 CHAPTER XVIII It had occurred to Ralph that, in the conditions, Isabelle's parting with her friend might be of a slightly embarrassed nature, and he went down to the door of the hotel in advance of his cousin, who, after a slight delay, followed with the traces of an unaccepted remonstrance as he thought in her eyes. The two made the journey to Garden Court in almost unbroken silence, and the servant who met them at the station had no better news to give them of Mr. Touchett, a fact which caused Ralph to congratulate himself afresh on Sir Matthew Hopes having promised to come down in the five o'clock train and spend the night. Mrs. Touchett, he learned, on reaching home, had been constantly with the old man and was with him at that moment, and this fact made Ralph say to himself that, after all, what his mother wanted was just easy occasion. The finer natures were those that shone at the larger times. Isabelle went to her own room, noting throughout the house that perceptible hush which precedes a crisis. At the end of an hour, however, she came downstairs in search of her aunt, whom she wished to ask about Mr. Touchett. She went to the library, but Mrs. Touchett was not there, and as the weather, which had been damp and chill, was now altogether spoiled, it was not probable she had gone for her usual walk in the grounds. Isabelle was on the point of ringing to send a question to her room when this purpose quickly yielded to an unexpected sound, the sound of low music proceeding apparently from the saloon. She knew her aunt never touched the piano, and the musician was therefore probably Ralph, who played for his own amusement. That he should have resorted to this recreation at the present time indicated apparently that his anxiety about his father had been relieved, so that the girl took her way almost with restored cheer toward the source of the harmony. The drawing-room at Garden Court was an apartment of great distances, and as the piano was placed at the end of it furthest removed from the door at which she entered, her arrival was not noticed by the person seated before the instrument. This person was neither Ralph nor his mother. It was a lady whom Isabelle immediately saw to be a stranger to herself, though her back was presented to the door. This back, an ample and well-dressed one, Isabelle viewed for some moments with surprise. The lady was of course a visitor who had arrived during her absence and who had not been mentioned by either of the servants, one of them her aunts made, of whom she had had speech since her return. Isabelle had already learned, however, with what treasures of reserve the function of receiving orders may be accompanied, and she was particularly conscious of having been treated with dryness by her aunts made, through whose hands she had slipped perhaps a little too mistrustfully and with an effect of plumage but the more lustrous. The advent of a guest was itself far from disconcerting. She had not yet divested herself of a young faith that each new acquaintance would exert some momentous influence on her life. By the time she had made these reflections she became aware that the lady at the piano played remarkably well. She was playing something of Schubert's, Isabelle knew not what but recognized Schubert, and she touched the piano with a discretion of her own. It showed skill, it showed feeling. Isabelle sat down noiselessly on the nearest chair and waited till the end of the piece. When it was finished she felt a strong desire to thank the player, and rose from her seat to do so, while at the same time the stranger turned quickly round as if but just aware of her presence. "'That's very beautiful! And your playing makes it more beautiful still,' said Isabelle, with all the young radiance with which she usually uttered a truthful rapture. "'You don't think I disturbed Mr. Turchet then?' the musician answered as sweetly as this compliment deserved. The house is so large in his room so far away that I thought I might venture, especially as I play just, just du bout des doigts. "'She's a French woman,' Isabelle said to herself. She says that as if she were French. And this supposition made the visitor more interesting to our speculative heroine. "'I hope my uncle's doing well,' Isabelle added. "'I should think that to hear such lovely music as that would really make him feel better.' The lady smiled and discriminated. "'I'm afraid there are moments in life when even Schubert has nothing to say to us. We must admit, however, that they are our worst. "'I'm not in that state now, then,' said Isabelle. "'On the contrary, I should be so glad if you would play something more. If it will give you pleasure, delight it. "'And this obliging person took her place again and struck a few chords while Isabelle sat down nearer the instrument. Suddenly the newcomer stopped with her hands on the keys, half turning and looking over her shoulder. She was forty years old and not pretty, though her expression charmed. "'Pardon me,' she said. "'But are you the niece, the young American?' "'I'm my aunt's niece,' Isabelle replied with simplicity. The lady at the piano sat still a moment longer, casting her air of interest over her shoulder. "'That's very well. We're compatriots.' And then she began to play. "'Ah, then she's not French,' Isabelle murmured. And as the opposite supposition had made her romantic, it might have seemed that this revelation would have marked a drop. But such was not the fact. Rarer even, then, to be French, seemed it to be American on such interesting terms. The lady played in the same manner as before, softly and solemnly, and while she played the shadows deepened in the room. The autumn twilight gathered in, and from her place Isabelle could see the rain which had now begun in earnest, washing the cold-looking lawn and the wind shaking the great trees. At last when the music had ceased her companion got up and, coming nearer with a smile, before Isabelle had time to thank her again, said, "'I'm very glad you've come back. I've heard a great deal about you.' Isabelle thought her a very attractive person, but nevertheless spoke with a certain abruptness in reply to the speech. From whom have you heard about me?' The stranger hesitated a single moment, and then, "'From your uncle,' she answered. "'I've been here three days, and the first day he let me come and pay him a visit in his room. Then he talked constantly of you. As you didn't know me, that must rather have bored you.' It made me want to know you. All the more that since then, your aunt being so much with Mr. Touchet, I've been quite alone and have got rather tired of my own society. I've not chosen a good moment for my visit.' A servant had come in with lamps and was presently followed by another bearing the tea-tray. On the appearance of this repast Mrs. Touchet had apparently been notified, for she now arrived and addressed herself to the teapot. Her greeting to her niece did not differ materially from her manner of raising the lid of this receptacle in order to glance at the contents. In neither act was it becoming to make a show of evitity. Questioned about her husband she was unable to say he was better. But the local doctor was with him, and much light was expected from this gentleman's consultation with Sir Matthew Hope. "'I suppose you two ladies have made acquaintance,' she pursued. "'If you haven't, I recommend you to do so. For so long as we continue,' Ralph and I, to cluster about Mr. Touchet's bed, you're not likely to have much society but each other.' "'I know nothing about you, but that you're a great musician,' Isabel said to the visitor. "'There's a good deal more than that to know,' Mrs. Touchet affirmed in her little dry tone. "'A very little of it, I am sure, will content, Miss Archer,' the lady exclaimed with a light laugh. "'I'm an old friend of your aunts. I've lived much in Florence. I'm Madame Merle.' She made this last announcement, as if she were referring to a person of tolerably distinct identity. For Isabel, however, it represented little. She could only continue to feel that Madame Merle had as charming a manner as any she had ever encountered. "'She's not a foreigner in spite of her name,' said Mrs. Touchet. "'She was born. I always forget where you were born.' "'It's hardly worth while, then I should tell you.' "'On the contrary,' said Mrs. Touchet, who rarely missed a logical point, "'if I remembered, you're telling me would be quite superfluous.' Madame Merle glanced at Isabel with a sort of world-wide smile, a thing that overreached frontiers. I was born under the shadow of the national banner. "'She's too fond of mystery,' said Mrs. Touchet. "'That's her great fault.' "'Ah!' exclaimed Madame Merle. "'I've great faults, but I don't think that's one of them. It certainly isn't the greatest. I came into the world in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. My father was a high officer in the United States Navy and had a post, a post of responsibility, in that establishment at the time. I suppose I ought to love the sea, but I hate it. That's why I don't return to America. I love the land. The great thing is to love something.'" Isabel, as a dispassionate witness, had not been struck with the force of Mrs. Touchet's characterization of her visitor, who had an expressive, communicative, responsive face, by no means of the sort which, to Isabel's mind, suggested a secretive disposition. It was a face that told of an amplitude of nature and of quick and free motions, and, though it had no regular beauty, was in the highest degree engaging and