsquo;m acting on it to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It must have been a very pleasant one,&rdquo; Isabel permitted herself to
+      observe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was very simple. It was to be as quiet as possible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As quiet?&rdquo; the girl repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not to worry&mdash;not to strive nor struggle. To resign myself. To be
+      content with little.&rdquo; He spoke these sentences slowly, with short pauses
+      between, and his intelligent regard was fixed on his visitor&rsquo;s with the
+      conscious air of a man who has brought himself to confess something.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you call that simple?&rdquo; she asked with mild irony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, because it&rsquo;s negative.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has your life been negative?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Call it affirmative if you like. Only it has affirmed my indifference.
+      Mind you, not my natural indifference&mdash;I <i>had</i> none. But my
+      studied, my wilful renunciation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see why you should
+      have renounced,&rdquo; she said in a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;the Emperor of Russia, for
+      instance, and the Sultan of Turkey! There were even moments when I envied
+      the Pope of Rome&mdash;for the consideration he enjoys. I should have been
+      delighted to be considered to that extent; but since that couldn&rsquo;t be I
+      didn&rsquo;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 <i>was</i>, though lean, a gentleman. I could do nothing in
+      Italy&mdash;I couldn&rsquo;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&rsquo;ve passed a great many years here on
+      that quiet plan I spoke of. I&rsquo;ve not been at all unhappy. I don&rsquo;t mean to
+      say I&rsquo;ve cared for nothing; but the things I&rsquo;ve cared for have been
+      definite&mdash;limited. The events of my life have been absolutely
+      unperceived by any one save myself; getting an old silver crucifix at a
+      bargain (I&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This would have been rather a dry account of Mr. Osmond&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;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. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a very
+      pleasant life,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;to renounce everything but Correggio!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I&rsquo;ve made in my way a good thing of it. Don&rsquo;t imagine I&rsquo;m whining
+      about it. It&rsquo;s one&rsquo;s own fault if one isn&rsquo;t happy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was large; she kept down to something smaller. &ldquo;Have you lived here
+      always?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, not always. I lived a long time at Naples, and many years in Rome.
+      But I&rsquo;ve been here a good while. Perhaps I shall have to change, however;
+      to do something else. I&rsquo;ve no longer myself to think of. My daughter&rsquo;s
+      growing up and may very possibly not care so much for the Correggios and
+      crucifixes as I. I shall have to do what&rsquo;s best for Pansy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, do that,&rdquo; said Isabel. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s such a dear little girl.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; cried Gilbert Osmond beautifully, &ldquo;she&rsquo;s a little saint of heaven!
+      She is my great happiness!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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 <i>tête-à-tête</i>,
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear,&rdquo; she then observed to her companion, &ldquo;you&rsquo;ll excuse me if I
+      don&rsquo;t congratulate you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very willingly, for I don&rsquo;t in the least know why you should.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Haven&rsquo;t you a little plan that you think rather well of?&rdquo; And the
+      Countess nodded at the sequestered couple.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Merle&rsquo;s eyes took the same direction; then she looked serenely at
+      her neighbour. &ldquo;You know I never understand you very well,&rdquo; she smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No one can understand better than you when you wish. I see that just now
+      you <i>don&rsquo;t</i> wish.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You say things to me that no one else does,&rdquo; said Madame Merle gravely,
+      yet without bitterness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean things you don&rsquo;t like? Doesn&rsquo;t Osmond sometimes say such
+      things?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What your brother says has a point.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, a poisoned one sometimes. If you mean that I&rsquo;m not so clever as he
+      you mustn&rsquo;t think I shall suffer from your sense of our difference. But it
+      will be much better that you should understand me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why so?&rdquo; asked Madame Merle. &ldquo;To what will it conduce?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I don&rsquo;t approve of your plan you ought to know it in order to
+      appreciate the danger of my interfering with it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Merle looked as if she were ready to admit that there might be
+      something in this; but in a moment she said quietly: &ldquo;You think me more
+      calculating than I am.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not your calculating I think ill of; it&rsquo;s your calculating wrong.
