THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY

VOLUME II (of II)

By Henry James

   Previous
Volume   


CHAPTER XXVIII

On the morrow, in the evening, Lord Warburton went again to see his
friends at their hotel, and at this establishment he learned that they had
gone to the opera. He drove to the opera with the idea of paying them a
visit in their box after the easy Italian fashion; and when he had
obtained his admittance—it was one of the secondary theatres—looked
about the large, bare, ill-lighted house. An act had just terminated and
he was at liberty to pursue his quest. After scanning two or three tiers
of boxes he perceived in one of the largest of these receptacles a lady
whom he easily recognised. Miss Archer was seated facing the stage and
partly screened by the curtain of the box; and beside her, leaning back in
his chair, was Mr. Gilbert Osmond. They appeared to have the place to
themselves, and Warburton supposed their companions had taken advantage of
the recess to enjoy the relative coolness of the lobby. He stood a while
with his eyes on the interesting pair; he asked himself if he should go up
and interrupt the harmony. At last he judged that Isabel had seen him, and
this accident determined him. There should be no marked holding off. He
took his way to the upper regions and on the staircase met Ralph Touchett
slowly descending, his hat at the inclination of ennui and his hands where
they usually were.

“I saw you below a moment since and was going down to you. I feel lonely
and want company,” was Ralph’s greeting.

“You’ve some that’s very good which you’ve yet deserted.”

“Do you mean my cousin? Oh, she has a visitor and doesn’t want me. Then
Miss Stackpole and Bantling have gone out to a cafe to eat an ice—Miss
Stackpole delights in an ice. I didn’t think they wanted me either. The
opera’s very bad; the women look like laundresses and sing like peacocks.
I feel very low.”

“You had better go home,” Lord Warburton said without affectation.

“And leave my young lady in this sad place? Ah no, I must watch over her.”

“She seems to have plenty of friends.”

“Yes, that’s why I must watch,” said Ralph with the same large
mock-melancholy.

“If she doesn’t want you it’s probable she doesn’t want me.”

“No, you’re different. Go to the box and stay there while I walk about.”

Lord Warburton went to the box, where Isabel’s welcome was as to a friend
so honourably old that he vaguely asked himself what queer temporal
province she was annexing. He exchanged greetings with Mr. Osmond, to whom
he had been introduced the day before and who, after he came in, sat
blandly apart and silent, as if repudiating competence in the subjects of
allusion now probable. It struck her second visitor that Miss Archer had,
in operatic conditions, a radiance, even a slight exaltation; as she was,
however, at all times a keenly-glancing, quickly-moving, completely
animated young woman, he may have been mistaken on this point. Her talk
with him moreover pointed to presence of mind; it expressed a kindness so
ingenious and deliberate as to indicate that she was in undisturbed
possession of her faculties. Poor Lord Warburton had moments of
bewilderment. She had discouraged him, formally, as much as a woman could;
what business had she then with such arts and such felicities, above all
with such tones of reparation—preparation? Her voice had tricks of
sweetness, but why play them on him? The others came back; the
bare, familiar, trivial opera began again. The box was large, and there
was room for him to remain if he would sit a little behind and in the
dark. He did so for half an hour, while Mr. Osmond remained in front,
leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, just behind Isabel. Lord
Warburton heard nothing, and from his gloomy corner saw nothing but the
clear profile of this young lady defined against the dim illumination of
the house. When there was another interval no one moved. Mr. Osmond talked
to Isabel, and Lord Warburton kept his corner. He did so but for a short
time, however; after which he got up and bade good-night to the ladies.
Isabel said nothing to detain him, but it didn’t prevent his being puzzled
again. Why should she mark so one of his values—quite the wrong one—when
she would have nothing to do with another, which was quite the right? He
was angry with himself for being puzzled, and then angry for being angry.
Verdi’s music did little to comfort him, and he left the theatre and
walked homeward, without knowing his way, through the tortuous, tragic
streets of Rome, where heavier sorrows than his had been carried under the
stars.

“What’s the character of that gentleman?” Osmond asked of Isabel after he
had retired.

“Irreproachable—don’t you see it?”

“He owns about half England; that’s his character,” Henrietta remarked.
“That’s what they call a free country!”

“Ah, he’s a great proprietor? Happy man!” said Gilbert Osmond.

“Do you call that happiness—the ownership of wretched human beings?”
cried Miss Stackpole. “He owns his tenants and has thousands of them. It’s
pleasant to own something, but inanimate objects are enough for me. I
don’t insist on flesh and blood and minds and consciences.”

“It seems to me you own a human being or two,” Mr. Bantling suggested
jocosely. “I wonder if Warburton orders his tenants about as you do me.”

“Lord Warburton’s a great radical,” Isabel said. “He has very advanced
opinions.”

“He has very advanced stone walls. His park’s enclosed by a gigantic iron
fence, some thirty miles round,” Henrietta announced for the information
of Mr. Osmond. “I should like him to converse with a few of our Boston
radicals.”

“Don’t they approve of iron fences?” asked Mr. Bantling.

“Only to shut up wicked conservatives. I always feel as if I were talking
to you over something with a neat top-finish of broken glass.”

“Do you know him well, this unreformed reformer?” Osmond went on,
questioning Isabel.

“Well enough for all the use I have for him.”

“And how much of a use is that?”

“Well, I like to like him.”

“‘Liking to like’—why, it makes a passion!” said Osmond.

“No”—she considered—“keep that for liking to dislike.”

“Do you wish to provoke me then,” Osmond laughed, “to a passion for him?”

She said nothing for a moment, but then met the light question with a
disproportionate gravity. “No, Mr. Osmond; I don’t think I should ever
dare to provoke you. Lord Warburton, at any rate,” she more easily added,
“is a very nice man.”

“Of great ability?” her friend enquired.

“Of excellent ability, and as good as he looks.”

“As good as he’s good-looking do you mean? He’s very good-looking. How
detestably fortunate!—to be a great English magnate, to be clever
and handsome into the bargain, and, by way of finishing off, to enjoy your
high favour! That’s a man I could envy.”

Isabel considered him with interest. “You seem to me to be always envying
some one. Yesterday it was the Pope; to-day it’s poor Lord Warburton.”

“My envy’s not dangerous; it wouldn’t hurt a mouse. I don’t want to
destroy the people—I only want to be them. You see it would
destroy only myself.”

“You’d like to be the Pope?” said Isabel.

“I should love it—but I should have gone in for it earlier. But why”—Osmond
reverted—“do you speak of your friend as poor?”

“Women—when they are very, very good sometimes pity men after
they’ve hurt them; that’s their great way of showing kindness,” said
Ralph, joining in the conversation for the first time and with a cynicism
so transparently ingenious as to be virtually innocent.

“Pray, have I hurt Lord Warburton?” Isabel asked, raising her eyebrows as
if the idea were perfectly fresh.

“It serves him right if you have,” said Henrietta while the curtain rose
for the ballet.

Isabel saw no more of her attributive victim for the next twenty-four
hours, but on the second day after the visit to the opera she encountered
him in the gallery of the Capitol, where he stood before the lion of the
collection, the statue of the Dying Gladiator. She had come in with her
companions, among whom, on this occasion again, Gilbert Osmond had his
place, and the party, having ascended the staircase, entered the first and
finest of the rooms. Lord Warburton addressed her alertly enough, but said
in a moment that he was leaving the gallery. “And I’m leaving Rome,” he
added. “I must bid you goodbye.” Isabel, inconsequently enough, was now
sorry to hear it. This was perhaps because she had ceased to be afraid of
his renewing his suit; she was thinking of something else. She was on the
point of naming her regret, but she checked herself and simply wished him
a happy journey; which made him look at her rather unlightedly. “I’m
afraid you’ll think me very ‘volatile.’ I told you the other day I wanted
so much to stop.”

“Oh no; you could easily change your mind.”

“That’s what I have done.”

“Bon voyage then.”

“You’re in a great hurry to get rid of me,” said his lordship quite
dismally.

“Not in the least. But I hate partings.”

“You don’t care what I do,” he went on pitifully.

Isabel looked at him a moment. “Ah,” she said, “you’re not keeping your
promise!”

He coloured like a boy of fifteen. “If I’m not, then it’s because I can’t;
and that’s why I’m going.”

“Good-bye then.”

“Good-bye.” He lingered still, however. “When shall I see you again?”

Isabel hesitated, but soon, as if she had had a happy inspiration: “Some
day after you’re married.”

“That will never be. It will be after you are.”

“That will do as well,” she smiled.

“Yes, quite as well. Good-bye.”

They shook hands, and he left her alone in the glorious room, among the
shining antique marbles. She sat down in the centre of the circle of these
presences, regarding them vaguely, resting her eyes on their beautiful
blank faces; listening, as it were, to their eternal silence. It is
impossible, in Rome at least, to look long at a great company of Greek
sculptures without feeling the effect of their noble quietude; which, as
with a high door closed for the ceremony, slowly drops on the spirit the
large white mantle of peace. I say in Rome especially, because the Roman
air is an exquisite medium for such impressions. The golden sunshine
mingles with them, the deep stillness of the past, so vivid yet, though it
is nothing but a void full of names, seems to throw a solemn spell upon
them. The blinds were partly closed in the windows of the Capitol, and a
clear, warm shadow rested on the figures and made them more mildly human.
Isabel sat there a long time, under the charm of their motionless grace,
wondering to what, of their experience, their absent eyes were open, and
how, to our ears, their alien lips would sound. The dark red walls of the
room threw them into relief; the polished marble floor reflected their
beauty. She had seen them all before, but her enjoyment repeated itself,
and it was all the greater because she was glad again, for the time, to be
alone. At last, however, her attention lapsed, drawn off by a deeper tide
of life. An occasional tourist came in, stopped and stared a moment at the
Dying Gladiator, and then passed out of the other door, creaking over the
smooth pavement. At the end of half an hour Gilbert Osmond reappeared,
apparently in advance of his companions. He strolled toward her slowly,
with his hands behind him and his usual enquiring, yet not quite appealing
smile. “I’m surprised to find you alone, I thought you had company.

“So I have—the best.” And she glanced at the Antinous and the Faun.

“Do you call them better company than an English peer?”

“Ah, my English peer left me some time ago.” She got up, speaking with
intention a little dryly.

Mr. Osmond noted her dryness, which contributed for him to the interest of
his question. “I’m afraid that what I heard the other evening is true:
you’re rather cruel to that nobleman.”

Isabel looked a moment at the vanquished Gladiator. “It’s not true. I’m
scrupulously kind.”

“That’s exactly what I mean!” Gilbert Osmond returned, and with such happy
hilarity that his joke needs to be explained. We know that he was fond of
originals, of rarities, of the superior and the exquisite; and now that he
had seen Lord Warburton, whom he thought a very fine example of his race
and order, he perceived a new attraction in the idea of taking to himself
a young lady who had qualified herself to figure in his collection of
choice objects by declining so noble a hand. Gilbert Osmond had a high
appreciation of this particular patriciate; not so much for its
distinction, which he thought easily surpassable, as for its solid
actuality. He had never forgiven his star for not appointing him to an
English dukedom, and he could measure the unexpectedness of such conduct
as Isabel’s. It would be proper that the woman he might marry should have
done something of that sort.


CHAPTER XXIX

Ralph Touchett, in talk with his excellent friend, had rather markedly
qualified, as we know, his recognition of Gilbert Osmond’s personal
merits; but he might really have felt himself illiberal in the light of
that gentleman’s conduct during the rest of the visit to Rome. Osmond
spent a portion of each day with Isabel and her companions, and ended by
affecting them as the easiest of men to live with. Who wouldn’t have seen
that he could command, as it were, both tact and gaiety?—which
perhaps was exactly why Ralph had made his old-time look of superficial
sociability a reproach to him. Even Isabel’s invidious kinsman was obliged
to admit that he was just now a delightful associate. His good humour was
imperturbable, his knowledge of the right fact, his production of the
right word, as convenient as the friendly flicker of a match for your
cigarette. Clearly he was amused—as amused as a man could be who was
so little ever surprised, and that made him almost applausive. It was not
that his spirits were visibly high—he would never, in the concert of
pleasure, touch the big drum by so much as a knuckle: he had a mortal
dislike to the high, ragged note, to what he called random ravings. He
thought Miss Archer sometimes of too precipitate a readiness. It was pity
she had that fault, because if she had not had it she would really have
had none; she would have been as smooth to his general need of her as
handled ivory to the palm. If he was not personally loud, however, he was
deep, and during these closing days of the Roman May he knew a complacency
that matched with slow irregular walks under the pines of the Villa
Borghese, among the small sweet meadow-flowers and the mossy marbles. He
was pleased with everything; he had never before been pleased with so many
things at once. Old impressions, old enjoyments, renewed themselves; one
evening, going home to his room at the inn, he wrote down a little sonnet
to which he prefixed the title of “Rome Revisited.” A day or two later he
showed this piece of correct and ingenious verse to Isabel, explaining to
her that it was an Italian fashion to commemorate the occasions of life by
a tribute to the muse.

He took his pleasures in general singly; he was too often—he would
have admitted that—too sorely aware of something wrong, something
ugly; the fertilising dew of a conceivable felicity too seldom descended
on his spirit. But at present he was happy—happier than he had
perhaps ever been in his life, and the feeling had a large foundation.
This was simply the sense of success—the most agreeable emotion of
the human heart. Osmond had never had too much of it; in this respect he
had the irritation of satiety, as he knew perfectly well and often
reminded himself. “Ah no, I’ve not been spoiled; certainly I’ve not been
spoiled,” he used inwardly to repeat. “If I do succeed before I die I
shall thoroughly have earned it.” He was too apt to reason as if “earning”
this boon consisted above all of covertly aching for it and might be
confined to that exercise. Absolutely void of it, also, his career had not
been; he might indeed have suggested to a spectator here and there that he
was resting on vague laurels. But his triumphs were, some of them, now too
old; others had been too easy. The present one had been less arduous than
might have been expected, but had been easy—that is had been rapid—only
because he had made an altogether exceptional effort, a greater effort
than he had believed it in him to make. The desire to have something or
other to show for his “parts”—to show somehow or other—had
been the dream of his youth; but as the years went on the conditions
attached to any marked proof of rarity had affected him more and more as
gross and detestable; like the swallowing of mugs of beer to advertise
what one could “stand.” If an anonymous drawing on a museum wall had been
conscious and watchful it might have known this peculiar pleasure of being
at last and all of a sudden identified—as from the hand of a great
master—by the so high and so unnoticed fact of style. His “style”
was what the girl had discovered with a little help; and now, beside
herself enjoying it, she should publish it to the world without his having
any of the trouble. She should do the thing for him, and he would
not have waited in vain.

Shortly before the time fixed in advance for her departure this young lady
received from Mrs. Touchett a telegram running as follows: “Leave Florence
4th June for Bellaggio, and take you if you have not other views. But
can’t wait if you dawdle in Rome.” The dawdling in Rome was very pleasant,
but Isabel had different views, and she let her aunt know she would
immediately join her. She told Gilbert Osmond that she had done so, and he
replied that, spending many of his summers as well as his winters in
Italy, he himself would loiter a little longer in the cool shadow of Saint
Peter’s. He would not return to Florence for ten days more, and in that
time she would have started for Bellaggio. It might be months in this case
before he should see her again. This exchange took place in the large
decorated sitting-room occupied by our friends at the hotel; it was late
in the evening, and Ralph Touchett was to take his cousin back to Florence
on the morrow. Osmond had found the girl alone; Miss Stackpole had
contracted a friendship with a delightful American family on the fourth
floor and had mounted the interminable staircase to pay them a visit.
Henrietta contracted friendships, in travelling, with great freedom, and
had formed in railway-carriages several that were among her most valued
ties. Ralph was making arrangements for the morrow’s journey, and Isabel
sat alone in a wilderness of yellow upholstery. The chairs and sofas were
orange; the walls and windows were draped in purple and gilt. The mirrors,
the pictures had great flamboyant frames; the ceiling was deeply vaulted
and painted over with naked muses and cherubs. For Osmond the place was
ugly to distress; the false colours, the sham splendour were like vulgar,
bragging, lying talk. Isabel had taken in hand a volume of Ampere,
presented, on their arrival in Rome, by Ralph; but though she held it in
her lap with her finger vaguely kept in the place she was not impatient to
pursue her study. A lamp covered with a drooping veil of pink tissue-paper
burned on the table beside her and diffused a strange pale rosiness over
the scene.

“You say you’ll come back; but who knows?” Gilbert Osmond said.

“I think you’re much more likely to start on your voyage round the world.
You’re under no obligation to come back; you can do exactly what you
choose; you can roam through space.”

“Well, Italy’s a part of space,” Isabel answered. “I can take it on the
way.”

“On the way round the world? No, don’t do that. Don’t put us in a
parenthesis—give us a chapter to ourselves. I don’t want to see you
on your travels. I’d rather see you when they’re over. I should like to
see you when you’re tired and satiated,” Osmond added in a moment. “I
shall prefer you in that state.”

Isabel, with her eyes bent, fingered the pages of M. Ampere. “You turn
things into ridicule without seeming to do it, though not, I think,
without intending it. You’ve no respect for my travels—you think
them ridiculous.”

“Where do you find that?”

She went on in the same tone, fretting the edge of her book with the
paper-knife. “You see my ignorance, my blunders, the way I wander about as
if the world belonged to me, simply because—because it has been put
into my power to do so. You don’t think a woman ought to do that. You
think it bold and ungraceful.”

“I think it beautiful,” said Osmond. “You know my opinions—I’ve
treated you to enough of them. Don’t you remember my telling you that one
ought to make one’s life a work of art? You looked rather shocked at
first; but then I told you that it was exactly what you seemed to me to be
trying to do with your own.”

She looked up from her book. “What you despise most in the world is bad,
is stupid art.”

“Possibly. But yours seem to me very clear and very good.”

“If I were to go to Japan next winter you would laugh at me,” she went on.

Osmond gave a smile—a keen one, but not a laugh, for the tone of
their conversation was not jocose. Isabel had in fact her solemnity; he
had seen it before. “You have one!”

“That’s exactly what I say. You think such an idea absurd.”

“I would give my little finger to go to Japan; it’s one of the countries I
want most to see. Can’t you believe that, with my taste for old lacquer?”

“I haven’t a taste for old lacquer to excuse me,” said Isabel.

“You’ve a better excuse—the means of going. You’re quite wrong in
your theory that I laugh at you. I don’t know what has put it into your
head.”

“It wouldn’t be remarkable if you did think it ridiculous that I should
have the means to travel when you’ve not; for you know everything and I
know nothing.”

“The more reason why you should travel and learn,” smiled Osmond.
“Besides,” he added as if it were a point to be made, “I don’t know
everything.”

Isabel was not struck with the oddity of his saying this gravely; she was
thinking that the pleasantest incident of her life—so it pleased her
to qualify these too few days in Rome, which she might musingly have
likened to the figure of some small princess of one of the ages of dress
overmuffled in a mantle of state and dragging a train that it took pages
or historians to hold up—that this felicity was coming to an end.
That most of the interest of the time had been owing to Mr. Osmond was a
reflexion she was not just now at pains to make; she had already done the
point abundant justice. But she said to herself that if there were a
danger they should never meet again, perhaps after all it would be as
well. Happy things don’t repeat themselves, and her adventure wore already
the changed, the seaward face of some romantic island from which, after
feasting on purple grapes, she was putting off while the breeze rose. She
might come back to Italy and find him different—this strange man who
pleased her just as he was; and it would be better not to come than run
the risk of that. But if she was not to come the greater the pity that the
chapter was closed; she felt for a moment a pang that touched the source
of tears. The sensation kept her silent, and Gilbert Osmond was silent
too; he was looking at her. “Go everywhere,” he said at last, in a low,
kind voice; “do everything; get everything out of life. Be happy,—be
triumphant.”

“What do you mean by being triumphant?”

“Well, doing what you like.”

“To triumph, then, it seems to me, is to fail! Doing all the vain things
one likes is often very tiresome.”

“Exactly,” said Osmond with his quiet quickness. “As I intimated just now,
you’ll be tired some day.” He paused a moment and then he went on: “I
don’t know whether I had better not wait till then for something I want to
say to you.”

“Ah, I can’t advise you without knowing what it is. But I’m horrid when
I’m tired,” Isabel added with due inconsequence.

“I don’t believe that. You’re angry, sometimes—that I can believe,
though I’ve never seen it. But I’m sure you’re never ‘cross.’”

“Not even when I lose my temper?”

“You don’t lose it—you find it, and that must be beautiful.” Osmond
spoke with a noble earnestness. “They must be great moments to see.”

“If I could only find it now!” Isabel nervously cried.

“I’m not afraid; I should fold my arms and admire you. I’m speaking very
seriously.” He leaned forward, a hand on each knee; for some moments he
bent his eyes on the floor. “What I wish to say to you,” he went on at
last, looking up, “is that I find I’m in love with you.”

She instantly rose. “Ah, keep that till I am tired!”

“Tired of hearing it from others?” He sat there raising his eyes to her.
“No, you may heed it now or never, as you please. But after all I must say
it now.” She had turned away, but in the movement she had stopped herself
and dropped her gaze upon him. The two remained a while in this situation,
exchanging a long look—the large, conscious look of the critical
hours of life. Then he got up and came near her, deeply respectful, as if
he were afraid he had been too familiar. “I’m absolutely in love with
you.”

He had repeated the announcement in a tone of almost impersonal
discretion, like a man who expected very little from it but who spoke for
his own needed relief. The tears came into her eyes: this time they obeyed
the sharpness of the pang that suggested to her somehow the slipping of a
fine bolt—backward, forward, she couldn’t have said which. The words
he had uttered made him, as he stood there, beautiful and generous,
invested him as with the golden air of early autumn; but, morally
speaking, she retreated before them—facing him still—as she
had retreated in the other cases before a like encounter. “Oh don’t say
that, please,” she answered with an intensity that expressed the dread of
having, in this case too, to choose and decide. What made her dread great
was precisely the force which, as it would seem, ought to have banished
all dread—the sense of something within herself, deep down, that she
supposed to be inspired and trustful passion. It was there like a large
sum stored in a bank—which there was a terror in having to begin to
spend. If she touched it, it would all come out.

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

Isabel looked at herself in this character—looked intently, thinking
she filled it with a certain grace. But what she said was not an
expression of any such complacency. “You don’t offend me; but you ought to
remember that, without being offended, one may be incommoded, troubled.”
“Incommoded,” she heard herself saying that, and it struck her as a
ridiculous word. But it was what stupidly came to her.

“I remember perfectly. Of course you’re surprised and startled. But if
it’s nothing but that, it will pass away. And it will perhaps leave
something that I may not be ashamed of.”

“I don’t know what it may leave. You see at all events that I’m not
overwhelmed,” said Isabel with rather a pale smile. “I’m not too troubled
to think. And I think that I’m glad I leave Rome to-morrow.”

“Of course I don’t agree with you there.”

“I don’t at all know you,” she added abruptly; and then she
coloured as she heard herself saying what she had said almost a year
before to Lord Warburton.

“If you were not going away you’d know me better.”

“I shall do that some other time.”

“I hope so. I’m very easy to know.”

“No, no,” she emphatically answered—“there you’re not sincere.
You’re not easy to know; no one could be less so.”

“Well,” he laughed, “I said that because I know myself. It may be a boast,
but I do.”

“Very likely; but you’re very wise.”

“So are you, Miss Archer!” Osmond exclaimed.

“I don’t feel so just now. Still, I’m wise enough to think you had better
go. Good-night.”

“God bless you!” said Gilbert Osmond, taking the hand which she failed to
surrender. After which he added: “If we meet again you’ll find me as you
leave me. If we don’t I shall be so all the same.”

“Thank you very much. Good-bye.”

There was something quietly firm about Isabel’s visitor; he might go of
his own movement, but wouldn’t be dismissed. “There’s one thing more. I
haven’t asked anything of you—not even a thought in the future; you
must do me that justice. But there’s a little service I should like to
ask. I shall not return home for several days; Rome’s delightful, and it’s
a good place for a man in my state of mind. Oh, I know you’re sorry to
leave it; but you’re right to do what your aunt wishes.”

“She doesn’t even wish it!” Isabel broke out strangely.

Osmond was apparently on the point of saying something that would match
these words, but he changed his mind and rejoined simply: “Ah well, it’s
proper you should go with her, very proper. Do everything that’s proper; I
go in for that. Excuse my being so patronising. You say you don’t know me,
but when you do you’ll discover what a worship I have for propriety.”

“You’re not conventional?” Isabel gravely asked.

“I like the way you utter that word! No, I’m not conventional: I’m
convention itself. You don’t understand that?” And he paused a moment,
smiling. “I should like to explain it.” Then with a sudden, quick, bright
naturalness, “Do come back again,” he pleaded. “There are so many things
we might talk about.”

She stood there with lowered eyes. “What service did you speak of just
now?”

“Go and see my little daughter before you leave Florence. She’s alone at
the villa; I decided not to send her to my sister, who hasn’t at all my
ideas. Tell her she must love her poor father very much,” said Gilbert
Osmond gently.

“It will be a great pleasure to me to go,” Isabel answered. “I’ll tell her
what you say. Once more good-bye.”

On this he took a rapid, respectful leave. When he had gone she stood a
moment looking about her and seated herself slowly and with an air of
deliberation. She sat there till her companions came back, with folded
hands, gazing at the ugly carpet. Her agitation—for it had not
diminished—was very still, very deep. What had happened was
something that for a week past her imagination had been going forward to
meet; but here, when it came, she stopped—that sublime principle
somehow broke down. The working of this young lady’s spirit was strange,
and I can only give it to you as I see it, not hoping to make it seem
altogether natural. Her imagination, as I say, now hung back: there was a
last vague space it couldn’t cross—a dusky, uncertain tract which
looked ambiguous and even slightly treacherous, like a moorland seen in
the winter twilight. But she was to cross it yet.


CHAPTER XXX

She returned on the morrow to Florence, under her cousin’s escort, and
Ralph Touchett, though usually restive under railway discipline, thought
very well of the successive hours passed in the train that hurried his
companion away from the city now distinguished by Gilbert Osmond’s
preference—hours that were to form the first stage in a larger
scheme of travel. Miss Stackpole had remained behind; she was planning a
little trip to Naples, to be carried out with Mr. Bantling’s aid. Isabel
was to have three days in Florence before the 4th of June, the date of
Mrs. Touchett’s departure, and she determined to devote the last of these
to her promise to call on Pansy Osmond. Her plan, however, seemed for a
moment likely to modify itself in deference to an idea of Madame Merle’s.
This lady was still at Casa Touchett; but she too was on the point of
leaving Florence, her next station being an ancient castle in the
mountains of Tuscany, the residence of a noble family of that country,
whose acquaintance (she had known them, as she said, “forever”) seemed to
Isabel, in the light of certain photographs of their immense crenellated
dwelling which her friend was able to show her, a precious privilege. She
mentioned to this fortunate woman that Mr. Osmond had asked her to take a
look at his daughter, but didn’t mention that he had also made her a
declaration of love.

“Ah, comme cela se trouve!” Madame Merle exclaimed. “I myself have
been thinking it would be a kindness to pay the child a little visit
before I go off.”

“We can go together then,” Isabel reasonably said: “reasonably” because
the proposal was not uttered in the spirit of enthusiasm. She had
prefigured her small pilgrimage as made in solitude; she should like it
better so. She was nevertheless prepared to sacrifice this mystic
sentiment to her great consideration for her friend.

That personage finely meditated. “After all, why should we both go;
having, each of us, so much to do during these last hours?”

“Very good; I can easily go alone.”

“I don’t know about your going alone—to the house of a handsome
bachelor. He has been married—but so long ago!”

Isabel stared. “When Mr. Osmond’s away what does it matter?”

“They don’t know he’s away, you see.”

“They? Whom do you mean?”

“Every one. But perhaps it doesn’t signify.”

“If you were going why shouldn’t I?” Isabel asked.

“Because I’m an old frump and you’re a beautiful young woman.”

“Granting all that, you’ve not promised.”

“How much you think of your promises!” said the elder woman in mild
mockery.

“I think a great deal of my promises. Does that surprise you?”

“You’re right,” Madame Merle audibly reflected. “I really think you wish
to be kind to the child.”

“I wish very much to be kind to her.”

“Go and see her then; no one will be the wiser. And tell her I’d have come
if you hadn’t. Or rather,” Madame Merle added, “Don’t tell her. She
won’t care.”

As Isabel drove, in the publicity of an open vehicle, along the winding
way which led to Mr. Osmond’s hill-top, she wondered what her friend had
meant by no one’s being the wiser. Once in a while, at large intervals,
this lady, whose voyaging discretion, as a general thing, was rather of
the open sea than of the risky channel, dropped a remark of ambiguous
quality, struck a note that sounded false. What cared Isabel Archer for
the vulgar judgements of obscure people? and did Madame Merle suppose that
she was capable of doing a thing at all if it had to be sneakingly done?
Of course not: she must have meant something else—something which in
the press of the hours that preceded her departure she had not had time to
explain. Isabel would return to this some day; there were sorts of things
as to which she liked to be clear. She heard Pansy strumming at the piano
in another place as she herself was ushered into Mr. Osmond’s
drawing-room; the little girl was “practising,” and Isabel was pleased to
think she performed this duty with rigour. She immediately came in,
smoothing down her frock, and did the honours of her father’s house with a
wide-eyed earnestness of courtesy. Isabel sat there half an hour, and
Pansy rose to the occasion as the small, winged fairy in the pantomime
soars by the aid of the dissimulated wire—not chattering, but
conversing, and showing the same respectful interest in Isabel’s affairs
that Isabel was so good as to take in hers. Isabel wondered at her; she had
never had so directly presented to her nose the white flower of cultivated
sweetness. How well the child had been taught, said our admiring young
woman; how prettily she had been directed and fashioned; and yet how
simple, how natural, how innocent she had been kept! Isabel was fond,
ever, of the question of character and quality, of sounding, as who should
say, the deep personal mystery, and it had pleased her, up to this time,
to be in doubt as to whether this tender slip were not really all-knowing.
Was the extremity of her candour but the perfection of self-consciousness?
Was it put on to please her father’s visitor, or was it the direct
expression of an unspotted nature? The hour that Isabel spent in Mr.
Osmond’s beautiful empty, dusky rooms—the windows had been
half-darkened, to keep out the heat, and here and there, through an easy
crevice, the splendid summer day peeped in, lighting a gleam of faded
colour or tarnished gilt in the rich gloom—her interview with the
daughter of the house, I say, effectually settled this question. Pansy was
really a blank page, a pure white surface, successfully kept so; she had
neither art, nor guile, nor temper, nor talent—only two or three
small exquisite instincts: for knowing a friend, for avoiding a mistake,
for taking care of an old toy or a new frock. Yet to be so tender was to
be touching withal, and she could be felt as an easy victim of fate. She
would have no will, no power to resist, no sense of her own importance;
she would easily be mystified, easily crushed: her force would be all in
knowing when and where to cling. She moved about the place with her
visitor, who had asked leave to walk through the other rooms again, where
Pansy gave her judgement on several works of art. She spoke of her
prospects, her occupations, her father’s intentions; she was not
egotistical, but felt the propriety of supplying the information so
distinguished a guest would naturally expect.

“Please tell me,” she said, “did papa, in Rome, go to see Madame
Catherine? He told me he would if he had time. Perhaps he had not time.
Papa likes a great deal of time. He wished to speak about my education; it
isn’t finished yet, you know. I don’t know what they can do with me more;
but it appears it’s far from finished. Papa told me one day he thought he
would finish it himself; for the last year or two, at the convent, the
masters that teach the tall girls are so very dear. Papa’s not rich, and I
should be very sorry if he were to pay much money for me, because I don’t
think I’m worth it. I don’t learn quickly enough, and I have no memory.
For what I’m told, yes—especially when it’s pleasant; but not for
what I learn in a book. There was a young girl who was my best friend, and
they took her away from the convent, when she was fourteen, to make—how
do you say it in English?—to make a dot. You don’t say it in
English? I hope it isn’t wrong; I only mean they wished to keep the money
to marry her. I don’t know whether it is for that that papa wishes to keep
the money—to marry me. It costs so much to marry!” Pansy went on
with a sigh; “I think papa might make that economy. At any rate I’m too
young to think about it yet, and I don’t care for any gentleman; I mean
for any but him. If he were not my papa I should like to marry him; I
would rather be his daughter than the wife of—of some strange
person. I miss him very much, but not so much as you might think, for I’ve
been so much away from him. Papa has always been principally for holidays.
I miss Madame Catherine almost more; but you must not tell him that. You
shall not see him again? I’m very sorry, and he’ll be sorry too. Of
everyone who comes here I like you the best. That’s not a great
compliment, for there are not many people. It was very kind of you to come
to-day—so far from your house; for I’m really as yet only a child.
Oh, yes, I’ve only the occupations of a child. When did you give
them up, the occupations of a child? I should like to know how old you
are, but I don’t know whether it’s right to ask. At the convent they told
us that we must never ask the age. I don’t like to do anything that’s not
expected; it looks as if one had not been properly taught. I myself—I
should never like to be taken by surprise. Papa left directions for
everything. I go to bed very early. When the sun goes off that side I go
into the garden. Papa left strict orders that I was not to get scorched. I
always enjoy the view; the mountains are so graceful. In Rome, from the
convent, we saw nothing but roofs and bell-towers. I practise three hours.
I don’t play very well. You play yourself? I wish very much you’d play
something for me; papa has the idea that I should hear good music. Madame
Merle has played for me several times; that’s what I like best about
Madame Merle; she has great facility. I shall never have facility. And
I’ve no voice—just a small sound like the squeak of a slate-pencil
making flourishes.”

Isabel gratified this respectful wish, drew off her gloves and sat down to
the piano, while Pansy, standing beside her, watched her white hands move
quickly over the keys. When she stopped she kissed the child good-bye,
held her close, looked at her long. “Be very good,” she said; “give
pleasure to your father.”

“I think that’s what I live for,” Pansy answered. “He has not much
pleasure; he’s rather a sad man.”

Isabel listened to this assertion with an interest which she felt it
almost a torment to be obliged to conceal. It was her pride that obliged
her, and a certain sense of decency; there were still other things in her
head which she felt a strong impulse, instantly checked, to say to Pansy
about her father; there were things it would have given her pleasure to
hear the child, to make the child, say. But she no sooner became conscious
of these things than her imagination was hushed with horror at the idea of
taking advantage of the little girl—it was of this she would have
accused herself—and of exhaling into that air where he might still
have a subtle sense for it any breath of her charmed state. She had come—she
had come; but she had stayed only an hour. She rose quickly from the
music-stool; even then, however, she lingered a moment, still holding her
small companion, drawing the child’s sweet slimness closer and looking
down at her almost in envy. She was obliged to confess it to herself—she
would have taken a passionate pleasure in talking of Gilbert Osmond to
this innocent, diminutive creature who was so near him. But she said no
other word; she only kissed Pansy once again. They went together through
the vestibule, to the door that opened on the court; and there her young
hostess stopped, looking rather wistfully beyond. “I may go no further.
I’ve promised papa not to pass this door.”

“You’re right to obey him; he’ll never ask you anything unreasonable.”

“I shall always obey him. But when will you come again?”

“Not for a long time, I’m afraid.”

“As soon as you can, I hope. I’m only a little girl,” said Pansy, “but I
shall always expect you.” And the small figure stood in the high, dark
doorway, watching Isabel cross the clear, grey court and disappear into
the brightness beyond the big portone, which gave a wider dazzle as
it opened.


CHAPTER XXXI

Isabel came back to Florence, but only after several months; an interval
sufficiently replete with incident. It is not, however, during this
interval that we are closely concerned with her; our attention is engaged
again on a certain day in the late spring-time, shortly after her return
to Palazzo Crescentini and a year from the date of the incidents just
narrated. She was alone on this occasion, in one of the smaller of the
numerous rooms devoted by Mrs. Touchett to social uses, and there was that
in her expression and attitude which would have suggested that she was
expecting a visitor. The tall window was open, and though its green
shutters were partly drawn the bright air of the garden had come in
through a broad interstice and filled the room with warmth and perfume.
Our young woman stood near it for some time, her hands clasped behind her;
she gazed abroad with the vagueness of unrest. Too troubled for attention
she moved in a vain circle. Yet it could not be in her thought to catch a
glimpse of her visitor before he should pass into the house, since the
entrance to the palace was not through the garden, in which stillness and
privacy always reigned. She wished rather to forestall his arrival by a
process of conjecture, and to judge by the expression of her face this
attempt gave her plenty to do. Grave she found herself, and positively
more weighted, as by the experience of the lapse of the year she had spent
in seeing the world. She had ranged, she would have said, through space
and surveyed much of mankind, and was therefore now, in her own eyes, a
very different person from the frivolous young woman from Albany who had
begun to take the measure of Europe on the lawn at Gardencourt a couple of
years before. She flattered herself she had harvested wisdom and learned a
great deal more of life than this light-minded creature had even
suspected. If her thoughts just now had inclined themselves to retrospect,
instead of fluttering their wings nervously about the present, they would
have evoked a multitude of interesting pictures. These pictures would have
been both landscapes and figure-pieces; the latter, however, would have
been the more numerous. With several of the images that might have been
projected on such a field we are already acquainted. There would be for
instance the conciliatory Lily, our heroine’s sister and Edmund Ludlow’s
wife, who had come out from New York to spend five months with her
relative. She had left her husband behind her, but had brought her
children, to whom Isabel now played with equal munificence and tenderness
the part of maiden-aunt. Mr. Ludlow, toward the last, had been able to
snatch a few weeks from his forensic triumphs and, crossing the ocean with
extreme rapidity, had spent a month with the two ladies in Paris before
taking his wife home. The little Ludlows had not yet, even from the
American point of view, reached the proper tourist-age; so that while her
sister was with her Isabel had confined her movements to a narrow circle.
Lily and the babies had joined her in Switzerland in the month of July,
and they had spent a summer of fine weather in an Alpine valley where the
flowers were thick in the meadows and the shade of great chestnuts made a
resting-place for such upward wanderings as might be undertaken by ladies
and children on warm afternoons. They had afterwards reached the French
capital, which was worshipped, and with costly ceremonies, by Lily, but
thought of as noisily vacant by Isabel, who in these days made use of her
memory of Rome as she might have done, in a hot and crowded room, of a
phial of something pungent hidden in her handkerchief.

Mrs. Ludlow sacrificed, as I say, to Paris, yet had doubts and wonderments
not allayed at that altar; and after her husband had joined her found
further chagrin in his failure to throw himself into these speculations.
They all had Isabel for subject; but Edmund Ludlow, as he had always done
before, declined to be surprised, or distressed, or mystified, or elated,
at anything his sister-in-law might have done or have failed to do. Mrs.
Ludlow’s mental motions were sufficiently various. At one moment she
thought it would be so natural for that young woman to come home and take
a house in New York—the Rossiters’, for instance, which had an
elegant conservatory and was just round the corner from her own; at
another she couldn’t conceal her surprise at the girl’s not marrying some
member of one of the great aristocracies. On the whole, as I have said,
she had fallen from high communion with the probabilities. She had taken
more satisfaction in Isabel’s accession of fortune than if the money had
been left to herself; it had seemed to her to offer just the proper
setting for her sister’s slightly meagre, but scarce the less eminent
figure. Isabel had developed less, however, than Lily had thought likely—development,
to Lily’s understanding, being somehow mysteriously connected with
morning-calls and evening-parties. Intellectually, doubtless, she had made
immense strides; but she appeared to have achieved few of those social
conquests of which Mrs. Ludlow had expected to admire the trophies. Lily’s
conception of such achievements was extremely vague; but this was exactly
what she had expected of Isabel—to give it form and body. Isabel
could have done as well as she had done in New York; and Mrs. Ludlow
appealed to her husband to know whether there was any privilege she
enjoyed in Europe which the society of that city might not offer her. We
know ourselves that Isabel had made conquests—whether inferior or
not to those she might have effected in her native land it would be a
delicate matter to decide; and it is not altogether with a feeling of
complacency that I again mention that she had not rendered these
honourable victories public. She had not told her sister the history of
Lord Warburton, nor had she given her a hint of Mr. Osmond’s state of
mind; and she had had no better reason for her silence than that she
didn’t wish to speak. It was more romantic to say nothing, and, drinking
deep, in secret, of romance, she was as little disposed to ask poor Lily’s
advice as she would have been to close that rare volume forever. But Lily
knew nothing of these discriminations, and could only pronounce her
sister’s career a strange anti-climax—an impression confirmed by the
fact that Isabel’s silence about Mr. Osmond, for instance, was in direct
proportion to the frequency with which he occupied her thoughts. As this
happened very often it sometimes appeared to Mrs. Ludlow that she had lost
her courage. So uncanny a result of so exhilarating an incident as
inheriting a fortune was of course perplexing to the cheerful Lily; it
added to her general sense that Isabel was not at all like other people.

Our young lady’s courage, however, might have been taken as reaching its
height after her relations had gone home. She could imagine braver things
than spending the winter in Paris—Paris had sides by which it so
resembled New York, Paris was like smart, neat prose—and her close
correspondence with Madame Merle did much to stimulate such flights. She
had never had a keener sense of freedom, of the absolute boldness and
wantonness of liberty, than when she turned away from the platform at the
Euston Station on one of the last days of November, after the departure of
the train that was to convey poor Lily, her husband and her children to
their ship at Liverpool. It had been good for her to regale; she was very
conscious of that; she was very observant, as we know, of what was good
for her, and her effort was constantly to find something that was good
enough. To profit by the present advantage till the latest moment she had
made the journey from Paris with the unenvied travellers. She would have
accompanied them to Liverpool as well, only Edmund Ludlow had asked her,
as a favour, not to do so; it made Lily so fidgety and she asked such
impossible questions. Isabel watched the train move away; she kissed her
hand to the elder of her small nephews, a demonstrative child who leaned
dangerously far out of the window of the carriage and made separation an
occasion of violent hilarity, and then she walked back into the foggy
London street. The world lay before her—she could do whatever she
chose. There was a deep thrill in it all, but for the present her choice
was tolerably discreet; she chose simply to walk back from Euston Square
to her hotel. The early dusk of a November afternoon had already closed
in; the street-lamps, in the thick, brown air, looked weak and red; our
heroine was unattended and Euston Square was a long way from Piccadilly.
But Isabel performed the journey with a positive enjoyment of its dangers
and lost her way almost on purpose, in order to get more sensations, so
that she was disappointed when an obliging policeman easily set her right
again. She was so fond of the spectacle of human life that she enjoyed
even the aspect of gathering dusk in the London streets—the moving
crowds, the hurrying cabs, the lighted shops, the flaring stalls, the
dark, shining dampness of everything. That evening, at her hotel, she
wrote to Madame Merle that she should start in a day or two for Rome. She
made her way down to Rome without touching at Florence—having gone
first to Venice and then proceeded southward by Ancona. She accomplished
this journey without other assistance than that of her servant, for her
natural protectors were not now on the ground. Ralph Touchett was spending
the winter at Corfu, and Miss Stackpole, in the September previous, had
been recalled to America by a telegram from the Interviewer. This
journal offered its brilliant correspondent a fresher field for her genius
than the mouldering cities of Europe, and Henrietta was cheered on her way
by a promise from Mr. Bantling that he would soon come over to see her.
Isabel wrote to Mrs. Touchett to apologise for not presenting herself just
yet in Florence, and her aunt replied characteristically enough.
Apologies, Mrs. Touchett intimated, were of no more use to her than
bubbles, and she herself never dealt in such articles. One either did the
thing or one didn’t, and what one “would” have done belonged to the sphere
of the irrelevant, like the idea of a future life or of the origin of
things. Her letter was frank, but (a rare case with Mrs. Touchett) not so
frank as it pretended. She easily forgave her niece for not stopping at
Florence, because she took it for a sign that Gilbert Osmond was less in
question there than formerly. She watched of course to see if he would now
find a pretext for going to Rome, and derived some comfort from learning
that he had not been guilty of an absence. Isabel, on her side, had not
been a fortnight in Rome before she proposed to Madame Merle that they
should make a little pilgrimage to the East. Madame Merle remarked that
her friend was restless, but she added that she herself had always been
consumed with the desire to visit Athens and Constantinople. The two
ladies accordingly embarked on this expedition, and spent three months in
Greece, in Turkey, in Egypt. Isabel found much to interest her in these
countries, though Madame Merle continued to remark that even among the
most classic sites, the scenes most calculated to suggest repose and
reflexion, a certain incoherence prevailed in her. Isabel travelled
rapidly and recklessly; she was like a thirsty person draining cup after
cup. Madame Merle meanwhile, as lady-in-waiting to a princess circulating
incognita, panted a little in her rear. It was on Isabel’s
invitation she had come, and she imparted all due dignity to the girl’s
uncountenanced state. She played her part with the tact that might have
been expected of her, effacing herself and accepting the position of a
companion whose expenses were profusely paid. The situation, however, had
no hardships, and people who met this reserved though striking pair on
their travels would not have been able to tell you which was patroness and
which client. To say that Madame Merle improved on acquaintance states
meagrely the impression she made on her friend, who had found her from the
first so ample and so easy. At the end of an intimacy of three months
Isabel felt she knew her better; her character had revealed itself, and
the admirable woman had also at last redeemed her promise of relating her
history from her own point of view—a consummation the more desirable
as Isabel had already heard it related from the point of view of others.
This history was so sad a one (in so far as it concerned the late M.
Merle, a positive adventurer, she might say, though originally so
plausible, who had taken advantage, years before, of her youth and of an
inexperience in which doubtless those who knew her only now would find it
difficult to believe); it abounded so in startling and lamentable
incidents that her companion wondered a person so eprouvée could
have kept so much of her freshness, her interest in life. Into this
freshness of Madame Merle’s she obtained a considerable insight; she
seemed to see it as professional, as slightly mechanical, carried about in
its case like the fiddle of the virtuoso, or blanketed and bridled like
the “favourite” of the jockey. She liked her as much as ever, but there
was a corner of the curtain that never was lifted; it was as if she had
remained after all something of a public performer, condemned to emerge
only in character and in costume. She had once said that she came from a
distance, that she belonged to the “old, old” world, and Isabel never lost
the impression that she was the product of a different moral or social
clime from her own, that she had grown up under other stars.

She believed then that at bottom she had a different morality. Of course
the morality of civilised persons has always much in common; but our young
woman had a sense in her of values gone wrong or, as they said at the
shops, marked down. She considered, with the presumption of youth, that a
morality differing from her own must be inferior to it; and this
conviction was an aid to detecting an occasional flash of cruelty, an
occasional lapse from candour, in the conversation of a person who had
raised delicate kindness to an art and whose pride was too high for the
narrow ways of deception. Her conception of human motives might, in
certain lights, have been acquired at the court of some kingdom in
decadence, and there were several in her list of which our heroine had not
even heard. She had not heard of everything, that was very plain; and
there were evidently things in the world of which it was not advantageous
to hear. She had once or twice had a positive scare; since it so affected
her to have to exclaim, of her friend, “Heaven forgive her, she doesn’t
understand me!” Absurd as it may seem this discovery operated as a shock,
left her with a vague dismay in which there was even an element of
foreboding. The dismay of course subsided, in the light of some sudden
proof of Madame Merle’s remarkable intelligence; but it stood for a
high-water-mark in the ebb and flow of confidence. Madame Merle had once
declared her belief that when a friendship ceases to grow it immediately
begins to decline—there being no point of equilibrium between liking
more and liking less. A stationary affection, in other words, was
impossible—it must move one way or the other. However that might be,
the girl had in these days a thousand uses for her sense of the romantic,
which was more active than it had ever been. I do not allude to the
impulse it received as she gazed at the Pyramids in the course of an
excursion from Cairo, or as she stood among the broken columns of the
Acropolis and fixed her eyes upon the point designated to her as the
Strait of Salamis; deep and memorable as these emotions had remained. She
came back by the last of March from Egypt and Greece and made another stay
in Rome. A few days after her arrival Gilbert Osmond descended from
Florence and remained three weeks, during which the fact of her being with
his old friend Madame Merle, in whose house she had gone to lodge, made it
virtually inevitable that he should see her every day. When the last of
April came she wrote to Mrs. Touchett that she should now rejoice to
accept an invitation given long before, and went to pay a visit at Palazzo
Crescentini, Madame Merle on this occasion remaining in Rome. She found
her aunt alone; her cousin was still at Corfu. Ralph, however, was
expected in Florence from day to day, and Isabel, who had not seen him for
upwards of a year, was prepared to give him the most affectionate welcome.


CHAPTER XXXII

It was not of him, nevertheless, that she was thinking while she stood at
the window near which we found her a while ago, and it was not of any of
the matters I have rapidly sketched. She was not turned to the past, but
to the immediate, impending hour. She had reason to expect a scene, and
she was not fond of scenes. She was not asking herself what she should say
to her visitor; this question had already been answered. What he would say
to her—that was the interesting issue. It could be nothing in the
least soothing—she had warrant for this, and the conviction
doubtless showed in the cloud on her brow. For the rest, however, all
clearness reigned in her; she had put away her mourning and she walked in
no small shimmering splendour. She only, felt older—ever so much,
and as if she were “worth more” for it, like some curious piece in an
antiquary’s collection. She was not at any rate left indefinitely to her
apprehensions, for a servant at last stood before her with a card on his
tray. “Let the gentleman come in,” she said, and continued to gaze out of
the window after the footman had retired. It was only when she had heard
the door close behind the person who presently entered that she looked
round.

Caspar Goodwood stood there—stood and received a moment, from head
to foot, the bright, dry gaze with which she rather withheld than offered
a greeting. Whether his sense of maturity had kept pace with Isabel’s we
shall perhaps presently ascertain; let me say meanwhile that to her
critical glance he showed nothing of the injury of time. Straight, strong
and hard, there was nothing in his appearance that spoke positively either
of youth or of age; if he had neither innocence nor weakness, so he had no
practical philosophy. His jaw showed the same voluntary cast as in earlier
days; but a crisis like the present had in it of course something grim. He
had the air of a man who had travelled hard; he said nothing at first, as
if he had been out of breath. This gave Isabel time to make a reflexion:
“Poor fellow, what great things he’s capable of, and what a pity he should
waste so dreadfully his splendid force! What a pity too that one can’t
satisfy everybody!” It gave her time to do more to say at the end of a
minute: “I can’t tell you how I hoped you wouldn’t come!”

“I’ve no doubt of that.” And he looked about him for a seat. Not only had
he come, but he meant to settle.

“You must be very tired,” said Isabel, seating herself, and generously, as
she thought, to give him his opportunity.

“No, I’m not at all tired. Did you ever know me to be tired?”

“Never; I wish I had! When did you arrive?”

“Last night, very late; in a kind of snail-train they call the express.
These Italian trains go at about the rate of an American funeral.”

“That’s in keeping—you must have felt as if you were coming to bury
me!” And she forced a smile of encouragement to an easy view of their
situation. She had reasoned the matter well out, making it perfectly clear
that she broke no faith and falsified no contract; but for all this she
was afraid of her visitor. She was ashamed of her fear; but she was
devoutly thankful there was nothing else to be ashamed of. He looked at
her with his stiff insistence, an insistence in which there was such a
want of tact; especially when the dull dark beam in his eye rested on her
as a physical weight.

“No, I didn’t feel that; I couldn’t think of you as dead. I wish I could!”
he candidly declared.

“I thank you immensely.”

“I’d rather think of you as dead than as married to another man.”

“That’s very selfish of you!” she returned with the ardour of a real
conviction. “If you’re not happy yourself others have yet a right to be.”

“Very likely it’s selfish; but I don’t in the least mind your saying so. I
don’t mind anything you can say now—I don’t feel it. The cruellest
things you could think of would be mere pin-pricks. After what you’ve done
I shall never feel anything—I mean anything but that. That I shall
feel all my life.”

Mr. Goodwood made these detached assertions with dry deliberateness, in
his hard, slow American tone, which flung no atmospheric colour over
propositions intrinsically crude. The tone made Isabel angry rather than
touched her; but her anger perhaps was fortunate, inasmuch as it gave her
a further reason for controlling herself. It was under the pressure of
this control that she became, after a little, irrelevant. “When did you
leave New York?”

He threw up his head as if calculating. “Seventeen days ago.”

“You must have travelled fast in spite of your slow trains.”

“I came as fast as I could. I’d have come five days ago if I had been
able.”

“It wouldn’t have made any difference, Mr. Goodwood,” she coldly smiled.

“Not to you—no. But to me.”

“You gain nothing that I see.”

“That’s for me to judge!”

“Of course. To me it seems that you only torment yourself.” And then, to
change the subject, she asked him if he had seen Henrietta Stackpole. He
looked as if he had not come from Boston to Florence to talk of Henrietta
Stackpole; but he answered, distinctly enough, that this young lady had
been with him just before he left America. “She came to see you?” Isabel
then demanded.

“Yes, she was in Boston, and she called at my office. It was the day I had
got your letter.”

“Did you tell her?” Isabel asked with a certain anxiety.

“Oh no,” said Caspar Goodwood simply; “I didn’t want to do that. She’ll
hear it quick enough; she hears everything.”

“I shall write to her, and then she’ll write to me and scold me,” Isabel
declared, trying to smile again.

Caspar, however, remained sternly grave. “I guess she’ll come right out,”
he said.

“On purpose to scold me?”

“I don’t know. She seemed to think she had not seen Europe thoroughly.”

“I’m glad you tell me that,” Isabel said. “I must prepare for her.”

Mr. Goodwood fixed his eyes for a moment on the floor; then at last,
raising them, “Does she know Mr. Osmond?” he enquired.

“A little. And she doesn’t like him. But of course I don’t marry to please
Henrietta,” she added. It would have been better for poor Caspar if she
had tried a little more to gratify Miss Stackpole; but he didn’t say so;
he only asked, presently, when her marriage would take place. To which she
made answer that she didn’t know yet. “I can only say it will be soon.
I’ve told no one but yourself and one other person—an old friend of
Mr. Osmond’s.”

“Is it a marriage your friends won’t like?” he demanded.

“I really haven’t an idea. As I say, I don’t marry for my friends.”

He went on, making no exclamation, no comment, only asking questions,
doing it quite without delicacy. “Who and what then is Mr. Gilbert
Osmond?”

“Who and what? Nobody and nothing but a very good and very honourable man.
He’s not in business,” said Isabel. “He’s not rich; he’s not known for
anything in particular.”

She disliked Mr. Goodwood’s questions, but she said to herself that she
owed it to him to satisfy him as far as possible. The satisfaction poor
Caspar exhibited was, however, small; he sat very upright, gazing at her.
“Where does he come from? Where does he belong?”

She had never been so little pleased with the way he said “belawng.” “He
comes from nowhere. He has spent most of his life in Italy.”

“You said in your letter he was American. Hasn’t he a native place?”

“Yes, but he has forgotten it. He left it as a small boy.”

“Has he never gone back?”

“Why should he go back?” Isabel asked, flushing all defensively. “He has
no profession.”

“He might have gone back for his pleasure. Doesn’t he like the United
States?”

“He doesn’t know them. Then he’s very quiet and very simple—he
contents himself with Italy.”

“With Italy and with you,” said Mr. Goodwood with gloomy plainness and no
appearance of trying to make an epigram. “What has he ever done?” he added
abruptly.

“That I should marry him? Nothing at all,” Isabel replied while her
patience helped itself by turning a little to hardness. “If he had done
great things would you forgive me any better? Give me up, Mr. Goodwood;
I’m marrying a perfect nonentity. Don’t try to take an interest in him.
You can’t.”

“I can’t appreciate him; that’s what you mean. And you don’t mean in the
least that he’s a perfect nonentity. You think he’s grand, you think he’s
great, though no one else thinks so.”

Isabel’s colour deepened; she felt this really acute of her companion, and
it was certainly a proof of the aid that passion might render perceptions
she had never taken for fine. “Why do you always comeback to what others
think? I can’t discuss Mr. Osmond with you.”

“Of course not,” said Caspar reasonably. And he sat there with his air of
stiff helplessness, as if not only this were true, but there were nothing
else that they might discuss.

“You see how little you gain,” she accordingly broke out—“how little
comfort or satisfaction I can give you.”

“I didn’t expect you to give me much.”

“I don’t understand then why you came.”

“I came because I wanted to see you once more—even just as you are.”

“I appreciate that; but if you had waited a while, sooner or later we
should have been sure to meet, and our meeting would have been pleasanter
for each of us than this.”

“Waited till after you’re married? That’s just what I didn’t want to do.
You’ll be different then.”

“Not very. I shall still be a great friend of yours. You’ll see.”

“That will make it all the worse,” said Mr. Goodwood grimly.

“Ah, you’re unaccommodating! I can’t promise to dislike you in order to
help you to resign yourself.”

“I shouldn’t care if you did!”

Isabel got up with a movement of repressed impatience and walked to the
window, where she remained a moment looking out. When she turned round her
visitor was still motionless in his place. She came toward him again and
stopped, resting her hand on the back of the chair she had just quitted.
“Do you mean you came simply to look at me? That’s better for you perhaps
than for me.”

“I wished to hear the sound of your voice,” he said.

“You’ve heard it, and you see it says nothing very sweet.”

“It gives me pleasure, all the same.” And with this he got up. She had
felt pain and displeasure on receiving early that day the news he was in
Florence and by her leave would come within an hour to see her. She had
been vexed and distressed, though she had sent back word by his messenger
that he might come when he would. She had not been better pleased when she
saw him; his being there at all was so full of heavy implications. It
implied things she could never assent to—rights, reproaches,
remonstrance, rebuke, the expectation of making her change her purpose.
These things, however, if implied, had not been expressed; and now our
young lady, strangely enough, began to resent her visitor’s remarkable
self-control. There was a dumb misery about him that irritated her; there
was a manly staying of his hand that made her heart beat faster. She felt
her agitation rising, and she said to herself that she was angry in the
way a woman is angry when she has been in the wrong. She was not in the
wrong; she had fortunately not that bitterness to swallow; but, all the
same, she wished he would denounce her a little. She had wished his visit
would be short; it had no purpose, no propriety; yet now that he seemed to
be turning away she felt a sudden horror of his leaving her without
uttering a word that would give her an opportunity to defend herself more
than she had done in writing to him a month before, in a few carefully
chosen words, to announce her engagement. If she were not in the wrong,
however, why should she desire to defend herself? It was an excess of
generosity on Isabel’s part to desire that Mr. Goodwood should be angry.
And if he had not meanwhile held himself hard it might have made him so to
hear the tone in which she suddenly exclaimed, as if she were accusing him
of having accused her: “I’ve not deceived you! I was perfectly free!”

“Yes, I know that,” said Caspar.

“I gave you full warning that I’d do as I chose.”

“You said you’d probably never marry, and you said it with such a manner
that I pretty well believed it.”

She considered this an instant. “No one can be more surprised than myself
at my present intention.”

“You told me that if I heard you were engaged I was not to believe it,”
Caspar went on. “I heard it twenty days ago from yourself, but I
remembered what you had said. I thought there might be some mistake, and
that’s partly why I came.”

“If you wish me to repeat it by word of mouth, that’s soon done. There’s
no mistake whatever.”

“I saw that as soon as I came into the room.”

“What good would it do you that I shouldn’t marry?” she asked with a
certain fierceness.

“I should like it better than this.”

“You’re very selfish, as I said before.”

“I know that. I’m selfish as iron.”

“Even iron sometimes melts! If you’ll be reasonable I’ll see you again.”

“Don’t you call me reasonable now?”

“I don’t know what to say to you,” she answered with sudden humility.

“I shan’t trouble you for a long time,” the young man went on. He made a
step towards the door, but he stopped. “Another reason why I came was that
I wanted to hear what you would say in explanation of your having changed
your mind.”

Her humbleness as suddenly deserted her. “In explanation? Do you think I’m
bound to explain?”

He gave her one of his long dumb looks. “You were very positive. I did
believe it.”

“So did I. Do you think I could explain if I would?”

“No, I suppose not. Well,” he added, “I’ve done what I wished. I’ve seen
you.”

“How little you make of these terrible journeys,” she felt the poverty of
her presently replying.

“If you’re afraid I’m knocked up—in any such way as that—you
may he at your ease about it.” He turned away, this time in earnest, and
no hand-shake, no sign of parting, was exchanged between them.

At the door he stopped with his hand on the knob. “I shall leave Florence
to-morrow,” he said without a quaver.

“I’m delighted to hear it!” she answered passionately. Five minutes after
he had gone out she burst into tears.


CHAPTER XXXIII

Her fit of weeping, however, was soon smothered, and the signs of it had
vanished when, an hour later, she broke the news to her aunt. I use this
expression because she had been sure Mrs. Touchett would not be pleased;
Isabel had only waited to tell her till she had seen Mr. Goodwood. She had
an odd impression that it would not be honourable to make the fact public
before she should have heard what Mr. Goodwood would say about it. He had
said rather less than she expected, and she now had a somewhat angry sense
of having lost time. But she would lose no more; she waited till Mrs.
Touchett came into the drawing-room before the mid-day breakfast, and then
she began. “Aunt Lydia, I’ve something to tell you.”

Mrs. Touchett gave a little jump and looked at her almost fiercely. “You
needn’t tell me; I know what it is.”

“I don’t know how you know.”

“The same way that I know when the window’s open—by feeling a
draught. You’re going to marry that man.”

“What man do you mean?” Isabel enquired with great dignity.

“Madame Merle’s friend—Mr. Osmond.”

“I don’t know why you call him Madame Merle’s friend. Is that the
principal thing he’s known by?”

“If he’s not her friend he ought to be—after what she has done for
him!” cried Mrs. Touchett. “I shouldn’t have expected it of her; I’m
disappointed.”

“If you mean that Madame Merle has had anything to do with my engagement
you’re greatly mistaken,” Isabel declared with a sort of ardent coldness.

“You mean that your attractions were sufficient, without the gentleman’s
having had to be lashed up? You’re quite right. They’re immense, your
attractions, and he would never have presumed to think of you if she
hadn’t put him up to it. He has a very good opinion of himself, but he was
not a man to take trouble. Madame Merle took the trouble for him.”

“He has taken a great deal for himself!” cried Isabel with a voluntary
laugh.

Mrs. Touchett gave a sharp nod. “I think he must, after all, to have made
you like him so much.”

“I thought he even pleased you.”

“He did, at one time; and that’s why I’m angry with him.”

“Be angry with me, not with him,” said the girl.

“Oh, I’m always angry with you; that’s no satisfaction! Was it for this
that you refused Lord Warburton?”

“Please don’t go back to that. Why shouldn’t I like Mr. Osmond, since
others have done so?”

“Others, at their wildest moments, never wanted to marry him. There’s
nothing of him,” Mrs. Touchett explained.

“Then he can’t hurt me,” said Isabel.

“Do you think you’re going to be happy? No one’s happy, in such doings,
you should know.”

“I shall set the fashion then. What does one marry for?”

“What you will marry for, heaven only knows. People usually marry
as they go into partnership—to set up a house. But in your
partnership you’ll bring everything.”

“Is it that Mr. Osmond isn’t rich? Is that what you’re talking about?”
Isabel asked.

“He has no money; he has no name; he has no importance. I value such
things and I have the courage to say it; I think they’re very precious.
Many other people think the same, and they show it. But they give some
other reason.”

Isabel hesitated a little. “I think I value everything that’s valuable. I
care very much for money, and that’s why I wish Mr. Osmond to have a
little.”

“Give it to him then; but marry some one else.”

“His name’s good enough for me,” the girl went on. “It’s a very pretty
name. Have I such a fine one myself?”

“All the more reason you should improve on it. There are only a dozen
American names. Do you marry him out of charity?”

“It was my duty to tell you, Aunt Lydia, but I don’t think it’s my duty to
explain to you. Even if it were I shouldn’t be able. So please don’t
remonstrate; in talking about it you have me at a disadvantage. I can’t
talk about it.”

“I don’t remonstrate, I simply answer you: I must give some sign of
intelligence. I saw it coming, and I said nothing. I never meddle.”

“You never do, and I’m greatly obliged to you. You’ve been very
considerate.”

“It was not considerate—it was convenient,” said Mrs. Touchett. “But
I shall talk to Madame Merle.”

“I don’t see why you keep bringing her in. She has been a very good friend
to me.”

“Possibly; but she has been a poor one to me.”

“What has she done to you?”

“She has deceived me. She had as good as promised me to prevent your
engagement.”

“She couldn’t have prevented it.”

“She can do anything; that’s what I’ve always liked her for. I knew she
could play any part; but I understood that she played them one by one. I
didn’t understand that she would play two at the same time.”

“I don’t know what part she may have played to you,” Isabel said; “that’s
between yourselves. To me she has been honest and kind and devoted.”

“Devoted, of course; she wished you to marry her candidate. She told me
she was watching you only in order to interpose.”

“She said that to please you,” the girl answered; conscious, however, of
the inadequacy of the explanation.

“To please me by deceiving me? She knows me better. Am I pleased to-day?”

“I don’t think you’re ever much pleased,” Isabel was obliged to reply. “If
Madame Merle knew you would learn the truth what had she to gain by
insincerity?”

“She gained time, as you see. While I waited for her to interfere you were
marching away, and she was really beating the drum.”

“That’s very well. But by your own admission you saw I was marching, and
even if she had given the alarm you wouldn’t have tried to stop me.”

