The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 1 by Henry James
CHAPTER XV
It had been arranged that the two young ladies should proceed to Londonunder Ralph's escort, though Mrs. Touchett looked with little favour onthe plan. It was just the sort of plan, she said, that Miss Stackpolewould be sure to suggest, and she enquired if the correspondent ofthe Interviewer was to take the party to stay at her favouriteboarding-house.
”I don't care where she takes us to stay, so long as there's localcolour,” said Isabel. ”That's what we're going to London for.”
”I suppose that after a girl has refused an English lord she may doanything,” her aunt rejoined. ”After that one needn't stand on trifles.”
”Should you have liked me to marry Lord Warburton?” Isabel enquired.
”Of course I should.”
”I thought you disliked the English so much.”
”So I do; but it's all the greater reason for making use of them.”
”Is that your idea of marriage?” And Isabel ventured to add that heraunt appeared to her to have made very little use of Mr. Touchett.
”Your uncle's not an English nobleman,” said Mrs. Touchett, ”though evenif he had been I should still probably have taken up my residence inFlorence.”
”Do you think Lord Warburton could make me any better than I am?” thegirl asked with some animation. ”I don't mean I'm too good to improve. Imean that I don't love Lord Warburton enough to marry him.”
”You did right to refuse him then,” said Mrs. Touchett in her smallest,sparest voice. ”Only, the next great offer you get, I hope you'll manageto come up to your standard.”
”We had better wait till the offer comes before we talk about it. Ihope very much I may have no more offers for the present. They upset mecompletely.”
”You probably won't be troubled with them if you adopt permanently theBohemian manner of life. However, I've promised Ralph not to criticise.”
”I'll do whatever Ralph says is right,” Isabel returned. ”I've unboundedconfidence in Ralph.”
”His mother's much obliged to you!” this lady dryly laughed.
”It seems to me indeed she ought to feel it!” Isabel irrepressiblyanswered.
Ralph had assured her that there would be no violation of decency intheir paying a visit--the little party of three--to the sights of themetropolis; but Mrs. Touchett took a different view. Like many ladies ofher country who had lived a long time in Europe, she had completelylost her native tact on such points, and in her reaction, not in itselfdeplorable, against the liberty allowed to young persons beyond theseas, had fallen into gratuitous and exaggerated scruples. Ralphaccompanied their visitors to town and established them at a quiet innin a street that ran at right angles to Piccadilly. His first idea hadbeen to take them to his father's house in Winchester Square, a large,dull mansion which at this period of the year was shrouded in silenceand brown holland; but he bethought himself that, the cook being atGardencourt, there was no one in the house to get them their meals,and Pratt's Hotel accordingly became their resting-place. Ralph, on hisside, found quarters in Winchester Square, having a ”den” there of whichhe was very fond and being familiar with deeper fears than that of acold kitchen. He availed himself largely indeed of the resources ofPratt's Hotel, beginning his day with an early visit to his fellowtravellers, who had Mr. Pratt in person, in a large bulging whitewaistcoat, to remove their dish-covers. Ralph turned up, as he said,after breakfast, and the little party made out a scheme of entertainmentfor the day. As London wears in the month of September a face blank butfor its smears of prior service, the young man, who occasionally tookan apologetic tone, was obliged to remind his companion, to MissStackpole's high derision, that there wasn't a creature in town.
”I suppose you mean the aristocracy are absent,” Henrietta answered;”but I don't think you could have a better proof that if they wereabsent altogether they wouldn't be missed. It seems to me the place isabout as full as it can be. There's no one here, of course, but threeor four millions of people. What is it you call them--the lower-middleclass? They're only the population of London, and that's of noconsequence.”
Ralph declared that for him the aristocracy left no void that MissStackpole herself didn't fill, and that a more contented man was nowhereat that moment to be found. In this he spoke the truth, for the staleSeptember days, in the huge half-empty town, had a charm wrapped in themas a coloured gem might be wrapped in a dusty cloth. When he went homeat night to the empty house in Winchester Square, after a chain of hourswith his comparatively ardent friends, he wandered into the big duskydining-room, where the candle he took from the hall-table, after lettinghimself in, constituted the only illumination. The square was still, thehouse was still; when he raised one of the windows of the dining-room tolet in the air he heard the slow creak of the boots of a lone constable.His own step, in the empty place, seemed loud and sonorous; some of thecarpets had been raised, and whenever he moved he roused a melancholyecho. He sat down in one of the armchairs; the big dark dining tabletwinkled here and there in the small candle-light; the pictures on thewall, all of them very brown, looked vague and incoherent. There was aghostly presence as of dinners long since digested, of table-talkthat had lost its actuality. This hint of the supernatural perhaps hadsomething to do with the fact that his imagination took a flight andthat he remained in his chair a long time beyond the hour at which heshould have been in bed; doing nothing, not even reading the eveningpaper. I say he did nothing, and I maintain the phrase in the face ofthe fact that he thought at these moments of Isabel. To think of Isabelcould only be for him an idle pursuit, leading to nothing and profitinglittle to any one. His cousin had not yet seemed to him so charmingas during these days spent in sounding, tourist-fashion, the deepsand shallows of the metropolitan element. Isabel was full of premises,conclusions, emotions; if she had come in search of local colour shefound it everywhere. She asked more questions than he could answer, andlaunched brave theories, as to historic cause and social effect, that hewas equally unable to accept or to refute. The party went more than onceto the British Museum and to that brighter palace of art which reclaimsfor antique variety so large an area of a monotonous suburb; they spenta morning in the Abbey and went on a penny-steamer to the Tower; theylooked at pictures both in public and private collections and saton various occasions beneath the great trees in Kensington Gardens.Henrietta proved an indestructible sight-seer and a more lenient judgethan Ralph had ventured to hope. She had indeed many disappointments,and London at large suffered from her vivid remembrance of the strongpoints of the American civic idea; but she made the best of its dingydignities and only heaved an occasional sigh and uttered a desultory”Well!” which led no further and lost itself in retrospect. The truthwas that, as she said herself, she was not in her element. ”I've not asympathy with inanimate objects,” she remarked to Isabel at the NationalGallery; and she continued to suffer from the meagreness of the glimpsethat had as yet been vouchsafed to her of the inner life. Landscapesby Turner and Assyrian bulls were a poor substitute for the literarydinner-parties at which she had hoped to meet the genius and renown ofGreat Britain.