attaching. Madame Merle was a tall, fair, smooth woman. Everything in her person was round and replete, though without those accumulations which suggest heaviness. Her features were thick but in perfect proportion and harmony, and her complexion had a healthy clearness. Her gray eyes were small but full of light and incapable of stupidity, incapable according to some people, even of tears. She had a liberal, full-rimmed mouth which, when she smiled, drew itself upward to the left side in a manner that most people thought very odd, some very affected, and a few very graceful. Isabel inclined to range herself in the last category. Madame Merle had thick, fair hair, arranged somehow classically, and as if she were a bust, Isabel judged, a Juneau or a Neobi, and large white hands of a perfect shape, a shape so perfect that their possessor, preferring to leave them unadorned, wore no jeweled rings. Isabel had taken her at first, as we have seen for a French woman, but extended observation might have ranked her as a German, a German of high degree, perhaps an Austrian, a Baroness, a Countess, a Princess. It would never have been supposed she had come into the world in Brooklyn, though one could doubtless not have carried through any argument that the air of distinction marking her in so eminent a degree was inconsistent with such a birth. It was true that the national banner had floated immediately over her cradle, and the breezy freedom of the stars and stripes might have shed an influence upon the attitude she there took towards life. And yet she had evidently nothing of the fluttered flapping quality of a morsel of bunting in the wind. Her manner expressed the repose and confidence which come from large experience. Experience, however, had not quenched her youth. It had simply made her sympathetic and supple. She was, in a word, a woman of strong impulses kept in admirable order. This commended itself to Isabel as an ideal combination. The girl made these reflections while the three ladies sat at their tea, but that ceremony was interrupted before long by the arrival of the great doctor from London, who had been immediately ushered into the drawing-room. Mrs. Touchett took him off to the library for a private talk, and then Madame Merle and Isabel parted to meet again at dinner. The idea of seeing more of this interesting woman did much to mitigate Isabel's sense of the sadness now settling on Garden Court. When she came into the drawing-room before dinner she found the place empty. But in the course of a moment Ralph arrived. His anxiety about his father had been lightened. Sir Matthew hopes view of his condition was less depressed than his own had been. The doctor recommended that the nurse alone should remain with the old man for the next three or four hours, so that Ralph, his mother and the great physician himself, were free to die in at table. Mrs. Touchett and Sir Matthew appeared. Madame Merle was the last. Before she came Isabel spoke of her to Ralph, who was standing before the fireplace. "'Pray who is this Madame Merle?' "'The cleverest woman I know, not accepting yourself,' said Ralph. "'I thought she seemed very pleasant.' "'I was sure you'd think her very pleasant.' "'Is that why you invited her?' "'I didn't invite her. And when we came back from London I didn't know she was here. No one invited her. She's a friend of my mother's, and just after you and I went to town my mother got a note from her. She had arrived in England. She usually lives abroad, though she has first and last spent a good deal of time here, and asked leave to come down for a few days. She's a woman who can make such proposals with perfect confidence. She's so welcome wherever she goes. And with my mother there could be no question of hesitating. She's the one person in the world whom my mother very much admires. If she were not herself, which she after all much prefers, she would like to be Madame Merle. It would indeed be a great change.' "'Well, she's very charming,' said Isabel, and she plays beautifully. She does everything beautifully. She's complete.' Isabel looked at her cousin a moment. You don't like her?' On the contrary, I was once in love with her. And she didn't care for you. And that's why you don't like her.' "'How can we have discussed such things?' Mr. Merle was then living.' "'Is he dead now?' So she says. "'Don't you believe her?' "'Yes, because the statement agrees with the probabilities. The husband of Madame Merle would be likely to pass away.' Isabel gazed at her cousin again. "'I don't know what you mean. You mean something that you don't mean.' "'What was Mr. Merle?' The husband of Madame. "'You're very odious. Has she any children?' "'Not the least, little child, fortunately.' "'Fortunately? I mean, fortunately for the child, she'd be sure to spoil it.' Isabel was apparently on the point of assuring her cousin for the third time that he was odious. But the discussion was interrupted by the arrival of the lady who was the topic of it. She came rustling in quickly apologizing for being late, fastening a bracelet, dressed in dark blue satin which exposed a white bosom that was ineffectually covered by a curious silver necklace. Ralph offered her his arm with the exaggerated alertness of a man who was no longer a lover. Even if this had still been his condition, however, Ralph had other things to think about. The great doctor spent the night at Garden Court and, returning to London on the morrow, after another consultation with Mr. Touchett's own medical adviser, concurred in Ralph's desire that he should see the patient again on the day following. On the day following Sir Matthew Hope reappeared at Garden Court, and now took a less encouraging view of the old man who had grown worse in the twenty-four hours. His feebleness was extreme, and to his son, who constantly sat by his bedside, it often seemed that his end must be at hand. The local doctor, a very sagacious man, in whom Ralph had secretly more confidence than in his distinguished colleague, was constantly in attendance, and Sir Matthew Hope came back several times. Mr. Touchett was much of the time unconscious. He slept a great deal. He rarely spoke. Ralph had a great desire to be useful to him, and was allowed to watch him at hours when his other attendance, of whom Mrs. Touchett was not the least regular, went to take rest. He never seemed to know her, and she always said to herself, suppose he should die while I'm sitting here, an idea of which excited her and kept her awake. Once he opened his eyes for a while and fixed them upon her intelligently. But when she went to him hoping he would recognize her, he closed them and relapsed into stupor. The day after this, however, he revived for a longer time, but on this occasion Ralph only was with him. The old man began to talk, much to his son's satisfaction, who assured him that they should presently have him sitting up. No, my boy, said Mr. Touchett. Not unless you bury me in a sitting posture as some of the ancients—was it the ancients used to do? Ah, Daddy, don't talk about that, Ralph murmured. You mustn't deny that you're getting better. There will be no need of my denying it, if you don't say it! The old man answered, Why should we prevaricate just at the last? We never prevaricated before. I've got to die some time, and it's better to die when one's sick than when one's well. I'm very sick. As sick as I shall ever be. I hope you don't want to prove that I shall ever be worse than this. That would be too bad. You don't? Well, then. Having made this excellent point he became quiet, but the next time that Ralph was with him he again addressed himself to conversation. The nurse had gone to her supper, and Ralph was alone in charge, having just relieved Mrs. Touchett, who had been on guard since dinner. The room was lighted only by the flickering fire which, of late, had become necessary, and Ralph's tall shadow was projected over wall and ceiling with an outline constantly varying but always grotesque. Who's that with me? Is it my son? the old man asked. Yes, it's your son, Daddy. And there is no one else? No one else. Mr. Touchett said nothing for a while, and then— I want to talk a little, he went on. Won't it tire you, Ralph de Merde? It won't matter if it does. I shall have a long rest. I want to talk about you. Ralph had drawn nearer to the bed. He sat leaning forward with his hand on his father's. You had better select a brighter topic. You were always bright. I used to be proud of your brightness. I should like so much to think you'd do something. If you'd leave us, said Ralph, I shall do nothing but miss you. That's just what I don't want. It's what I want to talk about. You must get a new interest. I don't want a new interest, Daddy. I have more old ones than I know what to do with. The old man lay there looking at his son. His face was the face of the dying, but his eyes were the eyes of Daniel Touchett. The old man lay there looking at his son. His face was the face of the dying, but his eyes were the eyes of Daniel Touchett. He seemed to be reckoning over Ralph's interests. Of course. You have your mother, he said at last. You'll take care of her. My mother will always take care of herself, Ralph returned. Well, said his father, perhaps as she grows older she'll need a little help. I shall not see that. She'll outlive me. Very likely she will, but that's no reason. Mr. Touchett let his face die away in a helpless but not quite quarrelous sigh, and remained silent again. Don't trouble yourself about us, said his son. My mother and I get along very well together, you