“No, but some one else would.”

“Whom do you mean?” Isabel asked, looking very hard at her aunt. Mrs.
Touchett’s little bright eyes, active as they usually were, sustained her
gaze rather than returned it. “Would you have listened to Ralph?”

“Not if he had abused Mr. Osmond.”

“Ralph doesn’t abuse people; you know that perfectly. He cares very much
for you.”

“I know he does,” said Isabel; “and I shall feel the value of it now, for
he knows that whatever I do I do with reason.”

“He never believed you would do this. I told him you were capable of it,
and he argued the other way.”

“He did it for the sake of argument,” the girl smiled. “You don’t accuse
him of having deceived you; why should you accuse Madame Merle?”

“He never pretended he’d prevent it.”

“I’m glad of that!” cried Isabel gaily. “I wish very much,” she presently
added, “that when he comes you’d tell him first of my engagement.”

“Of course I’ll mention it,” said Mrs. Touchett. “I shall say nothing more
to you about it, but I give you notice I shall talk to others.”

“That’s as you please. I only meant that it’s rather better the
announcement should come from you than from me.”

“I quite agree with you; it’s much more proper!” And on this the aunt and
the niece went to breakfast, where Mrs. Touchett, as good as her word,
made no allusion to Gilbert Osmond. After an interval of silence, however,
she asked her companion from whom she had received a visit an hour before.

“From an old friend—an American gentleman,” Isabel said with a
colour in her cheek.

“An American gentleman of course. It’s only an American gentleman who
calls at ten o’clock in the morning.”

“It was half-past ten; he was in a great hurry; he goes away this
evening.”

“Couldn’t he have come yesterday, at the usual time?”

“He only arrived last night.”

“He spends but twenty-four hours in Florence?” Mrs. Touchett cried. “He’s
an American gentleman truly.”

“He is indeed,” said Isabel, thinking with perverse admiration of what
Caspar Goodwood had done for her.

Two days afterward Ralph arrived; but though Isabel was sure that Mrs.
Touchett had lost no time in imparting to him the great fact, he showed at
first no open knowledge of it. Their prompted talk was naturally of his
health; Isabel had many questions to ask about Corfu. She had been shocked
by his appearance when he came into the room; she had forgotten how ill he
looked. In spite of Corfu he looked very ill to-day, and she wondered if
he were really worse or if she were simply disaccustomed to living with an
invalid. Poor Ralph made no nearer approach to conventional beauty as he
advanced in life, and the now apparently complete loss of his health had
done little to mitigate the natural oddity of his person. Blighted and
battered, but still responsive and still ironic, his face was like a
lighted lantern patched with paper and unsteadily held; his thin whisker
languished upon a lean cheek; the exorbitant curve of his nose defined
itself more sharply. Lean he was altogether, lean and long and
loose-jointed; an accidental cohesion of relaxed angles. His brown velvet
jacket had become perennial; his hands had fixed themselves in his
pockets; he shambled and stumbled and shuffled in a manner that denoted
great physical helplessness. It was perhaps this whimsical gait that
helped to mark his character more than ever as that of the humorous
invalid—the invalid for whom even his own disabilities are part of
the general joke. They might well indeed with Ralph have been the chief
cause of the want of seriousness marking his view of a world in which the
reason for his own continued presence was past finding out. Isabel had
grown fond of his ugliness; his awkwardness had become dear to her. They
had been sweetened by association; they struck her as the very terms on
which it had been given him to be charming. He was so charming that her
sense of his being ill had hitherto had a sort of comfort in it; the state
of his health had seemed not a limitation, but a kind of intellectual
advantage; it absolved him from all professional and official emotions and
left him the luxury of being exclusively personal. The personality so
resulting was delightful; he had remained proof against the staleness of
disease; he had had to consent to be deplorably ill, yet had somehow
escaped being formally sick. Such had been the girl’s impression of her
cousin; and when she had pitied him it was only on reflection. As she
reflected a good deal she had allowed him a certain amount of compassion;
but she always had a dread of wasting that essence—a precious
article, worth more to the giver than to any one else. Now, however, it
took no great sensibility to feel that poor Ralph’s tenure of life was
less elastic than it should be. He was a bright, free, generous spirit, he
had all the illumination of wisdom and none of its pedantry, and yet he
was distressfully dying.

Isabel noted afresh that life was certainly hard for some people, and she
felt a delicate glow of shame as she thought how easy it now promised to
become for herself. She was prepared to learn that Ralph was not pleased
with her engagement; but she was not prepared, in spite of her affection
for him, to let this fact spoil the situation. She was not even prepared,
or so she thought, to resent his want of sympathy; for it would be his
privilege—it would be indeed his natural line—to find fault
with any step she might take toward marriage. One’s cousin always
pretended to hate one’s husband; that was traditional, classical; it was a
part of one’s cousin’s always pretending to adore one. Ralph was nothing
if not critical; and though she would certainly, other things being equal,
have been as glad to marry to please him as to please any one, it would be
absurd to regard as important that her choice should square with his
views. What were his views after all? He had pretended to believe she had
better have married Lord Warburton; but this was only because she had
refused that excellent man. If she had accepted him Ralph would certainly
have taken another tone; he always took the opposite. You could criticise
any marriage; it was the essence of a marriage to be open to criticism.
How well she herself, should she only give her mind to it, might criticise
this union of her own! She had other employment, however, and Ralph was
welcome to relieve her of the care. Isabel was prepared to be most patient
and most indulgent. He must have seen that, and this made it the more odd
he should say nothing. After three days had elapsed without his speaking
our young woman wearied of waiting; dislike it as he would, he might at
least go through the form. We, who know more about poor Ralph than his
cousin, may easily believe that during the hours that followed his arrival
at Palazzo Crescentini he had privately gone through many forms. His
mother had literally greeted him with the great news, which had been even
more sensibly chilling than Mrs. Touchett’s maternal kiss. Ralph was
shocked and humiliated; his calculations had been false and the person in
the world in whom he was most interested was lost. He drifted about the
house like a rudderless vessel in a rocky stream, or sat in the garden of
the palace on a great cane chair, his long legs extended, his head thrown
back and his hat pulled over his eyes. He felt cold about the heart; he
had never liked anything less. What could he do, what could he say? If the
girl were irreclaimable could he pretend to like it? To attempt to reclaim
her was permissible only if the attempt should succeed. To try to persuade
her of anything sordid or sinister in the man to whose deep art she had
succumbed would be decently discreet only in the event of her being
persuaded. Otherwise he should simply have damned himself. It cost him an
equal effort to speak his thought and to dissemble; he could neither
assent with sincerity nor protest with hope. Meanwhile he knew—or
rather he supposed—that the affianced pair were daily renewing their
mutual vows. Osmond at this moment showed himself little at Palazzo
Crescentini; but Isabel met him every day elsewhere, as she was free to do
after their engagement had been made public. She had taken a carriage by
the month, so as not to be indebted to her aunt for the means of pursuing
a course of which Mrs. Touchett disapproved, and she drove in the morning
to the Cascine. This suburban wilderness, during the early hours, was void
of all intruders, and our young lady, joined by her lover in its quietest
part, strolled with him a while through the grey Italian shade and
listened to the nightingales.


CHAPTER XXXIV

One morning, on her return from her drive, some half-hour before luncheon,
she quitted her vehicle in the court of the palace and, instead of
ascending the great staircase, crossed the court, passed beneath another
archway and entered the garden. A sweeter spot at this moment could not
have been imagined. The stillness of noontide hung over it, and the warm
shade, enclosed and still, made bowers like spacious caves. Ralph was
sitting there in the clear gloom, at the base of a statue of Terpsichore—a
dancing nymph with taper fingers and inflated draperies in the manner of
Bernini; the extreme relaxation of his attitude suggested at first to
Isabel that he was asleep. Her light footstep on the grass had not roused
him, and before turning away she stood for a moment looking at him. During
this instant he opened his eyes; upon which she sat down on a rustic chair
that matched with his own. Though in her irritation she had accused him of
indifference she was not blind to the fact that he had visibly had
something to brood over. But she had explained his air of absence partly
by the languor of his increased weakness, partly by worries connected with
the property inherited from his father—the fruit of eccentric
arrangements of which Mrs. Touchett disapproved and which, as she had told
Isabel, now encountered opposition from the other partners in the bank. He
ought to have gone to England, his mother said, instead of coming to
Florence; he had not been there for months, and took no more interest in
the bank than in the state of Patagonia.

“I’m sorry I waked you,” Isabel said; “you look too tired.”

“I feel too tired. But I was not asleep. I was thinking of you.”

“Are you tired of that?”

“Very much so. It leads to nothing. The road’s long and I never arrive.”

“What do you wish to arrive at?” she put to him, closing her parasol.

“At the point of expressing to myself properly what I think of your
engagement.”

“Don’t think too much of it,” she lightly returned.

“Do you mean that it’s none of my business?”

“Beyond a certain point, yes.”

“That’s the point I want to fix. I had an idea you may have found me
wanting in good manners. I’ve never congratulated you.”

“Of course I’ve noticed that. I wondered why you were silent.”

“There have been a good many reasons. I’ll tell you now,” Ralph said. He
pulled off his hat and laid it on the ground; then he sat looking at her.
He leaned back under the protection of Bernini, his head against his
marble pedestal, his arms dropped on either side of him, his hands laid
upon the rests of his wide chair. He looked awkward, uncomfortable; he
hesitated long. Isabel said nothing; when people were embarrassed she was
usually sorry for them, but she was determined not to help Ralph to utter
a word that should not be to the honour of her high decision. “I think
I’ve hardly got over my surprise,” he went on at last. “You were the last
person I expected to see caught.”

“I don’t know why you call it caught.”

“Because you’re going to be put into a cage.”

“If I like my cage, that needn’t trouble you,” she answered.

“That’s what I wonder at; that’s what I’ve been thinking of.”

“If you’ve been thinking you may imagine how I’ve thought! I’m satisfied
that I’m doing well.”

“You must have changed immensely. A year ago you valued your liberty
beyond everything. You wanted only to see life.”

“I’ve seen it,” said Isabel. “It doesn’t look to me now, I admit, such an
inviting expanse.”

“I don’t pretend it is; only I had an idea that you took a genial view of
it and wanted to survey the whole field.”

“I’ve seen that one can’t do anything so general. One must choose a corner
and cultivate that.”

“That’s what I think. And one must choose as good a corner as possible. I
had no idea, all winter, while I read your delightful letters, that you
were choosing. You said nothing about it, and your silence put me off my
guard.”

“It was not a matter I was likely to write to you about. Besides, I knew
nothing of the future. It has all come lately. If you had been on your
guard, however,” Isabel asked, “what would you have done?”

“I should have said ‘Wait a little longer.’”

“Wait for what?”

“Well, for a little more light,” said Ralph with rather an absurd smile,
while his hands found their way into his pockets.

“Where should my light have come from? From you?”

“I might have struck a spark or two.”

Isabel had drawn off her gloves; she smoothed them out as they lay upon
her knee. The mildness of this movement was accidental, for her expression
was not conciliatory. “You’re beating about the bush, Ralph. You wish to
say you don’t like Mr. Osmond, and yet you’re afraid.”

“Willing to wound and yet afraid to strike? I’m willing to wound him,
yes—but not to wound you. I’m afraid of you, not of him. If you
marry him it won’t be a fortunate way for me to have spoken.”

“If I marry him! Have you had any expectation of dissuading me?”

“Of course that seems to you too fatuous.”

“No,” said Isabel after a little; “it seems to me too touching.”

“That’s the same thing. It makes me so ridiculous that you pity me.”

She stroked out her long gloves again. “I know you’ve a great affection
for me. I can’t get rid of that.”

“For heaven’s sake don’t try. Keep that well in sight. It will convince
you how intensely I want you to do well.”

“And how little you trust me!”

There was a moment’s silence; the warm noontide seemed to listen. “I trust
you, but I don’t trust him,” said Ralph.

She raised her eyes and gave him a wide, deep look. “You’ve said it now,
and I’m glad you’ve made it so clear. But you’ll suffer by it.”

“Not if you’re just.”

“I’m very just,” said Isabel. “What better proof of it can there be than
that I’m not angry with you? I don’t know what’s the matter with me, but
I’m not. I was when you began, but it has passed away. Perhaps I ought to
be angry, but Mr. Osmond wouldn’t think so. He wants me to know
everything; that’s what I like him for. You’ve nothing to gain, I know
that. I’ve never been so nice to you, as a girl, that you should have much
reason for wishing me to remain one. You give very good advice; you’ve
often done so. No, I’m very quiet; I’ve always believed in your wisdom,”
she went on, boasting of her quietness, yet speaking with a kind of
contained exaltation. It was her passionate desire to be just; it touched
Ralph to the heart, affected him like a caress from a creature he had
injured. He wished to interrupt, to reassure her; for a moment he was
absurdly inconsistent; he would have retracted what he had said. But she
gave him no chance; she went on, having caught a glimpse, as she thought,
of the heroic line and desiring to advance in that direction. “I see
you’ve some special idea; I should like very much to hear it. I’m sure
it’s disinterested; I feel that. It seems a strange thing to argue about,
and of course I ought to tell you definitely that if you expect to
dissuade me you may give it up. You’ll not move me an inch; it’s too late.
As you say, I’m caught. Certainly it won’t be pleasant for you to remember
this, but your pain will be in your own thoughts. I shall never reproach
you.”

“I don’t think you ever will,” said Ralph. “It’s not in the least the sort
of marriage I thought you’d make.”

“What sort of marriage was that, pray?”

“Well, I can hardly say. I hadn’t exactly a positive view of it, but I had
a negative. I didn’t think you’d decide for—well, for that type.”

“What’s the matter with Mr. Osmond’s type, if it be one? His being so
independent, so individual, is what I most see in him,” the girl declared.
“What do you know against him? You know him scarcely at all.”

“Yes,” Ralph said, “I know him very little, and I confess I haven’t facts
and items to prove him a villain. But all the same I can’t help feeling
that you’re running a grave risk.”

“Marriage is always a grave risk, and his risk’s as grave as mine.”

“That’s his affair! If he’s afraid, let him back out. I wish to God he
would.”

Isabel reclined in her chair, folding her arms and gazing a while at her
cousin. “I don’t think I understand you,” she said at last coldly. “I
don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I believed you’d marry a man of more importance.”

Cold, I say, her tone had been, but at this a colour like a flame leaped
into her face. “Of more importance to whom? It seems to me enough that
one’s husband should be of importance to one’s self!”

Ralph blushed as well; his attitude embarrassed him. Physically speaking
he proceeded to change it; he straightened himself, then leaned forward,
resting a hand on each knee. He fixed his eyes on the ground; he had an
air of the most respectful deliberation.

“I’ll tell you in a moment what I mean,” he presently said. He felt
agitated, intensely eager; now that he had opened the discussion he wished
to discharge his mind. But he wished also to be superlatively gentle.

Isabel waited a little—then she went on with majesty. “In everything
that makes one care for people Mr. Osmond is pre-eminent. There may be
nobler natures, but I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting one. Mr.
Osmond’s is the finest I know; he’s good enough for me, and interesting
enough, and clever enough. I’m far more struck with what he has and what
he represents than with what he may lack.”

“I had treated myself to a charming vision of your future,” Ralph observed
without answering this; “I had amused myself with planning out a high
destiny for you. There was to be nothing of this sort in it. You were not
to come down so easily or so soon.”

“Come down, you say?”

“Well, that renders my sense of what has happened to you. You seemed to me
to be soaring far up in the blue—to be, sailing in the bright light,
over the heads of men. Suddenly some one tosses up a faded rosebud—a
missile that should never have reached you—and straight you drop to
the ground. It hurts me,” said Ralph audaciously, “hurts me as if I had
fallen myself!”

The look of pain and bewilderment deepened in his companion’s face. “I
don’t understand you in the least,” she repeated. “You say you amused
yourself with a project for my career—I don’t understand that. Don’t
amuse yourself too much, or I shall think you’re doing it at my expense.”

Ralph shook his head. “I’m not afraid of your not believing that I’ve had
great ideas for you.”

“What do you mean by my soaring and sailing?” she pursued.

“I’ve never moved on a higher plane than I’m moving on now. There’s
nothing higher for a girl than to marry a—a person she likes,” said
poor Isabel, wandering into the didactic.

“It’s your liking the person we speak of that I venture to criticise, my
dear cousin. I should have said that the man for you would have been a
more active, larger, freer sort of nature.” Ralph hesitated, then added:
“I can’t get over the sense that Osmond is somehow—well, small.” He
had uttered the last word with no great assurance; he was afraid she would
flash out again. But to his surprise she was quiet; she had the air of
considering.

“Small?” She made it sound immense.

“I think he’s narrow, selfish. He takes himself so seriously!”

“He has a great respect for himself; I don’t blame him for that,” said
Isabel. “It makes one more sure to respect others.”

Ralph for a moment felt almost reassured by her reasonable tone.

“Yes, but everything is relative; one ought to feel one’s relation to
things—to others. I don’t think Mr. Osmond does that.”

“I’ve chiefly to do with his relation to me. In that he’s excellent.”

“He’s the incarnation of taste,” Ralph went on, thinking hard how he could
best express Gilbert Osmond’s sinister attributes without putting himself
in the wrong by seeming to describe him coarsely. He wished to describe
him impersonally, scientifically. “He judges and measures, approves and
condemns, altogether by that.”

“It’s a happy thing then that his taste should be exquisite.”

“It’s exquisite, indeed, since it has led him to select you as his bride.
But have you ever seen such a taste—a really exquisite one—ruffled?”

“I hope it may never be my fortune to fail to gratify my husband’s.”

At these words a sudden passion leaped to Ralph’s lips. “Ah, that’s
wilful, that’s unworthy of you! You were not meant to be measured in that
way—you were meant for something better than to keep guard over the
sensibilities of a sterile dilettante!”

Isabel rose quickly and he did the same, so that they stood for a moment
looking at each other as if he had flung down a defiance or an insult. But
“You go too far,” she simply breathed.

“I’ve said what I had on my mind—and I’ve said it because I love
you!”

Isabel turned pale: was he too on that tiresome list? She had a sudden
wish to strike him off. “Ah then, you’re not disinterested!”

“I love you, but I love without hope,” said Ralph quickly, forcing a smile
and feeling that in that last declaration he had expressed more than he
intended.

Isabel moved away and stood looking into the sunny stillness of the
garden; but after a little she turned back to him. “I’m afraid your talk
then is the wildness of despair! I don’t understand it—but it
doesn’t matter. I’m not arguing with you; it’s impossible I should; I’ve
only tried to listen to you. I’m much obliged to you for attempting to
explain,” she said gently, as if the anger with which she had just sprung
up had already subsided. “It’s very good of you to try to warn me, if
you’re really alarmed; but I won’t promise to think of what you’ve said: I
shall forget it as soon as possible. Try and forget it yourself; you’ve
done your duty, and no man can do more. I can’t explain to you what I
feel, what I believe, and I wouldn’t if I could.” She paused a moment and
then went on with an inconsequence that Ralph observed even in the midst
of his eagerness to discover some symptom of concession. “I can’t enter
into your idea of Mr. Osmond; I can’t do it justice, because I see him in
quite another way. He’s not important—no, he’s not important; he’s a
man to whom importance is supremely indifferent. If that’s what you mean
when you call him ‘small,’ then he’s as small as you please. I call that
large—it’s the largest thing I know. I won’t pretend to argue with
you about a person I’m going to marry,” Isabel repeated. “I’m not in the
least concerned to defend Mr. Osmond; he’s not so weak as to need my
defence. I should think it would seem strange even to yourself that I
should talk of him so quietly and coldly, as if he were any one else. I
wouldn’t talk of him at all to any one but you; and you, after what you’ve
said—I may just answer you once for all. Pray, would you wish me to
make a mercenary marriage—what they call a marriage of ambition?
I’ve only one ambition—to be free to follow out a good feeling. I
had others once, but they’ve passed away. Do you complain of Mr. Osmond
because he’s not rich? That’s just what I like him for. I’ve fortunately
money enough; I’ve never felt so thankful for it as to-day. There have
been moments when I should like to go and kneel down by your father’s
grave: he did perhaps a better thing than he knew when he put it into my
power to marry a poor man—a man who has borne his poverty with such
dignity, with such indifference. Mr. Osmond has never scrambled nor
struggled—he has cared for no worldly prize. If that’s to be narrow,
if that’s to be selfish, then it’s very well. I’m not frightened by such
words, I’m not even displeased; I’m only sorry that you should make a
mistake. Others might have done so, but I’m surprised that you should. You
might know a gentleman when you see one—you might know a fine mind.
Mr. Osmond makes no mistakes! He knows everything, he understands
everything, he has the kindest, gentlest, highest spirit. You’ve got hold
of some false idea. It’s a pity, but I can’t help it; it regards you more
than me.” Isabel paused a moment, looking at her cousin with an eye
illumined by a sentiment which contradicted the careful calmness of her
manner—a mingled sentiment, to which the angry pain excited by his
words and the wounded pride of having needed to justify a choice of which
she felt only the nobleness and purity, equally contributed. Though she
paused Ralph said nothing; he saw she had more to say. She was grand, but
she was highly solicitous; she was indifferent, but she was all in a
passion. “What sort of a person should you have liked me to marry?” she
asked suddenly. “You talk about one’s soaring and sailing, but if one
marries at all one touches the earth. One has human feelings and needs,
one has a heart in one’s bosom, and one must marry a particular
individual. Your mother has never forgiven me for not having come to a
better understanding with Lord Warburton, and she’s horrified at my
contenting myself with a person who has none of his great advantages—no
property, no title, no honours, no houses, nor lands, nor position, nor
reputation, nor brilliant belongings of any sort. It’s the total absence
of all these things that pleases me. Mr. Osmond’s simply a very lonely, a
very cultivated and a very honest man—he’s not a prodigious
proprietor.”

Ralph had listened with great attention, as if everything she said merited
deep consideration; but in truth he was only half thinking of the things
she said, he was for the rest simply accommodating himself to the weight
of his total impression—the impression of her ardent good faith. She
was wrong, but she believed; she was deluded, but she was dismally
consistent. It was wonderfully characteristic of her that, having invented
a fine theory, about Gilbert Osmond, she loved him not for what he really
possessed, but for his very poverties dressed out as honours. Ralph
remembered what he had said to his father about wishing to put it into her
power to meet the requirements of her imagination. He had done so, and the
girl had taken full advantage of the luxury. Poor Ralph felt sick; he felt
ashamed. Isabel had uttered her last words with a low solemnity of
conviction which virtually terminated the discussion, and she closed it
formally by turning away and walking back to the house. Ralph walked
beside her, and they passed into the court together and reached the big
staircase. Here he stopped and Isabel paused, turning on him a face of
elation—absolutely and perversely of gratitude. His opposition had
made her own conception of her conduct clearer to her. “Shall you not come
up to breakfast?” she asked.

“No; I want no breakfast; I’m not hungry.”

“You ought to eat,” said the girl; “you live on air.”

“I do, very much, and I shall go back into the garden and take another
mouthful. I came thus far simply to say this. I told you last year that if
you were to get into trouble I should feel terribly sold. That’s how I
feel to-day.”

“Do you think I’m in trouble?”

“One’s in trouble when one’s in error.”

“Very well,” said Isabel; “I shall never complain of my trouble to you!”
And she moved up the staircase.

Ralph, standing there with his hands in his pockets, followed her with his
eyes; then the lurking chill of the high-walled court struck him and made
him shiver, so that he returned to the garden to breakfast on the
Florentine sunshine.


CHAPTER XXXV

Isabel, when she strolled in the Cascine with her lover, felt no impulse
to tell him how little he was approved at Palazzo Crescentini. The
discreet opposition offered to her marriage by her aunt and her cousin
made on the whole no great impression upon her; the moral of it was simply
that they disliked Gilbert Osmond. This dislike was not alarming to
Isabel; she scarcely even regretted it; for it served mainly to throw into
higher relief the fact, in every way so honourable, that she married to
please herself. One did other things to please other people; one did this
for a more personal satisfaction; and Isabel’s satisfaction was confirmed
by her lover’s admirable good conduct. Gilbert Osmond was in love, and he
had never deserved less than during these still, bright days, each of them
numbered, which preceded the fulfilment of his hopes, the harsh criticism
passed upon him by Ralph Touchett. The chief impression produced on
Isabel’s spirit by this criticism was that the passion of love separated
its victim terribly from every one but the loved object. She felt herself
disjoined from every one she had ever known before—from her two
sisters, who wrote to express a dutiful hope that she would be happy, and
a surprise, somewhat more vague, at her not having chosen a consort who
was the hero of a richer accumulation of anecdote; from Henrietta, who,
she was sure, would come out, too late, on purpose to remonstrate; from
Lord Warburton, who would certainly console himself, and from Caspar
Goodwood, who perhaps would not; from her aunt, who had cold, shallow
ideas about marriage, for which she was not sorry to display her contempt;
and from Ralph, whose talk about having great views for her was surely but
a whimsical cover for a personal disappointment. Ralph apparently wished
her not to marry at all—that was what it really meant—because
he was amused with the spectacle of her adventures as a single woman. His
disappointment made him say angry things about the man she had preferred
even to him: Isabel flattered herself that she believed Ralph had been
angry. It was the more easy for her to believe this because, as I say, she
had now little free or unemployed emotion for minor needs, and accepted as
an incident, in fact quite as an ornament, of her lot the idea that to
prefer Gilbert Osmond as she preferred him was perforce to break all other
ties. She tasted of the sweets of this preference, and they made her
conscious, almost with awe, of the invidious and remorseless tide of the
charmed and possessed condition, great as was the traditional honour and
imputed virtue of being in love. It was the tragic part of happiness;
one’s right was always made of the wrong of some one else.

The elation of success, which surely now flamed high in Osmond, emitted
meanwhile very little smoke for so brilliant a blaze. Contentment, on his
part, took no vulgar form; excitement, in the most self-conscious of men,
was a kind of ecstasy of self-control. This disposition, however, made him
an admirable lover; it gave him a constant view of the smitten and
dedicated state. He never forgot himself, as I say; and so he never forgot
to be graceful and tender, to wear the appearance—which presented
indeed no difficulty—of stirred senses and deep intentions. He was
immensely pleased with his young lady; Madame Merle had made him a present
of incalculable value. What could be a finer thing to live with than a
high spirit attuned to softness? For would not the softness be all for
one’s self, and the strenuousness for society, which admired the air of
superiority? What could be a happier gift in a companion than a quick,
fanciful mind which saved one repetitions and reflected one’s thought on a
polished, elegant surface? Osmond hated to see his thought reproduced
literally—that made it look stale and stupid; he preferred it to be
freshened in the reproduction even as “words” by music. His egotism had
never taken the crude form of desiring a dull wife; this lady’s
intelligence was to be a silver plate, not an earthen one—a plate
that he might heap up with ripe fruits, to which it would give a
decorative value, so that talk might become for him a sort of served
dessert. He found the silver quality in this perfection in Isabel; he
could tap her imagination with his knuckle and make it ring. He knew
perfectly, though he had not been told, that their union enjoyed little
favour with the girl’s relations; but he had always treated her so
completely as an independent person that it hardly seemed necessary to
express regret for the attitude of her family. Nevertheless, one morning,
he made an abrupt allusion to it. “It’s the difference in our fortune they
don’t like,” he said. “They think I’m in love with your money.”

“Are you speaking of my aunt—of my cousin?” Isabel asked. “How do
you know what they think?”

“You’ve not told me they’re pleased, and when I wrote to Mrs. Touchett the
other day she never answered my note. If they had been delighted I should
have had some sign of it, and the fact of my being poor and you rich is
the most obvious explanation of their reserve. But of course when a poor
man marries a rich girl he must be prepared for imputations. I don’t mind
them; I only care for one thing—for your not having the shadow of a
doubt. I don’t care what people of whom I ask nothing think—I’m not
even capable perhaps of wanting to know. I’ve never so concerned myself,
God forgive me, and why should I begin to-day, when I have taken to myself
a compensation for everything? I won’t pretend I’m sorry you’re rich; I’m
delighted. I delight in everything that’s yours—whether it be money
or virtue. Money’s a horrid thing to follow, but a charming thing to meet.
It seems to me, however, that I’ve sufficiently proved the limits of my
itch for it: I never in my life tried to earn a penny, and I ought to be
less subject to suspicion than most of the people one sees grubbing and
grabbing. I suppose it’s their business to suspect—that of your
family; it’s proper on the whole they should. They’ll like me better some
day; so will you, for that matter. Meanwhile my business is not to make
myself bad blood, but simply to be thankful for life and love.” “It has
made me better, loving you,” he said on another occasion; “it has made me
wiser and easier and—I won’t pretend to deny—brighter and
nicer and even stronger. I used to want a great many things before and to
be angry I didn’t have them. Theoretically I was satisfied, as I once told
you. I flattered myself I had limited my wants. But I was subject to
irritation; I used to have morbid, sterile, hateful fits of hunger, of
desire. Now I’m really satisfied, because I can’t think of anything
better. It’s just as when one has been trying to spell out a book in the
twilight and suddenly the lamp comes in. I had been putting out my eyes
over the book of life and finding nothing to reward me for my pains; but
now that I can read it properly I see it’s a delightful story. My dear
girl, I can’t tell you how life seems to stretch there before us—what
a long summer afternoon awaits us. It’s the latter half of an Italian day—with
a golden haze, and the shadows just lengthening, and that divine delicacy
in the light, the air, the landscape, which I have loved all my life and
which you love to-day. Upon my honour, I don’t see why we shouldn’t get
on. We’ve got what we like—to say nothing of having each other.
We’ve the faculty of admiration and several capital convictions. We’re not
stupid, we’re not mean, we’re not under bonds to any kind of ignorance or
dreariness. You’re remarkably fresh, and I’m remarkably well-seasoned.
We’ve my poor child to amuse us; we’ll try and make up some little life
for her. It’s all soft and mellow—it has the Italian colouring.”

They made a good many plans, but they left themselves also a good deal of
latitude; it was a matter of course, however, that they should live for
the present in Italy. It was in Italy that they had met, Italy had been a
party to their first impressions of each other, and Italy should be a
party to their happiness. Osmond had the attachment of old acquaintance
and Isabel the stimulus of new, which seemed to assure her a future at a
high level of consciousness of the beautiful. The desire for unlimited
expansion had been succeeded in her soul by the sense that life was vacant
without some private duty that might gather one’s energies to a point. She
had told Ralph she had “seen life” in a year or two and that she was
already tired, not of the act of living, but of that of observing. What
had become of all her ardours, her aspirations, her theories, her high
estimate of her independence and her incipient conviction that she should
never marry? These things had been absorbed in a more primitive need—a
need the answer to which brushed away numberless questions, yet gratified
infinite desires. It simplified the situation at a stroke, it came down
from above like the light of the stars, and it needed no explanation.
There was explanation enough in the fact that he was her lover, her own,
and that she should be able to be of use to him. She could surrender to
him with a kind of humility, she could marry him with a kind of pride; she
was not only taking, she was giving.

He brought Pansy with him two or three times to the Cascine—Pansy
who was very little taller than a year before, and not much older. That
she would always be a child was the conviction expressed by her father,
who held her by the hand when she was in her sixteenth year and told her
to go and play while he sat down a little with the pretty lady. Pansy wore
a short dress and a long coat; her hat always seemed too big for her. She
found pleasure in walking off, with quick, short steps, to the end of the
alley, and then in walking back with a smile that seemed an appeal for
approbation. Isabel approved in abundance, and the abundance had the
personal touch that the child’s affectionate nature craved. She watched
her indications as if for herself also much depended on them—Pansy
already so represented part of the service she could render, part of the
responsibility she could face. Her father took so the childish view of her
that he had not yet explained to her the new relation in which he stood to
the elegant Miss Archer. “She doesn’t know,” he said to Isabel; “she
doesn’t guess; she thinks it perfectly natural that you and I should come
and walk here together simply as good friends. There seems to me something
enchantingly innocent in that; it’s the way I like her to be. No, I’m not
a failure, as I used to think; I’ve succeeded in two things. I’m to marry
the woman I adore, and I’ve brought up my child, as I wished, in the old
way.”

He was very fond, in all things, of the “old way”; that had struck Isabel
as one of his fine, quiet, sincere notes. “It occurs to me that you’ll not
know whether you’ve succeeded until you’ve told her,” she said. “You must
see how she takes your news, She may be horrified—she may be
jealous.”

“I’m not afraid of that; she’s too fond of you on her own account. I
should like to leave her in the dark a little longer—to see if it
will come into her head that if we’re not engaged we ought to be.”

Isabel was impressed by Osmond’s artistic, the plastic view, as it somehow
appeared, of Pansy’s innocence—her own appreciation of it being more
anxiously moral. She was perhaps not the less pleased when he told her a
few days later that he had communicated the fact to his daughter, who had
made such a pretty little speech—“Oh, then I shall have a beautiful
sister!” She was neither surprised nor alarmed; she had not cried, as he
expected.

“Perhaps she had guessed it,” said Isabel.

“Don’t say that; I should be disgusted if I believed that. I thought it
would be just a little shock; but the way she took it proves that her good
manners are paramount. That’s also what I wished. You shall see for
yourself; to-morrow she shall make you her congratulations in person.”

The meeting, on the morrow, took place at the Countess Gemini’s, whither
Pansy had been conducted by her father, who knew that Isabel was to come
in the afternoon to return a visit made her by the Countess on learning
that they were to become sisters-in-law. Calling at Casa Touchett the
visitor had not found Isabel at home; but after our young woman had been
ushered into the Countess’s drawing-room Pansy arrived to say that her
aunt would presently appear. Pansy was spending the day with that lady,
who thought her of an age to begin to learn how to carry herself in
company. It was Isabel’s view that the little girl might have given
lessons in deportment to her relative, and nothing could have justified
this conviction more than the manner in which Pansy acquitted herself
while they waited together for the Countess. Her father’s decision, the
year before, had finally been to send her back to the convent to receive
the last graces, and Madame Catherine had evidently carried out her theory
that Pansy was to be fitted for the great world.

“Papa has told me that you’ve kindly consented to marry him,” said this
excellent woman’s pupil. “It’s very delightful; I think you’ll suit very
well.”

“You think I shall suit you?”

“You’ll suit me beautifully; but what I mean is that you and papa will
suit each other. You’re both so quiet and so serious. You’re not so quiet
as he—or even as Madame Merle; but you’re more quiet than many
others. He should not for instance have a wife like my aunt. She’s always
in motion, in agitation—to-day especially; you’ll see when she comes
in. They told us at the convent it was wrong to judge our elders, but I
suppose there’s no harm if we judge them favourably. You’ll be a
delightful companion for papa.”

“For you too, I hope,” Isabel said.

“I speak first of him on purpose. I’ve told you already what I myself
think of you; I liked you from the first. I admire you so much that I
think it will be a good fortune to have you always before me. You’ll be my
model; I shall try to imitate you though I’m afraid it will be very
feeble. I’m very glad for papa—he needed something more than me.
Without you I don’t see how he could have got it. You’ll be my stepmother,
but we mustn’t use that word. They’re always said to be cruel; but I don’t
think you’ll ever so much as pinch or even push me. I’m not afraid at
all.”

“My good little Pansy,” said Isabel gently, “I shall be ever so kind to
you.” A vague, inconsequent vision of her coming in some odd way to need
it had intervened with the effect of a chill.

“Very well then, I’ve nothing to fear,” the child returned with her note
of prepared promptitude. What teaching she had had, it seemed to suggest—or
what penalties for non-performance she dreaded!

Her description of her aunt had not been incorrect; the Countess Gemini
was further than ever from having folded her wings. She entered the room
with a flutter through the air and kissed Isabel first on the forehead and
then on each cheek as if according to some ancient prescribed rite. She
drew the visitor to a sofa and, looking at her with a variety of turns of
the head, began to talk very much as if, seated brush in hand before an
easel, she were applying a series of considered touches to a composition
of figures already sketched in. “If you expect me to congratulate you I
must beg you to excuse me. I don’t suppose you care if I do or not; I
believe you’re supposed not to care—through being so clever—for
all sorts of ordinary things. But I care myself if I tell fibs; I never
tell them unless there’s something rather good to be gained. I don’t see
what’s to be gained with you—especially as you wouldn’t believe me.
I don’t make professions any more than I make paper flowers or flouncey
lampshades—I don’t know how. My lampshades would be sure to take
fire, my roses and my fibs to be larger than life. I’m very glad for my
own sake that you’re to marry Osmond; but I won’t pretend I’m glad for
yours. You’re very brilliant—you know that’s the way you’re always
spoken of; you’re an heiress and very good-looking and original, not
banal; so it’s a good thing to have you in the family. Our family’s very
good, you know; Osmond will have told you that; and my mother was rather
distinguished—she was called the American Corinne. But we’re
dreadfully fallen, I think, and perhaps you’ll pick us up. I’ve great
confidence in you; there are ever so many things I want to talk to you
about. I never congratulate any girl on marrying; I think they ought to
make it somehow not quite so awful a steel trap. I suppose Pansy oughtn’t
to hear all this; but that’s what she has come to me for—to acquire
the tone of society. There’s no harm in her knowing what horrors she may
be in for. When first I got an idea that my brother had designs on you I
thought of writing to you, to recommend you, in the strongest terms, not
to listen to him. Then I thought it would be disloyal, and I hate anything
of that kind. Besides, as I say, I was enchanted for myself; and after all
I’m very selfish. By the way, you won’t respect me, not one little mite,
and we shall never be intimate. I should like it, but you won’t. Some day,
all the same, we shall be better friends than you will believe at first.
My husband will come and see you, though, as you probably know, he’s on no
sort of terms with Osmond. He’s very fond of going to see pretty women,
but I’m not afraid of you. In the first place I don’t care what he does.
In the second, you won’t care a straw for him; he won’t be a bit, at any
time, your affair, and, stupid as he is, he’ll see you’re not his. Some
day, if you can stand it, I’ll tell you all about him. Do you think my
niece ought to go out of the room? Pansy, go and practise a little in my
boudoir.”

“Let her stay, please,” said Isabel. “I would rather hear nothing that
Pansy may not!”


CHAPTER XXXVI

One afternoon of the autumn of 1876, toward dusk, a young man of pleasing
appearance rang at the door of a small apartment on the third floor of an
old Roman house. On its being opened he enquired for Madame Merle;
whereupon the servant, a neat, plain woman, with a French face and a
lady’s maid’s manner, ushered him into a diminutive drawing-room and
requested the favour of his name. “Mr. Edward Rosier,” said the young man,
who sat down to wait till his hostess should appear.

The reader will perhaps not have forgotten that Mr. Rosier was an ornament
of the American circle in Paris, but it may also be remembered that he
sometimes vanished from its horizon. He had spent a portion of several
winters at Pau, and as he was a gentleman of constituted habits he might
have continued for years to pay his annual visit to this charming resort.
In the summer of 1876, however, an incident befell him which changed the
current not only of his thoughts, but of his customary sequences. He
passed a month in the Upper Engadine and encountered at Saint Moritz a
charming young girl. To this little person he began to pay, on the spot,
particular attention: she struck him as exactly the household angel he had
long been looking for. He was never precipitate, he was nothing if not
discreet, so he forbore for the present to declare his passion; but it
seemed to him when they parted—the young lady to go down into Italy
and her admirer to proceed to Geneva, where he was under bonds to join
other friends—that he should be romantically wretched if he were not
to see her again. The simplest way to do so was to go in the autumn to
Rome, where Miss Osmond was domiciled with her family. Mr. Rosier started
on his pilgrimage to the Italian capital and reached it on the first of
November. It was a pleasant thing to do, but for the young man there was a
strain of the heroic in the enterprise. He might expose himself,
unseasoned, to the poison of the Roman air, which in November lay,
notoriously, much in wait. Fortune, however, favours the brave; and this
adventurer, who took three grains of quinine a day, had at the end of a
month no cause to deplore his temerity. He had made to a certain extent
good use of his time; he had devoted it in vain to finding a flaw in Pansy
Osmond’s composition. She was admirably finished; she had had the last
touch; she was really a consummate piece. He thought of her in amorous
meditation a good deal as he might have thought of a Dresden-china
shepherdess. Miss Osmond, indeed, in the bloom of her juvenility, had a
hint of the rococo which Rosier, whose taste was predominantly for that
manner, could not fail to appreciate. That he esteemed the productions of
comparatively frivolous periods would have been apparent from the
attention he bestowed upon Madame Merle’s drawing-room, which, although
furnished with specimens of every style, was especially rich in articles
of the last two centuries. He had immediately put a glass into one eye and
looked round; and then “By Jove, she has some jolly good things!” he had
yearningly murmured. The room was small and densely filled with furniture;
it gave an impression of faded silk and little statuettes which might
totter if one moved. Rosier got up and wandered about with his careful
tread, bending over the tables charged with knick-knacks and the cushions
embossed with princely arms. When Madame Merle came in she found him
standing before the fireplace with his nose very close to the great lace
flounce attached to the damask cover of the mantel. He had lifted it
delicately, as if he were smelling it.

“It’s old Venetian,” she said; “it’s rather good.”

“It’s too good for this; you ought to wear it.”

“They tell me you have some better in Paris, in the same situation.”

“Ah, but I can’t wear mine,” smiled the visitor.

“I don’t see why you shouldn’t! I’ve better lace than that to wear.”

His eyes wandered, lingeringly, round the room again. “You’ve some very
good things.”

“Yes, but I hate them.”

“Do you want to get rid of them?” the young man quickly asked.

“No, it’s good to have something to hate: one works it off!”

“I love my things,” said Mr. Rosier as he sat there flushed with all his
recognitions. “But it’s not about them, nor about yours, that I came to
talk to you.” He paused a moment and then, with greater softness: “I care
more for Miss Osmond than for all the bibelots in Europe!”

Madame Merle opened wide eyes. “Did you come to tell me that?”

“I came to ask your advice.”

She looked at him with a friendly frown, stroking her chin with her large
white hand. “A man in love, you know, doesn’t ask advice.”

“Why not, if he’s in a difficult position? That’s often the case with a
man in love. I’ve been in love before, and I know. But never so much as
this time—really never so much. I should like particularly to know
what you think of my prospects. I’m afraid that for Mr. Osmond I’m not—well,
a real collector’s piece.”

“Do you wish me to intercede?” Madame Merle asked with her fine arms
folded and her handsome mouth drawn up to the left.

“If you could say a good word for me I should be greatly obliged. There
will be no use in my troubling Miss Osmond unless I have good reason to
believe her father will consent.”

“You’re very considerate; that’s in your favour. But you assume in rather
an off-hand way that I think you a prize.”

“You’ve been very kind to me,” said the young man. “That’s why I came.”

“I’m always kind to people who have good Louis Quatorze. It’s very rare
now, and there’s no telling what one may get by it.” With which the
left-hand corner of Madame Merle’s mouth gave expression to the joke.

But he looked, in spite of it, literally apprehensive and consistently
strenuous. “Ah, I thought you liked me for myself!”

“I like you very much; but, if you please, we won’t analyse. Pardon me if
I seem patronising, but I think you a perfect little gentleman. I must
tell you, however, that I’ve not the marrying of Pansy Osmond.”

“I didn’t suppose that. But you’ve seemed to me intimate with her family,
and I thought you might have influence.”

Madame Merle considered. “Whom do you call her family?”

“Why, her father; and—how do you say it in English?—her
belle-mere.”

“Mr. Osmond’s her father, certainly; but his wife can scarcely be termed a
member of her family. Mrs. Osmond has nothing to do with marrying her.”

“I’m sorry for that,” said Rosier with an amiable sigh of good faith. “I
think Mrs. Osmond would favour me.”

“Very likely—if her husband doesn’t.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Does she take the opposite line from him?”

“In everything. They think quite differently.”

“Well,” said Rosier, “I’m sorry for that; but it’s none of my business.
She’s very fond of Pansy.”

“Yes, she’s very fond of Pansy.”

“And Pansy has a great affection for her. She has told me how she loves
her as if she were her own mother.”

“You must, after all, have had some very intimate talk with the poor
child,” said Madame Merle. “Have you declared your sentiments?”

“Never!” cried Rosier, lifting his neatly-gloved hand. “Never till I’ve
assured myself of those of the parents.”

“You always wait for that? You’ve excellent principles; you observe the
proprieties.”

“I think you’re laughing at me,” the young man murmured, dropping back in
his chair and feeling his small moustache. “I didn’t expect that of you,
Madame Merle.”

She shook her head calmly, like a person who saw things as she saw them.
“You don’t do me justice. I think your conduct in excellent taste and the
best you could adopt. Yes, that’s what I think.”

“I wouldn’t agitate her—only to agitate her; I love her too much for
that,” said Ned Rosier.

“I’m glad, after all, that you’ve told me,” Madame Merle went on. “Leave
it to me a little; I think I can help you.”

“I said you were the person to come to!” her visitor cried with prompt
elation.

“You were very clever,” Madame Merle returned more dryly. “When I say I
can help you I mean once assuming your cause to be good. Let us think a
little if it is.”

“I’m awfully decent, you know,” said Rosier earnestly. “I won’t say I’ve
no faults, but I’ll say I’ve no vices.”

“All that’s negative, and it always depends, also, on what people call
vices. What’s the positive side? What’s the virtuous? What have you got
besides your Spanish lace and your Dresden teacups?”

“I’ve a comfortable little fortune—about forty thousand francs a
year. With the talent I have for arranging, we can live beautifully on
such an income.”

“Beautifully, no. Sufficiently, yes. Even that depends on where you live.”

“Well, in Paris. I would undertake it in Paris.”

Madame Merle’s mouth rose to the left. “It wouldn’t be famous; you’d have
to make use of the teacups, and they’d get broken.”

“We don’t want to be famous. If Miss Osmond should have everything pretty
it would be enough. When one’s as pretty as she one can afford—well,
quite cheap faience. She ought never to wear anything but muslin—without
the sprig,” said Rosier reflectively.

“Wouldn’t you even allow her the sprig? She’d be much obliged to you at
any rate for that theory.”

“It’s the correct one, I assure you; and I’m sure she’d enter into it. She
understands all that; that’s why I love her.”

“She’s a very good little girl, and most tidy—also extremely
graceful. But her father, to the best of my belief, can give her nothing.”

Rosier scarce demurred. “I don’t in the least desire that he should. But I
may remark, all the same, that he lives like a rich man.”

“The money’s his wife’s; she brought him a large fortune.”

“Mrs. Osmond then is very fond of her stepdaughter; she may do something.”

“For a love-sick swain you have your eyes about you!” Madame Merle
exclaimed with a laugh.

“I esteem a dot very much. I can do without it, but I esteem it.”

“Mrs. Osmond,” Madame Merle went on, “will probably prefer to keep her
money for her own children.”

“Her own children? Surely she has none.”

“She may have yet. She had a poor little boy, who died two years ago, six
months after his birth. Others therefore may come.”

“I hope they will, if it will make her happy. She’s a splendid woman.”

Madame Merle failed to burst into speech. “Ah, about her there’s much to
be said. Splendid as you like! We’ve not exactly made out that you’re a parti.
The absence of vices is hardly a source of income.

“Pardon me, I think it may be,” said Rosier quite lucidly.

“You’ll be a touching couple, living on your innocence!”

“I think you underrate me.”

“You’re not so innocent as that? Seriously,” said Madame Merle, “of course
forty thousand francs a year and a nice character are a combination to be
considered. I don’t say it’s to be jumped at, but there might be a worse
offer. Mr. Osmond, however, will probably incline to believe he can do
better.”

“He can do so perhaps; but what can his daughter do? She can’t do
better than marry the man she loves. For she does, you know,” Rosier added
eagerly.

“She does—I know it.”

“Ah,” cried the young man, “I said you were the person to come to.”

“But I don’t know how you know it, if you haven’t asked her,” Madame Merle
went on.

“In such a case there’s no need of asking and telling; as you say, we’re
an innocent couple. How did you know it?”

“I who am not innocent? By being very crafty. Leave it to me; I’ll find
out for you.”

Rosier got up and stood smoothing his hat. “You say that rather coldly.
Don’t simply find out how it is, but try to make it as it should be.”

“I’ll do my best. I’ll try to make the most of your advantages.”

“Thank you so very much. Meanwhile then I’ll say a word to Mrs. Osmond.”

“Gardez-vous-en bien!” And Madame Merle was on her feet. “Don’t set
her going, or you’ll spoil everything.”

Rosier gazed into his hat; he wondered whether his hostess had been
after all the right person to come to. “I don’t think I understand you.
I’m an old friend of Mrs. Osmond, and I think she would like me to
succeed.”

“Be an old friend as much as you like; the more old friends she has the
better, for she doesn’t get on very well with some of her new. But don’t
for the present try to make her take up the cudgels for you. Her husband
may have other views, and, as a person who wishes her well, I advise you
not to multiply points of difference between them.”

Poor Rosier’s face assumed an expression of alarm; a suit for the hand of
Pansy Osmond was even a more complicated business than his taste for
proper transitions had allowed. But the extreme good sense which he
concealed under a surface suggesting that of a careful owner’s “best set”
came to his assistance. “I don’t see that I’m bound to consider Mr. Osmond
so very much!” he exclaimed. “No, but you should consider her. You
say you’re an old friend. Would you make her suffer?”

“Not for the world.”

“Then be very careful, and let the matter alone till I’ve taken a few
soundings.”

“Let the matter alone, dear Madame Merle? Remember that I’m in love.”

“Oh, you won’t burn up! Why did you come to me, if you’re not to heed what
I say?”

“You’re very kind; I’ll be very good,” the young man promised. “But I’m
afraid Mr. Osmond’s pretty hard,” he added in his mild voice as he went to
the door.

Madame Merle gave a short laugh. “It has been said before. But his wife
isn’t easy either.”

“Ah, she’s a splendid woman!” Ned Rosier repeated, for departure. He
resolved that his conduct should be worthy of an aspirant who was already
a model of discretion; but he saw nothing in any pledge he had given
Madame Merle that made it improper he should keep himself in spirits by an
occasional visit to Miss Osmond’s home. He reflected constantly on what
his adviser had said to him, and turned over in his mind the impression of
her rather circumspect tone. He had gone to her de confiance, as
they put it in Paris; but it was possible he had been precipitate. He
found difficulty in thinking of himself as rash—he had incurred this
reproach so rarely; but it certainly was true that he had known Madame
Merle only for the last month, and that his thinking her a delightful
woman was not, when one came to look into it, a reason for assuming that
she would be eager to push Pansy Osmond into his arms, gracefully arranged
as these members might be to receive her. She had indeed shown him
benevolence, and she was a person of consideration among the girl’s
people, where she had a rather striking appearance (Rosier had more than
once wondered how she managed it) of being intimate without being
familiar. But possibly he had exaggerated these advantages. There was no
particular reason why she should take trouble for him; a charming woman
was charming to every one, and Rosier felt rather a fool when he thought
of his having appealed to her on the ground that she had distinguished
him. Very likely—though she had appeared to say it in joke—she
was really only thinking of his bibelots. Had it come into her head that
he might offer her two or three of the gems of his collection? If she
would only help him to marry Miss Osmond he would present her with his
whole museum. He could hardly say so to her outright; it would seem too
gross a bribe. But he should like her to believe it.

It was with these thoughts that he went again to Mrs. Osmond’s, Mrs.
Osmond having an “evening”—she had taken the Thursday of each week—when
his presence could be accounted for on general principles of civility. The
object of Mr. Rosier’s well-regulated affection dwelt in a high house in
the very heart of Rome; a dark and massive structure overlooking a sunny
piazzetta in the neighbourhood of the Farnese Palace. In a palace,
too, little Pansy lived—a palace by Roman measure, but a dungeon to
poor Rosier’s apprehensive mind. It seemed to him of evil omen that the
young lady he wished to marry, and whose fastidious father he doubted of
his ability to conciliate, should be immured in a kind of domestic
fortress, a pile which bore a stern old Roman name, which smelt of
historic deeds, of crime and craft and violence, which was mentioned in
“Murray” and visited by tourists who looked, on a vague survey,
disappointed and depressed, and which had frescoes by Caravaggio in the piano
nobile and a row of mutilated statues and dusty urns in the wide,
nobly-arched loggia overhanging the damp court where a fountain gushed out
of a mossy niche. In a less preoccupied frame of mind he could have done
justice to the Palazzo Roccanera; he could have entered into the sentiment
of Mrs. Osmond, who had once told him that on settling themselves in Rome
she and her husband had chosen this habitation for the love of local
colour. It had local colour enough, and though he knew less about
architecture than about Limoges enamels he could see that the proportions
of the windows and even the details of the cornice had quite the grand
air. But Rosier was haunted by the conviction that at picturesque periods
young girls had been shut up there to keep them from their true loves, and
then, under the threat of being thrown into convents, had been forced into
unholy marriages. There was one point, however, to which he always did
justice when once he found himself in Mrs. Osmond’s warm, rich-looking
reception-rooms, which were on the second floor. He acknowledged that
these people were very strong in “good things.” It was a taste of Osmond’s
own—not at all of hers; this she had told him the first time he came
to the house, when, after asking himself for a quarter of an hour whether
they had even better “French” than he in Paris, he was obliged on the spot
to admit that they had, very much, and vanquished his envy, as a gentleman
should, to the point of expressing to his hostess his pure admiration of
her treasures. He learned from Mrs. Osmond that her husband had made a
large collection before their marriage and that, though he had annexed a
number of fine pieces within the last three years, he had achieved his
greatest finds at a time when he had not the advantage of her advice.
Rosier interpreted this information according to principles of his own.
For “advice” read “cash,” he said to himself; and the fact that Gilbert
Osmond had landed his highest prizes during his impecunious season
confirmed his most cherished doctrine—the doctrine that a collector
may freely be poor if he be only patient. In general, when Rosier
presented himself on a Thursday evening, his first recognition was for the
walls of the saloon; there were three or four objects his eyes really
yearned for. But after his talk with Madame Merle he felt the extreme
seriousness of his position; and now, when he came in, he looked about for
the daughter of the house with such eagerness as might be permitted a
gentleman whose smile, as he crossed a threshold, always took everything
comfortable for granted.


CHAPTER XXXVII

Pansy was not in the first of the rooms, a large apartment with a concave
ceiling and walls covered with old red damask; it was here Mrs. Osmond
usually sat—though she was not in her most customary place to-night—and
that a circle of more especial intimates gathered about the fire. The room
was flushed with subdued, diffused brightness; it contained the larger
things and—almost always—an odour of flowers. Pansy on this
occasion was presumably in the next of the series, the resort of younger
visitors, where tea was served. Osmond stood before the chimney, leaning
back with his hands behind him; he had one foot up and was warming the
sole. Half a dozen persons, scattered near him, were talking together; but
he was not in the conversation; his eyes had an expression, frequent with
them, that seemed to represent them as engaged with objects more worth
their while than the appearances actually thrust upon them. Rosier, coming
in unannounced, failed to attract his attention; but the young man, who
was very punctilious, though he was even exceptionally conscious that it
was the wife, not the husband, he had come to see, went up to shake hands
with him. Osmond put out his left hand, without changing his attitude.

“How d’ye do? My wife’s somewhere about.”

“Never fear; I shall find her,” said Rosier cheerfully.

Osmond, however, took him in; he had never in his life felt himself so
efficiently looked at. “Madame Merle has told him, and he doesn’t like
it,” he privately reasoned. He had hoped Madame Merle would be there, but
she was not in sight; perhaps she was in one of the other rooms or would
come later. He had never especially delighted in Gilbert Osmond, having a
fancy he gave himself airs. But Rosier was not quickly resentful, and
where politeness was concerned had ever a strong need of being quite in
the right. He looked round him and smiled, all without help, and then in a
moment, “I saw a jolly good piece of Capo di Monte to-day,” he said.

Osmond answered nothing at first; but presently, while he warmed his
boot-sole, “I don’t care a fig for Capo di Monte!” he returned.

“I hope you’re not losing your interest?”

“In old pots and plates? Yes, I’m losing my interest.”

Rosier for an instant forgot the delicacy of his position. “You’re not
thinking of parting with a—a piece or two?”

“No, I’m not thinking of parting with anything at all, Mr. Rosier,” said
Osmond, with his eyes still on the eyes of his visitor.

“Ah, you want to keep, but not to add,” Rosier remarked brightly.

“Exactly. I’ve nothing I wish to match.”

Poor Rosier was aware he had blushed; he was distressed at his want of
assurance. “Ah, well, I have!” was all he could murmur; and he knew his
murmur was partly lost as he turned away. He took his course to the
adjoining room and met Mrs. Osmond coming out of the deep doorway. She was
dressed in black velvet; she looked high and splendid, as he had said, and
yet oh so radiantly gentle! We know what Mr. Rosier thought of her and the
terms in which, to Madame Merle, he had expressed his admiration. Like his
appreciation of her dear little stepdaughter it was based partly on his
eye for decorative character, his instinct for authenticity; but also on a
sense for uncatalogued values, for that secret of a “lustre” beyond any
recorded losing or rediscovering, which his devotion to brittle wares had
still not disqualified him to recognise. Mrs. Osmond, at present, might
well have gratified such tastes. The years had touched her only to enrich
her; the flower of her youth had not faded, it only hung more quietly on
its stem. She had lost something of that quick eagerness to which her
husband had privately taken exception—she had more the air of being
able to wait. Now, at all events, framed in the gilded doorway, she struck
our young man as the picture of a gracious lady. “You see I’m very
regular,” he said. “But who should be if I’m not?”

“Yes, I’ve known you longer than any one here. But we mustn’t indulge in
tender reminiscences. I want to introduce you to a young lady.”

“Ah, please, what young lady?” Rosier was immensely obliging; but this was
not what he had come for.

“She sits there by the fire in pink and has no one to speak to.” Rosier
hesitated a moment. “Can’t Mr. Osmond speak to her? He’s within six feet
of her.”

Mrs. Osmond also hesitated. “She’s not very lively, and he doesn’t like
dull people.”

“But she’s good enough for me? Ah now, that’s hard!”

“I only mean that you’ve ideas for two. And then you’re so obliging.”

“No, he’s not—to me.” And Mrs. Osmond vaguely smiled.

“That’s a sign he should be doubly so to other women.

“So I tell him,” she said, still smiling.

“You see I want some tea,” Rosier went on, looking wistfully beyond.

“That’s perfect. Go and give some to my young lady.”

“Very good; but after that I’ll abandon her to her fate. The simple truth
is I’m dying to have a little talk with Miss Osmond.”

“Ah,” said Isabel, turning away, “I can’t help you there!”

Five minutes later, while he handed a tea-cup to the damsel in pink, whom
he had conducted into the other room, he wondered whether, in making to
Mrs. Osmond the profession I have just quoted, he had broken the spirit of
his promise to Madame Merle. Such a question was capable of occupying this
young man’s mind for a considerable time. At last, however, he became—comparatively
speaking—reckless; he cared little what promises he might break. The
fate to which he had threatened to abandon the damsel in pink proved to be
none so terrible; for Pansy Osmond, who had given him the tea for his
companion—Pansy was as fond as ever of making tea—presently
came and talked to her. Into this mild colloquy Edward Rosier entered
little; he sat by moodily, watching his small sweetheart. If we look at
her now through his eyes we shall at first not see much to remind us of
the obedient little girl who, at Florence, three years before, was sent to
walk short distances in the Cascine while her father and Miss Archer
talked together of matters sacred to elder people. But after a moment we
shall perceive that if at nineteen Pansy has become a young lady she
doesn’t really fill out the part; that if she has grown very pretty she
lacks in a deplorable degree the quality known and esteemed in the
appearance of females as style; and that if she is dressed with great
freshness she wears her smart attire with an undisguised appearance of
saving it—very much as if it were lent her for the occasion. Edward
Rosier, it would seem, would have been just the man to note these defects;
and in point of fact there was not a quality of this young lady, of any
sort, that he had not noted. Only he called her qualities by names of his
own—some of which indeed were happy enough. “No, she’s unique—she’s
absolutely unique,” he used to say to himself; and you may be sure that
not for an instant would he have admitted to you that she was wanting in
style. Style? Why, she had the style of a little princess; if you couldn’t
see it you had no eye. It was not modern, it was not conscious, it would
produce no impression in Broadway; the small, serious damsel, in her stiff
little dress, only looked like an Infanta of Velasquez. This was enough
for Edward Rosier, who thought her delightfully old-fashioned. Her anxious
eyes, her charming lips, her slip of a figure, were as touching as a
childish prayer. He had now an acute desire to know just to what point she
liked him—a desire which made him fidget as he sat in his chair. It
made him feel hot, so that he had to pat his forehead with his
handkerchief; he had never been so uncomfortable. She was such a perfect
jeune fille, and one couldn’t make of a jeune fille the
enquiry requisite for throwing light on such a point. A jeune fille
was what Rosier had always dreamed of—a jeune fille who
should yet not be French, for he had felt that this nationality would
complicate the question. He was sure Pansy had never looked at a newspaper
and that, in the way of novels, if she had read Sir Walter Scott it was
the very most. An American jeune fille—what could be better than
that? She would be frank and gay, and yet would not have walked alone, nor
have received letters from men, nor have been taken to the theatre to see
the comedy of manners. Rosier could not deny that, as the matter stood, it
would be a breach of hospitality to appeal directly to this
unsophisticated creature; but he was now in imminent danger of asking
himself if hospitality were the most sacred thing in the world. Was not
the sentiment that he entertained for Miss Osmond of infinitely greater
importance? Of greater importance to him—yes; but not probably to
the master of the house. There was one comfort; even if this gentleman had
been placed on his guard by Madame Merle he would not have extended the
warning to Pansy; it would not have been part of his policy to let her
know that a prepossessing young man was in love with her. But he was
in love with her, the prepossessing young man; and all these restrictions
of circumstance had ended by irritating him. What had Gilbert Osmond meant
by giving him two fingers of his left hand? If Osmond was rude, surely he
himself might be bold. He felt extremely bold after the dull girl in so
vain a disguise of rose-colour had responded to the call of her mother,
who came in to say, with a significant simper at Rosier, that she must
carry her off to other triumphs. The mother and daughter departed
together, and now it depended only upon him that he should be virtually
alone with Pansy. He had never been alone with her before; he had never
been alone with a jeune fille. It was a great moment; poor Rosier
began to pat his forehead again. There was another room beyond the one in
which they stood—a small room that had been thrown open and lighted,
but that, the company not being numerous, had remained empty all the
evening. It was empty yet; it was upholstered in pale yellow; there were
several lamps; through the open door it looked the very temple of
authorised love. Rosier gazed a moment through this aperture; he was
afraid that Pansy would run away, and felt almost capable of stretching
out a hand to detain her. But she lingered where the other maiden had left
them, making no motion to join a knot of visitors on the far side of the
room. For a little it occurred to him that she was frightened—too
frightened perhaps to move; but a second glance assured him she was not,
and he then reflected that she was too innocent indeed for that. After a
supreme hesitation he asked her if he might go and look at the yellow
room, which seemed so attractive yet so virginal. He had been there
already with Osmond, to inspect the furniture, which was of the First
French Empire, and especially to admire the clock (which he didn’t really
admire), an immense classic structure of that period. He therefore felt
that he had now begun to manoeuvre.

“Certainly, you may go,” said Pansy; “and if you like I’ll show you.” She
was not in the least frightened.

“That’s just what I hoped you’d say; you’re so very kind,” Rosier
murmured.

They went in together; Rosier really thought the room very ugly, and it
seemed cold. The same idea appeared to have struck Pansy. “It’s not for
winter evenings; it’s more for summer,” she said. “It’s papa’s taste; he
has so much.”

He had a good deal, Rosier thought; but some of it was very bad. He looked
about him; he hardly knew what to say in such a situation. “Doesn’t Mrs.
Osmond care how her rooms are done? Has she no taste?” he asked.

“Oh yes, a great deal; but it’s more for literature,” said Pansy—“and
for conversation. But papa cares also for those things. I think he knows
everything.”

Rosier was silent a little. “There’s one thing I’m sure he knows!” he
broke out presently. “He knows that when I come here it’s, with all
respect to him, with all respect to Mrs. Osmond, who’s so charming—it’s
really,” said the young man, “to see you!”

“To see me?” And Pansy raised her vaguely troubled eyes.

“To see you; that’s what I come for,” Rosier repeated, feeling the
intoxication of a rupture with authority.

Pansy stood looking at him, simply, intently, openly; a blush was not
needed to make her face more modest. “I thought it was for that.”

“And it was not disagreeable to you?”

“I couldn’t tell; I didn’t know. You never told me,” said Pansy.

“I was afraid of offending you.”

“You don’t offend me,” the young girl murmured, smiling as if an angel had
kissed her.

“You like me then, Pansy?” Rosier asked very gently, feeling very happy.

“Yes—I like you.”

They had walked to the chimney-piece where the big cold Empire clock was
perched; they were well within the room and beyond observation from
without. The tone in which she had said these four words seemed to him the
very breath of nature, and his only answer could be to take her hand and
hold it a moment. Then he raised it to his lips. She submitted, still with
her pure, trusting smile, in which there was something ineffably passive.
She liked him—she had liked him all the while; now anything might
happen! She was ready—she had been ready always, waiting for him to
speak. If he had not spoken she would have waited for ever; but when the
word came she dropped like the peach from the shaken tree. Rosier felt
that if he should draw her toward him and hold her to his heart she would
submit without a murmur, would rest there without a question. It was true
that this would be a rash experiment in a yellow Empire salottino.
She had known it was for her he came, and yet like what a perfect little
lady she had carried it off!

