The Portrait of a Lady quotes

Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.

There are circumstances in which, whether you partake of the tea or not—some people of course never do—the situation is in itself delightful. Those that I have in mind in beginning to unfold this simple history offered an admirable setting to an innocent pastime.

The father slowly rubbed his legs. “

Well, I don’t know. I can’t tell till I feel.

”

“Well, I suppose I am, in most respects.” And the old man looked down at his green shawl and smoothed it over his knees. “

The fact is I’ve been comfortable so many years that I suppose I’ve got so used to it I don’t know it.

”

His son broke into a laugh. “He’ll think you mean that as a provocation! My dear father, you’ve lived with the English for thirty years, and you’ve picked up a good many of the things they say.

But you’ve never learned the things they don’t say!

”

“

Oh, I hoped there would be a lord; it’s just like a novel!

” And then, “Oh you adorable creature!” she suddenly cried, stooping down and picking up the small dog again.

“Oh no; she has not adopted me.

I’m not a candidate for adoption.

”

She was not fond of the English style of life, and had three or four reasons for it to which she currently alluded; they bore upon minor points of that ancient order, but for Mrs. Touchett they amply justified non-residence.

She detested bread-sauce, which, as she said, looked like a poultice and tasted like soap

; she objected to the consumption of beer by her maidservants; and she affirmed that the British laundress (Mrs. Touchett was very particular about the appearance of her linen) was not a mistress of her art.

She had her own way of doing all that she did, and this is the simplest description of a character which, although by no means without liberal motions, rarely succeeded in giving an impression of suavity.

Mrs. Touchett might do a great deal of good, but she never pleased.

This way of her own, of which she was so fond, was not intrinsically offensive—it was just unmistakeably distinguished from the ways of others. The edges of her conduct were so very clear-cut that for susceptible persons it sometimes had a knife-like effect.

“

Well, I don’t like originals; I like translations

,” Mr. Ludlow had more than once replied. “Isabel’s written in a foreign tongue. I can’t make her out. She ought to marry an Armenian or a Portuguese.”

“Oh Moses!” Edmund Ludlow exclaimed. “

I hope she isn’t going to develop any more!

”

but it was not with a desire for dozing forgetfulness. It was on the contrary because she felt too wide-eyed and wished to check the sense of seeing too many things at once.

Her imagination was by habit ridiculously active; when the door was not open it jumped out of the window.

She was not accustomed indeed to keep it behind bolts; and at important moments, when she would have been thankful to make use of her judgement alone, she paid the penalty of having given undue encouragement to the faculty of seeing without judging.

Her reputation of reading a great deal hung about her like the cloudy envelope of a goddess in an epic; it was supposed to engender difficult questions and to keep the conversation at a low temperature.

The poor girl liked to be thought clever, but she hated to be thought bookish

; she used to read in secret and, though her memory was excellent, to abstain from showy reference. She had a great desire for knowledge, but she really preferred almost any source of information to the printed page;

Isabel said to herself that it bespoke resolution tonight; in spite of which, in half an hour, Caspar Goodwood, who had arrived hopeful as well as resolute, took his way back to his lodging with the feeling of a man defeated.

He was not, it may be added, a man weakly to accept defeat.

His friends at present judged him more cheerful, and attributed it to a theory, over which they shook their heads knowingly, that he would recover his health.

His serenity was but the array of wild flowers niched in his ruin.

It was very probably this sweet-tasting property of the observed thing in itself that was mainly concerned in Ralph’s quickly-stirred interest in the advent of a young lady who was evidently not insipid.

At present, however, the fragrance of forbidden fruit seemed occasionally to float past him and remind him that the finest of pleasures is the rush of action.

Living as he now lived was like reading a good book in a poor translation

—a meagre entertainment for a young man who felt that he might have been an excellent linguist. He had good winters and poor winters, and while the former lasted he was sometimes the sport of a vision of virtual recovery.

“

Nothing at all: that will puzzle him all the more.

”

“

Natural people are not the most trouble.

”

“

Do with her? You talk as if she were a yard of calico.

I shall do absolutely nothing with her, and she herself will do everything she chooses. She gave me notice of that.”

“I never know what I mean in my telegrams—especially those I send from America.

Clearness is too expensive.

Come down to your father.”

“I always know why,” the girl answered. “

It’s because she doesn’t expect one to like her. She doesn’t care whether one does or not.

”

“

Yes, I’m afraid of suffering. But I’m not afraid of ghosts.

And I think people suffer too easily,” she added.

They passed out of the smaller drawing-room, into which they had returned from the gallery, and paused in the hall, at the foot of the staircase. Here Ralph presented his companion with her bedroom candle, which he had taken from a niche. “

Never mind what they call you. When you do suffer they call you an idiot. The great point’s to be as happy as possible.

”

Isabel Archer was a young person of many theories; her imagination was remarkably active.

It had been her fortune to possess a finer mind than most of the persons among whom her lot was cast; to have a larger perception of surrounding facts and to care for knowledge that was tinged with the unfamiliar.

She spent half her time in thinking of beauty and bravery and magnanimity; she had a fixed determination to regard the world as a place of brightness, of free expansion, of irresistible action: she held it must be detestable to be afraid or ashamed.

She had an infinite hope that she should never do anything wrong.

She had resented so strongly, after discovering them, her mere errors of feeling (the discovery always made her tremble as if she had escaped from a trap which might have caught her and smothered her) that the chance of inflicting a sensible injury upon another …

a sort of behaviour so crooked as to be almost a dishonour to the flag. But Isabel, who knew little of the sorts of artillery to which young women are exposed, flattered herself that such contradictions would never be noted in her own conduct.

Her life should always be in harmony with the most pleasing impression she should produce; she would be what she appeared, and she would appear what she was.

Sometimes she went so far as to wish that she might find herself some day in a difficult position, so that she should have the pleasure of being as heroic as the occasion demanded.

Her paternal aunt, Mrs. Varian, once spread the rumour that Isabel was writing a book—Mrs. Varian having a reverence for books, and averred that the girl would distinguish herself in print.

Mrs. Varian thought highly of literature, for which she entertained that esteem that is connected with a sense of privation.

