 CHAPTER 45 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 where 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, nonetheless, the rapid approach of the day when she would have to take back something she had solemnly bestowed. 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 is 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 nonetheless 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 forever. Any open acknowledgement of irreconcilable needs would be an admission that their whole attempt had proved to 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, Isabelle went to the Hotel 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. Isabelle's application of that measure had been particularly free today, 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, but 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 Isabelle, 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. Isabelle 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 inquire what you're talking about? Isabelle 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. Osment. Isabelle 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 Lockley. Does he really think it? Ah, what Warburton really thinks, said Ralph. Isabelle 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, oh, 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. Isabelle 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 dishonorable, said Ralph. I'm very sure of that. Nothing can be more honorable 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 Isabelle. 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 should 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? Isabelle 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 step-daughter'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. Isabelle 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 almost a 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 cruelest. He would have liked to warn Isabelle of it, to let her see at least how he judged for her and how he knew. It little mattered that Isabelle 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, dishonorable 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 principle 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. Pansies after all, his daughter, not mine. And she put out her hand to wish him good-bye. 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 bedroom fire. She had blown out her candles on the completion of her toilette 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 Rocanera 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 by 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, and innocence even more complete than Isabel had yet judged it, gave to the most tentative inquiry 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 is 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. That'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 someone else was thinking 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 tones 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 someone 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 someone 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. Someone 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. 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 anyone 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. Rosia looks like one, she remarked, very gravely. This is a LibriVox Recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Red Abriss. The Portrait of a Lady. Volume 2 by Henry James. Chapter 46. Lord Warbutton was not seen in Mrs. Osmond's drawing room for several days, and Isabel could not 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 Warbutton? 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 is an odd fish, said Osmond comprehensively, and on Isabel's making no rejoinder, he went on to inquire whether it took his lordship five days to indict a letter. Does he form his words with such difficulty? I don't know. Isabel was reduced to replying. I have 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 Warbutton 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 is 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 have no objection whatever. You expect too much of me. Ah, yes. I expect a great deal of you. I am 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 Warbutton, 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 recognize 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, so it turned. I accuse you of not being trustworthy. If he doesn't after all come forward, it will be because you have 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 have no doubt you have 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, recall 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 position 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 Warbutton, 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 am 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 am awfully sorry to leave poor touch it. 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 large ship carefully avoided them. Yet Isabel was sure that had she met his glance, she would have found it expressive. You had better take poor touch it 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 absolute 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 Garden Court once more? Garden Court was really very good. Touch it 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 Touch it 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 Garden Court a piece of his mind. Of course it was a mere accident he would be delighted to have them. Spending a month with Touch it 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 Ms. 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 goodbye? Not that he liked goodbyes, he always funked them. When he left England, the other day he hadn't said goodbye to a two-legged creature. He had had half a mind to leave Rome without troubling Ms. 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 Ms. Osmond didn't think he spoke as he ought, she must set it down to agitation. It was no light thing to part with Ms. 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 Lockley. 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 hand, she had a perfect consciousness of Osman'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 Osman's cleverness that he could look conzumentally uncompromised. His present appearance, however, was not a confession of disappointment. It was simply a part of Osman'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 everyone, 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 Osman. He would give no sign of gain, not the faintest or the 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. Osman, in his way, was admirable. He had, like the 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 office, 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 leaf-taker's movements had no relation to his own mind. The latter did well, certainly, but Osman'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 fruitation. He had never committed himself, and his honour was safe. Osman 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 pants he 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 goodbye to Pansy, but neither Isabel nor Osman 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. Osman, however, presently got up, like a man of good taste to whom it had orchard that so inveterate a visitor might wish to say, just the last word of all to the ladies. I have a letter to write before dinner, he said. You must excuse me. I will see if my daughter is disengaged, and if she is, she shall know you are here. Of course, when you come to Rome you will always look us up. Mrs. Osman will talk to you about the English expedition. She decides all those things. The nod with which, instead of a handshake, he wound up this little speech was perhaps rather a meager 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 is 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 Mrs. Osman 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 will 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 Loclay once and you never did? Everything's changed since then, said Isabel. Not changed for the worse, surely, as far as we are 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 goodbye. Goodbye, 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 have 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 step-daughter, 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 are a very good friend then to have asked Papa to be gentle with me. I have 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 recognized 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 endured by the machinations of her stepmother. It was a partial expression at any date 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 am 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 a 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. Glides in the great room were few. She drew her cloak about her. She felt mortally cold. I think you are trying to humiliate me. Osman went on. It's a most absurd undertaking. I haven't the least idea what you mean. She returned. You have played a very deep game. You have managed it beautifully. What is it that I have managed? You have 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 Warbutton is under an obligation to come back, you are wrong, Isabel said. He is under none whatever. That's just what I complain of. But when I say he will