 Chapter 10 of the Portrait of a Lady, Volume 1, this is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recording are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Martina. The Portrait of a Lady, Volume 1 by Henry James, Chapter 10 The day after her visit to Lockley, she received a note from her friend Miss Stackpole, a note of which the envelope exhibiting in conjunction the postmark of Liverpool and the neat calligraphy of the quick finger at Henrietta caused her some liveliness of emotion. Here I am, my lovely friend, Miss Stackpole brought. I managed to get off at last. I decided only the night before I left New York. The interviewer, having come around to my figure, I put a few things into a bag, like a veteran journalist, and came down to the steamer in a streetcar. Where are you and where can we meet? I suppose you are visiting at some castle or other and have already acquired the correct accent. Perhaps even you have married a lord. I almost hope you have, for I want some introductions to the first people and shall count on you for a few. The interviewer wants some lights on their nobility. My first impression of the people at large are not rose-coloured, but I wish to talk them over with you, and you know that whatever I am, at least I am not superficial. I have also something very particular to tell you. Do appoint a meeting as quickly as you can. Come to London, I should like so much to visit the sites with you. Or else let me come to you, wherever you are. I will do so with pleasure, for you know everything interests me, and I wish to see as much as possible of the inner life. Isabel judged best not to show this letter to her uncle, but she acquainted him with its purport, and, as she expected, he begged her instantly to assure Miss Stackpole in his name that he should be delighted to receive her at Garden Court. Though she is a literary lady, he said, I suppose that being an American she won't show me up as the other one did. She has seen others like me. She has seen no others so delightful, Isabel answered, but she was not altogether at ease about her yet a reproductive instinct, which belonged to the side of her friend's character, which she regarded with least complacency. She wrote to Miss Stackpole, however, that she would be very welcome under Mr. Toshette Roof, and his alert young woman lost no time in announcing her prompt approach. She had gone up to London, and it was from the centre that she took the train for the station nearest to Garden Court, where Isabel and Ralph were in waiting to receive her. Shall I love her, or shall I hate her, Ralph asked it, while they moved along the platform. Whichever you do will matter very little to her, said Isabel. She doesn't care a straw what men think of her. As a man, I am bound to dislike her, then. She must be a kind of monster. Is she very ugly? No, she is decidely pretty. A female interviewer, a reporter in Petticoat? I am very curious to see her, Ralph conceded. It's very easy to laugh at her, but it's not so easy to be as brave as she. I should think not. Crimes of violence and attacks on the person require more or less pluck. Do you suppose she'll interview me? Never in the world. She'll not think you have enough importance. You'll see, said Ralph. She'll send a description of us all, including Bonci to her newspaper. I shall ask her not to, Isabel answered. You think she's capable of it, then? Perfectly. And yet you have made her your bosom friend? I have not made her my bosom friend, but I like her in spite of her faults. How well, said Ralph, I'm afraid I shall dislike her in spite of her merits. You'll probably fall in love with her at the end of three days. And have my love letters published in the interviewer? Never, cried the young man. The train presently arrived. A mistak pole promptly, descending, proved as Isabel had promised, quite delicately, even though rather provincially fair. She was a neat, plump person of medium stature, with a round face, a small mouth, a delicate complexion, a bunch of light-brown ringlet at the back of her head, and a peculiarly open, surprise-looking eye. The most striking point in her appearance was the remarkable fixedness of this organ, which rested without impudence or defiance, but as if in conscientious exercise of a natural right, upon every object it happened to encounter. It rested in this manner upon Ralph himself, a little arrested by mistak pole gracious and comfortable aspect, which hinted that it wouldn't be so easy, as she had assumed, to disapprove of her. She rusted, she shimmered in fresh, dove-colored trapeze, and Ralph saw at a glance that she was as crisp and new and comprehensive as a first issue before the folding. From top to toe, she had probably no misprint. She spoke in a clear, high voice, a voice not rich but loud. After she had taken her place with her companions in Mr. Tachette's carriage, she struck him as not at all in the large type, the type of horrid eatings that he had expected. She answered the inquires made over by Isabel, however, and in which the young man ventured to joy with copious lucidity, and later in the library at Gatengourt, when she had the acquaintance of Mr. Tachette, his wife not having thought it necessary to appear, did more to give the measure of her confidence in her powers. Well, I should like to know whatever you consider yourself as American or English, she broke out. If once I knew, I could talk to you accordingly. Talk to us anyhow, and we shall be thankful, Ralph liberally answered. She fixed her eyes on him, and there was something in their character that remind him of a large, polished buttons, buttons that might have fixed the elastic loops of sometimes receptacle. He seemed to see the reflection of surrounding object on the purple. The expression of a button is not usually deemed human, but there was something in Mr. Tachpole's gaze that made him, as a very modest man, feel vaguely embarrassed, less enviolet, more dishonored and delight. The sensation, it must be added, after yet spent a day or two in her company, sensibly diminished, though it never really lapsed. I don't suppose that you are going to undertake to persuade me that you are an American, she said. To please you I'll be an Englishman, I'll be a Turk. Well, if you can change about that way, you are very welcome, Mr. Tachpole returned. I'm sure you understand everything, and that differences of nationality are no barrier to you, Ralph went on. Mr. Tachpole gazed at him still. Do you mean the foreign languages? The languages are nothing, I mean the spirit, the genius. I'm not sure that I understand you, said the correspondent of the interviewer, but I expect I shall before I leave. Here's what called a cosmopolite, Isabel suggested. That means is a little of everything and not much of any. I must say I think patriotism is like charity, it begins at home. Ha, but where does home begin, Mr. Tachpole ruffled and quiet. I don't know where it begins, but I know where it ends. It ended a long time before I got here. Don't you like it over here, asked Mr. Tachette with his age-innocent voice. Well, sir, I haven't quite made up my mind what ground I shall take. I feel a good deal cramped, I feel it on the journey from Liverpool to London. Perhaps you were in a crowded carriage, Ralph suggested. Yes, but it was crowded with friends, party of Americans, whose acquaintance I had made upon the steamer. A lovely group from Little Rock, Arkansas. In spite of that I felt cramped, I felt something pressing upon me. I couldn't tell what it was. I felt at very commencement as if I were not going to accord with the atmosphere, but I suppose I shall make my own atmosphere. That's the true way, then you can breathe. Your surroundings seem very attractive. We too are a lovely group, said Ralph, wait a little and you'll see. Mr. Tachpole showed with every disposition to wait and evidently was prepared to make a considerable stay at Garden Court. She occupied herself in the mornings with literally labour, but in spite of this, Isabel spent many hours with her friend, who once, her daily task performed, deprecated in fact defied isolation. Isabel speedily found occasion to desire her to desist from celebrating the charms of their common sojourning print. Having discovered on the second morning of Mr. Tachpole visit that she was engaged on a letter to the interviewer of which the title in her exquisitely neat and legible hand exactly that of the copy books, which our heroine remember at school was Americans and Tudors, Limpsies of Garden Court. Mr. Tachpole with the best conscience in the world offered to read the her letter to Isabel, who immediately put in her protest. I don't think you ought to do that. I don't think you ought to describe the place. Henrietta guessed that as usual. Why is just what the people want? And it's a lovely place. It's too lovely to be put in a newspaper, and it's not what my uncle wants. Don't you believe that, cried Henrietta, they are always delighted afterward. My uncle won't be delighted, nor my cousin either. They'll consider it a breach of hospitality. Mr. Tachpole show it no sense of confusion. She simply wiped her pen very neatly upon an elegant little implement which she kept for the purpose and put away her manuscript. Of course, if you don't approve, I want to it, but a sacrifice a beautiful subject. There are plenty of other subjects. There are subjects all around you. We'll take some drives. I'll show you some charming scenery. Scenery is not my department. I always need a human interest. You know I'm deeply human, Isabel. I always was. Mr. Tachpole rejoined. I was going to bring in your cousin, the alienated American. There's a great demand just now for the alienated American, and your cousin's a beautiful specimen. I should have handled him severely. He would have died of it, Isabel exclaimed, not of the severity, but of the publicity. I