”Where are your public men, where are your men and women of intellect?”she enquired of Ralph, standing in the middle of Trafalgar Square asif she had supposed this to be a place where she would naturally meet afew. ”That's one of them on the top of the column, you say--Lord Nelson.Was he a lord too? Wasn't he high enough, that they had to stick him ahundred feet in the air? That's the past--I don't care about the past; Iwant to see some of the leading minds of the present. I won't say of thefuture, because I don't believe much in your future.” Poor Ralph had fewleading minds among his acquaintance and rarely enjoyed the pleasureof buttonholing a celebrity; a state of things which appeared to MissStackpole to indicate a deplorable want of enterprise. ”If I were on theother side I should call,” she said, ”and tell the gentleman, whoeverhe might be, that I had heard a great deal about him and had come to seefor myself. But I gather from what you say that this is not the customhere. You seem to have plenty of meaningless customs, but none of thosethat would help along. We are in advance, certainly. I suppose I shallhave to give up the social side altogether;” and Henrietta, thoughshe went about with her guidebook and pencil and wrote a letter to theInterviewer about the Tower (in which she described the execution ofLady Jane Grey), had a sad sense of falling below her mission.
The incident that had preceded Isabel's departure from Gardencourt lefta painful trace in our young woman's mind: when she felt again in herface, as from a recurrent wave, the cold breath of her last suitor'ssurprise, she could only muffle her head till the air cleared. She couldnot have done less than what she did; this was certainly true. But hernecessity, all the same, had been as graceless as some physical act ina strained attitude, and she felt no desire to take credit for herconduct. Mixed with this imperfect pride, nevertheless, was a feeling offreedom which in itself was sweet and which, as she wandered through thegreat city with her ill-matched companions, occasionally throbbed intoodd demonstrations. When she walked in Kensington Gardens she stoppedthe children (mainly of the poorer sort) whom she saw playing on thegrass; she asked them their names and gave them sixpence and, whenthey were pretty, kissed them. Ralph noticed these quaint charities;he noticed everything she did. One afternoon, that his companions mightpass the time, he invited them to tea in Winchester Square, and he hadthe house set in order as much as possible for their visit. Therewas another guest to meet them, an amiable bachelor, an old friend ofRalph's who happened to be in town and for whom prompt commerce withMiss Stackpole appeared to have neither difficulty nor dread. Mr.Bantling, a stout, sleek, smiling man of forty, wonderfully dressed,universally informed and incoherently amused, laughed immoderately ateverything Henrietta said, gave her several cups of tea, examined in hersociety the bric-a-brac, of which Ralph had a considerable collection,and afterwards, when the host proposed they should go out into thesquare and pretend it was a fete-champetre, walked round the limitedenclosure several times with her and, at a dozen turns of their talk,bounded responsive--as with a positive passion for argument--to herremarks upon the inner life.
”Oh, I see; I dare say you found it very quiet at Gardencourt. Naturallythere's not much going on there when there's such a lot of illnessabout. Touchett's very bad, you know; the doctors have forbidden hisbeing in England at all, and he has only come back to take care of hisfather. The old man, I believe, has half a dozen things the matterwith him. They call it gout, but to my certain knowledge he has organicdisease so developed that you may depend upon it he'll go, some daysoon, quite quickly. Of course that sort of thing makes a dreadfullydull house; I wonder they have people when they can do so little forthem. Then I believe Mr. Touchett's always squabbling with his wife; shelives away from her husband, you know, in that extraordinary Americanway of yours. If you want a house where there's always something goingon, I recommend you to go down and stay with my sister, Lady Pensil,in Bedfordshire. I'll write to her to-morrow and I'm sure she'll bedelighted to ask you. I know just what you want--you want a housewhere they go in for theatricals and picnics and that sort of thing. Mysister's just that sort of woman; she's always getting up something orother and she's always glad to have the sort of people who help her. I'msure she'll ask you down by return of post: she's tremendously fond ofdistinguished people and writers. She writes herself, you know; butI haven't read everything she has written. It's usually poetry, and Idon't go in much for poetry--unless it's Byron. I suppose you think agreat deal of Byron in America,” Mr. Bantling continued, expandingin the stimulating air of Miss Stackpole's attention, bringing up hissequences promptly and changing his topic with an easy turn of hand.Yet he none the less gracefully kept in sight of the idea, dazzling toHenrietta, of her going to stay with Lady Pensil in Bedfordshire. ”Iunderstand what you want; you want to see some genuine English sport.The Touchetts aren't English at all, you know; they have their ownhabits, their own language, their own food--some odd religion even, Ibelieve, of their own. The old man thinks it's wicked to hunt, I'm told.You must get down to my sister's in time for the theatricals, and I'msure she'll be glad to give you a part. I'm sure you act well; I knowyou're very clever. My sister's forty years old and has seven children,but she's going to play the principal part. Plain as she is she makes upawfully well--I will say for her. Of course you needn't act if you don'twant to.”
In this manner Mr. Bantling delivered himself while they strolled overthe grass in Winchester Square, which, although it had been pepperedby the London soot, invited the tread to linger. Henrietta thought herblooming, easy-voiced bachelor, with his impressibility to femininemerit and his splendid range of suggestion, a very agreeable man, andshe valued the opportunity he offered her. ”I don't know but I would go,if your sister should ask me. I think it would be my duty. What do youcall her name?”
”Pensil. It's an odd name, but it isn't a bad one.”
”I think one name's as good as another. But what's her rank?”.
”Oh, she's a baron's wife; a convenient sort of rank. You're fine enoughand you're not too fine.”
”I don't know but what she'd be too fine for me. What do you call theplace she lives in--Bedfordshire?”
”She lives away in the northern corner of it. It's a tiresome country,but I dare say you won't mind it. I'll try and run down while you'rethere.”
All this was very pleasant to Miss Stackpole, and she was sorry to beobliged to separate from Lady Pensil's obliging brother. But it happenedthat she had met the day before, in Piccadilly, some friends whom shehad not seen for a year: the Miss Climbers, two ladies from Wilmington,Delaware, who had been travelling on the Continent and were nowpreparing to re-embark. Henrietta had had a long interview with them onthe Piccadilly pavement, and though the three ladies all talked at oncethey had not exhausted their store. It had been agreed therefore thatHenrietta should come and dine with them in their lodgings in JermynStreet at six o'clock on the morrow, and she now bethought herself ofthis engagement. She prepared to start for Jermyn Street, taking leavefirst of Ralph Touchett and Isabel, who, seated on garden chairsin another part of the enclosure, were occupied--if the term may beused--with an exchange of amenities less pointed than the practicalcolloquy of Miss Stackpole and Mr. Bantling. When it had been settledbetween Isabel and her friend that they should be reunited at somereputable hour at Pratt's Hotel, Ralph remarked that the latter musthave a cab. She couldn't walk all the way to Jermyn Street.
”I suppose you mean it's improper for me to walk alone!” Henriettaexclaimed. ”Merciful powers, have I come to this?”