Her own large house, remarkable for its assortment of mosaic tables and decorated ceilings, was unfurnished with a library, and in the way of printed volumes contained nothing but half a dozen novels in paper on a shelf in the apartment of one of the …

… not the journalistic talent and a genius for guessing, as Henrietta said, what the public was going to want, one was not therefore to conclude that one had no vocation, no beneficent aptitude of any sort, and resign one’s self to being frivolous and hollow.

Isabel was stoutly determined not to be hollow.

If one should wait with the right patience one would find some happy work to one’s hand. Of course, among her theories, this young lady was not without a collection of views on the subject of marriage.

after a little it ended in alarms. It often seemed to her that she thought too much about herself; you could have made her colour, any day in the year, by calling her a rank egoist.

She was always planning out her development, desiring her perfection, observing her progress.

Her nature had, in her conceit, a certain garden-like quality, a suggestion of perfume and murmuring boughs, of shady bowers and lengthening vistas, which made her feel that introspection was, after all, an exercise in the open air, and that a visit to the recesses …

… to this beautiful old England and might carry her much further still, she often checked herself with the thought of the thousands of people who were less happy than herself—a thought which for the moment made her fine, full consciousness appear a kind of immodesty.

What should one do with the misery of the world in a scheme of the agreeable for one’s self?

It must be confessed that this question never held her long. She was too young, too impatient to live, too unacquainted with pain.

but they seem to feel pretty comfortable about waiting till then. I certainly feel more at home among them than I expected to when I first came over; I suppose it’s because I’ve had a considerable degree of success.

When you’re successful you naturally feel more at home.

”

“Well, I guess some of them are pretty comfortable—especially towards the top.

But for me there are only two classes: the people I trust and the people I don’t.

Of those two, my dear Isabel, you belong to the first.”

“No, no, you’re all wrong,” said the old man. “You can’t tell what they’ll like.

They’re very inconsistent; that’s their principal interest.

”

“My dear young lady,” said Mrs. Touchett, “there are as many points of view in the world as there are people of sense to take them. You may say that doesn’t make them very numerous! American? Never in the world; that’s shockingly narrow.

My point of view, thank God, is personal!

”

“I keep a band of music in my anteroom,” he said once to her. “

It has orders to play without stopping; it renders me two excellent services. It keeps the sounds of the world from reaching the private apartments, and it makes the world think that dancing’s going on within.

” It was dance-music indeed that you usually heard when you came within earshot of Ralph’s band; the liveliest waltzes seemed to float upon the air. Isabel often found herself irritated by this perpetual fiddling;

He drew a caricature of her in which she was represented as a very pretty young woman dressed, on the lines of the prevailing fashion, in the folds of the national banner.

Isabel’s chief dread in life at this period of her development was that she should appear narrow-minded; what she feared next afterwards was that she should really be so.

But she nevertheless made no scruple of abounding in her cousin’s sense and pretending to sigh for the charms of her native land.

She was intelligent and generous; it was a fine free nature; but what was she going to do with herself? This question was irregular, for with most women one had no occasion to ask it.

Most women did with themselves nothing at all; they waited, in attitudes more or less gracefully passive, for a man to come that way and furnish them with a destiny.

Isabel’s originality was that she gave one an impression of having intentions of her own. “Whenever she executes them,” said Ralph, “may I be there to see!”

This question was irregular, for with most women one had no occasion to ask it. Most women did with themselves nothing at all; they waited, in attitudes more or less gracefully passive, for a man to come that way and furnish them with a destiny.

Isabel’s originality was that she gave one an impression of having intentions of her own.

“Whenever she executes them,” said Ralph, “may I be there to see!”

“Yes, I think I’m very fond of them. But

I always want to know the things one shouldn’t do.

”

She rustled, she shimmered, in fresh, dove-coloured draperies, 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; yet after she had taken her place with her companions in Mr. Touchett’s carriage she struck him as not all in the large type, the type of horrid “headings,” that he had expected.

“

I don’t know where it begins, but I know where it ends. It ended a long time before I got here.

”

“

Scenery’s not my department; I always need a human interest.

You know I’m deeply human, Isabel; I always was,” Miss Stackpole 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.”

“

I’m very sure of that; but it seems to me one should be modest for others also!

”

“

An Englishman’s never so natural as when he’s holding his tongue,

” Isabel declared.

Ralph meditated with a mild smile. “

I suppose that if one has no conscience one has no shame.

”

“

Ah, one doesn’t give up one’s country any more than one gives up one’s grandmother.

They’re both antecedent to choice—elements of one’s composition that are not to be eliminated.”

“

I had one a few days ago, but I’ve lost it since.

”

She was wanting in distinction, but, as Isabel had said, she was brave: she went into cages, she flourished lashes, like a spangled lion-tamer. He had not supposed her to be capable of vulgar arts, but these last words struck him as a false note.

When a marriageable young woman urges matrimony on an unencumbered young man the most obvious explanation of her conduct is not the altruistic impulse.

“Ah, well now, there’s a good deal to be said about that,” Ralph rejoined.

“Ah,” said 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 swagger, but I suppose I’m rather versatile. I like people to be totally different from Henrietta—in the style of Lord Warburton’s sisters for instance.

“I’m not sure the Pacific’s so green as that,” he said; “but you’re a young woman of imagination.

Henrietta, however, does smell of the Future⁠—it almost knocks one down!

”

“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.’

”

“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 Isabel. “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.”

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 itself clear of the baser parts of emotion—the …

“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. But I shall do worse; I shall live to no purpose.

”

“

If there are better women than 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.”

it’s perfectly safe and right. But if you shouldn’t fancy it you needn’t dream of living in it. There’s no difficulty whatever about that; there are plenty of houses. I thought I’d just mention it; some people don’t like a moat, you know. Goodbye.”

“I adore a moat,” said Isabel.

“Goodbye.”

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’s a great deal that’s attractive about such an idea; but I don’t see why the English should want to entice us away from our native land.

Mr. Touchett gave a shrewd, conscious smile. “

There’s room everywhere, my dear, if you’ll pay for it. I sometimes think I’ve paid too much for this.

Perhaps you also might have to pay too much.”

“How can that be, when I’m in love with Another?”

“You’re in love with yourself, that’s the Other!”

Miss Stackpole declared. “Much good may it do you! But if you wish to be serious once in your life here’s a chance; and if you really care for your cousin here’s an opportunity to prove it. I don’t expect you to understand her;

“I don’t think it presumptuous in me to suggest that you’ll gain more than you’ll lose,” her companion observed.