“You’re very dear to me,” he murmured, trying to believe that there was
after all such a thing as hospitality.

She looked a moment at her hand, where he had kissed it. “Did you say papa
knows?”

“You told me just now he knows everything.”

“I think you must make sure,” said Pansy.

“Ah, my dear, when once I’m sure of you!” Rosier murmured in her
ear; whereupon she turned back to the other rooms with a little air of
consistency which seemed to imply that their appeal should be immediate.

The other rooms meanwhile had become conscious of the arrival of Madame
Merle, who, wherever she went, produced an impression when she entered.
How she did it the most attentive spectator could not have told you, for
she neither spoke loud, nor laughed profusely, nor moved rapidly, nor
dressed with splendour, nor appealed in any appreciable manner to the
audience. Large, fair, smiling, serene, there was something in her very
tranquillity that diffused itself, and when people looked round it was
because of a sudden quiet. On this occasion she had done the quietest
thing she could do; after embracing Mrs. Osmond, which was more striking,
she had sat down on a small sofa to commune with the master of the house.
There was a brief exchange of commonplaces between these two—they
always paid, in public, a certain formal tribute to the commonplace—and
then Madame Merle, whose eyes had been wandering, asked if little Mr.
Rosier had come this evening.

“He came nearly an hour ago—but he has disappeared,” Osmond said.

“And where’s Pansy?”

“In the other room. There are several people there.”

“He’s probably among them,” said Madame Merle.

“Do you wish to see him?” Osmond asked in a provokingly pointless tone.

Madame Merle looked at him a moment; she knew each of his tones to the
eighth of a note. “Yes, I should like to say to him that I’ve told you
what he wants, and that it interests you but feebly.”

“Don’t tell him that. He’ll try to interest me more—which is exactly
what I don’t want. Tell him I hate his proposal.”

“But you don’t hate it.”

“It doesn’t signify; I don’t love it. I let him see that, myself, this
evening; I was rude to him on purpose. That sort of thing’s a great bore.
There’s no hurry.”

“I’ll tell him that you’ll take time and think it over.”

“No, don’t do that. He’ll hang on.”

“If I discourage him he’ll do the same.”

“Yes, but in the one case he’ll try to talk and explain—which would
be exceedingly tiresome. In the other he’ll probably hold his tongue and
go in for some deeper game. That will leave me quiet. I hate talking with
a donkey.”

“Is that what you call poor Mr. Rosier?”

“Oh, he’s a nuisance—with his eternal majolica.”

Madame Merle dropped her eyes; she had a faint smile. “He’s a gentleman,
he has a charming temper; and, after all, an income of forty thousand
francs!”

“It’s misery—‘genteel’ misery,” Osmond broke in. “It’s not what I’ve
dreamed of for Pansy.”

“Very good then. He has promised me not to speak to her.”

“Do you believe him?” Osmond asked absentmindedly.

“Perfectly. Pansy has thought a great deal about him; but I don’t suppose
you consider that that matters.”

“I don’t consider it matters at all; but neither do I believe she has
thought of him.”

“That opinion’s more convenient,” said Madame Merle quietly.

“Has she told you she’s in love with him?”

“For what do you take her? And for what do you take me?” Madame Merle
added in a moment.

Osmond had raised his foot and was resting his slim ankle on the other
knee; he clasped his ankle in his hand familiarly—his long, fine
forefinger and thumb could make a ring for it—and gazed a while
before him. “This kind of thing doesn’t find me unprepared. It’s what I
educated her for. It was all for this—that when such a case should
come up she should do what I prefer.”

“I’m not afraid that she’ll not do it.”

“Well then, where’s the hitch?”

“I don’t see any. But, all the same, I recommend you not to get rid of Mr.
Rosier. Keep him on hand; he may be useful.”

“I can’t keep him. Keep him yourself.”

“Very good; I’ll put him into a corner and allow him so much a day.”
Madame Merle had, for the most part, while they talked, been glancing
about her; it was her habit in this situation, just as it was her habit to
interpose a good many blank-looking pauses. A long drop followed the last
words I have quoted; and before it had ended she saw Pansy come out of the
adjoining room, followed by Edward Rosier. The girl advanced a few steps
and then stopped and stood looking at Madame Merle and at her father.

“He has spoken to her,” Madame Merle went on to Osmond.

Her companion never turned his head. “So much for your belief in his
promises. He ought to be horsewhipped.”

“He intends to confess, poor little man!”

Osmond got up; he had now taken a sharp look at his daughter. “It doesn’t
matter,” he murmured, turning away.

Pansy after a moment came up to Madame Merle with her little manner of
unfamiliar politeness. This lady’s reception of her was not more intimate;
she simply, as she rose from the sofa, gave her a friendly smile.

“You’re very late,” the young creature gently said.

“My dear child, I’m never later than I intend to be.”

Madame Merle had not got up to be gracious to Pansy; she moved toward
Edward Rosier. He came to meet her and, very quickly, as if to get it off
his mind, “I’ve spoken to her!” he whispered.

“I know it, Mr. Rosier.”

“Did she tell you?”

“Yes, she told me. Behave properly for the rest of the evening, and come
and see me to-morrow at a quarter past five.” She was severe, and in the
manner in which she turned her back to him there was a degree of contempt
which caused him to mutter a decent imprecation.

He had no intention of speaking to Osmond; it was neither the time nor the
place. But he instinctively wandered toward Isabel, who sat talking with
an old lady. He sat down on the other side of her; the old lady was
Italian, and Rosier took for granted she understood no English. “You said
just now you wouldn’t help me,” he began to Mrs. Osmond. “Perhaps you’ll
feel differently when you know—when you know—!”

Isabel met his hesitation. “When I know what?”

“That she’s all right.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, that we’ve come to an understanding.”

“She’s all wrong,” said Isabel. “It won’t do.”

Poor Rosier gazed at her half-pleadingly, half-angrily; a sudden flush
testified to his sense of injury. “I’ve never been treated so,” he said.
“What is there against me, after all? That’s not the way I’m usually
considered. I could have married twenty times.”

“It’s a pity you didn’t. I don’t mean twenty times, but once,
comfortably,” Isabel added, smiling kindly. “You’re not rich enough for
Pansy.”

“She doesn’t care a straw for one’s money.”

“No, but her father does.”

“Ah yes, he has proved that!” cried the young man.

Isabel got up, turning away from him, leaving her old lady without
ceremony; and he occupied himself for the next ten minutes in pretending
to look at Gilbert Osmond’s collection of miniatures, which were neatly
arranged on a series of small velvet screens. But he looked without
seeing; his cheek burned; he was too full of his sense of injury. It was
certain that he had never been treated that way before; he was not used to
being thought not good enough. He knew how good he was, and if such a
fallacy had not been so pernicious he could have laughed at it. He
searched again for Pansy, but she had disappeared, and his main desire was
now to get out of the house. Before doing so he spoke once more to Isabel;
it was not agreeable to him to reflect that he had just said a rude thing
to her—the only point that would now justify a low view of him.

“I referred to Mr. Osmond as I shouldn’t have done, a while ago,” he
began. “But you must remember my situation.”

“I don’t remember what you said,” she answered coldly.

“Ah, you’re offended, and now you’ll never help me.”

She was silent an instant, and then with a change of tone: “It’s not that
I won’t; I simply can’t!” Her manner was almost passionate.

“If you could, just a little, I’d never again speak of your husband
save as an angel.”

“The inducement’s great,” said Isabel gravely—inscrutably, as he
afterwards, to himself, called it; and she gave him, straight in the eyes,
a look which was also inscrutable. It made him remember somehow that he
had known her as a child; and yet it was keener than he liked, and he took
himself off.


CHAPTER XXXVIII

He went to see Madame Merle on the morrow, and to his surprise she let him
off rather easily. But she made him promise that he would stop there till
something should have been decided. Mr. Osmond had had higher
expectations; it was very true that as he had no intention of giving his
daughter a portion such expectations were open to criticism or even, if
one would, to ridicule. But she would advise Mr. Rosier not to take that
tone; if he would possess his soul in patience he might arrive at his
felicity. Mr. Osmond was not favourable to his suit, but it wouldn’t be a
miracle if he should gradually come round. Pansy would never defy her
father, he might depend on that; so nothing was to be gained by
precipitation. Mr. Osmond needed to accustom his mind to an offer of a
sort that he had not hitherto entertained, and this result must come of
itself—it was useless to try to force it. Rosier remarked that his
own situation would be in the meanwhile the most uncomfortable in the
world, and Madame Merle assured him that she felt for him. But, as she
justly declared, one couldn’t have everything one wanted; she had learned
that lesson for herself. There would be no use in his writing to Gilbert
Osmond, who had charged her to tell him as much. He wished the matter
dropped for a few weeks and would himself write when he should have
anything to communicate that it might please Mr. Rosier to hear.

“He doesn’t like your having spoken to Pansy, Ah, he doesn’t like it at
all,” said Madame Merle.

“I’m perfectly willing to give him a chance to tell me so!”

“If you do that he’ll tell you more than you care to hear. Go to the
house, for the next month, as little as possible, and leave the rest to
me.”

“As little as possible? Who’s to measure the possibility?”

“Let me measure it. Go on Thursday evenings with the rest of the world,
but don’t go at all at odd times, and don’t fret about Pansy. I’ll see
that she understands everything. She’s a calm little nature; she’ll take
it quietly.”

Edward Rosier fretted about Pansy a good deal, but he did as he was
advised, and awaited another Thursday evening before returning to Palazzo
Roccanera. There had been a party at dinner, so that though he went early
the company was already tolerably numerous. Osmond, as usual, was in the
first room, near the fire, staring straight at the door, so that, not to
be distinctly uncivil, Rosier had to go and speak to him.

“I’m glad that you can take a hint,” Pansy’s father said, slightly closing
his keen, conscious eyes.

“I take no hints. But I took a message, as I supposed it to be.”

“You took it? Where did you take it?”

It seemed to poor Rosier he was being insulted, and he waited a moment,
asking himself how much a true lover ought to submit to. “Madame Merle
gave me, as I understood it, a message from you—to the effect that
you declined to give me the opportunity I desire, the opportunity to
explain my wishes to you.” And he flattered himself he spoke rather
sternly.

“I don’t see what Madame Merle has to do with it. Why did you apply to
Madame Merle?”

“I asked her for an opinion—for nothing more. I did so because she
had seemed to me to know you very well.”

“She doesn’t know me so well as she thinks,” said Osmond.

“I’m sorry for that, because she has given me some little ground for
hope.”

Osmond stared into the fire a moment. “I set a great price on my
daughter.”

“You can’t set a higher one than I do. Don’t I prove it by wishing to
marry her?”

“I wish to marry her very well,” Osmond went on with a dry impertinence
which, in another mood, poor Rosier would have admired.

“Of course I pretend she’d marry well in marrying me. She couldn’t marry a
man who loves her more—or whom, I may venture to add, she loves
more.”

“I’m not bound to accept your theories as to whom my daughter loves”—and
Osmond looked up with a quick, cold smile.

“I’m not theorising. Your daughter has spoken.”

“Not to me,” Osmond continued, now bending forward a little and dropping
his eyes to his boot-toes.

“I have her promise, sir!” cried Rosier with the sharpness of
exasperation.

As their voices had been pitched very low before, such a note attracted
some attention from the company. Osmond waited till this little movement
had subsided; then he said, all undisturbed: “I think she has no
recollection of having given it.”

They had been standing with their faces to the fire, and after he had
uttered these last words the master of the house turned round again to the
room. Before Rosier had time to reply he perceived that a gentleman—a
stranger—had just come in, unannounced, according to the Roman
custom, and was about to present himself to his host. The latter smiled
blandly, but somewhat blankly; the visitor had a handsome face and a
large, fair beard, and was evidently an Englishman.

“You apparently don’t recognise me,” he said with a smile that expressed
more than Osmond’s.

“Ah yes, now I do. I expected so little to see you.”

Rosier departed and went in direct pursuit of Pansy. He sought her, as
usual, in the neighbouring room, but he again encountered Mrs. Osmond in
his path. He gave his hostess no greeting—he was too righteously
indignant, but said to her crudely: “Your husband’s awfully cold-blooded.”

She gave the same mystical smile he had noticed before. “You can’t expect
every one to be as hot as yourself.”

“I don’t pretend to be cold, but I’m cool. What has he been doing to his
daughter?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“Don’t you take any interest?” Rosier demanded with his sense that she too
was irritating.

For a moment she answered nothing; then, “No!” she said abruptly and with
a quickened light in her eyes which directly contradicted the word.

“Pardon me if I don’t believe that. Where’s Miss Osmond?”

“In the corner, making tea. Please leave her there.”

Rosier instantly discovered his friend, who had been hidden by intervening
groups. He watched her, but her own attention was entirely given to her
occupation. “What on earth has he done to her?” he asked again
imploringly. “He declares to me she has given me up.”

“She has not given you up,” Isabel said in a low tone and without looking
at him.

“Ah, thank you for that! Now I’ll leave her alone as long as you think
proper!”

He had hardly spoken when he saw her change colour, and became aware that
Osmond was coming toward her accompanied by the gentleman who had just
entered. He judged the latter, in spite of the advantage of good looks and
evident social experience, a little embarrassed. “Isabel,” said her
husband, “I bring you an old friend.”

Mrs. Osmond’s face, though it wore a smile, was, like her old friend’s,
not perfectly confident. “I’m very happy to see Lord Warburton,” she said.
Rosier turned away and, now that his talk with her had been interrupted,
felt absolved from the little pledge he had just taken. He had a quick
impression that Mrs. Osmond wouldn’t notice what he did.

Isabel in fact, to do him justice, for some time quite ceased to observe
him. She had been startled; she hardly knew if she felt a pleasure or a
pain. Lord Warburton, however, now that he was face to face with her, was
plainly quite sure of his own sense of the matter; though his grey eyes
had still their fine original property of keeping recognition and
attestation strictly sincere. He was “heavier” than of yore and looked
older; he stood there very solidly and sensibly.

“I suppose you didn’t expect to see me,” he said; “I’ve but just arrived.
Literally, I only got here this evening. You see I’ve lost no time in
coming to pay you my respects. I knew you were at home on Thursdays.”

“You see the fame of your Thursdays has spread to England,” Osmond
remarked to his wife.

“It’s very kind of Lord Warburton to come so soon; we’re greatly
flattered,” Isabel said.

“Ah well, it’s better than stopping in one of those horrible inns,” Osmond
went on.

“The hotel seems very good; I think it’s the same at which I saw you four
years since. You know it was here in Rome that we first met; it’s a long
time ago. Do you remember where I bade you good-bye?” his lordship asked
of his hostess. “It was in the Capitol, in the first room.”

“I remember that myself,” said Osmond. “I was there at the time.”

“Yes, I remember you there. I was very sorry to leave Rome—so sorry
that, somehow or other, it became almost a dismal memory, and I’ve never
cared to come back till to-day. But I knew you were living here,” her old
friend went on to Isabel, “and I assure you I’ve often thought of you. It
must be a charming place to live in,” he added with a look, round him, at
her established home, in which she might have caught the dim ghost of his
old ruefulness.

“We should have been glad to see you at any time,” Osmond observed with
propriety.

“Thank you very much. I haven’t been out of England since then. Till a
month ago I really supposed my travels over.”

“I’ve heard of you from time to time,” said Isabel, who had already, with
her rare capacity for such inward feats, taken the measure of what meeting
him again meant for her.

“I hope you’ve heard no harm. My life has been a remarkably complete
blank.”

“Like the good reigns in history,” Osmond suggested. He appeared to think
his duties as a host now terminated—he had performed them so
conscientiously. Nothing could have been more adequate, more nicely
measured, than his courtesy to his wife’s old friend. It was punctilious,
it was explicit, it was everything but natural—a deficiency which
Lord Warburton, who, himself, had on the whole a good deal of nature, may
be supposed to have perceived. “I’ll leave you and Mrs. Osmond together,”
he added. “You have reminiscences into which I don’t enter.”

“I’m afraid you lose a good deal!” Lord Warburton called after him, as he
moved away, in a tone which perhaps betrayed overmuch an appreciation of
his generosity. Then the visitor turned on Isabel the deeper, the deepest,
consciousness of his look, which gradually became more serious. “I’m
really very glad to see you.”

“It’s very pleasant. You’re very kind.”

“Do you know that you’re changed—a little?”

She just hesitated. “Yes—a good deal.”

“I don’t mean for the worse, of course; and yet how can I say for the
better?”

“I think I shall have no scruple in saying that to you,” she
bravely returned.

“Ah well, for me—it’s a long time. It would be a pity there
shouldn’t be something to show for it.” They sat down and she asked him
about his sisters, with other enquiries of a somewhat perfunctory kind. He
answered her questions as if they interested him, and in a few moments she
saw—or believed she saw—that he would press with less of his
whole weight than of yore. Time had breathed upon his heart and, without
chilling it, given it a relieved sense of having taken the air. Isabel
felt her usual esteem for Time rise at a bound. Her friend’s manner was
certainly that of a contented man, one who would rather like people, or
like her at least, to know him for such. “There’s something I must tell
you without more delay,” he resumed. “I’ve brought Ralph Touchett with
me.”

“Brought him with you?” Isabel’s surprise was great.

“He’s at the hotel; he was too tired to come out and has gone to bed.”

“I’ll go to see him,” she immediately said.

“That’s exactly what I hoped you’d do. I had an idea you hadn’t seen much
of him since your marriage, that in fact your relations were a—a
little more formal. That’s why I hesitated—like an awkward Briton.”

“I’m as fond of Ralph as ever,” Isabel answered. “But why has he come to
Rome?” The declaration was very gentle, the question a little sharp.

“Because he’s very far gone, Mrs. Osmond.”

“Rome then is no place for him. I heard from him that he had determined to
give up his custom of wintering abroad and to remain in England, indoors,
in what he called an artificial climate.”

“Poor fellow, he doesn’t succeed with the artificial! I went to see him
three weeks ago, at Gardencourt, and found him thoroughly ill. He has been
getting worse every year, and now he has no strength left. He smokes no
more cigarettes! He had got up an artificial climate indeed; the house was
as hot as Calcutta. Nevertheless he had suddenly taken it into his head to
start for Sicily. I didn’t believe in it—neither did the doctors,
nor any of his friends. His mother, as I suppose you know, is in America,
so there was no one to prevent him. He stuck to his idea that it would be
the saving of him to spend the winter at Catania. He said he could take
servants and furniture, could make himself comfortable, but in point of
fact he hasn’t brought anything. I wanted him at least to go by sea, to
save fatigue; but he said he hated the sea and wished to stop at Rome.
After that, though I thought it all rubbish, I made up my mind to come
with him. I’m acting as—what do you call it in America?—as a
kind of moderator. Poor Ralph’s very moderate now. We left England a
fortnight ago, and he has been very bad on the way. He can’t keep warm,
and the further south we come the more he feels the cold. He has got
rather a good man, but I’m afraid he’s beyond human help. I wanted him to
take with him some clever fellow—I mean some sharp young doctor; but
he wouldn’t hear of it. If you don’t mind my saying so, I think it was a
most extraordinary time for Mrs. Touchett to decide on going to America.”

Isabel had listened eagerly; her face was full of pain and wonder. “My
aunt does that at fixed periods and lets nothing turn her aside. When the
date comes round she starts; I think she’d have started if Ralph had been
dying.”

“I sometimes think he is dying,” Lord Warburton said.

Isabel sprang up. “I’ll go to him then now.”

He checked her; he was a little disconcerted at the quick effect of his
words. “I don’t mean I thought so to-night. On the contrary, to-day, in
the train, he seemed particularly well; the idea of our reaching Rome—he’s
very fond of Rome, you know—gave him strength. An hour ago, when I
bade him good-night, he told me he was very tired, but very happy. Go to
him in the morning; that’s all I mean. I didn’t tell him I was coming
here; I didn’t decide to till after we had separated. Then I remembered he
had told me you had an evening, and that it was this very Thursday. It
occurred to me to come in and tell you he’s here, and let you know you had
perhaps better not wait for him to call. I think he said he hadn’t written
to you.” There was no need of Isabel’s declaring that she would act upon
Lord Warburton’s information; she looked, as she sat there, like a winged
creature held back. “Let alone that I wanted to see you for myself,” her
visitor gallantly added.

“I don’t understand Ralph’s plan; it seems to me very wild,” she said. “I
was glad to think of him between those thick walls at Gardencourt.”

“He was completely alone there; the thick walls were his only company.”

“You went to see him; you’ve been extremely kind.”

“Oh dear, I had nothing to do,” said Lord Warburton.

“We hear, on the contrary, that you’re doing great things. Every one
speaks of you as a great statesman, and I’m perpetually seeing your name
in the Times, which, by the way, doesn’t appear to hold it in reverence.
You’re apparently as wild a radical as ever.”

“I don’t feel nearly so wild; you know the world has come round to me.
Touchett and I have kept up a sort of parliamentary debate all the way
from London. I tell him he’s the last of the Tories, and he calls me the
King of the Goths—says I have, down to the details of my personal
appearance, every sign of the brute. So you see there’s life in him yet.”

Isabel had many questions to ask about Ralph, but she abstained from
asking them all. She would see for herself on the morrow. She perceived
that after a little Lord Warburton would tire of that subject—he had
a conception of other possible topics. She was more and more able to say
to herself that he had recovered, and, what is more to the point, she was
able to say it without bitterness. He had been for her, of old, such an
image of urgency, of insistence, of something to be resisted and reasoned
with, that his reappearance at first menaced her with a new trouble. But
she was now reassured; she could see he only wished to live with her on
good terms, that she was to understand he had forgiven her and was
incapable of the bad taste of making pointed allusions. This was not a
form of revenge, of course; she had no suspicion of his wishing to punish
her by an exhibition of disillusionment; she did him the justice to
believe it had simply occurred to him that she would now take a
good-natured interest in knowing he was resigned. It was the resignation
of a healthy, manly nature, in which sentimental wounds could never
fester. British politics had cured him; she had known they would. She gave
an envious thought to the happier lot of men, who are always free to
plunge into the healing waters of action. Lord Warburton of course spoke
of the past, but he spoke of it without implications; he even went so far
as to allude to their former meeting in Rome as a very jolly time. And he
told her he had been immensely interested in hearing of her marriage and
that it was a great pleasure for him to make Mr. Osmond’s acquaintance—since
he could hardly be said to have made it on the other occasion. He had not
written to her at the time of that passage in her history, but he didn’t
apologise to her for this. The only thing he implied was that they were
old friends, intimate friends. It was very much as an intimate friend that
he said to her, suddenly, after a short pause which he had occupied in
smiling, as he looked about him, like a person amused, at a provincial
entertainment, by some innocent game of guesses—

“Well now, I suppose you’re very happy and all that sort of thing?”

Isabel answered with a quick laugh; the tone of his remark struck her
almost as the accent of comedy. “Do you suppose if I were not I’d tell
you?”

“Well, I don’t know. I don’t see why not.”

“I do then. Fortunately, however, I’m very happy.”

“You’ve got an awfully good house.”

“Yes, it’s very pleasant. But that’s not my merit—it’s my
husband’s.”

“You mean he has arranged it?”

“Yes, it was nothing when we came.”

“He must be very clever.”

“He has a genius for upholstery,” said Isabel.

“There’s a great rage for that sort of thing now. But you must have a
taste of your own.”

“I enjoy things when they’re done, but I’ve no ideas. I can never propose
anything.”

“Do you mean you accept what others propose?”

“Very willingly, for the most part.”

“That’s a good thing to know. I shall propose to you something.”

“It will be very kind. I must say, however, that I’ve in a few small ways
a certain initiative. I should like for instance to introduce you to some
of these people.”

“Oh, please don’t; I prefer sitting here. Unless it be to that young lady
in the blue dress. She has a charming face.”

“The one talking to the rosy young man? That’s my husband’s daughter.”

“Lucky man, your husband. What a dear little maid!”

“You must make her acquaintance.”

“In a moment—with pleasure. I like looking at her from here.” He
ceased to look at her, however, very soon; his eyes constantly reverted to
Mrs. Osmond. “Do you know I was wrong just now in saying you had changed?”
he presently went on. “You seem to me, after all, very much the same.”

“And yet I find it a great change to be married,” said Isabel with mild
gaiety.

“It affects most people more than it has affected you. You see I haven’t
gone in for that.”

“It rather surprises me.”

“You ought to understand it, Mrs. Osmond. But I do want to marry,” he
added more simply.

“It ought to be very easy,” Isabel said, rising—after which she
reflected, with a pang perhaps too visible, that she was hardly the person
to say this. It was perhaps because Lord Warburton divined the pang that
he generously forbore to call her attention to her not having contributed
then to the facility.

Edward Rosier had meanwhile seated himself on an ottoman beside Pansy’s
tea-table. He pretended at first to talk to her about trifles, and she
asked him who was the new gentleman conversing with her stepmother.

“He’s an English lord,” said Rosier. “I don’t know more.”

“I wonder if he’ll have some tea. The English are so fond of tea.”

“Never mind that; I’ve something particular to say to you.”

“Don’t speak so loud every one will hear,” said Pansy.

“They won’t hear if you continue to look that way: as if your only thought
in life was the wish the kettle would boil.”

“It has just been filled; the servants never know!”—and she sighed
with the weight of her responsibility.

“Do you know what your father said to me just now? That you didn’t mean
what you said a week ago.”

“I don’t mean everything I say. How can a young girl do that? But I mean
what I say to you.”

“He told me you had forgotten me.”

“Ah no, I don’t forget,” said Pansy, showing her pretty teeth in a fixed
smile.

“Then everything’s just the very same?”

“Ah no, not the very same. Papa has been terribly severe.”

“What has he done to you?”

“He asked me what you had done to me, and I told him everything. Then he
forbade me to marry you.”

“You needn’t mind that.”

“Oh yes, I must indeed. I can’t disobey papa.”

“Not for one who loves you as I do, and whom you pretend to love?”

She raised the lid of the tea-pot, gazing into this vessel for a moment;
then she dropped six words into its aromatic depths. “I love you just as
much.”

“What good will that do me?”

“Ah,” said Pansy, raising her sweet, vague eyes, “I don’t know that.”

“You disappoint me,” groaned poor Rosier.

She was silent a little; she handed a tea-cup to a servant. “Please don’t
talk any more.”

“Is this to be all my satisfaction?”

“Papa said I was not to talk with you.”

“Do you sacrifice me like that? Ah, it’s too much!”

“I wish you’d wait a little,” said the girl in a voice just distinct
enough to betray a quaver.

“Of course I’ll wait if you’ll give me hope. But you take my life away.”

“I’ll not give you up—oh no!” Pansy went on.

“He’ll try and make you marry some one else.”

“I’ll never do that.”

“What then are we to wait for?”

She hesitated again. “I’ll speak to Mrs. Osmond and she’ll help us.” It
was in this manner that she for the most part designated her stepmother.

“She won’t help us much. She’s afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Of your father, I suppose.”

Pansy shook her little head. “She’s not afraid of any one. We must have
patience.”

“Ah, that’s an awful word,” Rosier groaned; he was deeply disconcerted.
Oblivious of the customs of good society, he dropped his head into his
hands and, supporting it with a melancholy grace, sat staring at the
carpet. Presently he became aware of a good deal of movement about him
and, as he looked up, saw Pansy making a curtsey—it was still her
little curtsey of the convent—to the English lord whom Mrs. Osmond
had introduced.


CHAPTER XXXIX

It will probably not surprise the reflective reader that Ralph Touchett
should have seen less of his cousin since her marriage than he had done
before that event—an event of which he took such a view as could
hardly prove a confirmation of intimacy. He had uttered his thought, as we
know, and after this had held his peace, Isabel not having invited him to
resume a discussion which marked an era in their relations. That
discussion had made a difference—the difference he feared rather
than the one he hoped. It had not chilled the girl’s zeal in carrying out
her engagement, but it had come dangerously near to spoiling a friendship.
No reference was ever again made between them to Ralph’s opinion of
Gilbert Osmond, and by surrounding this topic with a sacred silence they
managed to preserve a semblance of reciprocal frankness. But there was a
difference, as Ralph often said to himself—there was a difference.
She had not forgiven him, she never would forgive him: that was all he had
gained. She thought she had forgiven him; she believed she didn’t care;
and as she was both very generous and very proud these convictions
represented a certain reality. But whether or no the event should justify
him he would virtually have done her a wrong, and the wrong was of the
sort that women remember best. As Osmond’s wife she could never again be
his friend. If in this character she should enjoy the felicity she
expected, she would have nothing but contempt for the man who had
attempted, in advance, to undermine a blessing so dear; and if on the
other hand his warning should be justified the vow she had taken that he
should never know it would lay upon her spirit such a burden as to make
her hate him. So dismal had been, during the year that followed his
cousin’s marriage, Ralph’s prevision of the future; and if his meditations
appear morbid we must remember he was not in the bloom of health. He
consoled himself as he might by behaving (as he deemed) beautifully, and
was present at the ceremony by which Isabel was united to Mr. Osmond, and
which was performed in Florence in the month of June. He learned from his
mother that Isabel at first had thought of celebrating her nuptials in her
native land, but that as simplicity was what she chiefly desired to secure
she had finally decided, in spite of Osmond’s professed willingness to
make a journey of any length, that this characteristic would be best
embodied in their being married by the nearest clergyman in the shortest
time. The thing was done therefore at the little American chapel, on a
very hot day, in the presence only of Mrs. Touchett and her son, of Pansy
Osmond and the Countess Gemini. That severity in the proceedings of which
I just spoke was in part the result of the absence of two persons who
might have been looked for on the occasion and who would have lent it a
certain richness. Madame Merle had been invited, but Madame Merle, who was
unable to leave Rome, had written a gracious letter of excuses. Henrietta
Stackpole had not been invited, as her departure from America, announced
to Isabel by Mr. Goodwood, was in fact frustrated by the duties of her
profession; but she had sent a letter, less gracious than Madame Merle’s,
intimating that, had she been able to cross the Atlantic, she would have
been present not only as a witness but as a critic. Her return to Europe
had taken place somewhat later, and she had effected a meeting with Isabel
in the autumn, in Paris, when she had indulged—perhaps a trifle too
freely—her critical genius. Poor Osmond, who was chiefly the subject
of it, had protested so sharply that Henrietta was obliged to declare to
Isabel that she had taken a step which put a barrier between them. “It
isn’t in the least that you’ve married—it is that you have married
him,” she had deemed it her duty to remark; agreeing, it will be
seen, much more with Ralph Touchett than she suspected, though she had few
of his hesitations and compunctions. Henrietta’s second visit to Europe,
however, was not apparently to have been made in vain; for just at the
moment when Osmond had declared to Isabel that he really must object to
that newspaper-woman, and Isabel had answered that it seemed to her he
took Henrietta too hard, the good Mr. Bantling had appeared upon the scene
and proposed that they should take a run down to Spain. Henrietta’s
letters from Spain had proved the most acceptable she had yet published,
and there had been one in especial, dated from the Alhambra and entitled
‘Moors and Moonlight,’ which generally passed for her masterpiece. Isabel
had been secretly disappointed at her husband’s not seeing his way simply
to take the poor girl for funny. She even wondered if his sense of fun, or
of the funny—which would be his sense of humour, wouldn’t it?—were
by chance defective. Of course she herself looked at the matter as a
person whose present happiness had nothing to grudge to Henrietta’s
violated conscience. Osmond had thought their alliance a kind of
monstrosity; he couldn’t imagine what they had in common. For him, Mr.
Bantling’s fellow tourist was simply the most vulgar of women, and he had
also pronounced her the most abandoned. Against this latter clause of the
verdict Isabel had appealed with an ardour that had made him wonder afresh
at the oddity of some of his wife’s tastes. Isabel could explain it only
by saying that she liked to know people who were as different as possible
from herself. “Why then don’t you make the acquaintance of your
washerwoman?” Osmond had enquired; to which Isabel had answered that she
was afraid her washerwoman wouldn’t care for her. Now Henrietta cared so
much.

Ralph had seen nothing of her for the greater part of the two years that
had followed her marriage; the winter that formed the beginning of her
residence in Rome he had spent again at San Remo, where he had been joined
in the spring by his mother, who afterwards had gone with him to England,
to see what they were doing at the bank—an operation she couldn’t
induce him to perform. Ralph had taken a lease of his house at San Remo, a
small villa which he had occupied still another winter; but late in the
month of April of this second year he had come down to Rome. It was the
first time since her marriage that he had stood face to face with Isabel;
his desire to see her again was then of the keenest. She had written to
him from time to time, but her letters told him nothing he wanted to know.
He had asked his mother what she was making of her life, and his mother
had simply answered that she supposed she was making the best of it. Mrs.
Touchett had not the imagination that communes with the unseen, and she
now pretended to no intimacy with her niece, whom she rarely encountered.
This young woman appeared to be living in a sufficiently honourable way,
but Mrs. Touchett still remained of the opinion that her marriage had been
a shabby affair. It had given her no pleasure to think of Isabel’s
establishment, which she was sure was a very lame business. From time to
time, in Florence, she rubbed against the Countess Gemini, doing her best
always to minimise the contact; and the Countess reminded her of Osmond,
who made her think of Isabel. The Countess was less talked of in these
days; but Mrs. Touchett augured no good of that: it only proved how she
had been talked of before. There was a more direct suggestion of Isabel in
the person of Madame Merle; but Madame Merle’s relations with Mrs.
Touchett had undergone a perceptible change. Isabel’s aunt had told her,
without circumlocution, that she had played too ingenious a part; and
Madame Merle, who never quarrelled with any one, who appeared to think no
one worth it, and who had performed the miracle of living, more or less,
for several years with Mrs. Touchett and showing no symptom of irritation—Madame
Merle now took a very high tone and declared that this was an accusation
from which she couldn’t stoop to defend herself. She added, however
(without stooping), that her behaviour had been only too simple, that she
had believed only what she saw, that she saw Isabel was not eager to marry
and Osmond not eager to please (his repeated visits had been nothing; he
was boring himself to death on his hill-top and he came merely for
amusement). Isabel had kept her sentiments to herself, and her journey to
Greece and Egypt had effectually thrown dust in her companion’s eyes.
Madame Merle accepted the event—she was unprepared to think of it as
a scandal; but that she had played any part in it, double or single, was
an imputation against which she proudly protested. It was doubtless in
consequence of Mrs. Touchett’s attitude, and of the injury it offered to
habits consecrated by many charming seasons, that Madame Merle had, after
this, chosen to pass many months in England, where her credit was quite
unimpaired. Mrs. Touchett had done her a wrong; there are some things that
can’t be forgiven. But Madame Merle suffered in silence; there was always
something exquisite in her dignity.

Ralph, as I say, had wished to see for himself; but while engaged in this
pursuit he had yet felt afresh what a fool he had been to put the girl on
her guard. He had played the wrong card, and now he had lost the game. He
should see nothing, he should learn nothing; for him she would always wear
a mask. His true line would have been to profess delight in her union, so
that later, when, as Ralph phrased it, the bottom should fall out of it,
she might have the pleasure of saying to him that he had been a goose. He
would gladly have consented to pass for a goose in order to know Isabel’s
real situation. At present, however, she neither taunted him with his
fallacies nor pretended that her own confidence was justified; if she wore
a mask it completely covered her face. There was something fixed and
mechanical in the serenity painted on it; this was not an expression,
Ralph said—it was a representation, it was even an advertisement.
She had lost her child; that was a sorrow, but it was a sorrow she
scarcely spoke of; there was more to say about it than she could say to
Ralph. It belonged to the past, moreover; it had occurred six months
before and she had already laid aside the tokens of mourning. She appeared
to be leading the life of the world; Ralph heard her spoken of as having a
“charming position.” He observed that she produced the impression of being
peculiarly enviable, that it was supposed, among many people, to be a
privilege even to know her. Her house was not open to every one, and she
had an evening in the week to which people were not invited as a matter of
course. She lived with a certain magnificence, but you needed to be a
member of her circle to perceive it; for there was nothing to gape at,
nothing to criticise, nothing even to admire, in the daily proceedings of
Mr. and Mrs. Osmond. Ralph, in all this, recognised the hand of the
master; for he knew that Isabel had no faculty for producing studied
impressions. She struck him as having a great love of movement, of gaiety,
of late hours, of long rides, of fatigue; an eagerness to be entertained,
to be interested, even to be bored, to make acquaintances, to see people
who were talked about, to explore the neighbourhood of Rome, to enter into
relation with certain of the mustiest relics of its old society. In all
this there was much less discrimination than in that desire for
comprehensiveness of development on which he had been used to exercise his
wit. There was a kind of violence in some of her impulses, of crudity in
some of her experiments, which took him by surprise: it seemed to him that
she even spoke faster, moved faster, breathed faster, than before her
marriage. Certainly she had fallen into exaggerations—she who used
to care so much for the pure truth; and whereas of old she had a great
delight in good-humoured argument, in intellectual play (she never looked
so charming as when in the genial heat of discussion she received a
crushing blow full in the face and brushed it away as a feather), she
appeared now to think there was nothing worth people’s either differing
about or agreeing upon. Of old she had been curious, and now she was
indifferent, and yet in spite of her indifference her activity was greater
than ever. Slender still, but lovelier than before, she had gained no
great maturity of aspect; yet there was an amplitude and a brilliancy in
her personal arrangements that gave a touch of insolence to her beauty.
Poor human-hearted Isabel, what perversity had bitten her? Her light step
drew a mass of drapery behind it; her intelligent head sustained a majesty
of ornament. The free, keen girl had become quite another person; what he
saw was the fine lady who was supposed to represent something. What did
Isabel represent? Ralph asked himself; and he could only answer by saying
that she represented Gilbert Osmond. “Good heavens, what a function!” he
then woefully exclaimed. He was lost in wonder at the mystery of things.

He recognised Osmond, as I say; he recognised him at every turn. He saw
how he kept all things within limits; how he adjusted, regulated, animated
their manner of life. Osmond was in his element; at last he had material
to work with. He always had an eye to effect, and his effects were deeply
calculated. They were produced by no vulgar means, but the motive was as
vulgar as the art was great. To surround his interior with a sort of
invidious sanctity, to tantalise society with a sense of exclusion, to
make people believe his house was different from every other, to impart to
the face that he presented to the world a cold originality—this was
the ingenious effort of the personage to whom Isabel had attributed a
superior morality. “He works with superior material,” Ralph said to
himself; “it’s rich abundance compared with his former resources.” Ralph
was a clever man; but Ralph had never—to his own sense—been so
clever as when he observed, in petto, that under the guise of
caring only for intrinsic values Osmond lived exclusively for the world.
Far from being its master as he pretended to be, he was its very humble
servant, and the degree of its attention was his only measure of success.
He lived with his eye on it from morning till night, and the world was so
stupid it never suspected the trick. Everything he did was pose—pose
so subtly considered that if one were not on the lookout one mistook it
for impulse. Ralph had never met a man who lived so much in the land of
consideration. His tastes, his studies, his accomplishments, his
collections, were all for a purpose. His life on his hill-top at Florence
had been the conscious attitude of years. His solitude, his ennui, his
love for his daughter, his good manners, his bad manners, were so many
features of a mental image constantly present to him as a model of
impertinence and mystification. His ambition was not to please the world,
but to please himself by exciting the world’s curiosity and then declining
to satisfy it. It had made him feel great, ever, to play the world a
trick. The thing he had done in his life most directly to please himself
was his marrying Miss Archer; though in this case indeed the gullible
world was in a manner embodied in poor Isabel, who had been mystified to
the top of her bent. Ralph of course found a fitness in being consistent;
he had embraced a creed, and as he had suffered for it he could not in
honour forsake it. I give this little sketch of its articles for what they
may at the time have been worth. It was certain that he was very skilful
in fitting the facts to his theory—even the fact that during the
month he spent in Rome at this period the husband of the woman he loved
appeared to regard him not in the least as an enemy.

For Gilbert Osmond Ralph had not now that importance. It was not that he
had the importance of a friend; it was rather that he had none at all. He
was Isabel’s cousin and he was rather unpleasantly ill—it was on
this basis that Osmond treated with him. He made the proper enquiries,
asked about his health, about Mrs. Touchett, about his opinion of winter
climates, whether he were comfortable at his hotel. He addressed him, on
the few occasions of their meeting, not a word that was not necessary; but
his manner had always the urbanity proper to conscious success in the
presence of conscious failure. For all this, Ralph had had, toward the
end, a sharp inward vision of Osmond’s making it of small ease to his wife
that she should continue to receive Mr. Touchett. He was not jealous—he
had not that excuse; no one could be jealous of Ralph. But he made Isabel
pay for her old-time kindness, of which so much was still left; and as
Ralph had no idea of her paying too much, so when his suspicion had become
sharp, he had taken himself off. In doing so he had deprived Isabel of a
very interesting occupation: she had been constantly wondering what fine
principle was keeping him alive. She had decided that it was his love of
conversation; his conversation had been better than ever. He had given up
walking; he was no longer a humorous stroller. He sat all day in a chair—almost
any chair would serve, and was so dependent on what you would do for him
that, had not his talk been highly contemplative, you might have thought
he was blind. The reader already knows more about him than Isabel was ever
to know, and the reader may therefore be given the key to the mystery.
What kept Ralph alive was simply the fact that he had not yet seen enough
of the person in the world in whom he was most interested: he was not yet
satisfied. There was more to come; he couldn’t make up his mind to lose
that. He wanted to see what she would make of her husband—or what
her husband would make of her. This was only the first act of the drama,
and he was determined to sit out the performance. His determination had
held good; it had kept him going some eighteen months more, till the time
of his return to Rome with Lord Warburton. It had given him indeed such an
air of intending to live indefinitely that Mrs. Touchett, though more
accessible to confusions of thought in the matter of this strange,
unremunerative—and unremunerated—son of hers than she had ever
been before, had, as we have learned, not scrupled to embark for a distant
land. If Ralph had been kept alive by suspense it was with a good deal of
the same emotion—the excitement of wondering in what state she
should find him—that Isabel mounted to his apartment the day after
Lord Warburton had notified her of his arrival in Rome.

She spent an hour with him; it was the first of several visits. Gilbert
Osmond called on him punctually, and on their sending their carriage for
him Ralph came more than once to Palazzo Roccanera. A fortnight elapsed,
at the end of which Ralph announced to Lord Warburton that he thought
after all he wouldn’t go to Sicily. The two men had been dining together
after a day spent by the latter in ranging about the Campagna. They had
left the table, and Warburton, before the chimney, was lighting a cigar,
which he instantly removed from his lips.

“Won’t go to Sicily? Where then will you go?”

“Well, I guess I won’t go anywhere,” said Ralph, from the sofa, all
shamelessly.

“Do you mean you’ll return to England?”

“Oh dear no; I’ll stay in Rome.”

“Rome won’t do for you. Rome’s not warm enough.”

“It will have to do. I’ll make it do. See how well I’ve been.”

Lord Warburton looked at him a while, puffing a cigar and as if trying to
see it. “You’ve been better than you were on the journey, certainly. I
wonder how you lived through that. But I don’t understand your condition.
I recommend you to try Sicily.”

“I can’t try,” said poor Ralph. “I’ve done trying. I can’t move further. I
can’t face that journey. Fancy me between Scylla and Charybdis! I don’t
want to die on the Sicilian plains—to be snatched away, like
Proserpine in the same locality, to the Plutonian shades.”

“What the deuce then did you come for?” his lordship enquired.

“Because the idea took me. I see it won’t do. It really doesn’t matter
where I am now. I’ve exhausted all remedies, I’ve swallowed all climates.
As I’m here I’ll stay. I haven’t a single cousin in Sicily—much less
a married one.”

“Your cousin’s certainly an inducement. But what does the doctor say?”

“I haven’t asked him, and I don’t care a fig. If I die here Mrs. Osmond
will bury me. But I shall not die here.”

“I hope not.” Lord Warburton continued to smoke reflectively. “Well, I
must say,” he resumed, “for myself I’m very glad you don’t insist on
Sicily. I had a horror of that journey.”

“Ah, but for you it needn’t have mattered. I had no idea of dragging you
in my train.”

“I certainly didn’t mean to let you go alone.”

“My dear Warburton, I never expected you to come further than this,” Ralph
cried.

“I should have gone with you and seen you settled,” said Lord Warburton.

“You’re a very good Christian. You’re a very kind man.”

“Then I should have come back here.”

“And then you’d have gone to England.”

“No, no; I should have stayed.”

“Well,” said Ralph, “if that’s what we are both up to, I don’t see where
Sicily comes in!”

His companion was silent; he sat staring at the fire. At last, looking up,
“I say, tell me this,” he broke out; “did you really mean to go to Sicily
when we started?”

“Ah, vous m’en demandez trop! Let me put a question first. Did you
come with me quite—platonically?”

“I don’t know what you mean by that. I wanted to come abroad.”

“I suspect we’ve each been playing our little game.”

“Speak for yourself. I made no secret whatever of my desiring to be here a
while.”

“Yes, I remember you said you wished to see the Minister of Foreign
Affairs.”

“I’ve seen him three times. He’s very amusing.”

“I think you’ve forgotten what you came for,” said Ralph.

“Perhaps I have,” his companion answered rather gravely.

These two were gentlemen of a race which is not distinguished by the
absence of reserve, and they had travelled together from London to Rome
without an allusion to matters that were uppermost in the mind of each.
There was an old subject they had once discussed, but it had lost its
recognised place in their attention, and even after their arrival in Rome,
where many things led back to it, they had kept the same half-diffident,
half-confident silence.

“I recommend you to get the doctor’s consent, all the same,” Lord
Warburton went on, abruptly, after an interval.

“The doctor’s consent will spoil it. I never have it when I can help it.”

“What then does Mrs. Osmond think?” Ralph’s friend demanded. “I’ve not
told her. She’ll probably say that Rome’s too cold and even offer to go
with me to Catania. She’s capable of that.”

“In your place I should like it.”

“Her husband won’t like it.”

“Ah well, I can fancy that; though it seems to me you’re not bound to mind
his likings. They’re his affair.”

“I don’t want to make any more trouble between them,” said Ralph.

“Is there so much already?”

“There’s complete preparation for it. Her going off with me would make the
explosion. Osmond isn’t fond of his wife’s cousin.”

“Then of course he’d make a row. But won’t he make a row if you stop
here?”

“That’s what I want to see. He made one the last time I was in Rome, and
then I thought it my duty to disappear. Now I think it’s my duty to stop
and defend her.”

“My dear Touchett, your defensive powers—!” Lord Warburton began
with a smile. But he saw something in his companion’s face that checked
him. “Your duty, in these premises, seems to me rather a nice question,”
he observed instead.

Ralph for a short time answered nothing. “It’s true that my defensive
powers are small,” he returned at last; “but as my aggressive ones are
still smaller Osmond may after all not think me worth his gunpowder. At
any rate,” he added, “there are things I’m curious to see.”

“You’re sacrificing your health to your curiosity then?”

“I’m not much interested in my health, and I’m deeply interested in Mrs.
Osmond.”

“So am I. But not as I once was,” Lord Warburton added quickly. This was
one of the allusions he had not hitherto found occasion to make.

“Does she strike you as very happy?” Ralph enquired, emboldened by this
confidence.

“Well, I don’t know; I’ve hardly thought. She told me the other night she
was happy.”

“Ah, she told you, of course,” Ralph exclaimed, smiling.

“I don’t know that. It seems to me I was rather the sort of person she
might have complained to.”

“Complained? She’ll never complain. She has done it—what she has
done—and she knows it. She’ll complain to you least of all. She’s
very careful.”

“She needn’t be. I don’t mean to make love to her again.”

“I’m delighted to hear it. There can be no doubt at least of your
duty.”

“Ah no,” said Lord Warburton gravely; “none!”

“Permit me to ask,” Ralph went on, “whether it’s to bring out the fact
that you don’t mean to make love to her that you’re so very civil to the
little girl?”

Lord Warburton gave a slight start; he got up and stood before the fire,
looking at it hard. “Does that strike you as very ridiculous?”

“Ridiculous? Not in the least, if you really like her.”

“I think her a delightful little person. I don’t know when a girl of that
age has pleased me more.”

“She’s a charming creature. Ah, she at least is genuine.”

“Of course there’s the difference in our ages—more than twenty
years.”

“My dear Warburton,” said Ralph, “are you serious?”

“Perfectly serious—as far as I’ve got.”

“I’m very glad. And, heaven help us,” cried Ralph, “how cheered-up old
Osmond will be!”

His companion frowned. “I say, don’t spoil it. I shouldn’t propose for his
daughter to please him.”

“He’ll have the perversity to be pleased all the same.”

“He’s not so fond of me as that,” said his lordship.

“As that? My dear Warburton, the drawback of your position is that people
needn’t be fond of you at all to wish to be connected with you. Now, with
me in such a case, I should have the happy confidence that they loved me.”

Lord Warburton seemed scarcely in the mood for doing justice to general
axioms—he was thinking of a special case. “Do you judge she’ll be
pleased?”

“The girl herself? Delighted, surely.”

“No, no; I mean Mrs. Osmond.”

Ralph looked at him a moment. “My dear fellow, what has she to do with
it?”

“Whatever she chooses. She’s very fond of Pansy.”

“Very true—very true.” And Ralph slowly got up. “It’s an interesting
question—how far her fondness for Pansy will carry her.” He stood
there a moment with his hands in his pockets and rather a clouded brow. “I
hope, you know, that you’re very—very sure. The deuce!” he broke
off. “I don’t know how to say it.”

“Yes, you do; you know how to say everything.”

“Well, it’s awkward. I hope you’re sure that among Miss Osmond’s merits
her being—a—so near her stepmother isn’t a leading one?”

“Good heavens, Touchett!” cried Lord Warburton angrily, “for what do you
take me?”


CHAPTER XL

Isabel had not seen much of Madame Merle since her marriage, this lady
having indulged in frequent absences from Rome. At one time she had spent
six months in England; at another she had passed a portion of a winter in
Paris. She had made numerous visits to distant friends and gave
countenance to the idea that for the future she should be a less
inveterate Roman than in the past. As she had been inveterate in the past
only in the sense of constantly having an apartment in one of the sunniest
niches of the Pincian—an apartment which often stood empty—this
suggested a prospect of almost constant absence; a danger which Isabel at
one period had been much inclined to deplore. Familiarity had modified in
some degree her first impression of Madame Merle, but it had not
essentially altered it; there was still much wonder of admiration in it.
That personage was armed at all points; it was a pleasure to see a
character so completely equipped for the social battle. She carried her
flag discreetly, but her weapons were polished steel, and she used them
with a skill which struck Isabel as more and more that of a veteran. She
was never weary, never overcome with disgust; she never appeared to need
rest or consolation. She had her own ideas; she had of old exposed a great
many of them to Isabel, who knew also that under an appearance of extreme
self-control her highly-cultivated friend concealed a rich sensibility.
But her will was mistress of her life; there was something gallant in the
way she kept going. It was as if she had learned the secret of it—as
if the art of life were some clever trick she had guessed. Isabel, as she
herself grew older, became acquainted with revulsions, with disgusts;
there were days when the world looked black and she asked herself with
some sharpness what it was that she was pretending to live for. Her old
habit had been to live by enthusiasm, to fall in love with
suddenly-perceived possibilities, with the idea of some new adventure. As
a younger person she had been used to proceed from one little exaltation
to the other: there were scarcely any dull places between. But Madame
Merle had suppressed enthusiasm; she fell in love now-a-days with nothing;
she lived entirely by reason and by wisdom. There were hours when Isabel
would have given anything for lessons in this art; if her brilliant friend
had been near she would have made an appeal to her. She had become aware
more than before of the advantage of being like that—of having made
one’s self a firm surface, a sort of corselet of silver.

But, as I say, it was not till the winter during which we lately renewed
acquaintance with our heroine that the personage in question made again a
continuous stay in Rome. Isabel now saw more of her than she had done
since her marriage; but by this time Isabel’s needs and inclinations had
considerably changed. It was not at present to Madame Merle that she would
have applied for instruction; she had lost the desire to know this lady’s
clever trick. If she had troubles she must keep them to herself, and if
life was difficult it would not make it easier to confess herself beaten.
Madame Merle was doubtless of great use to herself and an ornament to any
circle; but was she—would she be—of use to others in periods
of refined embarrassment? The best way to profit by her friend—this
indeed Isabel had always thought—was to imitate her, to be as firm
and bright as she. She recognised no embarrassments, and Isabel,
considering this fact, determined for the fiftieth time to brush aside her
own. It seemed to her too, on the renewal of an intercourse which had
virtually been interrupted, that her old ally was different, was almost
detached—pushing to the extreme a certain rather artificial fear of
being indiscreet. Ralph Touchett, we know, had been of the opinion that
she was prone to exaggeration, to forcing the note—was apt, in the
vulgar phrase, to overdo it. Isabel had never admitted this charge—had
never indeed quite understood it; Madame Merle’s conduct, to her
perception, always bore the stamp of good taste, was always “quiet.” But
in this matter of not wishing to intrude upon the inner life of the Osmond
family it at last occurred to our young woman that she overdid a little.
That of course was not the best taste; that was rather violent. She
remembered too much that Isabel was married; that she had now other
interests; that though she, Madame Merle, had known Gilbert Osmond and his
little Pansy very well, better almost than any one, she was not after all
of the inner circle. She was on her guard; she never spoke of their
affairs till she was asked, even pressed—as when her opinion was
wanted; she had a dread of seeming to meddle. Madame Merle was as candid
as we know, and one day she candidly expressed this dread to Isabel.

“I must be on my guard,” she said; “I might so easily, without
suspecting it, offend you. You would be right to be offended, even if my
intention should have been of the purest. I must not forget that I knew
your husband long before you did; I must not let that betray me. If you
were a silly woman you might be jealous. You’re not a silly woman; I know
that perfectly. But neither am I; therefore I’m determined not to get into
trouble. A little harm’s very soon done; a mistake’s made before one knows
it. Of course if I had wished to make love to your husband I had ten years
to do it in, and nothing to prevent; so it isn’t likely I shall begin
to-day, when I’m so much less attractive than I was. But if I were to
annoy you by seeming to take a place that doesn’t belong to me, you
wouldn’t make that reflection; you’d simply say I was forgetting certain
differences. I’m determined not to forget them. Certainly a good friend
isn’t always thinking of that; one doesn’t suspect one’s friends of
injustice. I don’t suspect you, my dear, in the least; but I suspect human
nature. Don’t think I make myself uncomfortable; I’m not always watching
myself. I think I sufficiently prove it in talking to you as I do now. All
I wish to say is, however, that if you were to be jealous—that’s the
form it would take—I should be sure to think it was a little my
fault. It certainly wouldn’t be your husband’s.”

Isabel had had three years to think over Mrs. Touchett’s theory that
Madame Merle had made Gilbert Osmond’s marriage. We know how she had at
first received it. Madame Merle might have made Gilbert Osmond’s marriage,
but she certainly had not made Isabel Archer’s. That was the work of—Isabel
scarcely knew what: of nature, providence, fortune, of the eternal mystery
of things. It was true her aunt’s complaint had been not so much of Madame
Merle’s activity as of her duplicity: she had brought about the strange
event and then she had denied her guilt. Such guilt would not have been
great, to Isabel’s mind; she couldn’t make a crime of Madame Merle’s
having been the producing cause of the most important friendship she had
ever formed. This had occurred to her just before her marriage, after her
little discussion with her aunt and at a time when she was still capable
of that large inward reference, the tone almost of the philosophic
historian, to her scant young annals. If Madame Merle had desired her
change of state she could only say it had been a very happy thought. With
her, moreover, she had been perfectly straightforward; she had never
concealed her high opinion of Gilbert Osmond. After their union Isabel
discovered that her husband took a less convenient view of the matter; he
seldom consented to finger, in talk, this roundest and smoothest bead of
their social rosary. “Don’t you like Madame Merle?” Isabel had once said
to him. “She thinks a great deal of you.”

“I’ll tell you once for all,” Osmond had answered. “I liked her once
better than I do to-day. I’m tired of her, and I’m rather ashamed of it.
She’s so almost unnaturally good! I’m glad she’s not in Italy; it makes
for relaxation—for a sort of moral detente. Don’t talk of her too
much; it seems to bring her back. She’ll come back in plenty of time.”

Madame Merle, in fact, had come back before it was too late—too
late, I mean, to recover whatever advantage she might have lost. But
meantime, if, as I have said, she was sensibly different, Isabel’s
feelings were also not quite the same. Her consciousness of the situation
was as acute as of old, but it was much less satisfying. A dissatisfied
mind, whatever else it may miss, is rarely in want of reasons; they bloom
as thick as buttercups in June. The fact of Madame Merle’s having had a
hand in Gilbert Osmond’s marriage ceased to be one of her titles to
consideration; it might have been written, after all, that there was not
so much to thank her for. As time went on there was less and less, and
Isabel once said to herself that perhaps without her these things would
not have been. That reflection indeed was instantly stifled; she knew an
immediate horror at having made it. “Whatever happens to me let me not be
unjust,” she said; “let me bear my burdens myself and not shift them upon
others!” This disposition was tested, eventually, by that ingenious
apology for her present conduct which Madame Merle saw fit to make and of
which I have given a sketch; for there was something irritating—there
was almost an air of mockery—in her neat discriminations and clear
convictions. In Isabel’s mind to-day there was nothing clear; there was a
confusion of regrets, a complication of fears. She felt helpless as she
turned away from her friend, who had just made the statements I have
quoted: Madame Merle knew so little what she was thinking of! She was
herself moreover so unable to explain. Jealous of her—jealous of her
with Gilbert? The idea just then suggested no near reality. She almost
wished jealousy had been possible; it would have made in a manner for
refreshment. Wasn’t it in a manner one of the symptoms of happiness?
Madame Merle, however, was wise, so wise that she might have been
pretending to know Isabel better than Isabel knew herself. This young
woman had always been fertile in resolutions—any of them of an
elevated character; but at no period had they flourished (in the privacy
of her heart) more richly than to-day. It is true that they all had a
family likeness; they might have been summed up in the determination that
if she was to be unhappy it should not be by a fault of her own. Her poor
winged spirit had always had a great desire to do its best, and it had not
as yet been seriously discouraged. It wished, therefore, to hold fast to
justice—not to pay itself by petty revenges. To associate Madame
Merle with its disappointment would be a petty revenge—especially as
the pleasure to be derived from that would be perfectly insincere. It
might feed her sense of bitterness, but it would not loosen her bonds. It
was impossible to pretend that she had not acted with her eyes open; if
ever a girl was a free agent she had been. A girl in love was doubtless
not a free agent; but the sole source of her mistake had been within
herself. There had been no plot, no snare; she had looked and considered
and chosen. When a woman had made such a mistake, there was only one way
to repair it—just immensely (oh, with the highest grandeur!) to
accept it. One folly was enough, especially when it was to last for ever;
a second one would not much set it off. In this vow of reticence there was
a certain nobleness which kept Isabel going; but Madame Merle had been
right, for all that, in taking her precautions.

One day about a month after Ralph Touchett’s arrival in Rome Isabel came
back from a walk with Pansy. It was not only a part of her general
determination to be just that she was at present very thankful for Pansy—it
was also a part of her tenderness for things that were pure and weak.
Pansy was dear to her, and there was nothing else in her life that had the
rightness of the young creature’s attachment or the sweetness of her own
clearness about it. It was like a soft presence—like a small hand in
her own; on Pansy’s part it was more than an affection—it was a kind
of ardent coercive faith. On her own side her sense of the girl’s
dependence was more than a pleasure; it operated as a definite reason when
motives threatened to fail her. She had said to herself that we must take
our duty where we find it, and that we must look for it as much as
possible. Pansy’s sympathy was a direct admonition; it seemed to say that
here was an opportunity, not eminent perhaps, but unmistakeable. Yet an
opportunity for what Isabel could hardly have said; in general, to be more
for the child than the child was able to be for herself. Isabel could have
smiled, in these days, to remember that her little companion had once been
ambiguous, for she now perceived that Pansy’s ambiguities were simply her
own grossness of vision. She had been unable to believe any one could care
so much—so extraordinarily much—to please. But since then she
had seen this delicate faculty in operation, and now she knew what to
think of it. It was the whole creature—it was a sort of genius.
Pansy had no pride to interfere with it, and though she was constantly
extending her conquests she took no credit for them. The two were
constantly together; Mrs. Osmond was rarely seen without her stepdaughter.
Isabel liked her company; it had the effect of one’s carrying a nosegay
composed all of the same flower. And then not to neglect Pansy, not under
any provocation to neglect her—this she had made an article of
religion. The young girl had every appearance of being happier in Isabel’s
society than in that of any one save her father,—whom she admired
with an intensity justified by the fact that, as paternity was an
exquisite pleasure to Gilbert Osmond, he had always been luxuriously mild.
Isabel knew how Pansy liked to be with her and how she studied the means
of pleasing her. She had decided that the best way of pleasing her was
negative, and consisted in not giving her trouble—a conviction which
certainly could have had no reference to trouble already existing. She was
therefore ingeniously passive and almost imaginatively docile; she was
careful even to moderate the eagerness with which she assented to Isabel’s
propositions and which might have implied that she could have thought
otherwise. She never interrupted, never asked social questions, and though
she delighted in approbation, to the point of turning pale when it came to
her, never held out her hand for it. She only looked toward it wistfully—an
attitude which, as she grew older, made her eyes the prettiest in the
world. When during the second winter at Palazzo Roccanera she began to go
to parties, to dances, she always, at a reasonable hour, lest Mrs. Osmond
should be tired, was the first to propose departure. Isabel appreciated
the sacrifice of the late dances, for she knew her little companion had a
passionate pleasure in this exercise, taking her steps to the music like a
conscientious fairy. Society, moreover, had no drawbacks for her; she
liked even the tiresome parts—the heat of ball-rooms, the dulness of
dinners, the crush at the door, the awkward waiting for the carriage.
During the day, in this vehicle, beside her stepmother, she sat in a small
fixed, appreciative posture, bending forward and faintly smiling, as if
she had been taken to drive for the first time.

On the day I speak of they had been driven out of one of the gates of the
city and at the end of half an hour had left the carriage to await them by
the roadside while they walked away over the short grass of the Campagna,
which even in the winter months is sprinkled with delicate flowers. This
was almost a daily habit with Isabel, who was fond of a walk and had a
swift length of step, though not so swift a one as on her first coming to
Europe. It was not the form of exercise that Pansy loved best, but she
liked it, because she liked everything; and she moved with a shorter
undulation beside her father’s wife, who afterwards, on their return to
Rome, paid a tribute to her preferences by making the circuit of the
Pincian or the Villa Borghese. She had gathered a handful of flowers in a
sunny hollow, far from the walls of Rome, and on reaching Palazzo
Roccanera she went straight to her room, to put them into water. Isabel
passed into the drawing-room, the one she herself usually occupied, the
second in order from the large ante-chamber which was entered from the
staircase and in which even Gilbert Osmond’s rich devices had not been
able to correct a look of rather grand nudity. Just beyond the threshold
of the drawing-room she stopped short, the reason for her doing so being
that she had received an impression. The impression had, in strictness,
nothing unprecedented; but she felt it as something new, and the
soundlessness of her step gave her time to take in the scene before she
interrupted it. Madame Merle was there in her bonnet, and Gilbert Osmond
was talking to her; for a minute they were unaware she had come in. Isabel
had often seen that before, certainly; but what she had not seen, or at
least had not noticed, was that their colloquy had for the moment
converted itself into a sort of familiar silence, from which she instantly
perceived that her entrance would startle them. Madame Merle was standing
on the rug, a little way from the fire; Osmond was in a deep chair,
leaning back and looking at her. Her head was erect, as usual, but her
eyes were bent on his. What struck Isabel first was that he was sitting
while Madame Merle stood; there was an anomaly in this that arrested her.
Then she perceived that they had arrived at a desultory pause in their
exchange of ideas and were musing, face to face, with the freedom of old
friends who sometimes exchange ideas without uttering them. There was
nothing to shock in this; they were old friends in fact. But the thing
made an image, lasting only a moment, like a sudden flicker of light.
Their relative positions, their absorbed mutual gaze, struck her as
something detected. But it was all over by the time she had fairly seen
it. Madame Merle had seen her and had welcomed her without moving; her
husband, on the other hand, had instantly jumped up. He presently murmured
something about wanting a walk and, after having asked their visitor to
excuse him, left the room.

“I came to see you, thinking you would have come in; and as you hadn’t I
waited for you,” Madame Merle said.

“Didn’t he ask you to sit down?” Isabel asked with a smile.

Madame Merle looked about her. “Ah, it’s very true; I was going away.”

“You must stay now.”

“Certainly. I came for a reason; I’ve something on my mind.”

“I’ve told you that before,” Isabel said—“that it takes something
extraordinary to bring you to this house.”

“And you know what I’ve told you; that whether I come or whether I
stay away, I’ve always the same motive—the affection I bear you.”

“Yes, you’ve told me that.”

“You look just now as if you didn’t believe it,” said Madame Merle.

“Ah,” Isabel answered, “the profundity of your motives, that’s the last
thing I doubt!”