should have liked to kill him a little, and I should have delighted to do your uncle, who seems to me a much nobler type, the American faithful still. He's a grand old man. I don't see how he can object to my paying him honor. Isabel looked at her companion in much wonderment. It struck her as a stranger to the nature in which she found so much to steam should break down so in spot. Poor Henrietta, she said, you have no sense of privacy. Henrietta colored her deeply and for a moment her bright land eyes were suffused, while Isabel found her more than ever inconsequent. You do me great injustice, said Miss Tachpole with dignity. I have never written a word about myself. I'm very sure of that, but it seemed to me one should be modest for others also. Ha, that's very good, Henrietta, seizing her pen again. Just let me make a note of it and I'll put it in somewhere. She was a truly good, natural woman, and half an hour later she was in a cheerful mood, as should have been looked for in a newspaper lady in want of a matter. I have promised to do the social side, she said to Isabel, and how can I do it unless I get ideas? If I can't describe this place, don't you know some place I can describe? Isabel promised she would be seeing herself, and the next day, in conversation with her friend, she happened to mention her visit to Lord Warbartons ancient house. Ha, you must take me there, that's just a place for me, Miss Tachpole cried, I must get a glimpse of the nobility. I can't take you, said Isabel, but Lord Warbartons coming here, have a chance to see him and observe him, only if you intended to repeat this conversation I shall certainly give him warning. Don't do that, her companion pleaded. I want him to be natural. An Englishman is never so natural as when he's holding his tongue, Isabel declared. It was not apparent at the end of the three days that her cousin had, according to her prophecy, lost his hair to their visitors, though he had spent a good deal of time in her society. They strolled about the park together and sat under the trees, and in the afternoon when it was delightful to float along the Thames, Miss Tachpole occupied a place in the boat in which he heard a Ralph had had but a single companion. Her presence proved somehow less irreducible to soft particles than Ralph had expected in the natural perturbation of his sense of the perfect solubility of that of his cousin. For the correspondent of the interviewer prompted Meeth in him and yet long since decided that the crescendo of Meeth should be the flower of his declining days. Rita on her side failed a little to justify Isabel's declaration with regard to her in defense to masculine opinion. For poor Ralph appeared to have presented himself to her as an irritating problem that it would be most immoral not to work out. What does he do for a living? She asked of Isabel the evening of her arrival. Does he go around all day with his hand in his pocket? He does nothing, smiled Isabel. He is a gentleman of a large leisure. Well, I called it a shame when I had to work like a car conductor. Miss Tachpole replied I should like to show him up. He is in a wretch health. He is quite unfit for work, Isabel urged. Psa, don't you believe it? I work when I'm sick, cried her friend. Later, when she stepped into the boat and joined the water party she remarked to Ralph that she supposed he hated her and would like to drown her. Hano said to Ralph I keep my victims for a slower torture and you'd be such an interesting one. Well, you do torture me. I may say that I shock all your prejudice. That's one comfort. My prejudices? I haven't a prejudice to bless myself with. There's an intellectual poverty for you. The more shame to you have some delicious one of course, as well your filtration or whatever it is you call it with your cousin. But I don't care for that as I render her the service of throwing you out. In you are. Ha, do draw me out Ralph has climbed. So few people will take the trouble. Miss Tuckpole in this undertaking appeared to shrink for no effort resorting largely whenever the opportunity offered to the natural expedient of interrogation. On the following day the weather was bad. In the afternoon the young man by way of providing indoor amusement offered to show her the pictures. Henrietta strode through the long calorie in his society while he pointed out his principal ornaments and mentioned the painters and his subject. Miss Tuckpole looked at the pictures in perfect silence committing herself to no opinion and Ralph was gratified by the fact that she delivered herself on no one of the little really made ejaculation of the light of which the visitors to Gardencourt were so frequently lavish. This young lady indeed to do her justice was but little addicted to the use of conventional terms. There was something ear-ness and inventive in their tone which at times in its strange deliberation suggested a person of high culture speaking a foreign language. Ralph T'Chette subsequently learned that she had at one time officiated as art critic to a journal award but she appeared in spite of this fact to carry in her pocket no one of the small change of admiration. Suddenly just after he had called their attention to a charming constable she turned and looked at him as if he himself had been a picture. Do you always spend your time like this? he she demanded. I seldom spent it so agreebly. Well you know what I mean in regular occupation? Ha said Ralph. I am the idealist man living. Miss Tuckpole directed her gaze to the constable again and Ralph bespoke her attention for a small long thread hanging near it which represented a gentleman in a pink doublet and hose and a ruff leaning against the pedestal of the statue of a nymph in a garden and playing the guitar to the two ladies seated on the grass. In regular occupation he said Miss Tuckpole tuned to him again and though her eyes had rested upon the picture he saw she had missed the subject she was thinking of something much more serious. I don't see how you can reconcile it to your conscience. My dear lady I have no conscience. Well I advise you to cultivate one. You need it the next time you go to America. I shall probably never go again. Are you ashamed to show yourself? Ralph meditated with a mild smile. I suppose that if one has no conscience one has no shame. Well he have got plenty of assurance her yet to declare. Do you consider it right to give up your country? Ha one doesn't give up one's country any more than one give up one's grandmother. They are both intestine to the choice element of one's composition that are not to be eliminated. I suppose that means that you have tried and been worsted what do they think of you over here? They delight in me that's because you trackled to them Ha set it down a little to my natural charm Ralph sigh I don't know anything about your natural charm if I have got any charm it's quite unnatural it's fully acquired or at least you have tried hard to acquire it leaving over here I don't say you have succeeded it's a charm that I don't appreciate anyway make yourself useful in some way and then we'll talk about it well now tell me what I shall do said Ralph go right home to begin with yes I see and then take right hold of something well now what sort of thing anything you please so long as you take hold idea some big work is it very difficult to take hold Ralph and Guard not if you put your heart into it ha my heart said Ralph if it depend upon my heart haven't you got a heart I had one a few days ago but I have lost it since you are not serious Miss Tackball remarked that's what the matter with you but for all these in a day too she again permitted him to fix her attention and on the later occasion assigned a different cause to her mysterious perversity I know what's the matter with you Mr. Tashat she said you think you are too good to get married I thought so till I knew you Miss Tackball Ralph answered and then I suddenly changed my mind oops Henrietta groaned then it seemed to me as at Ralph not good enough it would improve you beside it your duty ha cried the young man one has so many duties is that a duty too of course it is did you never know that before it's everyone's duty to get married Ralph meditated a moment he was disappointed there was something Miss Tackball he had begun to like he seemed to him that woman she was at least a very good sort she was wanting in distinction but as Isabel had said she was brave she went into cages she flourished lashes like a spanglet lion tamer he had not supposed her to be capable of vulgar art but this last word struck him as a false note when a marriageable young woman urges matrimony on an encumbered young man the most abused explanation of her conduct is not the altruistic impulse oh well now there's a good deal to be said about that Ralph rejoined there may be but that's the principle thing I must say I think it looks very exclusive going around all alone as if you thought no woman was good enough for you do you think you are better than anyone else in the world in America it's usual for people to marry is my duty Ralph Asket is it not my analogy yours as well mistakpo's ocular surfaces unwinkingly coat the sound have you defund hope of finding a flaw in my reasoning of course I have as good a right to marry as I anyone else well done said Ralph I won't say it vexes me to see you single it delights me rather you are not serious yet you never will be shall you not believe me to be so on the day I tell you I desire to give up the practice of going around alone mistakpo looked at him for a moment in a manner which seemed to announce a reply that might technically be called encouraging but to his great surprise this expression suddenly resolved itself into an appearance of alarm and even of resentment no not even then she answered Riley she walked it away I've not conceived a passion for your friend Ralph said the