+      You&rsquo;ve done so in this case.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must have made extensive calculations yourself to discover that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I&rsquo;ve not had time. I&rsquo;ve seen the girl but this once,&rdquo; said the
+      Countess, &ldquo;and the conviction has suddenly come to me. I like her very
+      much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So do I,&rdquo; Madame Merle mentioned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve a strange way of showing it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely I&rsquo;ve given her the advantage of making your acquaintance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That indeed,&rdquo; piped the Countess, &ldquo;is perhaps the best thing that could
+      happen to her!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Merle said nothing for some time. The Countess&rsquo;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. &ldquo;My dear lady,&rdquo;
+       she finally resumed, &ldquo;I advise you not to agitate yourself. The matter you
+      allude to concerns three persons much stronger of purpose than yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Three persons? You and Osmond of course. But is Miss Archer also very
+      strong of purpose?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite as much so as we.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah then,&rdquo; said the Countess radiantly, &ldquo;if I convince her it&rsquo;s her
+      interest to resist you she&rsquo;ll do so successfully!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Resist us? Why do you express yourself so coarsely? She&rsquo;s not exposed to
+      compulsion or deception.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not sure of that. You&rsquo;re capable of anything, you and Osmond. I don&rsquo;t
+      mean Osmond by himself, and I don&rsquo;t mean you by yourself. But together
+      you&rsquo;re dangerous&mdash;like some chemical combination.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You had better leave us alone then,&rdquo; smiled Madame Merle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t mean to touch you&mdash;but I shall talk to that girl.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My poor Amy,&rdquo; Madame Merle murmured, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see what has got into your
+      head.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I take an interest in her&mdash;that&rsquo;s what has got into my head. I like
+      her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Merle hesitated a moment. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think she likes you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Countess&rsquo;s bright little eyes expanded and her face was set in a
+      grimace. &ldquo;Ah, you <i>are</i> dangerous&mdash;even by yourself!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you want her to like you don&rsquo;t abuse your brother to her,&rdquo; said Madame
+      Merle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t suppose you pretend she has fallen in love with him in two
+      interviews.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+      &ldquo;Yes, I think so!&rdquo; she pronounced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The shabby footboy, summoned by Pansy&mdash;he might, tarnished as to
+      livery and quaint as to type, have issued from some stray sketch of
+      old-time manners, been &ldquo;put in&rdquo; by the brush of a Longhi or a Goya&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think papa would object to my making the tea?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Countess looked at her with a deliberately critical gaze and without
+      answering her question. &ldquo;My poor niece,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;is that your best
+      frock?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah no,&rdquo; Pansy answered, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s just a little toilette for common
+      occasions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you call it a common occasion when I come to see you?&mdash;to say
+      nothing of Madame Merle and the pretty lady yonder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Pansy reflected a moment, turning gravely from one of the persons
+      mentioned to the other. Then her face broke into its perfect smile. &ldquo;I
+      have a pretty dress, but even that one&rsquo;s very simple. Why should I expose
+      it beside your beautiful things?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because it&rsquo;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&rsquo;t dress
+      you so well as they might.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The child sparingly stroked down her antiquated skirt. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a good little
+      dress to make tea&mdash;don&rsquo;t you think? Don&rsquo;t you believe papa would
+      allow me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Impossible for me to say, my child,&rdquo; said the Countess. &ldquo;For me, your
+      father&rsquo;s ideas are unfathomable. Madame Merle understands them better. Ask
+      <i>her</i>.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Merle smiled with her usual grace. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a weighty question&mdash;let
+      me think. It seems to me it would please your father to see a careful
+      little daughter making his tea. It&rsquo;s the proper duty of the daughter of
+      the house&mdash;when she grows up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So it seems to me, Madame Merle!&rdquo; Pansy cried. &ldquo;You shall see how well
+      I&rsquo;ll make it. A spoonful for each.&rdquo; And she began to busy herself at the
+      table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two spoonfuls for me,&rdquo; said the Countess, who, with Madame Merle,
+      remained for some moments watching her. &ldquo;Listen to me, Pansy,&rdquo; the
+      Countess resumed at last. &ldquo;I should like to know what you think of your
+      visitor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, she&rsquo;s not mine&mdash;she&rsquo;s papa&rsquo;s,&rdquo; Pansy objected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Archer came to see you as well,&rdquo; said Madame Merle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m very happy to hear that. She has been very polite to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you like her then?&rdquo; the Countess asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s charming&mdash;charming,&rdquo; Pansy repeated in her little neat