“I can’t escape unhappiness,” said Isabel. “In marrying you I shall be trying to.”

“I don’t know whether you’d try to, but you certainly would: that I must in candour admit!” he exclaimed with an anxious laugh.

“I’m not bent on a life of misery,” said Isabel. “

I’ve always been intensely determined to be happy, and I’ve often believed I should be.

I’ve told people that; you can ask them. But it comes over me every now and then that I can never be happy in any extraordinary way; not by turning away, by separating myself.”

“I never do anything,” said this young lady.

“I suppose in your position it’s sufficient for you to exist!”

Miss Stackpole returned. “I should like very much to see you at home.”

“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 her aunt appeared to her to have made very little use of Mr. Touchett.

“

There’s no more usual basis of union than a mutual misunderstanding.

But it ought not to be so difficult to understand Bob Bantling,” Ralph added. “He is a very simple organism.”

She gave rather a conscious sigh.

“I wish I could be as interesting to myself as I am to you!”

“There you’re not candid again; you’re extremely interesting to yourself. Do you know, however,” said Ralph, “that if you’ve really given Warburton his final answer I’m rather glad it has been what it was.

From the point of view I speak of that would be fatal; I should kill the goose that supplies me with the material of my inimitable omelettes. I use that animal as the symbol of my insane illusions. What I mean is that

I shall have the thrill of seeing what a young lady does who won’t marry Lord Warburton.

”

“If one’s two-sided it’s enough,” said Isabel.

“You’re the most charming of polygons!”

her companion broke out. At a glance from his companion, however, he became grave, and to prove it went on: “You want to see life—you’ll be hanged if you don’t, as the young men say.”

“

No, I don’t wish to touch the cup of experience. It’s a poisoned drink! I only want to see for myself.

”

The cab was found, and he helped her into it, standing a moment at the door.

“When people forget I’m a poor creature I’m often incommoded,” he said. “But it’s worse when they remember it!”

I’m not pretty. I therefore am not bound to be timid and conventional; indeed I can’t afford such luxuries. Besides, I try to judge things for myself; to judge wrong, I think, is more honourable than not to judge at all.

I don’t wish to be a mere sheep in the flock; I wish to choose my fate and know something of human affairs beyond what other people think it compatible with propriety to tell me.

” She paused a moment, but not long enough for her companion to reply. He was apparently on the point of doing so when she went on: “Let me say this to you, Mr. Goodwood.

“No, I haven’t the least idea, and I find it very pleasant not to know.

A swift carriage, of a dark night, rattling with four horses over roads that one can’t see⁠—that’s my idea of happiness.

”

The lady smiled and discriminated. “

I’m afraid there are moments in life when even Schubert has nothing to say to us. We must admit, however, that they are our worst.

”

Suddenly the newcomer stopped with her hands on the keys, half-turning and looking over her shoulder. She was forty years old and not pretty, though her expression charmed. “Pardon me,” she said; “but are you the niece—the young American?”

“I’m my aunt’s niece,” Isabel replied with simplicity.

The lady at the piano sat still a moment longer, casting her air of interest over her shoulder. “That’s very well; we’re compatriots.” And then she began to play.

My father was a high officer in the United States Navy, and had a post—a post of responsibility—in that establishment at the time. I suppose I ought to love the sea, but I hate it. That’s why I don’t return to America.

I love the land; the great thing is to love something.

”

Before she came Isabel spoke of her to Ralph, who was standing before the fireplace. “Pray who is this Madame Merle?”

“The cleverest woman I know, not excepting yourself,” said Ralph.

“I thought she seemed very pleasant.”

“Yes, because the statement agrees with the probabilities.

The husband of Madame Merle would be likely to pass away.

”

“Well, she’ll have more money,” said Mr. Touchett. “

I’ve left her a good wife’s portion, just as if she had been a good wife.

”

“

I should like to put a little wind in her sails.

”

“

I call people rich when they’re able to meet the requirements of their imagination. Isabel has a great deal of imagination.

”

“

She’s as good as her best opportunities

,” Ralph returned.

The freshness, the quickness have certainly gone. You’ll keep them longer than most people; it will be a great satisfaction to me to see you some years hence. I want to see what life makes of you. One thing’s certain—it can’t spoil you.

It may pull you about horribly, but I defy it to break you up.

”

“I judge more than I used to,” she said to Isabel, “but it seems to me one has earned the right.

One can’t judge till one’s forty; before that we’re too eager, too hard, too cruel, and in addition much too ignorant.

I’m sorry for you; it will be a long time before you’re forty. But every gain’s a loss of some kind; I often think that after forty one can’t really feel. The freshness, the quickness have certainly gone. You’ll keep them longer than most people;

“It’s very true; there are many more iron pots certainly than porcelain.

But you may depend on it that everyone bears some mark; even the hardest iron pots have a little bruise, a little hole somewhere.

I flatter myself that I’m rather stout, but if I must tell you the truth I’ve been shockingly chipped and cracked. I do very well for service yet, because I’ve been cleverly mended;

“

Ah no, I fear my darkest sides are my tamest.

I mean that having no faults, for your aunt, means that one’s never late for dinner—that is for her dinner. I was not late, by the way, the other day, when you came back from London;

There are a great many of us like that in these parts, and I must say I think we’re a wretched set of people. You should live in your own land; whatever it may be you have your natural place there.

If we’re not good Americans we’re certainly poor Europeans; we’ve no natural place here.

We’re mere parasites, crawling over the surface; we haven’t our feet in the soil. At least one can know it and not have illusions. A woman perhaps can get on; a woman, it seems to me, has no natural place anywhere;

But the men, the Americans; je vous demande un peu, what do they make of it over here? I don’t envy them trying to arrange themselves. Look at poor Ralph Touchett: what sort of a figure do you call that?

Fortunately he has a consumption; I say fortunately, because it gives him something to do.

His consumption’s his carrière it’s a kind of position. You can say: ‘Oh, Mr. Touchett, he takes care of his lungs, he knows a great deal about climates.’ But without that who would he be, what would he represent? ‘Mr. Ralph Touchett:

If it were something of importance it should inspire respect; if it were not it was not worth her curiosity. With all her love of knowledge she had a natural shrinking from raising curtains and looking into unlighted corners.