evening to Isabel though we talk at some time this morning about it how you said something she didn't like the girl replied Ralph stared as she complained of me she told me she thinks there's something very low in the tone of European stolen woman does she call me a European one of the worst she told me you have said to her something that an American never would have said but she didn't repeat it Ralph treated himself to a luxury of laughter she's an extraordinary combination did she think I was making love to her no I believe even Americans do that but she apparently thought you mistook the intention of something she had said and put an unkind construction on it I thought she was proposing Marius to me and I accepted her was that unkind Isabel smiled it was unkind to me I don't want you to marry my dear cousin what's one to do among you all Ralph demanded me stuckball tells me it's my bondon duty and that it's hers in general to see I do mine she's a great sense of duty said Isabel gravely she has indeed and it's the motive that's what I like her for she thinks this and what of you to keep so many things to yourself that's what she wanted to express if you thought she was trying to to attract you you were very wrong it's true it was a not way but I did think she was trying to attract me forgive my depravity you are very conceited she had no interested views and never supposed you to think she had one must be very modest then to talk with such women Ralph said humbly but it's a very strange type she's too personal considering that she expect other people not to be she walks in without knocking at the door yes Isabel admitted she doesn't sufficiently recognize the existence of knockers and indeed I'm not sure that she doesn't think them rather a pretentious woman she thinks one store should stand ajar but I persist in liking her I persist in thinking her too familiar Ralph rejoined not really somewhat uncomfortable under the sense of having been doubly deceived in Miss Tackball well said Isabel smiling I'm afraid it's because she's rather vulgar that I like her she would be flattered but your reason if I should tell her I wouldn't express I should say it's because there's something of the people in her what do you know about the people and what does she for them matter she knows a great deal and I know enough to feel that she's a kind of emanation of the great democracy of the continent the country the nation I don't say that she sums it all up that would be too much to ask of her but she suggests it she vividly figures it you like her then for patriotic reason I'm afraid it is on those very grounds I object to her how sad Isabel with a kind of joyous sigh I like so many things if a thing strikes me with a certain intensity I accept it I don't want to suck her but I suppose I'm rather versatin I like people to be totally different from Marietta in the style of Lord Warburton sister for instance so long as I look at the Mrs. Molinaud it seems to me to answer a kind of video then Marietta presents herself and I'm straight away convinced by her not so much in respect to herself as in respect to what messes behind her how you mean the back view of her I've suggested what she says is true you'll never be serious I like the great country stretching away beyond the rivers across the friaries blooming and smiling and spreading till its tops of the green pacific a strong, sweet, fresh odor seems to arise from it and Marietta, pardon my simile has something of that odor in her carmen Isabel blushed a little as she concluded this speech and the blush together with the momentary ardor she had thrown into it was so becoming to her that Ralf stood smiling at her for a moment speaking I'm not sure the pacific's so green as that he said but you are a young woman of imagination and Marietta, however, does smell of the future it almost knocks one down end of chapter 10 recording by Martina Chapter 11 of the Portrait of a Lady Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer visit LibriVox.org Recording by Don Murphy The Portrait of a Lady Volume 1 by Henry James Chapter 11 He took a resolve after this not to misinterpret her words even when Miss Stackpole appeared to strike a personal note most strongly he be thought himself that persons in her view were simple and homogenous organisms and that he, for his own part was too perverted a representative of the nature of man to have a right to deal with her in strict reciprocity he carried out his resolve with a great deal of tact and the young lady found in renewed contact with him no obstacle to the exercise of her genius for unshrinking inquiry the general application of her confidence her situation at garden court therefore appreciated as we have seen her to be by Isabel and full of appreciation herself of that free play of intelligence which to her sense rendered Isabel's character a sister spirit and of the easy venerableness of Mr. Touchett whose noble tone, as she said met with her full approval her situation at garden court would have been perfectly comfortable had she not conceived an irresistible mistrust of the little lady for whom she had at first supposed herself obliged to allow as the mistress of the house she presently discovered in truth that this obligation was of the lightest and that Mrs. Touchett cared very little how Miss Stackpole behaved Mrs. Touchett had defined her to Isabel as both an adventurous and a bore adventurous is usually giving one more of a thrill she had expressed some surprise at her nieces having selected such a friend yet had immediately added that she knew Isabel's friends were her own affair and that she had never undertaken to like them all or to restrict the girl to those she liked if you could see none but people I like, my dear you'd have a very small society Mrs. Touchett frankly admitted and I don't think I like any man or woman well enough to recommend them to you when it comes to recommending it's a serious affair I don't like Miss Stackpole everything about her displeases me she talks so much too loud and looks at one if one wanted to look at her which one doesn't I'm sure she has lived all her life in a boarding house and I detest the manners and the liberties of such places if you ask me if I prefer my own manners which you doubtless think very bad I tell you that I prefer them immensely Miss Stackpole knows I detest boarding house civilization and she detests me for detesting it she thinks it is the highest in the world she'd like Garden Court a great deal better if it were a boarding house for me I find it almost too much of one we shall never get on together therefore and there is no use trying Mrs. Touchett was right in guessing that Henriana disapproved of her but she had not quite put her finger on the reason a day or two after Miss Stackpole's arrival she had made some invidious inflections on American hotels which excited a vein of counter argument on the part of the correspondent of the interviewer who in the exercise of her profession had acquainted herself in the western world with every form of caravansary Henrietta expressed the opinion that American hotels were the best in the world and Mrs. Touchett, fresh from a renewed struggle with them ordered a conviction that they were the worst Ralph with his experimental geniality suggested by way of healing the breach that the truth lay between the two extremes and that the establishments in question ought to be described as fair middling this contribution to the discussion however Miss Stackpole rejected with scorn, middling indeed they were not the best in the world they were the worst but there was nothing middling about an American hotel we judge from different points of view evidently said Mrs. Touchett I like to be treated as an individual you like to be treated as a party I don't know what you mean Henrietta replied I like to be treated as an American lady poor American ladies cried Mrs. Touchett with a laugh they're the slaves of slaves they're the companions of free men Henrietta retorted they're the companions of their servants the Irish chambermaid and the Negro waiter they share their work do you call the domestics an American household slaves Miss Stackpole inquired if that's the way you desire to treat them no wonder you don't like America if you've got good servants you're miserable Mrs. Touchett serenely said they're very bad in America but I have five perfect ones in Florence I don't see what you want with five Henrietta couldn't help observing I don't think I should like to see five persons surrounding me in that menial position I like them in that position better than some others proclaimed Miss Touchett with much meaning me better if I were your butler dear her husband asked I don't think I should you wouldn't at all have the tenu the companions of free men I like that Miss Stackpole said Ralph it's a beautiful description when I said free men I didn't mean you sir and this was the only reward that Ralph got for his compliment Miss Stackpole was baffled evidently thought there was something treasonable and Mrs. Touchett's appreciation of a class which she privately judged to be a mysterious survival of feudalism it was perhaps because her mind was oppressed with this image that she suffered some days to elapse before she took occasion to say to Isabelle my dear friend I wonder if you're growing faithless faithless faithless to you Henrietta no no that would be a great pain but it's not that faithless to my country then oh that I hope will never be when I wrote to you from Liverpool I said I had something particular to tell you you've never asked me what it is is it because you've suspected suspected what as a rule I don't think I suspect said Isabelle I remember now that phrase in your letter yes I had forgotten it what have you to tell me Henrietta looked disappointed and her steady gaze betrayed it you don't ask that right as if you thought