+      conversational tone. &ldquo;She pleases me thoroughly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how do you think she pleases your father?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah really, Countess!&rdquo; murmured Madame Merle dissuasively. &ldquo;Go and call
+      them to tea,&rdquo; she went on to the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll see if they don&rsquo;t like it!&rdquo; Pansy declared; and departed to summon
+      the others, who had still lingered at the end of the terrace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If Miss Archer&rsquo;s to become her mother it&rsquo;s surely interesting to know if
+      the child likes her,&rdquo; said the Countess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If your brother marries again it won&rsquo;t be for Pansy&rsquo;s sake,&rdquo; Madame Merle
+      replied. &ldquo;She&rsquo;ll soon be sixteen, and after that she&rsquo;ll begin to need a
+      husband rather than a stepmother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And will you provide the husband as well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall certainly take an interest in her marrying fortunately. I imagine
+      you&rsquo;ll do the same.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed I shan&rsquo;t!&rdquo; cried the Countess. &ldquo;Why should I, of all women, set
+      such a price on a husband?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You didn&rsquo;t marry fortunately; that&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;m speaking of. When I say a
+      husband I mean a good one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are no good ones. Osmond won&rsquo;t be a good one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Merle closed her eyes a moment. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re irritated just now; I don&rsquo;t
+      know why,&rdquo; she presently said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think you&rsquo;ll really object either
+      to your brother&rsquo;s or to your niece&rsquo;s marrying, when the time comes for
+      them to do so; and as regards Pansy I&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I&rsquo;m irritated,&rdquo; the Countess answered. &ldquo;You often irritate me. Your
+      own coolness is fabulous. You&rsquo;re a strange woman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s much better that we should always act together,&rdquo; Madame Merle went
+      on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean that as a threat?&rdquo; asked the Countess rising. Madame Merle
+      shook her head as for quiet amusement. &ldquo;No indeed, you&rsquo;ve not my
+      coolness!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Isabel and Mr. Osmond were now slowly coming toward them and Isabel had
+      taken Pansy by the hand. &ldquo;Do you pretend to believe he&rsquo;d make her happy?&rdquo;
+       the Countess demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If he should marry Miss Archer I suppose he&rsquo;d behave like a gentleman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Countess jerked herself into a succession of attitudes. &ldquo;Do you mean
+      as most gentlemen behave? That would be much to be thankful for! Of course
+      Osmond&rsquo;s a gentleman; his own sister needn&rsquo;t be reminded of that. But does
+      he think he can marry any girl he happens to pick out? Osmond&rsquo;s a
+      gentleman, of course; but I must say I&rsquo;ve <i>never</i>, no, no, never,
+      seen any one of Osmond&rsquo;s pretensions! What they&rsquo;re all founded on is more
+      than I can say. I&rsquo;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&mdash;if he were made of some superior
+      clay&mdash;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&rsquo;s
+      nothing, nothing, nothing. One&rsquo;s parents were charming people of course;
+      but so were yours, I&rsquo;ve no doubt. Every one&rsquo;s a charming person nowadays.
+      Even I&rsquo;m a charming person; don&rsquo;t laugh, it has literally been said. As
+      for Osmond, he has always appeared to believe that he&rsquo;s descended from the
+      gods.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may say what you please,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;You Osmonds are a fine race&mdash;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&rsquo;re modest about it, but you yourself are extremely
+      distinguished. What do you say about your niece? The child&rsquo;s a little
+      princess. Nevertheless,&rdquo; Madame Merle added, &ldquo;it won&rsquo;t be an easy matter
+      for Osmond to marry Miss Archer. Yet he can try.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope she&rsquo;ll refuse him. It will take him down a little.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We mustn&rsquo;t forget that he is one of the cleverest of men.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve heard you say that before, but I haven&rsquo;t yet discovered what he has
+      done.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What he has done? He has done nothing that has had to be undone. And he
+      has known how to wait.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To wait for Miss Archer&rsquo;s money? How much of it is there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s not what I mean,&rdquo; said Madame Merle. &ldquo;Miss Archer has seventy
+      thousand pounds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, it&rsquo;s a pity she&rsquo;s so charming,&rdquo; the Countess declared. &ldquo;To be
+      sacrificed, any girl would do. She needn&rsquo;t be superior.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If she weren&rsquo;t superior your brother would never look at her. He must
+      have the best.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; returned the Countess as they went forward a little to meet the
+      others, &ldquo;he&rsquo;s very hard to satisfy. That makes me tremble for her
+      happiness!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&mdash;Ralph had told her so&mdash;and it was not
+      supposable that Mr. Osmond had suddenly taken a fancy to her son. Ralph
+      was imperturbable&mdash;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&rsquo;t
+      flatter himself that the desire to repair a past injustice was the motive
+      of their visitor&rsquo;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&mdash;so negative and so wise as they were&mdash;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&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s conception of success.
+      She took, it will be observed, not the sentimental, but the political,
+      view of matrimony&mdash;a view which has always had much to recommend it.