”There's not the slightest need of your walking alone,” Mr. Bantlinggaily interposed. ”I should be greatly pleased to go with you.”
”I simply meant that you'd be late for dinner,” Ralph returned. ”Thosepoor ladies may easily believe that we refuse, at the last, to spareyou.”
”You had better have a hansom, Henrietta,” said Isabel.
”I'll get you a hansom if you'll trust me,” Mr. Bantling went on.
”We might walk a little till we meet one.”
”I don't see why I shouldn't trust him, do you?” Henrietta enquired ofIsabel.
”I don't see what Mr. Bantling could do to you,” Isabel obliginglyanswered; ”but, if you like, we'll walk with you till you find yourcab.”
”Never mind; we'll go alone. Come on, Mr. Bantling, and take care youget me a good one.”
Mr. Bantling promised to do his best, and the two took their departure,leaving the girl and her cousin together in the square, over whicha clear September twilight had now begun to gather. It was perfectlystill; the wide quadrangle of dusky houses showed lights in none of thewindows, where the shutters and blinds were closed; the pavements werea vacant expanse, and, putting aside two small children from aneighbouring slum, who, attracted by symptoms of abnormal animationin the interior, poked their faces between the rusty rails ofthe enclosure, the most vivid object within sight was the big redpillar-post on the southeast corner.
”Henrietta will ask him to get into the cab and go with her to JermynStreet,” Ralph observed. He always spoke of Miss Stackpole as Henrietta.
”Very possibly,” said his companion.
”Or rather, no, she won't,” he went on. ”But Bantling will ask leave toget in.”
”Very likely again. I'm glad very they're such good friends.”
”She has made a conquest. He thinks her a brilliant woman. It may gofar,” said Ralph.
Isabel was briefly silent. ”I call Henrietta a very brilliant woman, butI don't think it will go far. They would never really know each other.He has not the least idea what she really is, and she has no justcomprehension of Mr. Bantling.”
”There's no more usual basis of union than a mutual misunderstanding.But it ought not to be so difficult to understand Bob Bantling,” Ralphadded. ”He is a very simple organism.”
”Yes, but Henrietta's a simpler one still. And, pray, what am I to do?”Isabel asked, looking about her through the fading light, in which thelimited landscape-gardening of the square took on a large and effectiveappearance. ”I don't imagine that you'll propose that you and I, for ouramusement, shall drive about London in a hansom.”
”There's no reason we shouldn't stay here--if you don't dislike it. It'svery warm; there will be half an hour yet before dark; and if you permitit I'll light a cigarette.”
”You may do what you please,” said Isabel, ”if you'll amuse me tillseven o'clock. I propose at that hour to go back and partake of a simpleand solitary repast--two poached eggs and a muffin--at Pratt's Hotel.”
”Mayn't I dine with you?” Ralph asked.
”No, you'll dine at your club.”
They had wandered back to their chairs in the centre of the squareagain, and Ralph had lighted his cigarette. It would have given himextreme pleasure to be present in person at the modest little feast shehad sketched; but in default of this he liked even being forbidden. Forthe moment, however, he liked immensely being alone with her, in thethickening dusk, in the centre of the multitudinous town; it made herseem to depend upon him and to be in his power. This power he couldexert but vaguely; the best exercise of it was to accept her decisionssubmissively which indeed there was already an emotion in doing. ”Whywon't you let me dine with you?” he demanded after a pause.
”Because I don't care for it.”
”I suppose you're tired of me.”
”I shall be an hour hence. You see I have the gift of foreknowledge.”
”Oh, I shall be delightful meanwhile,” said Ralph.
But he said nothing more, and as she made no rejoinder they satsome time in a stillness which seemed to contradict his promise ofentertainment. It seemed to him she was preoccupied, and he wonderedwhat she was thinking about; there were two or three very possiblesubjects. At last he spoke again. ”Is your objection to my society thisevening caused by your expectation of another visitor?”
She turned her head with a glance of her clear, fair eyes. ”Anothervisitor? What visitor should I have?”
He had none to suggest; which made his question seem to himself silly aswell as brutal. ”You've a great many friends that I don't know. You've awhole past from which I was perversely excluded.”
”You were reserved for my future. You must remember that my past is overthere across the water. There's none of it here in London.”
”Very good, then, since your future is seated beside you. Capital thingto have your future so handy.” And Ralph lighted another cigarette andreflected that Isabel probably meant she had received news that Mr.Caspar Goodwood had crossed to Paris. After he had lighted his cigarettehe puffed it a while, and then he resumed. ”I promised just now to bevery amusing; but you see I don't come up to the mark, and the fact isthere's a good deal of temerity in one's undertaking to amuse aperson like you. What do you care for my feeble attempts? You've grandideas--you've a high standard in such matters. I ought at least to bringin a band of music or a company of mountebanks.”
”One mountebank's enough, and you do very well. Pray go on, and inanother ten minutes I shall begin to laugh.”
”I assure you I'm very serious,” said Ralph. ”You do really ask a greatdeal.”
”I don't know what you mean. I ask nothing.”
”You accept nothing,” said Ralph. She coloured, and now suddenly itseemed to her that she guessed his meaning. But why should he speakto her of such things? He hesitated a little and then he continued:”There's something I should like very much to say to you. It's aquestion I wish to ask. It seems to me I've a right to ask it, becauseI've a kind of interest in the answer.”
”Ask what you will,” Isabel replied gently, ”and I'll try to satisfyyou.”
”Well then, I hope you won't mind my saying that Warburton has told meof something that has passed between you.”
Isabel suppressed a start; she sat looking at her open fan. ”Very good;I suppose it was natural he should tell you.”
”I have his leave to let you know he has done so. He has some hopestill,” said Ralph.
”Still?”
”He had it a few days ago.”
”I don't believe he has any now,” said the girl.
”I'm very sorry for him then; he's such an honest man.”
”Pray, did he ask you to talk to me?”
”No, not that. But he told me because he couldn't help it. We're oldfriends, and he was greatly disappointed. He sent me a line asking meto come and see him, and I drove over to Lockleigh the day before he andhis sister lunched with us. He was very heavy-hearted; he had just got aletter from you.”
”Did he show you the letter?” asked Isabel with momentary loftiness.
”By no means. But he told me it was a neat refusal. I was very sorry forhim,” Ralph repeated.
For some moments Isabel said nothing; then at last, ”Do you know howoften he had seen me?” she enquired. ”Five or six times.”
”That's to your glory.”
”It's not for that I say it.”
”What then do you say it for. Not to prove that poor Warburton's stateof mind's superficial, because I'm pretty sure you don't think that.”