it important you're changed you're thinking of other things tell me what you mean and I'll think of that will you really think of it that's what I wish to be sure of I've not much control of my thoughts and I'll do my best said Isabelle Henrietta gazed at her in silence for a period which tried Isabelle's patience so that our heroine added at last do you mean that you're going to be married not till I've seen Europe said Miss Stackpole what are you laughing at she went on what I mean is that Mr. Goodwood came out in the steamer with me ah you say that right I had a good deal of talk with him he has come after you did he tell you so no he told me nothing that's how I knew it said Henrietta cleverly he said very little about you but I spoke of you a good deal Isabelle waited at the mention of Mr. Goodwood's name she had turned a little pale I'm very sorry you did that she observed at last it was a pleasure to me I liked the way he listened I could have talked a long time to such a listener he was so quiet, so intense he drank it all in what did you say about me Isabelle asked I said you were on the whole the finest creature I know I'm very sorry for that he thinks too well of me already he oughtn't to be encouraged he's dying for a little encouragement I see his face now and his earnest absorbed look while I talked I never saw an ugly man look so handsome he's very simple minded said Isabelle and he's not so ugly there's nothing so simplifying as a grand passion it's not a grand passion I'm very sure it's not that you don't say that as if you were sure Isabelle gave rather a cold smile I shall say it better to Mr. Goodwood himself he'll soon give you the chance said Henrietta Isabelle offered no answer to this assertion which her companion made with an air of great confidence he'll find you changed the latter pursued you've been affected by your new surroundings finally I'm affected by everything by everything but Mr. Goodwood Ms. Stackpole exclaimed with a slightly harsh hilarity Isabelle failed even to smile back and in a moment she said did he ask you to speak to me not in so many words but his eyes asked it and his hands shake when he bade me goodbye thank you for doing so and Isabelle turned away yes you're changed you've got new ideas over here her friend continued I hope so said Isabelle one should get as many new ideas as possible yes but they shouldn't interfere with the old ones when the old ones have been the right ones Isabelle turned about again if you mean that I had any idea with regard to Mr. Goodwood but she faltered before her friend's implacable glitter and she called you certainly encouraged him Isabelle made for the moment as if to deny this charge instead of which however she presently answered it's very true I did encourage him and then she asked if her companion had learned from Mr. Goodwood what he intended to do it was a concession to her curiosity for she disliked discussing the subject and found Henrietta wanting in delicacy I asked him and he said he meant to do nothing Miss Stackpole answered but I don't believe that he's not a man to do nothing he is a man of high, bold action whatever happens to him he's always doing something and whatever he does will always be right I quite believe that Henrietta might be wanting in delicacy but it touched the girl all the same to hear this declaration ah you do care for him her visitor rang out whatever he does will always be right Isabelle repeated when a man's of that infallible mold what does it matter to him what one feels it may not matter to him but it matters to one's self ah what it matters to me that's not what we're discussing said Isabelle with a cold smile this time her companion was grave well I don't care you're not the girl you were a few short weeks ago and Mr. Goodwood will see it I expect him here any day I hope he'll hate me then said Isabelle I believe you hope it about as much as I believe him capable of it to this observation our heroine made no return she was absorbed in the alarm given her by Henrietta's intimation that Casper Goodwood would present himself at garden court she pretended to herself however that she thought the event impossible and later she communicated her disbelief to her friend for the next 48 hours nevertheless she stood prepared to hear the young man's name announced the feeling pressed upon her it made the air sultry as if there were to be a change of weather and the weather socially speaking had been so agreeable during Isabelle day at garden court that any change would be for the worse her suspense indeed was dissipated the second day she walked into the park in company with the sociable Bunchie and after strolling about for some time in a manner at once listless and restless had seated herself on a garden bench within sight of the house beneath a spreading beach where in a white dress ornamented with black ribbons shadows a graceful and harmonious image she entertained herself for some moments with talking to the little terrier as to whom the proposal of an ownership divided with her cousin had been applied as impartially as possible as impartially as Bunchie's own somewhat fickle and inconstant sympathies would allow but she was notified for the first time on this occasion of the finite character of Bunchie's intellect hitherto she had been mainly struck with its extent it seemed to her at last that she would do well to take a book formally when heavy-hearted she had been able, with the help of some well-chosen volume to transfer the seat of consciousness to the organ of pure reason of late it was not to be denied literature had seemed a fading light and even after she had reminded herself that her uncle's library was provided with a complete set of those authors which no gentleman's collection should be without she sat motionless and empty-handed her eyes bent on the cool green turf of the lawn her meditations were presently interrupted by the arrival of a servant who handed her a letter the letter bore the London postmark and was addressed in a hand she knew that came into her vision already so held by him with the vividness of the writer's voice or his face this document proved short and may be given entire my dear Miss Archer I don't know whether you will have heard of my coming to England but even if you have not it will scarcely be a surprise to you you will remember that when you gave me my dismissal at Albany three months ago I protested against it you in fact appeared to accept my protest and to admit that I had the right on my side I had come to see you with the hope that you would let me bring you over to my conviction my reasons for entertaining this hope had been of the best but you disappointed it I found you changed and you were able to give me no reason for the change you admitted that you were unreasonable and it was the only concession you would make but it was a very cheap one because that's not your character no you are not and you never will be arbitrary or capricious therefore it is that I believe you will let me see you again you told me that I am not disagreeable to you and I believe it for I don't see why that should be I shall always think of you I shall never think of anyone else I came to England simply because you were here I couldn't stay at home after you had gone I hated the country because you were not in it if I like this country at present it is only because it holds you I have been to England before but have never enjoyed it much may I not come and see you for half an hour this at present is the dearest wish of yours faithfully Casper Goodwood read this misive with such deep attention that she had not perceived an approaching tread on the soft grass looking up however as she mechanically folded it she saw Lord Warburton standing before her End of Chapter 11 Recording by Don Murphy in El Segundo, California Chapter 12 The Portrait of a Lady Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information all to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org This reading by Lucy Burgoyne The Portrait of a Lady Volume 1 by Henry James Chapter 12 She put the letter into her pocket and offered her visitor a smile of welcome exhibiting no trace of discomposure and half surprised at her coolness They told me you were out here said Lord Warburton and as there was no one in the door-in-room and it's really you that I wish to see I came out with no more ado Isabelle had got up she felt a wish for the moment that he should not sit down beside her I was just going indoors please don't do that it's much jollier here I've ridden over from luckily it's a lovely day his smile was peculiarly friendly and pleasing and his whole person seemed to admit that radiance of good feeling and good fear which had formed the charm of the girl's first impression of him it surrounded him like a zone of fine dune weather we'll walk about a little then said Isabelle who could not divest herself of the sense of an intention on the part of her visitor and who wished both to elude the intention and to satisfy her curiosity about it it had flashed upon her vision once before and it had given her on that occasion as we know a certain alarm this alarm was composed of several elements not all of which were disagreeable she had indeed spent some days in analysing them and had succeeded in separating the pleasant part of the idea of Lord Warburton's making up to her from the painful it may appear to some readers that the young lady was both precipitate and unduly fastidious but the latter of these facts if the charge be true may serve to exonerate her from the discredit of the former she was not eager to convince herself that a territorial magnet as she had heard Lord Warburton called was smitten with her charms the fact of a declaration from such a source carrying with it really more questions than it would answer she had received a strong impression of his being a personage and she