+      &ldquo;I trust she won&rsquo;t have the folly to listen to him,&rdquo; she said to her son;
+      to which Ralph replied that Isabel&rsquo;s listening was one thing and Isabel&rsquo;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&rsquo;s alphabet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I know what you mean,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t think she spends much of her time
+      in thinking of him, and I suspect he has got tired of waiting for her.
+      There&rsquo;s nothing in life to prevent her marrying Mr. Osmond if she only
+      looks at him in a certain way. That&rsquo;s all very well; no one approves more
+      than I of one&rsquo;s pleasing one&rsquo;s self. But she takes her pleasure in such
+      odd things; she&rsquo;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&rsquo;s in danger of not being
+      so! Will <i>he</i> be so disinterested when he has the spending of her
+      money? That was her idea before your father&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear mother, I&rsquo;m not afraid,&rdquo; Ralph answered. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s making fools of
+      us all. She&rsquo;ll please herself, of course; but she&rsquo;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&rsquo;t think she&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll be steaming away
+      again. Excuse another metaphor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Touchett excused it perhaps, but was not so much reassured as to
+      withhold from Madame Merle the expression of her fears. &ldquo;You who know
+      everything,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you must know this: whether that curious
+      creature&rsquo;s really making love to my niece.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gilbert Osmond?&rdquo; Madame Merle widened her clear eyes and, with a full
+      intelligence, &ldquo;Heaven help us,&rdquo; she exclaimed, &ldquo;that&rsquo;s an idea!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hadn&rsquo;t it occurred to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You make me feel an idiot, but I confess it hadn&rsquo;t. I wonder,&rdquo; she added,
+      &ldquo;if it has occurred to Isabel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I shall now ask her,&rdquo; said Mrs. Touchett.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Merle reflected. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t put it into her head. The thing would be to
+      ask Mr. Osmond.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t do that,&rdquo; said Mrs. Touchett. &ldquo;I won&rsquo;t have him enquire of me&mdash;as
+      he perfectly may with that air of his, given Isabel&rsquo;s situation&mdash;what
+      business it is of mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll ask him myself,&rdquo; Madame Merle bravely declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what business&mdash;for <i>him</i>&mdash;is it of yours?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s being none whatever is just why I can afford to speak. It&rsquo;s so much
+      less my business than any one&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pray let me hear then,&rdquo; said Mrs. Touchett, &ldquo;of the fruits of your
+      penetration. If I can&rsquo;t speak to him, however, at least I can speak to
+      Isabel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her companion sounded at this the note of warning. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be too quick
+      with her. Don&rsquo;t inflame her imagination.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never did anything in life to any one&rsquo;s imagination. But I&rsquo;m always
+      sure of her doing something&mdash;well, not of <i>my</i> kind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, you wouldn&rsquo;t like this,&rdquo; Madame Merle observed without the point of
+      interrogation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why in the world should I, pray? Mr. Osmond has nothing the least solid
+      to offer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again Madame Merle was silent while her thoughtful smile drew up her mouth
+      even more charmingly than usual toward the left corner. &ldquo;Let us
+      distinguish. Gilbert Osmond&rsquo;s certainly not the first comer. He&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t tell me about his probably quite cold-blooded love-affairs; they&rsquo;re
+      nothing to me!&rdquo; Mrs. Touchett cried. &ldquo;What you say&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The early masters are now worth a good deal of money,&rdquo; said Madame Merle,
+      &ldquo;and the daughter&rsquo;s a very young and very innocent and very harmless
+      person.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In other words she&rsquo;s an insipid little chit. Is that what you mean?
+      Having no fortune she can&rsquo;t hope to marry as they marry here; so that
+      Isabel will have to furnish her either with a maintenance or with a
+      dowry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isabel probably wouldn&rsquo;t object to being kind to her. I think she likes
+      the poor child.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Another reason then for Mr. Osmond&rsquo;s stopping at home! Otherwise, a week
+      hence, we shall have my niece arriving at the conviction that her mission
+      in life&rsquo;s to prove that a stepmother may sacrifice herself&mdash;and that,
+      to prove it, she must first become one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She would make a charming stepmother,&rdquo; smiled Madame Merle; &ldquo;but I quite
+      agree with you that she had better not decide upon her mission too
+      hastily. Changing the form of one&rsquo;s mission&rsquo;s almost as difficult as
+      changing the shape of one&rsquo;s nose: there they are, each, in the middle of
+      one&rsquo;s face and one&rsquo;s character&mdash;one has to begin too far back. But
+      I&rsquo;ll investigate and report to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All this went on quite over Isabel&rsquo;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&rsquo;s aunt. Isabel
+      thought him interesting&mdash;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&rsquo;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&mdash;what might she call them?&mdash;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&mdash;allowing only for arid places freshened by the natural dews
+      of a quaint half-anxious, half-helpless fatherhood. At Palazzo Crescentini
+      Mr. Osmond&rsquo;s manner remained the same; diffident at first&mdash;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&rsquo;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&mdash;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&rsquo;t talk, as she had heard
+      people, for &ldquo;effect.&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;little grey gloves
+      with a single button. She was like a sheet of blank paper&mdash;the ideal
+      <i>jeune fille</i> of foreign fiction. Isabel hoped that so fair and
+      smooth a page would be covered with an edifying text.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s sister as a lady who had so mismanaged her
+      improprieties that they had ceased to hang together at all&mdash;which was
+      at the least what one asked of such matters&mdash;and had become the mere
+      floating fragments of a wrecked renown, incommoding social circulation.