Isabel certainly was unable to say she thought it; but presently shesaid something else. ”If you've not been requested by Lord Warburton toargue with me, then you're doing it disinterestedly--or for the love ofargument.”
”I've no wish to argue with you at all. I only wish to leave you alone.I'm simply greatly interested in your own sentiments.”
”I'm greatly obliged to you!” cried Isabel with a slightly nervouslaugh.
”Of course you mean that I'm meddling in what doesn't concern me. Butwhy shouldn't I speak to you of this matter without annoying you orembarrassing myself? What's the use of being your cousin if I can't havea few privileges? What's the use of adoring you without hope of a rewardif I can't have a few compensations? What's the use of being ill anddisabled and restricted to mere spectatorship at the game of life if Ireally can't see the show when I've paid so much for my ticket? Tell methis,” Ralph went on while she listened to him with quickened attention.”What had you in mind when you refused Lord Warburton?”
”What had I in mind?”
”What was the logic--the view of your situation--that dictated soremarkable an act?”
”I didn't wish to marry him--if that's logic.”
”No, that's not logic--and I knew that before. It's really nothing, youknow. What was it you said to yourself? You certainly said more thanthat.”
Isabel reflected a moment, then answered with a question of her own.”Why do you call it a remarkable act? That's what your mother thinkstoo.”
”Warburton's such a thorough good sort; as a man, I consider he hashardly a fault. And then he's what they call here no end of a swell. Hehas immense possessions, and his wife would be thought a superior being.He unites the intrinsic and the extrinsic advantages.”
Isabel watched her cousin as to see how far he would go. ”I refused himbecause he was too perfect then. I'm not perfect myself, and he's toogood for me. Besides, his perfection would irritate me.”
”That's ingenious rather than candid,” said Ralph. ”As a fact you thinknothing in the world too perfect for you.”
”Do you think I'm so good?”
”No, but you're exacting, all the same, without the excuse of thinkingyourself good. Nineteen women out of twenty, however, even of the mostexacting sort, would have managed to do with Warburton. Perhaps youdon't know how he has been stalked.”
”I don't wish to know. But it seems to me,” said Isabel, ”that one daywhen we talked of him you mentioned odd things in him.” Ralph smokinglyconsidered. ”I hope that what I said then had no weight with you;for they were not faults, the things I spoke of: they were simplypeculiarities of his position. If I had known he wished to marry you I'dnever have alluded to them. I think I said that as regards that positionhe was rather a sceptic. It would have been in your power to make him abeliever.”
”I think not. I don't understand the matter, and I'm not conscious ofany mission of that sort. You're evidently disappointed,” Isabel added,looking at her cousin with rueful gentleness. ”You'd have liked me tomake such a marriage.”
”Not in the least. I'm absolutely without a wish on the subject. I don'tpretend to advise you, and I content myself with watching you--with thedeepest interest.”
She gave rather a conscious sigh. ”I wish I could be as interesting tomyself as I am to you!”
”There you're not candid again; you're extremely interesting toyourself. Do you know, however,” said Ralph, ”that if you've reallygiven Warburton his final answer I'm rather glad it has been what itwas. I don't mean I'm glad for you, and still less of course for him.I'm glad for myself.”
”Are you thinking of proposing to me?”
”By no means. From the point of view I speak of that would be fatal;I should kill the goose that supplies me with the material of myinimitable omelettes. I use that animal as the symbol of my insaneillusions. What I mean is that I shall have the thrill of seeing what ayoung lady does who won't marry Lord Warburton.”
”That's what your mother counts upon too,” said Isabel.
”Ah, there will be plenty of spectators! We shall hang on the rest ofyour career. I shall not see all of it, but I shall probably see themost interesting years. Of course if you were to marry our friend you'dstill have a career--a very decent, in fact a very brilliant one. Butrelatively speaking it would be a little prosaic. It would be definitelymarked out in advance; it would be wanting in the unexpected. You knowI'm extremely fond of the unexpected, and now that you've kept the gamein your hands I depend on your giving us some grand example of it.”
”I don't understand you very well,” said Isabel, ”but I do so wellenough to be able to say that if you look for grand examples of anythingfrom me I shall disappoint you.”
”You'll do so only by disappointing yourself and that will go hard withyou!”
To this she made no direct reply; there was an amount of truth in itthat would bear consideration. At last she said abruptly: ”I don't seewhat harm there is in my wishing not to tie myself. I don't want tobegin life by marrying. There are other things a woman can do.”
”There's nothing she can do so well. But you're of course somany-sided.”
”If one's two-sided it's enough,” said Isabel.
”You're the most charming of polygons!” her companion broke out. At aglance from his companion, however, he became grave, and to prove itwent on: ”You want to see life--you'll be hanged if you don't, as theyoung men say.”
”I don't think I want to see it as the young men want to see it. But Ido want to look about me.”
”You want to drain the cup of experience.”
”No, I don't wish to touch the cup of experience. It's a poisoned drink!I only want to see for myself.”
”You want to see, but not to feel,” Ralph remarked.
”I don't think that if one's a sentient being one can make thedistinction. I'm a good deal like Henrietta. The other day when I askedher if she wished to marry she said: 'Not till I've seen Europe!' I toodon't wish to marry till I've seen Europe.”
”You evidently expect a crowned head will be struck with you.”
”No, that would be worse than marrying Lord Warburton. But it's gettingvery dark,” Isabel continued, ”and I must go home.” She rose from herplace, but Ralph only sat still and looked at her. As he remained thereshe stopped, and they exchanged a gaze that was full on either side, butespecially on Ralph's, of utterances too vague for words.
”You've answered my question,” he said at last. ”You've told me what Iwanted. I'm greatly obliged to you.”
”It seems to me I've told you very little.”
”You've told me the great thing: that the world interests you and thatyou want to throw yourself into it.”
Her silvery eyes shone a moment in the dusk. ”I never said that.” ”Ithink you meant it. Don't repudiate it. It's so fine!”
”I don't know what you're trying to fasten upon me, for I'm not in theleast an adventurous spirit. Women are not like men.”
Ralph slowly rose from his seat and they walked together to the gate ofthe square. ”No,” he said; ”women rarely boast of their courage. Men doso with a certain frequency.”
”Men have it to boast of!”
”Women have it too. You've a great deal.”
”Enough to go home in a cab to Pratt's Hotel, but not more.”
Ralph unlocked the gate, and after they had passed out he fastened it.”We'll find your cab,” he said; and as they turned toward a neighbouringstreet in which this quest might avail he asked her again if he mightn'tsee her safely to the inn.
”By no means,” she answered; ”you're very tired; you must go home and goto bed.”
The cab was found, and he helped her into it, standing a moment at thedoor. ”When people forget I'm a poor creature I'm often incommoded,” hesaid. ”But it's worse when they remember it!”