had occupied herself in examining the image so conveyed at the risk of adding to the evidence of her self sufficiency it must be said there had been moments when this possibility of admiration by a personage represented to her an aggression almost to the degree of an affront quite to the degree of an inconvenience she had never yet known much there had been no personages in this sense in her life there were probably none such at all in her native land when she had thought of individual eminence she had thought of it on the basis of character and wit of what one might like in a gentleman's mind and in his talk she herself was a character she couldn't help being aware of that and hitherto her visions of a completed consciousness had concerned themselves largely with moral images things as to which the question would be whether they pleased her sublime soul Lord Warburton loomed up before her largely and brightly as a collection of attributes and powers which were not to be measured by this simple rule that which demanded a different sort of appreciation an appreciation that the girl with a habit of judging quickly and freely felt she lacked patience to bestow he appeared to demand of her something that no one else as it were had presumed to do what she felt was that a territorial a political a social magnet had conceived the design of drawing her into the system in which he rather inviduously lived and moved a certain instinct not imperious but persuasive told her to resist murmured to her that virtually she had a system and an orbit of her own it told her other things besides things which both contradicted and confirmed to each other that a girl might do much worse than trust herself to such a man that it would be very interesting to see something of his system from his own point of view that on the other hand however there was evidently a great deal of it which she should regard only as a complication of every hour and that even in the whole there was something stiff and stupid which would make it a burden furthermore there was a young man lately come from America had a system at all but who had a character of which it was useless for her to try to persuade herself that the impression on her mind had been light the letter she carried in her pocket all sufficiently reminded her of the contrary smile not however I venture to repeat at this simple young woman from Albany who debated whether she should accept what she had offered himself and who was disposed to believe that on the whole she could do better she was a person of great good faith and if there was a great deal of folly in her wisdom those who judge her severely may have the satisfaction of finding that later she became consistently wise only at the cost of an amount of folly which will constitute almost a direct appeal to charity Lord Warburton seemed quite ready to walk to sit or to do anything that Isabelle should propose and he gave her this assurance with his usual air of being particularly pleased to exercise a social virtue but he was nevertheless not in command of his emotions and as he strolled beside her for a moment in silence and at her without letting her know her there was something embarrassed in his glance and his misdirected laughter yes, assuredly as we have touched on the point we may return to it for a moment again the English are the most romantic people in the world and Lord Warburton was about to give an example of it he was about to take a step which would astonish all his friends these are great many of them and which had superficially nothing to recommend it the young lady who trod the turf beside him had come from a queer country across the sea which he knew a good deal about her antecedents her associations were very vague to his mind except in so far as they were generic and in this sense they showed as distinct and unimportant Miss Archer had neither a fortune nor the sort of beauty that justifies a man to the multitude and he calculated that he had spent about 26 hours in her company he had summed up all this the perversity of the impulse which had declined to avail itself of the most liberal opportunities to subside and the judgment of mankind as it exemplified particularly in the more quickly judging half of it he had looked these things well in the face and then had dismissed them from his thoughts he cared no more for them than for the rosebud in his buttonhole it is the good fortune of a man who for the greater part of a lifetime has abstained without effort from making himself disagreeable to his friends that when the need comes for such a course it is not discredited by irritating associations I hope you had a pleasant ride said Isabel who observed her companion's hesitancy it would have been pleasant if for nothing else than that had brought me here a use so fond of garden court the girl asked more and more sure that he meant to make some appeal to her wishing not to challenge him if he hesitated and yet to keep all the quietness of her reason if he proceeded it suddenly came upon her that her situation was one which a few weeks ago she would have deemed deeply romantic the park of an old English country house with the foreground embellished by a great as she supposed nobleman in the act of making love to a young lady who on careful inspection should be found to present remarkable energies with herself but if she was now the heroine of the situation she succeeded scarcely the less in looking at her from the outside I care nothing for garden court said her companion I care only for you you've known me too short a time to have a right to say that and I can't believe you're serious these words of Isabelle's were not perfectly sincere for she had no doubt whatever that he himself was they were simply a tribute to the fact of which she was perfectly aware that those he had just uttered would have excited surprise on the part of a vulgar world and moreover if anything beside the sense she had already acquired the sense that warbiton was not a loose thinker had been needed to convince her the tone in which he replied would quite have served the purpose one's right in such a matter is not measured by the time miss Archer it's measured by the feeling itself if I were to wait three months it would make no difference I shall not be more sure of what I mean than I am today of course I've seen you very little that my impression dates from the very first hour we met I lost no time I fell in love with you then it was at first sight as the novel will say I know now that's not a fancy phrase and I shall think better of novels forevermore those two days I spent here settled it I don't know whether you suspected I was doing so but I paid mentally speaking I mean the greatest possible attention to you nothing you said nothing you did was lost upon me when you came to locally the other day or rather when you went away I was perfectly sure nevertheless I made up my mind to think it over and to question myself narrowly I've done so all these days I've done nothing else I don't make mistakes about such things I'm a very judicious animal I don't go off easily but when I'm touched it's for life it's for life Miss Archer it's for life Lord Warburton repeated in the kindest tenderest, pleasantest voice Isabel had ever heard and looking at her with eyes charged with the light of a passion that had sifted herself clear at the base of points of emotion the heat, the violence the unreason and that burned as steadily as a lamp in a windless place by tacit consent as he talked they had warped more and more slowly and at last they stopped and he took her hand ah Lord Warburton how little you know me Isabel said very gently gently too she drew her hand away don't taunt me with that that I don't know you better makes me unhappy enough already it's all my loss but that's what I want and it seems to me I'm taking the best way if you'll be my wife then I shall know you and when I tell you all the good I think of you you'll not be able to say it's from ignorance if you know me little I know you even less said Isabel you mean that unlike yourself I may not improve on acquaintance ah of course that's very possible but think to speak to you as I do how determined I must be to try and give satisfaction you do like me rather don't you I like you very much Lord Warburton she answered and at this moment she liked him immensely I thank you for saying that it shows you don't regard me as a stranger I really believe I've filled all the other relations of life very creditbly and I don't see why I shouldn't feel this one in which I offer myself to you seeing that I care so much more about it who know me well I have friends who will speak for me I don't need the recommendation of your friends said Isabel ah now that's delightful of you you believe in me yourself completely Isabel declared she quite glowed there inwardly with the pleasure of feeling she did the light in her companion's eyes turned into a smile a long exhalation of joy if you're mistaken Miss Archer let me lose all I possess she wondered whether he meant this for a reminder that he was rich and on the instant felt sure that he didn't he was thinking that as he would have said himself and indeed he might safely leave it to the memory of any interlocutor especially a one to whom he was offering his hand Isabel had prayed that she might not be agitated and her mind was tranquil enough even while she listened and asked herself what it was best she should say to indulge in this incidental criticism what she should say she had asked herself her foremost wish was to say something if possible not less kind she had said to her his words had carried perfect conviction with them she felt she did also mysteriously matter to him I thank you more than I can say for your offer it does me great honour don't say that he broke out I was afraid you'd say something like that I don't see what you've to do with anything