come back, I don't mean he will come from a sense of duty. There is nothing else to make him. I think he has quite exhausted Rome. Ah, no. That's a shallow judgment. Rome is inexhaustible. And Osman began to walk about again. However, about that perhaps there is 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 he will 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? Garden coat. It must be a charming thing. And then, you know, I have 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. Pants he ought to see England. I have no doubt she would enjoy it, said Isabel. But that's a long time hence. Next autumn's far off. Osman continued. And meantime there are things that are more nearly interest us. Do you think me so very proud? he suddenly asked. I think you're 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 illusions is 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 have done with it. She had spoken of his insulting her, but it suddenly seemed to her that this seized 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 have nothing to say to me that's worth hearing. She returned in a moment. Where 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. It 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 wide 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 explained in a long murmur. I was never so fine as you. You have done everything you wanted. You have got him out of the way without appearing to do so. And you have 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 protestly failed. Pancy doesn't care for him. She is very glad he has gone. Isabel said. That has nothing to do with the matter. And he doesn't care for Pancy. 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 have been presumptuous. That I have taken too much for granted. I have 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 have never been more so than today. 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 are disappointed. You have had another opportunity to try to stupify me. It's not that. It's proof that Pancy can aim high. Poor little Pancy said Isabel as she turned away with her candle. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Portrait of a Lady Volume 2 by Henry James Chapter 47 It was from Henrietta Stackpole that she learned how Casper 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 Murrell, who had gone to Naples to stay with a friend, the happy possessor of a villa at Posalipo. Madame Murrell 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 Casper 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 aftersense 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 somber about you, and whom you could yet do nothing to relieve. It would have been different if she'd 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 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 an apprehension, a peculiar concussion. It was deficient in the social drapery commonly muffling, in an over-civilized age, the sharpness of human contacts. His perfect silence, moreover, the fact that she had 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 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 Casper, and she saw herself disposed or able to settle it today, 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 anyone 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 Isabella 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 Isabelle, 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 Isabelle she had grown vague. Of old she had never been vague, though undertaking many inquiries 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 a sense of further obligations to it. It's nothing to come to Europe, she said to Isabelle. 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 anyone 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 Isabelle was sad. Henrietta guessed a great deal, but she had never guessed so happily as that. Isabelle'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 confident, 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 face to face of being wretched. She was a woman, she was a sister, she was not Ralph, nor Lord Warburton, nor Casper Goodwood, and Isabelle 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 inquiring 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, Isabelle 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 am married him before all the world. I was perfectly free. It was impossible to do anything more deliberate. One can't change that way, Isabelle repeated. You have changed in spite of the impossibility. I hope you don't mean to say you like him. Isabelle 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, Isabelle answered. It was not surprising Gilbert Osmond should not have taken comfort in Ms. Stackpole. His instinct had naturally set him in opposition to a young lady capable of advising his wife to withdraw from the Condugal Roof. When she arrived in Rome, he had said to Isabelle that he hoped she would leave her friend the interviewer alone, and Isabelle 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. Isabelle received Ms. 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 Isabelle that Ms. Osmond had a little look as if she could remember everything one said. I don't want to be remembered that way, Ms. Stackpole declared. I consider that my conversation refers only to the moment, like the morning papers. Your step-daughter, as she sits there, looks as if she can't remember anything. 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 favorably of Pansy, whose absence of initiative, of conversation, of personal claims, seemed to her, in a girl of twenty, unnatural and even uncanny. Isabelle 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 Ms. Stackpole should come to dine at Palazzo Rocanero 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 Isabelle'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 the least in common with. Your cousin, I have always thought, a conceited ass, besides his being the most ill-favored 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 the windows, wraps on the walls, and almost thinks he'll take the place. Will you be so good as to drop a lease? Then, on the whole, he decides that the rooms are too small. He doesn't think he could live on the third floor. He must look out for a piano-no-bow. 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 in as much 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 footmen 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 Casper 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. Isabelle 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. Tuchette's door at the close of their last interview. He was dressed just as he had been dressed on that day. Isabelle 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 Stackpool's other topic was very different. She gave Isabelle the latest news about Mr. Bentley. 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 the 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 recognize 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 colored 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. Bentley 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 around. Mr. Bentley 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 Pencil, and that this time the invitation should come to her straight. The mystery about that other one had never been explained. Casper Goodwood came at last to Palazzo Rocanero. 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 sidelight 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. Osborne 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 ameager 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 lighthearted 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 of 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 express 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 Casper 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. Casper Goodwood took to riding on the Campania, 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 are the person in the world who has the most right, he answered. I've given you assurances that I've never given anyone else. The service was that he should go and see her cousin Ralph, who was ill at the Hotel 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 Garden Court. Casper 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 Hotel de Paris, and, on being shown into the presence of the Master of Garden Court, found Miss Stackpole sitting beside his sofa. A singular change had in fact occurred in this lady's relations with Ralph Tushette. 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. Casper 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. Casper granted all Miss Stackpole's merits in advance, but had no further remark to make about her. Neither, after the first illusions, 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 hotel de Paris. It seemed to Isabel that she had been very clever. She had artfully disposed of the superfluous Casper. 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 intensely eager that Ralph should depart. She had a constant fear that 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 Garden Court, where the dark ivy would cluster round the edges of the glimmering window. There seemed to Isabel in these days something sacred in Garden Court. 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 Rossier, 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? This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org.