“You doubt sooner of the sincerity of my words.”

Isabel shook her head gravely. “I know you’ve always been kind to me.”

“As often as you would let me. You don’t always take it; then one has to
let you alone. It’s not to do you a kindness, however, that I’ve come
to-day; it’s quite another affair. I’ve come to get rid of a trouble of my
own—to make it over to you. I’ve been talking to your husband about
it.”

“I’m surprised at that; he doesn’t like troubles.”

“Especially other people’s; I know very well. But neither do you, I
suppose. At any rate, whether you do or not, you must help me. It’s about
poor Mr. Rosier.”

“Ah,” said Isabel reflectively, “it’s his trouble then, not yours.”

“He has succeeded in saddling me with it. He comes to see me ten times a
week, to talk about Pansy.”

“Yes, he wants to marry her. I know all about it.”

Madame Merle hesitated. “I gathered from your husband that perhaps you
didn’t.”

“How should he know what I know? He has never spoken to me of the matter.”

“It’s probably because he doesn’t know how to speak of it.”

“It’s nevertheless the sort of question in which he’s rarely at fault.”

“Yes, because as a general thing he knows perfectly well what to think.
To-day he doesn’t.”

“Haven’t you been telling him?” Isabel asked.

Madame Merle gave a bright, voluntary smile. “Do you know you’re a little
dry?”

“Yes; I can’t help it. Mr. Rosier has also talked to me.”

“In that there’s some reason. You’re so near the child.”

“Ah,” said Isabel, “for all the comfort I’ve given him! If you think me
dry, I wonder what he thinks.”

“I believe he thinks you can do more than you have done.”

“I can do nothing.”

“You can do more at least than I. I don’t know what mysterious connection
he may have discovered between me and Pansy; but he came to me from the
first, as if I held his fortune in my hand. Now he keeps coming back, to
spur me up, to know what hope there is, to pour out his feelings.”

“He’s very much in love,” said Isabel.

“Very much—for him.”

“Very much for Pansy, you might say as well.”

Madame Merle dropped her eyes a moment. “Don’t you think she’s
attractive?”

“The dearest little person possible—but very limited.”

“She ought to be all the easier for Mr. Rosier to love. Mr. Rosier’s not
unlimited.”

“No,” said Isabel, “he has about the extent of one’s pocket-handkerchief—the
small ones with lace borders.” Her humour had lately turned a good deal to
sarcasm, but in a moment she was ashamed of exercising it on so innocent
an object as Pansy’s suitor. “He’s very kind, very honest,” she presently
added; “and he’s not such a fool as he seems.”

“He assures me that she delights in him,” said Madame Merle.

“I don’t know; I’ve not asked her.”

“You’ve never sounded her a little?”

“It’s not my place; it’s her father’s.”

“Ah, you’re too literal!” said Madame Merle.

“I must judge for myself.”

Madame Merle gave her smile again. “It isn’t easy to help you.”

“To help me?” said Isabel very seriously. “What do you mean?”

“It’s easy to displease you. Don’t you see how wise I am to be careful? I
notify you, at any rate, as I notified Osmond, that I wash my hands of the
love-affairs of Miss Pansy and Mr. Edward Rosier. Je n’y peux rien,
moi! I can’t talk to Pansy about him. Especially,” added Madame Merle,
“as I don’t think him a paragon of husbands.”

Isabel reflected a little; after which, with a smile, “You don’t wash your
hands then!” she said. After which again she added in another tone: “You
can’t—you’re too much interested.”

Madame Merle slowly rose; she had given Isabel a look as rapid as the
intimation that had gleamed before our heroine a few moments before. Only
this time the latter saw nothing. “Ask him the next time, and you’ll see.”

“I can’t ask him; he has ceased to come to the house. Gilbert has let him
know that he’s not welcome.”

“Ah yes,” said Madame Merle, “I forgot that—though it’s the burden
of his lamentation. He says Osmond has insulted him. All the same,” she
went on, “Osmond doesn’t dislike him so much as he thinks.” She had got up
as if to close the conversation, but she lingered, looking about her, and
had evidently more to say. Isabel perceived this and even saw the point
she had in view; but Isabel also had her own reasons for not opening the
way.

“That must have pleased him, if you’ve told him,” she answered, smiling.

“Certainly I’ve told him; as far as that goes I’ve encouraged him. I’ve
preached patience, have said that his case isn’t desperate if he’ll only
hold his tongue and be quiet. Unfortunately he has taken it into his head
to be jealous.”

“Jealous?”

“Jealous of Lord Warburton, who, he says, is always here.”

Isabel, who was tired, had remained sitting; but at this she also rose.
“Ah!” she exclaimed simply, moving slowly to the fireplace. Madame Merle
observed her as she passed and while she stood a moment before the
mantel-glass and pushed into its place a wandering tress of hair.

“Poor Mr. Rosier keeps saying there’s nothing impossible in Lord
Warburton’s falling in love with Pansy,” Madame Merle went on. Isabel was
silent a little; she turned away from the glass. “It’s true—there’s
nothing impossible,” she returned at last, gravely and more gently.

“So I’ve had to admit to Mr. Rosier. So, too, your husband thinks.”

“That I don’t know.”

“Ask him and you’ll see.”

“I shall not ask him,” said Isabel.

“Pardon me; I forgot you had pointed that out. Of course,” Madame Merle
added, “you’ve had infinitely more observation of Lord Warburton’s
behaviour than I.”

“I see no reason why I shouldn’t tell you that he likes my stepdaughter
very much.”

Madame Merle gave one of her quick looks again. “Likes her, you mean—as
Mr. Rosier means?”

“I don’t know how Mr. Rosier means; but Lord Warburton has let me know
that he’s charmed with Pansy.”

“And you’ve never told Osmond?” This observation was immediate,
precipitate; it almost burst from Madame Merle’s lips.

Isabel’s eyes rested on her. “I suppose he’ll know in time; Lord Warburton
has a tongue and knows how to express himself.”

Madame Merle instantly became conscious that she had spoken more quickly
than usual, and the reflection brought the colour to her cheek. She gave
the treacherous impulse time to subside and then said as if she had been
thinking it over a little: “That would be better than marrying poor Mr.
Rosier.”

“Much better, I think.”

“It would be very delightful; it would be a great marriage. It’s really
very kind of him.”

“Very kind of him?”

“To drop his eyes on a simple little girl.”

“I don’t see that.”

“It’s very good of you. But after all, Pansy Osmond—”

“After all, Pansy Osmond’s the most attractive person he has ever known!”
Isabel exclaimed.

Madame Merle stared, and indeed she was justly bewildered. “Ah, a moment
ago I thought you seemed rather to disparage her.”

“I said she was limited. And so she is. And so’s Lord Warburton.”

“So are we all, if you come to that. If it’s no more than Pansy deserves,
all the better. But if she fixes her affections on Mr. Rosier I won’t
admit that she deserves it. That will be too perverse.”

“Mr. Rosier’s a nuisance!” Isabel cried abruptly.

“I quite agree with you, and I’m delighted to know that I’m not expected
to feed his flame. For the future, when he calls on me, my door shall be
closed to him.” And gathering her mantle together Madame Merle prepared to
depart. She was checked, however, on her progress to the door, by an
inconsequent request from Isabel.

“All the same, you know, be kind to him.”

She lifted her shoulders and eyebrows and stood looking at her friend. “I
don’t understand your contradictions! Decidedly I shan’t be kind to him,
for it will be a false kindness. I want to see her married to Lord
Warburton.”

“You had better wait till he asks her.”

“If what you say’s true, he’ll ask her. Especially,” said Madame Merle in
a moment, “if you make him.”

“If I make him?”

“It’s quite in your power. You’ve great influence with him.”

Isabel frowned a little. “Where did you learn that?”

“Mrs. Touchett told me. Not you—never!” said Madame Merle, smiling.

“I certainly never told you anything of the sort.”

“You might have done so—so far as opportunity went—when
we were by way of being confidential with each other. But you really told
me very little; I’ve often thought so since.”

Isabel had thought so too, and sometimes with a certain satisfaction. But
she didn’t admit it now—perhaps because she wished not to appear to
exult in it. “You seem to have had an excellent informant in my aunt,” she
simply returned.

“She let me know you had declined an offer of marriage from Lord
Warburton, because she was greatly vexed and was full of the subject. Of
course I think you’ve done better in doing as you did. But if you wouldn’t
marry Lord Warburton yourself, make him the reparation of helping him to
marry some one else.”

Isabel listened to this with a face that persisted in not reflecting the
bright expressiveness of Madame Merle’s. But in a moment she said,
reasonably and gently enough: “I should be very glad indeed if, as regards
Pansy, it could be arranged.” Upon which her companion, who seemed to
regard this as a speech of good omen, embraced her more tenderly than
might have been expected and triumphantly withdrew.


CHAPTER XLI

Osmond touched on this matter that evening for the first time; coming very
late into the drawing-room, where she was sitting alone. They had spent
the evening at home, and Pansy had gone to bed; he himself had been
sitting since dinner in a small apartment in which he had arranged his
books and which he called his study. At ten o’clock Lord Warburton had
come in, as he always did when he knew from Isabel that she was to be at
home; he was going somewhere else and he sat for half an hour. Isabel,
after asking him for news of Ralph, said very little to him, on purpose;
she wished him to talk with her stepdaughter. She pretended to read; she
even went after a little to the piano; she asked herself if she mightn’t
leave the room. She had come little by little to think well of the idea of
Pansy’s becoming the wife of the master of beautiful Lockleigh, though at
first it had not presented itself in a manner to excite her enthusiasm.
Madame Merle, that afternoon, had applied the match to an accumulation of
inflammable material. When Isabel was unhappy she always looked about her—partly
from impulse and partly by theory—for some form of positive
exertion. She could never rid herself of the sense that unhappiness was a
state of disease—of suffering as opposed to doing. To “do”—it
hardly mattered what—would therefore be an escape, perhaps in some
degree a remedy. Besides, she wished to convince herself that she had done
everything possible to content her husband; she was determined not to be
haunted by visions of his wife’s limpness under appeal. It would please
him greatly to see Pansy married to an English nobleman, and justly please
him, since this nobleman was so sound a character. It seemed to Isabel
that if she could make it her duty to bring about such an event she should
play the part of a good wife. She wanted to be that; she wanted to be able
to believe sincerely, and with proof of it, that she had been that. Then
such an undertaking had other recommendations. It would occupy her, and
she desired occupation. It would even amuse her, and if she could really
amuse herself she perhaps might be saved. Lastly, it would be a service to
Lord Warburton, who evidently pleased himself greatly with the charming
girl. It was a little “weird” he should—being what he was; but there
was no accounting for such impressions. Pansy might captivate any one—any
one at least but Lord Warburton. Isabel would have thought her too small,
too slight, perhaps even too artificial for that. There was always a
little of the doll about her, and that was not what he had been looking
for. Still, who could say what men ever were looking for? They looked for
what they found; they knew what pleased them only when they saw it. No
theory was valid in such matters, and nothing was more unaccountable or
more natural than anything else. If he had cared for her it might
seem odd he should care for Pansy, who was so different; but he had not
cared for her so much as he had supposed. Or if he had, he had completely
got over it, and it was natural that, as that affair had failed, he should
think something of quite another sort might succeed. Enthusiasm, as I say,
had not come at first to Isabel, but it came to-day and made her feel
almost happy. It was astonishing what happiness she could still find in
the idea of procuring a pleasure for her husband. It was a pity, however,
that Edward Rosier had crossed their path!

At this reflection the light that had suddenly gleamed upon that path lost
something of its brightness. Isabel was unfortunately as sure that Pansy
thought Mr. Rosier the nicest of all the young men—as sure as if she
had held an interview with her on the subject. It was very tiresome she
should be so sure, when she had carefully abstained from informing
herself; almost as tiresome as that poor Mr. Rosier should have taken it
into his own head. He was certainly very inferior to Lord Warburton. It
was not the difference in fortune so much as the difference in the men;
the young American was really so light a weight. He was much more of the
type of the useless fine gentleman than the English nobleman. It was true
that there was no particular reason why Pansy should marry a statesman;
still, if a statesman admired her, that was his affair, and she would make
a perfect little pearl of a peeress.

It may seem to the reader that Mrs. Osmond had grown of a sudden strangely
cynical, for she ended by saying to herself that this difficulty could
probably be arranged. An impediment that was embodied in poor Rosier could
not anyhow present itself as a dangerous one; there were always means of
levelling secondary obstacles. Isabel was perfectly aware that she had not
taken the measure of Pansy’s tenacity, which might prove to be
inconveniently great; but she inclined to see her as rather letting go,
under suggestion, than as clutching under deprecation—since she had
certainly the faculty of assent developed in a very much higher degree
than that of protest. She would cling, yes, she would cling; but it really
mattered to her very little what she clung to. Lord Warburton would do as
well as Mr. Rosier—especially as she seemed quite to like him; she
had expressed this sentiment to Isabel without a single reservation; she
had said she thought his conversation most interesting—he had told
her all about India. His manner to Pansy had been of the rightest and
easiest—Isabel noticed that for herself, as she also observed that
he talked to her not in the least in a patronising way, reminding himself
of her youth and simplicity, but quite as if she understood his subjects
with that sufficiency with which she followed those of the fashionable
operas. This went far enough for attention to the music and the barytone.
He was careful only to be kind—he was as kind as he had been to
another fluttered young chit at Gardencourt. A girl might well be touched
by that; she remembered how she herself had been touched, and said to
herself that if she had been as simple as Pansy the impression would have
been deeper still. She had not been simple when she refused him; that
operation had been as complicated as, later, her acceptance of Osmond had
been. Pansy, however, in spite of her simplicity, really did
understand, and was glad that Lord Warburton should talk to her, not about
her partners and bouquets, but about the state of Italy, the condition of
the peasantry, the famous grist-tax, the pellagra, his impressions of
Roman society. She looked at him, as she drew her needle through her
tapestry, with sweet submissive eyes, and when she lowered them she gave
little quiet oblique glances at his person, his hands, his feet, his
clothes, as if she were considering him. Even his person, Isabel might
have reminded her, was better than Mr. Rosier’s. But Isabel contented
herself at such moments with wondering where this gentleman was; he came
no more at all to Palazzo Roccanera. It was surprising, as I say, the hold
it had taken of her—the idea of assisting her husband to be pleased.

It was surprising for a variety of reasons which I shall presently touch
upon. On the evening I speak of, while Lord Warburton sat there, she had
been on the point of taking the great step of going out of the room and
leaving her companions alone. I say the great step, because it was in this
light that Gilbert Osmond would have regarded it, and Isabel was trying as
much as possible to take her husband’s view. She succeeded after a
fashion, but she fell short of the point I mention. After all she couldn’t
rise to it; something held her and made this impossible. It was not
exactly that it would be base or insidious; for women as a general thing
practise such manoeuvres with a perfectly good conscience, and Isabel was
instinctively much more true than false to the common genius of her sex.
There was a vague doubt that interposed—a sense that she was not
quite sure. So she remained in the drawing-room, and after a while Lord
Warburton went off to his party, of which he promised to give Pansy a full
account on the morrow. After he had gone she wondered if she had prevented
something which would have happened if she had absented herself for a
quarter of an hour; and then she pronounced—always mentally—that
when their distinguished visitor should wish her to go away he would
easily find means to let her know it. Pansy said nothing whatever about
him after he had gone, and Isabel studiously said nothing, as she had
taken a vow of reserve until after he should have declared himself. He was
a little longer in coming to this than might seem to accord with the
description he had given Isabel of his feelings. Pansy went to bed, and
Isabel had to admit that she could not now guess what her stepdaughter was
thinking of. Her transparent little companion was for the moment not to be
seen through.

She remained alone, looking at the fire, until, at the end of half an
hour, her husband came in. He moved about a while in silence and then sat
down; he looked at the fire like herself. But she now had transferred her
eyes from the flickering flame in the chimney to Osmond’s face, and she
watched him while he kept his silence. Covert observation had become a
habit with her; an instinct, of which it is not an exaggeration to say
that it was allied to that of self-defence, had made it habitual. She
wished as much as possible to know his thoughts, to know what he would
say, beforehand, so that she might prepare her answer. Preparing answers
had not been her strong point of old; she had rarely in this respect got
further than thinking afterwards of clever things she might have said. But
she had learned caution—learned it in a measure from her husband’s
very countenance. It was the same face she had looked into with eyes
equally earnest perhaps, but less penetrating, on the terrace of a
Florentine villa; except that Osmond had grown slightly stouter since his
marriage. He still, however, might strike one as very distinguished.

“Has Lord Warburton been here?” he presently asked.

“Yes, he stayed half an hour.”

“Did he see Pansy?”

“Yes; he sat on the sofa beside her.”

“Did he talk with her much?”

“He talked almost only to her.”

“It seems to me he’s attentive. Isn’t that what you call it?”

“I don’t call it anything,” said Isabel; “I’ve waited for you to give it a
name.”

“That’s a consideration you don’t always show,” Osmond answered after a
moment.

“I’ve determined, this time, to try and act as you’d like. I’ve so often
failed of that.”

Osmond turned his head slowly, looking at her. “Are you trying to quarrel
with me?”

“No, I’m trying to live at peace.”

“Nothing’s more easy; you know I don’t quarrel myself.”

“What do you call it when you try to make me angry?” Isabel asked.

“I don’t try; if I’ve done so it has been the most natural thing in the
world. Moreover I’m not in the least trying now.”

Isabel smiled. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve determined never to be angry
again.”

“That’s an excellent resolve. Your temper isn’t good.”

“No—it’s not good.” She pushed away the book she had been reading
and took up the band of tapestry Pansy had left on the table.

“That’s partly why I’ve not spoken to you about this business of my
daughter’s,” Osmond said, designating Pansy in the manner that was most
frequent with him. “I was afraid I should encounter opposition—that
you too would have views on the subject. I’ve sent little Rosier about his
business.”

“You were afraid I’d plead for Mr. Rosier? Haven’t you noticed that I’ve
never spoken to you of him?”

“I’ve never given you a chance. We’ve so little conversation in these
days. I know he was an old friend of yours.”

“Yes; he’s an old friend of mine.” Isabel cared little more for him than
for the tapestry that she held in her hand; but it was true that he was an
old friend and that with her husband she felt a desire not to extenuate
such ties. He had a way of expressing contempt for them which fortified
her loyalty to them, even when, as in the present case, they were in
themselves insignificant. She sometimes felt a sort of passion of
tenderness for memories which had no other merit than that they belonged
to her unmarried life. “But as regards Pansy,” she added in a moment,
“I’ve given him no encouragement.”

“That’s fortunate,” Osmond observed.

“Fortunate for me, I suppose you mean. For him it matters little.”

“There’s no use talking of him,” Osmond said. “As I tell you, I’ve turned
him out.”

“Yes; but a lover outside’s always a lover. He’s sometimes even more of
one. Mr. Rosier still has hope.”

“He’s welcome to the comfort of it! My daughter has only to sit perfectly
quiet to become Lady Warburton.”

“Should you like that?” Isabel asked with a simplicity which was not so
affected as it may appear. She was resolved to assume nothing, for Osmond
had a way of unexpectedly turning her assumptions against her. The
intensity with which he would like his daughter to become Lady Warburton
had been the very basis of her own recent reflections. But that was for
herself; she would recognise nothing until Osmond should have put it into
words; she would not take for granted with him that he thought Lord
Warburton a prize worth an amount of effort that was unusual among the
Osmonds. It was Gilbert’s constant intimation that for him nothing in life
was a prize; that he treated as from equal to equal with the most
distinguished people in the world, and that his daughter had only to look
about her to pick out a prince. It cost him therefore a lapse from
consistency to say explicitly that he yearned for Lord Warburton and that
if this nobleman should escape his equivalent might not be found; with
which moreover it was another of his customary implications that he was
never inconsistent. He would have liked his wife to glide over the point.
But strangely enough, now that she was face to face with him and although
an hour before she had almost invented a scheme for pleasing him, Isabel
was not accommodating, would not glide. And yet she knew exactly the
effect on his mind of her question: it would operate as an humiliation.
Never mind; he was terribly capable of humiliating her—all the more
so that he was also capable of waiting for great opportunities and of
showing sometimes an almost unaccountable indifference to small ones.
Isabel perhaps took a small opportunity because she would not have availed
herself of a great one.

Osmond at present acquitted himself very honourably. “I should like it
extremely; it would be a great marriage. And then Lord Warburton has
another advantage: he’s an old friend of yours. It would be pleasant for
him to come into the family. It’s very odd Pansy’s admirers should all be
your old friends.”

“It’s natural that they should come to see me. In coming to see me they
see Pansy. Seeing her it’s natural they should fall in love with her.”

“So I think. But you’re not bound to do so.”

“If she should marry Lord Warburton I should be very glad,” Isabel went on
frankly. “He’s an excellent man. You say, however, that she has only to
sit perfectly still. Perhaps she won’t sit perfectly still. If she loses
Mr. Rosier she may jump up!”

Osmond appeared to give no heed to this; he sat gazing at the fire. “Pansy
would like to be a great lady,” he remarked in a moment with a certain
tenderness of tone. “She wishes above all to please,” he added.

“To please Mr. Rosier, perhaps.”

“No, to please me.”

“Me too a little, I think,” said Isabel.

“Yes, she has a great opinion of you. But she’ll do what I like.”

“If you’re sure of that, it’s very well,” she went on.

“Meantime,” said Osmond, “I should like our distinguished visitor to
speak.”

“He has spoken—to me. He has told me it would be a great pleasure to
him to believe she could care for him.”

Osmond turned his head quickly, but at first he said nothing. Then, “Why
didn’t you tell me that?” he asked sharply.

“There was no opportunity. You know how we live. I’ve taken the first
chance that has offered.”

“Did you speak to him of Rosier?”

“Oh yes, a little.”

“That was hardly necessary.”

“I thought it best he should know, so that, so that—” And Isabel
paused.

“So that what?”

“So that he might act accordingly.”

“So that he might back out, do you mean?”

“No, so that he might advance while there’s yet time.”

“That’s not the effect it seems to have had.”

“You should have patience,” said Isabel. “You know Englishmen are shy.”

“This one’s not. He was not when he made love to you.”

She had been afraid Osmond would speak of that; it was disagreeable to
her. “I beg your pardon; he was extremely so,” she returned.

He answered nothing for some time; he took up a book and fingered the
pages while she sat silent and occupied herself with Pansy’s tapestry.
“You must have a great deal of influence with him,” Osmond went on at
last. “The moment you really wish it you can bring him to the point.”

This was more offensive still; but she felt the great naturalness of his
saying it, and it was after all extremely like what she had said to
herself. “Why should I have influence?” she asked. “What have I ever done
to put him under an obligation to me?”

“You refused to marry him,” said Osmond with his eyes on his book.

“I must not presume too much on that,” she replied.

He threw down the book presently and got up, standing before the fire with
his hands behind him. “Well, I hold that it lies in your hands. I shall
leave it there. With a little good-will you may manage it. Think that over
and remember how much I count on you.” He waited a little, to give her
time to answer; but she answered nothing, and he presently strolled out of
the room.


CHAPTER XLII

She had answered nothing because his words had put the situation before
her and she was absorbed in looking at it. There was something in them
that suddenly made vibrations deep, so that she had been afraid to trust
herself to speak. After he had gone she leaned back in her chair and
closed her eyes; and for a long time, far into the night and still
further, she sat in the still drawing-room, given up to her meditation. A
servant came in to attend to the fire, and she bade him bring fresh
candles and then go to bed. Osmond had told her to think of what he had
said; and she did so indeed, and of many other things. The suggestion from
another that she had a definite influence on Lord Warburton—this had
given her the start that accompanies unexpected recognition. Was it true
that there was something still between them that might be a handle to make
him declare himself to Pansy—a susceptibility, on his part, to
approval, a desire to do what would please her? Isabel had hitherto not
asked herself the question, because she had not been forced; but now that
it was directly presented to her she saw the answer, and the answer
frightened her. Yes, there was something—something on Lord
Warburton’s part. When he had first come to Rome she believed the link
that united them to be completely snapped; but little by little she had
been reminded that it had yet a palpable existence. It was as thin as a
hair, but there were moments when she seemed to hear it vibrate. For
herself nothing was changed; what she once thought of him she always
thought; it was needless this feeling should change; it seemed to her in
fact a better feeling than ever. But he? had he still the idea that she
might be more to him than other women? Had he the wish to profit by the
memory of the few moments of intimacy through which they had once passed?
Isabel knew she had read some of the signs of such a disposition. But what
were his hopes, his pretensions, and in what strange way were they mingled
with his evidently very sincere appreciation of poor Pansy? Was he in love
with Gilbert Osmond’s wife, and if so what comfort did he expect to derive
from it? If he was in love with Pansy he was not in love with her
stepmother, and if he was in love with her stepmother he was not in love
with Pansy. Was she to cultivate the advantage she possessed in order to
make him commit himself to Pansy, knowing he would do so for her sake and
not for the small creature’s own—was this the service her husband
had asked of her? This at any rate was the duty with which she found
herself confronted—from the moment she admitted to herself that her
old friend had still an uneradicated predilection for her society. It was
not an agreeable task; it was in fact a repulsive one. She asked herself
with dismay whether Lord Warburton were pretending to be in love with
Pansy in order to cultivate another satisfaction and what might be called
other chances. Of this refinement of duplicity she presently acquitted
him; she preferred to believe him in perfect good faith. But if his
admiration for Pansy were a delusion this was scarcely better than its
being an affectation. Isabel wandered among these ugly possibilities until
she had completely lost her way; some of them, as she suddenly encountered
them, seemed ugly enough. Then she broke out of the labyrinth, rubbing her
eyes, and declared that her imagination surely did her little honour and
that her husband’s did him even less. Lord Warburton was as disinterested
as he need be, and she was no more to him than she need wish. She would
rest upon this till the contrary should be proved; proved more effectually
than by a cynical intimation of Osmond’s.

Such a resolution, however, brought her this evening but little peace, for
her soul was haunted with terrors which crowded to the foreground of
thought as quickly as a place was made for them. What had suddenly set
them into livelier motion she hardly knew, unless it were the strange
impression she had received in the afternoon of her husband’s being in
more direct communication with Madame Merle than she suspected. That
impression came back to her from time to time, and now she wondered it had
never come before. Besides this, her short interview with Osmond half an
hour ago was a striking example of his faculty for making everything
wither that he touched, spoiling everything for her that he looked at. It
was very well to undertake to give him a proof of loyalty; the real fact
was that the knowledge of his expecting a thing raised a presumption
against it. It was as if he had had the evil eye; as if his presence were
a blight and his favour a misfortune. Was the fault in himself, or only in
the deep mistrust she had conceived for him? This mistrust was now the
clearest result of their short married life; a gulf had opened between
them over which they looked at each other with eyes that were on either
side a declaration of the deception suffered. It was a strange opposition,
of the like of which she had never dreamed—an opposition in which
the vital principle of the one was a thing of contempt to the other. It
was not her fault—she had practised no deception; she had only
admired and believed. She had taken all the first steps in the purest
confidence, and then she had suddenly found the infinite vista of a
multiplied life to be a dark, narrow alley with a dead wall at the end.
Instead of leading to the high places of happiness, from which the world
would seem to lie below one, so that one could look down with a sense of
exaltation and advantage, and judge and choose and pity, it led rather
downward and earthward, into realms of restriction and depression where
the sound of other lives, easier and freer, was heard as from above, and
where it served to deepen the feeling of failure. It was her deep distrust
of her husband—this was what darkened the world. That is a sentiment
easily indicated, but not so easily explained, and so composite in its
character that much time and still more suffering had been needed to bring
it to its actual perfection. Suffering, with Isabel, was an active
condition; it was not a chill, a stupor, a despair; it was a passion of
thought, of speculation, of response to every pressure. She flattered
herself that she had kept her failing faith to herself, however,—that
no one suspected it but Osmond. Oh, he knew it, and there were times when
she thought he enjoyed it. It had come gradually—it was not till the
first year of their life together, so admirably intimate at first, had
closed that she had taken the alarm. Then the shadows had begun to gather;
it was as if Osmond deliberately, almost malignantly, had put the lights
out one by one. The dusk at first was vague and thin, and she could still
see her way in it. But it steadily deepened, and if now and again it had
occasionally lifted there were certain corners of her prospect that were
impenetrably black. These shadows were not an emanation from her own mind:
she was very sure of that; she had done her best to be just and temperate,
to see only the truth. They were a part, they were a kind of creation and
consequence, of her husband’s very presence. They were not his misdeeds,
his turpitudes; she accused him of nothing—that is but of one thing,
which was not a crime. She knew of no wrong he had done; he was not
violent, he was not cruel: she simply believed he hated her. That was all
she accused him of, and the miserable part of it was precisely that it was
not a crime, for against a crime she might have found redress. He had
discovered that she was so different, that she was not what he had
believed she would prove to be. He had thought at first he could change
her, and she had done her best to be what he would like. But she was,
after all, herself—she couldn’t help that; and now there was no use
pretending, wearing a mask or a dress, for he knew her and had made up his
mind. She was not afraid of him; she had no apprehension he would hurt
her; for the ill-will he bore her was not of that sort. He would if
possible never give her a pretext, never put himself in the wrong. Isabel,
scanning the future with dry, fixed eyes, saw that he would have the
better of her there. She would give him many pretexts, she would often put
herself in the wrong. There were times when she almost pitied him; for if
she had not deceived him in intention she understood how completely she
must have done so in fact. She had effaced herself when he first knew her;
she had made herself small, pretending there was less of her than there
really was. It was because she had been under the extraordinary charm that
he, on his side, had taken pains to put forth. He was not changed; he had
not disguised himself, during the year of his courtship, any more than
she. But she had seen only half his nature then, as one saw the disk of
the moon when it was partly masked by the shadow of the earth. She saw the
full moon now—she saw the whole man. She had kept still, as it were,
so that he should have a free field, and yet in spite of this she had
mistaken a part for the whole.

Ah, she had been immensely under the charm! It had not passed away; it was
there still: she still knew perfectly what it was that made Osmond
delightful when he chose to be. He had wished to be when he made love to
her, and as she had wished to be charmed it was not wonderful he had
succeeded. He had succeeded because he had been sincere; it never occurred
to her now to deny him that. He admired her—he had told her why:
because she was the most imaginative woman he had known. It might very
well have been true; for during those months she had imagined a world of
things that had no substance. She had had a more wondrous vision of him,
fed through charmed senses and oh such a stirred fancy!—she had not
read him right. A certain combination of features had touched her, and in
them she had seen the most striking of figures. That he was poor and
lonely and yet that somehow he was noble—that was what had
interested her and seemed to give her her opportunity. There had been an
indefinable beauty about him—in his situation, in his mind, in his
face. She had felt at the same time that he was helpless and ineffectual,
but the feeling had taken the form of a tenderness which was the very
flower of respect. He was like a sceptical voyager strolling on the beach
while he waited for the tide, looking seaward yet not putting to sea. It
was in all this she had found her occasion. She would launch his boat for
him; she would be his providence; it would be a good thing to love him.
And she had loved him, she had so anxiously and yet so ardently given
herself—a good deal for what she found in him, but a good deal also
for what she brought him and what might enrich the gift. As she looked
back at the passion of those full weeks she perceived in it a kind of
maternal strain—the happiness of a woman who felt that she was a
contributor, that she came with charged hands. But for her money, as she
saw to-day, she would never have done it. And then her mind wandered off
to poor Mr. Touchett, sleeping under English turf, the beneficent author
of infinite woe! For this was the fantastic fact. At bottom her money had
been a burden, had been on her mind, which was filled with the desire to
transfer the weight of it to some other conscience, to some more prepared
receptacle. What would lighten her own conscience more effectually than to
make it over to the man with the best taste in the world? Unless she
should have given it to a hospital there would have been nothing better
she could do with it; and there was no charitable institution in which she
had been as much interested as in Gilbert Osmond. He would use her fortune
in a way that would make her think better of it and rub off a certain
grossness attaching to the good luck of an unexpected inheritance. There
had been nothing very delicate in inheriting seventy thousand pounds; the
delicacy had been all in Mr. Touchett’s leaving them to her. But to marry
Gilbert Osmond and bring him such a portion—in that there would be
delicacy for her as well. There would be less for him—that was true;
but that was his affair, and if he loved her he wouldn’t object to her
being rich. Had he not had the courage to say he was glad she was rich?

Isabel’s cheek burned when she asked herself if she had really married on
a factitious theory, in order to do something finely appreciable with her
money. But she was able to answer quickly enough that this was only half
the story. It was because a certain ardour took possession of her—a
sense of the earnestness of his affection and a delight in his personal
qualities. He was better than any one else. This supreme conviction had
filled her life for months, and enough of it still remained to prove to
her that she could not have done otherwise. The finest—in the sense
of being the subtlest—manly organism she had ever known had become
her property, and the recognition of her having but to put out her hands
and take it had been originally a sort of act of devotion. She had not
been mistaken about the beauty of his mind; she knew that organ perfectly
now. She had lived with it, she had lived in it almost—it
appeared to have become her habitation. If she had been captured it had
taken a firm hand to seize her; that reflection perhaps had some worth. A
mind more ingenious, more pliant, more cultivated, more trained to
admirable exercises, she had not encountered; and it was this exquisite
instrument she had now to reckon with. She lost herself in infinite dismay
when she thought of the magnitude of his deception. It was a
wonder, perhaps, in view of this, that he didn’t hate her more. She
remembered perfectly the first sign he had given of it—it had been
like the bell that was to ring up the curtain upon the real drama of their
life. He said to her one day that she had too many ideas and that she must
get rid of them. He had told her that already, before their marriage; but
then she had not noticed it: it had come back to her only afterwards. This
time she might well have noticed it, because he had really meant it. The
words had been nothing superficially; but when in the light of deepening
experience she had looked into them they had then appeared portentous. He
had really meant it—he would have liked her to have nothing of her
own but her pretty appearance. She had known she had too many ideas; she
had more even than he had supposed, many more than she had expressed to
him when he had asked her to marry him. Yes, she had been
hypocritical; she had liked him so much. She had too many ideas for
herself; but that was just what one married for, to share them with some
one else. One couldn’t pluck them up by the roots, though of course one
might suppress them, be careful not to utter them. It had not been this,
however, his objecting to her opinions; this had been nothing. She had no
opinions—none that she would not have been eager to sacrifice in the
satisfaction of feeling herself loved for it. What he had meant had been
the whole thing—her character, the way she felt, the way she judged.
This was what she had kept in reserve; this was what he had not known
until he had found himself—with the door closed behind, as it were—set
down face to face with it. She had a certain way of looking at life which
he took as a personal offence. Heaven knew that now at least it was a very
humble, accommodating way! The strange thing was that she should not have
suspected from the first that his own had been so different. She had
thought it so large, so enlightened, so perfectly that of an honest man
and a gentleman. Hadn’t he assured her that he had no superstitions, no
dull limitations, no prejudices that had lost their freshness? Hadn’t he
all the appearance of a man living in the open air of the world,
indifferent to small considerations, caring only for truth and knowledge
and believing that two intelligent people ought to look for them together
and, whether they found them or not, find at least some happiness in the
search? He had told her he loved the conventional; but there was a sense
in which this seemed a noble declaration. In that sense, that of the love
of harmony and order and decency and of all the stately offices of life,
she went with him freely, and his warning had contained nothing ominous.
But when, as the months had elapsed, she had followed him further and he
had led her into the mansion of his own habitation, then, then she
had seen where she really was.

She could live it over again, the incredulous terror with which she had
taken the measure of her dwelling. Between those four walls she had lived
ever since; they were to surround her for the rest of her life. It was the
house of darkness, the house of dumbness, the house of suffocation.
Osmond’s beautiful mind gave it neither light nor air; Osmond’s beautiful
mind indeed seemed to peep down from a small high window and mock at her.
Of course it had not been physical suffering; for physical suffering there
might have been a remedy. She could come and go; she had her liberty; her
husband was perfectly polite. He took himself so seriously; it was
something appalling. Under all his culture, his cleverness, his amenity,
under his good-nature, his facility, his knowledge of life, his egotism
lay hidden like a serpent in a bank of flowers. She had taken him
seriously, but she had not taken him so seriously as that. How could she—especially
when she had known him better? She was to think of him as he thought of
himself—as the first gentleman in Europe. So it was that she had
thought of him at first, and that indeed was the reason she had married
him. But when she began to see what it implied she drew back; there was
more in the bond than she had meant to put her name to. It implied a
sovereign contempt for every one but some three or four very exalted
people whom he envied, and for everything in the world but half a dozen
ideas of his own. That was very well; she would have gone with him even
there a long distance; for he pointed out to her so much of the baseness
and shabbiness of life, opened her eyes so wide to the stupidity, the
depravity, the ignorance of mankind, that she had been properly impressed
with the infinite vulgarity of things and of the virtue of keeping one’s
self unspotted by it. But this base, if noble world, it appeared, was
after all what one was to live for; one was to keep it forever in one’s
eye, in order not to enlighten or convert or redeem it, but to extract
from it some recognition of one’s own superiority. On the one hand it was
despicable, but on the other it afforded a standard. Osmond had talked to
Isabel about his renunciation, his indifference, the ease with which he
dispensed with the usual aids to success; and all this had seemed to her
admirable. She had thought it a grand indifference, an exquisite
independence. But indifference was really the last of his qualities; she
had never seen any one who thought so much of others. For herself,
avowedly, the world had always interested her and the study of her fellow
creatures been her constant passion. She would have been willing, however,
to renounce all her curiosities and sympathies for the sake of a personal
life, if the person concerned had only been able to make her believe it
was a gain! This at least was her present conviction; and the thing
certainly would have been easier than to care for society as Osmond cared
for it.

He was unable to live without it, and she saw that he had never really
done so; he had looked at it out of his window even when he appeared to be
most detached from it. He had his ideal, just as she had tried to have
hers; only it was strange that people should seek for justice in such
different quarters. His ideal was a conception of high prosperity and
propriety, of the aristocratic life, which she now saw that he deemed
himself always, in essence at least, to have led. He had never lapsed from
it for an hour; he would never have recovered from the shame of doing so.
That again was very well; here too she would have agreed; but they
attached such different ideas, such different associations and desires, to
the same formulas. Her notion of the aristocratic life was simply the
union of great knowledge with great liberty; the knowledge would give one
a sense of duty and the liberty a sense of enjoyment. But for Osmond it
was altogether a thing of forms, a conscious, calculated attitude. He was
fond of the old, the consecrated, the transmitted; so was she, but she
pretended to do what she chose with it. He had an immense esteem for
tradition; he had told her once that the best thing in the world was to
have it, but that if one was so unfortunate as not to have it one must
immediately proceed to make it. She knew that he meant by this that she
hadn’t it, but that he was better off; though from what source he had
derived his traditions she never learned. He had a very large collection
of them, however; that was very certain, and after a little she began to
see. The great thing was to act in accordance with them; the great thing
not only for him but for her. Isabel had an undefined conviction that to
serve for another person than their proprietor traditions must be of a
thoroughly superior kind; but she nevertheless assented to this intimation
that she too must march to the stately music that floated down from
unknown periods in her husband’s past; she who of old had been so free of
step, so desultory, so devious, so much the reverse of processional. There
were certain things they must do, a certain posture they must take,
certain people they must know and not know. When she saw this rigid system
close about her, draped though it was in pictured tapestries, that sense
of darkness and suffocation of which I have spoken took possession of her;
she seemed shut up with an odour of mould and decay. She had resisted of
course; at first very humorously, ironically, tenderly; then, as the
situation grew more serious, eagerly, passionately, pleadingly. She had
pleaded the cause of freedom, of doing as they chose, of not caring for
the aspect and denomination of their life—the cause of other
instincts and longings, of quite another ideal.

Then it was that her husband’s personality, touched as it never had been,
stepped forth and stood erect. The things she had said were answered only
by his scorn, and she could see he was ineffably ashamed of her. What did
he think of her—that she was base, vulgar, ignoble? He at least knew
now that she had no traditions! It had not been in his prevision of things
that she should reveal such flatness; her sentiments were worthy of a
radical newspaper or a Unitarian preacher. The real offence, as she
ultimately perceived, was her having a mind of her own at all. Her mind
was to be his—attached to his own like a small garden-plot to a
deer-park. He would rake the soil gently and water the flowers; he would
weed the beds and gather an occasional nosegay. It would be a pretty piece
of property for a proprietor already far-reaching. He didn’t wish her to
be stupid. On the contrary, it was because she was clever that she had
pleased him. But he expected her intelligence to operate altogether in his
favour, and so far from desiring her mind to be a blank he had flattered
himself that it would be richly receptive. He had expected his wife to
feel with him and for him, to enter into his opinions, his ambitions, his
preferences; and Isabel was obliged to confess that this was no great
insolence on the part of a man so accomplished and a husband originally at
least so tender. But there were certain things she could never take in. To
begin with, they were hideously unclean. She was not a daughter of the
Puritans, but for all that she believed in such a thing as chastity and
even as decency. It would appear that Osmond was far from doing anything
of the sort; some of his traditions made her push back her skirts. Did all
women have lovers? Did they all lie and even the best have their price?
Were there only three or four that didn’t deceive their husbands? When
Isabel heard such things she felt a greater scorn for them than for the
gossip of a village parlour—a scorn that kept its freshness in a
very tainted air. There was the taint of her sister-in-law: did her
husband judge only by the Countess Gemini? This lady very often lied, and
she had practised deceptions that were not simply verbal. It was enough to
find these facts assumed among Osmond’s traditions—it was enough
without giving them such a general extension. It was her scorn of his
assumptions, it was this that made him draw himself up. He had plenty of
contempt, and it was proper his wife should be as well furnished; but that
she should turn the hot light of her disdain upon his own conception of
things—this was a danger he had not allowed for. He believed he
should have regulated her emotions before she came to it; and Isabel could
easily imagine how his ears had scorched on his discovering he had been
too confident. When one had a wife who gave one that sensation there was
nothing left but to hate her.

She was morally certain now that this feeling of hatred, which at first
had been a refuge and a refreshment, had become the occupation and comfort
of his life. The feeling was deep, because it was sincere; he had had the
revelation that she could after all dispense with him. If to herself the
idea was startling, if it presented itself at first as a kind of
infidelity, a capacity for pollution, what infinite effect might it not be
expected to have had upon him? It was very simple; he despised her;
she had no traditions and the moral horizon of a Unitarian minister. Poor
Isabel, who had never been able to understand Unitarianism! This was the
certitude she had been living with now for a time that she had ceased to
measure. What was coming—what was before them? That was her constant
question. What would he do—what ought she to do? When a man
hated his wife what did it lead to? She didn’t hate him, that she was sure
of, for every little while she felt a passionate wish to give him a
pleasant surprise. Very often, however, she felt afraid, and it used to
come over her, as I have intimated, that she had deceived him at the very
first. They were strangely married, at all events, and it was a horrible
life. Until that morning he had scarcely spoken to her for a week; his
manner was as dry as a burned-out fire. She knew there was a special
reason; he was displeased at Ralph Touchett’s staying on in Rome. He
thought she saw too much of her cousin—he had told her a week before
it was indecent she should go to him at his hotel. He would have said more
than this if Ralph’s invalid state had not appeared to make it brutal to
denounce him; but having had to contain himself had only deepened his
disgust. Isabel read all this as she would have read the hour on the
clock-face; she was as perfectly aware that the sight of her interest in
her cousin stirred her husband’s rage as if Osmond had locked her into her
room—which she was sure was what he wanted to do. It was her honest
belief that on the whole she was not defiant, but she certainly couldn’t
pretend to be indifferent to Ralph. She believed he was dying at last and
that she should never see him again, and this gave her a tenderness for
him that she had never known before. Nothing was a pleasure to her now;
how could anything be a pleasure to a woman who knew that she had thrown
away her life? There was an everlasting weight on her heart—there
was a livid light on everything. But Ralph’s little visit was a lamp in
the darkness; for the hour that she sat with him her ache for herself
became somehow her ache for him. She felt to-day as if he had been
her brother. She had never had a brother, but if she had and she were in
trouble and he were dying, he would be dear to her as Ralph was. Ah yes,
if Gilbert was jealous of her there was perhaps some reason; it didn’t
make Gilbert look better to sit for half an hour with Ralph. It was not
that they talked of him—it was not that she complained. His name was
never uttered between them. It was simply that Ralph was generous and that
her husband was not. There was something in Ralph’s talk, in his smile, in
the mere fact of his being in Rome, that made the blasted circle round
which she walked more spacious. He made her feel the good of the world; he
made her feel what might have been. He was after all as intelligent as
Osmond—quite apart from his being better. And thus it seemed to her
an act of devotion to conceal her misery from him. She concealed it
elaborately; she was perpetually, in their talk, hanging out curtains and
before her again—it lived before her again,—it had never had
time to die—that morning in the garden at Florence when he had
warned her against Osmond. She had only to close her eyes to see the
place, to hear his voice, to feel the warm, sweet air. How could he have
known? What a mystery, what a wonder of wisdom! As intelligent as Gilbert?
He was much more intelligent—to arrive at such a judgement as that.
Gilbert had never been so deep, so just. She had told him then that from
her at least he should never know if he was right; and this was what she
was taking care of now. It gave her plenty to do; there was passion,
exaltation, religion in it. Women find their religion sometimes in strange
exercises, and Isabel at present, in playing a part before her cousin, had
an idea that she was doing him a kindness. It would have been a kindness
perhaps if he had been for a single instant a dupe. As it was, the
kindness consisted mainly in trying to make him believe that he had once
wounded her greatly and that the event had put him to shame, but that, as
she was very generous and he was so ill, she bore him no grudge and even
considerately forbore to flaunt her happiness in his face. Ralph smiled to
himself, as he lay on his sofa, at this extraordinary form of
consideration; but he forgave her for having forgiven him. She didn’t wish
him to have the pain of knowing she was unhappy: that was the great thing,
and it didn’t matter that such knowledge would rather have righted him.

For herself, she lingered in the soundless saloon long after the fire had
gone out. There was no danger of her feeling the cold; she was in a fever.
She heard the small hours strike, and then the great ones, but her vigil
took no heed of time. Her mind, assailed by visions, was in a state of
extraordinary activity, and her visions might as well come to her there,
where she sat up to meet them, as on her pillow, to make a mockery of
rest. As I have said, she believed she was not defiant, and what could be
a better proof of it than that she should linger there half the night,
trying to persuade herself that there was no reason why Pansy shouldn’t be
married as you would put a letter in the post-office? When the clock
struck four she got up; she was going to bed at last, for the lamp had
long since gone out and the candles burned down to their sockets. But even
then she stopped again in the middle of the room and stood there gazing at
a remembered vision—that of her husband and Madame Merle
unconsciously and familiarly associated.


CHAPTER XLIII

Three nights after this she took Pansy to a great party, to which Osmond,
who never went to dances, did not accompany them. Pansy was as ready for a
dance as ever; she was not of a generalising turn and had not extended to
other pleasures the interdict she had seen placed on those of love. If she
was biding her time or hoping to circumvent her father she must have had a
prevision of success. Isabel thought this unlikely; it was much more
likely that Pansy had simply determined to be a good girl. She had never
had such a chance, and she had a proper esteem for chances. She carried
herself no less attentively than usual and kept no less anxious an eye
upon her vaporous skirts; she held her bouquet very tight and counted over
the flowers for the twentieth time. She made Isabel feel old; it seemed so
long since she had been in a flutter about a ball. Pansy, who was greatly
admired, was never in want of partners, and very soon after their arrival
she gave Isabel, who was not dancing, her bouquet to hold. Isabel had
rendered her this service for some minutes when she became aware of the
near presence of Edward Rosier. He stood before her; he had lost his
affable smile and wore a look of almost military resolution. The change in
his appearance would have made Isabel smile if she had not felt his case
to be at bottom a hard one: he had always smelt so much more of heliotrope
than of gunpowder. He looked at her a moment somewhat fiercely, as if to
notify her he was dangerous, and then dropped his eyes on her bouquet.
After he had inspected it his glance softened and he said quickly: “It’s
all pansies; it must be hers!”

Isabel smiled kindly. “Yes, it’s hers; she gave it to me to hold.”

“May I hold it a little, Mrs. Osmond?” the poor young man asked.

“No, I can’t trust you; I’m afraid you wouldn’t give it back.”

“I’m not sure that I should; I should leave the house with it instantly.
But may I not at least have a single flower?”

Isabel hesitated a moment, and then, smiling still, held out the bouquet.
“Choose one yourself. It’s frightful what I’m doing for you.”

“Ah, if you do no more than this, Mrs. Osmond!” Rosier exclaimed with his
glass in one eye, carefully choosing his flower.

“Don’t put it into your button-hole,” she said. “Don’t for the world!”

“I should like her to see it. She has refused to dance with me, but I wish
to show her that I believe in her still.”

“It’s very well to show it to her, but it’s out of place to show it to
others. Her father has told her not to dance with you.”

“And is that all you can do for me? I expected more from you, Mrs.
Osmond,” said the young man in a tone of fine general reference. “You know
our acquaintance goes back very far—quite into the days of our
innocent childhood.”

“Don’t make me out too old,” Isabel patiently answered. “You come back to
that very often, and I’ve never denied it. But I must tell you that, old
friends as we are, if you had done me the honour to ask me to marry you I
should have refused you on the spot.”

“Ah, you don’t esteem me then. Say at once that you think me a mere
Parisian trifler!”

“I esteem you very much, but I’m not in love with you. What I mean by
that, of course, is that I’m not in love with you for Pansy.”

“Very good; I see. You pity me—that’s all.” And Edward Rosier looked
all round, inconsequently, with his single glass. It was a revelation to
him that people shouldn’t be more pleased; but he was at least too proud
to show that the deficiency struck him as general.

Isabel for a moment said nothing. His manner and appearance had not the
dignity of the deepest tragedy; his little glass, among other things, was
against that. But she suddenly felt touched; her own unhappiness, after
all, had something in common with his, and it came over her, more than
before, that here, in recognisable, if not in romantic form, was the most
affecting thing in the world—young love struggling with adversity.
“Would you really be very kind to her?” she finally asked in a low tone.

He dropped his eyes devoutly and raised the little flower that he held in
his fingers to his lips. Then he looked at her. “You pity me; but don’t
you pity her a little?”

“I don’t know; I’m not sure. She’ll always enjoy life.”

“It will depend on what you call life!” Mr. Rosier effectively said. “She
won’t enjoy being tortured.”

“There’ll be nothing of that.”

“I’m glad to hear it. She knows what she’s about. You’ll see.”

“I think she does, and she’ll never disobey her father. But she’s coming
back to me,” Isabel added, “and I must beg you to go away.”

Rosier lingered a moment till Pansy came in sight on the arm of her
cavalier; he stood just long enough to look her in the face. Then he
walked away, holding up his head; and the manner in which he achieved this
sacrifice to expediency convinced Isabel he was very much in love.

Pansy, who seldom got disarranged in dancing, looking perfectly fresh and
cool after this exercise, waited a moment and then took back her bouquet.
Isabel watched her and saw she was counting the flowers; whereupon she
said to herself that decidedly there were deeper forces at play than she
had recognised. Pansy had seen Rosier turn away, but she said nothing to
Isabel about him; she talked only of her partner, after he had made his
bow and retired; of the music, the floor, the rare misfortune of having
already torn her dress. Isabel was sure, however, she had discovered her
lover to have abstracted a flower; though this knowledge was not needed to
account for the dutiful grace with which she responded to the appeal of
her next partner. That perfect amenity under acute constraint was part of
a larger system. She was again led forth by a flushed young man, this time
carrying her bouquet; and she had not been absent many minutes when Isabel
saw Lord Warburton advancing through the crowd. He presently drew near and
bade her good-evening; she had not seen him since the day before. He
looked about him, and then “Where’s the little maid?” he asked. It was in
this manner that he had formed the harmless habit of alluding to Miss
Osmond.

“She’s dancing,” said Isabel. “You’ll see her somewhere.”

He looked among the dancers and at last caught Pansy’s eye. “She sees me,
but she won’t notice me,” he then remarked. “Are you not dancing?”

“As you see, I’m a wall-flower.”

“Won’t you dance with me?”

“Thank you; I’d rather you should dance with the little maid.”

“One needn’t prevent the other—especially as she’s engaged.”

“She’s not engaged for everything, and you can reserve yourself. She
dances very hard, and you’ll be the fresher.”

“She dances beautifully,” said Lord Warburton, following her with his
eyes. “Ah, at last,” he added, “she has given me a smile.” He stood there
with his handsome, easy, important physiognomy; and as Isabel observed him
it came over her, as it had done before, that it was strange a man of his
mettle should take an interest in a little maid. It struck her as a great
incongruity; neither Pansy’s small fascinations, nor his own kindness, his
good-nature, not even his need for amusement, which was extreme and
constant, were sufficient to account for it. “I should like to dance with
you,” he went on in a moment, turning back to Isabel; “but I think I like
even better to talk with you.”

“Yes, it’s better, and it’s more worthy of your dignity. Great statesmen
oughtn’t to waltz.”

“Don’t be cruel. Why did you recommend me then to dance with Miss Osmond?”

“Ah, that’s different. If you danced with her it would look simply like a
piece of kindness—as if you were doing it for her amusement. If you
dance with me you’ll look as if you were doing it for your own.”

“And pray haven’t I a right to amuse myself?”

“No, not with the affairs of the British Empire on your hands.”

“The British Empire be hanged! You’re always laughing at it.”

“Amuse yourself with talking to me,” said Isabel.

“I’m not sure it’s really a recreation. You’re too pointed; I’ve always to
be defending myself. And you strike me as more than usually dangerous
to-night. Will you absolutely not dance?”

“I can’t leave my place. Pansy must find me here.”

He was silent a little. “You’re wonderfully good to her,” he said
suddenly.

Isabel stared a little and smiled. “Can you imagine one’s not being?”

“No indeed. I know how one is charmed with her. But you must have done a
great deal for her.”

“I’ve taken her out with me,” said Isabel, smiling still. “And I’ve seen
that she has proper clothes.”

“Your society must have been a great benefit to her. You’ve talked to her,
advised her, helped her to develop.”

“Ah yes, if she isn’t the rose she has lived near it.”

She laughed, and her companion did as much; but there was a certain
visible preoccupation in his face which interfered with complete hilarity.
“We all try to live as near it as we can,” he said after a moment’s
hesitation.

Isabel turned away; Pansy was about to be restored to her, and she
welcomed the diversion. We know how much she liked Lord Warburton; she
thought him pleasanter even than the sum of his merits warranted; there
was something in his friendship that appeared a kind of resource in case
of indefinite need; it was like having a large balance at the bank. She
felt happier when he was in the room; there was something reassuring in
his approach; the sound of his voice reminded her of the beneficence of
nature. Yet for all that it didn’t suit her that he should be too near
her, that he should take too much of her good-will for granted. She was
afraid of that; she averted herself from it; she wished he wouldn’t. She
felt that if he should come too near, as it were, it might be in her to
flash out and bid him keep his distance. Pansy came back to Isabel with
another rent in her skirt, which was the inevitable consequence of the
first and which she displayed to Isabel with serious eyes. There were too
many gentlemen in uniform; they wore those dreadful spurs, which were
fatal to the dresses of little maids. It hereupon became apparent that the
resources of women are innumerable. Isabel devoted herself to Pansy’s
desecrated drapery; she fumbled for a pin and repaired the injury; she
smiled and listened to her account of her adventures. Her attention, her
sympathy were immediate and active; and they were in direct proportion to
a sentiment with which they were in no way connected—a lively
conjecture as to whether Lord Warburton might be trying to make love to
her. It was not simply his words just then; it was others as well; it was
the reference and the continuity. This was what she thought about while
she pinned up Pansy’s dress. If it were so, as she feared, he was of
course unwitting; he himself had not taken account of his intention. But
this made it none the more auspicious, made the situation none less
impossible. The sooner he should get back into right relations with things
the better. He immediately began to talk to Pansy—on whom it was
certainly mystifying to see that he dropped a smile of chastened devotion.
Pansy replied, as usual, with a little air of conscientious aspiration; he
had to bend toward her a good deal in conversation, and her eyes, as
usual, wandered up and down his robust person as if he had offered it to
her for exhibition. She always seemed a little frightened; yet her fright
was not of the painful character that suggests dislike; on the contrary,
she looked as if she knew that he knew she liked him. Isabel left them
together a little and wandered toward a friend whom she saw near and with
whom she talked till the music of the following dance began, for which she
knew Pansy to be also engaged. The girl joined her presently, with a
little fluttered flush, and Isabel, who scrupulously took Osmond’s view of
his daughter’s complete dependence, consigned her, as a precious and
momentary loan, to her appointed partner. About all this matter she had
her own imaginations, her own reserves; there were moments when Pansy’s
extreme adhesiveness made each of them, to her sense, look foolish. But
Osmond had given her a sort of tableau of her position as his daughter’s
duenna, which consisted of gracious alternations of concession and
contraction; and there were directions of his which she liked to think she
obeyed to the letter. Perhaps, as regards some of them, it was because her
doing so appeared to reduce them to the absurd.

After Pansy had been led away, she found Lord Warburton drawing near her
again. She rested her eyes on him steadily; she wished she could sound his
thoughts. But he had no appearance of confusion. “She has promised to
dance with me later,” he said.

“I’m glad of that. I suppose you’ve engaged her for the cotillion.”

At this he looked a little awkward. “No, I didn’t ask her for that. It’s a
quadrille.”

“Ah, you’re not clever!” said Isabel almost angrily. “I told her to keep
the cotillion in case you should ask for it.”

“Poor little maid, fancy that!” And Lord Warburton laughed frankly. “Of
course I will if you like.”

“If I like? Oh, if you dance with her only because I like it—!”

“I’m afraid I bore her. She seems to have a lot of young fellows on her
book.”

Isabel dropped her eyes, reflecting rapidly; Lord Warburton stood there
looking at her and she felt his eyes on her face. She felt much inclined
to ask him to remove them. She didn’t do so, however; she only said to
him, after a minute, with her own raised: “Please let me understand.”

“Understand what?”

“You told me ten days ago that you’d like to marry my stepdaughter. You’ve
not forgotten it!”

“Forgotten it? I wrote to Mr. Osmond about it this morning.”

“Ah,” said Isabel, “he didn’t mention to me that he had heard from you.”

Lord Warburton stammered a little. “I—I didn’t send my letter.”

“Perhaps you forgot that.”

“No, I wasn’t satisfied with it. It’s an awkward sort of letter to write,
you know. But I shall send it to-night.”

“At three o’clock in the morning?”

“I mean later, in the course of the day.”

“Very good. You still wish then to marry her?”

“Very much indeed.”

“Aren’t you afraid that you’ll bore her?” And as her companion stared at
this enquiry Isabel added: “If she can’t dance with you for half an hour
how will she be able to dance with you for life?”

“Ah,” said Lord Warburton readily, “I’ll let her dance with other people!
About the cotillion, the fact is I thought that you—that you—”

“That I would do it with you? I told you I’d do nothing.”

“Exactly; so that while it’s going on I might find some quiet corner where
we may sit down and talk.”

“Oh,” said Isabel gravely, “you’re much too considerate of me.”

When the cotillion came Pansy was found to have engaged herself, thinking,
in perfect humility, that Lord Warburton had no intentions. Isabel
recommended him to seek another partner, but he assured her that he would
dance with no one but herself. As, however, she had, in spite of the
remonstrances of her hostess, declined other invitations on the ground
that she was not dancing at all, it was not possible for her to make an
exception in Lord Warburton’s favour.

“After all I don’t care to dance,” he said; “it’s a barbarous amusement:
I’d much rather talk.” And he intimated that he had discovered exactly the
corner he had been looking for—a quiet nook in one of the smaller
rooms, where the music would come to them faintly and not interfere with
conversation. Isabel had decided to let him carry out his idea; she wished
to be satisfied. She wandered away from the ball-room with him, though she
knew her husband desired she should not lose sight of his daughter. It was
with his daughter’s pretendant, however; that would make it right
for Osmond. On her way out of the ball-room she came upon Edward Rosier,
who was standing in a doorway, with folded arms, looking at the dance in
the attitude of a young man without illusions. She stopped a moment and
asked him if he were not dancing.

“Certainly not, if I can’t dance with her!” he answered.

“You had better go away then,” said Isabel with the manner of good
counsel.

“I shall not go till she does!” And he let Lord Warburton pass without
giving him a look.

This nobleman, however, had noticed the melancholy youth, and he asked
Isabel who her dismal friend was, remarking that he had seen him somewhere
before.

“It’s the young man I’ve told you about, who’s in love with Pansy.”

“Ah yes, I remember. He looks rather bad.”

“He has reason. My husband won’t listen to him.”

“What’s the matter with him?” Lord Warburton enquired. “He seems very
harmless.”

“He hasn’t money enough, and he isn’t very clever.”

Lord Warburton listened with interest; he seemed struck with this account
of Edward Rosier. “Dear me; he looked a well-set-up young fellow.”

“So he is, but my husband’s very particular.”

“Oh, I see.” And Lord Warburton paused a moment. “How much money has he
got?” he then ventured to ask.

“Some forty thousand francs a year.”

“Sixteen hundred pounds? Ah, but that’s very good, you know.”

“So I think. My husband, however, has larger ideas.”

“Yes; I’ve noticed that your husband has very large ideas. Is he really an
idiot, the young man?”

“An idiot? Not in the least; he’s charming. When he was twelve years old I
myself was in love with him.”

“He doesn’t look much more than twelve to-day,” Lord Warburton rejoined
vaguely, looking about him. Then with more point, “Don’t you think we
might sit here?” he asked.

“Wherever you please.” The room was a sort of boudoir, pervaded by a
subdued, rose-coloured light; a lady and gentleman moved out of it as our
friends came in. “It’s very kind of you to take such an interest in Mr.
Rosier,” Isabel said.

“He seems to me rather ill-treated. He had a face a yard long. I wondered
what ailed him.”

“You’re a just man,” said Isabel. “You’ve a kind thought even for a
rival.”

Lord Warburton suddenly turned with a stare. “A rival! Do you call him my
rival?”

“Surely—if you both wish to marry the same person.”

“Yes—but since he has no chance!”

“I like you, however that may be, for putting your self in his place. It
shows imagination.”

“You like me for it?” And Lord Warburton looked at her with an uncertain
eye. “I think you mean you’re laughing at me for it.”

“Yes, I’m laughing at you a little. But I like you as somebody to laugh
at.”

“Ah well, then, let me enter into his situation a little more. What do you
suppose one could do for him?”

“Since I have been praising your imagination I’ll leave you to imagine
that yourself,” Isabel said. “Pansy too would like you for that.”

“Miss Osmond? Ah, she, I flatter myself, likes me already.”

“Very much, I think.”

He waited a little; he was still questioning her face. “Well then, I don’t
understand you. You don’t mean that she cares for him?”

A quick blush sprang to his brow. “You told me she would have no wish
apart from her father’s, and as I’ve gathered that he would favour me—!”
He paused a little and then suggested “Don’t you see?” through his blush.

“Yes, I told you she has an immense wish to please her father, and that it
would probably take her very far.”

“That seems to me a very proper feeling,” said Lord Warburton.

“Certainly; it’s a very proper feeling.” Isabel remained silent for some
moments; the room continued empty; the sound of the music reached them
with its richness softened by the interposing apartments. Then at last she
said: “But it hardly strikes me as the sort of feeling to which a man
would wish to be indebted for a wife.”

“I don’t know; if the wife’s a good one and he thinks she does well!”

“Yes, of course you must think that.”

“I do; I can’t help it. You call that very British, of course.”

“No, I don’t. I think Pansy would do wonderfully well to marry you, and I
don’t know who should know it better than you. But you’re not in love.”

“Ah, yes I am, Mrs. Osmond!”

Isabel shook her head. “You like to think you are while you sit here with
me. But that’s not how you strike me.”

“I’m not like the young man in the doorway. I admit that. But what makes
it so unnatural? Could any one in the world be more loveable than Miss
Osmond?”

“No one, possibly. But love has nothing to do with good reasons.”

“I don’t agree with you. I’m delighted to have good reasons.”

“Of course you are. If you were really in love you wouldn’t care a straw
for them.”

“Ah, really in love—really in love!” Lord Warburton exclaimed,
folding his arms, leaning back his head and stretching himself a little.
“You must remember that I’m forty-two years old. I won’t pretend I’m as I
once was.”

“Well, if you’re sure,” said Isabel, “it’s all right.”

He answered nothing; he sat there, with his head back, looking before him.
Abruptly, however, he changed his position; he turned quickly to his
friend. “Why are you so unwilling, so sceptical?” She met his eyes, and
for a moment they looked straight at each other. If she wished to be
satisfied she saw something that satisfied her; she saw in his expression
the gleam of an idea that she was uneasy on her own account—that she
was perhaps even in fear. It showed a suspicion, not a hope, but such as
it was it told her what she wanted to know. Not for an instant should he
suspect her of detecting in his proposal of marrying her step-daughter an
implication of increased nearness to herself, or of thinking it, on such a
betrayal, ominous. In that brief, extremely personal gaze, however, deeper
meanings passed between them than they were conscious of at the moment.

“My dear Lord Warburton,” she said, smiling, “you may do, so far as I’m
concerned, whatever comes into your head.”