know. You get on by always being apart. That's not natural. If you leave us we shall probably see more of each other. Well, the old man observed with wandering irrelevance. It can't be said that my death will make much difference in your mother's life. It will probably make more than you think. Well, she'll have more money, said Mr. Touchett. I've left her a good wife's portion, just as if she had been a good wife. She has been one, Daddy, according to her own theory. She has never troubled you. Ah, some troubles are pleasant, Mr. Touchett murmured. Because you've given me, for instance. But your mother has been less—less—what shall I call it—less out of the way since I've been ill. I presume she knows I've noticed it. I shall certainly tell her so. I'm so glad you mention it. It won't make any difference to her. She doesn't do it to please me. She doesn't to please—to please—and he lay a while trying to think why she did it. She does it, because it suits her. But that's not what I want to talk about, he added. It's about you. You'll be very well off. Yes, said Ralph. I know that. But I hope you've not forgotten the talk we had a year ago, when I told you exactly what money I should need and begged you to make some good use of the rest. Yes, yes, I remember. I made a new will in a few days. I suppose it was the first time such a thing had happened, a young man trying to get a will made against him. It is not against me, said Ralph. It would be against me to have a large property to take care of. It's impossible for a man in my state of health to spend much money, and enough is as good as a feast. Well, you'll have enough, and something over. There will be more than enough for one. There will be enough for two. That's too much, said Ralph. Ah, don't say that. The best thing you can do, when I'm gone, would be to marry. Ralph had foreseen what his father was coming to, and this suggestion was by no means fresh. It had long been Mr. Touchet's most ingenious way of taking the cheerful view of his son's possible duration. Ralph had usually treated it facetiously, but present circumstances proscribed the facetious. He simply fell back in his chair and returned his father's appealing gaze. If I, with a wife who hasn't been very fond of me, have had a very happy life, said the old man carrying his ingenuity further still, what a life mightn't you have if you should marry a person different from Mrs. Touchet. There are more different from her than there are like her. Ralph still said nothing, and after a pause his father resumed softly. What do you think of your cousin? At this Ralph started meeting the question with a strained smile. Do I understand you to propose that I should marry Isabelle? Well, that's what it comes to in the end. Don't you like Isabelle? Yes, very much. And Ralph got up from his chair and wandered over to the fire. He stood before it in instant, and then he stooped and stirred it mechanically. I like Isabelle very much, he repeated. Well, said his father, I know she likes you. She has told me how much she likes you. Did she remark that she would like to marry me? No, but she can't have anything against you, and she's the most charming young lady I've ever seen, and she would be good to you. I have thought a great deal about it. So have I, said Ralph, coming back to the bedside again. I don't mind telling you that. You are in love with her, then. I should think you would be, it's as if she came over on purpose. No, I'm not in love with her, but I should be if certain things were different. Things are always different from what they might be, said the old man. If you wait for them to change, you'll never do anything. I don't know whether you know," he went on, but I suppose there's no harm in my alluding to it at such an hour as this. There was someone wanted to marry Isabelle the other day, and she wouldn't have him. I know she refused Warburton. He told me himself. Well, that proves there's a chance for somebody else. Somebody else took his chance the other day in London and got nothing by it. "'Was it you?' Mr. Touchett eagerly asked. No. It was an older friend, a poor gentleman who came over from America to see about it. I'm sorry for him, whoever he was, but it only proves what I say, the ways open to you. If it is, dear father, it's all the greater pity that I'm unable to tread it. I haven't many convictions. But I have three or four that I hold strongly. One is that people on the whole had better not marry their cousins. Another is that people in an advanced stage of pulmonary disorder had better not marry at all. The old man raised his weak hand and moved it to and fro before his face. "'What do you mean by that? You look at things in a way that would make everything wrong. What sort of a cousin is a cousin that you had never seen for more than twenty years of her life? Were all each other's cousins, and if we stopped at that, the human race would tie out? It's just the same with your bad lung. You're a great deal better than you used to be. All you want is to lead natural life. It is a great deal more natural to marry a pretty young lady that you are in love with than it is to remain single on false principles.' "'I'm not in love with Isabelle,' said Ralph. "'You said just now that you would be if you didn't think it wrong. I want to prove to you that it isn't wrong.' "'It will only tire you, dear daddy,' said Ralph, who marveled at his father's tenacity and at his finding strength to insist. Then where shall we all be?' "'Where shall you be if I don't provide for you? You won't have anything to do with the bank, and you won't have me to take care of. You say you have so many interests, but I can't make them out.' Ralph leaned back in his chair with folded arms. His eyes were fixed for some time in meditation. At last, with the air of a man fairly mustering courage, "'I take a great interest in my cousin,' he said. "'But not the sort of interest you desire. I shall not live many years, but I hope I shall live long enough to see what she does with herself. She's entirely independent of me. I can exercise very little influence upon her life. But I should like to do something for her.' "'What should you like to do?' "'I should like to put a little wind in her sails.' "'What do you mean by that?' "'I should like to put it into her power to do some of the things she wants. She wants to see the world, for instance. I should like to put money in her purse.' "'Ah! I'm glad you thought of that,' said the old man. "'But I've thought of it, too. I've left her a legacy—five thousand pounds.' "'That's capital. It's very kind of you. But I should like to do a little more.' Something of that veiled acuteness with which it had been on Daniel Turchett's part the habit of a lifetime to listen to a financial proposition still lingered in the face in which the invalid had not obliterated the man of business.' "'I shall be happy to consider it,' he said softly. Isabelle's poor, then. My mother tells me that she has but a few hundred dollars a year. I should like to make her rich.' "'What do you mean by rich?' "'I call people rich when they're able to meet the requirements of their imagination. Isabelle has a great deal of imagination.' "'So have you, my son,' said Mr. Turchett, listening very attentively but a little confusedly. "'You tell me I shall have money enough for two. What I want is that you should kindly relieve me of my superfluity and make it over to Isabelle, divide my inheritance into two equal halves, and give her the second.' "'To do what she likes with?' "'Absolutely what she likes.' "'It's without an equivalent?' "'What equivalent could there be?' "'The one I've already mentioned!' "'Her marrying, some one or other, is just to do away with anything of that sort that I make my suggestion. If she has an easy income she'll never have to marry for a support. That's what I want cannelly to prevent. She wishes to be free, and your bequest will make her free.' "'You seem to have thought it out,' said Mr. Turchett. "'But I don't see why you appeal to me. The money will be yours, and you can easily give it to her yourself.' Ralph openly stared. "'Ah, dear father, I can't offer Isabelle money.' The old man gave a groan. "'Don't tell me you're not in love with her. Do you want me to have the credit of it?' "'Entirely. I should like it simply to be a clause in your will, without the slightest reference to me.' "'Do you want me to make a new will, then?' "'A few words will do it. You can attend to it the next time you feel a little lively.' "'You must telegraph to Mr. Hillary, then. I'll do nothing without my solicitor.' "'You shall see Mr. Hillary to-morrow.' "'He'll think we've quarrelled you and I,' said the old man. "'Very probably. I shall like him to think it,' said Ralph smiling, and to carry out the idea. I give you notice that I shall be very sharp, quite horrid and strange with you.' The humour of this appeared to touch his father, who lay a little while taking it in. "'I'll do anything you like,' Mr. Tudgett said at last. "'But I'm not sure it's right. You say you want to put wind in her sails. But aren't you afraid of putting too much?' "'I should like to see her going before the Briggies,' Ralph answered. "'You speak, as if it were for your mere amusement!' So it is a good deal.' "'Well, I don't think I understand,' said Mr. Tudgett with a sigh. "'Young men are very different from what I was. When I cared for a girl, when I was young, I wanted to do more than look at her. You've scruples that I shouldn't have had, and you've ideas that I shouldn't have had either. You