I don't see why you should thank me it's I who ought to thank you for listening to me a man you know so little coming down on you with such a thumper of course it's a great question I must tell you that I'd rather ask it than have it to answer myself but the way you've listened or at least you're having listened at all gives me some hope not too much Isabel said oh miss Archer her companion murmured smiling again in his seriousness as if such a warning might perhaps be taken but as the play of high spirits the exuberance of elation should you be greatly surprised if I were to beg you not to hope at all Isabel asked what you mean by surprise it wouldn't be that it would be a feeling very much worse Isabel walked on again she was silent for some minutes I'm very sure that highly as I already think of you my opinion of you if I should know you well would only rise but I'm by no means sure that you wouldn't be disappointed and I say that of conventional modesty it's perfectly sincere I'm willing to risk it miss Archer her companion replied it's a great question as you say it's a very difficult question I don't expect you of course to answer it outright think it over as long as may be necessary if I can gain by waiting I'll gladly wait a long time but in the end my dearest happiness depends on your answer I should be very sorry to keep you in suspense said Isabel oh don't mind I'd much rather have a good answer six months hence than a bad one today but it's very probable that even six months hence I shouldn't be able to give you one that you'd think good why not since you really like me ah you must never doubt that said Isabel well then I don't see what more you ask it's not what I ask it's what I can give I don't think I should suit you I really don't think I should you needn't worry about that that's my affair you needn't be a better royalist than the king it's not only that said Isabel anyone very likely you don't I've no doubt a great many women begin that way said his lordship who there a bird did not in the least believe in the axiom he thus beguiled his anxiety by uttering but there frequently persuaded ah that's because they want to be and Isabel lightly laughed her suit has countenance fell and he looked at her for a while in silence I'm afraid it's my being an Englishman that makes you hesitate he said presently I know your uncle thinks you ought to marry in your own country Isabel listened to disassertion with some interest it had never occurred to her that Mr. Touche was likely to discuss her matrimonial prospects with Lord Warburton as he told you that I remember he's making the remark he spoke perhaps of Americans generally he appears himself to have found it very pleasant to live in England Isabel spoke in a manner that might have seemed a little perverse that which expressed both her constant perception of her uncle's outward felicity and her general disposition to allude any obligation it gave her companion hope and he immediately cried with warmth ah my dear Miss Archer old Englands a very good sort of country you know and it will be still better when we've furbished it up a little oh don't furbish it Lord Warburton leave it alone I like it this way well then if you like it you're more unable to see your objection to what I propose I'm afraid I can't make you understand you ought at least try of a fair intelligence are you afraid, afraid of the climate we can easily live elsewhere you know you can pick out your climate the whole world over these words were uttered with the breath of candle that was like the embrace that was like the fragrance straight in her face and by his clean breathing lips of she knew not what strange gardens what charged airs she would have given her little finger at that moment to feel strongly and simply the impulse to answer Lord Warburton it's impossible for me to do better in this wonderful world I think then commit myself very gratefully to her loyalty but though she was lost in admiration of her opportunity she managed to move back into the deepest shade of it even as some wild caught creature in a vast cage the splendid security so offered her was not the greatest she could conceive what she finally thought herself of saying was something very different something that deferred forcing her crisis don't think me unkind if I ask you to say no more about this today certainly, certainly her companion cried I wouldn't bore you for the world you've given me a great deal to think about and I promise you to do it justice that's all I ask of you of course and that you'll remember how absolutely my happiness is in your hands I've always listened with extreme respect to this admonition but she said after a minute I must tell you that what I shall think about is some way of letting you know that what you ask is impossible letting you know without making you miserable there's no way to do that Miss Archer I won't say that if you refuse me you'll kill me I shall not die of it I shall live to no purpose you'll live to marry a better woman than I don't say that please said Lord Warburton very gravely that's fair to neither of us to marry a worse one then if there are better women then you I prefer the bad ones that's all I can say he went on with the same earnestness there's no accounting for tastes gravity made her feel equally grave and she showed it by again requesting him to drop the subject for the present I'll speak to you myself very soon perhaps I shall write to you at your convenience yes he replied whatever time you take it must seem to me long and I suppose I must make the best of that I shall not keep you in suspense to collect my mind a little he gave a melancholy sigh and stood looking at her a moment with his hands behind him giving short nervous shakes to his hunting crop do you know I'm very much afraid of it of that remarkable mind of yours our heroine's biographer can scarcely tell why that the question made her start and brought a conscience blush to her cheek and his look a moment and then with a note in her voice that might almost have appealed to his compassion so am I my lord she oddly exclaimed his compassion was not stirred however all he possessed at the fecality of pity was needed at home ah be merciful be merciful I think you would better go said Isabel very good but whatever you write I'll come and see you and then he stood reflecting his eyes fixed on the observant countenance of Bunchie who had the air of having understood all that had been said and of pretending to carry off the indiscretion by a simulated fit of curiosity as to the roots of an ancient oak there's one thing more he went on you know if you don't like Loc Lee if you think it's damp or anything of that sort you need never go within 50 miles of it it's not damp by the way I've had the house thoroughly examined it's perfectly safe and right but if you shouldn't fancy it you need a dream of living in it there's no difficulty whatever about that there are plenty of houses there's no tension some people don't like a moat you know goodbye I adore a moat said Isabel goodbye he held out his hand and she gave him hers a moment a moment long enough for him to bend his handsome beard head and kiss it then still agitating in his mastered emotion much upset Isabel herself was upset but she had not been affected as she would have imagined what she felt was not a great responsibility a great difficulty of choice it appeared to her there had been no choice in the question she couldn't marry Lord Warburton the idea failed to support any enlightened prejudice in favour of the free exploration of life that she had hitherto entertained or is now capable of entertaining she must write this to him she must convince him and that duty was comparatively simple but what disturbed her in the sense that it struck her with wonderment was this very fact that it cost her so little to refuse a magnificent chance with whatever qualifications one would Lord Warburton had offered her a great opportunity the situation might have discomforts might contain oppressive might contain narrowing elements might prove really but a stupefying anodyne but she did her sex no injustice in believing that 19 women out of 20 would have had a pen why then upon her also should it not irresistibly impose itself who was she what was she that she should hold herself superior what view of life what design upon fate what conception of happiness had she had pretended to be larger than these large these fabulous occasions if she wouldn't do such a thing as that then she must do great things she must do something greater poor Isabelle found ground to remind herself from time to time that she must not be too proud and nothing could be more sincere than her prayers to be delivered from such a danger the isolation and loneliness of pride had for her mind the horror of a desert place if it had been pride with her accepting lord warburton such a Betsy was singly misplaced and she was so conscious of liking him that she ventured to assure herself it was the very softness and the fine intelligence of sympathy she liked him too much to marry him that was the truth something assured her there was a fallacy somewhere in the glowing logic of the proposition as he saw it even though she might and put her very finest finger point on it and to inflict upon a man who offered so much a wife with the tendency to criticize would be a peculiarly discredible act she had promised him she would consider his question and when after he had left her she wandered back to the bench where he had found her it might have seemed that she was keeping her bow but this was not the case she was wondering if she were not a cold hard, priggish person and on her at last getting up and going rather quickly back to the house felt as she had said to her friend really frightened at herself End of Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Portrait of a Lady Volume 