And with this she got up and wandered into the adjoining room, where,
within her companion’s view, she was immediately addressed by a pair of
gentlemen, high personages in the Roman world, who met her as if they had
been looking for her. While she talked with them she found herself
regretting she had moved; it looked a little like running away—all
the more as Lord Warburton didn’t follow her. She was glad of this,
however, and at any rate she was satisfied. She was so well satisfied that
when, in passing back into the ball-room, she found Edward Rosier still
planted in the doorway, she stopped and spoke to him again. “You did right
not to go away. I’ve some comfort for you.”

“I need it,” the young man softly wailed, “when I see you so awfully thick
with him!”

“Don’t speak of him; I’ll do what I can for you. I’m afraid it won’t be
much, but what I can I’ll do.”

He looked at her with gloomy obliqueness. “What has suddenly brought you
round?”

“The sense that you are an inconvenience in doorways!” she answered,
smiling as she passed him. Half an hour later she took leave, with Pansy,
and at the foot of the staircase the two ladies, with many other departing
guests, waited a while for their carriage. Just as it approached Lord
Warburton came out of the house and assisted them to reach their vehicle.
He stood a moment at the door, asking Pansy if she had amused herself; and
she, having answered him, fell back with a little air of fatigue. Then
Isabel, at the window, detaining him by a movement of her finger, murmured
gently: “Don’t forget to send your letter to her father!”


CHAPTER XLIV

The Countess Gemini was often extremely bored—bored, in her own
phrase, to extinction. She had not been extinguished, however, and she
struggled bravely enough with her destiny, which had been to marry an
unaccommodating Florentine who insisted upon living in his native town,
where he enjoyed such consideration as might attach to a gentleman whose
talent for losing at cards had not the merit of being incidental to an
obliging disposition. The Count Gemini was not liked even by those who won
from him; and he bore a name which, having a measurable value in Florence,
was, like the local coin of the old Italian states, without currency in
other parts of the peninsula. In Rome he was simply a very dull
Florentine, and it is not remarkable that he should not have cared to pay
frequent visits to a place where, to carry it off, his dulness needed more
explanation than was convenient. The Countess lived with her eyes upon
Rome, and it was the constant grievance of her life that she had not an
habitation there. She was ashamed to say how seldom she had been allowed
to visit that city; it scarcely made the matter better that there were
other members of the Florentine nobility who never had been there at all.
She went whenever she could; that was all she could say. Or rather not
all, but all she said she could say. In fact she had much more to say
about it, and had often set forth the reasons why she hated Florence and
wished to end her days in the shadow of Saint Peter’s. They are reasons,
however, that do not closely concern us, and were usually summed up in the
declaration that Rome, in short, was the Eternal City and that Florence
was simply a pretty little place like any other. The Countess apparently
needed to connect the idea of eternity with her amusements. She was
convinced that society was infinitely more interesting in Rome, where you
met celebrities all winter at evening parties. At Florence there were no
celebrities; none at least that one had heard of. Since her brother’s
marriage her impatience had greatly increased; she was so sure his wife
had a more brilliant life than herself. She was not so intellectual as
Isabel, but she was intellectual enough to do justice to Rome—not to
the ruins and the catacombs, not even perhaps to the monuments and
museums, the church ceremonies and the scenery; but certainly to all the
rest. She heard a great deal about her sister-in-law and knew perfectly
that Isabel was having a beautiful time. She had indeed seen it for
herself on the only occasion on which she had enjoyed the hospitality of
Palazzo Roccanera. She had spent a week there during the first winter of
her brother’s marriage, but she had not been encouraged to renew this
satisfaction. Osmond didn’t want her—that she was perfectly aware
of; but she would have gone all the same, for after all she didn’t care
two straws about Osmond. It was her husband who wouldn’t let her, and the
money question was always a trouble. Isabel had been very nice; the
Countess, who had liked her sister-in-law from the first, had not been
blinded by envy to Isabel’s personal merits. She had always observed that
she got on better with clever women than with silly ones like herself; the
silly ones could never understand her wisdom, whereas the clever ones—the
really clever ones—always understood her silliness. It appeared to
her that, different as they were in appearance and general style, Isabel
and she had somewhere a patch of common ground that they would set their
feet upon at last. It was not very large, but it was firm, and they should
both know it when once they had really touched it. And then she lived,
with Mrs. Osmond, under the influence of a pleasant surprise; she was
constantly expecting that Isabel would “look down” on her, and she as
constantly saw this operation postponed. She asked herself when it would
begin, like fire-works, or Lent, or the opera season; not that she cared
much, but she wondered what kept it in abeyance. Her sister-in-law
regarded her with none but level glances and expressed for the poor
Countess as little contempt as admiration. In reality Isabel would as soon
have thought of despising her as of passing a moral judgement on a
grasshopper. She was not indifferent to her husband’s sister, however; she
was rather a little afraid of her. She wondered at her; she thought her
very extraordinary. The Countess seemed to her to have no soul; she was
like a bright rare shell, with a polished surface and a remarkably pink
lip, in which something would rattle when you shook it. This rattle was
apparently the Countess’s spiritual principle, a little loose nut that
tumbled about inside of her. She was too odd for disdain, too anomalous
for comparisons. Isabel would have invited her again (there was no
question of inviting the Count); but Osmond, after his marriage, had not
scrupled to say frankly that Amy was a fool of the worst species—a
fool whose folly had the irrepressibility of genius. He said at another
time that she had no heart; and he added in a moment that she had given it
all away—in small pieces, like a frosted wedding-cake. The fact of
not having been asked was of course another obstacle to the Countess’s
going again to Rome; but at the period with which this history has now to
deal she was in receipt of an invitation to spend several weeks at Palazzo
Roccanera. The proposal had come from Osmond himself, who wrote to his
sister that she must be prepared to be very quiet. Whether or no she found
in this phrase all the meaning he had put into it I am unable to say; but
she accepted the invitation on any terms. She was curious, moreover; for
one of the impressions of her former visit had been that her brother had
found his match. Before the marriage she had been sorry for Isabel, so
sorry as to have had serious thoughts—if any of the Countess’s
thoughts were serious—of putting her on her guard. But she had let
that pass, and after a little she was reassured. Osmond was as lofty as
ever, but his wife would not be an easy victim. The Countess was not very
exact at measurements, but it seemed to her that if Isabel should draw
herself up she would be the taller spirit of the two. What she wanted to
learn now was whether Isabel had drawn herself up; it would give her
immense pleasure to see Osmond overtopped.

Several days before she was to start for Rome a servant brought her the
card of a visitor—a card with the simple superscription “Henrietta
C. Stackpole.” The Countess pressed her finger-tips to her forehead; she
didn’t remember to have known any such Henrietta as that. The servant then
remarked that the lady had requested him to say that if the Countess
should not recognise her name she would know her well enough on seeing
her. By the time she appeared before her visitor she had in fact reminded
herself that there was once a literary lady at Mrs. Touchett’s; the only
woman of letters she had ever encountered—that is the only modern
one, since she was the daughter of a defunct poetess. She recognised Miss
Stackpole immediately, the more so that Miss Stackpole seemed perfectly
unchanged; and the Countess, who was thoroughly good-natured, thought it
rather fine to be called on by a person of that sort of distinction. She
wondered if Miss Stackpole had come on account of her mother—whether
she had heard of the American Corinne. Her mother was not at all like
Isabel’s friend; the Countess could see at a glance that this lady was
much more contemporary; and she received an impression of the improvements
that were taking place—chiefly in distant countries—in the
character (the professional character) of literary ladies. Her mother had
been used to wear a Roman scarf thrown over a pair of shoulders timorously
bared of their tight black velvet (oh the old clothes!) and a gold
laurel-wreath set upon a multitude of glossy ringlets. She had spoken
softly and vaguely, with the accent of her “Creole” ancestors, as she
always confessed; she sighed a great deal and was not at all enterprising.
But Henrietta, the Countess could see, was always closely buttoned and
compactly braided; there was something brisk and business-like in her
appearance; her manner was almost conscientiously familiar. It was as
impossible to imagine her ever vaguely sighing as to imagine a letter
posted without its address. The Countess could not but feel that the
correspondent of the Interviewer was much more in the movement than
the American Corinne. She explained that she had called on the Countess
because she was the only person she knew in Florence, and that when she
visited a foreign city she liked to see something more than superficial
travellers. She knew Mrs. Touchett, but Mrs. Touchett was in America, and
even if she had been in Florence Henrietta would not have put herself out
for her, since Mrs. Touchett was not one of her admirations.

“Do you mean by that that I am?” the Countess graciously asked.

“Well, I like you better than I do her,” said Miss Stackpole. “I seem to
remember that when I saw you before you were very interesting. I don’t
know whether it was an accident or whether it’s your usual style. At any
rate I was a good deal struck with what you said. I made use of it
afterwards in print.”

“Dear me!” cried the Countess, staring and half-alarmed; “I had no idea I
ever said anything remarkable! I wish I had known it at the time.”

“It was about the position of woman in this city,” Miss Stackpole
remarked. “You threw a good deal of light upon it.”

“The position of woman’s very uncomfortable. Is that what you mean? And
you wrote it down and published it?” the Countess went on. “Ah, do let me
see it!”

“I’ll write to them to send you the paper if you like,” Henrietta said. “I
didn’t mention your name; I only said a lady of high rank. And then I
quoted your views.”

The Countess threw herself hastily backward, tossing up her clasped hands.
“Do you know I’m rather sorry you didn’t mention my name? I should have
rather liked to see my name in the papers. I forget what my views were; I
have so many! But I’m not ashamed of them. I’m not at all like my brother—I
suppose you know my brother? He thinks it a kind of scandal to be put in
the papers; if you were to quote him he’d never forgive you.”

“He needn’t be afraid; I shall never refer to him,” said Miss Stackpole
with bland dryness. “That’s another reason,” she added, “why I wanted to
come to see you. You know Mr. Osmond married my dearest friend.”

“Ah, yes; you were a friend of Isabel’s. I was trying to think what I knew
about you.”

“I’m quite willing to be known by that,” Henrietta declared. “But that
isn’t what your brother likes to know me by. He has tried to break up my
relations with Isabel.”

“Don’t permit it,” said the Countess.

“That’s what I want to talk about. I’m going to Rome.”

“So am I!” the Countess cried. “We’ll go together.”

“With great pleasure. And when I write about my journey I’ll mention you
by name as my companion.”

The Countess sprang from her chair and came and sat on the sofa beside her
visitor. “Ah, you must send me the paper! My husband won’t like it, but he
need never see it. Besides, he doesn’t know how to read.”

Henrietta’s large eyes became immense. “Doesn’t know how to read? May I
put that into my letter?”

“Into your letter?”

“In the Interviewer. That’s my paper.”

“Oh yes, if you like; with his name. Are you going to stay with Isabel?”

Henrietta held up her head, gazing a little in silence at her hostess.
“She has not asked me. I wrote to her I was coming, and she answered that
she would engage a room for me at a pension. She gave no reason.”

The Countess listened with extreme interest. “The reason’s Osmond,” she
pregnantly remarked.

“Isabel ought to make a stand,” said Miss Stackpole. “I’m afraid she has
changed a great deal. I told her she would.”

“I’m sorry to hear it; I hoped she would have her own way. Why doesn’t my
brother like you?” the Countess ingenuously added.

“I don’t know and I don’t care. He’s perfectly welcome not to like me; I
don’t want every one to like me; I should think less of myself if some
people did. A journalist can’t hope to do much good unless he gets a good
deal hated; that’s the way he knows how his work goes on. And it’s just
the same for a lady. But I didn’t expect it of Isabel.”

“Do you mean that she hates you?” the Countess enquired.

“I don’t know; I want to see. That’s what I’m going to Rome for.”

“Dear me, what a tiresome errand!” the Countess exclaimed.

“She doesn’t write to me in the same way; it’s easy to see there’s a
difference. If you know anything,” Miss Stackpole went on, “I should like
to hear it beforehand, so as to decide on the line I shall take.”

The Countess thrust out her under lip and gave a gradual shrug. “I know
very little; I see and hear very little of Osmond. He doesn’t like me any
better than he appears to like you.”

“Yet you’re not a lady correspondent,” said Henrietta pensively.

“Oh, he has plenty of reasons. Nevertheless they’ve invited me—I’m
to stay in the house!” And the Countess smiled almost fiercely; her
exultation, for the moment, took little account of Miss Stackpole’s
disappointment.

This lady, however, regarded it very placidly. “I shouldn’t have gone if
she had asked me. That is I think I shouldn’t; and I’m glad I
hadn’t to make up my mind. It would have been a very difficult question. I
shouldn’t have liked to turn away from her, and yet I shouldn’t have been
happy under her roof. A pension will suit me very well. But that’s not
all.”

“Rome’s very good just now,” said the Countess; “there are all sorts of
brilliant people. Did you ever hear of Lord Warburton?”

“Hear of him? I know him very well. Do you consider him very brilliant?”
Henrietta enquired.

“I don’t know him, but I’m told he’s extremely grand seigneur. He’s making
love to Isabel.”

“Making love to her?”

“So I’m told; I don’t know the details,” said the Countess lightly. “But
Isabel’s pretty safe.”

Henrietta gazed earnestly at her companion; for a moment she said nothing.
“When do you go to Rome?” she enquired abruptly.

“Not for a week, I’m afraid.”

“I shall go to-morrow,” Henrietta said. “I think I had better not wait.”

“Dear me, I’m sorry; I’m having some dresses made. I’m told Isabel
receives immensely. But I shall see you there; I shall call on you at your
pension.” Henrietta sat still—she was lost in thought; and suddenly
the Countess cried: “Ah, but if you don’t go with me you can’t describe
our journey!”

Miss Stackpole seemed unmoved by this consideration; she was thinking of
something else and presently expressed it. “I’m not sure that I understand
you about Lord Warburton.”

“Understand me? I mean he’s very nice, that’s all.”

“Do you consider it nice to make love to married women?” Henrietta
enquired with unprecedented distinctness.

The Countess stared, and then with a little violent laugh: “It’s certain
all the nice men do it. Get married and you’ll see!” she added.

“That idea would be enough to prevent me,” said Miss Stackpole. “I should
want my own husband; I shouldn’t want any one else’s. Do you mean that
Isabel’s guilty—guilty—?” And she paused a little, choosing
her expression.

“Do I mean she’s guilty? Oh dear no, not yet, I hope. I only mean that
Osmond’s very tiresome and that Lord Warburton, as I hear, is a great deal
at the house. I’m afraid you’re scandalised.”

“No, I’m just anxious,” Henrietta said.

“Ah, you’re not very complimentary to Isabel! You should have more
confidence. I’ll tell you,” the Countess added quickly: “if it will be a
comfort to you I engage to draw him off.”

Miss Stackpole answered at first only with the deeper solemnity of her
gaze. “You don’t understand me,” she said after a while. “I haven’t the
idea you seem to suppose. I’m not afraid for Isabel—in that way. I’m
only afraid she’s unhappy—that’s what I want to get at.”

The Countess gave a dozen turns of the head; she looked impatient and
sarcastic. “That may very well be; for my part I should like to know
whether Osmond is.” Miss Stackpole had begun a little to bore her.

“If she’s really changed that must be at the bottom of it,” Henrietta went
on.

“You’ll see; she’ll tell you,” said the Countess.

“Ah, she may not tell me—that’s what I’m afraid of!”

“Well, if Osmond isn’t amusing himself—in his own old way—I
flatter myself I shall discover it,” the Countess rejoined.

“I don’t care for that,” said Henrietta.

“I do immensely! If Isabel’s unhappy I’m very sorry for her, but I can’t
help it. I might tell her something that would make her worse, but I can’t
tell her anything that would console her. What did she go and marry him
for? If she had listened to me she’d have got rid of him. I’ll forgive
her, however, if I find she has made things hot for him! If she has simply
allowed him to trample upon her I don’t know that I shall even pity her.
But I don’t think that’s very likely. I count upon finding that if she’s
miserable she has at least made him so.”

Henrietta got up; these seemed to her, naturally, very dreadful
expectations. She honestly believed she had no desire to see Mr. Osmond
unhappy; and indeed he could not be for her the subject of a flight of
fancy. She was on the whole rather disappointed in the Countess, whose
mind moved in a narrower circle than she had imagined, though with a
capacity for coarseness even there. “It will be better if they love each
other,” she said for edification.

“They can’t. He can’t love any one.”

“I presumed that was the case. But it only aggravates my fear for Isabel.
I shall positively start to-morrow.”

“Isabel certainly has devotees,” said the Countess, smiling very vividly.
“I declare I don’t pity her.”

“It may be I can’t assist her,” Miss Stackpole pursued, as if it were well
not to have illusions.

“You can have wanted to, at any rate; that’s something. I believe that’s
what you came from America for,” the Countess suddenly added.

“Yes, I wanted to look after her,” Henrietta said serenely.

Her hostess stood there smiling at her with small bright eyes and an
eager-looking nose; with cheeks into each of which a flush had come. “Ah,
that’s very pretty c’est bien gentil! Isn’t it what they call
friendship?”

“I don’t know what they call it. I thought I had better come.”

“She’s very happy—she’s very fortunate,” the Countess went on. “She
has others besides.” And then she broke out passionately. “She’s more
fortunate than I! I’m as unhappy as she—I’ve a very bad husband;
he’s a great deal worse than Osmond. And I’ve no friends. I thought I had,
but they’re gone. No one, man or woman, would do for me what you’ve done
for her.”

Henrietta was touched; there was nature in this bitter effusion. She gazed
at her companion a moment, and then: “Look here, Countess, I’ll do
anything for you that you like. I’ll wait over and travel with you.”

“Never mind,” the Countess answered with a quick change of tone: “only
describe me in the newspaper!”

Henrietta, before leaving her, however, was obliged to make her understand
that she could give no fictitious representation of her journey to Rome.
Miss Stackpole was a strictly veracious reporter. On quitting her she took
the way to the Lung’ Arno, the sunny quay beside the yellow river where
the bright-faced inns familiar to tourists stand all in a row. She had
learned her way before this through the streets of Florence (she was very
quick in such matters), and was therefore able to turn with great decision
of step out of the little square which forms the approach to the bridge of
the Holy Trinity. She proceeded to the left, toward the Ponte Vecchio, and
stopped in front of one of the hotels which overlook that delightful
structure. Here she drew forth a small pocket-book, took from it a card
and a pencil and, after meditating a moment, wrote a few words. It is our
privilege to look over her shoulder, and if we exercise it we may read the
brief query: “Could I see you this evening for a few moments on a very
important matter?” Henrietta added that she should start on the morrow for
Rome. Armed with this little document she approached the porter, who now
had taken up his station in the doorway, and asked if Mr. Goodwood were at
home. The porter replied, as porters always reply, that he had gone out
about twenty minutes before; whereupon Henrietta presented her card and
begged it might be handed him on his return. She left the inn and pursued
her course along the quay to the severe portico of the Uffizi, through
which she presently reached the entrance of the famous gallery of
paintings. Making her way in, she ascended the high staircase which leads
to the upper chambers. The long corridor, glazed on one side and decorated
with antique busts, which gives admission to these apartments, presented
an empty vista in which the bright winter light twinkled upon the marble
floor. The gallery is very cold and during the midwinter weeks but
scantily visited. Miss Stackpole may appear more ardent in her quest of
artistic beauty than she has hitherto struck us as being, but she had
after all her preferences and admirations. One of the latter was the
little Correggio of the Tribune—the Virgin kneeling down before the
sacred infant, who lies in a litter of straw, and clapping her hands to
him while he delightedly laughs and crows. Henrietta had a special
devotion to this intimate scene—she thought it the most beautiful
picture in the world. On her way, at present, from New York to Rome, she
was spending but three days in Florence, and yet reminded herself that
they must not elapse without her paying another visit to her favourite
work of art. She had a great sense of beauty in all ways, and it involved
a good many intellectual obligations. She was about to turn into the
Tribune when a gentleman came out of it; whereupon she gave a little
exclamation and stood before Caspar Goodwood.

“I’ve just been at your hotel,” she said. “I left a card for you.”

“I’m very much honoured,” Caspar Goodwood answered as if he really meant
it.

“It was not to honour you I did it; I’ve called on you before and I know
you don’t like it. It was to talk to you a little about something.”

He looked for a moment at the buckle in her hat. “I shall be very glad to
hear what you wish to say.”

“You don’t like to talk with me,” said Henrietta. “But I don’t care for
that; I don’t talk for your amusement. I wrote a word to ask you to come
and see me; but since I’ve met you here this will do as well.”

“I was just going away,” Goodwood stated; “but of course I’ll stop.” He
was civil, but not enthusiastic.

Henrietta, however, never looked for great professions, and she was so
much in earnest that she was thankful he would listen to her on any terms.
She asked him first, none the less, if he had seen all the pictures.

“All I want to. I’ve been here an hour.”

“I wonder if you’ve seen my Correggio,” said Henrietta. “I came up on
purpose to have a look at it.” She went into the Tribune and he slowly
accompanied her.

“I suppose I’ve seen it, but I didn’t know it was yours. I don’t remember
pictures—especially that sort.” She had pointed out her favourite
work, and he asked her if it was about Correggio she wished to talk with
him.

“No,” said Henrietta, “it’s about something less harmonious!” They had the
small, brilliant room, a splendid cabinet of treasures, to themselves;
there was only a custode hovering about the Medicean Venus. “I want you to
do me a favour,” Miss Stackpole went on.

Caspar Goodwood frowned a little, but he expressed no embarrassment at the
sense of not looking eager. His face was that of a much older man than our
earlier friend. “I’m sure it’s something I shan’t like,” he said rather
loudly.

“No, I don’t think you’ll like it. If you did it would be no favour.”

“Well, let’s hear it,” he went on in the tone of a man quite conscious of
his patience.

“You may say there’s no particular reason why you should do me a favour.
Indeed I only know of one: the fact that if you’d let me I’d gladly do you
one.” Her soft, exact tone, in which there was no attempt at effect, had
an extreme sincerity; and her companion, though he presented rather a hard
surface, couldn’t help being touched by it. When he was touched he rarely
showed it, however, by the usual signs; he neither blushed, nor looked
away, nor looked conscious. He only fixed his attention more directly; he
seemed to consider with added firmness. Henrietta continued therefore
disinterestedly, without the sense of an advantage. “I may say now, indeed—it
seems a good time—that if I’ve ever annoyed you (and I think
sometimes I have) it’s because I knew I was willing to suffer annoyance
for you. I’ve troubled you—doubtless. But I’d take trouble
for you.”

Goodwood hesitated. “You’re taking trouble now.”

“Yes, I am—some. I want you to consider whether it’s better on the
whole that you should go to Rome.”

“I thought you were going to say that!” he answered rather artlessly.

“You have considered it then?”

“Of course I have, very carefully. I’ve looked all round it. Otherwise I
shouldn’t have come so far as this. That’s what I stayed in Paris two
months for. I was thinking it over.”

“I’m afraid you decided as you liked. You decided it was best because you
were so much attracted.”

“Best for whom, do you mean?” Goodwood demanded.

“Well, for yourself first. For Mrs. Osmond next.”

“Oh, it won’t do her any good! I don’t flatter myself that.”

“Won’t it do her some harm?—that’s the question.”

“I don’t see what it will matter to her. I’m nothing to Mrs. Osmond. But
if you want to know, I do want to see her myself.”

“Yes, and that’s why you go.”

“Of course it is. Could there be a better reason?”

“How will it help you?—that’s what I want to know,” said Miss
Stackpole.

“That’s just what I can’t tell you. It’s just what I was thinking about in
Paris.”

“It will make you more discontented.”

“Why do you say ‘more’ so?” Goodwood asked rather sternly. “How do you
know I’m discontented?”

“Well,” said Henrietta, hesitating a little, “you seem never to have cared
for another.”

“How do you know what I care for?” he cried with a big blush. “Just now I
care to go to Rome.”

Henrietta looked at him in silence, with a sad yet luminous expression.
“Well,” she observed at last, “I only wanted to tell you what I think; I
had it on my mind. Of course you think it’s none of my business. But
nothing is any one’s business, on that principle.”

“It’s very kind of you; I’m greatly obliged to you for your interest,”
said Caspar Goodwood. “I shall go to Rome and I shan’t hurt Mrs. Osmond.”

“You won’t hurt her, perhaps. But will you help her?—that’s the real
issue.”

“Is she in need of help?” he asked slowly, with a penetrating look.

“Most women always are,” said Henrietta, with conscientious evasiveness
and generalising less hopefully than usual. “If you go to Rome,” she
added, “I hope you’ll be a true friend—not a selfish one!” And she
turned off and began to look at the pictures.

Caspar Goodwood let her go and stood watching her while she wandered round
the room; but after a moment he rejoined her. “You’ve heard something
about her here,” he then resumed. “I should like to know what you’ve
heard.”

Henrietta had never prevaricated in her life, and, though on this occasion
there might have been a fitness in doing so, she decided, after thinking
some minutes, to make no superficial exception. “Yes, I’ve heard,” she
answered; “but as I don’t want you to go to Rome I won’t tell you.”

“Just as you please. I shall see for myself,” he said. Then
inconsistently, for him, “You’ve heard she’s unhappy!” he added.

“Oh, you won’t see that!” Henrietta exclaimed.

“I hope not. When do you start?”

“To-morrow, by the evening train. And you?”

Goodwood hung back; he had no desire to make his journey to Rome in Miss
Stackpole’s company. His indifference to this advantage was not of the
same character as Gilbert Osmond’s, but it had at this moment an equal
distinctness. It was rather a tribute to Miss Stackpole’s virtues than a
reference to her faults. He thought her very remarkable, very brilliant,
and he had, in theory, no objection to the class to which she belonged.
Lady correspondents appeared to him a part of the natural scheme of things
in a progressive country, and though he never read their letters he
supposed that they ministered somehow to social prosperity. But it was
this very eminence of their position that made him wish Miss Stackpole
didn’t take so much for granted. She took for granted that he was always
ready for some allusion to Mrs. Osmond; she had done so when they met in
Paris, six weeks after his arrival in Europe, and she had repeated the
assumption with every successive opportunity. He had no wish whatever to
allude to Mrs. Osmond; he was not always thinking of her; he was
perfectly sure of that. He was the most reserved, the least colloquial of
men, and this enquiring authoress was constantly flashing her lantern into
the quiet darkness of his soul. He wished she didn’t care so much; he even
wished, though it might seem rather brutal of him, that she would leave
him alone. In spite of this, however, he just now made other reflections—which
show how widely different, in effect, his ill-humour was from Gilbert
Osmond’s. He desired to go immediately to Rome; he would have liked to go
alone, in the night-train. He hated the European railway-carriages, in
which one sat for hours in a vise, knee to knee and nose to nose with a
foreigner to whom one presently found one’s self objecting with all the
added vehemence of one’s wish to have the window open; and if they were
worse at night even than by day, at least at night one could sleep and
dream of an American saloon-car. But he couldn’t take a night-train when
Miss Stackpole was starting in the morning; it struck him that this would
be an insult to an unprotected woman. Nor could he wait until after she
had gone unless he should wait longer than he had patience for. It
wouldn’t do to start the next day. She worried him; she oppressed him; the
idea of spending the day in a European railway-carriage with her offered a
complication of irritations. Still, she was a lady travelling alone; it
was his duty to put himself out for her. There could be no two questions
about that; it was a perfectly clear necessity. He looked extremely grave
for some moments and then said, wholly without the flourish of gallantry
but in a tone of extreme distinctness, “Of course if you’re going
to-morrow I’ll go too, as I may be of assistance to you.”

“Well, Mr. Goodwood, I should hope so!” Henrietta returned imperturbably.


CHAPTER XLV

I have already had reason to say that Isabel knew her husband to be
displeased by the continuance of Ralph’s visit to Rome. That knowledge was
very present to her as she went to her cousin’s hotel the day after she
had invited Lord Warburton to give a tangible proof of his sincerity; and
at this moment, as at others, she had a sufficient perception of the
sources of Osmond’s opposition. He wished her to have no freedom of mind,
and he knew perfectly well that Ralph was an apostle of freedom. It was
just because he was this, Isabel said to herself, that it was a
refreshment to go and see him. It will be perceived that she partook of
this refreshment in spite of her husband’s aversion to it, that is partook
of it, as she flattered herself, discreetly. She had not as yet undertaken
to act in direct opposition to his wishes; he was her appointed and
inscribed master; she gazed at moments with a sort of incredulous
blankness at this fact. It weighed upon her imagination, however;
constantly present to her mind were all the traditionary decencies and
sanctities of marriage. The idea of violating them filled her with shame
as well as with dread, for on giving herself away she had lost sight of
this contingency in the perfect belief that her husband’s intentions were
as generous as her own. She seemed to see, none the less, the rapid
approach of the day when she should have to take back something she had
solemnly bestown. Such a ceremony would be odious and monstrous; she tried
to shut her eyes to it meanwhile. Osmond would do nothing to help it by
beginning first; he would put that burden upon her to the end. He had not
yet formally forbidden her to call upon Ralph; but she felt sure that
unless Ralph should very soon depart this prohibition would come. How
could poor Ralph depart? The weather as yet made it impossible. She could
perfectly understand her husband’s wish for the event; she didn’t, to be
just, see how he could like her to be with her cousin. Ralph never
said a word against him, but Osmond’s sore, mute protest was none the less
founded. If he should positively interpose, if he should put forth his
authority, she would have to decide, and that wouldn’t be easy. The
prospect made her heart beat and her cheeks burn, as I say, in advance;
there were moments when, in her wish to avoid an open rupture, she found
herself wishing Ralph would start even at a risk. And it was of no use
that, when catching herself in this state of mind, she called herself a
feeble spirit, a coward. It was not that she loved Ralph less, but that
almost anything seemed preferable to repudiating the most serious act—the
single sacred act—of her life. That appeared to make the whole
future hideous. To break with Osmond once would be to break for ever; any
open acknowledgement of irreconcilable needs would be an admission that
their whole attempt had proved a failure. For them there could be no
condonement, no compromise, no easy forgetfulness, no formal readjustment.
They had attempted only one thing, but that one thing was to have been
exquisite. Once they missed it nothing else would do; there was no
conceivable substitute for that success. For the moment, Isabel went to
the Hôtel de Paris as often as she thought well; the measure of propriety
was in the canon of taste, and there couldn’t have been a better proof
that morality was, so to speak, a matter of earnest appreciation. Isabel’s
application of that measure had been particularly free to-day, for in
addition to the general truth that she couldn’t leave Ralph to die alone
she had something important to ask of him. This indeed was Gilbert’s
business as well as her own.

She came very soon to what she wished to speak of. “I want you to answer
me a question. It’s about Lord Warburton.”

“I think I guess your question,” Ralph answered from his arm-chair, out of
which his thin legs protruded at greater length than ever.

“Very possibly you guess it. Please then answer it.”

“Oh, I don’t say I can do that.”

“You’re intimate with him,” she said; “you’ve a great deal of observation
of him.”

“Very true. But think how he must dissimulate!”

“Why should he dissimulate? That’s not his nature.”

“Ah, you must remember that the circumstances are peculiar,” said Ralph
with an air of private amusement.

“To a certain extent—yes. But is he really in love?”

“Very much, I think. I can make that out.”

“Ah!” said Isabel with a certain dryness.

Ralph looked at her as if his mild hilarity had been touched with
mystification. “You say that as if you were disappointed.”

Isabel got up, slowly smoothing her gloves and eyeing them thoughtfully.
“It’s after all no business of mine.”

“You’re very philosophic,” said her cousin. And then in a moment: “May I
enquire what you’re talking about?”

Isabel stared. “I thought you knew. Lord Warburton tells me he wants, of
all things in the world, to marry Pansy. I’ve told you that before,
without eliciting a comment from you. You might risk one this morning, I
think. Is it your belief that he really cares for her?”

“Ah, for Pansy, no!” cried Ralph very positively.

“But you said just now he did.”

Ralph waited a moment. “That he cared for you, Mrs. Osmond.”

Isabel shook her head gravely. “That’s nonsense, you know.”

“Of course it is. But the nonsense is Warburton’s, not mine.”

“That would be very tiresome.” She spoke, as she flattered herself, with
much subtlety.

“I ought to tell you indeed,” Ralph went on, “that to me he has denied
it.”

“It’s very good of you to talk about it together! Has he also told you
that he’s in love with Pansy?”

“He has spoken very well of her—very properly. He has let me know,
of course, that he thinks she would do very well at Lockleigh.”

“Does he really think it?”

“Ah, what Warburton really thinks—!” said Ralph.

Isabel fell to smoothing her gloves again; they were long, loose gloves on
which she could freely expend herself. Soon, however, she looked up, and
then, “Ah, Ralph, you give me no help!” she cried abruptly and
passionately.

It was the first time she had alluded to the need for help, and the words
shook her cousin with their violence. He gave a long murmur of relief, of
pity, of tenderness; it seemed to him that at last the gulf between them
had been bridged. It was this that made him exclaim in a moment: “How
unhappy you must be!”

He had no sooner spoken than she recovered her self-possession, and the
first use she made of it was to pretend she had not heard him. “When I
talk of your helping me I talk great nonsense,” she said with a quick
smile. “The idea of my troubling you with my domestic embarrassments! The
matter’s very simple; Lord Warburton must get on by himself. I can’t
undertake to see him through.”

“He ought to succeed easily,” said Ralph.

Isabel debated. “Yes—but he has not always succeeded.”

“Very true. You know, however, how that always surprised me. Is Miss
Osmond capable of giving us a surprise?”

“It will come from him, rather. I seem to see that after all he’ll let the
matter drop.”

“He’ll do nothing dishonourable,” said Ralph.

“I’m very sure of that. Nothing can be more honourable than for him to
leave the poor child alone. She cares for another person, and it’s cruel
to attempt to bribe her by magnificent offers to give him up.”

“Cruel to the other person perhaps—the one she cares for. But
Warburton isn’t obliged to mind that.”

“No, cruel to her,” said Isabel. “She would be very unhappy if she were to
allow herself to be persuaded to desert poor Mr. Rosier. That idea seems
to amuse you; of course you’re not in love with him. He has the merit—for
Pansy—of being in love with Pansy. She can see at a glance that Lord
Warburton isn’t.”

“He’d be very good to her,” said Ralph.

“He has been good to her already. Fortunately, however, he has not said a
word to disturb her. He could come and bid her good-bye to-morrow with
perfect propriety.”

“How would your husband like that?”

“Not at all; and he may be right in not liking it. Only he must obtain
satisfaction himself.”

“Has he commissioned you to obtain it?” Ralph ventured to ask.

“It was natural that as an old friend of Lord Warburton’s—an older
friend, that is, than Gilbert—I should take an interest in his
intentions.”

“Take an interest in his renouncing them, you mean?”

Isabel hesitated, frowning a little. “Let me understand. Are you pleading
his cause?”

“Not in the least. I’m very glad he shouldn’t become your stepdaughter’s
husband. It makes such a very queer relation to you!” said Ralph, smiling.
“But I’m rather nervous lest your husband should think you haven’t pushed
him enough.”

Isabel found herself able to smile as well as he. “He knows me well enough
not to have expected me to push. He himself has no intention of pushing, I
presume. I’m not afraid I shall not be able to justify myself!” she said
lightly.

Her mask had dropped for an instant, but she had put it on again, to
Ralph’s infinite disappointment. He had caught a glimpse of her natural
face and he wished immensely to look into it. He had an almost savage
desire to hear her complain of her husband—hear her say that she
should be held accountable for Lord Warburton’s defection. Ralph was
certain that this was her situation; he knew by instinct, in advance, the
form that in such an event Osmond’s displeasure would take. It could only
take the meanest and cruellest. He would have liked to warn Isabel of it—to
let her see at least how he judged for her and how he knew. It little
mattered that Isabel would know much better; it was for his own
satisfaction more than for hers that he longed to show her he was not
deceived. He tried and tried again to make her betray Osmond; he felt
cold-blooded, cruel, dishonourable almost, in doing so. But it scarcely
mattered, for he only failed. What had she come for then, and why did she
seem almost to offer him a chance to violate their tacit convention? Why
did she ask him his advice if she gave him no liberty to answer her? How
could they talk of her domestic embarrassments, as it pleased her
humorously to designate them, if the principal factor was not to be
mentioned? These contradictions were themselves but an indication of her
trouble, and her cry for help, just before, was the only thing he was
bound to consider. “You’ll be decidedly at variance, all the same,” he
said in a moment. And as she answered nothing, looking as if she scarce
understood, “You’ll find yourselves thinking very differently,” he
continued.

“That may easily happen, among the most united couples!” She took up her
parasol; he saw she was nervous, afraid of what he might say. “It’s a
matter we can hardly quarrel about, however,” she added; “for almost all
the interest is on his side. That’s very natural. Pansy’s after all his
daughter—not mine.” And she put out her hand to wish him goodbye.

Ralph took an inward resolution that she shouldn’t leave him without his
letting her know that he knew everything: it seemed too great an
opportunity to lose. “Do you know what his interest will make him say?” he
asked as he took her hand. She shook her head, rather dryly—not
discouragingly—and he went on. “It will make him say that your want
of zeal is owing to jealousy.” He stopped a moment; her face made him
afraid.

“To jealousy?”

“To jealousy of his daughter.”

She blushed red and threw back her head. “You’re not kind,” she said in a
voice that he had never heard on her lips.

“Be frank with me and you’ll see,” he answered.

But she made no reply; she only pulled her hand out of his own, which he
tried still to hold, and rapidly withdrew from the room. She made up her
mind to speak to Pansy, and she took an occasion on the same day, going to
the girl’s room before dinner. Pansy was already dressed; she was always
in advance of the time: it seemed to illustrate her pretty patience and
the graceful stillness with which she could sit and wait. At present she
was seated, in her fresh array, before the bed-room fire; she had blown
out her candles on the completion of her toilet, in accordance with the
economical habits in which she had been brought up and which she was now
more careful than ever to observe; so that the room was lighted only by a
couple of logs. The rooms in Palazzo Roccanera were as spacious as they
were numerous, and Pansy’s virginal bower was an immense chamber with a
dark, heavily-timbered ceiling. Its diminutive mistress, in the midst of
it, appeared but a speck of humanity, and as she got up, with quick
deference, to welcome Isabel, the latter was more than ever struck with
her shy sincerity. Isabel had a difficult task—the only thing was to
perform it as simply as possible. She felt bitter and angry, but she
warned herself against betraying this heat. She was afraid even of looking
too grave, or at least too stern; she was afraid of causing alarm. But
Pansy seemed to have guessed she had come more or less as a confessor; for
after she had moved the chair in which she had been sitting a little
nearer to the fire and Isabel had taken her place in it, she kneeled down
on a cushion in front of her, looking up and resting her clasped hands on
her stepmother’s knees. What Isabel wished to do was to hear from her own
lips that her mind was not occupied with Lord Warburton; but if she
desired the assurance she felt herself by no means at liberty to provoke
it. The girl’s father would have qualified this as rank treachery; and
indeed Isabel knew that if Pansy should display the smallest germ of a
disposition to encourage Lord Warburton her own duty was to hold her
tongue. It was difficult to interrogate without appearing to suggest;
Pansy’s supreme simplicity, an innocence even more complete than Isabel
had yet judged it, gave to the most tentative enquiry something of the
effect of an admonition. As she knelt there in the vague firelight, with
her pretty dress dimly shining, her hands folded half in appeal and half
in submission, her soft eyes, raised and fixed, full of the seriousness of
the situation, she looked to Isabel like a childish martyr decked out for
sacrifice and scarcely presuming even to hope to avert it. When Isabel
said to her that she had never yet spoken to her of what might have been
going on in relation to her getting married, but that her silence had not
been indifference or ignorance, had only been the desire to leave her at
liberty, Pansy bent forward, raised her face nearer and nearer, and with a
little murmur which evidently expressed a deep longing, answered that she
had greatly wished her to speak and that she begged her to advise her now.

“It’s difficult for me to advise you,” Isabel returned. “I don’t know how
I can undertake that. That’s for your father; you must get his advice and,
above all, you must act on it.”

At this Pansy dropped her eyes; for a moment she said nothing. “I think I
should like your advice better than papa’s,” she presently remarked.

“That’s not as it should be,” said Isabel coldly. “I love you very much,
but your father loves you better.”

“It isn’t because you love me—it’s because you’re a lady,” Pansy
answered with the air of saying something very reasonable. “A lady can
advise a young girl better than a man.”

“I advise you then to pay the greatest respect to your father’s wishes.”

“Ah yes,” said the child eagerly, “I must do that.”

“But if I speak to you now about your getting married it’s not for your
own sake, it’s for mine,” Isabel went on. “If I try to learn from you what
you expect, what you desire, it’s only that I may act accordingly.”

Pansy stared, and then very quickly, “Will you do everything I want?” she
asked.

“Before I say yes I must know what such things are.”

Pansy presently told her that the only thing she wanted in life was to
marry Mr. Rosier. He had asked her and she had told him she would do so if
her papa would allow it. Now her papa wouldn’t allow it.

“Very well then, it’s impossible,” Isabel pronounced.

“Yes, it’s impossible,” said Pansy without a sigh and with the same
extreme attention in her clear little face.

“You must think of something else then,” Isabel went on; but Pansy,
sighing at this, told her that she had attempted that feat without the
least success.

“You think of those who think of you,” she said with a faint smile. “I
know Mr. Rosier thinks of me.”

“He ought not to,” said Isabel loftily. “Your father has expressly
requested he shouldn’t.”

“He can’t help it, because he knows I think of him.”

“You shouldn’t think of him. There’s some excuse for him, perhaps; but
there’s none for you.”

“I wish you would try to find one,” the girl exclaimed as if she were
praying to the Madonna.

“I should be very sorry to attempt it,” said the Madonna with unusual
frigidity. “If you knew some one else was thinking of you, would you think
of him?”

“No one can think of me as Mr. Rosier does; no one has the right.”

“Ah, but I don’t admit Mr. Rosier’s right!” Isabel hypocritically cried.

Pansy only gazed at her, evidently much puzzled; and Isabel, taking
advantage of it, began to represent to her the wretched consequences of
disobeying her father. At this Pansy stopped her with the assurance that
she would never disobey him, would never marry without his consent. And
she announced, in the serenest, simplest tone, that, though she might
never marry Mr. Rosier, she would never cease to think of him. She
appeared to have accepted the idea of eternal singleness; but Isabel of
course was free to reflect that she had no conception of its meaning. She
was perfectly sincere; she was prepared to give up her lover. This might
seem an important step toward taking another, but for Pansy, evidently, it
failed to lead in that direction. She felt no bitterness toward her
father; there was no bitterness in her heart; there was only the sweetness
of fidelity to Edward Rosier, and a strange, exquisite intimation that she
could prove it better by remaining single than even by marrying him.

“Your father would like you to make a better marriage,” said Isabel. “Mr.
Rosier’s fortune is not at all large.”

“How do you mean better—if that would be good enough? And I have
myself so little money; why should I look for a fortune?”

“Your having so little is a reason for looking for more.” With which
Isabel was grateful for the dimness of the room; she felt as if her face
were hideously insincere. It was what she was doing for Osmond; it was
what one had to do for Osmond! Pansy’s solemn eyes, fixed on her own,
almost embarrassed her; she was ashamed to think she had made so light of
the girl’s preference.

“What should you like me to do?” her companion softly demanded.

The question was a terrible one, and Isabel took refuge in timorous
vagueness. “To remember all the pleasure it’s in your power to give your
father.”

“To marry some one else, you mean—if he should ask me?”

For a moment Isabel’s answer caused itself to be waited for; then she
heard herself utter it in the stillness that Pansy’s attention seemed to
make. “Yes—to marry some one else.”

The child’s eyes grew more penetrating; Isabel believed she was doubting
her sincerity, and the impression took force from her slowly getting up
from her cushion. She stood there a moment with her small hands unclasped
and then quavered out: “Well, I hope no one will ask me!”

“There has been a question of that. Some one else would have been ready to
ask you.”

“I don’t think he can have been ready,” said Pansy.

“It would appear so if he had been sure he’d succeed.”

“If he had been sure? Then he wasn’t ready!”

Isabel thought this rather sharp; she also got up and stood a moment
looking into the fire. “Lord Warburton has shown you great attention,” she
resumed; “of course you know it’s of him I speak.” She found herself,
against her expectation, almost placed in the position of justifying
herself; which led her to introduce this nobleman more crudely than she
had intended.

“He has been very kind to me, and I like him very much. But if you mean
that he’ll propose for me I think you’re mistaken.”

“Perhaps I am. But your father would like it extremely.”

Pansy shook her head with a little wise smile. “Lord Warburton won’t
propose simply to please papa.”

“Your father would like you to encourage him,” Isabel went on
mechanically.

“How can I encourage him?”

“I don’t know. Your father must tell you that.”

Pansy said nothing for a moment; she only continued to smile as if she
were in possession of a bright assurance. “There’s no danger—no
danger!” she declared at last.

There was a conviction in the way she said this, and a felicity in her
believing it, which conduced to Isabel’s awkwardness. She felt accused of
dishonesty, and the idea was disgusting. To repair her self-respect she
was on the point of saying that Lord Warburton had let her know that there
was a danger. But she didn’t; she only said—in her embarrassment
rather wide of the mark—that he surely had been most kind, most
friendly.

“Yes, he has been very kind,” Pansy answered. “That’s what I like him
for.”

“Why then is the difficulty so great?”

“I’ve always felt sure of his knowing that I don’t want—what did you
say I should do?—to encourage him. He knows I don’t want to marry,
and he wants me to know that he therefore won’t trouble me. That’s the
meaning of his kindness. It’s as if he said to me: ‘I like you very much,
but if it doesn’t please you I’ll never say it again.’ I think that’s very
kind, very noble,” Pansy went on with deepening positiveness. “That is all
we’ve said to each other. And he doesn’t care for me either. Ah no,
there’s no danger.”

Isabel was touched with wonder at the depths of perception of which this
submissive little person was capable; she felt afraid of Pansy’s wisdom—began
almost to retreat before it. “You must tell your father that,” she
remarked reservedly.

“I think I’d rather not,” Pansy unreservedly answered.

“You oughtn’t to let him have false hopes.”

“Perhaps not; but it will be good for me that he should. So long as he
believes that Lord Warburton intends anything of the kind you say, papa
won’t propose any one else. And that will be an advantage for me,” said
the child very lucidly.

There was something brilliant in her lucidity, and it made her companion
draw a long breath. It relieved this friend of a heavy responsibility.
Pansy had a sufficient illumination of her own, and Isabel felt that she
herself just now had no light to spare from her small stock. Nevertheless
it still clung to her that she must be loyal to Osmond, that she was on
her honour in dealing with his daughter. Under the influence of this
sentiment she threw out another suggestion before she retired—a
suggestion with which it seemed to her that she should have done her
utmost.

“Your father takes for granted at least that you would like to marry a
nobleman.”

Pansy stood in the open doorway; she had drawn back the curtain for Isabel
to pass. “I think Mr. Rosier looks like one!” she remarked very gravely.


CHAPTER XLVI

Lord Warburton was not seen in Mrs. Osmond’s drawing-room for several
days, and Isabel couldn’t fail to observe that her husband said nothing to
her about having received a letter from him. She couldn’t fail to observe,
either, that Osmond was in a state of expectancy and that, though it was
not agreeable to him to betray it, he thought their distinguished friend
kept him waiting quite too long. At the end of four days he alluded to his
absence.

“What has become of Warburton? What does he mean by treating one like a
tradesman with a bill?”

“I know nothing about him,” Isabel said. “I saw him last Friday at the
German ball. He told me then that he meant to write to you.”

“He has never written to me.”

“So I supposed, from your not having told me.”

“He’s an odd fish,” said Osmond comprehensively. And on Isabel’s making no
rejoinder he went on to enquire whether it took his lordship five days to
indite a letter. “Does he form his words with such difficulty?”

“I don’t know,” Isabel was reduced to replying. “I’ve never had a letter
from him.”

“Never had a letter? I had an idea that you were at one time in intimate
correspondence.”

She answered that this had not been the case, and let the conversation
drop. On the morrow, however, coming into the drawing-room late in the
afternoon, her husband took it up again.

“When Lord Warburton told you of his intention of writing what did you say
to him?” he asked.

She just faltered. “I think I told him not to forget it.

“Did you believe there was a danger of that?”

“As you say, he’s an odd fish.”

“Apparently he has forgotten it,” said Osmond. “Be so good as to remind
him.”

“Should you like me to write to him?” she demanded.

“I’ve no objection whatever.”

“You expect too much of me.”

“Ah yes, I expect a great deal of you.”

“I’m afraid I shall disappoint you,” said Isabel.

“My expectations have survived a good deal of disappointment.”

“Of course I know that. Think how I must have disappointed myself! If you
really wish hands laid on Lord Warburton you must lay them yourself.”

For a couple of minutes Osmond answered nothing; then he said: “That won’t
be easy, with you working against me.”

Isabel started; she felt herself beginning to tremble. He had a way of
looking at her through half-closed eyelids, as if he were thinking of her
but scarcely saw her, which seemed to her to have a wonderfully cruel
intention. It appeared to recognise her as a disagreeable necessity of
thought, but to ignore her for the time as a presence. That effect had
never been so marked as now. “I think you accuse me of something very
base,” she returned.

“I accuse you of not being trustworthy. If he doesn’t after all come
forward it will be because you’ve kept him off. I don’t know that it’s
base: it is the kind of thing a woman always thinks she may do. I’ve no
doubt you’ve the finest ideas about it.”

“I told you I would do what I could,” she went on.

“Yes, that gained you time.”

It came over her, after he had said this, that she had once thought him
beautiful. “How much you must want to make sure of him!” she exclaimed in
a moment.

She had no sooner spoken than she perceived the full reach of her words,
of which she had not been conscious in uttering them. They made a
comparison between Osmond and herself, recalled the fact that she had once
held this coveted treasure in her hand and felt herself rich enough to let
it fall. A momentary exultation took possession of her—a horrible
delight in having wounded him; for his face instantly told her that none
of the force of her exclamation was lost. He expressed nothing otherwise,
however; he only said quickly: “Yes, I want it immensely.”

At this moment a servant came in to usher a visitor, and he was followed
the next by Lord Warburton, who received a visible check on seeing Osmond.
He looked rapidly from the master of the house to the mistress; a movement
that seemed to denote a reluctance to interrupt or even a perception of
ominous conditions. Then he advanced, with his English address, in which a
vague shyness seemed to offer itself as an element of good-breeding; in
which the only defect was a difficulty in achieving transitions. Osmond
was embarrassed; he found nothing to say; but Isabel remarked, promptly
enough, that they had been in the act of talking about their visitor. Upon
this her husband added that they hadn’t known what was become of him—they
had been afraid he had gone away. “No,” he explained, smiling and looking
at Osmond; “I’m only on the point of going.” And then he mentioned that he
found himself suddenly recalled to England: he should start on the morrow
or the day after. “I’m awfully sorry to leave poor Touchett!” he ended by
exclaiming.

For a moment neither of his companions spoke; Osmond only leaned back in
his chair, listening. Isabel didn’t look at him; she could only fancy how
he looked. Her eyes were on their visitor’s face, where they were the more
free to rest that those of his lordship carefully avoided them. Yet Isabel
was sure that had she met his glance she would have found it expressive.
“You had better take poor Touchett with you,” she heard her husband say,
lightly enough, in a moment.

“He had better wait for warmer weather,” Lord Warburton answered. “I
shouldn’t advise him to travel just now.”

He sat there a quarter of an hour, talking as if he might not soon see
them again—unless indeed they should come to England, a course he
strongly recommended. Why shouldn’t they come to England in the autumn?—that
struck him as a very happy thought. It would give him such pleasure to do
what he could for them—to have them come and spend a month with him.
Osmond, by his own admission, had been to England but once; which was an
absurd state of things for a man of his leisure and intelligence. It was
just the country for him—he would be sure to get on well there. Then
Lord Warburton asked Isabel if she remembered what a good time she had had
there and if she didn’t want to try it again. Didn’t she want to see
Gardencourt once more? Gardencourt was really very good. Touchett didn’t
take proper care of it, but it was the sort of place you could hardly
spoil by letting it alone. Why didn’t they come and pay Touchett a visit?
He surely must have asked them. Hadn’t asked them? What an ill-mannered
wretch!—and Lord Warburton promised to give the master of
Gardencourt a piece of his mind. Of course it was a mere accident; he
would be delighted to have them. Spending a month with Touchett and a
month with himself, and seeing all the rest of the people they must know
there, they really wouldn’t find it half bad. Lord Warburton added that it
would amuse Miss Osmond as well, who had told him that she had never been
to England and whom he had assured it was a country she deserved to see.
Of course she didn’t need to go to England to be admired—that was
her fate everywhere; but she would be an immense success there, she
certainly would, if that was any inducement. He asked if she were not at
home: couldn’t he say good-bye? Not that he liked good-byes—he
always funked them. When he left England the other day he hadn’t said
good-bye to a two-legged creature. He had had half a mind to leave Rome
without troubling Mrs. Osmond for a final interview. What could be more
dreary than final interviews? One never said the things one wanted—one
remembered them all an hour afterwards. On the other hand one usually said
a lot of things one shouldn’t, simply from a sense that one had to say
something. Such a sense was upsetting; it muddled one’s wits. He had it at
present, and that was the effect it produced on him. If Mrs. Osmond didn’t
think he spoke as he ought she must set it down to agitation; it was no
light thing to part with Mrs. Osmond. He was really very sorry to be
going. He had thought of writing to her instead of calling—but he
would write to her at any rate, to tell her a lot of things that would be
sure to occur to him as soon as he had left the house. They must think
seriously about coming to Lockleigh.

If there was anything awkward in the conditions of his visit or in the
announcement of his departure it failed to come to the surface. Lord
Warburton talked about his agitation; but he showed it in no other manner,
and Isabel saw that since he had determined on a retreat he was capable of
executing it gallantly. She was very glad for him; she liked him quite
well enough to wish him to appear to carry a thing off. He would do that
on any occasion—not from impudence but simply from the habit of
success; and Isabel felt it out of her husband’s power to frustrate this
faculty. A complex operation, as she sat there, went on in her mind. On
one side she listened to their visitor; said what was proper to him; read,
more or less, between the lines of what he said himself; and wondered how
he would have spoken if he had found her alone. On the other she had a
perfect consciousness of Osmond’s emotion. She felt almost sorry for him;
he was condemned to the sharp pain of loss without the relief of cursing.
He had had a great hope, and now, as he saw it vanish into smoke, he was
obliged to sit and smile and twirl his thumbs. Not that he troubled
himself to smile very brightly; he treated their friend on the whole to as
vacant a countenance as so clever a man could very well wear. It was
indeed a part of Osmond’s cleverness that he could look consummately
uncompromised. His present appearance, however, was not a confession of
disappointment; it was simply a part of Osmond’s habitual system, which
was to be inexpressive exactly in proportion as he was really intent. He
had been intent on this prize from the first; but he had never allowed his
eagerness to irradiate his refined face. He had treated his possible
son-in-law as he treated every one—with an air of being interested
in him only for his own advantage, not for any profit to a person already
so generally, so perfectly provided as Gilbert Osmond. He would give no
sign now of an inward rage which was the result of a vanished prospect of
gain—not the faintest nor subtlest. Isabel could be sure of that, if
it was any satisfaction to her. Strangely, very strangely, it was a
satisfaction; she wished Lord Warburton to triumph before her husband, and
at the same time she wished her husband to be very superior before Lord
Warburton. Osmond, in his way, was admirable; he had, like their visitor,
the advantage of an acquired habit. It was not that of succeeding, but it
was something almost as good—that of not attempting. As he leaned
back in his place, listening but vaguely to the other’s friendly offers
and suppressed explanations—as if it were only proper to assume that
they were addressed essentially to his wife—he had at least (since
so little else was left him) the comfort of thinking how well he
personally had kept out of it, and how the air of indifference, which he
was now able to wear, had the added beauty of consistency. It was
something to be able to look as if the leave-taker’s movements had no
relation to his own mind. The latter did well, certainly; but Osmond’s
performance was in its very nature more finished. Lord Warburton’s
position was after all an easy one; there was no reason in the world why
he shouldn’t leave Rome. He had had beneficent inclinations, but they had
stopped short of fruition; he had never committed himself, and his honour
was safe. Osmond appeared to take but a moderate interest in the proposal
that they should go and stay with him and in his allusion to the success
Pansy might extract from their visit. He murmured a recognition, but left
Isabel to say that it was a matter requiring grave consideration. Isabel,
even while she made this remark, could see the great vista which had
suddenly opened out in her husband’s mind, with Pansy’s little figure
marching up the middle of it.

Lord Warburton had asked leave to bid good-bye to Pansy, but neither
Isabel nor Osmond had made any motion to send for her. He had the air of
giving out that his visit must be short; he sat on a small chair, as if it
were only for a moment, keeping his hat in his hand. But he stayed and
stayed; Isabel wondered what he was waiting for. She believed it was not
to see Pansy; she had an impression that on the whole he would rather not
see Pansy. It was of course to see herself alone—he had something to
say to her. Isabel had no great wish to hear it, for she was afraid it
would be an explanation, and she could perfectly dispense with
explanations. Osmond, however, presently got up, like a man of good taste
to whom it had occurred that so inveterate a visitor might wish to say
just the last word of all to the ladies. “I’ve a letter to write before
dinner,” he said; “you must excuse me. I’ll see if my daughter’s
disengaged, and if she is she shall know you’re here. Of course when you
come to Rome you’ll always look us up. Mrs. Osmond will talk to you about
the English expedition: she decides all those things.”

The nod with which, instead of a hand-shake, he wound up this little
speech was perhaps rather a meagre form of salutation; but on the whole it
was all the occasion demanded. Isabel reflected that after he left the
room Lord Warburton would have no pretext for saying, “Your husband’s very
angry”; which would have been extremely disagreeable to her. Nevertheless,
if he had done so, she would have said: “Oh, don’t be anxious. He doesn’t
hate you: it’s me that he hates!”

It was only when they had been left alone together that her friend showed
a certain vague awkwardness—sitting down in another chair, handling
two or three of the objects that were near him. “I hope he’ll make Miss
Osmond come,” he presently remarked. “I want very much to see her.”

“I’m glad it’s the last time,” said Isabel.

“So am I. She doesn’t care for me.”

“No, she doesn’t care for you.”

“I don’t wonder at it,” he returned. Then he added with inconsequence:
“You’ll come to England, won’t you?”

“I think we had better not.”

“Ah, you owe me a visit. Don’t you remember that you were to have come to
Lockleigh once, and you never did?”

“Everything’s changed since then,” said Isabel.

“Not changed for the worse, surely—as far as we’re concerned. To see
you under my roof”—and he hung fire but an instant—“would be a
great satisfaction.”

She had feared an explanation; but that was the only one that occurred.
They talked a little of Ralph, and in another moment Pansy came in,
already dressed for dinner and with a little red spot in either cheek. She
shook hands with Lord Warburton and stood looking up into his face with a
fixed smile—a smile that Isabel knew, though his lordship probably
never suspected it, to be near akin to a burst of tears.

“I’m going away,” he said. “I want to bid you good-bye.”

“Good-bye, Lord Warburton.” Her voice perceptibly trembled.

“And I want to tell you how much I wish you may be very happy.”

“Thank you, Lord Warburton,” Pansy answered.

He lingered a moment and gave a glance at Isabel. “You ought to be very
happy—you’ve got a guardian angel.”

“I’m sure I shall be happy,” said Pansy in the tone of a person whose
certainties were always cheerful.

“Such a conviction as that will take you a great way. But if it should
ever fail you, remember—remember—” And her interlocutor
stammered a little. “Think of me sometimes, you know!” he said with a
vague laugh. Then he shook hands with Isabel in silence, and presently he
was gone.

When he had left the room she expected an effusion of tears from her
stepdaughter; but Pansy in fact treated her to something very different.

“I think you are my guardian angel!” she exclaimed very sweetly.

Isabel shook her head. “I’m not an angel of any kind. I’m at the most your
good friend.”

“You’re a very good friend then—to have asked papa to be gentle with
me.”

“I’ve asked your father nothing,” said Isabel, wondering.

“He told me just now to come to the drawing-room, and then he gave me a
very kind kiss.”

“Ah,” said Isabel, “that was quite his own idea!”

She recognised the idea perfectly; it was very characteristic, and she was
to see a great deal more of it. Even with Pansy he couldn’t put himself
the least in the wrong. They were dining out that day, and after their
dinner they went to another entertainment; so that it was not till late in
the evening that Isabel saw him alone. When Pansy kissed him before going
to bed he returned her embrace with even more than his usual munificence,
and Isabel wondered if he meant it as a hint that his daughter had been
injured by the machinations of her stepmother. It was a partial
expression, at any rate, of what he continued to expect of his wife. She
was about to follow Pansy, but he remarked that he wished she would
remain; he had something to say to her. Then he walked about the
drawing-room a little, while she stood waiting in her cloak.

“I don’t understand what you wish to do,” he said in a moment. “I should
like to know—so that I may know how to act.”

“Just now I wish to go to bed. I’m very tired.”

“Sit down and rest; I shall not keep you long. Not there—take a
comfortable place.” And he arranged a multitude of cushions that were
scattered in picturesque disorder upon a vast divan. This was not,
however, where she seated herself; she dropped into the nearest chair. The
fire had gone out; the lights in the great room were few. She drew her
cloak about her; she felt mortally cold. “I think you’re trying to
humiliate me,” Osmond went on. “It’s a most absurd undertaking.”

“I haven’t the least idea what you mean,” she returned.

“You’ve played a very deep game; you’ve managed it beautifully.”

“What is it that I’ve managed?”

“You’ve not quite settled it, however; we shall see him again.” And he
stopped in front of her, with his hands in his pockets, looking down at
her thoughtfully, in his usual way, which seemed meant to let her know
that she was not an object, but only a rather disagreeable incident, of
thought.

“If you mean that Lord Warburton’s under an obligation to come back you’re
wrong,” Isabel said. “He’s under none whatever.”

“That’s just what I complain of. But when I say he’ll come back I don’t
mean he’ll come from a sense of duty.”

“There’s nothing else to make him. I think he has quite exhausted Rome.”

“Ah no, that’s a shallow judgement. Rome’s inexhaustible.” And Osmond
began to walk about again. “However, about that perhaps there’s no hurry,”
he added. “It’s rather a good idea of his that we should go to England. If
it were not for the fear of finding your cousin there I think I should try
to persuade you.”

“It may be that you’ll not find my cousin,” said Isabel.

“I should like to be sure of it. However, I shall be as sure as possible.
At the same time I should like to see his house, that you told me so much
about at one time: what do you call it?—Gardencourt. It must be a
charming thing. And then, you know, I’ve a devotion to the memory of your
uncle: you made me take a great fancy to him. I should like to see where
he lived and died. That indeed is a detail. Your friend was right. Pansy
ought to see England.”

“I’ve no doubt she would enjoy it,” said Isabel.

“But that’s a long time hence; next autumn’s far off,” Osmond continued;
“and meantime there are things that more nearly interest us. Do you think
me so very proud?” he suddenly asked.

“I think you very strange.”

“You don’t understand me.”

“No, not even when you insult me.”

“I don’t insult you; I’m incapable of it. I merely speak of certain facts,
and if the allusion’s an injury to you the fault’s not mine. It’s surely a
fact that you have kept all this matter quite in your own hands.”

“Are you going back to Lord Warburton?” Isabel asked. “I’m very tired of
his name.”

“You shall hear it again before we’ve done with it.”

She had spoken of his insulting her, but it suddenly seemed to her that
this ceased to be a pain. He was going down—down; the vision of such
a fall made her almost giddy: that was the only pain. He was too strange,
too different; he didn’t touch her. Still, the working of his morbid
passion was extraordinary, and she felt a rising curiosity to know in what
light he saw himself justified. “I might say to you that I judge you’ve
nothing to say to me that’s worth hearing,” she returned in a moment. “But
I should perhaps be wrong. There’s a thing that would be worth my hearing—to
know in the plainest words of what it is you accuse me.”

“Of having prevented Pansy’s marriage to Warburton. Are those words plain
enough?”

“On the contrary, I took a great interest in it. I told you so; and when
you told me that you counted on me—that I think was what you said—I
accepted the obligation. I was a fool to do so, but I did it.”

“You pretended to do it, and you even pretended reluctance to make me more
willing to trust you. Then you began to use your ingenuity to get him out
of the way.”

“I think I see what you mean,” said Isabel.

“Where’s the letter you told me he had written me?” her husband demanded.

“I haven’t the least idea; I haven’t asked him.”

“You stopped it on the way,” said Osmond.

Isabel slowly got up; standing there in her white cloak, which covered her
to her feet, she might have represented the angel of disdain, first cousin
to that of pity. “Oh, Gilbert, for a man who was so fine—!” she
exclaimed in a long murmur.

“I was never so fine as you. You’ve done everything you wanted. You’ve got
him out of the way without appearing to do so, and you’ve placed me in the
position in which you wished to see me—that of a man who has tried
to marry his daughter to a lord, but has grotesquely failed.”

“Pansy doesn’t care for him. She’s very glad he’s gone,” Isabel said.

“That has nothing to do with the matter.”

“And he doesn’t care for Pansy.”