say Isabelle wants to be free, and that her being rich will keep her from marrying for money. Do you think that she's a girl to do that?' By no means. But she has less money than she has ever had before. Her father then gave her everything, because he used to spend his capital. She has nothing but the crumbs of that feast to live on, and she doesn't really know how meeker they are. She has yet to learn it. My mother has told me all about it. Isabelle will learn it when she's really thrown upon the world, and it would be very painful to me to think of her coming to the consciousness of a lot of wants she should be unable to satisfy. "'I've left her five thousand pounds. She can satisfy a good many wants with that.' She can indeed. But she would probably spend it in two or three years. "'You think she'd be extravagant, then?' "'Most certainly,' said Ralph, smiling serenely. Poor Mr. Tuckett's cuteness was rapidly giving place to pure confusion. It would merely be a question of time, then, her spending the larger sum.' "'No. Though at first I think she'd plunge into that pretty freely, she'd probably make over a part of it to each of her sisters. But after that she'd come to her senses, remember she has still a lifetime before her, and live within her means.' "'Well, you have worked it out,' said the old man helplessly. "'You do take an interest in her, certainly.' "'You can't consistently say I go too far. You wished me to go further.' "'Well, I don't know,' Mr. Tuckett answered. "'I don't think I enter into your spirit. It seems to me immoral.' "'Immoral, dear daddy?' "'Well, I don't know that it's right to make everything so easy for a person.' "'It surely depends upon the person. When the person's good, your making things easy, is all to the credit of virtue. To facilitate the execution of good impulses, what can be a nobler act?' This was a little difficult to follow, and Mr. Tuckett considered it for a while. At last he said, "'Is Belle's a sweet young thing? But do you think she's so good at that?' "'She's as good as her best opportunities,' Ralph returned. "'Well,' Mr. Tuckett declared, "'she ought to get a great many opportunities for sixty thousand pounds. "'I've no doubt she will.' "'Of course I'll do what you want,' said the old man. "'I only want to understand it a little.' "'Well, dear daddy, don't you understand it now?' his son caressingly asked. "'If you don't, we won't take any more trouble about it. We'll leave it alone.' Mr. Tuckett lay a long time still. Ralph supposed he had given up the attempt to follow. But at last, quite lucidly, he began again. "'Help me this first. Doesn't it occur to you that a young lady with sixty thousand pounds may fall a victim to the fortune-hunters?' "'She'll hardly fall a victim to more than one.' "'Well, one's too many.' "'Decidedly. "'That's a risk, and it has entered into my calculation. I think it's appreciable, but I think it's small. And I'm prepared to take it.' Poor Mr. Tuckett's acuteness had passed into perplexity, and his perplexity now passed into admiration. "'Well, you have gone into it,' he repeated. But I don't see what good you're to get of it.' Ralph leaned over his father's pillows and gently smoothed them. He was aware their talk had been unduly prolonged. "'I shall get just the good I said a few moments ago I wished put into Isabel's reach. That of having met the requirements of my imagination. But it's scandalous the way I've taken advantage of you. End of CHAPTER XIII. Recording by Zachary Brewster Geis, Greenbelt, Maryland, jumping July 2007. CHAPTER XIX. OF THE PORTRAD OF A LADY, VOL. 1. 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 Dawn Murphy. THE PORTRAD OF A LADY, VOL. 1. By Henry James CHAPTER XIX. As Mrs. Touchett had foretold, Isabel and Madame Murrell were thrown much together during the illness of their host, so that if they had not become intimate it would have been almost a breach of good manners. Their manners were of the best, but in addition to this they happened to please each other. It is perhaps too much to say that they swore an eternal friendship. But tacitly, at least, they called the future to witness. Isabel did so with a perfectly good conscience, though she would have hesitated to admit she was intimate with her new friend in the high sense she privately attached to the term. She often wondered indeed if she ever had been, or ever could be, intimate with anyone. She had an ideal of friendship as well as of several other sentiments which it failed to seem to her in this case. It had not seemed to her in other cases that the actual completely expressed. But she often reminded herself that there were essential reasons why one's ideal would never become concrete. It was a thing to believe in, not to see, a matter of faith, not of experience. Might supply us with very credible imitations of it, and the part of wisdom was to make the best of these. Certainly on the whole Isabel had never encountered a more agreeable and interesting figure than Madame Merle. She had never met a person having less of that fault which is the principal obstacle to friendship. The air of reproducing the more tiresome, the stale, the two familiar parts of one's own character. The gates of the girl's confidence were opened wider than they had ever been. She said things to this amiable auditress that she had not yet said to anyone. Sometimes she took alarm at her candor. It was as if she had given to a comparable stranger the key to her cabinet of jewels. These spiritual gems were the only ones of any magnitude that Isabel possessed. But there was all the greater reason for their being carefully guarded. Afterwards, however, she always remembered that one should never regret a generous error and that if Madame Merle had not the merits she attributed to her, so much worse for Madame Merle. There was no doubt she had great merits. She was charming, sympathetic, intelligent, cultivated. More than this, Fore had not been Isabel's ill fortune to go through life without meeting in her own sex, several persons of whom no less could fairly be said. She was rare, superior, and preeminent. There were many amiable people in the world and Madame Merle was far from being vulgarly, good-natured, and restlessly witty. She knew how to think, an accomplishment rare in women. She had thought to very good purpose. Of course, too, she knew how to feel. Isabel couldn't have spent a week with her without being sure of that. This was indeed Madame Merle's great talent, her most perfect gift. Life had told upon her, and she had felt it strongly, and it was part of the satisfaction to be taken in her society that when the girl talked of what she was pleased to call serious matters, this lady understood her so easily and quickly. Emotion, it is true, had become with her rather historic. She made no secret of the fact that the fount of passion, thanks to having been rather violently tapped at one period, didn't flow quite so freely as of your. She proposed moreover, as well as expected, to cease feeling. She freely admitted that of old she had been a little mad, and now she pretended to be perfectly sane. I judge more than I used to, she said to Isabel, but it seems to me one has earned the right. One can't judge till one's forty, before that we're too eager, too hard, too cruel, and in addition much too ignorant. I'm sorry for you. It will be a long time before your forty. But every gains a loss of some kind. I often think that after forty one can't really feel. The freshness, the quickness, have certainly gone. You'll keep them longer than most people. It will be a great satisfaction to me to see you some years hence. I want to see what life makes of you. One thing's certain, it can't spoil you. It may pull you about horribly, but I defy it to break you up. Isabel received this assurance as a young soldier, still panting from the slight skirmish in which he has come off with honour, might receive a pat on the shoulder from his colonel. Like such a recognition of merit it seemed to come with authority. How could the slightest word do less on the part of a person who was prepared to say, of almost everything Isabel told her? Oh, I've been in that, my dear. It passes like everything else. On many of her interlocutors, Madame Merle might have produced an irritating effect. It was disconcertingly difficult to surprise her, but Isabel, though by no means incapable of desiring to be effective, had not at present this impulse. She was too sincere, too interested in her judicious companion. And then, moreover, Madame Merle never said such things in the tone of triumph or of boastfulness. They dropped from her, like cold confessions. A period of bad weather had settled upon Garden Court. The days grew shorter, and there was an end to the pretty tea parties on the lawn. But our young woman had long indoor conversations with her fellow visitor, and in spite of the rain the two ladies often sallied forth for a walk equipped with the defensive apparatus which the English climate and the English genius have between them brought to such perfection. Madame Merle liked almost everything, including the English rain. There's always a little of it and never too much at once, she said, and it never wets you. It always smells good. She declared that in England the pleasures of smell were great, that in this inimitable island there was a certain mixture of fog and beer and soot which, however odd it might sound, was the national aroma, and was most agreeable to the nostril. And she used to lift the sleeve of her British overcoat and bury her nose in it, inhaling