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 Ava Harnick The Portrait of a Lady Volume 1 by Henry James Chapter 13 It was this feeling and not the wish to ask advice she had no desire whatever for that that led her to speak to her uncle of what had taken place she wished to speak to someone she should feel more natural more human and her uncle for this purpose presented himself in a more attractive light than either her aunt or her friend Henrietta Her cousin of course was a possible confidant but she would have had to do herself violence to air this special secret to Ralph so the next day after breakfast she sought her occasion Her uncle never left his apartment till the afternoon but he received his cronies as he said In his dressing room Isabel had quite taken her place in the class so designated which for the rest included the old man's son his physician his personal servant and even miss that ball Mrs. Touche did not figure in the list and this was an obstacle the last to Isabel's finding her host alone he sat in a complicated mechanical chair at the open window of his room over the park and the river with his newspapers and letters piled up beside him his toilet freshly and minutely made and his smooth speculative face composed to benevolent expectation she approached her point directly I think I ought to let you know that Lord Ward Burton has asked me to marry him I suppose I ought to tell my aunt but it seems best to tell you first the old man expressed no surprise but thanked her for the confidence she showed him do you mind telling me whether you accepted him he then inquired I have not answered him definitely yet I have taken a little time to think of it because that seems more respectful but I shall not accept him Mr. Touche made no comment upon this he had the air of thinking that whatever interest he might take in the matter from the point of view of sociability he had no active voice in it well I told you you would be a success over here Americans are highly appreciated very highly indeed said Isabel but at the cost of seeming both tasteless and ungrateful I don't think I can marry Lord Ward Burton well her uncle went on of course an old man can't judge for a young lady I am glad you didn't ask me before you made up your mind I suppose I ought to tell you slowly but as if it were not of much consequence that I have known all about it these three days about Lord Ward Burton state of mind about his intentions as they say here he wrote me a very pleasant letter telling me all about them should you like to see his letter the old man obligingly asked thank you I don't think I care about that but I am glad he wrote to you it was right that he should and he would be certain to do what was right ah well I guess you do like him Mr. Touche declared you needn't pretend you don't I like him extremely I am very free to admit that but I don't wish to marry anyone just now you think someone may come along whom you may like better well that is very likely said Mr. Touche who appeared to wish to show his kindness to the girl by easing off her decision as it were and finding cheerful reasons for it I don't care if I don't meet anyone else like Lord Warburton quite well enough she fell into that appearance of a sudden change of point of view with which she sometimes startled and even displeased her interlocutors her uncle however seemed proof against either of these impressions he is a very fine man he resumed in a tone which might have passed for that of encouragement his letter was one of the pleasantest I have received for some weeks I suppose one of the reasons I liked it was that it was all about you that is all except the part that was about himself I suppose he told you all that he would have told me everything I wish to ask him is a person said would you feel curious my curiosity would have been idle once I had determined to decline his offer you didn't find it sufficiently attractive Mr. Tushat inquired she was silent a little I suppose it was that she presently admitted but I don't know why fortunately ladies are not obliged to give reasons said her uncle there is a great deal that is attractive about such an idea but I don't see why the English should want to entice us away from our native land I know that we try to attract them over there but that is because our population is insufficient here you know they are rather crowded however I presume ladies everywhere there seems to have been room here for you said Isabel whose eyes had been wandering over the large pleasure spaces of the park Mr. Tushat gave a shrewd conscious smile there is room everywhere my dear if you will pay for it I sometimes think I have paid too much for this perhaps you also have to pay too much perhaps I might the girl replied that suggestion gave her something more definite to rest on than she had found in her own thoughts and the fact of this association of her uncle's mild acuteness with her dilemma seemed to prove that she was concerned with the natural and reasonable emotions of life not altogether a victim to intellectual eagerness and vague ambitions ambitions reaching beyond Lord Warburton's beautiful appeal reaching to something indefinable and possibly not commendable in so far as the indefinable had an influence upon Isabel's behavior at this junction it was not the conception even unformulated of a union with Casper Goodwood for however she might have resisted conquest at her English suitor's large quiet hands she was at least as far removed from the disposition to let the young men from Boston take positive possession of her the sentiment in which she sought refuge after in his letter was a critical view of his having come abroad for it was part of the influence he had upon her that he seemed to deprive her of the sense of freedom there was a disagreeably strong push a kind of hardness of presence in his way of rising before her she had been haunted at moments by the image by the danger of his disapproval and had wondered a consideration she had never paid in equal degree to anyone else whether he would like what she did the difficulty was that more than any man she had ever known more than poor Lord Warburton she had begun now to give his lordship the benefit of this epithet Casper Goodwood expressed for her an energy and she had already felt it as a power that was of his very nature it was in no degree a matter of his advantages it was a matter of the spirit that set in his clear burning eyes like some tireless watcher at a window she might like it or not but he insisted ever with his whole weight and force even in one's usual contact with him one had to reckon with that the idea of her diminished liberty was particularly disagreeable to her at present since she had just given a sort of personal accent to her independence by looking so straight at Lord Warburton's big bribe and yet turning away from it sometimes Casper Goodwood had seemed to range himself on the side of her destiny to be the stubbornest fact she knew she said to herself at such moments that she might await him for a time but she must make terms with him at last terms which would be certain to be favourable to himself her impulse had been to avail herself of the things that helped her to resist such an obligation and this impulse had been much concerned in her eager acceptance of her aunt's invitation which had come to her at an hour when she expected from day to day to see Mr. Goodwood and when she was glad to have an answer ready for something she was sure he would say to her when she had told him at Albany on the evening of Mrs. Tushet's visit that she couldn't then discuss difficult questions dazzled as she was by the great immediate opening of her aunt's offer of Europe he declared that this was no answer at all and it was now to obtain a better one following her across the sea to say to herself that he was a kind of grim fate was well enough for a fensive young woman who was able to take much for granted in him but the reader has a right to a nearer and a clearer view he was the son of a proprietor of well known cotton mills in Massachusetts a gentleman who had accumulated a considerable fortune in the exercise of this industry Casper at present managed the works and with a judgment and a temper which in spite of keen competition and language years had kept their prosperity from dwindling he had received the better part of his education at Harvard College where however he had gained renown rather as a gymnast and an oarsman than as a gleaner of more dispersed knowledge later on he had learned that the finer intelligence too could vault and pull and strain might even breaking the record treat itself to rare exploits he had thus discovered in himself a sharp eye for the mystery of mechanics invented an improvement in the cotton spinning process which was now largely used and was known by his name you might have seen it in the newspapers in connection with this fruitful contrivance assurance of which he had given to Isabelle by showing her in the columns of the New York interviewer an exhaustive article on the Goodwood patent an article not prepared by Miss Stackpole friendly as she had proved herself to his more sentimental interests there were intricate bristling things he rejoiced in he liked to organize to content to administer he could make people work his will believe in him march before him justify him this was the art as they said of managing man which rested in him further on a bold though brooding ambition it stuck those who knew him well that he might do greater things than carry on a cotton factory there was nothing cottony about Casper Goodwood and his friends took for granted that he would somehow somewhere write himself in bigger letters but it was as if something large and confused something dark and ugly would have to call upon him he was not after all in harmony with mere smug peace and greed and gain an order of sinks of