“That won’t do; you told me he did. I don’t know why you wanted this
particular satisfaction,” Osmond continued; “you might have taken some
other. It doesn’t seem to me that I’ve been presumptuous—that I have
taken too much for granted. I’ve been very modest about it, very quiet.
The idea didn’t originate with me. He began to show that he liked her
before I ever thought of it. I left it all to you.”

“Yes, you were very glad to leave it to me. After this you must attend to
such things yourself.”

He looked at her a moment; then he turned away. “I thought you were very
fond of my daughter.”

“I’ve never been more so than to-day.”

“Your affection is attended with immense limitations. However, that
perhaps is natural.”

“Is this all you wished to say to me?” Isabel asked, taking a candle that
stood on one of the tables.

“Are you satisfied? Am I sufficiently disappointed?”

“I don’t think that on the whole you’re disappointed. You’ve had another
opportunity to try to stupefy me.”

“It’s not that. It’s proved that Pansy can aim high.”

“Poor little Pansy!” said Isabel as she turned away with her candle.


CHAPTER XLVII

It was from Henrietta Stackpole that she learned how Caspar Goodwood had
come to Rome; an event that took place three days after Lord Warburton’s
departure. This latter fact had been preceded by an incident of some
importance to Isabel—the temporary absence, once again, of Madame
Merle, who had gone to Naples to stay with a friend, the happy possessor
of a villa at Posilippo. Madame Merle had ceased to minister to Isabel’s
happiness, who found herself wondering whether the most discreet of women
might not also by chance be the most dangerous. Sometimes, at night, she
had strange visions; she seemed to see her husband and her friend—his
friend—in dim, indistinguishable combination. It seemed to her that
she had not done with her; this lady had something in reserve. Isabel’s
imagination applied itself actively to this elusive point, but every now
and then it was checked by a nameless dread, so that when the charming
woman was away from Rome she had almost a consciousness of respite. She
had already learned from Miss Stackpole that Caspar Goodwood was in
Europe, Henrietta having written to make it known to her immediately after
meeting him in Paris. He himself never wrote to Isabel, and though he was
in Europe she thought it very possible he might not desire to see her.
Their last interview, before her marriage, had had quite the character of
a complete rupture; if she remembered rightly he had said he wished to
take his last look at her. Since then he had been the most discordant
survival of her earlier time—the only one in fact with which a
permanent pain was associated. He had left her that morning with a sense
of the most superfluous of shocks: it was like a collision between vessels
in broad daylight. There had been no mist, no hidden current to excuse it,
and she herself had only wished to steer wide. He had bumped against her
prow, however, while her hand was on the tiller, and—to complete the
metaphor—had given the lighter vessel a strain which still
occasionally betrayed itself in a faint creaking. It had been horrid to
see him, because he represented the only serious harm that (to her belief)
she had ever done in the world: he was the only person with an unsatisfied
claim on her. She had made him unhappy, she couldn’t help it; and his
unhappiness was a grim reality. She had cried with rage, after he had left
her, at—she hardly knew what: she tried to think it had been at his
want of consideration. He had come to her with his unhappiness when her
own bliss was so perfect; he had done his best to darken the brightness of
those pure rays. He had not been violent, and yet there had been a
violence in the impression. There had been a violence at any rate in
something somewhere; perhaps it was only in her own fit of weeping and in
that after-sense of the same which had lasted three or four days.

The effect of his final appeal had in short faded away, and all the first
year of her marriage he had dropped out of her books. He was a thankless
subject of reference; it was disagreeable to have to think of a person who
was sore and sombre about you and whom you could yet do nothing to
relieve. It would have been different if she had been able to doubt, even
a little, of his unreconciled state, as she doubted of Lord Warburton’s;
unfortunately it was beyond question, and this aggressive, uncompromising
look of it was just what made it unattractive. She could never say to
herself that here was a sufferer who had compensations, as she was able to
say in the case of her English suitor. She had no faith in Mr. Goodwood’s
compensations and no esteem for them. A cotton factory was not a
compensation for anything—least of all for having failed to marry
Isabel Archer. And yet, beyond that, she hardly knew what he had—save
of course his intrinsic qualities. Oh, he was intrinsic enough; she never
thought of his even looking for artificial aids. If he extended his
business—that, to the best of her belief, was the only form exertion
could take with him—it would be because it was an enterprising
thing, or good for the business; not in the least because he might hope it
would overlay the past. This gave his figure a kind of bareness and
bleakness which made the accident of meeting it in memory or in
apprehension a peculiar concussion; it was deficient in the social drapery
commonly muffling, in an overcivilized age, the sharpness of human
contacts. His perfect silence, moreover, the fact that she never heard
from him and very seldom heard any mention of him, deepened this
impression of his loneliness. She asked Lily for news of him, from time to
time; but Lily knew nothing of Boston—her imagination was all
bounded on the east by Madison Avenue. As time went on Isabel had thought
of him oftener, and with fewer restrictions; she had had more than once
the idea of writing to him. She had never told her husband about him—never
let Osmond know of his visits to her in Florence; a reserve not dictated
in the early period by a want of confidence in Osmond, but simply by the
consideration that the young man’s disappointment was not her secret but
his own. It would be wrong of her, she had believed, to convey it to
another, and Mr. Goodwood’s affairs could have, after all, little interest
for Gilbert. When it had come to the point she had never written to him;
it seemed to her that, considering his grievance, the least she could do
was to let him alone. Nevertheless she would have been glad to be in some
way nearer to him. It was not that it ever occurred to her that she might
have married him; even after the consequences of her actual union had
grown vivid to her that particular reflection, though she indulged in so
many, had not had the assurance to present itself. But on finding herself
in trouble he had become a member of that circle of things with which she
wished to set herself right. I have mentioned how passionately she needed
to feel that her unhappiness should not have come to her through her own
fault. She had no near prospect of dying, and yet she wished to make her
peace with the world—to put her spiritual affairs in order. It came
back to her from time to time that there was an account still to be
settled with Caspar, and she saw herself disposed or able to settle it
to-day on terms easier for him than ever before. Still, when she learned
he was coming to Rome she felt all afraid; it would be more disagreeable
for him than for any one else to make out—since he would make
it out, as over a falsified balance-sheet or something of that sort—the
intimate disarray of her affairs. Deep in her breast she believed that he
had invested his all in her happiness, while the others had invested only
a part. He was one more person from whom she should have to conceal her
stress. She was reassured, however, after he arrived in Rome, for he spent
several days without coming to see her.

Henrietta Stackpole, it may well be imagined, was more punctual, and
Isabel was largely favoured with the society of her friend. She threw
herself into it, for now that she had made such a point of keeping her
conscience clear, that was one way of proving she had not been superficial—the
more so as the years, in their flight, had rather enriched than blighted
those peculiarities which had been humorously criticised by persons less
interested than Isabel, and which were still marked enough to give loyalty
a spice of heroism. Henrietta was as keen and quick and fresh as ever, and
as neat and bright and fair. Her remarkably open eyes, lighted like great
glazed railway-stations, had put up no shutters; her attire had lost none
of its crispness, her opinions none of their national reference. She was
by no means quite unchanged, however it struck Isabel she had grown vague.
Of old she had never been vague; though undertaking many enquiries at
once, she had managed to be entire and pointed about each. She had a
reason for everything she did; she fairly bristled with motives. Formerly,
when she came to Europe it was because she wished to see it, but now,
having already seen it, she had no such excuse. She didn’t for a moment
pretend that the desire to examine decaying civilisations had anything to
do with her present enterprise; her journey was rather an expression of
her independence of the old world than of a sense of further obligations
to it. “It’s nothing to come to Europe,” she said to Isabel; “it doesn’t
seem to me one needs so many reasons for that. It is something to stay at
home; this is much more important.” It was not therefore with a sense of
doing anything very important that she treated herself to another
pilgrimage to Rome; she had seen the place before and carefully inspected
it; her present act was simply a sign of familiarity, of her knowing all
about it, of her having as good a right as any one else to be there. This
was all very well, and Henrietta was restless; she had a perfect right to
be restless too, if one came to that. But she had after all a better
reason for coming to Rome than that she cared for it so little. Her friend
easily recognised it, and with it the worth of the other’s fidelity. She
had crossed the stormy ocean in midwinter because she had guessed that
Isabel was sad. Henrietta guessed a great deal, but she had never guessed
so happily as that. Isabel’s satisfactions just now were few, but even if
they had been more numerous there would still have been something of
individual joy in her sense of being justified in having always thought
highly of Henrietta. She had made large concessions with regard to her,
and had yet insisted that, with all abatements, she was very valuable. It
was not her own triumph, however, that she found good; it was simply the
relief of confessing to this confidant, the first person to whom she had
owned it, that she was not in the least at her ease. Henrietta had herself
approached this point with the smallest possible delay, and had accused
her to her face of being wretched. She was a woman, she was a sister; she
was not Ralph, nor Lord Warburton, nor Caspar Goodwood, and Isabel could
speak.

“Yes, I’m wretched,” she said very mildly. She hated to hear herself say
it; she tried to say it as judicially as possible.

“What does he do to you?” Henrietta asked, frowning as if she were
enquiring into the operations of a quack doctor.

“He does nothing. But he doesn’t like me.”

“He’s very hard to please!” cried Miss Stackpole. “Why don’t you leave
him?”

“I can’t change that way,” Isabel said.

“Why not, I should like to know? You won’t confess that you’ve made a
mistake. You’re too proud.”

“I don’t know whether I’m too proud. But I can’t publish my mistake. I
don’t think that’s decent. I’d much rather die.”

“You won’t think so always,” said Henrietta.

“I don’t know what great unhappiness might bring me to; but it seems to me
I shall always be ashamed. One must accept one’s deeds. I married him
before all the world; I was perfectly free; it was impossible to do
anything more deliberate. One can’t change that way,” Isabel repeated.

“You have changed, in spite of the impossibility. I hope you don’t
mean to say you like him.”

Isabel debated. “No, I don’t like him. I can tell you, because I’m weary
of my secret. But that’s enough; I can’t announce it on the housetops.”

Henrietta gave a laugh. “Don’t you think you’re rather too considerate?”

“It’s not of him that I’m considerate—it’s of myself!” Isabel
answered.

It was not surprising Gilbert Osmond should not have taken comfort in Miss
Stackpole; his instinct had naturally set him in opposition to a young
lady capable of advising his wife to withdraw from the conjugal roof. When
she arrived in Rome he had said to Isabel that he hoped she would leave
her friend the interviewer alone; and Isabel had answered that he at least
had nothing to fear from her. She said to Henrietta that as Osmond didn’t
like her she couldn’t invite her to dine, but they could easily see each
other in other ways. Isabel received Miss Stackpole freely in her own
sitting-room, and took her repeatedly to drive, face to face with Pansy,
who, bending a little forward, on the opposite seat of the carriage, gazed
at the celebrated authoress with a respectful attention which Henrietta
occasionally found irritating. She complained to Isabel that Miss Osmond
had a little look as if she should remember everything one said. “I don’t
want to be remembered that way,” Miss Stackpole declared; “I consider that
my conversation refers only to the moment, like the morning papers. Your
stepdaughter, as she sits there, looks as if she kept all the back numbers
and would bring them out some day against me.” She could not teach herself
to think favourably of Pansy, whose absence of initiative, of
conversation, of personal claims, seemed to her, in a girl of twenty,
unnatural and even uncanny. Isabel presently saw that Osmond would have
liked her to urge a little the cause of her friend, insist a little upon
his receiving her, so that he might appear to suffer for good manners’
sake. Her immediate acceptance of his objections put him too much in the
wrong—it being in effect one of the disadvantages of expressing
contempt that you cannot enjoy at the same time the credit of expressing
sympathy. Osmond held to his credit, and yet he held to his objections—all
of which were elements difficult to reconcile. The right thing would have
been that Miss Stackpole should come to dine at Palazzo Roccanera once or
twice, so that (in spite of his superficial civility, always so great) she
might judge for herself how little pleasure it gave him. From the moment,
however, that both the ladies were so unaccommodating, there was nothing
for Osmond but to wish the lady from New York would take herself off. It
was surprising how little satisfaction he got from his wife’s friends; he
took occasion to call Isabel’s attention to it.

“You’re certainly not fortunate in your intimates; I wish you might make a
new collection,” he said to her one morning in reference to nothing
visible at the moment, but in a tone of ripe reflection which deprived the
remark of all brutal abruptness. “It’s as if you had taken the trouble to
pick out the people in the world that I have least in common with. Your
cousin I have always thought a conceited ass—besides his being the
most ill-favoured animal I know. Then it’s insufferably tiresome that one
can’t tell him so; one must spare him on account of his health. His health
seems to me the best part of him; it gives him privileges enjoyed by no
one else. If he’s so desperately ill there’s only one way to prove it; but
he seems to have no mind for that. I can’t say much more for the great
Warburton. When one really thinks of it, the cool insolence of that
performance was something rare! He comes and looks at one’s daughter as if
she were a suite of apartments; he tries the door-handles and looks out of
the windows, raps on the walls and almost thinks he’ll take the place.
Will you be so good as to draw up a lease? Then, on the whole, he decides
that the rooms are too small; he doesn’t think he could live on a third
floor; he must look out for a piano nobile. And he goes away after
having got a month’s lodging in the poor little apartment for nothing.
Miss Stackpole, however, is your most wonderful invention. She strikes me
as a kind of monster. One hasn’t a nerve in one’s body that she doesn’t
set quivering. You know I never have admitted that she’s a woman. Do you
know what she reminds me of? Of a new steel pen—the most odious
thing in nature. She talks as a steel pen writes; aren’t her letters, by
the way, on ruled paper? She thinks and moves and walks and looks exactly
as she talks. You may say that she doesn’t hurt me, inasmuch as I don’t
see her. I don’t see her, but I hear her; I hear her all day long. Her
voice is in my ears; I can’t get rid of it. I know exactly what she says,
and every inflexion of the tone in which she says it. She says charming
things about me, and they give you great comfort. I don’t like at all to
think she talks about me—I feel as I should feel if I knew the
footman were wearing my hat.”

Henrietta talked about Gilbert Osmond, as his wife assured him, rather
less than he suspected. She had plenty of other subjects, in two of which
the reader may be supposed to be especially interested. She let her friend
know that Caspar Goodwood had discovered for himself that she was unhappy,
though indeed her ingenuity was unable to suggest what comfort he hoped to
give her by coming to Rome and yet not calling on her. They met him twice
in the street, but he had no appearance of seeing them; they were driving,
and he had a habit of looking straight in front of him, as if he proposed
to take in but one object at a time. Isabel could have fancied she had
seen him the day before; it must have been with just that face and step
that he had walked out of Mrs. Touchett’s door at the close of their last
interview. He was dressed just as he had been dressed on that day, Isabel
remembered the colour of his cravat; and yet in spite of this familiar
look there was a strangeness in his figure too, something that made her
feel it afresh to be rather terrible he should have come to Rome. He
looked bigger and more overtopping than of old, and in those days he
certainly reached high enough. She noticed that the people whom he passed
looked back after him; but he went straight forward, lifting above them a
face like a February sky.

Miss Stackpole’s other topic was very different; she gave Isabel the
latest news about Mr. Bantling. He had been out in the United States the
year before, and she was happy to say she had been able to show him
considerable attention. She didn’t know how much he had enjoyed it, but
she would undertake to say it had done him good; he wasn’t the same man
when he left as he had been when he came. It had opened his eyes and shown
him that England wasn’t everything. He had been very much liked in most
places, and thought extremely simple—more simple than the English
were commonly supposed to be. There were people who had thought him
affected; she didn’t know whether they meant that his simplicity was an
affectation. Some of his questions were too discouraging; he thought all
the chambermaids were farmers’ daughters—or all the farmers’
daughters were chambermaids—she couldn’t exactly remember which. He
hadn’t seemed able to grasp the great school system; it had been really
too much for him. On the whole he had behaved as if there were too much of
everything—as if he could only take in a small part. The part he had
chosen was the hotel system and the river navigation. He had seemed really
fascinated with the hotels; he had a photograph of every one he had
visited. But the river steamers were his principal interest; he wanted to
do nothing but sail on the big boats. They had travelled together from New
York to Milwaukee, stopping at the most interesting cities on the route;
and whenever they started afresh he had wanted to know if they could go by
the steamer. He seemed to have no idea of geography—had an
impression that Baltimore was a Western city and was perpetually expecting
to arrive at the Mississippi. He appeared never to have heard of any river
in America but the Mississippi and was unprepared to recognise the
existence of the Hudson, though obliged to confess at last that it was
fully equal to the Rhine. They had spent some pleasant hours in the
palace-cars; he was always ordering ice-cream from the coloured man. He
could never get used to that idea—that you could get ice-cream in
the cars. Of course you couldn’t, nor fans, nor candy, nor anything in the
English cars! He found the heat quite overwhelming, and she had told him
she indeed expected it was the biggest he had ever experienced. He was now
in England, hunting—“hunting round” Henrietta called it. These
amusements were those of the American red men; we had left that behind
long ago, the pleasures of the chase. It seemed to be generally believed
in England that we wore tomahawks and feathers; but such a costume was
more in keeping with English habits. Mr. Bantling would not have time to
join her in Italy, but when she should go to Paris again he expected to
come over. He wanted very much to see Versailles again; he was very fond
of the ancient regime. They didn’t agree about that, but that was what she
liked Versailles for, that you could see the ancient regime had been swept
away. There were no dukes and marquises there now; she remembered on the
contrary one day when there were five American families, walking all
round. Mr. Bantling was very anxious that she should take up the subject
of England again, and he thought she might get on better with it now;
England had changed a good deal within two or three years. He was
determined that if she went there he should go to see his sister, Lady
Pensil, and that this time the invitation should come to her straight. The
mystery about that other one had never been explained.

Caspar Goodwood came at last to Palazzo Roccanera; he had written Isabel a
note beforehand, to ask leave. This was promptly granted; she would be at
home at six o’clock that afternoon. She spent the day wondering what he
was coming for—what good he expected to get of it. He had presented
himself hitherto as a person destitute of the faculty of compromise, who
would take what he had asked for or take nothing. Isabel’s hospitality,
however, raised no questions, and she found no great difficulty in
appearing happy enough to deceive him. It was her conviction at least that
she deceived him, made him say to himself that he had been misinformed.
But she also saw, so she believed, that he was not disappointed, as some
other men, she was sure, would have been; he had not come to Rome to look
for an opportunity. She never found out what he had come for; he offered
her no explanation; there could be none but the very simple one that he
wanted to see her. In other words he had come for his amusement. Isabel
followed up this induction with a good deal of eagerness, and was
delighted to have found a formula that would lay the ghost of this
gentleman’s ancient grievance. If he had come to Rome for his amusement
this was exactly what she wanted; for if he cared for amusement he had got
over his heartache. If he had got over his heartache everything was as it
should be and her responsibilities were at an end. It was true that he
took his recreation a little stiffly, but he had never been loose and easy
and she had every reason to believe he was satisfied with what he saw.
Henrietta was not in his confidence, though he was in hers, and Isabel
consequently received no side-light upon his state of mind. He was open to
little conversation on general topics; it came back to her that she had
said of him once, years before, “Mr. Goodwood speaks a good deal, but he
doesn’t talk.” He spoke a good deal now, but he talked perhaps as little
as ever; considering, that is, how much there was in Rome to talk about.
His arrival was not calculated to simplify her relations with her husband,
for if Mr. Osmond didn’t like her friends Mr. Goodwood had no claim upon
his attention save as having been one of the first of them. There was
nothing for her to say of him but that he was the very oldest; this rather
meagre synthesis exhausted the facts. She had been obliged to introduce
him to Gilbert; it was impossible she should not ask him to dinner, to her
Thursday evenings, of which she had grown very weary, but to which her
husband still held for the sake not so much of inviting people as of not
inviting them.

To the Thursdays Mr. Goodwood came regularly, solemnly, rather early; he
appeared to regard them with a good deal of gravity. Isabel every now and
then had a moment of anger; there was something so literal about him; she
thought he might know that she didn’t know what to do with him. But she
couldn’t call him stupid; he was not that in the least; he was only
extraordinarily honest. To be as honest as that made a man very different
from most people; one had to be almost equally honest with him. She
made this latter reflection at the very time she was flattering herself
she had persuaded him that she was the most light-hearted of women. He
never threw any doubt on this point, never asked her any personal
questions. He got on much better with Osmond than had seemed probable.
Osmond had a great dislike to being counted on; in such a case he had an
irresistible need of disappointing you. It was in virtue of this principle
that he gave himself the entertainment of taking a fancy to a
perpendicular Bostonian whom he had been depended upon to treat with
coldness. He asked Isabel if Mr. Goodwood also had wanted to marry her,
and expressed surprise at her not having accepted him. It would have been
an excellent thing, like living under some tall belfry which would strike
all the hours and make a queer vibration in the upper air. He declared he
liked to talk with the great Goodwood; it wasn’t easy at first, you had to
climb up an interminable steep staircase up to the top of the tower; but
when you got there you had a big view and felt a little fresh breeze.
Osmond, as we know, had delightful qualities, and he gave Caspar Goodwood
the benefit of them all. Isabel could see that Mr. Goodwood thought better
of her husband than he had ever wished to; he had given her the impression
that morning in Florence of being inaccessible to a good impression.
Gilbert asked him repeatedly to dinner, and Mr. Goodwood smoked a cigar
with him afterwards and even desired to be shown his collections. Gilbert
said to Isabel that he was very original; he was as strong and of as good
a style as an English portmanteau,—he had plenty of straps and
buckles which would never wear out, and a capital patent lock. Caspar
Goodwood took to riding on the Campagna and devoted much time to this
exercise; it was therefore mainly in the evening that Isabel saw him. She
bethought herself of saying to him one day that if he were willing he
could render her a service. And then she added smiling:

“I don’t know, however, what right I have to ask a service of you.”

“You’re the person in the world who has most right,” he answered. “I’ve
given you assurances that I’ve never given any one else.”

The service was that he should go and see her cousin Ralph, who was ill at
the Hôtel de Paris, alone, and be as kind to him as possible. Mr. Goodwood
had never seen him, but he would know who the poor fellow was; if she was
not mistaken Ralph had once invited him to Gardencourt. Caspar remembered
the invitation perfectly, and, though he was not supposed to be a man of
imagination, had enough to put himself in the place of a poor gentleman
who lay dying at a Roman inn. He called at the Hôtel de Paris and, on
being shown into the presence of the master of Gardencourt, found Miss
Stackpole sitting beside his sofa. A singular change had in fact occurred
in this lady’s relations with Ralph Touchett. She had not been asked by
Isabel to go and see him, but on hearing that he was too ill to come out
had immediately gone of her own motion. After this she had paid him a
daily visit—always under the conviction that they were great
enemies. “Oh yes, we’re intimate enemies,” Ralph used to say; and he
accused her freely—as freely as the humour of it would allow—of
coming to worry him to death. In reality they became excellent friends,
Henrietta much wondering that she should never have liked him before.
Ralph liked her exactly as much as he had always done; he had never
doubted for a moment that she was an excellent fellow. They talked about
everything and always differed; about everything, that is, but Isabel—a
topic as to which Ralph always had a thin forefinger on his lips. Mr.
Bantling on the other hand proved a great resource; Ralph was capable of
discussing Mr. Bantling with Henrietta for hours. Discussion was
stimulated of course by their inevitable difference of view—Ralph
having amused himself with taking the ground that the genial ex-guardsman
was a regular Machiavelli. Caspar Goodwood could contribute nothing to
such a debate; but after he had been left alone with his host he found
there were various other matters they could take up. It must be admitted
that the lady who had just gone out was not one of these; Caspar granted
all Miss Stackpole’s merits in advance, but had no further remark to make
about her. Neither, after the first allusions, did the two men expatiate
upon Mrs. Osmond—a theme in which Goodwood perceived as many dangers
as Ralph. He felt very sorry for that unclassable personage; he couldn’t
bear to see a pleasant man, so pleasant for all his queerness, so beyond
anything to be done. There was always something to be done, for Goodwood,
and he did it in this case by repeating several times his visit to the
Hôtel de Paris. It seemed to Isabel that she had been very clever; she had
artfully disposed of the superfluous Caspar. She had given him an
occupation; she had converted him into a caretaker of Ralph. She had a
plan of making him travel northward with her cousin as soon as the first
mild weather should allow it. Lord Warburton had brought Ralph to Rome and
Mr. Goodwood should take him away. There seemed a happy symmetry in this,
and she was now intensely eager that Ralph should depart. She had a
constant fear he would die there before her eyes and a horror of the
occurrence of this event at an inn, by her door, which he had so rarely
entered. Ralph must sink to his last rest in his own dear house, in one of
those deep, dim chambers of Gardencourt where the dark ivy would cluster
round the edges of the glimmering window. There seemed to Isabel in these
days something sacred in Gardencourt; no chapter of the past was more
perfectly irrecoverable. When she thought of the months she had spent
there the tears rose to her eyes. She flattered herself, as I say, upon
her ingenuity, but she had need of all she could muster; for several
events occurred which seemed to confront and defy her. The Countess Gemini
arrived from Florence—arrived with her trunks, her dresses, her
chatter, her falsehoods, her frivolity, the strange, the unholy legend of
the number of her lovers. Edward Rosier, who had been away somewhere,—no
one, not even Pansy, knew where,—reappeared in Rome and began to
write her long letters, which she never answered. Madame Merle returned
from Naples and said to her with a strange smile: “What on earth did you
do with Lord Warburton?” As if it were any business of hers!


CHAPTER XLVIII

One day, toward the end of February, Ralph Touchett made up his mind to
return to England. He had his own reasons for this decision, which he was
not bound to communicate; but Henrietta Stackpole, to whom he mentioned
his intention, flattered herself that she guessed them. She forbore to
express them, however; she only said, after a moment, as she sat by his
sofa: “I suppose you know you can’t go alone?”

“I’ve no idea of doing that,” Ralph answered. “I shall have people with
me.”

“What do you mean by ‘people’? Servants whom you pay?”

“Ah,” said Ralph jocosely, “after all, they’re human beings.”

“Are there any women among them?” Miss Stackpole desired to know.

“You speak as if I had a dozen! No, I confess I haven’t a soubrette
in my employment.”

“Well,” said Henrietta calmly, “you can’t go to England that way. You must
have a woman’s care.”

“I’ve had so much of yours for the past fortnight that it will last me a
good while.”

“You’ve not had enough of it yet. I guess I’ll go with you,” said
Henrietta.

“Go with me?” Ralph slowly raised himself from his sofa.

“Yes, I know you don’t like me, but I’ll go with you all the same. It
would be better for your health to lie down again.”

Ralph looked at her a little; then he slowly relapsed. “I like you very
much,” he said in a moment.

Miss Stackpole gave one of her infrequent laughs. “You needn’t think that
by saying that you can buy me off. I’ll go with you, and what is more I’ll
take care of you.”

“You’re a very good woman,” said Ralph.

“Wait till I get you safely home before you say that. It won’t be easy.
But you had better go, all the same.”

Before she left him, Ralph said to her: “Do you really mean to take care
of me?”

“Well, I mean to try.”

“I notify you then that I submit. Oh, I submit!” And it was perhaps a sign
of submission that a few minutes after she had left him alone he burst
into a loud fit of laughter. It seemed to him so inconsequent, such a
conclusive proof of his having abdicated all functions and renounced all
exercise, that he should start on a journey across Europe under the
supervision of Miss Stackpole. And the great oddity was that the prospect
pleased him; he was gratefully, luxuriously passive. He felt even
impatient to start; and indeed he had an immense longing to see his own
house again. The end of everything was at hand; it seemed to him he could
stretch out his arm and touch the goal. But he wanted to die at home; it
was the only wish he had left—to extend himself in the large quiet
room where he had last seen his father lie, and close his eyes upon the
summer dawn.

That same day Caspar Goodwood came to see him, and he informed his visitor
that Miss Stackpole had taken him up and was to conduct him back to
England. “Ah then,” said Caspar, “I’m afraid I shall be a fifth wheel to
the coach. Mrs. Osmond has made me promise to go with you.”

“Good heavens—it’s the golden age! You’re all too kind.”

“The kindness on my part is to her; it’s hardly to you.”

“Granting that, she’s kind,” smiled Ralph.

“To get people to go with you? Yes, that’s a sort of kindness,” Goodwood
answered without lending himself to the joke. “For myself, however,” he
added, “I’ll go so far as to say that I would much rather travel with you
and Miss Stackpole than with Miss Stackpole alone.”

“And you’d rather stay here than do either,” said Ralph. “There’s really
no need of your coming. Henrietta’s extraordinarily efficient.”

“I’m sure of that. But I’ve promised Mrs. Osmond.”

“You can easily get her to let you off.”

“She wouldn’t let me off for the world. She wants me to look after you,
but that isn’t the principal thing. The principal thing is that she wants
me to leave Rome.”

“Ah, you see too much in it,” Ralph suggested.

“I bore her,” Goodwood went on; “she has nothing to say to me, so she
invented that.”

“Oh then, if it’s a convenience to her I certainly will take you with me.
Though I don’t see why it should be a convenience,” Ralph added in a
moment.

“Well,” said Caspar Goodwood simply, “she thinks I’m watching her.”

“Watching her?”

“Trying to make out if she’s happy.”

“That’s easy to make out,” said Ralph. “She’s the most visibly happy woman
I know.”

“Exactly so; I’m satisfied,” Goodwood answered dryly. For all his dryness,
however, he had more to say. “I’ve been watching her; I was an old friend
and it seemed to me I had the right. She pretends to be happy; that was
what she undertook to be; and I thought I should like to see for myself
what it amounts to. I’ve seen,” he continued with a harsh ring in his
voice, “and I don’t want to see any more. I’m now quite ready to go.”

“Do you know it strikes me as about time you should?” Ralph rejoined. And
this was the only conversation these gentlemen had about Isabel Osmond.

Henrietta made her preparations for departure, and among them she found it
proper to say a few words to the Countess Gemini, who returned at Miss
Stackpole’s pension the visit which this lady had paid her in Florence.

“You were very wrong about Lord Warburton,” she remarked to the Countess.
“I think it right you should know that.”

“About his making love to Isabel? My poor lady, he was at her house three
times a day. He has left traces of his passage!” the Countess cried.

“He wished to marry your niece; that’s why he came to the house.”

The Countess stared, and then with an inconsiderate laugh: “Is that the
story that Isabel tells? It isn’t bad, as such things go. If he wishes to
marry my niece, pray why doesn’t he do it? Perhaps he has gone to buy the
wedding-ring and will come back with it next month, after I’m gone.”

“No, he’ll not come back. Miss Osmond doesn’t wish to marry him.”

“She’s very accommodating! I knew she was fond of Isabel, but I didn’t
know she carried it so far.”

“I don’t understand you,” said Henrietta coldly, and reflecting that the
Countess was unpleasantly perverse. “I really must stick to my point—that
Isabel never encouraged the attentions of Lord Warburton.”

“My dear friend, what do you and I know about it? All we know is that my
brother’s capable of everything.”

“I don’t know what your brother’s capable of,” said Henrietta with
dignity.

“It’s not her encouraging Warburton that I complain of; it’s her sending
him away. I want particularly to see him. Do you suppose she thought I
would make him faithless?” the Countess continued with audacious
insistence. “However, she’s only keeping him, one can feel that. The house
is full of him there; he’s quite in the air. Oh yes, he has left traces;
I’m sure I shall see him yet.”

“Well,” said Henrietta after a little, with one of those inspirations
which had made the fortune of her letters to the Interviewer,
“perhaps he’ll be more successful with you than with Isabel!”

When she told her friend of the offer she had made Ralph Isabel replied
that she could have done nothing that would have pleased her more. It had
always been her faith that at bottom Ralph and this young woman were made
to understand each other. “I don’t care whether he understands me or not,”
Henrietta declared. “The great thing is that he shouldn’t die in the
cars.”

“He won’t do that,” Isabel said, shaking her head with an extension of
faith.

“He won’t if I can help it. I see you want us all to go. I don’t know what
you want to do.”

“I want to be alone,” said Isabel.

“You won’t be that so long as you’ve so much company at home.”

“Ah, they’re part of the comedy. You others are spectators.”

“Do you call it a comedy, Isabel Archer?” Henrietta rather grimly asked.

“The tragedy then if you like. You’re all looking at me; it makes me
uncomfortable.”

Henrietta engaged in this act for a while. “You’re like the stricken deer,
seeking the innermost shade. Oh, you do give me such a sense of
helplessness!” she broke out.

“I’m not at all helpless. There are many things I mean to do.”

“It’s not you I’m speaking of; it’s myself. It’s too much, having come on
purpose, to leave you just as I find you.”

“You don’t do that; you leave me much refreshed,” Isabel said.

“Very mild refreshment—sour lemonade! I want you to promise me
something.”

“I can’t do that. I shall never make another promise. I made such a solemn
one four years ago, and I’ve succeeded so ill in keeping it.”

“You’ve had no encouragement. In this case I should give you the greatest.
Leave your husband before the worst comes; that’s what I want you to
promise.”

“The worst? What do you call the worst?”

“Before your character gets spoiled.”

“Do you mean my disposition? It won’t get spoiled,” Isabel answered,
smiling. “I’m taking very good care of it. I’m extremely struck,” she
added, turning away, “with the off-hand way in which you speak of a
woman’s leaving her husband. It’s easy to see you’ve never had one!”

“Well,” said Henrietta as if she were beginning an argument, “nothing is
more common in our Western cities, and it’s to them, after all, that we
must look in the future.” Her argument, however, does not concern this
history, which has too many other threads to unwind. She announced to
Ralph Touchett that she was ready to leave Rome by any train he might
designate, and Ralph immediately pulled himself together for departure.
Isabel went to see him at the last, and he made the same remark that
Henrietta had made. It struck him that Isabel was uncommonly glad to get
rid of them all.

For all answer to this she gently laid her hand on his, and said in a low
tone, with a quick smile: “My dear Ralph—!”

It was answer enough, and he was quite contented. But he went on in the
same way, jocosely, ingenuously: “I’ve seen less of you than I might, but
it’s better than nothing. And then I’ve heard a great deal about you.”

“I don’t know from whom, leading the life you’ve done.”

“From the voices of the air! Oh, from no one else; I never let other
people speak of you. They always say you’re ‘charming,’ and that’s so
flat.”

“I might have seen more of you certainly,” Isabel said. “But when one’s
married one has so much occupation.”

“Fortunately I’m not married. When you come to see me in England I shall
be able to entertain you with all the freedom of a bachelor.” He continued
to talk as if they should certainly meet again, and succeeded in making
the assumption appear almost just. He made no allusion to his term being
near, to the probability that he should not outlast the summer. If he
preferred it so, Isabel was willing enough; the reality was sufficiently
distinct without their erecting finger-posts in conversation. That had
been well enough for the earlier time, though about this, as about his
other affairs, Ralph had never been egotistic. Isabel spoke of his
journey, of the stages into which he should divide it, of the precautions
he should take. “Henrietta’s my greatest precaution,” he went on. “The
conscience of that woman’s sublime.”

“Certainly she’ll be very conscientious.”

“Will be? She has been! It’s only because she thinks it’s her duty that
she goes with me. There’s a conception of duty for you.”

“Yes, it’s a generous one,” said Isabel, “and it makes me deeply ashamed.
I ought to go with you, you know.”

“Your husband wouldn’t like that.”

“No, he wouldn’t like it. But I might go, all the same.”

“I’m startled by the boldness of your imagination. Fancy my being a cause
of disagreement between a lady and her husband!”

“That’s why I don’t go,” said Isabel simply—yet not very lucidly.

Ralph understood well enough, however. “I should think so, with all those
occupations you speak of.”

“It isn’t that. I’m afraid,” said Isabel. After a pause she repeated, as
if to make herself, rather than him, hear the words: “I’m afraid.”

Ralph could hardly tell what her tone meant; it was so strangely
deliberate—apparently so void of emotion. Did she wish to do public
penance for a fault of which she had not been convicted? or were her words
simply an attempt at enlightened self-analysis? However this might be,
Ralph could not resist so easy an opportunity. “Afraid of your husband?”

“Afraid of myself!” she said, getting up. She stood there a moment and
then added: “If I were afraid of my husband that would be simply my duty.
That’s what women are expected to be.”

“Ah yes,” laughed Ralph; “but to make up for it there’s always some man
awfully afraid of some woman!”

She gave no heed to this pleasantry, but suddenly took a different turn.
“With Henrietta at the head of your little band,” she exclaimed abruptly,
“there will be nothing left for Mr. Goodwood!”

“Ah, my dear Isabel,” Ralph answered, “he’s used to that. There is nothing
left for Mr. Goodwood.”

She coloured and then observed, quickly, that she must leave him. They
stood together a moment; both her hands were in both of his. “You’ve been
my best friend,” she said.

“It was for you that I wanted—that I wanted to live. But I’m of no
use to you.”

Then it came over her more poignantly that she should not see him again.
She could not accept that; she could not part with him that way. “If you
should send for me I’d come,” she said at last.

“Your husband won’t consent to that.”

“Oh yes, I can arrange it.”

“I shall keep that for my last pleasure!” said Ralph.

In answer to which she simply kissed him. It was a Thursday, and that
evening Caspar Goodwood came to Palazzo Roccanera. He was among the first
to arrive, and he spent some time in conversation with Gilbert Osmond, who
almost always was present when his wife received. They sat down together,
and Osmond, talkative, communicative, expansive, seemed possessed with a
kind of intellectual gaiety. He leaned back with his legs crossed,
lounging and chatting, while Goodwood, more restless, but not at all
lively, shifted his position, played with his hat, made the little sofa
creak beneath him. Osmond’s face wore a sharp, aggressive smile; he was as
a man whose perceptions have been quickened by good news. He remarked to
Goodwood that he was sorry they were to lose him; he himself should
particularly miss him. He saw so few intelligent men—they were
surprisingly scarce in Rome. He must be sure to come back; there was
something very refreshing, to an inveterate Italian like himself, in
talking with a genuine outsider.

“I’m very fond of Rome, you know,” Osmond said; “but there’s nothing I
like better than to meet people who haven’t that superstition. The modern
world’s after all very fine. Now you’re thoroughly modern and yet are not
at all common. So many of the moderns we see are such very poor stuff. If
they’re the children of the future we’re willing to die young. Of course
the ancients too are often very tiresome. My wife and I like everything
that’s really new—not the mere pretence of it. There’s nothing new,
unfortunately, in ignorance and stupidity. We see plenty of that in forms
that offer themselves as a revelation of progress, of light. A revelation
of vulgarity! There’s a certain kind of vulgarity which I believe is
really new; I don’t think there ever was anything like it before. Indeed I
don’t find vulgarity, at all, before the present century. You see a faint
menace of it here and there in the last, but to-day the air has grown so
dense that delicate things are literally not recognised. Now, we’ve liked
you—!” With which he hesitated a moment, laying his hand gently on
Goodwood’s knee and smiling with a mixture of assurance and embarrassment.
“I’m going to say something extremely offensive and patronising, but you
must let me have the satisfaction of it. We’ve liked you because—because
you’ve reconciled us a little to the future. If there are to be a certain
number of people like you—à la bonne heure! I’m talking for
my wife as well as for myself, you see. She speaks for me, my wife; why
shouldn’t I speak for her? We’re as united, you know, as the candlestick
and the snuffers. Am I assuming too much when I say that I think I’ve
understood from you that your occupations have been—a—commercial?
There’s a danger in that, you know; but it’s the way you have escaped that
strikes us. Excuse me if my little compliment seems in execrable taste;
fortunately my wife doesn’t hear me. What I mean is that you might have
been—a—what I was mentioning just now. The whole American
world was in a conspiracy to make you so. But you resisted, you’ve
something about you that saved you. And yet you’re so modern, so modern;
the most modern man we know! We shall always be delighted to see you
again.”

I have said that Osmond was in good humour, and these remarks will give
ample evidence of the fact. They were infinitely more personal than he
usually cared to be, and if Caspar Goodwood had attended to them more
closely he might have thought that the defence of delicacy was in rather
odd hands. We may believe, however, that Osmond knew very well what he was
about, and that if he chose to use the tone of patronage with a grossness
not in his habits he had an excellent reason for the escapade. Goodwood
had only a vague sense that he was laying it on somehow; he scarcely knew
where the mixture was applied. Indeed he scarcely knew what Osmond was
talking about; he wanted to be alone with Isabel, and that idea spoke
louder to him than her husband’s perfectly-pitched voice. He watched her
talking with other people and wondered when she would be at liberty and
whether he might ask her to go into one of the other rooms. His humour was
not, like Osmond’s, of the best; there was an element of dull rage in his
consciousness of things. Up to this time he had not disliked Osmond
personally; he had only thought him very well-informed and obliging and
more than he had supposed like the person whom Isabel Archer would
naturally marry. His host had won in the open field a great advantage over
him, and Goodwood had too strong a sense of fair play to have been moved
to underrate him on that account. He had not tried positively to think
well of him; this was a flight of sentimental benevolence of which, even
in the days when he came nearest to reconciling himself to what had
happened, Goodwood was quite incapable. He accepted him as rather a
brilliant personage of the amateurish kind, afflicted with a redundancy of
leisure which it amused him to work off in little refinements of
conversation. But he only half trusted him; he could never make out why
the deuce Osmond should lavish refinements of any sort upon him. It
made him suspect that he found some private entertainment in it, and it
ministered to a general impression that his triumphant rival had in his
composition a streak of perversity. He knew indeed that Osmond could have
no reason to wish him evil; he had nothing to fear from him. He had
carried off a supreme advantage and could afford to be kind to a man who
had lost everything. It was true that Goodwood had at times grimly wished
he were dead and would have liked to kill him; but Osmond had no means of
knowing this, for practice had made the younger man perfect in the art of
appearing inaccessible to-day to any violent emotion. He cultivated this
art in order to deceive himself, but it was others that he deceived first.
He cultivated it, moreover, with very limited success; of which there
could be no better proof than the deep, dumb irritation that reigned in
his soul when he heard Osmond speak of his wife’s feelings as if he were
commissioned to answer for them.

That was all he had had an ear for in what his host said to him this
evening; he had been conscious that Osmond made more of a point even than
usual of referring to the conjugal harmony prevailing at Palazzo
Roccanera. He had been more careful than ever to speak as if he and his
wife had all things in sweet community and it were as natural to each of
them to say “we” as to say “I”. In all this there was an air of intention
that had puzzled and angered our poor Bostonian, who could only reflect
for his comfort that Mrs. Osmond’s relations with her husband were none of
his business. He had no proof whatever that her husband misrepresented
her, and if he judged her by the surface of things was bound to believe
that she liked her life. She had never given him the faintest sign of
discontent. Miss Stackpole had told him that she had lost her illusions,
but writing for the papers had made Miss Stackpole sensational. She was
too fond of early news. Moreover, since her arrival in Rome she had been
much on her guard; she had pretty well ceased to flash her lantern at him.
This indeed, it may be said for her, would have been quite against her
conscience. She had now seen the reality of Isabel’s situation, and it had
inspired her with a just reserve. Whatever could be done to improve it the
most useful form of assistance would not be to inflame her former lovers
with a sense of her wrongs. Miss Stackpole continued to take a deep
interest in the state of Mr. Goodwood’s feelings, but she showed it at
present only by sending him choice extracts, humorous and other, from the
American journals, of which she received several by every post and which
she always perused with a pair of scissors in her hand. The articles she
cut out she placed in an envelope addressed to Mr. Goodwood, which she
left with her own hand at his hotel. He never asked her a question about
Isabel: hadn’t he come five thousand miles to see for himself? He was thus
not in the least authorised to think Mrs. Osmond unhappy; but the very
absence of authorisation operated as an irritant, ministered to the
harsh-ness with which, in spite of his theory that he had ceased to care,
he now recognised that, so far as she was concerned, the future had
nothing more for him. He had not even the satisfaction of knowing the
truth; apparently he could not even be trusted to respect her if she were
unhappy. He was hopeless, helpless, useless. To this last character she
had called his attention by her ingenious plan for making him leave Rome.
He had no objection whatever to doing what he could for her cousin, but it
made him grind his teeth to think that of all the services she might have
asked of him this was the one she had been eager to select. There had been
no danger of her choosing one that would have kept him in Rome.

To-night what he was chiefly thinking of was that he was to leave her
to-morrow and that he had gained nothing by coming but the knowledge that
he was as little wanted as ever. About herself he had gained no knowledge;
she was imperturbable, inscrutable, impenetrable. He felt the old
bitterness, which he had tried so hard to swallow, rise again in his
throat, and he knew there are disappointments that last as long as life.
Osmond went on talking; Goodwood was vaguely aware that he was touching
again upon his perfect intimacy with his wife. It seemed to him for a
moment that the man had a kind of demonic imagination; it was impossible
that without malice he should have selected so unusual a topic. But what
did it matter, after all, whether he were demonic or not, and whether she
loved him or hated him? She might hate him to the death without one’s
gaining a straw one’s self. “You travel, by the by, with Ralph Touchett,”
Osmond said. “I suppose that means you’ll move slowly?”

“I don’t know. I shall do just as he likes.”

“You’re very accommodating. We’re immensely obliged to you; you must
really let me say it. My wife has probably expressed to you what we feel.
Touchett has been on our minds all winter; it has looked more than once as
if he would never leave Rome. He ought never to have come; it’s worse than
an imprudence for people in that state to travel; it’s a kind of
indelicacy. I wouldn’t for the world be under such an obligation to
Touchett as he has been to—to my wife and me. Other people
inevitably have to look after him, and every one isn’t so generous as
you.”

“I’ve nothing else to do,” Caspar said dryly.

Osmond looked at him a moment askance. “You ought to marry, and then you’d
have plenty to do! It’s true that in that case you wouldn’t be quite so
available for deeds of mercy.”

“Do you find that as a married man you’re so much occupied?” the young man
mechanically asked.

“Ah, you see, being married’s in itself an occupation. It isn’t always
active; it’s often passive; but that takes even more attention. Then my
wife and I do so many things together. We read, we study, we make music,
we walk, we drive—we talk even, as when we first knew each other. I
delight, to this hour, in my wife’s conversation. If you’re ever bored
take my advice and get married. Your wife indeed may bore you, in that
case; but you’ll never bore yourself. You’ll always have something to say
to yourself—always have a subject of reflection.”

“I’m not bored,” said Goodwood. “I’ve plenty to think about and to say to
myself.”

“More than to say to others!” Osmond exclaimed with a light laugh. “Where
shall you go next? I mean after you’ve consigned Touchett to his natural
caretakers—I believe his mother’s at last coming back to look after
him. That little lady’s superb; she neglects her duties with a finish—!
Perhaps you’ll spend the summer in England?”

“I don’t know. I’ve no plans.”

“Happy man! That’s a little bleak, but it’s very free.”

“Oh yes, I’m very free.”

“Free to come back to Rome I hope,” said Osmond as he saw a group of new
visitors enter the room. “Remember that when you do come we count on you!”

Goodwood had meant to go away early, but the evening elapsed without his
having a chance to speak to Isabel otherwise than as one of several
associated interlocutors. There was something perverse in the inveteracy
with which she avoided him; his unquenchable rancour discovered an
intention where there was certainly no appearance of one. There was
absolutely no appearance of one. She met his eyes with her clear
hospitable smile, which seemed almost to ask that he would come and help
her to entertain some of her visitors. To such suggestions, however, he
opposed but a stiff impatience. He wandered about and waited; he talked to
the few people he knew, who found him for the first time rather
self-contradictory. This was indeed rare with Caspar Goodwood, though he
often contradicted others. There was often music at Palazzo Roccanera, and
it was usually very good. Under cover of the music he managed to contain
himself; but toward the end, when he saw the people beginning to go, he
drew near to Isabel and asked her in a low tone if he might not speak to
her in one of the other rooms, which he had just assured himself was
empty. She smiled as if she wished to oblige him but found her self
absolutely prevented. “I’m afraid it’s impossible. People are saying
good-night, and I must be where they can see me.”

“I shall wait till they are all gone then.”

She hesitated a moment. “Ah, that will be delightful!” she exclaimed.

And he waited, though it took a long time yet. There were several people,
at the end, who seemed tethered to the carpet. The Countess Gemini, who
was never herself till midnight, as she said, displayed no consciousness
that the entertainment was over; she had still a little circle of
gentlemen in front of the fire, who every now and then broke into a united
laugh. Osmond had disappeared—he never bade good-bye to people; and
as the Countess was extending her range, according to her custom at this
period of the evening, Isabel had sent Pansy to bed. Isabel sat a little
apart; she too appeared to wish her sister-in-law would sound a lower note
and let the last loiterers depart in peace.

“May I not say a word to you now?” Goodwood presently asked her. She got
up immediately, smiling. “Certainly, we’ll go somewhere else if you like.”
They went together, leaving the Countess with her little circle, and for a
moment after they had crossed the threshold neither of them spoke. Isabel
would not sit down; she stood in the middle of the room slowly fanning
herself; she had for him the same familiar grace. She seemed to wait for
him to speak. Now that he was alone with her all the passion he had never
stifled surged into his senses; it hummed in his eyes and made things swim
round him. The bright, empty room grew dim and blurred, and through the
heaving veil he felt her hover before him with gleaming eyes and parted
lips. If he had seen more distinctly he would have perceived her smile was
fixed and a trifle forced—that she was frightened at what she saw in
his own face. “I suppose you wish to bid me goodbye?” she said.

“Yes—but I don’t like it. I don’t want to leave Rome,” he answered
with almost plaintive honesty.

“I can well imagine. It’s wonderfully good of you. I can’t tell you how
kind I think you.”

For a moment more he said nothing. “With a few words like that you make me
go.”

“You must come back some day,” she brightly returned.

“Some day? You mean as long a time hence as possible.”

“Oh no; I don’t mean all that.”

“What do you mean? I don’t understand! But I said I’d go, and I’ll go,”
Goodwood added.

“Come back whenever you like,” said Isabel with attempted lightness.

“I don’t care a straw for your cousin!” Caspar broke out.

“Is that what you wished to tell me?”

“No, no; I didn’t want to tell you anything; I wanted to ask you—”
he paused a moment, and then—“what have you really made of your
life?” he said, in a low, quick tone. He paused again, as if for an
answer; but she said nothing, and he went on: “I can’t understand, I can’t
penetrate you! What am I to believe—what do you want me to think?”
Still she said nothing; she only stood looking at him, now quite without
pretending to ease. “I’m told you’re unhappy, and if you are I should like
to know it. That would be something for me. But you yourself say you’re
happy, and you’re somehow so still, so smooth, so hard. You’re completely
changed. You conceal everything; I haven’t really come near you.”

“You come very near,” Isabel said gently, but in a tone of warning.

“And yet I don’t touch you! I want to know the truth. Have you done well?”

“You ask a great deal.”

“Yes—I’ve always asked a great deal. Of course you won’t tell me. I
shall never know if you can help it. And then it’s none of my business.”
He had spoken with a visible effort to control himself, to give a
considerate form to an inconsiderate state of mind. But the sense that it
was his last chance, that he loved her and had lost her, that she would
think him a fool whatever he should say, suddenly gave him a lash and
added a deep vibration to his low voice. “You’re perfectly inscrutable,
and that’s what makes me think you’ve something to hide. I tell you I
don’t care a straw for your cousin, but I don’t mean that I don’t like
him. I mean that it isn’t because I like him that I go away with him. I’d
go if he were an idiot and you should have asked me. If you should ask me
I’d go to Siberia to-morrow. Why do you want me to leave the place? You
must have some reason for that; if you were as contented as you pretend
you are you wouldn’t care. I’d rather know the truth about you, even if
it’s damnable, than have come here for nothing. That isn’t what I came
for. I thought I shouldn’t care. I came because I wanted to assure myself
that I needn’t think of you any more. I haven’t thought of anything else,
and you’re quite right to wish me to go away. But if I must go, there’s no
harm in my letting myself out for a single moment, is there? If you’re
really hurt—if he hurts you—nothing I say will hurt
you. When I tell you I love you it’s simply what I came for. I thought it
was for something else; but it was for that. I shouldn’t say it if I
didn’t believe I should never see you again. It’s the last time—let
me pluck a single flower! I’ve no right to say that, I know; and you’ve no
right to listen. But you don’t listen; you never listen, you’re always
thinking of something else. After this I must go, of course; so I shall at
least have a reason. Your asking me is no reason, not a real one. I can’t
judge by your husband,” he went on irrelevantly, almost incoherently; “I
don’t understand him; he tells me you adore each other. Why does he tell
me that? What business is it of mine? When I say that to you, you look
strange. But you always look strange. Yes, you’ve something to hide. It’s
none of my business—very true. But I love you,” said Caspar
Goodwood.

As he said, she looked strange. She turned her eyes to the door by which
they had entered and raised her fan as if in warning.

“You’ve behaved so well; don’t spoil it,” she uttered softly.

“No one hears me. It’s wonderful what you tried to put me off with. I love
you as I’ve never loved you.”

“I know it. I knew it as soon as you consented to go.”

“You can’t help it—of course not. You would if you could, but you
can’t, unfortunately. Unfortunately for me, I mean. I ask nothing—nothing,
that is, I shouldn’t. But I do ask one sole satisfaction:—that you
tell me—that you tell me—!”

“That I tell you what?”

“Whether I may pity you.”

“Should you like that?” Isabel asked, trying to smile again.

“To pity you? Most assuredly! That at least would be doing something. I’d
give my life to it.”

She raised her fan to her face, which it covered all except her eyes. They
rested a moment on his. “Don’t give your life to it; but give a thought to
it every now and then.” And with that she went back to the Countess
Gemini.


CHAPTER XLIX

Madame Merle had not made her appearance at Palazzo Roccanera on the
evening of that Thursday of which I have narrated some of the incidents,
and Isabel, though she observed her absence, was not surprised by it.
Things had passed between them which added no stimulus to sociability, and
to appreciate which we must glance a little backward. It has been
mentioned that Madame Merle returned from Naples shortly after Lord
Warburton had left Rome, and that on her first meeting with Isabel (whom,
to do her justice, she came immediately to see) her first utterance had
been an enquiry as to the whereabouts of this nobleman, for whom she
appeared to hold her dear friend accountable.

“Please don’t talk of him,” said Isabel for answer; “we’ve heard so much
of him of late.”

Madame Merle bent her head on one side a little, protestingly, and smiled
at the left corner of her mouth. “You’ve heard, yes. But you must remember
that I’ve not, in Naples. I hoped to find him here and to be able to
congratulate Pansy.”

“You may congratulate Pansy still; but not on marrying Lord Warburton.”

“How you say that! Don’t you know I had set my heart on it?” Madame Merle
asked with a great deal of spirit, but still with the intonation of
good-humour.

Isabel was discomposed, but she was determined to be good-humoured too.
“You shouldn’t have gone to Naples then. You should have stayed here to
watch the affair.”

“I had too much confidence in you. But do you think it’s too late?”

“You had better ask Pansy,” said Isabel.

“I shall ask her what you’ve said to her.”

These words seemed to justify the impulse of self-defence aroused on
Isabel’s part by her perceiving that her visitor’s attitude was a critical
one. Madame Merle, as we know, had been very discreet hitherto; she had
never criticised; she had been markedly afraid of intermeddling. But
apparently she had only reserved herself for this occasion, since she now
had a dangerous quickness in her eye and an air of irritation which even
her admirable ease was not able to transmute. She had suffered a
disappointment which excited Isabel’s surprise—our heroine having no
knowledge of her zealous interest in Pansy’s marriage; and she betrayed it
in a manner which quickened Mrs. Osmond’s alarm. More clearly than ever
before Isabel heard a cold, mocking voice proceed from she knew not where,
in the dim void that surrounded her, and declare that this bright, strong,
definite, worldly woman, this incarnation of the practical, the personal,
the immediate, was a powerful agent in her destiny. She was nearer to her
than Isabel had yet discovered, and her nearness was not the charming
accident she had so long supposed. The sense of accident indeed had died
within her that day when she happened to be struck with the manner in
which the wonderful lady and her own husband sat together in private. No
definite suspicion had as yet taken its place; but it was enough to make
her view this friend with a different eye, to have been led to reflect
that there was more intention in her past behaviour than she had allowed
for at the time. Ah yes, there had been intention, there had been
intention, Isabel said to herself; and she seemed to wake from a long
pernicious dream. What was it that brought home to her that Madame Merle’s
intention had not been good? Nothing but the mistrust which had lately
taken body and which married itself now to the fruitful wonder produced by
her visitor’s challenge on behalf of poor Pansy. There was something in
this challenge which had at the very outset excited an answering defiance;
a nameless vitality which she could see to have been absent from her
friend’s professions of delicacy and caution. Madame Merle had been
unwilling to interfere, certainly, but only so long as there was nothing
to interfere with. It will perhaps seem to the reader that Isabel went
fast in casting doubt, on mere suspicion, on a sincerity proved by several
years of good offices. She moved quickly indeed, and with reason, for a
strange truth was filtering into her soul. Madame Merle’s interest was
identical with Osmond’s: that was enough. “I think Pansy will tell you
nothing that will make you more angry,” she said in answer to her
companion’s last remark.

“I’m not in the least angry. I’ve only a great desire to retrieve the
situation. Do you consider that Warburton has left us for ever?”

“I can’t tell you; I don’t understand you. It’s all over; please let it
rest. Osmond has talked to me a great deal about it, and I’ve nothing more
to say or to hear. I’ve no doubt,” Isabel added, “that he’ll be very happy
to discuss the subject with you.”

“I know what he thinks; he came to see me last evening.”

“As soon as you had arrived? Then you know all about it and you needn’t
apply to me for information.”

“It isn’t information I want. At bottom it’s sympathy. I had set my heart
on that marriage; the idea did what so few things do—it satisfied
the imagination.”

“Your imagination, yes. But not that of the persons concerned.”

“You mean by that of course that I’m not concerned. Of course not
directly. But when one’s such an old friend one can’t help having
something at stake. You forget how long I’ve known Pansy. You mean, of
course,” Madame Merle added, “that you are one of the persons
concerned.”

“No; that’s the last thing I mean. I’m very weary of it all.”

Madame Merle hesitated a little. “Ah yes, your work’s done.”

“Take care what you say,” said Isabel very gravely.

“Oh, I take care; never perhaps more than when it appears least. Your
husband judges you severely.”

Isabel made for a moment no answer to this; she felt choked with
bitterness. It was not the insolence of Madame Merle’s informing her that
Osmond had been taking her into his confidence as against his wife that
struck her most; for she was not quick to believe that this was meant for
insolence. Madame Merle was very rarely insolent, and only when it was
exactly right. It was not right now, or at least it was not right yet.
What touched Isabel like a drop of corrosive acid upon an open wound was
the knowledge that Osmond dishonoured her in his words as well as in his
thoughts. “Should you like to know how I judge him?” she asked at
last.

“No, because you’d never tell me. And it would be painful for me to know.”

There was a pause, and for the first time since she had known her Isabel
thought Madame Merle disagreeable. She wished she would leave her.
“Remember how attractive Pansy is, and don’t despair,” she said abruptly,
with a desire that this should close their interview.

But Madame Merle’s expansive presence underwent no contraction. She only
gathered her mantle about her and, with the movement, scattered upon the
air a faint, agreeable fragrance. “I don’t despair; I feel encouraged. And
I didn’t come to scold you; I came if possible to learn the truth. I know
you’ll tell it if I ask you. It’s an immense blessing with you that one
can count upon that. No, you won’t believe what a comfort I take in it.”

“What truth do you speak of?” Isabel asked, wondering.

“Just this: whether Lord Warburton changed his mind quite of his own
movement or because you recommended it. To please himself I mean, or to
please you. Think of the confidence I must still have in you, in spite of
having lost a little of it,” Madame Merle continued with a smile, “to ask
such a question as that!” She sat looking at her friend, to judge the
effect of her words, and then went on: “Now don’t be heroic, don’t be
unreasonable, don’t take offence. It seems to me I do you an honour in
speaking so. I don’t know another woman to whom I would do it. I haven’t
the least idea that any other woman would tell me the truth. And don’t you
see how well it is that your husband should know it? It’s true that he
doesn’t appear to have had any tact whatever in trying to extract it; he
has indulged in gratuitous suppositions. But that doesn’t alter the fact
that it would make a difference in his view of his daughter’s prospects to
know distinctly what really occurred. If Lord Warburton simply got tired
of the poor child, that’s one thing, and it’s a pity. If he gave her up to
please you it’s another. That’s a pity too, but in a different way. Then,
in the latter case, you’d perhaps resign yourself to not being pleased—to
simply seeing your step-daughter married. Let him off—let us have
him!”

Madame Merle had proceeded very deliberately, watching her companion and
apparently thinking she could proceed safely. As she went on Isabel grew
pale; she clasped her hands more tightly in her lap. It was not that her
visitor had at last thought it the right time to be insolent; for this was
not what was most apparent. It was a worse horror than that. “Who are you—what
are you?” Isabel murmured. “What have you to do with my husband?” It was
strange that for the moment she drew as near to him as if she had loved
him.

“Ah then, you take it heroically! I’m very sorry. Don’t think, however,
that I shall do so.”

“What have you to do with me?” Isabel went on.

Madame Merle slowly got up, stroking her muff, but not removing her eyes
from Isabel’s face. “Everything!” she answered.

Isabel sat there looking up at her, without rising; her face was almost a
prayer to be enlightened. But the light of this woman’s eyes seemed only a
darkness. “Oh misery!” she murmured at last; and she fell back, covering
her face with her hands. It had come over her like a high-surging wave
that Mrs. Touchett was right. Madame Merle had married her. Before she
uncovered her face again that lady had left the room.

Isabel took a drive alone that afternoon; she wished to be far away, under
the sky, where she could descend from her carriage and tread upon the
daisies. She had long before this taken old Rome into her confidence, for
in a world of ruins the ruin of her happiness seemed a less unnatural
catastrophe. She rested her weariness upon things that had crumbled for
centuries and yet still were upright; she dropped her secret sadness into
the silence of lonely places, where its very modern quality detached
itself and grew objective, so that as she sat in a sun-warmed angle on a
winter’s day, or stood in a mouldy church to which no one came, she could
almost smile at it and think of its smallness. Small it was, in the large
Roman record, and her haunting sense of the continuity of the human lot
easily carried her from the less to the greater. She had become deeply,
tenderly acquainted with Rome; it interfused and moderated her passion.
But she had grown to think of it chiefly as the place where people had
suffered. This was what came to her in the starved churches, where the
marble columns, transferred from pagan ruins, seemed to offer her a
companionship in endurance and the musty incense to be a compound of
long-unanswered prayers. There was no gentler nor less consistent heretic
than Isabel; the firmest of worshippers, gazing at dark altar-pictures or
clustered candles, could not have felt more intimately the suggestiveness
of these objects nor have been more liable at such moments to a spiritual
visitation. Pansy, as we know, was almost always her companion, and of
late the Countess Gemini, balancing a pink parasol, had lent brilliancy to
their equipage; but she still occasionally found herself alone when it
suited her mood and where it suited the place. On such occasions she had
several resorts; the most accessible of which perhaps was a seat on the
low parapet which edges the wide grassy space before the high, cold front
of Saint John Lateran, whence you look across the Campagna at the
far-trailing outline of the Alban Mount and at that mighty plain, between,
which is still so full of all that has passed from it. After the departure
of her cousin and his companions she roamed more than usual; she carried
her sombre spirit from one familiar shrine to the other. Even when Pansy
and the Countess were with her she felt the touch of a vanished world. The
carriage, leaving the walls of Rome behind, rolled through narrow lanes
where the wild honeysuckle had begun to tangle itself in the hedges, or
waited for her in quiet places where the fields lay near, while she
strolled further and further over the flower-freckled turf, or sat on a
stone that had once had a use and gazed through the veil of her personal
sadness at the splendid sadness of the scene—at the dense, warm
light, the far gradations and soft confusions of colour, the motionless
shepherds in lonely attitudes, the hills where the cloud-shadows had the
lightness of a blush.