the clear fine scent of the wool. Before Ralph touched it, as soon as the autumn had begun to define itself, became almost a prisoner. In bad weather he was unable to step out of the house, and he used sometimes to stand at one of the windows with his hands in his pockets, from a countenance half rueful, half critical, watch Isabel and Madame Merle as they walked down the avenue under a pair of umbrellas. The roads about Garden Court were so firm, even in the worst weather, that the two ladies always came back with a healthy glow in their cheeks, looking at the soles of their neat stout boots and declaring that their walk had done them inexpressible good. Before luncheon, always Madame Merle was engaged. Isabel admired and envied her rigid possession of her mourning. Where heroin had always passed for a person of resources and had taken a certain pride in being one, but she wandered, as by the wrong side of the wall of a private garden, round the enclosed talents, accomplishments, aptitudes of Madame Merle. She found herself desiring to emulate them, and in twenty such ways this lady presented herself as a model. I should like awfully to be so, Isabel secretly exclaimed, more than once, as one after another of her friends, fine aspects, caught the light, and before long she knew that she had learned a lesson from a high authority. It took no great time indeed for her to feel herself, as the phrase is, under an influence. What's the harm, she wondered, so long as it's a good one, the more one's under a good influence the better. The only thing is to see our steps as we take them, to understand them as we go, that no doubt I shall always do. I needn't be afraid of becoming too pliable. Isn't it my fault that I'm not pliable enough? It is said that imitation is the sincerest flattery, and if Isabel was sometimes moved to gape at her friend aspiringly and despairingly, it was not so much because she desired herself to shine as because she wished to hold up the lamp for Madame Merle. She liked her extremely, but was even more dazzled than attracted. She sometimes asked herself what Henrietta Stackpole would say to her, thinking so much of this perverted product of their common soil, and had a conviction that it would be severely judged. Henrietta would not at all subscribe to Madame Merle, for reasons she could not have defined this truth came home to the girl. On the other hand, she was equally sure that, should the occasion offer, her new friend would strike off some happy view of her old. Madame Merle was too humorous, too observant, not to do justice to Henrietta, and on becoming acquainted with her would probably give the measure of a tact which Miss Stackpole couldn't hope to emulate. She appeared to have, in her experience, a touchstone for everything, and somewhere in the capacious pocket of her genial memory she would find the key to Henrietta's value. That's the great thing, Isabel solemnly pondered, that's the supreme good fortune, to be in a better position for appreciating people than they are for appreciating you. And she added that such, when one considered it, was simply the essence of aristocratic situation. In this light, if in none other, one should aim at the aristocratic situation. I may not count over all the links in the chain which led Isabel to think of Madame Merle's situation as aristocratic. A view of it never expressed in any reference made to it by that lady herself. She had known great things and great people, but she had never played a great part. She was one of the small ones of the earth. She had not been born to honours. She knew the world too well to nourish, fatuous, illusions, on the article of her own place in it. She had encountered many of the fortunate few, and was perfectly aware of those points at which their fortune differed from hers. But if by her informed measure she was no figure for a high scene, she had yet to Isabel's imagination a sort of greatness. To be so cultivated and civilised, so wise and so easy, and still make so light of it, that was really to be a great lady. Especially when one so carried and presented oneself, it was as if, somehow, she had all society under contribution, and all the arts and graces it practised. Or was the effect rather that of charming uses found for her? Even from a distance, subtle service rendered by her to a clamourous world wherever she might be. After breakfast she wrote a succession of letters. As those arriving for her appeared innumerable, her correspondence was a source of surprise to Isabel when they sometimes walked together to the village post office to deposit Madame Merle's offering to the mail. She knew more people, as she told Isabel, than she knew what to do with, and something was always turning up to be written about. Of painting she was devotedly fond, and made no more of brushing in a sketch than of pulling off her gloves. At Garden Court she was perpetually taking advantage of an hour's sunshine to go out with a campstool and a box of watercolours. That she was a brave musician we have already perceived, and it was evidence of the fact that when she seated herself at the piano, as she always did in the evening, her listeners resigned themselves without a murmur to losing the grace of her talk. Isabel, since she had known her, felt ashamed of her own facility which she now looked upon as basely inferior and indeed, though she had been thought rather a prodigy at home. The loss to society when, in taking her place upon the music stool, she turned her back to the room, was usually deemed greater than the gain. When Madame Merle was neither writing nor painting nor touching the piano, she was usually employed upon a wonderful task of rich embroidery, cushions, curtains, decorations for the chimney-piece, an art in which her bold, free invention was as noted as the agility of her needle. She was never idle, for when engaged in none of the ways I have mentioned, she was either reading. She appeared to Isabel to read everything important, or walking out, or playing patience with the cards, or talking with her fellow inmates, and with all this she had always the social quality was never rudely absent and yet never too seated. She laid down her pastimes as easily as she took them up. She worked and talked at the same time, and appeared to impute scant worth to anything she did. When she gave away her sketches and tapestries, she rose from the piano or remained there, according to the convenience of her auditors, which she always, unearingly, divined. She was in short the most comfortable, profitable, amiable person to live with. If for Isabel she had a fault, it was that she was not natural, by which the girl meant not that she was either affected or pretentious, since from these vulgar vices no woman could have been more exempt, but that her nature had been too much overlaid by custom and her angles too much rubbed away. She had become too flexible, too useful, was too ripe and too final. She was, in a word, too perfectly the social animal that man and woman are supposed to have been intended to be, and she had rid herself of every remnant of that tonic wildness which we may assume to have belonged even to the most amiable persons in the ages before country house life was the fashion. Isabel found it difficult to think of her in any detachment or privacy. She existed only in her relations, direct or indirect, with her fellow mortals. One might wonder what commerce she could possibly hold with her own spirit, and always ended, however, by feeling that a charming surface doesn't necessarily prove one superficial. This was an illusion in which, in one's youth, one had but just escaped being nourished. Madame Merle was not superficial, not she. She was deep, and her nature spoke, none the less, in her behavior, because it spoke a conventional tongue. What's the language at all but convention? said Isabel. She has the good taste not to pretend, like some people I've met, to express herself by original signs. I'm afraid you've suffered much, she once found occasion to say to her friend in response to some illusion that had appeared to reach far. What makes you think that? Madame Merle asked, with an amused smile of a person seated at a game of guesses, I hope I haven't too much the droop of the misunderstood. No, but you sometimes say things that I think people who have always been happy wouldn't have found out. I haven't always been happy, said Madame Merle, smiling still but with a mock gravity, as if she were telling a child a secret. Such a wonderful thing. But Isabel rose to the irony. A great many people give me the impression of never having for a moment felt anything. It's very true, there are many more iron pots certainly than porcelain, but you may depend upon it that everyone bears some mark. Even the hardest iron pots have a little bruise, a little hole somewhere. I flatter myself that I'm rather stout, but if I must tell you the truth, I've been shockingly chipped and cracked. I do very well for service yet, because I've been cleverly mended, and I try to remain in the cupboard, the quiet, dusky, cupboard, where there's an odor of stale spices as much as I can, but when I've to come out and into a strong light, then, my dear, I'm a horror. I know not whether it was on this occasion or on some other that when the conversation had taken the turn I have just indicated, she said to Isabel that she would someday a tale unfold. Isabel assured her she should delight to listen to one, and reminded her more than once of this engagement. Madame Merle, however, begged repeatedly for a