+      She had been married by her mother&mdash;a more administrative person,
+      with an appreciation of foreign titles which the daughter, to do her
+      justice, had probably by this time thrown off&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Merle defended the luckless lady with a great deal of zeal and wit.
+      She couldn&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;a sum about equivalent to that which had already formed her
+      brother&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 <i>his</i> 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&mdash;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&rsquo;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&mdash;not to appear
+      so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s
+      intelligence. Henrietta&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;and they had done things!&mdash;would
+      look. Miss Stackpole never cared how anything looked, and, if she didn&rsquo;t
+      care, pray why should he? But his curiosity had been roused; he wanted
+      awfully to see if she ever <i>would</i> care. He was prepared to go as far
+      as she&mdash;he didn&rsquo;t see why he should break down first.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 <i>Interviewer</i> a conscientious
+      account of the gondolas, the Piazza, the Bridge of Sighs, the pigeons and
+      the young boatman who chanted Tasso. The <i>Interviewer</i> 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&mdash;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&mdash;he
+      had been bred at Eton, where they study nothing but Latin and
+      Whyte-Melville, said Miss Stackpole&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&rsquo;s attention, would probably not be
+      oppressive. Madame Merle would remain with Mrs. Touchett; she had left
+      Rome for the summer and wouldn&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s preparations consisted of her seeing Gilbert Osmond before she
+      started and mentioning her intention to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like to be in Rome with you,&rdquo; he commented. &ldquo;I should like to
+      see you on that wonderful ground.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She scarcely faltered. &ldquo;You might come then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you&rsquo;ll have a lot of people with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; Isabel admitted, &ldquo;of course I shall not be alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For a moment he said nothing more. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll like it,&rdquo; he went on at last.
+      &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve spoiled it, but you&rsquo;ll rave about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ought I to dislike it because, poor old dear&mdash;the Niobe of Nations,
+      you know&mdash;it has been spoiled?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I think not. It has been spoiled so often,&rdquo; he smiled. &ldquo;If I were to
+      go, what should I do with my little girl?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can&rsquo;t you leave her at the villa?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know that I like that&mdash;though there&rsquo;s a very good old woman
+      who looks after her. I can&rsquo;t afford a governess.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bring her with you then,&rdquo; said Isabel promptly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Osmond looked grave. &ldquo;She has been in Rome all winter, at her convent;
+      and she&rsquo;s too young to make journeys of pleasure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t like bringing her forward?&rdquo; Isabel enquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I think young girls should be kept out of the world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was brought up on a different system.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You? Oh, with you it succeeded, because you&mdash;you were exceptional.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see why,&rdquo; said Isabel, who, however, was not sure there was not
+      some truth in the speech.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Osmond didn&rsquo;t explain; he simply went on: &ldquo;If I thought it would make
+      her resemble you to join a social group in Rome I&rsquo;d take her there
+      to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t make her resemble me,&rdquo; said Isabel. &ldquo;Keep her like herself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I might send her to my sister,&rdquo; Mr. Osmond observed. He had almost the
+      air of asking advice; he seemed to like to talk over his domestic matters
+      with Miss Archer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she concurred; &ldquo;I think that wouldn&rsquo;t do much towards making her
+      resemble me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After she had left Florence Gilbert Osmond met Madame Merle at the
+      Countess Gemini&rsquo;s. There were other people present; the Countess&rsquo;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&rsquo;s chair. &ldquo;She wants me to go to Rome
+      with her,&rdquo; he remarked in a low voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To go with her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be there while she&rsquo;s there. She proposed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose you mean that you proposed it and she assented.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I gave her a chance. But she&rsquo;s encouraging&mdash;she&rsquo;s very