It had been arranged that the two young ladies should proceed to Londonunder Ralph's escort, though Mrs. Touchett looked with little favour onthe plan. It was just the sort of plan, she said, that Miss Stackpolewould be sure to suggest, and she enquired if the correspondent ofthe Interviewer was to take the party to stay at her favouriteboarding-house.
”I don't care where she takes us to stay, so long as there's localcolour,” said Isabel. ”That's what we're going to London for.”
”I suppose that after a girl has refused an English lord she may doanything,” her aunt rejoined. ”After that one needn't stand on trifles.”
”Should you have liked me to marry Lord Warburton?” Isabel enquired.
”Of course I should.”
”I thought you disliked the English so much.”
”So I do; but it's all the greater reason for making use of them.”
”Is that your idea of marriage?” And Isabel ventured to add that heraunt appeared to her to have made very little use of Mr. Touchett.
”Your uncle's not an English nobleman,” said Mrs. Touchett, ”though evenif he had been I should still probably have taken up my residence inFlorence.”
”Do you think Lord Warburton could make me any better than I am?” thegirl asked with some animation. ”I don't mean I'm too good to improve. Imean that I don't love Lord Warburton enough to marry him.”
”You did right to refuse him then,” said Mrs. Touchett in her smallest,sparest voice. ”Only, the next great offer you get, I hope you'll manageto come up to your standard.”
”We had better wait till the offer comes before we talk about it. Ihope very much I may have no more offers for the present. They upset mecompletely.”
”You probably won't be troubled with them if you adopt permanently theBohemian manner of life. However, I've promised Ralph not to criticise.”
”I'll do whatever Ralph says is right,” Isabel returned. ”I've unboundedconfidence in Ralph.”
”His mother's much obliged to you!” this lady dryly laughed.
”It seems to me indeed she ought to feel it!” Isabel irrepressiblyanswered.
Ralph had assured her that there would be no violation of decency intheir paying a visit--the little party of three--to the sights of themetropolis; but Mrs. Touchett took a different view. Like many ladies ofher country who had lived a long time in Europe, she had completelylost her native tact on such points, and in her reaction, not in itselfdeplorable, against the liberty allowed to young persons beyond theseas, had fallen into gratuitous and exaggerated scruples. Ralphaccompanied their visitors to town and established them at a quiet innin a street that ran at right angles to Piccadilly. His first idea hadbeen to take them to his father's house in Winchester Square, a large,dull mansion which at this period of the year was shrouded in silenceand brown holland; but he bethought himself that, the cook being atGardencourt, there was no one in the house to get them their meals,and Pratt's Hotel accordingly became their resting-place. Ralph, on hisside, found quarters in Winchester Square, having a ”den” there of whichhe was very fond and being familiar with deeper fears than that of acold kitchen. He availed himself largely indeed of the resources ofPratt's Hotel, beginning his day with an early visit to his fellowtravellers, who had Mr. Pratt in person, in a large bulging whitewaistcoat, to remove their dish-covers. Ralph turned up, as he said,after breakfast, and the little party made out a scheme of entertainmentfor the day. As London wears in the month of September a face blank butfor its smears of prior service, the young man, who occasionally tookan apologetic tone, was obliged to remind his companion, to MissStackpole's high derision, that there wasn't a creature in town.
”I suppose you mean the aristocracy are absent,” Henrietta answered;”but I don't think you could have a better proof that if they wereabsent altogether they wouldn't be missed. It seems to me the place isabout as full as it can be. There's no one here, of course, but threeor four millions of people. What is it you call them--the lower-middleclass? They're only the population of London, and that's of noconsequence.”
Ralph declared that for him the aristocracy left no void that MissStackpole herself didn't fill, and that a more contented man was nowhereat that moment to be found. In this he spoke the truth, for the staleSeptember days, in the huge half-empty town, had a charm wrapped in themas a coloured gem might be wrapped in a dusty cloth. When he went homeat night to the empty house in Winchester Square, after a chain of hourswith his comparatively ardent friends, he wandered into the big duskydining-room, where the candle he took from the hall-table, after lettinghimself in, constituted the only illumination. The square was still, thehouse was still; when he raised one of the windows of the dining-room tolet in the air he heard the slow creak of the boots of a lone constable.His own step, in the empty place, seemed loud and sonorous; some of thecarpets had been raised, and whenever he moved he roused a melancholyecho. He sat down in one of the armchairs; the big dark dining tabletwinkled here and there in the small candle-light; the pictures on thewall, all of them very brown, looked vague and incoherent. There was aghostly presence as of dinners long since digested, of table-talkthat had lost its actuality. This hint of the supernatural perhaps hadsomething to do with the fact that his imagination took a flight andthat he remained in his chair a long time beyond the hour at which heshould have been in bed; doing nothing, not even reading the eveningpaper. I say he did nothing, and I maintain the phrase in the face ofthe fact that he thought at these moments of Isabel. To think of Isabelcould only be for him an idle pursuit, leading to nothing and profitinglittle to any one. His cousin had not yet seemed to him so charmingas during these days spent in sounding, tourist-fashion, the deepsand shallows of the metropolitan element. Isabel was full of premises,conclusions, emotions; if she had come in search of local colour shefound it everywhere. She asked more questions than he could answer, andlaunched brave theories, as to historic cause and social effect, that hewas equally unable to accept or to refute. The party went more than onceto the British Museum and to that brighter palace of art which reclaimsfor antique variety so large an area of a monotonous suburb; they spenta morning in the Abbey and went on a penny-steamer to the Tower; theylooked at pictures both in public and private collections and saton various occasions beneath the great trees in Kensington Gardens.Henrietta proved an indestructible sight-seer and a more lenient judgethan Ralph had ventured to hope. She had indeed many disappointments,and London at large suffered from her vivid remembrance of the strongpoints of the American civic idea; but she made the best of its dingydignities and only heaved an occasional sigh and uttered a desultory”Well!” which led no further and lost itself in retrospect. The truthwas that, as she said herself, she was not in her element. ”I've not asympathy with inanimate objects,” she remarked to Isabel at the NationalGallery; and she continued to suffer from the meagreness of the glimpsethat had as yet been vouchsafed to her of the inner life. Landscapesby Turner and Assyrian bulls were a poor substitute for the literarydinner-parties at which she had hoped to meet the genius and renown ofGreat Britain.