The love of knowledge coexisted in her mind with the finest capacity for ignorance.

But Madame Merle sometimes said things that startled her, made her raise her clear eyebrows at the time and think of the words afterwards.

By the shell I mean the whole envelope of circumstances. There’s no such thing as an isolated man or woman; we’re each of us made up of some cluster of appurtenances.

What shall we call our ‘self’? Where does it begin? where does it end?

It overflows into everything that belongs to us—and then it flows back again. I know a large part of myself is in the clothes I choose to wear. I’ve a great respect for things! One’s self—for other people—is one’s expression of one’s self;

“I don’t agree with you. I think just the other way. I don’t know whether I succeed in expressing myself, but I know that nothing else expresses me.

Nothing that belongs to me is any measure of me; everything’s on the contrary a limit, a barrier, and a perfectly arbitrary one.

Certainly the clothes which, as you say, I choose to wear, don’t express me; and heaven forbid they should!”

Pardon me if my tone seems horribly corrupt; one must take the worldly view sometimes. Only don’t keep on refusing for the sake of refusing. It’s a pleasant exercise of power; but accepting’s after all an exercise of power as well.

There’s always the danger of refusing once too often.

It was not the one I fell into—I didn’t refuse often enough. You’re an exquisite creature, and I should like to see you married to a prime minister. But speaking strictly, you know, you’re not what is technically called a parti.

“There assuredly was no effort. Don’t call it an achievement.”

Madame Merle was seldom guilty of the awkwardness of retracting what she had said; her wisdom was shown rather in maintaining it and placing it in a favourable light.

“My dear friend, Isabel would certainly not have had seventy thousand pounds left her if she had not been the most charming girl in the world. Her charm includes great cleverness.”

“That, I think, she has hardly considered. She doesn’t know what to think about the matter at all.

It has been as if a big gun were suddenly fired off behind her; she’s feeling herself to see if she be hurt.

It’s but three days since she received a visit from the principal executor, who came in person, very gallantly, to notify her. He told me afterwards that when he had made his little speech she suddenly burst into tears.

This, however, was in a great measure the girl’s own fault; she had got a glimpse of her aunt’s experience, and her imagination constantly anticipated the judgements and emotions of a woman who had very little of the same faculty.

Apart from this, Mrs. Touchett had a great merit; she was as honest as a pair of compasses.

There was a comfort in her stiffness and firmness; you knew exactly where to find her and were never liable to chance encounters and concussions. On her own ground she was perfectly present, but was never over-inquisitive as regards the territory of her neighbour.

Don’t question your conscience so much—it will get out of tune like a strummed piano. Keep it for great occasions. Don’t try so much to form your character—it’s like trying to pull open a tight, tender young rose.

Live as you like best, and your character will take care of itself.

Most things are good for you; the exceptions are very rare, and a comfortable income’s not one of them.” Ralph paused, smiling; Isabel had listened quickly. “You’ve too much power of thought—above all too much conscience,” Ralph added.

Keep it for great occasions. Don’t try so much to form your character—it’s like trying to pull open a tight, tender young rose. Live as you like best, and your character will take care of itself.

Most things are good for you; the exceptions are very rare, and a comfortable income’s not one of them.

” Ralph paused, smiling; Isabel had listened quickly. “You’ve too much power of thought—above all too much conscience,” Ralph added. “It’s out of all reason, the number of things you think wrong. Put back your watch. Diet your fever. Spread your wings;

Ralph paused, smiling; Isabel had listened quickly. “You’ve too much power of thought—above all too much conscience,” Ralph added. “It’s out of all reason, the number of things you think wrong. Put back your watch. Diet your fever.

Spread your wings; rise above the ground. It’s never wrong to do that.

”

It was in her disposition at all times to lose faith in the reality of absent things; she could summon back her faith, in case of need, with an effort, but the effort was often painful even when the reality had been pleasant.

The past was apt to look dead and its revival rather to show the livid light of a judgement-day.

The girl moreover was not prone to take for granted that she herself lived in the mind of others—she had not the fatuity to believe she left indelible traces. She was capable of being wounded by the discovery that she had been forgotten;

The girl moreover was not prone to take for granted that she herself lived in the mind of others—she had not the fatuity to believe she left indelible traces.

She was capable of being wounded by the discovery that she had been forgotten; but of all liberties the one she herself found sweetest was the liberty to forget.

She had not given her last shilling, sentimentally speaking, either to Caspar Goodwood or to Lord Warburton, and yet couldn’t but feel them appreciably in debt to her. She had of course reminded herself that she was to hear from Mr. Goodwood again;

… to one or two persons wearing more or less of that air of undervalued merit which in Italy, for some reason or other, always gracefully invests anyone who confidently assumes a perfectly passive attitude—this antique, solid, weatherworn, yet imposing front had a somewhat incommunicative character.

It was the mask, not the face of the house.

It had heavy lids, but no eyes; the house in reality looked another way—looked off behind, into splendid openness and the range of the afternoon light.

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Pansy said, repeating her little soft conciliatory sigh.

“I had more than thirty mothers at the convent.”

Her father’s step sounded again in the antechamber, and Madame Merle got up, releasing the child. Mr. Osmond came in and closed the door; then, without looking at Madame Merle, he pushed one or two chairs back into their places.

“Isn’t she meant for something better than that?”

“I don’t pretend to know what people are meant for,” said Madame Merle. “I only know what I can do with them.”

“I’m sorry for Miss Archer!” Osmond declared.

“Your rooms at least are perfect. I’m struck with that afresh whenever I come back; I know none better anywhere. You understand this sort of thing as nobody anywhere does. You’ve such adorable taste.”

“I’m sick of my adorable taste,” said Gilbert Osmond.

“You must nevertheless let Miss Archer come and see it. I’ve told her about it.”

and found compensation for the darkness of her frontage in the modicity of her rent and the brightness of a garden where nature itself looked as archaic as the rugged architecture of the palace and which cleared and scented the rooms in regular use.

To live in such a place was, for Isabel, to hold to her ear all day a shell of the sea of the past.

This vague eternal rumour kept her imagination awake.

“Her merits are large then. You contradict yourself.”

“Her merits are immense,” said Ralph. “She’s indescribably blameless; a pathless desert of virtue; the only woman I know who never gives one a chance.”