+      encouraging.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I rejoice to hear it&mdash;but don&rsquo;t cry victory too soon. Of course
+      you&rsquo;ll go to Rome.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; said Osmond, &ldquo;it makes one work, this idea of yours!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t pretend you don&rsquo;t enjoy it&mdash;you&rsquo;re very ungrateful. You&rsquo;ve not
+      been so well occupied these many years.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The way you take it&rsquo;s beautiful,&rdquo; said Osmond. &ldquo;I ought to be grateful
+      for that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not too much so, however,&rdquo; Madame Merle answered. She talked with her
+      usual smile, leaning back in her chair and looking round the room. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve
+      made a very good impression, and I&rsquo;ve seen for myself that you&rsquo;ve received
+      one. You&rsquo;ve not come to Mrs. Touchett&rsquo;s seven times to oblige me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The girl&rsquo;s not disagreeable,&rdquo; Osmond quietly conceded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Merle dropped her eye on him a moment, during which her lips closed
+      with a certain firmness. &ldquo;Is that all you can find to say about that fine
+      creature?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All? Isn&rsquo;t it enough? Of how many people have you heard me say more?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She made no answer to this, but still presented her talkative grace to the
+      room. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re unfathomable,&rdquo; she murmured at last. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m frightened at the
+      abyss into which I shall have cast her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took it almost gaily. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t draw back&mdash;you&rsquo;ve gone too far.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very good; but you must do the rest yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall do it,&rdquo; said Gilbert Osmond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Merle remained silent and he changed his place again; but when she
+      rose to go he also took leave. Mrs. Touchett&rsquo;s victoria was awaiting her
+      guest in the court, and after he had helped his friend into it he stood
+      there detaining her. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re very indiscreet,&rdquo; she said rather wearily;
+      &ldquo;you shouldn&rsquo;t have moved when I did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had taken off his hat; he passed his hand over his forehead. &ldquo;I always
+      forget; I&rsquo;m out of the habit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re quite unfathomable,&rdquo; she repeated, glancing up at the windows of
+      the house, a modern structure in the new part of the town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He paid no heed to this remark, but spoke in his own sense. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s really
+      very charming. I&rsquo;ve scarcely known any one more graceful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It does me good to hear you say that. The better you like her the better
+      for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I like her very much. She&rsquo;s all you described her, and into the bargain
+      capable, I feel, of great devotion. She has only one fault.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Too many ideas.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I warned you she was clever.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fortunately they&rsquo;re very bad ones,&rdquo; said Osmond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why is that fortunate?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;<i>Dame</i>, if they must be sacrificed!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Merle leaned back, looking straight before her; then she spoke to
+      the coachman. But her friend again detained her. &ldquo;If I go to Rome what
+      shall I do with Pansy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll go and see her,&rdquo; said Madame Merle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      I may not attempt to report in its fulness our young woman&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;it was the third of
+      their stay&mdash;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 &ldquo;cheeky old boy,&rdquo;
+       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&mdash;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&rsquo;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord Warburton!&rdquo; Isabel exclaimed as she rose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had no idea it was you. I turned that corner and came upon you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked about her to explain. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m alone, but my companions have just
+      left me. My cousin&rsquo;s gone to look at the work over there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah yes; I see.&rdquo; And Lord Warburton&rsquo;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.
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t let me disturb you,&rdquo; he went on, looking at her dejected pillar.
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid you&rsquo;re tired.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I&rsquo;m rather tired.&rdquo; She hesitated a moment, but sat down again.