On the afternoon I began with speaking of, she had taken a resolution not
to think of Madame Merle; but the resolution proved vain, and this lady’s
image hovered constantly before her. She asked herself, with an almost
childlike horror of the supposition, whether to this intimate friend of
several years the great historical epithet of wicked were to be applied.
She knew the idea only by the Bible and other literary works; to the best
of her belief she had had no personal acquaintance with wickedness. She
had desired a large acquaintance with human life, and in spite of her
having flattered herself that she cultivated it with some success this
elementary privilege had been denied her. Perhaps it was not wicked—in
the historic sense—to be even deeply false; for that was what Madame
Merle had been—deeply, deeply, deeply. Isabel’s Aunt Lydia had made
this discovery long before, and had mentioned it to her niece; but Isabel
had flattered herself at this time that she had a much richer view of
things, especially of the spontaneity of her own career and the nobleness
of her own interpretations, than poor stiffly-reasoning Mrs. Touchett.
Madame Merle had done what she wanted; she had brought about the union of
her two friends; a reflection which could not fail to make it a matter of
wonder that she should so much have desired such an event. There were
people who had the match-making passion, like the votaries of art for art;
but Madame Merle, great artist as she was, was scarcely one of these. She
thought too ill of marriage, too ill even of life; she had desired that
particular marriage but had not desired others. She had therefore had a
conception of gain, and Isabel asked herself where she had found her
profit. It took her naturally a long time to discover, and even then her
discovery was imperfect. It came back to her that Madame Merle, though she
had seemed to like her from their first meeting at Gardencourt, had been
doubly affectionate after Mr. Touchett’s death and after learning that her
young friend had been subject to the good old man’s charity. She had found
her profit not in the gross device of borrowing money, but in the more
refined idea of introducing one of her intimates to the young woman’s
fresh and ingenuous fortune. She had naturally chosen her closest
intimate, and it was already vivid enough to Isabel that Gilbert occupied
this position. She found herself confronted in this manner with the
conviction that the man in the world whom she had supposed to be the least
sordid had married her, like a vulgar adventurer, for her money. Strange
to say, it had never before occurred to her; if she had thought a good
deal of harm of Osmond she had not done him this particular injury. This
was the worst she could think of, and she had been saying to herself that
the worst was still to come. A man might marry a woman for her money
perfectly well; the thing was often done. But at least he should let her
know. She wondered whether, since he had wanted her money, her money would
now satisfy him. Would he take her money and let her go. Ah, if Mr.
Touchett’s great charity would but help her to-day it would be blessed
indeed! It was not slow to occur to her that if Madame Merle had wished to
do Gilbert a service his recognition to her of the boon must have lost its
warmth. What must be his feelings to-day in regard to his too zealous
benefactress, and what expression must they have found on the part of such
a master of irony? It is a singular, but a characteristic, fact that
before Isabel returned from her silent drive she had broken its silence by
the soft exclamation: “Poor, poor Madame Merle!”

Her compassion would perhaps have been justified if on this same afternoon
she had been concealed behind one of the valuable curtains of
time-softened damask which dressed the interesting little salon of the
lady to whom it referred; the carefully-arranged apartment to which we
once paid a visit in company with the discreet Mr. Rosier. In that
apartment, towards six o’clock, Gilbert Osmond was seated, and his hostess
stood before him as Isabel had seen her stand on an occasion commemorated
in this history with an emphasis appropriate not so much to its apparent
as to its real importance.

“I don’t believe you’re unhappy; I believe you like it,” said Madame
Merle.

“Did I say I was unhappy?” Osmond asked with a face grave enough to
suggest that he might have been.

“No, but you don’t say the contrary, as you ought in common gratitude.”

“Don’t talk about gratitude,” he returned dryly. “And don’t aggravate me,”
he added in a moment.

Madame Merle slowly seated herself, with her arms folded and her white
hands arranged as a support to one of them and an ornament, as it were, to
the other. She looked exquisitely calm but impressively sad. “On your
side, don’t try to frighten me. I wonder if you guess some of my
thoughts.”

“I trouble about them no more than I can help. I’ve quite enough of my
own.”

“That’s because they’re so delightful.”

Osmond rested his head against the back of his chair and looked at his
companion with a cynical directness which seemed also partly an expression
of fatigue. “You do aggravate me,” he remarked in a moment. “I’m very
tired.”

“Eh moi donc!” cried Madame Merle.

“With you it’s because you fatigue yourself. With me it’s not my own
fault.”

“When I fatigue myself it’s for you. I’ve given you an interest. That’s a
great gift.”

“Do you call it an interest?” Osmond enquired with detachment.

“Certainly, since it helps you to pass your time.”

“The time has never seemed longer to me than this winter.”

“You’ve never looked better; you’ve never been so agreeable, so
brilliant.”

“Damn my brilliancy!” he thoughtfully murmured. “How little, after all,
you know me!”

“If I don’t know you I know nothing,” smiled Madame Merle. “You’ve the
feeling of complete success.”

“No, I shall not have that till I’ve made you stop judging me.”

“I did that long ago. I speak from old knowledge. But you express yourself
more too.”

Osmond just hung fire. “I wish you’d express yourself less!”

“You wish to condemn me to silence? Remember that I’ve never been a
chatterbox. At any rate there are three or four things I should like to
say to you first. Your wife doesn’t know what to do with herself,” she
went on with a change of tone.

“Pardon me; she knows perfectly. She has a line sharply drawn. She means
to carry out her ideas.”

“Her ideas to-day must be remarkable.”

“Certainly they are. She has more of them than ever.”

“She was unable to show me any this morning,” said Madame Merle. “She
seemed in a very simple, almost in a stupid, state of mind. She was
completely bewildered.”

“You had better say at once that she was pathetic.”

“Ah no, I don’t want to encourage you too much.”

He still had his head against the cushion behind him; the ankle of one
foot rested on the other knee. So he sat for a while. “I should like to
know what’s the matter with you,” he said at last.

“The matter—the matter—!” And here Madame Merle stopped. Then
she went on with a sudden outbreak of passion, a burst of summer thunder
in a clear sky: “The matter is that I would give my right hand to be able
to weep, and that I can’t!”

“What good would it do you to weep?”

“It would make me feel as I felt before I knew you.”

“If I’ve dried your tears, that’s something. But I’ve seen you shed them.”

“Oh, I believe you’ll make me cry still. I mean make me howl like a wolf.
I’ve a great hope, I’ve a great need, of that. I was vile this morning; I
was horrid,” she said.

“If Isabel was in the stupid state of mind you mention she probably didn’t
perceive it,” Osmond answered.

“It was precisely my deviltry that stupefied her. I couldn’t help it; I
was full of something bad. Perhaps it was something good; I don’t know.
You’ve not only dried up my tears; you’ve dried up my soul.”

“It’s not I then that am responsible for my wife’s condition,” Osmond
said. “It’s pleasant to think that I shall get the benefit of your
influence upon her. Don’t you know the soul is an immortal principle? How
can it suffer alteration?”

“I don’t believe at all that it’s an immortal principle. I believe it can
perfectly be destroyed. That’s what has happened to mine, which was a very
good one to start with; and it’s you I have to thank for it. You’re very
bad,” she added with gravity in her emphasis.

“Is this the way we’re to end?” Osmond asked with the same studied
coldness.

“I don’t know how we’re to end. I wish I did—How do bad people end?—especially
as to their common crimes. You have made me as bad as yourself.”

“I don’t understand you. You seem to me quite good enough,” said Osmond,
his conscious indifference giving an extreme effect to the words.

Madame Merle’s self-possession tended on the contrary to diminish, and she
was nearer losing it than on any occasion on which we have had the
pleasure of meeting her. The glow of her eye turners sombre; her smile
betrayed a painful effort. “Good enough for anything that I’ve done with
myself? I suppose that’s what you mean.”

“Good enough to be always charming!” Osmond exclaimed, smiling too.

“Oh God!” his companion murmured; and, sitting there in her ripe
freshness, she had recourse to the same gesture she had provoked on
Isabel’s part in the morning: she bent her face and covered it with her
hands.

“Are you going to weep after all?” Osmond asked; and on her remaining
motionless he went on: “Have I ever complained to you?”

She dropped her hands quickly. “No, you’ve taken your revenge otherwise—you
have taken it on her.”

Osmond threw back his head further; he looked a while at the ceiling and
might have been supposed to be appealing, in an informal way, to the
heavenly powers. “Oh, the imagination of women! It’s always vulgar, at
bottom. You talk of revenge like a third-rate novelist.”

“Of course you haven’t complained. You’ve enjoyed your triumph too much.”

“I’m rather curious to know what you call my triumph.”

“You’ve made your wife afraid of you.”

Osmond changed his position; he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his
knees and looking a while at a beautiful old Persian rug, at his feet. He
had an air of refusing to accept any one’s valuation of anything, even of
time, and of preferring to abide by his own; a peculiarity which made him
at moments an irritating person to converse with. “Isabel’s not afraid of
me, and it’s not what I wish,” he said at last. “To what do you want to
provoke me when you say such things as that?”

“I’ve thought over all the harm you can do me,” Madame Merle answered.
“Your wife was afraid of me this morning, but in me it was really you she
feared.”

“You may have said things that were in very bad taste; I’m not responsible
for that. I didn’t see the use of your going to see her at all: you’re
capable of acting without her. I’ve not made you afraid of me that I can
see,” he went on; “how then should I have made her? You’re at least as
brave. I can’t think where you’ve picked up such rubbish; one might
suppose you knew me by this time.” He got up as he spoke and walked to the
chimney, where he stood a moment bending his eye, as if he had seen them
for the first time, on the delicate specimens of rare porcelain with which
it was covered. He took up a small cup and held it in his hand; then,
still holding it and leaning his arm on the mantel, he pursued: “You
always see too much in everything; you overdo it; you lose sight of the
real. I’m much simpler than you think.”

“I think you’re very simple.” And Madame Merle kept her eye on her cup.
“I’ve come to that with time. I judged you, as I say, of old; but it’s
only since your marriage that I’ve understood you. I’ve seen better what
you have been to your wife than I ever saw what you were for me. Please be
very careful of that precious object.”

“It already has a wee bit of a tiny crack,” said Osmond dryly as he put it
down. “If you didn’t understand me before I married it was cruelly rash of
you to put me into such a box. However, I took a fancy to my box myself; I
thought it would be a comfortable fit. I asked very little; I only asked
that she should like me.”

“That she should like you so much!”

“So much, of course; in such a case one asks the maximum. That she should
adore me, if you will. Oh yes, I wanted that.”

“I never adored you,” said Madame Merle.

“Ah, but you pretended to!”

“It’s true that you never accused me of being a comfortable fit,” Madame
Merle went on.

“My wife has declined—declined to do anything of the sort,” said
Osmond. “If you’re determined to make a tragedy of that, the tragedy’s
hardly for her.”

“The tragedy’s for me!” Madame Merle exclaimed, rising with a long low
sigh but having a glance at the same time for the contents of her
mantel-shelf.

“It appears that I’m to be severely taught the disadvantages of a false
position.”

“You express yourself like a sentence in a copybook. We must look for our
comfort where we can find it. If my wife doesn’t like me, at least my
child does. I shall look for compensations in Pansy. Fortunately I haven’t
a fault to find with her.”

“Ah,” she said softly, “if I had a child—!”

Osmond waited, and then, with a little formal air, “The children of others
may be a great interest!” he announced.

“You’re more like a copy-book than I. There’s something after all that
holds us together.”

“Is it the idea of the harm I may do you?” Osmond asked.

“No; it’s the idea of the good I may do for you. It’s that,” Madame Merle
pursued, “that made me so jealous of Isabel. I want it to be my
work,” she added, with her face, which had grown hard and bitter, relaxing
to its habit of smoothness.

Her friend took up his hat and his umbrella, and after giving the former
article two or three strokes with his coat-cuff, “On the whole, I think,”
he said, “you had better leave it to me.”

After he had left her she went, the first thing, and lifted from the
mantel-shelf the attenuated coffee-cup in which he had mentioned the
existence of a crack; but she looked at it rather abstractedly. “Have I
been so vile all for nothing?” she vaguely wailed.


CHAPTER L

As the Countess Gemini was not acquainted with the ancient monuments
Isabel occasionally offered to introduce her to these interesting relics
and to give their afternoon drive an antiquarian aim. The Countess, who
professed to think her sister-in-law a prodigy of learning, never made an
objection, and gazed at masses of Roman brickwork as patiently as if they
had been mounds of modern drapery. She had not the historic sense, though
she had in some directions the anecdotic, and as regards herself the
apologetic, but she was so delighted to be in Rome that she only desired
to float with the current. She would gladly have passed an hour every day
in the damp darkness of the Baths of Titus if it had been a condition of
her remaining at Palazzo Roccanera. Isabel, however, was not a severe
cicerone; she used to visit the ruins chiefly because they offered an
excuse for talking about other matters than the love affairs of the ladies
of Florence, as to which her companion was never weary of offering
information. It must be added that during these visits the Countess
forbade herself every form of active research; her preference was to sit
in the carriage and exclaim that everything was most interesting. It was
in this manner that she had hitherto examined the Coliseum, to the
infinite regret of her niece, who—with all the respect that she owed
her—could not see why she should not descend from the vehicle and
enter the building. Pansy had so little chance to ramble that her view of
the case was not wholly disinterested; it may be divined that she had a
secret hope that, once inside, her parents’ guest might be induced to
climb to the upper tiers. There came a day when the Countess announced her
willingness to undertake this feat—a mild afternoon in March when
the windy month expressed itself in occasional puffs of spring. The three
ladies went into the Coliseum together, but Isabel left her companions to
wander over the place. She had often ascended to those desolate ledges
from which the Roman crowd used to bellow applause and where now the wild
flowers (when they are allowed) bloom in the deep crevices; and to-day she
felt weary and disposed to sit in the despoiled arena. It made an
intermission too, for the Countess often asked more from one’s attention
than she gave in return; and Isabel believed that when she was alone with
her niece she let the dust gather for a moment on the ancient scandals of
the Arnide. She so remained below therefore, while Pansy guided her
undiscriminating aunt to the steep brick staircase at the foot of which
the custodian unlocks the tall wooden gate. The great enclosure was half
in shadow; the western sun brought out the pale red tone of the great
blocks of travertine—the latent colour that is the only living
element in the immense ruin. Here and there wandered a peasant or a
tourist, looking up at the far sky-line where, in the clear stillness, a
multitude of swallows kept circling and plunging. Isabel presently became
aware that one of the other visitors, planted in the middle of the arena,
had turned his attention to her own person and was looking at her with a
certain little poise of the head which she had some weeks before perceived
to be characteristic of baffled but indestructible purpose. Such an
attitude, to-day, could belong only to Mr. Edward Rosier; and this
gentleman proved in fact to have been considering the question of speaking
to her. When he had assured himself that she was unaccompanied he drew
near, remarking that though she would not answer his letters she would
perhaps not wholly close her ears to his spoken eloquence. She replied
that her stepdaughter was close at hand and that she could only give him
five minutes; whereupon he took out his watch and sat down upon a broken
block.

“It’s very soon told,” said Edward Rosier. “I’ve sold all my bibelots!”
Isabel gave instinctively an exclamation of horror; it was as if he had
told her he had had all his teeth drawn. “I’ve sold them by auction at the
Hôtel Drouot,” he went on. “The sale took place three days ago, and
they’ve telegraphed me the result. It’s magnificent.”

“I’m glad to hear it; but I wish you had kept your pretty things.”

“I have the money instead—fifty thousand dollars. Will Mr. Osmond
think me rich enough now?”

“Is it for that you did it?” Isabel asked gently.

“For what else in the world could it be? That’s the only thing I think of.
I went to Paris and made my arrangements. I couldn’t stop for the sale; I
couldn’t have seen them going off; I think it would have killed me. But I
put them into good hands, and they brought high prices. I should tell you
I have kept my enamels. Now I have the money in my pocket, and he can’t
say I’m poor!” the young man exclaimed defiantly.

“He’ll say now that you’re not wise,” said Isabel, as if Gilbert Osmond
had never said this before.

Rosier gave her a sharp look. “Do you mean that without my bibelots I’m
nothing? Do you mean they were the best thing about me? That’s what they
told me in Paris; oh they were very frank about it. But they hadn’t seen
her!”

“My dear friend, you deserve to succeed,” said Isabel very kindly.

“You say that so sadly that it’s the same as if you said I shouldn’t.” And
he questioned her eyes with the clear trepidation of his own. He had the
air of a man who knows he has been the talk of Paris for a week and is
full half a head taller in consequence, but who also has a painful
suspicion that in spite of this increase of stature one or two persons
still have the perversity to think him diminutive. “I know what happened
here while I was away,” he went on; “What does Mr. Osmond expect after she
has refused Lord Warburton?”

Isabel debated. “That she’ll marry another nobleman.”

“What other nobleman?”

“One that he’ll pick out.”

Rosier slowly got up, putting his watch into his waistcoat-pocket. “You’re
laughing at some one, but this time I don’t think it’s at me.”

“I didn’t mean to laugh,” said Isabel. “I laugh very seldom. Now you had
better go away.”

“I feel very safe!” Rosier declared without moving. This might be; but it
evidently made him feel more so to make the announcement in rather a loud
voice, balancing himself a little complacently on his toes and looking all
round the Coliseum as if it were filled with an audience. Suddenly Isabel
saw him change colour; there was more of an audience than he had
suspected. She turned and perceived that her two companions had returned
from their excursion. “You must really go away,” she said quickly. “Ah, my
dear lady, pity me!” Edward Rosier murmured in a voice strangely at
variance with the announcement I have just quoted. And then he added
eagerly, like a man who in the midst of his misery is seized by a happy
thought: “Is that lady the Countess Gemini? I’ve a great desire to be
presented to her.”

Isabel looked at him a moment. “She has no influence with her brother.”

“Ah, what a monster you make him out!” And Rosier faced the Countess, who
advanced, in front of Pansy, with an animation partly due perhaps to the
fact that she perceived her sister-in-law to be engaged in conversation
with a very pretty young man.

“I’m glad you’ve kept your enamels!” Isabel called as she left him. She
went straight to Pansy, who, on seeing Edward Rosier, had stopped short,
with lowered eyes. “We’ll go back to the carriage,” she said gently.

“Yes, it’s getting late,” Pansy returned more gently still. And she went
on without a murmur, without faltering or glancing back. Isabel, however,
allowing herself this last liberty, saw that a meeting had immediately
taken place between the Countess and Mr. Rosier. He had removed his hat
and was bowing and smiling; he had evidently introduced himself, while the
Countess’s expressive back displayed to Isabel’s eye a gracious
inclination. These facts, none the less, were presently lost to sight, for
Isabel and Pansy took their places again in the carriage. Pansy, who faced
her stepmother, at first kept her eyes fixed on her lap; then she raised
them and rested them on Isabel’s. There shone out of each of them a little
melancholy ray—a spark of timid passion which touched Isabel to the
heart. At the same time a wave of envy passed over her soul, as she
compared the tremulous longing, the definite ideal of the child with her
own dry despair. “Poor little Pansy!” she affectionately said.

“Oh never mind!” Pansy answered in the tone of eager apology. And then
there was a silence; the Countess was a long time coming. “Did you show
your aunt everything, and did she enjoy it?” Isabel asked at last.

“Yes, I showed her everything. I think she was very much pleased.”

“And you’re not tired, I hope.”

“Oh no, thank you, I’m not tired.”

The Countess still remained behind, so that Isabel requested the footman
to go into the Coliseum and tell her they were waiting. He presently
returned with the announcement that the Signora Contessa begged them not
to wait—she would come home in a cab!

About a week after this lady’s quick sympathies had enlisted themselves
with Mr. Rosier, Isabel, going rather late to dress for dinner, found
Pansy sitting in her room. The girl seemed to have been awaiting her; she
got up from her low chair. “Pardon my taking the liberty,” she said in a
small voice. “It will be the last—for some time.”

Her voice was strange, and her eyes, widely opened, had an excited,
frightened look. “You’re not going away!” Isabel exclaimed.

“I’m going to the convent.”

“To the convent?”

Pansy drew nearer, till she was near enough to put her arms round Isabel
and rest her head on her shoulder. She stood this way a moment, perfectly
still; but her companion could feel her tremble. The quiver of her little
body expressed everything she was unable to say. Isabel nevertheless
pressed her. “Why are you going to the convent?”

“Because papa thinks it best. He says a young girl’s better, every now and
then, for making a little retreat. He says the world, always the world, is
very bad for a young girl. This is just a chance for a little seclusion—a
little reflexion.” Pansy spoke in short detached sentences, as if she
could scarce trust herself; and then she added with a triumph of
self-control: “I think papa’s right; I’ve been so much in the world this
winter.”

Her announcement had a strange effect on Isabel; it seemed to carry a
larger meaning than the girl herself knew. “When was this decided?” she
asked. “I’ve heard nothing of it.”

“Papa told me half an hour ago; he thought it better it shouldn’t be too
much talked about in advance. Madame Catherine’s to come for me at a
quarter past seven, and I’m only to take two frocks. It’s only for a few
weeks; I’m sure it will be very good. I shall find all those ladies who
used to be so kind to me, and I shall see the little girls who are being
educated. I’m very fond of little girls,” said Pansy with an effect of
diminutive grandeur. “And I’m also very fond of Mother Catherine. I shall
be very quiet and think a great deal.”

Isabel listened to her, holding her breath; she was almost awe-struck.
“Think of me sometimes.”

“Ah, come and see me soon!” cried Pansy; and the cry was very different
from the heroic remarks of which she had just delivered herself.

Isabel could say nothing more; she understood nothing; she only felt how
little she yet knew her husband. Her answer to his daughter was a long,
tender kiss.

Half an hour later she learned from her maid that Madame Catherine had
arrived in a cab and had departed again with the signorina. On going to
the drawing-room before dinner she found the Countess Gemini alone, and
this lady characterised the incident by exclaiming, with a wonderful toss
of the head, “En voilà, ma chère, une pose!” But if it was an
affectation she was at a loss to see what her husband affected. She could
only dimly perceive that he had more traditions than she supposed. It had
become her habit to be so careful as to what she said to him that, strange
as it may appear, she hesitated, for several minutes after he had come in,
to allude to his daughter’s sudden departure: she spoke of it only after
they were seated at table. But she had forbidden herself ever to ask
Osmond a question. All she could do was to make a declaration, and there
was one that came very naturally. “I shall miss Pansy very much.”

He looked a while, with his head inclined a little, at the basket of
flowers in the middle of the table. “Ah yes,” he said at last, “I had
thought of that. You must go and see her, you know; but not too often. I
dare say you wonder why I sent her to the good sisters; but I doubt if I
can make you understand. It doesn’t matter; don’t trouble yourself about
it. That’s why I had not spoken of it. I didn’t believe you would enter
into it. But I’ve always had the idea; I’ve always thought it a part of
the education of one’s daughter. One’s daughter should be fresh and fair;
she should be innocent and gentle. With the manners of the present time
she is liable to become so dusty and crumpled. Pansy’s a little dusty, a
little dishevelled; she has knocked about too much. This bustling, pushing
rabble that calls itself society—one should take her out of it
occasionally. Convents are very quiet, very convenient, very salutary. I
like to think of her there, in the old garden, under the arcade, among
those tranquil virtuous women. Many of them are gentlewomen born; several
of them are noble. She will have her books and her drawing, she will have
her piano. I’ve made the most liberal arrangements. There is to be nothing
ascetic; there’s just to be a certain little sense of sequestration.
She’ll have time to think, and there’s something I want her to think
about.” Osmond spoke deliberately, reasonably, still with his head on one
side, as if he were looking at the basket of flowers. His tone, however,
was that of a man not so much offering an explanation as putting a thing
into words—almost into pictures—to see, himself, how it would
look. He considered a while the picture he had evoked and seemed greatly
pleased with it. And then he went on: “The Catholics are very wise after
all. The convent is a great institution; we can’t do without it; it
corresponds to an essential need in families, in society. It’s a school of
good manners; it’s a school of repose. Oh, I don’t want to detach my
daughter from the world,” he added; “I don’t want to make her fix her
thoughts on any other. This one’s very well, as she should take it,
and she may think of it as much as she likes. Only she must think of it in
the right way.”

Isabel gave an extreme attention to this little sketch; she found it
indeed intensely interesting. It seemed to show her how far her husband’s
desire to be effective was capable of going—to the point of playing
theoretic tricks on the delicate organism of his daughter. She could not
understand his purpose, no—not wholly; but she understood it better
than he supposed or desired, inasmuch as she was convinced that the whole
proceeding was an elaborate mystification, addressed to herself and
destined to act upon her imagination. He had wanted to do something sudden
and arbitrary, something unexpected and refined; to mark the difference
between his sympathies and her own, and show that if he regarded his
daughter as a precious work of art it was natural he should be more and
more careful about the finishing touches. If he wished to be effective he
had succeeded; the incident struck a chill into Isabel’s heart. Pansy had
known the convent in her childhood and had found a happy home there; she
was fond of the good sisters, who were very fond of her, and there was
therefore for the moment no definite hardship in her lot. But all the same
the girl had taken fright; the impression her father desired to make would
evidently be sharp enough. The old Protestant tradition had never faded
from Isabel’s imagination, and as her thoughts attached themselves to this
striking example of her husband’s genius—she sat looking, like him,
at the basket of flowers—poor little Pansy became the heroine of a
tragedy. Osmond wished it to be known that he shrank from nothing, and his
wife found it hard to pretend to eat her dinner. There was a certain
relief presently, in hearing the high, strained voice of her
sister-in-law. The Countess too, apparently, had been thinking the thing
out, but had arrived at a different conclusion from Isabel.

“It’s very absurd, my dear Osmond,” she said, “to invent so many pretty
reasons for poor Pansy’s banishment. Why don’t you say at once that you
want to get her out of my way? Haven’t you discovered that I think very
well of Mr. Rosier? I do indeed; he seems to me simpaticissimo. He
has made me believe in true love; I never did before! Of course you’ve
made up your mind that with those convictions I’m dreadful company for
Pansy.”

Osmond took a sip of a glass of wine; he looked perfectly good-humoured.
“My dear Amy,” he answered, smiling as if he were uttering a piece of
gallantry, “I don’t know anything about your convictions, but if I
suspected that they interfere with mine it would be much simpler to banish
you.”


CHAPTER LI

The Countess was not banished, but she felt the insecurity of her tenure
of her brother’s hospitality. A week after this incident Isabel received a
telegram from England, dated from Gardencourt and bearing the stamp of
Mrs. Touchett’s authorship. “Ralph cannot last many days,” it ran, “and if
convenient would like to see you. Wishes me to say that you must come only
if you’ve not other duties. Say, for myself, that you used to talk a good
deal about your duty and to wonder what it was; shall be curious to see
whether you’ve found it out. Ralph is really dying, and there’s no other
company.” Isabel was prepared for this news, having received from
Henrietta Stackpole a detailed account of her journey to England with her
appreciative patient. Ralph had arrived more dead than alive, but she had
managed to convey him to Gardencourt, where he had taken to his bed,
which, as Miss Stackpole wrote, he evidently would never leave again. She
added that she had really had two patients on her hands instead of one,
inasmuch as Mr. Goodwood, who had been of no earthly use, was quite as
ailing, in a different way, as Mr. Touchett. Afterwards she wrote that she
had been obliged to surrender the field to Mrs. Touchett, who had just
returned from America and had promptly given her to understand that she
didn’t wish any interviewing at Gardencourt. Isabel had written to her
aunt shortly after Ralph came to Rome, letting her know of his critical
condition and suggesting that she should lose no time in returning to
Europe. Mrs. Touchett had telegraphed an acknowledgement of this
admonition, and the only further news Isabel received from her was the
second telegram I have just quoted.

Isabel stood a moment looking at the latter missive; then, thrusting it
into her pocket, she went straight to the door of her husband’s study.
Here she again paused an instant, after which she opened the door and went
in. Osmond was seated at the table near the window with a folio volume
before him, propped against a pile of books. This volume was open at a
page of small coloured plates, and Isabel presently saw that he had been
copying from it the drawing of an antique coin. A box of water-colours and
fine brushes lay before him, and he had already transferred to a sheet of
immaculate paper the delicate, finely-tinted disk. His back was turned
toward the door, but he recognised his wife without looking round.

“Excuse me for disturbing you,” she said.

“When I come to your room I always knock,” he answered, going on with his
work.

“I forgot; I had something else to think of. My cousin’s dying.”

“Ah, I don’t believe that,” said Osmond, looking at his drawing through a
magnifying glass. “He was dying when we married; he’ll outlive us all.”

Isabel gave herself no time, no thought, to appreciate the careful
cynicism of this declaration; she simply went on quickly, full of her own
intention “My aunt has telegraphed for me; I must go to Gardencourt.”

“Why must you go to Gardencourt?” Osmond asked in the tone of impartial
curiosity.

“To see Ralph before he dies.”

To this, for some time, he made no rejoinder; he continued to give his
chief attention to his work, which was of a sort that would brook no
negligence. “I don’t see the need of it,” he said at last. “He came to see
you here. I didn’t like that; I thought his being in Rome a great mistake.
But I tolerated it because it was to be the last time you should see him.
Now you tell me it’s not to have been the last. Ah, you’re not grateful!”

“What am I to be grateful for?”

Gilbert Osmond laid down his little implements, blew a speck of dust from
his drawing, slowly got up, and for the first time looked at his wife.
“For my not having interfered while he was here.”

“Oh yes, I am. I remember perfectly how distinctly you let me know you
didn’t like it. I was very glad when he went away.”

“Leave him alone then. Don’t run after him.”

Isabel turned her eyes away from him; they rested upon his little drawing.
“I must go to England,” she said, with a full consciousness that her tone
might strike an irritable man of taste as stupidly obstinate.

“I shall not like it if you do,” Osmond remarked.

“Why should I mind that? You won’t like it if I don’t. You like nothing I
do or don’t do. You pretend to think I lie.”

Osmond turned slightly pale; he gave a cold smile. “That’s why you must go
then? Not to see your cousin, but to take a revenge on me.”

“I know nothing about revenge.”

“I do,” said Osmond. “Don’t give me an occasion.”

“You’re only too eager to take one. You wish immensely that I would commit
some folly.”

“I should be gratified in that case if you disobeyed me.”

“If I disobeyed you?” said Isabel in a low tone which had the effect of
mildness.

“Let it be clear. If you leave Rome to-day it will be a piece of the most
deliberate, the most calculated, opposition.”

“How can you call it calculated? I received my aunt’s telegram but three
minutes ago.”

“You calculate rapidly; it’s a great accomplishment. I don’t see why we
should prolong our discussion; you know my wish.” And he stood there as if
he expected to see her withdraw.

But she never moved; she couldn’t move, strange as it may seem; she still
wished to justify herself; he had the power, in an extraordinary degree,
of making her feel this need. There was something in her imagination he
could always appeal to against her judgement. “You’ve no reason for such a
wish,” said Isabel, “and I’ve every reason for going. I can’t tell you how
unjust you seem to me. But I think you know. It’s your own opposition
that’s calculated. It’s malignant.”

She had never uttered her worst thought to her husband before, and the
sensation of hearing it was evidently new to Osmond. But he showed no
surprise, and his coolness was apparently a proof that he had believed his
wife would in fact be unable to resist for ever his ingenious endeavour to
draw her out. “It’s all the more intense then,” he answered. And he added
almost as if he were giving her a friendly counsel: “This is a very
important matter.” She recognised that; she was fully conscious of the
weight of the occasion; she knew that between them they had arrived at a
crisis. Its gravity made her careful; she said nothing, and he went on.
“You say I’ve no reason? I have the very best. I dislike, from the bottom
of my soul, what you intend to do. It’s dishonourable; it’s indelicate;
it’s indecent. Your cousin is nothing whatever to me, and I’m under no
obligation to make concessions to him. I’ve already made the very
handsomest. Your relations with him, while he was here, kept me on pins
and needles; but I let that pass, because from week to week I expected him
to go. I’ve never liked him and he has never liked me. That’s why you like
him—because he hates me,” said Osmond with a quick, barely audible
tremor in his voice. “I’ve an ideal of what my wife should do and should
not do. She should not travel across Europe alone, in defiance of my
deepest desire, to sit at the bedside of other men. Your cousin’s nothing
to you; he’s nothing to us. You smile most expressively when I talk about
us, but I assure you that we, we, Mrs. Osmond, is all
I know. I take our marriage seriously; you appear to have found a way of
not doing so. I’m not aware that we’re divorced or separated; for me we’re
indissolubly united. You are nearer to me than any human creature, and I’m
nearer to you. It may be a disagreeable proximity; it’s one, at any rate,
of our own deliberate making. You don’t like to be reminded of that, I
know; but I’m perfectly willing, because—because—” And he
paused a moment, looking as if he had something to say which would be very
much to the point. “Because I think we should accept the consequences of
our actions, and what I value most in life is the honour of a thing!”

He spoke gravely and almost gently; the accent of sarcasm had dropped out
of his tone. It had a gravity which checked his wife’s quick emotion; the
resolution with which she had entered the room found itself caught in a
mesh of fine threads. His last words were not a command, they constituted
a kind of appeal; and, though she felt that any expression of respect on
his part could only be a refinement of egotism, they represented something
transcendent and absolute, like the sign of the cross or the flag of one’s
country. He spoke in the name of something sacred and precious—the
observance of a magnificent form. They were as perfectly apart in feeling
as two disillusioned lovers had ever been; but they had never yet
separated in act. Isabel had not changed; her old passion for justice
still abode within her; and now, in the very thick of her sense of her
husband’s blasphemous sophistry, it began to throb to a tune which for a
moment promised him the victory. It came over her that in his wish to
preserve appearances he was after all sincere, and that this, as far as it
went, was a merit. Ten minutes before she had felt all the joy of
irreflective action—a joy to which she had so long been a stranger;
but action had been suddenly changed to slow renunciation, transformed by
the blight of Osmond’s touch. If she must renounce, however, she would let
him know she was a victim rather than a dupe. “I know you’re a master of
the art of mockery,” she said. “How can you speak of an indissoluble union—how
can you speak of your being contented? Where’s our union when you accuse
me of falsity? Where’s your contentment when you have nothing but hideous
suspicion in your heart?”

“It is in our living decently together, in spite of such drawbacks.”

“We don’t live decently together!” cried Isabel.

“Indeed we don’t if you go to England.”

“That’s very little; that’s nothing. I might do much more.”

He raised his eyebrows and even his shoulders a little: he had lived long
enough in Italy to catch this trick. “Ah, if you’ve come to threaten me I
prefer my drawing.” And he walked back to his table, where he took up the
sheet of paper on which he had been working and stood studying it.

“I suppose that if I go you’ll not expect me to come back,” said Isabel.

He turned quickly round, and she could see this movement at least was not
designed. He looked at her a little, and then, “Are you out of your mind?”
he enquired.

“How can it be anything but a rupture?” she went on; “especially if all
you say is true?” She was unable to see how it could be anything but a
rupture; she sincerely wished to know what else it might be.

He sat down before his table. “I really can’t argue with you on the
hypothesis of your defying me,” he said. And he took up one of his little
brushes again.

She lingered but a moment longer; long enough to embrace with her eye his
whole deliberately indifferent yet most expressive figure; after which she
quickly left the room. Her faculties, her energy, her passion, were all
dispersed again; she felt as if a cold, dark mist had suddenly encompassed
her. Osmond possessed in a supreme degree the art of eliciting any
weakness. On her way back to her room she found the Countess Gemini
standing in the open doorway of a little parlour in which a small
collection of heterogeneous books had been arranged. The Countess had an
open volume in her hand; she appeared to have been glancing down a page
which failed to strike her as interesting. At the sound of Isabel’s step
she raised her head.

“Ah my dear,” she said, “you, who are so literary, do tell me some amusing
book to read! Everything here’s of a dreariness—! Do you think this
would do me any good?”

Isabel glanced at the title of the volume she held out, but without
reading or understanding it. “I’m afraid I can’t advise you. I’ve had bad
news. My cousin, Ralph Touchett, is dying.”

The Countess threw down her book. “Ah, he was so simpatico. I’m awfully
sorry for you.”

“You would be sorrier still if you knew.”

“What is there to know? You look very badly,” the Countess added. “You
must have been with Osmond.”

Half an hour before Isabel would have listened very coldly to an
intimation that she should ever feel a desire for the sympathy of her
sister-in-law, and there can be no better proof of her present
embarrassment than the fact that she almost clutched at this lady’s
fluttering attention. “I’ve been with Osmond,” she said, while the
Countess’s bright eyes glittered at her.

“I’m sure then he has been odious!” the Countess cried. “Did he say he was
glad poor Mr. Touchett’s dying?”

“He said it’s impossible I should go to England.”

The Countess’s mind, when her interests were concerned, was agile; she
already foresaw the extinction of any further brightness in her visit to
Rome. Ralph Touchett would die, Isabel would go into mourning, and then
there would be no more dinner-parties. Such a prospect produced for a
moment in her countenance an expressive grimace; but this rapid,
picturesque play of feature was her only tribute to disappointment. After
all, she reflected, the game was almost played out; she had already
overstayed her invitation. And then she cared enough for Isabel’s trouble
to forget her own, and she saw that Isabel’s trouble was deep.

It seemed deeper than the mere death of a cousin, and the Countess had no
hesitation in connecting her exasperating brother with the expression of
her sister-in-law’s eyes. Her heart beat with an almost joyous
expectation, for if she had wished to see Osmond overtopped the conditions
looked favourable now. Of course if Isabel should go to England she
herself would immediately leave Palazzo Roccanera; nothing would induce
her to remain there with Osmond. Nevertheless she felt an immense desire
to hear that Isabel would go to England. “Nothing’s impossible for you, my
dear,” she said caressingly. “Why else are you rich and clever and good?”

“Why indeed? I feel stupidly weak.”

“Why does Osmond say it’s impossible?” the Countess asked in a tone which
sufficiently declared that she couldn’t imagine.

From the moment she thus began to question her, however, Isabel drew back;
she disengaged her hand, which the Countess had affectionately taken. But
she answered this enquiry with frank bitterness. “Because we’re so happy
together that we can’t separate even for a fortnight.”

“Ah,” cried the Countess while Isabel turned away, “when I want to make a
journey my husband simply tells me I can have no money!”

Isabel went to her room, where she walked up and down for an hour. It may
appear to some readers that she gave herself much trouble, and it is
certain that for a woman of a high spirit she had allowed herself easily
to be arrested. It seemed to her that only now she fully measured the
great undertaking of matrimony. Marriage meant that in such a case as
this, when one had to choose, one chose as a matter of course for one’s
husband. “I’m afraid—yes, I’m afraid,” she said to herself more than
once, stopping short in her walk. But what she was afraid of was not her
husband—his displeasure, his hatred, his revenge; it was not even
her own later judgement of her conduct a consideration which had often
held her in check; it was simply the violence there would be in going when
Osmond wished her to remain. A gulf of difference had opened between them,
but nevertheless it was his desire that she should stay, it was a horror
to him that she should go. She knew the nervous fineness with which he
could feel an objection. What he thought of her she knew, what he was
capable of saying to her she had felt; yet they were married, for all
that, and marriage meant that a woman should cleave to the man with whom,
uttering tremendous vows, she had stood at the altar. She sank down on her
sofa at last and buried her head in a pile of cushions.

When she raised her head again the Countess Gemini hovered before her. She
had come in all unperceived; she had a strange smile on her thin lips and
her whole face had grown in an hour a shining intimation. She lived
assuredly, it might be said, at the window of her spirit, but now she was
leaning far out. “I knocked,” she began, “but you didn’t answer me. So I
ventured in. I’ve been looking at you for the past five minutes. You’re
very unhappy.”

“Yes; but I don’t think you can comfort me.”

“Will you give me leave to try?” And the Countess sat down on the sofa
beside her. She continued to smile, and there was something communicative
and exultant in her expression. She appeared to have a deal to say, and it
occurred to Isabel for the first time that her sister-in-law might say
something really human. She made play with her glittering eyes, in which
there was an unpleasant fascination. “After all,” she soon resumed, “I
must tell you, to begin with, that I don’t understand your state of mind.
You seem to have so many scruples, so many reasons, so many ties. When I
discovered, ten years ago, that my husband’s dearest wish was to make me
miserable—of late he has simply let me alone—ah, it was a
wonderful simplification! My poor Isabel, you’re not simple enough.”

“No, I’m not simple enough,” said Isabel.

“There’s something I want you to know,” the Countess declared—“because
I think you ought to know it. Perhaps you do; perhaps you’ve guessed it.
But if you have, all I can say is that I understand still less why you
shouldn’t do as you like.”

“What do you wish me to know?” Isabel felt a foreboding that made her
heart beat faster. The Countess was about to justify herself, and this
alone was portentous.

But she was nevertheless disposed to play a little with her subject. “In
your place I should have guessed it ages ago. Have you never really
suspected?”

“I’ve guessed nothing. What should I have suspected? I don’t know what you
mean.”

“That’s because you’ve such a beastly pure mind. I never saw a woman with
such a pure mind!” cried the Countess.

Isabel slowly got up. “You’re going to tell me something horrible.”

“You can call it by whatever name you will!” And the Countess rose also,
while her gathered perversity grew vivid and dreadful. She stood a moment
in a sort of glare of intention and, as seemed to Isabel even then, of
ugliness; after which she said: “My first sister-in-law had no children.”

Isabel stared back at her; the announcement was an anticlimax. “Your first
sister-in-law?”

“I suppose you know at least, if one may mention it, that Osmond has been
married before! I’ve never spoken to you of his wife; I thought it
mightn’t be decent or respectful. But others, less particular, must have
done so. The poor little woman lived hardly three years and died
childless. It wasn’t till after her death that Pansy arrived.”

Isabel’s brow had contracted to a frown; her lips were parted in pale,
vague wonder. She was trying to follow; there seemed so much more to
follow than she could see. “Pansy’s not my husband’s child then?”

“Your husband’s—in perfection! But no one else’s husband’s. Some one
else’s wife’s. Ah, my good Isabel,” cried the Countess, “with you one must
dot one’s i’s!”

“I don’t understand. Whose wife’s?” Isabel asked.

“The wife of a horrid little Swiss who died—how long?—a dozen,
more than fifteen, years ago. He never recognised Miss Pansy, nor, knowing
what he was about, would have anything to say to her; and there was no
reason why he should. Osmond did, and that was better; though he had to
fit on afterwards the whole rigmarole of his own wife’s having died in
childbirth, and of his having, in grief and horror, banished the little
girl from his sight for as long as possible before taking her home from
nurse. His wife had really died, you know, of quite another matter and in
quite another place: in the Piedmontese mountains, where they had gone,
one August, because her health appeared to require the air, but where she
was suddenly taken worse—fatally ill. The story passed,
sufficiently; it was covered by the appearances so long as nobody heeded,
as nobody cared to look into it. But of course I knew—without
researches,” the Countess lucidly proceeded; “as also, you’ll understand,
without a word said between us—I mean between Osmond and me. Don’t
you see him looking at me, in silence, that way, to settle it?—that
is to settle me if I should say anything. I said nothing, right or
left—never a word to a creature, if you can believe that of me: on
my honour, my dear, I speak of the thing to you now, after all this time,
as I’ve never, never spoken. It was to be enough for me, from the first,
that the child was my niece—from the moment she was my brother’s
daughter. As for her veritable mother—!” But with this Pansy’s
wonderful aunt dropped—as, involuntarily, from the impression of her
sister-in-law’s face, out of which more eyes might have seemed to look at
her than she had ever had to meet.

She had spoken no name, yet Isabel could but check, on her own lips, an
echo of the unspoken. She sank to her seat again, hanging her head. “Why
have you told me this?” she asked in a voice the Countess hardly
recognised.

“Because I’ve been so bored with your not knowing. I’ve been bored,
frankly, my dear, with not having told you; as if, stupidly, all this time
I couldn’t have managed! Ça me depasse, if you don’t mind my saying
so, the things, all round you, that you’ve appeared to succeed in not
knowing. It’s a sort of assistance—aid to innocent ignorance—that
I’ve always been a bad hand at rendering; and in this connexion, that of
keeping quiet for my brother, my virtue has at any rate finally found
itself exhausted. It’s not a black lie, moreover, you know,” the Countess
inimitably added. “The facts are exactly what I tell you.”

“I had no idea,” said Isabel presently; and looked up at her in a manner
that doubtless matched the apparent witlessness of this confession.

“So I believed—though it was hard to believe. Had it never occurred
to you that he was for six or seven years her lover?”

“I don’t know. Things have occurred to me, and perhaps that was
what they all meant.”

“She has been wonderfully clever, she has been magnificent, about Pansy!”
the Countess, before all this view of it, cried.

“Oh, no idea, for me,” Isabel went on, “ever definitely took that
form.” She appeared to be making out to herself what had been and what
hadn’t. “And as it is—I don’t understand.”

She spoke as one troubled and puzzled, yet the poor Countess seemed to
have seen her revelation fall below its possibilities of effect. She had
expected to kindle some responsive blaze, but had barely extracted a
spark. Isabel showed as scarce more impressed than she might have been, as
a young woman of approved imagination, with some fine sinister passage of
public history. “Don’t you recognise how the child could never pass for her
husband’s?—that is with M. Merle himself,” her companion resumed.
“They had been separated too long for that, and he had gone to some far
country—I think to South America. If she had ever had children—which
I’m not sure of—she had lost them. The conditions happened to make
it workable, under stress (I mean at so awkward a pinch), that Osmond
should acknowledge the little girl. His wife was dead—very true; but
she had not been dead too long to put a certain accommodation of dates out
of the question—from the moment, I mean, that suspicion wasn’t
started; which was what they had to take care of. What was more natural
than that poor Mrs. Osmond, at a distance and for a world not troubling
about trifles, should have left behind her, poverina, the pledge of
her brief happiness that had cost her her life? With the aid of a change
of residence—Osmond had been living with her at Naples at the time
of their stay in the Alps, and he in due course left it for ever—the
whole history was successfully set going. My poor sister-in-law, in her
grave, couldn’t help herself, and the real mother, to save her
skin, renounced all visible property in the child.”

“Ah, poor, poor woman!” cried Isabel, who herewith burst into tears. It
was a long time since she had shed any; she had suffered a high reaction
from weeping. But now they flowed with an abundance in which the Countess
Gemini found only another discomfiture.

“It’s very kind of you to pity her!” she discordantly laughed. “Yes
indeed, you have a way of your own—!”

“He must have been false to his wife—and so very soon!” said Isabel
with a sudden check.

“That’s all that’s wanting—that you should take up her cause!” the
Countess went on. “I quite agree with you, however, that it was much too
soon.”

“But to me, to me—?” And Isabel hesitated as if she had not heard;
as if her question—though it was sufficiently there in her eyes—were
all for herself.

“To you he has been faithful? Well, it depends, my dear, on what you call
faithful. When he married you he was no longer the lover of another woman—such
a lover as he had been, cara mia, between their risks and their
precautions, while the thing lasted! That state of affairs had passed
away; the lady had repented, or at all events, for reasons of her own,
drawn back: she had always had, too, a worship of appearances so intense
that even Osmond himself had got bored with it. You may therefore imagine
what it was—when he couldn’t patch it on conveniently to any
of those he goes in for! But the whole past was between them.”

“Yes,” Isabel mechanically echoed, “the whole past is between them.”

“Ah, this later past is nothing. But for six or seven years, as I say,
they had kept it up.”

She was silent a little. “Why then did she want him to marry me?”

“Ah my dear, that’s her superiority! Because you had money; and because
she believed you would be good to Pansy.”

“Poor woman—and Pansy who doesn’t like her!” cried Isabel.

“That’s the reason she wanted some one whom Pansy would like. She knows
it; she knows everything.”

“Will she know that you’ve told me this?”

“That will depend upon whether you tell her. She’s prepared for it, and do
you know what she counts upon for her defence? On your believing that I
lie. Perhaps you do; don’t make yourself uncomfortable to hide it. Only,
as it happens this time, I don’t. I’ve told plenty of little idiotic fibs,
but they’ve never hurt any one but myself.”

Isabel sat staring at her companion’s story as at a bale of fantastic
wares some strolling gypsy might have unpacked on the carpet at her feet.
“Why did Osmond never marry her?” she finally asked.

“Because she had no money.” The Countess had an answer for everything, and
if she lied she lied well. “No one knows, no one has ever known, what she
lives on, or how she has got all those beautiful things. I don’t believe
Osmond himself knows. Besides, she wouldn’t have married him.”

“How can she have loved him then?”

“She doesn’t love him in that way. She did at first, and then, I suppose,
she would have married him; but at that time her husband was living. By
the time M. Merle had rejoined—I won’t say his ancestors, because he
never had any—her relations with Osmond had changed, and she had
grown more ambitious. Besides, she has never had, about him,” the Countess
went on, leaving Isabel to wince for it so tragically afterwards—“she
had never had, what you might call any illusions of intelligence.
She hoped she might marry a great man; that has always been her idea. She
has waited and watched and plotted and prayed; but she has never
succeeded. I don’t call Madame Merle a success, you know. I don’t know
what she may accomplish yet, but at present she has very little to show.
The only tangible result she has ever achieved—except, of course,
getting to know every one and staying with them free of expense—has
been her bringing you and Osmond together. Oh, she did that, my dear; you
needn’t look as if you doubted it. I’ve watched them for years; I know
everything—everything. I’m thought a great scatterbrain, but I’ve
had enough application of mind to follow up those two. She hates me, and
her way of showing it is to pretend to be for ever defending me. When
people say I’ve had fifteen lovers she looks horrified and declares that
quite half of them were never proved. She has been afraid of me for years,
and she has taken great comfort in the vile, false things people have said
about me. She has been afraid I’d expose her, and she threatened me one
day when Osmond began to pay his court to you. It was at his house in
Florence; do you remember that afternoon when she brought you there and we
had tea in the garden? She let me know then that if I should tell tales
two could play at that game. She pretends there’s a good deal more to tell
about me than about her. It would be an interesting comparison! I don’t
care a fig what she may say, simply because I know you don’t care a
fig. You can’t trouble your head about me less than you do already. So she
may take her revenge as she chooses; I don’t think she’ll frighten you
very much. Her great idea has been to be tremendously irreproachable—a
kind of full-blown lily—the incarnation of propriety. She has always
worshipped that god. There should be no scandal about Caesar’s wife, you
know; and, as I say, she has always hoped to marry Caesar. That was one
reason she wouldn’t marry Osmond; the fear that on seeing her with Pansy
people would put things together—would even see a resemblance. She
has had a terror lest the mother should betray herself. She has been
awfully careful; the mother has never done so.”

“Yes, yes, the mother has done so,” said Isabel, who had listened to all
this with a face more and more wan. “She betrayed herself to me the other
day, though I didn’t recognise her. There appeared to have been a chance
of Pansy’s making a great marriage, and in her disappointment at its not
coming off she almost dropped the mask.”

“Ah, that’s where she’d dish herself!” cried the Countess. “She has failed
so dreadfully that she’s determined her daughter shall make it up.”

Isabel started at the words “her daughter,” which her guest threw off so
familiarly. “It seems very wonderful,” she murmured; and in this
bewildering impression she had almost lost her sense of being personally
touched by the story.

“Now don’t go and turn against the poor innocent child!” the Countess went
on. “She’s very nice, in spite of her deplorable origin. I myself have
liked Pansy; not, naturally, because she was hers, but because she had
become yours.”

“Yes, she has become mine. And how the poor woman must have suffered at
seeing me—!” Isabel exclaimed while she flushed at the thought.

“I don’t believe she has suffered; on the contrary, she has enjoyed.
Osmond’s marriage has given his daughter a great little lift. Before that
she lived in a hole. And do you know what the mother thought? That you
might take such a fancy to the child that you’d do something for her.
Osmond of course could never give her a portion. Osmond was really
extremely poor; but of course you know all about that. Ah, my dear,” cried
the Countess, “why did you ever inherit money?” She stopped a moment as if
she saw something singular in Isabel’s face. “Don’t tell me now that
you’ll give her a dot. You’re capable of that, but I would refuse to
believe it. Don’t try to be too good. Be a little easy and natural and
nasty; feel a little wicked, for the comfort of it, once in your life!”

“It’s very strange. I suppose I ought to know, but I’m sorry,” Isabel
said. “I’m much obliged to you.”

“Yes, you seem to be!” cried the Countess with a mocking laugh. “Perhaps
you are—perhaps you’re not. You don’t take it as I should have
thought.”

“How should I take it?” Isabel asked.

“Well, I should say as a woman who has been made use of.” Isabel made no
answer to this; she only listened, and the Countess went on. “They’ve
always been bound to each other; they remained so even after she broke off—or
he did. But he has always been more for her than she has been for
him. When their little carnival was over they made a bargain that each
should give the other complete liberty, but that each should also do
everything possible to help the other on. You may ask me how I know such a
thing as that. I know it by the way they’ve behaved. Now see how much
better women are than men! She has found a wife for Osmond, but Osmond has
never lifted a little finger for her. She has worked for him,
plotted for him, suffered for him; she has even more than once found money
for him; and the end of it is that he’s tired of her. She’s an old habit;
there are moments when he needs her, but on the whole he wouldn’t miss her
if she were removed. And, what’s more, to-day she knows it. So you needn’t
be jealous!” the Countess added humorously.

Isabel rose from her sofa again; she felt bruised and scant of breath; her
head was humming with new knowledge. “I’m much obliged to you,” she
repeated. And then she added abruptly, in quite a different tone: “How do
you know all this?”

This enquiry appeared to ruffle the Countess more than Isabel’s expression
of gratitude pleased her. She gave her companion a bold stare, with which,
“Let us assume that I’ve invented it!” she cried. She too, however,
suddenly changed her tone and, laying her hand on Isabel’s arm, said with
the penetration of her sharp bright smile: “Now will you give up your
journey?”

Isabel started a little; she turned away. But she felt weak and in a
moment had to lay her arm upon the mantel-shelf for support. She stood a
minute so, and then upon her arm she dropped her dizzy head, with closed
eyes and pale lips.

“I’ve done wrong to speak—I’ve made you ill!” the Countess cried.

“Ah, I must see Ralph!” Isabel wailed; not in resentment, not in the quick
passion her companion had looked for; but in a tone of far-reaching,
infinite sadness.


CHAPTER LII

There was a train for Turin and Paris that evening; and after the Countess
had left her Isabel had a rapid and decisive conference with her maid, who
was discreet, devoted and active. After this she thought (except of her
journey) only of one thing. She must go and see Pansy; from her she
couldn’t turn away. She had not seen her yet, as Osmond had given her to
understand that it was too soon to begin. She drove at five o’clock to a
high floor in a narrow street in the quarter of the Piazza Navona, and was
admitted by the portress of the convent, a genial and obsequious person.
Isabel had been at this institution before; she had come with Pansy to see
the sisters. She knew they were good women, and she saw that the large
rooms were clean and cheerful and that the well-used garden had sun for
winter and shade for spring. But she disliked the place, which affronted
and almost frightened her; not for the world would she have spent a night
there. It produced to-day more than before the impression of a
well-appointed prison; for it was not possible to pretend Pansy was free
to leave it. This innocent creature had been presented to her in a new and
violent light, but the secondary effect of the revelation was to make her
reach out a hand.

The portress left her to wait in the parlour of the convent while she went
to make it known that there was a visitor for the dear young lady. The
parlour was a vast, cold apartment, with new-looking furniture; a large
clean stove of white porcelain, unlighted, a collection of wax flowers
under glass, and a series of engravings from religious pictures on the
walls. On the other occasion Isabel had thought it less like Rome than
like Philadelphia, but to-day she made no reflexions; the apartment only
seemed to her very empty and very soundless. The portress returned at the
end of some five minutes, ushering in another person. Isabel got up,
expecting to see one of the ladies of the sisterhood, but to her extreme
surprise found herself confronted with Madame Merle. The effect was
strange, for Madame Merle was already so present to her vision that her
appearance in the flesh was like suddenly, and rather awfully, seeing a
painted picture move. Isabel had been thinking all day of her falsity, her
audacity, her ability, her probable suffering; and these dark things
seemed to flash with a sudden light as she entered the room. Her being
there at all had the character of ugly evidence, of handwritings, of
profaned relics, of grim things produced in court. It made Isabel feel
faint; if it had been necessary to speak on the spot she would have been
quite unable. But no such necessity was distinct to her; it seemed to her
indeed that she had absolutely nothing to say to Madame Merle. In one’s
relations with this lady, however, there were never any absolute
necessities; she had a manner which carried off not only her own
deficiencies but those of other people. But she was different from usual;
she came in slowly, behind the portress, and Isabel instantly perceived
that she was not likely to depend upon her habitual resources. For her too
the occasion was exceptional, and she had undertaken to treat it by the
light of the moment. This gave her a peculiar gravity; she pretended not
even to smile, and though Isabel saw that she was more than ever playing a
part it seemed to her that on the whole the wonderful woman had never been
so natural. She looked at her young friend from head to foot, but not
harshly nor defiantly; with a cold gentleness rather, and an absence of
any air of allusion to their last meeting. It was as if she had wished to
mark a distinction. She had been irritated then, she was reconciled now.

“You can leave us alone,” she said to the portress; “in five minutes this
lady will ring for you.” And then she turned to Isabel, who, after noting
what has just been mentioned, had ceased to notice and had let her eyes
wander as far as the limits of the room would allow. She wished never to
look at Madame Merle again. “You’re surprised to find me here, and I’m
afraid you’re not pleased,” this lady went on. “You don’t see why I should
have come; it’s as if I had anticipated you. I confess I’ve been rather
indiscreet—I ought to have asked your permission.” There was none of
the oblique movement of irony in this; it was said simply and mildly; but
Isabel, far afloat on a sea of wonder and pain, could not have told
herself with what intention it was uttered. “But I’ve not been sitting
long,” Madame Merle continued; “that is I’ve not been long with Pansy. I
came to see her because it occurred to me this afternoon that she must be
rather lonely and perhaps even a little miserable. It may be good for a
small girl; I know so little about small girls; I can’t tell. At any rate
it’s a little dismal. Therefore I came—on the chance. I knew of
course that you’d come, and her father as well; still, I had not been told
other visitors were forbidden. The good woman—what’s her name?
Madame Catherine—made no objection whatever. I stayed twenty minutes
with Pansy; she has a charming little room, not in the least conventual,
with a piano and flowers. She has arranged it delightfully; she has so
much taste. Of course it’s all none of my business, but I feel happier
since I’ve seen her. She may even have a maid if she likes; but of course
she has no occasion to dress. She wears a little black frock; she looks so
charming. I went afterwards to see Mother Catherine, who has a very good
room too; I assure you I don’t find the poor sisters at all monastic.
Mother Catherine has a most coquettish little toilet-table, with something
that looked uncommonly like a bottle of eau-de-Cologne. She speaks
delightfully of Pansy; says it’s a great happiness for them to have her.
She’s a little saint of heaven and a model to the oldest of them. Just as
I was leaving Madame Catherine the portress came to say to her that there
was a lady for the signorina. Of course I knew it must be you, and I asked
her to let me go and receive you in her place. She demurred greatly—I
must tell you that—and said it was her duty to notify the Mother
Superior; it was of such high importance that you should be treated with
respect. I requested her to let the Mother Superior alone and asked her
how she supposed I would treat you!”

So Madame Merle went on, with much of the brilliancy of a woman who had
long been a mistress of the art of conversation. But there were phases and
gradations in her speech, not one of which was lost upon Isabel’s ear,
though her eyes were absent from her companion’s face. She had not
proceeded far before Isabel noted a sudden break in her voice, a lapse in
her continuity, which was in itself a complete drama. This subtle
modulation marked a momentous discovery—the perception of an
entirely new attitude on the part of her listener. Madame Merle had
guessed in the space of an instant that everything was at end between
them, and in the space of another instant she had guessed the reason why.
The person who stood there was not the same one she had seen hitherto, but
was a very different person—a person who knew her secret. This
discovery was tremendous, and from the moment she made it the most
accomplished of women faltered and lost her courage. But only for that
moment. Then the conscious stream of her perfect manner gathered itself
again and flowed on as smoothly as might be to the end. But it was only
because she had the end in view that she was able to proceed. She had been
touched with a point that made her quiver, and she needed all the
alertness of her will to repress her agitation. Her only safety was in her
not betraying herself. She resisted this, but the startled quality of her
voice refused to improve—she couldn’t help it—while she heard
herself say she hardly knew what. The tide of her confidence ebbed, and
she was able only just to glide into port, faintly grazing the bottom.

Isabel saw it all as distinctly as if it had been reflected in a large
clear glass. It might have been a great moment for her, for it might have
been a moment of triumph. That Madame Merle had lost her pluck and saw
before her the phantom of exposure—this in itself was a revenge,
this in itself was almost the promise of a brighter day. And for a moment
during which she stood apparently looking out of the window, with her back
half-turned, Isabel enjoyed that knowledge. On the other side of the
window lay the garden of the convent; but this is not what she saw; she
saw nothing of the budding plants and the glowing afternoon. She saw, in
the crude light of that revelation which had already become a part of
experience and to which the very frailty of the vessel in which it had
been offered her only gave an intrinsic price, the dry staring fact that
she had been an applied handled hung-up tool, as senseless and convenient
as mere shaped wood and iron. All the bitterness of this knowledge surged
into her soul again; it was as if she felt on her lips the taste of
dishonour. There was a moment during which, if she had turned and spoken,
she would have said something that would hiss like a lash. But she closed
her eyes, and then the hideous vision dropped. What remained was the
cleverest woman in the world standing there within a few feet of her and
knowing as little what to think as the meanest. Isabel’s only revenge was
to be silent still—to leave Madame Merle in this unprecedented
situation. She left her there for a period that must have seemed long to
this lady, who at last seated herself with a movement which was in itself
a confession of helplessness. Then Isabel turned slow eyes, looking down
at her. Madame Merle was very pale; her own eyes covered Isabel’s face.
She might see what she would, but her danger was over. Isabel would never
accuse her, never reproach her; perhaps because she never would give her
the opportunity to defend herself.

“I’m come to bid Pansy good-bye,” our young woman said at last. “I go to
England to-night.”

“Go to England to-night!” Madame Merle repeated sitting there and looking
up at her.

“I’m going to Gardencourt. Ralph Touchett’s dying.”

“Ah, you’ll feel that.” Madame Merle recovered herself; she had a chance
to express sympathy. “Do you go alone?”

“Yes; without my husband.”

Madame Merle gave a low vague murmur; a sort of recognition of the general
sadness of things. “Mr. Touchett never liked me, but I’m sorry he’s dying.
Shall you see his mother?”

“Yes; she has returned from America.”

“She used to be very kind to me; but she has changed. Others too have
changed,” said Madame Merle with a quiet noble pathos. She paused a
moment, then added: “And you’ll see dear old Gardencourt again!”

“I shall not enjoy it much,” Isabel answered.

“Naturally—in your grief. But it’s on the whole, of all the houses I
know, and I know many, the one I should have liked best to live in. I
don’t venture to send a message to the people,” Madame Merle added; “but I
should like to give my love to the place.”

Isabel turned away. “I had better go to Pansy. I’ve not much time.”

While she looked about her for the proper egress, the door opened and
admitted one of the ladies of the house, who advanced with a discreet
smile, gently rubbing, under her long loose sleeves, a pair of plump white
hands. Isabel recognised Madame Catherine, whose acquaintance she had
already made, and begged that she would immediately let her see Miss
Osmond. Madame Catherine looked doubly discreet, but smiled very blandly
and said: “It will be good for her to see you. I’ll take you to her
myself.” Then she directed her pleased guarded vision to Madame Merle.

“Will you let me remain a little?” this lady asked. “It’s so good to be
here.”

“You may remain always if you like!” And the good sister gave a knowing
laugh.

She led Isabel out of the room, through several corridors, and up a long
staircase. All these departments were solid and bare, light and clean; so,
thought Isabel, are the great penal establishments. Madame Catherine
gently pushed open the door of Pansy’s room and ushered in the visitor;
then stood smiling with folded hands while the two others met and
embraced.

“She’s glad to see you,” she repeated; “it will do her good.” And she
placed the best chair carefully for Isabel. But she made no movement to
seat herself; she seemed ready to retire. “How does this dear child look?”
she asked of Isabel, lingering a moment.

“She looks pale,” Isabel answered.

“That’s the pleasure of seeing you. She’s very happy. Elle éclaire la
maison,” said the good sister.

Pansy wore, as Madame Merle had said, a little black dress; it was perhaps
this that made her look pale. “They’re very good to me—they think of
everything!” she exclaimed with all her customary eagerness to
accommodate.

“We think of you always—you’re a precious charge,” Madame Catherine
remarked in the tone of a woman with whom benevolence was a habit and
whose conception of duty was the acceptance of every care. It fell with a
leaden weight on Isabel’s ears; it seemed to represent the surrender of a
personality, the authority of the Church.

When Madame Catherine had left them together Pansy kneeled down and hid
her head in her stepmother’s lap. So she remained some moments, while
Isabel gently stroked her hair. Then she got up, averting her face and
looking about the room. “Don’t you think I’ve arranged it well? I’ve
everything I have at home.”

“It’s very pretty; you’re very comfortable.” Isabel scarcely knew what she
could say to her. On the one hand she couldn’t let her think she had come
to pity her, and on the other it would be a dull mockery to pretend to
rejoice with her. So she simply added after a moment: “I’ve come to bid
you good-bye. I’m going to England.”

Pansy’s white little face turned red. “To England! Not to come back?”

“I don’t know when I shall come back.”

“Ah, I’m sorry,” Pansy breathed with faintness. She spoke as if she had no
right to criticise; but her tone expressed a depth of disappointment.

“My cousin, Mr. Touchett, is very ill; he’ll probably die. I wish to see
him,” Isabel said.

“Ah yes; you told me he would die. Of course you must go. And will papa
go?”

“No; I shall go alone.”

For a moment the girl said nothing. Isabel had often wondered what she
thought of the apparent relations of her father with his wife; but never
by a glance, by an intimation, had she let it be seen that she deemed them
deficient in an air of intimacy. She made her reflexions, Isabel was sure;
and she must have had a conviction that there were husbands and wives who
were more intimate than that. But Pansy was not indiscreet even in
thought; she would as little have ventured to judge her gentle stepmother
as to criticise her magnificent father. Her heart may have stood almost as
still as it would have done had she seen two of the saints in the great
picture in the convent chapel turn their painted heads and shake them at
each other. But as in this latter case she would (for very solemnity’s
sake) never have mentioned the awful phenomenon, so she put away all
knowledge of the secrets of larger lives than her own. “You’ll be very far
away,” she presently went on.

