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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 + |