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t let me interrupt you,&rdquo; she added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh dear, I&rsquo;m quite alone, I&rsquo;ve nothing on earth to do. I had no idea you
+      were in Rome. I&rsquo;ve just come from the East. I&rsquo;m only passing through.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve been making a long journey,&rdquo; said Isabel, who had learned from
+      Ralph that Lord Warburton was absent from England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I came abroad for six months&mdash;soon after I saw you last. I&rsquo;ve
+      been in Turkey and Asia Minor; I came the other day from Athens.&rdquo; He
+      managed not to be awkward, but he wasn&rsquo;t easy, and after a longer look at
+      the girl he came down to nature. &ldquo;Do you wish me to leave you, or will you
+      let me stay a little?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She took it all humanely. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t wish you to leave me, Lord Warburton;
+      I&rsquo;m very glad to see you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you for saying that. May I sit down?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&rsquo;s death, Ralph&rsquo;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&rsquo;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. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve written to
+      you several times.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Written to me? I&rsquo;ve never had your letters.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never sent them. I burned them up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; laughed Isabel, &ldquo;it was better that you should do that than I!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought you wouldn&rsquo;t care for them,&rdquo; he went on with a simplicity that
+      touched her. &ldquo;It seemed to me that after all I had no right to trouble you
+      with letters.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should have been very glad to have news of you. You know how I hoped
+      that&mdash;that&mdash;&rdquo; But she stopped; there would be such a flatness in
+      the utterance of her thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know what you&rsquo;re going to say. You hoped we should always remain good
+      friends.&rdquo; This formula, as Lord Warburton uttered it, was certainly flat
+      enough; but then he was interested in making it appear so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She found herself reduced simply to &ldquo;Please don&rsquo;t talk of all that&rdquo;; a
+      speech which hardly struck her as improvement on the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a small consolation to allow me!&rdquo; her companion exclaimed with
+      force.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t pretend to console you,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s very well you don&rsquo;t try to console me; it wouldn&rsquo;t be in your
+      power,&rdquo; she heard him say through the medium of her strange elation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;the pain&rsquo;s
+      greater than the pleasure.&rdquo; And she got up with a small conscious majesty,
+      looking for her companions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to make you feel that; of course I can&rsquo;t say that. I only
+      just want you to know one or two things&mdash;in fairness to myself, as it
+      were. I won&rsquo;t return to the subject again. I felt very strongly what I
+      expressed to you last year; I couldn&rsquo;t think of anything else. I tried to
+      forget&mdash;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&rsquo;t succeed. It was for the same purpose I went abroad&mdash;as far
+      away as possible. They say travelling distracts the mind, but it didn&rsquo;t
+      distract mine. I&rsquo;ve thought of you perpetually, ever since I last saw you.
+      I&rsquo;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&mdash;I can&rsquo;t say less. I don&rsquo;t mean, however, to insist; it&rsquo;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.&rdquo; He had recovered his
+      self-control, and while he spoke it became complete. He might have been
+      addressing a small committee&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve often thought of you, Lord Warburton,&rdquo; Isabel answered. &ldquo;You may be
+      sure I shall always do that.&rdquo; And she added in a tone of which she tried
+      to keep up the kindness and keep down the meaning: &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no harm in
+      that on either side.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you say that if you yourself are only passing through?&rdquo; she
+      enquired with some anxiety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, when I said I was passing through I didn&rsquo;t mean that one would treat
+      Rome as if it were Clapham Junction. To pass through Rome is to stop a
+      week or two.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say frankly that you mean to stay as long as I do!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His flushed smile, for a little, seemed to sound her. &ldquo;You won&rsquo;t like
+      that. You&rsquo;re afraid you&rsquo;ll see too much of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t matter what I like. I certainly can&rsquo;t expect you to leave this
+      delightful place on my account. But I confess I&rsquo;m afraid of you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Afraid I&rsquo;ll begin again? I promise to be very careful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They had gradually stopped and they stood a moment face to face. &ldquo;Poor
+      Lord Warburton!&rdquo; she said with a compassion intended to be good for both
+      of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor Lord Warburton indeed! But I&rsquo;ll be careful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may be unhappy, but you shall not make <i>me</i> so. That I can&rsquo;t
+      allow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I believed I could make you unhappy I think I should try it.&rdquo; At this
+      she walked in advance and he also proceeded. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll never say a word to
+      displease you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very good. If you do, our friendship&rsquo;s at an end.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps some day&mdash;after a while&mdash;you&rsquo;ll give me leave.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give you leave to make me unhappy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He hesitated. &ldquo;To tell you again&mdash;&rdquo; But he checked himself. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll
+      keep it down. I&rsquo;ll keep it down always.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Gracious,
+      there&rsquo;s that lord!&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t
+      suppose you remember me, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed I do remember you,&rdquo; said Lord Warburton. &ldquo;I asked you to come and
+      see me, and you never came.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t go everywhere I&rsquo;m asked,&rdquo; Miss Stackpole answered coldly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah well, I won&rsquo;t ask you again,&rdquo; laughed the master of Lockleigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you do I&rsquo;ll go; so be sure!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Oh, you here,
+      Bantling?&rdquo; and a hand-shake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Henrietta, &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t know you knew him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess you don&rsquo;t know every one I know,&rdquo; Mr. Bantling rejoined
+      facetiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought that when an Englishman knew a lord he always told you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, I&rsquo;m afraid Bantling was ashamed of me,&rdquo; Lord Warburton laughed again.