“Well, say to call her a fool! She’s the only woman I know who has but that one little fault.”

“I suppose you mean by that that she’s worldly?”

“Worldly? No,” said Ralph, “she’s the great round world itself!”

It had certainly not, as Isabel for the moment took it into her head to believe, been a refinement of malice in him to say that he delighted in Madame Merle.

“Pansy will never know any harm,” said the child’s father. “Pansy’s a little convent-flower.”

“Oh, the convents, the convents!” cried the Countess with a flutter of her ruffles.

“Speak to me of the convents! You may learn anything there; I’m a convent-flower myself. I don’t pretend to be good, but the nuns do. Don’t you see what I mean?” she went on, appealing to Isabel.

But you’ll be going away before I’ve seen you three times, and I shall perhaps never see you after that. That’s what it is to live in a country that people come to.

When they’re disagreeable here it’s bad enough; when they’re agreeable it’s still worse. As soon as you like them they’re off again!

I’ve been deceived too often; I’ve ceased to form attachments, to permit myself to feel attractions. You mean to stay—to settle? That would be really comfortable. Ah yes, your aunt’s a sort of guarantee; I believe she may be depended on.

Of course, however, a horrid husband’s an awkward thing. Madame Merle gives her excellent advice, but it’s a good deal like giving a child a dictionary to learn a language with. He can look out the words, but he can’t put them together.

My sister needs a grammar, but unfortunately she’s not grammatical.

Pardon my troubling you with these details; my sister was very right in saying you’ve been taken into the family. Let me take down that picture; you want more light.”

What was that you said about one’s natural mission? I wonder if I should forsake my natural mission if I were to settle in Florence.”

“A woman’s natural mission is to be where she’s most appreciated.”

“The point’s to find out where that is.”

Madame Merle looked as if she were ready to admit that there might be something in this; but in a moment she said quietly: “You think me more calculating than I am.”

“It’s not your calculating I think ill of; it’s your calculating wrong. You’ve done so in this case.”

“You must have made extensive calculations yourself to discover that.”

they would have been quite in my line. But there’s nothing, nothing, nothing. One’s parents were charming people of course; but so were yours, I’ve no doubt. Everyone’s a charming person nowadays. Even I’m a charming person; don’t laugh, it has literally been said.

As for Osmond, he has always appeared to believe that he’s descended from the gods.

”

they would have been quite in my line. But there’s nothing, nothing, nothing. One’s parents were charming people of course; but so were yours, I’ve no doubt. Everyone’s a charming person nowadays.

Even I’m a charming person; don’t laugh, it has literally been said.

As for Osmond, he has always appeared to believe that he’s descended from the gods.”

“I don’t think I know what you mean,” she said; “you use too many figures of speech; I could never understand allegories.

The two words in the language I most respect are Yes and No.

If Isabel wants to marry Mr. Osmond she’ll do so in spite of all your comparisons. Let her alone to find a fine one herself for anything she undertakes. I know very little about the young man in America;

The Countess, however, had consoled herself outrageously, and the list of her excuses had now lost itself in the labyrinth of her adventures. Mrs. Touchett had never consented to receive her, though the Countess had made overtures of old.

Florence was not an austere city; but, as Mrs. Touchett said, she had to draw the line somewhere.

Madame Merle defended the luckless lady with a great deal of zeal and wit. She couldn’t see why Mrs. Touchett should make a scapegoat of a woman who had really done no harm, who had only done good in the wrong way.

Madame Merle surveyed her with a single glance, took her in from head to foot, and after a pang of despair determined to endure her. She determined indeed to delight in her.

She mightn’t be inhaled as a rose, but she might be grasped as a nettle.

Madame Merle genially squeezed her into insignificance, and Isabel felt that in foreseeing this liberality she had done justice to her friend’s intelligence. Henrietta’s arrival had been announced by Mr.

But on the Continent there was the outer life, which was palpable and visible at every turn, and more easily convertible to literary uses than the customs of those opaque islanders.

Out of doors in foreign lands, as she ingeniously remarked, one seemed to see the right side of the tapestry; out of doors in England one seemed to see the wrong side, which gave one no notion of the figure.

The admission costs her historian a pang, but Henrietta, despairing of more occult things, was now paying much attention to the outer life.

“

My envy’s not dangerous; it wouldn’t hurt a mouse.

I don’t want to destroy the people—I only want to be them. You see it would destroy only myself.”

Gilbert Osmond had a high appreciation of this particular patriciate; not so much for its distinction, which he thought easily surpassable, as for its solid actuality.

He had never forgiven his star for not appointing him to an English dukedom, and he could measure the unexpectedness of such conduct as Isabel’s.

It would be proper that the woman he might marry should have done something of that sort.

“

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

”

“

I’m not afraid; I should fold my arms and admire you.

I’m speaking very seriously.” He leaned forward, a hand on each knee; for some moments he bent his eyes on the floor. “What I wish to say to you,” he went on at last, looking up, “is that I find I’m in love with you.”

She instantly rose. “

Ah, keep that till I am tired!

”

“I like the way you utter that word!

No, I’m not conventional: I’m convention itself.

You don’t understand that?” And he paused a moment, smiling. “I should like to explain it.” Then with a sudden, quick, bright naturalness, “Do come back again,” he pleaded. “There are so many things we might talk about.”

I would rather be his daughter than the wife of—of some strange person. I miss him very much, but not so much as you might think, for I’ve been so much away from him.

Papa has always been principally for holidays.

I miss Madame Catherine almost more; but you must not tell him that. You shall not see him again? I’m very sorry, and he’ll be sorry too. Of everyone who comes here I like you the best.

“

I think that’s what I live for,

” Pansy answered. “He has not much pleasure; he’s rather a sad man.”

“Last night, very late; in a kind of snail-train they call the express.

These Italian trains go at about the rate of an American funeral.

”

“

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

”

“I know that.

I’m selfish as iron.

”

“

Even iron sometimes melts!

If you’ll be reasonable I’ll see you again.”

“

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

”

“

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

”

There was a moment’s silence; the warm noontide seemed to listen. “

I trust you, but I don’t trust him

,” said Ralph.

Cold, I say, her tone had been, but at this a colour like a flame leaped into her face. “

Of more importance to whom? It seems to me enough that one’s husband should be of importance to one’s self!