recite, and at last frankly told her young companion that they must wait till they knew each other better. This would be sure to happen, a long friendship so visibly laid before them, Isabel assented. But at the same time inquired if she mightn't be trusted, if she appeared capable of a betrayal of confidence. It's not that I'm afraid of your repeating what I say, her fellow visitor answered. I'm afraid on the contrary of your taking it too much to yourself. You judge me too harshly. You're of the cruel age. She preferred for the present to talk to Isabel of Isabel, and exhibited the greatest interest in our heroine's history, sentiments, opinions, prospects. She made her chatter and listened to her chatter with infinite good nature. This flattered and quickened the girl who was struck with all the distinguished people her friend had known, and with her having lived, as Mrs. Touchett said, in the best company in Europe. Isabel thought the better of herself for enjoying the favour of a person who had so large a field of comparison, and it was perhaps partly to gratify the sense of profiting by comparison that she often appealed to these stores of reminiscence. Madame Merle had been a dweller in many lands, and had social ties in a dozen different countries. I don't pretend to be educated, she would say, but I think I know Europe. And she spoke one day of going to Sweden to stay with an old friend, and another of proceeding to Malta to follow up a new acquaintance. With England, where she had often dwelled, she was thoroughly familiar, and for Isabel's benefit through a great deal of light upon the customs of the country and the character of the people, who, after all, as she was fond of saying, were the most convenient in the world to live with. You mustn't think it strange her remaining here at such a time as this when Mr. Touchett's passing away. That gentleman's wife remarked to her niece, She is incapable of a mistake. She's the most tactful woman I know. It's a favour to me that she stays. She's putting off a lot of visits at great houses, said Mrs. Touchett, who never forgot that when she herself was in England, her social value sank two or three degrees in scale. She has her pick of places. She's not in want of a shelter, but I've asked her to put in this time because I wish you to know her. I think it will be a good thing for you. Serena Murrell hasn't a fault. If I didn't already like her very much, that description might alarm me, Isabel returned. She's never the least bit off. I've brought you out here, and I wish to do the best for you. Your sister Lily told me she hoped I would give you plenty of opportunities. I give you one in putting you in relation with Madam Murrell. She's one of the most brilliant women in Europe. I like her better than I like your description of her, Isabel persisted in saying. Do you flatter yourself that you'll ever feel her open to criticism? I hope you'll let me know when you do. That will be cruel to you, said Isabel. You needn't mind me. You won't discover a fault in her. Perhaps not, but I dare say I shan't miss it. She knows absolutely everything on earth there is to know, said Mrs. Tuchett. Isabel, after this, observed to their companion that she hoped she knew Mrs. Tuchett considered she hadn't a speck on her perfection. On which? I'm obliged to you, Madam Murrell replied, but I'm afraid your aunt imagines, or at least alludes to, no aberrations that the clock face doesn't register. So that you mean you've a wild side that's unknown to her. Oh, no. I fear my darkest sides are my tamest. I mean that having no faults for your aunt means that one's never late for dinner, that is, for her dinner. I was not late, by the way. The other day, when you came back from London, the clock was just at eight when I came into the drawing room. It was the rest of you that were before the time. It means that one answers a letter the day one gets it, and that when one comes to stay with her one doesn't bring too much luggage, and is careful not to be taken ill. For Mrs. Tuchett, those things constitute virtue. It's a blessing to be able to reduce it to its elements. Madam Murrell's own conversation, it will be perceived, was enriched with bold, free touches of criticism, which even when they had a restrictive effect never struck Isabel as ill-natured. It couldn't occur to the girl, for instance, that Mrs. Tuchett's accomplished guess was abusing her, and this for very good reasons. In the first place, Isabel rose eagerly to the sense of her shades. In the second, Madam Murrell implied that there was a great deal more to say, and it was clear in the third that for a person to speak to one without ceremony of one's near relations was an agreeable sign of that person's intimacy with one's self. These signs of deep communion multiplied as the days elapsed, and there was none of which Isabel was more sensible than of her companion's preference for making Miss Archer herself a topic. Though she referred frequently to the incidents of her own career, she never lingered upon them. She was as little of a gross egotisk as she was of a flat gossip. I'm old and stale and faded, she said more than once. I'm of no more interest than last week's newspaper. You're young and fresh enough to-day. You've the great thing. You've actuality. I once had it. We all have it for an hour. You, however, will have it for longer. Let us talk about you, then. You can say nothing I shall not care to hear. It's a sign that I am growing old, that I like to talk with young people. I think it's a very pretty compensation. If we can't have youth within us, we can have it outside. And I really think we see it and feel it better that way. Of course she must be in sympathy with it, that I shall always be. I don't know that I shall ever be ill-natured with old people. I hope not. There are certainly some old people I adore, but I shall never be anything but abject with the young. They touch me and appeal to me too much. I give you carte blanche, then you can even be impertinent if you like. I shall let it pass and horribly spoil you. I speak as if I were a hundred years old, you say. Well I am. If you please. I was born before the French Revolution. Ah, my dear, je vous enlends. I belong to the old, old world. But it's not of that I want to talk. I want to talk about the new. You must tell me more about America. You never tell me enough. Here I've been since I was brought here. As a helpless child, and it's ridiculous, or rather it's scandalous, how little I know about that splendid, dreadful, funny country, surely the greatest and drolest of them all. There are great many of us like that in these parts, and I must say I think we're a wretched set of people. You should live in your own land, whatever it may be. You have your natural place there. If we're not good Americans, we're certainly poor Europeans. We've no natural place here. We're mere parasites crawling over the surface. We haven't our feet in the soil. At least one can know it and not have illusions. A woman, perhaps, and get on. A woman, it seems to me, has no natural place anywhere. Wherever she finds herself, she has to remain on the surface and, more or less, to crawl. You protest, my dear. You're horrified. You declare you'll never crawl. It's very true that I don't see you crawling. You stand more upright than a good many poor creatures. Very good, on the whole. I don't think you'll crawl. But the men, the Americans, what do they make of it over here? I don't envy them trying to arrange themselves. Look at poor Ralph Touchett. What sort of a figure do you call that? Fortunately he has consumption. I say, fortunately, because it gives him something to do. His consumption is his career. It's a kind of position. You can say, oh, Mr. Touchett, he takes care of his lungs. He knows a great deal about climates. But without that, who would he be? What would he represent? Mr. Ralph Touchett, an American who lives in Europe. That signifies absolutely nothing. It's impossible. Anything should signify less. He's very cultivated, they say. He has a very pretty collection of old snuff boxes. The collection is all that's wanted to make it pitiful. I'm tired of the sound of the word. I think it's grotesque. With the poor old father it's different. He has his identity, and it's rather a massive one. He represents a great financial house. And that, in our day, is as good as anything else. For an American, at any rate, that will do very well. But I persist in thinking your cousin very lucky to have a chronic malady so long as he doesn't die of it. It's much better than the snuff boxes. If he weren't ill, you say he'd do something? He'd take his father's place in the house. My poor child, I doubt it. I don't think he's at all fond of the house. However you know him better than I, though I used to know him rather well, and he may have the benefit of the doubt. The worst case, I think, is a friend of mine, a countryman of ours, who lives in Italy, where he also was brought, before he knew better. And who is one of the most delightful men I know? Someday you must know him. I'll bring you together, and then you'll see what I mean. He's Gilbert Osmond. He lives in Italy. That's all one can say about him, or make of him. He's exceedingly clever, a man made to be distinguished. But, as I tell you, you exhaust the description when you say he's Mr. Osmond, who lives Tont, that's a mint in Italy. No career, no name, no position, no fortune, no past, no future, no anything. Oh yes, he paints, if you please. Paints in watercolors like me, only better than I. His painting's