+      Isabel took pleasure in that note; she gave a small sigh of relief as they
+      kept their course homeward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day was Sunday; she spent her morning over two long letters&mdash;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&rsquo;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 Hôtel 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&mdash;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 &ldquo;pay&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&rsquo;s and should look out for her and her friends, she was obliged to
+      reply that he must follow his convenience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;disappointed&rdquo; in Saint Peter&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s dome suffered by comparison with that of the Capitol at
+      Washington, she addressed her protest chiefly to Mr. Bantling&rsquo;s ear and
+      reserved it in its more accentuated form for the columns of the <i>Interviewer</i>.
+      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&rsquo;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&mdash;he
+      appeared to have multiplied them on this occasion to suit the place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you decided to come?&rdquo; she said as she put out her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The others are inside,&rdquo; she decided to say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t come for the others,&rdquo; he promptly returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;than Mr. Touchett and
+      Lord Warburton, and even than little Mr. Rosier in Paris. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know
+      what it&rsquo;s in you,&rdquo; she had been pleased to remark, &ldquo;but for a nice girl
+      you do attract the most unnatural people. Mr. Goodwood&rsquo;s the only one I&rsquo;ve
+      any respect for, and he&rsquo;s just the one you don&rsquo;t appreciate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s your opinion of Saint Peter&rsquo;s?&rdquo; Mr. Osmond was meanwhile enquiring
+      of our young lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s very large and very bright,&rdquo; she contented herself with replying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s too large; it makes one feel like an atom.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t that the right way to feel in the greatest of human temples?&rdquo; she
+      asked with rather a liking for her phrase.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose it&rsquo;s the right way to feel everywhere, when one <i>is</i>
+      nobody. But I like it in a church as little as anywhere else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You ought indeed to be a Pope!&rdquo; Isabel exclaimed, remembering something
+      he had referred to in Florence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, I should have enjoyed that!&rdquo; said Gilbert Osmond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Warburton meanwhile had joined Ralph Touchett, and the two strolled
+      away together. &ldquo;Who&rsquo;s the fellow speaking to Miss Archer?&rdquo; his lordship
+      demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His name&rsquo;s Gilbert Osmond&mdash;he lives in Florence,&rdquo; Ralph said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is he besides?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing at all. Oh yes, he&rsquo;s an American; but one forgets that&mdash;he&rsquo;s
+      so little of one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has he known Miss Archer long?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Three or four weeks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does she like him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s trying to find out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And will she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Find out&mdash;?&rdquo; Ralph asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will she like him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean will she accept him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Lord Warburton after an instant; &ldquo;I suppose that&rsquo;s what I
+      horribly mean.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps not if one does nothing to prevent it,&rdquo; Ralph replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His lordship stared a moment, but apprehended. &ldquo;Then we must be perfectly
+      quiet?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As quiet as the grave. And only on the chance!&rdquo; Ralph added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The chance she may?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The chance she may not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Warburton took this at first in silence, but he spoke again. &ldquo;Is he
+      awfully clever?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Awfully,&rdquo; said Ralph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His companion thought. &ldquo;And what else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What more do you want?&rdquo; Ralph groaned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean what more does <i>she</i>?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ralph took him by the arm to turn him: they had to rejoin the others. &ldquo;She
+      wants nothing that <i>we</i> can give her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah well, if she won&rsquo;t have You&mdash;!&rdquo; said his lordship handsomely as
+      they went.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <table summary="" border="3" cellpadding="4">
+      <tbody>
+        <tr>
+          <td>
+            &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+            href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2834/2834-h/2834-h.htm">Next
+            Volume</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+          </td>
+        </tr>
+      </tbody>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Portrait of a Lady, by Henry James
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY ***
+
+***** This file should be named 2833-h.htm or 2833-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/2/8/3/2833/
+
+Produced by Eve Sobol, and David Widger
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase &ldquo;Project
+Gutenberg&rdquo;), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  &ldquo;Project Gutenberg&rdquo; is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (&ldquo;the Foundation&rdquo;
+ or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase &ldquo;Project Gutenberg&rdquo; appears, or with which the phrase &ldquo;Project
+Gutenberg&rdquo; is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+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
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase &ldquo;Project Gutenberg&rdquo; associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+&ldquo;Plain Vanilla ASCII&rdquo; or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original &ldquo;Plain Vanilla ASCII&rdquo; or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, &ldquo;Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.&rdquo;
+ 
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+&ldquo;Defects,&rdquo; such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the &ldquo;Right
+of Replacement or Refund&rdquo; described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you &lsquo;AS-IS&rsquo; WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm&rsquo;s
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation&rsquo;s EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state&rsquo;s laws.
+
+The Foundation&rsquo;s principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation&rsquo;s web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+</pre>
+  </body>
+</html>