”

She tasted of the sweets of this preference, and they made her conscious, almost with awe, of the invidious and remorseless tide of the charmed and possessed condition, great as was the traditional honour and imputed virtue of being in love.

It was the tragic part of happiness; one’s right was always made of the wrong of someone else.

The elation of success, which surely now flamed high in Osmond, emitted meanwhile very little smoke for so brilliant a blaze. Contentment, on his part, took no vulgar form; excitement, in the most self-conscious of men, was a kind of ecstasy of self-control.

I’ve never so concerned myself, God forgive me, and why should I begin today, when I have taken to myself a compensation for everything? I won’t pretend I’m sorry you’re rich; I’m delighted. I delight in everything that’s yours—whether it be money or virtue.

Money’s a horrid thing to follow, but a charming thing to meet.

It seems to me, however, that I’ve sufficiently proved the limits of my itch for it: I never in my life tried to earn a penny, and I ought to be less subject to suspicion than most of the people one sees grubbing and grabbing.

“

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

”

She looked at him with a friendly frown, stroking her chin with her large white hand. “

A man in love, you know, doesn’t ask advice.

”

“

I’m always kind to people who have good Louis Quatorze.

It’s very rare now, and there’s no telling what one may get by it.” With which the left-hand corner of Madame Merle’s mouth gave expression to the joke.

“

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

”

“I hope you’ve heard no harm.

My life has been a remarkably complete blank.

”

“

He has a genius for upholstery,

” said Isabel.

Far from being its master as he pretended to be, he was its very humble servant, and the degree of its attention was his only measure of success.

He lived with his eye on it from morning till night, and the world was so stupid it never suspected the trick.

Everything he did was pose—pose so subtly considered that if one were not on the lookout one mistook it for impulse. Ralph had never met a man who lived so much in the land of consideration.

As a younger person she had been used to proceed from one little exaltation to the other: there were scarcely any dull places between.

But Madame Merle had suppressed enthusiasm; she fell in love nowadays with nothing; she lived entirely by reason and by wisdom.

There were hours when Isabel would have given anything for lessons in this art; if her brilliant friend had been near she would have made an appeal to her.

There had been no plot, no snare; she had looked and considered and chosen. When a woman had made such a mistake, there was only one way to repair it—just immensely (oh, with the highest grandeur!) to accept it.

One folly was enough, especially when it was to last forever; a second one would not much set it off.

In this vow of reticence there was a certain nobleness which kept Isabel going; but Madame Merle had been right, for all that, in taking her precautions.

But meantime, if, as I have said, she was sensibly different, Isabel’s feelings were also not quite the same. Her consciousness of the situation was as acute as of old, but it was much less satisfying.

A dissatisfied mind, whatever else it may miss, is rarely in want of reasons; they bloom as thick as buttercups in June.

The fact of Madame Merle’s having had a hand in Gilbert Osmond’s marriage ceased to be one of her titles to consideration; it might have been written, after all, that there was not so much to thank her for.

It was the whole creature—it was a sort of genius. Pansy had no pride to interfere with it, and though she was constantly extending her conquests she took no credit for them. The two were constantly together; Mrs. Osmond was rarely seen without her stepdaughter.

Isabel liked her company; it had the effect of one’s carrying a nosegay composed all of the same flower.

And then not to neglect Pansy, not under any provocation to neglect her—this she had made an article of religion.

He had a way of expressing contempt for them which fortified her loyalty to them, even when, as in the present case, they were in themselves insignificant.

She sometimes felt a sort of passion of tenderness for memories which had no other merit than that they belonged to her unmarried life.

“But as regards Pansy,” she added in a moment, “I’ve given him no encouragement.”

That is a sentiment easily indicated, but not so easily explained, and so composite in its character that much time and still more suffering had been needed to bring it to its actual perfection.

Suffering, with Isabel, was an active condition; it was not a chill, a stupor, a despair; it was a passion of thought, of speculation, of response to every pressure.

She flattered herself that she had kept her failing faith to herself, however—that no one suspected it but Osmond. Oh, he knew it, and there were times when she thought he enjoyed it.

Oh, he knew it, and there were times when she thought he enjoyed it. It had come gradually—it was not till the first year of their life together, so admirably intimate at first, had closed that she had taken the alarm.

Then the shadows had begun to gather; it was as if Osmond deliberately, almost malignantly, had put the lights out one by one.

The dusk at first was vague and thin, and she could still see her way in it. But it steadily deepened, and if now and again it had occasionally lifted there were certain corners of her prospect that were impenetrably black.

They were a part, they were a kind of creation and consequence, of her husband’s very presence. They were not his misdeeds, his turpitudes; she accused him of nothing—that is but of one thing, which was not a crime.

She knew of no wrong he had done; he was not violent, he was not cruel: she simply believed he hated her.

That was all she accused him of, and the miserable part of it was precisely that it was not a crime, for against a crime she might have found redress.

She had felt at the same time that he was helpless and ineffectual, but the feeling had taken the form of a tenderness which was the very flower of respect.

He was like a sceptical voyager strolling on the beach while he waited for the tide, looking seaward yet not putting to sea.

It was in all this she had found her occasion. She would launch his boat for him; she would be his providence; it would be a good thing to love him.

This was what she had kept in reserve; this was what he had not known until he had found himself—with the door closed behind, as it were—set down face to face with it.

She had a certain way of looking at life which he took as a personal offence.

Heaven knew that now at least it was a very humble, accommodating way! The strange thing was that she should not have suspected from the first that his own had been so different.

She could live it over again, the incredulous terror with which she had taken the measure of her dwelling. Between those four walls she had lived ever since; they were to surround her for the rest of her life.

It was the house of darkness, the house of dumbness, the house of suffocation.

Osmond’s beautiful mind gave it neither light nor air; Osmond’s beautiful mind indeed seemed to peep down from a small high window and mock at her. Of course it had not been physical suffering; for physical suffering there might have been a remedy.

Of course it had not been physical suffering; for physical suffering there might have been a remedy. She could come and go; she had her liberty; her husband was perfectly polite. He took himself so seriously; it was something appalling.

Under all his culture, his cleverness, his amenity, under his good-nature, his facility, his knowledge of life, his egotism lay hidden like a serpent in a bank of flowers.

She had taken him seriously, but she had not taken him so seriously as that. How could she—especially when she had known him better? She was to think of him as he thought of himself—as the first gentleman in Europe.