pretty bad, on the whole I'm rather glad of that. Fortunately he's very indolent, so indolent, that it amounts to a sort of position. He can say, oh, I do nothing. I'm too deadly lazy. You can do nothing today unless you get up at five o'clock in the morning, and that way he becomes a sort of exception. You feel he might do something if he'd only rise early. He never speaks of his painting, to people at large, he's too clever for that. But he has a little girl, a dear little girl, he does speak of her. He's devoted to her, and if it were a career to be an excellent father he'd be very distinguished. But I'm afraid that's no better than the snuff boxes, perhaps not even so good. Tell me what they do in America, pursued Madame Merle, who it must be observed parenthetically, did not deliver herself all at once of these reflections, which are presented in a cluster for the convenience of the reader. She talked of Florence, where Mr. Osmond lived, and where Mrs. Touchett occupied a medieval palace. She talked of Rome, where she herself had a little ped-a-tier, with some rather good old Damasque. She talked of places, of people, and even, as the phrase is, of subjects, and from time to time she talked of their kind, old host, and of the prospect of his recovery. From the first she thought this prospect small, and Isabelle had been struck with the positive, discriminating, competent way in which she took the measure of his remainder of life. One evening she announced definitely that he wouldn't live. Sir Matthew Hope told me so as plainly as was proper. She said, standing there near the fire before dinner. He makes himself very agreeable, the great doctor. I don't mean he's saying that has anything to do with it, but he says such things with great tact. I had told him I felt ill at my ease, staying here at such a time. It seemed to me so indiscreet. It wasn't as if I could nurse. You must remain. You must remain, he answered. Your office will come later. Wasn't that a very delicate way of saying both that poor Mr. Touchett would go, and that I might be of some use as a consolar? In fact, however, I shall not be of the slightest use. Your aunt will console herself. She and she alone knows just how much consolation she'll require. It would be a very delicate matter for another person to undertake to administer the dose. With your cousin it will be different. He'll miss his father immensely, but I should never presume to gondol with Mr. Ralph. We're not on those terms. Madame Merle had alluded more than once to some undefined incongruity in her relations with Ralph Touchett, so Isabelle took this occasion of asking her if they were not good friends. Perfectly, but he doesn't like me. What have you done to him? Nothing whatever, but one has no reason, but one has no need of a reason for that. For not liking you, I think one has need of a very good reason. You're very kind. Be sure you have one ready for the day you begin. Begin to dislike you. I shall never begin. I hope not, because if you do, you'll never end. That's the way with your cousin. He doesn't get over it. It's an antipathy of nature. If I can call it that when it's all on his side. I've nothing whatever against him and don't bear him the least little grudge for not doing me justice. Justice is all I want. Never one feels that he's a gentleman and would never say anything underhand about me. Madame Merle subjoined in a moment. I'm not afraid of him. I hope not indeed, said Isabelle, who added something about his being the kindest creature living. She remembered, however, that on her first asking him about Madame Merle he had answered her in a manner which this lady might have thought injurious without being explicit. There was something between them, Isabelle said to herself, but she said nothing more than this. If it were something of importance it should inspire respect. If it were not it was not worth her curiosity. With all her love of knowledge she had a natural shrinking from raising curtains and looking into unlighted corners. The love of knowledge co-existed in her mind with the finest capacity for ignorance. But Madame Merle sometimes said things that startled her, made her raise her clear eyebrows at the time and think of words afterwards. I'd give a great deal to be your age again. She broke out once with a bitterness which, though diluted in her customary amplitude of ease, was imperfectly disguised by it. If I could only begin again. If I could have my life before me. Your life's before you yet, Isabelle answered gently, for she was vaguely awestruck. No, the best part's gone and gone for nothing. Surely not for nothing, said Isabelle. Why not? What have I got? Neither husband nor child nor fortune nor position nor traces of a beauty that I never had. You have many friends, dear lady. I'm not so sure, cried Madame Merle. Ah, you're wrong. You have memories, graces, talents. But Madame Merle interrupted her. What have my talents brought me? Nothing but need of using them still, to get through the hours, the years, to cheat myself with some pretense of movement or unconsciousness. As for my graces and memories, the less said about them the better. It will be my friend till you find a better use for your friendship. It will be for you to see that I don't, then, said Isabelle. Yes, I would make an effort to keep you. And her companion looked at her gravely. When I say I should like to be your age, I mean with your qualities, frank, generous, sincere like you. In that case I should have made something better of my life. What should you have liked to do, that you've not done? Madame Merle took a sheet of music. She was seated at the piano and had abruptly wheeled about on the stool when she first spoke, and mechanically turned the leaves. I am very ambitious, she at last replied. And your ambitions have not been satisfied? They must have been great. They were great. I should make myself ridiculous by talking of them. People wondered what they could have been. Whether Madame Merle had aspired to wear a crown. I don't know what your idea of success may be, but you seem to me to have been successful. To me, indeed, you're a vivid image of success. Madame Merle tossed away the music with a smile. What's your idea of success? You evidently think it must be a very tame one. It's to see some dream of one's youth come true. Ah, Madame Merle exclaimed, that I've never seen. But my dreams were so great, so preposterous. Heaven forgive me, I'm dreaming now. And she turned back to the piano and began grandly to play. On the morrow she said to Isabel that her definition of success had been very pretty, yet frightfully sad, measured in that way, who had ever succeeded. The dreams of one's youth, why they were enchanting, they were divine, who had ever seen such things come to pass. I myself, a few of them, Isabel ventured to answer, already they must have been dreams of yesterday. I began to dream very young, Isabel smiled. Ah, if you mean the aspirations of your childhood, that of having a pink sash and a doll that could close her eyes. No, I don't mean that. Or a young man with a fine mustache going down on his knees to you? No, nor that either, Isabel declared with still more emphasis. Madame Merle appeared to note this eagerness. I suspect that's what you do mean. We've all had the young man with the mustache. He's the inevitable young man. He doesn't count. Isabel was silent a little, but then spoke with extreme characteristic inconsequence. Why shouldn't he count? There are young men and young men. And yours was a paragon. Is that what you mean? Asked her friend with a laugh. If you've had the identical young man you've dreamed of, then that was success, and I congratulate you with all my heart. Only in that case, why didn't you fly with him to his castle in the Eponines? He has no castle in the Eponines. But has he an ugly brick house in 40th Street? Don't tell me that. I refuse to recognize that as an ideal. I don't care anything about his house, said Isabel. That's very crude of you. When you've lived as long as I, you'll see that every human being has his shell, and that you must take that shell into account. By the shell I mean the whole envelope of circumstances. There's no such thing as an isolated man or woman. We are each of us made up of some cluster of appartenances. What shall we call our self? Where does it begin? Where does it end? It overflows into everything that belongs to us, and then it flows back again. I know a large part of myself is in the clothes I choose to wear. I have a great respect for things. One self, for other people. It's one's expression of one's self, and one's house, one's furniture, one's garments, the books one reads, the company one keeps. These things are all expressive. It was very metaphysical, not more so, however, than several observations Madame Merle had already made. Isabel was fond of metaphysics, but was unable to accompany her friend into this bold analysis of the human personality. I don't agree with you. I think just the other way. I don't know whether I succeed in expressing myself, but I know that nothing else expresses me. Nothing that belongs to me is any measure of me. Everything's on the contrary, a limit, a barrier, a perfectly arbitrary one, certainly the clothes which, as you say, I choose to wear, don't express me, and heaven forbid they should. You dress very well, Madame Merle, lightly interposed. Possibly, but I don't care to be judged by that. My clothes may express the dressmaker, but they don't express me. To begin with, it's not my own choice that I wear them. They're