”Where are your public men, where are your men and women of intellect?”she enquired of Ralph, standing in the middle of Trafalgar Square asif she had supposed this to be a place where she would naturally meet afew. ”That's one of them on the top of the column, you say--Lord Nelson.Was he a lord too? Wasn't he high enough, that they had to stick him ahundred feet in the air? That's the past--I don't care about the past; Iwant to see some of the leading minds of the present. I won't say of thefuture, because I don't believe much in your future.” Poor Ralph had fewleading minds among his acquaintance and rarely enjoyed the pleasureof buttonholing a celebrity; a state of things which appeared to MissStackpole to indicate a deplorable want of enterprise. ”If I were on theother side I should call,” she said, ”and tell the gentleman, whoeverhe might be, that I had heard a great deal about him and had come to seefor myself. But I gather from what you say that this is not the customhere. You seem to have plenty of meaningless customs, but none of thosethat would help along. We are in advance, certainly. I suppose I shallhave to give up the social side altogether;” and Henrietta, thoughshe went about with her guidebook and pencil and wrote a letter to theInterviewer about the Tower (in which she described the execution ofLady Jane Grey), had a sad sense of falling below her mission.
The incident that had preceded Isabel's departure from Gardencourt lefta painful trace in our young woman's mind: when she felt again in herface, as from a recurrent wave, the cold breath of her last suitor'ssurprise, she could only muffle her head till the air cleared. She couldnot have done less than what she did; this was certainly true. But hernecessity, all the same, had been as graceless as some physical act ina strained attitude, and she felt no desire to take credit for herconduct. Mixed with this imperfect pride, nevertheless, was a feeling offreedom which in itself was sweet and which, as she wandered through thegreat city with her ill-matched companions, occasionally throbbed intoodd demonstrations. When she walked in Kensington Gardens she stoppedthe children (mainly of the poorer sort) whom she saw playing on thegrass; she asked them their names and gave them sixpence and, whenthey were pretty, kissed them. Ralph noticed these quaint charities;he noticed everything she did. One afternoon, that his companions mightpass the time, he invited them to tea in Winchester Square, and he hadthe house set in order as much as possible for their visit. Therewas another guest to meet them, an amiable bachelor, an old friend ofRalph's who happened to be in town and for whom prompt commerce withMiss Stackpole appeared to have neither difficulty nor dread. Mr.Bantling, a stout, sleek, smiling man of forty, wonderfully dressed,universally informed and incoherently amused, laughed immoderately ateverything Henrietta said, gave her several cups of tea, examined in hersociety the bric-a-brac, of which Ralph had a considerable collection,and afterwards, when the host proposed they should go out into thesquare and pretend it was a fete-champetre, walked round the limitedenclosure several times with her and, at a dozen turns of their talk,bounded responsive--as with a positive passion for argument--to herremarks upon the inner life.
”Oh, I see; I dare say you found it very quiet at Gardencourt. Naturallythere's not much going on there when there's such a lot of illnessabout. Touchett's very bad, you know; the doctors have forbidden hisbeing in England at all, and he has only come back to take care of hisfather. The old man, I believe, has half a dozen things the matterwith him. They call it gout, but to my certain knowledge he has organicdisease so developed that you may depend upon it he'll go, some daysoon, quite quickly. Of course that sort of thing makes a dreadfullydull house; I wonder they have people when they can do so little forthem. Then I believe Mr. Touchett's always squabbling with his wife; shelives away from her husband, you know, in that extraordinary Americanway of yours. If you want a house where there's always something goingon, I recommend you to go down and stay with my sister, Lady Pensil,in Bedfordshire. I'll write to her to-morrow and I'm sure she'll bedelighted to ask you. I know just what you want--you want a housewhere they go in for theatricals and picnics and that sort of thing. Mysister's just that sort of woman; she's always getting up something orother and she's always glad to have the sort of people who help her. I'msure she'll ask you down by return of post: she's tremendously fond ofdistinguished people and writers. She writes herself, you know; butI haven't read everything she has written. It's usually poetry, and Idon't go in much for poetry--unless it's Byron. I suppose you think agreat deal of Byron in America,” Mr. Bantling continued, expandingin the stimulating air of Miss Stackpole's attention, bringing up hissequences promptly and changing his topic with an easy turn of hand.Yet he none the less gracefully kept in sight of the idea, dazzling toHenrietta, of her going to stay with Lady Pensil in Bedfordshire. ”Iunderstand what you want; you want to see some genuine English sport.The Touchetts aren't English at all, you know; they have their ownhabits, their own language, their own food--some odd religion even, Ibelieve, of their own. The old man thinks it's wicked to hunt, I'm told.You must get down to my sister's in time for the theatricals, and I'msure she'll be glad to give you a part. I'm sure you act well; I knowyou're very clever. My sister's forty years old and has seven children,but she's going to play the principal part. Plain as she is she makes upawfully well--I will say for her. Of course you needn't act if you don'twant to.”
In this manner Mr. Bantling delivered himself while they strolled overthe grass in Winchester Square, which, although it had been pepperedby the London soot, invited the tread to linger. Henrietta thought herblooming, easy-voiced bachelor, with his impressibility to femininemerit and his splendid range of suggestion, a very agreeable man, andshe valued the opportunity he offered her. ”I don't know but I would go,if your sister should ask me. I think it would be my duty. What do youcall her name?”
”Pensil. It's an odd name, but it isn't a bad one.”
”I think one name's as good as another. But what's her rank?”.
”Oh, she's a baron's wife; a convenient sort of rank. You're fine enoughand you're not too fine.”
”I don't know but what she'd be too fine for me. What do you call theplace she lives in--Bedfordshire?”
”She lives away in the northern corner of it. It's a tiresome country,but I dare say you won't mind it. I'll try and run down while you'rethere.”
All this was very pleasant to Miss Stackpole, and she was sorry to beobliged to separate from Lady Pensil's obliging brother. But it happenedthat she had met the day before, in Piccadilly, some friends whom shehad not seen for a year: the Miss Climbers, two ladies from Wilmington,Delaware, who had been travelling on the Continent and were nowpreparing to re-embark. Henrietta had had a long interview with them onthe Piccadilly pavement, and though the three ladies all talked at oncethey had not exhausted their store. It had been agreed therefore thatHenrietta should come and dine with them in their lodgings in JermynStreet at six o'clock on the morrow, and she now bethought herself ofthis engagement. She prepared to start for Jermyn Street, taking leavefirst of Ralph Touchett and Isabel, who, seated on garden chairsin another part of the enclosure, were occupied--if the term may beused--with an exchange of amenities less pointed than the practicalcolloquy of Miss Stackpole and Mr. Bantling. When it had been settledbetween Isabel and her friend that they should be reunited at somereputable hour at Pratt's Hotel, Ralph remarked that the latter musthave a cab. She couldn't walk all the way to Jermyn Street.
”I suppose you mean it's improper for me to walk alone!” Henriettaexclaimed. ”Merciful powers, have I come to this?”