But for Osmond it was altogether a thing of forms, a conscious, calculated attitude. He was fond of the old, the consecrated, the transmitted; so was she, but she pretended to do what she chose with it.

He had an immense esteem for tradition; he had told her once that the best thing in the world was to have it, but that if one was so unfortunate as not to have it one must immediately proceed to make it.

She knew that he meant by this that she hadn’t it, but that he was better off; though from what source he had derived his traditions she never learned. He had a very large collection of them, however;

He believed he should have regulated her emotions before she came to it; and Isabel could easily imagine how his ears had scorched on his discovering he had been too confident.

When one had a wife who gave one that sensation there was nothing left but to hate her.

She was morally certain now that this feeling of hatred, which at first had been a refuge and a refreshment, had become the occupation and comfort of his life. The feeling was deep, because it was sincere;

He at least knew now that she had no traditions! It had not been in his prevision of things that she should reveal such flatness; her sentiments were worthy of a radical newspaper or a Unitarian preacher.

The real offence, as she ultimately perceived, was her having a mind of her own at all.

Her mind was to be his—attached to his own like a small garden-plot to a deer-park. He would rake the soil gently and water the flowers; he would weed the beds and gather an occasional nosegay.

She had told him then that from her at least he should never know if he was right; and this was what she was taking care of now. It gave her plenty to do; there was passion, exaltation, religion in it.

Women find their religion sometimes in strange exercises, and Isabel at present, in playing a part before her cousin, had an idea that she was doing him a kindness.

It would have been a kindness perhaps if he had been for a single instant a dupe.

“Yes, it’s better, and it’s more worthy of your dignity.

Great statesmen oughtn’t to waltz.

”

“Aren’t you afraid that you’ll bore her?” And as her companion stared at this enquiry Isabel added: “

If she can’t dance with you for half an hour how will she be able to dance with you for life?

”

not that she cared much, but she wondered what kept it in abeyance. Her sister-in-law regarded her with none but level glances and expressed for the poor Countess as little contempt as admiration. In reality

Isabel would as soon have thought of despising her as of passing a moral judgement on a grasshopper.

She was not indifferent to her husband’s sister, however; she was rather a little afraid of her. She wondered at her; she thought her very extraordinary. The Countess seemed to her to have no soul;

she sighed a great deal and was not at all enterprising. But Henrietta, the Countess could see, was always closely buttoned and compactly braided; there was something brisk and businesslike in her appearance; her manner was almost conscientiously familiar.

It was as impossible to imagine her ever vaguely sighing as to imagine a letter posted without its address.

The Countess could not but feel that the correspondent of the Interviewer was much more in the movement than the American Corinne.

“I don’t know and I don’t care. He’s perfectly welcome not to like me; I don’t want everyone to like me; I should think less of myself if some people did.

A journalist can’t hope to do much good unless he gets a good deal hated; that’s the way he knows how his work goes on.

And it’s just the same for a lady. But I didn’t expect it of Isabel.”

The Countess stared, and then with a little violent laugh: “

It’s certain all the nice men do it. Get married and you’ll see!

” she added.

“Yes, that gained you time.”

It came over her, after he had said this, that she had once thought him beautiful.

“How much you must want to make sure of him!” she exclaimed in a moment.

Isabel reflected that after he left the room Lord Warburton would have no pretext for saying, “Your husband’s very angry;” which would have been extremely disagreeable to her. Nevertheless, if he had done so, she would have said: “

Oh, don’t be anxious. He doesn’t hate you: it’s me that he hates!

”

“I don’t know whether I’m too proud.

But I can’t publish my mistake. I don’t think that’s decent. I’d much rather die.

”

She complained to Isabel that Miss Osmond had a little look as if she should remember everything one said. “I don’t want to be remembered that way,” Miss Stackpole declared; “

I consider that my conversation refers only to the moment, like the morning papers.

Your stepdaughter, as she sits there, looks as if she kept all the back numbers and would bring them out some day against me.”

She complained to Isabel that Miss Osmond had a little look as if she should remember everything one said. “I don’t want to be remembered that way,” Miss Stackpole declared; “I consider that my conversation refers only to the moment, like the morning papers.

Your stepdaughter, as she sits there, looks as if she kept all the back numbers and would bring them out some day against me.

” She could not teach herself to think favourably of Pansy, whose absence of initiative, of conversation, of personal claims, seemed to her, in a girl of twenty, unnatural and even uncanny.

One hasn’t a nerve in one’s body that she doesn’t set quivering. You know I never have admitted that she’s a woman. Do you know what she reminds me of? Of a new steel pen—the most odious thing in nature.

She talks as a steel pen writes; aren’t her letters, by the way, on ruled paper?

She thinks and moves and walks and looks exactly as she talks. You may say that she doesn’t hurt me, inasmuch as I don’t see her. I don’t see her, but I hear her; I hear her all day long.

Your cousin I have always thought a conceited ass—besides his being the most ill-favoured animal I know. Then it’s insufferably tiresome that one can’t tell him so; one must spare him on account of his health.

His health seems to me the best part of him; it gives him privileges enjoyed by no one else.

If he’s so desperately ill there’s only one way to prove it; but he seems to have no mind for that. I can’t say much more for the great Warburton. When one really thinks of it, the cool insolence of that performance was something rare!

If he’s so desperately ill there’s only one way to prove it; but he seems to have no mind for that. I can’t say much more for the great Warburton. When one really thinks of it, the cool insolence of that performance was something rare!

He comes and looks at one’s daughter as if she were a suite of apartments; he tries the doorhandles and looks out of the windows, raps on the walls and almost thinks he’ll take the place.

Will you be so good as to draw up a lease? Then, on the whole, he decides that the rooms are too small; he doesn’t think he could live on a third floor; he must look out for a piano nobile.

“

From the voices of the air! Oh, from no one else; I never let other people speak of you. They always say you’re ‘charming,’ and that’s so flat.

”

Did she wish to do public penance for a fault of which she had not been convicted? or were her words simply an attempt at enlightened self-analysis? However this might be, Ralph could not resist so easy an opportunity. “Afraid of your husband?”

“Afraid of myself!” she said, getting up.

She stood there a moment and then added: “If I were afraid of my husband that would be simply my duty. That’s what women are expected to be.”