imposed upon me by society. Should you prefer to go without them? Madame Merle inquired in a tone which virtually terminated the discussion. I am bound to confess, though it may cast some discredit on the sketch I have given of the youthful loyalty practised by our heroine towards this accomplished woman, that Isabelle had said nothing whatever to her about Lord Warburton and had been equally reticent on the subject of Casper Goodwood. She had not, however, concealed the fact that she had had opportunities of marrying, and had even let her friend know of how advantageous a kind they had been. Lord Warburton had left Lockley and was gone to Scotland, taking his sisters with him, and though he had written to Ralph more than once to ask about Mr. Touchett's health, the girl was not liable to embarrassment of such inquiries as, had he still been in the neighbourhood, he would probably have felt bound to make in person. He had excellent ways, but she felt sure that if he had come to Garden Court he would have seen Madame Murrell, and that if he had seen her he would have liked her and betrayed to her that he was in love with her young friend. It so happened that during this lady's previous visits to Garden Court, each of them much shorter than the present, he had either not been at Lockley or had not called at Mr. Touchett's. Therefore, though she knew him by name as the great man of that country, she had no cause to suspect him as a suitor of Mrs. Touchett's freshly imported niece. You've plenty of time, she had said to Isabelle, in return for the mutilated confidences which our young woman made her, and which didn't pretend to be perfect, though we have seen that at moments the girl had compunctions at having said so much. I'm glad you've done nothing yet, that you have it still to do, it's a very good thing for a girl to have refused a few good offers, so long, of course, as they are not the best she's likely to have. Pardon me if my tone seems horribly corrupt, one must take the worldly view sometimes, only don't keep on refusing for the sake of refusing. It's a pleasant exercise of power, but acceptings, after all, an exercise of power as well, there's always the danger of refusing once too often. It's not the one I fell into, I didn't refuse often enough. You're an exquisite creature, and I should like to see you married to a prime minister. But speaking strictly, you know, you're not what is technically called a parti. You're extremely good-looking and extremely clever in yourself, you're quite exceptional. You appear to have the vaguest ideas about your earthly possessions, but from what I can make out you're not embarrassed with an income. I wish you had a little money. I wish I had, said Isabel simply, apparently forgetting for the moment that her poverty had been a venial fault for two gallant gentlemen. In spite of Sir Matthew Hope's benevolent recommendation, Madame Merle did not remain to the end, as the issue of poor Mr. Touchett's malady had now come frankly to be designated. She was under pledges to other people, which had at last to be redeemed, and she left Garden Court with the understanding that she should in any event see Mrs. Touchett there again, or else in town before quitting England. Her parting with Isabel was even more like the beginning of a friendship than her meeting had been. I'm going to six places in succession, but I shall see no one I like so well as you. They'll all be old friends, however one doesn't make new friends at my age. I've made a great exception for you. You must remember that, and must think as well of me as possible. You must reward me by believing in me. By way of answering, Isabel kissed her, and though some women kiss with facility, there are kisses and kisses, and this embrace was satisfactory to Madame Merle. Her young lady, after this, was much alone. She saw her aunt and cousin only at meals, and discovered that of the hours during which Mrs. Touchett was invisible only a minor portion was now devoted to nursing her husband. She spent the rest in her own apartments, to which access was not allowed even to her niece, apparently occupied there with mysterious and inscrutable exercises. At table she was grave and silent. But her solemnity was not an attitude. Isabel could see it was a conviction. She wondered if her aunt repented of having taken her own way so much. But there was no visible evidence of this. No tears, no sighs, no exaggeration of a zeal always to its own sense, adequate. Mrs. Touchett seemed simply to feel the need of thinking things over, and summing them up. She had a little moral, a count book, with columns unearingly ruled, and a sharp steel clasp, which she kept with exemplary neatness. Uttered reflections, had, with her ever, at any rate, a practical ring. If I had foreseen this, I'd not have proposed your coming abroad now, she said to Isabel, after Madame Merle had left the house, I'd have waited and sent for you next year. So that perhaps I could never have known my uncle. It's a great happiness to me to have come now. That's very well, but it was not that you might know your uncle that I brought you to Europe. A perfectly vicarious speech, but as Isabel thought, not as perfectly timed. She had leisure to think of this and other matters. She took a solitary walk every day, and spent vague hours in turning over books in the library. Among the subjects that engaged her attention were the adventures of her friend Miss Stackpole, with whom she was in regular correspondence. Isabel liked her friend's private, epistolary style better than her public. That is, she felt her public letters would have been excellent if they had not been printed. Henrietta's career, however, was not so successful as might have been wished even in the interest of her private felicity. That view of the inner life of Great Britain, which she was so eager to take, appeared to dance before her like an enigmas fatus. The invitation from Lady Pencil, for mysterious reasons, had never arrived, and poor Mr. Bantling himself, with all his friendly ingenuity, had been unable to explain so grave a dereliction on the part of a missive that had obviously been sent. He had evidently taken Henrietta's affairs much to heart, and believed that he owed her a set-off to this illusionary visit to Bedfordshire. He says he should think I would go to the Continent, Henrietta wrote, and as he thinks of going there himself, I suppose his advice is sincere. He wants to know why I don't take a view of French life, and it's a fact that I want very much to see the New Republic. Mr. Bantling doesn't care much about the Republic, but he thinks of going over to Paris anyway. I must say he's quite as attentive as I would wish, and at least I shall have seen one polite Englishman. I keep telling Mr. Bantling that he ought to have been an American, and you should see how that pleases him. Whenever I say so, he always breaks out with the same exclamation. Ah, but really, come now! A few days later she wrote that she had decided to go to Paris at the end of the week, and that Mr. Bantling had promised to see her off. Perhaps even would go as far as dove her with her. She would wait in Paris till Isabelle should arrive, Henrietta added. Speaking quite as if Isabelle were to start on her continental journey alone, and making no illusion to Mrs. Touchett. Bearing in mind his interest in their late companion, our heroine communicated several passages from this correspondence to Ralph, who followed with an emotion akin to suspense the career of the representative of the interviewer. It seems to me she's doing very well, he said, going over to Paris with an ex-lancer. If she wants something to write about, she has only to describe that episode. It's not conventional, certainly, Isabelle answered, but if you mean that, as far as Henrietta is concerned, it's not perfectly innocent, you're very much mistaken. You'll never understand Henrietta. Pardon me, I understand her perfectly. I didn't at all at first, but now I have the point of view. I'm afraid, however, that Bantling hasn't. He may have some surprises. Oh, I understand Henrietta as well as if I had made her. Henrietta was by no means sure of this, but she abstained from expressing further doubt, for she was disposed in these days to extend a great charity to her cousin. One afternoon less, then a week after Madame Merrill's departure, she was seated in the library with a volume to which her attention was not fastened. She had placed herself in a deep window bench from which she looked out into the dull, damp park, and as the library stood at right angles to the entrance front of the house she could see the doctor's broam, which had been waiting for the last two hours before the door. She was struck with his remaining so long, but at last she saw him appear in the portico, stand a moment slowly drawing on his gloves and looking at the knees of his horse, and then get into the vehicle and roll away. Isabelle kept her place for half an hour. There was great stillness in the house. It was so great that when she at last heard a soft, slow step on the deep carpet of the room she was almost startled by the sound. She turned quickly away from the window and saw Ralph touch it standing there with his hands still in his pockets, but with a face absolutely void of its usual latent smile. She got up and her movement and glance were a question. It's all over, said Ralph. Do you mean that my uncle and Isabelle stopped? My dear father died an hour ago. Oh, my poor Ralph! She gently wailed, putting up her two hands to him. End of chapter 19