which the vital breast was ubiquitous advertisement it pleased Isabelle to believe that he might have ridden on a plunging steed the whirlwind of a great war a war like the civil strife that had over darkened her conscious childhood and his ripening youth she liked at any rate this idea of his being by character and in fact a mover of man liked it much better than some other points in his nature and aspect she cared nothing for his cotton mill the Goodwood patent left her imagination absolutely cold she wished him no ounce less of his manhood but she sometimes thought he would be rather nicer if he looked for instance a little differently his jaw was too square and set and his figure too straight and stiff suggested a want of easy consonance with the deeper rhythms of life then she viewed with reserve a habit he had of dressing always in the same manner it was not apparently that he wore the same clothes as continually for on the contrary his garments had a way of looking rather too new but they all seemed of the same peace the figure, the stuff was so drearily usual she had reminded herself more than once that this is a frivolous objection to a person of his importance and then she had amended the review by saying that it would be a frivolous objection only if she were in love with him she was not in love with him and therefore might criticize his small defects as well as his great which later consisted in the collective reproach of his being too serious or rather not of his being so since one could never be but certainly of his seeming so he showed his appetites and designs too simply and artlessly when one was alone with him he talked too much about the same subject and when other people were present he talked too little about anything and yet he was of supremely strong clean make which was so much she saw the different fitted parts of him as she had seen in museums and portraits the different fitted parts of armored warriors in plates of steel handsomely inlaid with gold it was very strange where ever was any tangible link between her impression and her act Kasper Goodwood had never corresponded to her idea of a delightful person and she supposed that this was why he left her so harshly critical when however Lord Warburton who not only did correspond with it but an extension to the term appealed to her approval she found herself still unsatisfied it was certainly strange the sense of her incoherence was not a help to answering Mr. Goodwood's letter and Isabel determined to leave it a while unhonoured if he had determined to persecute him for most among which was his being left to perceive how little it charmed her that he should come down to garden court she was already liable to the incursions of one suitor at this place and though it might be pleasant to be appreciated in opposite quarters there was a kind of grossness in entertaining two such passionate pleaders at once even in a case where the entertainment should consist of dismissing them she made no reply to Mr. Goodwood but at the end of three days she wrote to Lord Warburton and the letter belongs to our history Dear Lord Warburton a great deal of earnest thought has not led me to change my mind about the suggestion you were so kind as to make me the other day I am not I am really and truly not able to regard you in the light of a companion for life or to think of your home your various homes as the settled seat of my existence these things cannot be reasoned about and I very earnestly entreat you not to return to the subject discussed so exhaustively we see our lives from our own point of view that is the privilege of the weakest and humblest of us and I shall never be able to see mine in the manner you proposed kindly let this suffice you and do me the justice to believe that I have given your proposal the deeply respectful consideration it deserves it is with this very great regard that I remain sincerely yours Isabel Archer while the author of this mission was making up her mind to dispatch it Henry at the stackpole formed a resolve which was accompanied by no demure she invited Ralph Touche to take a walk with her in the garden and when he had ascended with that alacrity which seemed constantly to testify to his high expectations she informed him that she had a favor to ask of him it may be admitted that at this information the young man flinched for we know that Miss Stackpole had struck him as up to push an advantage the alarm was unreasoned however for he was clear about the area of her indiscretion as little as advised of its vertical depths and he made a very civil profession of the desire to serve her he was afraid of her and presently told her so when you look at me in a certain way my knees knock together my faculties desert me I am filled with with trepidation and I ask only for strength to execute your commands you have an address that I have never encountered in any woman well Henrietta replied good humoredly if I had not known before that you were trying somehow to abash me I should know it now of course I am easy game I was brought up with such different customs and ideas I am not used to your arbitrary standards and I have never been spoken to in America as you have spoken to me if a gentleman conversing with me over there were to speak to me like that I shouldn't know what to make of it we take everything more naturally over there and after all we are a great deal more simple I admit that I am very simple myself of course if you choose to laugh at me for it you are very welcome but I think on the whole I would rather be myself than you I am quite content to be myself I don't want to change there are plenty of people that appreciate me just as I am it is true there are nice fresh freeborn Americans Henrietta had lately taken up the tone of helpless innocence and large concessions I want you to assist me a little she went on I don't care in the least whether I amuse you or rather I am perfectly willing your amusement should be your reward I want you to help me about Isabel has she injured you Ralph asked if she had I shouldn't mind and I should never tell you what I'm afraid of is that she will injure herself I think that's very possible said Ralph this companion stopped in the garden walk fixing on him perhaps the very gaze that unnerved him that too would amuse you I suppose the way you do say things I never heard anyone so indifferent to Isabel ah not that well you are not in love with her I hope how can that be when I am in love with another you are in love with yourself that's the other Mistakpur declared much good made do you but if you wish to be serious once in your life here is a chance and if you really care for your cousin here is an opportunity to prove it I don't expect you to understand her that is too much to ask but you need not do that to grant my favor I will supply the necessary intelligence I shall enjoy that immensely Ralph exclaimed I will be Caliban and you shall be Ariel you are not at all like Caliban because you are sophisticated and Caliban was not but I am not talking about imaginary characters I am talking about Isabel Isabel is intensely real what I wish to tell you is that I find her fearfully changed since you came do you mean since I came and before I came she is not the same as she once so beautifully was as she was in America yes in America I suppose you know she comes from there she can't help it but she does do you want to change her back again of course I do and I want you to help me ah said Ralph I am only Caliban I am not Prospero you were Prospero enough to make her what she has become you have acted on Isabel Archer since she came here Mr. Tushet I my dear Miss Stackpole never in the world Isabel Archer has acted on me yes she acts on everyone but I have been absolutely passive you are too passive then you had better stir yourself and be careful Isabel is changing every day she is drifting away right out to sea I have watched her and I can see it she is not the bright American girl she was she is taking different views a different color and turning away from her old ideas I want to save those ideas Mr. Tushet and that's where you come in not surely as an ideal well I hope not Henrietta replied promptly I have got a fear in my heart that she is going to marry one of these fell Europeans and I want to prevent it ah I see cry Ralph and to prevent it you want me to step in and marry her not quite that remedy would be as bad as the disease you are the typical the fell European from whom I wish to rescue her no I wish you to take an interest in another person a young man to whom she once gave great encouragement and whom she now doesn't seem to think good enough he is a thoroughly grand man and a very dear friend of mine and I wish very much to pay a visit here Ralph was much puzzled by this appeal and it is perhaps not to the credit of his purity of mind that he failed to look at it at first in the simplest light it wore to his eyes a torturous air and his fault was that he was not quite sure that anything in the world could really be as candid as this request of Ms. Takpors appeared that a young woman should demand that a gentleman whom she described as her very dear friend should be furnished with an opportunity to make himself agreeable to another young woman a young woman whose attention had wandered and whose charms were greater this was an anomaly which for the moment challenged all his ingenuity of interpretation to read between the lines was easier than to follow the text and to suppose that Ms. Takpors which the gentleman invited to garden court on her own account was designed not so much of a vulgar as of an embarrassed mind even from this venial act of vulgarity however Ralph was saved and saved by a force that I can only speak of as inspiration with no more outward light on the subject than he already possessed he suddenly acquired the conviction that it would be a sovereign