“Afraid of myself!” she said, getting up. She stood there a moment and then added:

“If I were afraid of my husband that would be simply my duty. That’s what women are expected to be.”

“Ah yes,” laughed Ralph; “but to make up for it there’s always some man awfully afraid of some woman!”

She raised her fan to her face, which it covered all except her eyes. They rested a moment on his.

“Don’t give your life to it; but give a thought to it every now and then.”

And with that she went back to the Countess Gemini.

Isabel took a drive alone that afternoon; she wished to be far away, under the sky, where she could descend from her carriage and tread upon the daisies.

She had long before this taken old Rome into her confidence, for in a world of ruins the ruin of her happiness seemed a less unnatural catastrophe.

She rested her weariness upon things that had crumbled for centuries and yet still were upright;

She had long before this taken old Rome into her confidence, for in a world of ruins the ruin of her happiness seemed a less unnatural catastrophe.

She rested her weariness upon things that had crumbled for centuries and yet still were upright

;

“The matter—the matter—!” And here Madame Merle stopped. Then she went on with a sudden outbreak of passion, a burst of summer thunder in a clear sky:

“The matter is that I would give my right hand to be able to weep, and that I can’t!”

“What good would it do you to weep?”

Osmond threw back his head further; he looked a while at the ceiling and might have been supposed to be appealing, in an informal way, to the heavenly powers.

“Oh, the imagination of women! It’s always vulgar, at bottom. You talk of revenge like a third-rate novelist.”

“Of course you haven’t complained. You’ve enjoyed your triumph too much.”

“So much, of course; in such a case one asks the maximum. That she should adore me, if you will. Oh yes, I wanted that.”

“I never adored you,” said Madame Merle.

“Ah, but you pretended to!”

After he had left her she went, the first thing, and lifted from the mantelshelf the attenuated coffee-cup in which he had mentioned the existence of a crack; but she looked at it rather abstractedly.

“Have I been so vile all for nothing?”

she vaguely wailed.

“It’s very soon told,” said Edward Rosier.

“I’ve sold all my bibelots!”

Isabel gave instinctively an exclamation of horror; it was as if he had told her he had had all his teeth drawn. “I’ve sold them by auction at the Hôtel Drouot,” he went on.

You don’t like to be reminded of that, I know; but I’m perfectly willing, because—because—” And he paused a moment, looking as if he had something to say which would be very much to the point.

“Because I think we should accept the consequences of our actions, and what I value most in life is the honour of a thing!”

He spoke gravely and almost gently; the accent of sarcasm had dropped out of his tone. It had a gravity which checked his wife’s quick emotion; the resolution with which she had entered the room found itself caught in a mesh of fine threads.

“It is in our living decently together, in spite of such drawbacks.”

“We don’t live decently together!” cried Isabel.

“Indeed we don’t if you go to England.”

From the moment she thus began to question her, however, Isabel drew back; she disengaged her hand, which the Countess had affectionately taken. But she answered this enquiry with frank bitterness.

“Because we’re so happy together that we can’t separate even for a fortnight.”

“Ah,” cried the Countess while Isabel turned away, “when I want to make a journey my husband simply tells me I can have no money!”

From the moment she thus began to question her, however, Isabel drew back; she disengaged her hand, which the Countess had affectionately taken. But she answered this enquiry with frank bitterness. “Because we’re so happy together that we can’t separate even for a fortnight.”

“Ah,” cried the Countess while Isabel turned away, “when I want to make a journey my husband simply tells me I can have no money!”

Isabel went to her room, where she walked up and down for an hour.

“I’ve guessed nothing. What should I have suspected? I don’t know what you mean.”

“That’s because you’ve such a beastly pure mind. I never saw a woman with such a pure mind!” cried the Countess.

Isabel slowly got up. “You’re going to tell me something horrible.”

“I wish indeed you might.”

“Don’t leave me here,” Pansy went on gently.

Isabel said nothing for a minute; her heart beat fast. “Will you come away with me now?” she asked.

There are some very little ones—such charming children. Then my room—you can see for yourself. All that’s very delightful. But I’ve had enough. Papa wished me to think a little—and I’ve thought a great deal.”

“Well, that I must never displease papa.”

“Yes; but I know it better. I’ll do anything—I’ll do anything,” said Pansy. Then, as she heard her own words, a deep, pure blush came into her face. Isabel read the meaning of it; she saw the poor girl had been vanquished.

Madame Merle dropped her eyes; she stood there in a kind of proud penance.

“You’re very unhappy, I know. But I’m more so.”

“Yes; I can believe that. I think I should like never to see you again.”

She had gone forth in her strength; she would come back in her weakness, and if the place had been a rest to her before, it would be a sanctuary now.

She envied Ralph his dying, for if one were thinking of rest that was the most perfect of all.

To cease utterly, to give it all up and not know anything more—this idea was as sweet as the vision of a cool bath in a marble tank, in a darkened chamber, in a hot land.

she would come back in her weakness, and if the place had been a rest to her before, it would be a sanctuary now. She envied Ralph his dying, for if one were thinking of rest that was the most perfect of all.

To cease utterly, to give it all up and not know anything more⁠—this idea was as sweet as the vision of a cool bath in a marble tank, in a darkened chamber, in a hot land.

She had moments indeed in her journey from Rome which were almost as good as being dead.

It might be desirable to get quite away, really away, further away than little grey-green England, but this privilege was evidently to be denied her.

Deep in her soul⁠—deeper than any appetite for renunciation⁠—was the sense that life would be her business for a long time to come.

And at moments there was something inspiring, almost enlivening, in the conviction. It was a proof of strength—it was a proof she should some day be happy again. It couldn’t be she was to live only to suffer;

Then she wondered if it were vain and stupid to think so well of herself. When had it even been a guarantee to be valuable?

Wasn’t all history full of the destruction of precious things? Wasn’t it much more probable that if one were fine one would suffer?

It involved then perhaps an admission that one had a certain grossness; but Isabel recognised, as it passed before her eyes, the quick vague shadow of a long future. She should never escape; she should last to the end.

“Do you think I look awfully sad? It’s awfully sad there, you know.”

“I don’t believe you ever look awfully sad. You look awfully kind,”

said Isabel with a breadth that cost her no effort. It seemed to her she should never again feel a superficial embarrassment.