”There's not the slightest need of your walking alone,” Mr. Bantlinggaily interposed. ”I should be greatly pleased to go with you.”
”I simply meant that you'd be late for dinner,” Ralph returned. ”Thosepoor ladies may easily believe that we refuse, at the last, to spareyou.”
”You had better have a hansom, Henrietta,” said Isabel.
”I'll get you a hansom if you'll trust me,” Mr. Bantling went on.
”We might walk a little till we meet one.”
”I don't see why I shouldn't trust him, do you?” Henrietta enquired ofIsabel.
”I don't see what Mr. Bantling could do to you,” Isabel obliginglyanswered; ”but, if you like, we'll walk with you till you find yourcab.”
”Never mind; we'll go alone. Come on, Mr. Bantling, and take care youget me a good one.”
Mr. Bantling promised to do his best, and the two took their departure,leaving the girl and her cousin together in the square, over whicha clear September twilight had now begun to gather. It was perfectlystill; the wide quadrangle of dusky houses showed lights in none of thewindows, where the shutters and blinds were closed; the pavements werea vacant expanse, and, putting aside two small children from aneighbouring slum, who, attracted by symptoms of abnormal animationin the interior, poked their faces between the rusty rails ofthe enclosure, the most vivid object within sight was the big redpillar-post on the southeast corner.
”Henrietta will ask him to get into the cab and go with her to JermynStreet,” Ralph observed. He always spoke of Miss Stackpole as Henrietta.
”Very possibly,” said his companion.
”Or rather, no, she won't,” he went on. ”But Bantling will ask leave toget in.”
”Very likely again. I'm glad very they're such good friends.”
”She has made a conquest. He thinks her a brilliant woman. It may gofar,” said Ralph.
Isabel was briefly silent. ”I call Henrietta a very brilliant woman, butI don't think it will go far. They would never really know each other.He has not the least idea what she really is, and she has no justcomprehension of Mr. Bantling.”
”There's no more usual basis of union than a mutual misunderstanding.But it ought not to be so difficult to understand Bob Bantling,” Ralphadded. ”He is a very simple organism.”
”Yes, but Henrietta's a simpler one still. And, pray, what am I to do?”Isabel asked, looking about her through the fading light, in which thelimited landscape-gardening of the square took on a large and effectiveappearance. ”I don't imagine that you'll propose that you and I, for ouramusement, shall drive about London in a hansom.”
”There's no reason we shouldn't stay here--if you don't dislike it. It'svery warm; there will be half an hour yet before dark; and if you permitit I'll light a cigarette.”
”You may do what you please,” said Isabel, ”if you'll amuse me tillseven o'clock. I propose at that hour to go back and partake of a simpleand solitary repast--two poached eggs and a muffin--at Pratt's Hotel.”
”Mayn't I dine with you?” Ralph asked.
”No, you'll dine at your club.”
They had wandered back to their chairs in the centre of the squareagain, and Ralph had lighted his cigarette. It would have given himextreme pleasure to be present in person at the modest little feast shehad sketched; but in default of this he liked even being forbidden. Forthe moment, however, he liked immensely being alone with her, in thethickening dusk, in the centre of the multitudinous town; it made herseem to depend upon him and to be in his power. This power he couldexert but vaguely; the best exercise of it was to accept her decisionssubmissively which indeed there was already an emotion in doing. ”Whywon't you let me dine with you?” he demanded after a pause.
”Because I don't care for it.”
”I suppose you're tired of me.”
”I shall be an hour hence. You see I have the gift of foreknowledge.”
”Oh, I shall be delightful meanwhile,” said Ralph.
But he said nothing more, and as she made no rejoinder they satsome time in a stillness which seemed to contradict his promise ofentertainment. It seemed to him she was preoccupied, and he wonderedwhat she was thinking about; there were two or three very possiblesubjects. At last he spoke again. ”Is your objection to my society thisevening caused by your expectation of another visitor?”
She turned her head with a glance of her clear, fair eyes. ”Anothervisitor? What visitor should I have?”
He had none to suggest; which made his question seem to himself silly aswell as brutal. ”You've a great many friends that I don't know. You've awhole past from which I was perversely excluded.”
”You were reserved for my future. You must remember that my past is overthere across the water. There's none of it here in London.”
”Very good, then, since your future is seated beside you. Capital thingto have your future so handy.” And Ralph lighted another cigarette andreflected that Isabel probably meant she had received news that Mr.Caspar Goodwood had crossed to Paris. After he had lighted his cigarettehe puffed it a while, and then he resumed. ”I promised just now to bevery amusing; but you see I don't come up to the mark, and the fact isthere's a good deal of temerity in one's undertaking to amuse aperson like you. What do you care for my feeble attempts? You've grandideas--you've a high standard in such matters. I ought at least to bringin a band of music or a company of mountebanks.”
”One mountebank's enough, and you do very well. Pray go on, and inanother ten minutes I shall begin to laugh.”
”I assure you I'm very serious,” said Ralph. ”You do really ask a greatdeal.”
”I don't know what you mean. I ask nothing.”
”You accept nothing,” said Ralph. She coloured, and now suddenly itseemed to her that she guessed his meaning. But why should he speakto her of such things? He hesitated a little and then he continued:”There's something I should like very much to say to you. It's aquestion I wish to ask. It seems to me I've a right to ask it, becauseI've a kind of interest in the answer.”
”Ask what you will,” Isabel replied gently, ”and I'll try to satisfyyou.”
”Well then, I hope you won't mind my saying that Warburton has told meof something that has passed between you.”
Isabel suppressed a start; she sat looking at her open fan. ”Very good;I suppose it was natural he should tell you.”
”I have his leave to let you know he has done so. He has some hopestill,” said Ralph.
”Still?”
”He had it a few days ago.”
”I don't believe he has any now,” said the girl.
”I'm very sorry for him then; he's such an honest man.”
”Pray, did he ask you to talk to me?”
”No, not that. But he told me because he couldn't help it. We're oldfriends, and he was greatly disappointed. He sent me a line asking meto come and see him, and I drove over to Lockleigh the day before he andhis sister lunched with us. He was very heavy-hearted; he had just got aletter from you.”
”Did he show you the letter?” asked Isabel with momentary loftiness.
”By no means. But he told me it was a neat refusal. I was very sorry forhim,” Ralph repeated.
For some moments Isabel said nothing; then at last, ”Do you know howoften he had seen me?” she enquired. ”Five or six times.”
”That's to your glory.”
”It's not for that I say it.”
”What then do you say it for. Not to prove that poor Warburton's stateof mind's superficial, because I'm pretty sure you don't think that.”
Isabel certainly was unable to say she thought it; but presently shesaid something else. ”If you've not been requested by Lord Warburton toargue with me, then you're doing it disinterestedly--or for the love ofargument.”