“Yes; I shall be far away. But it will scarcely matter,” Isabel explained;
“since so long as you’re here I can’t be called near you.”

“Yes, but you can come and see me; though you’ve not come very often.”

“I’ve not come because your father forbade it. To-day I bring nothing with
me. I can’t amuse you.”

“I’m not to be amused. That’s not what papa wishes.”

“Then it hardly matters whether I’m in Rome or in England.”

“You’re not happy, Mrs. Osmond,” said Pansy.

“Not very. But it doesn’t matter.”

“That’s what I say to myself. What does it matter? But I should like to
come out.”

“I wish indeed you might.”

“Don’t leave me here,” Pansy went on gently.

Isabel said nothing for a minute; her heart beat fast. “Will you come away
with me now?” she asked.

Pansy looked at her pleadingly. “Did papa tell you to bring me?”

“No; it’s my own proposal.”

“I think I had better wait then. Did papa send me no message?”

“I don’t think he knew I was coming.”

“He thinks I’ve not had enough,” said Pansy. “But I have. The ladies are
very kind to me and the little girls come to see me. There are some very
little ones—such charming children. Then my room—you can see
for yourself. All that’s very delightful. But I’ve had enough. Papa wished
me to think a little—and I’ve thought a great deal.”

“What have you thought?”

“Well, that I must never displease papa.”

“You knew that before.”

“Yes; but I know it better. I’ll do anything—I’ll do anything,” said
Pansy. Then, as she heard her own words, a deep, pure blush came into her
face. Isabel read the meaning of it; she saw the poor girl had been
vanquished. It was well that Mr. Edward Rosier had kept his enamels!
Isabel looked into her eyes and saw there mainly a prayer to be treated
easily. She laid her hand on Pansy’s as if to let her know that her look
conveyed no diminution of esteem; for the collapse of the girl’s momentary
resistance (mute and modest thought it had been) seemed only her tribute
to the truth of things. She didn’t presume to judge others, but she had
judged herself; she had seen the reality. She had no vocation for
struggling with combinations; in the solemnity of sequestration there was
something that overwhelmed her. She bowed her pretty head to authority and
only asked of authority to be merciful. Yes; it was very well that Edward
Rosier had reserved a few articles!

Isabel got up; her time was rapidly shortening. “Good-bye then. I leave
Rome to-night.”

Pansy took hold of her dress; there was a sudden change in the child’s
face. “You look strange, you frighten me.”

“Oh, I’m very harmless,” said Isabel.

“Perhaps you won’t come back?”

“Perhaps not. I can’t tell.”

“Ah, Mrs. Osmond, you won’t leave me!”

Isabel now saw she had guessed everything. “My dear child, what can I do
for you?” she asked.

“I don’t know—but I’m happier when I think of you.”

“You can always think of me.”

“Not when you’re so far. I’m a little afraid,” said Pansy.

“What are you afraid of?”

“Of papa—a little. And of Madame Merle. She has just been to see
me.”

“You must not say that,” Isabel observed.

“Oh, I’ll do everything they want. Only if you’re here I shall do it more
easily.”

Isabel considered. “I won’t desert you,” she said at last. “Good-bye, my
child.”

Then they held each other a moment in a silent embrace, like two sisters;
and afterwards Pansy walked along the corridor with her visitor to the top
of the staircase. “Madame Merle has been here,” she remarked as they went;
and as Isabel answered nothing she added abruptly: “I don’t like Madame
Merle!”

Isabel hesitated, then stopped. “You must never say that—that you
don’t like Madame Merle.”

Pansy looked at her in wonder; but wonder with Pansy had never been a
reason for non-compliance. “I never will again,” she said with exquisite
gentleness. At the top of the staircase they had to separate, as it
appeared to be part of the mild but very definite discipline under which
Pansy lived that she should not go down. Isabel descended, and when she
reached the bottom the girl was standing above. “You’ll come back?” she
called out in a voice that Isabel remembered afterwards.

“Yes—I’ll come back.”

Madame Catherine met Mrs. Osmond below and conducted her to the door of
the parlour, outside of which the two stood talking a minute. “I won’t go
in,” said the good sister. “Madame Merle’s waiting for you.”

At this announcement Isabel stiffened; she was on the point of asking if
there were no other egress from the convent. But a moment’s reflexion
assured her that she would do well not to betray to the worthy nun her
desire to avoid Pansy’s other friend. Her companion grasped her arm very
gently and, fixing her a moment with wise, benevolent eyes, said in French
and almost familiarly: “Eh bien, chère Madame, qu’en pensez-vous?”

“About my step-daughter? Oh, it would take long to tell you.”

“We think it’s enough,” Madame Catherine distinctly observed. And she
pushed open the door of the parlour.

Madame Merle was sitting just as Isabel had left her, like a woman so
absorbed in thought that she had not moved a little finger. As Madame
Catherine closed the door she got up, and Isabel saw that she had been
thinking to some purpose. She had recovered her balance; she was in full
possession of her resources. “I found I wished to wait for you,” she said
urbanely. “But it’s not to talk about Pansy.”

Isabel wondered what it could be to talk about, and in spite of Madame
Merle’s declaration she answered after a moment: “Madame Catherine says
it’s enough.”

“Yes; it also seems to me enough. I wanted to ask you another word about
poor Mr. Touchett,” Madame Merle added. “Have you reason to believe that
he’s really at his last?”

“I’ve no information but a telegram. Unfortunately it only confirms a
probability.”

“I’m going to ask you a strange question,” said Madame Merle. “Are you
very fond of your cousin?” And she gave a smile as strange as her
utterance.

“Yes, I’m very fond of him. But I don’t understand you.”

She just hung fire. “It’s rather hard to explain. Something has occurred
to me which may not have occurred to you, and I give you the benefit of my
idea. Your cousin did you once a great service. Have you never guessed
it?”

“He has done me many services.”

“Yes; but one was much above the rest. He made you a rich woman.”

“He made me—?”

Madame Merle appearing to see herself successful, she went on more
triumphantly: “He imparted to you that extra lustre which was required to
make you a brilliant match. At bottom it’s him you’ve to thank.” She
stopped; there was something in Isabel’s eyes.

“I don’t understand you. It was my uncle’s money.”

“Yes; it was your uncle’s money, but it was your cousin’s idea. He brought
his father over to it. Ah, my dear, the sum was large!”

Isabel stood staring; she seemed to-day to live in a world illumined by
lurid flashes. “I don’t know why you say such things. I don’t know what
you know.”

“I know nothing but what I’ve guessed. But I’ve guessed that.”

Isabel went to the door and, when she had opened it, stood a moment with
her hand on the latch. Then she said—it was her only revenge: “I
believed it was you I had to thank!”

Madame Merle dropped her eyes; she stood there in a kind of proud penance.
“You’re very unhappy, I know. But I’m more so.”

“Yes; I can believe that. I think I should like never to see you again.”

Madame Merle raised her eyes. “I shall go to America,” she quietly
remarked while Isabel passed out.


CHAPTER LIII

It was not with surprise, it was with a feeling which in other
circumstances would have had much of the effect of joy, that as Isabel
descended from the Paris Mail at Charing Cross she stepped into the arms,
as it were—or at any rate into the hands—of Henrietta
Stackpole. She had telegraphed to her friend from Turin, and though she
had not definitely said to herself that Henrietta would meet her, she had
felt her telegram would produce some helpful result. On her long journey
from Rome her mind had been given up to vagueness; she was unable to
question the future. She performed this journey with sightless eyes and
took little pleasure in the countries she traversed, decked out though
they were in the richest freshness of spring. Her thoughts followed their
course through other countries—strange-looking, dimly-lighted,
pathless lands, in which there was no change of seasons, but only, as it
seemed, a perpetual dreariness of winter. She had plenty to think about;
but it was neither reflexion nor conscious purpose that filled her mind.
Disconnected visions passed through it, and sudden dull gleams of memory,
of expectation. The past and the future came and went at their will, but
she saw them only in fitful images, which rose and fell by a logic of
their own. It was extraordinary the things she remembered. Now that she
was in the secret, now that she knew something that so much concerned her
and the eclipse of which had made life resemble an attempt to play whist
with an imperfect pack of cards, the truth of things, their mutual
relations, their meaning, and for the most part their horror, rose before
her with a kind of architectural vastness. She remembered a thousand
trifles; they started to life with the spontaneity of a shiver. She had
thought them trifles at the time; now she saw that they had been weighted
with lead. Yet even now they were trifles after all, for of what use was
it to her to understand them? Nothing seemed of use to her to-day. All
purpose, all intention, was suspended; all desire too save the single
desire to reach her much-embracing refuge. Gardencourt had been her
starting-point, and to those muffled chambers it was at least a temporary
solution to return. She had gone forth in her strength; she would come
back in her weakness, and if the place had been a rest to her before, it
would be a sanctuary now. She envied Ralph his dying, for if one were
thinking of rest that was the most perfect of all. To cease utterly, to
give it all up and not know anything more—this idea was as sweet as
the vision of a cool bath in a marble tank, in a darkened chamber, in a
hot land.

She had moments indeed in her journey from Rome which were almost as good
as being dead. She sat in her corner, so motionless, so passive, simply
with the sense of being carried, so detached from hope and regret, that
she recalled to herself one of those Etruscan figures couched upon the
receptacle of their ashes. There was nothing to regret now—that was
all over. Not only the time of her folly, but the time of her repentance
was far. The only thing to regret was that Madame Merle had been so—well,
so unimaginable. Just here her intelligence dropped, from literal
inability to say what it was that Madame Merle had been. Whatever it was
it was for Madame Merle herself to regret it; and doubtless she would do
so in America, where she had announced she was going. It concerned Isabel
no more; she only had an impression that she should never again see Madame
Merle. This impression carried her into the future, of which from time to
time she had a mutilated glimpse. She saw herself, in the distant years,
still in the attitude of a woman who had her life to live, and these
intimations contradicted the spirit of the present hour. It might be
desirable to get quite away, really away, further away than little
grey-green England, but this privilege was evidently to be denied her.
Deep in her soul—deeper than any appetite for renunciation—was
the sense that life would be her business for a long time to come. And at
moments there was something inspiring, almost enlivening, in the
conviction. It was a proof of strength—it was a proof she should
some day be happy again. It couldn’t be she was to live only to suffer;
she was still young, after all, and a great many things might happen to
her yet. To live only to suffer—only to feel the injury of life
repeated and enlarged—it seemed to her she was too valuable, too
capable, for that. Then she wondered if it were vain and stupid to think
so well of herself. When had it even been a guarantee to be valuable?
Wasn’t all history full of the destruction of precious things? Wasn’t it
much more probable that if one were fine one would suffer? It involved
then perhaps an admission that one had a certain grossness; but Isabel
recognised, as it passed before her eyes, the quick vague shadow of a long
future. She should never escape; she should last to the end. Then the
middle years wrapped her about again and the grey curtain of her
indifference closed her in.

Henrietta kissed her, as Henrietta usually kissed, as if she were afraid
she should be caught doing it; and then Isabel stood there in the crowd,
looking about her, looking for her servant. She asked nothing; she wished
to wait. She had a sudden perception that she should be helped. She
rejoiced Henrietta had come; there was something terrible in an arrival in
London. The dusky, smoky, far-arching vault of the station, the strange,
livid light, the dense, dark, pushing crowd, filled her with a nervous
fear and made her put her arm into her friend’s. She remembered she had
once liked these things; they seemed part of a mighty spectacle in which
there was something that touched her. She remembered how she walked away
from Euston, in the winter dusk, in the crowded streets, five years
before. She could not have done that to-day, and the incident came before
her as the deed of another person.

“It’s too beautiful that you should have come,” said Henrietta, looking at
her as if she thought Isabel might be prepared to challenge the
proposition. “If you hadn’t—if you hadn’t; well, I don’t know,”
remarked Miss Stackpole, hinting ominously at her powers of disapproval.

Isabel looked about without seeing her maid. Her eyes rested on another
figure, however, which she felt she had seen before; and in a moment she
recognised the genial countenance of Mr. Bantling. He stood a little
apart, and it was not in the power of the multitude that pressed about him
to make him yield an inch of the ground he had taken—that of
abstracting himself discreetly while the two ladies performed their
embraces.

“There’s Mr. Bantling,” said Isabel, gently, irrelevantly, scarcely caring
much now whether she should find her maid or not.

“Oh yes, he goes everywhere with me. Come here, Mr. Bantling!” Henrietta
exclaimed. Whereupon the gallant bachelor advanced with a smile—a
smile tempered, however, by the gravity of the occasion. “Isn’t it lovely
she has come?” Henrietta asked. “He knows all about it,” she added; “we
had quite a discussion. He said you wouldn’t, I said you would.”

“I thought you always agreed,” Isabel smiled in return. She felt she could
smile now; she had seen in an instant, in Mr. Bantling’s brave eyes, that
he had good news for her. They seemed to say he wished her to remember he
was an old friend of her cousin—that he understood, that it was all
right. Isabel gave him her hand; she thought of him, extravagantly, as a
beautiful blameless knight.

“Oh, I always agree,” said Mr. Bantling. “But she doesn’t, you know.”

“Didn’t I tell you that a maid was a nuisance?” Henrietta enquired. “Your
young lady has probably remained at Calais.”

“I don’t care,” said Isabel, looking at Mr. Bantling, whom she had never
found so interesting.

“Stay with her while I go and see,” Henrietta commanded, leaving the two
for a moment together.

They stood there at first in silence, and then Mr. Bantling asked Isabel
how it had been on the Channel.

“Very fine. No, I believe it was very rough,” she said, to her companion’s
obvious surprise. After which she added: “You’ve been to Gardencourt, I
know.”

“Now how do you know that?”

“I can’t tell you—except that you look like a person who has been to
Gardencourt.”

“Do you think I look awfully sad? It’s awfully sad there, you know.”

“I don’t believe you ever look awfully sad. You look awfully kind,” said
Isabel with a breadth that cost her no effort. It seemed to her she should
never again feel a superficial embarrassment.

Poor Mr. Bantling, however, was still in this inferior stage. He blushed a
good deal and laughed, he assured her that he was often very blue, and
that when he was blue he was awfully fierce. “You can ask Miss Stackpole,
you know. I was at Gardencourt two days ago.”

“Did you see my cousin?”

“Only for a little. But he had been seeing people; Warburton had been
there the day before. Ralph was just the same as usual, except that he was
in bed and that he looks tremendously ill and that he can’t speak,” Mr.
Bantling pursued. “He was awfully jolly and funny all the same. He was
just as clever as ever. It’s awfully wretched.”

Even in the crowded, noisy station this simple picture was vivid. “Was
that late in the day?”

“Yes; I went on purpose. We thought you’d like to know.”

“I’m greatly obliged to you. Can I go down to-night?”

“Ah, I don’t think she’ll let you go,” said Mr. Bantling. “She
wants you to stop with her. I made Touchett’s man promise to telegraph me
to-day, and I found the telegram an hour ago at my club. ‘Quiet and easy,’
that’s what it says, and it’s dated two o’clock. So you see you can wait
till to-morrow. You must be awfully tired.”

“Yes, I’m awfully tired. And I thank you again.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Bantling, “We were certain you would like the last news.”
On which Isabel vaguely noted that he and Henrietta seemed after all to
agree. Miss Stackpole came back with Isabel’s maid, whom she had caught in
the act of proving her utility. This excellent person, instead of losing
herself in the crowd, had simply attended to her mistress’s luggage, so
that the latter was now at liberty to leave the station. “You know you’re
not to think of going to the country to-night,” Henrietta remarked to her.
“It doesn’t matter whether there’s a train or not. You’re to come straight
to me in Wimpole Street. There isn’t a corner to be had in London, but
I’ve got you one all the same. It isn’t a Roman palace, but it will do for
a night.”

“I’ll do whatever you wish,” Isabel said.

“You’ll come and answer a few questions; that’s what I wish.”

“She doesn’t say anything about dinner, does she, Mrs. Osmond?” Mr.
Bantling enquired jocosely.

Henrietta fixed him a moment with her speculative gaze. “I see you’re in a
great hurry to get your own. You’ll be at the Paddington Station to-morrow
morning at ten.”

“Don’t come for my sake, Mr. Bantling,” said Isabel.

“He’ll come for mine,” Henrietta declared as she ushered her friend into a
cab. And later, in a large dusky parlour in Wimpole Street—to do her
justice there had been dinner enough—she asked those questions to
which she had alluded at the station. “Did your husband make you a scene
about your coming?” That was Miss Stackpole’s first enquiry.

“No; I can’t say he made a scene.”

“He didn’t object then?”

“Yes, he objected very much. But it was not what you’d call a scene.”

“What was it then?”

“It was a very quiet conversation.”

Henrietta for a moment regarded her guest. “It must have been hellish,”
she then remarked. And Isabel didn’t deny that it had been hellish. But
she confined herself to answering Henrietta’s questions, which was easy,
as they were tolerably definite. For the present she offered her no new
information. “Well,” said Miss Stackpole at last, “I’ve only one criticism
to make. I don’t see why you promised little Miss Osmond to go back.”

“I’m not sure I myself see now,” Isabel replied. “But I did then.”

“If you’ve forgotten your reason perhaps you won’t return.”

Isabel waited a moment. “Perhaps I shall find another.”

“You’ll certainly never find a good one.”

“In default of a better my having promised will do,” Isabel suggested.

“Yes; that’s why I hate it.”

“Don’t speak of it now. I’ve a little time. Coming away was a
complication, but what will going back be?”

“You must remember, after all, that he won’t make you a scene!” said
Henrietta with much intention.

“He will, though,” Isabel answered gravely. “It won’t be the scene of a
moment; it will be a scene of the rest of my life.”

For some minutes the two women sat and considered this remainder, and then
Miss Stackpole, to change the subject, as Isabel had requested, announced
abruptly: “I’ve been to stay with Lady Pensil!”

“Ah, the invitation came at last!”

“Yes; it took five years. But this time she wanted to see me.”

“Naturally enough.”

“It was more natural than I think you know,” said Henrietta, who fixed her
eyes on a distant point. And then she added, turning suddenly: “Isabel
Archer, I beg your pardon. You don’t know why? Because I criticised you,
and yet I’ve gone further than you. Mr. Osmond, at least, was born on the
other side!”

It was a moment before Isabel grasped her meaning; this sense was so
modestly, or at least so ingeniously, veiled. Isabel’s mind was not
possessed at present with the comicality of things; but she greeted with a
quick laugh the image that her companion had raised. She immediately
recovered herself, however, and with the right excess of intensity,
“Henrietta Stackpole,” she asked, “are you going to give up your country?”

“Yes, my poor Isabel, I am. I won’t pretend to deny it; I look the fact in
the face. I’m going to marry Mr. Bantling and locate right here in
London.”

“It seems very strange,” said Isabel, smiling now.

“Well yes, I suppose it does. I’ve come to it little by little. I think I
know what I’m doing; but I don’t know as I can explain.”

“One can’t explain one’s marriage,” Isabel answered. “And yours doesn’t
need to be explained. Mr. Bantling isn’t a riddle.”

“No, he isn’t a bad pun—or even a high flight of American humour. He
has a beautiful nature,” Henrietta went on. “I’ve studied him for many
years and I see right through him. He’s as clear as the style of a good
prospectus. He’s not intellectual, but he appreciates intellect. On the
other hand he doesn’t exaggerate its claims. I sometimes think we do in
the United States.”

“Ah,” said Isabel, “you’re changed indeed! It’s the first time I’ve ever
heard you say anything against your native land.”

“I only say that we’re too infatuated with mere brain-power; that, after
all, isn’t a vulgar fault. But I am changed; a woman has to change
a good deal to marry.”

“I hope you’ll be very happy. You will at last—over here—see
something of the inner life.”

Henrietta gave a little significant sigh. “That’s the key to the mystery,
I believe. I couldn’t endure to be kept off. Now I’ve as good a right as
any one!” she added with artless elation. Isabel was duly diverted, but
there was a certain melancholy in her view. Henrietta, after all, had
confessed herself human and feminine, Henrietta whom she had hitherto
regarded as a light keen flame, a disembodied voice. It was a
disappointment to find she had personal susceptibilities, that she was
subject to common passions, and that her intimacy with Mr. Bantling had
not been completely original. There was a want of originality in her
marrying him—there was even a kind of stupidity; and for a moment,
to Isabel’s sense, the dreariness of the world took on a deeper tinge. A
little later indeed she reflected that Mr. Bantling himself at least was
original. But she didn’t see how Henrietta could give up her country. She
herself had relaxed her hold of it, but it had never been her country as
it had been Henrietta’s. She presently asked her if she had enjoyed her
visit to Lady Pensil.

“Oh yes,” said Henrietta, “she didn’t know what to make of me.”

“And was that very enjoyable?”

“Very much so, because she’s supposed to be a master mind. She thinks she
knows everything; but she doesn’t understand a woman of my modern type. It
would be so much easier for her if I were only a little better or a little
worse. She’s so puzzled; I believe she thinks it’s my duty to go and do
something immoral. She thinks it’s immoral that I should marry her
brother; but, after all, that isn’t immoral enough. And she’ll never
understand my mixture—never!”

“She’s not so intelligent as her brother then,” said Isabel. “He appears
to have understood.”

“Oh no, he hasn’t!” cried Miss Stackpole with decision. “I really believe
that’s what he wants to marry me for—just to find out the mystery
and the proportions of it. That’s a fixed idea—a kind of
fascination.”

“It’s very good in you to humour it.”

“Oh well,” said Henrietta, “I’ve something to find out too!” And Isabel
saw that she had not renounced an allegiance, but planned an attack. She
was at last about to grapple in earnest with England.

Isabel also perceived, however, on the morrow, at the Paddington Station,
where she found herself, at ten o’clock, in the company both of Miss
Stackpole and Mr. Bantling, that the gentleman bore his perplexities
lightly. If he had not found out everything he had found out at least the
great point—that Miss Stackpole would not be wanting in initiative.
It was evident that in the selection of a wife he had been on his guard
against this deficiency.

“Henrietta has told me, and I’m very glad,” Isabel said as she gave him
her hand.

“I dare say you think it awfully odd,” Mr. Bantling replied, resting on
his neat umbrella.

“Yes, I think it awfully odd.”

“You can’t think it so awfully odd as I do. But I’ve always rather liked
striking out a line,” said Mr. Bantling serenely.


CHAPTER LIV

Isabel’s arrival at Gardencourt on this second occasion was even quieter
than it had been on the first. Ralph Touchett kept but a small household,
and to the new servants Mrs. Osmond was a stranger; so that instead of
being conducted to her own apartment she was coldly shown into the
drawing-room and left to wait while her name was carried up to her aunt.
She waited a long time; Mrs. Touchett appeared in no hurry to come to her.
She grew impatient at last; she grew nervous and scared—as scared as
if the objects about her had begun to show for conscious things, watching
her trouble with grotesque grimaces. The day was dark and cold; the dusk
was thick in the corners of the wide brown rooms. The house was perfectly
still—with a stillness that Isabel remembered; it had filled all the
place for days before the death of her uncle. She left the drawing-room
and wandered about—strolled into the library and along the gallery
of pictures, where, in the deep silence, her footstep made an echo.
Nothing was changed; she recognised everything she had seen years before;
it might have been only yesterday she had stood there. She envied the
security of valuable “pieces” which change by no hair’s breadth, only grow
in value, while their owners lose inch by inch youth, happiness, beauty;
and she became aware that she was walking about as her aunt had done on
the day she had come to see her in Albany. She was changed enough since
then—that had been the beginning. It suddenly struck her that if her
Aunt Lydia had not come that day in just that way and found her alone,
everything might have been different. She might have had another life and
she might have been a woman more blest. She stopped in the gallery in
front of a small picture—a charming and precious Bonington—upon
which her eyes rested a long time. But she was not looking at the picture;
she was wondering whether if her aunt had not come that day in Albany she
would have married Caspar Goodwood.

Mrs. Touchett appeared at last, just after Isabel had returned to the big
uninhabited drawing-room. She looked a good deal older, but her eye was as
bright as ever and her head as erect; her thin lips seemed a repository of
latent meanings. She wore a little grey dress of the most undecorated
fashion, and Isabel wondered, as she had wondered the first time, if her
remarkable kinswoman resembled more a queen-regent or the matron of a
gaol. Her lips felt very thin indeed on Isabel’s hot cheek.

“I’ve kept you waiting because I’ve been sitting with Ralph,” Mrs.
Touchett said. “The nurse had gone to luncheon and I had taken her place.
He has a man who’s supposed to look after him, but the man’s good for
nothing; he’s always looking out of the window—as if there were
anything to see! I didn’t wish to move, because Ralph seemed to be
sleeping and I was afraid the sound would disturb him. I waited till the
nurse came back. I remembered you knew the house.”

“I find I know it better even than I thought; I’ve been walking
everywhere,” Isabel answered. And then she asked if Ralph slept much.

“He lies with his eyes closed; he doesn’t move. But I’m not sure that it’s
always sleep.”

“Will he see me? Can he speak to me?”

Mrs. Touchett declined the office of saying. “You can try him,” was the
limit of her extravagance. And then she offered to conduct Isabel to her
room. “I thought they had taken you there; but it’s not my house, it’s
Ralph’s; and I don’t know what they do. They must at least have taken your
luggage; I don’t suppose you’ve brought much. Not that I care, however. I
believe they’ve given you the same room you had before; when Ralph heard
you were coming he said you must have that one.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“Ah, my dear, he doesn’t chatter as he used!” cried Mrs. Touchett as she
preceded her niece up the staircase.

It was the same room, and something told Isabel it had not been slept in
since she occupied it. Her luggage was there and was not voluminous; Mrs.
Touchett sat down a moment with her eyes upon it. “Is there really no
hope?” our young woman asked as she stood before her.

“None whatever. There never has been. It has not been a successful life.”

“No—it has only been a beautiful one.” Isabel found herself already
contradicting her aunt; she was irritated by her dryness.

“I don’t know what you mean by that; there’s no beauty without health.
That is a very odd dress to travel in.”

Isabel glanced at her garment. “I left Rome at an hour’s notice; I took
the first that came.”

“Your sisters, in America, wished to know how you dress. That seemed to be
their principal interest. I wasn’t able to tell them—but they seemed
to have the right idea: that you never wear anything less than black
brocade.”

“They think I’m more brilliant than I am; I’m afraid to tell them the
truth,” said Isabel. “Lily wrote me you had dined with her.”

“She invited me four times, and I went once. After the second time she
should have let me alone. The dinner was very good; it must have been
expensive. Her husband has a very bad manner. Did I enjoy my visit to
America? Why should I have enjoyed it? I didn’t go for my pleasure.”

These were interesting items, but Mrs. Touchett soon left her niece, whom
she was to meet in half an hour at the midday meal. For this repast the
two ladies faced each other at an abbreviated table in the melancholy
dining-room. Here, after a little, Isabel saw her aunt not to be so dry as
she appeared, and her old pity for the poor woman’s inexpressiveness, her
want of regret, of disappointment, came back to her. Unmistakeably she
would have found it a blessing to-day to be able to feel a defeat, a
mistake, even a shame or two. She wondered if she were not even missing
those enrichments of consciousness and privately trying—reaching out
for some aftertaste of life, dregs of the banquet; the testimony of pain
or the cold recreation of remorse. On the other hand perhaps she was
afraid; if she should begin to know remorse at all it might take her too
far. Isabel could perceive, however, how it had come over her dimly that
she had failed of something, that she saw herself in the future as an old
woman without memories. Her little sharp face looked tragical. She told
her niece that Ralph had as yet not moved, but that he probably would be
able to see her before dinner. And then in a moment she added that he had
seen Lord Warburton the day before; an announcement which startled Isabel
a little, as it seemed an intimation that this personage was in the
neighbourhood and that an accident might bring them together. Such an
accident would not be happy; she had not come to England to struggle again
with Lord Warburton. She none the less presently said to her aunt that he
had been very kind to Ralph; she had seen something of that in Rome.

“He has something else to think of now,” Mrs. Touchett returned. And she
paused with a gaze like a gimlet.

Isabel saw she meant something, and instantly guessed what she meant. But
her reply concealed her guess; her heart beat faster and she wished to
gain a moment. “Ah yes—the House of Lords and all that.”

“He’s not thinking of the Lords; he’s thinking of the ladies. At least
he’s thinking of one of them; he told Ralph he’s engaged to be married.”

“Ah, to be married!” Isabel mildly exclaimed.

“Unless he breaks it off. He seemed to think Ralph would like to know.
Poor Ralph can’t go to the wedding, though I believe it’s to take place
very soon.

“And who’s the young lady?”

“A member of the aristocracy; Lady Flora, Lady Felicia—something of
that sort.”

“I’m very glad,” Isabel said. “It must be a sudden decision.”

“Sudden enough, I believe; a courtship of three weeks. It has only just
been made public.”

“I’m very glad,” Isabel repeated with a larger emphasis. She knew her aunt
was watching her—looking for the signs of some imputed soreness, and
the desire to prevent her companion from seeing anything of this kind
enabled her to speak in the tone of quick satisfaction, the tone almost of
relief. Mrs. Touchett of course followed the tradition that ladies, even
married ones, regard the marriage of their old lovers as an offence to
themselves. Isabel’s first care therefore was to show that however that
might be in general she was not offended now. But meanwhile, as I say, her
heart beat faster; and if she sat for some moments thoughtful—she
presently forgot Mrs. Touchett’s observation—it was not because she
had lost an admirer. Her imagination had traversed half Europe; it halted,
panting, and even trembling a little, in the city of Rome. She figured
herself announcing to her husband that Lord Warburton was to lead a bride
to the altar, and she was of course not aware how extremely wan she must
have looked while she made this intellectual effort. But at last she
collected herself and said to her aunt: “He was sure to do it some time or
other.”

Mrs. Touchett was silent; then she gave a sharp little shake of the head.
“Ah, my dear, you’re beyond me!” she cried suddenly. They went on with
their luncheon in silence; Isabel felt as if she had heard of Lord
Warburton’s death. She had known him only as a suitor, and now that was
all over. He was dead for poor Pansy; by Pansy he might have lived. A
servant had been hovering about; at last Mrs. Touchett requested him to
leave them alone. She had finished her meal; she sat with her hands folded
on the edge of the table. “I should like to ask you three questions,” she
observed when the servant had gone.

“Three are a great many.”

“I can’t do with less; I’ve been thinking. They’re all very good ones.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of. The best questions are the worst,” Isabel
answered. Mrs. Touchett had pushed back her chair, and as her niece left
the table and walked, rather consciously, to one of the deep windows, she
felt herself followed by her eyes.

“Have you ever been sorry you didn’t marry Lord Warburton?” Mrs. Touchett
enquired.

Isabel shook her head slowly, but not heavily. “No, dear aunt.”

“Good. I ought to tell you that I propose to believe what you say.”

“Your believing me’s an immense temptation,” she declared, smiling still.

“A temptation to lie? I don’t recommend you to do that, for when I’m
misinformed I’m as dangerous as a poisoned rat. I don’t mean to crow over
you.”

“It’s my husband who doesn’t get on with me,” said Isabel.

“I could have told him he wouldn’t. I don’t call that crowing over you,”
Mrs. Touchett added. “Do you still like Serena Merle?” she went on.

“Not as I once did. But it doesn’t matter, for she’s going to America.”

“To America? She must have done something very bad.”

“Yes—very bad.”

“May I ask what it is?”

“She made a convenience of me.”

“Ah,” cried Mrs. Touchett, “so she did of me! She does of every one.”

“She’ll make a convenience of America,” said Isabel, smiling again and
glad that her aunt’s questions were over.

It was not till the evening that she was able to see Ralph. He had been
dozing all day; at least he had been lying unconscious. The doctor was
there, but after a while went away—the local doctor, who had
attended his father and whom Ralph liked. He came three or four times a
day; he was deeply interested in his patient. Ralph had had Sir Matthew
Hope, but he had got tired of this celebrated man, to whom he had asked
his mother to send word he was now dead and was therefore without further
need of medical advice. Mrs. Touchett had simply written to Sir Matthew
that her son disliked him. On the day of Isabel’s arrival Ralph gave no
sign, as I have related, for many hours; but toward evening he raised
himself and said he knew that she had come.

How he knew was not apparent, inasmuch as for fear of exciting him no one
had offered the information. Isabel came in and sat by his bed in the dim
light; there was only a shaded candle in a corner of the room. She told
the nurse she might go—she herself would sit with him for the rest
of the evening. He had opened his eyes and recognised her, and had moved
his hand, which lay helpless beside him, so that she might take it. But he
was unable to speak; he closed his eyes again and remained perfectly
still, only keeping her hand in his own. She sat with him a long time—till
the nurse came back; but he gave no further sign. He might have passed
away while she looked at him; he was already the figure and pattern of
death. She had thought him far gone in Rome, and this was worse; there was
but one change possible now. There was a strange tranquillity in his face;
it was as still as the lid of a box. With this he was a mere lattice of
bones; when he opened his eyes to greet her it was as if she were looking
into immeasurable space. It was not till midnight that the nurse came
back; but the hours, to Isabel, had not seemed long; it was exactly what
she had come for. If she had come simply to wait she found ample occasion,
for he lay three days in a kind of grateful silence. He recognised her and
at moments seemed to wish to speak; but he found no voice. Then he closed
his eyes again, as if he too were waiting for something—for
something that certainly would come. He was so absolutely quiet that it
seemed to her what was coming had already arrived; and yet she never lost
the sense that they were still together. But they were not always
together; there were other hours that she passed in wandering through the
empty house and listening for a voice that was not poor Ralph’s. She had a
constant fear; she thought it possible her husband would write to her. But
he remained silent, and she only got a letter from Florence and from the
Countess Gemini. Ralph, however, spoke at last—on the evening of the
third day.

“I feel better to-night,” he murmured, abruptly, in the soundless dimness
of her vigil; “I think I can say something.” She sank upon her knees
beside his pillow; took his thin hand in her own; begged him not to make
an effort—not to tire himself. His face was of necessity serious—it
was incapable of the muscular play of a smile; but its owner apparently
had not lost a perception of incongruities. “What does it matter if I’m
tired when I’ve all eternity to rest? There’s no harm in making an effort
when it’s the very last of all. Don’t people always feel better just
before the end? I’ve often heard of that; it’s what I was waiting for.
Ever since you’ve been here I thought it would come. I tried two or three
times; I was afraid you’d get tired of sitting there.” He spoke slowly,
with painful breaks and long pauses; his voice seemed to come from a
distance. When he ceased he lay with his face turned to Isabel and his
large unwinking eyes open into her own. “It was very good of you to come,”
he went on. “I thought you would; but I wasn’t sure.”

“I was not sure either till I came,” said Isabel.

“You’ve been like an angel beside my bed. You know they talk about the
angel of death. It’s the most beautiful of all. You’ve been like that; as
if you were waiting for me.”

“I was not waiting for your death; I was waiting for—for this. This
is not death, dear Ralph.”

“Not for you—no. There’s nothing makes us feel so much alive as to
see others die. That’s the sensation of life—the sense that we
remain. I’ve had it—even I. But now I’m of no use but to give it to
others. With me it’s all over.” And then he paused. Isabel bowed her head
further, till it rested on the two hands that were clasped upon his own.
She couldn’t see him now; but his far-away voice was close to her ear.
“Isabel,” he went on suddenly, “I wish it were over for you.” She answered
nothing; she had burst into sobs; she remained so, with her buried face.
He lay silent, listening to her sobs; at last he gave a long groan. “Ah,
what is it you have done for me?”

“What is it you did for me?” she cried, her now extreme agitation half
smothered by her attitude. She had lost all her shame, all wish to hide
things. Now he must know; she wished him to know, for it brought them
supremely together, and he was beyond the reach of pain. “You did
something once—you know it. O Ralph, you’ve been everything! What
have I done for you—what can I do to-day? I would die if you could
live. But I don’t wish you to live; I would die myself, not to lose you.”
Her voice was as broken as his own and full of tears and anguish.

“You won’t lose me—you’ll keep me. Keep me in your heart; I shall be
nearer to you than I’ve ever been. Dear Isabel, life is better; for in
life there’s love. Death is good—but there’s no love.”

“I never thanked you—I never spoke—I never was what I should
be!” Isabel went on. She felt a passionate need to cry out and accuse
herself, to let her sorrow possess her. All her troubles, for the moment,
became single and melted together into this present pain. “What must you
have thought of me? Yet how could I know? I never knew, and I only know
to-day because there are people less stupid than I.”

“Don’t mind people,” said Ralph. “I think I’m glad to leave people.”

She raised her head and her clasped hands; she seemed for a moment to pray
to him. “Is it true—is it true?” she asked.

“True that you’ve been stupid? Oh no,” said Ralph with a sensible
intention of wit.

“That you made me rich—that all I have is yours?”

He turned away his head, and for some time said nothing. Then at last:
“Ah, don’t speak of that—that was not happy.” Slowly he moved his
face toward her again, and they once more saw each other. “But for that—but
for that—!” And he paused. “I believe I ruined you,” he wailed.

She was full of the sense that he was beyond the reach of pain; he seemed
already so little of this world. But even if she had not had it she would
still have spoken, for nothing mattered now but the only knowledge that
was not pure anguish—the knowledge that they were looking at the
truth together.

“He married me for the money,” she said. She wished to say everything; she
was afraid he might die before she had done so. He gazed at her a little,
and for the first time his fixed eyes lowered their lids. But he raised
them in a moment, and then, “He was greatly in love with you,” he
answered.

“Yes, he was in love with me. But he wouldn’t have married me if I had
been poor. I don’t hurt you in saying that. How can I? I only want you to
understand. I always tried to keep you from understanding; but that’s all
over.”

“I always understood,” said Ralph.

“I thought you did, and I didn’t like it. But now I like it.”

“You don’t hurt me—you make me very happy.” And as Ralph said this
there was an extraordinary gladness in his voice. She bent her head again,
and pressed her lips to the back of his hand. “I always understood,” he
continued, “though it was so strange—so pitiful. You wanted to look
at life for yourself—but you were not allowed; you were punished for
your wish. You were ground in the very mill of the conventional!”

“Oh yes, I’ve been punished,” Isabel sobbed.

He listened to her a little, and then continued: “Was he very bad about
your coming?”

“He made it very hard for me. But I don’t care.”

“It is all over then between you?”

“Oh no; I don’t think anything’s over.”

“Are you going back to him?” Ralph gasped.

“I don’t know—I can’t tell. I shall stay here as long as I may. I
don’t want to think—I needn’t think. I don’t care for anything but
you, and that’s enough for the present. It will last a little yet. Here on
my knees, with you dying in my arms, I’m happier than I have been for a
long time. And I want you to be happy—not to think of anything sad;
only to feel that I’m near you and I love you. Why should there be pain—?
In such hours as this what have we to do with pain? That’s not the deepest
thing; there’s something deeper.”

Ralph evidently found from moment to moment greater difficulty in
speaking; he had to wait longer to collect himself. At first he appeared
to make no response to these last words; he let a long time elapse. Then
he murmured simply: “You must stay here.”

“I should like to stay—as long as seems right.”

“As seems right—as seems right?” He repeated her words. “Yes, you
think a great deal about that.”

“Of course one must. You’re very tired,” said Isabel.

“I’m very tired. You said just now that pain’s not the deepest thing. No—no.
But it’s very deep. If I could stay—”

“For me you’ll always be here,” she softly interrupted. It was easy to
interrupt him.

But he went on, after a moment: “It passes, after all; it’s passing now.
But love remains. I don’t know why we should suffer so much. Perhaps I
shall find out. There are many things in life. You’re very young.”

“I feel very old,” said Isabel.

“You’ll grow young again. That’s how I see you. I don’t believe—I
don’t believe—” But he stopped again; his strength failed him.

She begged him to be quiet now. “We needn’t speak to understand each
other,” she said.

“I don’t believe that such a generous mistake as yours can hurt you for
more than a little.”

“Oh Ralph, I’m very happy now,” she cried through her tears.

“And remember this,” he continued, “that if you’ve been hated you’ve also
been loved. Ah but, Isabel—adored!” he just audibly and
lingeringly breathed.

“Oh my brother!” she cried with a movement of still deeper prostration.


CHAPTER LV

He had told her, the first evening she ever spent at Gardencourt, that if
she should live to suffer enough she might some day see the ghost with
which the old house was duly provided. She apparently had fulfilled the
necessary condition; for the next morning, in the cold, faint dawn, she
knew that a spirit was standing by her bed. She had lain down without
undressing, it being her belief that Ralph would not outlast the night.
She had no inclination to sleep; she was waiting, and such waiting was
wakeful. But she closed her eyes; she believed that as the night wore on
she should hear a knock at her door. She heard no knock, but at the time
the darkness began vaguely to grow grey she started up from her pillow as
abruptly as if she had received a summons. It seemed to her for an instant
that he was standing there—a vague, hovering figure in the vagueness
of the room. She stared a moment; she saw his white face—his kind
eyes; then she saw there was nothing. She was not afraid; she was only
sure. She quitted the place and in her certainty passed through dark
corridors and down a flight of oaken steps that shone in the vague light
of a hall-window. Outside Ralph’s door she stopped a moment, listening,
but she seemed to hear only the hush that filled it. She opened the door
with a hand as gentle as if she were lifting a veil from the face of the
dead, and saw Mrs. Touchett sitting motionless and upright beside the
couch of her son, with one of his hands in her own. The doctor was on the
other side, with poor Ralph’s further wrist resting in his professional
fingers. The two nurses were at the foot between them. Mrs. Touchett took
no notice of Isabel, but the doctor looked at her very hard; then he
gently placed Ralph’s hand in a proper position, close beside him. The
nurse looked at her very hard too, and no one said a word; but Isabel only
looked at what she had come to see. It was fairer than Ralph had ever been
in life, and there was a strange resemblance to the face of his father,
which, six years before, she had seen lying on the same pillow. She went
to her aunt and put her arm around her; and Mrs. Touchett, who as a
general thing neither invited nor enjoyed caresses, submitted for a moment
to this one, rising, as might be, to take it. But she was stiff and
dry-eyed; her acute white face was terrible.

“Dear Aunt Lydia,” Isabel murmured.

“Go and thank God you’ve no child,” said Mrs. Touchett, disengaging
herself.

Three days after this a considerable number of people found time, at the
height of the London “season,” to take a morning train down to a quiet
station in Berkshire and spend half an hour in a small grey church which
stood within an easy walk. It was in the green burial-place of this
edifice that Mrs. Touchett consigned her son to earth. She stood herself
at the edge of the grave, and Isabel stood beside her; the sexton himself
had not a more practical interest in the scene than Mrs. Touchett. It was
a solemn occasion, but neither a harsh nor a heavy one; there was a
certain geniality in the appearance of things. The weather had changed to
fair; the day, one of the last of the treacherous May-time, was warm and
windless, and the air had the brightness of the hawthorn and the
blackbird. If it was sad to think of poor Touchett, it was not too sad,
since death, for him, had had no violence. He had been dying so long; he
was so ready; everything had been so expected and prepared. There were
tears in Isabel’s eyes, but they were not tears that blinded. She looked
through them at the beauty of the day, the splendour of nature, the
sweetness of the old English churchyard, the bowed heads of good friends.
Lord Warburton was there, and a group of gentlemen all unknown to her,
several of whom, as she afterwards learned, were connected with the bank;
and there were others whom she knew. Miss Stackpole was among the first,
with honest Mr. Bantling beside her; and Caspar Goodwood, lifting his head
higher than the rest—bowing it rather less. During much of the time
Isabel was conscious of Mr. Goodwood’s gaze; he looked at her somewhat
harder than he usually looked in public, while the others had fixed their
eyes upon the churchyard turf. But she never let him see that she saw him;
she thought of him only to wonder that he was still in England. She found
she had taken for granted that after accompanying Ralph to Gardencourt he
had gone away; she remembered how little it was a country that pleased
him. He was there, however, very distinctly there; and something in his
attitude seemed to say that he was there with a complex intention. She
wouldn’t meet his eyes, though there was doubtless sympathy in them; he
made her rather uneasy. With the dispersal of the little group he
disappeared, and the only person who came to speak to her—though
several spoke to Mrs. Touchett—was Henrietta Stackpole. Henrietta
had been crying.

Ralph had said to Isabel that he hoped she would remain at Gardencourt,
and she made no immediate motion to leave the place. She said to herself
that it was but common charity to stay a little with her aunt. It was
fortunate she had so good a formula; otherwise she might have been greatly
in want of one. Her errand was over; she had done what she had left her
husband to do. She had a husband in a foreign city, counting the hours of
her absence; in such a case one needed an excellent motive. He was not one
of the best husbands, but that didn’t alter the case. Certain obligations
were involved in the very fact of marriage, and were quite independent of
the quantity of enjoyment extracted from it. Isabel thought of her husband
as little as might be; but now that she was at a distance, beyond its
spell, she thought with a kind of spiritual shudder of Rome. There was a
penetrating chill in the image, and she drew back into the deepest shade
of Gardencourt. She lived from day to day, postponing, closing her eyes,
trying not to think. She knew she must decide, but she decided nothing;
her coming itself had not been a decision. On that occasion she had simply
started. Osmond gave no sound and now evidently would give none; he would
leave it all to her. From Pansy she heard nothing, but that was very
simple: her father had told her not to write.

Mrs. Touchett accepted Isabel’s company, but offered her no assistance;
she appeared to be absorbed in considering, without enthusiasm but with
perfect lucidity, the new conveniences of her own situation. Mrs. Touchett
was not an optimist, but even from painful occurrences she managed to
extract a certain utility. This consisted in the reflexion that, after
all, such things happened to other people and not to herself. Death was
disagreeable, but in this case it was her son’s death, not her own; she
had never flattered herself that her own would be disagreeable to any one
but Mrs. Touchett. She was better off than poor Ralph, who had left all
the commodities of life behind him, and indeed all the security; since the
worst of dying was, to Mrs. Touchett’s mind, that it exposed one to be
taken advantage of. For herself she was on the spot; there was nothing so
good as that. She made known to Isabel very punctually—it was the
evening her son was buried—several of Ralph’s testamentary
arrangements. He had told her everything, had consulted her about
everything. He left her no money; of course she had no need of money. He
left her the furniture of Gardencourt, exclusive of the pictures and books
and the use of the place for a year; after which it was to be sold. The
money produced by the sale was to constitute an endowment for a hospital
for poor persons suffering from the malady of which he died; and of this
portion of the will Lord Warburton was appointed executor. The rest of his
property, which was to be withdrawn from the bank, was disposed of in
various bequests, several of them to those cousins in Vermont to whom his
father had already been so bountiful. Then there were a number of small
legacies.

“Some of them are extremely peculiar,” said Mrs. Touchett; “he has left
considerable sums to persons I never heard of. He gave me a list, and I
asked then who some of them were, and he told me they were people who at
various times had seemed to like him. Apparently he thought you didn’t
like him, for he hasn’t left you a penny. It was his opinion that you had
been handsomely treated by his father, which I’m bound to say I think you
were—though I don’t mean that I ever heard him complain of it. The
pictures are to be dispersed; he has distributed them about, one by one,
as little keepsakes. The most valuable of the collection goes to Lord
Warburton. And what do you think he has done with his library? It sounds
like a practical joke. He has left it to your friend Miss Stackpole—‘in
recognition of her services to literature.’ Does he mean her following him
up from Rome? Was that a service to literature? It contains a great many
rare and valuable books, and as she can’t carry it about the world in her
trunk he recommends her to sell it at auction. She will sell it of course
at Christie’s, and with the proceeds she’ll set up a newspaper. Will that
be a service to literature?”

This question Isabel forbore to answer, as it exceeded the little
interrogatory to which she had deemed it necessary to submit on her
arrival. Besides, she had never been less interested in literature than
to-day, as she found when she occasionally took down from the shelf one of
the rare and valuable volumes of which Mrs. Touchett had spoken. She was
quite unable to read; her attention had never been so little at her
command. One afternoon, in the library, about a week after the ceremony in
the churchyard, she was trying to fix it for an hour; but her eyes often
wandered from the book in her hand to the open window, which looked down
the long avenue. It was in this way that she saw a modest vehicle approach
the door and perceived Lord Warburton sitting, in rather an uncomfortable
attitude, in a corner of it. He had always had a high standard of
courtesy, and it was therefore not remarkable, under the circumstances,
that he should have taken the trouble to come down from London to call on
Mrs. Touchett. It was of course Mrs. Touchett he had come to see, and not
Mrs. Osmond; and to prove to herself the validity of this thesis Isabel
presently stepped out of the house and wandered away into the park. Since
her arrival at Gardencourt she had been but little out of doors, the
weather being unfavourable for visiting the grounds. This evening,
however, was fine, and at first it struck her as a happy thought to have
come out. The theory I have just mentioned was plausible enough, but it
brought her little rest, and if you had seen her pacing about you would
have said she had a bad conscience. She was not pacified when at the end
of a quarter of an hour, finding herself in view of the house, she saw
Mrs. Touchett emerge from the portico accompanied by her visitor. Her aunt
had evidently proposed to Lord Warburton that they should come in search
of her. She was in no humour for visitors and, if she had had a chance,
would have drawn back behind one of the great trees. But she saw she had
been seen and that nothing was left her but to advance. As the lawn at
Gardencourt was a vast expanse this took some time; during which she
observed that, as he walked beside his hostess, Lord Warburton kept his
hands rather stiffly behind him and his eyes upon the ground. Both persons
apparently were silent; but Mrs. Touchett’s thin little glance, as she
directed it toward Isabel, had even at a distance an expression. It seemed
to say with cutting sharpness: “Here’s the eminently amenable nobleman you
might have married!” When Lord Warburton lifted his own eyes, however,
that was not what they said. They only said “This is rather awkward, you
know, and I depend upon you to help me.” He was very grave, very proper
and, for the first time since Isabel had known him, greeted her without a
smile. Even in his days of distress he had always begun with a smile. He
looked extremely selfconscious.

“Lord Warburton has been so good as to come out to see me,” said Mrs.
Touchett. “He tells me he didn’t know you were still here. I know he’s an
old friend of yours, and as I was told you were not in the house I brought
him out to see for himself.”

“Oh, I saw there was a good train at 6.40, that would get me back in time
for dinner,” Mrs. Touchett’s companion rather irrelevantly explained. “I’m
so glad to find you’ve not gone.”

“I’m not here for long, you know,” Isabel said with a certain eagerness.

“I suppose not; but I hope it’s for some weeks. You came to England sooner
than—a—than you thought?”

“Yes, I came very suddenly.”

Mrs. Touchett turned away as if she were looking at the condition of the
grounds, which indeed was not what it should be, while Lord Warburton
hesitated a little. Isabel fancied he had been on the point of asking
about her husband—rather confusedly—and then had checked
himself. He continued immitigably grave, either because he thought it
becoming in a place over which death had just passed, or for more personal
reasons. If he was conscious of personal reasons it was very fortunate
that he had the cover of the former motive; he could make the most of
that. Isabel thought of all this. It was not that his face was sad, for
that was another matter; but it was strangely inexpressive.

“My sisters would have been so glad to come if they had known you were
still here—if they had thought you would see them,” Lord Warburton
went on. “Do kindly let them see you before you leave England.”

“It would give me great pleasure; I have such a friendly recollection of
them.”

“I don’t know whether you would come to Lockleigh for a day or two? You
know there’s always that old promise.” And his lordship coloured a little
as he made this suggestion, which gave his face a somewhat more familiar
air. “Perhaps I’m not right in saying that just now; of course you’re not
thinking of visiting. But I meant what would hardly be a visit. My sisters
are to be at Lockleigh at Whitsuntide for five days; and if you could come
then—as you say you’re not to be very long in England—I would
see that there should be literally no one else.”

Isabel wondered if not even the young lady he was to marry would be there
with her mamma; but she did not express this idea.

“Thank you extremely,” she contented herself with saying; “I’m afraid I
hardly know about Whitsuntide.”

“But I have your promise—haven’t I?—for some other time.”

There was an interrogation in this; but Isabel let it pass. She looked at
her interlocutor a moment, and the result of her observation was that—as
had happened before—she felt sorry for him. “Take care you don’t
miss your train,” she said. And then she added: “I wish you every
happiness.”

He blushed again, more than before, and he looked at his watch. “Ah yes,
6.40; I haven’t much time, but I’ve a fly at the door. Thank you very
much.” It was not apparent whether the thanks applied to her having
reminded him of his train or to the more sentimental remark. “Good-bye,
Mrs. Osmond; good-bye.” He shook hands with her, without meeting her eyes,
and then he turned to Mrs. Touchett, who had wandered back to them. With
her his parting was equally brief; and in a moment the two ladies saw him
move with long steps across the lawn.

“Are you very sure he’s to be married?” Isabel asked of her aunt.

“I can’t be surer than he; but he seems sure. I congratulated him, and he
accepted it.”

“Ah,” said Isabel, “I give it up!”—while her aunt returned to the
house and to those avocations which the visitor had interrupted.

She gave it up, but she still thought of it—thought of it while she
strolled again under the great oaks whose shadows were long upon the acres
of turf. At the end of a few minutes she found herself near a rustic
bench, which, a moment after she had looked at it, struck her as an object
recognised. It was not simply that she had seen it before, nor even that
she had sat upon it; it was that on this spot something important had
happened to her—that the place had an air of association. Then she
remembered that she had been sitting there, six years before, when a
servant brought her from the house the letter in which Caspar Goodwood
informed her that he had followed her to Europe; and that when she had
read the letter she looked up to hear Lord Warburton announcing that he
should like to marry her. It was indeed an historical, an interesting,
bench; she stood and looked at it as if it might have something to say to
her. She wouldn’t sit down on it now—she felt rather afraid of it.
She only stood before it, and while she stood the past came back to her in
one of those rushing waves of emotion by which persons of sensibility are
visited at odd hours. The effect of this agitation was a sudden sense of
being very tired, under the influence of which she overcame her scruples
and sank into the rustic seat. I have said that she was restless and
unable to occupy herself; and whether or no, if you had seen her there,
you would have admired the justice of the former epithet, you would at
least have allowed that at this moment she was the image of a victim of
idleness. Her attitude had a singular absence of purpose; her hands,
hanging at her sides, lost themselves in the folds of her black dress; her
eyes gazed vaguely before her. There was nothing to recall her to the
house; the two ladies, in their seclusion, dined early and had tea at an
indefinite hour. How long she had sat in this position she could not have
told you; but the twilight had grown thick when she became aware that she
was not alone. She quickly straightened herself, glancing about, and then
saw what had become of her solitude. She was sharing it with Caspar
Goodwood, who stood looking at her, a few yards off, and whose footfall on
the unresonant turf, as he came near, she had not heard. It occurred to
her in the midst of this that it was just so Lord Warburton had surprised
her of old.

She instantly rose, and as soon as Goodwood saw he was seen he started
forward. She had had time only to rise when, with a motion that looked
like violence, but felt like—she knew not what, he grasped her by
the wrist and made her sink again into the seat. She closed her eyes; he
had not hurt her; it was only a touch, which she had obeyed. But there was
something in his face that she wished not to see. That was the way he had
looked at her the other day in the churchyard; only at present it was
worse. He said nothing at first; she only felt him close to her—beside
her on the bench and pressingly turned to her. It almost seemed to her
that no one had ever been so close to her as that. All this, however, took
but an instant, at the end of which she had disengaged her wrist, turning
her eyes upon her visitant. “You’ve frightened me,” she said.

“I didn’t mean to,” he answered, “but if I did a little, no matter. I came
from London a while ago by the train, but I couldn’t come here directly.
There was a man at the station who got ahead of me. He took a fly that was
there, and I heard him give the order to drive here. I don’t know who he
was, but I didn’t want to come with him; I wanted to see you alone. So
I’ve been waiting and walking about. I’ve walked all over, and I was just
coming to the house when I saw you here. There was a keeper, or someone,
who met me; but that was all right, because I had made his acquaintance
when I came here with your cousin. Is that gentleman gone? Are you really
alone? I want to speak to you.” Goodwood spoke very fast; he was as
excited as when they had parted in Rome. Isabel had hoped that condition
would subside; and she shrank into herself as she perceived that, on the
contrary, he had only let out sail. She had a new sensation; he had never
produced it before; it was a feeling of danger. There was indeed something
really formidable in his resolution. She gazed straight before her; he,
with a hand on each knee, leaned forward, looking deeply into her face.
The twilight seemed to darken round them. “I want to speak to you,” he
repeated; “I’ve something particular to say. I don’t want to trouble you—as
I did the other day in Rome. That was of no use; it only distressed you. I
couldn’t help it; I knew I was wrong. But I’m not wrong now; please don’t
think I am,” he went on with his hard, deep voice melting a moment into
entreaty. “I came here to-day for a purpose. It’s very different. It was
vain for me to speak to you then; but now I can help you.”

She couldn’t have told you whether it was because she was afraid, or
because such a voice in the darkness seemed of necessity a boon; but she
listened to him as she had never listened before; his words dropped deep
into her soul. They produced a sort of stillness in all her being; and it
was with an effort, in a moment, that she answered him. “How can you help
me?” she asked in a low tone, as if she were taking what he had said
seriously enough to make the enquiry in confidence.

“By inducing you to trust me. Now I know—to-day I know. Do you
remember what I asked you in Rome? Then I was quite in the dark. But
to-day I know on good authority; everything’s clear to me to-day. It was a
good thing when you made me come away with your cousin. He was a good man,
a fine man, one of the best; he told me how the case stands for you. He
explained everything; he guessed my sentiments. He was a member of your
family and he left you—so long as you should be in England—to
my care,” said Goodwood as if he were making a great point. “Do you know
what he said to me the last time I saw him—as he lay there where he
died? He said: ‘Do everything you can for her; do everything she’ll let
you.’”

Isabel suddenly got up. “You had no business to talk about me!”

“Why not—why not, when we talked in that way?” he demanded,
following her fast. “And he was dying—when a man’s dying it’s
different.” She checked the movement she had made to leave him; she was
listening more than ever; it was true that he was not the same as that
last time. That had been aimless, fruitless passion, but at present he had
an idea, which she scented in all her being. “But it doesn’t matter!” he
exclaimed, pressing her still harder, though now without touching a hem of
her garment. “If Touchett had never opened his mouth I should have known
all the same. I had only to look at you at your cousin’s funeral to see
what’s the matter with you. You can’t deceive me any more; for God’s sake
be honest with a man who’s so honest with you. You’re the most unhappy of
women, and your husband’s the deadliest of fiends.”

She turned on him as if he had struck her. “Are you mad?” she cried.

“I’ve never been so sane; I see the whole thing. Don’t think it’s
necessary to defend him. But I won’t say another word against him; I’ll
speak only of you,” Goodwood added quickly. “How can you pretend you’re
not heart-broken? You don’t know what to do—you don’t know where to
turn. It’s too late to play a part; didn’t you leave all that behind you
in Rome? Touchett knew all about it, and I knew it too—what it would
cost you to come here. It will have cost you your life? Say it will”—and
he flared almost into anger: “give me one word of truth! When I know such
a horror as that, how can I keep myself from wishing to save you? What
would you think of me if I should stand still and see you go back to your
reward? ‘It’s awful, what she’ll have to pay for it!’—that’s what
Touchett said to me. I may tell you that, mayn’t I? He was such a near
relation!” cried Goodwood, making his queer grim point again. “I’d sooner
have been shot than let another man say those things to me; but he was
different; he seemed to me to have the right. It was after he got home—when
he saw he was dying, and when I saw it too. I understand all about it:
you’re afraid to go back. You’re perfectly alone; you don’t know where to
turn. You can’t turn anywhere; you know that perfectly. Now it is
therefore that I want you to think of me.”

“To think of ‘you’?” Isabel said, standing before him in the dusk. The
idea of which she had caught a glimpse a few moments before now loomed
large. She threw back her head a little; she stared at it as if it had
been a comet in the sky.

“You don’t know where to turn. Turn straight to me. I want to persuade you
to trust me,” Goodwood repeated. And then he paused with his shining eyes.
“Why should you go back—why should you go through that ghastly
form?”

“To get away from you!” she answered. But this expressed only a little of
what she felt. The rest was that she had never been loved before. She had
believed it, but this was different; this was the hot wind of the desert,
at the approach of which the others dropped dead, like mere sweet airs of
the garden. It wrapped her about; it lifted her off her feet, while the
very taste of it, as of something potent, acrid and strange, forced open
her set teeth.

At first, in rejoinder to what she had said, it seemed to her that he
would break out into greater violence. But after an instant he was
perfectly quiet; he wished to prove he was sane, that he had reasoned it
all out. “I want to prevent that, and I think I may, if you’ll only for
once listen to me. It’s too monstrous of you to think of sinking back into
that misery, of going to open your mouth to that poisoned air. It’s you
that are out of your mind. Trust me as if I had the care of you. Why
shouldn’t we be happy—when it’s here before us, when it’s so easy?
I’m yours for ever—for ever and ever. Here I stand; I’m as firm as a
rock. What have you to care about? You’ve no children; that perhaps would
be an obstacle. As it is you’ve nothing to consider. You must save what
you can of your life; you mustn’t lose it all simply because you’ve lost a
part. It would be an insult to you to assume that you care for the look of
the thing, for what people will say, for the bottomless idiocy of the
world. We’ve nothing to do with all that; we’re quite out of it; we look
at things as they are. You took the great step in coming away; the next is
nothing; it’s the natural one. I swear, as I stand here, that a woman
deliberately made to suffer is justified in anything in life—in
going down into the streets if that will help her! I know how you suffer,
and that’s why I’m here. We can do absolutely as we please; to whom under
the sun do we owe anything? What is it that holds us, what is it that has
the smallest right to interfere in such a question as this? Such a
question is between ourselves—and to say that is to settle it! Were
we born to rot in our misery—were we born to be afraid? I never knew
you afraid! If you’ll only trust me, how little you will be
disappointed! The world’s all before us—and the world’s very big. I
know something about that.”

Isabel gave a long murmur, like a creature in pain; it was as if he were
pressing something that hurt her.

“The world’s very small,” she said at random; she had an immense desire to
appear to resist. She said it at random, to hear herself say something;
but it was not what she meant. The world, in truth, had never seemed so
large; it seemed to open out, all round her, to take the form of a mighty
sea, where she floated in fathomless waters. She had wanted help, and here
was help; it had come in a rushing torrent. I know not whether she
believed everything he said; but she believed just then that to let him
take her in his arms would be the next best thing to her dying. This
belief, for a moment, was a kind of rapture, in which she felt herself
sink and sink. In the movement she seemed to beat with her feet, in order
to catch herself, to feel something to rest on.

“Ah, be mine as I’m yours!” she heard her companion cry. He had suddenly
given up argument, and his voice seemed to come, harsh and terrible,
through a confusion of vaguer sounds.

This however, of course, was but a subjective fact, as the metaphysicians
say; the confusion, the noise of waters, all the rest of it, were in her
own swimming head. In an instant she became aware of this. “Do me the
greatest kindness of all,” she panted. “I beseech you to go away!”

“Ah, don’t say that. Don’t kill me!” he cried.

She clasped her hands; her eyes were streaming with tears. “As you love
me, as you pity me, leave me alone!”

He glared at her a moment through the dusk, and the next instant she felt
his arms about her and his lips on her own lips. His kiss was like white
lightning, a flash that spread, and spread again, and stayed; and it was
extraordinarily as if, while she took it, she felt each thing in his hard
manhood that had least pleased her, each aggressive fact of his face, his
figure, his presence, justified of its intense identity and made one with
this act of possession. So had she heard of those wrecked and under water
following a train of images before they sink. But when darkness returned
she was free. She never looked about her; she only darted from the spot.
There were lights in the windows of the house; they shone far across the
lawn. In an extraordinarily short time—for the distance was
considerable—she had moved through the darkness (for she saw
nothing) and reached the door. Here only she paused. She looked all about
her; she listened a little; then she put her hand on the latch. She had
not known where to turn; but she knew now. There was a very straight path.

Two days afterwards Caspar Goodwood knocked at the door of the house in
Wimpole Street in which Henrietta Stackpole occupied furnished lodgings.
He had hardly removed his hand from the knocker when the door was opened
and Miss Stackpole herself stood before him. She had on her hat and
jacket; she was on the point of going out. “Oh, good-morning,” he said, “I
was in hopes I should find Mrs. Osmond.”

Henrietta kept him waiting a moment for her reply; but there was a good
deal of expression about Miss Stackpole even when she was silent. “Pray
what led you to suppose she was here?”

“I went down to Gardencourt this morning, and the servant told me she had
come to London. He believed she was to come to you.”

Again Miss Stackpole held him—with an intention of perfect kindness—in
suspense. “She came here yesterday, and spent the night. But this morning
she started for Rome.”

Caspar Goodwood was not looking at her; his eyes were fastened on the
doorstep. “Oh, she started—?” he stammered. And without finishing
his phrase or looking up he stiffly averted himself. But he couldn’t
otherwise move.

Henrietta had come out, closing the door behind her, and now she put out
her hand and grasped his arm. “Look here, Mr. Goodwood,” she said; “just
you wait!”

On which he looked up at her—but only to guess, from her face, with
a revulsion, that she simply meant he was young. She stood shining at him
with that cheap comfort, and it added, on the spot, thirty years to his
life. She walked him away with her, however, as if she had given him now
the key to patience.

Scroll to Top