”I've no wish to argue with you at all. I only wish to leave you alone.I'm simply greatly interested in your own sentiments.”
”I'm greatly obliged to you!” cried Isabel with a slightly nervouslaugh.
”Of course you mean that I'm meddling in what doesn't concern me. Butwhy shouldn't I speak to you of this matter without annoying you orembarrassing myself? What's the use of being your cousin if I can't havea few privileges? What's the use of adoring you without hope of a rewardif I can't have a few compensations? What's the use of being ill anddisabled and restricted to mere spectatorship at the game of life if Ireally can't see the show when I've paid so much for my ticket? Tell methis,” Ralph went on while she listened to him with quickened attention.”What had you in mind when you refused Lord Warburton?”
”What had I in mind?”
”What was the logic--the view of your situation--that dictated soremarkable an act?”
”I didn't wish to marry him--if that's logic.”
”No, that's not logic--and I knew that before. It's really nothing, youknow. What was it you said to yourself? You certainly said more thanthat.”
Isabel reflected a moment, then answered with a question of her own.”Why do you call it a remarkable act? That's what your mother thinkstoo.”
”Warburton's such a thorough good sort; as a man, I consider he hashardly a fault. And then he's what they call here no end of a swell. Hehas immense possessions, and his wife would be thought a superior being.He unites the intrinsic and the extrinsic advantages.”
Isabel watched her cousin as to see how far he would go. ”I refused himbecause he was too perfect then. I'm not perfect myself, and he's toogood for me. Besides, his perfection would irritate me.”
”That's ingenious rather than candid,” said Ralph. ”As a fact you thinknothing in the world too perfect for you.”
”Do you think I'm so good?”
”No, but you're exacting, all the same, without the excuse of thinkingyourself good. Nineteen women out of twenty, however, even of the mostexacting sort, would have managed to do with Warburton. Perhaps youdon't know how he has been stalked.”
”I don't wish to know. But it seems to me,” said Isabel, ”that one daywhen we talked of him you mentioned odd things in him.” Ralph smokinglyconsidered. ”I hope that what I said then had no weight with you;for they were not faults, the things I spoke of: they were simplypeculiarities of his position. If I had known he wished to marry you I'dnever have alluded to them. I think I said that as regards that positionhe was rather a sceptic. It would have been in your power to make him abeliever.”
”I think not. I don't understand the matter, and I'm not conscious ofany mission of that sort. You're evidently disappointed,” Isabel added,looking at her cousin with rueful gentleness. ”You'd have liked me tomake such a marriage.”
”Not in the least. I'm absolutely without a wish on the subject. I don'tpretend to advise you, and I content myself with watching you--with thedeepest interest.”
She gave rather a conscious sigh. ”I wish I could be as interesting tomyself as I am to you!”
”There you're not candid again; you're extremely interesting toyourself. Do you know, however,” said Ralph, ”that if you've reallygiven Warburton his final answer I'm rather glad it has been what itwas. I don't mean I'm glad for you, and still less of course for him.I'm glad for myself.”
”Are you thinking of proposing to me?”
”By no means. From the point of view I speak of that would be fatal;I should kill the goose that supplies me with the material of myinimitable omelettes. I use that animal as the symbol of my insaneillusions. What I mean is that I shall have the thrill of seeing what ayoung lady does who won't marry Lord Warburton.”
”That's what your mother counts upon too,” said Isabel.
”Ah, there will be plenty of spectators! We shall hang on the rest ofyour career. I shall not see all of it, but I shall probably see themost interesting years. Of course if you were to marry our friend you'dstill have a career--a very decent, in fact a very brilliant one. Butrelatively speaking it would be a little prosaic. It would be definitelymarked out in advance; it would be wanting in the unexpected. You knowI'm extremely fond of the unexpected, and now that you've kept the gamein your hands I depend on your giving us some grand example of it.”
”I don't understand you very well,” said Isabel, ”but I do so wellenough to be able to say that if you look for grand examples of anythingfrom me I shall disappoint you.”
”You'll do so only by disappointing yourself and that will go hard withyou!”
To this she made no direct reply; there was an amount of truth in itthat would bear consideration. At last she said abruptly: ”I don't seewhat harm there is in my wishing not to tie myself. I don't want tobegin life by marrying. There are other things a woman can do.”
”There's nothing she can do so well. But you're of course somany-sided.”
”If one's two-sided it's enough,” said Isabel.
”You're the most charming of polygons!” her companion broke out. At aglance from his companion, however, he became grave, and to prove itwent on: ”You want to see life--you'll be hanged if you don't, as theyoung men say.”
”I don't think I want to see it as the young men want to see it. But Ido want to look about me.”
”You want to drain the cup of experience.”
”No, I don't wish to touch the cup of experience. It's a poisoned drink!I only want to see for myself.”
”You want to see, but not to feel,” Ralph remarked.
”I don't think that if one's a sentient being one can make thedistinction. I'm a good deal like Henrietta. The other day when I askedher if she wished to marry she said: 'Not till I've seen Europe!' I toodon't wish to marry till I've seen Europe.”
”You evidently expect a crowned head will be struck with you.”
”No, that would be worse than marrying Lord Warburton. But it's gettingvery dark,” Isabel continued, ”and I must go home.” She rose from herplace, but Ralph only sat still and looked at her. As he remained thereshe stopped, and they exchanged a gaze that was full on either side, butespecially on Ralph's, of utterances too vague for words.
”You've answered my question,” he said at last. ”You've told me what Iwanted. I'm greatly obliged to you.”
”It seems to me I've told you very little.”
”You've told me the great thing: that the world interests you and thatyou want to throw yourself into it.”
Her silvery eyes shone a moment in the dusk. ”I never said that.” ”Ithink you meant it. Don't repudiate it. It's so fine!”
”I don't know what you're trying to fasten upon me, for I'm not in theleast an adventurous spirit. Women are not like men.”
Ralph slowly rose from his seat and they walked together to the gate ofthe square. ”No,” he said; ”women rarely boast of their courage. Men doso with a certain frequency.”
”Men have it to boast of!”
”Women have it too. You've a great deal.”
”Enough to go home in a cab to Pratt's Hotel, but not more.”
Ralph unlocked the gate, and after they had passed out he fastened it.”We'll find your cab,” he said; and as they turned toward a neighbouringstreet in which this quest might avail he asked her again if he mightn'tsee her safely to the inn.
”By no means,” she answered; ”you're very tired; you must go home and goto bed.”
The cab was found, and he helped her into it, standing a moment at thedoor. ”When people forget I'm a poor creature I'm often incommoded,” hesaid. ”But it's worse when they remember it!”